FINAL RESEARCH PAPER TOPIC: PORTUGUESE HISTORY IN ANGOLA

History 301

Southern New Hampshire University

Anthony Chaves

Topic Proposal

For my topic proposal I have chosen to research and learn about the Portuguese history in Angola. From my brief research on the topic I found that Portugal initially was interested in gold. They soon found out that slaves were the most valuable in Angola. the slave trade becomes the basis of the local economy - with raids carried ever further inland to procure captives. More than a million men, women and children are shipped from here across the Atlantic. In this region, unlike Guinea, the trade remains largely in Portuguese hands. Nearly all the slaves were sent to Brazil.

The Portuguese one of the first nations to get involved in the slave trade. Was it the Portuguese who forcibly began selling slaves to other nation or did they have African powerful sources who were selling their own people and Portugal played the middleman? In my research I intend to explore this question and find out how the slave trade was started in Angola.