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José Norton de Matos | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Ambassador of Portugal to the United Kingdom | |
| In office 1 July 1924 – 9 July 1926 | |
| High Commissioner of the Republic in Angola | |
| In office 1921–1923 | |
| Portuguese Minister of War | |
| In office 1915–1917 | |
| Governor-General ofAngola | |
| In office 1912–1915 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | José Maria Mendes Ribeiro Norton de Matos (1867-03-23)23 March 1867 |
| Died | 3 January 1955(1955-01-03) (aged 87) |
José Maria Mendes Ribeiro Norton de Matos,GCTE,GCL (23 March 1867 – 3 January 1955) was aPortuguese general and politician.
After attending school inBraga, and attending theEscola Académica inLisbon starting in 1880, Norton de Matos started his degree in mathematics at theUniversity of Coimbra in 1884. During that period, he joined the army, and, between 1888 and 1890, he completed the General Staff Course in the Military Academy. After several minor assignments in the armed forces, in 1898, he departed forPortuguese India as the head of the newly-formed Department of Surveying of Portuguese India. He remained in that position until 1908. The year after, he traveled in Macau and China as part of a diplomatic mission tasked with redrawing the borders between the two.[1]
In 1911, after the proclamation of the republic (5 October 1910), he joined the Democratic Party. His political influence continued to increase and, in April 1912, he was nominated Governor-General of Angola, a territory bordering German South West Africa.
Norton de Matos returned to Portugal in 1911, after Portugal becamea republic in 1910.[1] He was prepared to serve the new regime, and he soon became the chief of staff of the 5th military division. In 1912, he was initiated into theFree Masons.[2] That same year, he gained the post ofGovernor-General ofAngola. His leadership was considered instrumental in protecting the Portuguese colony from foreign powers such asBritain,Germany andFrance.
Norton de Matos was recalled to Portugal in 1915 due to the new political situation in Portugal during theFirst World War. There, he was named Minister of War. In this capacity, he was responsible for organizing the Portuguese intervention on theWestern Front.
In 1917, Norton de Matos exiled himself toLondon after disagreements withthe new republic. He later returned and became the Portuguese delegate to theParis Peace Conference, which led to theTreaty of Versailles. Later he returned to Angola as High Commissioner of the Republic, from 1921 to 1923, before becoming Portuguese ambassador to theUnited Kingdom from 1923 to 1926. With the start of thePortuguese Military Dictatorship, he was removed from this position.
In 1929 he was elected Grand Master of theFree Masons in Portugal, a position he held between 1930 and 1935. In 1935,Salazar (prime minister since 1932) banned all secret organizations and removed from state functions a number of people deemed insufficiently faithful to the regime, among them Norton de Matos. Matos then stepped down from his position as Grand Master.
Norton de Matos returned to teaching, accepting a position as professor at theInstituto Superior Técnico, but was dismissed from his chair. He then became a leading opposition figure against theSalazar regime. In 1943, he was named to the National Council ofMovement of National Antifascist Unity, or MUNAF, and on his 81st birthday, he was named the candidate of the opposition now united under theMovement of Democratic Unity (MUD, the successor organization to the MUNAF after 1945) for President in theelection of 1949, under the dictatorialEstado Novo regime, while demanding freedom to advertise his message and the close inspection of votes. The regime refused these demands, and Norton de Matos withdrew from the election on 12 February 1949.
Despite his fierce opposition to Salazar, Norton de Matos also defended Portuguese colonialism. In 1953, he published a book titledAfrica Nossa (Our Africa) where he made an appeal for policies that would promote massive territorial occupation by Portuguese white settlers in Africa and at the same time support the gradual assimilation of the African populations.[3]
Norton de Matos continued to lead a democratic opposition movement centered in the city ofPorto. He died in his hometown ofPonte de Lima in 1955.
