Mozambique

C

The Gaza Empire

In the 1820s, during a period of severe drought, Nguni armies began to invade Mozambique from what is now South Africa. One Nguni chief, Nxaba, established a short-lived kingdom inland from Sofala, but in 1837 he was defeated by Soshangane, a powerful Nguni rival. Soshangane established the Gaza Empire, which at its height in the 1860s covered the whole of Mozambique between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. From this area, Nguni armies invaded the north and established cattle-owning military states along the edges of the Mozambican highlands. Although not within the borders of modern-day Mozambique, these military states nonetheless served as effective bases for raids into Mozambique.

With the prolonged drought, the rise of Gaza, the dominance of the slave trade, and the expansion of Portuguese control in the Zambezi Valley, the once-mighty African chieftaincies of the Zambezi region declined. In their place, valley warlords established fortified strongholds at the confluence of the major rivers, where they raised private armies and raided for slaves in the interior. The most powerful of these warlords was Manuel Antonio de Sousa, a settler from Portuguese India, who by the middle of the 19th century controlled most of the southern Zambezi Valley and a huge swath of land to its south. North of the Zambezi, Islamic slave traders rose to power from their base in Angoche, and the Yao chiefs of the north migrated south to the highlands along the Shire River, where they established their military power.

D

British Influence

In 1856 Scottish explorer David Livingstone reached the mouth of the Zambezi after exploring its upper reaches. Livingstone returned to the Zambezi in 1858, attempting to open a river route into central Africa. Livingstone’s endeavors and, more to the point, the political designs of Britain, troubled Portugal deeply. To fend off British interest in the region, Portugal tried to exert further control over the various Arab and African chieftaincies in Mozambique. In 1861 the Portuguese wrested the slaving port of Angoche from its Arab holders, and then embarked on a string of largely disastrous wars against the interior warlords. Under pressure from Britain, Portugal outlawed the slave trade in Mozambique in 1842, finally abolishing slavery altogether in 1878.

By the 1870s European interest in Africa was focused on raw materials and the labor needed to extract them. Although Mozambique had little mineral wealth compared with diamond-rich land in what would become South Africa, it attracted speculators who wanted to grow sugar, cotton, and oil seeds. The Portuguese welcomed these private companies, which would develop the region’s infrastructure, pay tariffs on exports, and most important, counter the influence of the British. In 1875, when Scottish missionaries established themselves in the Shire highlands, Portugal’s enthusiasm for granting concessions to private companies grew greater still. Several colonial companies were established, the most important of which was started by Paiva de Andrade in 1878 and in 1888 became the Mozambique Company.

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In January 1890, with the control of East Africa still unresolved, Britain threatened war against Portugal if its border demands were not met. No match for the British Navy, Portugal conceded to most of Britain’s demands, and in May 1891 the frontiers of modern Mozambique were drawn. Much of the western highlands passed into British hands, but Portugal was left in control of the lengthy coast with its numerous ports and trade stations, as well as the lowlands between the coast and the highlands.

Soon thereafter, Portugal undertook a series of campaigns against the African kingdoms within Mozambique’s borders. Portugal finalized its occupation of the south in a series of rapid strikes against the Gaza Empire, which surrendered in 1895. The final defeat of the warlords along the Zambezi was achieved in 1902, but the entirety of Mozambique was not fully under Portuguese control until the 1920s. In 1902 Portugal established the capital of Mozambique at Lourenço Marques, now Maputo.

E

Control by the Concessions

In the early 20th century, Portugal continued to allow private concession companies broad control of the colony. A handful of concessions controlled almost all of Mozambique’s production of goods and supply of labor. Workers were often forced to labor under brutal conditions, with extremely low (and sometimes no) wages, and with few political rights. In the south, companies were given the rights to recruit people and send them to work the diamond and gold mines in South Africa. In 1907 the colonial government codified these abuses and established separate labor laws for natives and nonnatives. The growth of the forced labor economy was greatly aided by completion of two railroads in the late 1890s. By the early 20th century, the railroads and the ports to which they were linked became Mozambique’s biggest source of foreign exchange.

