Portuguese Guinea ( port. Guiné Portuguesa ) - Portuguese colony in Africa, which existed in the late XIX - early XX centuries.
| colony of Portugal | |||||
| Portuguese Guinea | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guiné Portuguesa | |||||
| |||||
 | |||||
 →1474 - 1974 | |||||
| Capital | Bissau | ||||
| Languages) | Portuguese | ||||
| Currency unit | Escudo of Portuguese Guinea | ||||
| Form of government | |||||
For a long time, the Portuguese presence on the West African coast was limited to the fortified settlements of Casheu (founded in 1588) and Bissau (founded in 1687), which were the centers of the slave trade; their management was carried out in the framework of the colony of Cape Verde. In 1879, Portuguese possessions on the mainland were set aside as a separate colony of Portuguese Guinea.
At first, the Portuguese controlled only the coast. At the beginning of the 20th century, with the support of coastal professors of Islam, the Portuguese launched a campaign against pagan tribes living inland. The struggle for control over the hinterland and remote archipelagos was a long one: the Bijagos Islands came under the full control of the Portuguese government only in 1936.
In 1951, when the Portuguese government rebuilt the entire colonial system, the colonies (including Portuguese Guinea) were renamed “overseas provinces” ( port of Províncias Ultramarinas ).
In 1956, Amilkar Cabral , Rafael Barbosa and their supporters, having founded PAIGK , began the struggle for the country's independence. In 1961, PAIGC shifted from the political forms of the struggle for independence to the armed. By 1973, PAIGC controlled most of the country's inland territories, while the coast remained under Portuguese control. On September 24, 1973, in the village of Madina do Boeh in the southeast of the country, PAIGC announced the creation of an independent Republic of Guinea-Bissau . After the revolution in Portugal, the new metropolitan government recognized Guinea-Bissau's independence on September 10, 1974.