• 1  Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, Companhia da Zambézia (AHM/CZ), pasta 9, Contracto entre a Compan (...)
• 2  AHM/CZ, Cópia do Contrato entre a Companhia da Zambézia e Agy Taibo Agy Selemane, pasta 9, 15 Febr (...)

1On 31 December 1898, the recently established Companhia da Zambezia signed a two-year contract with the Bathia merchant Damodar Anandgi that gave him the trade monopoly at prazos Andone and Anguaze, Macuze and Licungo1. Two months later, on 15 February 1899, a similar contract was signed with Agy Taibo Agy Selemane, another prominent merchant of Quelimane, for prazos Maganja d’Além Chire and Massingire2. Damodar Anandgi also received a trade licence for prazo Marral, which further contributed to strengthen his commercial network in Quelimane district.

• 3  The literature on the workings of the Indian Ocean and East Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries (...)

4Several factors are linked to Zambezia being a dominant destination of Indian immigration to Mozambique. For centuries Mozambique had participated in the economy of the Indian Ocean. On its western side, trading relations connected Africans, Arabs, Indians and Europeans, thus contributing to the commercial networking of East Africa. Here, business was initially dominated by gold and ivory, but in the 18th century, slaves became the dominant item. In the Indian Ocean, the slave trade went beyond the regional market, extending to the Atlantic trade to Brazil and Cuba. In the second half of the 19th century, the expansion of the slave traffic in the context of abolitionism and the transition to export trade or ‘legitimate’ trade; the revolution of the oilseeds and the development of a plantation economy that crossed African, European and Omani interests; and the nearby South African region, with the development of the mining and plantation economies in the Transvaal and Natal respectively, had a direct impact on the economy of Mozambique, and therefore on the merchant sector, Indians included3.

• 4  For Indian presence in Mozambique in the colonial period see L. Macagno, “Uma domesticação imaginá (...)

5In Mozambique, by the mid-1800s the Indo-Portuguese community (from Goa, Diu and Daman), long established in northern Mozambique where Mozambique Island was the centre of merchant activity, had also moved to the southern districts, namely to Inhambane and Lourenço Marques. Evidence lets us believe that these Hindu and Muslim merchants, who were called banians and moors, had started from Mozambique Island in the 17th century, following the establishment of the Company of The Banians of Diu in 1686, which had the exclusivity of commerce between Diu and Mozambique Island. Concomitant to this Indo-Portuguese immigration, there are traces of Indo-British at the turning point of Mozambique’s history, that of the transition towards colonialism in the twentieth century, which, in Zambezia, coincided with the boom in oilseeds production, i.e., from the 1870s onwards. In fact, there followed a new wave of immigration, predominantly Gujarati Indians, which the economic development of southern Africa conditioned and consolidated4.

• 5  See Pinto Teixeira, Trade and Commerce…, op. cit.: chapters 2 and 3.

6The records indicate that in the last four decades of the 19^th century many of the Indian traders operating in Mozambique were from the Gujarat state and conducted business as British subjects. Of the Hindus, the Bathias were the most prominent group, whereas of the Muslims, the Shia Muslims, mainly Khoja-ismailis and Bohras, were more numerous. The advances in Indian retail penetration, especially in the 1870s and 1880s, can be attributed in part to the boom on the oilseed market. Working as agents for the French and Indian commercial firms of Quelimane, the Gujarati Indians consolidated their place in the trade system of Zambezia, and remained the crucial trade intermediaries, connecting the suppliers of commodities, the Africans, and the purchasers of these commodities, the European firms and the gross and retail traders that proliferated in Zambezia as the century came to its end. Theirs was a dual role: as agents of the export firms, they secured their share of the crop by advancing trade goods on credit; these goods, in turn, had been obtained on credit from the firms, whom thus secured their share in the export market. Indians also played an important role in the informal credit and money-lending systems, thus contributing to a viable economic structure5.

• 6  Indians drew their wills according to their religious laws, hindu or muslim, just as they did in B (...)
• 7  M. Newitt, Portuguese Settlement on the Zambezi: exploration, land tenure and colonial rule in eas (...)

8Settlement in the interior drew a good number of Indians into relationships with African women6. Inter-marriage in Zambezia, however, was not just a matter of sexual satisfaction. It built alliances with chiefly families, affected business opportunities for trade. It conferred the right to settle and build a store on customary owned land. This was something the Portuguese had been doing for centuries. A contemporary example was Manuel Antonio de Sousa, the greatest of the muzungo prazo lords, who in the 1870s was said to have had fifty or so wives scattered around the boundaries of his prazo domain, Gorongosa, protecting his rights7. Much like the muzungos (Afro-Portuguese) of Zambezia, the Indian immigrants found that it was convenient to establish close links with the Africans, buying their way into a matrilocal, matrilineal system of settlement and inheritance.

