From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portuguese West Africa was the name of the Portuguese overseas colonies on the south-west African coast, which now form the republic of Angola.
[edit] History
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The colonial history of Angola lasted from its annexation as a colony in 1655 until its designation as an overseas province, effective October 20, 1951.
While Portugal defeated the Kongo Kingdom in the Battle of Mbwila on October 29, 1665, but the Portuguese suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Kitombo when they tried to invade Kongo in 1670. Full Portuguese administrative control of the interior was not achieved until the beginning of the twentieth century.
In 1884 Britain, which up to that time had steadily refused to acknowledge that Portugal possessed territorial rights north of Ambriz, concluded a treaty recognizing Portuguese sovereignty over both banks of the lower Congo, but the treaty, meeting with opposition in England and Germany, was not ratified. Agreements concluded with the Congo Free State, the German Empire and France in 1885-1886 fixed the limits of the province, except in the south-east, where the frontier between Barotseland (north-west Rhodesia) and Angola was determined by an Anglo-Portuguese agreement of 1891 and the arbitration award of the King of Italy in 1905.
[edit] See also
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