history of Angola

history of Angola, a survey of the notable events and people in the history of Angola, focusing on the late 15th century to the present day. The country is located in southwestern Africa along the Atlantic coast. Angola’s large territory takes in a broad variety of landscapes, including the semidesert Atlantic littoral bordering Namibia’s “Skeleton Coast,” the sparsely populated rainforest interior, the rugged highlands of the south, the Cabinda exclave in the north, and the densely settled towns and cities of the northern coast and north-central river valleys. The capital and commercial centre is Luanda, a large port city on the northern coast that blends Portuguese-style colonial landmarks with traditional African housing styles and modern industrial complexes.

Early Angola

This discussion mainly focuses on Angola since the late 15th century. For a treatment of earlier periods and of the country in its regional context, see Southern Africa.

Most of the modern population of Angola developed from the agricultural cultures that appeared there from about 1000 to 500 bce, which by the first centuries ce were also working iron. These people probably spoke the ancestral versions of Angola’s present languages. Complex societies also may have been established at that time, and by 1500 several large kingdoms occupied the territory of Angola. Of these, Kongo, situated in the northern part of the country, south of the Congo River, was the largest and most centralized. Ndongo, with its centre in the highlands between the Cuanza (Kwanza) and the Lukala rivers, was an important rival. Other states, such as the kingdom of Benguela on the Bié Plateau, are less well known. Smaller states, including Bailundu, Ciyaka, and Kwanhama, were scattered between the larger kingdoms, sometimes remaining independent, sometimes falling under control of the larger kingdoms. The Chokwe, although they did not have a centralized government, established an important cultural centre in the northeastern part of the country.

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Angola: History of Angola

The Kongo kingdom and the coming of the Portuguese

The Kongo kingdom, the most powerful state to develop in the region, emerged in the 14th century as the Kongo people moved southward from the Congo River region into northern Angola. There they established Mbanza Kongo as their capital. Portuguese navigators reached Kongo, in the northwest, in 1483 and entered into diplomatic relations with the kingdom after that. Moreover, Kongo’s king converted to Christianity, and his son Mvemba a Nzinga took the Christian name of Afonso I, establishing the religion permanently in the country, along with literacy in Portuguese and European customs. Disputes over control of trade, particularly regarding enslaved people from Kongo and its neighbours, led the Portuguese to look for new allies, especially the Ndongo kingdom. After undertaking several missions there, the Portuguese established a colony at Luanda in 1575. Subsequent wars with Ndongo, particularly after 1617, brought the Portuguese significantly more territory, despite the resistance of Queen Nzinga Mbande of Ndongo and Matamba. Portuguese expansion was largely over by 1670, and further conflict involved attempts to redirect or tax trade.

Enslaved people were Angola’s major export, and Portugal was actively involved in their acquisition, more so from the late 17th century. People were also enslaved through inter-African conflicts, such as the civil wars in Kongo after 1665, and conflicts that occurred during the rise of the great Lunda empire after 1750, in the Dembos region between Kongo and Matamba, and on the Bié Plateau. Population losses were considerable, and the demography was badly distorted; censuses from the late 18th century show that there were twice as many adult females as males.

The expansion of the slave trade was but one of several factors that played a role in the rise and fall of the region’s kingdoms. Beset by civil wars, Kongo entered into a steep decline in the 17th century. The Loango kingdom flourished north of the Congo estuary until it was decentralized by the late 18th century. The Ndongo kingdom in the Malanje highlands reached its height in the late 16th century but was destroyed when the Portuguese pushed inland in the 17th century and was replaced by the Kasanje kingdom in the Cuango (Kwango) River valley.

Colonial transition in Angola, 1820s–1910

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the port of Cabinda was a major entrepôt, where enslaved people were an important commodity. The export of enslaved people was banned in Angola in 1836, but the trade did not end until the Brazilian market was closed in the early 1850s. Slavery itself was legally abolished in the Portuguese empire in 1875, but it continued in thinly disguised forms until 1911 and in many cases into the 1960s. Enslaved people were exported to the coffee and cocoa plantations of São Tomé from the 1860s and were used in Angola to produce coffee, cotton, sugar, and fish. But from the 1850s, exports came to be dominated by products hunted or collected by Africans, first ivory and wax and later wild rubber. These changes came about as the industrial revolution reorganized the world economy, and items such as cloth and metal goods were now available for import and at less expense than in the past. Africans responded to this by ceasing local production of these goods and instead paying for the imported versions with commodity exports of peanuts and wild products such as honey, animal skins, ivory, and eventually rubber.

