Counting Portuguese colonial populations, 1776–1875: a research note

Abstract

In 1776 the Portuguese Crown decreed that statistical population tables were to be compiled in all its overseas possessions. Using a defined model, each governor was to send annually a population count for the area under his jurisdiction. In the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU) in Lisbon there are over a thousand statistical population tables from Brazil to Macau. This documentary corpus opens up important horizons for demographic, social and colonial history, though it has been relatively ignored by historians and demographers. These sources enable us to study the demography and the administrative processes adopted in census-taking during the construction of the Portuguese Empire between 1776 and 1875. The following research note emphasizes the distinctive aspects of the sources, the data and its potential, and the research agenda.

Keywords:

• Portuguese Empire
• colonial demography
• census-taking
• slavery

Notes

1. See http://colonialpopulations.fcsh.unl.pt/mainEnglish.html (the website is hosted at NOVA University of Lisbon).

2. In the elaboration of ‘mapas’ (which translates literally from Portuguese as ‘population tables’), a pre-defined structure was used. The information provided therein was very similar to that of the ‘mapas estadísticos de la población’ produced in the various Spanish colonies in America (Sanchez-Albornoz, 1975). Compared with other European demographic datasets of this chronology, the ‘population tables’ of the Portuguese Empire bore a similarity to the Swedish model, where parish records started to be compiled in 1749 using models established by the central government (the Tabellverket). It is interesting to note the parallels both in the data formulaires and in the procedure used to gather information, centralized by an ecclesiastical network (Sköld, 2004).

3. Although the Azores and Madeira are overseas territories they were considered as a part of the Portuguese kingdom during this period. Therefore their totals are not included in Tables 1 and 2.

4. The royal order of 6 December 1797, which we assume also applied to at least the territories of Brazil, the Azores, Madeira and Benguela, decreed that inhabitants should be classified by ‘brancos’ (whites), ‘pretos’ (blacks), and ‘mulattoes’ (mulattoes). Both blacks and mulattoes were to be sub-classified according to their status as ‘livres’ (freemen) or ‘cativos’ (slaves). In 1797 there were also several changes in the statistical tables from Angola and Goa. In the first case, populations begin to be classified as ‘white Christians’, ‘native Christians’ (= converted native population), ‘pardos’ (mixed race), ‘blacks’ and ‘gentiles and Moors’. It is likely that specific orders were issued by the Crown to those governors, but these have not yet been located. The research team will be carrying out a thorough examination of the manuscripts produced by the Conselho Ultramarino (Overseas Bureau) over the next two years.

5. In Portuguese India (Goa, Daman and Diu), the authorities described Hindus as gentiles, while the Muslim population was designated as ‘moura’ (Moorish). In Portugal the term ‘Moor’ – used since the Christian Reconquest – referred to the followers of Islam. In Goa, in 1753, the Muslim population did not exceed 0.2% (Mártires Lopes, 2006), whereas in 1900, according to the official census, it was 0.9%.

6. Includes the Azores and Madeira archipelagos. These results were obtained by the research team from the primary sources (http://colonialpopulations.fcsh.unl.pt/Databases/SearchEnglish.php), and were presented in the two workshops of the project (http://colonialpopulations.fcsh.unl.pt/Atividades/AtividadesEnglish.html). These papers will be available online in June of 2016.

7. Only a close look at the parish records available for Goa, Daman and Diu will help confirm this official data.

8. See https://www.clio-infra.eu. A recent text (van Zanden et al., 2014) was published under the framework of this research project.

9. See Slave Voyages database (www.slavevoyages.org), directed by David Eltis (University of Emory).