Formal and Informal Empire in the History of Portuguese Expansion

Author(s): MALYN NEWITT

Source: Portuguese Studies , 2001, Vol. 17, HOMAGE TO CHARLES BOXER (2001), pp. 1-21
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41105156

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 Formal and Informal Empire in the History of
Portuguese Expansion
MALYN NEWITT

Portuguese claims to empire during the period of the Discoveries

For a long time there has been a problem in finding language which
adequately describe Portuguese overseas expansion and locate its v
forms within the paradigms of political science. What exactly d
Portuguese Crown claim as a result of the treaties of Alcáçovas in 14
Tordesillas of 1494? Precisely what was conferred on the Portuguese
by the Bulls Romanus Pontifex (1455) and Inter Caetera (1456)? What
Dom Manuel understand by his claim to be 'Lord of Guinea and
conquest of the Navigation and commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia
India'? What was the Estado da India? And how can these claims stand in
comparison with the reality of what happened on the ground or with the
overseas enterprises of contemporaries, like the Venetians and Castilians?
Can they even be called an 'empire' at all?
One approach to this problem has been to make a distinction between
the 'formal' and the 'informal' empire - the one including the areas
directly under Portuguese Crown or viceregal control and the other
grouping together all the other manifestations of Portuguese influence.
Sometimes the terms 'shadow empire' or 'unofficial empire' have been
used, though in largely the same way as 'informal'. Naturally any
discussion of the 'informal' empire presupposes that the notion of a
'formal' empire is clearly understood. However, at no time was it ever
clear, even in the minds of contemporaries, what exactly constituted the
formal empire. The reason for this was that the Portuguese Crown claimed
a number of quite different types of authority.
One was a sovereignty over the seas. Following the Treaty of Tordesillas
and the establishment of the Estado da India (1505), Dom Manuel claimed
to be sovereign of the sea and to have the same rights that other sovereigns
claimed on the land. There was, of course, a vagueness about how much of
the sea he claimed to rule but the concept could be expanded when needed
to include the seas of half the world granted by the Tordesillas treaty.
Then there were the claims to exercise a monopoly over certain types of
trade or over the trade of certain regions. These arose out of the monopolies
established for the Infante Dom Henrique in the early fifteenth century
which were extended by João II to cover all the trade of Guinea and the
Congo, from which the Castilians were excluded by the terms of the Treaty
of Alcáçovas. Subsequently monopolies were established in the Indian

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 2 MALYN NEWITT

Ocean covering pepper,

commodities. These clai
the sense that they w
population or territory
Third were the actua
authority was exercised
territory was formally
towns, the Atlantic Islan
captaincies established
of the Estado da India w
both by the inhabitant
territorial sovereignty
Portuguese banners.
However, there was a f
over the church exerci
conferred on the Portu
to make all church app
the world east of the T
only matters of doctri
many other aspects o
Portugal extensive juris
over millions, of peop
Portuguese government

Formal and informal empire in recent historiography

In 1995 Anthony Disney made an important attempt to def

differences between formal and informal empire in the area covered
Estado da India. In his essay 'Contrasting Models of 'Empire': the
da India in South Asia and East Asia in the Sixteenth and Early Seve
Centuries', he argued that a tightly drawn definition of the empire
includes only the fortalezas and cidades under direct viceregal c
excludes far too much (though it was implicitly also the interpretat
nineteenth-century writers who sought comparisons between the P
uese and the British Empires).2 He maintained that in the Estado da
there were two types of settlement, the South Asian model which co
of the official settlements or fortalezas which came directly un
jurisdiction of the viceroy, and the East Asian model where sett

1 C. R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire (London: Hutchinson, 1969), pp. 2

The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion 1440-1770 (Baltimore and London: Johns
University Press, 1978).
In The Portuguese and the Pacific, ed. by Frank Dutra and João Camilo dos Sant
Barbara: Centre for Portuguese Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1995), pp

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION 3

were of a more informal nature and did not come under viceregal con
He pointed out that the East Asian settlements sometimes sought
formal integration into the Estado da India and petitioned the Crown
the appointment of a captain or the establishment of a câmar
suggested that the explanation for the emergence of two different m
was partly a matter of timing, most of the South Asian settlements
made early in the history of the Estado da India while the less forma
Asian settlements were made later, and partly a function of distance
viceregal capital at Goa was located too far west to control what went
in the eastern portion of the Estado da India'.3
Sanjay Subrahmanyam saw the 'informal' Portuguese settlements lar
in economic terms and placed them, as did Michael Pearson, in a regio
context where the formal Estado da India lost its capacity serious
influence the economic or political history of Asia after only two dec
of existence. Faced with the inability of the Portuguese Crown to enf
its claims to monopoly and sovereignty, Portuguese traders spread ou
search of commercial opportunity and rapidly became just an
mercantile community resembling other communities like the Par
Armenians, or Jews, all of whom retained a distinct ethnic and relig
identity and were to be found in all the major port cities of the East
Portuguese 'informal empire', therefore, was just another manifestat
what was in fact centuries old Asiatic trading practice.4
Other historians, notably Luis Thomaz, have described the Estad
India as being essentially a network of commercial routes linkin
various port-cities, rather than a territorial empire.5
These interpretations have broadened our understanding of the acti
of the Portuguese in the East. In particular they have drawn attentio
the way the Estado da India changed in the century and a half after i
founded. The grandiose plans of Dom Manuel, as interpreted by A
querque, rapidly became unworkable and excessively costly so tha
imposition of Crown trading monopolies had to be abandoned and
Estado da India turned increasingly into an instrument for colle
customs revenues to support an office-holding Portuguese elite, while
commercial activities of private Portuguese traders settled into the tr
tional patterns of Asian trade.
However, the interpretations of the 'informal empire' offered by Dis
and the others do not cover all aspects of Portuguese activity -
example, the careers of the freelance mercenaries and renegades

