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The Art of War in Angola, 1575–1680

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

John K. Thornton
Affiliation:
Millersville University

Abstract

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Type
CSSH Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1988

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References

1 Headrick, Daniel, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1981), esp. 83–126.Google Scholar

2 For example, Cipolla, Carlo, Guns, Sails, and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion (New York, 1965).Google Scholar

3 The standard account in English of this conquest (to 1800) is Birmingham, David, Trade and Conflict in Angola (London, 1966)Google Scholar. The most detailed account is now Graziano Saccardo, Congo e Angola con la storia dell'antica missione dei Cappuccini, 3 vols. (Venice, 19821983)Google Scholar. Also see Delgado, Ralph, História de Angola, 2d ed., 4 vols. (Lobito, 1972).Google Scholar

4 The most detailed version is the account written in 1492 by Rui de Pina, Portuguese royal archivist, after an inquest of members of the expedition. Only an early sixteenth-century Italian translation is extant, reproduced photographically in Faria, Francisco Leite da, “Uma relaçāo de Rui de Pina sobre o Congo escrita em 1492,” Studia, 19 (1966)Google Scholar, fols. 97ra–98va (foliation of original manuscript, much of which is transcribed and translated in the text of introduction). De Pina later used this to write his Crónica del rei D. Joham (ca. 1515); the relevant section is reproduced in António Brāsio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 1st ser., 14 vols. (Lisbon, 19521985), I, 133–36.Google Scholar

5Armada de Gonçalo Rodrigues, 1509,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, IV, 6062Google Scholar; Regimento to Simāo da Silva, 1512,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, I, 241Google Scholar; Pigafetta, Filippo, Relazione del Reame di Congo, modern ed., Cardona, Giorgio, ed. (1591; Milan, 1978), 59–60 (pagination of original as marked in modern edition). Pigafetta records the expedition as described to him by Duarte Lopes, a Portuguese who resided in Kongo during 1578–83 and met Pigafetta while serving as Kongo's ambassador to the Holy See.Google Scholar

6 See, for a recent example, Hilton, Anne, The Kingdom of Kongo (London, 1985), 5068 et passim.Google Scholar

7 Information on the Portuguese activity in early Ndongo was gleaned by the earliest Jesuit visitors to Ndongo, after 1560. A detailed record was compiled from oral and perhaps some written accounts by Father Baltasar Barreira about 1582. No longer extant, though fragments and summaries are known, Barreira's work was most fully exploited in Jarric, Pierre du, Histoire des choses les plus memorables aduuenues … de la descouuerte des Portugais, pt. 2 (Bordeaux, 1610), 8182.Google Scholar

8 Consider his early activities as reported in a letter of Simōes, Garcia, 20 October 1575, in Brāsio, Monumenta, III, 140–43.Google Scholar

9 See documents cited in Heintze, Beatrix, Fontes para a história de Angola do século XVII (Wiesbaden and Stuttgart, 1985), 126–27 (glossary of African terms).Google Scholar

10 Pigafetta, , Relazione, 23.Google Scholar

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12 Montecuccolo, Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da, Istorica Descrizione de' tre regni Congo, Matamba ed Angola (Bologna, 1687)Google Scholar, bk. 1, para. 315. See similar observations for Macoco, Kongo's northern neighbor in “Anonymous account of travels in Angola of Barthélemy d'Espinchal de Massiac, March, 1667,” in Brāsio, Monuments, XI, 252–53. Cavazzi arrived in central Africa in 1654 and wrote the manuscript of this account in 1671; de Massiac lived in Angola during 1652–60.Google Scholar

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14 Pigafetta, , Relazione, 21.Google Scholar

15 Afonso to His People, ca. 1512 in Brāsio, Monumenta I: 269. This letter was actually written in Portugal but based on earlier letters from Afonso, probably written between 1506 and 1509.

16 Rodrigues, , “História,” 563.Google Scholar

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18 Montecuccolo, Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi de, “Missione Evangelica dei PP. Capuccini nel Regno di Congo” (16651668), vol. A, bk. 1, 103–4Google Scholar, manuscript in the possession of Dr. Carlo Araldi, Modena. I have prepared a critical edition and English translation of Cavazzi's account with financial assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities. A microfilm copy of the original manuscript is at Alderman Library, University of Virginia, and the Graduate Research Library, University of Califomia, Los Angeles. See also Anon. account of travels … of de Massiac,” in Brāsio, Monuments, XII, 255.Google Scholar

19 Nieuhof, Johan, Gedenkwaerdige Brasiliaense Zee- en Lant-reize (Amsterdam, 1682), 56. The ambassadors were from Kongo's province of Nsoyo and were led by a Nsoyo noble named Miguel de Castro.Google Scholar

20 Cavazzi, , Istorica Descrizione, bk. I, para. 314.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., bk. 6, para. 31.

