Dona Beatriz was born on the banks of the Mbidizi River, in the eastern side of the Kingdom of Kongo, near mount Kibangu in 1684. She was born into a noble family that was connected to King Antonio I and as a young girl she “ate salt” as they locally called baptism and was accustomed by her Catholic religion. At the time of Dona Beatriz’s birth, Kongo was in the midst of a civil war, which had started right after the death of King Antonio I in 1665 and resulted in the abandonment of Kongo’s capital of Sao Salvador in 1678 and the division of the Kingdom between the contenders for the Kongolese throne. As a young girl, Dona Beatriz began “to have visions that would start to establish her personal inclination toward religion” and soon after
