ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines Lisbon’s strategic significance in the Atlantic World. The earliest times of European coastwise navigation, all seagoing powers came to appreciate Lisbon’s great practical worth as a harbor. The Portuguese supplied half of the fleet’s largest and most heavily armed warships. The Portuguese found these setbacks frustrating; subordination to Spanish rule is limiting the ability to defend the overseas empire. Another aspect of the Portuguese paradox is that its imperial aspirations focused on the eastern hemisphere and particularly on India and China for the spices, drugs, textiles, and luxury goods. The Brasileiros were left largely to their own devices to recover the colony for the Portuguese empire; in the event, victory is achieves through the use of armed slave soldiers. Lisbon is also the least Atlantic of Europe’s major ports. The Portuguese Atlantic mercantile sphere is very active and interconnected.
