Portuguese Mozambique

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Province of Mozambique Moçambique (Portuguese) see list of names
1505–1975
Flag (1910–1975) Coat of arms (1951–1975)
Anthem: " Cidade de Pedra (1507–1898) Lourenço Marques (1898–1975)
Common languages	Portuguese
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Head of state
• 1505–1521	King Manuel I of Portugal and the Algarves
• 1974–75	President Francisco da Costa Gomes
Pêro de Anaia (first)
• 1974–75	Vítor Manuel Trigueiros Crespo (last)
Historical era	Imperialism
• Established	1505
• Independence of Mozambique	25 June 1975
Currency	Mozambican real (1852–1914) Mozambican escudo (1914–75)
ISO 3166 code	MZ
Preceded by Succeeded by Sultanate of Kilwa Kingdom of Mutapa Kingdom of Maravi Gaza Empire People's Republic of Mozambique
Today part of	Mozambique

Portuguese Mozambique (

.

Portuguese trading settlements—and later, territories—were formed along the coast and into the

, and secured political control over most of its territory in 1918, facing the resistance of some Africans during the process.

Some territories in Mozambique were handed over in the late 19th century for rule by

. The Mozambique Company relinquished its territories back to Portuguese control in 1942, unifying Mozambique under control of the Portuguese government.

The region as a whole was long officially termed Portuguese East Africa, and was subdivided into a series of colonies extending from

, which lay north-east of Lourenço Marques. Once these colonies were merged, the region as a whole became known as Moçambique.

According to the official policy of the

at Lisbon in April 1974 and the independence from Portugal in June 1975.

Designation

During its history as a Portuguese colony, the present-day territory of Mozambique had the following formal designations:

• 1505–1569: Captaincy of Sofala (Portuguese: Capitania de Sofala); Dependency of the Portuguese State of India.
• 1569–1752: Captaincy of Mozambique and Sofala (Capitania de Moçambique e Sofala); Dependency of the Portuguese State of India.
• 1752–1836: Captaincy-General of Mozambique, Sofala and Rivers of Sena (Capitania-Geral de Moçambique, Sofala e Rios de Sena); Separate government, independent from that of the Portuguese State of India.
• 1836–1891: Province of Mozambique (Província de Moçambique)
• 1891–1893: State of Eastern Africa (Estado da África Oriental)
• 1893–1926: Province of Mozambique (Província de Moçambique)
• 1926–1951: Colony of Mozambique (Colónia de Moçambique)
• 1951–1972: Province of Mozambique (Província de Moçambique)
• 1973–1975: State of Mozambique (Estado de Moçambique)

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Until the 20th century, the land and peoples of Mozambique were barely affected by the Europeans who came to its shores and entered its major rivers. As the

continued and tribal federations formed and reformed as the relative power of local chiefs changed. For four centuries the Portuguese presence was meagre. Coastal and river trading posts were built, abandoned, and built again. Governors sought personal profits to take back to Portugal, and colonists were not attracted to the distant area with its relatively unattractive climate; those who stayed were traders who married local women and successfully maintained relations with local chiefs.

In Portugal, however, Mozambique was considered to be a vital part of a world empire. Periodic recognition of the relative insignificance of the revenues it could produce was tempered by the mystique which developed regarding the mission of the Portuguese to bring their civilisation to the African territory. It was believed that through missionary activity and other direct contact between Africans and Europeans, the Africans could be taught to appreciate and participate in

Portuguese culture

.

In the last decade of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century, integration of Mozambique into the structure of the Portuguese nation was begun. After all of the area of the present province had been recognised by other European powers as belonging to Portugal, administrators waged wars against African polities to assert control over the territory. Civil administration was established throughout the area, the building of an infrastructure was begun, and agreements regarding the transit trade of Mozambique's land-locked neighbours to the west, such as Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, were made.

Colonial legislation discriminated against Africans on cultural grounds. Colonial legislation submitted Africans to

and to segregation in schools. That most Africans were perceived to engage in "uncivilised behaviour" by the Portuguese created a low opinion of Africans as a group among Europeans. The uneducated Portuguese immigrant peasants in urban areas were frequently in direct competition with Africans for jobs and demonstrated jealousies and racial prejudice.

