This account of the succession dispute that followed the death of the Kongo king, Dom Diogo, in 1561 shows how the Portuguese and the Christian faction in the capital sought to control the succession. The Portuguese priests had tried to insist that the kings observe monogamy and that the succession should be by primogeniture. This aroused the hostility of clans who would find themselves excluded from the succession if primogeniture were established. These naturally found themselves in opposition to the Christian religion and in support of the traditional pattern of multiple marriages (see Doc. 29). The fact that the Kongo Church remained subordinate to the bishop of São Tomé meant that the development of a truly indigenous church was blocked. The struggle to secure the supremacy of the Christian cult was thus inextricably caught up with the struggles of the Kongo ruling lineages over the succession.