The Portuguese authorities balanced missionary and political dynamics as they sought to strengthen their claims over African territories in an imperial and colonial world that was becoming increasingly internationalized. This book sets out to investigate how missionary authorities reacted to national challenges from the monarchical and republican regimes, and rising competition within the Catholic world, as well as the Protestant threat, at the international level. To what degree were religious and missionary projects a political instrument? Was this situation similar in other colonial empires? The 1890 British Ultimatum was part of a process of conflicting religious competition in Africa (among Catholics, and between Catholics and Protestants) in parallel with inter-imperial disputes. The Portuguese authorities saw missionary presence as a potentially useful political weapon, but it cut two ways: in favour of or against its colonial rule. Foreigner missionaries in what was considered the Portuguese