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Angola African Associations
The beginnings of African associations, to which the
liberation
movement traced its roots, remained obscure in 1988.
Luanda was
known to have had recreational societies, burial clubs,
and other
mutual aid associations in the early 1900s. After the
Portuguese
republican constitution of 1911 increased freedoms of the
press,
opinion, and association in the African colonies, a number
of
African associations were formed, including the
Lisbon-based
African League in 1919. Sponsored and financed by the
Portuguese
government, partly in response to pressure from the League
of
Nations with which African League leaders had established
contacts,
the African League was a federation of all African
associations
from Portuguese Africa. Its avowed purpose was to point
out to the
Portuguese government injustices or harsh laws that ought
to be
repealed. In 1923 the African League organized the second
session
of the Third Pan-African Congress in Lisbon.
Assimilados (mestiço and African)
dominated most
associations, and their membership seldom included
uneducated
Africans. Because the associations were under close
Portuguese
control, their members were unable to express the full
extent of
their discontent with the colonial system. As a result,
extralegal,
politically oriented African associations began to appear
in the
1950s. Far-reaching economic and social changes, the
growth of the
white settler population, increased urbanization of
Africans, and
the beginnings of nationalist movements in other parts of
Africa
contributed to the growth of anticolonial feeling. In 1952
some 500
Angolan Africans appealed to the United Nations (UN) in a
petition
protesting what they called the injustices of Portuguese
policy and
requesting that steps be taken to end Portuguese rule.
Data as of February 1989
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