Portugal History Introduction
As an outstanding Nation Portugal was a world power
during the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal lost
much of its wealth and status with the destruction
of Lisbon in a 1755 earthquake, occupation
during the Napoleonic Wars, and the independence in 1822
of Brazil as a colony. A 1910 revolution deposed the
monarchy; for most of the next six decades repressive
governments ran the country. In 1974, a left-wing
military coup installed broad democratic reforms.
The following year Portugal granted independence to all
of its African colonies. Portugal entered the EC in 1985.
Portugal History Resume
The part of Iberia which is now Portugal was occupied by
a people known as the Lusitanos who are thought to
be direct ancestors of the Portuguese people. The
region was invaded and occupied by the Romans and
later the Moors; it remained under the latter's control
until the 11th century, when Ferdinand, ruler of the
Kingdom of Leon and Castilla (in what is now Spain)
conquered much of the territory. Over the next 200
years, the remaining Moors were driven out and the
boundaries of Portugal fixed; and it was during
this period (in 1143) that Portugal first became
recognised as an independent entity under the rule of
King Afonso Henriques.
The Castilians were themselves expelled in 1385
after defeat at the hands of João of Aviz (who became
King João I) at the Battle of Aljubarotta. From this
point, the Portuguese went on to build a colonial
empire in Africa, Latin America, India and the Far
East. One of the most famous figures during this period
was Prince Henry the Navigator, amongst whose
acquisitions were the Azores and Madeira. One of the
best-known visitors to Madeira was Christopher
Columbus, who married a daughter of one of the
island's governors and lived for some time on Porto
Santo. The island survived a brief invasion by a French
pirate in 1566, but in 1580, along with the rest of
Portugal, came under Spanish domination.
This arose from the recurring friction between
the two kingdoms, particularly after the union
of Aragon and Castilla in the late 15th century. In
the 16th century, with the Portuguese regime weakened
by a struggle for the succession to the throne and
the legacy of a disastrous 'crusade' against the Moors,
Philip II of Spain (who had a claim to the Portuguese
crown) invaded. Spanish rule lasted just 60 years until
1640, when the Portuguese launched a successful
uprising and seceded from Spain. However, by the time
they recovered their independence, the Portuguese
had lost the bulk of their empire, including most of
the valuable East Indies territories which had been
occupied by the Dutch.
Portugal ceased to be a major player in the European
colonial scramble thereafter. The Braganza
dynasty, which took power after the defeat of the
Spanish, lasted until the mid-19th century, presiding
over a weak economy and a largely feudal society. One
of the princesses of the royal house, Catherine,
married Charles II of England, confirming the
friendly relations between the two countries which date
back to the 14th century. This brought many advantages
to English merchants in Portugal, and also on the
island of Madeira where the treaty helped the rapid
development of the trade in the island's wine which
became popular in England. Portuguese political
development lagged behind that of many European states
during this period and it remained comparatively
untouched by the Enlightenment until the
emergence in the late 18th century of the Marquis de
Pombal, who was both dictatorial yet enlightened
(by the standards of the time) on matters of social reform.
He did much to break the power of the landed
aristocracy over the country. Occasional
conflicts with the Spanish and French - sometimes in
alliance - threatened the country's autonomy, but the
Portuguese always managed to preserve their independence,
often with the support of the British. The monarchy
was finally overthrown in 1910 by republican forces,
who particularly resented the strong influence of the
Catholic church on the regime. Portugal supported
the Allied Powers during World War I, but contributed
little due to the presence of a strong pro-German
element in the armed forces, which made several coup
attempts. Finally, a right-wing dictatorship took power in 1926.
Though military in composition, the key figure
in the new regime was finance minister Antonio de
Oliveira Salazar. Having addressed Portugal's chaotic
financial situation, Salazar became President in 1932.
Salazar was influenced by the populist fascism of
Benito Mussolini in Italy and founded a party, the
National Union, to prepare the way for an 'Estado
Novo'. Despite its Government's sympathies,
Portugal, like Spain, stayed neutral during World War II.
