Portuguese Colonial Rule (African Studies)

Introduction

To a much greater extent than those of other European colonial powers, Portugal’s African empire was woven deeply into the culture, politics, and economics of the metropole. Long after the more developed and industrialized states of Europe had decolonized, Portugal maintained its narrow centralized form of rule––from Mozambique to Angola in the south and from Guinea-Bissau in the west to the Atlantic archipelagos of Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe. It did not do so easily; the last decade and a half of Portugal’s imperial presence––from the early 1960s until the final collapse of the empire in the mid-1970s––was marked by guerrilla warfare in the three continental territories and anticolonial agitation in the islands. The Lisbon regime’s official justification for this apparently irrational behavior was that Portugal’s five-hundred-year presence in Africa was part of a sacred national vocation. Portugal, in fact, was not a “colonial power”––or even, in a sense, a “European” one; it was a “pluricontinental” entity defined by language, culture, and history. There was in effect no empire, just “one state, single and indivisible” (um estado, uno e indivisível) parts of which were “overseas provinces” (províncias ultramarinas). This semi-mystical doctrine of “lusotropicalism” asserted that Portugal’s unique history and culture enabled it to transcend its continental limits to spread across the non-European world. The organization of this article reflects this self-conceived Portuguese sense of imperial exceptionalism. While the reality of the notion has been challenged (primarily by non-Portuguese writers), it was an article of faith among Portuguese imperial policymakers and a potent propaganda tool of successive governments––before and even since the 1974 revolution and decolonization. The bibliography also reflects the fact that “Portuguese colonial rule” was primarily a phenomenon of the 19th and 20th centuries. While there had been a Portuguese presence in Africa since the late 15th century in the form of coastal fortifications and Creole settlements, this could not properly be considered control from the metrople. In this sense Africa came relatively late in the narrative of Portuguese state imperialism. It was the “third” empire (o terceiro império) following the first in Asia (where Portugal was largely displaced by the Dutch in the 17th century) and the second in the Americas (which effectively ended with Brazil’s declaration of independence in 1822). While numerous works cited here deal with the earlier period of the Portuguese presence (see also the related Oxford Bibliographies articles on Kongo and the Coastal States of West Central Africa, Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea Bissau), the principal focus is on the age of formalized control by the Portuguese state from the mid-19th century. After initial sections which consider general overviews, reference works, and bibliographies, the uniquely close interconnections between the African presence and European domestic concerns is explored in a section covering relevant publications on the Portuguese “nation,” broadly defined. The longer history of Portugal’s presence in Africa is then considered, followed by sections on the age of the “scramble” for Africa, the 20th century, the (contested) economic aspect of Portugal’s experience in Africa, the liberation wars, and then the international response to Portugal’s colonial policies. The subsequent sections deal in turn with each of the component parts of Portuguese Africa: Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe. In the cases of first two––the larger continental territories––the entries are divided into sections dealing respectively with the generalities of the colonial experience and with nationalist resistance. The final section covers the febrile process of decolonization and the transfers of power to the new regimes in Africa which followed the sudden collapse of the authoritarian state in Lisbon in April 1974.

General Overviews

Central to Portugal’s assertion of its unique position in Africa was the long––and largely uninterrupted––duration of its presence in the continent. The now classic Boxer 1991 chronicles the history of Portuguese expansion from the 15th to the early 19th centuries in which Africa plays a significant role. The Birmingham 2004 collection is more tightly focused on the presence in Africa as is Chilcote 1967 (which offers a continuous narrative rather than, as in Birmingham’s book, individual studies). Finally, the social and cultural underpinning of Portuguese imperial doctrine––lusotropicalism––can be explored in the collection Freyre 1960, by its founding philosopher, the Brazilian anthropologist Gilberto Freyre. The concept of lusotropicalism and its political and cultural impact in Portugal itself is closely analyzed by Castelo 1998 while MacQueen 2003 discusses the lusotropical illusion and the aftermath of Portugal’s loss of empire. Various historiographical debates on these and other areas take place online at the H-Luso-Africa list-serv which brings together scholars and observers of Portuguese-speaking Africa from across the world.

Birmingham, David. Portugal and Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2004.
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A collection of previously published essays by one of the leading interpreters of Portuguese colonial history reflecting four decades of work in the area. Covering the earlier phases of expansion as well as 19th and 20th century colonial rule, the balance of the collection favors Angola above the other territories.
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Boxer, Charles R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825. Manchester, UK: Carcanet in association with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1991.
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The preliminaries to Portugal’s formal colonial rule in Africa are extensively explored here (in a work first published in 1969) by the writer generally considered to be the doyen of foreign scholars of Portuguese expansion.
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Castelo, Cláudia. “O Modo Português de estar no Mundo”: o Luso-tropicalismo e a Ideológia Colonial Portuguesa (1933–1961). Porto, Portugal: Edicões Afrontamento, 1998.
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A study of the political, cultural, and psychological roots and influences of the idea of lusotropicalism and its enduring place in the collective Portuguese consciousness throughout the 20th century and beyond.
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Chilcote, Ronald H. Portuguese Africa. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967.
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A general survey of Portugal’s five centuries in Africa by a prolific American writer on colonialism.
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Freyre, Gilberto. The Portuguese and the Tropics: Suggestions Inspired by the Portuguese Methods of Integrating Autochthonous Peoples. Lisbon: Executive Committee for the Commemoration of the Vth Centenary of Death of Prince Henry the Navigator, 1960.
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A collection of essays published––following a government-sponsored tour of Portugal’s African territories––providing a guide to the author’s theory of “lusotropicalism.”
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H-Luso-Africa
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An internet discussion group which is concerned with all aspects of Portuguese-speaking Africa including its history and historiography.
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MacQueen, Norrie. “Re-defining the ‘African Vocation’: Portugal’s Post-colonial Identity Crisis.” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 11.2 (2003): 181–199.
DOI: 10.1080/1460846032000164618Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Explores the contradictions of the lusotropical doctrine and its effects on Portugal’s postcolonial relationships.
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Reference Works

The multiauthored handbook Abshire and Samuels 1969 was the first significant work of reference (and opinion) covering Portuguese Africa as a whole and is still a valuable source on Portuguese colonial rule in its later phase. Núñez 1995–1996 takes a wider perspective, both in terms of chronology and the range of entries (they include, for example, the flora and fauna of Portuguese Africa). Portuguese Africa is well represented in the Scarecrow Press Historical Dictionary series, which includes Azevedo 1991, Lobban and Mendy 1997, Lobban and Saucier 2007, and James 2011. Although these works also cover the post-independence years, by their nature they reach back into the period of colonial rule.

