Blackwell Reference Online

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Amilcar Cabral (1924–1973 ce ) was born at Bafata in Guinea-Bissau, in West Africa. He was educated in Cape Verde. He later went to Portugal, the colonial power that ruled Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, in 1945, and trained as an agronomist. During his Lisbon years, the Pan-Africanist movement gathered momentum and anti-colonial nationalism fostered different philosophies of identity among an incipient but burgeoning group of Western-trained, Western-inspired, African intellectuals and political activists. Cabral graduated as an Agronomy Engineer in 1951. As Mario Andrade puts it, “it was the starting-point for a new phase that was to have a decisive effect in the future” ( Unity and Struggle , p. xxiv). This future was one in which he dedicated his life to political struggle to free Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands from the clutches of Portuguese colonialism. And the principal vehicle for this struggle, the Partido Africano da Independência – União do Povos de Guiné e Cabo Verde, was founded by him and six others on September 19, 1956 (ibid., p. xxvii). It was later renamed Partido Africano da Independencia da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) on October 8, 1960. On January 23, 1963, PAIGC transmuted into a liberation movement. Cabral remained at the head of the party and its military struggle until January 20, 1973, when allegedly he was assassinated by agents of the Portuguese ... log in or subscribe to read full text