Black Africans who were brought to Cuba as slaves represented a variety of origins and belonged to linguistic groups that were as divergent as their cultural backgrounds. A huge majority, however, originated in the Congo basin. The last officially recorded arrival of a slave ship in a Cuban port took place in 1873.
It would be impossible to classify expressions of Bantu origin that were used in the slave trade. The arbitrary label “Congo” has been applied to most such expressions with a view to noting and suggesting a kinship with the cultural and religious heritage branching off from the Bantu linguistic trunk.