I was recnetly on a holiday trip to Lisbon where I was listening to Roger Crowleys ‘Conquerors’ as I toured many of the historic sites paid for by the slaughter and plunder he describes. After visiting Belem I recorded and uploaded this video blog to the Anarchist Writers Facebook, this version if the 1080p version of the same video.
Belem was where the ships of the brutal Portuguese colonial conquest of the Indian open trade cities departed from.
I was recnetly on a holiday trip to Lisbon where I was listening to Roger Crowleys ‘Conquerors’ as I toured many of the historic sites paid for by the slaughter and plunder he describes. After visiting Belem I recorded and uploaded this video blog to the Anarchist Writers Facebook, this version if the 1080p version of the same video.
Belem was where the ships of the brutal Portuguese colonial conquest of the Indian open trade cities departed from.
The wealth that was plundered from those ports as well as the enslaving of people from Africa was used in part to build some magnificent if blood-soaked buildings including the Jerónimos Monastery (which heard confessions of those departing to plunder) and the Belem Tower.
Also in Belem is the modern and the far uglier Monument to the Discoveries built by the dictatorship to use nationalist mythology to try and boost its popularity. The monument features those responsible for the colonial slaughter and should probably be bulldozed into the river to make way for something that remembers those who fought colonialism, including the revolutionaries of 1974.
I uploaded some other videos as well, some of which made me think some more on the subject of colonialism and its constructions.
The Palace of Sintra was built from the 15th century onwards with a significant part of it being paid for from the bloody plunder of Portuguese colonialism under the religious fundamentalist ruler King Manuel 1st.
This crusader King who sought to ignite a religious war in the Indian ocean oddly decorated much of the palace in an Islamic style despite the fact his agents slaughtered muslim traders and executed and mutilated their families in horrific ways.
The palace is located on the site of an older Moorish castle from the period before the Moors were expelled from Portugal.
For sheer weirdness (although there is a back story about religious fanacticism I don’t get into) check out another video I uploaded, Quinta da Regaleira – the tunnels beneath
In particular if you are visting Portugal I highly recommend reading Roger Crowleys ‘Conquerors’ to get an idea of just how brutal the ‘Age of Explorations’ really was. It will have you reaching for the bulldozer too.