1879-1918 History of West Africa 1939-1974





Portuguese Guinea 1919-1939



Compared to most other colonial powers, Portugal was economically backward. Since the mid 1920es, Portugal was a rightist dictatorship, the strongman of which was SALAZAR. The Portuguese government saw the colonies primarily as an economic frontier, to be developed in the interest of the Portuguese.
Due to it's climate - hot and humid - Portuguese Guinea received less attention than Angola, where wite settlers established plantations and developed mining. Portuguese Guinea was a colony of minor importance, thus a backward colony, of a backward colonial power.
In 1933, Portuguese Guinea had a population of 300,403, of whom 1,226 were listed as white. Bolama had 4,000 inhabitants; Bissau was not listed. In 1938, 350 trucks and 135 cars were registered. Portuguese Guinea had 4 km of telephone lines and 23 registered telephones.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		Guinea Bissau, History of, from Infoplease
DOCUMENTS
REFERENCE Hübner's Weltstatistik, 73rd edition, edited by Ernst Rösner, Wien 1939; in German [G]
Article : Portuguese Guinea, in : Statesman's Yearbook 1919 p.1164, 1924 p.1221, 1925 p.1229, 1926 p.1191, 1928 p.1225, 1929 p.1202, 1932 p.1221, 1937 p.1253 [G]
Article : Portuguese Guinea, in : Americana Annual 1927 p.702, 1928 p.644, 1930 pp.632-633, 1931 p.622, 1932 p.590, 1933 p.626, 1934 p.477, 1935 pp.577-578, 1936 p.595, 1937 p.583, 1938 p.571, 1939 p.632 [G]
Article : Portuguese Guinea, in : New International Year Book 1919 p.541, 1920 p.554, 1921 p.583, 1923 p.617, 1925 p.573, 1928 p.617, 1930 p.642, 1932 p.683, 1933 p.680, 1934 p.586, 1935 p.601, 1938 p.616, 1939 p.635 [G]
Article : Portuguese Guinea, in : Funk & Wagnall's New Standard Encyclopedia Year Book 1933 p.435, 1935 p.444, 1936 p.415, 1937 p.418, 1938 p.422 [G]



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on August 23rd 2007

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