Around 70,000 pages of Portuguese colonial legislation, produced between 1910 and 1970, have been digitised and are now accessible to the public worldwide. This vast collection, the result of a project coordinated by Cristina Nogueira da Silva, of the Faculty of Law of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, marks the first time that all the legislation generated in the metropole and in the Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia will be available online, accessible from anywhere in the world.
Until now, this documentation was restricted to physical archives and libraries, with access limited to researchers who could be present at those places. With digitisation, Cristina Nogueira da Silva stresses that "anyone" will be able to consult this material, making it easier to access the legal history of the former colonies. This new digital archive complements the existing one, which contains colonial legislation from 1496, made available by the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon.
The project, besides opening new doors to the study of colonial law, aims to integrate these primary sources into the teaching of legal history, with a focus on areas such as the history of political ideas and citizenship. In a context of public debate about the colonial legacy, the historian stresses that this collection will contribute to a deeper understanding of colonial policies, including the discriminatory legislation that underpinned the Portuguese colonial regime.
The collection of 67,500 pages is organised in 88 volumes, under the name "Arquivo Digital Legislação Colonial Portuguesa 1910-1970" (Digital Archive of Portuguese Colonial Legislation 1910-1970). It includes key documents such as the controversial "native statute" (estatuto do indígena), regarded as one of the most discriminatory of the colonial era, which denied full citizenship to the Black peoples of the colonies, restricting their rights and freedoms.
This project, developed by the Faculty of Law of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in collaboration with the Overseas Historical Archive, is the result of a joint effort involving three collections of printed legislation: the Collection of Colonial Legislation of the Portuguese Republic (1910-1933), the Bulletin of Portuguese Overseas Legislation (1934-1946) and the New Overseas Legislation (1953-1970). Funding was provided by the Foundation for Science and Technology, as part of the Research and Development Centre on Law and Society.
This archive is a crucial resource for research on colonialism and its consequences, as well as for the study of political transitions in the former Portuguese colonies, providing a solid basis for deepening knowledge of colonial administration and policies.
