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Slavery in Angola existed since long before the late 15th century when Portugal established contacts with the peoples living in what is the Northwest of the present country, and founded several trade posts on the coast. A number of those peoples, like theImbangala[1] and theMbundu,[2] were activeslave traders for centuries (seeSlavery in Africa). In the late 16th century,Kingdom of Portugal's explorers founded the fortified settlement ofLuanda, and later on minor trade posts and forts on theCuanza River as well as on the Atlantic coast southwards untilBenguela. The main component of their trading activities consisted in a heavy involvement in theAtlantic slave trade.[3] Slave trafficking was abolished in 1836 by the Portuguese authorities.[4]
ThePortuguese Empire conquered theMbundu people of Angola, incorporating the local economy into theAtlantic slave trade.[5] In 1610, Friar Luís Brandão, the head of Portuguese-runLuandaJesuitcollege, wrote to aJesuit 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 toChristianity.[6] Angola exported slaves at a rate of 10,000 per year in 1612.[7] The Portuguese built a new port inBenguela in 1616 to expandPortugal's access to Angolan slaves.[8] From 1617 to 1621, during the governorship ofLuís Mendes de Vasconcellos, up to 50,000 Angolans were enslaved and shipped to the Americas.[9] TheVergulde Valck, Dutch slave-traders, bought 675 of the 1,000 slaves sold in Angola in 1660.[10][11]
During at least the 18th and 19th centuries, Angola was the principal source of slaves who were forced into the Atlantic slave trade.[12]
For several decades, slave trade with the Portuguesecolony of Brazil was important inPortuguese Angola; Brazilian ships were the most numerous in the ports ofLuanda andBenguela. This slave trade also involved local black merchants and warriors who profited from the trade.[13] In the 17th century, theImbangala became the main rivals of theMbundu in supplying slaves to theLuanda market. In the 1750s the Portuguese sold 5,000 to 10,000 slaves annually, devastating the Mbundu economy and population.[14]
The Portuguese gave guns toImbangala soldiers in return for slaves. Armed with superior weapons, Imbangala soldiers captured and sold natives on a far larger scale as every new slave translated into a better-armed force of aggressors. A combined force of Portuguese and Imbangala soldiers attacked and conquered the Kingdom of Ndongo from 1618 to 1619, laying siege to the Ndongo capital of Kabasa. The Portuguese sold thousands of Kabasa residents with 36 ships leaving the port ofLuanda in 1619, setting a new record, destined for slave plantations abroad.[15] In the 18th century, war between the Portuguese, other European powers and several African tribes, gradually gave way totrade.
The great trade routes and the agreements that made them possible were the driving force for activities between the different areas; warlike tribal states become states ready to produce and to sell. In the Planalto (the high plains), the most important states were those of Bié and Bailundo, the latter being noted for its production of foodstuffs and rubber. The colonial power, Portugal, becoming ever richer and more powerful, would not tolerate the growth of these neighbouring states and subjugated them one by one, so that by the beginning of this century the Portuguese had complete control over the entire area.
From 1764 onwards, there was a gradual change from a slave-based society to one based on production for domestic consumption, and later for export. After theindependence of Brazil from Portugal in 1822, the institution ofslavery in Portugal's overseas possessions was abolished in 1836 by the Portuguese authorities.