Abshire, David M., and Michael A. Samuels, eds. Portuguese Africa: A Handbook. London: Pall Mall, 1969.
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A collection of thematic studies with a strong social and economic focus. Written from a wide range of political perspectives, the Handbook was published five years before the 1974 revolution and the ensuing process of decolonization.
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Azevedo, Mário Joaquím. Historical Dictionary of Mozambique. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1991.
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Compiled by a Mozambican novelist and historian, this edition has been criticized for a lack of balance and perspective on the nationalist struggle.
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James, W. Martin. Historical Dictionary of Angola. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2011.
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This edition develops earlier ones complied firstly by Phyllis Martin in 1980 and then by Susan Broadhead in 1992.
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Lobban, Richard, and Peter Karibe Mendy. Historical Dictionary of Guinea-Bissau. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1997.
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This third edition on Guinea-Bissau is written by a veteran North American observer of the country jointly with a local historian.
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Lobban, Richard, and Paul Khalil Saucier. Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cape Verde. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2007.
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The fourth edition of this historical dictionary is compiled by Lobban (joint author of the Historical Dictionary of Guinea-Bissau, Lobban and Mendy 1997) with a young Cape Verdean scholar.
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Núñez, Benjamín. Dictionary of Portuguese-African Civilization. 2 vols. Oxford: Hans Zell, 1995–1996.
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These lexicographical volumes embrace a wide-ranging collection of entries. From the historian’s perspective they provide a useful source of information on the culture, politics, and economics of Portuguese Africa across the centuries.
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Bibliographies

There are no very recent bibliographical studies of Portuguese Africa, a reflection perhaps of shifting academic priorities and interests since independence. Those compiled in the post-independence period tend to focus on particular territories and cover the contemporary period as well as the years of colonial rule. The most readily available and comprehensive country-specific bibliographies were produced during the late 1980s and 1990s as part of the ABC-CLIO World Bibliographical series. Darch 1988 covers Mozambique, Galli 1990 is concerned with Guinea-Bissau, Black 1992 with Angola, and Shaw 1995 with São Tomé and Príncipe.

Black, Richard. Angola. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1992.
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Compiled by a writer on Angolan politics, the bibliography includes a useful section on Angolan fiction in translation.
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Darch, Colin, with Calisto Pacheleke. Mozambique. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1988.
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A compilation by a historian of modern Mozambique (who is also an academic librarian in neighboring South Africa).
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Galli, Rosemary. Guinea-Bissau. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC CLIO, 1990.
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The compiler is a long-established scholar of the political economy of Guinea-Bissau with an interest in both the pre- and post-independence periods.
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Shaw, Caroline. São Tomé and Príncipe. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1995.
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Compiled by a professional bibliographer who is also a scholar of São Tomé and Príncipe.
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The Metropolitan Setting

The close integration between the Portuguese imperial and the domestic milieus means that a number of works ostensibly devoted to the “national” history of Portugal have a distinct relevance to an understanding of Portuguese Africa. David Birmingham, best known as an historian of Angola, gives a marked African inflection to his concise history (now in its second edition), Birmingham 2003, as does Robinson to his longer study, Robinson 1979. Oliveira Marques, a political émigré in the United States when he wrote his survey of the most intense period of colonial preoccupation, offers a liberal Portuguese perspective in Oliveira Marques 1972. Kay 1970, a now rather elderly (but yet to be superseded in English) study of Salazar, similarly places Africa in the context of the authoritarian Estado Novo (the so-called “New State” regime in Portugal from 1926 to 1974). Rosas 1994 deals with similar themes but with a post-revolutionary sensibility (and drawing on the much greater availability after 1974 of archival sources). Figueredo 1975 is a personal but insightful account of the Estado Novo and the ever-present influence of Africa. Raby 1988 and Maxwell 1995 offer non-Portuguese perspectives on the African role in the deepening cleavages within the Estado Novo elite (military and political) which precipitated the 1974 coup and subsequent decolonization.

Birmingham, David. A Concise History of Portugal. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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An accessible and lively short history of Portugal by an author who is first and foremost an Africanist.
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Figueredo, António de. Portugal: Fifty Years of Dictatorship. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1975.
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The late António de Figueredo was a London-based political refugee who himself, in his early years in Mozambique, embodied the pluricontinental nature of 20th-century Portuguese life.
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Kay, Hugh. Salazar and Modern Portugal. London: Eyre & Spottiswood, 1970.
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Kay’s book remains the most significant study in English of the dominating figure of 20th-century Portuguese authoritarianism and the architect of its late colonial policies. The book was published in the year of the Salazar’s death.
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Maxwell, Kenneth. The Making of Portuguese Democracy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511582752Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An excellent study, enriched by insights from political theory, of Portugal’s transition to democracy and the central place of the African wars in the process.
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Oliveira Marques, A. H. de. History of Portugal. Vol. 2, From Empire to Corporate State. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972.
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This second volume of Oliveira Marques’s general history (in English translation) covers the significant period of Portuguese rule in Africa in the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th.
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Raby, Dawn Linda. Fascism and Resistance in Portugal: Communists, Liberals, and Military Dissent in the Opposition to Salazar, 1941–1974. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1988.
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A monograph on internal resistance to the Salazar and Caetano regimes relevant to the colonial question in its treatment of the disaffection of key parts of the military with African policy.
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Robinson, R. A. H. Contemporary Portugal: A History. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979.
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An insightful and accessible account of 20th-century Portugal which is strong on the colonial bases of the 1974 revolution.
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Rosas, Fernando. O Estado Novo (1926–1974). Lisbon: Circulo de Leitores, 1994.
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A general study of the authoritarian regime which dominated Portugal for fifty years in the 20th century and which placed Africa at the center of its ideology. Written by a prominent leftist scholar and activist.
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The Impact of the “Scramble for Africa”

Although in its own narrative Portugal had been embedded in Africa for centuries before the north European parvenus acquired their keen interest in the continent in the second half of the 19th century, the “scramble” and the ensuing age of the “new imperialism” had a major effect on Portugal’s perspectives and policies. Axelson 1965 is rather dated now (and obviously was written without access to Portuguese archives which were organized and opened up after 1974) but it remains a useful text. Both Freire Antunes 1990 and Newitt 1981 offer overviews of the consequences of Portugal’s revived interest in Africa at the end of the 19th century, but in very different styles. The former considers the huge psychological and cultural impact of Africa on the metropole while the latter is rather more Afro-centric in its perspective.