Between the urban and rural sectors of the society lied a steadily increasing group of Africans who were loosening their ties with rural villages and starting to participate in the urban economy, to settle in suburbs, and to adopt European customs. Members of this group would later become active participants in the independence movement.

When Portuguese explorers reached

and outlying islands for several centuries. From about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts became regular ports of call on the new route to the east.

UNESCO World Heritage Site

.

The voyage of Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, and society in the Indian Ocean world. The Portuguese gained control of the Island of Mozambique and the port city of Sofala in the early 16th century. Vasco da Gama having visited Mombasa in 1498 was then successful in reaching India thereby permitting the Portuguese to trade with the Far East directly by sea, thus challenging older trading networks of mixed land and sea routes, such as the spice trade routes that used the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean.^[1]

The

By the 1530s, small groups of Portuguese

They recorded a wealth of information about the Mutapa kingdom as well as its predecessor, Great Zimbabwe. According to Swahili traders whose accounts were recorded by the Portuguese historian João de Barros, Great Zimbabwe was an ancient capital city built of stones of marvellous size without the use of mortar. And while the site was not within Mutapa's borders, the Mwenemutapa kept noblemen and some of his wives there.^[5]

The Portuguese attempted to legitimate and consolidate their trade and settlement positions through the creation of prazos (land grants) tied to Portuguese settlement and administration. While prazos were originally developed to be held by Portuguese, through intermarriage they became African Portuguese or African Indian centres defended by large African slave armies known as Chikunda. Historically, within Mozambique, there was slavery.^[6] Human beings were bought and sold by African tribal chiefs, Arab traders, and the Portuguese. Many Mozambican slaves were supplied by tribal chiefs who raided warring tribes and sold their captives to the prazeiros.

Although Portuguese influence gradually expanded, its power was limited and exercised through individual settlers and officials who were granted extensive autonomy. The Portuguese were able to wrest much of the coastal trade from Arabs between 1500 and 1700, but, with the

to foster economic development and maintain Portuguese control in the territory's provinces, would lose their purpose when the territory was transferred to the control of the Portuguese colonial government between 1929 and 1942.

Although slavery had been legally abolished in Mozambique by the Portuguese colonial authorities, at the end of the 19th century the Chartered companies enacted a forced labour policy and supplied cheap – often forced – African labour to the mines and plantations of other European colonies in Africa. The Zambezia Company, the most profitable chartered company, took over a number of smaller prazeiro holdings and requested Portuguese military outposts to protect its property. The chartered companies and the Portuguese administration built roads and ports to bring their goods to market including a railway linking Southern Rhodesia with the Mozambican port of Beira. However, the development's administration gradually started to pass directly from the trading companies to the Portuguese government itself.

Because of their unsatisfactory performance and because of the shift, under the

's economy, the companies' concessions were not renewed when they ran out. This was what happened in 1942 with the Mozambique Company, which, however, continued to operate in the agricultural and commercial sectors as a corporation, and had already happened in 1929 with the termination of the Niassa Company's concession.

In the 1950s, the Portuguese overseas colony was rebranded an

Angola and Guinea, became part of the so-called Portuguese Colonial War (1961–74). From a military standpoint, the Portuguese regular army held the upper hand during all of the conflicts against the independentist guerrilla forces, which created favourable conditions for social development and economic growth until the end of the conflict in 1974.^[8]

After ten years of sporadic warfare and after Portugal's return to democracy through a leftist military coup in

retornados

); others were expelled by the ruling power of the newly independent territory. Mozambique became independent from Portugal on 25 June 1975.

Government

At least since the early 19th century, the legal status of Mozambique always considered it as much a part of Portugal as Lisbon, but as a província ultramarina (overseas province) enjoyed special derogations to account for its distance from Europe.

From 1837, the highest government official in the province of Mozambique has always been the

. During some periods in the late 19th and the early 20th century, the governors-general of Mozambique received the status of royal commissioners or of high commissioners, which gave them extended executive and legislative powers, equivalent to those of a government minister.