22 Pigafetta, , Relazione, 21.Google Scholar

23 Baltasar Afonso letter, 9 October 1577,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, III, 157.Google Scholar

24 At the battle of Mbwila, perhaps Kongo's largest military effort, accounts of the number vary between 800 and 1,000 shield-bearing infantry. Brāsio, Monumenta, XII, 548, 584.Google Scholar

25 Cadornega, , História, I: facing p. 3, and III: facing pp. 109–215. Cavazzi's illustrations of Imbangala show the extent to which they carried no defensive arms, and provide good pictures of their weapons. See Cavazzi, “Missione Evangelica.” illustration nos. 1, 7, 16, 18, 29 (numbers in Thornton edition only).Google Scholar

26 Cavazzi, , “Missione Evangelica,” vol. B, 592.Google Scholar

27 Baltasar Barreira to Provincial of Brazil, 17 August 1585,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, III, 325.Google Scholar

28 Thornton, John, The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641–1718 (Madison, 1983), 75, 162 n.44, where it is argued that such a large number would have to include literally every male over the age of eighteen in the entire country.Google Scholar

29 “Inquest on Siege of Muxima, 30 August 1648” (French translation) in Louis Jadin, L'ancien Congo d'après les archives romaines, portugaises, néerlandaises et espagnoles, 3 vols. (Rome and Brussels, 1975), II, 1051, 1053.Google Scholar

30 Cavazzi, , “Missione Evangelica,” vol. A, bk. 3, 30; vol. B, 58.Google Scholar

31 Pigafetta, , Relazione, 23.Google Scholar

32 Delbrück, Hans, A History of the Art of War, 4 vols., Walter Renfroe, trans. (1900–36; Westport, Conn., 1975–85), I, 67134.Google Scholar

33 Cavazzi, , Istorica Descrizione, bk. 1, paras. 314, 318; Bk. 6, para. 31.Google Scholar

34 Pigafetta, , Relazione, 22.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 20–21.

36 Cadornega, , História, III, 235–49.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., I, 409.

38 Ibid., I, 404.

39 Cavazzi, , “Missione Evangelica,” vol. A, bk. 3, 3031.Google Scholar

40 Cadomega, , História, I, 33Google Scholar. Earlier writers also called these “squadrons” by another name, embalos. Cf. Baltasar Barreira to Provincial of Brazil, 27 August 1575,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, III, 323Google Scholar; Diogo da Costa letter, 31 May 1586,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, III, 336.Google Scholar

41 Brāsio, , Monumenta, 1, 405.Google Scholar

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43 Cadomega, , História, I, 406–12.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., I, 103–105 (Mbumbi); II, 208–10 (Mbwila), and 275–83 (Kitombo); I, 327–29 (Wandu's wars with Njinga).

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46 The Portuguese managed to construct a small cavalry force by constantly importing remounts from Brazil and other places, but its numbers were always small.

47 Cavazzi, “Mission Evangelica,”Google Scholar vol. A, bk. 1, 48; Cadomega, , História, I: 131, 148, 387–90, 396, 401, 406.Google Scholar

48 Cardonega, , História, I, 89, 148, 387–90.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., I, 139–40, 149–50, 410–12; Fernāo de Sousa, “Relatório, c. 1631,” in Fontes, Heintze, ed., 252–55, 322. Also see Beatrix Heintze, Das Ende des Unabhängigen Staates Ndongo (Angola): Neue Chronologie and Reinterpretation (1617–1630),Paideuma 27 (1981), 252–53,259.Google Scholar

50 For an excellent discussion of infantry cavalry encounters in Europe, see Keegan, John, The Face of Battle (New York, 1976), 9496, 154–60.Google Scholar

51 Rodrigues, , “História,” 564.Google Scholar

52 Cadomega, , História, I, 412.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., II, 280–81,

54 Ibid., I, 406–7.

55 Ibid., 11, 282–83.

56 Cavazzi, , “Mission Evangelica,” vol. A, bk. 3, 30–1.Google Scholar

57 Cavazzi, , Istorica Descrizione, bk. 6, no. 31.Google Scholar

58 Ibid., bk. I, no. 316.

59 “Regimento to Bento Banha Cardoso, 1626,” in Fontes, Heintze, , ed., 205.Google Scholar

60 Cadomega, , História, II, 268.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., I, 397.

62 Pigafetta, , Relazione, 21.Google Scholar

63 This was the case in the various attacks on Kasanje, near Luanda (see accounts of Sousa, Fernāo de in Fontes, Heintze, , ed., 158–64Google Scholar) and water-supported attacks on Ndongo's capital (“Jesuit Annual Letter, 15 March 1588,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, II, 399.Google Scholar

64 Cavazzi, , “Missione Evangelica,” vol. B, 528.Google Scholar

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67 “Relaçāo do mais gloriosa victoria …” (1666), in Brāsio, Monumenta, XII, 584.Google Scholar

68 Cadomega, , História, I, 403.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., I, 135, 347, 403. Citation of Joāo Bango Bango, 1647,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, X, 60.Google Scholar

