País dos degredados

País dos degredados was old Lisbon’s name for Angola as a country of deportation: a place for the expelled, the condemned, and those pushed to society’s margins. The expression condenses the book’s account of colonial Angola into a stark social label, linking the colony’s population and reputation to Portugal’s use of it as a penal destination.

Meaning and Use

The phrase is glossed as the country of the deported, the expelled, the finished. It describes more than physical removal: Angola is presented as the endpoint for people cast out of Portuguese society, including criminals and other outcasts. The account identifies this as a way Angola was referred to in old Lisbon, not simply as a formal administrative title.

Colonial Context and Consequences

For several centuries, Portugal as colonial ruler directed its best elements to Brazil and its worst to Angola. Angola served as a penal colony and a destination for people on society’s fringe. The book links the low quality of its colonists to Angola becoming one of the most backward countries in Africa. Elsewhere in the same historical account, the export of enslaved people is identified as the main reason for the Portuguese presence in Angola, pursued through repeated wars. The expression thus sits within a broader picture of a colony shaped by extraction, coercion, and the removal of people Portugal deemed undesirable.