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This paper examines the composition of families in the parish of São José de Encoge, northern Angola, in the early colonial era, using a series of 'family bulletins' collected by the Portuguese colonial government in 1910. Encoge was one of the earliest centres of coffee cultivation in west-central Africa. While not all local families participated in this economy, the census sheds light on family-based cash-crop production after the abolition of slavery in Angola. The literature on post-slavery labour arrangements in Africa almost unanimously suggests that family-extension strategies predominantly aimed to integrate young women and girls into households, using pawnship and guardianship as important methods. The family bulletins from Encoge provide a means to evaluate this assumption on a quantitative basis in an Angolan context. They indicate that, besides natural reproduction and the adoption of second wives, the incorporation of wards, nephews, and nieces was the most common form of household extension, in which elders showed a remarkable preference for male dependants. The bulletins do not provide clear evidence of the presence of enslaved dependants, although some individuals listed as servants were possibly enslaved. Overall, the data suggest that, contrary to common assumptions about agricultural labour in Africa, family-based cultivation and trade of coffee did not discriminate against men or boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the beginning of European overseas expansion in the fifteenth century, religious missions occupied an important place in the internal organisation of colonial empires. Their contribution to the ideological structuring of imperialism and the interaction with local populations is undeniable. With the emergence of the new imperialism and the scramble for Africa (after the 1870s), the missions, often anticipating the colonial political and administrative presence, enhanced their role as advocates of Europe's "civilising mission", above all through the education of the colonised peoples. For Portuguese decision-makers, the religious missions, with a multi-century tradition, had an important role in defending territorial claims overseas and promoting the empire's nationalisation. However, the lack of national missionaries, Christianity's inter-confessional competition in the nineteenth century and the emergence of international legal rules protecting missionary activities hindered Portugal's strategies. Using sources from several archives (in Lisbon, the Vatican, and elsewhere) to emphasise the role of a transnational missionary staff and the international law of missions, this text intersects these aspects, examining their convergence in the controversial case of the exit and replacement of Jesuit missionaries in Mozambique in 1910–1911, to demonstrate the need to look at the missionary issues in the Portuguese overseas domains from perspectives that go beyond nation and empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Macanese Diaspora in British Hong Kong: A Century of Transimperial Drifting" by Catherine Chan explores the history of Hong Kong's Macanese diasporic community during the first century of British colonial rule. The book examines the interracial relationships between European, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Malay individuals in Portuguese colonies like Macau, Goa, and Timor, and how these relationships shaped the Macanese community in Hong Kong. Through family records, newspapers, and colonial archives, Chan highlights the transcolonial and global connections of the Macanese diaspora, as well as the local associational cultures that influenced their identity and community-building efforts. The book also addresses the complexities of identity and the impact of European colonial rule on the Macanese community. [Extracted from the article]

Mumbai’s diverse cultural heritage includes several Christian churches associated with the city’s East Indian community and with the legacy of Portuguese colonial rule between 1534 and 1739. This study addresses one such site in the village of Mandapeshwar, which developed from an eighth-century CE Hindu rock-cut cave temple and was transformed during the period of Portuguese rule into a center of Franciscan missionary activity, including through the creation of a Sacro Monte, or series of pilgrimage stations. By reconstructing the activities of the early Franciscan missionaries on Shashti Island north of Mumbai, this investigation reveals that the Sacro Monte functioned as a Marian devotional shrine, with a crowning chapel dedicated to the Holy Spirit. The Sacro Monte, with its grottoes, represents a unique synthesis of rock-cut Hindu cave temples and Christian hermitic traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first Macanese diaspora to Hong Kong in the 1840s saw not only the movement of Macau's Luso-Asians to British territory, but also the unfolding of decades of discussion regarding the repressive rule of the Portuguese colonial administration over Macau. From establishing Portuguese-language newspapers to writing to Hong Kong's English-language newspapers, the Macanese found a relatively liberal space in British Hong Kong to address Macau's social and political issues and criticise the Portuguese colonial administration and Portugal away from the Portuguese empire's strict press censorship. Through exploring the ways Macanese newspaper editors and contributors challenged Portuguese policies and maladministration on British soil, this study aims to first, analyse the experience of Hong Kong within the wider context of British press control in its Asian colonies and second, show how trans-border interaction came to be facilitated between Hong Kong and Macau by the movement and activities of a multiracial diasporic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local traditions have always been endangered by colonialism and modernity. For centuries under Western systems of domination in Africa they were exploited for colonial purposes and even subverted, and in many cases they were reinvented under both modern and imperial discourses. Nevertheless, new traditions have also emerged from both colonial and modern legacies that today shape contemporary social and spatial