• 8  R.C.F. Maugham, Zambezia..., op. cit.: 275.

9Settling down in the interior thus involved a series of strategies and alliances, by which the new settler was introduced to the region and to the chiefly families, in view of the predominance of African rules over the bureaucratic Portuguese. Until the reformation of the prazo system in the late 1880s, it was the African matrilineal system, also based on an ancient customary owned land system, which ruled the region. Hence, a local union could be regarded as a way to secure safety in the inhospitable interior of Zambezia, while reinforcing the Indian networking. A fact that was noted by R.C.Maugham, the British council in Mozambique in the early 1900s, who wrote that “these men intermingle freely with native women, and a half-caste is fairly numerous which exercises no small influence over the native tribes among which it has made appearance”8.

• 9  Testamento de Mamud Bay Ussene, AHM/Cod.11.5857, Cartorio Notarial, Quelimane, fls.46-47V, Quelima (...)

11The case of Mamud Bay Ussene, a Muslim trader of Quelimane, is a good example of their workings. According to costume, his Indian family stayed back home in India, but in Zambezia he married several African women who bore him six children. In Quelimane district he owned two palm groves, and had rented from the state 100 hectares where he built a house. He formed a society with Mamud Bay Ussene and Vallegy Faquir for local trade, which rented seventy-five square meters of his estate, and where they set up houses, an olive mill and cattle stables. The rest of the property belonged to him and his African families9.

• 10  Registo de testamento de Caetano de Sousa Vasconcelos, AHM/Cod.11.5836, Cart. Not., Quelimane, fls (...)

13To his servant Martinho he left ten slaves of prazo Marral; to the African woman Ines, one palmar and some slaves. The money he had lent was mentioned in the promissory notes, which he kept at home. He owed 600 reis to Goldino Jose Nunes, small amounts to four people not mentioned by name, and to Curgy Damodar of Mozambique Island, “the amount stated on the bill”. He also owed the emancipation licence of six slaves10.

• 11  G. Liesegang, “A First Look at the Import and Export Trade of Mozambique, 1800-1914”, in G. Lieseg (...)
• 12  Ibid.: 498.

14A periodization of Mozambique's export economy helps locate the country's major economic periods. A time series of the import and export trade data suggests that the economic history of Mozambique falls into four main phases. These were, a) ivory and gold (to ca.1770); b) slaves and varying quantities of ivory (to ca.1860); c) oilseeds, ivory and rubber (to ca.1895, but regionally longer); and d) plantation and peasant products, as well as labor services (after 1895). Throughout the centuries and up to the late 1880s, ivory remained an important export product, while the diversification of bulk commodity trade took place during the period from 1840 to 187011. For the period under study, Liesegang has suggested a time series in terms of trade, one for the years 1860-1885 and another for 1880-191412. These series reflect the major changes in the economy, which nevertheless should take into account the regional specialization of commodities.

• 13  L. Vail & L. White, Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique: A Study of Quelimane District, Minne (...)
• 14  V. Alexandre, Origens do Colonialismo Português Moderno, Lisbon, Sá da Costa Editora, 1979, vol. I (...)

16The growth of the export of peasant-produced commodities from the 1870s onward was connected to external demands for oilseed products and contributed to the insertion of the region into the world economy. Quelimane became the centre of a thriving trade in oilseeds and groundnuts, while a new field of consumer demand for import goods was encouraged by the inland trade, whose main actors were the Indian petty-traders who acted as intermediaries between the European export firms and the African peasant-producers. The colonial state supported peasant production of export crops, whilst it also encouraged investment in the country through various measures such as the granting of concessions and the revision of the colonial tariffs system, which hitherto discriminated against all goods of non-Portuguese origin. According to Vail and White, two changes that occurred in 1877 resulted in a fundamental restructuring of the economy of the lower Zambezi area. The first change was the reduction of tariffs, in order to stimulate the commerce and the agricultural production in the region and encourage the export of various food products, notably sesame seed, groundnuts and copra. The new duties system began on 8 August 1877, and coastal trade was declared open to all countries. The second change concerned the local and regional trade, when the Zambezi River was opened to foreign trade and foreign vessels13. Concomitant to these changes were the improvements in navigation and transportation, the legislation regarding the land and mining concessions, the reforms of labour that included the abolition of slavery, and the reforms of the colonial military system14.

