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Africa and the Portuguese Tropical Geography Missions of the second half of the 20th century

África e as Missões de Geografia Tropical Portuguesa na segunda metade do século XX
África y las Misiones de Geografía Tropical Portuguesa en la segunda mitad del siglo XX
L'Afrique et les missions portugaises de géographie tropicale dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle
João Sarmento

Resumos

O conhecimento científico de África, e da África portuguesa em particular, realizou-se tardiamente em relação a outros territórios e a outros impérios. Foi sobretudo após 1945 que se iniciaram trabalhos científicos articulados e consistentes sobre os territórios do império português. A Geografia, enquanto disciplina científica autónoma, acompanhou as mudanças institucionais de planeamento e coordenação da investigação científica nas colónias portuguesas, protagonizadas pela Junta das Missões Geográficas e de Investigações Coloniais, mais tarde Junta de Investigações Coloniais, e Junta de Investigações do Ultramar. Este texto debruça-se sobre as Missões de Geografia financiadas por este organismo no pós-guerra, com particular destaque para três casos: A Missão de Estudos de Geografia Física de Angola (1958-1961), o Agrupamento Científico de Preparação de Geógrafos para o Ultramar (1958-1973), e a Missão de Geografia Física e Humana do Ultramar (1960-1973). Todas moldaram fortemente a investigação geográfica que se fez nos trópicos, e em África em particular, durante cerca de duas décadas.Entre outras fontes dispersas, para este trabalho consultaram-se os processos referentes às três iniciativas supracitadas que foram conduzidas nos territórios coloniais portugueses, e produzidos no âmbito da comissão executiva da Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, que, desde a extinção do Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, se encontram à guarda da Universidade de Lisboa. Um trabalho de maior folego publicado recentemente faz uma análise mais detalhada destas missões, sobretudo tendo em vista os trabalhos específicos de Orlando Ribeiro em Angola, e em particular os seus cadernos de campo (Sarmento, 2022).

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The Junta de Investigação do Ultramar and scientific missions

  • 1 Orlando Ribeiro In Projeto de Criação de uma Missão de Geografia ao Ultramar. IICT/MGFHU, 829, Fold (...)

All countries that have territories in the process of being transformed (“underdeveloped” areas) make extensive use of geographers in regional and economic planning tasks, the establishment of industries, population management, inventory of resources and land use, etc.1

1To understand the raison d'être of scientific missions to the colonies or overseas, it is necessary to understand the Berlin Conference, held in 1884-1885. This geopolitical event transformed the paradigm of colonial territories possession, from “historical occupation” to “effective occupation”. Since 1883, the Cartography Commission, created by the Ministry of the Navy and Overseas, attempted to organize and systematize scientific research in colonial domains. One of its most immediate objectives would be to map overseas possessions and to delimit their borders with neighbouring colonies. The successive Colonial Congresses (1901, 1924 and 1930) emphasized the urgency of colonial scientific studies, and in fact, in the period between the wars, a new principle of legitimation of colonial territories based on “scientific occupation.” was internationally designed. It is in this context that the Geographic Mission of Mozambique of 1932 took place, which integrated the first Anthropological Mission to Mozambique, and the first Anthropological Mission to Africa (Angola, 1934), financed by the Junta de Educação Nacional (later Institute of Higher Culture).

  • 2 After the constitutional review of 1951, the bodies under the Ministry of Colonies (overseas) had t (...)

2In 1936, the Ministry of Colonies created the Junta das Missões Geográficas e de Investigações Coloniais (JMGIC) [Council of Overseas Research], later, “de Investigações do Ultramar” (JIC/JIU), under the supervision of the Ministry of Overseas.2 It replaced the Cartography Commission of 1883, and sought to plan and organize scientific research in an integrated way. The Angola Hydrographic Mission (1936), the Angola Botanical Mission (1937), the Angola Magnetic Chart Mission (1936 to 1938) and the Timor Geographical Mission (1938) were then carried out. It was not until the mid-1940s that the JIC was regularly constituted. However, with few resources, this body was unable to fulfil its five-year activity plan. Even so, missions or geographical campaigns (i.e. Geodesic) were carried out in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and Timor; Hydrographical missions took place in Angola and Mozambique; Botanic missions in Mozambique; Zoological missions in Guinea; and Anthropological missions in Mozambique (Castelo, 2012). These missions were made up of small teams, and included some technicians or specialists from the metropolis, with local logistical support provided in part by the colonial administration. With the restructuring of the JIC in 1945, research became more interventionist, with efficient exploration and the “indigenous” question becoming central to the “scientific occupation”. The missions that were organized during the second half of the 20th century are part of and stem from the concern to ensure Portuguese scientific priority, and the involvement in inter-institutional scientific cooperation.

The centrality of Orlando Ribeiro

3In 1946, Orlando Ribeiro was appointed member of the Junta de Investigações Coloniais, at a time when Mendes Corrêa (physician and physical anthropologist from the Oporto Porto), the director of the Escola Superior Colonial was its president. The geographer immediately suggested the insertion of geographic science in the research projects, and started the preparation of a Mission to Cape Verde (Ribeiro, 1950a), which was not carried out as planned. The opportunity to participate in the Second Conference of West Africanists in Bissau in 1947, made the JIC create two missions to Guinea: one in geology, led by João Carrington da Costa, and another in geography, led by Orlando Ribeiro (Havik and Daveau, 2010). For scientific and logistical affinity, the two missions were grouped into one. Two complications that characterize all of Orlando Ribeiro's work over the next three decades and, consequently, the missions’ operation, could be recognised. The first was linked to the tardiness of the State bureaucratic machine, which made it difficult to plan the missions and which in this particular case of Guinea delayed the departure, which should have taken place at the end of November 1946. The second was Ribeiro’s fragile health, which made him arrive in Guinea quite late (Ribeiro, 1950a). Still, for two months, in 1947, the geographer did his first in-depth fieldwork in Africa.

4In 1949, JIC promoted 18 symposiums to openly discuss the research carried out by this organization. Invited to participate, Orlando Ribeiro took the opportunity to condemn the existing administrative and bureaucratic intricacies and their consequences to research freedom. He also referred to the poor scientific knowledge of overseas territories, criticizing the national scientific tradition, which, in his words, would be “one of those rhetoric flowers, common in our speeches and in our writings, one of these commonplaces with which we console ourselves of the current backwardness” (Ribeiro, 1950b: 4). This position is very clear in a typed report that Orlando Ribeiro sent to the JMGIC in 1949, in which he makes harsh considerations on the Atlas of Overseas Portugal that had been published the year before (Ribeiro, 2017). Ribeiro condemned the ostentatious collection, the appalling deficiency, which was the result of a “delay in colonial research” (Ribeiro, 2017: 667). He indicated the work he had carried out on the Island of Madeira, within the scope of the Sixteenth International Geographical Congress of 1949, as an example of the required rigor (Ribeiro, 1949), suggesting that, with time, a much better job could be done.

5This beginning of the 1950s is critical to the understanding of the evolution of Portuguese tropical geography. On the one hand, in 1951, the volcanic eruption on the island of Fogo, in Cape Verde, allowed an urgent mission, with the specific purpose of studying this natural episode. On a second visit, between December 1952 and January 1953, in addition to the study of various geological, cartographic and geophysical materials from the eruption, different aspects of the islands’ colonization were analysed (Ribeiro, 1998 [1954]). On the other hand, following the first occupation of the territories of Portuguese India by the Indian Union, the possibility of carrying out a mission to Goa became real, and took place in 1955-1956. Along with Raquel Soeiro de Brito, who replaced Orlando Ribeiro in the mission coordination for some time, and Mariano Feio, the scientific knowledge of the tropics developed. Orlando Ribeiro gradually changed his initial position regarding the colonial encounter, and the supposedly benign transposition of Mediterranean culture to the tropics, and on the processes of social and ecological integration (Ribeiro, 1956). In fact, his disillusionment in Goa was striking, as the territory was, in his words, “the least Portuguese land of all he had seen so far” (Ribeiro, 1999: 64). The geographer identified local population feelings of hostility towards the Portuguese, even using the metaphor of “cyst” to describe the Portuguese presence, a metaphor he later used in relation to the settlements in Angola. His closer contact with Africa from the end of the 1950s onwards, and above all his travels after the 1960s, informed him of very different realities from those of the harmonious and mixed race societies with full integration announced by the Luso-Tropicalist breviary (Sarmento, 2022).

