Colonization of Angola
History of Angola | ||||||||
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Post-war Angola’s | ||||||||
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Years in Angola | ||||||||
The Portuguese colony of Angola was founded in 1575 with the arrival of Paulo Dias de Novais with a hundred families of colonists and four hundred soldiers. Luanda was granted the status of city in 1605. The fortified Portuguese towns of Luanda (established in 1575 with 400 Portuguese settlers) and Benguela.
History
Portuguese Paulo Dias de Novais secured a grant allowing him to colonize what is now Angola. In exchange for agreeing to raise private funds to finance his expedition, bring Portuguese colonists and build forts in the country, the crown gave him rights to conquer and rule the sections south of the
To the south of the
Dias de Novais arrived in Angola with an armed force and more
War
In 1579 therefore, Ndongo initiated a sudden and devastating war on the Portuguese (and their many servants and slaves, many of whom were from Kongo) and drove them from Ndongo back to a few holdings in the region around
Further expansion
From 1575 to 1589 when he died, Dias de Novais sought to recover and expand Portuguese possessions in the Kwanza Valley. He did so largely by making alliances with local rulers who were disaffected with Ndongo rule, notably the ruler (soba) of Muxima. In this effort, Portuguese managed to take over the province of
Stalemate
The following period was a stalemate, capped by a peace agreement in 1599. Portuguese governors in the interim, finding themselves too weak to attack Ndongo, were content with engaging in political wrangling with the kingdom and with seeking opportunities to use its own political conflicts to their advantage.
Philip of Spain
King Philip, disappointed with the revenue generated from taxing trade, sent Manuel Cerveira Pereira to Benguela in 1610 to take control of the copper in inner Angola. Philip hoped to construct artillery with Angolan copper and send the artillery to Portuguese-ruled Brazil while selling defeated natives as slaves from the port in Benguela. Francisco Correia da Silva was initially supposed to serve as Portugal's administrator in Angola in 1611, but never assumed the office.
Instead, the King appointed Bento Banha Cardoso, a soldier who had served in Angola since 1592, as interim governor. Governor Cardoso's predecessor, Forjaz Pereira, allied with the Imbangala against other native tribes, an alliance that lasted for decades. During Cardoso's tenure, from 1611 to 1619 the Imbangala expanded the Portuguese Empire eastward while providing a reliable, steady source of slaves. The descendants of Imbangala warriors and conquered peoples formed the kingdoms of Kasange and Matamba[1][2]
In 1610, Friar Luis Brandão, the head of Portuguese-run Luanda college, wrote to a
Trade
In 1611, the eastern Kongo exported 100,000 meters of cloth to Angola. Traders sold much of the cloth to Europeans.[4]
Angola exported slaves at a rate of 10,000 per year in 1612.[5]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Queen_Nzinga_1657.png/220px-Queen_Nzinga_1657.png)
The Portuguese built a new port in Benguela in 1616 to expand Portugal's access to Angolan slaves.[6]
In 1618 the Portuguese built
At the time of the arrival of the Portuguese, Ngola Kiluange was in power, and by maintaining a policy of alliances with neighboring states, managed to hold out against the foreigners for several decades. Eventually, he was beheaded in Luanda.
Queen Jinga
Years later, the Ndongo rose to prominence again when Jinga Mbandi, known as
References
- ^ Heywood, Linda Marinda; John Kelly Thornton (2007). Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585. p. 114.
- ^ Chasteen, John Charles; James A Wood (2004). Problems in Modern Latin American History. p. 56.
- ^ Alden, Dauril (1996). The Making of an Enterprise. p. 510.
- ^ Thornton, John (1998). Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800. p. 49.
- ^ Stearns, Peter N.; William Leonard Langer (2001). The Encyclopedia of World History. p. 394.
- ^ Newitt, Malyn D. D. (2005). A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400-1668. p. 170.