Portugal's Empire: Salazar and the 'Overseas Provinces'

While Britain and France were leaving Africa, Portugal held on. António de Oliveira Salazar, who ruled Portugal from 1932 under the authoritarian Estado Novo (New State), saw the empire as essential to Portugal's identity and economy. In 1951 Portugal renamed its colonies 'overseas provinces', arguing they were part of a single nation and therefore not subject to UN decolonization. Officials promoted the idea of 'lusotropicalism', the claim that Portuguese colonialism was uniquely free of racism and blended cultures.

In practice, very few Africans qualified as 'assimilados' with full rights, and forced labor persisted until the early 1960s. As a founding member of NATO, Portugal received Western arms that it used in its colonies. In December 1961 India seized Goa, Portugal's enclave on the Indian coast, after Portugal refused to negotiate. From 1961 Portugal faced wars in Angola, then Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, which it fought for thirteen years.