congo "In 1513, Henrique, son of Dom Affonso, then King of the Congo, was sent to Lisbon and to Rome to study theology. In 1520, Pope Leo X appointed Henrique Bishop of Utica and Vicar-apostolic of the Congo. Unfortunately, Henrique died before he could return to the Congo. He was Rome's first Central African bishop. The royal archives of Portugal still hold the records reflecting the ceremonial respect that was paid to this Christian son of an African king and queen. In the years that followed, Portuguese evangelization of the Congo continued. The Holy See received ambassadors from and sent legates to the Congo. In 1561, Father Dom Goncalo da Silvera baptized the Emperor of the Court of Monomotapa. The peaceful relations between the Africans and the Portuguese were eventually disrupted by the rising European lust for slaves and gold." And then Ivory and rubber. By 1914, copper, Congolese copper was vital to the war. The Uranium for the bob the US dropped on Japan was from Congo. Now its exotic rare earths and exotic heavy metals like Cadmium that is required to make smart phones.

rape UN official calls DR Congo 'rape capital of the world' It's been that way since the Belgians first set foot there about 150 years ago. "From c. 1390 to 1891 it was mostly an independent state. From 1891 to 1914 it was a vassal state of the Kingdom of Portugal. In 1914, the titular monarchy was forcibly abolished, following Portuguese victory against a Kongo revolt. The remaining territories of the kingdom were assimilated into the colony of Angola. The modern-day Bundu dia Kongo sect favors reviving the kingdom through secession from Angola, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Gabon." - Wiki "From that region of Africa as well as East Africa, diffusions of Blacks towards the Americas as early as 30,000 B.C. are believed to have occurred based on findings in a region from Mexico to Brazil which show that American Indians in the region include Negritic types (eg. Olmecs, Afro-Darienite, Black Californians, Chuarras, Garifunas and others). Much earlier journeys occurred by land sometime before 75,000 B.C. according to the Gladwin Thesis written by C.S. Gladwin. This migration occurred on the Pacific side of the Americas and was began by Africans with Affinities similar to the people of New Guinea, Tasmania, Solomon Islands and Australia. The earliest migrations of African Blacks through Asia then to the Americas seemed to have occurred exactly during the period that the Australian Aborigines and the proto-African ancestors of the Aborigines, Oceanic Negroids (Fijians, Solomon Islanders, Papua-New Guineans,and so on) and other Blacks spread throughout East Asia and the Pacific Islands about one hundred thousand years ago. The fact that these same Blacks are still among the world's seafaring cultures and still regard the sea as sacred and as a place of sustenance is evidence of their ancient dependence on the sea for travel and exploration as well as for commerce and trade. Therefore, they would have had to build sea-worthy ships and boats to take them across the vast expanses of ocean, including the Atlantic, Indian Ocean (both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were called the Ethiopean Sea, in the Middle Ages) and the Pacific Ocean." - Paul Barton