Frommer's Portugal. Paul Ames
a Fascist-inspired regime, the Estado Novo, or New State. He brought some order to the economy and managed to keep Portugal neutral during World War II. Dissent was suppressed and censorship strict. A secret police force—the PIDE—spread fear; opponents were jailed or worse.
In 1961, the regime was shaken by an Indian invasion of Goa, Daman, and Diu, Portugal’s last colonies in South Asia. That same year, pro-independence forces launched attacks in Angola, starting a war across Portugal’s African empire. Salazar struck back, dispatching ever more conscripts to fight rebel movements in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. Proportionally, Portugal suffered more casualties in the colonial wars than the U.S. in Vietnam. The fighting drained the economy and left Portugal internationally isolated. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese emigrants fled poverty, oppression, and conscription, mostly to France, Switzerland, and Luxembourg.
Salazar suffered a stroke in 1968 and died 2 years later, but the regime limped on. On April 25, 1974, a group of war-weary officers staged a coup and the people of Lisbon rose up to support the troops. Flower sellers in Rossio square handed out spring blooms to the young soldiers and sailors, so the uprising was immortalized as the “Carnation Revolution.” Censorship was lifted, exiles returned, and political prisoners were released to joyous scenes.
Four Navigators Who Changed world maps
From 1415 to 1580, Portuguese explorers opened up the world for Europe, discovering new routes to Africa, Asia, and the Americas. They created a global empire and redrew world maps.
Bartolomeo Dias (ca. 1450–1500) was 38 and from a family of navigators when he led an expedition of three boats down the coast of West Africa in 1487. He failed in his mission to find the mythical Christian kingdom of Prester John, but became the first European to sail around the southern tip of Africa into the Indian Ocean. Dias was killed in a shipwreck off the Cape of Good Hope in 1500, while serving with Pedro Álvares Cabral on the expedition that reached Brazil.
Vasco da Gama (ca. 1460–1524) wasn’t the first European to explore India—wealthy Europeans had been spicing their food with its cinnamon, pepper, and nutmeg for centuries—but the trade was controlled by price-hiking Venetian, Turkish, and Arab middlemen. By discovering the sea route in 1498, da Gama opened up direct trade between Europe and Asia. His adventures are celebrated in Portugal’s national epic, Os Lusíadas, by swashbuckling 16th-century poet Luís de Camões. The two men are buried near each other in Lisbon’s Jerónimos monastery. Da Gama died of malaria in 1524 in Kochi on his third voyage to India. Western Europe’s longest bridge, an Indian seaport, and a leading Brazilian soccer club bear his name.
Brazil was first reached by accident in 1500, when the fleet of 13 ships commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral (ca. 1467–1520) sailed too far west while heading down the coast of Africa on the new route opened by da Gama. At least that’s the official story. Some believe the Portuguese already knew about Brazil but kept it quiet until they had concluded the 1492 Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain to divide the world along a line halfway between Portugal’s Cape Verde outpost and the newly discovered Spanish territories in the Caribbean. Brazil was clearly in the Portuguese sphere. Cabral didn’t stay long, but sailed on to Africa and India, becoming the first man to visit four continents. His birthplace in the pretty village of Belmonte and tomb in Santarém are much visited by Brazilian travelers.
In 1519, Fernão de Magalhães (ca. 1480–1521) was a 39-year-old veteran of the Portuguese Discoveries. He’d served 8 years in India, fighting against Turks, Arabs, and Indian states. He played a key role in the capture of Malacca, a hub for Portuguese power in southeast Asia, and was wounded at the siege of Azemmour in Morocco. Despite all this service, he managed to annoy King Manuel I. There were rumors he went AWOL, had rustled cattle, and engaged in shady deals with the Moroccans. Unable to get a ship in Lisbon, he went to Spain, where his stories of Spice Island riches convinced Emperor Charles V to send him on a mission to reach Asia by sailing west—avoiding the Portuguese-controlled eastern routes. Now known as Ferdinand Magellan, he led the fleet into the Pacific as far as the Philippines, where he was speared to death in a battle with local warriors. What was left of the expedition sailed on. Only one of the five ships made it back to Spain, the first to sail around the globe. In 2019, the 500th anniversary of his voyage was marked by a brief tiff between Portugal and Spain over which country can claim the glory of his legacy.
