Mozambique
Mozambique
(Mocambique)
The former official and still usual name given to the Portuguese possessions on the eastern coast of Africa opposite the island of Madagascar. Portuguese East Africa extends from Cape Delgado (10° 41′ S. lat.) to the south of Delagoa Bay (25° 58′), that is about twelve hundred miles. It is bounded on the north by German East Africa; on the east by the Mozambique Channel; on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the west by British South and Central Africa. It is the second largest Portuguese colony, its area approximating 293,000 square miles (that of Portuguese Angola is about 400,000); its population is between two and three millions. The coasts, in general low and marshy, are intersected here and there by rivers which terminate in almost every instance in muddy deltas or estuaries choked with sand. The low-lying tract between the Limpopo River and the delta of the Zambesi is barren, sprinkled with lagoons, malarial, and infested by the terrible tsee-tsee fly, which renders cattle-raising, the one industry otherwise suited to parts of this area, impossible. Between the Zambesi and the Rovuma the soil is very fertile, especially in the basin of the former river, where the land is fertilized by periodical inundations and produces abundant crops. The climate of the regions along the coast is torrid, unhealthy, and subject to sudden and great variations; the mean annual temperature is very high (76° at Beira). As one proceeds inland, the soil rises gradually, terrace over terrace, attaining a great altitude in the mountains which border on Lake Shirwa. In the interior both soil and climate are favourable to cultivation and European life; the chief crops are millet, maize, rice, wheat, sesame, earth-nuts, sugar-cane, cocoa, and tobacco. The largest forests of the interior yield ebony, sandalwood, a number of other valuable timbers, and india-rubber. Besides an unusual variety of game, the fauna include the elephant, antelope, buffalo, lion, leopard, and, in certain districts, the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus. The mineral deposits, include coal, iron, and gold, are of exceptional importance, but not yet fully investigated.
Long before the arrival of the first European explorers, the Arabs, taking advantage of the regularity of the monsoons which greatly facilitated their voyages, carried on a brisk commerce with this portion of East Africa, and were in possession of the island of Mozambique when it was discovered by Vasco de Gama in 1498. Sofala had been already discovered by Covilham, another Portuguese, in 1489. The Portuguese had at first to contend with the fierce opposition of the Arabs who dominated all the adjacent country. In 1505 Alburquerque established at the mouth of the Sofala River the first European settlement. Vasco de Gama captured the island of Mozambique in 1506, and thanks to his exertions and those of other Portuguese captains (Saldanha, Almeida, and Tristão da Cunha) the neighbouring country was quickly brought under Portuguese rule. Although the Portuguese sent an expedition up the Zambesi about 1565 and occupied Tete in 1632, they seem to have paid scant attention to the interior. In 1607 and 1608 the Dutch made unsuccessful attempts on Mozambique, but in 1698 the resumed attacks of the Arabs, supported by the Sultan of Mascote, reduced the Portuguese territory to the country south of Cape Delgado. The waning political importance and power of Portugal rendered efficient colonization and control impossible. To the great feebleness of the authorities at home is due the late continuation of the slave trade between Mozambique and Madagascar, which was carried on surreptitiously until 1877. The discovery of gold in the interior of Africa about 1870 turned the tide of prosperity again in favour of Mozambique, as its ports were the natural outlets for the Transvaal and the more northern territories.
The explorations of Serpa Pinto in 1877 and subsequent years also led Portugal to take a keener interest in its possessions. In 1875 the dispute between England and Portugal for the possession of Delagoa Bay was decided by the arbitrator Mac Mahon, in favour of Portugal. The result of a subsequent collision between English and Portuguese claims was less favourable to Portugal. According to the modern theory of hinterland, Portugal claimed dominion over the territory situated between her possessions on the east and west coasts of Africa; but when in 1889 England proclaimed its protectorate over Matabeleland, Mashonaland, Nyassaland etc., Portugal, notwithstanding the immense indignation aroused by the occurrence at Lisbon, had to acquiesce. In 1891 lack of capital compelled the Portuguese government to lease with administrative authority a large portion of the colony to the Mozambique and Nyassa Companies; the former controls the Manica and Sofala regions, and the latter the territory enclosed between the Rovuma, Lake Nyassa, and the Lurio River. It is generally accepted that the Anglo-German Secret Treaty of 1898 dealt with the partition of Mozambique in the event that Portugal should be unable to extricate itself from its financial difficulties. The chief exports of Mozambique are rubber, sugar, various ores, wax, and ivory; it imports mainly cottons, hardware, spirits, beer, and wine. Lourenco Marques (9849 inhabitants), the capital of the colony, and Beira are thriving ports. The town of Mozambique (properly San Sebastian of Mozambique), situated on the island of the same name, has diminished greatly in importance since the abolition of the slave trade. The college built by the Jesuits in 1670, which was made the governor’s residence after the suppression of the order, is one of the very few buildings of importance.