70 Cadomega, , História, I, 403.Google Scholar

71 Ibid., 407.

72 See, on this general movement, Charles Oman's classic, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, rev. ed., Beeler, John, ed. (1898; Ithaca, 1953)Google Scholar; idem, The Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1937).Google Scholar

73 Cf. Parker, Geoffery, The Army ofFlanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659 (Cambridge, 1972).Google Scholar

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76 On the crossbow, see the aging but still useful Gallway, Ralph W. F. Payne, The Crossbow, Medieval and Modern, Military and Sporting: Its Construction, History, and Management (London, 1903)Google Scholar; for firearms, see the popular overview, Carman, W. Y., A History of Firearms, from Earliest Times to 1914 (London, 1955).Google Scholar

77 The Swedish army is often taken to be the example of the best in the seventeenth century, as the Spanish is in the sixteenth—although we have no reason to believe that most of the discoveries and techniques of the Thirty Years' War did not immediately diffuse. See Roberts, Michael, The Military Revolution, 1550–1650 (Belfast, 1956).Google Scholar

78 Lloyd, E. M., A Review of the History of Infantry (London, 1908).Google Scholar

79 A good study of the technical development of artillery is in Cipolla, , Guns, Sails, and Empires, 173.Google Scholar

80 Ropp, Thedore, War in the Modern World, 2d ed. (New York, 1962), 2937.Google Scholar

81 Duffy, Christopher, Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early Modern World, 1494–1660 (London, 1979).Google Scholar

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83 On Portuguese expansion in Brazil, see Hemming, John, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500–1760 (Cambridge, Mass., 1978).Google Scholar

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88 Pigafetta, , Relazione, 61.Google Scholar

89 Rodrigues, , “História,” 563.Google Scholar

99 Cavazzi, , lstorica Descrizione, bk. 6, para. 31.Google Scholar

91 Cadornega, , História I, 104.Google Scholar

92 Ibid., 131–2, 134, 347, 406. See also Anon account of travels … of de Massiac,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, XII, 256.Google Scholar

93 Rodrigues did carry two bombards with him in 1509 (see note 85), but as this war was to be carried out against islands, it is likely that they were to be ship-borne artillery rather than siege engines.

94 Cadomega, , História, I, 182.Google Scholar

95 Ibid., II, 277.

96 Pigafetta, , Relazione, 23.Google Scholar

97 Cadomega, , História, I, 410.Google Scholar

98 Ibid., 390.

99 Pigafetta, , Relazione, 23.Google Scholar

100 Cavazzi, , “Mission Evangelica,” vol. B, 524.Google Scholar

101 Cadornega, , História, I, 406–11; II, 280–83.Google Scholar

102 Ibid., I, 347–48, 350; Anon., Relaçāo da viagem de Sotomaior” (1645), in Brāsio, Monumenta, IX, 337–38.Google Scholar

103 Cadomega, , História, I, 103–4, 406–11; II, 208–10.Google Scholar

104 Cf. Cadornega's description of António Bruto's campaigns in Mbwila in 1635 (História, I, 179–83Google Scholar) and Cavazzi's account of similar operations south of the Kwanza in 1659 (Cavazzi, , “Missione Evangelica,” vol. B, 519–20, 523–28.Google Scholar

105 Cadornega, , História, I, 131–32, 134, 180–81, 347, 406Google Scholar et passim; de Sousa, "Relatório," in Fontes, Heintze, ed., 333, which cites quantities of firearms in African hands opposing the Portuguese. It is worth noting, however, that firearms did eventually become the general missile weapon in Angola at some point in the last years of the seventeenth or early eighteenth century, a process that seems to have been taking place in other parts of Africa as well. See, for example, Kea, Ray, Settlements, Trade, and Polities in the Seventeenth-Century Gold Coast (Baltimore, 1982), 160–64.Google Scholar

106 Cadornega, , História, I, 134Google Scholar. The Portuguese had adopted the cotton armor for their own use earlier. Baltasar Alfonso mentions it in his letter of 9 October 1577, (Brāsio, , Monumenta, III, 157)Google Scholar, and Dias de Novaes requested 300 additional suits of “corpos darmas de algodāo” (suits of cotton armor) in 1584 (Memorial of Paulo Dias de Novaes, 31 October 1584,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, III, 286). A more detailed description of Portuguese armor is found in Pigafetta, Relazione, 23.Google Scholar

107 Ibid., 394–97.

108 Ibid., 393.

109 Baltasar Barreira to Provincial of Brazil, 17 August 1585,” in Brāsio, Monumenta 3: 323.Google Scholar

110 Diogo da Costa letter, 20 July 1585,” in Brāsio, Monumenta, III, 319–20.Google Scholar

111 Cadornega, , História, I, 83, 86. Cadornega did not witness this, but obtained the information from oral and written sources of the time (cf. p. 95).Google Scholar

112 Cadornega, , História, II, 268–83 et passim.Google Scholar