La vérité historique sur Kimpa Vita

AUTEUR : SATURNIN BITOMO

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to shed light on the figure of Kimpa Vita, considered as precursor in the liberation struggle of black Africa in the eighteenth-century Kongo Kingdom. The context is a very trying time for this kingdom. The encounter with the West has been experienced as a dramatic break, threatening the foundation of society. The introduction of a new religion and the slave trade were its causes. But at the heart of the disintegration of the Kingdom, voices like that of Kimpa were rising, calling to resist the European cultural and religious hegemony by proposing a way back to Kongo culture. Influenced by stereotypes about the black race dating back to antiquity for some, or driven by the desire for self-affirmation, under the influence of the “négritude” movement, for others, the historiography about the young Kongolese is divided between these two antagonistic trends. Only a rereading of this page of history, without passion and with the addition of new elements, makes it possible to come to a better understanding of the figure of Kimpa Vita and the significance of her action for the Christian faith in Black Africa. In truth, this young Kongolese invited the people of Kongo to resist and to fight for the recovery of the national political system disturbed by the foreign presence, which, by means of many intrigues, reduced the country to tatters.