Dona Beatriz

Dona Beatriz a.k.a. Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita (1684-1706) was a Kongolese aristocrat who became circa 1704 the prophetess for a syncretic Kongolese/Roman-Catholic peasant mass-movement. The movement, Antonianism, sought the revitalization of the Kingdom of Kongo with a vision of the African Holy Family in which Jesus was born in Mbanza Kongo and baptized in the province of Nsundi. According to this account, Mary's mother was a slave of the Kongo aristocrat Nzimba Mpangi. And why not? This is no more heterodox than Mormonism.

The political turmoil that provided the seedbed for this mass movement resulted from an invasion by the Portuguese (1670) to regain control of their former client state, the Kingdom of Kongo.