The Portuguese on the Zambesi from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries

Quoted in R. Coupland , Kirk on the Zambesi (Oxford , Clarendon Press, 1928), p. 162.

The best descriptions of the fairs are still those of the early Portuguese chroniclers João dos Santos, Diogo de Couto and P. Monclaros S.J. A useful modern account of Portuguese settlement in Mashonaland is contained in A. Lobato , Colonização Senhorial de Zambesia (Lisbon, Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1962). See also 'Seventeenth Century Portuguese earthworks in Rhodesia', P. S. Garlake, South African Archaeological Bulletin (vol. xxi, No. 84, pt. 4, January 1967).

There exists at present no comprehensive study of Bayão's career. Information on him is scattered through the following sources. Manuel Baretto , Informação do Estado e Conquista dos Rios de Cuama (1667) in R.S.E.A. vol. iii. C.R. Boxer , 'Sisnando Dias Bayão: Conquistador of the Mae D'Ouro' published in Primeiro Congresso da Historia da Expansão Portuguesa no Mundo, vol. iii (Lisbon, 1938). 'Viagem que Fez Antonio Gomes', ed. Axelson in Studia, no. 3. H. von Sicard, 'A Proposito Sisnando Dias Bayão' in Studia, no. 16. Also an important document in A.H.U. Moçambique Maço 1, dated 10 September 1830 and discussing the perpetual tenure of the prazo of Cheringoma by Bayão's descendants.

Census report dated 24 January 1722. Quoted in Hoppe , Portugiesisch-ostafrika in der Zeit des Marques de Pombal (Berlin, 1965), p. 71.

A.H.U. Cx. Av. Moç. 3.

A.H.U. Cx. Av. Moç. 40.

A.H.U. Maço D.O. 1.

See Lt. Barnard , Three Years Cruise in the Mozambique Channel (London, 1848), p. 144.

° F.C. Selous , 'Twenty Years in Zambesia', The Geographical Journal (vol. 1, no. 2, April 1893), p. 198.

The most important prazos owned by this family were Gorongosa and Cheringoma, the two great inland prazos having between them 4,620 African kraals in the 1802 census, and Chupanga and Luabo the two rich prazos in the delta area and two smaller ones, Sansa and Inhacoche.

Many of the eighteenth century Tenentes-Gerais married into the prazo families. M. A. de Montaury, who governed 1759-67, married D. Ines Pessoa Almeida Castellobranco; Inacio de Mello Alvim, who governed 1767-73, married D. Caterina de Faria Leitao; even the great Francisco de Laccrda had arranged to marry into the Moura e Meneses family before he died.

In the eighteenth century there were official garrisons at Sena, Tete, Quelimane, Manica and Zimbabwe (the court of the Monomotapa). In the nineteenth century a military post was established at Guengue below the Lupata gorge as a base for troops fighting the da Cruz. Later forts were constructed at Tambara and Massangano and Zumbo also had a garrison after it was reoccupied by the Portuguese in 1862. Lacerda, when he entered the fort at Sena in 1797 refused to believe that what he saw was a fort until he saw the official flag-staff and some guns. See F. de Lacerda e Almeida , Travessia da Africa ( Lisbon. Agencia Geral das Colonias, 1936), p. 117.

There are no good studies of the Zambesi peoples but see Rita Ferreira , Agrupamento e Caracterisação Etnica dos Indigenas de Moçambique ( Lisbon, 1958) and Mary Tew , Peoples of the Lake Nyasa Region (London, Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1950).

Two other terms were used to describe the colono. Mossense (Lacerda), or mucense (Miranda), is probably a Bantu term. The Portuguese word Forro—a free man—is also used.

João dos Santos , Ethiopia Oriental. In R.S.E.A., vol. viii, p. 190.

Manuel Baretto , Informação do Estado e Conquista dos Rios da Cuama (1667). See R.S.E.A. vol. iii, pp. 467-8.

Livingstone thought that this custom was adopted by the Zambesi Africans from the Portuguese. See The Zambesi and Its Tributaries, D. and C. Livingstone (London, 1865 ), pp. 165-6. It is, however, mentioned as an established custom early on in the period of the Portuguese occupation which makes Livingstone's view unlikely.

Ferão's account of the lands near the fort of Sofala derives from a MS. acquired by Captain Owen on his historic survey of Eastern Africa from 1822-4. The document is short and appears to depend a lot on traditional evidence about the quite distant past. He is referring almost entirely to the lands in the neighbourhood of the fort at Sofala and not strictly to the Zambesi at all. See R.S.E.A., vol. vii.

