Wene, reigned supreme. He was elected by a group of governors, usually the heads of important families and occasionally including Portuguese officials. The activities of the court were supported by an extensive system of civil servants, and the court itself usually consisted of numerous male relatives of the King. The villages were often governed by lesser relatives of the King who were responsible to him. All members of government were invested with their power under the auspices of a ritual specialist. The Manikongo personally appointed a kind of governor for each of the six provinces to oversee each from his capital, Mbanza-Kongo. The city is now known by the same name as the capital of an Angolan province, but was for a time renamed by the Manikongo to 'São Salvador' in an effort to adopt Portuguese culture. In its prime, the Kingdom exacted taxes, forced labor, and collected fines from its citizens in order to prosper. At times, enslaved peoples, ivory, and copper were traded to the Europeans on the coast. The most important harbor was Mpinda (modern Soyo). In addition to the six provinces, the Kongo kingdom also established a sphere of influence in a number of outlying areas from which it was able to extract tribute. The kingdom was also at the center of an extensive Central African trade network in which it traded and produced large quantities of ivory, as well as manufacturing copperware, raffia cloth, and pottery, along with other natural resources (The eastern region of the Congo [such as the province of Katanga] is particularly rich in mineral resources, especially diamonds). These trade goods would also form, in addition to slaves, the backbone of the Kongo's trade with Europeans (primarily the Portuguese), upon their arrival. The aforementioned slave trade was to be a significant factor in bringing about the end of Kongo, as the elites of the kingdom allowed European slave traders to eliminate a significant percentage of the population. When King Álvaro I, came to the throne in an environment of contestation in 1568, he immediately had to fight invaders from the east (who some authorities believe were actually rebels within the country, either peasants or discontented nobles) called the "Jagas". To do this, he had to enlist the aid of the Portuguese based at São Tomé, who sent an expedition under Francisco de Gouveia Sottomaior to assist. At the same time, however, Álvaro