Nzinga Nkuwu (died 1506) was an African ruler also known as João I, the first baptized manikongo, or king of Kongo. The state of Kongo was under Portuguese influence in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

Nzinga Nkuwu reigned as the divine king of a Bantu African state near the mouth of the Congo River when the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão discovered it in 1482. Nzinga Nkuwu was fifth in succession of the founding dynasty of Kongo, which had begun in the late 14th century and came to a shadowy end in the late 19th century.

The Kingdom of Kongo was centered in what is today northern Angola, with its capital at Mbanza (later São Salvador), 125 miles from the sea. It exerted authority over a large area bordering the Congo River in the north, the Dande River in the south, the Kwango River...