Portugal - Faction Thread.

[numerosdecimus]

The faction of Portugal will be discussed in this thread.

By 1700 Portugal had already lost it's position of comercial monopoly throughout Asia, Africa, Indonesia and the trade between Africa and the Americas. After the Dutch-Portuguese war, which was the first intercontinental war the United Provinces were able to occupy Indonesia, Ceylan, a substancial part of India and monopolize the trade between Japan, although portuguese comercial indentities remained there and were still active. In Africa the Dutch ocupied the region around the cape of of good hope and ocupied Portuguese Ginnea.

While they had lost their monopoly in Asia and Indonesia, the Portuguese were able to win back South America, most of their previous African territories and they were still present in Asia and Indonesia, more speciffically portuguese India, Macau and the eastern half of Timor. Several archipelagos in the Atlantic and along the coast Africa were also under portuguese control.

By this time the Empire was practically present in every continent although not as much as it was during the 16th century, still, several expansion policies and economical reforms were made during the 18th century, a century mostly of constant change and evolution for Portugal.


During the 18th century the inland territories of Brazil were further explored and occupied, the region of Uruguai was in contest with the Spanish and was later on sucessfully under portuguese control.

Portuguese India, mostly Goa, expanded throughout a substancial part of the 18th century, while still holding other scatered territories India such as Damão, Bacaim, Vasai, Chaul, Korlai and Forte de Corjuem, just to name some.

In Africa both Angola and Moçambique gradually expanded and occupied further inland territory, there was a short conquest of the province of Mombassa.

While this century was of change, it was also of great wealth, it was the Portuguese currency at this time that was the main international coin and the one most used in the Americas, it was known as the "moidore", even in England during this time there were entire regions using the portuguese coin, in part because there were several pirate and corsack raids in the port of the city of Porto waiting from the gold shipments from Brasil, and in the other part because of the Meduem treaty.

It was during this time that the largest gold rush in the Americas and one of the largest in history (if not the largest) occored, the gold rush in the Minas Gerais region is estimated to have been a minimum of 10 to 12 times greater than the Californian Gold Rush, to such a point that most gold in Europe during the 18th century came from Brasil.

Other main sources of wealth for Portugal during this century were sugar plantations, tobaco plantations(the largest during the 18th century), precious minerals such as diamonds which came from both Africa and Brasil and of course spice exchange and production.

More will be told shortly after, stay tuned.

[Ludicus]

Portuguese India, mostly Goa, expanded throughout a substancial part of the 18th century, while still holding other scatered territories India such as Damão, Bacaim, Vasai, Chaul, Korlai and Forte de Corjuem, just to name some.

Portuguese fortresses and forts - Índia c1700 and later

The fortress of Diu, an imposing structure was reconstructed after the siege of 1545 by Dom Joao de Castro.The earliest parts date from 1535, with a lot of the building being done between 1546 and 1720.Built by the Portuguese, this eventually became one of their most important forts in all of
Asia. It was massive so it takes well over an hour to see it all. By the mid-1550s, all Gujarati ships entering and leaving the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) ports were required to call at Diu to pay Portuguese duties.




Fort Aguada,the largest and most well preserved fort in Goa today is the most prized and crucial fort of Portuguese.It derives its name from several fresh water springs ("Aguada" means 'water' in Portuguese) that existed on its site. For the ships that sailed from Portugal, it was the first stop after a long journey for fresh water supplies before moving inland.
The fort is so large that it envelops the entire peninsula at the south western tip of Bardez.Built on the mouth of river Mandovi, it was strategically located and was the chief defence of Portuguese against the Dutch and Marathas




The Fortress of Panikota, is a magnificent stone structure in the sea,near the coastal city of Ghoghla. In the channel between Ghoghla and an island is a "water fort" or panikota in Gujarati, fortim do mar in Portuguese. Built in 1536, the Fortaleza was besieged by Turks in 1538 and 1546.





Fort of Korjuem,built in 1705,when the inland portuguese expansion began.
In the eighteenth century this fort protected the portuguese from the Marahtas,Bhonsles and Rane Rajputs.This fort is situated 4km north of Pomburpa, alongside the Mapusa river near the village of Aldona



Daman Fort:Renowned for its docks and shipbuilding yards, Daman (known in Portuguese as Damão) was conquered by the Portuguese in 1559.





Korlay/Chaul fort:
The first Portuguese settlement at Chaul took place in 1521 with the construction of the first fort on the south bank of the Kundalika River. In October 1531, the Portuguese erected a new square stone fortress, named Santa Maria do Castello, which contained a church and dwellings for 120 men. A town developed around the fortress, but a 1558 treaty precluded fortifying the town. The town was destroyed in a1570-71 siege by the Nizam Shahi Sultan of Ahmadnagar, but a treaty was concluded which lifted the siege, and the town was rebuilt and surrounded by walls and bastions. A fortress was built on the Morro de Chaul, a rocky promontory on the north side of the river opposite the town. The town withstood several further attacks, and its defense works were expanded in1613.

[Ludicus]

Chapora Fort :
22 km's. from Panaji. The fort is made of red laterite and was built by the Portuguese in 1617, on the site of an earlier Muslim structure (the name Chapora is the corruption of the word "Shahapura" or "Town of the Shah"). Since it was basically built as a border watch post, it was later deserted by the Portuguese in 1892, as the borders of its empire extended farther north (known as New Conquests). The massive ramparts and scattered Muslim tombstones are all that is left of this fort. One can still see the heads of the two tunnels, that formerly provided the supply routes for the besieged defenders.

Terechol Fort
This fort is situated on the northern bank of the Terekhol river. It was built by the Raja of Sawantwadi and was captured by the Portuguese Viceroy, Dom Pedro de Alameida in 1746.The church and the fort were rebuilt then

Mormugão Fort,in ruins today.Its work started in 1624. It covered an area of six miles in circumference, contained towering bulwarks, three magazines, five prisons, a chapel and quarters for the guard. It had 53 guns and a garrison with 4 officers, and was an important fortress on the western coast. Unfortunately, except the chapel and a portion of the boundary wall, little is left of this fort.



