Editing Mozambique (section)

=== Portuguese Mozambique (1498–1975) ===

{{Further|Portuguese Mozambique}}

[[File:Mozambique n2.jpg|thumb|left|Detail of the [[Island of Mozambique]], former capital in Northern Mozambique and prominent in the country's history]]
[[File:Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte.jpg|thumb|left|[[Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte]]]]
[[File:Fortaleza de São Sebastião-01.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Fort São Sebastião (Mozambique)|Fort São Sebastião]]]]
The [[Island of Mozambique]] after which the country is named, is a small coral island at the mouth of Mossuril Bay on the [[Nacala]] coast of northern Mozambique, first explored by Europeans in the late 15th century.

When Portuguese explorers reached Mozambique in 1498, Arab-trading settlements had existed along the coast and outlying islands for several centuries.<ref name="gupta">{{cite book|last1=Gupta|first1=Pamila|title=Portuguese decolonization in the Indian Ocean world: History and ethnography|date=2019|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|location=London|isbn=9781350043657}}{{rp|page=27}}</ref><ref name="auto">{{cite book|last1=Isaacman|first1=Allen|last2=Peterson|first2=Derek|chapter=Making the Chikunda: Military Slavery and Ethnicity in Southern Africa, 1750–1900|editor1-last=Brown|editor1-first=Christopher Leslie|editor2-last=Morgan|editor2-first=Philip D.|title=Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age|date=2006|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-13485-8|pages=95–119|doi=10.12987/yale/9780300109009.003.0005}}</ref> From about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts displaced the Arabic commercial and military hegemony, becoming regular ports of call on the new European sea route to the east,<ref name=BilateralRelationsFactSheet/><ref name="EBmoz"/> the first steps in what was to become a process of colonisation.<ref name="EBmoz">{{cite book|last1=Sheldon|first1=Kathleen Eddy|last2=Penvenne|first2=Jeanne Marie|title=Encyclopædia Britannica|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Mozambique|access-date=7 June 2021|language=en|chapter=Mozambique: Arrival of the Portuguese|archive-date=5 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210205083321/https://www.britannica.com/place/Mozambique|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Newitt">{{cite journal|last1=Newitt|first1=Malyn|title=Mozambique Island: The Rise and Decline of an East African Coastal City, 1500–1700|journal=Portuguese Studies|date=2004|volume=20|pages=21–37|doi=10.1353/port.2004.0001|jstor=41105216|s2cid=245842110|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/41105216|access-date=7 June 2021|issn=0267-5315|archive-date=3 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210703090005/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41105216|url-status=live}}</ref>

The voyage of [[Vasco da Gama]] around the [[Cape of Good Hope]] in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, and society of the region. The Portuguese gained control of the Island of Mozambique and the port city of Sofala in the early 16th century, and by the 1530s, small groups of Portuguese traders and prospectors seeking gold penetrated the interior regions. Here they set up garrisons and trading posts at [[Sena, Mozambique|Sena]] and [[Tete, Mozambique|Tete]] on the Zambezi and tried to gain exclusive control over the gold trade.<ref name="auto"/>

In the central part of the Mozambique territory, the Portuguese attempted to legitimise and consolidate their trade and settlement positions through the creation of ''[[prazo]]s''.<ref name="auto" /> These land grants tied emigrants to their settlements, and inland Mozambique was largely left to be administered by ''prazeiros'', the grant holders, while central authorities in Portugal concentrated their direct exercise of power on, in their view, the more important Portuguese possessions in Asia and the Americas.<ref name="auto" /><ref name="Isaac2000">{{cite journal|last1=Isaacman|first1=Allen|title=Chikunda transfrontiersmen and transnational migrations in pre-colonial South Central Africa, c. 1850–1900|journal=Zambezia|date=2000|volume=27|issue=2|pages=109|hdl=10520/AJA03790622_4|url=https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA03790622_4|access-date=7 June 2021|archive-date=18 May 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240518175519/https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/AJA03790622_4|url-status=live}}</ref> Slavery in Mozambique pre-dated European-contact. African rulers and chiefs dealt in enslaved people, first with Arab Muslim traders, who sent the enslaved to Middle East Asia cities and plantations, and later with Portuguese and other European traders. In a continuation of the trade, slaves were supplied by warring local African rulers, who raided enemy tribes and sold their captives to the ''prazeiros''. The authority of the ''prazeiros'' was exercised and upheld amongst the local population by armies of these enslaved men, whose members became known as ''[[Chikunda]]''.<ref name="auto"/> Continuing emigration from Portugal occurred at comparatively low levels until late in the nineteenth century, promoting "Africanisation".<ref name="auto" /> While ''prazos'' were originally intended to be held solely by Portuguese colonists, through intermarriage and the relative isolation of ''prazeiros'' from ongoing Portuguese influences, the ''prazos'' became African-Portuguese or African-Indian.<ref name="auto"/><ref name="EBmoz"/>

