Abstract
In this chapter we propose to discuss the strategies deployed by Portugal, a peripheral country in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe, to use its African Empire as a token for asserting its position in the European arena. Beyond diplomatic and political demarches, technology—and particularly the building of railways—was at the core of the Portuguese imperial agenda, determining the way African territories were immersed in the global market. Engineers played a central role in this process by discussing and eventually deciding the layout of the railway lines that were at the core of new anthropogenic landscapes, thus establishing an economic hierarchy among geographical spaces not only within the colonies, but also in a worldwide context. We will use two case studies, one in Angola and one in Mozambique, to argue that technological choices in the colonies were strongly pervaded by political and economic European agendas.
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Notes
- 1.
The Berlin Conference (1884–1885) rewove the fabric of the traditional colonial order. The principle of the “effective occupation” of colonial territories displaced the traditional historical rights, clearly favoring the British, Belgian, and German colonial agendas that aimed at securing African new sources of raw materials and markets.
- 2.
The term was very much in use during the nineteenth century to identify niches of European civilization that contrasted with the “primitivism” of local traditional ways of life. These outposts were perceived as strongholds of civilization in hostile territories and acted as a basis for future military actions. In the context of European rivalries over imperial spaces, these outposts were national signs of dominance.
- 3.
The concept of techno-diplomacy was first used by Der Derian, J.: On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. It accommodates a cascade of other terms such as digital diplomacy and railways diplomacy. The term techno-politics was used by Hecht, G.: The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity, Cambridge (MA): MIT Press, 1998; the term techno-economics is largely used by economists and historians of technology.
- 4.
The civilizing mission, also known as the mission civilisatrice, is the nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonial rationale that considers Europe has the moral duty to spread civilization by Westernizing indigenous peoples in accordance with the colonial ideology of assimilation. The “white man’s burden” was, thus, to bring European civilization to what were perceived as backward peoples. This rationale is particularly relevant for the French and the Portuguese colonial agendas.
- 5.
The Scramble for Africa was the occupation, division, and colonization of Africa by European powers between 1881 and 1914.
- 6.
Portugal lost a lot with the Berlin Conference: the effective occupation rule was imposed against the historical rights defended by Portugal, the free navigation of the African rivers was also imposed (Portugal lost its rights concerning the rivers Congo, Zambezi, and Rovuma), and Portugal lost the territories of the estuary of the Congo.
- 7.
Cecil Rhodes’s Cape to Cairo railway project and his concept of an “all red” (only British) railway line is a classic of colonial historiography. Conflicting Portuguese and French railway projects are much less known. Portugal proposed the so-called Pink Map project that aimed at linking the west coast colony of Angola with its east coast colony of Mozambique, more specifically at connecting Luanda and Lourenço Marques. France planned to build a railway line across its colonies from west to east across the continent, from Senegal to Djibouti. See Diogo, M. P. and van Laak, D.: Europeans Globalizing: Mapping, Exploiting, Exchanging, London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
- 8.
It is the expedition to the river Shire, headed by Serpa Pinto, that was the pretext for the British Ultimatum, a critical event in Portuguese history that eventually led to the Republican Revolution in 1910. The British government claimed that the Portuguese explorer had lowered the British flag and taken over by force the territory of the pro-English tribe of the Makololos.
- 9.
Letter of the Chief Engineer of the Companhia Real dos Caminhos de Ferro atravez d’Africa (Royal Railway Company across Africa), 1888. AHU, 2678, Room 3, Bookxase16, Shelf 17, n.13420.
- 10.
Machado, Joaquim José: ‘Memória ácerca do caminho de ferro de Lourenço Marques à fronteira do Transvaal’, Revista de Obras Públicas e Minas, No. 12 (1882), pp. 1–57; David Nye’s concept of technological sublime fully applies to this case. See Nye, D.: American Technological Sublime, Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press,1996.
- 11.
AHU, 866, DGU, 3ªRep. 1874–78.
- 12.
Letter of J.J. Machado, AHU, 2678, Room 3, Bookcase 16, Shelf 17, n.119.
- 13.
The Portuguese Association of Civil Engineers (Associação dos Engenheiros Civis Portugueses) was created in 1869. It was the first professional association of engineers in Portugal and aimed at bringing together all engineers that although having a military training (the only one existing in Portugal at the time) worked as civil engineers following the Ponts et Chaussées’ spirit. See Diogo, Maria Paula: ‘In search of a professional identity – The Associação dos Engenheiros Civis Portuguezes’, ICON, No. 2 (1996), pp. 123–137.
- 14.
Machado, Joaquim José: ‘Caminho de ferro de Mossamedes ao Bihé’, Revista de Obras Públicas e Minas, No. 21 (1890), pp. 219–296.
- 15.
Between 1879 and 1889, 100,000 Portuguese from mainland Portugal, the Azores, and Madeira left Portugal for Brazil. Machado, Caminho de Ferro, pp. 236–7.
- 16.
Legislação e disposições regulamentares sobre caminhos-de-ferro ultramarinos, Vol. 1 (1857–1894), p. 17.
- 17.