3 Disney, p. 32.
4 Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, i^oo-ijoo (London: Lon
1992).
See the discussion in M. N. Pearson, New Cambridge History of India: the Portuguese in India
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 77.

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 4 MALYN NEWITT

missions and the growth of Por

communities, the populations w
or the rulers who entered into
interpretations cover the Atlan
eastern Africa. It is, therefore,
notion of 'informal empire',
understanding the concept and
cut boundaries between the form

An extended typology of informal empire

Over the centuries that followed the beginnings of Portuguese expansion

the 'informal empire' took many different forms and was in a continuou
state of evolution and change. At no time were the bounds between t
formal and the informal empires ever fixed and the formal empire expand
and contracted absorbing or abandoning the 'Portuguese' communities of
the informal empire according to fluctuations in its fortunes. Moreover,
the formal empire, whether it was a fortress, a factory or a substantial
province, always had a frontier and enterprising individuals were to
found operating beyond whatever bounds were set. When parts of t
formal empire were lost, as happened to the Estado da India and the Min
forts in the seventeenth century, the informal empire tended to grow: wh
the formal empire expanded as in Brazil, Angola and Mozambique in t
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Portuguese authority was extended
and the informal empire beyond the frontiers became increasingly
formalized.
The relationship between formal and informal empires was, therefore,
dynamic one and the boundaries between the two remained blurred n
least because of the different types of formal jurisdiction claimed by th
Portuguese Crown. As the informal empire by its very nature had to ada
and change shape in order to survive, it is difficult to capture and describ
its various forms. However, examples may be given of the different typ
that emerged at one time or another, all of them having one thing
common - that they existed outside the formal political and milita
structures controlled from Lisbon and Goa.
The first two types had in common the fact that they actively sought,
and in some cases succeeded in achieving, incorporation into the formal
empire.
First, those expatriate communities of Portuguese that acquired a largely
autonomous status and adopted typically Portuguese civil institutions to
order their affairs - examples would be the merchant communities of São
Tomé in eastern India or Macao which are cited by Disney to illustrate his
East Asian model and which resembled the other major cities of the Estado

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION 5

da India. Although both remained outside the formal empire, th

established a Senado da Câmara, the prestigious institution
government usually found only in major Portuguese cities.6
Second, individual Portuguese who acquired (through conques
chase or gift) lands, villages or jurisdiction over population in
beyond the formal frontiers of Portuguese settlement. These frequ
petitioned the Portuguese Crown to have their rights and titles rec
Examples of these would be the Afro-Portuguese muzungos oper
Zambesia or the Paulistas in the interior of Brazil or the Portugues
acquired aldeias along the coast lands of northern India between
and Damão or in the lowlands of the kingdom of Kotte in Ceylon.
these were successful in gaining formal recognition in the fo
Portuguese titles or land grants, the bounds of the formal empire
expand to include the areas of their influence.
The next two categories were made up of people who claimed Por
descent but who lived in the territory of some Asian or African rul
authority they accepted. Although these never sought to be incorp
into the formal empire, they did recognize the ecclesiastical jurisd
Portugal exercised by virtue of the padroado real.
Third, Portuguese mercenaries who took service either as individ
who formed whole units in the service of African or Asian rulers and did
not seek any formal relationship with the Portuguese Crown. Portuguese
mercenaries fought in the wars in Burma and Siam in the sixteenth century
and in the seventeenth century Portuguese soldiers were to be found in
many Indian armies including that of the English East India Company.7
The soldiers who went to Ethiopia in 1541 as part of Cristóvão da Gama's
army might also be considered in this category, although they formed part
of an official expedition.
Fourth, the civilian Portuguese who for various reasons moved outside
the areas of formal Portuguese jurisdiction and married into the local
'native' population. These often formed distinct Luso-African or Luso-
Asiatic communities, but sought neither to adopt Portuguese civil institu-
tions nor incorporation into the formal empire. Indeed these often formed
a recognized category of 'strangers' who enjoyed special privileges and
protection within African or Asian societies.
The next two categories are made up of non-Portuguese Christians who
came under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Portugal because of the
padroado real.

6 Disney, p. 31.
See for example The Portuguese presence along the Burmese coast in the 16 and early 17
Centuries (Bangkok: Gabinete de Documentação e Relacionamento Histórico Cultural de
Portugal no Sudeste Asiático, 1987).