Tivim Fort:With the help of the old forts, captured from Adil Shah, the Portuguese raised a formidable protective barrier along with some new fortresses from Colvale to Tivim. The major fort called Forto Novo de Tivim was built by the Count of Linhares in 1635.On March 5, 1739, Khem Sawant (Bhosle) scaled the walls of Colvale fort and captured it. A more terrible fate awaited the military officials at the Tivim Fort, which the Bhosle army captured in October 1739 in a bloody battle. The Bhosle army massacred several military officials, and it was only after the signing of a Treaty by the demoralized Portuguese with the Marathas on September 18, 1740, that the problem was bottled like the proverbial evil spirit. Of course, peace eventually ensured when the Portuguese captured Pernem in 1838.

Cabo da Rama Fort :
The fort derives its name from Rama, the protagonist of the epic Ramayana, who, accompanied by his wife Sita took refuge here during his exile from Ayodhya.
Possession of the fort changed hands many a time as dynasties fell and rose during the ages. In 1763 the Portuguese claimed the Cabo de Rama fort after defeating the Raja of Soonda and renovated it subsequently



.....The ruins....
Fortaleza de S.Tiago,Banastarim:


Baçaim Fortress
For the Portuguese, Diu was an important island to protect their trade, which they had to capture. While devising the means to capture Diu, Portuguese General Nuno da Cunha found out that the governor of Diu was Malik Ayaz whose son Malik Tokan was fortifying Bassein with 14,000 men. Nuno da Cunha saw this fortification as a threat. He assembled a fleet of 150 ships with 4000 men and sailed to Bassein. Upon seeing such a formidable naval power, Malik Tokan made overtures of peace to Nuno da Cunha. The peace overtures were rejected. Malik Tokan had no option but to fight the Portuguese. The Portuguese landed north of the Bassein and invaded the fortification. Even though the Portuguese were numerically insignificant, they fought with skill and valor killing off most of the enemy soldiers but lost only a handful of their own.
On 23 December 1534, the Sultan of Gujarat, signed a treaty with the Portuguese and ceded Bassein with its dependencies of Salsette,Mombaim (Bombay), Parel, Vadala, Siao (Sion), Vorli (Worli), Mazagao (Mazgao), Thana, Bandra,MahimCaranja.
Bassein during the Portuguese period was known for the refinement and wealth and splendor of it's buildings, palaces and for the beauty of it's churches. This Northern Province, included a territory which extended as far as 100kilometers along the coast,between Damao(Daman) and Mombaim (Bombay), and in some places extended for 30-50 kilometers inland. It was the most productive Indian area under Portuguese rule.
In 1719, the province of Bassein numbered about 60,000 inhabitants, of these were 2,000 Portuguese and 58,000 Christian Indians.

There were two medieval gateways, one on seaside called Porta do Mar with massive teak gates cased with iron spikes and the other one called Porta da Terra. There were ninety pieces of artillery, 27 of which were made of bronze and seventy mortars, 7 of these mortars were made of bronze. The port was defended by 21 gun boats each carrying 16 to 18 guns. This fort stands till today with the outer shell and ruins of churches.

Ruins:

[numerosdecimus]

The portuguese in the 18th century may not have the same generalized presence in India that they had during the 16th century, however it was still substancially strong and in the region of Goa they expanded greatly in all directions, especially inland.

[Ludicus]

The portuguese in the 18th century may not have the same generalized presence in India that they had during the 16th century, however it was still substancially strong and in the region of Goa they expanded greatly in all directions, especially inland

The Portuguese conquest of Goa

The Velhas Conquistas (the old conquests) :
Vasco da Gama landed in Calicut in 1498 on the the west cost of India, several hundred miles south of Goa, and thus became the first person to find a sea route from Europe to India around the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese were desperate to control the spice trade from India, then controlled by the Arabs, and needed a good port, which turned out to be Goa. In 1510, the Portuguese fleet under Afonso Albuquerque landed in Goa, only to be driven out by Adil Shah (of Bijapur) a few months later. Finally, later that year, the Portuguese with reinforcements, finally usurped Goa (Ilhas region) from Bijapur. In an apparent reprisal for his earlier defeat, Albuquerque ordered the massacare of its muslim inhabitants.By 1543, the Portuguese were able to extend their control over Salcette,Mormugao and Bardez, thus ending their first phase of expansion into Goa. The teritories of Ilhas, Salcette, Mormugao and Bardez formed part of the Portugal's "Velhas Coquistas" or Old Conquests, and formed only one fifthof the total area of modern Goa. With Portugal's command of the seas and its supremacy over the Arabs, Goa became the jewel of its eastern empire. By the end of the 16th century, Goa had already reached its peak and was referred to as "Golden Goa".

Christinization of the Velhas Conquistas:

With the influx of the Portuguese, came their religion. Under Albuquerque's rulecommerce was the primary factor governing Portuguese policy in India. As a result, the Portuguese were initially quite tolerant of the hindu religion,(although not as tolerant of the muslims). From 1540 onwards, under the influence of the Counter Revolution in Europe and with the arrival of the Inquisition in Goa, Portugal's liberal policy towards the hindus was reversed. Many hindu temples were razed and churches built on them; while the few muslims that were there were dispersed or disposed of. The characteristic Portuguese names that many christian Goans have today, is to a very small extent due to inter-marriage between the Portuguese and local Indians. Rather, the converts, were forced to adopt a Portuguese name, usually that of the priest responsible for their conversion.

Empire in Decline

By the mid 17th century, Goa's decline as a commercial port began to mirror the decline of Portuguese power in the East as a result of several military losses to the Dutch and the British.The Dutch had taken control over the spice trade - the original reason for Portugal's Eastern empire. Brazil had now supplanted Goa as the economic centre of Portugal's overseas empire. Having survived two naval assaults by the Dutch in 1603 and 1640, Goa was almost over run by the Marathas in 1683, but was then saved by the presence of a strong Mughal force that was planning to attack the Marathas in an other unrelated battle.

