Several centuries before Christ, the Phoenicians from city-states on the coast of what is
now Syria and Lebanon set up trading posts in the Algarve as they had done all along the
Mediterranean. They were particularly interested in mining inland deposits of Iberian
tin, copper and silver. The Carthaginians took over from the Phoenicians and under the
great generals Hamilcar and Hannibal established an empire of which the Algarve formed
the extreme west.
After the Romans defeated the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War (218-202BC), they
absorbed southern Portugal into their empire. The Romans firmly implanted their
language, laws and culture and remained the dominant power throughout Portugal for 500
years. The main Roman town in the Algarve was Ossanoba, probably on the site of
The Romans also introduced a new religion: Christianity. It replaced paganism in the
Algarve in the second or third century AD. In the fifth century, Germanic tribes swept
through the Roman empire. The Suevi and the Vandals fought one another to gain power in
northern and central Portugal, but a larger tribe, the Visigoths, eventually superseded
them and penetrated to the far south. The influence of the Visigoths in the Algarve was
not great or lasting and when serious divisions broke out between them, they were a
push-over for a new wave of invaders from North Africa.
The new occupiers, who arrived in the eighth century, were a mixture of Arabs and
Berbers known as the Moors. Their religion was Islam and they brought with them an
entirely different culture. Within a decade of their arrival in the year 712, the Moors
had conquered almost all of Portugal as well as Spain. They settled throughout most of
the Iberian peninsula, but preferred the south where they dominated the economic and
cultural life for well over five centuries.
All the while they remained tolerant of their non-Muslim subjects, Jews as well as
Christians, allowing freedom of worship, observance of local civil laws and certain land
rights. But the fire of Christianity and nationalism was unextinguishable. The
Portuguese Christian re-conquest proceeded slowly but relentlessly southward. Moorish
resistance in Portugal persisted longest in the Algarve but was finally overcome in
1253. The king who completed the job was Afonso III. Significantly, he was crowned "King
of Portugal and the Algarve". Ever since, the southernmost province has been an integral
part of Portugal though somehow different from the rest of the country.
Prior to the liberation of the Algarve, independence for the rest of Portugal had been
secured when she separated from the Spanish kingdom of León. That was in 1128. Wars with
the kingdom of Castile long continued in the south, however, and these gave rise in 1373
to an alliance with England, which was strengthened in 1386 by the most enduring of all
alliances, the Treaty of Windsor. This treaty, which is still in existance today, was
cemented by help from English troops in the vital Battle of Aljubarrota between Portugal
and Castile, and solidified by King João I's marriage to John of Gaunt's daughter,
Philippa of Lancaster.
João I founded Portugal's most illustrious dynasty, the House of Aviz. It presided over
the Age of Discovery, an epoch of achievement unsurpassed in Portuguese history. It
produced such legendary names as Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama.
The greatest achievements during this period were rounding the Cape of Good Hope in
1488, the pushing through of the sea route to India a decade later, and proclaiming
Brazil for the Portuguese crown in 1500.
The Age of Discovery was immediately followed by a "golden age" when Portugal, by then a
super-power, was able to cash in on her supremacy at sea, her monopoly on the spice
trade, and her control of Europe's first great overseas empire, which stretched from
Brazil to China, from the Azores and Madeira to India and the Malay peninsula.
Portugal's days of glory and great wealth did not last for long. By about 1550, the
economy was already in steep decline. The high cost of maintaining grants and privileges
at home, and administrating colonies and running trading posts abroad, could not be met
because of falling prices for oriental wares and the loss of lucrative monopolies to the
French, the English and the Dutch.
The Inquisition had brought an end to the years of exploration, expansiveness and
exuberance. The throne was occupied by the "boy king," Sebastião. From the shores of the
Algarve in 1578, his army set off in a fleet of 500 ships on a latter-day crusade to
Morocco. King and army were soon annihilated by the Moroccans. Shortly afterwards, the
death of Sebastião's celibate uncle, a cardinal, brought to an end the House of Aviz.
