Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire known as the Portuguese Overseas or the Portuguese Colonial Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lived empires in world history. It existed for six centuries, from the capture of Ceuta in 1415, to the handover of Portuguese Macau to China in 1999; the empire began in the 15th century, from the early 16th century it stretched across the globe, with bases in North and South America and various regions of Asia and Oceania. The Portuguese Empire has been described as the first global empire in history, a description given to the Spanish Empire; the Portuguese Empire originated at the beginning of the Age of Discovery, the power and influence of the Kingdom of Portugal would expand across the globe. In the wake of the Reconquista, Portuguese sailors began exploring the coast of Africa and the Atlantic archipelagos in 1418–19, using recent developments in navigation and maritime technology such as the caravel, with the aim of finding a sea route to the source of the lucrative spice-trade.
In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, in 1498 Vasco da Gama reached India. In 1500, either by an accidental landfall or by the crown's secret design, Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil on the South American coast. Over the following decades, Portuguese sailors continued to explore the coasts and islands of East Asia, establishing forts and factories as they went. By 1571 a string of naval outposts connected Lisbon to Nagasaki along the coasts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia; this commercial network and the colonial trade had a substantial positive impact on Portuguese economic growth, when it accounted for about a fifth of Portugal's per-capita income. When King Philip II of Spain inherited the Portuguese crown in 1580 there began a 60-year union between Spain and Portugal known to subsequent historiography as the Iberian Union; the realms continued to have separate administrations. As the King of Spain was King of Portugal, Portuguese colonies became the subject of attacks by three rival European powers hostile to Spain: the Dutch Republic and France.
With its smaller population, Portugal found itself unable to defend its overstretched network of trading posts, the empire began a long and gradual decline. Brazil became the most valuable colony of the second era of empire, until, as part of the wave of independence movements that swept the Americas during the early 19th century, it broke away in 1822; the third era of empire covers the final stage of Portuguese colonialism after the independence of Brazil in the 1820s. By the colonial possessions had been reduced to forts and plantations along the African coastline, Portuguese Timor, enclaves in India and China; the 1890 British Ultimatum led to the contraction of Portuguese ambitions in Africa. Under António Salazar, the Second Portuguese Republic made some ill-fated attempts to cling on to its last remaining colonies. Under the ideology of Pluricontinentalism, the regime renamed its colonies "overseas provinces" while retaining the system of forced labour, from which only a small indigenous élite was exempt.
In 1961 India annexed Goa and Dahomey annexed Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá. The Portuguese Colonial War in Africa lasted from 1961 until the final overthrow of the Estado Novo regime in 1974; the so-called Carnation Revolution of April 1974 in Lisbon led to the hasty decolonization of Portuguese Africa and to the 1975 annexation of Portuguese Timor by Indonesia. Decolonization prompted the exodus of nearly all the Portuguese colonial settlers and of many mixed-race people from the colonies. Portugal returned Macau to China in 1999; the only overseas possessions to remain under Portuguese rule, the Azores and Madeira, both had overwhelmingly Portuguese populations, Lisbon subsequently changed their constitutional status from "overseas provinces" to "autonomous regions". The origin of the Kingdom of Portugal lay in the reconquista, the gradual reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors. After establishing itself as a separate kingdom in 1139, Portugal completed its reconquest of Moorish territory by reaching Algarve in 1249, but its independence continued to be threatened by neighbouring Castile until the signing of the Treaty of Ayllón in 1411.
