Ambundu

The Ambundu are an ethnic group in Angola, located primarily in a broad strip of land that includes the capital Luanda and drags east to the province of Malange. Their language is the Kimbundu, their self-designation Akwambundu occasionally, rarely Akwakimbundu ( "We Mbundu "). You are ethnographic often referred to as "North Mbundu ," in contrast to the central Ovimbundu of Angola, the " Southern Mbundu ". Numerically, they currently contribute about a quarter of the population of Angola out its main sub-groups are (from west to east) the Luanda, the "actual" Ambundu that Kissama that Dembo ( Ndembu ), the Ngola, the Bangala ( Imbangala ), the Songo, the Chinje that Minungu and ( to the south ) and the Libolo Kibala.

Origin

Around the middle of the last millennium passed a hand between political units ( " kingdoms ") of Ambundu, especially the Kingdom of Ndongo, on the other hand was a part of them to the Congo kingdom. They came very early into contact with the Portuguese " bridgehead" Luanda, which until the 19th century was as a kind of enclave of 15 and compounds of various kinds to its hinterland used. Thus, it was soon " urbanized " Ambundu and the Portuguese language and culture ( including font ) also began on Luanda addition to spread. Until the 19th century parts of the Ambundu were actively involved in the slave trade, in which people from what is now Ostangola to Brazil and to some extent Central America were sold.

Colonial

From the mid-19th century to the Ambundu gradually came under the control of the Portuguese colonial State of Luanda - in from the late 19th or early 20th century, the area now Angola - and the second " bridgehead", Benguela took possession. Your " cultural assimilation " is during the colonial period, therefore, the most advanced of all ethnic groups, which, inter alia, to therein expressed, that even then "west " embossed intellectuals emerged a number of their members.

The cultural assimilation was only possible with such intensity because the Ambundu in that phase were invariably to Christianity. Portuguese, but also Spanish missionaries were from the 19th century to work for the Catholic Church throughout the settlement area of ​​Ambundu. During the same period took there, of Great Britain and the United States starting, the Methodist Church walk, which began for the preservation and further development of the Kimbundu, the social identity of the Ambundu strengthened and a kind of informal spokesman of this ethnic group was.

At the same time, however, the Ambundu had to endure in rural areas throughout the pressure of a colonial system, which is reinforced above all by the 1920s on. In one part of their territory, the Baixa de Cassanje them the forced cultivation of cotton was even imposed, a practice that did not otherwise in Angola apply.

Anti- colonial resistance and late colonial developments

From the mid-1950s to be articulated as a result, among the Ambundu, as well as among the connected with them half-breed population of Luanda, the anti-colonial resistance. This 1961 was reflected in a disorganized " peasant uprising " in the Baixa de Cassanje and the storming of the central prison of Luanda.

In the period following the MPLA, one of three emerging in the 1950s and 1960s, independence movements their supporters found primarily among the Ambundu. In their settlement area, specifically in the south of the province Cuanza Norte, the MPLA built his first guerrilla base in Angola, to develop only a low activity could, however. In the underground, but the MPLA built throughout the Ambundu, but above all in Luanda, on a network of cells and sympathizers.

At the same time Ambundu used more than any other ethnic group the possibilities that opened up in Angola in the late colonial period 1961-1974, as the natives statute until then applicable is eliminated and all the inhabitants of Angola were declared equal citizens of Portugal. The Ambundu took the opportunity school education true to a great extent, which was opened by the reforms of 1962. They used with great success every opportunity, ( but mostly on lower and middle level ) to find employments in the then expanding the civil service and state enterprises, at the same time within the military and within the Catholic and the Methodist Church. In both churches Ambundu reached before independence the bishop rank ..

Entkolonisierungskonflikt and civil war

When Portugal in early 1974 announced its intention to withdraw from its colonies, a conflict broke out among the rival independence movements MPLA, FNLA and UNITA, who brought not least for the Ambundu significant damage with it. Especially immediately after his escape heavy fighting in Luanda and to the north and east of the capital took place. The fact that the MPLA prevailed here, it owed ​​a good part of the (often improvised ) military units recruited from Ambundu it. With the expulsion of the FNLA and UNITA from Luanda spontaneous " urban guerrilla " from young Ambundu was decisive. The troops, who then in the rest of the country on the part of the MPLA were used, sat largely composed of Ambundu. All this resulted in a clear identification with the independent Angola, which was proclaimed in 1975 by the MPLA. In the recorded here development was a close alliance between the Ambundu and the relatively numerous in Luanda mongrel population; which also serves a number of Portuguese Angola was involved, mostly younger people with better education.

Presence

The Ambundu now live to a large, probably the most part in cities, not only in the city, Luanda province as well as the partially urbanized areas of the neighboring Bengo province, but also in Malange and Ndalatando as well as smaller cities like Ambriz, Ambrizete, Caxito and Dondo.