Longevity

Significant and permanent emigration is the first key to understand the Portuguese Empire’s longevity. It is estimated that over 1.6 million people emigrated overseas from 1415 to 1822: 50,000 in the fifteenth century, 400,000 in the sixteenth cen­tury, 390,000 in the seventeenth century, 720,000 in the eighteenth century, and 90,000 from 1801 to 1822.^[2015] This was the strongest emigration overseas across this period from anywhere in Europe, even more impressive when related to original population figures, which varied from one to three million people.

The origins and destinations of these emigrations differed according to time and place. Push factors were at work in all regions during the fifteenth and six­teenth centuries, while in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the region of Minho became more important, due to its prevailing family structures. Poverty was only one factor. Exclusion from inheritance was also a significant one, which cut across different social groups. Not all emigrants went overseas. The Algarve, for instance, traditionally produced emigration to Andalusia (and at the beginning to North Africa).

Pull factors were crucial. North Africa did not manage to attract migrants be­yond the 1520s, due to its hostile political and military environment, which led to defeat and withdrawal from most forts between 1541 and 1550. The Atlantic islands of Madeira and Azores, unpopulated before the arrival of the Portuguese, had ex­cellent conditions of climate and soil. Madeira became the biggest sugar producer for Europe by the late fifteenth century, while Azores produced significant amounts of wheat, pastel for dyeing, and cattle. By the end of the sixteenth century, there were 100,000 settlers on these islands, 65,000 in Azores, and 35,000 in Madeira. India was the major destination of Portuguese emigration in the sixteenth century, due to its commercial possibilities and military demand in a rich environment. In that period more than 2,000 people a year followed the Cape route, although the mortality rate was very high, due to the six-month journey and harsh conditions in many forts, particularly in the Persian Gulf. By the end of the sixteenth century, probably no more than 15,000 people from Portugal were to be found in the Estado da India, which controlled the Portuguese territories around the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, while a large number were on their own or working for different powers in the Gulf of Bengal and Southeast Asia. Competition by European and na­tive Asian powers led to a decline of emigration from the 1620s onward.^[2017]

The flow of emigration slowly shifted to Brazil after the 1570s, when sugar plan­tations, introduced by the Portuguese, became significant. Massive migration was sustained by sugar and tobacco production in the seventeenth century, while the discovery of gold and precious stones explains the extraordinary increase of migrants in the eighteenth century, including new migrants from Madeira and Azores.

Other regions of the Portuguese Empire attracted many fewer emigrants. The ex­traordinary mortality rate in West Africa (estimated at 66 percent a year for white people) did not allow a strong Portuguese presence, although a significant number of lan^ados, many of them New Christians of Jewish origin, mingled with local chieftaincies and played a major role as mediators of the European trade in the re­gion.^[2019] The islands, mainly Cape Verde, proved to be less lethal, but the process of de­sertification kept emigration at very low levels. Angola and Mozambique also had a significant mortality rate. The Portuguese presence here was confined to ports and enclaves on the coast, while penetration of the hinterland was limited to the Kwanza and the Zambezi rivers, although military action established a variable network of subordinated native chieftaincies.^[2020] Finally, there was a constant flow of emigrants to the Spanish Empire, who were linked to the Portuguese interests in the Atlantic: sig­nificant communities of merchants (particularly New Christians) were established in Lima, Mexico, Vera Cruz, Cartagena de indias, and Buenos Aires.^[2021]

Portuguese expansion stretched from Brazil to the Far East, which created enor­mous pressure on available human resources. In addition, Portuguese emigration was overwhelmingly male. The ratio between men and women was the most uneven among the European powers except the Dutch. The latter, however, were driven by temporary contracts, not by settlement. Their ambition to control distant territo­ries and the limited number of European women explain extensive Portuguese mis­cegenation with native people on different continents.

The importance of religion should be underlined, because the systematic conver­sion of politically subordinate ethnicities and slaves made the former into vassals of the king and the latter into members of the Christian community. A significant number of slaves were involved in confraternities of black people, with access to advice and protection, and even marginal support to buy freedom.^[2024] The evange­lization of other peoples of the world constituted part of the Portuguese expan­sionist project from the very beginning, justifying the overseas royal patronage of the church, which was conceded by the pope. Under this agreement, the king collected the tithe, suggested the names of bishops to be appointed, authorized re­ligious orders, and guaranteed the maintenance of all ecclesiastic structures over­seas. This practice caused independent powers to be suspicious that Christianity was an instrument of political influence or even conquest, as had occurred in Japan. On the other hand, it created a significant number of Christians who were loyal to the Portuguese, and who protected them or even fought for them. This allegiance proved to be crucial in Brazil during the wars against the Dutch for control over the northeast between 1630 and 1654.^[2025]

Christianization functioned as an important mark of allegiance and solidarity at local level, even if prejudices concerning ethnic descent coincided with those of other European powers.

