Angola is a country of many rivers, the most important of which are the Okavango (in the southeast), 975 kilometers long, and the Cuanza (in the north), 960 kilometers long. Along the latter once ran the largest slave route in the history of the world. The slaves were marched to Luanda, which in turn was the world’s principal port of slave embarkation. The other important river: Cunene (in the south), 945 kilometers long. Constructed along it is a system of twenty-nine hydroelectric dams, which supply energy to South Africa and especially to Namibia. Namibia was a South African colony until 1990; the official motive for the intervention by South African troops in Angola was the protection of the Cunene dam system, without which the Namibian economy would collapse.
The country is divided into four climatic spheres, which vary significantly in temperature and humidity: semi-tropical, in the northeast; moderately hot in the southeast; desert in the southwest; tropical in the west.
There are two seasons in Angola: the rainy season, from November to May, with most rainfall coming between January and April; and the dry season, the so-called cacimbo, from June until October. Activity throughout the country is at its peak during the dry season, and subsides during the rainy months (especially in areas without paved roads, and where traditional agriculture is still practiced).
A significant part of Angola’s surface is covered with forests: thick, humid, tropical (mainly in the north), or sparse, low, dry bush (in the east and south). There are many wild animals: elephants, giraffes, lions, leopards, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, antelopes, hyenas, jackals, monkeys. There are also lots of kinds of birds: parrots, pelicans, marabous, vultures, hornbills, barbets, flycatchers, etc. Reptiles abound: crocodiles, pythons, rattlesnakes, spectacled snakes, mambas, anacondas, green and black cobras. And where the soil is rich and the climate warm, all manner of flowers and fruit grow.
Angola is a country of enormous natural riches, possessing all the major raw materials needed for the modern economy. A number of them had begun to be mined in the years before independence, although on a relatively small scale. In 1973, in the order of their contributions to the country’s GNP, the main export products were: oil (30 percent), coffee (21 percent), diamonds (10 percent), iron ore (6 percent). Furthermore, Angola exports cotton, sisal, corn, hides, fruit products. The last years before independence saw a rapid increase in foreign capital, especially North American, being poured into the country. Between 1969 and 1973, the value of Angola’s exports doubled, especially as a result of the extraction of oil in the province of Cabinda, known as the African Kuwait.
Angola is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. In 1970, it had 5,673,046 inhabitants, including more than half a million European settlers, mainly Portuguese. The number of European inhabitants increased rapidly after World War II, especially during the last phase of colonialism. In 1940, 44,000 Europeans lived in Angola; in 1960, there were 170,000; in the next fourteen years, that number grew by another 350,000. Some were soldiers in the Portuguese army, which in the final years of the colonial war numbered more than 70,000. A significant percentage were landless peasants and impoverished members of the lower middle class, whom the governments of Salazar and Caetano dispatched to Angola so they could improve their lot in the colony, trying thereby to defuse social tensions in the metropolis. A portion of these people continued to live in poverty, however; in Luanda one could see white children begging in the streets, a sight unimaginable in other African states.
More than 95 percent of Angola’s European inhabitants left in 1975, going to Portugal and other countries, especially Brazil. Some of them are now returning.
Angola’s African population is overwhelmingly Bantu and is divided into more than one hundred tribes, of which the main ones are Ovimbundu, Kimbundu, Bakongo, Lunda, and Nganguela. These five tribes constitute about 80 percent of Angola’s population. The remaining tribes are small, some of them numbering barely several thousand people, others ten thousand or so. More than half of Angola’s inhabitants are followers of various African religions, 35 percent are Catholics, and 13 percent are Protestants. Intertribal conflicts and wars make up a large chapter in this country’s history. They played a significant role in the Angolan war of 1975–76.
There are many reasons for Angola’s low population. For three centuries, a substantial number of inhabitants were enslaved and exported to the other hemisphere. In Angola itself, various forms of slavery survived as late as 1962, in the guise of a system of forced labor. Another cause of the country’s depopulation was the emigration of large numbers of its African inhabitants — around 700,000— mainly to Congo (Zaïre), Namibia, and the Republic of South Africa. Universal malnutrition and the lack of even the most rudimentary health care also contributed to the country’s low demographics.
Angola’s African population was profoundly neglected and abused for centuries. The colonial powers maintained it at the lowest possible nutritional and cultural level. The Angolans constitute one of the poorest societies in Africa. More than 90 percent are illiterate. Only 10 percent of blacks live in cities. Angola is a land of indigent and hungry peasants. A significant portion of these people continue to live in a subsistence economy, an economy of so-called selfsufficiency — or rather, of near-destitution.
Angola’s population is unevenly dispersed. More than half its inhabitants live in an area that constitutes barely nine percent of the country’s territory. Ninety-one percent live on lands that occupy less than half (47 percent) of its terrain.
The main cities, according to the 1970 census, are: Luanda (“the oldest European city in Africa south of the Sahara”— John Gunther), approximately half a million inhabitants; Huambo (62,000); Lobito (60,000); Benguela (41,000); Lubango (32,000); Malanje (32,000); Cabinda (22,000).
It is worth pointing out, since it is not widely known, that Angola is a multiracial society, including many white people, as well as many mulattos of all shades. There are several white ministers in Angola’s government, one frequently encounters white soldiers in the army, and whites constitute a sizeable portion of the inhabitants of cities and villages.
In 1482, the Portuguese captain Diogo Cão arrived at the mouth of the Congo River. At the time, the great African kingdom of Congo flourished here, with its capital at Mbanza known in Portuguese times as São Salvador and today called M’banza Congo. In 1975, São Salvador was a small, provincial town, the capital of the Angolan province of Zaïre, from which hails Holden Roberto and nearly the entire leadership of the FNLA. The year in which Diogo Cão reached the kingdom of Congo can be said to be the start of Portuguese expansion in this part of Africa, although the de facto conquest of Angolan territories began ninety years later, when Paulo Dias de Novais established a settlement named Luanda in 1573 and set off with a group of soldiers down the Cuanza River.
Ten years after Diogo Cão set foot upon the Congo-Angolan land, Christopher Columbus reached the shores of the American continent. The two events are closely related. European emigrants in America begin to establish plantations of sugar cane and cotton: demand develops for a large and cheap labor force, because the cultivation of sugar especially requires a huge number of hands. The slave trade starts. The history of sugar and the history of slavery are part of the same chapter in the history of the world. Africa becomes the principal supplier of slaves — and especially Angola. According to historians, 3–4 million slaves were shipped out from the territories that lie within the borders of present-day Angola. This number might not appear so shocking today, but one must consider it in the light of contemporary population figures. In the days when Portugal was a world power and had large possessions on several continents, it boasted barely one million inhabitants. For nearly four hundred years, slavery is the cornerstone of Angolan history. As late as the first half of the nineteenth century, the export of slaves constitutes more than 90 percent of the overall value of Angola’s exports. A significant portion of the population of today’s Brazil, Dominican Republic, and Cuba are the descendants of Angolan slaves. It is also no coincidence that despite fundamental political differences, the first state to recognize the People’s Republic of Angola was Brazil, and that Cuba gave the greatest assistance to the Angolan liberation forces.