Portuguese Liberal Imperialism: A Study in its Rise, Character, and Practice (1820-1910)

This thesis argues that the economic dependency of the Second Portuguese empire on its colonies through the 18th century was a fundamental factor in the construction of a unique Portuguese variety of liberal imperialism which consolidated illiberal colonial expansion and domestic liberal practices as coexisting national ideas. Portuguese liberals following the Civil War failed to extend their vision of extending equal political and judicial representation to their colonial subjects, choosing instead to impose vehemently illiberal practices that served to maintain a decadent colonial empire through force and might as opposed to equality. The thesis traces the dual necessity of Portuguese statesmen to simultaneously reform an illiberal ultramarine empire and to sustain a weak, underdeveloped Portuguese economy dependent on colonial exploitation. This thesis ultimately seeks to deliver an argument that forces scholars of liberalism and empire to reconsider their focus on the British, Dutch, and French, and compel them to widen their case study window to include Portugal and its unique liberal imperial processes.