Why is October 5th a holiday?

October 5th in Portugal is known as Implantação da República. It celebrates the proclamation of the Portuguese First Republic in 1910.

The 5th is a national holiday in Portugal, for most people it’s the day that in 1910 King Manuel II was deposed and the Portuguese republic was proclaimed but for others there is a different significance.

For Portuguese Monarchists, October 5th is a holiday because it is the day that in 1143, Portugal was officially recognised as an independent country with the treaty of Zamora.

On that day at the Cathedral of Zamora, King Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile signed a treaty with King Afonso I of Portugal stating that Portugal was an independent country and that both kings would respect and be peaceful towards each other.

On this day in 2011, Portuguese monarchists led by Dom Duarte, Duke of Bragança, went to Coimbra to celebrate this important day, the founding of Portuguese Nationality.

First the Duke and Duchess went to the Monastery of Santa Cruz where they visited the tombs of King Afonso I and King Sancho I. A wreath was laid and homage paid to these two kings. Then, there was a mass held in the same monastery in remembrance of “the founding kings.”

Dom Duarte also gave a speech in which he said it makes no sense to celebrate this day as a day when Portuguese were fighting against Portuguese, the military bombed the capital, and a military coup stole the democratic regime. Dom Duarte also said, “without the 5th of October in 1143, there would have never been a 5th of October, 1910."

In 1910, during a State Visit from the President of Brazil, King Manuel II was officially deposed. There had been many days of political unrest in the country, but the King did not want to cancel the visit.

The subjugation of the country to British colonial interests, the royal family's expenses, the power of the Church, the political and social instability, the system of alternating power of the two political parties (Progressive and Regenerador), João Franco's dictatorship, an apparent inability to adapt to modern times - all contributed to an unrelenting erosion of the Portuguese monarchy.

On the night of the grand banquet, many of the guests did not even come to the Royal Palace as most politicians had already fled into exile. Later that night, the Royal Palace was bombed and King Manuel first went to the Royal Palace in Mafra, on the outskirts of Lisbon, where he met his mother, Queen Amelia and his grandmother, Queen Maria Pia.

From there they fled into exile. Manuel and his mother went to England, later his mother would go to Versailles, France, and his grandmother went to Stupinigi, Italy. Manuel later died in exile without ever having stepped back onto Portuguese soil.

And that is both sides of October 5th, the day that started the monarchy, and the day that ended it.

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Peter Booker, Algarve History Association

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Question from Mr Phil Austin, "My knowledge of the early 20th Century British-Poruguese relationship history is sadly lacking so please explain, or reveal your sources, of the statement; "The subjugation of the Country to British Colonial interests," How was GB involved with the deposing of the monarchy?

Answered by the author, Mr Peter Booker:

The fall of the monarchy in 1910 was directly connected to the events of 1890, in turn connected to the Scramble for Africa. After the 1884 Berlin Conference, European states began to claim parts of the African continent by right of effective occupation. At this time, zealots among the Geographic Society in Portugal began to claim the whole of a band of southern Africa, in effect to join their claimed territory between Angola and Mozambique. There were many Portuguese geographic expeditions across the territories, and the Portuguese government agreed with both France and Germany that her territorial claims in this area were acceptable.

But Portugal failed to take account of the interests of Great Britain, at that time the global power, with a world position in comparison similar to that of the United States today. In particular the Portuguese government failed to take account of the interests of the British South Africa Company. The chief officer in this company was Cecil Rhodes, after whom the two Rhodesias were named. It was the territory which became Southern Rhodesia which was claimed by both Rhodes and by Portugal. Rhodes persuaded the British government that its interests were threatened by Portugal, and that the territory in question was effectively occupied by missionary settlements which were established following the activities of Dr Livingstone. It is commonly thought that Britain also had in mind a railway from the Cape to Cairo, travelling over British occupied territory only. Clearly, such a line could not be built if some of this potential track-bed was occupied by a different European power, in this case Portugal.

After that came the Ultimatum of 6 January, 1890, by which the British government peremptorily ordered Portugal to evacuate that territory. The Portuguese government was given only a few days to agree, and this action by Lord Salisbury looked like that of a bully. Portugal was threatened with gunboats. At this time, Portugal was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and was not in a strong position to enforce its views on the global power of wealthy Britain, and caved in to Britain´s demands.

The monarch at the time was D Carlos I (1889- 1908), who was a great friend of the British royal family, and it was thought that his friendship with the royal family of a nation which was the source of this humiliation was futile in protecting Portugal´s interests. His royal expenses in a nearly bankrupt country were exceedingly unpopular. And soon after the Ultimatum, there was a Republican protest in Porto (31 January, which was for years the day of a public holiday in the Portuguese Republic) and the Republican Party made great strides in popular support between 1890 and 1910, when the new monarch (D Manuel II) fled from Portugal. Of course, his father D Carlos I had been assassinated in Lisbon in 1908. The Ultimatum is considered the major reason for the unpopularity of the monarchical system of government, and the principal reason for the Implantation of the Republic.

Many histories of Portugal mention the Ultimatum, which occupies little space in those written by Britons, but is a major event in those written by Portuguese.

If Phil Austin seeks a published authority (in English) with an accent on Africa, he might read Portugal and Africa 1815-1910 A study in uneconomic imperialism (RJ Hammond, Stanford University Press 1966.) 

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