Portuguese Empire

The Portuguese Empire (O Império Português) was, or is, one of the longest-lived colonial empires.

Understand
"As armas e os Barões assinalados Que da Ocidental praia Lusitana Por mares nunca d'antes navegados Passaram ainda além da Taprobana, Em perigos e guerras esforçados Mais do que prometia a força humana, E entre gente remota edificaram Novo Reino, que tanto sublimaram.

Arms and the Heroes, who from Lisbon's shore, Through Seas where sail was never spread before, Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast, And waves her woods above the watery waste, With prowess more than human forced their way To the fair kingdoms of the rising day: What wars they waged, what seas, what dangers past, What glorious empire crowned their toils at last."

- opening stanza of Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads) by Luís de Camões, 1572

During the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, the Christian troops followed the Muslims further across the Mediterranean. In 1415, the Portuguese captured the Moorish port of Ceuta, marking the start of the Portuguese Empire. The Portuguese were pioneers in the Age of Exploration, discovering Volta do Mar (lit. "turn of the sea"), a system of ocean currents and prevailing winds in the Atlantic, and striving to improve their shipbuilding and seamanship skills in order to use it. The understanding of the trade winds, and the development of triangular sails capable of crosswind sailing, enabled Europeans to sail across oceans and establish global empires. Inaugurated around 1433, the Sagres nautical school, sponsored by Prince Henry, the Navigator (Infante Dom Henrique, o Navegador, 1394-1460), promoted the maritime exploration of the Atlantic Ocean, which led to the discovery of the archipelagos of Madeira and Azores and the reaching of Greenland, Terra Nova, Lavrador and the west coast of Africa. The discovery of a passable route around Cape Bojador by Portuguese mariner Gil Eanes in 1434 was a major breakthrough for European seamanship, of almost mystical significance. After Prince Henry's death, his pupils continued to voyage further and further, enabling Portugal to begin a major chapter in world history with the New World Discoveries (Descobrimentos) and monopoly over trade between the Orient and Western Europe.

First, Portugal discovered and colonised the Madeira and Azores archipelagos. Explorer Bartolomeu Dias then became the first European to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, and Vasco da Gama later pioneered the Cape Route to India. To consolidate imperial supremacy, Portugal established a chain of fortified military towns and trading outposts that eventually linked in Africa (Ceuta, Canary Islands, Ivory Coast, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé e Príncipe, Zaire, Angola, Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Mozambique, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Malindi and Mogadishu), South America (Brazil, Caribbean, parts of Argentina and Uruguay), Asia (Hormuz, Goa, Bombay, Macau, Ceylon, Malacca, Phuket, Sumatra, East Timor, Flores, Moluccas, etc), and Oceania (Papua New Guinea), creating an empire covering most of the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean and parts of the South China Sea and the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, in which Portugal and Spain divided up the globe into half, awarded Portugal virtually all of the "Old World" as well as an eastern chunk of present-day Brazil (the line ran from Belém to Laguna in Santa Catarina). For this reason, the Spanish concentrated their efforts on the Western Hemisphere with explorers like Columbus and Magellan attempting to access India by sailing westwards, while Portugal initially largely got Africa and Asia for itself, and proceeded to colonize Brazil.

Additionally, after reaching Japan in the mid 16th century, Portuguese sailors explored vast areas of the Pacific Ocean resulting in 1571, the Japanese port city of Nagasaki being established by the Portuguese and local lords, to handle the new trade demand. The Portuguese also reached the northern part of what is today Taiwan in 1544, and named the island Ilha Formosa (Beautiful Island), the name by which it was first known to Westerners. The Portuguese managed to colonise much of northern Taiwan, but this would be short lived due to the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns in 1580.

At the 1578 Alcácer-Quibir battle in present-day Morocco, Portugal suffered a tremendous defeat, and young king D. Sebastião was killed. For dynastic reasons, the empire was absorbed in the Spanish Empire, only regaining its independence on 1640.

A colonial war with the Dutch Republic from 1606 to 1663 ended with loss of influence in South America for the Dutch, in Southeast Asia for the Portuguese, and somewhat of a draw in Africa.

During the Napoleonic wars, the Portuguese royal family escaped on British warships to Brazil, setting up the Imperial capital in Rio de Janeiro. King D. João VI stayed until 1821. The biggest colony, Brazil, became independent in 1822. Uniquely for South America, it became a monarchy, the Brazilian Empire, ruled by D. João VI's son D. Pedro I, who married archduchess Maria Leopoldina Habsburg, daughter of Austrian emperor Francis II, younger sister of future emperor Ferdinand I and Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, former wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. D. Pedro I returned to Portugal in 1831, to reign as D. Pedro IV, leaving behind his 5-year-old son D. Pedro II to rule Brazil.

The Portuguese empire endured a few decades longer than many other European empires. Goa, Diu, Damão, Dadra and Nagar Haveli were annexed by India in 1961. The Portuguese Colonial War, comprising wars in its African colonies, came to an abrupt end with the Carnation Revolution in 1974 when dissatisfied military officers revolted. Portugal lost the will to spend the necessary resources to maintain its colonial empire, and decided to grant independence to its colonies. Angola and Mozambique suffered from brutal civil wars before gaining stability as independent countries. A short civil war in East Timor was closely followed in 1975 by an Indonesian invasion and occupation that lasted until 1999. East Timor was then administered by a United Nations peacekeeping force before regaining independence in 2002.

