African Entrepreneurship Record

Angola and the East African border.

The soldier Bronzino of the Angolan colonial army border patrol has been transferred from the homeland to Angola for three months.

Bronzino is a relatively passionate young man, who joined the ”defend the home and nation” team without hesitation, especially since the only two remaining large colonies, Angola and Mozambique, are facing the threat of the rapidly rising barbarian country—East Africa.

Bronzino, along with the troops, was assigned to the bordering area of the Angolan colony and the East African Letania Province.

The Portuguese are quite familiar with the country of East Africa, and Bronzino is no exception, because in recent years the country described most in Portuguese newspapers is East Africa, the biggest threat to Portugal at the moment.

In the propaganda of Portuguese newspapers, East Africa is naturally a barbaric country, an evil force ruled by the ”tyrant” Constantine, possessing endless greed.

Constantine, as the monarch of East Africa, was often criticized, but the achievements in East African construction would also fall on Constantine, the nominal ruler of the country, especially the descriptions by merchants of the cities of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.

As the windows for East African economic development, these cities are the most dazzling ”pearls” of East Africa, praised as the twin stars of the Indian Ocean, on par with the Indian metropolis Mumbai.

Sub-Saharan Africa, the only place that can be compared to East African cities, is Cape Town, not counting other areas with fewer white populations.

Therefore, the Portuguese, when heading out in the morning, would ”greet” the families of East Africans, expressing their ”gratitude.”

In the eyes of the Portuguese, the wealth of East Africa was entirely realized through the plundering of Portuguese Mozambique colony and the Angolan colony.

Prior to this, Portugal was the strongest power in the entire South African region (according to the current distribution of East African territory, East Africa is more appropriately called South Africa, but due to the historical expansion of East Africa, most international countries habitually call it East Africa, though the official name of the East African Kingdom is the ”Heixinggen Kingdom”), with a sphere of influence covering millions of square kilometers.

If it had been twenty years ago, and Portugal had itself expanded in the South African region, then there wouldn’t have been anything of the East African Kingdom! By then, Portugal could have established a colony as large as Brazil.

The Portuguese imagination was not bold enough, now East Africa is twice the size of Brazil, whether in terms of population or area.

If Portugal had valued Africa earlier, then indeed they could have built a large colony, similar to East Africa, dominating the entire southern part of the African continent, because for five or six decades, quinine had already appeared, and colonizing Africa was on hold.

But at that time, the whole of Portugal was in decline, in fact, it had been declining for nearly a hundred years, just the separation of Brazil had too great an impact on Portugal, causing the whole of Portugal to lose its national spirit and vigor.

They were no longer like their pirate predecessors, daring to take risks and conquer, which was also an important reason for Portugal’s slow colonial expansion in Africa.

However, facing the continuous decline of national fortune, Portuguese couldn’t consider these issues in time, and the Portuguese government hadn’t made much progress over the years, so all problems were hard to solve, let alone opening up colonies.

Expanding colonies in Africa wasn’t actually difficult, especially for the then Portugal, because originally Portugal’s two colonies were almost connected, with caravans traversing between, it’s just that this process was interrupted by East African expansion.

Before Ernst colonized Africa, the only competitive region in sub-Saharan Africa was along the Gulf of Guinea.

And like the Central South Africa region, basically nobody cared about it, except for the strategic location of Cape Town in the far south.

So as long as the Portuguese government was willing to spend the money back then, they could get a vast colony in Africa, and there were no competitors.

As for the African natives, they weren’t necessarily much stronger than the Native Americans, so the threat was not big, the only thing to worry about was Zanzibar belonging to the Arab civilization, but in the 50s and 60s, the Zanzibar Sultanate was coincidentally also in decline, particularly after breaking with the Omani Empire, its strength had crumbled beyond recognition.

And the Portuguese didn’t seize this point, in their century-long competition with the Arab civilization along the East African coast, they didn’t gain the upper hand, therefore missed the opportunity in the 60s, were preempted by East Africa, followed by East Africa defeating Zanzibar, the original overlord of the East African coastal region.

Anyway, the better East Africa develops, the stronger the stimulus to the Portuguese, because in the Portuguese view, any achievements that East Africa obtains should have belonged to the Portuguese in the first place.

As for how East Africa developed, the Portuguese naturally saw it as the plundering of African wealth, after all, in a country over tens of millions square kilometers, selling minerals would have been enough to become prosperous.

Bronzino also shared this belief, so after arriving in Angola from the homeland, he swore to win back the lost land for the motherland.

However, after spending a few months in Angola, Bronzino felt somewhat disappointed because the East Africa he saw seemed different from what was depicted in the Portuguese newspapers.

”Here is our border area with East Africa, and it doesn’t look as exaggerated as they described before; it’s still boundless primitive forests and grasslands, hardly any signs of modernization!” Bronzino said disappointedly to his companion.

”I also heard that the East African Kingdom’s construction was remarkable, but since arriving in Angola, I haven’t seen any decent buildings or agricultural facilities on the other side, but I heard that the East African population is mainly concentrated in the east, so the rapid development they talked about might refer to the area bordering Mozambique colony and East Africa, whereas Angola doesn’t have this scene,” Bronzino’s comrade explained.

”So our Kingdom of Portugal loses to a mere former German principality? This desolate scene across from us is completely different from the prosperous land described over the past few years!” Bronzino felt shamelessly deceived.

”Bronzino, the East Africans simply haven’t developed here, if you were at the Indian Ocean coast, or encountered an East African city, you wouldn’t say so; they’re not those primitive barbarians, rather, they’re well-equipped and numerous.

The major reason why the southern part of Angola was annexed before was because tens of thousands of East African troops came over from the east, I was one of those who experienced this, I can say that the East African army looked no different from European regular professional soldiers.

And at that time, our Angolan colonial troops looked no different from militias, not even having a uniform dress code, and lacking support of heavy weapons.

Whereas the East Africans were equipped with machine guns and artillery, this was nearly fatal for the Angolan colony at that time.

Because we didn’t have the capability to face East African attacks, after all, before Portugal faced only the natives wielding stone spears and bows, it was as if overnight it turned into more professional career soldiers than our own local ones.”

At that time, Angola and Mozambique were at a generational difference with East Africa, East Africa was directly a generation ahead of the Portuguese colonies, if it hadn’t been for British intervention, Angola and Mozambique would have been defeated in one stroke.