I See Clearly Now

I was having confused thoughts about this place called Angola. I knew it sounded like an African place, but as I have been adding "friends" to my hi5 page my thoughts became cloudy. Why were the men looking so "brazilian" and why do they speak Portuguese? I did a bit of searching to put my mind at ease.

Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda in 1575 as "São Paulo de Loanda" on the continent of Africa. In 1618 the Portuguese built Fortaleza São Pedro da Barra fortress and in 1634 they built Fortaleza de São Miguel fortress. Luanda was Portuguese Angola's administrative center since 1627 with one exception. The Dutch ruled Luanda from 1640 to 1648 as Fort Aardenburgh. The city served as the center of a large slave trade to Brazil from c.1550 to 1836. Slave trade was mostly with the Portuguese colony of Brazil; Brazilian ships were the most numerous in the ports of Luanda and Benguela. By this time, Angola, a Portuguese colony, was in fact like a colony of Brazil, paradoxically another Portuguese colony. A strong Brazilian influence was noted in Luanda until the Independence of Brazil in 1822. In the 19th century, still under Portuguese rule, Luanda experienced a major economic revolution. The slave trade was abolished in 1836, and in 1844 Angola's ports were opened to foreign shipping. By 1850, Luanda was one of the greatest and most developed Portuguese cities in the vast Portuguese Empire outside mainland Portugal.