Axelson, Eric Victor. Portugal and the Scramble for Africa 1875–1891. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1965.
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This monograph deals with Portugal’s renewed commitment to its African “vocation” spurred by the interest in sub-Saharan Africa of its more developed European rivals in the age of the “scramble.”
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Freire Antunes, José. O Factor Africano 1890–1990. Lisbon: Bertrand Editora, 1990.
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A concise view of the significance of Africa to Portugal from the attempt in 1890, frustrated by the British, to expand the empire across central Africa up to the post-independence years.
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Newitt, Malyn. Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years. London: Hurst, 1981.
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A synthesis focused on the period from 1875 to 1975 (though a chapter traces Portugal’s engagement with Africa before that initial date). The book covers key issues of Portuguese rule such as “pacification,” labor practices and the role of concessionary companies. Strong on the international and inter-imperial aspects of Portuguese colonialism.
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The 20th Century

Portugal’s place in Africa in the 20th century and the peculiarities of its rule (in contrast to the policies of the other imperial powers) has attracted particular attention from scholars. Davidson 1984, Duffy 1959, Duffy 1970, and Maxwell 1982 explore the internal contradictions and tensions of Portuguese colonial rule in the 20th century. Those analyses can be juxtaposed with the self-justifications of Marcello Caetano in his depoimento (“testament”), Caetano 1974, written in exile in Brazil immediately after the 1974 coup. In contrast to these broad-spectrum perspectives, Keese 2007 looks in detail at a key rhetorical justification for Portugal’s African vocation––the assimilation of the indigenous population into the greater Portuguese cultural space––and finds it threadbare.

Caetano, Marcello. Depoimento. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Record, 1974.
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The apologia of the last head of government of the authoritarian Estado Novo. Caetano defends his rejection of compromise on Africa which eventually brought about his downfall in the 1974 coup.
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Davidson, Basil. “Portuguese Speaking Africa.” In The Cambridge History of Africa. Vol. 8, From c. 1940 to c. 1975. Edited by Michael Crowder, 775–806. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521224093Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A concise but authoritative account of the post–Second World War period of Portuguese colonial rule in Africa presented in a less polemical tone than the generality of this author’s work in the area.
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Duffy, James, Portuguese Africa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.
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A critical analysis of Portuguese rule which highlights the inconsistencies and confusions in what is supposed to be a unified national policy and the self-deception of Portugal’s supposed commitment to the assimilation of local populations.
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Duffy, James. “Portuguese Africa 1930 to 1960.” In Colonialism in Africa 1870–1960. Vol. 2, The History and Politics of Colonialism 1914–1960. Edited by L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, 171–193. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
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A reliable overview of Portuguese rule in Africa during the early and mid-periods of the Salazar regime.
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Keese, Alexander. Living with Ambiguity: Integrating an African Elite in French and Portuguese Africa, 1930–61. Oakville, CT: David Brown, 2007.
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An interesting comparative study of Portuguese and French approaches to “assimilation.” Keese offers a revisionist interpretation, providing examples of pragmatic “indirect rule” in parts of Portuguese Africa contrary to the official rhetoric of a unified and centralized “Portuguese space.”
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Maxwell, Kenneth. “Portugal and Africa: the Last Empire.” In The Transfer of Power in Africa: Decolonization 1940–1960. Edited by Prosser Gifford and W. R. Louis, 337–385. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982.
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Maxwell provides a concise overview of the politics and international relations of the end of Portuguese rule.
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The Economics of Portuguese Colonialism in Africa

The political economy of Portugal’s presence in Africa has been the subject of considerable dispute. On one side of the debate is Richard Hammond––represented here in the original Hammond 1966 monograph and by a late essays from an edited collection, Hammond 1975— who argued that Africa was for Portugal an almost ruinously expensive piece of self-indulgence. On the other is Clarence-Smith who, from a broadly Marxist perspective, argues in his book, Clarence-Smith 1985, that Portugal’s economic exploitation was largely “successful.” Alexandre 1993 considers the economy as a factor in essentially ideological debates around the colonial project in the early years of the Estado Novo. Taking the important textile sector as a case study, Pitcher 1993 offers a nuanced position on the economics of the empire, arguing that the Estado Novo was certainly not the efficient politico-economic “corporate” entity that its supporters claimed.

Alexandre, Valentim. “Ideologia, economia e política: A questão colonial na implantação do Estado Novo.” Análise Social (1993): 123–124, 1117–1136.
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An analysis of the interlinkages between the ideological and the economic in debates over Africa in Portugal in the 1920s and 1930s.
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Clarence-Smith, Gervase. The Third Portuguese Empire 1825–1975: A Study in Economic Imperialism. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1985.
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A reinterpretation of the economic bases of Portuguese colonialism in Africa which revises the once prevailing view that Africa was an economic burden rather than a net gain to Portugal.
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Hammond, Richard J. Portugal and Africa 1815–1910: A Study in Uneconomic Imperialism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966.
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Hammond’s influential study concludes that Portugal’s involvement in Africa throughout the 19th century was economically destructive for the metropole and a drag on domestic development. His position has been challenged, for example, in Clarence-Smith 1985.
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Hammond, Richard J. “Some Economic Aspects of Portuguese Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.” In Colonialism in Africa 1870–1960. Vol. 4, The Economics of Imperialism. Edited by Peter Duignan and L. H. Gann, 256–279. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
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Here Hammond offers a more concise argument about the deleterious impact of Portugal’s colonial economic than in his 1966 monograph.
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Pitcher, M. Anne. Politics in the Portuguese Empire: The State, Industry, and Cotton, 1926–1974. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
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Pitcher argues that the colonial state was riven by divisions at different levels of the administration of production (specifically of cotton in this study). Competing interests both within the colonies and between colonies and the metropole fundamentally affected economic performance in this interpretation.
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The Wars of Liberation