Mittelafrika was the name of the German project to build a continuous strip of German dominions in Africa, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, by annexing the Portuguese territories of Angola and Mozambique to the German colonies of East Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania), South-West Africa (Namibia), and Cameroon.
- 18.
Diogo and van Laak, Europeans Globalizing, pp. 148–165.
- 19.
Faye, Michael L. et al.: ‘The challenges facing landlocked developing countries’, Journal of Human Development Vol. 5, No.1 (2004), pp. 31–69.
- 20.
Both incidents result from the conflict between Portuguese and French railways and the Cairo to Cape railway of Cecil Rhodes. See Diogo and van Laak, Europeans Globalizing, pp. 148–165.
- 21.
Dias, João José Pereira: ‘O Caminho de Ferro de Mossamedes’, Revista de Obras Públicas e Minas, Vol. XXII, 255–256 (1891), pp. 62–75.
- 22.
Cunha, Henrique Lima: ‘Caminhos de Ferro de Benguella a Mossamedes’, Revista de Obras Públicas e Minas, Vol. XXVIII, 329–330 (1897), pp. 257–273.
- 23.
Serrão Manuel Costa: ‘Systema Ferro-Viário de Penetração em África – Linha do Sul de Angola’, Revista de Obras Públicas e Minas, Vol. XXXI, 367–369 (1900), pp. 211–351.
- 24.
This pattern continued throughout the twentieth century (until 1974) during the Portuguese dictatorship (Estado Novo). See Saraiva, Tiago (eds.): ‘Science, Technology and Fascism’ (special issue), HoST, Journal of History of Science and Technology, Vol. 3 (2003).
- 25.
Diogo, Maria Paula: ‘Industria e engenheiros no Portugal de fins do século XIX: o caso de uma relação difícil’, Scripta Nova, Vol. 69, No. 6 (2000).
- 26.
“Exposição” Revista de Obras Públicas e Minas, 1899, pp. 353–354, 382–383.
- 27.
Portugal was ruled by a dictatorship from 1926 until the Carnation Revolution in 1974: first by the military National Dictatorship (1926–1933) and afterwards by the Estado Novo, an authoritarian, autocratic and corporatist regime led by Oliveira Salazar (1933–1974). Henrique Galvão participated in the military coup of 1926 and was a fierce supporter of Salazar until the 1950s, when he became critical of the regime. Accused of conspiring against Salazar, he was imprisoned and expelled from the army but he managed to escape in1959, taking refuge in the embassy of Argentina and having obtained political exile in Venezuela. It was during the exile that Galvão performed a spectacular action against the Portuguese dictator—Operation Dulcineia—hijacking the Portuguese ship Santa Maria, full of passengers.
- 28.
Actas das Sessões da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, Vol. I (1876–1881), p. 274.
- 29.
Machado, J.J.: Relatório acerca dos trabalhos para a fixação da directriz do caminho-de-ferro projectado entre Lourenço Marques e a fronteira do Transvaal, Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1884.
- 30.
Francisco Pinto Teixeira: ‘Gazeta dos Caminhos de Ferro’, No. 1 (February to July 16, 1925). The Treaty of Versailles ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers; Article 119 of the treaty required Germany to renounce sovereignty over former colonies.
- 31.
Diogo, M. P.: ‘Um olhar introspectivo: a Revista de Obras Públicas e Minas e a Engenharia Colonial’ in Diogo, M. P. and Amaral, I. (eds.): A outra face do Império, pp. 81–82.
- 32.
Cardoso de Matos, A.; Santos, M. L.; Diogo, M. P.: ‘Obra, engenho e arte nas raízes da engenharia em Portugal’ in Heitor, M., Brito, J. M. B. and Rollo, M. F. (eds.): Momentos de Inovação em Engenharia em Portugal no Século XX, Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 2004, pp. 25–27.
- 33.
Galvão, J. A. L.: A engenharia portuguesa na moderna obra de colonização, Lisboa: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1940.
- 34.
Ferreira, A.F.: Estudos Ultramarinos, Vol. III: Angola e os seus problemas (part 2), Lisboa: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1954, pp. 198–200.
- 35.
Ferreira, Estudos Ultramarinos, pp. 181–203.
- 36.
The May 28, 1926 coup d’état was a military nationalist coup that put an end to the unstable Portuguese First Republic (1910–1926) and initiated the Ditadura Nacional (National Dictatorship), which later became the Estado Novo, an authoritarian dictatorship led by Oliveira Salazar, that lasted until the Carnation Revolution in 1974.
- 37.
Galvão, J. A. L.: ‘Rede ferroviária de Moçambique em relação com as possibilidades da colónia’, Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 7–8 (1929), pp. 278–279; ‘Importância dos caminhos-de-ferro no desenvolvimento económico das Colónias’, Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 7–8, (1929), pp. 299–301.
- 38.
Arnold, David: ‘Europe, technology, and colonialism in the 20th century’, History and Technology Vol. 21, No. 1 (2005), pp. 85–106.
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Diogo, M.P., Navarro, B.J. (2018). Re-Designing Africa: Railways and Globalization in the Era of the New Imperialism. In: Pretel, D., Camprubí, L. (eds) Technology and Globalisation. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75450-5_5
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