Chronicle of King John II
The official chronicle of John II of Portugal by his court chronicler. Its chapters 57 to 63 are the main narrative of the first Portuguese embassy to Kongo and the baptism of its king in 1491.
Rui de Pina was chronicler to the Portuguese crown. He writes of Kongo from the Portuguese court, where, as he says, the news of the king’s baptism arrived. He gives exact dates for the landing, for the baptisms of the lord of Soyo, the king and the queen, and for the building of the first church.
The account is written to the glory of the king’s Portuguese sponsor, John II, and of the faith. It puts long pious speeches into the mouths of the king of Kongo and his nobles and reports dreams and the finding of a stone cross as miracles. This wiki knows of no Kongo account of 1491 to set beside it; the letters of the king’s son Afonso, a generation later, are the nearest thing. See the King of Kongo Is Baptised.
Cited in
- 3 May 1491, firm date