In 1916 Portugal entered World War I (1914-1918), and the following year a serious rebellion broke out in the province of Zambezia. The Barue Rising, as it is known, was quelled, but not without great effort. Later that year, in November, German troops further destabilized Mozambique by invading and overrunning most of the region north of the Zambezi River. The German troops were not expelled until near the end of the war in 1918.

After World War I, the Portuguese government continued to allow private companies to exert enormous power over Mozambique society, a condition that changed only after the 1926 coup in Portugal. In 1932 António de Oliveira Salazar began a long dictatorship of Portugal, and under his influence the government established direct rule over Mozambique. Salazar ended the power of the private companies and in their place established a planned economy (a system in which the government controls every aspect of the economy). Such changes, however, often did little to improve life for the people of Mozambique. For example, Mozambican farmers were forced to grow crops such as cotton and rice for export, and very little consideration was given to the crops needed for Mozambique’s subsistence. The government also continued the practice of sending Mozambicans to labor in South African mines. Under Salazar, white settlement was encouraged, especially in the irrigated regions around the Limpopo River. Partly as a result, the number of white settlers in the country grew from a few tens of thousands to nearly 200,000 by 1970.

F

Resistance and Independence

Salazar’s Portugal kept tight control over all aspects of African life. Until the late 1960s blacks were routinely denied opportunities in education, employment, and government, and political dissent was met with swift imprisonment or exile. In 1962 a group of exiled Mozambicans led by Eduardo Mondlane met in Tanzania and formed the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo, from Frente de Libertação de Moçambique). Two years later, Frelimo launched a guerrilla war against Portuguese Mozambique. The Portuguese countered the insurrection with arms and, in an attempt to pacify the people of Mozambique, a major development program. Many roads, schools, and hospitals were built, stimulating rapid economic growth. In 1969 work began on the Cabora Bassa Dam, which was to be the showpiece of Portuguese development policies.

These efforts notwithstanding, the war with Frelimo continued, even after Mondlane was assassinated in 1969. By the early 1970s the war reached a stalemate. Only after Portugal underwent a tumultuous revolution in April 1974 did the colonial regime in Mozambique begin to crumble. In July 1975 power was formally transferred to Frelimo, and Mozambique became independent.

G

Civil War

The Frelimo government introduced far-reaching reforms, including rights for women and the collectivization of agriculture. It also introduced a Marxist-Leninist constitution that brought the economy under the control of the state, and it supported the liberation movements of blacks in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa. In return, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa sponsored an anticommunist Mozambican guerrilla movement seeking the overthrow of the Frelimo government. This guerrilla group became known as the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo, from Resistência Nacional Mocambiçana). Beginning in 1980 Renamo targeted and destroyed government installations, industries, schools, and infrastructure. Within a short time, the government could be certain of control over only a few cities, and travel about the country could be undertaken safely only by air. In time Renamo gained control over much of the country as increasing numbers of Mozambicans grew disaffected with government policies or were intimidated by a wide range of Renamo terror tactics.

In 1984, with his country’s economy in ruins and tens of thousands of his citizens killed, President Samora Moises Machel sought to end South Africa’s logistical and military support for Renamo by signing the Nkomati Accord. Under the accord, Mozambique agreed to end its support for the African National Congress, which was battling South Africa’s rigid policy of racial segregation known as apartheid. In return, South Africa vowed to stop supplying Renamo. Machel also began to move Frelimo away from its outright Marxist orientation that had antagonized Western and internal critics. The war continued nonetheless, and thousands of people died yearly in the fighting or from associated disease and malnutrition. In 1986 President Machel died in an airplane crash, and Joachim Chissano, the foreign minister, was elected to succeed him.

In 1990 the government adopted a new constitution that firmly disavowed Marxism-Leninism, established Mozambique as a multiparty democracy, and guaranteed the freedom of expression. The new constitution paved the way for peace talks between Frelimo and Renamo, and in October 1992 the two groups signed an accord that ended the civil war. In the 1994 elections that followed the accord, Frelimo won by what many observers believed was a surprisingly narrow margin, and Chissano was reelected. Renamo, to the relief of many, agreed to recognize Frelimo’s victory.

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