18. The discourse, pronounced by the minister of foreign affairs—Count de Castro—during the Chamber of Deputies session, 14/03/1866, shows the effects of the lack of Portuguese military forces in the northern coast of Angola: “American, British, French and Hamburger trading posts deal with the natives to our detriment, for they do not pay a penny for embarked and disembarked goods. That produces a considerable loss, since our traders, having to pay heavy customs duties, cannot compete in any way with foreign traders. It must be said that the importance of Angola resides entirely in its trade: if we cannot make the most of it, there is no reason for us to go on”. Diário de Lisboa, nº 60, 16/03/1866, 805–809, as quoted by Brásio in Spiritana Monumenta Historica, vol. 1 (Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts, 1966), 295–296.

19. Giuseppe Papagno, Colonialismo e Feudalesimo, la Questione dei Prazos da Coroa nel Mozambico ala fine del XIX Secolo (Torino: Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, 1972), 100–101.

20. Between 1877 and 1879, Serpa Pinto made the first expedition from coast to coast (Benguela to Durban) led by a Portuguese. This expedition, however, did not have official support from Lisbon and, more importantly, it crossed areas not claimed by Portugal.

Between 1884 and 1885, Hermenegildo Capelo and Roberto Ivens, this time with official support, crossed the continent, along a strip between parallels 15º and 18º (south), from Moçâmedes, in southern Angola, to Quelimane, in northern Mozambique. Two years later, under the agreement of the German government, the Foreign Office in Lisbon produced the famous rose-coloured map, claiming the portion of territory that would unite Portugal’s two colonies in southern Africa.

21. Jean-Claude Allain, La Conférence de Berlin sur l’Afrique (Paris: CHEAM, 1985), 23.

22. Pedro Lains, An Account of the Portuguese African Empire 1822–1975 (Lisbon: O’Brien and Prados, 1998), 10.

23. Lains, An Account of the Portuguese African Empire 1822–1975, 15–16.

24. Even today, Angola’s census problems are far from being solved. The statistics for 1900 are found in Bender, Angola under the Portuguese, 20.

25. The Imbangala, or Jagas, operated in the Kimbundu-speaking world, and they were not a distinct ethnic group, but a sort of cult that held together bands of mercenary soldiers who lived both by general rapine and by hiring themselves out to the highest bidder. The Portuguese depicted them as bloodthirsty cannibals but did not hesitate to contact their leaders when they needed help to crush a rebellion.

26. Lourenço, A Dinâmica e o Estatuto dos Jornalistas em Angola no Período da “Imprensa Livre” 1866–1923, 7.