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The Inheritance of the Americas “As Columbus and his successors became familiar with the agriculture of America, they found that the only crops common to both the Old and New Worlds were cotton, coconuts and some gourds. The crops hitherto unknown outside America included maize, cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes (which may or may not have…

Portugal’s and/or Portuguese origins Basically, one can identify two main schools of thought about this, namely one betting on historic chance, defended by Oliveira Martins and Alexandre Herculano, and another insisting on structural factors of the geographic, linguistic, cultural and ethnic kind, supported by writers such as Leite de Vasconcelos, Mendes Correia, António Sardinha, and…

Preface Preliminary thoughts “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Samuel Johnson, April 7, 1775 “…[T]he Portuguese expansion of the 15th century constitutes an entirely new event in the History of the world.” Orlando Ribeiro, “Originality of the Portuguese Expansion”[i] [i] Synopsis of “Originalidade da Expansão Portuguesa”, Edições João Sá da Costa, Lisboa, 1994,…

Peter Francisco Peter Francisco (Pedro Francisco Machado), (Porto Judeu, Terceira Island, July 9, 1760 - Richmond, March 15, 1831, is another personality worth mentioning in this context. He is by some considered one of the Founding Fathers. He fought on following battles of the independence war, where he suffered six wounds: Brandywine Creek, 1777,…

Spot the difference? Arabic Alaúde Portuguese Guitar

The Vikings on Portuguese shores As mostly everywhere else where they delved, perhaps with the exception of Iceland where they settled from around the middle of the second half of the 9th century[1], the Vikings have come to the West of the Iberian peninsula in the 9th to the 11th century – around the so-called…

Why shouldn’t anyone be paying a cent to attract foreign direct investment to Portugal? To anywhere else for that matter too? Even if Portugal has a long tradition of subsidising foreign investors to the detriment of domestic ones, as it was reported by J. Lúcio de Azevedo[i] (1988 p. 93), we defend a neutral position…

The Inheritance/legacy of the Moors/Arabs/Muslims The Muslims/Moors were on the Iberian Peninsula from 710 (Ossónoba/Algarve was taken by Mûsa Ibn Nusayr in 713) to 1492 (coincidentally the year of the first Columbus expedition), when Granada, the last bastion of El Andalus, was conquered by the Castilian Catholic kings.  Their control of the Gharb-Al Andaluz in…

Thomas Jefferson, the Abbot Correa da Serra and Portuguese Wines On the grounds of Monticello While visiting Monticello a couple of years ago, above shown grave stone on Mulberry Row caught my attention for obvious reasons: there was a Portuguese name on it, Machado, even more striking as it is my own family name. The mentioned…

Ethiopia. The Land of Prester John A somewhat similar case to the one of Japan happened in Ethiopia, where the first Portuguese, Pêro da Covilhã, arrived 1492, 1493 or early 1494.[1] He and a fellow traveller had been sent by King John II overland to find out more about The Indies and the Land of…

"Le Portugieser" “We really don’t know how long an IWC lasts. We’ve only been around for 139 years. Portuguese Chrono-Automatic. Ref.3714: An IWC is made to be passed on. Le Portugieser, the robust case is water-resistant to a depth of 30 metres. And as each of our Portuguese watches will no doubt see us out,…