• 15  J. Buchanan, The Shire Highlands, London, William Blackwood and Sons, 1885: 17.
• 16  M.V. Jackson, European Powers and South-East Africa: A Study of International Relations on the Sou (...)

18It seems that at the time, the hypothesis of establishing plantations in lower Zambezia was never regarded by the state, in face of the enormous economic investment that it would require. Instead, it became obvious that the easiest and cheapest method would be to purchase the crops from the Africans through the itinerant Indians, who henceforth became agents of the commercial firms.15 Thus, the Indians gradually monopolised the whole of the inland trade, and have been regarded « the vanguard of European capitalist penetration into the region » in view of their importance in the trade networking that linked the African producers to the European export firms16.

• 17  Decree of 22 December 1854 established mussoco, the head tax in Zambezia. J. J. da Silva, Índice R (...)

19The French firms of Augustin Fabré & Fils and Mante Frères & Borelli de Régis Ainé, in Mozambique Island since the 1850s, opened their offices in Quelimane in 1868, to market oilseeds in the region. Soon the Vereenidge Oost Afrikaanische Compagnie, the German firms of Whilhelm Philippi & Co, Fried Scheed, and Deuss, Vertin & Co., and by numerous other European and Indian commercial houses joined them. Coconut and copra, sesame and groundnuts became Quelimane's main exports. Not surprisingly, the colonial state instituted the systematic collection of mussoco, the nominal head tax, to be paid in kind or money, and later in labour as well17. Concerning imports, there occurred adjustments in the consumption of import goods. Cotton textiles and beads were joined by weapons and alcohol as the main currency.

• 18  J. Buchannan, The Shire Highlands, op. cit.: 17.

20Working for the European export firms and for wealthy Indian houses, the Indians became the linking figures in the hinterland, manoeuvring between the African producers and the export firms18. Indeed, it is during this period that their economic standing in Zambezia becomes increasingly apparent. Specializing on the prazo trade, they secured their share of the crop or of the commodities by advancing trade goods on credit. Most of them were small-scale traders, caixeiros, the salesmen who worked for merchants and trade firms, and itinerants working for the export firms, who moved inland, peddling and establishing mobile or fixed market spots, trade shops and boticas (stores). Africans traded with them export products such as groundnuts and oilseeds, ivory, beeswax and rubber. Rice, beans, sugar cane, cassava, millet and corn were also exchanged for the imported products offered by the Indians. Cotton cloth was mostly valued. Alcoholic beverages and firearms were highly valued, as well, but ornaments and general utensils were also exchanged for small quantities of the export commodities.

• 19  See L. Pinto Teixeira, Trade and Commerce…, op. cit.; J. Negrão, One Hundred Years…, op. cit.; A. (...)

21The growth of Indian merchant activity in Zambezia was directly connected to the development of the export trade in oilseeds and groundnuts. Indians were active in the expansion of the commercial system in Zambezia, and in the area of informal credit extension. Although no data are yet available neither on the scale of the Indian trade network nor on the volume of their trade, several studies indicate the growth of the export and import trade and of the maintenance of its volume during the 1880s19.

• 20  See Tables 3.1., “Growth of Quelimane Trade, 1875-1893”, and 3.2., “Value of Quelimane exports, 18 (...)

22The sharp rise on the value of Quelimane trade from mid-1870s to the early 1890s is clear by looking at some figures. In 1875, imports totalled 100 contos de reis, and exports to 98. At the close of the decade, in 1879, imports amounted to 259 contos de reis and exports to 142, and despite slight variations, the increase of trade reamined consistent. By 1884, imports totalled 465 contos de reis and exports 287, and in 1892, 685 contos de reis and 570 respectively20.

• 21  J. Negrão, One Hundred Years…, op. cit.: Table 1, p.255, based on data collected by G. Liesegang, (...)

23As the trade in slaves and ivory declined, peasant-produced crops became increasingly important to the regional economy of east-central Africa, including that of Mozambique. It was a period of economic changes and adjustment to the new commercial objectives. In the 1860s, exports of vegetable oils such as sesame, peanuts and copra, totalled an annual average of 178 tons, a sum that increased sharply to 1,318 tons in the following decade. Sesame went from forty-seven tons to 396 tons, peanuts from eighty-eight to 755 tons, and copra from forty-three to 167 tons21.