Portugal’s determination to remain in Africa, as the other European powers took their leave with greater or lesser degrees of dignity, provoked a protracted and violent phase of nationalist agitation. Very approximately, Birmingham 1992, Chabal 1983, and Guerra 1994 represent one side of a historiographical debate which emerged in the 1990s over the nationalist struggle in Africa, with Cann 1997 and Freire Antunes 1995 on the other. The first group consider the nationalist movements to have been successful and to have been the major driver of the end of empire (with Guerra 1994 exploring in detail the impact of the wars on the Portuguese military). On the other side, Cann 1997 and Freire Antunes 1995 suggest that the Portuguese military campaign was not in itself unsuccessful and that other, extraneous factors led to the collapse of the empire. Mateus 1999 meanwhile is concerned with the origins of the nationalist movements and the social formation of their leaderships. The nationalist struggle in each territory is considered further in later sections.

Birmingham, David. Frontline Nationalism in Angola and Mozambique. London: James Currey, 1992.
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A brief but authoritative survey of the nationalist movements in Angola and Mozambique during the colonial wars which gives particular attention to the regional southern African context.
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Cann, John P. Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War, 1961–1974. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997.
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Cann, himself from a US military background, is sympathetic to the Portuguese military; he challenges the prevailing view of failed tactics and brutal incompetence in the prosecution of the colonial wars.
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Chabal, Patrick. “People’s War, State Formation and Revolution in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Mozambique, Guiné-Bissau and Angola.” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 21.3 (1983): 104–125.
DOI: 10.1080/14662048308447438Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An analysis of the similarities and differences between the programs of the liberation movements in the three continental territories and the relationship between armed struggle and political mobilization.
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Freire Antunes, José. A Guerra de África (1961–1974). Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 1995.
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This extensively illustrated, somewhat journalistic overview emphazises the operational successes as well as shortcomings of the Portuguese military in Africa from the perspective of the forces on the ground.
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Guerra, João Paulo. Memória das Guerras Coloniais. Porto, Portugal: Afrontamento, 1994.
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Contrasting with Freire Antunes 1995, Guerra’s book is critical of the Salazar and Caetano regimes’ intransigence in prosecuting the wars in Africa.
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Mateus, Dalila Cabrita. A Luta pela Independência: A Formação das Elites Fundadoras da FRELIMO, MPLA e PAIGC. Lisbon: Inquérito, 1999.
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An exploration of the social and political origins (including their education and experiences in metropolitan Portugal) of the founders of the three principal liberation movements in 20th century Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau.
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The International Dimension

Relations between Portugal and the other imperial powers were frequently difficult in the 19th and 20th centuries. Portuguese labor practices were a particular source of conflict with those abroad who claimed a “civilizing mission” as justification for their own imperial projects. Later, toward the end of Portugal’s rule in Africa, its cold war allies frequently found themselves torn between the imperative of Western alliance unity and the dangers posed by Portuguese policies to Western diplomatic interests. Inter-imperial relations between Portugal and Britain were always ambivalent. While Britain was nominally Portugal’s oldest ally (with treaties dating back to the 14th century), the two clashed frequently over competing territorial and policy interests in Africa. Duffy 1967 explores the moral arguments which emerged around Portugal’s colonial labor practices (which British humanitarians saw as essentially a continuation of slavery). Oliveira 2007 deals with differences in the later period, in particular the conflict over the white rebellion in Rhodesia in the 1960s with which the Salazar regime was in sympathy. Although entering the lists at a later date, the United States also found itself at odds with Portugal in Africa. Rodrigues 2002 considers the markedly hostile relations during the Kennedy administration while Samuels and Haykin 1979 deals with the period of Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, who sought to broker negotiations between Portugal and the African nationalist movements. Gleijeses 2002 and Wright 1997 are both concerned with the US-Portuguese relationship over the longer term (primarily concerning Angola). Minter 1972 and Magalhães 1996 both deal with multilateral rather than bilateral relations over Africa. The former considers the role of Portugal’s NATO allies while the latter looks at the United Nations as a collective source of condemnation of Portugal’s colonial rule.

Duffy, James. A Question of Slavery: Labour Policies in Portuguese Africa and the British Protest, 1850–1920. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967.
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A study of inter-imperial relations between Portugal and Britain and the question of Portugal’s widely condemned labor practices in Africa.
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Gleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa 1959–1976. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
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A richly sourced study of the triangular relationship between successive US administrations, Castro’s Cuba, and African nationalism––with a strong focus on Angola during the years of anticolonial war.
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Magalhães, José Calvet de. Portugal e as Nações Unidas: A Questão Colonial (1955–1974). Lisbon: IEEI, 1996.
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An exploration of the United Nations as a major forum for international criticism of Portugal over Africa in the 1950s and 1960s.
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Minter, William. Portuguese Africa and the West. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1972.
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A critique of Western (mainly NATO) support for Portugal’s continued presence in Africa and the political double standards involved.
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Oliveira, Pedro Aires. Os Despojos da Aliança: A Grã-Bretanha e a Questão Colonial Portuguesa, 1945–1975. Lisbon: Tinta da China, 2007.
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An extensively researched study of the complexities of the inter-imperial relationship with Britain in the post–Second World War years based on both Portuguese and British government archives.
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Rodrigues, Luís Nunes. Salazar-Kennedy: A Crise de uma Aliança. Lisbon: Editorial Notícias, 2002.
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Recounts the tensions over Africa in the relationship between the Salazar regime and the United States during the Kennedy administration following the Angolan revolt in 1961.
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Samuels, Michael A., and Stephen M. Haykin. “The Anderson Plan: An American Attempt to Seduce Portugal out of Africa.” Orbis 23.3 (1979): 649–669.
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An intriguing account of the (unsuccessful) attempt by the United States in 1965 to broker talks between the Lisbon regime and the liberation movements about a program for gradual self-determination.
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Wright, George. Destruction of a Nation: United States’ Policy towards Angola since 1945. London: Pluto Press, 1997.
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As the title suggests, this is a critical study of the various phases of American involvement in post–Second World War Angola––including the relatively liberal phase of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as well as the general support for Portugal offered in the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger period.
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Angola

