The majority of the slaves were Yoruba from what is now modern Nigeria, Fon from what is now Benin, and Kongo from the Kingdom of Kongo in what is now modern northern Angola and the western Congo. The Kongolese at 40% were the largest of the African ethnic groups represented amongst the slaves. The slaves developed their own religion, a syncretic mixture of Catholicism and West African religions known as Vodou, usually called "voodoo" in English. This belief system implicitly rejected the Africans' status as slaves.