Quote from Steve on October 10, 2021, 12:58 pm

I like some Angolan stamps or Portuguese West Africa stamps more than others. The early colonial stamps showing the King of Portugal, I guess, are rather dull. These are all common. By now you will probably know that my preference would be for the postmarked pair. It is a complete postmark which is unusual on a stamp but possible on a pair.

In the 1950s the Portuguese colonial post office issued some lovely stamps showing the animals of Angola as well as one celebrating native women's hairstyles. These had the added attraction of often being modelled by topless young women. They are nothing special but they are among my favourite African stamps. Even if they are worth nothing at all, they remain a colonial era reminder of tribal hairstyles in a disappearing Africa. One of the reasons for that disappearance was the West African transatlantic slave trade. I believe, and the figures are to be found somewhere on-line, that the majority of slaves shipped to the New World (North and South America) came from Angola.

(I've quickly looked this up.) Between 1525 and 1866, it is said that 12.5m Africans were shipped to the New World of which 1.8m died on the journey to North America, the Caribbean and South America. The majority of slaves shipped from Africa went to South America, in particular to Brazil which received some 3.2m slaves mostly carried by Portuguese ships from Angola. Some say the number of slaves shipped to the USA's Southern slaves states was less than 1m. Some say it was only ("only"!) 388,000. The remainder must have gone to the Caribbean. As I said, the numbers don't see to add up. Even if 2m or 3m  went to North America it still doesn't add up, does it?