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Paper short abstract:

The newspaper Boletim Colonial and the colonial vision of his first director Pereira Batalha, before and after the waves caused by the British Ultimatum (1890) in republican action

Paper long abstract:

The present paper is part of a collective research viewing a comparative approach of Portuguese colonial press. Focusing the thematic of democratic thought, in its political and cultural dimensions, we use as case study the Portuguese journalist, Francisco Pereira Batalha.

The Boletim Colonial as his founder Pereira Batalha had a clear program initiating every number that can be summarized like this: for the autonomy of the Portuguese colonies and its consequent development and education. We might complete Batalha's political agenda with the thought that only with democratic institutions within a republican regime those ideals could come to life.

The newspaper, through the pen of several correspondents in Africa and Asia, denounced the abuses of monarchical military and civil servant, the constant crony, and how both situations took to native rebellions. Because the desire for autonomy implies of the recognition of diversity, the Boletim had also a section called African Culture devoted to disclose costumes and habitudes and several studies on native languages and dialects. The idea of a Colonial Party and the organization of a colonial conference in Lisbon with representatives from all Portuguese colonies was an idea in progress in the Boletim.

Fighting in two fronts against the international attacks to the colonial Portuguese empire and against the monarchical regime the Boletim stopped the publication in the year of 1890, restarting in 1891 with another director that "kept the fight of his antecedent".

Pereira Batalha continued to write about his colonial solutions in other republicans newspapers, until he founds his own in Luanda, in 1912.