Precolonial history of Angola
Encyclopedia
The precolonial history of Angola lasted until Portugal
formally annexed the territory as a colony in 1655.
hunter-gatherer
s whose remains date back to the Old Stone Age.
Based on archaeologial and linguistic evidence, scholars believe that beginning in the last centuries BCE, people speaking languages of the Western Bantu family entered the country and introduced agriculture and iron working. Studies of DNA from Cabinda have found no traces of any population groups other than the Bantu in the modern day population. They expected to find evidence of combined ancestry. This makes it difficult to explain the existence of an earlier population, save that they were completely and rapidly replaced by the Bantu speakers without intermarriage (although intermarriage may have occurred in the central parts of Angola). Also, part of the Khoisan withdrew to what is now Southern Angola as well als Northern Botswana and Northern Namibia, where significant groups are still living.
established themselves on the west coast of Africa
towards the close of the 15th century. Diogo Cão
found the Kongo Kingdom and the Congo River
in 1483. He erected a stone pillar at the mouth of the river, which accordingly took the title of Rio do Padrão. He exchanged hostages with the local people, who reported that the country was subject to a great monarch, Manikongo
or lord of the Kingdom of Kongo, resident at Mbanza Kongo.
The Portuguese entered into a cooperative relationship with the rulers of Kongo. Gonçalo de Sousa was dispatched on a formal embassy in 1491; and the first missionaries entered the country in his train. King Nzinga Nkuwu of Kongo was baptized at this time, taking the name of João in honor of the king of Portugal. The Kongo adopted Catholicism
. Other states existing at that time included Kongo dia Nlaza
and Nziko located to Kongo's east, Ndongo, in the highlands between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, the Kingdom of Benguela, located on the front range of the Bihe Plateau, and Songo
located south of Ndongo.
as the national religion by 1520. In 1595, the Pope declared Kongo to be an episcopal see. The principal church, built in 1548 and dedicated to the Savior (São Salvador), was named as cathedral, whose jurisdiction included both Kongo and the Portuguese colony of Angola.
Portugal
had several missions to Kongo's southern neighbor, Ndongo, the first of which was dispatched in 1520, but failed and was withdrawn. A second mission was sent to Ndongo in 1560 led by Paulo Dias de Novais
and including Jesuit priests. Dias de Novais returned to Portugal in 1564, leaving the Jesuit Francisco de Gouveia in Ndongo. While in Portugal, Dias de Novais secured a grant allowing him to colonize the country. 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
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 reinforcment 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 made 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.
bands that were then ravaging the Kingdom of Benguela, overlord in the region. These Imbangala were prepared to sell captives they had taken in their wars to the Portuguese in exchange for European goods. In around 1615, Portuguese governors invited some of these bands to cross the Kwanza and serve in their armies. Governor Luis Mendes de Vasconcelos used these bands to good effect, when, beginning in 1618 he used them to buttress his armies and local rebels to attack Ndongo. Over the next three years, he expelled the king of Ndongo from his capital at Kabasa, forcing him to take refuge on the Kindonga Islands in the Kwanza River, captured members of the royal family, sent expeditionary forces as far inland as Matamba, and captured and exported as many as 50,000 people as slaves to Brazil and the Spanish Indies. The first Africans to arrive in the North American English colony of Virginia were taken from these captives, by English privateers attacking shipping.
In 1617, the Imbangala allied with the Portuguese in invading Ndongo. The Imbangala took control of the Kwango valley, forming a new kingdom. The Imbangala and expanded trade with regional neighbors, selling salt for goods, and with the Portuguese, selling slaves. Queen Nzinga of Ndongo traveled to Luanda in 1623 and successfully negotiated for peace. The Portuguese administrator in charge of Angola adopted Nzinga as his goddaughter, giving her the Christian name Dona Ana de Souza. Peace with Portugal however, did not affect poor relations between the Imbangala and Ndongo kingdoms. The Imbangala continued to attack and kidnap Ndongo civilians, selling them into slavery. Portugal intervened militarily, ostensibly on Nzinga's behalf, and she and many Kimbundu retreated east to Matamba. There she established a new Kimbundu kingdom and prepared for war with the Portuguese. The Portuguese declared Ari Kiluanji the new ngola (chief) as head of the Ndongo. Kiluanji lacked political and religious legitimacy in the eyes of many Kimbundu who revolted against the new establishment with encouragement from Nzinga.
