Por uma doutrina colonial nacionalista: o “império português em Henrique Galvão” (1927-1932)

Abstract

Henrique Galvão was a famous character of the colonial history of Portugal during the twentieth century. With military training in the Army has been involved since his youth in political movements like the 28 de Maio and the institutionalization of the Estado Novo (New State). Since 1927 Henrique Galvão engages in the Portuguese colonial issue, starting as district governor in Angola and then writing his impressions and defending his point of view about the reality and future of the colonial empire. Being a critic of the Portuguese colonial political situation in the twenties, he would be one intellectual of relentless activity intending to elaborate a unique colonial doctrine, centralist and nationalist. In this way he will find support in the early thirties in other intellectuals and politicians who defended the same values and that will result in the formulation of the Acto Colonial (Colonial Act), official document that would legally diagrammatize the colonial status, one of the Estado Novo's ideological foundations - in which Henrique Galvão would inicially integrate as one of the bondsmen. The main objective of this research is to find the internal coherence in Galvão's major works between 1927 and 1932 noting that the worldview expressed by the author regarding the empire corresponds to the worldview of the nationalist group that founded the Estado Novo.