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the people who had the least intercourse with Europe at that time". This must not have remain true for very long. As time passed, the Orungu took on
European dress and customs. However, the Orungu people held strongly to their traditional beliefs and were hostile to European missionaries; the mission at Baraka was a diplomatic manoeuvre as part of their negotiations with anti-slavery forces. As a result, few gained western educations thus limiting their influence in colonial administration or post-colonial politics of Gabon. Today, the former slaver tribe is one of Gabon's smaller ethnic groups numbering around 10,000 people.
113:. One of these clans held the line to succession as king, while the others exercised control over maritime commerce coming from the interior. The kingdom was unique in an area where the basic political unit was a clan ruling a village. The Orungu cast this aside for a single big chief/king , which their tradition maintains was descended from a legendary figure called the Mani Pongo The titles of the kingdom's political offices were adopted from the kingdom of Loango as well as a sense of clan hierarchy. These institutions likely moved with the Orungu from the Chilongo district in Loango. The king's title,
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to the
Portuguese slavers. In 1853, the Orungu monarchy under Chief Ombango-Rogombe agreed to abandon the slave trade; the old slave barracoons (or barracks) near what is now Libreville had already been given to American missionaries. They set up a school and church settlement, which they named Baraka. The Chief then simply moved the slave trade upriver and tried to continue the trade secretly. The trade lasted until the 1870s as illicit slavers sent people from further up the river to
162:. The export of slaves only became significant in the last 3rd of the 18th century. At the start, the kingdom was a purchaser rather than seller of slaves, which they bought with ivory. Other than slave imports, the kingdom of Orungu also imported iron. By the 1760s, the Orungu were trading in slaves through which the agamwinboni was able to grow rich via taxation on the
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Despite their reputation as the most prominent slave traders in the region, some visitors to the kingdom left favorable reviews of the region and its people. John Newton visited the area in 1743 and remarked that they seemed "the most humane and moral people I ever met with in Africa; and they were
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south of Cape Lopez supplied large numbers of slaves to the Orungu
Kingdom. By the mid 19th century, most prominent coastal groups such as the Mpongwe were not selling their own people, but would raid their neighbors instead. The Orungu, however, often sold debtors, sorcerers, adulterers and cheats
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was the major export. The Orungu were a metal-working and boatbuilding culture, which allowed them to dominate the riverine trade. Maritime commerce was divided among the non-royal clans and included trades in Ivory, beeswax, dyewood, copal and ebony. By the start of the 19th century, the tiny but
170:. Still, the trade in Orungu territory paled in comparison with its southern neighbor. In 1788, Cape Lopez and the Gabon estuary were exporting around 5,000 slaves per year in contrast to the 13,500 per year exported from Loango's coast. At the beginning of the 19th century, the
65:. Through its control of the slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was able to become the most powerful of the trading centers that developed in Gabon during that period.
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The fall of the Orungu
Kingdom was directly tied to the European suppression of the slave trade. The king had become dependent on it and was unable to maintain the custom of
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delta in the early 17th century from the south. This is further backed up by the fact that the Orungu seemed to have been heavily influenced by the
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signed a treaty granting the French a post on Orungu territory. In 1927, the French had colonized the remnants of the kingdom.
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The kingdom of Orungu developed a broker culture thanks to their position on the coast. In the 17th century, the
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traders. During this period of migration, the Orungu drove another Myènè speaking people, the
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The Renter State in Africa: Oil Rent
Dependency and Neocolonialsm in the Republic of Gabon
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speaking people of unknown origin. Most scholars believe they migrated into the
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Colonial Rule and Crisis in
Equatorial Africa: Southern Gabon, CA. 1850-1940
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The
Farther Frontier: Six Case Studies of Americans and Africa, 1848-1936
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Africana: The
Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience
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without it. This caused the kingdom to disintegrate and in 1873,
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429:. Toronto: Susquehanna University Press. pp. 267 Pages.
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wealthy kingdom was able to import slaves from the interior.
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Gates, Henry Louis & Kwame
Anthony Appiah (1999).
379:. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. pp.
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Kingdom of Orungu is named for its founders, the
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495:States and territories disestablished in 1927
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402:A history of African Societies to 1870
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105:Government
99:Cape Lopez
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408:590 Pages
381:304 Pages
230:Footnotes
208:See also
148:Cameroon
41:–1927) (
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192:Decline
183:Culture
142:Slavery
125:Economy
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