{"id":17064,"date":"2011-10-16T01:57:22","date_gmt":"2011-10-16T01:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=17064"},"modified":"2011-10-16T02:05:13","modified_gmt":"2011-10-16T02:05:13","slug":"the-rise-of-a-new-consciousness-early-euro-african-voices-of-dissent-in-colonial-angola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=17064","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of a New Consciousness: Early Euro-African Voices of Dissent in Colonial Angola"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rise of a New Consciousness: Early Euro-African Voices of Dissent in Colonial Angola<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Journal of Portuguese History<\/a>
\nVolume 5, Number 2<\/a>, Winter 2007
\n15 pages
\nISSN: 1645-6432<\/p>\n

Jacopo Corrado<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Events such as the 1820 Liberal Revolution in Portugal<\/a> and the 1822 declaration of independence in Brazil<\/a> appeared to the Creole elite based in the coastal centers of Portuguese West Africa<\/a>\u00a0as the prelude to a new socio-political order. Moreover, the arrival of hundreds of political refugees and convicts in Angola<\/a>\u2014from Brazil<\/a> as well as from Europe\u2014during the decade of 1820-30 helped considerably in spreading revolutionary ideas on that side of the Atlantic Ocean, fueling the hopes and aspirations of a society in which individuals or families were exposed to sudden and at times unpredictable alterations of their social status\u2014often more than once in a lifetime, as the cases of Ars\u00e9nio Pomp\u00edlio Pompeude Carpo<\/a>\u00a0and Joaquim Ant\u00f3nio de Carvalho e Meneses would seem to confirm.<\/p>\n

This paper focuses on these two paradigmatic figures who embodied the discontent that spread among Luanda<\/a> and Benguela<\/a> traders and who confronted the authorities as nobody else dared to do in order to defend the interests of a Euro-African elite that, already during the first half of the 19th century, was struggling for more power and was progressively assuming an attitude suggestive of some kind of economic nationalism.<\/p>\n

During the first half of the 19th century, Angolan society was characterized by the presence of a semi-urbanized commercial and administrative elite of Portuguese-speaking Creole families – white, black, some of mixed race, some Catholic and others Protestant, some long-established and others cosmopolitan\u2014who were mainly based in the coastal towns of Luanda and Benguela. As well as their wealth, derived from the functions that they performed in the colonial administrative, commercial and customs apparatus, their European-influenced culture and habits clearly distinguished them from the broad population of black African peasants and farm workers. In order to expand its control over the region, Portugal desperately needed the support of this kind of non-colonizing urban elite, which was also used as an assimilating force, or better as a source for the dissemination of a relevant model of social behavior. Thus, great Creole merchants and inland chiefs dealt in captive slaves, bound for export to Brazil: the tribal aristocracy and the Creole bourgeoisie thrived on the profits of overseas trade and used them to live in style, consuming large quantities of imported alcoholic beverages and wearing fashionable European clothes.<\/p>\n

The suppression of the slave trade, however, put an end to this situation of mutual advantage and altered forever more the relationship between colonizers and the so-called sons of the country<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In order to understand and contextualize the specificity of the subsequent opposition to the colonial regime put forward by the local Creole elite, it is necessary to retrace the events which unfolded in the Portuguese-speaking world during the 19th century, taking into account different moments of rupture or external influences, together with the most important channels of cultural dissemination of the time. It has to be recognized that the cultural identity of this particular social group strongly relied on metropolitan or Brazilian models in both their forms and contents, but it would be superficial to claim that the cultural imaginary formed in Angola during this period of time totally lacked any original or peculiar features.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, how could people\u2019s ways of thinking fail to be influenced by the ideological origins of the revolutions that had been taking place in Europe and America since the late 18th century? Events such as the 1820 Liberal Revolution in Portugal and the 1822 declaration of independence in Brazil appeared as the prelude to a new socio-political order and the arrival of hundreds of political refugees and convicts during the decade of 1820-30, from Brazil as well as from Europe, considerably helped in spreading revolutionary ideas. The political debate was fueled by journals and pamphlets mainly originating in Brazil but, on the other hand, the most conservative aspects of Portuguese liberalism were strongly and officially emphasized in Angola because of the constant fear of a possible social and political uprising.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, the two personalities to whom this article is dedicated suffered systematic persecution at the hands of the Portuguese authorities and their tormented lives are evidence of the trials awaiting those who decided to assume a critical attitude towards the colonial establishment. On the one hand, we have a former convict born on the periphery of the empire, who had adventurously managed to climb the social ladder and become a serious threat to the establishment. On the other hand, we have the scion of a noble Luanda family who, thanks to the education received in Europe and his long-term experience in diverse fields of colonial administration, breathed life into a revolutionary project that sought to achieve progressive autonomy for his country. Ars\u00e9nio de Carpo\u2019s life and Carvalho e Meneses\u2019 work perfectly represent both the spirit of the Creole elite and all its contradictions, providing a privileged starting point for better understanding and contextualizing it, focusing our attention on a society in which family, business or social links acquired a special value. In mid-19th century Angola, a good deal or a good position, for instance, often depended on these links, and individuals or families were exposed to sudden, and at times unpredictable, alterations of their social status.This often occurred more than once in a lifetime, as the cases of Ars\u00e9nio Pomp\u00edlio Pompeude Carpo and Joaquim Ant\u00f3nio de Carvalho e Meneses would seem to confirm….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rise of a New Consciousness: Early Euro-African Voices of Dissent in Colonial Angola Journal of Portuguese History Volume 5, Number 2, Winter 2007 15 pages ISSN: 1645-6432 Jacopo Corrado Events such as the 1820 Liberal Revolution in Portugal and the 1822 declaration of independence in Brazil appeared to the Creole elite based in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,459,8],"tags":[7819,7822,7820,7823,7821,6011],"class_list":["post-17064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","tag-angola","tag-arsenio-pompilio-pompeude-carpo","tag-jacopo-corrado","tag-joaquim-antonio-de-carvalho-e-meneses","tag-journal-of-portuguese-history","tag-portugal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}