This article is intended to give a brief overview of the various African peoples that have lived in Angola. The article will also, as far as possible, comment on the current situation of the people and their significance in the colonial situation. The article uses linguistic similarities to categorize the people, but also comments on political differences.

The story of this group starts in the 1600's, because we know very little about the Ovimbundus before this time. The Ovimbundus have, through their history, formed several larger political units, usually referred to as kingdoms. By the early 1700's, 22 units existed, whereof 13 were fully independent, while the reminding 9 owed tribute to one or more of the free states.

The Ovimbundu were, after the arrival of the Portuguese but before the firm control the European overlords established, largely involved with the slave, beeswax and ivory trade. However, after slave trade was illegalized in 1836, the Ovimbundu traders changed to rubber trade. A little later the Portuguese forced the traders into cash-crop, especially coffee. The introduction of this kind of farming led to a change in settlement patterns among the Ovimbundus. A people who previously had shown strong migratory tendencies, now had to stay at the same place.

After a time success of Ovimbundu declined, partly due to soil exhaustion, partly due to lack of support from the colonial lords. Portuguese settlers took over the valuable land, and used Ovimbundus to work for them. The work was hard and badly paid, but there were no alternative for an African without proper education. Nationalists, however, usually did not work, but spent their time on political questions. Among the Ovimbundus, most are UNITA supporters.

The name of the Mbundu come from the Bakongo, one of their neighboring people. The Mbundus, living close to Luanda, quickly got influenced by the Portuguese. The Mbundus natively speak Kimbundu, but the western Mbundus spoke Portuguese or Kimbundu with a Portuguese dialect soon after the arrival of the Portuguese. By the 1960's the Mbundus living in Portuguese founded cities, such as Luanda and Malanje, had not only adopted many parts of European living, but also formed an own dialect (a mixture of Portuguese and Kimbundu), called Ambaca. These people called themselves Ambundu or Akwaluanda, to distinguish themselves from  rural Mbundu. Many even intermarried with the Portuguese, and this created an own class which received Portuguese education, but had Mbundu blood.

Another group of Kimbundu-speakers, the Dembos, were, after a time, included in the Mbundu category. However, these had also been influenced by Kikongo speakers who lived further north.

The Bakongo group is a Kongo-speaking people, or to be more specific, Kikongo-speaking. The Bakongo group is also the group behind the mighty Kingdom of Kongo, a kingdom which was at its strongest in the middle 1600's. The ruler of this kingdom was one of the most powerful men of Africa at that time. The capital of their kingdom is still today a city, Mbanza Congo in the far north of Angola, However, the majority of the Bakongo population lives in Zaire. 

Due to the geographical placement of this people, the different Bakongo groups were differently influenced by the colonial period. The Sosso and the Pombo were much affected by the coffee trade. The Pombo, however, were not only affected by the Portuguese, but also the events in Belgian Congo as they are situated close to the border. Another group of the Bakongos, are the Bashicongo lived closer to the sea. This resulted in much greater impact from the Portuguese as they started along the coast and worked their way towards the heart of Africa.

In 1961, the Bakongos, including the three groups mentioned above, formed an uprising against the Portuguese. This was the first major revolt in a series which would lead to the Angolan independence in 1975. Two years after the uprising, they would join other groups to form the FNLA, one of the three major nationalist movements in Angola, together with MPLA and UNITA. 

Another Bakongo-group involved with struggels for freedom was the Mayombe from Cabinda. They have never been a part of the ancient kingdom, and do in that respect not belong to the same category as the above mentioned three groups. Still, they do speak a dialect of Kikongo. They showed little interest for the FNLA or the movements in Zaire, but instead they formed thieir own group in 1961, the AMA, which in 1963 merged with two other Cabindian movements to form FLEC (Frente Nacional de Libertaçaö de Angola), a Cabinda separatist movement. The FLEC is still today active and working for an independent Cabinda.