The Novas Conquistas(the new conquests):
In 1741, the Marathas invaded Bardez and Salsete and threatened the city of Goa itself. Fortunately for the Portuguese, a new viceroy, the Marquis of Lourical arrived with substantial reinforcements and defeated the Marathas in Bardez. But the valuable Portuguese territory of Bassein further up the coast was lost to the Marathas. During this period, the Portuguese got involved in several frontier wars which enabled them to extend their control over Ponda, Sanguem, Quepem, Canacona, Pernem, Bicholim and Satari. Hence, although Portugal lost a large number of its asian territories, Goa itself expanded.
This second (and final) phase of Portuguese expansion was rather different from their initial conquests. By the time these territories were added, the zeal for religious conversions had died down. In fact, the Portuguese mistrusting the Jesuits whom they viewed as being puppets of the pope in Rome, banned the order in 1759. By 1835, all religious orders were banned, while the hindu majority were "granted" the freedom to practice their religion. As a result, the "New Conquests" retained their hindu identity, a characteristic that persists until today.

[Ludicus]

In Africa both Angola and Moçambique gradually expanded and occupied further inland territory, there was a short conquest of the province of Mombassa.

Some important Fortresses,East and North Africa coast:

Mozambique fort
Portuguese trading posts and forts became regular ports of call on the new route to the east. 'Mozambique' first described a small coral island at the mouth of Mossuril Bay, then the fort and town on that island, São Sebastião de Moçambique, and later extended to the whole of the Portuguese colonies on the east coast of Africa. The square fort at the northern extremity of the island was built in 1510 entirely of ballast stone brought from Portugal






Ibo Fortress, (North),important port of call on the route to the east.





Forte of Jesus,Mombassa,Kenia
Fort Jesus was built after the Portuguese had been masters of the East African coast for nearly an hundred years.

It was in 1696 that a large Omani Arabs expedition reached Mombasa, from 13 March 1696 the fort was under siege, the fort had a garrison of 50-70 Portuguese soldiers and several hundred loyal coast Arabs. The fort was relieved in December 1696 by a Portuguese expedition, but in the following months a plague killed all the Portuguese of the garrison and by 16 June 1697 the defence of the fort was in the hand of Sheikh Daud of Faza with 17 of his family, 8 African men and 50 African women. On 15 September 1697 a Portuguese ship arrived with some reinforcement and also at the end of December 1697 another ship came from Goa with a few soldiers. After another year of siege, in December 1698, the Portuguese garrison was reduced to the Captain, 9 men and a priest (Fr. Manoes de Jesus). After a siege of two years and nine months the Omani Arabs took the fort. They could do this because the garrison was reduced to nine soldiers the others were death by disease. On the morning of 13 December 1698 the Omani Arabs did the decisive attack and took the fort, just seven days later a Portuguese relief fleet arrived at Mombasa, but it was too late. With the conquest of Fort Jesus the whole coast of Kenya and Tanzania with Zanzibar and Pemba fell to the Omani Arabs
The Portuguese retook the fort in 1728, because the African soldiers in the fort mutined against the Omanits, the Sultan of Pate to which was offered the fort handed the fort over to the Portuguese on 16 March 1728. In April 1729, the Mombasans revolted against the Portuguese and put under siege the garrison that was forced to surrender on 26 November 1729.
The Fort is today know as one of the best examples of 16th century Portuguese military architecture





North Africa,Mazagan,the Portuguese fortified City of Mazagan,until 1769:





Zanzibar,the Portuguese "Old Fort".
Spice island of Zanzibar lies off the coast of Tanzania,portuguese until c1700
The castle was built on the site of an old portuguese church (1550s)
Three cannons carrying the monograms of Kings Emmanuel and Joao 3rd (16th century), said to have been captured by Persian forces during the siege of Hormuz in 1622. In the southern part of the Stone Town of Zanzibar, between the neighbourhoods of Shangani and Vuga, at the sharp corner of the crossing of the Kanuda Road and Vuga Road, stands a beautiful (and perfectly preserved) stone arch which in all town maps is invariably referred to as the "Portuguese Arch"

[Ludicus]

Índia,Rachol Fort:
The fort situated on the crest of laterite hillock was crucial for Hindus, Muslims and Portuguese .With Portuguese control over the fort, the firepower was immediately enhanced and in the days of its power, the fort was protected by more than 100 guns.With Portuguese expansion, concern for territorial security became even more of a concern and new forts in new strategic locations were built. Recontructed in 1746;after the Portuguese abandoned the fort, the rate of decay accelerated and today it is no more than a ruin of the once glorious fort.
Little is visible of its original structure like the archways on the road to the Rachol Seminary.

[Ludicus]

Macau,China
Mount Fortress in Macau was built during the heydays of Dutch-Portuguese conflict for supremacy in the South China Sea.
The construction of Mount Fortress was initiated by the Jesuits in 1617 and completed in 1626.The fortress covers an area of 10,000 square metres, in the shape of a trapezoid. Mount Fortress was once a principal military facility and was one of the city’s strongest defence points. In the centre of the top platform, there was a 3-storey tower fitted with cannons on each floor. The Fortress was also equipped with wells and an arsenal that held sufficient ammunition and supplies to survive a siege lasting up to two years.
The most interesting part of the story is that these cannons were used only once. Their thunderous sound and firing capability created shivering during the Dutch invasion.The Dutch unsuccessfully attacked Macau several times, culminating in a full scale invasion attempt in 1622



West Africa,S Miguel Fortress
It is the first defensive edification built in Angola, and Paulo Dias de Novais, the first Governor of Angola who unshiped in Luanda in 1575, sent it built. It is a huge area walled in fortifications and countreforts, rubblework edification with a polygonal form.
In 1641, occupied by Netherlanders, the Fortress is object of the first real attack; in 1648 the battle is finised with the surrender and expelling of the netherlander troops by the portugueses.

