AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | The Late Colonial State in Portuguese Africa |
| Author: | Newitt, Malyn |
| Year: | 1999 |
| Periodical: | Itinerario: European Journal of Overseas History |
| Volume: | 23 |
| Issue: | 3-4 |
| Pages: | 110-122 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Portuguese-speaking Africa Portugal |
| Subjects: | colonization history 1900-1999 colonialism History and Exploration |
| Abstract: | Since their independence in 1975, the former Portuguese African colonies of Guinea, Angola and Mozambique have been notorious for their instability, while the microstate of São Tomé has become one of the poorest countries in the world. Easy explanations would be the circumstances of decolonization and the conditions of the Cold War. This paper looks instead at the colonial State that preceded independence. It presents a survey of the history of the late colonial period in the Portuguese colonies in Africa, which can be divided into four phases: 1926-1939, which saw the rebuilding of the colonial State; 1939-1945, the Second World War; the period of the development plans, c. 1945 to 1961; and the wars of liberation, from 1961 to 1975. The concept of uneven development sums up the colonial State in the Portuguese colonies. In limited areas of the coastal cities and in certain sectors of the economy, Angola and Mozambique showed an advanced and expanding economy backed by effective State services, in stark contrast to the hinterland and the vast mass of the population. Here the economic transformation of society had hardly begun. The colonial bureaucracy had also evolved in an uneven way, while at no level had the colonies been allowed to take full responsibility for their own development and no effective institutions had evolved to represent the needs of the colonial populations. Notes, ref. |
