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This paper examines the composition of families in the parish of São José de Encoge, northern Angola, in the early colonial era, using a series of 'family bulletins' collected by the Portuguese colonial government in 1910. Encoge was one of the earliest centres of coffee cultivation in west-central Africa. While not all local families participated in this economy, the census sheds light on family-based cash-crop production after the abolition of slavery in Angola. The literature on post-slavery labour arrangements in Africa almost unanimously suggests that family-extension strategies predominantly aimed to integrate young women and girls into households, using pawnship and guardianship as important methods. The family bulletins from Encoge provide a means to evaluate this assumption on a quantitative basis in an Angolan context. They indicate that, besides natural reproduction and the adoption of second wives, the incorporation of wards, nephews, and nieces was the most common form of household extension, in which elders showed a remarkable preference for male dependants. The bulletins do not provide clear evidence of the presence of enslaved dependants, although some individuals listed as servants were possibly enslaved. Overall, the data suggest that, contrary to common assumptions about agricultural labour in Africa, family-based cultivation and trade of coffee did not discriminate against men or boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mulemba Astronomical Observatory, later known as the Mulemba Space Centre was founded in 1958 on Luanda's outskirts in Angola, then an African Portuguese colony, by the polymath Carlos Mar Bettencourt Faria. Being, from all accounts, a charming and knowledgeable individual who was mainly self taught, he managed to build several radio telescopes, a solar observing station, a state-of-the-art electronics laboratory and a satellite tracking facility. Financial support was obtained from a variety of individuals, commercial companies, public institutions and from 1971 onwards Angola's national government. Faria's ambitious plans were nevertheless always thwarted or delayed by lack of funds. In 1973 data started to be collected at the solar station but the whirlwind of 1970s politics had a decisive impact in Angola. Faria's beautiful dream effectively ended when he was assassinated at the Observatory in 1976. In this paper we recall Carlos Bettencourt Faria's life and his battle against all odds to establish a professional-level astronomical observatory in Angola. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting in the 1880s, Portugal invested in constructing railways in its African colonies, Angola and Mozambique. The aim was both to solidify Portuguese presence in territories disputed by other imperial nations and to facilitate exploration of the resources that imperial policymakers assumed existed in the colonial hinterland. To promote the perception that Portugal was an imperial nation, hundreds of photographs recorded the construction, inauguration, and operation of these new railways. Using a semiotics approach, this article analyzes photographs from various sources in Portugal to show how they helped create a novel technological landscape, underscoring the domestication of the territory and the civilization of its inhabitants by European rule, thus promoting it as a land of opportunity for European settlers. This focus adds to the debate claiming that photography was a crucial tool of empire serving European colonialism and imperialism in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Angola, as with many countries on the African continent, has great inequalities or asymmetries between its provinces. At the economic, financial, and technological level, there is a great disparity between them, where it is observed that the province of Luanda is the largest financial business center to the detriment of others, such as Moxico, Zaire, and Cabinda. In the latter, despite the advantages of high oil production, from a regional point of view, they remain almost stagnant in time, in a social dysfunction where the population lives on extractivism and artisanal fishing. This article analyzes the most important events in contemporary regional history, the Portuguese occupation that was the Portuguese colonial rule over Angola (1890–1930) and the civil war that was a struggle between Angolans for control of the country (1975–2002), in the consolidation of the asymmetries between provinces. For this work, a theoretical-reflective study was conducted based on the reading of books, articles, and previous investigations on the phenomenon studied. Considering the interpretation and analysis of the theoretical content obtained through the bibliographic research conducted, this theoretical construction approaches the qualitative approach. We conclude that the deep inequalities between regions and within them, between the provinces studied, originated historically in the form of exploitation of the regions and from the consequences of the war. The asymmetries, observed through the variables studied show that the provinces historically explored and considered object regions present a lower growth compared to those that were considered subject regions in which the applied geopolitical strategy, as they are centers of primary production flows, was different. We also observe that, due to the conflicts of the civil war in the less developed regions, the inequalities have deepened, contributing seriously to a higher level of poverty and a lower development of the provinces where these conflicts took place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an ethnographic theorization of the relationship between naming, translation, and subject constitution via the analysis of forms of interpellation in colonial Angola. It engages critically with systemic/structural renderings of colonial society that portray social positions as oppositional to argue for a deconstructive approach attentive to historical disjunctions between naming and social positioning. Dwelling on core signifiers in Portuguese and Umbundu, the paper describes the iterative chain of substitutions through which subjects have been constituted, that is, reduced and transformed. For instance, how are the Umbundu status signifiers ocimbundu and ocindele reduced in their respective translations as "black" and "white"? How can translation both