The detailed accounts of the prazos of Gorongosa and Cheringoma are undated but probably refer to the eighteenth century. They have been published in Fontes para a Historia, Geografia e Commercio de Moçambique (Lisbon, 1954), Anais vol. ix, tom 1, by Carvalho Dias. The originals are from the archives of the Ministerio do Reino.

A. C. P. Gamitto and Monteiro, King Kazembe, trans. Cunnison (Lisbon, Junta da Investigações do Ultramar, 1960), vol. 2, pp. 186-7. Fumo is a common Bantu word meaning chief.

A.H.U. Moç. Cx. 39. Dated 23 November 1802. The term nhacuava is synonymous with fumo.

Gamitto & Monteiro, King Kazembe; Lacerda, Travessia da Africa.

Delfim José d'Oliveira, A. Provincia de Moçambique e o Bonga (Coimbra, 1879). This law of 22 December 1854 was deliberately intended to protect the colono. It set a limit of 1.600 reis on the hut tax, declared the colonos owners of the land they cultivated, made them free of personal service to the senhor and allowed them free disposal of their produce.

J. Mousinho de Albuquerque , Moçambique 1896-98 (Lisbon, 1899), p. 127.

J. M. de Albuquerque , op. cit., pp. 171-82.

For instance Antonio da Conceição says that the owner of the prazo Nhabanzo, when she called out her forces, called the forros as well as the captivos. See Tratados dos Rios da Cuama (1696).

See A.H.U. Moç. Cx. Av. 4. Report dated 1757 of Francisco de Mello e Castro.

See Inventario do Fundo do Seculo xviii, ed. Montes (Lourenço Marques, 1958), Doc. 102 dated 12 July 1769 and Doc. 215 dated 12 January 1762).

See Gamitto and Monteiro, King Kazembe, pp. 186-7, vol. ii. In some respects the position of the chuanga resembled that of the mucazambo described below. Inacio de Mello Alvim records that in 1769 he summoned the chuangas and mucazambos of the crown prazos to get them to prepare for war. Perhaps his supervision duties extended to the arming of the colonos as well. There is at least one occasion when a chuanga was called on to sign (with a cross) the deed of cession by a chief of his land to the Portuguese. He was an important enough person to witness such a document. See Termos de Vassalagem (Lisbon, 1890), p. 17, no. 10, 15 September 1863.

Rev. Henry Rowley , The Story of the Universities Mission to Central Africa (London, 1867), 2nd ed., p. 57.

Rowley, however, made it clear that he did not identify the two systems. In what is perhaps the best interpretation of Zambesi slavery, he says specifically that it is 'not the same kind of slavery that exists among the Portuguese in America and clsewhere, for there is little in common between the two systems'. Op. cit.. p. 47.

J. Nogueira de Andrade, 'Deservição em que ficaram os negocios da capitania de Moçambique em fins de 1789 e considerações sobre e decadencia do seu commercio'. See Arquivo das Colonias (1917-18), pp. 87-8.

Antonio Pinto de Miranda. 'Memoria sobre a Costa da Africa'. Printed in A. A. de Andrade . Relações de Moçambique Setecentista (Lisbon, Agencia Geral do Ultramar, 1955), pp. 168-9.

This of course is one of the legal origins of slavery recognised in Roman law and also to a limited extent by the Roman Catholic Church. Its inclusion here is only a formality.

Mauriz Thomans, Reise und Lebensbeschreibung (Augsburg, 1788), chap. 9.

The Zambesi and Its Tributaries, pp. 49-50.

Story of the Universities Mission, p. 47.

Lacerda, Travessia da Africa. A letter dated 7 November 1809 from Nicolau Pascoa da Cruz, the founder of the da Cruz family, complains that of his 340 slaves 300 are at that time living as refugees with the local chiefs. Quoted is Almeida D'Eça . Historia das Guerras no Zambeze, vol. 1, documentos no. 2.

This remarkable document has never been published nor its author satisfactorily identified. It is to be found in A.H.U. Moç. Cx. Av. 3.

A.H.U. Moç. Cx. Av. 2. No date.

A.H.U. Moç. Cx. Av. 62. Tete, dated 20 May 1818.

Zambesi Papers of Richard Thornton, ed. Tabler (London, Chatto and Windus , 1963), vol. 1, p. 43.

Details of Cheringoma and Gorongosa are to be found in Anais, vol. ix. The details of Caia from A.H.U. Moç. Cx. Av. 7, dated 17 September 1759.

This institution must be seen in an African context. Certain tribes have obtained a reputation as traders and have specialised in this form of economic activity. The Yao and the Bisa in East Central Africa and the Ovimbundu in West Central Africa would be examples. Most of these were able to adapt to the spreading internal slave trade in the nineteenth century but the mussambaze seems to have been Superseded by bands organised under the personal slaves of the prazo holders.