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 6 MALYN NEWITT

Fifth, the settlements foun

formal Portuguese civil or m
settlements in Solor and Amb
in South America.
Sixth, Christian communities which came under the overall authority of
the padroado real but which were largely independent of control by
Portuguese missionary orders, and did not think of themselves as being
Portuguese.
The next category is for groups of native Africans or Asians which, for
one reason or another, became Lusitanized and in some cases referred to
themselves as Portuguese.
Seven, the African or Asian elites who adopted a Lusitanized identity
(which might include any or all of the following: Portuguese names, styles
of dress, religion, language, political affiliation) but retained their own
distinctive social and political organization and their independence of the
formal empire. Striking examples of these would be the ruling lineages of
the Kongo, and, possibly, the Topaz chiefs of Timor, but there were many
other examples of individuals among the members of ruling elites who
adopted Christianity or otherwise 'Lusitanized' themselves in the belief
that this would bring them official Portuguese backing in their search for
political power.8
Eight, social groups other than ruling elites, which assumed a 'Portuguese'
identity by adopting the Catholic religion or by becoming clients, servants
or slaves of the Portuguese. Many of these groups had their origin in the
formal empire but were left behind, so to speak, when the formal empire
contracted, and retained a 'Portuguese' identity (sometimes alongside other
identities). Among the many examples of these would be the 'Portuguese' of
the Malay peninsula or the 'Portuguese burghers' of Ceylon.9 These groups
were sometimes bound together by the common use of the Portuguese
language (usually in a heavily creolized form), or by observing Portuguese
social customs or styles of dress, or by adopting or retaining the Catholic
faith, and therefore coming under the jurisdiction of the padroado reaU even
if not of any formal Portuguese viceroy captain or governor.
Nine, the final category resembles the 'informal empire' of the British.
This group might be defined as rulers or ruling elites who became subject
to Portuguese influence from time to time or who allied themselves with
the Portuguese, without becoming Lusitanized in any significant way.

8 An example would be Maria Ana Marques Guedes, 'D.Martim, an Arakanese Prince at the
service of the Estado da India and Portugal's designs for the submission of Burma', in The
Portuguese and the Pacific, ed. by Frank Dutra and João Camilo dos Santos (Santa Barbara:
Center for Portuguese Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1995), PP- 77-II2~
9 Leonard Y. Ändaya, 'The Portuguese Tribe in the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries', in The Portuguese and the Pacific, pp. 129-48.

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION 7

Building these alliances was always seen as a fundamental p

strategy of the Estado da India and at one time the Portuguese de
a dense network of such alliances and tribute paying vassals. An
might be the sultans of Melinde whose alliance with the Portugu
origin at the time of Vasco da Gama's first voyage and lasted th
the sixteenth and much of the seventeenth centuries.
These nine different types of 'informal empire' might be further added
to and refined but they demonstrate the way in which the understanding of
any empire has to look beyond the activities of governors and viceroys
operating from the sovereign territory of the imperial power. All empires,
not least that of Portugal, function within a complex network of economic,
cultural and political relations - the networks of informal empire without
which the official structures of the formal empire could never function.
However, there is another dimension to the subject which serves to blur
the distinction between formal and informal still further. Within the
bounds of towns or fortresses that incontrovertibly formed part of the
formal empire, there was a great deal of 'unofficial' activity carried on by
the Crown's servants. Although holding official posts in the royal service it
was quite common for captains, factors and others to carry on their own
private trade and to develop local contacts through what amounted to
private diplomacy. This flagrant pursuit of private interest might amount
to what was virtually asset stripping of their commands by rapacious
captains. Michael Pearson quotes the example of a captain who removed
guns from a royal fortress to place on board his own private trading
vessel.10 This private or unofficial side of the formal empire often ran
directly counter to the interests of the Crown and amounted to an unofficial
empire growing like a parasite within the body of the official empire. It
became, in effect, difficult to distinguish between the private trade of a
Portuguese who settled in the territory of an Asian ruler and the private
trade of a Portuguese who remained within the structures of the Estado da
India.
Moreover the formal and the informal empires became mutually
dependent in a variety of ways. The fortress of Malacca depended on the
Portuguese traders settled along the coasts of Burma and Thailand for its
food supplies and Mozambique likewise depended on the private trade of
its moradores in the Comoro Islands, Madagascar and along the east
African coast. The official town of Ormuz likewise depended on a network
of unofficial trading establishments in the ports of the Gulf.11

10 Pearson, p. 67.
The Abbe Carré describes something of the informal network which the Portuguese still
possessed in the Gulf fifty years after the fall of the official fortaleza of Ormuz in 1622. See The
Travels of the Abbé Carré in ìndia and the Near East 1671-1674, ed. by Sir Charles and Lady
Fawcett, 2 vols (London: Hakluyt Society, 1947), 1, Chapter 3.

