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Angola Bakongo
The Kikongo-speaking Bakongo made up an estimated 15
percent of
the Angolan population. In 1988 the Bakongo were the third
largest
ethnolinguistic group in Angola. Concentrated in Uíge,
Zaire, and
Cabinda provinces, where they constituted a majority of
the
population, the Bakongo spilled over into the nation of
Zaire
(where they were the largest single ethnic group) and
Congo.
Although the Angolan city of São Salvador (renamed Mbanza
Congo)
was the capital of their ancient kingdom, most of the
Bakongo were
situated in Zaire.
Their former political unity long broken, the various
segments
of the ethnolinguistic category in Angola experienced
quite
different influences in the colonial period. The
Bashikongo, living
near the coast, had the most sustained interaction with
the
Portuguese but were less affected by participation in the
coffee
economy than the Sosso and Pombo, who were situated
farther east
and south. All three groups, however, were involved in the
uprising
of 1961. The Pombo, still farther east but close to the
Zairian
border, were much influenced by developments in the
Belgian Congo
(present-day Zaire), and a large contingent of Pombo
living in
Léopoldville (present-day Kinshasa) formed a political
party in the
early 1950s. The Solongo, dwelling on the relatively dry
coastal
plain, had little contact with the Portuguese. They and
the
Ashiluanda of the island of Luanda, to the south, were
Angola's
only African sea fishermen.
The Mayombe (also spelled Maiombe) of the mountain
forests of
Cabinda spoke a dialect of Kikongo but were not part of
the ancient
kingdom. That part of the Mayombe living in Zaire did join
with the
Zairian Bakongo in the Alliance of Bakongo (Alliance des
Bakongo--
Abako) during the period of party formation in the Belgian
Congo,
but the Cabindan Mayombe (and other Kikongo-speaking
groups in the
enclave), relatively remote geographically and culturally
from the
Bakongo of Angola proper, showed no solidarity with the
latter.
Instead, in 1961 the Mayombe formed a Cabindan separatist
movement,
the Alliance of Mayombe (Alliance de Mayombe--Alliama),
which
merged with two other Cabindan separatist movements in
1963 to form
the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda
(Frente para
a Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda--FLEC).
One of the first major revolts of the nationalist
struggle was
instigated by Bakongo in March 1961 in the northwest. The
Portuguese crushed the peasant attack, organized by the
Bakongo
group, the Union of Angolan Peoples (União das Populações
de Angola
-- UPA), on their settlements, farms, and administrative
outposts.
Subsequently, 400,000 Bakongo fled into Zaire. In 1962 the
UPA
formed the National Front for the Liberation of Angola
(Frente
Nacional de Libertação de Angola -- FNLA), which became
one of the
three major nationalist groups (the other two being the
MPLA and
UNITA) involved in the long and bloody war of
independence. Most of
the FNLA's traditional Bakongo constituency fled into
exile in
Zaire during the war. Following independence, however,
many Bakongo
exiles returned to their traditional homesteads in Angola.
They had
since retained their ethnolinguistic integrity.
Data as of February 1989
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