Free from threats to its existence and unchallenged by the wars fought by other European states, Portuguese attention turned overseas and towards a military expedition to the Muslim lands of North Africa. There were several probable motives for their first attack, on the Marinid Sultanate, it offered the opportunity to continue the Christian crusade against Islam. In 1415 an attack was made on Ceuta, a strategically located North African Muslim enclave along the Mediterranean Sea, one of the terminal ports of the trans-Saharan gold and slave trades; the conquest was a military success, marked one of the first steps in Portuguese expansion beyond the Iberian Peninsula, but it proved costly to defend against the Muslim forces that soon besieged it. The Portuguese were unable to use it as a base for further expansion into the hinterland, the trans-Saharan caravans shifted their routes to bypass Ceuta and/or used alternative Muslim ports. Although Ceuta proved to be a disappointment for the Portuguese
Ujamaa
Ujamaa was the concept that formed the basis of Julius Nyerere's social and economic development policies in Tanzania after it gained independence from Britain in 1961. In 1967, President Nyerere published his development blueprint, titled the Arusha Declaration, in which Nyerere pointed out the need for an African model of development and that formed the basis of African socialism; the Swahili word ujamaa means'extended family','brotherhood' or'socialism'. He is declared servant of God in the Roman catholic Church for his resilient commitment to encourage the art of neighborliness among Tanzanians; the spirit of'others' or'community' bringing units of families together, fostering cohesion and service. Nyerere used Ujamaa as the basis for a national development project, he translated the Ujamaa concept into a political-economic management model through several means: The creation of a one-party system under the leadership of the Tanganyika African National Union, alleging the need to solidify the cohesion of the newly independent Tanzania.
The institutionalization of social and political equality through the creation of a central democracy. The villagization of production, which collectivized all forms of local productive capacity; the fostering of Tanzanian self-reliance through two dimensions: the transformation of economic and cultural attitudes. Economically, everyone would work for him/herself. For Nyerere, this included Tanzanians learning to do things for themselves and learning to be satisfied with what they could achieve as an independent state; the implementation of free and compulsory education for all Tanzanians in order to sensitize them to the principles of Ujamaa. The creation of a Tanzanian rather than tribal identity through means such as the use of SwahiliJulius Nyerere's leadership of Tanzania commanded international attention and attracted worldwide respect for his consistent emphasis upon ethical principles as the basis of practical policies. Tanzania under Nyerere made great strides in vital areas of social development: infant mortality was reduced from 138 per 1000 live births in 1965 to 110 in 1985.
However, Ujamaa decreased production, casting serious doubt on the project's ability to offer economic growth. Nyerere used the Preventive Detention Act, to crush opposition. In 1967, nationalizations transformed the government into the largest employer in the country. Purchasing power declined, according to World Bank researchers, high taxes and bureaucracy created an environment where businessmen resorted to evasion and corruption. In 1973, a policy of forced villagisation was pursued under Operation Vijiji in order to promote collective farming. A number of factors contributed to the downfall of the development model based on the Ujamaa concept. Among those factors were the oil crisis of the 1970s, the collapse of export commodity prices, a lack of foreign direct investment, two successive droughts, the onset of the war with Uganda in 1978, which bled the young Tanzanian nation of valuable resources. By 1985 it was clear; the hip-hop scene in Tanzania was influenced by the key ideas and themes of Ujamaa.
At the turn of the century, the principles of Ujamaa were resurrected through "an unlikely source: rappers and hip hop artists in the streets of Tanzania." In response to years of corrupt government leaders and political figures after Nyerere, themes of unity and family and equality were the messages sent out in a majority of the music being produced. This was in response in some sense a form of resistance; the principles of cooperative economics —"local people cooperating with each other to provide for the essentials of living"— can be seen in the lyrics of many Tanzanian hip-hop artists. They promote self-business and self-made identities in an effort to raise the spirits of the youth and promote change in society. Ujamaa, understood as "Cooperative Economics", is the fourth of seven principles of the African-American celebration of Kwanzaa: "To build and maintain our own stores and other businesses and to profit from them together." Ujamaa is an African-American themed undergraduate dorm at Cornell University and Stanford University.