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 8 malyn newitt

Formal and informal empire in Africa

The story of Portuguese expansion in Africa illustrates how difficult it is to

separate the formal from the informal empire or to consider one in isolation
from the other. Africa was to see the same sort of interplay of forces that
existed in Asia between the formal centres of Crown authority and the
informal networks of trade, kinship, religion and settlement that were
established by Portuguese settlers acting outside the bounds of royal
control and frequently in direct conflict with royal officials.
Portuguese expansion in Africa, which can be traced back to participa-
tion in the raids on the Canary Islands in the fourteenth century but which
began in earnest in the second decade of the fifteenth century, was from the
start both a formal and an informal enterprise. It was driven forward both
by the Crown and members of the ruling dynasty and at the same time by
the private enterprise of foreign merchants and by strong migratory
pressures from ordinary Portuguese seamen and farmers.
While the princes of the Aviz dynasty were planning their attacks on
Moroccan port-towns (Ceuta in 141 5, Tangier in 1437 and Alcazer in
1458), there began a strong flow of migrants from the coastal areas of
Portugal to the Atlantic Islands. The origins of this migration lie in the
fourteenth century when, partly as a result of the black death, people had
moved from the rural areas of Portugal towards the coastal towns. Here
the migrants joined a population which made its living from fishing, ship
building, trade and other maritime activities. The search for fish was
already taking Portuguese sailors far out into the Atlantic and it was their
knowledge of the sea routes to Madeira and the Azores that made the
settlement of the islands a relatively simple matter. However, the flow of
migrants was given added impetus by the willingness of the Genoese to
finance sugar growing on the virgin volcanic soils of the islands.
The migrations continued through most of the fifteenth century and
were largely independent of any royal settlement plan. This can be seen
from the numbers of Portuguese who took the opportunity to settle in the
Canary Islands even after these had been declared to be a Spanish sphere of
interest in 1479. However, the Crown did move swiftly to establish its
authority. The islands were placed under the authority of donatory
captains and the ecclesiastical rights were bestowed upon the Order of
Christ.12
Under the rule of the captains fresh migratory pressures built up within
the islands themselves. The settlers in Madeira and the Azores undertook
their own exploratory voyages into the Atlantic and the settlers in Cape
Verde (after 1466) began to develop their trade along the coasts of upper

12 T. Bentley Duncan, The Atlantic Islands: Madeira, the Azores and the Cape Verdes in the
Seventeenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972).

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION 9

Guinea which took them away from any established royal auth
pitted them against the interests of the Crown's formal trading
It was the Crown's policy of trying to enforce trade monopolie
as much as anything to bring the informal empire into existen
the 1440S the Infante Dom Henrique acquired the monopoly of
Guinea and thereafter a monopoly over trade was exercised dire
Crown or by its contractors. Portuguese who wanted to tra
where a monopoly was in force had no option but to move
sphere of royal jurisdiction and to start what was considered a
operation.13
A similar situation arose after the settlement of São Tomé an
from the 1480s. Migration to the islands had been slow to start d
distance from Portugal and there is a story that Jewish children
their parents were being sent to the islands to help build up the
However, by the early sixteenth century slaves had been impor
mixed race population had become established which was soo
major role in commerce with the mainland.14
The Cape Verde and São Tomé islanders were to play a very si
part in the story of Portuguese expansion in Africa but one
largely independent of the policies of the Lisbon authorities.
First, the economy of the islands began to develop in a wa
counter to the intentions of the Crown. The Cape Verde Is
important ports of call for the Brazil and India fleets and as suc
throughout the century to play a significant part in meeting t
needs of the formal empire. However the climate was such that
experienced severe recurrent droughts. A purely agricultur
became hard to sustain and the islanders were forced to supplem
incomes through trade. Two kinds of commerce developed
slaves, some of whom were used locally as farm or domestic
some of whom were sold on to markets in Portugal or South A
local trade with the African communities inhabiting the coast o
which was in breach of the royal monopolies. The Crown tried
to forbid this trade, to grant limited privileges to the islan
undertake draconian measures against the lançados, or illeg
However, none of these policies prevented their trade from
individual Portuguese from settling in the Guinea coastlands.

13 For the settlement of Cape Verde and Upper Guinea see W. Rodney, The Upp
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1970); António Carreira, The People of the Cape Verde Is
Hurst, 1982); E. Silva Andrade, Les Îles du Cap-Vert de la 'Découverte' à l'
nationale (1460-197 5) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1996); J. Boulegue, Les Luso- Africain
bie (Dakar: 1972).
R. Garfield, A History of São Tomé Island 1470-1655 (San Francisco: Me
University, 1992).

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 IO MALYN NEWITT

The geographical locat

were never important s
after the 1530s they beg
directly to the economy
calling at the island to
islanders used the timb
began to develop trade t
infringed the establishe
from the fortress of El
Kongo kingdom which
Like their counterparts
their trade outside the f
Second, both archipela
conditions did not favou
and the Europeans who
African slave women or
mainland where they t
Portuguese formal em
themselves as Portugues
ties were increasingly es
Third, the islands dev
emigration. Some Euro
slavers and sugar ships o
were imported from th
archipelagos were exper
selves to generate migrat
to leave Portugal to settl
another stream of migr
Africa. These latter, alth
very different from the
heavily Africanized and h
Fourth, although many
and São Tomé maintaine
and property and even
mainland. Here the more successful of them married local women and
formed part of the kinship networks of their wives' families. They also
acquired slaves, clients and dependants who in time became part of the
'Portuguese' community of the mainland which had few if any direct links
with Portugal.16

15 Anon, Viagem de Lisboa á Ilha de S.Tomé (Lisbon: Portugália, [n.d.J ).

For the Afro-Portuguese of West Africa see Boulegue.