Macau was returned to China in 1999, two years after British Hong Kong. This was the first and last European colony in East Asia. Today, the Azores and Madeira islands, at a notable distance from the European mainland, are part of Portugal as autonomous regions, so in a sense the empire still exists. As legacies of this empire, Portuguese culture, language, customs and cuisine, as well as Roman Catholicism, were spread globally, and Portugal itself continues to be home to large communities of Brazilians and Sub-Saharan Africans.

African west coast



 * the Portuguese established a colony in 1448. The Dutch conquered the island in 1633, lost the island to the French in 1678, from which it was transferred to Brandenburg, then back to the French, and then briefly back to the Dutch again from 1722 to 1724. It's nowadays part of Mauritania, a former French colony.
 * . Always the largest Portuguese African city and center of the southern slave trade, Luanda was of much strategic interest to the Dutch, who first attempted and failed to take the city and its fort in 1624. They succeeded later in 1641. The fort was then rebranded to Fort Aardenburgh. The West India Company continued the slave trade in the seven years it controlled the city. Portugal retook it in 1648.
 * was also captured by the same effort as Luanda in 1641. It had a similar story to Luanda altogether.
 * is more of the same, though it is special in that the West India Company kept an agent here for the purpose of buying slaves until 1689.
 * . Always the largest Portuguese African city and center of the southern slave trade, Luanda was of much strategic interest to the Dutch, who first attempted and failed to take the city and its fort in 1624. They succeeded later in 1641. The fort was then rebranded to Fort Aardenburgh. The West India Company continued the slave trade in the seven years it controlled the city. Portugal retook it in 1648.
 * was also captured by the same effort as Luanda in 1641. It had a similar story to Luanda altogether.
 * is more of the same, though it is special in that the West India Company kept an agent here for the purpose of buying slaves until 1689.
 * is more of the same, though it is special in that the West India Company kept an agent here for the purpose of buying slaves until 1689.

African east coast

 * - Zanzibar was visited by Vasco da Gama in 1498, by which time the archipelago was an established trading point with merchants from as far as Indonesia. A few years later, the Portuguese demanded and got tribute from the sultan, and Zanzibar became part of the Portuguese Empire. They didn't establish themselves as firmly as in other colonies (although they built a fort on Pemba Island), and in 1698 the Omanis who had defeated the Portuguese everywhere along the Central East African coast set up the Sultanate of Zanzibar. Zanzibar would later come under British rule.
 * - Likewise an established city by the time of the arrival of the Europeans, in the 1590s the Portuguese built a fortification named Fort Jesus, later in use by Arabs and the British until 1958 and one of the city's most notable sights today.
 * - In Mombasa's main rival, visited by Chinese explorer Zheng He some 80 years earlier, da Gama received a warmer welcome. For the 16th century Malindi became one of the main trading and supply posts on the Cape Route, and Malindi and the Portuguese were allies against other powers in the region. In 1593 the Portuguese moved their regional capital to Mombasa they had conquered, and Malindi declined.
 * - In Mombasa's main rival, visited by Chinese explorer Zheng He some 80 years earlier, da Gama received a warmer welcome. For the 16th century Malindi became one of the main trading and supply posts on the Cape Route, and Malindi and the Portuguese were allies against other powers in the region. In 1593 the Portuguese moved their regional capital to Mombasa they had conquered, and Malindi declined.

See
Like other European empires, the Portuguese brought some architectural elements with them — for example the calçada portuguesa, or Portuguese pavement where darker and lighter stones are laid out in patterns to form pictures or patterns like waves. Another element of Portuguese architecture that spread throughout the colonial empire was the distinctive blue and white ceramic tiles.

Eat and drink
During imperial times, the Portuguese brought ingredients and dishes overseas to Portugal, the colonizers brought some with them to the colonies, and culinary interchange also happened between individual colonies in different parts of the world (for example spices between tropical Asia and Americas).

For example the Portuguese pastry pastel de nata and cabidela (chicken cooked in its blood with rice) can be found in former Portuguese colonies. Vindaloo which is part of the Goan cuisine and popular worldwide is based on the Madeiran dish carne de vinha d'alhos (meat in garlic marinade), and several dishes in the Brazilian cuisine have their origins in Africa. In Macau, Portuguese cuisines was blended with Cantonese culinary traditions to give rise of the distinctive Macanese cuisine, which is most popular among the Macanese ethnic group (people of mixed Portuguese and Chinese heritage).

In Japan, Portuguese Catholics brought their cooking method of battering and deep-frying of seafood through Nagasaki. The cuisine was soon popularized in Japan as Tempura, and other ingredients like vegetables and meat. The term may derive from the Portuguese words tempero, "seasoning", or têmpora, the period when Catholics are required to fast and abstain from eating meat (but not seafood).

Other colonial empires

 * Austro-Hungarian Empire
 * British Empire
 * Danish Empire
 * Dutch Empire
 * French Colonial Empire
 * German Empire
 * Italian Empire
 * Japanese colonial empire
 * Russian Empire
 * Spanish Empire
 * Swedish Empire