Kuito - History

History

The city of Kuito is built in the traditional headquarters of the Ovimbundu kingdom. The ruler of the Ovimbundu was named Viye and he married a Songo woman named Cahanda. Together they built the city and later the Portuguese would name the Bié Province after the ruler. The Ovimbundu were known for selling captives from neighbouring tribes to the European slave traders which made the area an ideal location for the slave business and brought colonists to the area. The Portuguese "founded" the city in 1750. They later called it Silva Porto after António da Silva Porto who built his home embala Belmonte in the area. The pleasant climate in the Bié Province was attractive to Portuguese settlers and many made their home in Silva Porto in the early 1900s when the Benguela Railway connected the city to the coast.

Kuito had a long history of violence starting with the African slave trade and tribal warfare. Later in the 1960s the Portuguese used the town of Silva Porto as a training centre for training black Portuguese Army soldiers to send Northern Portuguese Angola in order to fight the nationalist guerrillas, during the Portuguese Colonial War.

After independence from Portugal in 1975, Kuito saw its worst times in 6 January 1993 when UNITA, during the Angolan Civil War, laid siege of the city for over 9 months and over 30,000 people were killed, both from war effects and starvation. Nobody was permitted to enter or leave the city for 9 months and the city suffered heavy damage. UNITA was eventually driven from Kuito and a second attempt was made to capture the city in 1998 using huge artillery and tanks.