[numerosdecimus]

Not only were they heavily fortified but a little curiosity was that these fortresses were excellent locations to test new artilary models, the artilary they used had to be efficient in fighting an invasion force and a blockading fleet.

[Ludicus]

An old map : "The struggle for colonial dominion,1700-1763"

The British,Dutch,Portuguese,Spanish and French possessions around the world.

[Ludicus]

Brasil,Santa Cruz Fortress
Santa Cruz Fortress, one of the best examples of colonial Portuguese architecture. In the 16th century, during its construction, the wall's rocks were cut, numbered and brought from Portugal. In the two centuries that followed, the fortress went through expansion constructions. In 1730, with 135 cannons, it was the main defense unit for the city of Rio.


Brasil,Bahia,Forte de Nossa Senhora de Montserrat:
This fort is considered the most beautiful military construction from the Brazilian colonial period. Its construction started in 1583, on a strategic positioning area on the highest spot of the peninsula, facing the port.
Concluded in 1742, without changing its original plan, remains until today with a house of command. Its history brings back to us the historical moments of the heroic resistance to the Dutch in 1624 and in 1638.




Forte de Santa Maria:
This fortress was raised after the Dutch invasion, in 1624, when the Portuguese governors built two fortresses in the small cove of Porto da Barra in order to cross fire and avoid new landings.
This fortress was concluded in the XVIII century .Its heptagonal Italian-type shape has not been modified along the years.



Forte de Santo António da Barra
It is considered the first fortress raised in Brazil and and shelters the Nautical Museum.The construction was initiated in 1536, and had, originally, the shape of a tower with ten sides.
Enlarged and repaired between 1583 and 1587, it suffered changes between 1602 and 1702.



Forte de São Marcelo:
This fort was built with stones, in triangular shape, in the beginning of the XVII century, on the reefs in Salvador’s port entrance. Reconstructed with stones, after the Dutch invasion, in 1624, it got a circular shape and the mission of protecting the city from the foreign attacks. It is accessed by boat

[numerosdecimus]

This map is also accurate to a certain degree, especially concerning the provinces in Asia.

Have in mind that in the beginning of the 18th century Portugal posessed much more provinces in India, although less territory in Angola, Moçambique and Brasil under it's control.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...mpire_1800.png

[numerosdecimus]

Economical structure of the Portuguese Empire.

By the 18th century the main profit sources for the portuguese empire for quite different from those of the 16th century. While spice was still traded, the lower influence of Portuguese trade in Asia decreased their revenues in Asia very substancially, still tthe strong connection to the spice trade i nthe portuguese economy can even be reflected by the exaustive use of spice in portuguese culinary. Recepies such as the famous Vinha de Alho or Vindalho or even called Vindaloo are a specialty of portuguese cuisine that was further adapted in Goa and became of the most famous dished in Asia, the use of hot spices in this recepies is exaustive to such a point that very few people even ask for the "extra spicey" version in restaurants.

After the Dutch-Portuguese war, one of the main revemues for the Braganza royal family was also tobaco, in Brasil huge amount of tobaco were produced and generally it had the quality advance on other tobaco production in other european colonies.

Diamonds were extracted in both Angola and Brasil in large quantities.

The empire at this time was almost flooded with gold, gold came from Africa in substancial amount but it was from Brasil that the largest reserves during that time were found to a point that the largest gold rush in the Americas then started. In 1699 about 18000 ounces of gold were officially imported to Portugal, by 1720 this number had increased to 900000 ounces, King João's share alone was an anual share 30 times superior to that of the king of England.

Later on, the Meduem treaty was made, most historians will agree that it was this treaty that allowed a sustainable economical growth in England during the entire 18th century and the ability for England to be able to sustain it's armies and fleets, not only this, but most will also agree that this treaty alone permited the pre-industrial structure of England to evolve to the point of it allowed England to experience the industrial revolution in the beginning of the 1780's. As seen, this treaty was very advantageous for England, even it's name was given after the main figure in the British side during the creation of the treaty.

This would also be reflected by the overwhelming abundance of the portuguese currency, the "moidore", as the number one international currency, much like the dollar is now. Due to the Meduem treaty and english corsack/pirate raids in the ports of northern portuguese city which recieved many of the portuguese sources of profit, there were literaly entire regions of England in which the "moidore" was the only coin present or at least had an overwhelming presence when in comparison with other coins. The moidore was the most numerous coin in the Americas and was extensively present in Europe because most euroepan gold at that time was from Brazil and a substancial part of it already coined.

[Ludicus]

Economics:

The development of Brazil c1550-c1750

«Spanish colonization in South America followed the search for gold and plunder; the chief aim of Brazilian colonization after 1550 was agricultural production-sugar, tobacco, cotton, nuts, coffee, tea, hides, oils, wood and dyes….the plantations required labour; the indigenous Indians, however, were raiders and hunters to whom regular agricultural labour for wages was meaningless and repugnant. Moreover, Jesuit missionaries, notably the remarkable António Vieira, protected them from exploitation by the settlers, partly through forming co-coperative Indian settlements, the ´aldeias´. In the long run, Portuguese intrusions and raids and, above all, Europeans diseases, decimated the Indians. In their place African slaves were bought from Arab and African dealers and imported in large numbers to supply the labour required.
The extraordinary explorations into the vast interior by the bandeirantes, bands formed under a ´captain´ and comprising Portuguese, creoles, mulattos, meztizos, freed negroes and friendly Indians, penetrated far beyond the official Tordesillas boundary.
These journeys yelded alluvial gold (from 1693-5), and then silver and precious stones, including diamonds, all of which helped make João V (1689-1750) the richest monarch in Europe.
The first cargo of gold-some 500kilograms -reached Lisbon in 1699.
Deliveries increased dramatically during the following years, in 1720 totalling 25,000 kilograms. No accurate data survives of the overall amount which entered the capital, but it has been estimated at 1,000-3,000 tonnes.
In 1730 diamond mines were discovered and by the end of the century production had amounted to over 2 million carats.
Lisbon had become ´the most visibly rich of cities´ when it was struck by the Great Earthquake of 1755- the worst ever experienced in Europe. The tidal wave which followed the earthquake, and the fires that continued for a week, destroyed a third of the city.
Much of the wealth from Brazilian and other overseas trade passed, however, to those who handled onward exports from Lisbon to the rest of Europe, notably the British.
The territorial ´discoveries´ of the bandeirantes and the subsequent pioneering settlement in the interior led to Portuguese claims over enormous areas of the continent, which were successfully sustained against attacks by the Dutch and the French rivals and in countless boundary disputes with the Spanish colonies. By the Treaty of Madrid (1750) Brazil achieved its present boundaries - bar minor adjustments - and accounted for the equal of all the ten Spanish colonies put together.This country, fifth largest in the world, accounts for half the land and population of the whole continent.
Brazil achieved independence in 1822».
From: José Hermano Saraiva, Science Academy of Lisbon, Portuguese Academy of History.

