Kimpa Vita: The Kongolese Prophet and Leader of Antonianism

Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, also known as Kimpa Mvita, Tsimpa Vita, or Tchimpa Vita (1684–2 July 1706), was a Kongolese prophet and leader of her own Christian religion, Antonianism, which preached that Jesus and other early Christian luminaries were from the Kongo Kingdom.

The name “Dona” denotes that she was born into a family of high Kongolese aristocracy; she was later given the name “Beatriz” after the Catholic saint. Her teaching was based on Kongo Catholic Church traditions, and she chastised Catholic priests for not thinking the same way she did. Dona Beatriz believed in St. Anthony’s teachings and utilised them to try to reestablish Kongo as a unified Christian monarchy. Kimpa Vita is regarded as an antislavery pioneer who anticipated African democracy movements. While Kimpa Vita’s involvement is sometimes underestimated, the years she spent organising are among the best chronicled in Kongo history. Beatriz lived with colonists sent by King Pedro IV, one of Kongo’s rival kings, to reoccupy the abandoned capital of São Salvador. These colonists, tired of the country’s incessant civil wars, were filled with religious zeal, and many had become followers of an old prophet, Appolonia Mafuta.

During a supernatural illness in 1704, Kimpa Vita claimed to have received visions of God while on the verge of death, in which she was given the divine commandment to preach to King Pedro IV, and the spirit of Saint Anthony entered her body and revived her, resurrecting her as Saint Anthony’s reincarnation. She declared that Jesus was a Kongo and that trusting the Portuguese would result in servitude. While in this place, she discovered that Kongo must unite under a new ruler, as the civil conflicts that had plagued the country since the Battle of Mbwila in 1665 had enraged Christ. She was ordered to unite the Congo under a single ruler. Following the norms of Catholic monks, Mary abandoned all of her earthly goods and embarked on her journey to preach to King Pedro IV. During her journey, she destroyed Kongo Nkisi, or charms inhabited by spiritual forces, believing they were false idols.

She also destroyed non-Kongolese Catholic items. When she met with King Pedro IV, she chastised him for his unwillingness to restore the Kongo to its former splendour, as well as an Italian priest, Bernardo de Gallo, who she accused of not desiring black saints in Kongo. King Pedro IV heard Kimpa Vita’s statements but did not act on them. She subsequently travelled to meet his adversary João II at Mbula (near the Congo River close to present Matadi), but he also refused to hear her. However, she was able to quickly gain a large number of supporters and become a player in the power struggle. Her movement acknowledged the papal primate but opposed European missionaries in Congo.

According to Kimpa Vita’s beliefs, Kongolese Catholicism is the authentic kind of Catholicism, whereas white and Capuchin Catholics’ ideas and customs are erroneous and elitist. She believed that black people sprang from the skin of a fig tree, hence many Antonine Movement supporters wore fabric made from the bark of these trees. She felt that black was the actual colour of humanity and white was the colour of death, thus she taught that the main personalities in Christianity, including Jesus, Mary, and Saint Francis, were all born in Kongo and were therefore Kongolese.

Many of these ideas had a significant impact on bolstering the optimism and morale of the Kongolese people during a period of civil war and the transatlantic slave trade, when both national identity and the Kongolese people’s recognised human value were questioned.

Kimpa Vita performed a weekly ceremony of rebirth in which she reenacted her reincarnation as Saint Anthony, ceremonially dying on Fridays and reviving on Saturdays.