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The slave trade had primarily been a state business and did not greatly affect the local communities from an economic standpoint. In contrast, this new trade involved the whole population: hundreds of thousands of people were employed in the transport and production of these commodities, and their increasing wealth, involvement in the international economy, and interest in commercial policies led to many problems for both indigenous and colonial governments. The Ovimbundu turned from raiding for people to enslave to long-distance trade, and their caravans penetrated as far east as the East African coast. The Chokwe were expert hunters of elephants and collectors of wax and rubber, and they used their accumulated firearms to overthrow the Lunda empire in the 1880s. The Kasanje kingdom collapsed when illicit slave trading undermined the king’s central slave market and newly enriched commoners demanded a stronger voice in government.

Angolans closer to the coast were more affected by the slow expansion of Portuguese colonialism and by the loss of land to settlers. Cotton and sugar were grown from the 1840s on oasis plantations along the coastal strip, and immigrants from the Algarve built up the fishing industry. Spontaneously occurring stands of coffee led the Portuguese to carve out plantations in the Malanje highlands beginning in the 1830s, and work on the railway from Luanda to Malanje commenced in 1885. Construction began in 1902 on the Benguela Railway, which was intended to serve the Katanga mines in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Portuguese small farmers were settled in the Huíla highlands from the 1880s to counterbalance an influx of Boer trekkers from South Africa, and the southern railway was begun in 1905. In the Maiombe forest of the far north, plantations of cacao and oil palms were laid out in the 1900s.

Angola’s borders, including those for Cabinda (an exclave located between the countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo), had been finally determined by negotiations in Europe in 1891, but the Portuguese focused exclusively on administering areas with plantations and railways and introduced systematic taxation of Africans only in 1906. Many positions in the colonial administration were held by Angolan Creoles, who were initially accepted as full Portuguese citizens. The spread of British and American Protestant missions from the 1870s was countered by government-subsidized French Roman Catholic missions.

Angola from colonial conquest to independence, 1910–75

The proclamation of the Republic of Portugal in Lisbon in late 1910, followed in 1926 by the creation of the authoritarian New State (Estado Novo), marked the advent of modern Portuguese colonialism. The authorities stamped out slavery and undertook the systematic conquest of Angola. By 1920 all but the remote southeast of the colony was firmly under Portuguese control. Kingdoms were abolished, and the Portuguese worked directly through chiefs, headmen, and African policemen. Conversions to Christianity increased, and by 1940 there were about a million Christians in Angola, some three-fourths of them Roman Catholics. Angolan “natives” were taxed and subjected to forced labour and forced cultivation, with a stringent set of tests imposed on the few non-white “assimilated persons” who applied to be exempted from these impositions. Increasingly, Portuguese immigrants replaced Creoles in the administration. This trend continued, forcing Creoles into positions with lower pay and prestige and ultimately leading to the growth of Creole-led nationalism.

Angola’s economy was modernized and bound to that of Portugal by a system of protective tariffs. A network of dirt roads was built, and the Benguela Railway was completed to the boundary of the Belgian Congo in 1928. Lorries (trucks) and fixed stores replaced trading caravans. Coffee, sugar, palm products, and sisal came mainly from the estate sector, and corn (maize) and cattle from smallholders. The cultivation of cotton for Portuguese textile mills was imposed by force. Alluvial diamond mining dominated the northeast from 1912, the fishing industry expanded, and import-substitution industries were started.

After the independence of the Belgian Congo in 1960, a major revolt rocked northern Angola in 1961; it was followed by a long guerrilla war. Land alienation and forced labour sparked rebellion in the coffee zone, while in the Cuango valley the peasants rose against forced cotton cultivation. Frustrated Creoles led an attack on the prison in Luanda. To contain the revolt, the Portuguese deployed large numbers of troops, set up strategic hamlets (forced settlements of rural Angolans), and, by encouraging Portuguese peasants to immigrate to Angola, raised the European population to about 330,000 by 1974. At the same time, they tried to improve relations with Africans by abolishing forced cultivation, forced labour, and the stringent tests to gain assimilated status. They also improved education, health, and social welfare services and protected peasants from land alienation. The economy entered into a period of sustained boom, marked by rapid industrialization and the growth of oil production, and the standard of living rose for both urban workers and rural producers.

