The ruler of Kongo was the most powerful mwene in the region who the Portuguese regarded as the king (in Kikongo ntinu) upon their arrival in 1483.

Each kanda (plural: makanda) was a faction which organized people according to a common goal, often but not always rooted in a kin-based relationship.

[4] These factions were recorded as gerações or casas (lineages or houses) in Kongo documents written in Portuguese.

Another kanda, the House of Nsundi, later known as the Kinkanga a Mvika, took control of Kongo in 1622 under Pedro II, and retained it through the reign of his son, Garcia I.

[13] The Kinlaza dynasty would reign until Kongo's catastrophic civil war following the 1665 Battle of Mbwila, when sporadic and violent alternation followed.

[13] Earlier another branch of Kinlaza, under the leadership of Garcia III of Kongo founded a settlement at Kibangu.

[15] All parties claimed kingship over Kongo (or what was left of it), but their power rarely held beyond their fortresses or the immediately surrounding area.

[17] The system functioned sporadically, with considerable fighting, until 1764 when José I of the Kinlaza faction usurped the throne and thrust the country back into civil war.

According to oral tradition, the first king was the son of chief Nimi and his consort of unknown name, Mwene Mbata's daughter.

In addition, many of the kings wrote letters and signed them with both their names and their numbers, and Saccardo has found many of these to verify the kinglists.

In addition, Saccardo's entries have been updated by a number of sources, most notably the king list, unknown to him found in the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro) Manuscritos, Lata 6, pasta 2.