The article "From the salt marsh to liberal Portugal: Geopolitical Faro (I)", written by Virgílio Machado, a professor at the University of Algarve and author of the books "Journey to the Kingdom of the Algarve" and "Geopolitical Portugal", presents Faro as an exemplary case study in Hydro-politics, the science that studies the relationships between water, power and society. The article is a dedication to the memory of the collective people of Faro who transformed their connection to water — its control, movement, retention and symbolism — into a central element of their historical identity.
Faro's history dates back to the Phoenicians, who founded trading posts in the predecessor Ossonoba, using the salt marshes for the retention of salt and fish. The city's central dock is described as an expression of human control over water, connected to the sea through a lagoon. In 1540, King John III elevated Faro to the status of city within the context of medieval charter municipalism. In the city centre, the neo-Moorish architecture of the Bank of Portugal and the neo-Manueline style of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos express a renewal linked to power, with colours that evoke the Portuguese arms on the municipal coat of arms.
Faro was described as a city loyal to the liberal cause, which brought the concept of property as a commodity, free from feudal burdens. Liberalism put an end to the military government of the Kingdom of the Algarve, replacing it with a civil government based in Faro, which became the capital of the district attached to the electoral circle of Beja. The city welcomed institutions of liberal power and functioned as a strategic centre for fighting absolutist guerrillas, benefiting from an agricultural hinterland of fruit, horticulture and dried nuts.
The article also mentions the sack of Faro by the Earl of Essex in 1596, during the period of the Iberian Union, as an example of Portugal's suffering in the face of the interests of continental powers. Virgílio Machado suggests that Faro's geopolitics is explained by the balance between water, land and natural systems, a knowledge inherited and successfully extended to modern air transport. The article ends indicating that it continues in a next part.
