Appendix III

Appendix III Background References to Mozambique Mozambique had a misleading long colonial history. I call it “misleading” because though it was long, the Portuguese did not hold a strong presence on the territory. Still, the Portuguese were the first bureaucratic form of administration extended to the whole current territory, imposing a political structure that was consolidated during the last decades of the XIXth century (after the Berlin conference, in 1884/85, and the polemic “scramble for Africa”, that is to say, the division of the African continent among European powers). The contact with the Portuguese started in March 1498, when, in search of a sea route to India, Vasco da Gama reached the coast of Mozambique. By this time, there were in the Eastern coast of Africa several Muslim sheiks and other first nation kingdoms. Some of them established cordial relations with the Portuguese sea captains, while others were aggressive to the new-comers. Mozambique became a routine stopping point for the “naus” (type of galleons) sailing around the Cape of Good Hope. Sometimes they sailed around Madagascar, directly to India, but quite often the preferred route was through the channel of Mozambique, with a stop at the Island of Mozambique where the Portuguese were based. Along the coast, lively trade was carried with inland people at some key ports. Still, the lively and ancient Muslim cities (Pate, Melinde, Quíloa, Zanzibar, Mozambique and Sofala) kept on their business, and a tense rivalry developed between the Arab princes, their trading people and these new arrived Portuguese, who, to make things worse, were Catholics, and quite intent on spreading their intolerable Christian faith. Spices, tea, silk, cloth, animals and slaves were sold, for different goods, in different currencies. Feeling unwelcome latecomers, the Portuguese stuck to their isle of Mozambique, easier to defend, more reliable to keep stored property. For the coming centuries, that is how the situation remained. In the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, the Portuguese controlled the centre and north of the country. It is at this time that the “prazo” system is established. The “prazo” was a huge farm, virtually a small feudal kingdom in the hands of Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese landlords (Mozambique was managed as a satellite-department, from Goa, until 1752). Although slavery was formally abolished in the Portuguese colonies in 1836, the fact is that in the case of Mozambique, it went on through smuggling until the 1850s. The buyers were mostly French, who wanted workers for their overseas provinces. The hold of Portuguese authority to enforce the law on Mozambique was weak, still during the nineteenth century, but the continuation of forced labour practices in the Portuguese “overseas provinces”, until the end of colonisation, make one doubt there was real concern to stop this smuggling. In Mozambique, the Portuguese did not explore the inland areas as they did in Brazil and Angola, more prized possessions. They just organised some coastal settlements, with a connection to a more inland set of small places. Furthermore, there was not a significant number of white settlers in this province on the Eastern coast of Africa until, out of fear of seeing its territorial possessions questioned by England or Germany (both of which were very interested in Mozambique), Portuguese authorities decided to invest a lot in this colony, so much so, that in the beginning of the XXth century, it was more prosperous than Angola (the British Ultimatum had been in 1890, so the reactive background of this new colonial 223 attitude is clear479). Still, the scarcity of settlers (an acute and chronic problem in the Portuguese empire480) and the extension of the territory explain the fact that few Portuguese, Afro-Portuguese, or other white landowners did move to this remote colony. At independence, around 200 000 Portuguese were living in Mozambique (and many moved to South Africa, while others preferred to return to Portugal). This scarcity of settlers made them absolutely necessary, and virtually “untouchable”. They became the law within their “prazo”481 plantation, later on transformed into crown companies (“Companhias Majestáticas”) rented to foreign investment. Only the south province, where the capital is, was under the direct administration of the Portuguese crown, and not subjected to a company, the later version of the “prazo”. Political or legal decisions taken in Portugal were more frequently ignored than minded by these inland landowners (or renters). The two larger cities, Lourenço Marques (Maputo) and Beira have a different history, but these were the places where most colonial clerks lived and worked. Hence, a stronger respect for the authority of the crown was predictable. Another motive for the superficiality of Portuguese control on this territory, were the fierce pre-colonial peoples of Mozambique who did not give in easily, frequently challenging Portuguese authority. There had always been the Muslim sheiks, the Makua chiefs and the