In the 20th century, the province was also subject to the authoritarian Estado Novo regime that ruled Portugal from 1933 to 1974, until the military coup in Lisbon, known as the Carnation Revolution. Most members of the government of Mozambique were from Portugal, but a few were Africans. Nearly all members of the bureaucracy were from Portugal, as most Africans did not have the necessary qualifications to obtain positions.

The Government of Mozambique, like the Portuguese Government itself, was highly centralised. Power was concentrated in the executive branch, and all elections, where they occurred, were carried out using indirect methods. From the Prime Minister's office in Lisbon, authority extended down to the remotest posts and regedorias of Mozambique through a rigid chain of command. The authority of the government of Mozambique was residual, primarily limited to implementing policies already decided in Europe. In 1967, Mozambique also sent seven delegates to the National Assembly in Lisbon.

The highest official in the province was the Governor-General, appointed by the Portuguese Council of Ministers on recommendation of the Overseas Minister. The Governor-General had both executive and legislative authority. A Government Council advised the Governor-General in the running of the province. The functional cabinet consisted of five secretaries appointed by the Overseas Minister on the advice of the Governor-General. A Legislative Council had limited powers and its main activity was approving the provincial budget. Finally, an Economic and Social Council had to be consulted on all draft legislation, and the Governor-General had to justify his decision to Lisbon if he ignored its advice.

Mozambique was divided into nine districts, which were further subdivided into 61 municipalities (concelhos) and 33 circumscriptions (circunscrições). Each subdivision was then made up of three or four individual posts, 166 in all with an average of 40,000 Africans in each. Each district, except Lourenço Marques which was run by the Governor-General, was overseen by a governor. Most Africans only had contact with the Portuguese through the post administrator, who was required to visit each village in his domain at least once a year.

The lowest level of administration was the regedoria, settlements inhabited by Africans living according to customary law. Each regedoria was run by a regulo, an African or Portuguese official chosen on the recommendation of local residents. Under the regulos, each village had its own African headman.

Each level of government could also have an advisory board or council. They were established in municipalities with more than 500 electors, in smaller municipalities or circumscriptions with more than 300 electors, and in posts with more than 20 electors. Each district also had its own board as well.

Two legal systems were in force — Portuguese civil law and African customary law. Until 1961, Africans were considered to be Natives (indígenas), rather than citizens. After 1961, the previous native laws were repealed and Africans gained de facto Portuguese citizenship.

Portuguese East Africa was located in south-eastern Africa. It was a long coastal strip with Portuguese strongholds, from current day Tanzania and Kenya, to the south of current-day Mozambique.

In 1900, the part of modern Mozambique northwest of the Zambezi and Shire Rivers was called Moçambique; the rest of it was Lourenço Marques. Various districts existed, and even issued stamps, during the first part of the century, including Inhambane, Lourenço Marques, Mozambique Colony,

, Quelimane, Tete, and Zambésia. The Nyassa Company territory is now Cabo Delgado and Niassa.

In the early- and mid-20th century, a number of changes occurred. Firstly, on 28 June 1919, the

to Mozambique.

During World War II, the Charter of the Mozambique Company expired, on 19 July 1942; its territory, known as Manica and Sofala, became a district of Mozambique. Mozambique was constituted as four districts on 1 January 1943 — Manica and Sofala, Niassa, Sul do Save (South of the Save River), and Zambézia.

On 20 October 1954, administrative reorganization caused Cabo Delgado and Mozambique districts to be split from Niassa. At the same time, the Sul do Save district was divided into Gaza, Inhambane and Lourenço Marques, while the Tete district was split from Manica and Sofala.

By the early 1970s, Mozambique was bordering the Mozambique Channel, bordering the countries of

, founded in 1920, was the main natural park in the territory.