Distributism Harambee Ubuntu African socialism Uhuru Movement A collection of essays on Ujamaa villages, by Kayombo, E. O. University of Dar es Salaam. 1971. Paul Collier: Labour and Poverty in Rural Tanzania. Ujamaa and Rural Development in the United Republic of Tanzania. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, ISBN 0198285310 Nyerere, Julius K. Ujamaa. English Ujamaa--essays on socialism. Dar es Salaam, Oxford University Press, 1968. Building Ujamaa villages in Tanzania. Edited by J. H. Proctor. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Pub. House, 1971. Huizer, Gerrit; the Ujamaa village programme in Tanzania: new fo
Scramble for Africa
The Scramble for Africa was the occupation and colonisation of African territory by Western European powers during the period of the New Imperialism, between 1881 and 1914. In 1870, only 10 percent of Africa was under formal European control. With the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in 1936, only Liberia remained independent. There were multiple motivations for European colonizers, including the quest for national prestige, tensions between pairs of European powers, religious missionary zeal and internal African native politics; the Berlin Conference of 1884, which regulated European colonisation and trade in Africa, is referred to as the ultimate point of the Scramble for Africa. Consequent to the political and economic rivalries among the European empires in the last quarter of the 19th century, the partitioning, or splitting up of Africa was how the Europeans avoided warring amongst themselves over Africa; the years of the 19th century saw the transition from "informal imperialism" by military influence and economic dominance, to direct rule, bringing about colonial imperialism.
By 1840, European powers had established small trading posts along the coast, but they moved inland. In the middle decades of the 19th century, European explorers had mapped areas of East Africa and Central Africa; as late as the 1870s, Western European states controlled only ten percent of the African continent, with all their territories located near the coast. The most important holdings were Mozambique, held by Portugal. By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent of European control. Technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas. Industrialisation brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication in the forms of steamships and telegraphs. Medical advances played an important role medicines for tropical diseases; the development of quinine, an effective treatment for malaria, made vast expanses of the tropics more accessible for Europeans. Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the world untouched by "informal imperialism", was attractive to Europe's ruling elites for economic and social reasons.
During a time when Britain's balance of trade showed a growing deficit, with shrinking and protectionist continental markets due to the Long Depression, Africa offered Britain, Germany and other countries an open market that would garner them a trade surplus: a market that bought more from the colonial power than it sold overall. Surplus capital was more profitably invested overseas, where cheap materials, limited competition, abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible. Another inducement for imperialism arose from the demand for raw materials copper, rubber, palm oil, diamonds and tin, to which European consumers had grown accustomed and upon which European industry had grown dependent. Additionally, Britain wanted the southern and eastern coasts of Africa for stopover ports on the route to Asia and its empire in India. However, in Africa – excluding the area which became the Union of South Africa in 1910 – the amount of capital investment by Europeans was small, compared to other continents.
The companies involved in tropical African commerce were small, apart from Cecil Rhodes's De Beers Mining Company. Rhodes had carved out Rhodesia for himself; these events might detract from the pro-imperialist arguments of colonial lobbyists such as the Alldeutscher Verband, Francesco Crispi and Jules Ferry, who argued that sheltered overseas markets in Africa would solve the problems of low prices and overproduction caused by shrinking continental markets. John A. Hobson argued in Imperialism that this shrinking of continental markets was a key factor of the global "New Imperialism" period. William Easterly, disagrees with the link made between capitalism and imperialism, arguing that colonialism is used to promote state-led development rather than "corporate" development, he has stated that "imperialism is not so linked to capitalism and the free markets... there has been a closer link between colonialism/imperialism and state-led approaches to development." The rivalry between Britain, France and the other Western European powers accounts for a large part of the colonization.
While tropical Africa was not a large zone of investment, other overseas regions were. The vast interior between Egypt and the gold and diamond-rich southern Africa had strategic value in securing the flow of overseas trade. Britain was under political pressure to secure lucrative markets against encroaching rivals in China and its eastern colonies, most notably India, Malaya and New Zealand. Thus, it was crucial to secure the key waterway between West -- the Suez Canal. However, a theory that Britain sought to annex East Africa during the 1880 onwards, out of geostrategic concerns connected to Egypt, has been challenged by historians such as John Darwin and Jonas F. Gjersø; the scramble for African territory reflected concern for the acquisition of military and naval bases, for strategic purposes and the exercise of power. The growing navies, new ships driven by steam power, required coaling stations and ports for maintenance. Defense bases were needed for the protection of sea routes and communication lines of expensive and vital internatio
Port
A port is a maritime commercial facility which may comprise one or more wharves where ships may dock to load and discharge passengers and cargo. Although situated on a sea coast or estuary, some ports, such as Hamburg and Duluth, are many miles inland, with access from the sea via river or canal. Today, by far the greatest growth in port development is in Asia, the continent with some of the world's largest and busiest ports, such as Singapore and the Chinese ports of Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan. Whenever ancient civilisations engaged in maritime trade, they tended to develop sea ports. One of the world's oldest known artificial harbors is at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea. Along with the finding of harbor structures, ancient anchors have been found. Other ancient ports include Guangzhou during Qin Dynasty China and Canopus, the principal Egyptian port for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. In ancient Greece, Athens' port of Piraeus was the base for the Athenian fleet which played a crucial role in the Battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BCE.
In ancient India from 3700 BCE, Lothal was a prominent city of the Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt. Ostia Antica was the port of ancient Rome with Portus established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port of Ostia. In Japan, during the Edo period, the island of Dejima was the only port open for trade with Europe and received only a single Dutch ship per year, whereas Osaka was the largest domestic port and the main trade hub for rice. Nowadays, many of these ancient sites no longer function as modern ports. In more recent times, ports sometimes fall out of use. Rye, East Sussex, was an important English port in the Middle Ages, but the coastline changed and it is now 2 miles from the sea, while the ports of Ravenspurn and Dunwich have been lost to coastal erosion. Whereas early ports tended to be just simple harbours, modern ports tend to be multimodal distribution hubs, with transport links using sea, canal, road and air routes.
Successful ports are located to optimize access to an active hinterland, such as the London Gateway. Ideally, a port will grant easy navigation to ships, will give shelter from wind and waves. Ports are on estuaries, where the water may be shallow and may need regular dredging. Deep water ports such as Milford Haven are less common, but can handle larger ships with a greater draft, such as super tankers, Post-Panamax vessels and large container ships. Other businesses such as regional distribution centres and freight-forwarders and other processing facilities find it advantageous to be located within a port or nearby. Modern ports will have specialised cargo-handling equipment, such as gantry cranes, reach stackers and forklift trucks. Ports have specialised functions: some tend to cater for passenger ferries and cruise ships; some third world countries and small islands such as Ascension and St Helena still have limited port facilities, so that ships must anchor off while their cargo and passengers are taken ashore by barge or launch.
In modern times, ports decline, depending on current economic trends. In the UK, both the ports of Liverpool and Southampton were once significant in the transatlantic passenger liner business. Once airliner traffic decimated that trade, both ports diversified to container cargo and cruise ships. Up until the 1950s the Port of London was a major international port on the River Thames, but changes in shipping and the use of containers and larger ships, have led to its decline. Thamesport, a small semi-automated container port thrived for some years, but has been hit hard by competition from the emergent London Gateway port and logistics hub. In mainland Europe, it is normal for ports to be publicly owned, so that, for instance, the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are owned by the state and by the cities themselves. By contrast, in the UK all ports are in private hands, such as Peel Ports who own the Port of Liverpool, John Lennon Airport and the Manchester Ship Canal. Though modern ships tend to have bow-thrusters and stern-thrusters, many port authorities still require vessels to use pilots and tugboats for manoeuvering large ships in tight quarters.
For instance, ships approaching the Belgian port of Antwerp, an inland port on the River Scheldt, are obliged to use Dutch pilots when navigating on that part of the estuary that belongs to the Netherlands. Ports with international traffic have customs facilities; the terms "port" and "seaport" are used for different types of port facilities that handle ocean-going vessels, river port is used for river traffic, such as barges and other shallow-draft vessels. A dry port is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail to a seaport and operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to inland destinations. A fishing port is a harbor for landing and distributing fish, it may be a recreational facility, but it is commercial. A fishing port is the only port that depends on an ocean product, depletion of fish may cause a fishing port to be uneconomical. An inland port is a port on a navigable lake, river, or canal with access to a sea or ocean, which therefore allows a ship to sail from the ocean inland to the port to load or unload its cargo.
An example of this is the St. Lawrence Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like Toronto, Duluth-Superior, C
Eckernförde, Germany (since 1963)
Kemi, Finland (since 2007)
Tifariti, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
Toledo, US (since August 28, 2001)
Weihai, China
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