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The Angolan Manuscript Collection of the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino; Lisbon: Toward a Working Guide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Jose C. Curto
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Extract

Portugal has long been recognized by historians as a treasure house of manuscript collections. In Lisbon alone there are some twenty-five public archives, many of which hold rich collections of historical documents and rare printed works. Other urban centers like Coimbra, Porto, Évora, Braga, Guimarães, and Setúbal, not to mention smaller cities and towns, also have numerous archives, specialized libraries, museums, and ancient monasteries that house important manuscript and printed collections. The archaic Portuguese bureaucracy, however, has rarely been able to adequately assess the extensive contents of such a large number of depositories. Indeed, few of these institutions can boast of possessing catalogs for their holdings. When these do exist, they are more often than not either incomplete or almost totally out of date. As a result the lack of appropriate working tools turns archival research in Portugal into a rather painstaking and time-consuming affair. Instead of a dusty treasure house whose contents have been organized and assessed, what the researcher usually finds is a labyrinth of uncataloged, unknown, and uncared-for musty documents slowly deteriorating in the damp cellars of decrepit buildings.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 15 , 1988 , pp. 163 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1988

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References

Notes

This essay is based on research conducted at the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU) in 1985/86. The twelve months spent in Lisbon, as indeed my whole graduate program, were financed through the generous assistance provided over the years by the Fonds F.C.A.C, the Luso-American Foundation, the SSHRCC, the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, and my home institution, the University of California at Los Angeles. I am deeply indebted to the staff of the AHU, particularly Joao Carlos C. Leao, for introducing me to the organizational aspects of the archive and quickly expediting my numerous inquiries.

1. Rau, Virginia, “Os arquivos de Portugal: Lisboa” in Marchant, A., ed., Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Luso-Brazilian Studies. (Nashville, 1953), 189–213.Google Scholar

2. This situation has existed for decades. Frederic Mauro, who conducted dissertation research in various Portuguese archives during the 1950s, is only one among many scholars to have been confronted with the dearth of appropriate working tools. See his Le Portugal, le Brésil et l'Atlantique au XVIIe siécle (1570-1670). (Paris, 1983), xiii–xxiv, 1–4.Google Scholar Fortunately a few Portuguese scholars have lately began to take matters into their own hands by producing excellent guides to some of the Portuguese archives. See Moreira, Alzira T.L., Inventário do Fundo Geral do Erário Régio: Arquivo do Tribunal de Contas. (Lisbon, 1977)Google Scholar, and especially Serrão, Joel, Leal, Maria J. da Silva, and Pereira, Miriam H., Roteiro de Fontes da História Portuguesa Contemporanea: Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (2 Vols.: Lisbon, 1984)Google Scholar, and idem, Roteiro de Fontes da História Portuguesa Contemporanea: Arquivos do Estado. Arquivo da Camara Municipal de Lisboa. (Lisbon, 1985).

3. Instituto de Investigação Cientifica Tropical, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino. (Lisbon, 1983), 237–39.Google Scholar

4. At present there are no plans to make the non-accessible códices available for investigation.

5. This is especially true of the Brazilian documentation deposited in the AHU. The Africana collection, on the other hand, has rarely been the subject of similar undertakings.

6. Without adequate working tools available, my dissertation topic (“The Luso-Brazilian Alcohol Trade with Angola, c. 1500-1950, and Its Effects on the African Population”) required that all the inventoried and non-inventoried Angolan documentation available at the AHU be investigated and provided an opportunity to collect the information necessary for a guide. A proposal to this effect was submitted to the officials of the archive and their interest subsequently opened the doors to the salas where the documentation is kept, a privilege given to but a few researchers.

7. The Bibliotéca da Ajuda, the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, and the Biblioteca Nacional, all also located in Lisbon, hold a subtantial number of documents for the early period (1482-1700) of Angola's past that can be used to supplement those found in the AHU. Many of these manuscripts have been published in Arquivos de Angola, 1a Série, nos. 1-54 and 2a Série, nos. 1-82 (published in Luanda from 1933 to 1963); Brásio, António, ed., Monumenta Missionaria Africana: Africa Ocidental. 1a Série, Vols. 1-14 (Lisbon; 1952–1985).Google Scholar 2a Série, Vols. 1-5 (Lisbon; 1958-1979); Cordeiro, Luciano, ed., Viagens, Exploracões, e Conquistas dos Portugueses: Collecão de Documentos (6 Vols.: Lisbon, 1881)Google Scholar; Felner, Alfredo de Albuquerque, ed., Um Inquerito à Vida Adminstrativa e Económica de Angola e do Brasil em Fins do Séaulo XVI (Coimbra, 1931)Google Scholar; idem., Angola: Apontamentos sobre a Oaupação e Inicio do Estabelecimento dos Portugueses no Congo, Angola e Benguela (Coimbra, 1933); Heintze, Beatrix, ed., Fontes para a História de Angola do Século XVII: Memórias, Relacões, e outros Manuscriptos da Colectanea Documentai de Fernão de Sousa (1622-1635) (Stuttgart, 1985)Google Scholar; and Manso, Paiva, História do Congo (Documentos) (Lisbon, 1877).Google Scholar

