Álvaro Eugénio Neves de Fontoura

Álvaro Eugenio Neves de Fontoura (born July 24, 1891 in Trás-os-Montes , Bragança , Portugal , † December 16, 1975 in Lisbon ) was a Portuguese officer, colonial administrator and politician.

Life

Fontoura completed a course as a military engineer ( Engenharia Militar ) at the Escola de Guerra (War School ). He received a license as a civil engineer ( Licenciatura em Engenharia Civil ) at the University of Porto .

From 1920 to 1925 Fontoura was Director of Public Works ( Serviços de Obras Públicas ). Then he was an engineer with the municipal building management of the Lisbon city administration until 1927 and until 1937 director of the railway in Mozambique . At the same time, Fontoura taught at the Colégio Militar (1925–1937), professor at the Escola Superior Colonial (1932–1947) and President of the Central Council for Labor and Immigration of the Overseas Ministry ( Junta Central de Trabalho e Emigração do Ministério do Ultramar , 1937–1960) .

2: 3 ^? Governor's flag

From 1937 to 1940 Fontoura was Lieutenant Colonel in the Army ( tenente-coronel ) Governor General of the overseas province of Portuguese Timor . He continued the practice introduced by his predecessor Teófilo Duarte (1926–1928) of resettling the Timorese natives in new, so-called “native villages”, since the widely scattered and inaccessible settlements are hardly ever brought under military control, nor are they placed under colonial administration could. The Timorese often resisted the forced relocations. They did not want to leave their holy sites or move to new settlements, some of which were in the malaria-infested lowlands.

Fontoura also organized the creation of a photo series with 552 pictures of different ethnic groups in Portuguese Timor. For this purpose, an ethnographic map of the colony was created.

In 1939 Fontoura passed the Colonia Penal Agricola da Timor ( Colonial Penal Code for Rural Timor ) in order to be able to better localize prisoners. In the same year a school education for Timorese was introduced, which should enable them to work in the lower administrative level.

From 1939 to 1961 Fontoura was a professor at the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Política Ultramarinas de Lisboa . In the fourth legislative period (1945-1949) he was a member of the Portuguese Parliament for Macau and from 1940 to 1944 Minister of State for Colonies. In 1947 he was a member of the Technical Advisory Board for Colonial Development, from 1947 to 1958 a member of the Committee of Experts on Social Policy for Non-Urban Territories and from 1940 to 1961 spokesman for the Overseas Council ( Conselho Ultramarino ).

family

Fontoura was married to Mariana Adelaide Santos de Lemos from 1916 and had two sons and a daughter.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa: Information on Colónia Portuguesa de Timor (Álbum Álvaro Fontoura) ( Memento from June 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (Portuguese)
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Álvaro Eugénio Neves de Fontoura in Parliament (Portuguese; PDF; 105 kB)
3. ^ Photo from 1965–1967
4. ↑ Monika Schlicher, Appendix II; Source: Gonçalo Pimenta de Castro: Timor, pp. 44–162 and Marques, AH de Oliveira : História de Portugal, Volume III, Lisbon, Palas Editores, 1984, pp. 627/628.
5. ↑ History of Timor ( Memento of March 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) - Technical University of Lisbon , p. 107 (PDF file; 805 kB)
6. ^ History of Timor, p. 115
7. ↑ Património de Influência Portuguesa: [1] , accessed on November 4, 2016.

See also

• History of East Timor

literature

• Álvaro Eugénio Neves de Fontoura: O Trabalho dos Indigenas de Timor , Lisbon, Agência Geral das Colónias, 1942.
• List of works by Álvaro Eugenio Neves de Fontoura

Web links

• Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa: Colónia Portuguesa de Timor (Álbum Álvaro Fontoura) (Portuguese)

predecessor	Office	successor
Raúl de Antas Manso Preto Mendes Cruz	Governor of Portuguese Timor 1937–1940	Manuel de Abreu Ferreira de Carvalho