King Affonso Of Congo

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“Letters on the Slave trade” by King Affonso of Congo
In the “Letters on the Slave Trade” written by king Nzinga Mbemba Affonso of Congo to the king of Portugal in 1526, Affonso explains his complains and worries about the human trade that has been taking place in his country over the years. In the first letter, king Affonso mentions with concern how vassals from his own kingdom are not complying to his orders because they are receiving goods from white men in greater abundance than what his kingdom has to offer. In addition, Affonso feels threatened by this practice because as he states in his letter, “[I]t is doing a great harm not only to the service of God, but the security and peace of our Kingdoms and State as well”, leaving him without the loyalty of those who should be by his side. Nevertheless, Affonso treats with a great deal of respect the king of Portugal, since he never showed any kind of insolence towards him in his letters, although his kingdom was suffering due to the actions of the Portuguese. …show more content…
In the second paragraph of his first letter, he states “[M]erchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land, and sons of noblemen…they grab them and get them to be sold; and so great, Sir, is the corruption…that our country is being completely depopulated”. Slavery was so big at that time that thousands of Africans were being taken unwillingly to be transported to countries all over the world, but in majority, to the New World. Affonso was desperately trying to bring this to an end, begging to the king of Portugal to get involved and help bringing the human trafficking to an

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