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION II

These Afro-Portuguese continued to be reinforced

islands and occasionally by individual Portuguese f
reached West Africa as religious refugees (there ar
Christians settling on the West African coast), as
traders or even occasionally as missionaries or
empire. Nevertheless by the end of the sixtee
Portuguese of West Africa were almost exclusivel
and were largely integrated into local African soc
of them maintained large households and commer
their own ships and even their own commercia
financed and organized seaborne trade as well a
and fairs of the interior. One very important rol
as brokers for European traders, a role whi
important as other non-Portuguese Europeans beg
African coast in the seventeenth century.
The Afro-Portuguese recognized no direct Portu
they seek incorporation into the formal empire s
very existence as well as their economic activity w
the economic objectives of Portugal's formal empi
part they were content to live under African rule
position within African polities as 'strangers' and
of them continued to think of themselves as 'P
referred to by other Europeans; they had Port
names, and made use of European styles of dre
even European styles in housing. They possess
which were employed in coastal and river commer
used firearms. However, their links with the C
and became, at best, ambiguous. There appear t
churches established outside the Portuguese forts
by missionaries to the Afro-Portuguese commu
modic. When a priest arrived, the sacramen
administered but at other times most of the Afro-
cults and even adopted Islam where this was the d
When the Portuguese lost Elmina and Axim to
Afro-Portuguese became the principal way in whi
and some Portuguese commercial activity was m
Their existence enabled Brazilian traders to build
tobacco trade in the eighteenth century and made
to claim the commerce of the upper Guinea rivers
Fifth, the islanders came to play a significant ro
Although some of the Afro-Portuguese of the upp
wealthy and important, they seldom played a d

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 12 MALYN NEWITT

political affairs. With Sã

important players in th

Formal and informal empire in the Congo and Angola

Portugal first made contact with the ruler of the kingdom of Kongo i
and it had been João IPs intention to establish close relations wit
apparently, powerful African ruler. A succession of embassies led to
conclusion of a formal alliance and the setting up of a factory to adm
the Portuguese Crown's monopoly over trade, a church mission
capital and the appointment of a captain to be the Crown's represen
However, although the Crown created these structures and saw the
as an important part of its formal African empire, much of Por
activity and influence in the Kongo was of an informal rather than f
nature.17
First, although churches were set up and segments of the ruling lin
the Mwissikongo, formally converted to Christianity thereby coming
the jurisdiction of the padroado real, the Portuguese in the
recognized the rule of the Kongo king. There was no independent lo
Portuguese sovereignty in the region and the Crown merely claimed a
monopoly without this being based on any fortress or town in Port
possession.
Second, Portuguese influence was heavily dependant on a christianized
and partly Lusitanized African elite. Soon after establishing contact with
the Portuguese navigators the Kongo king and the Mwissikongo had
formally adopted Christianity as a royal cult. This cult, controlled by a
priesthood dependent on the Kongo kings, was an important additional
source of authority for the kings and was complemented by a monopoly
over the distribution of the goods imported by the Portuguese traders. As
the Kongo kings were always in conflict with regional chiefs and spirit cults,
the Portuguese alliance was of great importance to them in their struggle to
maintain their authority. It was a relationship of reciprocal benefit. The
Portuguese Crown used this alliance to maintain its commercial monopoly
while the Kongo kings benefited from military and diplomatic support from
the local Portuguese and, of course, from control of the growing commerce
with Portugal.
The Kongo ruling elite adopted many cultural traits from the Portuguese
which in their eyes increased their prestige, set them apart from other
chiefly pretenders and helped to cement the Portuguese alliance. As well as
the formal adoption of Christianity, they used Portuguese names, adopted
Portuguese styles of dress and to a limited extent spoke and even wrote

17 For early Portuguese relations with the Kongo see Anne Hilton, The Kingdom of Kongo
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), especially Chapter 3.

