The Guild That Cast the Benin Bronzes
The famous bronzes were made by a hereditary guild in Benin City over four centuries. Kofi explains who the casters were, how the work was organised, and what the plaques recorded.
The King of Kongo Writes to the King of Portugal
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Show notes
Letters from Mbanza Kongo
Afonso I, king of Kongo, converted to Christianity, learned Portuguese and wrote to the kings of Portugal as an equal for nearly forty years. The surviving letters are among the most remarkable documents of the sixteenth century. This episode reads the key ones in order and traces how the relationship curdled.
- Who Afonso was and how he came to the throne in 1506
- The early letters: priests, schools, carpenters and a request for ships
- The 1526 letters on Portuguese traders kidnapping his subjects
- Lisbon's replies, and what they reveal
- What became of Kongo after Afonso
Translations are quoted from the Portuguese originals with page references on the episode page.
Transcript
Welcome back to Gold Weights and Griots, I am Kofi Mensah-Darko. Today's episode is built around a stack of letters. Between 1506 and 1543, Afonso the First, king of Kongo, wrote dozens of them to the kings of Portugal. He wrote in Portuguese, which he had learned, and he wrote as one monarch to another. He asked for priests and teachers and carpenters. Then, by 1526, he was writing to say that Portuguese traders were kidnapping his own people, including nobles and his own relatives, and shipping them away, and he asked the king of Portugal to stop it. We read those letters in order, we look at what Lisbon actually replied, and we ask what it means that one of the clearest African voices of the sixteenth century was heard and then ignored. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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