ABSTRACT
The Portuguese colonial presence in Africa began in the fifteenth century, in North Africa, when Portugal occupied Ceuta, and expanded in the following centuries in the form of a large network of settlement points on the western and eastern coasts of the continent. Until the 1880s, with the exception of the islands, the Portuguese occupation, as that of other European countries, consisted mainly of settlements and trading posts located along the African coast, in part with the aim to control sea routes, trade and slave traffic. These initial settlements developed through a series of unplanned interventions, although in a few cases also according to predefined plans. As is shown in Teixeira and Valla (1999), Fernandes et al. (2006; 2010) and Matoso (2010), the establishment of these new colonial settlements in Africa, and in other continents as well, reflected the urban tradition that existed in the Portuguese home territory in Europe, the initial urban experiments in the archipelagos of Madeira and Azores, the administrative tradition, the specific local conditions in each colony, and the cultural exchanges between colonizers and colonized, a process similar to the establishment of new outposts by other European colonial powers. These initial settlements in the Portuguese colonial territories in Africa, and in other European colonies as well, reveal an enormous variety of influences, both informal and erudite. 1