Reise und Lebensbeschreibung, chap. 9.

I.F.S. doc. 162.

Three Years Cruise in the Mozambique Channel, p. 143. Lacerda, Travessia da Africa, says that often slaves insisted that when they surrendered themselves to a new master there should be an agreement that they should not be mandado para fora (sent abroad), p. 36.

A Provincia de Moçambique e o Bonga.

Story of The Universities Mission, pp. 47, 55.

For instance the standard method of conducting an execution in the eighteenth century was for the guilty person to be blown from the mouth of a cannon—doubtless the effect desired was pour encourager les autres.

Francisco Raimundo Moraes Pereira , Journey Made Overland from Quellimane to Angoche in 1752, ed. Newitt (Salisbury, Central African Historical Association , 1965), p. 27. Pereira was a judge sent to the Rivers to take depositions on the loss of government shipping.

The best descriptions of the aringa of the da Cruz at Massangano is contained in Augusto de Castilho, Relatorio das Guerras no Zambesi (Lisbon, 1891) and in 'The Aringa at Massangano', by Newitt and Garlake, Journal of African History (no. 1, 1967). This contains a detailed plan and survey of the site of the aringa. The aringa of Vas dos Anjos is described by Thornton and James Stewart. Lieutenant Barnard described the aringa of Senhor Morgado and there is a remarkable description of the aringa of the Caetano Pereiras at Macanga together with a plan by P. Victor Courtois, 'Terras de Macanga', Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa (serie 5, no. 5, 1885).

Santos Junior , Contribuição para o Esdudo da Antropologia de Moçambique (Lisbon, 1944), pp. 247-8.

Peoples of the Lake Nyasa Region, p. 31.

Termos da Vassalagem, p. 23.

Lacerda's letter dated Tete, 22 March 1798, printed in Travessia da Africa Doc. 2, 384-95, gives the information. The Pereiras had come from Goa in the 1750s. For a discussion of the origins of Kazembe's contacts with the Portuguese see I. Cunnison 'Kazembe and the Portuguese', Journal of African History (no. 1, 1961). The traditional history of the Pereiras is recorded by Courtois in 'Terras de Macanga'.

Termos da Vassalagem, p. 19.

A. Lobato , Evolução Politica e Economica de Moçambique (Lisbon , 1957), p. 154.

Quoted in C.R. Boxer , Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire (London, Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 46. According to A. Rego Martins , 'Monografia sobre os Usos e Costumes dos Senas', Boletim da Sociedade de Estudos de Moçambique (July 1960), pp. 13-20, some of these customs are still in practice among the Senas of the lower Zambesi.

A.E. Xavier Soares , Villa da Sofala (Nova Goa, 1855 ), p. 40.

Zambesi and Its Tributaries, pp. 51, 41. The propitiation of the spirits of the Lupata is mentioned also by R. Maugham , Zambesia (London, 1910), p. 82.

Travessia da Africa.

'Particulars of an Expedition up the Zambesi to Senna in 1823' , Geographical Journal (vol. ii, 1832).

Monteiro , 'A Feira do Aruangoa do Norte', Annaes do Concelho Ultramarino (parte não official, serie ii, 1859-61), pp. 203-8.

James Stewart , op. cit., p. 11.

See note 63. Many of the great prazo holders acquired an almost mythical reputation for wealth. Mousinho de Alburquerque recounts some of these legends. One muzungo had a balcony in gold lattice work on his house. Pombal ordered it to be removed and sent to Portugal. Eventually an officer was found to attempt the task. He was entertained on the prazo but next morning was confronted by six thousand men, given a hatful of gold dust and told to be on his way. Another Zambesi 'dona' was reported to have slept on a golden bed. See M. de Alburquerque , Moçambique, p. 204.

A Provincia de Moçambique e o Bonga, p. 9. Oliveira was staying the night at Massangano in the days of Nhaude (Joaquim José da Cruz). Nhaude got drunk on wine and gin. It was on this occasion that Oliveira made the interesting comment, 'Nhaude lives poorly; whatever he has robbed will be distributed at once by his wives and Cazembes (generals). In no other way can one explain the faithfulness with which that gang serves its chief.'

See N.J. Brendon , 'Chiuzungu', NADA (no. 36, xx, 1959).

Ayres d'Ornellas, Raças e Linguas Indigenas (Lourenço Marques, 1905), p. 51.

J. de Azevedo Coutinho , Manuel Antonio de Sousa ( Lisbon, 1936), p. 27.

'Terras de Macanga', pp. 514-16.