The moidore was the most numerous coin in the Americas and was extensively present in Europe

A moidore is a Portuguese gold coin, worth 27 schillings.The moidore was current in western Europe and the West Indies. It was the principal coin current in Ireland at the beginning of the 18th century, and spread to the west of England.It was the most commonly traded coin in the New World and was internationally the principal gold coin of the 18th century.

[numerosdecimus]

«Spanish colonization in South America followed the search for gold and plunder; the chief aim of Brazilian colonization after 1550 was agricultural production-sugar, tobacco, cotton, nuts, coffee, tea, hides, oils, wood and dyes….the plantations required labour; the indigenous Indians, however, were raiders and hunters to whom regular agricultural labour for wages was meaningless and repugnant. Moreover, Jesuit missionaries, notably the remarkable António Vieira, protected them from exploitation by the settlers, partly through forming co-coperative Indian settlements, the ´aldeias´. In the long run, Portuguese intrusions and raids and, above all, Europeans diseases, decimated the Indians. In their place African slaves were bought from Arab and African dealers and imported in large numbers to supply the labour required.
The extraordinary explorations into the vast interior by the bandeirantes, bands formed under a ´captain´ and comprising Portuguese, creoles, mulattos, meztizos, freed negroes and friendly Indians, penetrated far beyond the official Tordesillas boundary.

However, films like "The Mission" show a biased perspective of things, to such a point that it recieved severe criticism from Portuguese academics.

Although the Jesuits contributed in protecting the pockets of south american population in the amazon region, the main reason they did this was exactly to acquire laybor for their plantations, for as it is generaly known, the Jesuits had massive plantations in their control which had several indigenous laybor groups and many of them forced.

On the other hand, while contributing to a decimation of the indigenous population, the goverment later on in the 18th century provided complete official freedom for the indigenous pockets of population, and were actively acting against the jesuits agendas for even before Sebastião de Melo's government, the portuguese society already showed a dislike towards the jesuits, later on with Sebastião de Melo's regime they were actively persecuted.

[Ludicus]

the main reason they did this was exactly to acquire laybor for their plantations

...later on with Sebastião de Melo's regime they were actively persecuted

True.In Brasil,they had 17 factories to refine the sugar.In the border country of Portuguese Brazil and Spanish Paraguay,they had what was in effect an independent state.The conflict between the Jesuits and Pombal erupted when Portugal re-negociated the borders between Portuguese and Spanish South America,to bring up an end to the smuggling of precious metals and jewels.Portuguese and Spanish troops who came to expel the Jesuits forcibly,were repeatedly driven back over a long period by the feroucious and impassioned resistence of the native Americans.All the Jesuits in Portugal and its colonies were expelled.There was,in Portugal and Europe,a rising feeling that the Jesuits had become too powerful,politically and economically.Five years after their banishment from Portugal,the Society was expelled from France,in 1764,and in 1767 from Spain.Pombal wrote to Pope Clement XIII demanding he "extinguish" the Jesuit Order.Otherwise,he would orchestrate a joint military invasion of Rome to remove the Pope from his throne,and replace him with a new Pope who would do what Pombal ordered him to do,and expellled the Vatican´s ambassador from Lisbon,preparing the establishement of an independent national Church.Clement died,and within ayearhis successor,Clement XIV,issued a Bull abolishing the Jesuits,and the his new envoy to Portugal brought with him the news that Pombal´s brother,a priest,was now to be a cardinal.(1)
With the expulsion of the Jesuits,State-founded primary (440) and secondary schools(358) were established throughtout the country.In 1772 a radical reform of the University took place wich was considered in advance of its time.Pombal reduced the privileges of foreign traders,and revived portugal´s industry,agriculture and finances.Died in 1777.(2)