8. A large number of these manuscripts are published in Felner, , Angola: Apontamentos sobre a Colonização do Sul de Angola, Documentos (3 Vols.: Lisbon, 1940)Google Scholar; de Oliveira, Mario Antonio F., Angolana (Documentação sobre Angola). Vol 1, 1783-1883 (Lisbon, 1968)Google Scholar; Rebelo, Manuel dos A. da Silva, Relações entre Angola e Brasil, 1808-1830. (Lisbon, 1970)Google Scholar; and the works cited in note 7 by Brásio, Felner and Paiva Manso, as well as the Arquivos de Angola.

9. The reorganization of the Angolan manuscripts has, ironically, made it more difficult to track down documents listed in studies published prior to the mid-1970s. This is owing to the peculiar method which some scholars utilize to write footnotes: that is, providing the number of the caixas, maços, and papes avulsos for the documents referred to but, not their date.

10. See, for example, Broadhead, Susan H., “Beyond Decline: The Kingdom of Kongo in the 18th and 19th Centuries,” IJAHS 12(1979), 615–52Google Scholar; Childs, G.M., Umbundu Kinship and Character. (London, 1949)Google Scholar; do Couto, Carlos A.M., Os Capitães-Mores em Angola no Século XVIII. (Luanda, 1972)Google Scholar; Delgado, Ralph, História de Angola (4 Vols.: Benguela, 1948-1955)Google Scholar; Martin, Phyllis M., The External trade of the Loango Coast, 1576-1870 (Oxford, 1972)Google Scholar; Miller, Joseph C., Kings and Kinsmen: Early Mbundu States in Angola (Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar; idem, “Legal Portuguese Slaving from Angola: Some Preliminary Indications of Volume and Direction, 1760-1830,” Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outremer 62(1975), and “The Slave Trade in Congo and Angola” in Kilson, Martin L. and Rotberg, Robert I., eds., The African diaspora: Interpretative Essays. (Cambridge, 1976), 75–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vellut, Jean-Luc “Relations internationales du Moyen-Kwango et de l'Angola dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle, Études d'Histoire Africaine 1(1970), 75–135Google Scholar; idem., “Le royaume de Cassange et les réseaux Luso-Africains (c. 1750-1810), Cahiers d'Études Africaines. 15(1975), 117-36; José, C. Venancio, “Espaço e dinamica populacional em Luanda no século XVIII, Revista de História Económica e Social, 14(1984), 67–89Google Scholar; idem., “Okonomie Luandas und des hinterlands im 18, Jahrhundert. Eine Historisch-ethnologische Studie,” (Ph.D., Johannes Gutenberg University, 1983). See also Hilton, Anne, The Kingdom of Kongo. (Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar; Thornton, John K., The Kingdom of Kongo in the Era of the Civil Wars (Madison, 1983)Google Scholar, and the works cited in note 8.

11. The only quantitative studies on the slave trade are the two essays listed in note 10 by Miller and the article cited in note 9 by Klein. Two of the numerous populations maps available have been analyzed by Thornton, in “The Slave Trade in Eighteenth Century Angola: Effects on Demographic Structures,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 14(1980), 417–27.Google Scholar The works by Venancio cited in note 10 also contain quantitative analysis of the population of Luanda during the latter 1700s. Some of the export-import data is analyzed by Miller, in “Imports at Luanda, Angola, 1784-1823,” paper presented to the Symposium on the Quantification and Structure of the Import and Export Trade of Africa in the Nineteenth Century, St. Augustin, West Germany, 1983.Google Scholar

12. Given the discontinuous nature of the documentation on Benguela and its hinterland, it seems unlikely that a comprehensive survey of trade and conflict as suggested by Birmingham, is possible for this region prior to the early nineteenth century. See his “Themes and Resources of Angolan History,” African Affairs, 73, (1974), 188–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Archives in Angola hold a broader variety of documentation. See, for example, Miller, , “The Archives of Luanda, Angola,” IJAHS, 7(1974), 551–90.Google Scholar Research clearance into Angola, however, is problematic at best. Until this situation changes some of this documentation may be consulted in published from in Delgado, Ralph, Ao Sul do Cuanza: Ocupação e Aproveitamento do Antigo Reino de Benguela, 1483-1942 (2 Vols.: Lisbon, 1944)Google Scholar; the works by Brásio and Felner, as well as the Arauivos de Angola, cited in note 7; and the collection of documents compiled by Felner cited in note 8.

