The Portuguese rule in Africa traces its way as far back as before the 19th Century period in their old “civilisation”  mission especially in the coastal areas of Angola and Mozambique and Guinea Bissau although  with little significance in that area.  Previously, the Portuguese main concern in Africa was largely with intent to carry out slave trade and this continued until the later years of 1840s when the Portuguese leadership under the liberal Prime Minister San Bandeira (1836-40) declared the abolition of slave trade in the Portuguese colonies though with little success because the Portuguese officials were determined to maintain their trade until the British government ordered its navy to seize the Portuguese slave ships and Brazil abolished the importation of slaves and indeed in 1858 slave trade was completely outlawed which put the Portuguese in a difficult situation because their economy was purely built on slaves and slavery.  They now had to participate in legitimate trade which entailed that they move into the interior but with very little success.

However, the Berlin conference of 1884-85 recognised Portuguese expansion in Angola and Mozambique by its hinterland theory of occupation thus Portugal begun to penetrate the two Central African countries with intent to establish effective control over the tribes some of whose chiefs had been their trade partners.

However, it’s important to note that unlike other powers, Portugal had a number of problems in the process of colonisation for in the first instance she was a small country with a small population and therefore couldn’t provide enough man power to run the administration of colonies.

Portugal was a poor country predominantly reliant on peasant economy and therefore she didn’t have enough resources to finance their administration, this therefore means that Portugal had to rely on the subject territories to support her activities the worst of which is that the officials were corrupt, ruthless, inefficient and at that very exploitative and opressive no wonder therefore that their administration has been summed up in three words “exploitation, oppression and resistance” and this can rightly be evident in both Angola and Mozambique.

PORTUGUESE RULE IN ANGOLA

The Portuguese process of penetration of Angola was characterised by a number of chronological military expeditions in the name of spreading civilisation whereby like elsewhere the Portuguese encouraged white settlement in Angola claiming that they had come to civilise and they greatly relied on the large number of exiled criminals mainly those of capital offenses like murderers, rapists who were made free in Angola and were used as administrators and soldiers whose duties included tax collection, procurement of forced labour and protection of the grains of slave trade that still existed.  As a result, many Africans were plundered and murdered which forced many to flee to the interior as the Degradados remained at the coastal town.

Therefore, their rule and occupation was largely limited to the narrow coastal belt.  But in 1850’s attempt were made to colonise the interior for example in 1852 Siver Porto a prominent white colonialist moved inland and settled on the Bihe Plateau and begun to develop trading relations as far as Zambia with chief Mulozi and by 1870’s the number had increased as far as Kwanza valley in Central Africa where they took up coffee growing although the Africans continued to resist because of the forced labour imposed upon them.

Similarly, the Portuguese took a share in trade routes between Luanda in the West which contributed to Angola boom in Agriculture especially in coffee, ground nuts, palm oil, tobacco, cotton thus improving the economies of the Portuguese who begun to depend on themselves rather than only depending on the Africans.

This also created a conflict between the Portuguese and the Africans because the former had begun to surpress the latter especially as they moved further in the interior and making claims over the African territories especially in the North West where the local Dembo chiefs begun to rebel against the Portuguese leadership and so it was on the border of Congo which make things difficult for the Portuguese. The African primary resistances of the  Angolans were characterised by:

·      Organisation on tribal basis and hence lacked a national mood, a situation that was exploited by      the Portuguese in defeating the tribes are after the other and being able to establish their rule.

·      The African resistances were isolated and hence didn’t appeal to the massive support for in most    cases the chiefs had always been co-partners with the Portuguese in slave trade though other   Africans didn’t want to support them for example in South Angola Cuana Hama had initially had close     relations with the Portuguese and so was the Dembo chief who equally failed to win the support   of the masses, little wonder therefore that many of their resistances were suppressed.

·      African resistances involved both the use of arms and armies but in some cases they refused to offer their labour, to grow crops and co-operate with the Portuguese, this was some form of passive resistance.

·      In other instance, the Africans fled to peaceful places and kept on making attacks on the caravans and disrupting trade for the Portuguese.

Although the Africans in the Portuguese territory did not fight necessarily serious wars, their resistances took a long time because Portugal had limited manpower and resources which prolonged their rebellion and this was worsened by the poor organisation of the African resistances, poor arms no wonder that they were finally to be defeated especially by the ruthless wars of the Portuguese which involved the dismantling of the African political systems, forcing them with labour, taxing them and finally crushing the spirit of resistance.  By this, the Portuguese had succeeded in colonising Angola and by 1900, many Angolans were under Portuguese control and indeed administered as a separate colony and attempts by the British to penetrate Angola were futile because of the leadership that had been established.

