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A Recent French research shows that the present territory of Angola,
have been inhabited since the lower Palaeolithic era.
The first European settlers came
late in the 15th century, in 1482, when the Portuguese navigator Diogo
Cão moored at the mouth of the Congo or Zaire river. In his still
existing capital city of Mbanza Congo, in the North of Angola, the
King of the Congo welcomed the foreign travellers and let them convert
him to Christianity, taking the name of Alphonsus I, creating in that
way an alliance between both states.
In
the course of the 16th century, any after continuous and lengthy games
of seduction, intrigue and treason, that new strength was given to the
links of dependence of the kingdom of the Congo to the Portuguese
Crown. Dependent of the kingdom of the Congo were other minor kingdoms
in the South, such as Matamba and Ndongo, whose sovereigns, the Ngola,
were to give later its name to Angola.
The resistance of these three kingdoms to colonial penetration was
practically crushed in the second half of the 17th century, in the
short space of 20 years: the Congo (1665), Ndongo (1671), and Matamba
(1681).
In 1700, the
Portuguese ruled in
Angola over an area of 65,000 sq. km, for no practical purpose but to
keep open the slaves routes coming down from the high plains. At that
time, in fact, black slaves were the main merchandise dominating the
whole activity of trade, as an export t o
Portugal, Brazil, the West Indies and Central America. At the end of the 18th century,
under the leadership of the marquess of Pombal, the all-powerful
minister of the king of Portugal, a timid attempt was made to exploit
the riches of the country. It foundered due to lack of support and
because the very motherland was more interested in the development of
Brazil using angolan slaves. Angola thus retained the title of
"slave-mine".
The Berlin Conference in 1885 established colonial law and the present
frontiers of Angola were drafted by successive treaties between
Portugal, Great Britain, France, the free State of the (Belgian) Congo
and Germany. For the Angolan population, the abolition of slave
trading in 1836 and the formal end of slavery in 1878 did not alter
the essentials of the case, as exploatation of the great working
masses of Angola went on under the guise of the so-called "contract".
That situation was to be aggravated by the colonial policy of the
Salazar regime, from the 1930´s onwards.
The struggle for the
freedom of
Angola initiated at the 1960´s onwards, following by the proclamation
of the Independence on Nov. 11, 1975.
Source:
The Future Begins Now © Republic of Angola
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