In the aftermath of the war, the king of Ndongo sent his sister Njinga Mbandi to Luanda to negotiate a peace treaty in 1622. The Imbangala bands had not proved as obedient as the Portuguese hoped and were ravaging far and wide among both Ndongo's lands and those controlled by Portugal. In the terms of the agreement Njinga negotiated, Portugal agreed to withdraw a fort at Ambaca
which Mendes de Vasconcelos had founded as a base for his operations against Ndongo, and to return a large number of serfs (kijiko) he had captured, to help in restraining the Imbangala operating in Ndongo, and allow the king to return to his traditional capital. In exchange Ndongo would swear vassalage to Portugal and pay 100 slaves per year as tribute. However, none of these conditions were actually met.
Mendes de Vasconcelos' successor, João Correia de Sousa agreed to the terms of the treaty, in part because he hoped to repeat his predecessors war with Imbangala help against Kongo. In 1622 he led a bloody campaign against the territory of Kasanze, located near Luanda and under Kongo's authority, then claiming that the Kongo subordinate of Nambu a Ngongo harbored runaway slaves, he invaded that region, and finally, upset that the Kongo electors had chosen Pedro II
the former Duke of Mbamba to be king of Kongo, invaded Mbamba itself. In November, 1622, he met a hastily gathered Kongo army at the Battle of Mbumbi and defeated it, with Imbangala allies eating the Duke and other Kongo nobles. However, Pedro II brought down a larger army, defeated the Portuguese force and began a campaign of humiliation for the many Portuguese resident in Kongo. In the aftermath of this shock, many Portuguese resident in Luanda, who had invested money in Kongo were threatened with ruin and demanded the governor leave. Correia de Sousa was driven from Ndongo and was imprisoned in Portugal. Kongo, meanwhile, had also made an alliance with the Dutch West India Company
to attack Luanda, and the junta that ran Angola in the aftermath of Correia de Sousa's expulsion, quickly made peace with Kongo, restoring some of the slaves they had seized. As a result Kongo refused to assist Piet Heyn's fleet from the Netherlands when it arrived and attacked Luanda in 1624.
Following the disaster of Correia de Sousa, the crown sent Fernão de Sousa to be governor of Angola in 1624. He had orders to make fewer unjust wars in the country, and he tried to bring some order to its fiscal system. But he insisted on keeping Portuguese positions at Ambaca and to return the captured kijiko in Ndongo, and was reluctant to recognize Njinga as ruler of Ndongo following the death of her brother by suicide in 1624. As a result of the failure of negotiations, de Sousa undertook a series of wars against Njinga. Two major wars in 1626 and 1628 drove Njinga from the Kingdonga Island to Matamba where she established her base in 1631. Fitful negotiations followed, and in 1639 Njinga concluded a 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.
Salvador de Sá
sought to restore Portuguese authority as much as possible during his rule from 1648 to 1652. However, he made little progress, aside from forcing Njinga to retreat from her position in Cavanga to Matamba. His successors in the seventeenth century sought to renew the warfare that had expanded Portuguese authority and filled slaves ships before the Dutch interlude. However aggressive foreign policies were less successful. Following a disastrous campaign in Kisama in 1654-55 the governor was faced with widespread settler disobedience as they saw that the wars hurt their trade and killed their subjects.
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
formally annexed the territory as a colony in 1655.
Old Stone Age
The earliest inhabitants of the Angola area are believed to have been KhoisanKhoisan
Khoisan is a unifying name for two ethnic groups of Southern Africa, who share physical and putative linguistic characteristics distinct from the Bantu majority of the region. Culturally, the Khoisan are divided into the foraging San and the pastoral Khoi...
hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
s whose remains date back to the Old Stone Age.
Based on archaeologial and linguistic evidence, scholars believe that beginning in the last centuries BCE, people speaking languages of the Western Bantu family entered the country and introduced agriculture and iron working. Studies of DNA from Cabinda have found no traces of any population groups other than the Bantu in the modern day population. They expected to find evidence of combined ancestry. This makes it difficult to explain the existence of an earlier population, save that they were completely and rapidly replaced by the Bantu speakers without intermarriage (although intermarriage may have occurred in the central parts of Angola). Also, part of the Khoisan withdrew to what is now Southern Angola as well als Northern Botswana and Northern Namibia, where significant groups are still living.
