including headings Western Iberia, Reconquest, John I, The English connection, Navigators, ...
including headings New European empires, Portugal's eastern trade, Portugal's empire, Portugal and Brazil, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, ...
The Portuguese, with imperial ambitions focussed originally on the east Indies, are slower than the Spanish in setting up any form of administration in America. Brazil is deemed to be part of their share of the globe, th...
The Portuguese, in their bold exploration along the coasts of Africa, have an underlying purpose - to sail round the continent to the spice markets of the east. But in the process they develop a trading interest and a la...
The profitable trade in eastern spices is cornered by the Portuguese in the 16th century to the detriment of Venice, which has previously had a virtual monopoly of these valuable commodities - until now brought overland...
In October 1807 Napoleon decides that the only certain method of securing the Continental System is a French occupation of Portugal. He despatches an army for the purpose and summons Spanish envoys to Fontainebleau.<...
On their first visit, in 1505, the Portuguese make a treaty with the king of Kandy enabling them to trade in the island's crop of cinammon. Soon they win permission to build a fort to protect their trade. From this first...
The Portuguese expeditions of the 15th century bring European ships for the first time into regular contact with sub-Saharan Africa. This region has long been the source of slaves for the route through the Sahara to the...
Portugal, after initiating the European slave trade in Africa, plays a decreasing role in it over the next few centuries. Similarly the Portuguese, although the first Europeans to establish trading settlements in sub-Sah...
The small tropical island of Zanzibar, a mere twenty miles off the east coast of Africa, has played a part in local history out of all proportion to its size. The reason is its easy access to traders and adventurers expl...
An important expedition to the east leaves Lisbon in 1497. In July Vasco da Gama sails south in his flagship, the St Gabriel, accompanied by three other vessels. In late November the little fleet rounds the Cape o...
With San Martín away in Peru, Bernardo O'Higgins is now unmistakably the strong man of Chile - of which he has been the 'supreme director' since 1817. Allowed the powers of a dictator, O'Higgins begins to put into...
Portugal's terminal problems in Angola are not directly caused by any of these guerrilla groups. It is a rebellion of workers, undergoing forced labour in coffee and cotton plantations in the north, which first plunges t...
Portugal's colonial claim to the region is recognized by the other European powers during the 1880s, and the boundaries of Portuguese Angola are agreed by negotiation in Europe in 1891. At the time Portugal is in effecti...
Portugal undertakes a succession of military campaigns to try and extend colonial rule inland. But its chief method of exploiting the potential of the region is to award large tracts of land to commercial companies chart...
