Angolan War of Independence - Civil Disobedience (1948-1959)

Civil Disobedience (1948-1959)

The Portuguese Colonial Act, passed on 13 June 1933 recognized the supremacy of the Portuguese over native people, and even if the natives could pursue all studies including university, the de facto situation was of clear disadvantage due to deep cultural and social differences between most of the traditional indigenous communities or tribes and the ethnic Portuguese who used to live in the littoral of Angola. Viriato da Cruz and others formed the Movement of Young Intellectuals, an organization that promoted Angolan culture, in 1948. Nationalists sent a letter to the United Nations calling for Angola to be given protectorate status under UN supervision.

In the 1950s a new wave of Portuguese settlement in all of Portuguese Africa, including the overseas province of Angola, was encouraged by the ruling government of António de Oliveira Salazar. A new law passed in the Portuguese Assembleia da República giving all Portuguese colonies provincial status on 11 June 1951. By this law the Portuguese territory of Angola started to be officially called Província de Angola – Province of Angola.

In 1953 Angolan separatists founded the Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola (PLUA), the first political party to advocate Angolan independence from Portugal. In 1954, Congolese-Angolan nationalists formed the Union of Peoples of Northern Angola, which advocated the independence of the historical Kingdom of Congo, which included other territories outside the Portuguese overseas province of Angola.

During 1955, Mário Pinto de Andrade and his brother Joaquim formed the Angolan Communist Party (PCA). In December 1956 PLUA merged with the PCA to form the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The MPLA, led by da Cruz, Mário Andrade, Ilidio Machado, and Lúcio Lara, derived support from the Ambundu and in Luanda.