The Political Police and the Emigration Industry in Portugal During the 1930s

Abstract

This article aims to examine the practices for policing emigration from Portugal. In particular, the police culture associated with the surveillance and repression of the activities of emigration intermediaries – passage and passport agents – in the first years of the Portuguese dictatorship (1933–1939) will be analysed. In a context of organised departures in a still liberalised market, we will see how the political police, the Polícia de Vigilância e de Defesa do Estado (pvde – State Defence and Surveillance Police), became the main entity responsible for dealing with the activities of these agents and how it carried out its duties, taking into account its relation to the political and ideological purposes of the Portuguese dictatorship.