The districts with their respective capitals were:[9]

• Lourenço Marques — Lourenço Marques;^[10][11]
• Gaza —
  João Belo;^[12]
• Inhambane — Inhambane;^[13]
• Beira — Beira;^[14][15]
• Vila Pery —
  Vila Pery;^[16]
• Tete — Tete
• Zambézia — Quelimane;^[17]
• Moçambique — Nampula
• Cabo Delgado —
  Porto Amélia;^[18]
• Niassa —
  Vila Cabral

Other important urban centres included

Demographics

By 1970, the Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique had about 8,168,933 inhabitants. Nearly 300,000 were white

dominated in the south. In addition, several other minority groups lived a tribal lifestyle across the territory.

Mozambique had around 250,000 Europeans in 1974 that made up around 3% of the population. Mozambique was cosmopolitan as it had Indian, Chinese, Greek and Anglophone communities (over 25,000 Indians and 5,000 Chinese by the early 1970s). The capital of Portuguese Mozambique, Lourenço Marques (

, where cities had European majorities ranging from 50% to 60%.

Starting in 1926, Portugal's colonial authorities abandoned conceptions of an innate inferiority of Africans, and set as their goal the development of a

of African communities.

The Estatuto established a distinction between the colonial citizens, subject to the

In the 1940s, the integration of traditional authorities into the colonial administration was deepened. The Portuguese colony was divided into concelhos (municipalities), in urban areas, governed by colonial and metropolitan legislation, and circunscrições (localities), in rural areas. The circunscrições were led by a colonial administrator and divided into regedorias (subdivisions of circunscrições), headed by régules (tribal chieftains), the embodiment of traditional authorities. Provincial Portuguese Decree No. 5.639, of July 29, 1944, attributed to régulos and their assistants, the cabos de terra, the status of auxiliares da administração (administrative assistants). Gradually, these traditional titles lost some of their content, and the régulos and cabos de terra came to be viewed as an effective part of the colonial state, remunerated for their participation in the collection of taxes, recruitment of the labour force, and agricultural production in the area under their control. Within the areas of their jurisdiction, the régulos and the cabos de terra also controlled the distribution of land and settled conflicts according to customary norms.^[23] To exercise their power, the régulos and cabos de terra had their own police force.

The indigenato regime was abolished in 1960. From then on, all Africans were considered Portuguese citizens, and racial discrimination became a sociological rather than a legal feature of colonial society. In fact, the rule of traditional authorities became even more integrated than before in the colonial administration. Legally speaking, by the 1960s and 1970s segregation in Mozambique was minimal compared to that in neighbouring South Africa.^[24]

The largest coastal cities, the first founded or settled by

was also quite abundant.

Lourenço Marques had always been a point of interest for artistic and architectural development since the first days of its urban expansion and this strong artistic spirit was responsible for attracting some of the world's most forward-thinking architects at the turn of the 20th century. The city was home to masterpieces of building work by,

.

Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, Lourenço Marques was yet again at the centre of a new wave of architectural influences made most popular by Pancho Guedes. The designs of the 1960s and 1970s were characterised by

modernist

movements of clean, straight and functional structures. However, prominent architects such as Pancho Guedes fused this with local art schemes giving the city's buildings a unique Mozambican theme. As a result, most of the properties erected during the second construction boom take on these styling cues.

Economy

Since the 15th century, Portugal founded settlements, trading posts, forts, and ports on the

.

By the mid-1920s, the Portuguese succeeded in creating a highly exploitative and coercive settler economy, in which African natives were forced to work on the fertile lands taken over by Portuguese settlers. Indigenous African peasants mainly produced

and other African countries. The strong industrial and agricultural development that did occur throughout the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s was based on Portuguese development plans, and also included British and South African investment.

In 1959–60, Mozambique's major exports included

.

The Portuguese overseas province of Mozambique was the first territory of Portugal, including the European

. Lately the Lourenço Marques Oil Refinery was established by the Sociedade Nacional de Refinação de Petróleo (SONAREP) — a Franco-Portuguese syndicate. In the sisal plantations Swiss capital was invested, and in copra concerns, a combination of Portuguese, Swiss and French capital was invested. The large availability of capital from both Portuguese and international origin, allied to the wide range of natural resources and the growing urban population, lead to an impressive growth and development of the economy.