• 22  F. Carvalho, Districto de Quelimane: Relatório do Governador, 1911-1912, Lourenço Marques, Imprens (...)

24In lower Zambezia, the rapid development of agriculture had repercussions on the local trade, and on the import and export trade. The growth on the value of exports was also connected to the 1877 tariff reform and to the establishment of a new marketing system. The revision of the tariff, which reduced the export duty on exports and imports, stimulated the growth of the export trade, thus increasing the colonial revenues. In 1875, when peasant production of oilseeds was expanding, the value of Quelimane exports was 98 :000 $ 000 reis, with the bulk of the trade in ivory and hippo teeth. A few years later, in 1881, the district's total exports stood at 364 :000 $ 000 reis. In 1881, the 1877 tariff was revised, increasing the export duties on all imports and exports ranging between 33 percent and 1.000 percent for imports, and in the export tariff from one percent ad valorem to five percent ad valorem. Notwithstanding these changes, the value of Quelimane exports maintained an average of 380 :000 $ 000 reis until the new 1892 tariff. In that year, which may be considered the final year of free peasant production, the value of Quelimane's exports was 507 :675 $ 065 reis22.

• 23  W. M. Churchill, Report on the Trade…, op. cit.: 19-20. See also G. Lisegang, “A First Look…”, op. (...)
• 24  W. M. Churchill, Report on the Trade…, op. cit.: 20.

25Quelimane exports consisted of oilseeds and groundnuts, such as sesame seed and copra, indiarubber, beeswax, ivory, gold dust, sugar and local native tobacco. The oilseeds, indiarubber and wax were exported to England, France, Germany and Holland ; the ivory to Bombay, England, and Germany ; gold- dust to Bombay ; sugar to Portugal ; and tobacco to other places in the province of Mozambique. Imports consisted of cotton cloth, printed textiles, beads, utensils, timber, rum, provisions, wines, salt fish, flour, Mauritius sugar from India, empty bags, and a series of articles for European domestic or personal use23. Likewise, the main importers were the European and the Indian firms, and most imports were bartered for produce to be exported. Indians imported from Bombay the cheap cotton that formed the large bulk of imports, provisions and sundries for domestic use, and also “the hundred and one small articles sold in retail”24.

• 25  For an excellent summary of what was at stake during the Zambezi Wars, see M. Newitt, A History of (...)

26The boom in agricultural production did not occur evenly in Zambezia, due in part to geographical factors such as the quality and irrigation of the soils, ecological factors like droughts, which obviously affected crop productions, and internal factors linked to the social-political instability caused by the Zambezi Wars (1840-1870s/1902) and the imposition of mussoco25. Oilseed and groundnut production was thus exclusive to the Zambezi delta until the turn of the century when it began in upper Zambezia. Whereas the delta population adjusted to the new times and responded to the new market opportunities, in the middle Zambezi region, the area to the west of the Lupata Gorge and the Shire, and in upper Zambezia, the steady end of the slave trade did not give rise to agricultural commodity production. Here, the old forms of trade remained for a long period still, with an increased dependency on the ivory trade. This was the result of the partial depopulation of the prazos in consequence of the slave raidings and the Zambezi Wars, but there was also an economic reasoning, since the cost of transportation and the distance to the coast did not make the trade in oilseeds a profitable venture. Consequently, the Zambezi delta witnessed a much faster growth in peasant prosperity than the valley and upper Zambezi regions.

• 26  AHM/CZ, Pasta 9, “Relatório Anual 1898”, Mariano Machado to Administração Central.

28In northern Mozambique, agricultural products were carried over distances of more than 150 kilometres to the coastal ports by both traders and peasant producers. Hence, longer distances limited the profitability of a production area for oilseeds and cereals to the coastal areas. On the other hand, non-perishable products that could be transported over longer distances, since their price in relation to bulk and weight was higher, remained valuable inland export goods, thus securing a much desired profit for the caravan traders. As such, beeswax, salt, textiles, tobacco and ivory were the goods mostly traded in the interior. Ivory remained the most important commodity until the mid-1880s when it became scarce. In Tete district, the trade in ivory had been the mainstay of commerce. However, the scarcity of elephants as a result of massive elephant hunting expeditions and the re-routing of the ivory caravans to the northern routes of east Africa led to their close extinction. Local trade in ivory, rubber, beeswax, and also in foodstuffs supplied to the caravans suffered from this re-routing and was almost extinct at the close of the 1890s26.