The word Nganguela or Ganguela as it also is spelled, comes from the Ovimbundus and is used to describe the people living to their east and south-east. The geographical extent of this group was split by a Chokwe southward extension in the late 1800's. 

The Songos, a eastern Ganguela group, live from fishing in the headwaters of the Zambezi river and farming. The women are responsible for all farming, while the men hunt or fish. The western Ganguela groups also raise cattle.

The Ganguelas have never been a strong force in the area, for two reasons: Firstly, their large area and little population. This scatter of population makes it hard to assemble armies and protect. This was proved when the Chokwe invaded and took over the central parts of their area. The second hadicap is their social structure. The Ganguela groups showed no sign of unificatation or cooperation with each other. The lack of this was proved when nationalist activity arose in the early 1960's, the western divisions generally supported the Ovimbundo-created UNITA, while the eastern divisions generally supported the scholarly, internationalist MPLA.

The Lunda-Chokwe, as the name suggests, are at least two groups of people with different origins. The Lunda alone were a group of people who together formed the Lunda Empire, under a hegemony of people who called themselves Ruund.  Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the Chokwe were a minor group. In the later part of the 1800's, the Chokwe started expanding towards the north and took control over the Ruund among others (thus causing the merge). This became the fatal blow to the Lunda empire. However, this also caused a movement of people into the Lunda-Chokwe, from Zaire. It was not until the 1920's that the people in this area, including the new invaders, accepted to be one people. 

The three languages spoken by the Lunda-Chokwe are not more closely related than other Bantu languages. As the Chokwe conquered more lands and different people, ideas words were adapted between the groups to form rich and lively languages. For example, the Ruund political titles were adopted by the other groups.

The Owambos live in Southern Angola and Northern Namibia between the river Cuene and the river Okavango. They are a Bantu-people and wandered to their current position at the same time as other Bantu-people. However, they are much stronger as a ethnic group today, than do others. This is because they live on the border between to modern-day countries and have partly been excluded from both these countries. Today there are four tribes in the Kuene province in Southern Angola and eight tribes in Namibia. 

The Owambo are strict believers, not only in the good spirits and the bad spirits. They believe in Kalunga, a supreme spirit who take human form and walk around. Kalunga is responsible for everything, and whatever Kalunga does, the ultimate gaol is to help humans.

The Hereros live in South-Western Angola and North-Western Namibia. The modern day Herero-group consists of the ancestors of a pack of people who left the Tjimba and Himba behind to move southwards in the early 1800's. They were a warlike and fearless pack of people, something which still today affects their culture: Their oral culture of songs, poems and stories is much based on praising bravery and victories. Other content of this is praising villages and cattle.

Modern Herero-religion is based on a mixture of Christianity (imposed by German missionaries in the 1800's) and their traditional religion. One of the traits of Christianity is the dress code, which was created by missionaries who were appalled by the semi-nakedness of the Africans. However, their belief in a god has not changed, and they still worship Omukuru, “the Great One.” Omukuru offers kindness, but can also deny you if you ask him too much. Therefore, the believers pray to him only when all other fail.

Identity is defined through specific fraternal and maternal family beliefs or property. The father’s line determines the residence, religion and authority. The mother’s line determines the economy and inheritance.

The word Khoisan is a word used by linguists to describe the clinking language that the bushmen use. The word Bushman, on the other hand, comes from the Boers of South Africa and was used to describe low-class Africans who did not keep animals or farmed, but who relied on finding foods in nature, either roots, plants or game, or to steal animals from other people. The Bushmen are counted as the worlds poorest people, hardly owning clothes to wear. They show strong migratory tendencies, and therefore do not even have housing other than simple huts of clay and sticks.

In their organization of society there are no chiefs, but all decisions are done as a project concerning everybody in the village. Each village functions like an European family and the term family hardly exists. All crimes, which consists of two things: Stealing water (in the desert areas where we find these people today, finding and collecting water activates half the population full time) and having sex with people other than your wife. The male will then be punished, judged by council of the entire village, and once his punishment is carried out, the woman is counted as innocent.