As India was for Britain and Algeria for France, Angola was the “jewel in the crown” (a jóia da corona) of Portugal’s empire. A colony of both settlement and exploitation, it was by far the most economically developed of the African territories. This status is reflected in the range and richness of the academic work devoted to it. David Birmingham’s early (very concise) account of Portugal’s initial colonization, Birmingham 1965, sets the scene while Henderson 1979 offers a long view of the five hundred years of the Portuguese presence. While Birmingham’s focus is on Angola from Luanda northwards, Clarence-Smith 1979 looks at the colonial economy on the ground in the south from the mid-19th century to the advent of the Estado Novo in the metropole. Portugal’s lusotropical pretensions in Angola are critically dissected in Bender 1978, while Egerton 1957 is included here as something of a curiosity which offers a non-scholarly counterpoint to Bender’s critique of lusotropicalism. In a jointly authored work, Wheeler and Pélissier 1971 presents essays on, respectively, Angola up to the revolt of 1961 and afterwards. The Europeans of Angola and their political ambitions (which at times included white-dominated self-determination based on a Brazilian model) are the subject of Pimenta 2005.

Bender, Gerald J. Angola under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality. London: Heinemann, 1978.
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The “myth” is lusotropicalism. Using Angola as its focus, Portuguese colonial practice is subjected to close examination and found to be largely hollow in “reality.” The gap between the myth and reality is found to be equally wide in the political and the cultural realms.
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Birmingham, David. The Portuguese Conquest of Angola. London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations, 1965.
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In this short study (which runs only to about fifty pages) Birmingham surveys the implantation of Portuguese rule in Angola––or at least that part north of the Kwanza river––from the late 15th century to 1790.
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Clarence-Smith, Gervase. Slaves, Peasants, and Capitalists in Southern Angola, 1840–1926. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
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An analysis from a broadly Marxist perspective of the political economy of the less developed regions of Angola. The author, here as elsewhere in his work, challenges the “uneconomic imperialism” thesis associated with the work of Richard Hammond.
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Egerton, Frederick. Angola in Perspective: Endeavour and Achievement in Portuguese West Africa. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957.
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Very much a product of its time and setting, this book by a retired British army officer places Portuguese practices in Angola in a sentimentally favorable light. Its tone contrasts revealingly with Bender’s dissection of the hypocrisies of lusotropicalism (see Bender 1978).
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Henderson, L. W. Angola: Five Centuries of Conflict. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979.
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A broad view of the key stages in Angola’s engagement with Portuguese power.
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Pimenta, Francisco Tavares. Brancos de Angola: Autonomismo e Nacionalismo (1900–1961). Coimbra, Portugal: Miverva, 2005.
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A study of the settler community in Angola during the 20th century and their often less than comfortable relationship with the colonial state.
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Wheeler, Douglas L., and René Pélissier. Angola. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971.
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Separately rather than jointly authored, each author takes charge of different sections of this book. Wheeler sees the late 19th century “scramble” as critical in reviving Lisbon’s interest in Africa. Pélissier focuses on the period after the 1961 revolt, and the adaptations in Portuguese rule that this brought about.
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Nationalism and Resistance in Angola

There is an extensive literature on Angolan nationalism (the colonial war in Angola was the longest and most factionalized of those across Portuguese Africa) from which it is not easy to select a representative body of work. Of major importance, however, is John Marcum’s two-volume work in Marcum 1969 and Marcum 1978, covering, firstly, the gathering storm of Angolan nationalism from 1950 to the 1961 revolts and, secondly, the war years from 1962 to the immediate aftermath of independence. Bittencourt 1999 takes a bottom-up approach to the origins of the nationalist movement, drawing on contemporary newspaper accounts. The ethnic and regional complexities of this struggle are analyzed in detail in Heimer 1979, which surveys the Luanda, Mbundu ethnic-based MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola–the Popular Movement for the Libertion of Angola); the broadly Ovimbundu UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola–Union for the Total Independence of Angola) from the central plateau; and the northern, Bakongo dominated FNLA (Frente Nacional para a Libertação de Angola–the National Front for the Liberation of Angola). Messiant 2006 looks back to the origins of the Angolan revolt in colonial practices and untangles some of its multiple ethnic and regional complexities. Heywood 2000 focuses on the central plateau––a significant region in the history of resistance to colonial rule. Guimarães 2001 is critical of the MPLA and questions the extent of its nationwide implantation.

Bittencourt, Marcelo. Dos Jornais às Armas: Trajectórias da Contestação Angolana. Lisbon: Vega, 1999.
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A study of the Angolan nationalist movements based on their journalistic representations.
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Guimarães, Fernando Andresen. The Origins of the Angolan Civil War: Foreign Intervention and Domestic Political Conflict. London: Macmillan, 2001.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230598263Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Delving into the colonial roots of Angola’s post-independence civil war, this book is more critical of the actions of the MPLA than most other studies.
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Heimer, Franz-Wilhelm. The Decolonization Conflict in Angola: An Essay in Political Sociology. Geneva, Switzerland: Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, 1979.
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An important study which anatomizes the social, ethnic, and regional bases of the three main anti-colonial movements.
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Heywood, Linda. Contested Power in Angola, 1840s to the Present. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2000.
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Misleadingly titled, this book deals not with Angola as a whole but with the Ovimbundu of the central plateau. The author emphasizes the importance of Protestant missions in the region and the conflicts this engendered with the colonial administration which sought to use the Catholic church as an agent of imperial rule.
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Marcum, John A. The Angolan Revolution. Vol.1, The Anatomy of an Explosion 1950–1962. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969.
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This volume traces the political, social, and cultural origins of the radical nationalism that flared into armed struggle in the early 1960s.
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Marcum, John A. The Angolan Revolution. Vol. 2, Exile Politics and Guerrilla Warfare 1962–1976. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978.
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This volume covers the years of armed struggle in Angola and the subsequent civil war between the three guerrilla movements that prefigured Portugal’s withdrawal in November 1975.
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Messiant, Christine. Angola 1961: Histoire et Société, les Prémisses du Mouvement Nationaliste. Basel, Switzerland: Schletweinn, 2006.
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Delving deep into the history of colonial rule, both formal and informal, this study sets out the complex origins of the revolts of 1961. It includes some important observations on the attitudes of the white settler population.
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Mozambique

