This chapter analyses Portuguese attempts to strengthen colonial ties with Angola by promoting agricultural activities in its African colony between the 1830s and 1860s. Recently, Seymour Drescher has argued that the abolition of the slave trade was not part of British imperialist aspirations towards Africa and that the end of the slave trade did not lay the groundwork for colonial rule over Africa. While this statement might be true in the case of the British, it did not apply to another colonial power with long ties to Africa: Portugal. In the first half of the nineteenth century, as the movement to abolish the trans-Atlantic slave trade gained strength throughout the Atlantic, Portugal sought to reframe its colonial links to Angola by promoting policies aimed at shifting its economy away from the slave trade and toward legal activities such as market-oriented agriculture.

The relationship between the end of the slave trade and Portuguese colonial plans for Africa has long been debated by scholars. In the 1960s, R.J. Hammond argued that Portuguese colonialism was born out of a reflexive ideological attachment to Africa and devoid of economic interest. This stance was challenged by the Portuguese historian Valentim Alexandre, who argued that despite its failure, early Portuguese colonialism was firmly rooted in Portuguese economic interests. Recently, Alexandre's view has been rejected by João Pedro Marques, who contends that that Portugal paid little attention to its African colonies before the mid-nineteenth century.