ABSTRACT
The Portuguese were the first European country to extend their authority outside western Europe, and did so to begin with in Africa. It was in 1446 that the navigator Nuno Tristão arrived in what is now Guinea-Bissau on the west African coast, and in 1482 that Portuguese sailors first reached Angola. In 1484 they declared the coastal region a Portuguese colony, and in 1574 gave the whole region the name of Angola, a Europeanised version of the term for a king in that part of Africa, N’Gola. Portugal acquired Mozambique after Vasco da Gama had landed in 1498 when seeking to reach India by rounding the Cape, and in 1508 established a colony there. In 1607, faced with opposition from the local emperor, the Portuguese then sent a punitive expedition, and obtained a monopoly for the mining of gold, lead, iron and tin.
