Statement by the Artist on "Kimpa Vita and the Concert of Kongo"

These notes written by artist Zeal Harris

October, 18th 2012

"Kimpa Vita and the Concert of Kongo" 36 x 50 inches ink, liquid acrylic & watercolor on paper Zeal Harris 2010 *original painting is in the permanent collection of the California African American Museum.

This painting is about the leader of a peaceful, grassroots social and spiritual movement that happened around 1700 in Kongo (aka Congo) one of the largest and most organized kingdoms of the history of the world. Kimpa Vita was a young woman who also known by the name Donna Beatriz. She proclaimed that she was the reincarnation of the the Catholic deity, Saint Anthony and was worshipped by tens of thousands of followers for this special status. As a girl, Kimpa Vita trained as a priestess of an indigenous religious/spiritual practice of the Kongo. To the Kongolese, their native black African religions were equal to the religions of foreigners and this included the white, European Catholicism that the Kongolese Kingdom endorsed and made their own in the 1400's. Over time, European priests became more and more angry that the Kongolese people continued with their native black African religious and spiritual practices or that black Africans mixed them with Catholicism. The white priests in Kongo began to say that native black African religions were wrong and reported their observations and opinions back to Europe. During this time, the Catholic church also resisted ordaining black African priests in Kongo. The Kongolese people became confused and many became angry and suspicious about the intentions of the Catholic church. Meanwhile, Portugal was putting more and more pressure on

black Kongolese political leaders to make wars, capture black people, and send them into the slave trade. Kimpa Vita came along and became a leader of resistance to white superiority in religious and spiritual matters. She and her followers took over an ancient and abandoned capital of Kongo and re-established a city on that site. With a symbolic ground under her feet, she preached of Africanizing Catholicism as a way to unify the Kingdom of Kongo, bring an end to the civil wars, stop the enslavement of people, and restore the Kingdom to its Golden Era. At first, the black Kongolese political leadership ignored mounting pressures from Europe to bring Kimpa Vita to trial for heresy. Kongolese kings observed that Kimpa Vita developed powerful political allies who maintained strong royal armies. To the larger population of Kongo, Kimpa Vita was regarded with mixture of celebrity-like admiration, curiosity, and annoyance. At the height of her movement, Kimpa Vita became pregnant. This was a huge public relations crisis because she had advocated a strict code of abstinence from sex for herself and for her numerous subordinate priestesses. Kimpa tried to hide her pregnancy because it would make her followers doubt her leadership. More gravely, Kimpa's skeptics and enemies would then be able to claim that she could not be the reincarnated Saint Anthony and that she was an imposter. After being pressured by the Catholic Church, King Pedro the IV (a native black African king), sent soldiers to look for Kimpa Vita. She had been successfully hiding, but on a fluke coincidence, one day soldiers passing by grain fields heard muffled baby crying. They found Kimpa Vita without her followers or entourage, and took her and her lover (Joao Barro) and the newborn baby as captives to the King. The kings sympathetic advisors and even the white priests told her to publicly say that she was NOT the reincarnation of Saint Anthony. When she refused to do this, the priests took Kimpa Vitas baby away, and the King did not stop her and her lover from being beaten by mobs outside of the royal compound. Afterwards, King Pedro the IV ordered that Kimpa Vita and Joao Barro be burned to the stake for heresy. What happened to the baby is uncertain. Kimpa Vitas legacy is that her preaching advocated justice, spiritual freedom and what is now referred to as Black Power. Kimpa Vitas followers are thought to have inspired legendary resistance against slavery and the beginnings of Europeans belief in white superiority and institutional racism. Almost 40% of people who went into the middle passage came from the region of the Kongo and the neighboring Kingdom of Angola where Kimpa Vita lived. Anywhere from 1 million to 5 million Kongolese and Angolans are the ancestors of many millions more people of African descent living in the United States, Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, Brazil, and other countries of Latin America. Historically, black people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean who have fought for their right to be free and to govern themselves have yelled Kimpa Vitas famous slogan, Kanga Bafiote!. This can be translated as, Give me liberty or give me death! This cry was heard during insurrections such as the famed Stono Rebellion the Haitian Revolution. It was the Haitian

revolution that was the first successful and permanent overthrow of slavery and the establishment of a sovereign nation governed by black people who were once enslaved and who freed themselves. Kimpa Vita was indeed, an extremely influential woman.

For more extensive reading, The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706 by John Thornton is recommended.