Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: When did Portugal occupy Mozambique?
The voyage of Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, and society in the Indian Ocean world. The Portuguese gained control of the Island of Mozambique and the port city of Sofala in the early 16th century. Vasco da Gama having visited Mombasa in 1498, was then successful in reaching India and this permitted the Portuguese to trade with the Far East directly by sea, thus challenging older trading networks of mixed land and sea routes, such as the spice trade routes that used the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean.
In the late 19th century, Portugal’s dominance of Mozambique was threatened by the expansionist colonial ambitions of Great Britain and Germany. Although the borders of Mozambique had nominally been fixed by the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, Portugal lacked the capital to exert effective control or exploitation of the territory. To help overcome this, in 1891 the Portuguese government authorised three private companies by royal charter to manage portions of Mozambique: the Mozambique Company, the Zambezi Company and the Niassa Company.
Mozambique, according to official policy, was not a colony at all but rather a part of the "pluricontinental and multiracial nation" of Portugal. Portugal sought in Mozambique, as it did in all its colonies, to Europeanise the local population and assimilate them into Portuguese culture. Lisbon also wanted to retain the colonies as trading partners and markets for its goods. African inhabitants of the colony were ultimately supposed to become full citizens with full political rights through a long development process. To that end, segregation in Mozambique was minimal compared to that in neighbouring South Africa. However, paid forced labour, to which all Africans were liable if they failed to pay head tax, was not abolished until the early 1960s.
Although
the Portuguese participated in the trading networks of East Africa as early as the 16th century, they did not establish hegemonic (total) colonial dominance over the entire territory that now comprises Mozambique until the 19th century. Portugal founded settlements, trading posts, forts and ports. Cities, towns and villages were founded all over the territory by the Portuguese, like Lourenço Marques, Beira, Vila Pery, Vila Junqueiro, Vila Cabral and Porto Amélia. Others were expanded and developed greatly under Portuguese rule, like Quelimane, Nampula and Sofala. By this time, Mozambique had become a Portuguese colony, but administration was left to the trading companies (like Mozambique Company and Niassa Company) who had received long-term leases from Lisbon. By the mid-1920s, the Portuguese succeeded in creating a highly exploitative and coercive settler economy, in which African natives were forced to work on the fertile lands taken over by Portuguese settlers. Indigenous African peasants mainly produced cash crops designated for sale in the markets of Portugal. Major cash crops included cotton, cashews, tea and rice. This arrangement ended in 1932 after the takeover in Portugal by the new António de Oliveira Salazar government. Thereafter, Mozambique, along with other Portuguese colonies, was put under the direct control of Lisbon. In 1951, it became an overseas province. The economy expanded rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s, attracting thousands of Portuguese settlers to the country. It was around this time that the first nationalist guerrilla groups began to form in Tanzania and other African countries. The strong industrial and agricultural development that did occur throughout the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s was based on Portuguese development plans, and also included British and South African investment.
Mozambique was an overseas possession of Portugal until 1975. On June 25, 1975, Portugal granted independence to Mozambique, much later than other European nations had freed their own African possessions.
The Kionga Triangle was a tiny territory on the border between German East Africa (present-day United Republic of Tanzania) and the Portuguese colony of Mozambique (present day Republic of Mozambique), originally German, but occupied by Portuguese forces in 1916. The triangle was the only German territory that the post-war Treaty of Versailles awarded to Portugal.
In the 20th century, the province was also subject to the authoritarian Estado Novo regime that ruled Portugal from 1933 to 1974, until the military coup in Lisbon, known as the Carnation Revolution. Most members of the government of Mozambique were from Portugal, but a few were Africans. Nearly all members of the bureaucracy were from Portugal, as most Africans did not have the necessary qualifications to obtain positions.
After independence from Portugal in 1975, many white ethnic Portuguese left the city. Mozambique was ravaged by a civil war from 1977 to 1992, opposing Marxist FRELIMO, which controlled the government, to the rebels of RENAMO, descending to near total chaos in a couple of years. The famine, disease and poverty-stricken country collapsed. In Beira, the famous Grande Hotel was occupied by around 1,000 homeless Beirans, and by the end of the civil war it was in near-ruins.
