The Loango Slavery Harbour (French: Ancien port d'embarquement des esclaves de Loango) is a Republic of the Congo cultural site included in World Heritage Tentative Lists in 2008 and 2009. It is part of the Hinda district, in Kouilou department. This site is limited by: Pointe Indienne to the Southeast, Atlantic Ocean to the South and to the Southwest, to the North-West the village of Matombi and to the northeast the small town of Diosso, the former administrative district of Bwali, capital of the Kingdom of Loango. It is overlooked by the ancient lagoon of Tchibete that the relentless marine erosion has almost completely erased. Herbaceous vegetation is dominated by small-sized trees, with sandy soil influenced by the marine climate.
History From 1500 to 1867, the vessels in the Atlantic slave trade moved nearly 12.5 million African slaves from the coast of Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean.
The below table summarizes the various slave boarding points on the African coasts, as well as an estimate of the corresponding number of slaves.
Despite its importance as a site of intercultural exchanges in the modern world and its major contribution to the development of the Atlantic world through the transatlantic slave trade, the study of the coast of Loango did not have a lot of interest from scholarships. Phylis Martin is one of them. An interesting literature has existed since the years 1980. However, it focused on the southern part of the mouth of the Congo River, namely Angola, dominated by the Portuguese. Focusing on Portuguese activities and archives, these studies have obscured the operation of trade in the Loango coast, a kind of "free zone" where local, British, French and Dutch merchants played a key role. If we combine the numbers of Central Africa (Angola and Loango) and those of the East Coast, we find that nearly 6.2 million of slaves (about half of the total) are from countries speaking Bantu languages. The different ports of Central Africa are:
Loango coast Cabinda Congo river mouth (Rio Zaïre), dividing line between Loango and the Angolan regions Kiloango Loango bay Malemba Mayumba Mpinda on the southern bank of Congo river Angolan coast Ambona Ambriz, just below Mpinda on the South on Loge river Benguela Benguela Velho (Old Benguela) Kwanza river Novo Redondo Quicombo Salinas Luanda, one of the most important ports with over 1.3 million slaves shipped from the 16th to the 19th century. Due to the number of captives passing through its site to the Americas, the former port of embarkation of Loango slaves is one of the most important in the Gulf of Guinea. More than 2 million slaves from the areas that today constitute Chad, Angola, southern Gabon, Democratic republic of the Congo and the current territory of the Republic of the Congo, would have transited through this site.
Free Trade Area
Before 1660, the Europeans travelled to the coast of Loango to obtain supplies of fabrics, ivory, rare wood (okoume, Padouk) and elephant tails. The fabrics particularly played an essential role in the everyday life of the inhabitants. In addition to their roles in furniture and clothing, the cloths were used in the ceremonies of induction, initiation and burial and also as a currency of exchange. One of the important access points for foreign traders of the 17th century was the commercial port of the Bay of Loango, located about ten kilometres (6.2 mi) from Bwali, the capital of the kingdom of Loango. They were then escorted to Bwali in hopes of being granted an audience with the Maloango, or meeting with royal officials (Mafouk) to negotiate the terms of the exchange. In parallel, the Kingdom of Loango maintained trade with its neighbours from within. The access roads constituting this network were to the north the road to Mayumba, the Pool Malebo to the east and to Luanda to the south, passing through the kingdoms of Ngoyo and Kakongo. These are the famous caravan routes. From 1650, the influence of raffia fabrics will decrease to the benefit of fabrics imported from Europe and the West Indies. The Dutch traders, newcomers to the coast of Loango, little interested in raffia, preferred to exchange slaves, ivory or copper in exchange for Western cloths and garments. These latest were quickly adopted by the notable Loango, in addition to the usual attributes such as leopard skins or other royal adornments. Between 1660 and 1867, the foreign trade in goods was definitively replaced by that of men. It was the Kingdom of Loango that set the rules in its exchanges with the French, English or Dutch merchants, by making the competition between them. The merchants of Loango preferred their manufactured products compared to those of the Portuguese, as they found them to be better quality and cheaper. With their interests threatened, in particular by the Portuguese, the kingdom di not hesitate to recall that it was master on its own territory and that it traded with whoever it pleased. To violate local rules was to take the risk of retaliation for the offender (death, or delay in supplying the ships with goods...). In the meantime, during which the mechanisms of this long-running trade were established, at least 475,000 slaves integrated the triangular trade flows, from the ports of the Loango coast (Loango Bay, Malemba and Cabinda Bay) 1.3 million additional captives leaving the same ports were recorded between 1811 and 1867 on board Portuguese, Brazilian and American ships. This made the coast of Loango one of the five most important African zones of triangular trade.
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