Wallace G. Mills Hist. 317 6 Portugal’s Colonial Policy
Portugal’s Colonial Policy
- this discussion is by no means a thorough analysis of Portugal’s colonial policies. Rather, there are a few general comments and impressions.
- Portugal’s explorers had rounded the Cape of Good Hope late in the 15th C and had given Portugal a big lead over other European rivals for trade and other involvements. Although their monopoly was broken and the Portuguese shouldered aside later by the Dutch and English, the Portuguese had clung to a number of enclaves on both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In most of these enclaves, Portuguese control was tenuous and did not extend very deeply into the interior. For example, during the Mfecane, a band of warriors driven out of Zululand had attacked and burned Lourenço Marques; the Portuguese had had to watch from ships where they had taken refuge.
- Portugal was a small country and its resources were limited; it had managed to keep the areas it did either because nobody else wanted them or in other cases, the British found it convenient to support Portuguese control. Portugal was not very industrialised, and often they used British goods for trade.
- during the scramble, imperialists like Cecil Rhodes hoped to supplant the Portuguese; especially, Rhodes wanted to build a railway from the Indian Ocean through Mozambique to the new territories acquired by his BSA Co. and named Rhodesia in his honour (in fact a railroad was built, but Mozambique remained Portuguese).
- the Germans also had designs on Portugal’s territorial claims (claims because Portugal always claimed much more than it actually controlled) in Africa (this was part of the aspiration to join up its main African colonies to create a giant MittelAfrika). In the event, the British and the Germans cancelled each other out. Each preferred that the disputed areas remain in Portuguese hands rather than be lost to the other.
- the Portuguese did try to extend more effective control in the colonies they retained, but control over remote areas was never complete (in the 1960s and 70s, insurgency movements were able to establish bases in these areas).
- in development, the Portuguese tended to rely on concession companies and/or plantations.
- the Portuguese had less colour prejudice than some other European peoples and a higher tendency to intermarry (young adventurers going out to the colonies in hopes of making their fortunes often did not have wives); thus, over long periods of time in their colonies, the Portuguese created and merged with a mulatto population.
- after WW2 especially, the Portuguese government adopted a version of the metropolitan approach (like France); i.e., the colonies became a part of greater Portugal and those individuals who could meet the assimilation criteria could become Portuguese citizens.
- also, in the post-1945 period and especially in the 1950s and 60s in a effort to develop the colonies and ease population and unemployment pressures at home, the Portuguese government encouraged emigration to Angola and Mozambique.
- the Portuguese claimed that their colonialism was free of racism, but this was at best only partly true. The practice of granting citizenship to anyone who could meet the education and assimilation criteria in fact benefited the mulatto population primarily, not the general African population. Also, the white settlers from Portugal in the post 1945 period became more race conscious and there were strains on the policy of non-racialism.
- however, as independence movements and guerrilla activities started, it was apparent that whites were dependent on the Portuguese army; the government tried to undercut support for the independence movements by expanding the non-racialism policies. Thus, there were contradictory pressures.
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