Diamond Warriors in Colonial Namibia: Diamond Smuggling, Migrant Workers and Development in Owamboland

Abstract

trade and the trade in commodities such as coffee, cotton and sugar cane. This era of transition also saw Luanda’s population grow from 5605 at the end of 1844 to 12,565 in 1850. This dramatic population increase was largely due to the end of the slave trade. In addition, Northern European demand for tropical commodities led to an expansion in local slave labor to work Angolan plantations. Of the 12,565 people in Luanda, 6,020 or 45% were enslaved. Oliveira argues that during this period slavery became increasingly harsh, even “domestic slavery” (86). Amidst the hardships of slavery, however, there were “paths to freedom.” Enslaved people in Luanda could buy their freedom or report abusive masters for redress. What is not clear from the discussion is the real source of the increasing harshness of slavery by the mid-nineteenth century. Was this development due to the demanding nature of commercial plantations or foreign racialized notions of chattel slavery? Whatever the case, Oliveira highlights the fierce resistance of enslaved Africans against their oppressors. Enslaved people who fled founded “mutoltos,” the settlements “that constantly formed around Angola” (95). I find the idea of mutoltos particularly interesting because one could easily draw parallels with quilombos or settlements of runaway slaves in Brazil. This was clearly not Oliveira’s focus. But such a comparison could have been worthwhile, in a book that grounds Angola in a comparative Portuguese/Brazilian imperial history during and in the aftermath of the slave trade. Finally, Oliveira shows how toward the second half of the nineteenth century, racial cleavages between whites and Luso-Africans began to harden. The definition of “white” became exclusive of Luso-Africans in ways that paralleled the emergence of new colonial racial hierarchies in the Atlantic port towns of Africa at the end of the nineteenth century (81). Overall, I highly recommend this book. Slave Trade and Abolition brings fresh perspectives on African and Euro-African women who, through their conjugal relationships with European men, not only participated in the Atlantic slave trade but also steered the course of the socalled legitimate commerce.