Table Of ContentOHIO SHORT HISTORIES OF AFRICA
AM LCAR CABRAL
Í
NATIONALIST AND PAN-AFRICANIST REVOLUTIONARY
PETER KARIBE MENDY
Amílcar Cabral
OhiO ShOrt hiStOrieS Of AfricA
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by Colin Bundy by Peter Karibe Mendy
Amílcar Cabral
A Nationalist and
Pan-Africanist Revolutionary
Peter Karibe Mendy
OHiO UNiVERSiTy PRESS
ATHENS
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mendy, Peter Michael Karibe, author.
Title: Amílcar Cabral : a nationalist and pan-Africanist revolutionary /
Peter Karibe Mendy.
Other titles: Ohio short histories of Africa.
Description: Athens : Ohio University Press, 2019. | Series: Ohio short
histories of Africa | includes bibliographical references and index.
identifiers: LCCN 2019004321| iSBN 9780821423721 (pb : alk. paper)
| iSBN
9780821446621 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Cabral, Amílcar, 1924-1973. |
Guinea-Bissau--History--Revolution, 1963-1974. | Cabo Verde--His-
tory--To 1975. | Partido Africano da independência da Guiné e Cabo
Verde. | National liberation movements--Guinea-Bissau--History--20th
century. | National liberation movements--Cabo Verde--History--20th
century. | Revolutionaries--Guinea-Bissau--Biography.
Classification: LCC DT613.76.C3 M46 2019 | DDC 966.5702092--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019004321
Contents
List of illustrations 7
Preface and Acknowledgments 9
Abbreviations and Acronyms 15
introduction 19
1 Terra Natal
Early Childhood in Portuguese Guinea,
1924–32 24
2 Terra Ancestral
Schooling and Adolescence in Cabo
Verde, 1932–45 38
3 Mãe Patria
Higher Education and Political Militancy
in Portugal, 1945–52 55
4 Return to Terra Natal
Colonial Service and Anticolonial
Activities, 1952–56 76
5 Binationalism in Action
Passive Resistance and War Preparations,
1956–63 98
6 Conducting Armed Struggle
The Liberation of Portuguese Guinea, 1963–73 120
5
7 Solidarity with “Every Just Cause”
Pan-Africanism and Internationalism in Action 156
8 The “Cancer of Betrayal”
The Assassination of Amílcar Cabral,
20 January 1973 166
9 A Luta Continua
The Independence of Guinea-Bissau and
Cabo Verde, 1973–75 183
10 Cabral ka Muri
The Legacy of Amílcar Cabral 200
Notes 211
Bibliography 225
index 231
Illustrations
Maps
1 Portuguese Guinea, ca. 1960 25
2 Cabo Verde, ca. 1960 39
Figures
1 Cabral the revolutionary theoretician 126
2 Cabral in pensive mood as the war
intensified during the early 1970s 145
3 Cabral the consummate freedom advocate 163
7
Preface and Acknowledgments
The assassination of Amílcar Cabral, the charismatic
leader of the African Party for the independence of
Guinea and Cabo Verde (PAiGC), on 20 January 1973,
and the unilateral declaration of the independence of
Guinea-Bissau by his liberation movement eight months
later, were critical turning points that greatly sharpened
my political consciousness. i was born in Gambia, West
Africa, during the terminal period of British colonial
rule. Both my parents were natives of Guinea-Bissau,
then called Portuguese Guinea, located about four hun-
dred miles south. Like thousands of others before them,
they left their homeland to escape the harsher colonial
order there characterized by forced labor and corporal
punishment. While the Portuguese were not the only
European colonizers in Africa to maintain the pax co-
lonica by brutal repression, they were nevertheless the
last to formally end it, in 1961, following the uprisings
in Angola that signaled the beginning of armed national
liberation struggle there.
Growing up in Gambia before the start of the war
of independence in Guinea-Bissau, i heard numerous
9
