Mozambique: The slave trade and early colonialism (1700 - 1926)

Updated Jan 2008

The loss of their northern African coastal possession to the Omanis in 1699 led the Portuguese to focus on the little that remained to them, their holdings in Mozambique. The slave trade now became an increasingly important element in exploiting the territory and expanded rapidly from small beginnings over the century; the Prazos, the Yao, the Tsonga, Arabs and Swahili all participated in the export of humans from the interior as far afield as Zimbabwe, northern South Africa and Malawi through the Island of Mozambique, Quelimane, Inhambane and Lourenço Marques by Portuguese, Brazilian and French traders to Brazil, the sugar estates of the Indian Ocean Islands and Madagascar (IIASA 2001; Seatizen 2001).

The Prazos, increasingly Africanised, asserted their independence to the point of refusing to pay taxes to the Crown, while Yao, Arab, Swahili and Indian traders were able to act autonomously of the Portuguese (Crawfurd 2002; Stanford Undated; Seatizen 2001). In this period also the Portuguese introduced new valuable food crops such as cashew nuts, maize and cassava (Crawfurd 2002; Columbia Encyclopedia 2007).

In 1752 responsibility for the administration of Portuguese holdings in Mozambique was removed from Goa and it became a separate colony under a captain-general (Stanford Undated; Crawfurd 2002; Columbia Encyclopedia 2007). In 1787 Lourenço Marques was fortified and a town began to develop around the fort (Crawfurd 2002). By 1790 9000 people were being exported as slaves from the colony every year (Stanford Undated). After the British abolished the slave trade in 1807 efforts by the Royal Navy to suppress it in western Africa stimulated the trade in eastern Africa and the numbers exported rose dramatically, with approximately 1 million slaves exported from Mozambique during the 1800s (Stanford Undated; Crawfurd 2002). Thus violence and conflict wracked the interior, entire areas were depopulated, societies disintegrated and local economies collapsed (Crawfurd 2002). The independence of Brazil from Portugal in 1822 led to renewed interest on the part of the Portuguese in their African possessions (Macamo 2002).

A long lasting drought precipitated famine in the early 1830s and in 1831 the Island of Mozambique was forced to import food from outside Mozambique (Alpers 2001). The rise and expansion of the Zulu kingdom unleashed a series of migrating raiding groups across the sub-continent two of which penetrated Mozambique in the first three decades of the 19th Century; they killed and plundered as they passed through adding to the misery and economic chaos created by the slave trade and drought (Seatizen 2001; Columbia Encyclopedia 2007). One group under Zwangendaba swept through northwards, crossed the Zambezi and settled west of Mozambique while the other under Soshangane crossed the Limpopo eastwards and settled in southern Mozambique, creating the Gaza kingdom of the Shangaans (Seatizen 2001; Columbia Encyclopedia 2007). In 1833 the Shangaans captured the fort at Lourenço Marques (Stanford Undated). Succession struggles within the kingdom led to devastating civil wars (Seatizen 2001).

In the north Angoche still maintained independence from Portugal (an attempt by the Portuguese to take the city in 1860 failed) and its trade in rubber, ivory and slaves flourished while enterprises relocated there to escape Portuguese taxes and duties (Wikipedia 2006). To secure the supply of slaves in the reign of Sultan Hasani Usufu it expanded into the interior, setting up bases to control trade routes (Wikipedia 2006). It also emerged as a centre of Islamic expansion into the interior in the second part of the nineteenth century looking to Sultanates in Zanzibar and the Comoros for juridical guidance, the schooling of local scholars and support (Alpers 2001). The Yao, however, suffered as they lost their trade monopoly, were subjected to slave raids by the Lomwe-Makau and were ravaged by the migrating Ngoni forcing them to migrate from their homeland in large numbers and settle in Malawi (CMRM Undated, 2).

References

ALPERS, EA 2001 "A complex relationship: Mozambique and the Comoro Islands in the 19th and 20th centuries IN Cahiers d'études africaines, 161, [www] http://etudesafricaines.revues.org/document67.html [opens new window] (accessed 24 Jan 2008).

CHAMARE MUSEUM & RESEARCH CENTRE (CMRM) Undated "Introduction to the Chewa Spiritual World" IN KuNgoni, [www] http://www.kungoni.org/images/pdf_files/Chewa.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 18 Jan 2008).

CRAWFURD, J 2002 "Mozambique Timeline", [www] http://crawfurd.dk/africa/mozambique_timeline.htm [opens new window] (accessed 25 Jan 2008).

COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2007, "Mozambique: History", Sixth Edition, [www] http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Mozambiq.html [opens new window] (accessed 18 Jan 2008).

GILBERT, E 2002 "Coastal East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean: Long-Distance Trade, Empire, Migration, and Regional Unity, 1750-1970" IN The History Teacher, 36(1) [www] http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/36.1/gilbert.html [opens new window] (accessed 25 Jan 2008).

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS (IIASA) 2001 "Country Briefs: Mozambique - Chronology of History" IN Botswana's future, Mozambique's Future, Namibia's Future: Modeling Population and Sustainable development Challenges in the Era of HIV/AIDS [www] http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/POP/pde/briefs/mz-history.html [opens new window] (accessed 18 Jan 2008).

MACAMO, E 2002 "The Denial of Modernity - The Regulation of Native Labour in Colonial Mozambique and its Postcolonial Aftermath", CODESRIA 10th General Assembly, Kampala 8th-12th December, [www] http://www.codesria.org/Archives/ga10/Abstracts%20GA%201-5/colonialism_Macamo.htm [opens new window] (accessed 25 Jan 2008).

SEATIZEN 2001 "Slave Trade" IN Ilha de Moçambique, [www] http://www.geocities.com/b_veronik/ilha/slavetrade.html [opens new window] (accessed 18 Jan 2008).

STANFORD, E UNDATED "Culture of MOZAMBIQUE", [www] http://www.everyculture.com/Ma-Ni/Mozambique.html [opens new window] (accessed 18 Jan 2008).

WIKIPEDIA 2006 "Angoche Sultanate", [www] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angoche_Sultanate [opens new window] (accessed 18 Jan 2008).