re-enact and challenge the constitution of racialized and ethnicized categories of difference? How is this related to transformations in Angolan history? The argument put forth challenges the conventional understanding of social categories in the context of Portuguese colonialism in Angola by arguing that the performativity of naming and translation constitutes subjects via both fixation and displacement. Therefore, the possibility of transformation does not lie in the intentional action of subjects, but in their capacity to operate within the fractures of the relationship between language and society by drawing on disjunctions between signifier and signified, names and social positioning, subjective constitution and sociopolitical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses anti-fascist and anti-colonial political efforts carried out by white settlers in Angola, against Salazar's colonial dictatorship, between 1930 and 1945. It begins with an analysis of the origins and characteristics of the settlers' political protest, considering in particular the conflicted relationships between the colonists and the Estado Novo in the 1930s. The article then analyses the secessionist conspiracy in 1940/1941, which was promoted by a group of anti-fascist settlers in Angola, in close connection with the Union of South Africa. Additionally, the article deals with the action of an anti-colonial political organisation named Organização Socialista de Angola (OSA), which was the first Euro-African nationalist movement in Angola. OSA was mostly formed by young Angolan-born whites and mestiços, who demanded full political independence as well as the end of discrimination against all Angolans. However, OSA was severely repressed by the Portuguese authorities, and a number of anti-fascist settlers, including the Vicar General of the Catholic Church, were arrested and deported to Portugal. Nonetheless, despite the repression exerted by the dictatorship, the settlers' political protest, which was both anti-fascist and anti-colonial, had relevant repercussions in Angola, having contributed to the political structuring of Angolan nationalism in the 1940s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Minister of Justice, Francisca Van Dunem, spoke at the Intersectional Conference 2020 about incarceration and society. She highlighted the importance of institutions such as CEIS 20, CES, the Institute of Contemporary History, and the Faculty of Letters at the University of Coimbra in organizing the event. Van Dunem discussed intersectionality and the oppression faced by women, especially black women, and emphasized the need to combat all forms of discrimination. She shared her personal experience as a black woman born in Angola during the Portuguese colonial period. The text also addressed the history of colonization and apartheid in South Africa, as well as the racial and linguistic division imposed by the regime. The author mentioned their own experience as a mixed-race person during apartheid and highlighted the physical and symbolic violence suffered by black women during slavery. They also mentioned the strategy of divide and conquer used by colonial powers. The text made a comparison with the colonial reality in Angola, where there were distinct categories for indigenous people and assimilated people based on skin color. The author also mentioned the presence of the black population in Lisbon, which increased due to armed conflicts in the former Portuguese colonies. The text addressed the issue of racial and ethnic discrimination in Portugal, highlighting the persistence of these inequalities and the need to confront them. The author mentioned the existence of a belief system that perpetuates and institutionalizes itself, resulting in societies of enmity. The importance of fair and inclusive policies that consider the heterogeneity of the groups affected by discrimination was also mentioned. The text also presented data on the incarceration rate of foreign women in Portugal, which is higher than the European average. The author concluded by quoting James Baldwin and res [Extracted from the article]

In the second half of the seventeenth century, Italian Capuchin missionaries who traveled to West Central Africa both colluded in and critiqued Portuguese slave trading practices. Drawing from their experience on slave galleys in the Mediterranean and their medieval Franciscan heritage, Capuchins brought earlier concepts governing enslavement to bear in Central Africa. Examining Capuchin interventions in exchanges of goods and slaves, their declamations against Portuguese warmongering, their efforts to free unjustly enslaved Africans, and the ways in which they sought to prohibit slave sales to Protestants, this article positions this group of religious agents as important mediators of struggles for empire between the Portuguese, Dutch, British, French, and Spanish in precolonial coastal Africa and as protagonists in their own right. On the basis of the Capuchins' critique of economic gain and the Kongolese embrace of Catholicism, Capuchins crafted a counter discourse that, if only partially successful, challenged emerging models of Atlantic enslavement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1961 to 1972, the Angolan writer José Luandino Vieira was incarcerated by Portuguese colonial authorities because of his participation in the anticolonial struggle of Angola. In prison, he wrote most of his literary works, alongside a series of notebooks in which he reported his thoughts, feelings, literary and political considerations, etc. In 2015, after more than forty years after Vieira's release from prison, the notebooks were published in a volume titled Papéis da prisão. Apontamentos, diário, correspondência (1962–1971). In this article, I focus on how the book contributes to the debate on Angola's past by influencing how the years of the struggle for independence are perceived today and how they will be remembered in the future. I argue that Papéis is not simply a collection of the writer's intimate and personal memories as it bears witness to the experience of a larger community, a community that Vieira identifies with the Angolan nation. Briefly considering the political uses of memory, I show how Papéis stands apart from a crystallized official narrative of the anticolonial struggle, contributing to renewed discussions around Angola's past. These discussions aim to restore complexity, depth, and