How did Portugal manage to get anything out of the scramble for Africa? They were well past their heyday by the time colonisation of Africa began in earnest.
>>18055133Portugal only controlled the coastal strips of those colonies during most of the age of discovery and colonial era.They only made a mad dash for the interiors during the late 19th century to stop other European colonists from seizing the land.Before the invention of the machine gun and magazine bolt action rifles, Portugal tried but failed to subdue the interior swathes of those colonies with flintlock muskets.It was after the maxim gun and bolt action rifles and modern medicines for malaria that Portugal finally went into the interiors of the colonies to take control.
>>18055133Because they were very much keen on reclaiming their past glory. Remember, they didn't have the foresight we have, they had no idea birth rates would drop like a rock and colonialism would become unpopular 50 years after they established their colonies.To them, the goal was the pink map, a continuous colony from angola to mozambique that would serve as "New Brazil", a place where portuguese culture and settlement would take place in and whose economic potential would make portugal a respectable power once again.The real tragedy happens when their eternal english ally completely and deliberately fucks them over by forcing them out of rhodesia for muh cape to cairo railroad that they didn't end up building anyway. This manhandling kinda broke portugal's mind and is one of the reasons for the 1910 revolution.
>>18055133Because unlike almost everyone else they actually had a good claim to those lands, being settled for almost 400 years by the time the scramble happened. It was why they fought for them the hardest considering Angola and Mozambique were probably the whitest places in Subsaharan African outside the Cape.Not to say others didn't try to carve it up, the Germans tried but failed during WWI and the Brits prevented a coast to coast colony, although, interestingly enough, Portugal was one of the biggest contributors to Rhodesia, a country they could've easily fucked over
>>18055133Because the already owned those portions of Africa before the scramble started.Generally whatever lands Europeans already owned, got expanded somewhat in the Berlin conference.
>>18055276>colonialism would become unpopular 50 years after they established their colonies.Their colonies were centuries old by that point.
>>18055301>Angola and Mozambique were probably the whitest places in Subsaharan AfricanIt was still vastly black lol. Very few people settled in Angola and Mozambique until very very late in the colonial period.
Britain, France, and Germany were sometimes willing to let Portugal keep scraps, rather than fight each other over them
>>18055133Didn't Portugal have relations with the Kingdom of Kongo for nearly 500 years by that point? Seems like they had enough of a reason to get Angola. Dunno about Mozambique thouhh.
