Arrivals
Lisbon — Luggage crates belonging to retornados (returnees) from the former colonies on the quay at the Alcântara Maritime Station (1975). Author: Gouveia. ANTT - National Archive of Torre do Tombo.
The Alcântara and Rocha do Conde de Óbidos Marine Stations were the scene of many and various arrivals.
Those of travellers, tourists or people from the other side of the Atlantic who wanted to enter Europe and docked here, those of African youths who came to study and board at the House of Students of the Empire (Casa dos Estudantes do Império), but also those of soldiers returning from the war waged by the Estado Novo to maintain its grip on the colonial territories. Often, the bodies of those who had died in combat also arrived by sea.
Other cases, reported by historian Cláudia Castelo, were those of African migrants to Portugal (as a metropolis), who often came as stowaways on the ships (and who, if discovered, would be repatriated). There were people of both sexes who travelled legally to work as servants in the homes of white employers, who in some cases decided to bring them along on their return to the metropolis.
Finally, in 1975, more than half a million people arrived from Africa during the colonies’ independence processes, some of whom had never been to the metropolis before, and who brought with them what belongings they could in crates that covered the quayside for several months.
And there were also children of white fathers and black mothers, who came to study or to be raised by their paternal families.
Finally, in 1975, more than half a million people arrived from Africa during the colonies’ independence processes, some of whom had never been to the metropolis before, and who brought with them what belongings they could in crates that covered the quayside for several months. The photographs and footage of those crates are among the strongest and most symbolic images of the end of European colonialism.
Interviews with historians Cláudia Castelo, Miguel Cardina, Julião Soares Sousa and Morgane Delaunay. Interviews by Mariana Pinto dos Santos, image and montage by Tiago Figueiredo, 2025.