Colonialismo e (in) salubridade: a questão da aclimatação nas colônias africanas portuguesas

Abstract

This academic work analyzes the role of the sciences as producers of speeches that legitimized and encouraged the portuguese colonialism in the african continent half of the XIX century. In this context, it’s relevant knowing how concepts of acclimatization and unhealthiness bound themselves whit the asymetrical construction between the human races that organized the whole process. Therefore are analyzed works of two portugueses scientists and researchers that published in the end of the decade of 1870: Manuel Ferreira Ribeiro e Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins. Using similar concepts, as colonization, acclimatization, (un)healthiness, theses authors propused very different projects for the domination of the african continent territory. While the first believed in the possibility of promoting a massive occupation by portugueses in the colonies, overcoming the difficulties of the environment believed to be inhospitable, truly “white man grave”; the last propose na exploration model that seeks to narrow the portugueses presence in territories considered deadly. Although divergent, these speeches supports portuguese colonialism in african lands, by determining the way of the colonial occupation and exploration that succeeded in the next decades.