The mother of Portugal was Galicia, that north-western province of the present Kingdom of Spain. It was here at any rate that the Portuguese language developed from a dialect of provincial Latin, and hence that the first expeditions started to drive the Moors out of that territory which subsequently became the Kingdom of Portugal. A large element in the populations of Galicia and of the northern parts of Portugal was Gothic. The Suevi settled here in considerable numbers; and their descendants at the present day show the fine tall figures, flaxen or red hair, and blue eyes so characteristic of the northern Teuton. Central Portugal is mainly of Latinized Iberian stock, while southern Portugal retains to this day a large element of Moorish blood. The northern part of Portugal was first wrested from the Moors in the 11th century by the bravery of Alfonso V, Ferdinand I and Alfonso VI, Kings of Leon. Alfonso VI placed it (as a tributary county) in charge of Henric of Besançon or Burgundy, a French prince of the Capetian house, who married the illegitimate daughter of Alfonso VI, and extended the conquered area nearly to the banks of the Tagus. He became known to the Moors as Errik; and his warrior son Alfonso I was styled in Moorish history “ibn Errik,” the “son of Henry.” Alfonso I became the first king of Portugal in 1143, though it is doubtful whether the kingly title was assumed or recognized till the reign of Henric’s great-great grandson Alfonso III, by whom in 1250 the southernmost province of Algarve[48] was conquered. By the middle of the 13th century the Moors had ceased to rule in the Roman Lusitania. Lisbon, the capital, had been wrested from the Muhammadans in 1147, thanks to the cooperation of a crusading force of English, Dutch and Germans, who volunteered the aid of their ships and fighting men. Most of these Saxon crusaders settled in Portugal, which at that period even imported Anglo-Saxon or English architects and craftsmen; and not a few of the later conquistadores and bold sea-captains of the Lusitanian kingdom could trace their descent from Teutonic adventurers of the 12th century.
In course of time the Portuguese, not content with ridding the western part of the Peninsula of the Moorish invaders, attempted to carry the war into the enemy’s country, urged thereto by the irritating attacks of Moorish pirates. In 1415, as already mentioned, a Portuguese army landed on the coast of Morocco, and captured the citadel of Ceuta, the Roman Septa. One by one the Portuguese captured the coast towns of north-west Morocco, till in the second half of the 16th century the king of Portugal was almost entitled to that claim over the Empire of Morocco which asserted itself down to 1910 in the formal setting-forth of his dignities. Most of these posts were either abandoned some years before or just after the defeat of the young king “Sebastião o Desejado”—Sebastian the desired—who at the age of only 23 was defeated and slain by the founder of the Sharifian dynasty of Morocco on the fatal field of Al Kasr-al-Kabīr in 1578[49]. Ceuta was taken over by Spain in 1580—was garrisoned, that is, by Spanish soldiers[50]; the two or three other Moroccan towns which remained in Portuguese hands after the battle of Kasr-al-Kabīr, being garrisoned by Portuguese soldiers, reverted to the separated crown of Portugal in 1640. Of these Tangier was ceded to England in 1662, Saffi was given up to the Moors in 1641, other points were snatched by the Moors in 1689, and Mazagan was finally lost in 1770.
The second son of the king Dom João I (who reigned from 1385 to 1433) and Philippa, daughter of the English John of Gaunt, was named Henry (Henrique), and was subsequently known to all time as “Henry the Navigator” from the interest he took in maritime exploration. He was present at the siege of Ceuta in 1415, and after its capture was said to have inquired with much interest as to the condition of Morocco and of the unknown African interior, and to have heard from the Moors of Timbuktu.
On his return to Portugal he established himself on the rocky promontory of Sagres, and devoted himself to the encouragement of the exploration of the coasts of Africa. Under his direction expedition after expedition set out. First Cape Bojador to the south of the Moroccan coast was doubled by Gil Eannes in 1434[51]. In 1441-2 Antonio Gonsalvez and Nuno Tristam passed Cape Blanco on the Sahara coast, and on the return journey called at the Rio d’Ouro or River of Gold[52], whence they brought back some gold dust and ten slaves. These slaves having been sent by Prince Henry to Pope Martin V, the latter conferred upon Portugal the right of possession and sovereignty over all countries that might be discovered between Cape Blanco and India. In 1445 a Portuguese named João Fernandez made the first over-land exploration, starting alone from the mouth of the Rio d’Ouro, and travelling over seven months in the interior. In the following year the river Senegal was reached, and Cape Verde was doubled by Diniz Diaz; and in 1448 the coast was explored as far as the Gambia river. In 1455-6 Ca’ da Mosto (a Venetian in Portuguese service) and Uso di Mare (a Genoese) discovered the Cape Verde Islands, and visited the rivers Senegal and Gambia, bringing back much information in regard to Timbuktu, the trade in gold and ivory with the coast, and the over-land trade routes from the Niger to the Mediterranean. It is asserted by the Portuguese that some years later two Portuguese envoys actually reached Timbuktu; but the truth of this assertion is somewhat problematical, since, had they done so, they would probably have dissipated to some extent the excessive exaggerations regarding the wealth and importance of the Songhai capital. In 1460 Diego Gomes reached the river and mountain peninsula of Sierra Leone; the last named from the incessant rumble of thunderstorms making the mountain range roar like a lion. In 1462, two years after the death of Prince Henry, Pedro de Sintra explored the coast as far as Cape Palmas in modern Liberia. By 1471 the whole Guinea coast had been followed to the Gold Coast and on past the Niger delta, to the Cameroons and as far south as the Ogowe.
