Mapa Cor-de-Rosa / Rose Map / The Pink Map - 1877-1888
By the end of the 19th Century Portugal passed into a period of great instability, with economic and political difficulties, for which the monarchic regime did not have solutions. The project to connect the two colonies, the Pink Map, was the Portuguese main objective in the second half of the 19th century. The Rose Map of 1886 intended to join the territories of Angola and Moçambique. However, the idea was unacceptable to the British, who had their own aspirations of contiguous British territory running from Cairo to Cape Town. The English Ultimatum of 1890 accented the incapacity of the government in the defense of the national interests. This provoked a deep humiliation to the country, and stirred up the desire to change the political system.
The Pink Map (Portuguese: Mapa cor-de-rosa) was a document representing Portugal's claim of sovereignty over the land between Angola and Mozambique, which today is currently Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Plans were made to promote the exploration of the interior of Africa. Portugal pressed into the hinterland of Angola and Mozambique and organized several expeditions under the command of Silva Porto (1853-1856), Serpa Pinto (1877-1879) and Hermenegildo Capelo and Roberto Ivens (1877-1879 and 1884-1885). The explorers Pinto, Capelo and Ivens were among the first Europeans to cross Africa west to east.
In 1877 John de Andrade Corvo released a set of operating initiatives designed to join the zone that separated the colonies of Angola and Mozambique, integrated into a new, and then little accepted, Portuguese strategy for the African continent that favored the effective occupation through exploration and colonization at the expense of simple historical rights. The Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, defending the need to form a barrier to British expansionist intentions that they wished sovereignty over a territory that, in Sudan, whether extend to Cape by the interior of Africa, organized a permanent subscription to keep civilising stations in Portuguese influence zone of the interior of the continent, set on a map as a wide range from coast to coast, linking Angola to Mozambique. Thus was born, still without official sanction, the so-called "Pink Map".
The collision between the imperialist interests of various European countries, including England, Germany, France, Belgium and Portugal led to a Conference in Berlin (1884–1885), where they established the basic principles for sharing of the African continent. Portugal was represented by a delegation with various specialists in African Affairs. Did this delegation part António de Serpa Pimentel, Luciano Cordeiro, Carlos Roma du Bocage and the Portuguese Ambassador in Berlin. They advocated the Rose Map, i.e. the sovereignty over the territories from Angola to Mozambique. But national interests clashed with the interests of another European country, England. The British defended the territories since the Cairo (Egypt) to Cape Town (South Africa).
After the shock of the Berlin Conference, in Portugal it was realized the urgent need to delimit the possessions in Africa. As early as 1885, began negotiations with France and Germany to delimit the boundaries of the Portuguese territories. The Treaty with France was signed in 1886. It was included as an annex, the first official version of the "pink map", although France did not have interests there. In the Treaty with Germany, completed in 1887, the map "map pink" was again attached, being presented to the Cortes as the official version of the Portuguese territorial pretensions. However, in the Treaty signed, the only ensured that Germany had no direct claims in the area. Informed of this Portuguese pretense, Britain reacted immediately. informing Portugal the so-called French and German recognition of the "map pink" to be null, because those powers never had interests in the area.
The Boers, ever on the lookout for new lands into which to trek, had long ago fixed their eyes on the country north of the Limpopo, known generally as Matabeleland, ruled over by Lobengula, the son of the chief of the Matabeles. The reports of Mauch, Baines, and others, of the rich gold mines contained in this territory, were well known. Other travellers and sportsmen, Mohr, Oates, Selous, gave the most favorable accounts not only of the gold of the country, but of the suitability of a large portion of the high plateau known as Mashonaland for European settlement and agricultural operations.
When Sir Charles Warren was in Bechuanaland in 1885, several of his officers made journeys to Matabeleland, and their reports all tended to show the desirability of taking possession of that country; indeed Sir Charles was assured that Lobengula would welcome a British alliance as a protection against the Boers, of whose designs he was afraid. As a result of Sir Charles Warren's mission to Bechuanaland, aud of the reports furnished by the agents he sent into Matabeleland, the attention of adventurers and prospectors was more and more drawn towards the latter country.
The Portuguese were electrified into activity by the British initiatives. Owing to negotiations with Germany and France relative to the partitioning of the continent, in 1887 Portugal advanced a claim to the whole territory between Angola and Mozambique down to the South African Republic, but Great Britain immediately announced that her sovereignty would not be recognised in places not occupied by a sufficient force to maintain order. There were no Portuguese at all at that time on the highlands north of the Limpopo, nor had a single individual of that nation, as far as is known, even visited the clans there within the preceding century. The Matabele chief Moselekatse had conquered the greater part of the country in 1838 and subsequent years, had slaughtered most of its inhabitants, and ruled over the others with a ferocity unknown except among African tribes.
That the attention of the British Government was directed to Matabeleland even in 1887 was evident from a protest in August of that year, on the part of Lord Salisbury, against an official Portuguese map claiming a section of that country as within the Portuguese sphere. Lord Salisbury then clearly stated that no pretensions of Portugal to Matabeleland could be recognised, and that the Zambesi should be regarded as the natural northern limit of British South Africa. The British Prime Minister reminded the Portuguese Government that according to the Berlin Act no claim to territory in Central Africa could be recognised that was not supported by effective occupation. The Portuguese Government maintained (it must be admitted with justice) that this applied only to the coast, but Lord Salisbury stood firmly to his position.
Bv the end of 1887 the attempts of the Transvaal Boers to obtain a hold over Matabeleland had reached a crisis. It became evident that no time was to be lost if England was to secure the Zambesi as the northern limit of extension of her South African possessions. Lobengula himself was harassed and anxious as to the designs of the Boers on the one hand, and the doings of the Portuguese on the north of his territory on the other. In the Rev. J. Smith Moffat, Assistant Commissioner in Bechuanaland, England had a trusty agent who had formerly been a missionary for many years in Matabeleland, and had great influence with Lobengula. Under the circumstances, it does not seem to have been difficult for Mr. Moffat to persuade the King to put an end to his troubles by placing himself under the protection of Great Britain.
On 21 March 1888, Sir Hercules Robinson. Governor of Cape Colony, and Her Majesty's High Commissioner for South Africa, was able to inform the Home Government that on the previous 11th February Lobengula had appended his mark to a brief document which secured to England supremacy in Matabeleland over all her rivals. The publication of the treaty was, as might be expected, followed by reclamations both on the part of the Transvaal and of Portugal. Before the British hold was firmly established over the country attempts were made by large parties of Boers to trek into Matabeleland. Individual Boers as well, it must be said, as individual Englishmen at the kraal of Lobengula, attempted to poison the mind of the latter against the British. But the King remained throughout faithful to his engagements. Indeed, it was not Lobengula himself who gave any cause for anxiety during the initial stage of the English occupation. Lobengula himself kept a tirm hand over his warriors, but even he was at times apprehensive that they might burst beyond all control.
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