Caconda

Caconda lies on the highland plateau of southern Angola, inland from the coast at Benguela, in the country of the Ovimbundu. The small kingdoms of this plateau, among them the M'Balundu, lived by farming and kept chickens, goats and pigs, adding a few cattle bought from the Nyaneka-Nkhumbi and Ovambo herders to the south. After the Portuguese settled at Benguela in the sixteenth century, caravans carried wax, honey and ivory down from the Chokwe, Luvale and Mbunda lands in the east, and the highland chiefs took a share of that trade, which also included slaves.