Page 67 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

AFRICA AND THE WORLD OF ISLAM

return from the second of these he brought
with him as hostages a few local chieftains who
were received in Lisbon with the honors due
their rank. In 1487 they were sent home bear-
ing greetings from the Portuguese monarch to
their own king, along with an offer of friend-
ship and an invitation to convert to Christian-
ity. As a positive response the king of Kongo
sent an embassy to Portugal headed by the
noble Nsaku, one of the hostages who had been
sent home, and a large cargo of gifts. In 1491,
on the occasion of a new Portuguese expedition, and even sent his son Henrique to study in erning that the Portuguese king sent to his
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the Manicongo and his family converted to Lisbon. It was his wish to remodel his kingdom counterpart in the Kongo in 1512 —suggested
Christianity and had themselves baptized, along European lines. a model of European organization for the
although as soon as the Portuguese left, the The Portuguese responded with an ambiva- African state but at the same time explicitly
king resumed his traditional religious practices. lent policy to the African ruler's faith and requested that the Portuguese ships returning
The case was different, however, with his eagerness to modernize his country. They to Lisbon be loaded to the maximum with
eldest son, Nzinga Mvemba. Baptized as Afonso interpreted the right of "patronage" over the slaves, copper, and ivory ("asy descrauos como
in 1491, he reigned as a Christian from 1507 African lands that Pope Alexander vi had de cobre e marfim") to compensate for the costs
until his death in 1543. His commitment to granted to King Manuel i of Portugal in 1499 of spreading the Christian faith. It was thus
Christianity was sincere and profound; he not as a privilege and a responsibility to spread inevitable that the relations between Portugal
changed the name of his capital to Sao Salvador, the Christian faith but as a sort of exclusive and the Kongo would soon degenerate.
ordered the destruction of all the "idols/' called right to exploit the lands included in the Act of Although there are no Kongo art works or
insistently for missionaries to be sent to him, Patronage. The Regimento — the rules for gov- craft objects known that can be attributed with

66 CIRCA 1492