Portuguese West Africa

Infobox Former Country
native_name = Provincía Ultramarina de Angola
conventional_long_name= Overseas Province of Angola
common_name = Angola
continent = Africa
region = Southwest Africa
country = Angola
empire = Portugal
status = Colony
era = Imperialism
event_start =
year_start = 1655
date_start =
event_end = Fall of Portuguese Empire
year_end = 1975
date_end = November 11
p1 = Kingdom of Kongo
flag_p1 = KingdomOfKongoFlag.pngp2 = Kingdom of Ndongo
p3 = Lunda Empire
s1 = Angola
flag_s1 = Flag of Angola.svg

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image_map_caption = Portuguese West Africa (Angola and Cabinda)
capital = Luanda |latd=2|latm=11|lats=20|latNS=N|longd=102|longm=23|longs=4|longEW=E
common_languages = Portuguese
government_type =
title_leader = Head of state
leader1 = John IV of Portugal, king
year_leader1 = 1640-1656
leader2 = Francisco da Costa Gomes, president
year_leader2 = 1974-1975
title_representative = Governor-general
representative1 = Manuel Bernardo Vidal
year_representative1 = 1837-1839 (first)
representative2 = Leonel Alexandre Gomes Cardoso
year_representative2 = 1975 (last)
title_deputy = Governor
deputy1 = Luís Serrão
year_deputy1 = 1589-1591 (first)
deputy2 = Domingos de Saldanha Oliveira e Daun
year_deputy2 = 1836- (last)
currency = Angolan escudo

Angola was the name of the Portuguese overseas colonies and later a Portuguese overseas province on the south-west African coast, which now form the republic of Angola.

History

The colonial history of Angola lasted from its annexation as a colony in 1655 until its designation as an overseas province, effective October 20, 1951.

While Portugal defeated the Kongo Kingdom in the Battle of Mbwila on October 29, 1665, but the Portuguese suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Kitombo when they tried to invade Kongo in 1670. Full Portuguese administrative control of the interior was not achieved until the beginning of the twentieth century. However, fortified Portuguese towns like those of Luanda (established in 1575 with 400 Portuguese settlers) and Benguela (a fort from 1587, a town from 1617) remained almost continuously in Portuguese hands until the independence of Angola in 1975.

In 1884 Britain, which up to that time had steadily refused to acknowledge that Portugal possessed territorial rights north of Ambriz, concluded a treaty recognizing Portuguese sovereignty over both banks of the lower Congo, but the treaty, meeting with opposition in England and Germany, was not ratified. Agreements concluded with the Congo Free State, the German Empire and France in 1885-1886 fixed the limits of the province, except in the south-east, where the frontier between Barotseland (north-west Rhodesia) and Angola was determined by an Anglo-Portuguese agreement of 1891 and the arbitration award of the King of Italy in 1905.

ee also

*History of Angola
*1940s in Angola
*1950s in Angola
*Portuguese East Africa