The Physical Geography Mission to Angola (1958-1961)

  • 3 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.1, 13.6.1952.
  • 4 Private collection SD, 26.6.1958.
  • 5 Reisen und Forschungen in Angola, Berlin: Reimar, 1936.
  • 6 The Evolution of the Congo Basin, Geological Society of America, Mem, 3, 1935.
  • 7 IICT/MEGFSA, 710 Doc.1, 13.6.1952.

6In 1952, a few months after having defended his doctorate, Mariano Feio, one of Orlando Ribeiro's oldest collaborators, wrote a letter to the Junta das Missões Geográficas e de Investigação do Ultramar. He conveyed his interest in making a methodical study of the geomorphology of Angola with a view to producing a morphological map of the territory at a scale of 1: 4,000,000.3 This initiative arose as a response to a request that Luís Silveira, secretary of the JIU, made,4 insofar as the little that was known about the morphology of this territory was due to the work of two foreigners – Otto Jessen5 and Arthur Clifford Veatch,6 works which had already been considered by Mariano Feio (Feio, 1946a; 1946b). His ambitious program comprised several campaigns, and the budget covered salary for ten months, travel and miscellaneous material. It also included the purchase of a vehicle - a four-wheel drive van, - the associated travel costs, scientific and camping material, and payment to a driver.7

  • 8 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.1, 7.6.1960.
  • 9 Private collection, SD, 6.6.1958.
  • 10 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.11, 12.6.1958.
  • 11 Private collection, SD, 26.6.1958.
  • 12 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.12, 13.7.1958.
  • 13 Ibidem.
  • 14 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.15, 9.8.1958.
  • 15 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.12, 29.11.1958.
  • 16 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.40, 15.3.1959.

7Behind Mariano Feio initiatives, at this point inconsequential, was Orlando Ribeiro.8 Mariano Feio ended up going to Brazil, and during 1952 and 1953, he taught in Pernambuco. Later, in 1955 and 1956, he participated in the India Geography Mission (see Feio, 1979), and so the Angola Physical Geography Study Mission had to wait. It was only in 1958 that João Carrington da Costa (1891-1982), at the time chairman of JIU's executive committee, wrote to Orlando Ribeiro, asking for his opinion on an authorization request made by a scientific mission of the University of Hamburg to Angola, in particular to the region between Cubango and Cuando. Costa’s request was based on the need for a Portuguese specialist to accompany this foreign mission.9 Orlando Ribeiro replied on the following day, and indicated that the appropriate researcher to carry out this follow-up would be Mariano Feio, and a few days later, he was contacted by JIU, inquiring about his availability to accompany a mission from the University of Hamburg,10 to which he agreed. Feio took the opportunity to “resurrect” his 1952 program, arguing that it would be preferable to have autonomy in relation to the German expedition,11 and proposed a program of investigation of physical geography “in the strip between the Cubango River and the sea”, a program that would be very similar to the Hamburg mission, thus facilitating information exchange and collaboration between researchers.12 Sagaciously, he indicated that the German scientists “will not raise difficulties to inform me of the summary of their results”, and in the spirit of scientific colonization that pleased the Junta, he explained that this would be the “opportunity to prevent that the occupation in this scientific branch in the southern part of Angola, is being carried out by foreigners only”.13 The mission in the region between the Cubango and Cuando rivers was authorized by the Minister of Overseas,14 and Mariano Feio left for Angola at the beginning of December of that year.15 In March 1959, in a detailed report, he gave an account of the activities of the mission of the University of Hamburg, composed only of an assistant geographer.16

8Mariano Feio wrote to Orlando Ribeiro, and the interaction with the master about the themes and areas that Feio and Ilídio do Amaral should study in Angola are clear:

  • 17 Private collection SD, 19.5.1959.

He [Cannas Martins] committed himself (…) to doing certain work, the nucleus is the indigenous agricultural economy in the South, I think they start with the districts of Huíla and Moçâmedes. But since you do that, I wanted to give you a complete base, so Physical Geogr., Human Geo, Botany, Zoology, Ethnography, etc. He immediately asked me to do the part of Geomorph. Within this work plan, what was best for Ilídio to do was what in our conversations could have been called the middle sector (Benguela), maybe a little lower to get a better deal with their area, let's say from Quilengues to the west and also in the direction of Benguela. He does not say at all that he would impose, not at all, he will go where Orl. Wants. In that area it would be really good that he could do the physical and human part right away. Of course, it is here further south (in my Geomorph. part) the need for a human geo. (…) The study of the south involves pedology and everything. Part of the agricultural economy is already handed over to an agronomist (Cruz de Carvalho). I can't help with the human Geo because I have to do the Geomorph of the large interior and so I don't have time. But anyway that work is for several years and, as always, it will take twice as long as they expect.17

9A few months later, Mariano Feio wrote again to Orlando Ribeiro, reporting on the progress of the investigation, and with great enthusiasm he communicated to him:

  • 18 Ibidem, 11.9.1959.

I found the key, the way it is done, the ascent from the coast to the Serra de Chela. And it's of a kind I've never seen before: a sloping surface that comes out from under the shore deposits; emerges at about 200 m of altitude and rises to about 400-450 m, with a very strong inclination, that is, in tens of km. At 450 m it is truncated by another that is still horizontal. Extending the incline, it reasonably meets the top of Chela. (…) I was delighted to be almost certain that I could give the study a solid and precise construction. And it's nice to see a surface like this come out. under the storage…18

10The campaign continued through 1960, and it was actually within the scope of this mission that Mariano Feio met Orlando Ribeiro on his 1960 trip. But in early 1961 (January 12), and when Mariano Feio was in Angola, the instructions given by the Board were the suspension of the Physical Geography Mission of Angola. Thus, Mariano Feio's works should be integrated into the Overseas Physical and Human Geography Mission (MGFHU), which was to begin that year. In this regard, in a letter to Ilídio do Amaral, Mariano Feio explains the contours of his mission well:

  • 19 BNP, Orlando Ribeiro Scientific Collection, Cx.31, 30.1.1960.

It is true that the Junta (Carrington) never wanted this work, they wanted a supervisor for the Germans who would come and I, or we, are the ones who transformed this monitoring action into a geomorphic study… But we were the ones who were right, and by crooked lines we made C.[Carrington] do it right.19

  • 20 IICT/ACPGU, 710, Doc.86, 17.2.1961.

11Orlando Ribeiro regretted this suspension, as the MGFHU project that was starting had clearly expressed that Mariano Feio should continue his studies, although in close connection with it.20 It is interesting to observe in detail the letter that Mariano Feio wrote to the JIU at the end of the Mission. It lists the expenses to be paid and therefore, it helps us to realise several aspects of the mission. Mariano Feio was accompanied by a technical assistant and an indigenous cook, and there are several expenses related with transport, namely the vehicle. Samples of sands, rocks and fossils were quite important. Furthermore, photography and designed work were listed as needs for the elaboration of a final monograph, which was only accomplished some years later (see Feio, 1981).