The Portuguese then suffered the humiliation of falling under Spanish rule. It was 60
years before Portugal regained her independence.
The Braganza dynasty assumed power as Portugal recovered her kingdom and some of her
empire, most notably Brazil. Gold and diamonds from Brazil gave Portugal unprecedented
pomp and splendour in the first half of the 18th century. Behind this veil of
prosperity, however, lay a nation in decay. Then came two devastating events: The Great
Earthquake (1755) and three successive invasions by Napoleon's armies. Portugal was
allied with Britain against Napoleon. The so-called Peninsular War ended when Sir Arthur
Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, led the expulsion of the French from Portugal in
1811 and from Spain three years later.
The French Revolutionary had given Portuguese dissidents ideas of their own. A
democratic movement took root and led to a successful revolution in Oporto in 1820,
which spread to other parts of the country. As a consequence, the nation's ancient
political structure was shattered and Brazil declared its independence. That, though,
was far from the end of the matter. For the best part of a century there was on-going
dischord and periodic upheavals between the Liberals, with their English-style
democratic constitution, and the Conservatives (or Absolutists), who supported royal
authority and the establishment.
In 1910, a republican movement overthrew Manuel II, whose father and eldest brother had
two years earlier been assassinated. The leaders of the movement were academics,
professional men and military officers who hoped to stabilise the nation's chaotic
economy by suppressing both the monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, the
chaos continued because of internal turmoil and worsened because of the outbreak of
World War I.
At the outset, Portugal remained neutral in World War I, but Germany declared war in
1916 when German shipping in Portuguese ports was confiscated. The years following the
war were filled with political demonstrations, strikes, violence against individual
political leaders, collapsed governments and attempted coups. From this maelstrom
emerged one of Portugal's most famous leaders of all time, Dr António de Oliveira
Dr Salazar was asked to leave his job as
professor of economics at the University of Coimbra, Portugal's oldest university, to
take on the key job of finance minister. As such, he was extraordinarily successful in
directing Portugal along the road to financial recovery. In 1932, he became prime
minister and soon set up what was to be known as the New State, with a constitution
which gave him dictatorial powers. The idea of the New State was to bring the decades of
destructive political turmoil to an end and create harmony under a one-party,
World War II soon erupted. By agreement with her old ally Britain, Portugal remained
neutral, although from 1943 she allowed British and United States forces the use of an
island in the Azores as an air base. In 1949, Portugal became a founding member of NATO.
While the Second World War had left Portugal unscathed, in the early 1960's she found
herself convulsed by her own colonial wars. They raged on three fronts in Africa :
Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea. Portugal pumped man-power and money into
combatting guerrilla movements fighting for national independence, but it was to no
avail. Drained after 13 years of fighting, peace abroad was brought about by
insurrection at home.
At thirty minutes past midnight on April 25, 1974, Rádio Renascença, a Lisbon station,
played a popular piece of music called Grândola, Vila Morena. To those in the know, it
was the pre-arranged signal to stage a military coup against the right-wing government
of Salazar's successor, Marcello Caetano.
Before light, all the key buildings in the capital and the
provinces had been occupied by rebel troops and the international airports of Lisbon,
Oporto and Faro had been closed. There was virtually no resistance and no bloodshed. The
"Revolution" had been a well-planned and classically executed coup d'etat led by
disaffected young officers, mostly captains and majors. It brought the people of
Portugal out into the streets in celebration because they too desperately wanted change
after 40 years of dictatorship.
Free speech and party politics returned with a vengance. Business confidence and capital
took flight as major industries were nationalised. Many family firms and large country
estates were taken over by the workers. Almost a million citizens arrived from the
war-torn former Portuguese territories in Africa. The mid-seventies were tumultuous
In the immediate post-revolution years the Socialist Party of Mário Soares vied with the
Communists for control, but by 1979 the centre-right Social Democrats were in the
ascendency. One elected coalition government after another collapsed until July 1987
when Anibal Cavaco Silva led the Social Democrats (PSD) to victory with the first
overall parliamentary majority since the revolution. The PSD were returned again in the
general election of 1991. In 1995 the electorate decided on a change and voted in the
Socialist Party (PS).