Mozambique, as Portugal’s “second” African territory, has been the subject of slightly less academic work than Angola. The first general history of Mozambique in English did not appear until the late 1970s with the publication of Henriksen 1978. However, the more substantial history, Newitt 1995, can claim to be the definitive text. Much that has been written during the 1970s and 1980s on Mozambique displays open sympathy for the ideology and program of Frelimo (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique–Mozambique Liberation Front), for example, Isaacman and Isaacman 1983. The web resource Mozambique History Net (largely the work of Colin Darch), is stronger on the post-independence years than on the period of colonial rule but it has a number of very useful resources on the late colonial state. Sheldon 2002, on women in both the colonial and postcolonial periods, provides an important thematic contribution. A number of studies of the colonial government and economy in Mozambique take as a case study (or area of particular attention) the central region around the Zambesi basin. This part of the country was one of the most heavily colonized by European settlers and was also the location of the more important concessionary companies of the 19th century. This is reflected in Isaacman 1996, a work focusing on cotton production in the colonial economy and in Vail and White 1980, a study of the role of the colonial state. The urban environment is considered by Penvenne 1994, a study of race and labor relations in the Mozambican capital during the early and mid-colonial periods.

Henriksen, Thomas. Mozambique: A History. London: Rex Collings, 1978.
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With a marked political (rather than social or economic) emphasis, the book is in two parts: respectively up to and then after 1900. It is strong on both colonial rule and emergent nationalism.
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Isaacman, Allen. Cotton Is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938–1961. London: James Currey, 1996.
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A closely researched analysis (employing extensive field interviews) of the abuses of the Portuguese colonial labor system and its diversion of peasant work from subsistence food production to cash cropping (in this case of Mozambique’s major colonial-era product, cotton).
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Isaacman, Allen, and Barbara Isaacman. Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution, 1900–1982. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1983.
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A partisan “frelimista” account of Portuguese rule typical of the time of its publication. Despite this ideological slant, however, it provides valuable insights on the nature of the colonial state and its decline.
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Mozambique History Net
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Includes extensive useful material on the late colonial economy, the Cahora Bassa scheme, and on abuses by the colonial military.
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Newitt, Malyn. History of Mozambique. London: Hurst, 1995.
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This large-scale history of Mozambique remains the definitive comprehensive work in English; an excellent synthesis of the research of previous decades.
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Penvenne, Jeanne Marie. African Workers & Colonial Racism: Mozambican Strategies and Struggles in Lourenço Marques, 1877–1962. London: Heinemann, 1994.
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A study of the conditions and experiences of the urban “proletariat” in Lourenço Marques from the 1870s until the eve of the colonial war.
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Sheldon, Kathleen E. Pounders of Grain: A History of Women, Work and Politics in Mozambique. London: Heinemann, 2002.
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A carefully sourced and strongly argued history of women in Mozambique which seeks to rebalance the conventional male-oriented narratives. Although much of the book is concerned with the post-independence period, two chapters examine women’s roles and experience in the colonial era.
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Vail, Leroy, and White, Landeg. Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique: A Study of Quelimane District. London: Heinemann, 1980.
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Vail and Landeg offer a Marxist-oriented study on the colonial state’s role in protecting the interests of the settler class above those of the indigenous peasantry in the eastern Zambesi area.
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Nationalism and Resistance in Mozambique

The history of the nationalist movement in Mozambique is as complex and fraught as in either of the other two continental territories. Mondlane, the founder of Frelimo, sets out a relatively early vision of the movement’s aims in Mondlane 1983. Pro-Frelimo partisanship is a common theme in even scholarly accounts––such as in Christie 1989, Munslow 1983, and Henriksen 1983— and, self-evidently, in Bragança 1987, the author of which was in the inner circle of the party after independence. The war zones in northern and central Mozambique during the anticolonial struggle were quite extensively “missionized” and this is reflected in some important accounts by missionaries which are perhaps more anti-Portuguese than actively pro-guerrilla––such as the exposés in Hastings 1974 and Paul 1975.