From the late stages of this notable period of high growth and huge development effort started in the 1950s, was the construction of Cahora Bassa dam by the Portuguese, which started to fill in December 1974 after construction was commenced in 1969. In 1971 construction work of the Massingir Dam began. At independence, Mozambique's industrial base was well-developed by Sub-Saharan Africa standards, thanks to a boom in investment in the 1960s and early 1970s. Indeed, in 1973, value added in manufacturing was the sixth highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Economically, Mozambique was a source of agricultural raw materials and an earner of foreign exchange. It also provided a market for Portuguese manufacturers which were protected from local competition. Transportation facilities had been developed to exploit the transit trade of South Africa,

Education

Mozambique's rural population was largely illiterate. However, some thousands of Africans were educated in religion, the Portuguese language, and Portuguese history by Catholic and Protestant missionary schools established in cities and in the countryside.

In 1930, primary schooling became racially segregated.^[29] Africans who did not hold assimilated status had to enroll in "rudimentary schools," whereas whites and the few thousand assimilated Africans had access to "primary schools" of better quality.

Starting in the early 1940s, access to education was expanded in all levels. Nevertheless, "rudimentary schools" retained their poor quality. In 1956, there were 292,199 African students enrolled in first grade. Of these, only 9,486 had successfully passed third grade in 1959.^[30] By 1970, only 7.7% of Mozambique's population was literate.^[31]

A comprehensive network of secondary schools (the Liceus) and technical or vocational education schools were implemented across the cities and main towns of the territory. However, access to these institutions was largely limited to whites. In 1960, only 30 out of 1,000 students of the Liceu Salazar were Africans, in spite of whites making up only 2% of the Mozambican population.^[32]

In 1962, the first Mozambican

.

The Portuguese-ruled territory was introduced to several popular European and North American sports disciplines since the early urbanistic and economic booms of the 1920s and 1940s. This period was a time of city and town expansion and modernization that included the construction of several sports facilities for

Since the 1960s, with the latest developments on commercial aviation, the highest ranked football teams of Mozambique and the other African overseas provinces of Portugal, started to compete in the Taça de Portugal (the Portuguese Cup) in football. This became also true for other sports, like basketball and rink hockey. Before the independence of Mozambique, Sporting Clube de Lourenço Marques won the Liga Portuguesa de Basquetebol three times, in 1968, 1971 and 1973, and the Desportivo de Lourenço Marques won the 1969, 1971 and 1973 Portuguese Roller Hockey First Division.

There were also several facilities and organizations for

Beginning in the 1950s, motorsport was introduced to Mozambique. At first race cars would compete in areas around the city, Polana and along the marginal but as funding and interest increased, a dedicated race track was built in the Costa Do Sol area along and behind the marginal with the ocean to the east with a length of 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles). The initial surface of the new track, named Autódromo de Lourenço Marques did not provide enough grip and an accident in the late 1960s killed 8 people and injured many more. Therefore, in 1970, the track was renovated and the surface changed to meet the highest international safety requirements that were needed at large events with many spectators. The length then increased to 3,909 kilometres (2,429 miles). The city became host to several international and local events beginning with the inauguration on 26 November 1970.^[39]

As

ideologies spread out across Africa, many clandestine political movements were established in support of Mozambique's independence. These movements claimed that policies and development plans were primarily designed by the ruling authorities for the benefit of the ethnic Portuguese population, affecting a majority of the indigenous population who suffered both state-sponsored discrimination and enormous social pressure. Many felt they had received too little opportunity or resources to upgrade their skills and improve their economic and social situation to a degree comparable to that of the Europeans. Statistically, Portuguese Mozambique's whites were indeed wealthier and more skilled than the black indigenous majority, in spite of decreasing legal discrimination of Africans starting in the 1960s.

The

.

As one of the objectives of the MFA, all the Portuguese overseas territories in Africa were offered independence. FRELIMO took complete control of the Mozambican territory after a transition period, as agreed in the Lusaka Accord which recognized Mozambique's right to independence and the terms of the transfer of power.

