Mbegela Coast

The central Angolan coast near Benguela faces the Atlantic below the highlands of the interior. In 1617 Manuel Cerveira Pereira founded a Portuguese settlement at the Bay of Cattle, south of the Catumbela River, in a region already inhabited by African communities. Benguela became a port through which captives from inland were forced onto ships bound across the ocean. Its trade grew substantially in the eighteenth century, drawing the port into close and violent ties with the highlands and Brazil.