Modern scholars such as Estevam Thompson suggest that the war was a response of the Kongo people and other ethnic groups to the stolen children and broken families from the rising slavery, because there is no evidence that any "Jaga kingdom" ever existed, and there is no evidence to support other related claims alleged in the records of that era. The 16th and 17th centuries' one-sided dehumanization of the African people was a fabrication and myth created by the missionaries and slave trading Portuguese to hide their abusive activities and intentions, state Thompson and other scholars.