The most far-reaching development since the 1974 revolution has been Portugal's
admission to the European Community on January 1, 1986.
Portugal is a little larger in land area than Scotland or the Republic of Ireland. It has
a population of more than 10 million. About 30% of the population live in urban areas,
the biggest cities being Lisbon and Oporto. It is a relatively young population. More
than 25% are under 15-years-old; 63% are between 15 and 64; only 11.4% are over 65.
The official language is Portuguese, which is also spoken by another 150 million people
around the world, mainly in Brazil and Portugal's former African territories.
Portugal is a parliamentary democracy with a President as head-of-state. He is much more
than a figurehead. He holds significant overall powers, but he is not concerned with the
day-to-day administration. That is left to the Prime Minister and his government.
Parliamentarians who sit in the Assembleia da República are elected every five years in
a system of proportional representation. By far the two strongest parties are the
centre-right Social Democrats, and the centre-left Socialist Party.
Economically, the services sector employs the biggest percentage of the workforce and
contributes most to the GDP. It is followed by industry, farming and fishing.
About 70% of Portugal's foreign trade is with other European Union countries. The
massive growth in volume of foreign investment over the last decade is a clear
indication of confidence in the Portuguese economy. Direct foreign investment in recent
years has come mainly from the United Kingdom, France and Spain.
The Algarve Today
Although an integral part of Portugal, the southernmost province is geographically
distinct in character from the rest of the country, and its people have always been
regarded as distinct as well.
The climate of the Algarve is milder and more equable than elsewhere in the country not
only because of its southerly position and proximity to Africa, but because of a
protective chain of hills along its northern boundary and the influences of the sea. In
the east, the Algarve's boundary with Spain is marked by the Guadiana River. The
southern as well as the western shores are washed by the Atlantic. The climate is of the
Mediterranean type typified by long warm summers with most of the rain falling during
the mild winters.
The combination of climate and clean, strikingly beautiful shores, means that the
Algarve is tailor-made for tourism. The sunshine and the beaches are the biggest draw,
but increased interest in recent years in cultural and countryside holidays plus the
building of a string of superb golf courses has developed tourism into an all-year-round
business. In terms of economics, tourism and associated services are by far the number
one earner and employer.
Until recently, the holiday home construction industry was a big employer and a major
factor in the economy, but it suffered badly because of the European recession and the
introduction of tighter controls to stop over-development, which had been getting
With the use of modern irrigation methods, the growing of citrus fruits, mainly oranges,
has assumed far more importance than the labour-intensive cultivation of the big-five
traditional crops: grapes, olives, almonds, figs and carobs. The big five are still
widely grown and harvested using ancestral methods. Cork oak trees are still cultivated
for their bark, but the hillier areas are now heavily forested with fast-growing and
commercially profitable pine and eucalyptus trees.
The problem for many Algarve farmers is that national and international demand for their
produce has slumped or is being met by more efficient farmers elsewhere. The problem for
Algarve fishermen is that while local demand has hugely increased because of tourism,
stocks have been drastically reduced because of over fishing.
The once important tuna fishing industry has collapsed altogether. An even more
startling measure of the decline in the fishing industry is that nearly all the once
frantically busy sardine canning factories along the south coast are closed and
So tourism is nowadays what it's really all about. Order has been restored since the
unruly, gold-rush days of the 1980's, when no part of the Algarve's proud heritage and
no stretch of its glorious coastline seemed immune to developers on the rampage with
their backhanders and their bulldozers.
The bricks and mortar brigades, aided and abetted by the seemingly insatiable demands of
mass-tourism, wreaked havoc along the Algarve's southern coastline until it was realised
that they were destroying the very qualities that tourists were seeking.
There is now a heightened awareness that preservation of the region's environment and
ecology are not only compatible with sound, tourism-based economical development, but
essential to it.
"Quality" is the catchword as strenuous efforts are made throughout the Algarve tourist
industry to improve standards of facilities and service, and to give good value for
money in a highly competitive business field.