Affonso I (1460-1545) was a king of Kongo whose reign marked the high point of Portuguese and Christian influence in the kingdom, as well as the failure to establish relations between Europe and Africa on the basis of equality.

After the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão reached the Kingdom of Kongo in west-central Africa in 1482, contacts between Kongo and Portugal multiplied. The Portuguese dispatched a technical assistance mission to Kongo, and in 1491 the Kongo king Nzinga Nkuwu was baptized under the name João I.

One of João's sons, Nzinga Mvemba, was baptized Affonso and upon his father's death in 1506 he assumed the throne of Kongo. Thereafter, relations between Portugal and Kongo became much more active. Missionaries, teachers, masons, carpenters, and military advisers were dispatched to King Affonso, who paid for their services with slaves, copper, and ivory. Serious problems soon developed, because many...