Portugal

When Eusébio Tamagnini, Coimbra University’s Professor of Anthropology, was refused funding for the creation of a new Institute for Racial Hygiene and Eugenics in 1933, he remained undaunted and determined to set up an organization that would disseminate ideas on eugenics in Portugal. In fact, his attempt, alongside other influential scientists at the University to establish a Eugenics Institute, was one of an already long line of engagements by Portuguese specialists in anthropology, race studies, biology, and genetics with eugenic thought. What were the motivations behind their endeavours? What drove these scientists at the country’s most renowned and oldest University and elsewhere to attempt to establish such an organization?

As with other countries, it is difficult to pinpoint precisely the year in which eugenics as such arrived in Portugal. Certainly, at the end of the nineteenth century, there was concern in numerous quarters about the future of the nation, its “racial quality,” the health of the population and, importantly, the desire not to appear behind other “advanced” countries that had already begun eugenic programs. This led numerous scientists to explore theories of inheritance that were popular at the time in order to identify healthy individuals and how it was possible to ensure that these traits continued and flourished. The eugenics movement relied on a theory of inheritance for two main reasons: first, to justify its claims that the race was in danger of decline; and secondly, to devise strategies to halt such degeneration.

Already by the early 1910s, spurred on no doubt by the new, progressive Republic, one medical doctor, Miguel Bombarda, had discussed in the pages of the journal he edited (Contemporary Medicine, A Medicina Contemporanea) questions relating to marriage hygiene, sterilization, and eugenic legislation in other countries, particularly in the United States. He suggested that Portugal should form a Eugenics Society to publicize the aims of eugenics. Although increasing interest was shown in Portugal in the subject, little progress was made in terms of any organization defending the aims of eugenics. In 1927, however, this began to change. The University of Oporto anthropologist, António Augusto Mendes Correia, was engaged by the then Minister of Health to conduct a survey of the health of the Portuguese and the findings of this survey were published as “The Problem of Eugenics in Portugal” (“O problema eugénico em Portugal”).

This report was published at a decisive moment in both the country’s history and the international eugenics movement. The Republic was tottering and plots for a coup d’état were hatched. By 1933 a new dictatorial regime that shared some elements of Italian fascism and German Nazism was established under another Coimbra academic, Dr. António Oliveira de Salazar. Some believed that this new regime would present ample opportunities for the development of eugenics in Portugal. However, since the early 1930s, there were numerous voices in the country, especially from Catholic supporters of Salazar that were increasingly concerned about the way politics were developing in Germany and Italy. Salazar himself sought to distance his regime from what he believed were the vulgar and extreme aspects of these regimes. Others were concerned about the restrictive concept of race that the Nazis articulated and voiced their support for Jews persecuted under the regime. It was this combination of factors, both national and international, that severely limited the acceptance of any eugenic policies in Portugal. Any acceptance rarely went beyond education about having children under the right conditions, childcare techniques, including the advantages of breast-feeding and general sanitation; the sterilization of “undesirables” was rejected as inhuman by most and, for Catholics—a group always influential under Salazar—sterilization was viewed as incompatible with religious sentiment.

Despite the lack of formal legislation and openly coercive eugenic measures, however, the tactics referred to above, often under the banner of “puériculture” or child-care, were endorsed to a limited degree by the Salazar regime. Women’s organizations sought to impress on young women the need to marry judiciously and to take care of their children in order to keep them healthy and as a guarantee of the future Portuguese race. The role of medical doctors advising certain couples to marry and have children or not as the case may be, would also have constituted a coercive measure in a tightly controlled, conservative and religious society.

Many, like Tamagnini, wanted to go further than what was effectively a small propaganda organization for eugenics set up eventually in 1937. This Portuguese Society for the Study of Eugenics only had three branches, in Coimbra, Lisbon and Oporto, but was vociferous in its teachings on eugenics. Some members urged restrictions on inter-racial marriage in the Portuguese colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, for example) and believed that “white blood” was the guarantor of the Portuguese future as an important European race. Others still, like the scientist Ayres de Azevedo, were trained in Berlin in the German Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and were in favour of the sterilization of the “unfit”. It is perhaps indicative of the limitations placed on eugenics in Portugal, nevertheless, that when he returned to Oporto to continue his research on blood groups, he was effectively silenced within the academy. Portuguese eugenics, then, was caught between the desire for stringent interventionist measures in order to purify the “age-old” Portuguese race, a pragmatic approach that sought to eke out an existence under the restrictive purview of the Salazar state and, in the final analysis, a movement that by the end of the Second World War was as ineffective as it was marginal under the Portuguese dictatorship.

-Richard Cleminson

  • Cleminson, R. (2014). Catholicism, Race and Empire: Eugenics in Portugal, 1900-1950. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press.

  • Ferraz de Matos, P. (2012). The Colours of the Empire: Racialized Representations during Portuguese Colonialism. Mark Ayton (trans.). New York: Berghahn.

  • Pimentel, I. (1998). "O aperfeiçoamento da raça. A Eugenia na primeira metade do século XX", História, 3, pp. 18-27.

