nce of interest soon created conflict between Afonso and the Portuguese. "The slave trade, greedily aided by local chiefs, gradually undermined the authority of the king, and twenty-five years after Afonso's death the state succumbed to the onslaught of the Jaga, a belligerent horde of nomads from the east" (Microsoft 4). "With Portuguese help, the invaders were finally ousted, but by this time the life had gone out of the ravaged kingdom" (July 155). "Clearly, turmoil, victimization, and disappointment are themes that have pervaded Angola's history, especially since the arrival of the Europeans in the fifteenth century" (Collelo xxi). "In 1576, in effective control of the countryside and facing no organized Kongo opposition, the Portuguese founded the town of Luanda, in effect establishing the colony of Angola" (Bender 24). After the Portuguese began reaching the interior, they soon appointed royal governors who tried to impose their ideas and beliefs upon the people (Halladay 82). Many African leaders resisted this foreign rule and the Europeans only managed to "establish insecure footholds along the coast" (Collelo 9). Kings Alvaro I and II both brought some stability to the falling kingdom by expanding their territory and at the same time keeping the Portuguese at bay. But after the death of Alvaro II, conflicts between the Portuguese and the Kongo soon led to war (July 155). The Portuguese imposed a peace treaty, but the demands were so harsh that peace was never really achieved. "The Battle of Mbwila on October twenty-ninth, 1665, marked the end of the Kongo Kingdom as a unified power. By the eighteenth century, Kongo had been transformed form a unitary state into a number of smaller entities that recognized the king but for all practical purposes were independent" (Collelo 11).After the Portuguese defeated many of the Angolan kingdoms, the Dutch soon became interested in the African colonies. Holland soon raided and ha...
