|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
The Berlin Conference and the Rose-Coloured Map
The suppression of the slave trade coincided with increased Portuguese expansion in Angola. Expansion began in 1838 with the conquest and establishment of a fort at Duque de Bragança (present-day Calandula), east of Luanda. By midcentury, the Portuguese had extended their formal control still farther east to the Cassange market near the Kwango River. In 1840 Luso-Brazilian settlers founded Moçâmedes on the coast south of Benguela. The Portuguese also attempted to gain control of the coast from Luanda north to Cabinda through military occupation of the major ports. Because of British opposition, however, they were unable to complete this attempt and never gained control of the mouth of the Congo River.
The cost of military operations to secure economically strategic points led in 1856 to the imposition on Africans of a substantially increased hut tax, which for the first time had to be paid with currency or trade goods rather than with slaves. As a result, many Africans either refused to pay or fled from Portuguese-controlled areas. By 1861, the Portuguese lacked the resources for continued military expansion or economic development, and most of the interior remained in the control of African traders and warriors.
From the late 1870s through to the early 1890s, Portugal promoted a renewed programme of expansion in the interior. Part of the impetus came from the Lisbon Geographic Society, founded in 1875 by a group of industrialists, scholars, and colonial and military officials. In reaction to the activities of the society to the subsequent wave of popular concern for the colonies diffused through the country and to the growing interest among Europeans in colonial adventures, the government allotted large sums for public works in Africa and encouraged a minor revival of missionary work.19