This aint got nothing to do with nothing. I live in America and have to live with the fact that Africans sold Africans into slavery, and let me tell you, that makes it really hard being African in America. Because I simply refuse to believe we could have been that dumb and stupid. To the guys born in Africa, or that have been to the village(not the city) what did the elders say about this? What is our side of this story? How much truth is there to this? Did we really betray our brothers for mirrors and salt?

Do I have to make it relate to music to get some insights??  holy shit


Maybe If I said that it was those slaves that were brought to the islands that started making music which developed into Rumba, which was then brought back to us in the 40s.
Not to mention the amount of slaves that were taken from the congo angola coast, I figured it would be a pertinent subject for every person on the forum but hey.

Especially those of us living in the states and england that live with our jamacain and african american cousins day to day.

Nah bro, we seeing it. I just need some time to prepare my thoughts. There’s two sides, the chiefs who traded slaves for goods and the tribes who completely resisted.

Damn matebu....
Is there any way we could have been lied to and those chiefs lied on?
How the fuck did we... man... idk

First when Portugese started the slave-trade in the Kongo-Kingdom, people were giving them criminals and caputured from wars and rivals (Bateke). Then the Portugese started to get hungry and where started razzia's with the populations being powerless,since that they couldn't do anything. Nzinga Nkuvu (Jao I) wrote letters to the king of Portugal to stop it. bBut he didn't do anything and they tried many times to kill him because he was against them and even rencounced the Christianity (he was the first king to become a christian)and a return on  . Then Nzinga Mbemba (Afonso I) came on power who was traitor and hadn't the right to become the new king. He was closing his eyes since that he was pro-portugal. The razzia's to strong it really depopulated the kingdom. But Afonso was still closing his eyes until that they were even taken people from his own family. From that moment he started to be against slavery and writing many letters to the King of Portual, but he wasn't doing nothing. The Portugese people present in the Kongo-Kingdom were from trying to kill him. Then he died in 1542 with slavery continue until 19th century. But in reality it stopped somewhere around 1920, because Portugese people where taking people from Northern Angolawith contracts to Brasil (The rest of the Kongo-Kingdom became part of Belgium Kongo with those independent kingdoms and ground of descendants of the Bakongo becoming part of Congo-Brazzaville) with contracts to Brazil.

See Thats kind of what I have a question about. Mvulusi is this the history you got from your family or from books/online?

From my family

Damn man. We could never right that wrong. I understand their disdain for us now

In My opinion . i believe that what we have been told is a lie. When i look at it in different angle i think  people were back in the day lie to . how can a well established kingdom and all warrior stay Inactive when seeing loved one ,virile And string men and women being taken away from them. Im pretty sure that Portugese or other white nation that can in did not invade our land like they do now .the number of african warrior was possibly good enough to  attack those people that came into our lands. To me i think there was a deal between them Portugese and our ancestors . i believe they were promised something " it should be something spiritual as people back than were really into it.stuff like" if you come with us ,you will be more powerful than what you are now" or something else  without knowing that what they were getting into was actually signing for their own death. Once they made in middle of the ocean things changed and the game changed and became slaves without their own consent. No phone or way of long distance communication existed back then to let their ows back home know what they were getting into.  Once the make to the land they were shipped to they were told that their own people sold them to cover their asses(you know how w people are) they always blame other people for bad things they do. I recall not knowing what the ghetto was till i came tonamerica  not because i was ignorant but not because i was told what they wanted us to know(america +europe=heaven) same thing here they dont show people the good side of africa and until now some white peep thinks that africa is a country and people are miserable there which is not true.
Anyway its the system they lie to get what they want and put the blame on us  so they can bleach them self from trouble.

In My opinion . i believe that what we have been told is a lie. When i look at it in different angle i think  people were back in the day lie to . how can a well established kingdom and all warrior stay Inactive when seeing loved one ,virile And string men and women being taken away from them. Im pretty sure that Portugese or other white nation that can in did not invade our land like they do now .the number of african warrior was possibly good enough to  attack those people that came into our lands. To me i think there was a deal between them Portugese and our ancestors . i believe they were promised something " it should be something spiritual as people back than were really into it.stuff like" if you come with us ,you will be more powerful than what you are now" or something else  without knowing that what they were getting into was actually signing for their own death. Once they made in middle of the ocean things changed and the game changed and became slaves without their own consent. No phone or way of long distance communication existed back then to let their ows back home know what they were getting into.  Once the make to the land they were shipped to they were told that their own people sold them to cover their asses(you know how w people are) they always blame other people for bad things they do. I recall not knowing what the ghetto was till i came tonamerica  not because i was ignorant but not because i was told what they wanted us to know(america +europe=heaven) same thing here they dont show people the good side of africa and until now some white peep thinks that africa is a country and people are miserable there which is not true.
Anyway its the system they lie to get what they want and put the blame on us  so they can bleach them self from trouble.

Yeah, it was that. They lied to king Nzinga Nkuvu that they were their dead ancestors who came to visit them doing some magic stuff they learnt from the Freemasons, which impressed Nzinga.
But his whole court was against and said that it wasn't true and proved it. But Nzinga didn't want to listen,  became Christian and changed his name in Jao I. The Portugese promised him many things, but they didn't realise it. Many bad things happended in the kingdom and after that Nzinga realised that they lied to him, But it was to late. Nzinga then returned to the bokoko-belief, which made the Portugese angry and they tried many times to kill him. In meantime his family was divided, because alot didn't want to return to Bokoko, after having received chrisitian Education and many things in Portugal, etc. Then he died and Mpanzu a Kitima who was one the guys who had to take the power (if a king dies the court needs to elect a king in the family), but halfbrother Nzinga Mbemba Afonso I who was a Christian and didn't have the right to become a king killed him and took then the power.

