Angola Roots of Discontent
Under the Salazar regime, Angolans who neither spoke
Portuguese nor behaved as Europeans, like this mother and child,
were classified as indígenas.
Courtesy Richard J. Hough
Portugal's assimilationist policy had produced a small
group of
educated Africans who considered themselves Portuguese.
But as this
group recognized that it was not fully respected by the
Portuguese
and as it became increasingly aware of its alienation from
its
traditional origins, some members began to articulate
resentment,
both of their own ambiguous social and cultural situations
and of
the plight of the nonassimilated majority of Africans.
From among
their ranks emerged most of the first generation of
liberation
movement leaders.
The influx of rural Africans to towns also bred
anticolonial
resentment. In the 1950s, the population of Luanda almost
doubled,
and most of the growth was among Africans. Lured by the
expectation
of work, Africans in towns became aware of the inequality
of
opportunities between Europeans and Africans. The
compulsory labor
system that many had experienced in rural areas was
regarded as the
most onerous aspect of Portuguese rule. More than any
other factor,
this system, which was not abolished until 1962, united
many
Africans in resentment of Portuguese rule.
The Salazar government's settlement policies
contributed to the
spread of anticolonial resentment, especially after 1945.
These
policies resulted in increased competition for employment
and
growing racial friction. Between 1955 and 1960, for
example, the
government brought from Portugal and the Cape Verde
Islands more
than 55,000 whites. Induced to emigrate by government
promises of
money and free houses, these peasants settled on
colonatos
(large agricultural communities). Many immigrants to the
colonatos were unskilled at farming, often lacked
an
elementary education, or were too old for vigorous manual
labor.
Consequently, many of them were unsuccessful on the
colonatos and, after a time, moved to towns where
they
competed with Africans, often successfully, for skilled
and
unskilled jobs. The Portuguese who held jobs of lower
social status
often felt it all the more necessary to claim social
superiority
over the Africans.
External events also played a role in the development
of the
independence movements. While most European powers were
preparing
to grant independence to their African colonies, the
Salazar regime
was seeking to reassert its grasp on its colonies, as
witnessed by
the effort it expended in the ill-fated colonatos
system.
There were two basic patterns in the rise of
nationalism in
Angola. In one case, African assimilados and other
urban
Africans with some education joined urban mestiços
and
whites in associations based on the assumption that their
interests
were different from, and perhaps in competition with,
those of the
majority of the African population still attached to their
rural
communities. Angolans also formed organizations based on
ethnic or
religious groupings that encompassed or at least sought to
include
rural Africans, although the leaders of these
organizations often
had some education and urban experience.
Data as of February 1989
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