Table 1 – List of expenses to be paid by JIU

Trip of the mission head from Sá da Bandeira to Luanda

1187$30

Travel of the technical assistant, the indigenous cook, the car and the luggage (including all sampling) from Sá da Bandeira to Lobito:

120 litres of gasoline

486$00

Axle sleeve cannon that broke and it was necessary to replace

500$00 986$00

Mission head boarding allowance

3000$00

Technical assistant boarding allowance

1000$00

Trip of the indigenous cook from Lobito to Luanda

154$00

Salary of the technical assistant during travel and boarding From Sá da Band. to Lobito and from there to Lisbon:

4 days in Angola and 16 days on board

1200$00

Car repair at the end of the campaign (receipt of 7.1.961)

3556$80

Checking baggage and samples of rocks, sands and fossils

1937$00

Cloth bags to store the sand samples

145$00

Salaries of the mission head of Mission during the writing of the study, in the Metropolis

72000$00

Photographic works

3500$00

Drawing work: maps and illustrations for the book.

10000$00

98666$10”

IICT/ACPGU, 710, Doc.119, 12.5.1961

The Scientific Group for the Preparation of Geographers for Overseas (1958-1973)

  • 21 IICT/ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc1. 19.11.1956.
  • 22 Ibidem.
  • 23 Ibidem, Doc.2, 26.12.1956.
  • 24 Ibidem, Doc.11, 3.12.1957.

12In 1956, Orlando Ribeiro wrote to the Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, indicating that it would be very advantageous to create “in the Faculty of Arts, in Lisbon, a study centre where the bibliographic, cartographic, and photographic documentation indispensable for African geography research could be gathered, and start preparing future researchers of that geography”.21 In this document, the geographer pointed out the need for “Angola and Mozambique to stop being, at least for Portuguese geographers, the terra incognita that they have been until today.”22 The answer did not take long,23 and after further clarification, at the end of 1957, the creation of the Scientific Group for the Preparation of Geographers for Overseas (ACPGU) was authorized.24

  • 25 IICT/ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.30, 19.7.1958
  • 26 Ibidem, Doc.36, 5.12.1958.
  • 27 Ibidem, Doc.56, 16.3.1960.
  • 28 Ibidem.
  • 29 See Daveau & Garcia (2017). Since 1947 the anthropologist Jorge Dias (1907-1973) made an ethnograph (...)
  • 30 IICT, ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.40, 31.12.1958.

13In 1958, the group received a full scholarship (for Manuel Marques) and a partial one (for João Proença Ribeiro),25 and the following year saw the addition of two partial scholarships to award “to the remaining Geography assistants at the Faculty of Letters who dedicate themselves to the study of tropical and overseas geography for a large part of their activity and collaborated benevolently in the work of the group.”26 During these years, “field and office training” was carried out, and in 1958 and 1959, excursions were organised to different areas of the north and centre of the country. Involving various surveys,27 statistical work, the execution of population distribution and land use maps, techniques which were used before in Goa, they would also serve as a practice for similar works in Africa.28 This idea of “field training” in Portugal to prepare young geographers for the tropics is certainly based on the surveys of regional geography and rural habitat that Orlando Ribeiro had promoted in the late 1930s (Ribeiro, 1991; 1995).29 Central to the grouping and to the practice of Tropical Geography was the purchase of a Leica camera, with a budget of around 12 contos.30 This purchase was added to a large list of camping materials: tents, beds, mattresses, sleeping bags, tables, chairs, backpacks, basins, lanterns and showers, among others.

  • 31 Ibidem, Doc.42, 31.12.1958.
  • 32 Ibidem, Doc.50, 14.11.1959.
  • 33 Ilídio do Amaral, Unpublished Field notebook n.2, Angola, private collection. In relation to field (...)

14On the last day of 1958, Orlando Ribeiro wrote another letter to the JIU, to inform that Ilídio do Amaral would replace him in the mission, during his stay in Paris the following year, where he would deliver a series of lessons at the Collège de France.31 In 1959, Orlando Ribeiro proposed that Ilídio do Amaral and Manuel Monteiro Marques stay in Angola for five months, and take the opportunity to do a field internship with Mariano Feio. The former left in August, but the latter ended up giving up the scholarship and leaving the group. His contribution in the area of geomorphology and in his fieldwork specialty was lost, which Orlando Ribeiro lamented.32 Figures 1 and 2 illustrate two pages of Ilídio do Amaral unpublished field notebook from the end of 1959, which clearly reflect the way of doing Geography at that time.33

Figure 1. Drawings of housing units

Figure 1. Drawings of housing units

Field notebook n.2, Angola, Ilídio do Amaral, 1959

Figure 2. Sketch of Cuanza

Figure 2. Sketch of Cuanza

Field notebook n.2, Angola, Ilídio do Amaral, 1959

  • 34 Created in 1955, partially to answer to the Inter-Imperial Cooperation recommendations. This body w (...)
  • 35 Private collection, SD, 3.1.1959.
  • 36 Ibidem.

15In 1959, Orlando Ribeiro wrote to the agronomist Virgílio Canas Martins (1909-1973), who at the time was director of the Institute of Scientific Research in Angola (IICA),34 suggesting the creation of a “Geography Study Mission to Angola". In his words, it should “initiate a comprehensive survey”, “prepare a map of the population”, “choose two or more subjects of physical, human or regional Geography that constitute the subject of in-depth investigations, which may eventually serve as the subject of dissertations doctorate” and “collaborating in the elaboration of regional or economic plans and providing all technical assistance to the administrative authorities (…)”.35 He also mentioned that he is very busy with studies on India and Brazil and that it will not be possible to dedicate himself to in-depth work. Yet, he will accompany his collaborators and disciples, making “prospecting trips and then following, in loco, their work”.36 Orlando Ribeiro's suggestion was that the first campaign should take place in July of that same year, that is, in 1959, which did not happen.

  • 37 Ibidem.

16We know that a few months later, Mariano Feio wrote to Orlando Ribeiro from Angola, saying that he met Canas Martins, and that they discussed the organization of the mission.37 The letter that Orlando Ribeiro had addressed to Canas Martins also noted that an invitation should be made to Pierre Gourou (1900-1999), whom he designates as the “most reputed specialist in tropical regions and with the wide experience he has through his studies in the Belgian Congo”. The French geographer was already a key figure in tropical geography, and had a profound influence on the Portuguese geography practiced at the time. Pierre Gourou's participation took place in the 1962 and 1963 campaigns.

  • 38 IICT, ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.55, 16.3.1960.
  • 39 Ibidem, Doc.136, 28.1.1965.
  • 40 Oliveira (1966), Gomes (1966) and Coelho (1966). Ibidem, Doc.241, 26.10.1966.

17On a note, JIU reported the group's work plan for 1960, which included research in Portuguese India and in northern Mozambique (Raquel Soeiro de Brito), in São Tomé (Francisco Tenreiro) and in Angola (Ilídio do Amaral).38 The note also referred that Orlando Ribeiro would be finishing his studies of “The Portuguese city in the world” and “The roofs of Tavira”. The group's work continued, always having annual budgets that allowed it to carry out missions in different territories. In 1965, Raquel Soeiro de Brito left the group, being replaced by João Pereira Evangelista, an assistant who worked on Population Geography.39 It is significant that this group financed the work of three senior geography students, who defended their degree theses in Geographical Sciences in 1966, with two works in Angola and one in Mozambique.40

  • 41 IICT/ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.184, 28.2.1967.
  • 42 Mendes (1970). Born in Gabela, she was one of the first lecturers in the recently created degree of (...)
  • 43 IICT/ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.274, 17.2.1961.
  • 44 Ibidem, Doc.246, 18.5.1971. The latter was an assistant at the IICA between 1966 and 1968.