Miscegenation and Christianization functioned as the two main forms of re­lationship between the Portuguese and native populations, which allowed the Portuguese Empire to root itself in widely disparate areas of the world. The con­nection between different parts of the empire was guaranteed through the circu­lation of Portuguese elites (nobles in high office as governors and captains, big merchants and investors, architects, engineers, cartographers, and ecclesiastic dignitaries), as well as through the institutional framework of municipalities and misericordias.^[2028] The circulation of elites helped to diffuse a similar organiza­tional culture to different continents, while the institutional framework structured the connection between local elites and the metropolis. Municipalities involved Europeans and descendants of Portuguese settlers, many of them of mixed-race or­igin. Misericordias, confraternities sponsored by the king with a dual representa­tion of noblemen and artisans, played an extraordinary role in providing assistance, financial support (even to the governors and captains in case of emergency), and execution of wills left by people who died thousands of miles away.^[2029]

The empire played a crucial role for a large part of Portugal’s population unable to make a living in Portugal itself and needing to find alternatives.

The empire was also extremely important for the finances of the king and the no­bility, which further explains its longevity. The most important Portuguese noble houses never managed to generate the income necessary to maintain the cost of living and consumption standards of their status group solely from agricultural production of their own estates.^[2031] The empire offered extraordinary possibilities for increased income, either by legal means, through significant salaries and author­ized trade, or by corruption and embezzlement. Noblemen managed to negotiate new titles with the king after a successful career overseas or even before accepting positions as governors of India and, after the 1720s, as governors of Brazil. This re­distributive function of the empire was crucial in keeping the Portuguese nobility under royal control.^[2032]

From 1500 to 1800, most of the royal income was the product either of empire or from trade generated by empire. It accounted for more than 60 percent of the total, on average throughout the sixteenth century, bolstered by the gold of Mina (West Africa) and Asian spices. It then accounted for over 50 percent in the first half of the seventeenth century, as an effect of trade in Asian spices, sugar, and tobacco from Brazil. This fell below 40 percent between 1670 and 1720, and up to over 50 percent from the 1730s to the 1790s through gold, tobacco, sugar, hides, and cotton from Brazil. The turn of the nineteenth century saw the decline of royal income from the empire, but it was still around 45 percent of total income.^[2033] In general, the economic output generated by the empire impacted Portugal’s per capita income by at least one-fifth in the early modern period.^[2034]

However, royal expenses outpaced income in the long run. The first period of high profits from the gold of West Africa and spices from India was followed by increased protection costs, incurred in constructing a network of forts (more than 240 were built up to 1700) and financing fleets in different oceans, not to mention adminis­trative and ecclesiastic structures, whose expenses exceeded the tithe. The number of overseas officers, artisans, sailors, and soldiers under the payroll of the king reached 10,000 in the 1570s, not even counting clergymen. These numbers would in­crease in the following decades. The personnel involved in the seigniorial structures of captaincies-donataries (overseas territories given by the king to landlords with delegated jurisdiction) in the Atlantic islands and Brazil are not included here. These figures mean that the staff of the Portuguese overseas empire significantly outnumbered that of the royal administration in Portugal itself. In the long run, pay­roll would diminish in India and dramatically increase in Brazil, mainly due to new administrative needs in the eighteenth century.^[2035] If the empire was not profitable for the king in the long run, it certainly created wealth for different strata of the popula­tion involved in the enterprise.

Giovanni Botero’s 1589 treatise Della Ragion di Stato presented the Portuguese Empire as a successful case of a territorially discontinuous empire, which could save protection costs by mobilizing resources from one region to another and avoid widespread revolts on account of the empire’s fragmented nature, which stretched over three continents.^[2036] The advantage of compensating losses through relocating military resources, people, and investment from one region to the other can be added to this shrewd political analysis. The Portuguese Empire was never a linear cumulative empire in relation to its territory, as compared to the Spanish or the Russian empires. It accumulated enclaves on the coast of North Africa during the first decades of the sixteenth century, followed by defeat and withdrawal between 1541 and 1550. Portuguese ports and territories increased in Asia throughout the sixteenth century, to be dramatically reduced by Dutch military rivalry between the 1630s and 1660s. In 1624, in Brazil, the Dutch conquest of Bahia was followed by its recovery the year after, but the conquest of the most profitable captaincy of Pernambuco by the Dutch in 1630 proved to be much more resilient. Dutch rule spread to other captaincies in the Northeast and North of Brazil, and led to con­quest of the crucial slave-trading ports of Elmina and Luanda. It took 24 years of fighting to recover all these territories and ports, with the exception of Elmina.^[2037] The Portuguese lost in the Indian Ocean but resisted in the Atlantic on account of the numerous settlers involved there and the private trade model that had been implemented there. In the eighteenth century, their Brazilian territory increased dramatically. Brazilian independence, however, was followed by another political turn toward Africa: the colonial project there took a full century to effectively oc­cupy the vast territories of Angola and Mozambique.^[2038]

The Portuguese Empire may thus be defined by its variable geometry, with constant losses and compensation between continents, but with considerable resilience in the most distant places, a steady circulation of elites, increased economic connections between different regions, and the rootedness of communities cemented by evange­lization and miscegenation. The king's political control over a cluster of competing powers at the local and regional level further helped to perpetuate the empire.

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