IRSH 62 (2017), pp. 215–252 doi:10.1017/S0020859017000177 © 2017 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis Colonial State Formation Without Integration: Tax Capacity and Labour Regimes in Portuguese Mozambique (1890s–1970s)* K LEONIKI A LEXOPOULOU Wageningen University & Research Department of Social Sciences PO Box 8130, 6700 EW Wageningen, The Netherlands E-mail:
[email protected] D ÁCIL J UIF Wageningen University & Research and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas Calle Madrid, 126, 28903 Getafe (Madrid), Spain E-mail:
[email protected] ABSTRACT: Samir Amin (1972) divided the African continent into three “macro-regions of colonial influence” with distinct socio-economic systems and labour practices: Africa of the colonial trade or peasant economy, Africa of the concession-owning companies, and Africa of the labour reserves. We argue that Mozambique encompassed all three different “macro-regions” in a single colony. We reconstruct government revenue (direct/indirect taxes) raised at a district level between 1930 and 1973 and find persisting differences in the “tax capacity” of the three regions throughout the colonial period. * We would like to thank Ewout Frankema, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, Jutta Bolt, Pieter Woltjer, Kostadis Papaioannou, Christina Mumme, Carsten Burhop, Erik Green, Rachel Meyer, as well as three anonymous referees and the editorial board for their insightful comments. We also owe our gratitude to the archivists and librarians in Lisbon, Maputo, and Pretoria for their valuable advice and to Jessica M.C. Lima for her assistance; to the participants of the Workshop on “Colonialism, Growth and Development in the Southern Hemisphere, 1800–2000” at Lund University (April 2015); as well as to the participants of the ERSA workshop on “The Fiscal History of Sub-Saharan Africa” at Stellenbosch University (May 2015) and of the Social Science History Association conference in Baltimore (November 2015).