The armed struggle continued, but the anticolonial guerrillas were seriously weakened by dissension. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola; MPLA) was founded in 1956 with the help of the clandestine Portuguese Communist Party, and from 1962 it was led by Agostinho Neto. It was popular in Luanda and among some rural Mbundu, drawing foreign support from the Soviet Union. Initially based in the Republic of the Congo, the MPLA moved to Zambia in 1965. The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola; FNLA), founded in 1957 under another name and led by Holden Roberto, drew its support from the Kongo and some rural Mbundu. Based in Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo; called Zaire from 1971 to 1997), the FNLA obtained aid from the United States and China. In 1966 Jonas Savimbi set up a third movement, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola; UNITA), with a predominantly Ovimbundu leadership and with some support from the Chokwe and Ovambo (Ambo). UNITA enjoyed little official foreign backing (although China provided some aid) and lacked a secure foreign base because Zambia leaned toward the MPLA. The divisions between and within these three movements, which at times degenerated into armed conflict, allowed the Portuguese to gain the upper hand by the early 1970s. When a military coup in Portugal overthrew that country’s dictatorship in April 1974, all three guerrilla movements had been almost entirely expelled from Angolan soil.

Independent Angola and civil war

The three liberation movements proved unable to constitute a united front after the Portuguese coup. The FNLA’s internal support had dwindled to a few Kongo groups, but it had strong links with the regime in Zaire and was well armed; it thus made a bid to seize Luanda by force. The MPLA, with growing backing from the Portuguese Communist Party, Cuba, and the Soviet Union, defeated this onslaught and then turned on UNITA, chasing its representatives out of Luanda. UNITA was militarily the weakest movement, but it had the greatest potential electoral support, given the predominance of the Ovimbundu within the population, and it thus held out most strongly for elections. But the Portuguese army was tired of war and refused to impose peace and supervise elections. The Portuguese therefore withdrew from Angola in November 1975 without formally handing power to any movement, and nearly all the European settlers fled the country.

The MPLA, in control of the capital city, declared itself the government of independent Angola and managed to win recognition from many African countries. UNITA and the FNLA set up a rival government in Huambo and called on South African forces to eject the MPLA from Luanda. Cuba poured in troops to defend the MPLA, pushed the internationally isolated South Africans out of Angola, and gained control of all the provincial capitals. The Cuban expeditionary force, which eventually numbered some 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers, remained in Angola to pacify the country and ward off South African attacks. In 1977 the MPLA crushed an attempted coup by one of its leaders and, after a thorough purge, turned itself officially into a Marxist-Leninist party, adding Partido Trabalhista (Party of Labour) to their name (MPLA-PT). The transformation of the economy along communist lines was pursued, with disastrous results. The major exception was the oil industry, which, managed by foreign companies, grew rapidly enough to enable Angola to stave off economic and military collapse. President Neto died in 1979 and was succeeded by the former minister of planning, José Eduardo dos Santos.

The FNLA withered away in exile, but UNITA reorganized itself with foreign backing as an effective guerrilla force. South Africa became a strong supporter in hopes that UNITA could counter the guerrilla campaigns of the South West Africa People’s Organization into Namibia, actions supported by the MPLA-PT. In 1985 UNITA began receiving military aid from the United States, and its campaigns became more effective. When the MPLA-PT launched several large campaigns against UNITA in 1987, using armour and aircraft, South African forces returned to the region, and a military stalemate resulted as fighting engulfed the country. But late in 1988 the South Africans promised to grant independence to Namibia and to cease supporting UNITA, while the Cubans agreed to withdraw their expeditionary force from Angola by mid-1991. The MPLA-PT’s initial response to the South African withdrawal was to try to capture the airfield at Mavinga, from which it would be able to launch an attack against UNITA’s headquarters. The failure of this costly campaign and the increasingly effective UNITA attacks on oil installations forced the MPLA-PT to adopt a more conciliatory posture. In June 1989 a historic meeting between Santos and Savimbi during negotiations brokered by Zaire produced a cease-fire, although it did not last; but with communist regimes collapsing in eastern Europe, the MPLA-PT lost its support and began negotiating more seriously. In mid-1990 the MPLA-PT abandoned the one-party state and produced a new constitution that included elections and participation by all, including UNITA. They also abandoned their strict Marxist-Leninist stance and dropped the words Partido Trabalhista (PT) from their name. Elections were held in 1992 under United Nations supervision; dos Santos was elected president, and the MPLA gained a majority in the parliament, but UNITA made a strong showing, especially on the Bié Plateau. Charging election fraud, UNITA renewed the civil war, while its delegates in Luanda were massacred in a popular uprising that many believe had government backing.

