Angola: Early migrations and state formation (25 000BCE-1482CE)

Updated October 2005

Neolithic human settlement in Angola, by Bushman nomadic hunter-gatherers, can be traced at least as far back as 25 000BCE. Small groups of these people are found in Angola today. Around 7 000BCE the first sedentary human settlements appear, though still based on hunter gatherer economic activities and New Stone Age technology (Accord 2004, History World undated, Library of Congress 1989a).

The Bantu speaking people split into two as they expanded from their heartland around the border of Cameroon and Nigeria. One branch moved southwards absorbing central African populations and the other branch eastwards. Genetic studies of the Angolan population indicate that the two branches converged and merged in the savannah areas south of the tropical forests of the Congo. Plaza, et al (2004, 446) sum up their findings by observing that "west Africa would have contributed to ~60% of the southwestern mtDNA composition, central Africa to 23% and east Africa to a significant 16%".

Past debates about whether the Bantu new comers absorbed the indigenous Bushmen, or displaced them, seems to be have been resolved by the same study in favour of the latter; the genetic composition of current Bantu speakers in Angola show "no traces of Khoisan lineages" (Plaza, et al 2004, 446).

An initial wave of Bantu settlement took place around 800CE (though some put this as early as the sixth century) and the migrants brought with them agriculture, pottery and iron working technology (Accord 2004, History World undated). This migration was characterized by small social groupings rolling slowly outwards as population pressures or social conflicts forced short movements outside the areas of past settlement (Library of Congress 1989a).

This was followed by a second, larger, influx between 1300 and 1500CE, which is associated with larger scale more centralized social organisation (Accord 2004). It is as a consequence of this migration, bringing with it higher population densities and greater social complexity, that trader states emerged in the north of Angola on the border with the DRC in the 12th century (Library of Congress 1989a).

The earliest of these states to emerge was the Kongo kingdom, founded at the end of the 12th century by invaders from the north who, having subjugated the indigenous population, founded the town of M'banza Kongo south of the Congo River. The settlement became the centre of a thriving network trading the products of the rain forest with the savannah and those of the savannah with the forest. The conquerors and the conquered merged to form a single entity united by religious ideology and political unity (Library of Congress 1989b).

At its peak the kingdom it controlled the territory from the Atlantic to beyond the river Kwanza and from the Congo River to the Loje River. It was divided into six provinces (mbanza) ruled by aristocrats (Mani) subject to the king (manikongo) and incorporated dependent polities to the south and east such as the Ndongo. The wealth of the kingdom was founded on agriculture and mining and trade in these local and other foreign commodities. When the Portuguese arrived the capital city had a population of more than 50 000 people (Meijer & Birmingham 2004, Columbia Encyclopedia 2001).

The centralised and highly complex political structure of the Kongo Kingdom was geared to the extraction of tribute from the subordinate provinces and states (Ellsworth 1999, 18). One major tributary was the Ndongo Kingdom of the Mbundu to the south, which seems to have been an amalgamation of three separate groups. These were wielded into a single centralised monarchy, the Ngola Kilaji (Ellsworth 1999, 18, Meijer & Birmingham 2004, Library of Congress 1989a).

References

ACCORD 2004 "Chronology" Accord 15, [www] http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/angola/chronology.php [opens new window] (accessed 15 May 2008).

COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2001 "Kingdom of Kongo", Sixth Edition, [www] http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0828072.html [opens new window] (accessed 16 Oct 2007).

ELLSWORTH, KH 1999 "Racial and Ethnic Relations in the Modern World-System: A Comparative Analysis of Portuguese Influence in Angola And Brazil", Paper presented at the 1999 International Studies Assoc. Conference, February 19, 18-26 [www] http://www.public.asu.edu/~ellswork/isa1999.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 16 Oct 2007).

HISTORY WORLD UNDATED "History of Angola", [www] http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad33 [opens new window] (accessed 16 Oct 2007).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1989a "Precolonial Angola and the Arrival of the Portuguese" IN Country Study: Angola [www] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ao0013) [opens new window] (accessed 16 Oct 2007).

MEIJER, G & BIRMINGHAM, D 2004 "Angola from past to present" Accord 15 [www] http://www.c-r.org/accord/ang/accord15/02.shtml [opens new window] (accessed 16 Oct 2007).

PLAZA, S, SALAS, A, CALAFELL, F, CORTE-REAL, F BERTRANPETIT, J, CARRACEDO, A & COMAS, D 2004 "Insights into the western Bantu dispersal: mtDNA lineage analysis in Angola" IN Hum Genet 115, 438-447, [www] http://www.upf.es/cexs/recerca/bioevo/2004Jaume/JB2004-Plaza-HumGenet.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 16 Oct 2007).