The Portuguese campaigns of pacification and occupation () were a vast set of military operations, conducted by the Portuguese Armed Forces in the overseas provinces of the Portuguese Empire, between 1838 and 1936. Action was seen at Chaimite, in Mozambique, where Mouzinho de Albuquerque captured the Vatua king Gungunhana but also at Môngua, in Angola. They resulted in the creation of modern-day Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Timor-Leste, which came to be known as the "Third Portuguese Empire".
These campaigns took place after the Independence of Brazil but mostly during the Scramble for Africa. Portugal sought to compensate for the loss of Brazil, but it was faced with a notorious lack of manpower and resources, native resistance and encroachment by rival European powers, not least of which by its own ally, the United Kingdom. On the other hand, it benefitted from the most familiarity with the colonial theater out of any Europeans, access to modern weaponry, severe hostility between native peoples, the erosion of native states and an exceptional level of native cooperation. The Portuguese ultimately secured over 2,000,000 square kilometers of territory, inhabited by about 8,000,000 people, even though the average number of soldiers stationed overseas never exceeded 13,000 men before 1910.Paulo Jorge Fernandes: "O impacto da intervenção militar em Moçambique nos finais do Século XIX para o desenvolvimento das campanhas africanas" in Afonso, C. F.; Borges, V. L. Portugal e as Campanhas de África: da imposição de soberania à Grande Guerra, 2015 Colecção ARES, 8, Lisboa: Instituto Universitário Militar, 151-163, p. 157.
Though they began as early as 1838 under the aegis of the Marquis of Sá da Bandeira, the most important campaigns on Angola, Mozambique, Guinea and Timor took place between 1890 and 1909. Operations would continue for some years afterwards. The Gaza Empire in southern Mozambique was annexed in 1895 through a campaign organized by António Enes.Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique, 1995, Indiana University Press, p. 376. The pacification of Zambezia followed between 1897 and 1902, culminating in the Barue campaign.Newitt, 1995, pp. 370-371. The north was occupied between 1899 and 1917.Newitt, 1995, p. 398; p. 419. Timor was occupied and pacified between 1894 and 1912.Teixeira, Nuno Severiano (2019). The Portuguese at War: From the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, Liverpool University Press, p. 46. The occupation of Angola was carried out in the north, center and south, with the north being mostly occupied between 1886 and 1912, the center between 1890 and 1902, and the south between 1886 and 1915, though it was only pacified in 1926. Mainland Guinea was fully occupied by 1915, and the Bijagos in 1936, marking the end of the pacification campaigns.
At least 430 operations were carried out in Guinea, Angola and Mozambique between 1841 and 1936, totalling 557 months or 46 years on the field, involving a total of 58,000 soldiers and hundreds of thousands of African militiamen and auxiliaries.Paulo Jorge Fernandes: "O impacto da intervenção militar em Moçambique nos finais do Século XIX para o desenvolvimento das campanhas africanas" in Afonso, C. F.; Borges, V. L. Portugal e as Campanhas de África: da imposição de soberania à Grande Guerra, 2015 Colecção ARES, 8, Lisboa: Instituto Universitário Militar, 151-163, p. 157. A further 56 campaigns were carried out on Timor between 1847 and 1913, involving 2,200 soldiers and about 114,000 Timorese militiamen and auxiliaries. Though numerous, the pacification campaigns were usually small in scale and involved mostly native troops."Na maioria das campanhas, contudo, as colunas lusas eram invariavelmente integradas por uma maioria de tropas auxiliares indígenas, enquadradas por oficiais europeus" in Costa, Rodrigues, Oliveira, 2014, p. 420."Essas campanhas militares foram em grande número, mas geralmente, de pequena dimensão. Tinham objectivos táticos de ocupação de território e submissão de populações relativamente limitados. Mobilizavam um reduzido número de efetivos, na sua maioria de tropas indígenas, mas gozavam de superioridade militar, dado o armamento que dispunham face aos africanos. Por vezes e, poucas foram, quando estavam em causa objetivos estratégicos e consequências políticas, isto é, quando estava em causa a soberania portuguesa ou a consolidação do império, as campanhas militares assumiram maior envergadura, com a mobilização não só das tropas coloniais, mas também das forças metropolitanas, e muito maior poder de fogo." in Nuno Severiano Teixeira: "Das Guerras Civis à "Pacificação do Império" in Francisco Contente Domingues, João Gouveia Monteiro, Nuno Severiano Teixeira: História Militar de Portugal, Esfera dos Livros, 2017, p. 419. Relatively large expeditions of well-equipped European troops were dispatched directly from Europe whenever Portuguese sovereignty over the claimed territories was seriously contested. They were otherwise marked by the mass participation of native troops on the side of Portugal, which led some authors to comment that the new territories "conquered themselves".Pélissier, 2000, II, pp. 446-447.Costa, Rodrigues, Oliveira, 2014, p. 421.
Background up to the Berlin Conference
Certain Portuguese proposed exploring the African hinterland between Angola and Mozambique to set up trade posts as early as 1795, when the English occupied the Cape Colony and the Boers began to move inland.H. V. Livermore: A New History of Portugal, 1976, Cambridge University Press, p. 300. Dr. Francisco de Lacerda, who proposed a chain of trade post across the interior, set out from Mozambique in 1798 to explore a path to Angola but died near Lake Mweru. The following decade, Pedro José Baptista and Amaro José plus a number of Afro-Portuguese traders set out from Angola and performed the first known crossing of Africa, reaching Mozambique.
