This economic power soon became political, and by the nineteenth century the Afro-Portuguese dominated the areas of the central highlands closer to the coast, presiding over several semi-autonomous kingdoms (reinos) centered on the coastal ports of Luanda and Benguela.  These reinos were under the technical sovereignty of the Portuguese crown but were in practice ruled by the leading mestiço families.  Seeing themselves as ethnically distinct from the indigenous Africans, the Afro-Portuguese were nonetheless visually indistinguishable from black Africans and often spoke Kimbundu as well as Portuguese. 