大象传媒

Episode eleven - the rise of two 14th Century empires, and the coming of the Portuguese.

Exploring the power and political complexity of the Kingdom of Kongo and Great Zimbabwe, and how the arrival of the Portuguese, and the transatlantic slave trade, overshadowed these two empires and drained the region of its manpower.

"Many of our subjects crave the Portuguese merchandise which your people bring to our kingdom. In order to satisfy their crazy appetite, they snatch our free subjects, even our noblemen, and sell them to white men, and then they are branded," Afonso I of Kongo (1526).

Presented by Hugh Quarshie.