Assimilados

Assimilado is the term given to African subjects of the colonizing Portuguese Empire from the 1910s to the 1960s, who had reached a level of "civilization", according to Portuguese legal standards, that theoretically qualified them for full rights as Portuguese citizens. Portuguese colonizers claimed as the goal for their assimilation practices, the "close union of races of different degrees of civilization that help and support each other loyally"; however, this notion of a "close union" differed from its practical application in the cultural and social spheres of the colonies of Portuguese Angola, Portuguese Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea.

Portugal, along with France, was one of the only countries colonizing in Africa which introduced the idea of assimilation of the colonized people into the population of the motherland. Although Portugal was one of the first European presences in Africa, Portuguese influence remained coastal and trade-oriented until the late 1800s, early 1900s; “control of the hinterland was non-existent, even in the 19th century," but with increased competition between European powers, the Portuguese "became more aggressively engaged,” and adopted ideals of assimilation.

Portuguese colonial laws had general and specific contexts for each of the colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea; “some of the legislation and policies the Portuguese implemented reflected their empire-wide preoccupations, [while] others reflected their concerns specifically with the colony.” The role of the Department of Native Affairs, which was formed in 1914, had empire-wide effects; its purpose was “to classify the African population into “civilized” or assimilated (assimilado), and “non-civilized” or nonassimilated (não-assimilado) to facilitate recruiting and to designate who were collaborators,” which effectively initiated the legal distinction of assimilados throughout the colonial empire. Two laws, the Estuato Politico, Civil, e Criminal dos indigenas das colónias does Angola, Guiné e Moçambique (Political, Criminal, and Civil Statute of the Natives of Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique) of 1926, which was revised as the Acto Colonial (Colonial Act) of 1930, and the Lei Orgânica do Ultramar (Organic Law of the Colonies) in 1954, explained the “subordinate but vital role the colonies and colonial peoples were to play in the new Portuguese Empire, and the duty of the government towards the “native” populations”. The Portuguese colonial empire hoped that the assimilados would set an example for the rest of the Black Africans of the colonies to shift towards civilization; the Portuguese thus afforded some of the assimilados governmental roles, “as long as they were kept outside of ‘anarchic democratic structures’.”

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