15th century
The PortuguesePortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
established themselves on the west coast of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
towards the close of the 15th century. Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most remarkable navigators of the Age of Discovery, who made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa to Namibia in the 1480s.-Early life and family:...
found the Kongo Kingdom and the Congo River
Congo River
The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...
in 1483. He erected a stone pillar at the mouth of the river, which accordingly took the title of Rio do Padrão. He exchanged hostages with the local people, who reported that the country was subject to a great monarch, Manikongo
Manikongo
The Manikongo or MweneKongo was the title of the rulers of the Kingdom of Kongo, a kingdom that existed from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries and consisted of land in present-day Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo...
or lord of the Kingdom of Kongo, resident at Mbanza Kongo.
The Portuguese entered into a cooperative relationship with the rulers of Kongo. Gonçalo de Sousa was dispatched on a formal embassy in 1491; and the first missionaries entered the country in his train. King Nzinga Nkuwu of Kongo was baptized at this time, taking the name of João in honor of the king of Portugal. The Kongo adopted Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
. Other states existing at that time included Kongo dia Nlaza
Kongo dia Nlaza
Kongo dia Nlaza was a little known kingdom that existed to the east of the Kingdom of Kongo and was absorbed into Kongo in the late sixteenth century....
and Nziko located to Kongo's east, Ndongo, in the highlands between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, the Kingdom of Benguela, located on the front range of the Bihe Plateau, and Songo
Songo
Songo may refer to:* Songo music, a type of contemporary Cuban music originating in Havana* Songo people, of northern Angola* Songo-salsa, a style of music that blends Spanish rapping and hip hop beats with salsa music and songo- Places :...
located south of Ndongo.
16th century
King Afonso Mvemba Nzinga, son of King Nzinga Nkuwu, established ChristianityChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
as the national religion by 1520. In 1595, the Pope declared Kongo to be an episcopal see. The principal church, built in 1548 and dedicated to the Savior (São Salvador), was named as cathedral, whose jurisdiction included both Kongo and the Portuguese colony of Angola.
Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
had several missions to Kongo's southern neighbor, Ndongo, the first of which was dispatched in 1520, but failed and was withdrawn. A second mission was sent to Ndongo in 1560 led by Paulo Dias de Novais
Paulo Dias de Novais
Paulo Dias de Novais , a nobleman of the Royal Household, was a Portuguese colonizer of Africa in the 16th century and the first Captain-Governor of Angola. He was the grandson of the explorer Bartolomeu Dias....
and including Jesuit priests. Dias de Novais returned to Portugal in 1564, leaving the Jesuit Francisco de Gouveia in Ndongo. While in Portugal, Dias de Novais secured a grant allowing him to colonize the country. 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
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 reinforcment 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 made 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
Luanda
Luanda, formerly named São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda, is the capital and largest city of Angola. Located on Angola's coast with the Atlantic Ocean, Luanda is both Angola's chief seaport and its administrative center. It has a population of at least 5 million...
. 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
Soba
is the Japanese name for buckwheat. It is synonymous with a type of thin noodle made from buckwheat flour, and in Japan can refer to any thin noodle . Soba noodles are served either chilled with a dipping sauce, or in hot broth as a noodle soup...
) 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.
17th century
Around 1600, Portuguese merchants working on the coast south of the Kwanza River encountered ImbangalaImbangala
The Imbangala or Mbangala were 17th century groups of Angolan warriors and marauders who founded the kingdom of Kasanje.-Origins of the Imbangala:...
bands that were then ravaging the Kingdom of Benguela, overlord in the region. These Imbangala were prepared to sell captives they had taken in their wars to the Portuguese in exchange for European goods. In around 1615, Portuguese governors invited some of these bands to cross the Kwanza and serve in their armies. Governor Luis Mendes de Vasconcelos used these bands to good effect, when, beginning in 1618 he used them to buttress his armies and local rebels to attack Ndongo. Over the next three years, he expelled the king of Ndongo from his capital at Kabasa, forcing him to take refuge on the Kindonga Islands in the Kwanza River, captured members of the royal family, sent expeditionary forces as far inland as Matamba, and captured and exported as many as 50,000 people as slaves to Brazil and the Spanish Indies. The first Africans to arrive in the North American English colony of Virginia were taken from these captives, by English privateers attacking shipping.