diversity to a narrative that is oversimplified and partisan. However, restoring complexity also implies showing the contradictions, conflicts, and tensions that emerged during the struggle. In this sense, the book is not a nostalgic tribute to the past, but rather a call to reflect on what the past still has to say to the present. Preso em 1961 pela sua participação no movimento pela independência de Angola, o escritor José Luandino Vieira ficaria recluso até 1972. Na prisão, Vieira escreveu a maior parte das suas obras, além de dezessete cadernos nos quais ia anotando pensamentos, impressões, considerações de ordem política e literária etc. Em 2015, quarenta anos depois de ter saído de prisão, Vieira publicou esses cadernos num volume intitulado Papéis da prisão. Apontamentos, diário , [End Page 54] correspondência (1962–1971). Neste artigo, examino como Papéis se insere no debate sobre o passado de Angola, tendo um impacto sobre como os anos da luta anticolonial são percebidos hoje e como podem ser recordados no futuro. Muito além de uma coletânea de lembranças íntimas e pessoais, Papéis é um livro que testemunha de uma experiência coletiva, a experiência de uma comunidade que Vieira identifica com a nação angolana. No artigo, mostro como Papéis se distancia de algumas narrativas sobre a luta anticolonial, restituindo complexidade e pluralidade a versões do passado que muitas vezes têm sido parciais e partidárias. Restituir complexidade, porém, também implica mostrar as contradições e os conflitos que surgiram durante a luta. Neste sentido, Papéis não é um tributo saudoso ao passado, mas um apelo a refletir sobre o que o passado ainda pode dizer ao presente. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, António Lobo Antunes released his 23rd novel: Comissão das lágrimas. In this work, the tense relationship between Portugal and its former colonies opens space for one of the bloodiest episodes in the history of Angola after its independence in 1974: the performance of a special military court that ended up popularly known by the name that gives the title to this novel. This article aims to demonstrate how, in this novel, images, like photographs and their understanding in the construction of trauma, also understood as hyper images, almost always built in a lyrical way, fulfill the role of syntheses or indexes of violence. The use of images meets contemporary demands, related to the discursive conditions of the other, historically silenced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1925 the Vatican Missionary Exhibition took place, presenting thousands of objects sent by Catholic missions around the world. Resulting from substantial efforts by the Church, the exhibition had a significant public impact, with an estimated one million visitors. It marked a critical moment in the international affirmation of the Church, as well as the reformulation and expansion of its missionary policy in the aftermath of the Great War. Catholic missions and congregations in the Portuguese colonial empire participated in the exhibition. This article focuses on the Angolan case, where the Congregation of the Holy Spirit was the main protagonist of Catholic missionisation. I examine the organisation process, the circulation of norms and objects across imperial borders, and their exhibition at the Vatican. I discuss the tensions between the pontifical message and Portuguese missionary politics, as well as the intermediary position that the Spiritans occupied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Departing from Marie-Louise Bastin's research visit to the Dundo Museum in 1956 and the publication of both volumes of Cokwe Decorative Arts (1961), I analyze contemporary recurrences of the context of production of categories of 'African art' and its consumption in Angola as 'national art'. The colonial context in which Cokwe material culture, classified as ethnography, become classified as art, enabled a transition which developed in relationship to a new policy of development of the Dundo Museum. The analysis of this process is critical to understand local and global relationships mediated by the category of African art and its colonial efficacy, as well as it is illuminating of present-day politics, expressed in art terms, in contemporary Angola. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reprint of the essay "The Lessons of Angola: An Eyewitness Report," by James Garrett, which appeared in the June 1976 issue of "Black Scholar," is presented. The article discusses the Angolan Revolution from 1961 to 1975, focusing on Angolan people's resistance to Portuguese colonialism. Topics discussed include the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) liberation movement, a military coup in Portugal in 1974, and African-American reactions to the revolution.

This essay analyses the circulation of political models and administrative practices drawn from the Enlightenment statecraft of metropolitan Portugal and their inscription in specific colonial contexts of Angola in the mid-eighteenth century. The purpose here is to show how these models had to be ‘unpacked’ when confronted with foreign contexts, reconfigured and even reinvented for local circumstances. During the 1750s, the Lisbon government conceived a new imperial project to territorialize the colony through the intellectual and physical appropriation of this Central African space. In order to do so, three levels of this administrative knowledge are distinguished: the quantification and systematization of information, cartography, and the archive. For each, this essay demonstrates how they were made available to, appropriated by or transformed by both the colonial and the African societies in the colonial context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important document in the Dutch Archives casts new light on the Kongo-Portuguese War of 1622, usually seen as a signal defeat for Kongo. This document shows that, after the Portuguese victory over Kongo at the Battle of Mbumbi, there was a second battle in which Kongo forces were victorious, and they in fact began the process of re-occupying lands the Portuguese had absorbed in earlier expansion. In addition, the document reveals the origins of a plan, conceived in Kongo, to form an alliance with the Dutch in order to attack Luanda and drive the Portuguese from Angola, a plan that was realized not in 1624 but in 1641. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]