The Three Butchers of Spain!

With the Portuguese press subjected to tight censorship and no independent political parties or trade unions able to operate in the Portuguese New State (1933-1974), it is always difficult to determine the range and intensity of public opinion in the country regarding any issue, including the evolving war in neighbouring Spain. The Spanish conflict did provoke a number of very significant acts of defiance against dictator António de Oliveira Salazar’s considerable support for the military rebels, including a naval mutiny on two Portuguese warships (the Afonso de Albuquerque and the Dão, in October 1936) and a failed attempt on Salazar’s life, in July 1937. But gauging the nature and depth of opposition remains difficult. 

Still, where the Portuguese lived beyond the reach of the Portuguese political police, the PVDE, the range of sentiment is easier to establish. This is especially true of the Portuguese emigrant population United States, clustered in New England, New Jersey, and California. O Bacamarte  [The Blunderbuss] was one such newspaper, published in Newark NJ which expressed free opinions. It took a very negative view of the Portuguese regime and its leader, and frequently decried Salazar’s support for Franco’s forces. This cartoon, whose author is identified only as H/W, depicts Portugal as a door to Spain which Salazar – dressed in a morning coat which identifies him as a representative of wealth – has opened for Mussolini and Hitler to attack the common people. The text below the cartoon accuses Salazar not only of turning Portugal into ‘an instrument of death and plunder at the hands of Hitler (the ‘Boche’) and Mussolini (the ‘macaroni’), but also of ceding Portuguese colonies to his fellow dictators, in the hope that they might help him should the people of Portugal rise against the New State.