landscapes. To explore these issues, this article examines the Ajuda neighborhood in Guinea-Bissau's capital of Bissau, which was built in the 1960s under Portuguese colonial rule to accommodate mainly public servants and their families from the African population. It aims to unveil how Guinean traditions related to dwelling space, reorganized within the colonial spatiality, have reemerged to shape and transform present-day domestic environments. Using the house as a critical tool, the article discusses how traditions may thus endure as long as they are negotiated in relation to new conditions that may derive from disruptive events, such as colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade of colonial Portuguese Guinea (now Guiné-Bissau), the Portuguese government accelerated the process of territory occupation. While colonial administration announced to promote and improve living conditions of the Guinean population, nevertheless the population experienced a violent intrusion in their private and public life by the colonial authorities. The effective territory occupation and the clash with the rural population started during the War of Independence and especially during the government of Governor General António de Spínola (1968-1972) under the so-called “Uma Guiné Melhor” (“A Better Guinea”) plan. This plan was not only a psychological-propaganda campaign, but also a clear military occupation strategy to achieve the implementation of “strategic camps that imprison” the local population (Ledda, 1970: 119). The aim of this paper is to examine the construction of those strategic camps, to explore the housing typologies and to question the social, spatial and economic impact on the life of the rural Guinean population. This article also aims to frame the controversial messages of the integration policy acclaimed in the “Uma Guiné Melhor” plan by exploring and analysing the strategies of spatialization of people in action between 1968-1973. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Angola, as with many countries on the African continent, has great inequalities or asymmetries between its provinces. At the economic, financial, and technological level, there is a great disparity between them, where it is observed that the province of Luanda is the largest financial business center to the detriment of others, such as Moxico, Zaire, and Cabinda. In the latter, despite the advantages of high oil production, from a regional point of view, they remain almost stagnant in time, in a social dysfunction where the population lives on extractivism and artisanal fishing. This article analyzes the most important events in contemporary regional history, the Portuguese occupation that was the Portuguese colonial rule over Angola (1890–1930) and the civil war that was a struggle between Angolans for control of the country (1975–2002), in the consolidation of the asymmetries between provinces. For this work, a theoretical-reflective study was conducted based on the reading of books, articles, and previous investigations on the phenomenon studied. Considering the interpretation and analysis of the theoretical content obtained through the bibliographic research conducted, this theoretical construction approaches the qualitative approach. We conclude that the deep inequalities between regions and within them, between the provinces studied, originated historically in the form of exploitation of the regions and from the consequences of the war. The asymmetries, observed through the variables studied show that the provinces historically explored and considered object regions present a lower growth compared to those that were considered subject regions in which the applied geopolitical strategy, as they are centers of primary production flows, was different. We also observe that, due to the conflicts of the civil war in the less developed regions, the inequalities have deepened, contributing seriously to a higher level of poverty and a lower development of the provinces where these conflicts took place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the intersections of race, sex and gender that shaped the legal system of assimilation in colonial Mozambique. Between 1917 and 1961, Africans could apply for assimilated (assimilado/a) status, granting them limited rights of Portuguese citizenship. Analysis of assimilation case files, administrative reports and public debates in local newspapers reveals that assimilation was an ambiguous, changing and gendered system shaped not only by its Portuguese legislative architects, but also by the African men and women who navigated the law, and encouraged its reforms, over time. Using a feminist historical approach to challenge entrenched scholarly interpretations of the system as uniformly male gendered, this article reveals that marriage, miscegenation and women were at the centre of the assimilation system as a contested site of the politics of 'civilisation' in the colonial capital of Lourenço Marques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "The Press and the Empire in Portuguese Africa (1842-1974)" by Isadora de Ataíde Fonseca analyzes the role of the press and journalism in the Portuguese colonies in Africa. The author demonstrates how the press contributed to the contestations, dilemmas, collaborations, and associativism in the Portuguese colonies throughout the political regimes in Portugal between 1842 and 1974. The press in the Portuguese colonies had a political profile and was a space for the first literary expressions in colonial spaces. During the Constitutional Monarchy, the Official Bulletin had regularity in Cape Verde, while there is little information about the press in São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea during this period. During the Republic, there were few changes in Portuguese colonial policies regarding Africa. The article discusses the role of the press in Portuguese Africa during the colonial period, highlighting the different political orientations of the newspapers and their relationship with the current political regimes. The text mentions the creation of associations and leagues in the African colonies, which used the press as a means of claiming rights and political struggle. The author also addresses the instrumentalization of the press by the Estado Novo from the 1940s onwards and the emergence of African leaders who fought for the independence of the colonies. With the Carnation Revolution in 1974, the Portuguese colonies achieved independence and new periodicals emerged to manage the localities. Isadora de Ataíde Fonseca's work is highlighted as an important contribution to the study of the press in colonial Africa. [Extracted from the article]