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION 13

Portuguese. The Lusitanized ruling elite was supported by a gr

population of Afro-Portuguese, descendants of Portuguese trade
soldiers, and by an Afro-Portuguese priesthood which maintained on
most nominal of celibacy.
Whether the Portuguese presence in the Kongo is defined as part
formal or the informal empire, it was increasingly threatened b
groups of Portuguese who had their origin in São Tomé. The São
islanders had early begun to build boats from the fine timber on the
and had developed an extensive commerce with the coastal regions o
Gulf of Guinea. They found many African chiefs willing to do busine
them, in particular those who were otherwise excluded from access
prestigious European imports which were channelled through the ki
Kongo's capital. Increasingly the trade of the São Tomé islanders byp
the Kongo monopoly and allowed regional chiefs to import goods dir
The São Tomé traders in their turn began to settle on the mainlan
to form a group with a distinct identity in African affairs. Moreover
used their firearms in African warfare to support the chiefly patron
whom they were doing business. The Portuguese Crown tried to res
this independence, replacing the captain with a royal governor in the
However, the governors found it difficult to establish their authorit
the locally based institutions of the Câmara and the Church whic
controlled by the island families.
The São Tomé islanders also began to extend their activities t
regions in the extreme south of the Kongo kingdom where there w
important trade in nzimbu shells, copper and salt. It was they who s
the first trading station at Luanda sometime in the 1520s from
commercial relations were opened with the Ngola, the Mbundu king
was anxious to share in the trade with the Europeans monopolized b
northern neighbour.18
It was partly the urging of the Jesuits who believed that the
experience showed that the populations of west-central Africa were
for conversion, and partly the desire to exert royal control ov
activities of the São Tomé islanders that led to the decision to extend
formal Portuguese authority over the region south of Kongo. In 1575 the
Crown established a governorship and a captaincy covering the region
from the frontiers of the Kongo kingdom south to Luanda. The Angolan
captaincy was not renewed after the death of Paulo Dias, the first captain,
but the governorship continued. Portugal now had formal control over the
port-city of Luanda and over a small area of the Cuanza valley that had
been subdued by Dias' forces. The formal authority of Portugal was
extended in 1618 to cover a second port at Benguella.

18 David Birmingham, Trade and Conflict in Angola (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966).

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14 MALYN NEWITT

Although the Portuguese presen

was now formalized, there was li
they became rival polls of Portug
and religious matters. This rival
seventeenth century with the Luan
the upper hand, was a result of
Portuguese activity in the region
Portuguese factory and mission at
of the formal empire (Luanda
governors, Senados da Câmara and
São Salvador had a Crown appoint
direct royal authority over them h
fact controlled by local factions of
commercial and political interests w
Lisbon or Brazil. Even when roya
quickly became absorbed into the
climate married locally, took up co
one faction or another in regiona
deeply involved in the region's w
soldiers and providing contingents
of their African allies. Frequently
be found fighting on both sides in
Needless to say the Afro-Portug
within any frontier. The official te
virtually no significance in defining
their African allies built up slavi
interior and covered most of the n
Angola. Few of the peoples of th
Portuguese sovereignty but they a
involved in commercial dealings
African associates. European imp
were exported through the formal
São Tomé or Mpinda - the latter tw
second half of the seventeenth cent
In looking at the history of the P
distinction between formal and i
formal empire did exist but it was
islands out of which grew a much
and influence, which was able to

19 For the slave trading networks of Ang

Merchant capitalism and the Angolan slave
Press, 1988).

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION 15

cidades of Luanda and São Tomé in 1641, and which to a large e

resisted the penetration of other Europeans into its sphere of influe
This informal Portuguese trading empire had created the reality of m
Angola two centuries before the Scramble for Africa formally delin
the frontiers of the modern colony/state of that name.

Formal and informal empire in Eastern Africa

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Portuguese saw eastern

as part of the Estado da India but here as elsewhere the boundaries b
formal and informal empire were fluid and indistinct, with the info
playing what was often a leading role in shaping Portuguese activity
In 1505 Almeida had planned two fortalezas in eastern Africa, Kilw
Sofala. These were to house the royal feitorias which were to h
monopoly in the gold trade - very much as Elmina had a monopo
western Africa. Two stone fortresses flying a Portuguese flag and
manded by a captain appointed by the Crown were potent and unamb
ous declarations of sovereignty. However, the 'formal' empire was
the start a more complex affair than just two fortresses. The ki
Portugal was claiming to have sovereignty over the seas as well as to
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all Christians. He was also clai
monopoly on the trade in gold which in eastern Africa was rap
extended to include ivory. The formal empire, therefore, was more t
just territory under the direct rule of Portugal, it was a wider, mor
embracing but at the same time vaguer, concept.
Part of the structure on which the Estado da India depended was a
of alliances made with local rulers who variously paid tribute to Port
or allowed the Portuguese to use their harbours or to trade in their
Initially all the Portuguese strongholds in the East, with the exceptio
Goa and Malacca, began in this way. Treaties of friendship a
vassalage were made with local rulers and the Portuguese establ
factories or forts in their territory as and when required. Ormuz, C
Colombo, Mombasa and even Diu all began in this way. It was of
unclear when the transition from an alliance to formal sovereignty
place or when a Portuguese community established under the terms
treaty of alliance was transformed into a formal part of the Est
India.
In eastern Africa the Portuguese began by making treaties of frien
with the sultans of Kilwa, Sofala, Mozambique and Melinde.20 In the

20 The most important accounts of the establishment of Portuguese rule in eastern Af

Alexandre Lobato, A Expansão Portuguesa em Moçambique de 1498 a 1530, 3 vols (L
Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1954); and E. Axelson, Portuguese in Sou
Africa 1488- 1600 (Cape Town: Struik, 1973).