18In 1967, João Evangelista left the group, as he was invited to be an assistant at the General University Studies of Angola. The vacancy was filled by the geologist António Marcos Galopim de Carvalho (1931-), at the time assistant at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon.41 At the start of 1971, Orlando Ribeiro informed the Board that the group’s work continued normally, indicating also that another degree thesis had been concluded – a study on Gabela, a small town in Angola42 – and that the first “Geographical Bibliography of Angola”, supervised by Ilídio do Amaral, was nearly completed.43 Yet that same year, the mission’s under-funding (of the requested 188 contos, only 50 were made available) led to the suspension of the scholarships of Orlando Ribeiro, Ilídio do Amaral, João Proença Ribeiro and Maria Alfreda Cruz.44 In the following two years, the last of the group, the available budget remained at 50 contos per year, which only allowed only one scholarship holder to work in Angola.

The Overseas Physical and Human Geography Mission (1960-1973)

  • 45 Portaria n. 17935, Diário do Governo n. 210/1960, Série I, 9 September 1960; IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folde (...)

19The Overseas Physical and Human Geography Mission was created in 1960, for a period of three years, with the possibility of being prolonged. The mission project was signed by Orlando Ribeiro on June 7, 1960.45 In this document, the geographer insisted on the scientific interest of sub-Saharan Africa, on the existing lack of scientific knowledge of this region, and on the fact that the few existing works were made by foreigners. He pointed to the example of the Colonato de Cela in Angola, already studied by a Belgian geographer (Denis, 1956) and a Brazilian (Penteado, 1959-1960), which in his opinion, was worth to be studied by national researchers. Of all tropical Geography Missions this was certainly the most robust, operating until 1973, and comprised dozens of campaigns throughout its 13 years of operation. As Ilídio do Amaral points out, the specificity of the name of the mission is related to the clarification of its scientific field, since the geography missions were traditionally cartographic missions (Amaral, 1983a).

  • 46 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.52, 10.7.1961.
  • 47 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.32, 3.3.1961.

20Orlando Ribeiro took office on March 2, 1961, and the mission's budget, communicated some weeks earlier, was considerable.46 The geographer wrote to the JIU the following day, proposing an urgent authorization for the work project of the head of the mission, because with the delays in the appointment of assistants, among other postponements, it was difficult to present the complete project for that year. He also suggested to make a trip divided into two parts. In the first part, Ribeiro would visit the French Institute of Black Africa and the Department of Geography at the University of Dakar, Senegal (8-10 days). In the second part, he would visit some Cape Verde islands (Brava, São Nicolau and Boavista), foreseeing to complete the study of the island of Fogo and other work on the archipelago (20-25 days).47 His idea was to use the Easter holidays to organise this month long trip, starting on March 17. Angola and Mozambique would have to wait until the appointment of the mission's assistants.

  • 48 Ibidem.
  • 49 Ibidem.
  • 50 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.118, 13.7.1962.

21Once again, state bureaucracy was felt, not allowing this trip to take place. On the one hand, the budget was only made available in mid-April,48 and on the other hand, the publication of the mission in the Government Gazette, with the budget and complete work project, took a long time. Orlando Ribeiro referred this delay in the 1961 plan, writing that “the gravity of the current moment forces us to face the possibility of interrupting or diverting the Mission’s activity to other places”, and referring that the continuation of Ilídio do Amaral’s work of 1958 and 1960, in northern Angola , funded by IICA, was uncertain.49 This plan also indicated the role of the various assistants in 1961: Raquel Soeiro de Brito (work in Lourenço Marques and on the Mozambican coast, as well as in Macau, Taipa, Coloane and Hong Kong), Fernandes Martins (north of Mozambique), Francisco Tenreiro (some villages in Mozambique; Lourenço Marques; and three cities in southern Angola) and Ilídio do Amaral (Santiago de Cabo Verde). It was also mentioned that Pierre Gourou had already been invited to collaborate with the Mission in the work in Mozambique (with the knowledge and agreement of the Overseas Minister), and that efforts would be made to establish contacts with researchers from the University of Dakar. However, “the most eminent specialist in Geography of the tropical regions (…) requested for other trips and missions, could not (…) accept the invitation that was addressed to him”.50

Table 2. Geography Missions (1947-1973)

Year

Mission name

Head

Assistants

Scholarship holders

1947

Geographical Mission to Guinea

Orlando Ribeiro

-

-

1951, 1952-53

Mission to Cape Verde

Orlando Ribeiro

1955-1956

Geographical Mission to India

Orlando Ribeiro

Mariano Feio

Raquel Soeiro de Brito

-

1958-1961

The Physical Geography Mission to Angola

Mariano Feio

-

-

1958-1973

Scientific Group for the Preparation of Geographers for Overseas

Orlando Ribeiro

Ilídio do Amaral

Francisco Tenreiro

Raquel Soeiro de Brito (-1965)

João Proença Ribeiro (1958-)

Manuel M. Marques (1958-59)

Ilídio do Amaral (1958-)

João Evangelista (1965-67)

A. Galopim de Carvalho (1967-)

1961-1973

Overseas Physical and Human Geography Mission

Orlando Ribeiro

(2.1961-)

Raquel Soeiro de Brito (6.1961-)

Alfredo Fernandes Martins (7.1961-)

Ilídio do Amaral (7.1961-)

Francisco Tenreiro (6.1961-1963)

Mariano Feio (6.1965-)

Lucília Gouveia (6.1966-)

José Gabriel Correia da Cunha (1965-1967)

Joaquim Lino da Silva (9.1967-1969)

Wanda Amaral (6.1964-)

  • 51 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.125, 6.8.1962.
  • 52 Ibidem, Doc.134, 6.11.1962.

22In 1962, in addition to Orlando Ribeiro and Francisco Tenreiro, who travelled to Angola with Pierre Gourou, Ilídio do Amaral travelled to Cape Verde, and Fernandes Martins and Raquel Soeiro de Brito to Mozambique.51 In November 1962, Raquel Soeiro de Brito, assistant in the Geography Mission, wrote a letter to the president of the Executive Committee of the JIU on behalf of the head of the mission, reporting the budget project for 1963. It included the budget for the head of the mission, Orlando Ribeiro, the category B assistants Mariano Feio, Francisco Tenreiro, Fernandes Martins and Raquel Soeiro de Brito, and the category C assistant Ilídio do Amaral.52 The document also indicated the expenses with the material, which was divided into: scientific, that is, barometers, compasses, other instruments and accessories for photography; and cinema and photography, concerning film, developing, copying and enlarging. Travel expenses covered two trips to Cape Verde, four to Mozambique and one to Angola. Expenses with boarding subsidies, transportation of material and auxiliary personnel were also included. The total amounted to 884 thousand and 200 escudos.

23Two months before Orlando Ribeiro's second trip to Angola, the Junta de Investigações do Ultramar sought to assess the availability of materials in the province for the operation of the MGFHU. It started by enquiring Mariano Feio, the Physical Geography Mission of Angola responsible, who replied that he could spare some material, which he had already “inherited” from the Anthropological Mission of Mozambique, most of which would be deposited in Sá da Bandeira and in the Agricultural Society of Cassequel, in Catumbela, close to Lobito. His list of materials provides an image of how the campaigns worked, and contained the following:

241 washbasin with canvas basin;
3 sling bags;
5 canvas bags for water;
2 canvas buckets with spouts;

251 canvas shower;

261 complete canteen bag, according to the existing lists in this Board;

273 campex fauteils chairs (the frames are good, but some fabrics need fixing);

281 campex bench;

291 campexauto steel tube chair;

301 bag containing a mattress and a mosquito net;

311 iron and canvas Paris chair;

3280 bullets for 275 Magnum rifle;

331 compass;

  • 53 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.6, 9.7.1960.

