ABSTRACT
Policing the countryside was the main task of the Portuguese army during the second half of the 19th century. The military also had a crucial role in the policing of the Portuguese colonies, especially after the occupation campaigns of the 1890s. This chapter assesses the nature and extent of the policing duties from the 1850s to the 1920s, underlining the links between the military policing of both European and colonial Portugal. It proposes a comparative assessment of the role of the army in the policing of metropolitan Portugal during the second half of the 19th century. The chapter explains the underdevelopment of the Portuguese professional police forces and to assess the workings of the policing arrangements that constitutional governments put in place. It explores the values attached to the experience of policing by the military and the looping circulations between the military policing of colonial and metropolitan Portugal.