14. A subject index to the codice collection of the AHU is now being compiled by the technicians of the archive, but when I was conducting research at the AHU, this index had only reached códice #100.

15. The only other governorship which may be compared with that of Almeida e Vasconcelos in terms of being particularly well-documented is that of Francisco de Inocencio de Sousa Coutinho, who governed the colony from 1764 to 1772. See the nine caixas from the 1a Secção pertaining to his governorship and the four bulky códices (nos. 8553, and 8742-8744) containing some of his private and official papers available in the Secção dos Reservados of the Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa.

16. A significant number of these documents are published in Brásio, , Angola, Spiritana Monumenta Histórica (5 Vols.: Pittsburgh, 1970)Google Scholar and Oliveira, , Angolana, Documentação Sobre Angola. Vol. II, 1883–1887. Vol. III, 1845. (Lisbon, 1972 and 1976).Google Scholar See also the works by Delgado, Felner, and Oliveira cited in note 8, as well as the Arquivos de Angola and the volume compiled by Paiva Manso in note 7.

17 Studies based on this documentation are limited to Dias, Jill R., “Black Chiefs, White Traders and Colonial Policy Near the Kwanza: Kabuku Kambilo and the Portuguese, 1873-1896,” JAH, 17(1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar“Famine and disease in the History of Angola ca. 1830-1939,” JAH, 21(1980), 349–78Google Scholar; Clarence-Smith, W.G., Slaves, Peasants and Capitalists in Southern Angola, 1840-1926 (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar; de Oliveira, Mario António F., Alguns Aspectos da Administração de Angola em Época de Reformas, 1834-1851 (Lisbon, 1981)Google Scholar; Stamm, Anne, “La société créole à Saint-Paul de Loanda dans les années 1836-1848,” Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outremer, 59(1972), 578–610CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wheeler, Douglas L., “The Portuguese in Angola, 1836-1891: A Study in Expansion and Administration,” (Ph.D., Boston University, 1963)Google Scholar; and Heywood, Linda, “Production, Trade and Power: The Political Economy of Central Angola, 1850-1930,” (Ph.D., Columbia University, 1984).Google Scholar

18 The Boletim Official de Angola, an official publication from the colonial government that appeared weekly after 1845, has many of these commercial statistics in published form. Some, however, were never published in the Boletim and must be consulted in manuscript form at the AHU.

19. The Boletim also contains some of these population estimates and others which are not found in manuscript form at the AHU.

20. The only works partially based on some this doucemntation are Heywood's dissertation cited in note 17 and Margarido, Alfredo, “Les porteurs: forme de domination et agents de changements en Angola (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles), Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outremer, 65(1978), 377–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 This cluster of 40 maços and pastas consists of thirty under the generic heading of “Geraes de Angola” (nos, 946-948, and 950-951, 953, 955-956, 961, 966-968, 971-973, 975, 978, 980-984, 986, 996-998, 1000, 1007, and 1010-1011) and ten called “Angola” (nos. 991-993, 999, 1002-1006, and 1008).

22. The documents pertaining to the Benguela Railway Compnay are contained in five pastas (nos. 259-264) located in sala 9. This sala also holds further documentation related to the other railways companies: twenty-eight pastas (nos. 265-292) are available on the railway company of Mossamedes, seven (nos. 293-299) on that of Luanda, and six (nos. 300-305) on Malange.

23. I am now preparing a paper entitled “Recounting the Numbers: The Legal Angolan Slave Trade, 1710-1830,” on this very question.

24. See Pélissier, Rèné, Les guerres grises: résistance et révoltes en Angola, 1845-1941 (Orgeval, 1977)Google Scholar; Soremekun, Fola, “The Bailundu Revolt in Angola in 1902,” African Social Research, 16 (1973), 447–71Google Scholar; Wheeler's dissertation cited in note 17; and Wheeler, D.L. and Christensen, Diane, “To Rise with One Mind: The Bailundo War of 1902” in Heimer, Franz Wilhelm, ed., Social Change in Angola (Munich, 1973), 53–92.Google Scholar