341 plastic bottle of 2 1.”53

35A month before Orlando Ribeiro's trip, the JIU asked the various missions operating in Angola (Geography, Botany, Hydrographic and Pedology) whether they could provide any of the following material the mission to be created:

  • 54 Ibidem, Doc.13, 20.7.1960.

361) Station Land-Rover, type “Jardineira” and Jeep Willys.
2) Barometers, altimeters, compasses, stereoscopes.
3) Field material.
4) Photography and film material.
54

  • 55 Ibidem, Doc.19, 20.8.1960.

37The missions’ responses were all negative, with the exception of the Geographical Mission of Angola The head of this mission, the geographer engineer Alberto Pereira Bastos, responded from Zaire, noting it could provide “a limited number of altimeters, compasses, and pocket stereoscopes”.55 In any case, and as mentioned before, JIU only approved the MGFHU functioning by the start of the following year.

  • 56 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.209, 16.11.1963.
  • 57 Ibidem. See Brito (1997).
  • 58 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc.235, 21.3.1964.

38After the end of the 1963 campaign, Orlando Ribeiro wrote to the JIU's executive committee president, arguing that in his view, at the end of the three years foreseen for the mission continuity was necessary.56 He made specific reference to his own works in Mozambique (where he won’t return) and in Angola, to those of Ilídio do Amaral in Angola and Cape Verde, and to those of Raquel Soeiro de Brito and Francisco Tenreiro (who died in December of the same year) in Mozambique (see Castelo, 2021). He also addressed the need to carry out work in Macau, where Raquel Soeiro de Brito had already carried out a “summary reconnaissance”, and in Timor, which “has never been dealt with”.57 His requested for the extension of the mission had a favourable response in 1964, but with a duration of three years.58

  • 59 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc.249, 22.7.1964.
  • 60 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc. 251, 31.7.1964.
  • 61 Ibidem, Doc.249, 22.7.1964.
  • 62 Ibidem, Doc. 260, 24.8.1964.

39In 1964, Ilídio do Amaral, who had meanwhile finished his doctoral thesis on the island of Santiago in Cape Verde (Amaral, 1964), continued to carry out research in Angola, where he stayed from 20 August onwards.59 His objective was to study Luanda and its musseques, a work that he would later publish (Amaral, 1968), as well as to visit other urban centres such as “Sá da Bandeira, Moçâmedes and, perhaps, Luso”.60 At the end of that month, Raquel Soeiro de Brito left for Mozambique to study the Ajaúas and Nianjas peoples on the banks of the Niassa.61 She was followed by Fernandes Martins, who travelled in the first days of September.62

  • 63 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc. s/n, 15.12.1964.

40The project proposed three new collaborators for the year 1965: Lucília Dora de Andrade Gouveia, an assistant at the University of Coimbra and lecturing on tropical geography, and José Gabriel da Cunha, a recent collaborator at the Centre for Geographical Studies of the University of Lisbon, joined the mission as assistants (letter C) and Wanda Maria Peres do Amaral, who was Ilídio do Amaral’s sister, joined the team as an assistant.63

  • 64 Ibidem, Doc. 309, 17.7.1965.
  • 65 Ibidem.
  • 66 Ibidem.

41In 1965, Orlando Ribeiro wrote to the president of the executive committee of the JIU, informing that “unfortunately, due to health reasons, it was not possible for me, last year, to travel to Africa. This year I will only be able to dedicate three or four weeks to fieldwork in Angola”.64 He indicates several fieldwork objectives, which are in line with the eclectic nature of his field notebooks. Firstly, he wanted to consider Ilídio do Amaral's study of Luanda, and reflect upon the disappearance of the city's traditional patterns. This would be a part of a book on “The Portuguese city in the world”.65 Secondly, he intended to continue studying “European and African ways of life, and respective interferences, in the areas of Benguela, Moçâmedes and Sá da Bandeira”. In this regard, he indicated that he would supervise Lucília Gouveia’s doctoral thesis monograph, the third on Africa, after Tenreiro (1961) and Amaral (1964). Thirdly, he would like to continue his research into the geomorphology of inselbergs, from savannah to arid climates.66

  • 67 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc.328, 3.11.1965.

42In the following year, José Gabriel Correia da Cunha was no longer in the group, but at the end of 1965, Orlando Ribeiro noted that only Ilídio do Amaral and Fernandes Martins could carry out the proposed programs.67 Thus, as no expenses were made, as intense field work was expected in Angola the following year, and as the mission had only one vehicle in Mozambique, Ribeiro proposed the acquisition of two vehicles (a Land Rover and a Renault 4L). This expenditure was authorized on the last day of that year.

  • 68 Ibidem, Doc.357, 11.7.1966.

43When Orlando Ribeiro presented the 1966 activity plan, he argued that the cuts in the mission's budget, made Raquel Soeiro de Brito's work in Timor, Ilídio do Amaral's research in northern Angola, and his own trip to Africa impracticable. Only the works of Mariano Feio, mainly in the southwest of Angola, on the Humpata plateau, and of Lucília Gouveia, around the region of Lobito-Benguela, continued.68 Orlando Ribeiro also mentioned that he hoped Lucília Gouveia would have the support of Maria Alfreda Cruz, who was starting her studies in human geography in the north and center of Angola. 1966 marks the beginning of the publication Finisterra – Revista Portuguesa de Geografia, founded by Orlando Ribeiro, together with Suzanne Daveau and Ilídio do Amaral. Significantly, the first issue included an article by Pierre Gourou on human geography and several texts on Africa.

  • 69 Ibidem, Doc.404, 9.8.1967.
  • 70 Ibidem, Doc.410, 15.9.1967.

44In 1967, the mission was prolonged for another three years, and in conjunction with the head of the mission, Raquel Soeiro de Brito presented a plan focused on Angola, namely on the city of Moçâmedes.69 This change is related to the unstable political situation in the north of Mozambique, as Soeiro de Brito had been working “on the plateaus and edges of Lake Niassa”. The ethnologist Lino da Silva, who was collaborating with IICA, also joined the mission as a second category assistant.70 Trained at the Colonial Higher School, he carried out research on the vessels and fishing equipment of the islanders of Luanda (Silva, 1960), and defended a graduation thesis on fishing structures (Silva, 1966). He later prepared a thesis on the Kuvales of the southwest of Angola (Amaral, 1983b), which did not complete. He carried out two campaigns in Angola, in 1967 and 1968, in which he studied the Tuá peoples in great detail, material that he only published several years later (Silva, 1988). In 1969, he ended his collaboration with the MGFHU and became a permanent researcher at IICA.

  • 71 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc.412, 12.10.1967.
  • 72 Carlos Krus Abecasis (1918-2012), was the Overseas Under-Secretary between 1955 and 1958, and the J (...)

45Meanwhile, Orlando Ribeiro informed the JIU that during the 1967/68 academic year he would be away in Paris, lecturing at the University of Paris-Sorbonne.71 Correspondence from 1968 allows us to recognise the lack of time in articulating the campaigns and field work, and academic commitments, especially lecturing. These constraints were always present, and Orlando Ribeiro often alludes to them. At the beginning of that year, Raquel Soeiro de Brito, who replaced Orlando Ribeiro, sent the 1967 campaign reports to JIU. Three days later, the president of the JIU, Krus Abecasis,72 wrote, in that same letter, that the Minister should be made aware that: “the usefulness of the campaigns was diminished, in relation to what was legitimate to expect from the scientists who carried them out, due to the short duration of their stay in the Province. On the other hand, the actual problems to which this collaboration could bring a very useful contribution would advise a deeper contact with the Provincial Secretariat for Rural Development”.

