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6. Here lies the stepping stone towards the formation of an urban creole elite and the first important clarification to underscore: even if this study is going to deal predominantly with the cultural aspects involved in this kind of society, it has to be recalled that the life of the colony was completely focused on trade and colonial administration, and that the concept of “cultural elite” has always to be subordinated to the concept of “economic elite”.

7. Ana Mafalda Leite, The Postcolonial Literature of Lusophone Africa (Evanston: North-western University Press, 1996), 105.

8. By 1640 the Portuguese pepper empire in Asia had entered its twilight years. Despite this economic decline, India featured as a romantic colossus in the Portuguese popular imagination. The empire of the East still contained fifty-odd beachheads, fortresses, trading factories, and islands stretching from the Zambezi to the Pacific, including Ormuz, Diu, Damão, Goa, Cochin, Malacca, East Timor, and Macau. See David Birmingham, A Concise History of Portugal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 43.

9. René Pélissier, De la Colonisation Portugaise Moderne en Afrique (Paris: CHEAM, 1985), 107.

10. Rapport sur l’Abolition de l’Esclavage dans l’Outremer Portugais (Lisbon: Collecção da Legislação Novíssima do Ultramar, 1876), 151–152, as quoted by Brásio in Spiritana Monumenta Historica, vol. 2, 44–47.

11. Adelino Torres, O Império Português entre o Real e o Imaginário (Lisbon: Edição Escher, 1991), 60.

12. Torres, O Império Português entre o Real e o Imaginário, 61. It is interesting to notice that since 1859–1860, the emancipation of the “Angolan homeland” became a concern for the restless sons of the country labelled by Torres as “nonwhite civilised people”, even if they did not know exactly whether to give life to a Republic of Angola or join the Brazilian Republic—or the United States of America. The latter hypothesis suggested the need to maintain a strict contact with slave-buying countries.

13. As established through decree by the Government of the Province of Angola in 1894. João Pedro da Cunha Lourenço, A Dinâmica e o Estatuto dos Jornalistas em Angola no Período da “Imprensa Livre” 1866–1923 (Luanda: UEA, 2002), 2.

14. Carlos Ervedosa, Roteiro da Literatura Angolana (Havana: UEA, 1985), 28.

15. Ervedosa, Roteiro da Literatura Angolana, 25.

16. O Futuro de Angola, n° 56, Luanda, 12/12/1886.

17. Sebastião Coelho, Angola, História e Estórias da Informação (Luanda: Edição Executive Centre, 1999), 107–108.