FEATURES OF PORTUGUESE RULE IN ANGOLA

Following the subsequent suppression of the resistances, the Portuguese made their attempts to enhance political authority into the interior which because of the very many resistances relied partly on the loyalty of the African rulers who in effect were allies than subject because the Portuguese still lacked enough manpower hence it can be argued that the Portuguese employed indirect rule to maintain their system because they did lack enough man power and they never had enough money to run the administration compared to their colonial counterparts.

Closely related, the Portuguese relied on the Dregradados i.e the exiled criminals who were used to replace the traditional chiefs especially rebellions ones as administrators and soldiers with the duties of collecting taxes, ensure forced labour to work on public utilities which gave the Dregradados the rights to murder, rape and plunder.  Little wonder therefore that the Africans kept on resisting.

The Portuguese also used the “chief de Posto” who were chiefs who replaced traditional authorities in Angola and they were used as chief whips to humiliate African leaders by publicly flogging them and making them frog jump.  This explains why the chiefs played an important role in resisting against Portuguese leadership.

They used the Portuguese law whereby the African traditional law was completely ignored especially in trying Africans and theirs were characterised by summary arrests, detentions, and due executions of those suspected of disobedience without consultation of the Africans in judicial matters.

Forced labour was another characteristic for example the construction of roads, plantations especially cotton growing, tobacco, ivory and other products that were carried to the coast, indeed as a way of justifying their force labour, the Portuguese baptised it “corrective” labour i.e some form of punishment for criminals as a way of getting enough labour for even innocent people fell victims.

Closely related was the contract labour which was slavery in a disguised form whereby the workers were forced to work with small pay.  This was more common in cocoa plantations in the islands of Sao-Thome where the workers were forced to march to the coast and those who refused had their homes destroyed, plantations burnt, communities displaced all as a way of getting the “contratados” many of whom died on their way to the coast.

Another feature was over taxation in order to reduce the expenses on administration, the Portuguese introduced taxation as a mechanism of getting money but also as a way of getting enough labour on their plantations or taking away the resources such as cattle, goats from the Africans.

There was land alienation in order to get fertile area for settling their poor populations, the Portuguese colonial government encouraged many settlers to come and take over the area which rendered many Africans landless.

The Portuguese used assimilation because they regarded colonies as overseas extensions of their metropolitan countries and therefore the inhabitants were supposed to enjoy the rights and privileges of the Portuguese divided them into two i.e the citizens who could speak Portuguese and who had adopted the Portuguese ways known as the “Assimilates” whom they  relied on in enhancing their culture i.e they were used as functionaries in the Portuguese rule for example they could collect taxes, procure forced labour and could administer punishments and indeed their brutal administration was felt more than that of the Portuguese.  No wonder therefore that the Africans of Angola resisted for the next two decades because of the Portuguese leadership which has been summarised as exploitative, oppressive and resistance which lasted from the time of their coming until the later period of 1914.

PORTUGUESE RULE IN MOZAMBIQUE

In Mozambique, by 1840 the Portuguese position had begun to decline not even a loose system of indirect rule could be maintained there.  This was determined by the fact that Portugal was a small country, poor to even afford to sustain a colonial enterprise.  It’s in this light that the Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique was still concentrated at the coastal regions without any success of penetrating  the interior, they therefore relied on slave trade and in this case they maintained their reservoirs for the Mozambique slave trade which were known as “Prazos” or crown estates that were established by the Portuguese government in Zambezi valley as far back as 17th Century and were granted by the Portuguese government to their adventurers and the “Prazeros” or estate owners.  Many of whom were Europeans or Afro-Europeans or Goan overlords who ran the administration on behalf of the Portuguese.

Meanwhile, the Africanised Portuguese ruled the mini-estates which were urged to be independent of the Portuguese government therefore the Prazeros ruled over a slave population in their estates but with a consultation of the chiefs who had enough experience of running slave estates.

Each Prazo was divided into a number of slave regiments under the command of a slave chief Mukazambo who used to communicate with the Prazero.  Each regiment was also divided into slave squads of 10 or 12 men with their families and each squad was under an official “chikunda” who had the duty of collecting taxes for the Prazero’s from the Africans, collect ivory from the hunters, gather labour for export especially to the French sugar plantation owned islands of Reunion and provision of contract labour especially to the French until the late years of 1864 when the system was abolished by Napoleon  III.