After the Independence of Brazil and the end of the Portuguese Civil War, Portugal turned to its remaining overseas territories in Africa and Asia as a means to compensate for the loss of territory, trade, tax revenue, international prestige and ballooning debt. The devastation caused by the Napoleonic Wars, the civil-war, the scarcity of means and the political instability in Portugal made investment overseas controversial, however. Nevertheless, a consensus gradually formed among the Portuguese political elite on the potential of the colonies and the necessity to occupy the interior of Angola and Mozambique."Em termos de política colonial, um consenso iria contudo estabelecer-se em torno da necessidade de acelerar a ocupação do interior dos dois grandes territórios africanos, Angola e Moçambique", in Costa, Rodrigues, Oliveira, 2014, p. 415. Controversy arose from the way they ought to be administered, with some advocating for direct rule, other for greater autonomy and indirect British-style rule. Safeguarding them from foreign encroachment, namely from Britain and Germany, would also prove a major challenge until the end of World War I.
The Marquis of Sá da Bandeira was a major abolitionist and defender of a market economy as a means to promote the development of Portuguese territories overseas. Sá da Bandeira was likened to William Wilberforce.Nowell, Charles E. “Portugal and the Partition of Africa” in The Journal of Modern History 19, no. 1, 1947, pp. 1–17, p. 3. Foreign diplomats held his integrity in high regard and the notable portuguese historian Alexandre Herculano dubbed him "the most illustrious Portuguese of our century".Wheeler, 1963, pp. 11-12. The Royal Geographical Society considered him "one of the most illustrious of our Honorary Corresponding Members".Sir H. C. Rawlinson in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, volume XX, sessions 1875-1876, London, 1876, p. 382.
A number of posts, forts and settlements would be established throughout the course of the 19th century, while peanut plantation was introduced in Guinea-Bissau. Expansion began as early as 1838 in Angola, with the annexation of the Calandula region east of Luanda in the aftermath of a conflict; it was renamed Duque de Bragança and fort São Pedro established there.Collelo, Thomas: Angola: A Country Study, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1991, p. 17."Calandula [Duque de Bragança], Malanje, Angola, Enquadramento Histórico e Urbanismo" in hpip.orgJacopo Corrado: The Creole Elite and the Rise of Angolan Protonationalism, 1870-1920, 2008, Cambria Press, p. 10. Two new towns subsequently rose in the region, Santa Maria and Porto Novo.
In Mozambique, the migration of Zulus in the aftermath of the Mfecane and the establishment of the Gaza Empire blocked any advance inland. The Zambezi Wars broke out in 1840 between Portuguese landowners, African kinglets and the Portuguese government, after a catastrophic period of drought and Nguni invasion.Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique, 1995, Indiana University Press, p. 310. Portuguese rule was extended to the far south of Angola in 1841, with the construction of fort São Fernando do Namibe on the Namibe Bay, following a treaty with a local ruler.Namibe [Moçâmedes], Namibe, Angola, Enquadramento Histórico e Urbanismo in hpip.org The city of Moçâmedes was established nearby in 1849 by a number of Portuguese refugees who were resettled there after the Praieira Revolt sparked in Brazil. Governor António Sérgio de Sousa negotiated treaties with the lords of Huíla and Gambos but the latter was succeeded on the throne by a hostile king, which brought instability to the region until 1867.
Portuguese frontiersmen at the same time gradually ventured deeper into the African interior. Joaquim Rodrigues Graça for example crossed the interior of Angola between 1846 and 1848 and reached the Lunda Empire, with which diplomatic and commercial ties were established.Carlos Bessa: "Angola. Do Feudalismo Luso-Africano à Ocupação" in Nova História Militar de Portugal, Círculo de Leitores, 2004, pp. 271-286. The Kingdom of Kasanje became an important middle-man between Lunda and Luanda but Portuguese merchant caravans were a frequent target for raids, which caused conflict and a new fort to built at Malanje. 1852 saw the beginning of the notable explorations of the trader Francisco da Silva Porto, who cleared several geographical problems and was "invaluable as a counselor to more scientific explorers".Nowell, 1947, p. 4.
Portugal claimed the mouth of the Congo River and annexed Ambriz from the Kingdom of Kongo in 1855 as the territory was disputed by the British.
Portuguese policy until the 1870s was largely based on the export of agricultural products, mainly wine, import substitution under moderate protection and foreign loans for the construction of infra-structure.W. G. Clarence-Smith (1985) The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825-1975 A Study in Economic Imperialism, Manchester University Press, p. 81. A global recession traditionally seen as having begun in 1873 hit Portugal especially hard however, and public revenue fell, deficit grew alarmingly, gold reserves dwindled, and the state could no longer service its foreign debt. This and the rising tide of the "scramble for Africa" compelled Portugal to invest in territorial acquisition overseas. As the crisis deepened, Portugal reacted like other states of western Europe, first protecting the home market, then seeking to extend it overseas.
The Bolama Question