Angola's Colossal Lie: Forced Labor on a Sugar Plantation, 1913-1977 (African History, 4)

Angola's Colossal Lie. Forced Labor on a Sugar Plantation, 1913-1977 is the first in-depth study of forced labor on a Portuguese-owned sugar plantation in colonial Angola. A prominent Portuguese civil servant dubbed the labor system in Angola a “colossal lie” because the reality so contradicted the law. Using extensive oral history interviews with former forced laborers, Jeremy Ball explains how Angolans experienced forced labor. Ball also interviews former Portuguese administrators to provide multiple perspectives about the transition to independence and the nationalization of the plantation.

Jeremy Ball, Ph.D. (2003), University of California, Los Angeles, is Associate Professor of History at Dickinson College. He has published articles on labor and business history, the missionary encounter, and the ecological history of Angola.