It’s vital to note that as time went by the Prazeros begun running an independent system without consultation with the Portuguese government something that greatly annoyed the Portuguese who wanted to do away with the system in the regions of Central Africa but failed because the resistance of the slave owners.

During the last quarter of 19th Century, slave trade increased the number and they were subdivided into “Supra-Prazo” and the most famous of which included Makanga, Massigire, Massagano which were later turned into large multi-ethnic political units and tried to maintain in theory the Portuguese power in Central Africa but in reality they were  a form of resistance to Portuguese imperialism and had indeed declared themselves independent of the Portuguese control.  What therefore can be said is that by the last quarter of 19th Century, the Portuguese system had largely declined and the “Supra-Prazo” leaders had set up their own system against the Portuguese administration for example the kingdom of Makanga which was the oldest of the “Supra-Prazos” was being ruled by the Peschiera family which claimed independent powers but had close contacts with other independent empires through whom they had marriage alliances, consulted spirits and adopted a kind of independent life as a way of increasing their legitimacy over the indigenous subjects.

Furthermore, the kingdom (Makanga) developed a well trained army independent of the Portuguese and acquired arms from the Europeans and used them to expand their territory.

In the same way, Massigire maintained an independent system of administration controlling their own slaves and attempts by the Portuguese government to attack the independent regions were futile.

Similarly, Gouveia a Goan built his wealthy and powerful ivory and slave centre using largely the African rulers to whom he sold guns and European goods and maintained his own kingdom until the European invasion.

Therefore during the scramble for Africa, Portugal was the weakest of the colonial powers for she had lost her claims in Congo to Leopald II of Belgium and her attempts to link Angola and Mozambique were also undermined by Cecil Rhodes’ dream of painting Africa red and Portugal had no authority to impose claims against Britain such that in 1891, the Angola-Portuguese treaty recognised the British claims to Rhodesia and Malawi.

Following the British occupation of Central Africa, they began to patrol the Mozambiquean waters as a way of undermining the Portuguese extension.  Meanwhile the natives in the interior of Mozambique continued to revolt against the remnants of the Portuguese rule and the Portuguese began to use force by establishing military posts, forcing people to pay taxes, pushed them into forced labour, all of which only intensified resistance in Mozambique.

Despite the existing resistance in the interior and the limited control over the masses, the Portuguese leadership in Mozambique by 1914 had far reaching effects on the history of the region and part of these effects include;  the attempt by the Portuguese to want to develop Mozambique on a pattern of white settlement and African labour that was expected to bring profit for the Portuguese in form of surplus revenue such that forced labour became an essential part of their rule and later contract labour which replaced slavery and an influx of white settlers flocked into Mozambique causing land alienation whereby the Africans were pushed into reserves.

The Prazos were later transformed into chartered companies on which the colonial government later relied for administration i.e to collect taxes, taking population census, supervising development and resolving local disputes.

In order to force Africans to work for the settlers, the government imposed high taxes and the chartered companies were used to develop some parts of Mozambique in favour of the Portuguese government.  As time went by, the Portuguese government had to increase taxation as a way of maintaining their administration and this forced them to legalise certain companies which were made independent of the indigenous leadership but sent from their mother governments to be able to develop the area.  Among these companies, included Campa Lia Do-Mozambique, Do, Niasa whose duties were also to collect taxes, procure forced labour and to maintain administration on behalf of the Portuguese government.  Their system was characterised by harsh rule especially in forcing Africans to work not only in Mozambique but also as far as South African mines, Central Africa where the natives were taken as contract labour.

It’s therefore from this basis that the Portuguese colonial policies were exploitative, caused large scale suffering of the natives and indeed were largely resisted.

Its worth noting that although the Portuguese claimed attempts to develop Mozambique socially, hardly any schools and hospitals were set up by their companies as required.  This therefore delayed the education development in Mozambique company according to them Africans could be civilised only by making them work and therefore no attempts were made to civilise them through education.

Similarly, the colonial government dominated all sectors of Mozambique including retail and export trade.  Africans were discriminated in administration to the extent that simple jobs like being office messengers were reserved for the poor whites from Portugal this was because Africans were considered inferior in all respects and were only suitable for manual labour.  It was therefore in this light that the Portuguese rule in Mozambique and other parts of Central Africa has been considered to have been very exploitative and repressive and it’s no wonder that their period was marked by large scale resistance throughout their stay.

In conclusion therefore, its in light of the above analysis that the Portuguese leadership in Mozambique like it was in Angola has been summed up in three words; oppression, exploitation and resistance.