António Francisco Ferreira da Silva Porto

António Francisco Ferreira da Silva Porto (24 August 1817 – 2 April 1890) was a Portuguese trader and explorer in Angola, in the Portuguese West Africa.

Biography

Silva Porto was born to a poor family in Porto in continental Portugal; he was the son of humble parents, but whose father distinguished himself in battles against the French during their invasion in 1810. Instead of following his father into the military, the intelligent and ambitious boy looked to economic possibilities farther afield.

Brazil was an obvious possibility, owing to the success of many emigrants; at the age of twelve, with his father's blessing, he emigrated to the Brazilian capital of Rio de Janeiro on board the brig Rio Ave. After working for a while for a merchant he became indignant with his remuneration and quit, taking several itinerant jobs. At 18 years of age he landed in Bahia, where he made a point of announcing to the newspaper Correio Mercantil his new name, in order to remove any confusion with another António Ferreira da Silva. He did this to pay homage to his hometown as well. In Bahia he continued to work as a sales clerk for a coffee merchant but continued to be exploited by his boss and frustrated by the "despotism of proprietors without scruples".

West African merchant

One day, at the Port of Bahia, he boarded a ship to Luanda, "without even knowing where Angola was" as he would state later in life. However, initially, Luanda did not fascinate him much, and after a short time, he returned to Bahia where the political climate was heating up. During the "Sabino Revolt", an autonomist uprising in the State of Bahia that occurred between 6 November 1837 and 16 March 1838, Silva Porto understood that this political instability would hamper business prospects, and decided to return to Angola, where he was employed in a local tavern. Slowly, he became captivated with the interior of the African continent, and with his first salaries, he bought handicrafts and linens. Once he was confident of the quantity of mercantile goods in his possession, he quit his job and began his 50-year career as a merchant in the interior. He was only 22 years old. This was a difficult adventure: many of the caravans that left the Benguela coast for Lui, Luanda and Katanga risked robbery, pillaging and negotiating styles of the local chiefs. There was always risk of wandering into tribal conflicts. Silva Porto developed many friendships in the interior with tribesmen and quickly adapted to the conditions in Africa, adapting indigenous agricultural techniques and married a prominent black woman from the Bié kingdom of the Ovimbundu people, fathering several children with her.