Africa (Cromwell the Great)

Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo (Kongo: Kongo dya Ntotila or Wene wa Kongo; Portuguese: Reino do Congo) is an African kingdom located in west central Africa. At its greatest extent, it reached from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Kwango River in the east, and from the Zari river in the north to the Kwanza River in the south.

The kingdom consisted of several core provinces ruled by the Manikongo, the Portuguese version of the Kongo title 'Mwene Kongo', meaning lord or ruler of the Kongo kingdom, but its sphere of influence extended to neighbouring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Kakongo, Ndongo and Matamba. All of these would be later absorbed by Kongo.

A watershed moment was the Kongo Civil War between rival royal houses. Beatriz Kimpa Vita, the prophetess claimed to be possessed by Saint Anthony had her career.

In time a native Kongolose clergy was established (priests, an later also bishops) and keep its contact with the Papacy. The royal kandas and the nobility converted in mass to Catholicism. The building and consecration of the new Cathedral of São Salvador marked the unity of the King, nobility, state bureaucracy and the clergy.

A number of Kongolese commoners and nobility studied in Europe (mainly Portugal), European science and knowledge was brought back, this was also helped and promoted by the Jesuits.


 * Kings of Kongo (Manikongo)
 * Pedro IV Nusamu a Mvemba. Created rotating lineage system of kandas that rule as Manikongo
 * Manuel II
 * Manuel II

Provinces
 * Provinces and Vassal Kingdoms of Kongo
 * Mpemba
 * Mbata
 * Nsundi
 * Mpangu
 * Mbemba
 * Ndongo (Province 1680 to date)

Vassal Kingdoms (North of the N'Zari river) Vassal Kingdoms (South of the N'Zari river)
 * Loango (Capital Mbanza Loango)
 * Cacongo (Kinguele)
 * Ndongo (Vassal -1556, Independent State Guterres dynasty 1556-1675, Vassal 1675-1680 Province 1680 to date)
 * Matamba (Independent State 1631–1744 Vassal 1744 to date)

Kongo as a highly developed state at the center of an extensive trading network. Apart from natural resources and ivory, the country manufactures and trades copperware, ferrous metal goods, raffia cloth, and pottery. It also traded extensively with Portugal, later the Iberia, France, Britannia, the Dutch and Flanders. Kongo was a major source of slaves in the Trans-Atlantic trade until it was outlawed under pressure from Britannia.
 * Economy

Kongo had the first railroads of equatorial Africa, a joint venture of local capitalists and Britannia.

Kaapland
Kaapland (lit: Capeland) is a colony of the Dutch Republic (Cromwell the Great). Know as Cape Colony (Dutch: Kaapkolonie) between 1652 and 1795. Was a settlement and later a Governorate of the Dutch East India Company. It officially became a colony after the European Revolutionary Wars.

Resentment against central government, restrictions on land tenancy and commerce, competition from state sponsored French Huguenot artisans and farmers, high taxes and the arbitrary rule of the VOC were the causes of the First Dutch-Boer War that lead to establishment of the briefly independent Boer states of Stellenbosch, Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet. The later two became semi-independent districts of Kaapland.

The abolished slavery in all Dutch colonies caused resentment among the Dutch farmers that felt against this social change, as well as the imposition of Reformed Church, public school open to all whites and blacks, centralized government and the derogation of the autonomy of Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet, caused them to trek inland en masse. This was known as the Great Trek, and the migrating Boers settled inland, forming the later Boer states of Transvaal, Natal or Natalia and Orange Free State.

The governing body is the Political Council (Politieke Raad) and an elected Legislative Corps (Wetgevend Lichaam) is the legislature.

Due to its coastal Mediterranean climate it produces grapes, cereals, dairy products, ground nuts, potatoes, apples and citrus, that have an important and lasting influence on the societies and economies of the region.

African states

 * Colonies and territories in Africa