  • 73 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 3, Doc.17, 20.4.1968.
  • 74 Joaquim da Silva Cunha (1920-2004) was Overseas Ministry between 1965 and 1973.
  • 75 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 3. Doc.19, 6.5.1968.

46This view reached Orlando Ribeiro, who, while passing through Lisbon, wrote to the JIU to clarify several points, including that all members of the mission were university professors and that universities paid “more attention to exams than to research”. Furthermore, campaigns took place during the recess period, and available funds were not sufficient for very long campaigns. Finally, he argued, the mission had already produced significant works.73 Krus Abecasis was softer with what he wrote next, stressing that only with very experienced researchers would it be worth carrying out campaigns lasting one to two months. The overseas minister, Silva Cunha,74 issued a dispatch writing “I continue to believe that the field work should last longer”.75

  • 76 Ibidem, p.71. See Castelo (2017), who mentions that Raquel Soeiro de Brito conclusions were very si (...)

47Orlando Ribeiro reported an episode that happened in Angola around this time. According to the geographer, Canas Martins requested his collaboration on the subject of the dispossession of indigenous lands in the semi-arid periphery of the Namib desert, in southern Angola, by white cattle ranchers (Ribeiro, 1975: 70). In that year of 1968, Raquel Soeiro de Brito produced a preliminary report on the subject, which stated that “an atmosphere of tension has been created in many places and can quickly spread to vast areas; therefore, it is urgent to study the problem”.76 The report, delivered to various authorities and services, was ignored, and only a short note was published in Finisterra, in 1970: “It is urgent, therefore, to complete the study of vegetation, of climate and soils , so that the native populations can be guided towards, if possible, a more rational and profitable evolution of their economy and not scare them away with the imprudently studied establishment of 'white' creations, which lacking a sufficient technical support, could become, in a short time, into an economic disaster, due to the need to carry out extensive transhumance such as that of the natives, overloading the pastures and water points in an unsustainable way.” (Brito, 1970: 81-82). At the end of the 1970s, Ribeiro resumed to this subject when writing that “In a semi-arid space, with rare and distant water points, the white cattle breeders made themselves grant large concessions, fencing them off, under the complacent gaze of the colonial administration.” (Ribeiro, 2014: 66).

  • 77 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 3, Doc.129, 29.11.1969.
  • 78 Ibidem, Doc.94, 6.5.1970.

48In 1969 Orlando Ribeiro still sent the project for the 1970 campaign to the JIU. He anticipated to spend 30 days in Mozambique and another 30 days in Angola, accompanied by the geographer Suzanne Daveau; it proposed 60 days fieldwork in Timor for Raquel Soeiro de Brito; 30 days in Angola for Ilídio do Amaral; 60 days in Angola for Lucília Gouveia, and a subsidy for Wanda do Amaral.77 The three-year extension of the MGFHU78 created opportunities, but for various reasons they did not materialize. In 1969, three years of the Geography degree were established in Sá da Bandeira and Lourenço Marques. The degrees, coordinated by Orlando Ribeiro and Ilídio do Amaral, lasted five years, the standard at the time, and would have to be completed in Lisbon or Coimbra. In 1970, Carlos Alberto Medeiros, Isabel Medeiros and Lino da Silva were lecturing in Sá da Bandeira, and Maria Eugénia Moreira, Celeste Coelho, Maria Clara Mendes, Esmeralda Ferreira, with the support of Gaspar Soares de Carvalho (1920-2016), who had been involved in the Geological Missions in Guinea-Bissau (1959), Goa (1960) and Angola (1960), were lecturing in Lourenço Marques (Sarmento, 2018; 2019).

  • 79 Ibidem, Doc.148, 10, 11, 1971.

49In 1971, the budget was reduced, and only Raquel Soeiro de Brito and Ilídio do Amaral were able to travel. The former continued her work in Timor and the latter in Angola. Ribeiro complained about the impossibility of extending the mission, and regretted the failure of the University in hiring Suzanne Daveau, “specialist in geomorphology, former professor at the Universities of Dakar and Besançon”, as well as Maria João Vilar Queiroz, at the time assistant lecturer at the School of Social Sciences and Overseas Policy, and a graduate in Geography.79

  • 80 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 4, Doc.42, 12.6.1973.
  • 81 He is referring to Carlos Alberto Medeiros (see Medeiros, 1976), Isabel Medeiros, who was working o (...)
  • 82 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 4, Doc.46, 12.7.1973.
  • 83 Ibidem, Doc.52, 17.10.1973.
  • 84 Ibidem, Doc.55, 14.11.1973.
  • 85 At the end of 1979, the Junta was renamed Laboratório Nacional de Investigação Tropical, and from A (...)
  • 86 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 4, Doc.69, 10.4.1975.

50At this time, Suzanne Daveau and Orlando Ribeiro were preparing a scientific-didactic book on the tropics, later published by Armand Colin, with the title La Zone Intertropicale Humide (Daveau and Ribeiro, 1973: 197). The two geographers drew on all their experience in different continents, tracing, under Pierre Gourou’s influence, a panoramic geography of the tropics, from Peru, Cuba, Mexico and India, with an emphasis on Brazil and Africa, especially Western Africa West and Lusophone Africa. In 1973, Orlando Ribeiro wrote to the JIU requesting authorization to travel to Angola on a 45-day mission, starting on the 15th of August.80 The geographer intended to: 1. Study the southwest of Angola; 2. Quick trip to Cabinda; 3. Quick trip to Carmona; 4. Exchange of impressions in loco with the three assistants who are in Sá da Bandeira and who are at an advanced stage of their doctoral theses.81 The trip was authorized,82 but due to illness, Orlando Ribeiro did not travel.83 Meanwhile, Wanda do Amaral requested the end of her contract as assistant-trainee, and in November of that year, Orlando Ribeiro asked for the extension of the MGFHU for another three years, mainly so that Raquel Soeiro de Brito, Ilídio do Amaral and Alfredo Fernandes Martins could continue works in Timor, Angola and Mozambique, respectively.84 A few days before, however, Decree Law 583/73 of November 6, 1973, changed the structure of scientific research in the country, and the requested extension was not authorized. The activities of the MGFHU and the ACPGU became part of the Overseas Geography Centre, part of Earth Sciences Institute, in turn part of the JIU, which was then renamed Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar,85 and were suspended. In 1974, the MGFHU no longer had a budget.86

  • 87 Ibidem, 829, Folder 4, Doc. n.p., 6.4.1974.
  • 88 Ibidem, 829, Folder 4, Doc. n.p., 27.11.1974.
  • 89 Ibidem, 829, Folder 4, Doc.71, 9.8.1976.
  • 90 Ibidem, 829, Folder 4, Doc.74, 20.6.1977.