Nah we werent lied to. I just read an account of one of the people that was on the last slave ship that illegally made it to america because it was after slavery was abolished. It was a 19 year old man at the time that lived in Benin and got kidnapped by dahomians which is a neighboring tribe. He recalled the events how they happened, how he got on the boat, how they were on the boat, how long the trip took and how all the people on the boat had grew acustomed to each other and then had to be ripped away from each other again. Terrible story but it was a first account story. Which makes sense since we’ve always been told the white man didnt go far into africa and just got men off the coast, which would mean that maybe there were tribes or groups of men(black men) specialized in that business.  After capturing people they would bring them to the coast, if thats the case and if its true. Which makes sense because in our country De Brazza and Stanley didnt discover the heart of the congo until 1880 or so, the french and belgium had no knowledge of anything that was not off the coast.


We’re all from different tribes here, can any of yall recall hearing any stories of your tribe holding a grudge against another tribe for being involved in the kidnappings? Thats really the only way we can get this whole slavery thing behind us is if we get first account stories, those books and stories about the King and Kingdom of Kongo aint gonna do us no good. We need accounts from real families or tribes that lost people, because those stories about King such and such doing such and such treaty with such and such King of Portugal... That could all be baloney.  Those stories could have been manipulated, yall see how the media is today, im sure it was no different back then, hence why we need real stories, real acccounts, hence why I asked if anybody heard any stories from their elders in the village.


Im not saying lets point the finger at each other, but even for us that are african it’d be good to figure out our own history from our own people not from what the portuguese wanted us to know. Because there are thousands of tribes now, and that might be a direct  result of slavery. Groups that went hiding into the jungle for 100s of years for fear of being caught that developed new languages over time which could have overtime developed into new tribes. And living in the jungle/on the run could be the reason why we dont have a lot of history left, even though all of africa had great kingdoms all over. When you run in hiding you dont get to bring pieces of history with you or none of that, your past gets erased, so that might have divided us even more if thats true. Hence why we have to get to the bottom of what really happened. Because only in africa will you find one country with a 100 different groups that speak a 100 different languages, I think the reason for that is all those different groups that had to go seperate ways to eacape kidnappings. But I could be 1000% wrong.


But it does look like we were involved and does look like the were groups of black men specialized in the business. Im all over the place but thats because this is a sensitive subject for me because I live in the united states and it greatly pains me to see what our brothers had to go thru, and still have to go thru. Also pains me to see Africa still struggling, and the reason for us struggling still could be tied to us having lost our teachers, skilled workers, artist, craftmans, warriors, to the transatlantic slave.

And I think if we were involed in it we have to look at ourselves in the mirror face our demons and figure out how we can help our brothers in Brazil, Haiti, USA, Jamaica and such.
Also wish we could get more insights, if we were talking about A new koffi scandal or jb vs werra this thread would be 5 pages long. Maybe thats why we cant move forward, because we rather dance and sing all the time and focus our energy on those things instead of just trying to put our heads together for the common good of the black man. But nah we rather talk about Fabregas new interview and I undertand this is a congo music forum but come on brehs. But like i said I could be 10000% wrong and simply overreacting so apologies if I offend anyone, I’m just trying to understand why things are the way they are. So now back to regular programming, we can all go back to werra vs jb or whatever else is popping/trendy today I guess right? Lol smh

That is the culture of West-Africa, till this day slavery exist there go to Benin & Togo and you will see it. But slavery didn't really exist in culture of DRC. Slavery was to punish thiefs, rival tribes and women who weren't loyal. But it wasn't in the same way how Europeans were doing. That thing about shipping slaves to America was against the will of the population. The population didn't had any power. Kings who were against were killed. From Afonso I death until the end of slavery nobody was in power more than 10 years. Everybody who was against slavery were quickly killed with Civil wara starting in the Kongo-kingdom about family-members fighthing against eachother to get the trone. Portugese people were holding big razzia's in the Kongo-Kingdom and were helped by that tribe who is living in the South of Angola (I don't know the name). In the east of Congo and in Kasai Arabs were doing the same thing and bringing them to Zanzibar. The only tribe who resisted were the Batelela with them creating this sentence "Otetela Kemafumbe". A mutetela is nobody slave. There are so proud bout their tribe. I remember Mobutu wanting to put Tshiluba as official language of Kasai Occidental & Kasai Oriental. So that they would teach it at school, etc. with Batetela refusing it as only tribe in Kasai. Saying that they would burn all books of Tshiluba with Mobutu taking the decision to put Otetela as official language for the Sankuru-territorium in Kasai Oriental. They could put Shawili as official language, but Mobutu refused since that the influence would be then to be big in Zaire and in his opinion a danger for the future of Zaire (having as official language of Kivu, Katanga & Haut Zaire).

There  was a king who banned all Portugese from the capital Mbanza-Kongo to stop slavery with the population humilating and killing those who didn't want leave. The Portugese who left went to the vassal-states (Lolango, Kakongo, Ngoyo, Ndongo, Matamba) and provinces (Nsundi, Mbamba & Soyo) to manipulate those ducs and Kings to become independent. So that they could continue slavery there with their support. There was a moment that Soyo was more powerful than the Kongo-Kingdom because of those wars an them at a moment chosing kings for the Kongo-Kingdom. In the next to Banana (Kongo-Central) you have villages where there are some little rests of time when Portugese were doing slavery in Kongo. I went there 3 times.