Salazar remained in power until 1968 without effecting
any of the post-war reforms which had been forced upon
or embraced by other European countries: the
economy remained largely agricultural and
under-industrialised, while the Portuguese colonies were
subject to regimes more consistent with the
conditions of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Salazar's eventual successor, Marcello Caetano,
eased the restrictions on domestic political activity,
but otherwise altered little. His downfall six
years later was connected with the colonial policies
inherited from his predecessor: specifically
that Portugal's overseas possessions were an
'inalienable' part of the country. The strain of
fighting several different nationalist movements
simultaneously (see, for example, separate entries on
Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Indonesia)
strained both army morale and the Government's
finances. On April 25, 1974 (a date of great
significance in Portugal), a group of radical army
officers deposed Caetano in a bloodless coup. The
African colonies were immediately abandoned:
indeed, they were left with such haste that internal
crises were almost inevitable.
Portugal was governed for two years by a leftist
military junta led by members of the Movimiento
das Forcas Armardas, the instigators of the
revolution, while civilian politicians re-emerged and
crystallised around the Socialist and Communist
Parties and the right-wing Partido Popular Democratico.
Under the constitution adopted in 1976, Portugal
was nominally committed to a path of socialist
development, but the country has since followed a
standard Western European model of political
pluralism. Portugal has been a member of NATO since its
inception in 1949 and a member of the EC, now the EU,
since 1986. The Government of Anibal Cavaco Silva which
took office in 1987 concentrated on bridging the
economic gap between Portugal and its richer
fellow Community members. With average annual growth
of around five per cent in the last four years, the
Government was broadly successful on the economic front.
This as much as anything else won Cavaco Silva's
centre-right Partido Social Democrata (PSD, Social
Democrats) a further endorsement from the
electorate in October 1991. Since the election, the
Government has been pursuing a controversial austerity
programme which aims to dispose of almost the entire
state sector as part of a drive to increase
competitiveness and reduce structural inefficiency. The
unpopularity of this programme became apparent at
the October 1995 general election at which the
Socialists were returned as the largest single party
with sufficient parliamentary seats to form
a minority government. The new Prime Minister was
Antonio Guterres, who reformed his party since
taking it over in 1991 in much the same direction as
the British Labour Party leader, Tony Blair. Guterres
new-model Socialists proved reasonably competent in
government and were perhaps unlucky to narrowly miss
securing an absolute majority at the recent
legislative elections held in October 1999. Guterres
retained the premiership. His Socialist colleague,
Jorge Sampaio, was also elected to a second term at
the presidential poll held in January 2001.
The centre-right alliance of the People's Party and
Democratic Social Centre went into opposition. The
Socialists relied on occasional support from the
Communist Party. Guterres' Socialists were the
undoubted victors at the most recent general election
held in October 1999, but a strong showing by the
Communists and the environmentalist Os Verdes
party deprived them of an overall majority. Portugal
held the European Community presidency in 1992, and
again in 1999 , and is a relatively contented
participant in the post-Maastricht integration
process, including the introduction of European
Monetary Union at the beginning of 1999. EU
reforms were a principal motivation for the
constitutional changes effected by the government
in 1997, of which the most important was a measure
allowing for referendums on important matters of
national interest. Outside Europe, the Portuguese
Foreign Ministry, contributed substantially to
the various political settlements in Angola and,
co-operating closely with Italian diplomats, Mozambique.
Relations with the government of Indonesia have
deteriorated because of the latter's behaviour in the
former Portuguese colony of East Timor, where widespread
human rights violations have been condemned by Lisbon.
There has been some recent improvement, however,
following the withdrawal of Indonesian forces from the
territory. The future of Macau, which reverted to
Chinese possession in December 1999, was settled
far more amicably between Beijing and Lisbon than the
parallel negotiations between the British and
Chinese governments over the future of Hong Kong. |