How to explain Portuguese colonisation in Africa
First Europeans in, last Europeans
Trade And Africa
Arguably the effect of Portuguese colonisation and imperialism in Africa has been amongst the most enduring of any of the European powers that held territories on the continent of Africa. The effect of Portuguese colonisation in Africa to a large extent can be traced back to the length that Portugal had overseas territories in Africa.
The Portuguese reached Africa during the late fifteenth century and retained territories on the continent until the mid-1970s. Originally the Portuguese had only reached the continent of Africa in order to establish trade links with China and India by sailing around the southern tip of Africa. The Portuguese not only found the sailing to China and India via the tip of southern Africa highly profitable, they found trading in Africa a money spinning enterprise.
Exploitation
What made the Portuguese establish colonies on the continent of Africa was the amount money they made from exploiting the people as well as the then abundant natural resources of the whole of Africa. The Portuguese soon discovered that Africa offered them plenty of precious metals, ivory, and above all people in the form of slaves to make profits out of.
From as early as the sixteenth century the main African colonies of the Portuguese were Angola and Mozambique that were keenly exploited to extract as much profit from natural resources and slaves as possible. As the Portuguese involvement in Africa predated the discovery of the New World they already had strong links with Arab slave traders, which came in handy when they needed slaves to replace the indigenous people of Brazil wiped out by disease. Despite having strong links with the slave trade it was the British and the French that made the most money from transporting slaves to Latin America.
First in, Last out
When the Portuguese lost Brazil they retained control of their African colonies, which provided them with profits from the extraction of minerals and precious metals even after the formal abolition of slavery. The Portuguese seemed content with maintaining control of Angola and Mozambique, not bothering to join in with the scramble for Africa at the end of the nineteenth century.
Perhaps it was fitting that the Portuguese kept their colonies in Africa longer than the other European powers kept theirs. From the early 1960s there were armed insurgencies in Angola and Mozambique attempting to win independence from the Portuguese, which was granted in the mid 1970s.
Bibliography
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Eatwell, R. & Wright, A (2003) Contemporary Political Ideologies 2nd Edition, Continuum, London
Fisk R, (2006) The Great War for Civilisation – the conquest of the Middle East, Harper
Perennial, London
Hobsbawm, E (1994) Age of Extremes, the Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, Michael Joseph, London
Hurd D (1997) In Search of Peace – A Century of Peace Diplomacy, Little Brown & Co, London
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