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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Evolucionismo e colonialismo em Portugal no período da ocupação efectiva (1890-1910) |
| Author: | Rosa, Frederico |
| Year: | 1995 |
| Periodical: | Revista internacional de estudos Africanos |
| Issue: | 18-22 |
| Pages: | 93-111 |
| Language: | Portuguese |
| Geographic terms: | Africa Portugal colonial territories |
| Subject: | colonization |
| Abstract: | During the period of effective occupation of the African dominions (1890-1910), Portuguese colonialists transmitted a civilizing ideology which found in Evolutionism, in a broad sense, an important source of inspiration. In their view, the Africans submitted to Portuguese authorities found themselves in a primitive phase of cultural evolution, and therefore could not be assimilated overnight to Europeans. The enlightened colonialist should accept the native customs, which could not be overcome abruptly. The immediate concession of European civil rights was therefore out of the question. On the other hand, the habit of working was recognized as civilizing, in so far as it contributed to improving the economic conditions of the natives. But many colonialists, in order to justify the impossibility of rapidly overcoming the primitive phase, resorted to the arguments that cultural evolution necessarily obeys a certain order which cannot omit phases, or that African primitivism is biological. The explicit association between radical evolutionary views and the use of manpower would transform the latter into simple exploitation and not into a civilizing process. Therefore, the discourse of imperialistic renaissance might be defined by its oscillation between antagonistic theoretical principles. Ref., sum. in English, text in Portuguese. [Journal abstract, edited] |