Yes, of course they did. The difference I see between Portugal and colonial powers like the US and the UK is that Portugal fully admits to their egregious behaviors now and are trying at least to reach out and correct their bullshit in some way. Well, maybe not fully, but compared to the US and the UK, it seems like a lot.
Mainly, I get aggravated when people who don't know this country at all make grand and completely incorrect pronouncements about what the reality on the ground is. There is nowhere near the hatred, division, and racism here as there is in the US. Not that those things don't exist here, like everywhere, but Portugal is just different.
Well, the racism is different for Portugal because the US had slaves brought in. Portugal took slaves across the Atlantic to the "New" World.
The Portuguese, until modern times, weren't surrounded by their colonialist past.
The US, as a nation, had to develop with the very people they dehumanized. The Portuguese evolved since the 15th century.
The truth of the matter is that this country didn't settle the race issue with the Civil War.
It's a war where the North won the military campaign and kept the Union together. However, the South won the American narrative for at least another 100 years. The Last Cause is a heinous story of racists romanticized...much to the detriment of this nation.
I don't know how or if this nation will ever truly close the book on our original sin. Things are better, but it doesn't take a lot to stir those embers does it?
I watch our country largely resigned to knowing large swaths of Americans will never let go of their hatreds.