Bragança, Aquino de. “Independence without Decolonization: Mozambique 1974–1975.” In Decolonization and African Independence: The Transfers of Power 1960–1980. Edited by Prosser Gifford and William Roger Louis, 427–443. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
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An account by a Frelimo insider of the fraught negotiations between the Portugal and Frelimo at the end of the colonial war.
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Christie, Ian. Samora Machel: A Biography. London: Zed Books, 1989.
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An admiring and largely uncritical account of the life of Mondlane’s successor as Frelimo’s leader in 1969 and the first president of independent Mozambique published three years after his death and written by a one-time official of the Mozambican Ministry of Information.
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Hastings, Adrian. Wiriyamu. London: Search Press, 1974.
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Hastings, a Catholic missionary priest, first exposed the massacre at Wiriyamu in Tete province by colonial forces in a newspaper article and later in this book. His revelations caused real damage to the Portuguese regime’s international prestige on the eve of its overthrow.
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Henriksen, Thomas H. Revolution and Counterrevolution: Mozambique’s War of Independence, 1964–1974. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1983.
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An account of Frelimo’s liberation struggle which argues (echoing Frelimo’s own claims) that the fight for independence from Portugal was, simultaneously, a far-reaching social revolution.
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Mondlane, Eduardo. The Struggle for Mozambique. London: Zed Books, 1983.
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The founder of Frelimo here sets out the movement’s anticolonial program in a tract first published in 1969, the year of his assassination. Includes an introduction by John Saul and a brief biography of Mondlane by Herbert Shore.
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Munslow, Barry. Mozambique: The Revolution and Its Origins. London: Longman, 1983.
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An admiring study of Frelimo’s leadership of the anticolonial struggle and of the political program it sought to implant. The book lacks critical distance but it is based on extensive fieldwork across Mozambique.
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Paul, John. Mozambique: Memoirs of a Revolution. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1975.
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A short memoir by an Anglican missionary (an unusual denomination in Portuguese Africa), in the strategically important northern province of Niassa during the anti-Portuguese war. Paul paints a poignant picture of the daily humiliations and brutalities of colonial rule at the local level.
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Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau was by far the smallest of Portugal’s continental African territories. As with other European possessions in West Africa (the traditional “white man’s grave”), it was not significant as a colony of settlement. Unlike other European colonies in the region, however, it had little value as a colony of exploitation either. There was some limited plantation production but Guinea had few exploited natural resources. Nevertheless, Guinea-Bissau has attracted considerable attention from scholars of colonial Africa. This has had a particular focus on the liberation struggle and its dominating figure (until his assassination in 1973), Amílcar Cabral, who had a pan-African influence far beyond the Portuguese territories. Cabral himself set out the PAIGC (Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde–African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) program in Cabral 1979. His political thought and revolutionary leadership are further explored by Patrick Chabal in Chabal 1983. The exploitative economic background to colonial rule during the Estado Novo is analyzed by Galli in Galli 1989. In Davidson 1981, Basil Davidson offers a characteristic polemic in support of African liberation. Portugal’s apparently irrational determination to maintain its hold on Guinea-Bissau in the face of looming military defeat is examined in MacQueen 1999, an article exploring the tensions between the Portuguese military and political elites over the prospect of a negotiated settlement. The war more broadly is considered in Dhada 1993 and Lopes 1987 from respectively tactical and ideological perspectives while Venter 1973 is a more sympathetic account of Portuguese rule that provides an interesting counterpoint to this.

Cabral, Amílcar. Unity and Struggle: Speechs and Writings of Amílcar Cabral. New York: Monthly Review, 1979.
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A collection of Cabral’s key political works with an introduction by his long-standing supporter and admirer, Basil Davidson.
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Chabal, Patrick. Amílcar Cabral as Revolutionary Leader. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
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A study of the politics of the PAIGC founder published ten years after his assassination. Though admiring of Cabral, this stands above the generality of anti-Portuguese polemics in the rigor of its research and argument.
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Davidson, Basil. No Fist is Big Enough to Hide the Sun: The Liberation of Guiné and Cape Verde. London: Zed Books, 1981.
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An updated edition of a book on Guinea-Bissau published in 1969 here expanded to include Cape Verde (and a preface by Aristides Pereira, Cape Verde’s first president, as well as the foreword by Amílcar Cabral from the original edition).
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Dhada, Mustafah. Warriors at Work: How Guinea was Really Set Free. Niwot, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1993.
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A study of Guinea’s liberation war and the leadership of Amílcar Cabral but from a less theoretical perspective and with greater attention to the strategy, tactics, and conduct of the war than comparable works (for example, Chabal 1983).
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Galli, Rosemary. “Capitalist Agriculture and the Colonial State in Guinea-Bissau, 1926–74.” African Economic History 59.3 (1989): 371–380.
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An essay on the triangular political-economic relationship between local smallholders, external capital and the colonial state in Guinea-Bissau during the forty-eight years of Portugal’s Estado Novo.
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Lopes, Carlos. Guiné-Bissau: From Liberation Struggle to Independent Statehood. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987.
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A highly theorized (Marxist) exploration of the anti-colonial struggle in Guinea-Bissau (and of the immediate post-independence period) which is strongly sympathetic to Amílcar Cabral’s vision of revolutionary socialism adapted to African realities.
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MacQueen, Norrie. “Portugal’s First Domino: ‘Pluricontinentalism’ and the Colonial War in Guiné-Bissau.” Contemporary European History 8.2 (1999): 209–230.
DOI: 10.1017/S0960777399002027Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An essay on the dilemmas posed for the Lisbon regime by the war in Guinea-Bissau and the internal divisions which prefigured the 1974 coup.
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Venter, Al J. Portugal’s War in Guiné-Bissau. Pasadena, CA: Munger, 1973.
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A journalistic account of the state of Guinea-Bissau in the early 1970s by a South African writer. Despite a general sympathy for the Portuguese position (the visit on which the book is based was sponsored by the Lisbon government), Venter is reasonably even-handed in his judgements.
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Cape Verde

Originally a way-station on the sea route to Asia during the period of Portugal’s “first” empire in the late 15th century, the Cape Verde islands later became a center for the Atlantic slave trade. During the anticolonial struggle in Guinea-Bissau there was a commitment on the part of the nationalist PAIGC to post-independence unification with Cape Verde. The PAIGC was the “African Party for the Liberation of Guinea AND Cape Verde” and Amílcar Cabral, its founder and leader until his death in 1973, was himself Cape Verdean. The relationship between the nationalist movement in the two territories is explored in typically partisan style in Davidson 1989. Foy 1988, Lobban 1995, and Meintel 1984 offer broader studies, all of which provide insights into the complex ethnic structure of the Cape Verde archipelago and its impact on colonial rule.