Portugal expansion in Brazil

The Brazilian case was the sole example of sustained territorial occupation of a colony by the Portuguese during the long period extending from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The need to supply the growing sugar economy with the manpower of African slaves linked Brazil to West Africa and structured the entire South Atlantic system. In the sixteenth century, Portuguese settlement of South America progressed slowly, despite crown encouragement through royal privileges for overseas travel and the establishment in the 1530s of “donatory” captaincies, which were huge concessions of land by the king, who delegated with the land various government powers. Three principal factors were responsible for the definition of a first imperial project in South America: the need to counter French projects of colonization; Portuguese attempts to repeat what the Spanish had achieved with the discovery of the Potosí mines; and an interest in finding new sources of income to compensate for the first crisis in India. In 1549, the establishment of a general government (governo geral ) in Bahia and the arrival of the first Jesuit missionaries provided a fresh impulse for the colony’s development. Over time, the power of the donatory captains was reduced, and it was finally eliminated in the eighteenth century by the Marquis of Pombal. At the same time, Indian slavery, justified since the sixteenth century by the idea of defensive war, was limited in practice because of the protection offered the Indians by the Jesuits.The Society of Jesus came to control a large portion of the indigenous workforce by establishing village settlements (aldeias), following a policy that had the support of both the crown and the governors. As a result of this policy, the colonists, hungry for cheap labor, and the Jesuit missionaries, protective of the Indians, frequently found themselves locked in serious conflict. This was especially the case in the poorer regions of Maranhão and Pará, which lacked the financial resources to acquire African slaves, as well as in São Paulo, where Portuguese miscegenation with indigenous populations led early on to a policy of making slaving raids into the interior. Although Jesuit policies certainly contributed to the increased importation of African slaves, the more operative basis for this choice was the resistance of Indians to slave labor and their vulnerability to European diseases. Whatever the case may be, the status of African slaves was never really questioned by the Society of Jesus, as the writings of Padre António Vieira clearly demonstrate. One thing, however, is certain: From the moment that a structure was established to collect and transport African slaves, there was a tendency to exploit this market whenever there was a need for human labor. Over the course of the eighteenth century, this pattern was repeated not only in Brazil but in the Spanish, Dutch, and British American colonies as well.
The stability of the Portuguese system in the South Atlantic was shaken between 1624 and 1654 by the arrival of the Dutch. They first conquered Bahia, which was retaken the very next year by an armada composed of troops from throughout Philip IV’s empire. In 1630, they occupied Pernambuco, and in the years that followed they moved into other northern captaincies as well. The incorporation of the two sides of the South Atlantic in the sugar (and tobacco) economy explains the Dutch conquest of São Jorge da Mina (1637), Arguim (1638), and São Tomé and Angola (1641). These moves spurred the first large-scale Portuguese attempt to reconquer the territory the Dutch had captured.The successful Portuguese expedition to retake Angola and São Tomé in 1648 was led by Salvador Correia de Sá, then governor of Rio de Janeiro, and carried out by troops from Brazil. The interruption of the slave supply signaled the beginning of the decline of Dutch America, further accelerated by the military successes of Brazilians in the region. The expulsion of the Dutch from Brazil in 1654 made it possible for the Portuguese to consolidate their power in the South Atlantic, demonstrating both the deep roots of Portuguese emigration and the Portuguese capacity to recruit troops from among the Indians and African slaves. The success of the campaign against the Dutch in Brazil also transformed military strategies in Angola, with the nomination of Brazilian governors and the transfer of troops from Portuguese America to Africa. This episode demonstrated the relational logic of the Portuguese empire: The losses suffered in Asia were balanced by the victory over the Dutch in the South Atlantic during the same period. This was the first war of the seventeenth century that had been waged between two European powers on different continents, and its results defined the future of both the Portuguese and Dutch empires for decades to come.In the following decades, the sugar and tobacco economies, in addition to the fishing industry, stimulated Portuguese expansion along the Brazilian coastline and attracted a large number of immigrants from Portugal. With the exception of the expeditions of the paulistas (residents of São Paulo), however, the Brazilian interior remained largely unexplored by Europeans until the very end of the seventeenth century. The discovery of gold in the region of Minas Gerais in the 1690s completely transformed this situation, causing a massive migration from Portugal and from other regions within Brazil. The conflict over mining rights between the paulistas and those from the metropole (who were allied with groups from other regions in Brazil) led to civil war, ultimately requiring intervention by the government of the southern captaincies. The successful suppression of the paulistas’ pretensions of exclusivity in the extraction of precious metals encouraged further migration and an expansion of gold and gem mining to other regions, especially in Goiás and Mato Grosso. The expansion of gold and diamond extraction also meant a dramatic leap forward for the Brazilian economy, bringing with it a series of consequences, including the expansion of cattle breeding, the regular use of the immense river system, and the creation of a vast network of roads.The new economic, demographic, and urban situation also explains the shift in power from the northeast to the south of Brazil, symbolized most concretely by the transfer of the capital of the Estado do Brasil from Salvador da Bahia to Rio de Janeiro in 1763. Encouraged by the Pombaline policy of territorial conquest, the Portuguese were throughout the century able to penetrate deeply into the north using the fluvial networks of the Amazon River and its tributaries. Meanwhile, in the south, the difficulty in defining the borders between Spanish and Portuguese America – the object of two successive treaties in 1750 and 1777 – brought to light the problematic status of indigenous aldeias, which had so far been controlled by the Jesuits outside of crown jurisdiction. Ultimately, this situation led in 1759 to the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from Portugal and the rest of the empire. Thus, the greatest moment of global Portuguese expansion occurred in the eighteenth century, with the territorial occupation of the interior of South America. The present-day borders of Brazil by and large owe their contours to this westward expansion. In this context, Pombal’s administrative and military reforms provided a more consistent frame in which Portuguese dominion could increase.(3)


(1)Page, M. "The First Global Village"
(2) Saraiva, J. H. "Portugal,a Companion History"
(3)Bethencourt, F., Curto, D. R. "Portuguese Oceanic Expansion 1400-1800"

[Ludicus]

Portugal expansion in Africa
The king of Kongo’s conversion by Portuguese missionaries early in the sixteenth century led to an extended period of influence in Central Africa, which in turn made possible more frequent slave traffic to the American continent. The founding of the city of Luanda in 1576 required a transfer of Portuguese regional power to the southwest, thereby increasing the instability of the kingdom of Kongo and its bordering kingdoms. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a tense but stable situation prevailed in the Kwanza River region and along the coastal zone of Benguela between the Portuguese and the N’gola and Jága peoples.This equilibrium was achieved through a strategy that oscillated between military action and treaty negotiation. The king of Kongo’s army, aided by Christian clergy and Portuguese, was decimated by troops from Luanda during the decisive battle at Ambuila in 1665*This episode exemplified the failure of missionary projects in Africa during the ancien régime. For the first time, too, political rationale appeared to have overcome religious commitments: Brazilian troops were called in, tipping the military balance and dramatically altering the course of the war in Africa. But Portuguese dominion did not follow immediately on the heels of the kingdom’s decline: It was only following the Berlin Conference and the wide diffusion of quinine for the relief of malaria in the last decades of the nineteenth century that the Portuguese were able to occupy large portions of the African interior.
In Mozambique, Portuguese efforts to occupy the interior through military means in the 1570s were thwarted by the spread of disease and the ability of local inhabitants to defend their territory. Nevertheless, the Portuguese were able to establish a network of fortresses that provided support for their various initiatives. The strategy here was to insinuate themselves within the chiefdoms of the Monomotapa confederation, a political structure that was, however, soon to go into decline in the early years of the seventeenth century. From this region, the invaders were able to maintain a hierarchical, if long-distance, relationship with the Estado da Índia. The Portuguese domination of the Zambezi River valley over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries created one of the few successful European territorial bases on the entire continent, even if genuine territorial occupation of the interior would once again be achieved only in the last few decades of the nineteenth century. The distinctive situation in Mozambique owed much to the miscegenation between the Portuguese and the local chiefdoms, as well as to the preferential trading relationship the area enjoyed in the western Indian Ocean’s burgeoning interregional economy (1)