51A few weeks before the carnation revolution, Raquel Soeiro de Brito was still trying to organise a 45 to 60 days campaign in Timor.87 Orlando Ribeiro supported her endeavours, and as late as November 1974, he indicated the need to finish the work in progress on the Ajauas and Nianjas in Niassa, Mozambique, and in Timor.88 The remaining materials in the archive show the closure of the missions, with communication exchanges between Orlando Ribeiro, Raquel Soeiro de Brito, Ilídio do Amaral or the secretary of the Center for Geographical Studies, Machado Guerreiro, and the manager of the Overseas Scientific Research Board. The mission dismantling can be perceived in two documents dated from August 1976 and 1977. The first one concerns Orlando Ribeiro’s forwarding to the Board, of a debit note from the insurance company Portugal Previdente. It refers to the insurance policies of the two vehicles that MGFHU had in Angola.89 The second document concerns the response to a request from the Board Manager, regarding the listing of MGFHU material. At this time the secretary of the Centre for Geographical Studies reported that the whereabouts of part of the materials that remained in Angola and Mozambique were unknown. Furthermore, he did not know the materials that would be obsolete and those that would be missing.90

“Disinterested Research” and Scientific Occupation

52In the second half of the 20th century, the Portuguese Estado Novo attributed unparalleled resources to improve the scientific knowledge of the overseas territories. This allowed field work in Africa and made possible several contributions to scientific advancement. These contributions are at the intersection of the needs indicated by the regime, which have a clear view on to political decision-making, and the lines of research that most interested researchers and heads of mission. Naturally, as Castelo (2022) argues, the relationship between the State and scientists was not without tensions, negotiations and contradictions. The end of the Portuguese empire and the abrupt departure of military personnel and civilian population from African territories in the post-April 25, 1974 period, as well as the beginning of civil wars, particularly in Angola and Mozambique, hampered or prevented the continuity of geographical research in Portuguese Tropical Geography. A productive, coherent and structured scientific cycle, which had begun after the Second World War, and for which the Geography missions were fundamental was about to end. This cycle coincided with the growing amplification of anti-colonial contestation at various levels and, roughly speaking, with the liberation wars of the occupied African territories.

53In the specific case of Geography, the six missions of the second half of the 20th century, three of which that run between the end of the 1950s and 1973 and are the focus of this paper, enabled the financial and material conditions and logistics, to carry out scientific work in all territories of the empire, with special emphasis on Africa. These Missions brought together a number of collaborators and scholarship holders (Table 1), and boosted a research network that Orlando Ribeiro had in mind to analyse “a people on earth” (Ribeiro, 2008 [1946]), or as he mentioned in a mission report in 1961, to finalise the overall studies for a “Geography of the Portuguese Expansion”. The scientific results of this significant investment are numerous, from the academic training of a group of researchers, including the completion of several degree and doctoral theses on African territories, to the publication of numerous scientific works in various subareas of physical and human geography on the continent, some of which continue to be key references (Ribeiro, 1950a; 1998[1954]; Tenreiro, 1961; Amaral, 1964; 1968; Medeiros 1976; Moreira, 1979; Mendes, 1979; Feio, 1981). These efforts were also critical in the establishment of higher education in Geography in Angola and Mozambique (Sarmento, 2018; 2019).

  • 91 Ibidem, Doc.180, 15.7.1963.
  • 92 Ibidem, Doc.187, 3.8.1963.
  • 93 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.1, 7.6.1960.

54In 1963, Orlando Ribeiro sent the various reports of the 1962 campaign (including his own report and those of Francisco Tenreiro, Raquel Soeiro de Brito and Ilídio do Amaral). The president of the JIU, in a handwritten note, requested a “particular attention” of the Minister of Overseas for parts of the reports that appear to be “politically and socially relevant matter, which it would be convenient to give note to the Provinces, in a confidential document”.91 Despite the discontinuity of the archive, Orlando Ribeiro's response to the president of the JIU that same month clearly shows the firm position of the geographer on the subject: “As I once had the occasion to tell Your Excellency, the Reports of Missions are not publications of a scientific nature; a large part is reserved for external, administrative circumstances, facilities or difficulties thereof, etc.; it is my custom, by the way, only to indicate a summary or condensation (sometimes just a statement) of scientific results. Your Excellency agreed, at another time, with this opinion, ordering to suspend the publication of a report of my authorship that had already been made ready”.92 Orlando Ribeiro was aware of the fragile balance between doing disinterested science and the objectives and ends it could have, especially in the context of missions with considerable funding. Later he would write that “as for field work, in studies subsidized by the Overseas Investigations Board, justice dictates that the facilities are great and the retribution generous” (Ribeiro, 1969, cit. in Daveau, 2014: 12). Incidentally, in the MGFHU proposal, Orlando Ribeiro wrote: “It is evident that any attempt to apply and use geographical information is based, on the one hand, on disinterested research and knowledge of the territories as a whole, and on the other hand, on the information requested from us and in the problems (of administration, economy, planning) for which our attention and collaboration is requested. My background is more suited to disinterested research; but I would not deny, rather I would gladly give, all the collaboration that in this field would be asked of me”.93 Naturally, these missions, like others organized at that time, were instrumental for a colonial and dictatorial State, which had as its political foundation the “scientific occupation” of overseas territories. Regardless of their critical stance on certain aspects of the regime's actions and the living conditions of many populations, more or less subtle in reports and scientific production, the Missions were an integral part of scientific colonization and maintained a privileged relationship with colonial domination. It is enough to look at the places studied in the different campaigns, in particular the north of Mozambique and the south of Angola, to understand their strategic value for the regime.

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Ribeiro, O. (1950a). A Missão de Geografia à Guiné em 1947. Anais da Junta de Investigações Coloniais. Vol.V, t.III, Estudos de Geografia, Lisboa, pp.3-23.

Ribeiro, O. (1950b). Problemas de Investigação Científica Colonial. Colóquio realizado na Junta de Investigação Coloniais em 30 de Dezembro de 1949. Lisboa: Ministério das Colónias. Junta de Investigações Coloniais, pp.1-23.

Ribeiro, O. (1956). Originalidade da Expansão Portuguesa. in Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, série 74, n. 4-5, pp. 127-139.

Ribeiro, O. (1975). Destinos do Ultramar. Lisboa: Livros Horizonte.

Ribeiro, O. (1991). Inquérito do povoamento rural. Opúsculos Geográficos. O Mundo Rural. IV. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, pp.283-288.

Ribeiro, O. (1995). Inquérito de Geografia Regional. Opúsculos Geográficos. Estudos Regionais. VI. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, pp.11-32.

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Ribeiro, O. (1999). Goa em 1956. Relatório ao Governo. Lisboa: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses.

Ribeiro, O. (2008)[1946]. Propósitos e projectos da minha carreira de geógrafo. [inédito redigido em 1946, com atualizações em 1969]. Finisterra, Vol. XXXIII, n.85, pp. 101-107.

Ribeiro, O. (2014). A Colonização de Angola e o seu Fracasso. 2ª ed. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional da Casa da Moeda.

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Sarmento, J. e Brito-Henriques, E. (2013)(coord.). Orlando Ribeiro Cadernos de campo Moçambique 1960-1963. Famalicão: Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto. Edições Humus.

Sarmento, J. (2018). Portuguese tropical geography and decolonization in Africa: the case of Mozambique. Journal of Historical Geography. Vol.66, pp. 20-30.

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Silva, J.L. (1966). Armações de pesca. Degree thesis in Geography, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa.

Silva, J.L. (1988). A grande área geográfica dos Tuás (Bantos antigos). In CEG (coord.) Livro de homenagem a Orlando Ribeiro, Vol. II. Lisboa: Centro de Estudos Geográficos, pp.537-548.

Tenreiro, F. (1961). A Ilha de São Tome. PhD Thesis in Geography. Lisboa: Universidade de Lisboa.

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Anexo

References

Archive of the former Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, University of Lisbon

[IICT, MGFHU] Missão de Geografia Física e Humana do Ultramar, Process 829, 8 Folders, Arquivo do Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical.

[IICT, MGFHU] Missão de Geografia Física de Angola, Process 710, 1 Folder, Arquivo do Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical.

[IICT, ACPGU] Agrupamento Científico de Preparação de Geógrafos para o Ultramar, Process 673, 2 Folders, Arquivo do Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical.

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Notas

1 Orlando Ribeiro In Projeto de Criação de uma Missão de Geografia ao Ultramar. IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.1, 7.6.1960.

2 After the constitutional review of 1951, the bodies under the Ministry of Colonies (overseas) had to change their names, as organic laws were revised. The Junta replaced the designation “Colonial” with “Ultramar” in 1955, but since 1952 this change has come into unofficial use.

