Slave trade in the Portuguese colony of Angola

Slave trade in the Portuguese colony of Angola

Historically, the Portuguese colony of Angola was one of the largest source regions for the transatlantic slave trade to the Americas, particularly to Brazil. The Luchazi, along with closely related groups lived in areas heavily impacted by internal warfare and slave raiding.

Although the Portuguese authorities in Lisbon initially sent to Angola teachers to educate and priests to proselytize, Portugal eventually came to view the territory mainly as a source for slaves, especially for Brazil, its colony across the Atlantic Ocean. 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 Europeans. 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.

In 1570s the Portuguese conquistadores launched slave raids in Angola after the Kongo wars had been quelled. The Portuguese expected conquered tribes and their kingdoms to pay them a tribute in form of slaves. In 1580 the port of Luanda was taken over by the Spanish habsburgs who launched a series of armed assaults on the Mbundu and other interior tribes.

The slavery tribute was officially set up by a Portuguese official, Bento Cardoso, in 1608, which required the supply of slaves to the Portuguese through the Mbundu people or pombeiros . Around 1615, the Portuguese established a trading post at Benguela which was known locally as Mbaka, and later in 1617 it become a town.

In 1624, Queen Nzinga (Njinga) Mbande of the Mbundu (Kimundu) people took over power after the death of Ngola Mbande. She ruled during a period of the transatlantic slave trade. When the Portuguese detained her sister, they demanded the delivery of about 125 slaves before she could be set free.

Later Queen Nzinga went into an alliance with the Portuguese military governors of Luanda who launched armed incursions against the tribes of the interior, as they demanded slaves rather than tropical products such as beeswax and rubber in exchange for their manufactured goods. 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. Queen Nzinga died in 1663. (source: library of Congress: Angola country study).

By mid-17th century, the Dutch joined in the scramble for slaves. They began to sell guns to their trading partners to facilitate the destruction of old powerful communities and the capture of slaves. This was devastating to the inland tribes. In 1641 the Dutch captured Luanda and Benguela, forcing the Portuguese governor and his officials to flee inland to Massangano. The Portuguese were unable to dislodge the Dutch from Luanda and Benguela. The Dutch occupation effectively cut off the supply of slaves to Brazil, and this negatively affected that colony's economy. In response, Brazilian Portuguese colonists raised money and organized forces to launch an expedition aimed at dislodging the Dutch from Angola. In May 1648, the Dutch garrison in Luanda surrendered to the Brazilian detachment, and the Dutch eventually relinquished their other Angolan conquests.

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 and other tribes. By the end of the eighteenth century, Benguela rivaled Luanda as a slave port.

Ecovongo, the capital of Viye (Bié), became a major inland hub for slave trade. A nineteenth century slave and ivory trader by the name of Antonio Ferreira da Silva made Ecovongo his home because of its location between west and central African commerce.

According to Hungarian explorer László Magyar, a Hungarian who spent 30 years living in Viye, these caravans included hired carriers and slaves. The hired carriers received payment in cloth which served as a unit of currency along the coast and in the interior. Those who carried a bundle of fine cloth called kupa were well paid than the hired carriers who carried coarse cloth called covados.

During the height of the trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, regional conflicts were deeply intertwined with the acquisition of captives. Raiding parties from various groups, backed by European or Afro-Portuguese traders, moved deep into the interior of Angola.

In the chaos of these wars, individuals, families, or small groups of Luchazi were inevitably captured, marched to coastal ports like Benguela or Luanda, and shipped across the Atlantic. 

According to oral tradition, there was a Ovimbundu chief by the name of Ndumba ya Chilombo at Kuandulu who used to send his subjects into Muangana Mueni Chikungulu's area to capture slaves. Another Ovimbundu chief by the name of Ndunduma from Bailundu also used to carry out raids to capture slaves in Luchazi territories.

Although the indigenous people were often responsible for enslaving other Africans, Portuguese traders provided the impetus and the market for slaving.  By raising small armies, Portuguese military colonialists fought their way into Angola's interior, disrupting as they went into kingdoms having sophisticated civilizations (source: Angola: country study).

The conflict between the interior tribes and the Portuguese soon turned into slave-raiding wars. Slave raids by the Portuguese and their African soldiers tore apart the Ngangela and Luchazi families and villages. Genealogies or some family trees were lost. The slave raids destroyed communities, and many left their settlements, but the Portuguese recruited the Ovimbundu and Kimbundu people as spies (vandondzi) and used them to trace where the Ngangela and Luchazi had moved. To warn each other, the Luchazi coined the saying, "Kua ambulula Cimbali, muongua", meaning to identify a Portuguese commercial agent, it is salt. These Ovimbundu or Mbundu spies used to disguise themselves as salt traders.

Portuguese settlers in colony of Angola

The main objective of the first Portuguese settlers in Angola, and the motive behind most of their explorations, was the establishment of slave trade. Because Brazil was the jewel of Portugal's overseas territories, Portuguese who immigrated to Angola were frequently deserters, degredados, peasants, and others who had been unable to succeed in Portugal or elsewhere in the Portuguese-speaking world. Owing principally to the African colony's unsavory reputation in Portugal and the high regard in which Brazil was held, there was little emigration to Angola in the 1600s and 1700s. Thus, the white population of Angola in 1777 was less than 1,600.

