From beyond the Kwango - Tracing the Linguistic Origins of Slaves Leaving Angola, 1811-1848

Abstract: The Kwango River has long been viewed as the limit of the transatlantic traders' access to the main sources of slaves in the interior of Angola, the principal region of slave embarkation to the Americas. However, no estimates of the size and distribution of this huge migration exist. This article examines records of liberated Africans from Cuba and Sierra Leone available on the African Origins Portal to estimate how many slaves came from that particular region in the nineteenth century as well as their ethnolinguistic distribution. It shows that about 21 percent of the slaves leaving Angola in that period came from beyond the Kwango, with the majority coming from among the Luba, Kanyok, and Swahili speaking peoples. The article also analyzes the causes of this migration, which helped shape the African Diaspora to the Americas, especially to Brazil and Cuba.