warrior Makondes, and also the legendary Ngoni, in the south province of Gaza. Gungunhanha is the last king of the Ngoni, who successfully resisted the Portuguese presence, on the 1880s, until he was arrested. Other peoples were more accommodating, but not these four groups. The Makua are a traditionally dominant group in Mozambique, while the epic legend of Gungunhanha makes of the Ngoni the stereotype of the proud African warrior (like Shaka’s legend prompted the Zulu warrior to an epic/ mythical status among both black and white people). From the 1850s onwards, South Africa started to have an increasingly important role in the economy of Mozambique, because of the massive numbers of labour hired from the Portuguese colony to South African gold and diamond mines. Thus, a significant part of the economy of Mozambique came to depend on the taxes paid by these miners when they returned home. In fact, the size of this massive emigration of workers to South Africa is so significant that it became a pervasive background theme in literature. There is always a brother or a friend that is or has been working in this neighbouring country. This massive emigration of miners to South Africa was established by an agreement between the Portuguese and South Africa. By this agreement, the Portuguese government received a payment in gold, corresponding to a percentage of the salary of each miner. Health and education services were concentrated in the south province, around the capital Lourenço Marques. For the other provinces, one of the few improvements on the living conditions of the population was the possibility, granted to Mozambican farmers from the selected assimilado group (“assimilados” were Lusophiles) to explore land on their own. Still, this entitlement only became a practice in the 1950s. The assimilados could read and write and usually came from the local aristocracies, for the Portuguese were keen on respecting the stable structures of traditional power, so as to take advantage of them. 479 Most of the disputes between European nations regarding territories of Africa were settled at the Berlim conference in 1885, when European nations divided Africa among themselves. Still, five years later, Portugal and England almost went to war because of their competing claims over central Africa. Portuguese claims were presented to the world on the rose-coloured map, including parts of Zambia and Mashonaland. In 1890, Lord Salisbury presented Portugal with an ultimatum to halt all expeditions and claims to central Africa. Portugal withdrew. 480 See note to appendix one with Portuguese population rates through time. 481 Concession over a big farm, granted by the Portuguese crown, for three generations. 224 In the XIXth century, liberal minded governments had tried to improve education facilities in the colonies but the beginning of the dictatorship in 1928 saw a step backwards in this process. Actually, there was another issue connected to the organisation of the educational system which changed with the fascist new state: after the liberal effort to organise education as an institution of the secular state, the dictatorship returned to responsibility to teach native populations to Catholic missions, following a Concordata signed with the Vatican in 1940482. The Portuguese did not invest in their colonies as much as other colonisers. Industrialisation and education are two areas where inertia is very obvious. Portuguese colonialism was more focused in exploring agriculture, and industrialisation had been late in Portugal itself. As for the indifference to build a proper educational system, it was believed that uneducated peasants would be more prone to exploitation. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Portuguese government tried to make some reforms to improve structural conditions in the colonies. The beginning of the independence war in Angola taught the regime the necessity of making improvements so as to win the support of the emerging small bourgeoisie and convince settlers to go/stay in Mozambique instead of emigrating to the United States and other European countries. Finally, in 1964, by law, all children between the ages of 6 and 12, black or white, were to attend school, and a state organised system of primary schools was active. In 1963, the first university of Mozambique was created in Lourenço Marques though the number of students attending it was very small (in 1969/ 1970, the number of students attending this college was 1145, only nine of which were black). By the end of the 60s, 494 994 pupils, of all races, attended primary school, but the number dropped radically after primary school. Only near 25 000 would attend a secondary education, and 1ess than 2000 a college education. On his study of the reforms in the educational system of the Portuguese colonies during the 1960s, Eduardo de Sousa Ferreira concludes that there was an improvement only at the level of primary education and that higher education was highly selective and meant (mostly) for white people, with a few exceptions.

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