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Portugal Portuguese Africa
With the advent of rotativismo and subsequent
political stability, the attention of Portugal turned
toward its
colonial possessions in Africa. In East Africa, the chief
settlement was Mozambique Island, but there was little
control
over the estates of the mainland where Portuguese of mixed
ancestry ruled as feudal potentates. In West Africa, the
most
important settlements were Luanda and Benguela on the
Angolan
coast, linked to Brazil by the slave trade conducted
through the
African island of São Tomé. It was during this period that
the
Portuguese began to send expeditions into the interior.
In 1852 António Francisco Silva Porto explored the
interior
of Angola. In 1877 a scientific expedition led by
Hermenegildo
Capelo and Roberto Ivens, two naval officers, and
Alexandre Serpa
Pinto, an army major, departed from Luanda and traveled to
the
Bié region in central Angola, where they separated. Serpa
Pinto
explored the headwaters of the Cuanza River in Angola and
followed the course of the Zambezi River to Victoria Falls
in
present-day Zimbabwe. Exploring areas now part of South
Africa,
he crossed the Transvaal and arrived in Natal in 1879. In
1884
Capelo and Ivens departed from Moçamades on the coast of
Angola
and crossed the continent through entirely unexplored
territory,
arriving at Quelimane on the east coast of Mozambique in
1885. In
the same year, Serpa Pinto and Augusto Cardoso explored
the
territory around Lake Nyassa. Various Portuguese, such as
Paiva
de Andrade and António Maria Cardoso, explored the
interior of
Mozambique.
Despite Portugal's historical claim to the Congo
region, the
colonial ambitions of the great powers of the
day--Britain,
France, and Germany--gave rise to disputes about its
ownership.
Portugal therefore proposed an international conference to
resolve the disputed claim to the Congo. This conference,
which
met in Berlin in 1884-85, awarded the Congo to the king of
Belgium and established the principle that in order for a
claim
to African territory to be valid, the claimant had to
demonstrate
"effective occupation," not historical rights. The Berlin
Conference, as it is known, resulted in the partition of
Africa
among the European powers, and awarded Portugal
Mozambique,
Angola, and Guinea.
In 1886 Portugal signed two treaties that delimited the
boundaries between Portuguese territories and those of
France and
Germany. France and Germany recognized Portugal's right to
exercise sovereignty in the interior territory between
Mozambique
and Angola. This claim was represented on a map, annexed
to the
treaty with France, on which the claimed territory was
colored
red. In order to validate this claim, the Portuguese
published
the "rose-colored map" and organized successive
expeditions into
the interior between Mozambique and Angola. Meanwhile, the
British were also exploring the territory from south to
north
under the auspices of Cecil Rhodes, who had designs on the
territory for the construction of a railroad that would
run from
Cape Town through central Africa to Cairo.
Portugal protested against the activities of the
British in
what they considered to be their territory. The British,
having
signed a number of treaties with African chiefs, claimed
that the
territory was under their protection and refused to
recognize the
rose-colored map. Moreover, they said the territory was
not
Portuguese because Portugal had not effectively occupied
it as
required by the terms of the Berlin Conference. Portugal
proposed
that the conflicting claims be resolved through
arbitration.
Britain refused and sent the Portuguese an ultimatum, on
January
11, 1890, demanding the withdrawal of all Portuguese
forces from
the disputed territory. Portugal, faced with the armed
might of
the British, complied.
Data as of January 1993
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