Benguela (city)

Before the arrival of the whites, the territory of today's Benguela province was occupied by the Ovimbundu tribal union, which was at the stage of decomposition of clan relations and the formation of feudalism.

In 1483, the coast was surveyed by the expedition of the Portuguese navigator Diogu Can . The Portuguese government has repeatedly attempted to gain a foothold in the area, but relations with local rulers remained difficult, periods of lively trade alternated with hostility and armed clashes. Founded in 1574 on the site of today's settlement (also called Benguela) was attacked and completely destroyed by the natives in 1587.

In 1615, by decree of King Philip II , the was isolated from the Capitania of Angola , the administrative center of which, which at that time lay in ruins, was yet to be recreated. Manuel Pereira, the 8th governor of Angola, decided not to restore the old settlement, but to establish a new one three hundred and fifty kilometers south of it. On April 11, 1617, a ship with a governor and 130 settlers left Luanda, and on May 17, the capital of capitanism, which received the former name Bengela, was founded. ^[2]

Despite the lack of a convenient harbor (ships had to anchor one and a half kilometers from the coast, at a depth of 7-11 meters, from where goods were delivered by land / land by boats), the city for a long time was an important trading point associated with the deep areas of the Central Africa , especially in the trade in slaves sent from here to Brazil and Cuba . The churches of San Felipe and San Antoniu, as well as the hospital and the , have been preserved here from that era.

The construction of the fortress did not save the city from capture by the Dutch in 1641. Until 1648, the Benguela remained under the control of the Dutch West Indies Company until it was recaptured during the .

Founded in 1843, the new port of Lobitu (fifty kilometers to the north) with its convenient natural harbor took over a significant part of the cargo flow, thereby causing stagnation in the Benguela economy, which dragged on until the beginning of the 20th century. An additional blow to trade was the widespread abolition of slavery. A new tide of economic activity and rapid development of the city began with the launch in 1905 of the Bengel Railway , connecting Portuguese ports on the coast with the richest deposits of the Copper Belt .

For successes in the improvement of the city and the development of the economy, the Benguela Municipal Council in 1967 was awarded the Portuguese Order of the Empire. ^[3]

The war for the independence of Angola did not have a significant impact on the prosperity of the Bengels - the Portuguese administration quite successfully coped with the sorties of the militants supported by the USSR and China . The civil war following independence (1975) became much more catastrophic, which brought the economy and infrastructure into complete decline. The situation was further complicated by hundreds of thousands of refugees who poured into the cities from the gang-ravaged countryside. The railway, after the flight or the death of white specialists, actually ceased to function in the early 1980s. ^[four]

With the end of the civil war in 2002, the city and its environs gradually began to recover. In 2014, the railway was restored with the help of Chinese credit and the efforts of Chinese specialists. ^[5] Today, Benguela is developing rapidly, in fact merging with its northern neighbor Lobitu into a single city with a population of over a million people. The historic colonial quarters, the new business center and the main infrastructure nodes are in good (by African standards) condition, but most of the citizens live in slums with limited access to water, sewage, electricity and garbage collection.

The city of Benguela is located in the west of Angola, on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean , 430 km south of the capital of Luanda and 55 km south of the port of Lobitu , which is also the cargo port of Benguela. The Benguela gave its name to the Bengal Current off the southwestern coast of Africa ^[6] .

From the Lobitu and Bengels to the east, deep into the African continent, through DR Congo , Zambia , Zimbabwe , to the coast of the Indian Ocean , to the Mozambique port of Beira , the trans-African Bengel railway connecting two oceans leaves. Benguela is not only a major railway junction: there is also an airport and a seaport (not a freight).