Portugal's Forgotten Empire in Africa

The History of Portugal: The Small Nation That Built a Global Empire — Fexingo History · Oct 10, 2026 · 11m · transcript

While the Americas and Asia get most of the attention, Portugal’s African empire was a complex web of military outposts, diplomatic marriages, and brutal exploitation. This episode explores the Kingdom of Kongo, a sophisticated state that converted to Christianity and allied with Lisbon, only to be torn apart by the Atlantic slave trade. We follow King Afonso I, who wrote desperate letters to the Portuguese crown begging for an end to the illegal kidnapping of his subjects. The narrative then shifts to the diamond rush of the 19th century, where Portuguese administrators in Angola turned from…