In Mozambique, the British population numbers 1,500. When Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975, most British people left for either Rhodesia or South Africa, while others resettled in Portugal and Brazil. However, just like Angola, the British population in Mozambique is/was tiny compared to both their share of the nation's population and in comparison to the Portuguese.
Although a small, poor country, Portugal had one of the oldest and largest of the empires. The British had long protected it, and by 1945 it regained possessions it had lost to the Japanese. Portugal was an authoritarian state, with no taste for democracy at home or in its colonies. There was a fierce determination to maintain possession at all costs, and aggressively defeat any insurgencies. However, Portugal was helpless when India seized Goa in 1961. In 1961, nationalist forces began organizing in Portugal, and the revolts spread to Mozambique and Guinea Bissau. Lisbon escalated its repressive measures, and setting up strategic hamlets. Deeply distrustful of the natives, Portugal sent another 300,000 European settlers into Angola by 1974. In 1974, left-wing revolution inside Portugal destroyed the old system and encouraged pro-Soviet elements to attempt to seize control in the colonies. The result was a very long and extremely difficult multi-party Civil War in Angola, and lesser insurrections in Mozambique.
White South Africans and Whites in Portuguese-controlled Mozambique enjoyed very close relations during the colonial era. When South Africa implemented the apartheid laws, Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, became a destination for many Whites to go to escape the conservative social policies of the apartheid government. When Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975, thousands of Mozambique-born Whites moved across the border to South Africa, the descendants of which are today Portuguese South Africans.
Some members of the Chinese community in Mozambique also moved to Portugal as the process of decolonisation in Mozambique began in the 1970s and its independence drew near. However, mass Chinese migration to Portugal did not begin until the 1980s; the new migrants came primarily from Zhejiang, with some from Macau as well. As the number of migrants continued to grow, social institutions formed in order to serve the Chinese community. Nevertheless, the nature of the institutions differed accordingly to migrant groups. Established migrants and recent arrivals from Macau, along with Chinese from Mozambique, were already familiar with the Portuguese language and culture and formed community associations and a Chinese language newspaper to better assist newer immigrants in adjusting to a new life in Portugal. Meanwhile, among arrivals from mainland China, informal social networks headed by earlier arrivals helped newer immigrants in employment needs, often under established Chinese migrant entrepreneurs.
Portugal attempted to assert its African territorial claims through three expeditions led by Alexandre de Serpa Pinto, first from Mozambique to the eastern Zambezi in 1869, then to the Congo and upper Zambezi from Angola in 1876 and lastly crossing Africa from Angola in 1877-79. These expeditions were undertaken with the intention of claiming the area between Mozambique and Angola. Following Serpa Pinto’s explorations, the Portuguese government in 1879 made a formal claim to the area south and east of the Ruo River (the present south-eastern border of Malawi) and, in 1882, occupied the lower Shire River valley as far as the Ruo. The Portuguese then asked the British government to accept this territorial claim, but the opening of the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 ended the discussions. Portugal’s efforts to establish this corridor of influence between Angola and Mozambique were hampered by one of the articles in the General Act of the Berlin Conference which required effective occupation of areas claimed rather than historical claims based on discovery or those based on exploration, as Portugal had used.
Despite the outcome of the Berlin Conference and the failure of bi-lateral negotiations with Britain, Portugal did not abandon the idea of securing a trans-African colonial zone. In 1885, the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Barros Gomes, published what became known as the Pink or Rose-Coloured Map, which represented a formal Portuguese claim to sovereignty over an area defined by the map that stretched from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Portugal also signed treaties with France and Germany in 1886. To obtain the French treaty, Portugal agreed to give up any claim to the area around the Casamance River in Guinea in exchange for a vague recognition of its rights to exercise sovereignty in an undefined area between Angola and Mozambique, although the Rose-Coloured Map was attached to the treaty for information. To obtain the treaty with Germany noting Portugal's claim to territory along the course of the Zambezi linking Angola and Mozambique and with the Rose-Coloured Map attached, Portugal agreed to accept a southern boundary for Angola and a northern boundary for Mozambique that were favourable to Germany. The acts of "noting" the Portuguese claims and attaching the Rose-Coloured Map to each treaty did not amount to France or Germany accepting the claims, only that Portugal had made them.