The early explorers were accompanied on their voyages by Franciscan fathers who founded under Alvarez of Coimbra the first mission in Mozambique in 1500. In 1560, after the arrival of the Jesuits, a glorious future seemed to await the mission, the King of Inhambane and the Emperor of Monomotapa being baptized with numbers of their subjects. The Dominicans also laboured for a period in this colony, their most illustrious representative being João dos Santos (d. 1622), whose work, “L’Ethiopia oriental e varia historia de cousas notaveis do Oriente”, was long authoritative on the geography and ethnology of the country. The Jesuits returned in 1610 and were followed by the Carmelites. The work of evangelization was, however, attended with great difficulties owing to the fickleness of the natives, the opposition of the Mohammedans, the insalubrity of the climate, and the irregular communications with Europe. The powerlessness of Portugal to exercise a firm control and the demoralizing effects of the slave trade resulted in an equally low standard of morals in the case of both the whites and the natives. In recent years the missionaries were still further hampered by the anti-Catholic policy of the Government. Ecclesiastically speaking, Mozambique is an exempt prelature belonging to the ecclesiastical province of Goa. The prelature formerly included all the territory as far as the Cape, but is now confined to the Portuguese possessions. In 1898 it was entrusted to the Portuguese branch of the Friars Minor. According to the latest statistics it contains: 12 priests (4 Friars Minor), 13 Sisters, 3500 native Catholics, 11 churches and chapels, 10 stations.
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João dos Santos, L’Ethiopia oriental e varia historia de cousas notaveis do Oriente (Evora, 1609), French tr. Charpy (Paris, 1684, 1688); Kulb, Missionereisen nach Afrika, III (1862); Spillmann, Rund um Afrika (3rd. ed., 1897), 284 sqq.; Negreiros, Le Mozambique (Paris, 1904); Pinon, La Colonie du Mozambique in Revue des Deux Mondes, II, 5th period (Paris, 1901), 56-86. Concerning the natives see Bourquin, Usos e costumes dos indigenas de Mocambique in Soc. de geog. de Lisboa (Lisbon, 1909), 420 sqq.
THOMAS KENNEDY Transcribed by Jose Miguel D.L. Pinto DosSantos Dedicated to João Martins Pinto and Benedict Mtasiwa
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XCopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Mozambique
a territory on the east coast of South Africa, nominally belonging to Portugal, and placed under a governor-general, although the actual possessions of Portugal consist only of a few stations, and her authority in the country is inconsiderable. It extends from Cape Delgado, in lat. 100 41′ S., to Delagoa Bay, 26 S., and is estimated to have an area of 380,000 square miles, settled by a population of about 350,000. The chief river, the Zambesi, divides it into two portions Mozambique proper on the north, and Sofala on the south. The coasts, which comprise large tracts of cultivated soil, yielding rich harvests in rice, are fringed with reefs, islands, and shoals, and between Delagoa Bay and Cape Corrientes, and from Mozambique, the principal station, to Cape Delgado, the shores are high and steep. The forests yield valuable ornamental woods; ivory is obtained from the hippopotami that haunt the marshes; and gold and copper are found and worked. The elephant, deer, and lion inhabit the jungle; crocodiles are found in the rivers, and numerous flamingoes on the coasts. The rainy season lasts from November to March. The summer heat is very great, and the climate, which is fine in the elevated tracts, is unhealthy on the low shores and the swampy districts. Besides numerous fruits and vegetables, the grains are rice, millet, maize, and wheat. Fish and turtle are caught in great quantities on the islands and reefs; pearl-fishing is a source of considerable profit, cattle, sheep, and goats are numerous, and the principal exports are grain, gold-dust, honey, tortoise-shell, cowries, gums, and amber. The natives of this country are mainly Kaffirs (q.v.), and but very few of them have any inclination to accept Christianity as exemplified by the Romanists, who are its only exponents there. In the capital of Mozambique, of like name, with a population of 8522, there are only 270 Christians reported in the census. The natives who live along the coast are called Makooas or Makoonas. They are an athletic and ugly race of people, of the most ferocious aspect and savage disposition. They are fond of tattooing their skins, and draw a stripe down the forehead along the. nose to the chin, which is crossed