• 27  G. Liesegang, “A First Look…”, op. cit.: 495.

30Other factors also contributed to the instability of the 1880s. Gerhard Liesegang has suggested that the developments in the Atlantic capitalist system, namely the difficulties in the markets where the raw materials were sold, and ecological crisis such as droughts, were the main reasons for the crisis27.

• 28  R. Gray & D. Birmingham, “Some Economic and Political Consequences of Trade in Central and Eastern (...)

32Gray and Birmingham have noted that during the late-nineteenth century transitional period, when market-oriented trade was still in an embryonic stage, the populations of central and eastern Africa lived in varying levels of dependence on subsistence agricultural production and market exchange, and that subsistence-oriented trade often continued to co-exist with an incipient, developing commerce28.

• 29  AHM/Fundo do Século XIX (FSD), Cx 8-29, M2. Ofício 55, Vereador da Câmara Municpal de Quelimane to (...)

39Feiras were also an incentive to produce the surplus of cash-crop commodities to be exchanged for trade goods. Another aspect of the marketing system was the adaptation to the existing periodicity of the seasonal trade. Indeed, in Zambezia trade remained seasonal, and largely confined to the post-harvest period of the dry season. Most trade licences were thus requested in accordance with the trade season, and were either geographically fixed or divisible. In the first case they regarded the rent of market stalls or market shops, whereas in the latter, the fees covered either local or regional trade, or both.29

• 30  For a discussion of the development of colonial capitalism in Mozambique, see the contemporary vie (...)

44By the early 1890s the colonial state had created the conditions for capital accumulation, and for the establishment of colonial companies, the majority of which were financed by foreign capital30.

• 31  A. Enes, Moçambique. Relatório, op. cit.: 33-34.

50As expected, these measures also affected the Africans, who were forced to sell their produce to the renters or to the traders for the price that was offered to them, and which was usually much lower than the market value. However, the major objective of this measure was the eviction of the Indians. In a period when a wave of Portuguese settlers was arriving in Mozambique and more were expected to come, Indians were regarded by the state and by the Portuguese merchant class as an economic threat and even as the commercial enemy in Zambezia. Antonio Enes himself held that the « renewed invasion » of the Indians was the cause for the decline of the European merchants.31 This fear was rooted in economic competition. In Zambezia, the flexible Indian trade network facilitated their business with the Africans. It also facilitated commerce in terms that others could hardly achieve. It should be recalled that the Indians were also proprietors of rural and urban estates and that their money-lending business extended beyond their community.

• 32  W. Churchill, Report on the Trade…, op. cit.: 21-22.

52“These [the Indians] spread over the country, built their grass stores in native villages and on the banks of rivers, bartered their small stores of trade goods with the natives, and sent the results of their dealing to the coast in canoes, boats, or lighters. Many have gone back to India, and others are coming into the town itself and have taken service for low wages in the shops of their wealthier brethren to wait for better times. Many others have gone up the Zambezi and Shire, where there is greater freedom of trade than in the region north of Quelimane [sic].”32

• 33  Cf. The discussion in L. Pinto Teixeira, “Changes over time…” and Trade and Commerce…, op. cit.
• 34  AHM/CZ, Pasta 9: “Contrato entre a Companhia da Zambézia e a firma commercial de Damodar Anandgi…” (...)

53Elsewhere I have argued that overall Indians reacted positively to the restrains imposed on their commercial activities, in spite of the interpretation that contends that they were crushed in the early 1890s. Instead, I suggested that they responded positively to the new economic challenges. The numerous requests for trade sites at the pre-established prazo fairs in Quelimane district, and the contracts for trade monopoly at some prazos of the Zambezia Company established between the company and two leading Indian merchants of Quelimane, confirm that they indeed maintained their economic activity33. On the other hand, the contracts established with leading merchants Damodar Anandgi and Agy Taibo Agy Selemane were part of a strategy devised by the company to secure a share in the prazos’ yearly revenue34.

• 35  AHM/Quelimane: Cod. 11-5846 Gh5, 1886-1888; Cod. 11-5847 Gh5, 1888-1890; Cod. 11-5848 Gh5, 1890; C (...)

