|
Angola Expansion and the Berlin Conference
The abolition of the slave trade coincided with
increased
Portuguese expansion in Angola. Expansion began in 1838
with the
conquest and establishment of a fort at Duque de Bragança
(renamed
Calandula), in an area east of Luanda. By mid-century the
Portuguese had extended their formal control still farther
east to
the Kasanje market near the Cuango River
(see Matamba and Kasanje Kingdoms
, this ch.). In 1840 the Portuguese founded the
town of
Moçâmedes (present-day Namibe) on the coast south of
Benguela. The
Portuguese also attempted to gain control of the coast
from Luanda
north to Cabinda through military occupation of the major
ports.
Because of British opposition, however, they were unable
to
complete this attempt and never gained control of the
mouth of the
Congo River.
The cost of military operations to secure economically
strategic points led in 1856 to the imposition on Africans
of a
substantially increased hut tax, which for the first time
had to be
paid with currency or trade goods rather than with slaves.
As a
result, many Africans either refused to pay or fled from
areas
controlled by the Portuguese. By 1861, therefore, the
Portuguese
lacked the resources for continued military expansion or
economic
development, and most of the interior remained in the
control of
African traders and warriors.
From the late 1870s through the early 1890s, Portugal
renewedexpansion into the interior. Part of the impetus
came from
the Lisbon Geographical Society, founded in 1875 by a
group of
industrialists, scholars, and colonial and military
officials. This
society stimulated a popular concern for the colonies in
Portugal.
In reaction to the activities of the society and the
growing
interest among Europeans in colonial adventure, the
Portuguese
government allotted large sums for public works in Africa
and
encouraged a minor revival of missionary work.
An advisory commission to Portugal's Ministry of the
Navy and
Colonies formed an expedition in the 1870s to link Angola
on the
Atlantic coast with Mozambique on the Indian Ocean coast.
The
Portuguese government supported this expedition because it
aspired
to control a solid strip of territory across the central
part of
the continent. Nonetheless, Portugal was unable to gain
control of
the hinterland.
Aware of French and Belgian activities on the lower
Congo
River, in 1883 the Portuguese occupied Cabinda and Massabi
north of
the Congo River, towns that Portugal had long claimed. In
the same
year, Portugal annexed the region of the old Kongo
Kingdom. Seeking
to uphold these claims against French and Belgian advances
in the
Congo River Basin, Portugal negotiated a treaty with
Britain in
1884; the other European powers, however, rejected it.
Portugal's
subsequent demands for an international conference on the
Congo
fell on deaf ears until German chancellor Otto von
Bismarck seized
on the idea as an opportunity to diminish French and
British power.
At the Berlin Conference of 1884, the participants
established
in principle the limits of Portugal's claims to Angola,
and in
later years, treaties with the colonial powers that
controlled the
neighboring territories delineated Angola's boundaries.
But because
other, more powerful European states of the nineteenth
century had
explored central Africa, they, not Portugal, determined
Angola's
boundaries. The west coast territory Portugal acquired
included the
left bank of the Congo River and the Cabinda enclave, an
acquisition whose value to the state was demonstrated in
later
years by the discovery there of oil. Britain, however,
forced
Portugal to withdraw from Nyasaland (present-day Malawi)
and
Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe and Zambia).
Portugal and Belgium concluded several agreements
between 1891
and 1927, establishing a complex border generally
following natural
frontiers. Cabinda's boundaries with the French Congo and
the
Belgian Congo were delimited in 1886 and 1894,
respectively, and by
the end of the nineteenth century, Portugal had staked out
most of
its claims in Angola.
As far as Europe was concerned, Angola was in the
Portuguese
sphere of influence, and its status was not subject to
further
deliberations. Considering its diminished stature in
relation to
other European powers, Portugal had done well to hold onto
as much
territory as it had. But the fact that Angola was
recognized as a
Portuguese possession did not mean that it was under
Portuguese
control. The work of conquest took the better part of
twenty-five
years, and in some remote areas even longer.
Data as of February 1989
|