Davidson, Basil. The Fortunate Isles: A Study in African Transformation. London: Hutchinson, 1989.
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Characteristically combining radical sympathies with personal experience, this book of reportage deals with the relationship between Cape Verde’s and Guinea-Bissau’s nationalists during the liberation struggle and the machinations around Cape Verde’s independence.
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Foy, Colm. Cape Verde: Politics, Economics and Society. London: Pinter, 1988.
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Part of Pinter’s Marxist Regimes series, this book is concerned mainly with the post-independence period (though Cape Verde was never really “Marxist” in the way that the other post-independence countries professed to be), but the book considers the nature of the colonial rule from which the new state emerged.
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Lobban, Richard A. Cape Verde: Crioulo Colony to Independent Nation. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.
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Lobban’s book (part of Westview’s Nations of the Modern World series) is interesting on the complex ethnography of the islands and the co-option by the Portuguese of its educated population as “strategic intermediaries” with indigenous populations across Portuguese Africa.
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Meintel, Deirdre. Race, Culture and Portuguese Colonialism in Cabo Verde. Syracuse, NY: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1984.
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Like Lobban’s work, this is another interesting combination of historical analysis and anthropological insight which explores the nuances of racial designation in the islands during colonial rule and their social, political, and economic implications.
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São Tomé and Príncipe

The smallest of Portugal’s African territories (indeed the smallest country in Africa after the Seychelles), São Tomé and Príncipe was a classic plantation colony. Despite its limited geographical area it was for a time in the 16th century the world’s largest producer of sugar––and of cocoa in the first years of the 20th. Providing the colony with sufficient labor to maintain such high levels of production required large-scale forced population movement from other parts of Portuguese Africa as well as long-term European managers and administrators. The result was a stratified, Creolized society based on complex social and ethnic relationships. This unique social structure and its political and economic implications are explored in the books Hodges and Newitt 1988 and Seibert 2006. The latter should be considered the definitive contemporary study of the country’s history, politics, and economics. Higgs 2012 provides a fascinating count of the survey of labor conditions undertaken by Joseph Burtt at the high point of the territory’s cocoa production.

Higgs, Catherine. Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012.
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An account of the journey of Joseph Burtt who was commissioned by the English Quaker chocolate manufacturer William Cadbury to investigate conditions in the African cocoa plantations in the first decade of the 20th century. Burtt’s journey extended to Angola and Mozambique, exposing the brutality of Portuguese labor practices across Africa.
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Hodges, Tony, and Malyn Newitt. São Tomé and Príncipe: From Plantation Colony to Microstate. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988.
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A survey of the islands from the first Portuguese incursions in the second half of the 15th century until the immediate post-independence years. Hodges and Newitt provide an important analysis of the social structure of the archipelago and the development of the nationalist movement.
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Seibert, Gerhard. Comrades, Clients and Cousins: Colonialism, Socialism and Democratization in São Tomé and Príncipe. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2006.
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An excellent large-scale study which explores in great depth the origins of the archipelago’s contemporary culture and politics. It traces the origins of the country’s social and economic conditions across the centuries of Portuguese exploitation.
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Decolonization and the Transfer of Power

Just as authoritarian Portugal in a sense “lived” by Africa, it assuredly died by it. Colonial nationalism proved fatal to the metropolitan regime in its entirety, not just to its hold on the African territories. The 1974 military coup in Portugal was provoked by the regime’s lusotropical obsession and its fantasy of a pluricontinental cultural and political entity. The refusal of Lisbon to tolerate any discussion of any degree of self-determination in any part of Portuguese Africa provoked ever worsening armed conflict and, as a result, deepening disaffection among the military. Thus democracy in the metropole and Portugal’s integration into the mainstream of late 20th-century west European culture and politics came as a consequence of war and imperial collapse in Africa. General Spínola’s celebrated book, Spínola 1974 (significant more for what it represented than what it proposed), reflected this pervasive demoralization. The ensuing debates and conflicts over the nature and pace of decolonization are explored in MacQueen 1997 in relation to the metropole and the individual territories. The two volumes of Grupo de pesquisa sobre a descolonização portuguesa 1979–1982 contain a wealth of detail on the day-to-day process of decolonization during 1974 and 1975. The overthrow of the regime in Lisbon came suddenly and without any agreed program for Africa. The pace of events took Portugal’s major Western allies by surprise (despite their possessing supposedly the most effective intelligence services in the world). Some sense of this in relation to the United States is portrayed in Schneidmann 2004 in its study of Washington’s role. The international response to the decolonization process is the primary focus of Costa Pinto 2001. Lloyd-Jones and Costa Pinto 2003 (the result of a conference held in 2000) covers a wide timeframe and is concerned more with the consequences of decolonization than the process itself, but it includes a number of relevant papers.

Costa Pinto, António. O Fim do Império Português: A Cena Internacional, a Guerra Colonial e a Descolonização 1961–1975. Lisbon: Livros Horizonte, 2001.
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This short book examines Portugal’s withdrawal from Africa in terms of the broader international relations of the mid-1970s.
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Grupo de pesquisa sobre a descolonização portuguesa. A Descolonização Portuguesa: Aproximação a um Estudo. 2 vols. Lisbon: Instituto Democracia e Liberdade: Instituto Amaro da Costa, 1979–1982.
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Two collectively produced volumes (without individual author credits) which provide a compendium of largely factual accounts based on events in the metropole and the individual colonies in 1974 and 1975.
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Lloyd-Jones, Stewart, and António Costa Pinto, eds. The Last Empire: Thirty Years of Portuguese Decolonization. Papers from a conference on Portuguese decolonization held in Edzell, Scotland, on 11–14 September 2000. Portland, OR: Intellect, 2003.
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As the subtitle suggests, much here concerns the long-term aftermath of colonial rule. Among those focused on the process of decolonization itself are contributions by: Richard Robinson (on international influences); António Costa Pinto (the metropolitan setting); and Malyn Newitt (on São Tomé and Príncipe).
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MacQueen, Norrie. The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa: Metropolitan Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire. London: Longman, 1997.
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A comprehensive account of the decolonization process, this book explores the nationalist struggles and the transfers of power in each of the African territories. It highlights the interplay between African and metropolitan developments in the heat of the “revolutionary process” of 1974 and 1975.
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Schneidmann, Witney W. Engaging Africa: Washington and the Fall of Portugal’s Colonial Empire. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004.
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An account of the American response to Portuguese decolonization which points up the unpreparedness of the Nixon administration for the turn of events in both Europe and southern Africa. The book draws on participant interviews and government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
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Spínola, António de. Portugal and the Future. Johannesburg: Perskor, 1974.
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A rather poor English translation of the famous book by deputy chief of the Portuguese general staff in the last phase of the colonial wars. Spínola became the first (though short-lived) president of post–Estado Novo Portugal. Although advocating a political rather than a military solution in Africa, its prescriptions were somewhat vague and stopped far short of total decolonization. But its publication was a catalyst for the military uprising.