THE TRADE IN SLAVES IN OVAMBOLAND, Ca.1850-1910
2005; University of Wisconsin–Madison; Volume: 33; Issue: 33 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2163-9108
Autores Tópico(s)South African History and Culture
ResumoOvamboland, located in the northernmost part of present-day Namibia and southern Angola, was drawn into the orbit of the slave trade during the nineteenth century. Although the Atlantic slave trade dwindled in west-central Africa by the midnineteenth century, slave raiding within the region did not cease. Slave labor was redirected within Africa to produce legitimate exports, and thus, the African social order was more firmly rooted in slavery than ever before by the last decades of the nineteenth century.1 In the mid-1880s, Ovamboland was divided by one of the most artificial colonial boundaries in Africa - the border between German South West Africa and Portuguese Angola. The cultural links between northern Namibia and southern Angola are ancient and strong, and thus Angolan and Namibian histories are inextricably interlinked.2 By examining a single economic phenomenon, namely the slave trade, the Angolan connection in Namibian history becomes evident. The Angolan slave traders influenced not only the economic development of Ovamboland, but also its social and political development.This article tries to clarify what were the economic and social consequences of the slave trade in Ovamboland. The central question is how the slave trade affected the Ovambo communities.3 On the one hand, the intensity of the slave trade depended on who controlled the trade among the Ovambo. At first, the Ovambo kings monopolized the slave trade, but as it proved very profitable, the Ovambo elite tried to earn a share in it as well. The trade in slaves became an object of serious competition for the Ovambo rulers. The items that were sought by the Ovambo in exchange for slaves, namely alcohol and firearms, only increased insecure conditions in Ovambo communities. On the other hand, on the Portuguese side, it was private merchants and plantation owners that tried to profit, directly or indirectly, from the slave trade. The colonial state was powerless and unwilling to try to limit slavery in southern Angola. Although the Portuguese enacted legislation against slavery in their colony, it appears that there was little or no control in the southern parts of Angola. The slave trade and slavery were rife well into the twentieth century. On the German side, the colonial government in South West Africa was no more successful in hindering the trade and smuggling that were going on across the border to Angola.From the mid-nineteenth century, the slave trade expanded rapidly in southern Angola and had devastating consequences for the affected societies. In the 1970s, Clarence-Smith, whose research was mainly based on Portuguese archives, did the pioneering work on southern Angolan history.4 However, the Portuguese sources give an incomplete picture of the slave trade in southern Angola. My research has been based mainly on Finnish archival material produced by Finnish missionaries.5 The missionary sources provide a picture of what was unfolding in the southern Ovambo kingdoms that were being tapped by the Portuguese as sources of slave supply. Finnish missionaries started to work in Ovamboland in 1870, but the Ovambo were not subjected to direct colonial administration until 1915, a full three decades after the Berlin Conference. The Finns were the only Europeans who were constantly active in Ovamboland from 1870 onward. Although the missionaries condemned the activities of the Portuguese in their rhetoric, they could not take action against the slave traders who were operating in the area. The Finns viewed slave trading as evil and against God's will, but opposing it openly in front of the Ovambo kings would certainly have put their mission in jeopardy. However, when the slave trade finally ended, the missionaries took full credit for its abolition.6The Arrival of European Traders in OvambolandThe slave trade spread to Angola in violent outbreaks during the centuries of the Atlantic slave trade. According to Miller, this led to an entire series of local transformations that resembled a moving frontier zone of slaving violence. …
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