3 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.1, 13.6.1952.

4 Private collection SD, 26.6.1958.

5 Reisen und Forschungen in Angola, Berlin: Reimar, 1936.

6 The Evolution of the Congo Basin, Geological Society of America, Mem, 3, 1935.

7 IICT/MEGFSA, 710 Doc.1, 13.6.1952.

8 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.1, 7.6.1960.

9 Private collection, SD, 6.6.1958.

10 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.11, 12.6.1958.

11 Private collection, SD, 26.6.1958.

12 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.12, 13.7.1958.

13 Ibidem.

14 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.15, 9.8.1958.

15 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.12, 29.11.1958.

16 IICT/MEGFSA, 710, Doc.40, 15.3.1959.

17 Private collection SD, 19.5.1959.

18 Ibidem, 11.9.1959.

19 BNP, Orlando Ribeiro Scientific Collection, Cx.31, 30.1.1960.

20 IICT/ACPGU, 710, Doc.86, 17.2.1961.

21 IICT/ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc1. 19.11.1956.

22 Ibidem.

23 Ibidem, Doc.2, 26.12.1956.

24 Ibidem, Doc.11, 3.12.1957.

25 IICT/ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.30, 19.7.1958

26 Ibidem, Doc.36, 5.12.1958.

27 Ibidem, Doc.56, 16.3.1960.

28 Ibidem.

29 See Daveau & Garcia (2017). Since 1947 the anthropologist Jorge Dias (1907-1973) made an ethnographic and ethno-sociologic systematic survey in Portugal the surveys of the Centro de Estudos de Etnologia. He also took the essential components of the methodological approach from Portugal to Mozambique (Dias, 1961).

30 IICT, ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.40, 31.12.1958.

31 Ibidem, Doc.42, 31.12.1958.

32 Ibidem, Doc.50, 14.11.1959.

33 Ilídio do Amaral, Unpublished Field notebook n.2, Angola, private collection. In relation to field notebooks of this period see Havik and Daveau (2010), Sarmento and Brito-Henriques (2013), Oliveira (2019) and Sarmento (2022).

34 Created in 1955, partially to answer to the Inter-Imperial Cooperation recommendations. This body was under the Overseas Ministry, via the General Government and the Junta das Missões Geográficas e de Investigação do Ultramar.

35 Private collection, SD, 3.1.1959.

36 Ibidem.

37 Ibidem.

38 IICT, ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.55, 16.3.1960.

39 Ibidem, Doc.136, 28.1.1965.

40 Oliveira (1966), Gomes (1966) and Coelho (1966). Ibidem, Doc.241, 26.10.1966.

41 IICT/ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.184, 28.2.1967.

42 Mendes (1970). Born in Gabela, she was one of the first lecturers in the recently created degree of Geography in the University of Lourenço Marques, now Eduardo Mondlane (see Sarmento, 2019). Some years later she defended a PhD Thesis on Lourenço Marques/Maputo, as a colonial city (Mendes, 1979).

43 IICT/ACPGU, 673, Folder 1, Doc.274, 17.2.1961.

44 Ibidem, Doc.246, 18.5.1971. The latter was an assistant at the IICA between 1966 and 1968.

45 Portaria n. 17935, Diário do Governo n. 210/1960, Série I, 9 September 1960; IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.1, 7.6.1960.

46 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.52, 10.7.1961.

47 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.32, 3.3.1961.

48 Ibidem.

49 Ibidem.

50 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.118, 13.7.1962.

51 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.125, 6.8.1962.

52 Ibidem, Doc.134, 6.11.1962.

53 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.6, 9.7.1960.

54 Ibidem, Doc.13, 20.7.1960.

55 Ibidem, Doc.19, 20.8.1960.

56 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.209, 16.11.1963.

57 Ibidem. See Brito (1997).

58 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc.235, 21.3.1964.

59 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc.249, 22.7.1964.

60 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc. 251, 31.7.1964.

61 Ibidem, Doc.249, 22.7.1964.

62 Ibidem, Doc. 260, 24.8.1964.

63 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc. s/n, 15.12.1964.

64 Ibidem, Doc. 309, 17.7.1965.

65 Ibidem.

66 Ibidem.

67 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc.328, 3.11.1965.

68 Ibidem, Doc.357, 11.7.1966.

69 Ibidem, Doc.404, 9.8.1967.

70 Ibidem, Doc.410, 15.9.1967.

71 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 2, Doc.412, 12.10.1967.

72 Carlos Krus Abecasis (1918-2012), was the Overseas Under-Secretary between 1955 and 1958, and the JIU president between 1961 and 1970.

73 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 3, Doc.17, 20.4.1968.

74 Joaquim da Silva Cunha (1920-2004) was Overseas Ministry between 1965 and 1973.

75 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 3. Doc.19, 6.5.1968.

76 Ibidem, p.71. See Castelo (2017), who mentions that Raquel Soeiro de Brito conclusions were very similar to those that the Missão de Inquéritos Agrícolas de Angola [Agriculture Survey Mission of Angola] leaders had already reported to the authorities.

77 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 3, Doc.129, 29.11.1969.

78 Ibidem, Doc.94, 6.5.1970.

79 Ibidem, Doc.148, 10, 11, 1971.

80 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 4, Doc.42, 12.6.1973.

81 He is referring to Carlos Alberto Medeiros (see Medeiros, 1976), Isabel Medeiros, who was working on a thesis on fishing, which was never concluded (see Medeiros, 1982), and Lino da Silva. The first two were supervised by Ilídio do Amaral, and the last by Viegas Guerreiro.

82 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 4, Doc.46, 12.7.1973.

83 Ibidem, Doc.52, 17.10.1973.

84 Ibidem, Doc.55, 14.11.1973.

85 At the end of 1979, the Junta was renamed Laboratório Nacional de Investigação Tropical, and from April 1982, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical (IICT). This body was extinct in 31 July 2015. The Centro de Geografia do Ultramar was renamed Centro de Geografia, having Ilídio do Amaral as its director between 1984 and 2005.

86 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 4, Doc.69, 10.4.1975.

87 Ibidem, 829, Folder 4, Doc. n.p., 6.4.1974.

88 Ibidem, 829, Folder 4, Doc. n.p., 27.11.1974.

89 Ibidem, 829, Folder 4, Doc.71, 9.8.1976.

90 Ibidem, 829, Folder 4, Doc.74, 20.6.1977.

91 Ibidem, Doc.180, 15.7.1963.

92 Ibidem, Doc.187, 3.8.1963.

93 IICT/MGFHU, 829, Folder 1, Doc.1, 7.6.1960.

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Índice das ilustrações

Título Figure 1. Drawings of housing units
Créditos Field notebook n.2, Angola, Ilídio do Amaral, 1959
URL http://journals.openedition.org/terrabrasilis/docannexe/image/11814/img-1.jpg
Ficheiros image/jpeg, 422k
Título Figure 2. Sketch of Cuanza
Créditos Field notebook n.2, Angola, Ilídio do Amaral, 1959
URL http://journals.openedition.org/terrabrasilis/docannexe/image/11814/img-2.jpg
Ficheiros image/jpeg, 421k
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Referência eletrónica

João Sarmento, «Africa and the Portuguese Tropical Geography Missions of the second half of the 20th century»Terra Brasilis [Online], 17 | 2022, posto online no dia , consultado o 02 junho 2023. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/terrabrasilis/11814; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/terrabrasilis.11814

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Autor

João Sarmento

Geography Departament and Communication and Society Research Centre
Minho University
Campus de Azurém
Email: j.sarmento@geografia.uminho.pt
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4770-2427

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