54Indians were not alone in this process. The contemporary records show a substantial volume of trade partnerships established in the two last decades of the century. Given the validity of the contracts, from one to five years, we can probably assume that perhaps most traders were being cautious in face of the economic insecurity of these years.35

• 36  AHM/Cod. 11-5847, Cartório Notarial de Quelimane, fls.1v-4v, Quelimane, 18 February 1888.
• 37  AHM/Cod. 11-5846, Cartório Notarial de Quelimane, fls.40v-42, Quelimane, 16 January 1886.
• 38  AHM/Cod. 11-5849, Cartório Notarial de Quelimane, fls.16v-19, Quelimane, 23 June 1891.
• 39  AHM/Cod. 11-5847, Cartório Notarial de Quelimane, fls.83v-84v, Quelimane, 18 January 1890.

55Let us take some examples, as they illustrate my argument, that overall the threats to economic activity were not absolutely effective. In 1887, the long established Quelimane merchants João A. Correia Pereira and Carlos Nandim de Carvalho, renters of prazo Mahindo since 20 March 1886, formed Correia & Carvalho on 18 February for agricultural and industrial enterprise in their prazo. The society was renewed in 188836. In this year, the Quelimane merchants Victorino de Mello and Vallegy Mussagy set up a firm at Tete37, and Dande Mamade and Fakir Mamade renewed their partnership with which these two Quelimane brothers had been operating at Bazar, on prazos Andone-Anguaze. In 1890, the house of Abdul Ramane Camissá opened in Quelimane as a result of a new partnership,38 and Mamud Bay Ussen and Vallegy Bay Faquir, two Quelimane brothers, legalized a partnership that already existed, under the commercial name of Mamud Bay Ussen39.

• 40  AHM/Cod. 11-5849, Cartório Notarial de Quelimane, fls.7v-8, Quelimane, 20 January 1891.
• 41  AHM/Cod. 11-5850, Cartório Notarial de Quelimane, fls.16v-18, Quelimane, 12 Julho 1893. C. Wiese, (...)

56The following year, more firms appeared. Faria & Cia., established by the Quelimane merchant Antonio R.Faria Guimarães40, and Pinto & Rodrigues, a firm from Mozambique Island, opened a branch in Quelimane headed by Albino Nunes da Silva, a local merchant. On 11 November 1892, the firm was extinguished, and the Quelimane house was transferred to Albino Silva. Also in 1891, Pereira, Dulio & C^ia. was established in Quelimane, to operate in Zambezia, especially on the prazos along the Shire. The firm also expanded beyond Zambezia. On 11 November 1892, one of the partners, Francisco Dulio Ribeiro, signed a contract with Henrique Carlos Lima to open a branch of Dulio Ribeiro in Beira. The terms of the partnership were renewed on 12 July, 1893, only this time the objective was to open trade stores at the prazos of the Mozambique Company. In the same year, the German entrepreneur Carl Wiese raised capital and joined Pereira and Dulio, forming Pereira, Dulio & Wiese. He left the firm in 1895, which became once again Pereira, Dulio & C^ia. in January 1896. Notwithstanding its importance in the market, in 1900 the firm was no longer operating in Tete.41

• 42 AHM/Cod. 11-5861, Cartório Notarial de Quelimane, fls.3-5v, Quelimane, 3 August 1897.

57On 3 August 1897, the British merchant of Quelimane, Charles Achilles Chasting and Jayme Arthur de Moura, a Tete merchant, formed Chasting & Moura, at Tete. The contract was good for five years, but the firm only lasted one.42

• 43 AHM/CZ, Pasta 9, “Relatório Anual 1898”, Mariano Machado to Administração em Lisboa; AHM/CZ, Pasta (...)

58These contracts also make it clear that at the close of the century the new firms were no longer limited to specific areas of Zambezia. Quelimane and the delta region remained important, but Tete was no longer a primary destination. This region was seriously hit by the changes that occurred in this period and also by the effects of the re-routing of the ivory caravans to the northern routes. By 1898, the volume of trade at Tete was at its lowest. In Macanga, the Zambezia Company's western territory, trade in gold and ivory had almost disappeared43.

• 44 For an analysis of the Zambezia Company’ strategy in its early years, see L. Pinto Teixeira Trade a (...)

60These companies were a vehicle for territorial control, which in practical terms represented the control over the Africans, i.e., over taxation and labour. Established in 1892, the Zambezia Company developed a policy of territorial occupation that met the objectives of the state. This was only possible because the reformation of the prazos and the trade legislation of the 1890s created the conditions for the establishment of a trade monopoly controlled by the prazo renters. In the early days of the colonial companies, trade remained the dominant economic activity in Zambezia. For the company, traders were regarded as the immediate solution to territorial occupation44.