Dutch Loango-Angola

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History of Angola
Precolonial history to 1575 Colonization 1575–1641 Dutch occupation 1641–1648 Colonial history 1648–1951 Portuguese province 1951–1961 War of Independence 1961–1974 Sovereign socialist state 1975–1992 Civil War 1975–2002
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Years in Angola

Dutch traders began trading with Loango-Angola in the early 17th century, driven south by increasing competition on the Gold Coast. African traders were generally welcoming of the Dutch, who provided goods the Portuguese were not able to provide.[3] Among other things, the Dutch traded redwood in Mayumba, and ivory and copper in Loango.[4] Initially, the Dutch maintained the port city of Mpinda at the mouth of the Congo River as the southernmost border of their operations.[5]

Dutch rule

A portrait of emissary Dom Miguel de Castro, cousin of the Count of Sonho, while in the Dutch Republic in 1643.

The Dutch ruled Angola from 26 August 1641 to 21/24 August 1648, occupying the coastal areas (under a GWC governor of Angola. This attack was the culmination of a plan first proposed by Kongo's King Pedro II in 1622. After the Dutch fleet under Admiral Cornelis Jol took Luanda, the Portuguese withdrew to the Bengo River, but following the renewal of the Kongo-Dutch alliance, Bengo was attacked and subsequently Portuguese forces withdrew to Massangano.

In 1643, the Count of Sonho sent a mission to the Dutch Republic, headed by his cousin Dom Miguel de Castro.[8] The mission traveled via Dutch Brazil, where they were received by John Maurice of Nassau, and arrived in Flushing on 19 June 1643. De Castro sailed by yacht to The Hague on 2 July 1643, where he had an audience with stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange.[9]

The Dutch were not interested in conquering Angola, much to the chagrin of Kongo's King Garcia II and Njinga who had both pressed them to assist in driving the Portuguese from the colony. However, Dutch authorities came to realize that they could not monopolize the slave trade from Angola just by holding Luanda and a few nearby places, and moreover, the Portuguese sent several relief expeditions to Massangano from Brazil. Consequently, in 1647, they agreed to reinforce Njinga's army following her defeat by Portuguese forces in 1646. At the Battle of Kombi Dutch and Njinga's armies crushed a Portuguese army and in its aftermath laid siege to Ambaca, Massangano and Muxima.

In 1648, Luanda was recaptured by the Portuguese.

Capture of Luanda
Part of Dutch–Portuguese War
Capture of Luanda by Cornelis Jol of the Dutch West India Company in 1641
Date 1641 Location Luanda, Portuguese Angola Result Dutch victory
Belligerents
Dutch West India Company	Portuguese Empire
Commanders and leaders
Cornelis Jol	Pedro César de Meneses
Strength
2,145 soldiers 20 ships[10]	Unknown

According to the instructions of John Maurice, Pieter Moorthamer and Cornelis Nieulant, who sailed with Jol's fleet, were to assume command of the civil administration once Luanda had fallen into Dutch hands.[11] Moorthamer and Nieulant, both lawyers with a degree from Leiden University, had been members of the colonial council in Dutch Brazil, the former sent out by the Zealand chamber and the latter by the Amsterdam chamber of the Dutch West India Company.[12] They assumed civil command on 29 August 1641.[11]

John Maurice had pled with the Dutch West India Company to put Luanda under his administration, but the Lords XIX eventually decided to make Loango-Angola, including São Tomé, a separate commandment.[13] They decided that a triumvirate of three directors consisting of Moorthamer, Nieulant, and Hans Mols would rule the colony, the latter of whom was to be dispatched from the Dutch Republic. [14] Mols had been commandant of Cape Verde and Gorée in 1636-1635 and head commissioner in Elmina, and enjoyed a great reputation as a merchant.[15]

When Mols arrived in Luanda on 12 April 1643, Pieter Moorthamer had just left for Brazil.[8] Nieulant died shortly after, on 19 June 1643.[16] This left Mols, who had little experience in Luanda, in command by himself. Mols had difficulty gaining control, with troops even disobeying his orders. The Dutch West India Company valued Mols' skills as a merchant, however, and was wary to let him go. Halfway 1644, Heynderick van Redinckhoven, who was appointed to fill up one of the directorship vacancies, arrived in Luanda to join Mols as head of the colony. Mols eventually left for Brazil on 26 January 1645, leaving only Van Redinckhoven in charge.[17] By that time, Van Redinckhoven had already asked the company directors to be retired to the Dutch Republic.[18] The Lords XIX denied this request, but appointed former envoy Cornelis Hendrikszoon Ouwman as co-director on 6 July 1645, to relieve Van Redinckhoven of some of his tasks.[19] Van Redinckhoven left Luanda in April 1647, leaving only Ouwman in charge.[20]

• Colonial history of Angola

• Blackburn, Robin (1998). The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern 1492 - 1800. verso. p. 195. ISBN 9781859841952.
• Fage, J.D.; Oliver, Roland Anthony (1986). The Cambridge History of Africa.
• Heyning, Katie (2008). Terug naar Zeeland: topstukken uit de 16e en 17e eeuw. Catalogue of an exhibition held in 2008 in Middelburg. Middelburg: Zeeuws Museum.
• Lourenço, Paula (2006). Battles of Portuguese History - Defence of the Overseas. Vol. X.
• Meuwese, Mark (2012). Brothers in arms, partners in trade: Dutch-indigenous alliances in the Atlantic world, 1595-1674. Leiden / Boston: Brill.
• Postma, Johannes M. (1990). The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36585-6.
• Ratelband, Klaas (2000). Nederlanders in West-Afrika 1600-1650. Angola, Kongo en São Tomé. Zutphen: Walburg Pers.