For this assignment you should read carefully pages 458-459 in your textbook. I have attached them.
Then analyze the following primary source.
Sir, Your Highness should know how our Kingdom is being lost in so many ways that it is
convenient to provide for the necessary remedy, since this is caused by the excessive freedom
given by your agents and officials to the men and merchants who are allowed to come to this
kingdom to set up shops with goods and many things which have been prohibited by us, and
which they spread through our Kingdoms and Domains in such an abundance that many of our
vassals, whom we had in obedience, do not comply because they have the things in greater
abundance than we ourselves; and it was with these things that we had them content and
subjected under our vassalage and jurisdiction, so it is doing a great harm not only to the service
of God, but the security and peace of our Kingdoms and State as well.
And we cannot reckon how great the damage is, since the mentioned merchants are taking every
day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives,
because the thieves and men of bad conscience grab them wishing to have the things and wares
of this Kingdom which they are ambitious of, they grab them and get them to be sold; and so
great, Sir, is the corruption and licentiousness that our country is being completely depopulated,
and Your Highness should not agree with this nor accept it as in your service. And to avoid it we
need from those Kingdoms no more than some priests and a few people to reach in schools, and
no other goods except wine and flour for the holy sacrament. That is why we beg of Your
Highness to help and assist us in this matter, commanding your factors that they should nor send
here either merchants or wares, because it is our will that in these Kingdoms there should not be
any trade of slaves nor outlet for them. Concerning what is referred to above, again we beg of
Your Highness to agree with it, since otherwise we cannot remedy such an obvious damage, Pray
Our Lord in His mercy to have Your Highness under His guard and let you do forever the things
of His service, I kiss your hands many times.
Many of our people, keenly desirous as they are of the wares and things of your Kingdoms,
which are brought here by your people, and in order to satisfy their voracious appetite, seize
many of our people, freed and exempt men, and very often it happens that they kidnap even
noblemen and the sons of noblemen, and our relatives, and take them to be sold to the white men
who are in our Kingdoms; and for this purpose they have concealed them; and others are brought
during the night so that they might not be recognized.
And as soon as they are taken by the white men they are immediately ironed and branded with
fire, and when they are carried to be embarked, if they are caught by our guards’ men the whites
allege that they have bought them but they cannot say from whom, so that it is our duty to do
justice and to restore to the freemen their freedmen, but it cannot be done if your subjects feel
offended, as they claim to be.
Signed in 1526
“Excerpt of letter from Nzinga Mbemba to Portuguese King João III ,” in World History
Commons, https://worldhistorycommons.org/excerpt-letter-nzinga-mbemba-portuguese-
king-joao-iii
For any primary source there are questions that should be answered:
1. Who created the source?
2. Why was the source created?
3. Who was the intended audience of the document?
4. What kind of source is it?
5. When was the source created?
You are to analyze the following document and write an essay of 550 to 750 words
in which you have an introductory paragraph introducing the document, answering
the above five questions—don’t write out the questions, just write so that your
reader can find the answers to these questions.
Then address the following issues, placing this primary source in historical context
of what you have learned from the reading.
1. What issues is the writer bringing to the attention of the recipient?
2. Is the letter writer addressing the recipient in any particular manner? That is, is
he haughty, angry, critical, or otherwise?
3. What is the letter writer asking the recipient to do?
4. Does the letter writer consider religion in his writing, and what religion is it that
he is writing about?
5. What does he want the recipient to send to his Kingdom and what does he want
the merchants to stop sending to his Kingdom? Why does he make these requests?
6. Does the letter writer suggest that he sees slavery itself as evil?
Once you have completed your analysis have a closing paragraph in which you
sum up what you have presented in your analysis.
DO NOT WRITE IN THE FIRST PERSON.