Country: Angola

Group: Umbundu/Ovimbundu

Date Finalized: 10/01/2022

Team: Dave Hammerle (lead), Gabriel Hernandez, Nichole Dahlen, Lauren Poklar, Jasper Booth-Hodges

Content Warning:  slavery, war, forced labor, ethnocide, racism, ethnic discrimination

Approximate Time Period:  1920-1975

The Ovimbundu are the largest ethnic group in Angola, making up 36-37% of the total population (Historical Dictionary, 2018; World Atlas, 2018). During the 1920s, after Portugal took control of Angola, the government began to categorize people as citizens or natives.  To go from native to citizen, people needed to prove their European culture to the authorities by speaking fluent Portuguese, by eating and dressing as a Portuguese person, and by living in a Portuguese manor.  If a person remained classified as a native, they could be forced into labor.  This is ethnocide because the Portuguese punished the Ovimbundu for engaging in their traditional cultural and linguistic ways (South African History Online, n.d.; Historical Dictionary, 2018).

Traditionally, the Ovimbundu farmed Angola’s Plateau (Minority Rights Group, 2021).  In the 1940s and 1950s, Portuguese settlers took Ovimbundu lands, forcing them to give up their traditional livelihood in exchange for wage-based work (Minority Rights Group, 2021).  “Many Ovimbundu started to work as paid labour, mainly on European plantations in their own region or in Northwest Angola, but also in Namibian mines” (Wikipedia, 2022).  From 1926 through 1968, excessive taxes and agricultural regulation made it more difficult for the Ovimbundu to keep the lands they required to maintain their traditional livelihood.  The draft labor system forced Ovimbundu to replace their traditional livelihood with a Portuguese-designated career (Encyclopedia.com, 2022).  This is a clear case of ethnocide because the Portuguese systematically undermined the Ovimbundu’s traditional means of livelihood as farmers.

We haven’t found evidence of ethnocide after Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975 (UNHCR, Angola: Information, 1996).

Data Quality:  Data quality is rated 2/3 because there are a few reputable sources, but some key sources lack academic status.

Sources

  1. James, W. M. (2018). Historical dictionary of angola. Rowman & Littlefield.
  2. Minority Rights Group International. (2021, January 20). Ovimbundu. Minority Rights Group. Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/ovimbundu
  3. Pariona, A. (2018, June 5). Largest ethnic groups in Angola. WorldAtlas. Retrieved September 17, 2022, from https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-ethnic-groups-in-angola.html
  4. Skoggard, I. (2022, September 10). Ovimbundu. encyclopedia.com. 25 Aug. 2022 . Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ovimbundu
  5. South African History Online. (n.d.). Angola. Angola | South African History Online. Retrieved September 17, 2022, from https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/angola
  6. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (1996, October 1). Angola: Information on the Umbundu and Kimbundu ethnic groups, whether these groups are subject to discrimination, and whether members of these groups can be identified by their physical appearance or dialect. Refworld. Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6ab6394.html
  7. Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, August 29). Ovimbundu. Wikipedia. Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovimbundu