Competing with giants: the alliance between science and diplomacy for the defense of Portuguese colonial claims in the Congo

Description

The purpose of this communication is to discuss the strategies that allowed Portugal to retain extensive colonial territories in Southwestern Africa, despite intense competition from European powers. The historiography concerned with the links between scientific expertise and international affairs has traditionally focused on events since World War II, but these links are not restricted to the twentieth century and can be followed in the preceding one. In the late nineteenth century, economic and political interests coalesced to make the colonization of Africa an appealing undertaking, with technoscientific advances being crucial in this context. Portugal, a small European kingdom of limited financial resources, had enormous colonial ambitions in the lower Congo that were defended in terms of its historical priority in the region, but these claims were under severe attack and risked to be entirely overthrown in light of the capacity of other colonial nations to effectively occupy disputed territories. Thanks to the coordination among various agents that accumulated scientific and diplomatic expertise, Portugal was able to ultimately see its claims recognized in the Southern margin of the last segment of the Congo River and even in a small region in the Northern margin (Cabinda), which ultimately formed an exclave that is still part of the modern-day nation of Angola.

Period	30 Jul 2021
Event title	26th International Congress of History of Science and Technology: Giants and Dwarfs in Science, Technology and Medicine
Event type	Conference
Conference number	26th
Location	Prague, Czech RepublicShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International