The exclave of Cabinda became another focus of attention for postindependence government. Although this region is situated geographically between the countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo, Portugal gained control of it at the end of the 19th century. Cabinda was specifically made a part of Angola in 1975, but the Angolan government had to contend with independence movements there until the late 1980s. The region is particularly valuable because a significant amount of Angola’s oil is found there.

At the end of 1992, UNITA controlled approximately two-thirds of the country, including valuable diamond mines that were used to pay for the continuing costs of the war. Fighting raged throughout 1993 as the government gradually regained territory and won greater support abroad; both South Africa and the United States recognized the government of Angola in 1993, as did the United Kingdom by ending an arms embargo that had existed since 1975. Meanwhile, international pressure mounted on the two sides to reach a peaceful solution. Sanctions against UNITA were imposed by the UN in September 1993 after it disregarded a cease-fire it had accepted earlier, but it appeared that UNITA could continue the war for some time with its vast stockpile of weapons. Eventually, an agreement called the Lusaka Accord was signed by the government and UNITA on November 20, 1994. The agreement allowed UNITA to be reintegrated into the government, provided fighting ceased on that date. Although minor fighting between the two groups continued, dos Santos and Savimbi met several times over the next three years to resolve issues relating to the final form of the combined government. In August 1996 Savimbi finally agreed to accept the title of “leader of the opposition,” but he declined to attend a ceremony in April 1997 at which UNITA delegates formally joined the government. Relations between the two groups were further complicated that year by the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. UNITA supported the crumbling Zairean regime because the group had been able to transport its diamonds through the country, while the Angolan government supported the victorious rebels led by Laurent Kabila.

Angola in the 21st century

By the beginning of the 21st century, hostilities between the government and UNITA had resumed, and the UNITA delegates had been expelled from the government. With the killing of Savimbi by government forces in February 2002, talks began again between the UNITA leadership and the government, finally culminating in a peace agreement in April. Although the country breathed a collective sigh of relief with the end of 27 years of civil war, the Angolan government was faced with the daunting challenge of rebuilding the country’s physical and social welfare infrastructure, much of which was completely destroyed. In the early 21st century, there were repeated outbreaks of illness, such as cholera, due to poor sanitary conditions; there was also an epidemic of hemorrhagic fever caused by the deadly Marburg virus in 2005. It was estimated that the civil war had displaced more than four million people, and hundreds of thousands of Angolan refugees still needed to be resettled in the country. The resumption of agricultural production was also a challenge, further complicated by the thousands of land mines that were strewn haphazardly throughout the country during the conflict. The Angolan government also had to address the long-standing issue of separatist groups in oil-rich Cabinda and their demands for independence, which intensified in 2004. When the government and the main separatist group reached a peace agreement in 2006, Angolans looked to the future, hopeful that peace had finally come.

Highly anticipated multiparty parliamentary elections—the first since 1992—were held on September 5–6, 2008. Although there were some reports of fraud and intimidation, the elections were deemed valid by international observers, and the MPLA won about four-fifths of the vote. The long-awaited presidential election, however, was postponed. A new constitution promulgated in 2010 eliminated the direct election of the president and instead provided for the presidential post to be filled by the leader of the party with the largest share of the vote in parliamentary elections. Dos Santos was to remain president until the next round of elections, scheduled for 2012.

The MPLA easily scored an outright parliamentary majority in the August 31, 2012, elections, winning almost three-quarters of the seats, and dos Santos secured another five years as president. UNITA came in second, winning about one-fifth of the seats. The 2012 elections marked the debut of the Broad Convergence for Angola’s Salvation–Electoral Coalition (Convergência Ampla de Salvação de Angola–Coligação Eleitoral; CASA-CE), which had split from UNITA earlier that year; it came in third, garnering 6 percent of the parliamentary seats.

Long-standing issues of wealth inequality, widespread corruption, and human rights abuses continued to plague Angola. More than a decade after the end of the civil war, about two-fifths of the country still lived below the poverty line, even though the country had become flush with money from oil production since the war’s end. Billions of dollars that could have gone toward improving the living conditions of Angolans had been lost to corruption over the years via such methods as embezzlement, questionable business deals or partnerships, and kickbacks. Many of the beneficiaries of corruption were high-profile individuals—including President dos Santos, his family members, and close associates—and there were little or no repercussions to those profiting at the expense of the rest of the country. Angola’s oil-dependent economy was vulnerable to global drops in oil prices, such as those that began in late 2008 and in 2014. Falling oil prices led to considerable budget shortfalls and presented economic challenges; it also highlighted the need for a greater diversification of the economy, which the government did pursue with limited success.