Mozambique was a Portuguese colony, overseas province and later a member state of Portugal. It gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
In July 2008, Portugal cancelled Mozambique’s remaining debts to Portugal, estimated at US$393.4 million, accumulated from independence until 2005.
Today, the economy of Mozambique continues to be dominated by agriculture. Major exports include prawns, cotton, cashew nuts, sugar, citrus, copra and coconuts, and timber. Export partners, in turn, include Spain, South Africa, Portugal, the United States, Japan, Malawi, India, and Zimbabwe. Imports, such as farm equipment and transport equipment, are capital goods that are worth more than agricultural products, hence Mozambique's large trade deficit. The country also imports food, clothing, and petroleum products. Import partners include South Africa, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, the United States, Japan, and India. In the past several years, the value of imports outweighed the value of exports by 5 to 1 or more—a factor that obliges Mozambique to depend heavily on foreign aid and loans by foreign commercial banks and the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs). In 1995 alone, Mozambique received $1.115 billion in aid. In 1999, the total external debt stood at $4.8 billion. Fortunately, in the same year significant economic recovery did occur, as the real GDP growth rate reached 10 percent.
Mozambique–Russia relations () date back to the 1960s, when Russia began to support the struggle of Mozambique's Marxist-oriented FRELIMO party against Portuguese colonialism. Most leaders of the FRELIMO were trained in Moscow. Diplomatic relations were formally established on 25 June 1975, soon after Mozambique gained its independence from Portugal. In June 2007, both Russia and Mozambique signed an agreement on economic cooperation. Russia has an embassy in Maputo while Mozambique has an embassy in Moscow, Russia.
The day the Lusaka Accord was signed, a group of right-wing white dissidents, calling themselves the Movement for a Free Mozambique, challenged the independence deal by attempting to seize control of Lourenço Marques. The dissidents freed a former secret police officer from prison and occupied the city's the post office, the airport's air traffic control tower, and the main radio station, taking women and children hostage. From the radio station, they broadcast demands for Portugal to grant Mozambique independence without handing over power to FRELIMO, so that the Movement for a Free Mozambique could set up a "multiracial" government. Police and Portuguese soldiers surrounded the occupied sites, but did not immediately remove the dissidents because they were keeping hostages. Just outside the city, two whites and one black person were killed when black counter-demonstrators stoned a vehicle being driven by dissidents at the airport. Portuguese authorities reported that no other areas of the country besides the capital saw any violence occur in reaction to the Lusaka Accord. In response to the white backlash, FRELIMO said they would "smash the rebellion" with the help of Portuguese troops. In Portugal, Prime Minister Vasco Gonçalves said the Portuguese Armed Forces were not seeking FRELIMO's help in restoring order, and said that he saw the events not as a coup d'état, "but rather a desperate act by a minority which does not understand the historic processes and the ways of the future." By the time the weeklong coup attempt had ended, homes and businesses had been looted, and 86 people were dead, including 27 whites.
On 25 April 1974 the authoritarian regime of Estado Novo was overthrown in Lisbon, a move that was supported by many Portuguese workers and peasants. The Armed Forces Movement ("Movimento das Forças Armadas") in Portugal pledged a return to civil liberties and an end to the fighting in all colonies (or the "overseas provinces"). The rapid chain of events within Portugal caught FRELIMO, which had anticipated a protracted guerrilla campaign, by surprise. It responded quickly to the new situation, and on 7 September 1974 won an agreement from the Armed Forces Movement to transfer power to FRELIMO within a year and to form a transitional government in the interim. When this was made known to the public, several thousand Portuguese colonials fled the newly independent country and a clandestine group calling themselves the "Dragons of Death" seized the primary radio transmittor in the capital, Lourenço Marques, and demanded an independent Mozambique without FRELIMO. As a result of the mass exodus of trained professionals, the economy and social organization of Mozambique was shattered on independence. On 25 June 1975 Mozambique became independence from Portugal, with Samora Machel becoming President of the People's Republic of Mozambique.