[[File:Lourenco-Marques-pc-c1905.jpg|thumb|View of the Central Avenue in Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, ca. 1905]]

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 Arab Muslims between 1500 and 1700, but, with the Arab Muslim seizure of Portugal's key foothold at [[Fort Jesus]] on [[Mombasa Island]] (now in Kenya) in 1698, the pendulum began to swing in the other direction. As a result, investment lagged while [[Lisbon]] devoted itself to the more lucrative trade with India and the Far East and to the colonisation of Brazil.<ref name=BilateralRelationsFactSheet/>

The [[Mazrui]] and [[History of Oman|Omani Arabs]] reclaimed much of the Indian Ocean trade, forcing the Portuguese to retreat south. Many ''prazos'' had declined by the mid-19th century, but several of them survived. During the 19th century other European powers, particularly the British ([[British South Africa Company]]) and the French (Madagascar), became increasingly involved in the trade and politics of the region around the Portuguese East African territories.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Austin|first=Gareth|date=1 March 2010|title=African Economic Development and Colonial Legacies|url=http://journals.openedition.org/poldev/78|journal=International Development Policy {{!}} Revue internationale de politique de développement|language=en|issue=1|pages=11–32|doi=10.4000/poldev.78|issn=1663-9375|doi-access=free|access-date=28 January 2021|archive-date=21 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210121082142/https://journals.openedition.org/poldev/78|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:TT CMZ-AF-GT E 2-1 10 81 - Oficina de Tipografia da Escola de Artes e Ofícios.jpg|thumb|left|Portuguese language printing and typesetting class, 1930]]

By the early 20th century the Portuguese had shifted the administration of much of Mozambique to large private companies, like the [[Mozambique Company]], the [[Zambezia Province|Zambezia Company]] and the [[Niassa Company]], controlled and financed mostly by British financiers such as [[Solomon Joel]], which established railroad lines to their neighbouring colonies (South Africa and [[Rhodesia]]). Although slavery had been legally abolished in Mozambique, 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 [[plantation]]s of the nearby British colonies and South Africa.<ref name=BilateralRelationsFactSheet/> The Zambezia Company, the most profitable chartered company, took over several smaller ''prazeiro'' holdings and established military outposts to protect its property. The chartered companies built roads and ports to bring their goods to market including a railroad linking present-day Zimbabwe with the Mozambican port of [[Beira, Mozambique|Beira]].<ref name="The Cambridge history of Africa">[https://books.google.com/books?id=zywkdNMeltkC&pg=PA495&dq=chartered+companies+mozambique#PPA496,M1 The Cambridge history of Africa] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191214003714/https://books.google.com/books?id=zywkdNMeltkC&pg=PA495&dq=chartered+companies+mozambique#PPA496,M1 |date=14 December 2019 }}, The Cambridge history of Africa, John Donnelly Fage, A. D. Roberts, Roland Anthony Oliver, Edition: Cambridge University Press, 1986, {{ISBN|0-521-22505-1}}, {{ISBN|978-0-521-22505-2}}</ref><ref name="The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825-1975">[https://books.google.com/books?id=LA28AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA100&dq=chartered+companies+mozambique The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825–1975] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191123044105/https://books.google.com/books?id=LA28AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA100&dq=chartered+companies+mozambique |date=23 November 2019 }}, The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825–1975: A Study in Economic Imperialism, W. G. Clarence-Smith, Edition: Manchester University Press ND, 1985, {{ISBN|0-7190-1719-X}}, 9780719017193</ref>

Due to their unsatisfactory performance and the shift, under the [[corporatist]] [[Estado Novo (Portugal)|Estado Novo]] regime of [[Oliveira Salazar]], toward a stronger Portuguese control of [[Portuguese Empire]]'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 1951, the Portuguese overseas colonies in Africa were rebranded as Overseas Provinces of Portugal.<ref name="The Cambridge history of Africa"/><ref name="The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825-1975"/><ref>[http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20090928143505/http%3A//digitarq%2Edgarq%2Egov%2Ept/default%2Easpx?page%3DregShow%26ID%3D1117748%26searchMode%3Dlf Agência Geral do Ultramar]. dgarq.gov.pt</ref>

The [[Mueda massacre]] of 16 June 1960, resulted in the death of [[Makonde people|Makonde]] protestors, which provoked the struggle of independence from Portuguese rule of Mozambique.