Ngoyo

Ngoyo, former kingdom on the Atlantic coast of Africa, just north of the Congo River, in an area that is now part of southern Cabinda (an exclave of Angola) and western Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was founded by Bantu-speaking people about the 15th century. Ngoyo was in the domain of the Kongo kingdom in the early 16th century—though not directly governed by it—and was effectively independent from about 1550. Ngoyo was frequently visited by northern European merchants, especially Dutch, English, and French, and its port at Cabinda became a major centre of the export slave trade in the 18th century. An attempt by the Portuguese to build a fort in 1783–84 was defeated, as the Ngoyo responded by allying themselves with the neighbouring Kakongo kingdom and with the French to destroy it.

The export of slaves gradually brought wealth and power to the Ngoyo nobility at the expense of the king, who was rendered ineffectual, and powerful merchant families, especially the Franque and Puna families, came to dominate the kingdom. The kingdom disintegrated into petty principalities after the nobles failed to elect a new king in the 1830s. Treaties negotiated in 1885 led to the integration of Ngoyo into the Portuguese colony of Angola.