Portugal had occupied parts of the coast of Mozambique from the 16th century, but at the start of the 19th century its presence was limited to Mozambique Island, Ibo and Quelimane in northern Mozambique, outposts at Sena and Tete in the Zambezi valley, Sofala to the south of the Zambezi and a port town at Inhambane further south again. Although Delagoa Bay was regarded as Portuguese territory, Lourenço Marques was not settled until 1781, and was temporarily abandoned after a French raid in 1796. In the late 18th century, most of the slaves exported through the Portuguese settlements in Mozambique were sent to Mauritius and Réunion, at that time both French colonies, but this trade was disrupted by wars with France, and in the early 19th century many slaves were sent to Brazil. As was the case with Angola, slave exports declined after 1830, but were partly replaced by exports of ivory through Lourenço Marques from the 1840s onward.
Blanche D'Souza states that Hindus had, by 1st millennium AD, begun using monsoon-led trade winds to establish trading activities between western parts of India and Mozambique, linking these to other eastern coastal regions of Africa and Arabian peninsula. Hindu traders thus arrived in Mozambique, and were settled in Ilha de Moçambique, before Vasco da Gama's maiden visit to Mozambique in 1499, as mentioned in his memoirs. However, since those early times, Hindus in Mozambique have always been a minority. After the 1960s conflict with Portugal on its claim to continued colonial presence in Goa, Daman and Diu, followed by military led annexation of these territories by India, the Portuguese colonial government in Mozambique targeted the resident Hindu community. Their property and bank accounts were confiscated, entire Hindu families placed in a concentration camp, and their citizenship revoked. In 1975 Mozambique gained its independence from Portugal, and shortly thereafter civil war broke out. During this period, thousands of local Hindus migrated to Europe (mostly to Lisbon, Portugal), some to South Africa and India.
The General Act of the Berlin Conference required disputes to go to arbitration. After the Ultimatum Portugal asked for arbitration, but because the 1875 Delagoa Bay arbitration had been in favour of Portugal, Lord Salisbury refused and demanded a bi-lateral treaty. Talks started in Lisbon in April 1890, and in May the Portuguese delegation proposed joint administration of the disputed area between Angola and Mozambique. The British government refused this, and drafted a treaty that imposed boundaries that were generally unfavourable to Portugal. This led to a wave of protests and the downfall of the Portuguese government in when the draft treaty was published. This treaty did however grant Portugal special right to build a railway, road and telegraph line along the north bank of the Zambezi, which would have provided a limited link between Angola and Mozambique.
As a former Portuguese colony, rugby has been a late arrival to Mozambique. Although rugby has been played in Portugal for decades, it has never become a major sport, and it did not transfer it to its colonies.
At the start of the 19th century, effective Portuguese governance in Africa south of the equator was limited. Portuguese Angola consisted of the areas around Luanda and Benguela, and a few almost independent towns over which Portugal claimed suzerainty, the most northerly of which was Ambriz. Portuguese Mozambique was limited to the Island of Mozambique and several other coastal trading posts or forts as far south as Delagoa Bay. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Angola's main function was to supply Brazil with slaves. This was facilitated, firstly by the development of coffee plantations in southern Brazil from the 1790s, and second, by the agreements of 1815 and 1817 between Britain and Portugal, which (on paper at least) limited Portuguese slave trading to areas south of the equator. This trade diminished after Brazilian independence in 1822, and more sharply following an agreement between Britain and Brazil in 1830 by which the Brazilian government prohibited further slave imports. To find slaves for export from the Angolan towns, Afro-Portuguese traders had penetrated as far inland as Katanga and Kazembe, but otherwise there was little penetration of the interior and no attempt to establish control there. When the Brazilian slave trade declined, slaves were used on Portuguese plantations which stretched inland of Luanda along the Cuanza River and to a lesser extent around Benguela. After Moçâmedes had been founded south of Benguela in 1840 and Ambriz had been occupied in 1855, Portugal controlled a continuous coastal strip from Ambriz to Moçâmedes, but little inland territory. Although Portugal claimed to control the Congo River estuary, Britain would at best accept it had limited rights in the Cabinda enclave north of the river, although these rights did not make Cabinda Portuguese territory.