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 le MALYN NEWITT

two quarrels between the Port

and the substitution of a ru
established a fort and a puppe
the port in 1 5 13 as its trade
alliance persisted. The Portugu
as a base for a fleet which enf
coast. Mozambique also grew i
call for the India fleets but th
who was gradually displaced
their operations on the island.
The formal empire in eastern
as the Portuguese forts of K
slightly wider definition c
captaincies (of Sofala and Mo
it can be seen as a system of c
naval blockades, and raids on
all-embracing claims to be sov
Christians.
At first sight eastern Africa lacked the features that had led to the growth
of informal empire in western Africa. There were no donatory captaincies,
semi-independent of the Crown, and no islands settled with Portuguese or
Afro-Portuguese which could become bases for contraband trade with the
mainland. Nevertheless the informal empire was to grow rapidly around
the nodal points of formal Portuguese authority.
The fundamental reason for this growth of the informal empire was the
impracticality of trying to enforce monopolies along four thousand miles
of coastline where the established Muslim merchant classes, not to mention
the Portuguese officials themselves, had every reason to evade their
operation. Two trends can be detected both of which undermined the
formal structures of the empire and replaced them with informal ones.
First was the increasing unwillingness of the Portuguese officials and
captains to operate the monopolies with any degree of thoroughness. The
captains developed their own private trade using local brokers so that
eventually the Crown had to hand over a large part of its monopoly to the
captains who were able to operate it for three years as a private business
venture.22 The second trend was for individual Portuguese to abandon the
restricted life in the fleets and fortresses to seek their fortunes away from
the jurisdiction of the viceroys and their captains. Some of these settled on
islands along the coast and became traders, others went inland to the gold

21 C. R. Boxer, 'Moçambique Island as a Way-station for Portuguese Indiamen', The Mariner's

Mirror, 48 (1962), 3-18.
22 Described in detail in M. Newitt, A History of Mozambique (London: Hurst, 1995), Chapter
1.

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION 17

fairs or sold their services as mercenaries in local wars. Those who were
successful negotiated a position for themselves with local rulers, acquiring
women, slaves, cattle, land on which to settle, and a privileged position
within African chieftaincies as 'strangers' and traders.
These Portuguese and their Afro-Portuguese descendants continued to
rely to some extent on the networks of the formal empire, for the all
important cloth and firearms could be imported most easily in collabora-
tion with the captains and factors of the Portuguese ports. Some of them
also began to seek official titles to the lands they acquired. This was
particularly the case with the Querimba Islands, most of which were
occupied by individual Portuguese after the destruction of Muslim power
in Querimba in 1522. By the end of the sixteenth century these Portuguese
had all been granted titles to their holdings which became prazos for which
they paid a rent to the Crown.23 In this way the official empire expanded to
absorb one of the areas of influence carved out by the unofficial action of
individuals.
In 1569 the Crown made a major attempt to incorporate the goldfields
of central Africa into the formal empire, sending an army from Portugal to
conquer the mines. This army cooperated closely with the Portuguese
already established in the region and although the conquest of the plateau
failed, the settlements which had been made by Portuguese and Muslim
traders in the Zambesi valley were incorporated within the formal empire
and two new captaincies - Sena and Tete - were created.
Early in the seventeenth century the area of Portuguese activity in eastern
Africa rapidly expanded. The impulse for this expansion came from both
the formal and the informal empire. The authorities in Lisbon and Goa
renewed their attempts to conquer the mines which were still believed to
be comparable in scale to those of Spanish America. Captains were
appointed with the formal titles of Conquistadors of the Mines, while the
religious orders, notably the Dominicans, attempted to extend the authority
of the padroado real through the conversion of members of chiefly families
and the installation of these converts on the various chiefly thrones. The
Crown also experimented with settlement schemes and sent expert miners
to determine the scale of the mineral deposits.24 However, alongside this
formal policy of expansion, the Afro-Portuguese and the freelance traders
were carving out areas of influence for themselves in the interior. These
private Portuguese entrepreneurs were based either in the Zambesi towns
or at the fairs in the interior. They made their money trading for gold and

23 Newitt, pp. 189-92.

For Portuguese expansion in the seventeenth century see E. Axelson, Portuguese in South-East
Africa, 1600-1700 (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, i960); P. Schebesta, Portugals
Konquistamission in Sudost-Afrika (St Augustin: Steyler, 1966); S. I. Mudenge, A Political
History of Munhumutapa (Harare: Zimbabwe, 1986).

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l8 MALYN NEWITT

invested their wealth in th

building up their private armie
politics. Between them and
conquistadors was a complex
opposition, as each party tried
The two factions of Portug
Portuguese captains controll
depended, had access to fire
missionaries to further their i
had the manpower, controlled
family, interest and power. T
and half outside the formal
goods and firearms and to som
Dominican, João dos Santo
relationship:
This captain of Massapa [one of th
authority over all the cafres who
within its borders [. . .] This auth
captain also receives from the vice
cabeça] of all the Portuguese who
cases affecting Portuguese who a
executor for deceased persons.25

One interest the captains an

preventing any successful se
growth of a Portuguese popul
of the region and might chall
Portuguese muzungo families
There were occasions when
the factions in the rivers, stif
major conquests, as Diogo de
more often the captains were
resources leaving the real conq
Portuguese with their African
century muzungo families con
Zimbabwe and Mozambique b
these vast conquests were abso
appointed to the feiras and bar
or mined. These captains were
among the leading Afro-Por
commission from the Port

25 João dos Santos, Etiopia Oriental

1609). Records of South Eastern Afric
repr. 1964), vu, 271.