in a direct angle by another line from ear to ear, so as to give the face the appearance of being sewed together in four parts. They file their teeth to a point, so as to resemble a coarse saw; and suspend ornaments of copper or bone from a hole in the gristle of the nose. Their upper lip protrudes in a very remarkable degree, and this they consider as so principal a point of beauty that they endeavor to make it still longer by introducing into the centre a small circular piece of ivory, wood, or iron. They dress their hair in a very fantastic manner, some shaving one side of the head, others both sides, leaving a kind of crest from the front to the nape of the neck, while a few of them wear simply a knot of hair on their foreheads. Their females greatly resemble the Hottentot women in the curvature of the spine and protrusion of the hinder parts, and when past the prime of life are said to present the most disagreeable appearance that can be conceived. The natives are fond of music and dancing, but their tunes and motions are unvaried and monotonous. Their favorite instrument is called ambira, which is formed by a number of thin bars of iron of different lengths, highly tempered, and set in a row on a hollow case of wood. about four inches square, and closed on three sides. It is played upon with a piece of quill; and its notes, though simple, are sufficiently harmonious, sounding to the ear, when skilfully managed, like the changes upon bells. They are armed with spears, darts, and poisoned arrows, and possess also a considerable number of muskets, which they procure from the Arabs in the northern districts, and sometimes even from the Portuguese dealers. They are formidable enemies to the settlement, and have been rendered desperate in their hostilities by the nefarious practices of the traders who have gone among them to purchase slaves. There are also many Arabs in Mozambique, but they remain steadfast in their faith to the Koran and its Prophet.
This coast had been known to the Arabs, and its ports frequented by their traders, for centuries before its discovery by Europeans, and all the information possessed by the latter on the subject was chiefly drawn from the vague accounts of Ptolemy and the Periplus of the Emrthrean sea. It was first discovered by the Portuguese in the year 1497, who found the whole of the coast in the possession of the Arabs; but the fame of its goldmines and the convenience of its ports, as resting-places for the Indian trade, led them to attempt the expulsion of the original settlers. This the Portuguese easily accomplished by their superiority in arms’; and in 1508 they had conquered Quiloa, gained a footing in Sofala, and built the fort which still stands on the island of Mozambique. They gradually encroached on the Mohammedan possessions on the River Zambesi, and about the year 1569 they completely cleared that part of the river from Arabs by putting the whole of them to death. In their attempts to reach the gold-mines of the interior, the Portuguese were not very scrupulous as to the means which they employed, and have furnished, in the history of the East, a parallel to the atrocities of their Spanish neighbors in the West. But theirs was a harder task, and the natives of Africa maintained a nobler struggle for the independence of their country than the feebler South American race; and after nearly four centuries of possession the Portuguese content themselves with acting on the defensive, occupying the coast along the line of the River Zambesi, and maintaining their influence in the country by exciting the native powers against one another. The government of Mozambique is even now in a most inefficient state, being, in most places, more in the hands of native chiefs than of the Portuguese. In former times the slave- trade was carried on here extensively; and from 1846 to 1857 four governors-general were removed by their government for countenancing, if not actively engaging in it. The principal settlements are Mozambique, Quilimane, Sena, and Tete. The colony is divided into six districts, and is ruled by the governor-general and his secretary, assisted by a junta. The country being in the hands of a Roman Catholic government, religion and education are supervised by about twelve Roman Catholic priests, and no Protestants are tolerated in the diffusion of their creeds. It is a matter of general comment that the morality of Mozambique is at the lowest ebb, and that the Romanists are responsible for this condition. In 1873 Sir Bartle Frere visited Mozambique and the adjoining countries, and negotiated for the suppression of the slavetrade (see Livingstone, Last Journals).