Between 1830 and 1840 the Portuguese curved out plantations for coffee, cotton, and sugarcane. And other coastal towns were established such as Catumbela das Ostras (now Lobito) in 1843. In the 1880s Portuguese small farmers were settled in the highlands of Kunene.

According to historical records, most of the Portuguese who settled in Angola through the nineteenth century were exiled criminals, called degredados, who were actively involved in the slave trade and spread disorder and corruption throughout the colony. Because of the unscrupulous behaviour of the degredados, most Angolan Africans soon came to despise and distrust their Portuguese colonizers. Those Portuguese who settled in Angola in the early twentieth century were peasants who had fled the poverty of their homeland and who intended to establish themselves in Angolan towns in search of a means of livelihood other than agriculture. In general, these later settlers lacked capital, education, and commitment to their new homelands (source. Angola: country study).

The Portuguese traders and government officials, began to recruit local males supposedly to take them and work on the Portuguese settler’s farms which produced coffee, tea, fruits, wheat, and rice. It was later discovered, however, that the local people so recruited under the guise of hired labour were eventually sold as slaves (vandungo) and shipped to Brazil and other Latin American colonies such as Cuba.

The population diminished and the demography was badly distorted because of slave trade. According to censuses carried out from the late 18th century show that there were more females than males in the Portuguese colony of Angola. Although slavery was outlawed in Angola in 1836, the export of slaves did not end until the market in Brazil was closed in the early 1850s. In 1875 slavery was abolished in the Portuguese empire, but slaves continued to be smuggled until 1911 and in many cases into the 1960s. In the several centuries during which the slave trade flourished, scholars estimate that 4 to 5 million Africans from the Angola region were taken into slavery. Of this number, perhaps half died before reaching the New World.

The Silence Surrounding Slavery in Luchazi Communities

The silence surrounding slavery among Luchazi communities, and the common assertion that the Luchazi themselves were never captured while only other groups were sold into slavery, stems from a complex mixture of historical trauma, patterns of migration, and a deep cultural desire to preserve communal honour and identity.

When elders state that "other tribes" were the ones captured, they are not necessarily denying that Luchazi people suffered from slavery. Rather, they are often repeating a deeply rooted defensive narrative that has been passed down through generations. This narrative serves an important social function: protecting collective pride and reinforcing a sense of resilience.

In many Bantu societies, acknowledging that one's ancestors were captured, subjugated, or sold can be perceived as an admission of historical defeat. Consequently, oral traditions tend to emphasize stories of resistance, survival, and strength rather than vulnerability. Over time, the painful memories of those who were taken away may fade from collective remembrance, while the stories of those who remained become central to community identity.

The silence surrounding slavery within Luchazi families and communities is also shaped by the enduring stigma associated with the slave trade, the desire to avoid ethnic divisions, and the long-lasting psychological effects of trauma. Rather than discussing these histories openly, communities may preserve such memories through private rituals, symbolic practices, or localized oral traditions that help maintain social cohesion.

Another significant factor behind this silence is the historical complexity of the slave trade itself. Both the transatlantic and internal African slave trades operated through intricate networks in which some local leaders such as Mueni Ngonga and communities participated in the capture, exchange, or sale of other Africans to foreign traders. Confronting this reality can generate discomfort, shame, and moral unease, leading some families and communities to suppress discussion of the subject.

Oral tradition is inherently selective. As the saying goes, "history belongs to those who tell it." In the case of the Luchazi and many other Angolan communities, silence has often served specific social purposes:

1. Shame, trauma, and taboo: the trauma of slavery in Angola was followed by centuries of colonial exploitation under Portuguese rule, including systems of forced labour, sexual abuse of women and later by the devastation of a prolonged civil war. Within many families, there developed a cultural preference for not dwelling on painful memories. Avoiding discussion of traumatic events became a way to protect future generations from emotional suffering and to prevent the reopening of old wounds.
2. The erasure of the displaced: traditional lineage systems also contributed to the disappearance of enslaved individuals from collective memory. Those who were captured and transported across the ocean were often considered permanently lost to their communities. Because there was no means of communication or return, their names gradually disappeared from oral genealogies. Over generations, family histories were reconstructed around the descendants who remained, creating an uninterrupted narrative of lineage within the homeland.

Today, however, advances in genetic testing are revealing connections that oral traditions often omitted. Many people of Luchazi and broader Angolan ancestry have discovered distant relatives in Brazil, the United States, the Caribbean and Europe through DNA testing. In many ways, genetic genealogy has bridged a historical gap that oral records effectively closed centuries ago. The contrast between traditional narratives and genetic evidence highlights the complex ways communities remember, reinterpret, and sometimes silence difficult aspects of their past.

It is within this intersection of memory, trauma, identity, and historical reality that the silence surrounding slavery in Luchazi communities can be better understood.