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION 19

nominally answerable to him. More importantly, the huge are

held by the Afro-Portuguese were formally granted to them as
coroa - crown lands.
This interplay between the formal empire (the captaincy of Mozambique
and its subordinate captaincies) and the informal entrepreneurial world of
the muzungo families characterizes the history of Mozambique until late in
the nineteenth century. The Afro-Portuguese lost a lot of their territory
during the 1690s when the powerful Rosvi kings expelled them from the
high veldt regions of modern Zimbabwe, but they partly compensated for
this by founding a new feira at Zumbo near the confluence of the Zambesi
with the Luangwa, and by opening up new goldfields and conquering lands
north of the Zambesi in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In
each case the initiative came from the Afro-Portuguese and their Indian
associates, the Crown following some way behind establishing captaincies,
granting prazo titles and in the 1760s finally bestowing on the Zambesi
towns the right to establish their own Senados da Câmara.
North of Cape Delgado the formal empire had been represented for
most of the sixteenth century by the Captain of the Coast of Melinde who
operated with his fleet out of the port of Melinde which was controlled by
its sultan.26 However, following the Turkish raids of 1585-88 a Portuguese
fleet captured Mombasa, installed the Sultan of Melinde as its ruler and
built a fortaleza - the famous Fort Jesus - garrisoned by soldiers of the
Estado da índia.27 From then, until the expulsion of the Portuguese from
Mombasa in 1697, formal Portuguese authority was wielded on the
northern coast by the captain of Mombasa who exercised the royal ivory
monopoly and collected customs dues on local trade. Although private
Portuguese traders settled on many of the islands along this 'Swahili' coast,
Portugal's informal empire really rested on its alliances with local rulers.
The most important of these was the Sultan of Melinde and Mombasa and
the ruler of Faza.
On the Swahili coast, as elsewhere in the Estado da India, Portuguese
rule makes no sense if separated into the categories of formal and informal
empire. The formal authority of the captains of Mombasa was inextricably
tied up with, and dependent upon, the networks of alliance and trade
typical of the informal empire.

26 For the latest discussion of the Swahili coast during the Portuguese era see M. N. Pearson,
Port Cities and Intruders: the Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal in the early modern era
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).
C. R. Boxer and Carlos de Azevedo, Fort Jesus and the Portuguese in Mombasa (London:
Hollis and Carter, i960).

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 2o malyn newitt

Ethiopia and the informal influence of the formal empire

Portuguese relations with Ethiopia were first established when Ethiop

monks visited Portugal in the 1450s. A Portuguese emissary, Per
Covilham, went to the country in 1492 and when the Estado da India
established in 1505 diplomatic contacts were quickly resumed. Eth
however, only became central to Portugal's strategic concerns w
Albuquerque failed to take Aden in 15 13. The Portuguese then beg
plan an alliance with Ethiopia to secure the effective closure of the R
and an embassy was sent in 1520 to formalize this cooperation.28 I
never intended that Ethiopia would be formally conquered and m
Portuguese sovereign territory, but this alliance played a very impor
part in the strategic thinking of the formal empire in the early part o
sixteenth century.
The formal alliance hoped for by the Portuguese did not materialize
after the withdrawal of the embassy in 1526, the country was invade
Muslims from Somalia. In 1541 the Portuguese made a second effo
secure an alliance with the Ethiopians - though in very diff
circumstances. Four hundred soldiers were sent under Cristóvão da Gama
to assist the Ethiopian king in his struggle against the Muslims. The Luso-
Ethiopian army was successful and the Muslim invaders defeated.
Ethiopia now entered a phase when the influence of the Portuguese
became very strong. Da Gama's soldiers settled in the country and formed
a Luso-Ethiopian community which provided strong support for the
Crown in subsequent wars and internal conflicts. In the 1550s a Jesuit
mission was sent to Ethiopia and a Patriarchate was established under the
padroado real. The Jesuits remained influenciai at the Court until the late
1630s when they were expelled. During this time Ethiopia remained outside
the formal structures of the Estado da India but a local 'Portuguese'
population, a partly Lusitanized and catholicized ruling elite and a
powerful missionary presence, kept Ethiopia within the informal empire of
Portugal for nearly a hundred years.

* * *

Although it is possible to make t

and an 'informal' empire and to
that each took at different time
and confused. The formal and
separate and distinct entities as a

28 For the Portuguese in Ethiopia see Th

Whiteway (London: Hakluyt Society, 190
Beckingham (London: Hakluyt Society, 19

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 EMPIRE IN THE HISTORY OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION 21

one end, the formal institutions of the Conselho Ult

viceregal authority of Goa, and at the other the rem
Christian communities or the isolated Afro-Port
Guinea coast whose links with Portugal were of
Most imperial activity took place within this spectr
almost invisible line of demarcation between 'form
somewhere along its arc.
King's College London

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