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Angolan Accounts of Forced Labor, 1900-1960
| This paper recounts narratives from Angolans forced to perform labor on annual contracts for colonial owned enterprises in Angola between 1900 and 1960. The subject of forced labor in Portuguese-controlled Angola was one of the most written about and controversial subjects during Europe’s colonization of Africa. Portugal’s reliance on coercion contradicted European justifications that colonialism was a civilizing force. During the first decade of the twentieth century reformers launched an international boycott of cocoa grown by forced labor transported from Angola to the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea. In 1924, and again in 1961, the international community investigated and documented forced labor in Angola.
This paper draws on investigate reports written by foreigners to document forced labor as it existed, as well as, interviews conducted in 2001 and 2006 about how Angolans remember how the system of forced labor operated in the 1930s-1950s. The memories of former forced laborers, which have largely been absent from the historical record, offer an important perspective on Portuguese rule in Africa.
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