A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races by Harry Johnston

The mother of Portugal was Galicia, that north-western province of the present Kingdom of Spain. It was here at any rate that the Portuguese language developed from a dialect of provincial Latin, and hence that the first expeditions started to drive the Moors out of that territory which subsequently became the Kingdom of Portugal. A large element in the populations of Galicia and of the northern parts of Portugal was Gothic. The Suevi settled here in considerable numbers; and their descendants at the present day show the fine tall figures, flaxen or red hair, and blue eyes so characteristic of the northern Teuton. Central Portugal is mainly of Latinized Iberian stock, while southern Portugal retains to this day a large element of Moorish blood. The northern part of Portugal was first wrested from the Moors in the 11th century by the bravery of Alfonso V, Ferdinand I and Alfonso VI, Kings of Leon. Alfonso VI placed it (as a tributary county) in charge of Henric of Besancon or Burgundy, a French prince of the Capetian house, who married the illegitimate daughter of Alfonso VI, and extended the conquered area nearly to the banks of the Tagus. He became known to the Moors as Errik; and his warrior son Alfonso I was styled in Moorish history "ibn Errik," the "son of Henry. " Alfonso I became the first king of Portugal in 1143, though it is doubtful whether the kingly title was assumed or recognized till the reign of Henric's great-great grandson Alfonso III, by whom in 1250 the southernmost province of Algarve[48] was conquered. By the middle of the 13th century the Moors had ceased to rule in the Roman Lusitania. Lisbon, the capital, had been wrested from the Muhammadans in 1147, thanks to the cooperation of a crusading force of English, Dutch and Germans, who volunteered the aid of their ships and fighting men. Most of these Saxon crusaders settled in Portugal, which at that period even imported Anglo-Saxon or English architects and craftsmen; and not a few of the later _conquistadores_ and bold sea-captains of the Lusitanian kingdom could trace their descent from Teutonic adventurers of the 12th century.

In course of time the Portuguese, not content with ridding the western part of the Peninsula of the Moorish invaders, attempted to carry the war into the enemy's country, urged thereto by the irritating attacks of Moorish pirates. In 1415, as already mentioned, a Portuguese army landed on the coast of Morocco, and captured the citadel of Ceuta, the Roman Septa. One by one the Portuguese captured the coast towns of north-west Morocco, till in the second half of the 16th century the king of Portugal was almost entitled to that claim over the Empire of Morocco which asserted itself down to 1910 in the formal setting-forth of his dignities. Most of these posts were either abandoned some years before or just after the defeat of the young king "Sebastião o Desejado"-Sebastian the desired-who at the age of only 23 was defeated and slain by the founder of the Sharifian dynasty of Morocco on the fatal field of Al Kasr-al-Kabīr in 1578[49]. Ceuta was taken over by Spain in 1580-was garrisoned, that is, by Spanish soldiers[50]; the two or three other Moroccan towns which remained in Portuguese hands after the battle of Kasr-al-Kabīr, being garrisoned by Portuguese soldiers, reverted to the separated crown of Portugal in 1640. Of these Tangier was ceded to England in 1662, Saffi was given up to the Moors in 1641, other points were snatched by the Moors in 1689, and Mazagan was finally lost in 1770.