MATAMBA

historical African kingdom of the Mbundu people, situated on the west bank of the Kwango River northeast of Luanda, Angola. In the early 16th century it was a well-established state, independent but paying occasional tribute to the Kongo kingdom to the north. The dominant feature of Matamba's history from the 16th to the 19th century was conflict with the Portuguese colonists of Angola. In the 1590s Matamba joined with Ndongo, Kongo, and the Jaga to battle the Portuguese, successfully blocking their advance inland but failing to capture the Portuguese forts at Luanda and Massangano. About 1630 Matamba was conquered by Njinga (also spelled Nzinga or Jinga, also called Ana de Sousa), ngola (ruler) of Ndongo, who had been expelled from her homeland after attempting to halt the European advance there. Njinga built Matamba into a strong power base for her continuing struggle against Portuguese Angola. Angola's eastward expansion was stopped in the 1670s at the borders of Matamba and Kasanje (southeast of Matamba). A treaty of 1684 between Matamba and the Portuguese remained in effect, despite continual skirmishes, for 60 years. In 1744 the murder of a white trader in Matamba served as the excuse for a Portuguese invasion that won for Angola a bit of Matamba's territory. Further territorial losses followed in the 1830s, supplying land for Angolan coffee plantations. The remainder of Matamba, assigned to Angola by European treaties of 18701900, remained in fact a self-governing kingdom until the early 20th century, when Portuguese troops finally occupied the entire region.