(1)"Portuguese Oceanic Expansion 1400-1800"
Bethencourt,F,University of London;Curto,D. R. ,European University of Florence
* The Battle of Mbwila:
The Portuguese force, commanded by Luis Lopes de Sequeira Lopes de Sequeira, a soldier of mixed Portuguese and African parentage, were centered on a group of 450 musketeers and two light pieces, forces from Brazil including those of African and Native American origin, as well as Imbangala and African forces numbering about 15,000. The Kongo army included a large number of peasant archers, probably about 15,000, some 5,000 heavy infantry equipped with shields and swords, and a musket regiment of 380 men, 29 of them Portuguese led by Pedro Dias de Cabral , who was also of mixed Portuguese-African heritage.The Kongo army was defeated, Antonio I was killed and beheaded, and the Kongo crown and scepter were sent to Portugal.
Portugal obtained an act of vassalage from D. Izabel, the regent of Mbwila. In 1693 they had to return to attempt to subdue the region again. The primary result in Kongo was that the absence of an immediate heir spun the country into a civil war. This civil war, which would rage for half a century led to its decentralization and fundamental change, which is why Kongolese historians, even in 1700 regarded the battle as a decisive turning point in their country's history.

[Boicote]

Portuguese Uniforms from XVIII century

In the beginning of the XVIII century, the Portuguese uniforms had lots in common with the uniforms used by other catholic countries, such as France, Spain and Austria. The main colour of the Portuguese uniforms was light grey.


Portuguese Fusilier in 1740


Portuguese Grenadier in 1740


Uniform of the Portuguese infantry in the city of Goa (Índia)




During the Seven Years' War, Portuguese uniforms were similar to those used by the Austrian army. The main colour was now the white and the coat had a different colour for each regiment.
When the conflict was ending, the Portuguese uniforms sufferend a change on their colour because, due a lack of resources, there wasn’t a specific colour for the Portuguese army. However, it was common to find the first regiments equiped with a coat white or blue and the second regiments with a brown coat.


Portuguese Grenadier in 1762 ( First Regiment of Infantry in Oporto)


Portuguese Grenadier in 1762 ( First Regiment of Infantry in Oporto)


Portuguese Grenadier in 1762 (auxiliar troops from Oporto)


Portuguese Fusilier in 1762 (Infantry Regiment of Oporto)


Fusilier Comapany in 1762 (Regiment of Chaves)


Fusilier Comapany in 1762 ( Second Regiment of Chaves)


Fusilier Comapany in 1762 ( First Regiment of Bragança)


When the Seven Years' War ended the Portuguese uniform adopted the "Prussian style". The coat and in some cases the pants were now dark blue.


Artillery Regiment of São Julião da Barra in 1764


Cavalry Regiment of Évora in 1764


Viceroy Guard in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1764


Dragoons Company in Piauí (Brazil) in 1764

By the end of the XVIII centuary the Portuguese army was modernized and the uniforms followed the "french style".


Cavalry Regiment of Moura in 1783


Infantry Regiment of Viana in 1783


Infantry Regiment of Braga in 1783


Artillery Regiment of Algarve in 1783


Artillery Regiment of Estremoz in 1783


Infantry Regiment of Olinda (Brazil) in 1783


Infantry Regiment of Goa (India) in 1783


Infantry Regiment of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1791


Artillery Company of Angola in 1783


Cavalry Company of Angola in 1783


Infantry Regiment of Angola in 1783


Infantry Regiment of Angola in 1791


Artillery Regiment of Mozambique in 1791

[Ludicus]

