Luanda

Timeline

1. 1575Luanda Island · Luanda CoastPaulo Dias de Novais, grandson of Bartolomeu Dias, received an Angolan fief from the Portuguese king and in 1575 arrived on Luanda Island with about a hundred settler households and four hundred soldiers. Authorized to establish a post between the Dande and Kwanza rivers and to seek rumored silver mines, he pushed Portuguese power from the Congo estuary southward along the Angolan coast.
2. 1576Upper Luanda and Fort São Miguel · LuandaOn 25 January 1576 Novais founded São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda on the mainland highlands and built Fort São Miguel. Most Portuguese lived inside the fort, with the lower town facing the harbor. Encyclopedic tradition calls it one of the earliest European cities in southern Africa, marking the shift of Portuguese West Africa from trading post to a permanent settlement with a garrison and municipal government.
3. 1576–1600Port of Luanda · East Atlantic CoastAfter the founding the Portuguese fought along the Kwanza River against the Kingdom of Ndongo; silver hopes failed, and the post came to depend on shipping slaves to Brazil and supplying sugar colonies. By the late 16th century Luanda was the most important fortified port of Portuguese West Africa, linking Lisbon, São Tomé, and Brazil, rather than an inland capital like the old Congo capital Mbanza.