The history of the Republic of the Congo has been marked by diverse civilisations: indigenous, French and post-independence. Bantus and Forest Peoples The earliest inhabitants of the region comprising present-day Congo were the Forest peoples whose Stone Age culture was slowly replaced by Bantu tribes. The main Bantu tribe living in the region were the Kongo, also known as Bakongo, who established mostly unstable kingdoms along the mouth, north and south of the Congo River. The capital of this Kongolese kingdom, Mbanza Kongo, later baptized as São Salvador by the Portuguese, is a town in northern Angola near the border with the DRC. From the capital they ruled over an empire encompassing large parts of present-day Angola, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They ruled over nearby tributary states, often by appointing sons of the Kongo kings to head these states. It had six so-called provinces called Mpemba, Soyo, Mbamba, Mbata, Nsundi and Mpangu. With the Kingdom of Loango in the north and the Kingdom of Mbundu in the south being tributary states. In the East it bordered on the Kwango river, a tributary of the Congo River. In total the kingdom is said to have had 3 to 4 million inhabitants and a surface of about 300,000 km2. According to oral traditions it was established in around 1400 when King Lukeni lua Nimi conquered the kingdom of Kabunga and established Mbanza Kongo as its capital. Portuguese exploration This African Iron Age culture came under great pressure with the arrival of the first Europeans, in this case Portuguese explorers. King John II of Portugal sought, in order to break Venetian and Ottoman control over trade with the East, to organize a series of expeditions south along the African coast with the goal of establishing direct contact with Asia. In 1482–1483, Captain Diogo Cão, sailing southwards on the uncharted Congo River, discovered the mouth of the river, and became the first European to encounter the Kingdom of Kongo. Initially relations were limited and considered beneficial to both sides. With Christianity easily accepted by the local nobility, leading on 3 May 1491 to the baptism of king Nzinga a Nkuwu as the first Christian Kongolese king João I. He was succeeded after his death in 1506 by his son Nzinga Mbemba, who ruled as King Afonso I until 1543. Under his reign Christianity gained a strong