Portugal banned slavery in their colonies in 1854 gradually, by declaring all existing slaves as free after a transition period of twenty years, and by 1878, all the slaves had transitioned to become freelibertos; however, the vagrancy laws made the former slaves in danger of being forced by the government to work for private contractors until this was prohibited in 1910.[16]
ThePortuguese Empire first established ade jure system offorced labour known aschibalo throughout its colonies in 1899,[17] but the Portuguese government did not implement the system in Angola until 1911 and abolished it in 1913.[14] Republicans overthrew KingManuel II ina coup d'état in October 1910. Workers inMoçâmedes, among other cities in Angola, campaigned for abolition and manumission. In some areas forced labourers declaredstrikes, hoping the economic slowdown would force political changes.Carvalhal Correia Henriques, the new governor of Moçâmedes, supported their claims and directed labor complaints his way. ThePortuguese First Republic, the new state, abolished forced labour again, but the employers whose businesses depended on forced labour used their political clout to lobby the Portuguese government to fire Henriques. The Portuguese government legalized forced labour in Angola again in 1911, dismissed Henriques in January 1912, and abolished the practice again in 1913.[18][14]
In 1926, the28 May 1926 coup d'état empoweredAntónio de Oliveira Salazar inPortugal. Later that year, Salazar reestablished forced labour, ordering colonial authorities to force nearly all adult, male Indigenous Peoples in Portugal's African colonies to work. The government told workers that they would only have to work for six months of every year. In practice, this obligation was a life sentence of forced labor.[19]Civil rights for natives, no longer treated asnatural law, had to be "earned" on a case-by-case basis under thedesignation ofassimilade. Less than 1% of the native population ever achieved this designation. By 1947, 40% of workers died each year with a 60%infant mortality rate.[20]
By 1940 the white population in Angola had risen to forty thousand, 2% of the population. Most of these émigrés, illiterate and landless, took the best farming land, regardless of availability, without compensating existing landowners. The authorities expelled natives, forcing them to harvest maize, coffee, and beans. Natives could "volunteer" to work on the plantations,voluntários, or faceconscription, working for $1.50 per month ascontratados. This system of forced labour prompted 500,000 Angolans to flee, creating a labor shortage, which in turn created the need for more workers for the colonial economy.[21] By 1947, 40%[22] of the forced labourers died each year with a 60%infant mortality rate in the territory (according toThe World Factbook's 2007 estimates, infant mortality rate (deaths/1,000 live births) in modern-day Angola was 184.44 - the worst result among all countries in the world). Historian Basil Davidson visited Angola in 1954 and found 30% of all adult males working in these conditions; "there was probably more coercion than ever before."[14]Marcelo Caetano, Portugal's Minister of the Colonies, recognized the inherent flaws in the system, which he described as using natives "like pieces of equipment without any concern for their yearning, interests, or desires".Parliament held a closed session in 1947 to discuss the deteriorating situation.Henrique Galvão, Angolan deputy to the PortugueseNational Assembly, read his "Report on Native Problems in the Portuguese Colonies". Galvão condemned the "shameful outrages" he had uncovered, the forced labour of "women, of children, of the sick, [and] of decrepit old men." He concluded that in Angola, "only the dead are really exempt from forced labor." The government's control over the natives eliminated the worker-employer's incentive to keep his employees alive because, unlike in other colonial societies, the state replaced deceased workers without directly charging the employer. The Portuguese government refuted the report and arrested Galvão in 1952.[21] In 1961, Galvão was involved in thehijacking of a Portuguese luxury cruise liner.[23]
Workers employed by Cotonang, a Portuguese-Belgian cotton plantation company, revolted on January 3, 1961, calling on the Portuguese to improve their working rights and leave Angola. The revolt, commonly considered the first battle of theAngolan War of Independence, ended in a blood bath.[24]
Native protesters attacked São Paulo fortress, the largest prison and military establishment inLuanda, trying to free the prisoners and killing seven policemen. The Portuguese authorities killed forty attackers before gangs of white Angolans committed random acts of violence against the ethnic majority.[25]
Portuguese authorities killed 49 people on February 5. On February 10, Portuguese authorities suppressed another unsuccessful attempt at freeing the prisoners.Bakongo farmers and coffee-plantation workers revolted on March 15, near Baixa de Cassanje, killing white Angolans and black workers, burning plantations, bridges, government facilities, and police stations, and destroying barges and ferries. ThePortuguese Air Force responded by bombing a 320-kilometre (200 mi) area withnapalm killing 20,000 people, including 750 white Angolans, within the first six months of 1961.[25]
The Portuguese Army and Air Force put down the uprising and blacked out the incident to the press. ThePeople's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) said the Portuguese military killed ten thousand people in the massacre.[14] Conservative estimates are around 400 casualties.[25] These events are considered the beginning of thePortuguese Colonial War (1961–1974).
Following Angola's independence from Portugal in 1975, during theAngolan Civil War (1975–2002), both the largest opposition group, National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and the government, usedchild soldiers in the civil war. It is estimated that as many as 11,000 children were involved in the last years of the fighting.[26][27]
In current day Angola, high levels of child trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, pornography, forced labor, sexual slavery, and other forms of exploitation are reported, in part due to thecivil war-caused break down of social structures and traditional security mechanisms active before independence. Angola is a source country for significant number of men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor or sexual exploitation. Children have been trafficked internally and also toNamibia andSouth Africa for the purposes of sexual exploitation and domestic and commercial labor. TheGovernment of Angola does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
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