One of his most decisive contributions was his ability to look at the historical document as the fundament for a type of discourse that is both scientific and symbolic, traditionalist yet capable of pacifying internal differences; to look at Portuguese institutions as transformative bearers of the love for freedom and independence that was inherited from the peoples who had occupied the land since at least the 6th century BC.

Only a few years after Évora-Monte, the Portuguese Foreign Affairs Ministry once again had need of the services of D. Miguel’s former minister. The Casamance question (1836-39) was but the first of many related to territories in Africa and Asia, such as the case of Angra Pequena, Macau, Molembo, Ambriz and Cabinda or of the enclave of Nagar-Haveli. Being the target of a diplomatic dispute with France, the mouth of the River Casamance led several Secretaries of State and various Portuguese representatives in Paris and London to ask the Viscount to undertake some documentary investigation (geographical, historical, diplomatic and cartographic) and to write reports on these matters for institutional use. This triggered another line of investigation for Santarém, in effect one that was parallel to his work on diplomatic history, that resulted in such works as the Memória sobre a prioridade dos descobrimentos portugueses na costa de África ocidental... (Memoir on the priority of the Portuguese discoveries on the coast of West Africa) (1841), with a French version the following year; the Memória sobre o estabelecimento dos portugueses em Macau na China (Memoir on the establishment of the Portuguese in Macau in China) (1845) and the Demonstração dos direitos que tem a coroa de Portugal sobre os territórios... de Molembo, Cabinda e Ambriz (Demonstration of the rights that the Portuguese Crown holds over the territories... of Molembo, Cabinda and Ambriz) (1855).

Some of these works defending Portuguese territorial rights, based on the Portuguese priority of the African discoveries, forced him against his will to get involved in historiographical and cartographic disputes with some of the great names of the 19th century such as the Luso-Brazilian Varnhagen and the Frenchmen, Avezac and Jomard. These works also made him extend his publishing endeavours even further with the publication of his monumental three- volume work Éssai sur l'histoire de la cosmographie et de la cartographie... (Essay on the history of cosmography and of cartography...) and the various editions of his Atlas..., both designed to illustrate the decisive role played by the Portuguese in extending geographical knowledge of the planet. To these disputes with foreigners can also be added disagreements with his compatriots, Costa de Macedo and Alexandre Herculano, on the subject of the funding of his works by the Portuguese government, the reorganization of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences in 1851 and the supposed fallibility of the documents collected outside the kingdom.

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