This article compares Brazilian and Cuban foreign policies regarding the decolonization of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau, territories under Portuguese colonial rule during the Cold War. The presented hypothesis is that these countries sought to project themselves as third World political forces to the public opinion, elaborating official speeches that emphasized the legacies of the colonial system with slave labor as an element of connection with Africa. Additionally, it is observed that although decolonization, the Carnation Revolution (1974) and the approval of the new Portuguese Constitution (1976) changed the diplomatic relations between these countries, the remnants of colonial legacies that kept marking their tone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Portuguese pamphleteer Jose´ Freire Monterroio Mascarenhas's journalistic and literary endeavors as they illuminate an early-eighteenth-century intersection of imperial transformation and an expanding culture of print. Recent scholarship has analyzed Mascarenhas's work as editor of the Gazeta de Lisboa, as well as how his writings on monstrosity addressed a waning vision of disaster as divine intervention and newer scientific understandings of nature. This article turns to the less-studied ways in which Mascarenhas's prolific textual production also accounted for territories beyond Europe over which the Portuguese Crown claimed sovereignty. While Mascarenhas's historia presente reinforced the juxtaposition of an Asian military enterprise and its absence in America, his accounts of the empire also invited scrutiny of the scope of conquest and limits of bellicosity and suggested that in cultivating knowledge of the imperial present, readers needed to recognize the range of exchanges that generated Portuguese authority and wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to demonstrate that the balanced budgets registered annually in the public accounts of each and every African colony under Portuguese was essentially an elaborate accounting ploy that did not in the least reflect the effective financial flows within empire. During the last decades of the Portuguese rule under the Estado Novo or New State, it enabled the government of the overseas territories to boast one of its allegedly most remarkable achievements as far as colonial administration was concerned. To demonstrate actual accounting mechanisms and financial flows, the revenues and expenditures registered in each colony's annual accounts are reorganised here according to alternative criteria for public budgeting, less permeable to the manipulation of accounts. Subsequently, the reformulation of public accounts is then corrected for revenues and expenditures which despite being essential for to the governance of each African colony, were not registered in the respective official accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural divisions and population arrangements in colonial settings are today as prone to confusion and subjective representations as they once were. In this paper, we focus on the Angolan late colonial experience of villagization and population resettlement and ask if there is a clear distinction between proto-urban settings in rural areas and colonial penal camps. We argue that the history of colonial prisons and (model) villages must consider the strategies of distinction put at work by local and metropolitan authorities. Among these distinctions, the architectural and aesthetical features of village projects became part of a conflict, opposing at once colonial civil administrators and metropolitan actors, on one side, and military officers, on the other. Together, the administrative and the military rationales for top-down social engineering projects make up the core of an important, yet overlooked debate on what constituted the good and the bad types of African concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue on topics including Portuguese colonies in Africa, narratives of ex-Combatants in Angola and public administration in the colonies.

At first glance, processes of colonial policy and subsequent migratory flows at the Angola–South West Africa border, in the region of the Kunene river, seem to present a straightforward narrative. In the period between the First and Second World Wars, we find an established pattern of Kwanyama/Ovambo leaving Portuguese Angola to escape repressive practices of forced labour, and as a reaction to the mistreatment of political leaders. Flight movements were encouraged by South African officials stationed in the Ovamboland district of South West Africa, directly south of the border, who practised, notably before 1945, a policy of co-optation of local chiefs. However, it has hitherto remained unnoticed that, between 1945 and 1974, changes in the policies of the authoritarian Portuguese empire had highly practical effects with regard to these flows. Until the 1960s, the comparative advantage of South African border policies lost its impact. In the early 1970s, a more liberal tax policy in the Angolan Cunene district had an even stronger impact on the decision-making processes on the part of local populations. The analysis shows quite clearly that, even under the auspices of late colonial social policies, which favoured grand schemes and more thorough control of populations, the initiative of local groups remained unbroken. In a scenario of colonial policy that favoured the power of the Ovambo chiefs on the southern side of the border, women and younger men used the border to escape social conditions they interpreted as repressive, and locals were capable of constantly reanalysing the advantages present on either side of the border. These results, which confirm the room for manoeuvre of potential forced labourers, also warn us not to generalise too readily about the consequences of under-equipped and authoritarian colonial policies, such as for Portuguese rule over southern Angola. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the present paper I discuss the assumptions and significance of some of the theses and techniques behind Portuguese colonial land policies in Africa between the mid-1920s and the 1940s, and discuss their role in the Portuguese colonial project. I particularly address the extent to which, both in national and international discussion fora on colonial topics, as well as in official discourse, through the voice of politicians in the metropole as well as colonial administrators and experts, arguments in favour of African access to individual property, for different purposes, gained ground. These arguments went against the dominant perspective in Portuguese colonial thought between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which dictated the limited access of Africans to the land for instance in the name of economic development of colonial territories, the fight against land speculation and the safeguarding of Portuguese sovereignty in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1930s, administrative control over the unruly hinterlands of Angola was established by the Portuguese colonisers, and officials at Lisbon's colonial ministry attempted to set up efficient mechanisms to force local populations to work. However, the experience and the attitudes of the administrators of the local posts—the chefes de posto—and of the small subdivisions were full of ambivalences and insecurities; their interaction with the African inhabitants of the respective areas and with the European settlers was characterised by improvisation. These attitudes of the local administrators, slowly changing up to and beyond the period of the Second World War, can be used as a window into administrative life in the field, and these attitudes had direct repercussions on the living conditions of rural Angolans. While this analysis is limited to subdivisions of the Angolan districts of Cuanza-Sul and Malange, it is intended to contribute to a broader picture of the effects the decisions of local administrators had, a picture applicable to other Portuguese colonies and to the lower parts of the hierarchy of other colonial empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades of Portuguese colonialism, policies destined to Muslim populations of Guinea and Mozambique turned from hostility to a strategy of seduction, with the aim of promoting a "Portuguese Islam" and using some Islamic groups in the struggle against nationalist African movements. Such a transition included a transnational dimension, as some actors within the Portuguese administration wanted to intervene in a larger strategic space known as the "Islamic world". This article tries to analyze that intervention, focusing on its geopolitical thought and its diplomatic fulfillment, particularly in what concerns the relations with the Arab countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing its information from different documents in Portuguese and French archives, this article examines the evolution of Portuguese colonial policies towards Islam, focusing on the special case of Mozambique. Such policies evolved from an attitude of neglect and open repression, prevalent in the early years of the colonial war that broke out in 1965, when Muslims were perceived as the main supporters of the anti-colonial guerrilla in northern Mozambique, to an approach that tried to isolate ‘African Muslims’ from foreign influences in order to align them with the Portuguese. The article analyses the latter strategy, assessing its successes and failures, and the contributions made by several of those who were involved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the phenomenon of imposture in colonial Brazil during the years of the Portuguese Inquisition, with focus given to the clerical impostor Januário de San Pedro. The author uses the case of Januário, who posed as an officer of the Inquisition, in order to examine the ways in which the Holy Office of the Inquisition both prohibited and allowed for imposture in a specifically colonial context. The social structure of the Brazilian sertão, or backlands, is analyzed due to its ability to foster imposture, as are the colonial social norms that Januário sought to subvert.

The article discusses Portugal's colonial relations with Brazil, focusing particularly on those between the Portuguese Overseas Council and the Brazilian-based councillors and local officials between 1642 and 1833. Some of the subjects explored include the role of the Catholic Church, especially Jesuit missionaries, in the colonial development of Brazil and its relations with indigenous peoples; issues with overseeing a maritime empire and the centralization of political power; and the influence of Portuguese patron-client relationships on politics in the early modern period.

Mainly known as the scene of a successful nationalist campaign against Portuguese rule (1963-1974), the territory of «Portuguese» Guinea still remains terra incognita in West Africa's history. Surrounded by the French AOF, it formed a small «lusophone» enclave with a largely unmapped population since its «pacification» in 1915. Colonial administrators doubling as ethnographers showed little interest in their new « subjects », producing a mere trickle of information until the mid 1930s. Mainly concerned with tax returns, they endeavoured to register huts rather than people. Focusing on men as chiefs and heads of households, women were all but ignored as autonomous subjects and persons; exceptions to the rule were treated as «anomalies». However, as ethnographic data began to surface, reports interwove gendered vectors with colour, eugenic and ethnic concepts, revealing intra-gender hierarchies. In addition, the absence of European women induced shifts in colonial policies that portrayed their African counterparts as the guardians of racial purity. As a result, medical assistance which was presented as the symbol of «modernity» ended up by recognising native women as mothers to be and potential clients. The present essay, which covers ethnographic production over a period of two decades, intends to fill gaps in the literature whilst exploring new avenues for the gendered analysis of colonial discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]