Portugal

When Eusébio Tamagnini, Coimbra University’s Professor of Anthropology, was refused funding for the creation of a new Institute for Racial Hygiene and Eugenics in 1933, he remained undaunted and determined to set up an organization that would disseminate ideas on eugenics in Portugal. In fact, his attempt, alongside other influential scientists at the University to establish a Eugenics Institute, was one of an already long line of engagements by Portuguese specialists in anthropology, race studies, biology, and genetics with eugenic thought. What were the motivations behind their endeavours? What drove these scientists at the country’s most renowned and oldest University and elsewhere to attempt to establish such an organization?

As with other countries, it is difficult to pinpoint precisely the year in which eugenics as such arrived in Portugal. Certainly, at the end of the nineteenth century, there was concern in numerous quarters about the future of the nation, its “racial quality,” the health of the population and, importantly, the desire not to appear behind other “advanced” countries that had already begun eugenic programs. This led numerous scientists to explore theories of inheritance that were popular at the time in order to identify healthy individuals and how it was possible to ensure that these traits continued and flourished. The eugenics movement relied on a theory of inheritance for two main reasons: first, to justify its claims that the race was in danger of decline; and secondly, to devise strategies to halt such degeneration.

Already by the early 1910s, spurred on no doubt by the new, progressive Republic, one medical doctor, Miguel Bombarda, had discussed in the pages of the journal he edited (Contemporary Medicine, A Medicina Contemporanea) questions relating to marriage hygiene, sterilization, and eugenic legislation in other countries, particularly in the United States. He suggested that Portugal should form a Eugenics Society to publicize the aims of eugenics. Although increasing interest was shown in Portugal in the subject, little progress was made in terms of any organization defending the aims of eugenics. In 1927, however, this began to change. The University of Oporto anthropologist, António Augusto Mendes Correia, was engaged by the then Minister of Health to conduct a survey of the health of the Portuguese and the findings of this survey were published as “The Problem of Eugenics in Portugal” (“O problema eugénico em Portugal”).

This report was published at a decisive moment in both the country’s history and the international eugenics movement. The Republic was tottering and plots for a coup d’état were hatched. By 1933 a new dictatorial regime that shared some elements of Italian fascism and German Nazism was established under another Coimbra academic, Dr. António Oliveira de Salazar. Some believed that this new regime would present ample opportunities for the development of eugenics in Portugal. However, since the early 1930s, there were numerous voices in the country, especially from Catholic supporters of Salazar that were increasingly concerned about the way politics were developing in Germany and Italy. Salazar himself sought to distance his regime from what he believed were the vulgar and extreme aspects of these regimes. Others were concerned about the restrictive concept of race that the Nazis articulated and voiced their support for Jews persecuted under the regime. It was this combination of factors, both national and international, that severely limited the acceptance of any eugenic policies in Portugal. Any acceptance rarely went beyond education about having children under the right conditions, childcare techniques, including the advantages of breast-feeding and general sanitation; the sterilization of “undesirables” was rejected as inhuman by most and, for Catholics—a group always influential under Salazar—sterilization was viewed as incompatible with religious sentiment.

Despite the lack of formal legislation and openly coercive eugenic measures, however, the tactics referred to above, often under the banner of “puériculture” or child-care, were endorsed to a limited degree by the Salazar regime. Women’s organizations sought to impress on young women the need to marry judiciously and to take care of their children in order to keep them healthy and as a guarantee of the future Portuguese race. The role of medical doctors advising certain couples to marry and have children or not as the case may be, would also have constituted a coercive measure in a tightly controlled, conservative and religious society.

Many, like Tamagnini, wanted to go further than what was effectively a small propaganda organization for eugenics set up eventually in 1937. This Portuguese Society for the Study of Eugenics only had three branches, in Coimbra, Lisbon and Oporto, but was vociferous in its teachings on eugenics. Some members urged restrictions on inter-racial marriage in the Portuguese colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, for example) and believed that “white blood” was the guarantor of the Portuguese future as an important European race. Others still, like the scientist Ayres de Azevedo, were trained in Berlin in the German Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and were in favour of the sterilization of the “unfit”. It is perhaps indicative of the limitations placed on eugenics in Portugal, nevertheless, that when he returned to Oporto to continue his research on blood groups, he was effectively silenced within the academy. Portuguese eugenics, then, was caught between the desire for stringent interventionist measures in order to purify the “age-old” Portuguese race, a pragmatic approach that sought to eke out an existence under the restrictive purview of the Salazar state and, in the final analysis, a movement that by the end of the Second World War was as ineffective as it was marginal under the Portuguese dictatorship.

-Richard Cleminson

  • Cleminson, R. (2014). Catholicism, Race and Empire: Eugenics in Portugal, 1900-1950. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press.

  • Ferraz de Matos, P. (2012). The Colours of the Empire: Racialized Representations during Portuguese Colonialism. Mark Ayton (trans.). New York: Berghahn.

  • Pimentel, I. (1998). "O aperfeiçoamento da raça. A Eugenia na primeira metade do século XX", História, 3, pp. 18-27.