The revolutionaries, however, faced enormous difficulties. The wars were ended and independence hastily granted to the African colonies. Portugal then had to organize the evacuation and integration of a million refugees fleeing the new nations. Investors retreated as radical leftists ordered the nationalization of banks, industry, and farmland. For a while the country looked like it would veer toward communism.
Then, in 1976, the first presidential elections brought a moderate, General António Ramalho Eanes, to office. Socialist Party leader Mário Soares was elected prime minister the same year. Together they steered Portugal on a pro-Western course. It remained a loyal NATO ally and joined the European Union along with Spain in 1986. The previous year, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, leader of the center-right Social Democratic Party, won a landslide election on a pledge to free up the economy. The combined impact of EU membership and stable, business-friendly government led to an economic boom and rapid modernization. In 1999, Portugal handed Macau back to China, ending almost 600 years of overseas empire. Women’s rights made giant strides. The successful hosting of the EXPO ’98 World’s Fair in Lisbon symbolized Portugal’s emergence as a successful European democracy.
However, problems lay ahead. The rise of China and the EU’s inclusion of new members from Eastern Europe exposed the Portuguese economy to competition it was ill-equipped to handle. The global financial crisis of 2008 hit hard. As the economy tanked and debt soared, the government was forced in 2011 to seek a bailout from the EU and International Monetary Fund to stave off bankruptcy. In exchange for a 78€-billion rescue package, creditors demanded tough measures to bring state finances under control. The economy stabilized, but at a high cost in unemployment, cuts to public services, and increased poverty. After elections in November 2015, a new Socialist government was narrowly elected under Prime Minister António Costa, promising to ease up on austerity.
In July 2016, spirits received an enormous boost from the victory of Portugal’s national soccer team in the European championships. The first major success for a soccer-crazy nation triggered country-wide celebrations.
The last few years have seen an economic recovery fueled in a large part by tourism, which has taken off big time. An improved international financial climate has boosted exports and a thriving start-up scene has seen the emergence of strong new tech companies such as online fashion retailer Farfetch, which was valued at $5.8 billion when it was floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. Symbolizing the economic comeback is the 2016 decision of Web Summit, the world’s biggest tech event to make Lisbon its home.
Clouding the upbeat feeling were the forest fires that swept across the country in 2017, killing more than 100 people and leaving the country traumatized. Despite criticism of government handling of the fires, Costa’s left-of-center government won big victories in local elections in 2017 and European Parliament elections in 2019.
Portugal’s jewish heritage
In 1497, King Manuel I, the monarch behind the golden age of Portugal’s Discoveries, married a Spanish princess, a political move designed to improve relations with the powerful neighbor. Spain’s condition: Portugal had to get rid of its thriving Jewish community, as Spain had done 5 years before. Manuel agreed, ordering all Jews to convert to Catholicism or leave. Many fled, finding refuge in the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, France, and the Netherlands, where they built Amsterdam’s splendid Portuguese Synagogue. Others stayed and became “New Christians.”
They were still not safe. In 1506, a riot over Easter led to the murder of up to 2,000 conversos in what became known as the Lisbon Massacre. Manuel I had some of the perpetrators executed, but 30 years later the state institutionalized persecution when it set up a Portuguese branch of the Inquisition, tasked with hunting down heretics—especially converts suspected of maintaining Jewish practices in secret. The Inquisition ordered almost 1,200 burned at the stake over the next 2 centuries and was only abolished in 1821. Nevertheless, some crypto-Jews