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Angola EVOLUTION OF THE ARMED FORCES
Background
Throughout history, relationships based on conflict,
conquest,
and exploitation existed among the Angolan peoples as well
as
between Angolans and their Portuguese colonizers.
Following the
initial contacts in the 1480s between Portugal and the
Kongo and
Ndongo kingdoms, relations were peaceful. However, by the
early
sixteenth century Angolans were enslaving Angolans for the
purpose
of trading them for Portuguese goods. This commerce in
human beings
stimulated a series of wars
(see Precolonial Angola and the Arrival of the Portuguese
, ch. 1). The Portuguese eventually
intervened
militarily in the kingdoms' affairs and subsequently
conquered and
colonized Kongo and Ndongo. Whereas warfare among Africans
traditionally had been limited in purpose, scale,
intensity,
duration, and destructiveness, the wars of slavery and
Portuguese
conquest were conducted with few restraints.
Intra-African and Portuguese-African warfare continued
from the
seventeenth to the nineteenth century, as the slave and
firearms
trade penetrated the hinterland and Portugal attempted to
extend
its territorial control and mercantile interests. War and
commerce
were the principal occupations of the Portuguese settlers,
who
represented the worst elements of their own society.
Portugal was
the first European nation to use deported convicts
(degredados--see Glossary) to explore, conquer, and
exploit
an overseas empire. But unlike other European penal
exiles, who
were mostly impoverished petty criminals, these Portuguese
exiles
were the most serious offenders. By the mid-seventeenth
century,
virtually all non-African army, police, and commercial
activities
were dominated by the degredados. Indeed, until the
early
twentieth century the great majority of Portuguese in
Angola were
exiled convicts
(see Settlement, Conquest, and Development
, ch. 1).
During the nineteenth century, the degredados
expanded
and consolidated their hold on the political, military,
and
economic life of the territory. In 1822 degredado
renegades
joined garrison troops in Luanda in revolting against the
Portuguese governor and setting up a junta. The
degredados
comprised the bulk of the Portuguese resident military and
police
forces, both of which engaged in plunder and extortion. In
the
1870s, there were about 3,600 Portuguese officers and men
stationed
in Angola, and this number increased to 4,900 by the turn
of the
century. These were supplemented by African soldiers,
auxiliaries,
and Boer immigrants.
In contrast to the earlier pattern of episodic military
campaigns with transient effect, the early twentieth
century
brought systematic conquest and the imposition of direct
colonial
rule. Taxation, forced labor, and intensified military
recruitment
were introduced. Although Portuguese policy officially
permitted
the assimilation of Africans, virtually all officers and
noncommissioned officers remained white or
mestiço
(see Glossary). During the dictatorship of António Salazar
(1932-68),
the Portuguese army in Angola was 60 percent to 80 percent
African,
but not a single black Angolan achieved officer rank
(see Angola under the Salazar Regime
, ch. 1).
Data as of February 1989
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