Migration and Colonization in the Postwar Portuguese Empire: Individual strategies and institutional responses

Abstract

The history of migration and the history of European colonialism have been intertwined from the early modern period to the present, yet many aspects of their intersections remain underexplored. In the case of the twentieth-century Portuguese colonial empire, scholarship has examined not only white settlement’but also labour migration within individual colonies, between them, and beyond. This article analyses the initiative of a small Cape Verdean landowner who, during the ecological crisis of the 1940s”when Cape Verde experienced two periods of drought, famine, and high mortality”and State’s promotion of Portuguese migration to Angola and Mozambique, petitioned the Colonial Ministry to support the settlement of Cape Verdean families on Angola’s central plateau. By not acknowledging the colonized as capable of colonizing, the imperial government prioritizes the deployment of Cape Verdeans to the plantations of São Tomé and Príncipe, thereby contributing to a migratory trajectory marked by social degradation rather than advancement.