Within a year of the Portuguese military coup at Lisbon, almost all of the Portuguese population had left the African territory as refugees (in mainland Portugal they were known as

Famous people

Al Bowlly (singer) Alexandre Quintanilha (science) António de Almeida Santos (politics and law) António José Enes (politics) Armando Guebuza (politics and business) Artur Ivens Ferraz (military and politics) Carlos Cardoso (journalism) Eduardo Mondlane (politics) Francisco Barreto (exploration) Graça Machel (politics) Guilherme de Melo (journalism and literature) Gungunhana (military and politics) Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Cabral Couceiro (military and politics) João Carqueijeiro (visual arts) João de Deus Pinheiro (university teaching, engineering, politics) João Maria Tudela (music) Joaquim Augusto Mouzinho de Albuquerque (military and politics) Joaquim Chissano (politics) José Craveirinha (poetry) José Rodrigues dos Santos (journalism and literature) Lourenço Marques (exploration and navigation) Luis de Matos (magic) Malangatana (painting and poetry) Marcelino dos Santos (poetry and politics) Mário Crespo (journalism) Mário Simões Dias (music)

Mariza (music) Mia Couto (literature) Noémia de Sousa (poetry) Orlando da Costa (literature) Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho (military and politics) Pancho Guedes (architecture) Paulo Furtado (music) Ricardo Rangel (photojournalism) Samora Machel (politics) Sancho de Tovar (exploration and navigation) Soshangane (military and politics) Tasha de Vasconcelos, (actress and model) Teresa Heinz (philanthropy) Yasuke (samurai) Zeca Afonso (music) Association football Alberto da Costa Pereira (association football) Carlos Queiroz (association football) Carlos Xavier (association football) Daúto Faquirá (association football) Eusébio da Silva Ferreira (association football) Jorge Cadete (association football) Matateu (association football) Mário Coluna (association football) Mário Wilson (association football) Pedro Xavier (association football) Shéu (association football)

Gallery

Society

• 
  Narrow-gauge rail in Beira. 1897.
• 
  Inauguration of the "tramuei" (Tramway). Beira, 1901.
• 
  Volunteer firemen, 1903.
• 
  Beira, 1901.
• 
  Portuguese police force in 1925.
• 
  Observatory. 1930.
• 
  Agronomist office.
• 
  Brewery. Beira, 1930.
• 
  Teachers and students of the "School of Arts and Trades".
• 
  Border post between Portuguese Mozambique and British-Swaziland, 1929.

• 
  Beachfront double estate. Beira, 1939.
• 
  Large beachfront estate in Beira.
• 
  Beachfront estate in Beira, 1939.
• 
  Private residence in Beira. 1930.
• 
  Standard Bank building, Beira. 1925.
• 
  Beira Clube. Beira, 1930.
• 
  "Indo-Portuguese recreational center". Beira.
• 
  Hotel Polana 1929, once one of the largest and most luxurious in southern Africa.
• 
  Courtroom. Beira, 1925.
• 
  Cine-Theater. Inhambane.
• 
  Colonial residence, Maputo.
• 
  Primary school, Maputo.
• 
  Maputo Naval Club
• 
  Maputo High School

• 
  25 reis 1877
• 
  100 reis 1895
• 
  100 reis 1898.
• 
  115 reis 1915
• 
  1 escudo 1921
• 
  10 centavos 1933

• Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (archives in Lisbon documenting Portuguese Empire, including Mozambique)
• Estado Novo (Portugal)
• History of Mozambique
• List of colonial governors of Mozambique
• Portuguese Angola
• Portuguese Cape Verde
• Portuguese Guinea
• Portuguese São Tomé and Príncipe

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Portuguese Mozambique.

• Gerardo Augusto Pery, ed. (1875). "Mocambique". Geographia e estatistica geral de Portugal e colonias (in Portuguese). Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional.
• "Portuguese East Africa" in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)
• Cana, Frank Richardson (1911). "Portuguese East Africa" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). pp. 163–168.
• Herrick, Allison and others (1969). "Area Handbook for Mozambique", US Government Printing Office.

25°54′55″S 32°34′35″E / 25.9153°S 32.5764°E / -25.9153; 32.5764