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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Famine and Disease in the History of Angola c.1830-1930 |
Author: | Dias, Jill R. |
Year: | 1981 |
Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
Volume: | 22 |
Issue: | 3 |
Pages: | 349-378 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Angola |
Subjects: | famine medical history History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Health and Nutrition |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/181808 |
Abstract: | This essay presents a preliminary survey of evidence relating to famine and disease in Angola, attempting to relate this to the general background of historical change during a century which began with commercial expansion and ended in world depression. The purpose of the essay is partly to underline the importance of reconstructing Angola's medical history, as well as to make some contribution to ongoing research into the historical reconstruction of the African climate. The essay tries to explore some of the connexions in the complex process of interaction of physical environment with changes in the colonial export economy, the gradual substitution of the overseas slave trade by commerce in raw materials and cash crops, and the changes in European and African structures in Angola, with famine and epidemic crises by the end of the 19th century. It is argued that these crises, resulting in commercial instability and depopulation, contributed to the difficulties experienced by the Portuguese in developing viable economic alternatives to the overseas slave trade in Angola before the 20th century. Maps, notes, tab., sum. |