Chapter 1 deals with the Municipal Council of Luanda and the politics of Portuguese governors in Angola in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, detailing how the Municipal Council of Luanda was involved in illegal wars , treachery and robbery in capturing and enslaving Angolans and shipping them to Brazil on behalf of Portugal. It demonstrates how the Municipal Council of Luanda became the site of political intrigue, jealousy, deceit and mutiny in a political landscape in which the main drive was for economic gain; the enslavement of Angolans was the key part of that package. The methods deployed to capture them – wars, pillage, treachery – formed the basis for Mendonça’s Vatican court case.