Portugal Expansion in Índia


In Asia, the Estado da Índia was based on a system of key ports through which the Estado sought to control intercontinental, and to some degree interregional, commerce. From the east coast of Africa to Macao, and stretching as far as Nagasaki and Amboina, the Portuguese empire functioned as an interconnected network of port cities that took on diverse institutional and diplomatic features determined by particular economic, political, and cultural interests. In only two cases was there an effort to occupy the Asian interior: the first, along the coastal strip surrounding Daman, Bassein, and Chaul, where the Northern Province was created in the mid-sixteenth century; and the second in Ceylon, where the series of fortresses that the Portuguese established along the coastline allowed for the occupation of a significant portion of the Ceylonese interior in the early seventeenth century.
Although reinforced by missionary work, the basic explanation for the longevity of the Portuguese presence in Asia is to be found in territorial conquest, political control of local populations, and commercial advantages. Nevertheless, there are well-documented cases of extraordinary missionary success outside the boundaries of the empire, especially in southern India (the Pescaria Coast) and Japan, even though the latter was compromised by local political reaction. Meanwhile, the Portuguese were also expanding well beyond the formal frontiers of the empire by establishing mercantile communities in such places as the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia. They acquired a surprising level of autonomy by offering their services as mercenaries to various Asian kingdoms, including Pegu and Cambodia, and even came to establish their own fortresses, such as Syriam, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. On occasion, they received explicit support from the Estado da Índia itself. These largely autonomous groups of individuals represent the paradox of Portuguese miscegenation: They spread the traits of Portuguese identity by integrating themselves into native communities.
Although Portuguese power reached its zenith in the Indian Ocean during the first decades of the seventeenth century, competition from the Dutch and the English inevitably reduced its influence in Southeast Asia, the Persian Gulf, the Malabar Coast, and the Bay of Bengal. At the same time, and especially in the 1630s, local potentates, who occasionally teamed up with other European powers, managed to expel the Portuguese from Bengal, Ceylon, Ethiopia, and Japan, in spite of the continuing circulation of Portuguese merchant communities. This confrontation was intensified even further in the eighteenth century, with the definitive occupation of Mombasa by the Omanese empire and the conquest of the Northern Province by the Maratha Confederation. The Portuguese reacted to the latter by conquering the region around Goa in the 1740s, 1750s, and 1760s.(1)
In 1741, the Marathas invaded Bardez and Salsete and threatened the city of Goa itself. Fortunately for the Portuguese, a new viceroy, the Marquis of Lourical arrived with substantial reinforcements and defeated the Marathas in Bardez. But the valuable Portuguese territory of Bassein further up the coast was lost to the Marathas. During this period, the Portuguese got involved in several frontier wars which enabled them to extend their control over Ponda, Sanguem, Quepem, Canacona, Pernem, Bicholim and Satari. Hence, although Portugal lost a large number of its asian territories, Goa itself expanded.
This second (and final) phase of Portuguese expansion was rather different from their initial conquests. By the time these territories were added, the zeal for religious conversions had died down. In fact, the Portuguese mistrusting the Jesuits whom they viewed as being puppets of the pope in Rome, banned the order in 1759. By 1835, all religious orders were banned, while the hindu majority were "granted" the freedom to practice their religion. As a result, the "New Conquests" retained their hindu identity, a characteristic that persists until today.

(1)"Portuguese Oceanic Expansion 1400-1800"
Bethencourt,F,University of London;Curto,D. R. ,European University of Florence

[Ludicus]

Portugal expansion, some considerations:
«Portuguese expansion cannot and should not be seen as a cumulative process: It was marked by continuities and discontinuities and by breaches and transformations in the patterns of its activities from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans, from India to the South Atlantic, and from Brazil to Africa. It is possible to speak of successive Portuguese empires, the result of political adaptations to reversals of fortune and to the transfer of people and capital from one region to the other. Studying this process should not therefore be limited only to territories that were controlled by powers authorized or delegated by the crown. There was always a permanent flow of merchants, seamen, and artisans who lived beyond the boundaries of empire and who, in some cases, even ended up serving regimes other than the Portuguese.The reduced demographic capacities of the metropole – roughly a million people at the beginning of the fifteenth century and nearly three million at the end of the eighteenth – did not prevent constant emigration of the Portuguese, estimated at between one and two thousand people per year for most of the fifteenth century, between two and five thousand per year during the sixteenth, between three and six thousand per year during the seventeenth, and between eight and ten thousand during the eighteenth. These emigrants headed primarily to the Atlantic Islands and to Brazil. The Portuguese presence in Asia always suffered from a demographic scarcity, although this was largely compensated for by a policy of miscegenation with local societies that was put into effect by Afonso de Albuquerque in Goa in 1510. This distinctive characteristic of the Portuguese empire, reproduced in large scale in Brazil and to a much lesser extent in Africa, created colonial societies stratified by complicated “racial” criteria, as was also the case in the Spanish empire. Another specific characteristic of the Iberian empires, as distinguished from the Dutch and British empires, was that religious conversion served as a relatively important factor in the integration of local groups. It should be noted, however, that the use of force mobilized by missionaries to convert these populations (or to maintain them inside Christianity) proved to have a deeply contradictory effect in the long run. The use of local manpower, as mariners, pilots, artisans, soldiers, and clerics, was a characteristic the Portuguese empire shared with other European empires and was especially common in Asia.
Any process of expansion is violent by nature, and its consequences in this regard cannot be ignored. The conveyance of enslaved laborers from Africa, initiated by the Portuguese for the development of Brazil, soon involved the Spanish, English, French, and Dutch colonies in America. This forced relocation of an estimated twelve million individuals resulted in a staggering number of deaths both during the journey and in the first years of their captivity.
............we refuse to treat Portuguese expansion in a compartmentalized fashion, subdivided into continents, regions, and subregions. Without completely disrespecting the specificities associated with local and regional forms of interaction, we find that the academic practice of writing history based upon geographic regions is artificial and undermines a global approach to the process by which successive Portuguese empires were brought into existence. From our point of view, it is impossible to understand what took place in the Estado da Índia if one ignores what was happening in Africa, Brazil, or mainland Portugal itself at the same time. Thus, the development of colonial Brazil needs to be seen as more than an enlargement and definition of territorial boundaries; rather, it should be understood in the context of a bipolar system in the South Atlantic, of which the slave trade was one of the principal and defining features.
Second, we are reluctant to accept an approach that confines itself to periods of short or medium duration, whether this periodization conforms to regnal years or to the local and regional realities being studied. The division of history into arbitrarily defined, isolated chronological slices has come to be practiced today under the pretext of refusing a teleological view of the past. Although appearing to be salutary on the surface, this self-restraint ultimately defeats itself, as it results in a historicism that is unconscious of its own place within that same history. From our perspective, historical inquiry begins as a complex process of confronting an array of possibilities in constant flux. It is impossible to disregard the periods that preceded or followed the objects of one’s analyses. Only a global approach grounded in long-term appraisals is capable of defining analytically the models of domination the Portuguese adopted in different social and cultural contexts. Third, we cannot accept an approach that confines itself solely to the formal framework of the Portuguese empire without taking into account the circulation of the Portuguese beyond the borders of their political dominion or a model that downplays local political, economic, and cultural conditions. Moreover, we believe the Portuguese empire can only come into clear focus when it is studied in close relation with those Asian, African, and Amerindian networks with which the Portuguese interacted and not just within the context of the actions of other European powers».(1)
(1)Bethencourt,F,University of London;Curto,D. R. ,European University of Florence