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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.
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 Kwanza River
To the south of the Kingdom of the Kongo, around the river Kwanza, there were various important states, of which the Kingdom of Ndongo - located in the highlands between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers - ruled by the Samara (Queen), was the most significant.
Dias de Novais arrived in Angola with an armed force and more Jesuit priests. Originally he planned to offer his small force as a mercenary reinforcement to Ndongo and to Kongo for their various wars. After indifferent success, a Portuguese who had long resided in Kongo, Francisco Barbuda, persuaded the king of Ndongo that Portugal intended to take his country over. Acting on this intelligence, the king ordered the Portuguese to be killed and expelled.
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 Luanda. The Portuguese were aided in their defense by Kongo, whose king Álvaro I, sent a large army in his support and to attack Ndongo in revenge for the slaughter of Kongo slaves. Although Kongo's army was defeated trying to cross the Bengo River and ran out of supplies, Dias de Novais managed to hold on to Luanda and the small fort of Nzele on the Kwanza River.
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 Ilamba located between the Kwanza and Bengo Rivers, and in a hard-fought battle in 1582, founded the post at Massangano at the confluence of the Kwanza and Lucala Rivers. Emboldened by victories over Ndongo armies in 1583 and 1585, Dias de Novais' lieutenant Luis Serrão, who took over the colony following Dias de Novais' death in 1589 led an attack on Ndongo's capital at Kabasa. This attack, however, was a spectacular failure, as Ndongo, allied with its neighbor Matamba crushed the Portuguese army and drove it back to Massangano.
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.
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 Jesuit who questioned the legality of the enslavement of native Angolans, saying, "We have been here ourselves for forty years and there have been many learned men here and in the province of Brazil who never have considered the trade illicit." He further stated that only a small number of Natives may have been enslaved illegally, and that the Portuguese at least converted them to Christianity. [3]
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]
The Portuguese built a new port in Benguela in 1616 to expand Portugal's access to Angolan slaves. [6]
In 1618 the Portuguese built Fortaleza São Pedro da Barra fortress, followed by the Fortaleza de São Miguel fortress in 1634. Luanda was Portuguese Angola's administrative centre from 1627, with one exception.
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.
Years later, the Ndongo rose to prominence again when Jinga Mbandi, known as Queen Jinga, took power. A wily politician, she kept the Portuguese in check with carefully prepared agreements. After undertaking various journeys she succeeded in 1635 in forming a grand coalition with the states of Matamba and Ndongo, Kongo, Kasanje, Dembos and Kissamas. At the head of this formidable alliance, she forced the Portuguese to retreat. Fitful negotiations followed, and in 1639 Njinga concluded peace with Portugal. At the same time Portugal established diplomatic relations with Kasanje, the Imbangala band that occupied the Kwango River valley south of Njinga's domains in Matamba.
Angola is a country in southwestern Africa. The country's name derives from the Kimbundu word for king. Angola was first settled by San hunter-gatherer societies before the northern domains came under the rule of Bantu states such as Kongo and Ndongo. In the 15th century, Portuguese colonists began trading, and a settlement was established at Luanda during the 16th century. Portugal annexed territories in the region which were ruled as a colony from 1655, and Angola was incorporated as an overseas province of Portugal in 1951. After the Angolan War of Independence, which ended in 1974 with an army mutiny and leftist coup in Lisbon, Angola achieved independence in 1975 through the Alvor Agreement. After independence, Angola entered a long period of civil war that lasted until 2002.
Nzinga Ana de Sousa Mbande was a Southwest African ruler who served as queen of the Ambundu Kingdoms of Ndongo (1624–1663) and Matamba (1631–1663), located in present-day northern Angola.
Battle of Mbwila was a battle that occurred on 29 October 1665 in which Portuguese forces defeated the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king António I of Kongo, also called Nvita a Nkanga.
The Kingdom of Ndongo, formerly known as Angola or Dongo, was an early-modern African state located in what is now Angola.
Álvaro I Nimi a Lukeni lua Mvemba was a Manikongo, or king of Kongo, from 1568 to 1587, and the founder of the Kwilu dynasty.
The Imbangala or Mbangala were 17th-century groups of Angolan warriors and marauders who founded the Kasanje Kingdom.
The Kingdom of Kongo was a kingdom located in central Africa in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of the Congo. At its greatest extent it reached from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Kwango River in the east, and from the Congo River in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The kingdom consisted of several core provinces ruled by the Manikongo, the Portuguese version of the Kongo title Mwene Kongo, meaning "lord or ruler of the Kongo kingdom", but its sphere of influence extended to neighbouring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Kakongo, Loango, Ndongo, and Matamba, the latter two located in what is Angola today.
The Kingdom of Matamba (1631–1744) was an African state located in what is now the Baixa de Cassange region of Malanje Province of modern-day Angola. It was a powerful kingdom that long resisted Portuguese colonisation attempts and was only integrated into Angola in the late nineteenth century.
Mbwila was a historical small state located in what is modern-day Angola. Its rulers, like those of the surrounding areas, bore the title Ndembu, and the region was often known in Portuguese as "Dembos".
The Ambundu or Mbundu (Mbundu: Ambundu or Akwambundu, singular: Mumbundu are a Bantu people living in Angola's North-West, North of the river Kwanza. The Ambundu speak Kimbundu, and most also speak the official language of the country, Portuguese. They are the second biggest ethnic group in the country and make up 25% of the total population of Angola.
The Battle of Kombi was a decisive battle in the war between Ndongo-Matamba and Portugal during the Dutch period of Angolan history.
The precolonial history of Angola lasted until Portugal annexed the territory as a colony in 1655.
The colonial history of Angola is usually considered to run from the appearance of the Portuguese under Diogo Cão in 1482 (Congo) or 1484 until the independence of Angola in November 1975. Settlement did not begin until Novais's establishment of São Paulo de Loanda (Luanda) in 1575, however, and the Portuguese government only formally incorporated Angola as a colony in 1655 or on May 12, 1886.
The Kasanze Kingdom, also known as Kasanye, was a pre-colonial Central West African state in what is today Angola.
Loango-Angola is the name for the possessions of the Dutch West India Company in contemporary Angola and the Republic of the Congo. Notably, the name refers to the colony that was captured from the Portuguese between 1641 and 1648. Due to the distance between Luanda and Elmina, the capital of the Dutch Gold Coast, a separate administration for the southern districts of Africa was established at Luanda during the period of the Dutch occupation.
The Battle of Katole was a military engagement between forces of Portuguese Angola and the Kingdom of Matamba. The battle took place on 4 September 1681 at Katole in what is today Angola. It was one of the largest military engagements anywhere in the world during the 17th century.
The Battle of Mbumbi was a military engagement between forces of Portuguese Angola and the Kingdom of Kongo in 1622. Although the Portuguese were victorious, the battle served as the impetus for the Kingdom of Kongo to expel the Portuguese from their territory.
The Battle of Pungo Andongo, also known as the siege of Pungo Andongo was a military engagement in what is today Angola between Portugal and the Kingdom of Ndongo whose capital, Pungo Andongo, also known as Pedras Negras, was besieged. After a nine-month encirclement, the capital was taken by storm, plundered and occupied by the Portuguese.
The Fort Nossa Senhora da Vitória de Massangano, popularly known as Fortress of Massangano is located in the village-commune of Massangano, in the municipality of Cambambe, in the province of Cuanza-Norte, in Angola.