Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0251/02515.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 33KB | 528 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02515}
$Pretitle{264}
$Title{Mozambique
Chapter 1C.   The Slave Trade}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{portuguese
mozambique
british
company
trade
ngoni
zambezi
portugal
slave
territory}
$Date{1984}
$Log{Figure 4.*0251501.scf
}
Country:     Mozambique
Book:        Mozambique, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1984

Chapter 1C.   The Slave Trade

     Although the internal slave market flourished in Mozambique, before the
1780s the external, i.e., overseas, trade had seldom amounted to more than a
few hundred slaves shipped annually from Portuguese-controlled ports. When the
demand for new sources of slaves grew in Brazil, Madagascar, and on the French
Indian Ocean islands of Reunion and Mauritius in the late eighteenth century,
however, the prazeros answered it by expanding their slaving operations, first
through the established network in the interior but soon after by stepping up
raids on neighboring districts and later by selling off their own slaves and
free tenants. By 1790 approximately 9,000 slaves were being exported each year
from Mozambique. This figure represented only a small portion of the overall
Atlantic trade but at one point accounted for about 40 percent of all slaves
brought to the Rio de la Plata for sale. Serious depopulation occurred,
particularly in the coastal areas that were scoured first and most thoroughly
by slave traders. The tribal wars along the Zambezi intensified as a result of
movements by large groups of Africans trying to escape the slave raids and
thereby augmented the number of slaves taken as prisoners that were available
to the traders.

     The blockade imposed by British antislaving patrols off the West African
coast early in the nineteenth century caused slave traders supplying markets
in the Americas to shift more of their operations to southeastern Africa. As
the risk involved in evading British patrols became greater, so did the profit
from a successful passage, and as a result the volume of the Atlantic slave
trade actually increased. The 1820s and 1830s were the peak years of
Mozambique's participation, annual exports reaching 15,000 Africans, or an
estimated 10 percent of the Atlantic trade during that period. Brazil absorbed
the largest number, almost all of whom were transported in Portuguese vessels.
In addition, the prazeros sold slaves to Yao traders, who resold them to
Swahili traders for shipment to Indian Ocean markets. The slave trade became
Mozambique's most important business-so important that when official attempts
were made to curb it, traders there as well as in Angola considered following
the example of Brazil in declaring independence from Portugal.

     Under strong pressure from Britain, Portugal agreed to a treaty in 1815
that prohibited its ships from engaging in the slave trade at ports north of
the equator. The trade was subsequently banned altogether in 1836. Lacking the
means of coercion and the full cooperation of colonial authorities, however,
the Portuguese government could not enforce the law in Mozambique. The best
the governor general of the day could do was to triple the head tax on slaves
being exported from ports where the government could monitor the loading of
ships. The tax did not significantly affect the volume of traffic, but it did
divert a portion of the profit to the pockets of colonial authorities, giving
them all the more reason to ignore directives from Lisbon.

     The British patrols had not interfered with Portuguese flag vessels out
of respect for Portugal's sovereignty in its colonies' coastal waters. In
1844, however, an Anglo-Portuguese treaty was concluded authorizing the Royal
Navy to board Portuguese ships suspected of carrying slaves. This ended the
overt trade, but large-scale smuggling of slave cargoes continued. A lucrative
illegal trade with Cuba, for instance, developed in the 1850s. The prosperity
of the Muslim ports in the north also revived as a result of trade taken over
from the Portuguese. Initially, the Portuguese were reluctant to intervene,
but fears in Lisbon that Britain would act unilaterally to stop the commerce
in areas claimed by Portugal led to naval cooperation between the two powers
in the 1860s and closure of the Muslim ports to the slave trade.

     Once again in response to British protests-this time following the
publication of reports by the missionary-explorer David Livingstone on
conditions in Mozambique-Portugal began to abolish slavery by stages,
concluding with a decree of total abolition in 1878. It took many more years,
however, to suppress the practice in all Portuguese-controlled areas of
Mozambique.

The Ngoni Migrations

     A major consideration in the history of Mozambique in the nineteenth
century was the migrations that were set off by a convulsion among the
Nguni-speaking peoples of southern Africa. These movements, which coursed
through Mozambique and Zimbabwe between the 1820s and 1850s, severely tested
the Portuguese presence in southern Mozambique and profoundly altered the
balance of power in the Zambezi basin.

     In the first years of the century, Dingiswayo had imposed his rule over a
confederacy of Nguni-speaking groups in Natal. When Shaka, his general and the
chief of the small Zulu clan, became leader of the confederacy, he undertook a
campaign of conquest that reshuffled the ethnic map of southern Africa, as
defeated tribes were absorbed or displaced and as others sought to escape
subjugation in a historical episode known as the mfecane (literally, the
crushing). One such group, the Ngoni (a variant of Nguni), crossed in parties
with their chiefs into southern Mozambique in about 1820. The Gaza Ngoni,
later called the Shangaan after their leader, Soshangana Nxumalo, occupied the
area in the Limpopo basin inhabited by the Tsonga that became known as
Gazaland. Another Ngoni chief, Zwangendaba Jere, continued with his followers
across the Limpopo and in 1835 sacked Great Zimbabwe, shattering the
Changamire kingdom. Zwangendaba's Ngoni moved northward to form a kingdom on
the shores of Lake Nyasa, but some segments remained in the Zambezi to raid
the prazos.

     The dissidents who broke away from Shaka's empire survived by raiding.
Ngoni warriors carried off the women, as well as the livestock, of those
groups whom they encountered on their march and perpetuated their ranks by
recruiting the young males. In the process, while Soshangana imposed a
hierarchical and thoroughly militarized social structure on his adopted
followers, the Gaza Ngoni within a generation had become largely Tsonga in
ethnic composition.

     Initially, the appearance of the Gaza Ngoni was considered fortuitous by
the Portuguese because the large amount of ivory received by Soshangana as
tribute from conquered tribes was traded through the ports of Lourenco Marques
and Inhambane. Later, however, Soshangana found this trade to be so profitable
that he began to intrude on Portuguese-held territory on the coast. Conflict
with the Portuguese escalated, and in 1843 his warriors overwhelmed the
garrison at Inhambane. In 1833 a Zulu war party led by Shaka's brother Dingane
had captured the fort at Lourenco Marques and massacred the garrison because
the Portuguese governor general had refused to supply them with the firearms
and ammunition they had demanded. The Zulu would remain in control of the
southern shore of Delagoa Bay until their defeat by the British in Natal in
1879. In the intervening years the potential threat posed by the Gaza Ngoni
and the Zulu to Portugal's already tenuous position in southern Mozambique
left the region vulnerable to penetration by both Britain and the Afrikaner
republics.

     Soshangana had his own problems with Ngoni rebels. One such group had
migrated north, had overcome the tribes along the Save River, and had become
a major power in the hinterland of Sofala. In 1836 the rebels attacked the
Portugu