Ler História 47 / 2004
Dossier Portugal and África in the XX Century
Ana Paula Pires
The African adventure of “Companhia Industrial de Portugal e Colónias” during the first RepublicMaria Alexandre Dáskalos
Norton de Matos economic politics for Angola: 1912-1915
José Augusto Pereira
Cabo Verde’s Economy in the Context of the “Estado Novo” (1940-1960)Maria Fernanda Rollo
The Program of Technical Assistance: the American interest in the Portuguese Colonies
Luís Nuno Rodrigues
George Ball in Lisbon: the United States and the Portuguese colonial problem in 1963
Studies
Maria Norberta Amorim
Demographic behaviours of the Ancien Regime in the Iberia PeninsulaOrlando Simões
The institutionalisation of the Portuguese vitiviniculture: the case of the quality winesRita Martins de Sousa
The monetary unification of Portugal (Continent and Isles)
Homage to Pierre Vilar
Testimonies of Rosa CONGOST, Michel Drain, Miriam Halpern PEREIRA, Magda PINHEIRO, Nicolás SÁNCHEZ-ALBORNOZ and Bernard VINCENT.
Pierre Vilar’s bio-bibliography
Abstracts
Ler História 47 / 2004
The African adventure of “Companhia Industrial de Portugal e Colónias” during the first RepublicWith the end of World War One we assist to a raise of interest towards the Portuguese African possessions: with the disappearance of the German threaten the Portuguese sovereignty is safe and the colonies demand investment and development. Since the end of 1919 A Opinião and the Diário de Notícias, newspapers owned by “Companhia Industrial de Portugal e Colónias”, support that the effective occupation of the african colonies is the only way capable to remove external “greed”. Confident about the possibilities of business in Africa, the Company makes several investments in S. Tomé e Príncipe and in Angola.
Norton de Matos economic politics for Angola: 1912-1915
This article analyzes the economic politics of Norton de Matos for Angola, in the first period of its general Government, from 1912 to 1915. Some of his measures have been structuring: his important administrative reform aiming to occupy the territory with civilian elements, the defense of European life conditions improvement in the colony, natives‘ work politics in which he has introduced control systems and has created laws to protect locals from colonialists abuses, integrating them simultaneously into a monetary market economy. Moreover, in this period, the essential bases of the Angolan economy were the infrastructures, which were built establishing a network of roads and paths and the decisive investment in railway. The foundation of Huambo’s City is, from public works and urbanization point of view, part of a global and integrated strategy that we intend to understand and explain in this paper.
Cabo Verde’s Economy in the Context of the “Estado Novo” (1940-1960)In the forties of the last century, Cabo Verde faced two serious hunger crises that caused thousands of victims. These catastrophes showed the vulnerability of an archipelago with practically no resources and where the local finances, chronically deficitary, faced extreme difficult in helping the victims and were unable to provide to the development of the islands. Therefore, the local elites urged the metropolis to take the lead of the development, with measures that took advantage from their strategic wealth and gave value to the productions. First Development Plan («I Plano de Fomento»), introduced in the decade of 50, meant hope of a start to Cabo Verde, later on obstructed by the lack of the budgeted funds.
The Program of Technical Assistance: the American interest in the Portuguese Colonies
In the end of 1948, ECA (Economic Cooperation Administration) launched a program of technical assistance integrated in what commonly is known as Marshall Plan. The program has been developed in the next decade, last even beyond ERP (European Recovery Program) itself, developing as a real campaign of production and productivity targeted to the European economies and their overseas territories. This article synthesizes the main aspects of the history of the application of the American program of technical assistance to the Portuguese colonies. It points out the main goals that presided to its use and to the way how the colonies “opened” themselves to American studies and projects. The existing climate of agreement between Portuguese and American leaders allowed a bunch of initiatives especially dedicated to Angola and Mozambique, creating expectations about their results.
George Ball in Lisbon: the United States and the Portuguese colonial problem in 1963
This article analyzes the visit of the American Under-Secretary of State George Ball to Lisbon, in August 1963. His main goal was to present the Portuguese government a new plan for the solution of its colonial problem. The plan called for the decolonization of Portuguese territories within a certain period. Ball's attempt represented a sincere effort by the American administration to solve the Portuguese colonial question but it did not have any practical results, because the American envoy had to face the complete intransigence of the Portuguese head of government, Oliveira Salazar.
Demographic behaviours of the Ancien Regime in the Iberia Peninsula
Although the population survey of the States is a routine nowadays, it is recent, not exceeding a century and a half. Nevertheless, even in the absence of surveys, demographic analysis is possible when there is access to parochial registers of christenings, marriages and obituaries (available in the Catholic Europe since the end of the 16th century), handled with appropriate methodologies. Using these resources, deep differences have been identified in the behaviours face to mortality and marriage in the Ancien Regime in the Iberia regions, and some differences are shown on fertility that, interacting with the phenomenon of mobility, can lead to an endogenous explanation of the differenced rhythms of growth and expansion of the populations.
The institutionalisation of the Portuguese vitiviniculture: the case of the quality wines
The author analyses the conditions for the institutionalisation of the Portuguese vitiviniculture, in particular to the case of the quality wines, with special mention to port wine. First, it is faced the topic of the wine quality at the light of the theory of the conventions, appealing to different conventions to explain different ways to commercialise the wine. Next, it is analysed the historical circumstances that lead to the differentiation on the quality wines in Portugal. In the particular case of the product “Vinho do Porto”, it is discussed the origin of the basic rules for its production, circulation and consumption, and the creation of a group of institutional measures to national and international protection of the denomination “Porto”. The article ends analysing the rest of the quality wines, especially those that came from demarcations in the beginning of the 20th century.
The monetary unification of Portugal (Continent and Isles)
This article analyses the monetary unification of Portugal (Continent and Isles) realized between 1879 (Madeira) and 1931 (Azores). First, we analyse isles’ monetary picture, where the circulation was dominated by foreign exchange and insular or weak currency, which it was a currency with exchange premium in comparison with continental currency. The weak integration between Continent and Isles’ economic spaces will explain these features. The monetary integration proposals’ presented in the 19th century will be study in a second moment. Portugal fought with conflicts interests during the monetary unification with the isles space. A long century passed since the administrative modification and the Portuguese monetary unification. Nevertheless, if in Madeira the integration proposals had no opposition, with Azores the echoes of unification opponents in the parliament postponed the integration to 1931.