Banza in the Kingdom of Kongo, c. 1670
The city of Banza, or Mbanza Kongo, was the capital of the Kingdom of Kongo when Portuguese traders
first arrived in 1483. Kongo’s king, Nzinga a Nkuwu, chose to be baptized to cement an alliance with Portugal and took the name João I. Kongo became officially Christian and Banza came to be known as So Salvador. Duarte Lopez visited and described the city in 1578; this engraving shows the city as it appeared a century later Banza in the Kingdom of Kongo, San Salvador, from Olfert Dapper, ca. 1668.
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