In 1617, the Imbangala allied with the Portuguese in invading Ndongo. The Imbangala took control of the Kwango valley, forming a new kingdom. The Imbangala and expanded trade with regional neighbors, selling salt for goods, and with the Portuguese, selling slaves. Queen Nzinga of Ndongo traveled to Luanda in 1623 and successfully negotiated for peace. The Portuguese administrator in charge of Angola adopted Nzinga as his goddaughter, giving her the Christian name Dona Ana de Souza. Peace with Portugal however, did not affect poor relations between the Imbangala and Ndongo kingdoms. The Imbangala continued to attack and kidnap Ndongo civilians, selling them into slavery. Portugal intervened militarily, ostensibly on Nzinga's behalf, and she and many Kimbundu retreated east to Matamba. There she established a new Kimbundu kingdom and prepared for war with the Portuguese. The Portuguese declared Ari Kiluanji the new ngola (chief) as head of the Ndongo. Kiluanji lacked political and religious legitimacy in the eyes of many Kimbundu who revolted against the new establishment with encouragement from Nzinga.
In the aftermath of the war, the king of Ndongo sent his sister Njinga Mbandi to Luanda to negotiate a peace treaty in 1622. The Imbangala bands had not proved as obedient as the Portuguese hoped and were ravaging far and wide among both Ndongo's lands and those controlled by Portugal. In the terms of the agreement Njinga negotiated, Portugal agreed to withdraw a fort at Ambaca
Ambaca
Ambaca is a town and municipality in Cuanza Norte Province in Angola....
which Mendes de Vasconcelos had founded as a base for his operations against Ndongo, and to return a large number of serfs (kijiko) he had captured, to help in restraining the Imbangala operating in Ndongo, and allow the king to return to his traditional capital. In exchange Ndongo would swear vassalage to Portugal and pay 100 slaves per year as tribute. However, none of these conditions were actually met.
Mendes de Vasconcelos' successor, João Correia de Sousa agreed to the terms of the treaty, in part because he hoped to repeat his predecessors war with Imbangala help against Kongo. In 1622 he led a bloody campaign against the territory of Kasanze, located near Luanda and under Kongo's authority, then claiming that the Kongo subordinate of Nambu a Ngongo harbored runaway slaves, he invaded that region, and finally, upset that the Kongo electors had chosen Pedro II
Pedro II of Kongo
Pedro II Nkanga a Mvika was a ruler of the kingdom of Kongo during the kingdom's first conflict with the Portuguese colony of Angola. He was the founder of the royal House of Nsundi and could trace his descent to one of Afonso I's daughters.-Career:...
the former Duke of Mbamba to be king of Kongo, invaded Mbamba itself. In November, 1622, he met a hastily gathered Kongo army at the Battle of Mbumbi and defeated it, with Imbangala allies eating the Duke and other Kongo nobles. However, Pedro II brought down a larger army, defeated the Portuguese force and began a campaign of humiliation for the many Portuguese resident in Kongo. In the aftermath of this shock, many Portuguese resident in Luanda, who had invested money in Kongo were threatened with ruin and demanded the governor leave. Correia de Sousa was driven from Ndongo and was imprisoned in Portugal. Kongo, meanwhile, had also made an alliance with the Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx...
to attack Luanda, and the junta that ran Angola in the aftermath of Correia de Sousa's expulsion, quickly made peace with Kongo, restoring some of the slaves they had seized. As a result Kongo refused to assist Piet Heyn's fleet from the Netherlands when it arrived and attacked Luanda in 1624.
Following the disaster of Correia de Sousa, the crown sent Fernão de Sousa to be governor of Angola in 1624. He had orders to make fewer unjust wars in the country, and he tried to bring some order to its fiscal system. But he insisted on keeping Portuguese positions at Ambaca and to return the captured kijiko in Ndongo, and was reluctant to recognize Njinga as ruler of Ndongo following the death of her brother by suicide in 1624. As a result of the failure of negotiations, de Sousa undertook a series of wars against Njinga. Two major wars in 1626 and 1628 drove Njinga from the Kingdonga Island to Matamba where she established her base in 1631. Fitful negotiations followed, and in 1639 Njinga concluded a 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.
Salvador de Sá
Salvador Correia de Sá e Benevides was a Portuguese soldier and politician. In 1625 he fought the Dutch invasion of Salvador in Brazil and regained Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe from the Dutch in 1647...
sought to restore Portuguese authority as much as possible during his rule from 1648 to 1652. However, he made little progress, aside from forcing Njinga to retreat from her position in Cavanga to Matamba. His successors in the seventeenth century sought to renew the warfare that had expanded Portuguese authority and filled slaves ships before the Dutch interlude. However aggressive foreign policies were less successful. Following a disastrous campaign in Kisama in 1654-55 the governor was faced with widespread settler disobedience as they saw that the wars hurt their trade and killed their subjects.