COLLECTION NAME:
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
Record
Author:
Moreira Da Silva, João Maria Carlos
Date:
1961
Short Title:
Portugal adjacente e ultramarino mapa escolar
Publisher:
Livraria Simões Lopes de Manuel Barreira
Publisher Location:
Porto
Type:
Separate Map
Obj Height cm:
82
Obj Width cm:
110
Note:
Date estimated.
World Area:
World
Country:
Portugal
Subject:
Data Visualization
Full Title:
Portugal adjacente e ultramarino mapa escolar
List No:
15365.000
Publication Author:
Moreira Da Silva, João Maria Carlos
Pub Date:
1961
Pub Title:
Portugal adjacente e ultramarino mapa escolar
Pub Reference:
Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal: cc-374-r.
Pub Note:
"An extremely rare, highly decorative, large format school map of the Portuguese Empire, or ‘O Ultramar’, as it stood during its twilight, showcasing Portugal’s Atlantic islands, Angola, Mozambique, Guine, Goa, Macau, and East Timor, etc.; including many thematic elements, it was made by the geographer Joao Moreira da Silva and published in Porto by the bookseller Livraria Simoes Lopes de Manuel Barreira. At the beginning of the 1960s, Portugal still possessed a sizeable colonial empire, called ‘O Ultramar’ which included Mozambique; Angola; Macau, China; Goa, India and its dependencies; Cabo Verde; Sao Tomé & Principe; Guiné; and Timor-Leste. Additionally, closer to home, were Portugal’s Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores. The twilight era of Portuguese colonialism was overseen by the Estado Novo regime (1926-74), led most of the time by the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar (1889 – 1970), an economics professor. While he presided over a conservative autocracy with a lamentable human rights record (especially in the African colonies), he revolutionized and modernized Portugal’s imperial bureaucracy, valuing science, statistics, mapping, and data visualization. This, combined with the prevailing international movements of Art Deco and Mid-Century design, produced graphic works throughout the Portuguese lands that featured bright colour schemes, while imparting technical or scientific information in a precise, but visually crisp manner. The present map was made circa 1961 by the Porto-based geographer Joao Maria Carlos Moreira da Silva as a commission from the bookseller Livraria Simoes Lopes de Manuel Barreira, located in Porto’s Bolhao quarter. The bright and lively large format composition consists of numerous inset maps, with the upper two-thirds of the work featuring a world map ‘Portugal no Mundo’, locating the Portuguese colonies, plus, the historical explorers’ itineraries of Bartolomeu Dias (1486), Vasco da Gama (1497-8), Gaspar Corte Real 126 127 128 129 (1500-1), and Ferdinand Magellan and Sebastiao Del Cano (1519); as well as conventional maps of each of Portugal’s colonies, being Mozambique; Angola; Macau, China; Goa, India, along with its dependencies Damão, Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli; Cabo Verde; Sao Tomé & Principe; Guiné (today Guinea-Bissau); and Timor-Leste (East Timor, in the Indonesian Archipelago), all with charts indicating their size viz. that of Metropolitan Portugal. The lower part of the composition features two registers of thematic maps, with the one on the left showing economic maps of each colony, while on the right are (by today’s standards politically incorrect) pictographic population maps of each colony. The map is extremely rare, which is not surprising as it would have been issued in only a small print run, and large and fragile it would have had a low survival rate. We can trace only a single institutional example of the map, held by the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal. Portugal’s ‘Ultramar’: The First and Longest Lasting European Overseas Empire Portugal established the first and one of the longest lasting European colonial empires, commenced by the amazingly audacious maritime projects of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394 – 1460). By the early 16th century Portugal’s empire, including both held colonial territories and trading posts, extended from South America all the way around Africa and thorough the Indian Ocean to the Asia Pacific, as far as Japan. Portugal’s disastrous union with Spain (1580 - 1640) severely weakened the empire, causing it to lose many of its colonies and trading posts to the Netherlands and England. However, in the aftermath, Portugal still retained a massive colonial empire that included (with dates of their establishment as colonies): Cabo Verde (1462); Sao Tomé & Principe (1486); Mozambique (1506); Goa, India (1510), along with its dependencies Damão, Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli; Brazil (1532), the gem of the empire; Macao, China (1557); Angola (1571); Guiné (1588), today Guinea-Bissau; and Timor-Leste (1702), or East Timor, in the Indonesian Archipelago. While Brazil became an independent mega-state, ruled by a branch of the Portuguese royal family, in 1822 (albeit maintaining close ties the Lisbon), Portugal retained its remaining colonies for a longer time that most other European powers. In fact, in modern times, these lands were classified as ‘overseas provinces’, or integral parts of Portugal proper, and not as colonies (the residents of those lands were even given full Portuguese citizenship); for example, Angola was legally just as much part of Portugal as Lisbon. Over the generations, hundreds of thousands of ethic Portuguese people had also migrated to the overseas provinces, with generations of their stock born there. While many (but not all) of the indigenous peoples had different notions, the Portuguese national psyche held the overseas domains as an inalienable part of the country’s identity. During World War I, when Portugal, in alliance with Britain, had to defend Mozambique from a surprisingly effective German invasion launched by the master-guerrilla leader, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. While the Anglo-Portuguese side eventually prevailed, this came after only many shocking trials and tribulations. Under the ‘Estado Novo’ regime (1926-74), ruled most of the time by the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, Portugal stubbornly resisted the anti-colonialism movements that were sweeping the world. Portugal sent in the army to suppress rebellions in Angola and Mozambique and were for a time successful. However, in 1961, India seized Goa in a lightening military strike, ‘Operation Vijay’, hailing the beginning of the end of the Portuguese overseas empire. Portugal’s ‘Carnation Revolution’ of 1974 saw the collapse of the Estado Nova regime, which was replaced with a liberal democratic government. Portugal then allowed all the remaining colonies to gain their independence (although Timor Leste was soon invaded and conquered by Indonesia; it attained its independence in 2002), except for Macao, which was retained until 1999, when it was voluntarily handed back to China. While Portugal no longer possesses any colonies, it retains very strong social and economic ties with its former overseas realms. Today, well over a million of Portugal’s residents are of colonial decent (either ethnic Portuguese or from ingenious stock, or mixed), including the incumbent prime minister, António Costa (who is partly of Goan descent), such that the colonial legacy is still very much part of the modern Portuguese identity. (Alexander Johnson and Dasa Pahor, 2022) 17.
Pub List No:
15365.000
Pub Type:
Separate Map
Pub Height cm:
82
Pub Width cm:
110
Image No:
15365000.jp2
Authors:
Moreira Da Silva, João Maria Carlos
