Angola

Printer-friendly versionThe Portuguese came to stay in 1575 when 100 settler families and 400 soldiers put ashore to found Luanda. The settlement was granted city status a mere 30 years later. After a brief relinquishment of Luanda to the Dutch, Portugal once again asserted its authority, this time via a Portuguese force from Brazil, and new settlers arrived in considerable numbers. The colony expanded steadily inland, a process that was necessary for the full exploitation of the slave trade.

Since Angola and Brazil were both Portuguese colonies, a classic triangular trading arrangement was established: ships brought manufactured goods from Europe to Africa’s West coast. They then sailed with African slaves to the plantations in Brazil. From Brazil they returned to Europe laden with agricultural produce and other raw materials. For many decades, even after the various annexed territories were ruled directly from Lisbon (from 1655), Angola’s status was essentially that of a colony of Brazil. Only after a century of cruelty and hardship did Angola gradually begin to change from a slave-based economy to one based on production for domestic consumption, a transformation that was completed in the 1830s when the slave trade was internationally abolished.

By the middle of the 19th century, Luanda was one of the most developed of all cities in the Portuguese Empire, and vigorous trading took place there in a wide variety of agricultural products. With the fall of the Portuguese monarchy early in the 20th century, some social reforms – in administration and agriculture, and belatedly in education – were introduced in Angola, the colony finally becoming an overseas province of Portugal in 1951. The country was considered to be stable and prosperous, with significant advances in such differing spheres as civil rights and railway expansion. However, by the end of 1961, around 50 000 people (including up to 2 000 settlers) had lost their lives in the first turbulent year of the struggle for Angolan independence from
Portugal.

Portugal proved to be a difficult authority to shrug off. Only after 13 increasingly bloody years, and precipitated by the Portuguese coup d’é tat in 1974, did hostilities end. An independent MPLA government was installed, but the other two revolutionary groupings in the country (the FNLA and UNITA) were excluded. As a result, the country rapidly descended into civil war. This bruising situation, exacerbated by the discovery of large deposits of diamonds, continued until 2002. By then, 1,5-million Angolans had been killed, the economy ruined and infrastructure badly damaged. Major reconstruction is currently being attempted, driven largely by offshore oil production and generous credit from China, and it is in this atmosphere of cautious optimism that the country’s only university seeks a way ahead.