Afonso II of Kongo

Mwene Kongo

Afonso II
Mwene Kongo
Reign	1561 to 1561
Predecessor	Diogo I
Successor	Bernardo I
Dynasty	Lukeni kanda

Afonso II was a ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo in 1561.

Biography

Little is known about Afonso II or his reign. Duarte Lopes told Filippo Pigafetta the Italian humanist who composed a description of Kongo in 1591 that Diogo I's succession was disputed by three pretenders, His son, who few favored was immediately killed, and a second person was elected favored by the majority of the people, but the Portuguese in the capital murdered him, while the party of the second king murdered the Portuguese favorite and then set out a general massacre of Portuguese.^[1] However, contemporary records support a different course of events, the first elected king, Afonso II, ruled only a few days, though he had Portuguese support and was overthrown as being illegitimate by Bernardo.^[2]

No contemporary sources mention Afonso II by name, perhaps because his reign was so short, but his name appeared on a list of kings written by Antonio da Silva, a Kongo historian who served as Duke of Mbamba in 1617.^[3]

References

^ Pigafetta, Filippo (1881). A Report of the Kingdom of Congo and the Surrounding Countries. London: John Murray.p. 93
^ Thornton, John (2020). A History of West Central Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-107-12715-9.
^ Saccardo, Graziano (1982). Congo e Angola con la storia dell'antica missione dei Cappuccini. Venice: Curia Provinciale dei Cappuccini Venezia-Mestre. p. 56.