Faced with activists raising allegations of corruption and human rights abuses as well as protesters demonstrating against the government, dos Santos’s administration grew increasingly intolerant of criticism or dissent and came under fire from international rights groups for its heavy-handed responses. Those investigating the allegations of corruption and human rights abuses, such as prominent activist and journalist Rafael Marques de Morais, were often harassed, intimidated, and subject to questionable legal action.

Fighting in Cabinda, which had been largely sporadic since the 2006 peace agreement, surged in 2016, when the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) increased the frequency of its attacks. The next year the group urged a boycott in Cabinda of Angola’s general elections, which were scheduled to be held in August 2017.

Speculation as to who would eventually succeed dos Santos as president of Angola had been rampant for years and gathered steam in 2016 when he announced his plans to retire from politics in 2018. One previous heir apparent, Vice President Manuel Vicente, had become embroiled in a lengthy corruption investigation in Portugal that culminated in legal charges being filed against him there in 2017. Many analysts thought dos Santos had been grooming one of his children to succeed him: in particular, either Isabel, whom he appointed head of the country’s oil company, Sonangol, in 2016; or José Filomeno (also known as Zenu), whom he appointed head of the country’s sovereign wealth fund in 2013. Both appointments were controversial. In late 2016 there were rumours that João Lourenço, a longtime member of the MPLA who currently served as vice president of the party and as the country’s minister of defense, would be named as the party’s presidential candidate in the upcoming election; this was confirmed by the MPLA in February 2017.

The general election, held on August 23, 2017, was largely peaceful. Two days later the electoral commission released provisional results based on almost 98 percent of the ballots being counted. The MPLA had secured about three-fifths of the vote, and, as such, Lourenço would be the country’s next president. UNITA and CASA-CE rejected the results. They and other opposition groups cited many alleged irregularities and asked for a recount, but the electoral commission dismissed their complaints. The final results, released on September 6, largely mirrored the previous ones: the MPLA had won more than 61 percent of the vote, giving it a majority in parliament and securing Lourenço’s status as the president-elect. UNITA had won about 27 percent, and CASA-CE had won almost 10 percent. UNITA, CASA-CE, and two other opposition parties took their allegations of irregularities to the country’s Constitutional Court. The court, however, dismissed the petitions and upheld the results of the election.

On September 26, 2017, dos Santos, who had served as Angola’s president since 1979, stepped down, and Lourenço was inaugurated. Although dos Santos was no longer president of the country, he remained the leader of the ruling MPLA, allowing him to retain political influence and power. This did not deter Lourenço from purging many of dos Santos’s allies and family members from high-ranking posts, as the new president moved to affirm his power as well as crack down on corruption; casualties included dos Santos’s daughter Isabel, who was dismissed from Sonangol in November 2017, and his son José Filomeno, who was dismissed as head of the country’s sovereign wealth fund in January 2018. In March José Filomeno was charged with having committed fraud relating to his actions while heading the sovereign wealth fund; he was convicted in 2020 and sentenced to five years in jail.

Although dos Santos had intended to remain head of the MPLA until December 2018 or April 2019, he stepped down in September 2018 at the urging of Lourenço and his allies in the party. He was succeeded by Lourenço. Dos Santos moved abroad, and in July 2022 he died in Spain. After a delay due to a legal battle among family members over where he should be buried, his body was returned to Angola, and a funeral was held in Luanda on August 28.

Meanwhile, the country’s general election was held on August 24 and was noteworthy for being the first election in which Angolans living abroad were allowed to vote. Seven parties and one coalition participated in the election, with the MPLA and UNITA being the frontrunners. The fight against corruption was one of the issues raised during the campaign: Lourenço had promised to crack down on corrupt activities when he came into office in 2017. While he was able to point to the government’s prosecution of high-profile corruption cases as evidence of his progress on that front, critics alleged ongoing corruption among some of his allies and said that the government’s efforts had not gone far enough. It was the country’s economy, however, that was the overriding concern for most Angolans, as there were high rates of unemployment, especially among young people, and much of the population still experienced poverty in spite of the country’s oil wealth. Young people in particular were unhappy with the performance of Lourenço and the MPLA-led government and overwhelmingly supported UNITA in preelection polls.

The official election results, released on August 29, showed that the MPLA received 51.17 percent of the vote, while UNITA won 43.95 percent—its best performance to date. Similar to the last election, both UNITA and CASA-CE rejected the results and filed complaints, first with the electoral commission, which dismissed them, and then with the Constitutional Court. The court also dismissed them and then validated the results. Lourenço was sworn in for a second term on September 15, 2022.