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Angola ANGOLA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Slave Trading in the 1700s
Slave trading dominated the Portuguese economy in
eighteenthcentury Angola. Slaves were obtained by agents, called
pombeiros, who roamed the interior, generally
following
established routes along rivers. They bought slaves,
called
peças (pieces), from local chiefs in exchange for
commodities such as cloth and wine. The pombeiros
returned
to Luanda or Benguela with chain gangs of several hundred
captives,
most of whom were malnourished and in poor condition from
the
arduous trip on foot. On the coast, they were better fed
and
readied for their sea crossing. Before embarking, they
were
baptized en masse by Roman Catholic priests. The Atlantic
crossing
in the overcrowded, unsanitary vessels lasted from five
weeks to
two months. Many captives died en route.
During the sixteenth century and most of the
seventeenth
century, Luanda had been the main slave port of the
Portuguese, but
toward the end of the 1600s they turned their attention to
Benguela. Although the first efforts at inland expansion
from
Benguela failed, the Portuguese eventually penetrated the
Ovimbundu
kingdoms and subjected their people to the same treatment
that had
earlier befallen the Mbundu. By the end of the eighteenth
century,
Benguela rivaled Luanda as a slave port.
According to historian C.R. Boxer, African slaves were
more
valued in the Americas than were American Indian slaves
because
Africans tended to adjust more easily to slavery and
because they
were less vulnerable to the diseases of the white man.
Boxer also
suggests that Jesuits in the New World opposed the notion
of using
Indians as slaves, whereas they were less resistant to the
use of
Africans as slaves. Many of these African slaves were sent
to
Spanish colonies, where they brought a higher price than
they would
have if sold in Brazil.
From the late sixteenth century until 1836, when
Portugal
abolished slave trafficking, Angola may have been the
source of as
many as 2 million slaves for the New World. More than half
of these
went to Brazil, nearly a third to the Caribbean, and from
10 to 15
percent to the Río de la Plata area on the southeastern
coast of
South America. Considering the number of slaves that
actually
arrived, and taking into account those who died crossing
the
Atlantic or during transport from the interior to the
coast for
shipping, the Angola area may have lost as many as 4
million people
as a result of the slave trade.
By the end of the eighteenth century, it became clear
that
Lisbon's dream of establishing a trading monopoly in its
colonies
had not been achieved. Competition from foreign powers
contributed
significantly to Portugal's inability to control the slave
trade,
either in Angola's interior or on the coast. In 1784, for
example,
the French expelled a garrison that the Portuguese had
established
a year earlier in Cabinda. Portugal was also concerned
about the
northward expansion of Dutch settlers from the Cape of
Good Hope
area. Moreover, at this time the British, Dutch, and
Brazilians,
not the Portuguese, were contributing most of the capital
and
vessels used in the slave trade. Furthermore, many of the
European
goods arriving at Angolan ports were coming from nations
other than
Portugal.
Data as of February 1989
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