In 1448, under Prince Henry’s directions, a fort had been built on the Bay of Arguin, to the south of Cape Blanco; and a few years later a Portuguese company was formed for carrying on a trade with the Guinea coast in slaves and gold. The first expedition sent out by this company resulted in the despatch of 200 Negro slaves to Portugal, and thenceforward the slave trade grew and prospered. It at first resulted in but little misery for the slaves, who exchanged a hunted, hand-to-mouth existence among savage tribes in Africa for relatively kind treatment and comfortable living in beautiful Portugal, where they were much in favour as house servants. In 1481 the Portuguese, who had been for some years examining the Gold Coast, decided to build a fort to protect their trade there. In 1482 the fort was completed and the Portuguese flag raised in token of sovereignty. This strong place, for more than a hundred years in possession of the Portuguese, was called Saõ Jorge da Mina[53]. In the same year in which this first Portuguese post was established on the Gold Coast[54], exploration of the African coast was carried on beyond the mouth of the Ogowe by Diogo Cam, who discovered the mouth of the Congo in 1482, and sailed up that river about as far as Boma. In 1485 Diogo Cam returned with a stronger expedition which sailed and rowed up the Congo to the mouth of the Mpozo river, just below the Yellala Falls[55]. Diogo Cam’s discoveries were continued by Bartolomeu Diaz de Novaes, who, passing along the south-west coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope in stormy weather without knowing it, and touched land on February 3, 1488, at Mossel Bay, then again at Algoa Bay, Cape Padrone and the mouth of the Great Fish river. Here the timorous officers and crew insisted on a return westwards. On the homeward voyage Diaz beheld and named Cape Agulhas, and also “Cabo Tormentoso,” the terminal point of South Africa, which was afterwards christened by Diaz, or by his monarch, King Joaõ II, “the Cape of Good Hope.”
At this stage in the relation of the founding of the Portuguese dominion and influence over Africa some mention must be made of the part played during the 15th century by the Jews settled in Portugal. Badly as the Christians of Portugal treated the Jews, their existence in this western kingdom was not unbearable compared with the ferocious cruelty of the Spaniards; consequently during the 15th century the Jewish colonies in Portuguese cities increased considerably, and Jews even rose to a high position in the state. In return they established printing-presses, advanced education, and spread a knowledge of geography, astronomy, mathematics, classical history and medicine which was directly useful to the new school of Portuguese seamen-explorers, who mostly obtained their nautical instruments from the Jews. In short the Jews did much to create a Portuguese Empire beyond the seas; but they were subsequently treated with the grossest ingratitude and expelled from Portugal in the early 16th century, thousands of them being deported to Saõ Thomé in the Gulf of Guinea where they died of malarial fever.
Before the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Diaz, the King of Portugal was convinced of the circumnavigability of Africa from the Atlantic into the Indian Ocean. Through enterprising Portuguese Jews (Abraham of Beja and Joseph of Lamego) who had travelled overland via Egypt and Syria to the Persian Gulf, he had heard that this was possible[56], and resolved to send two Portuguese officers, Pero de Covilham and Alfonso de Paiva, to travel to India by way of the Red Sea, and to find out all they could about the Christian King of Ethiopia and the Arab settlements on the East coast of Africa, and whether the King of Portugal might look for allies or friendly neutrals in this direction. Accordingly, in 1487, de Covilham and Paiva reached Egypt; and the former journeyed by the Red Sea to India, while the latter made for Abyssinia, but was killed on the way, near Suakin. Pero de Covilham, on his return journey from Southern India, visited the north coast of Madagascar and the settlement of Sofala, near the modern Beira (S.E. Africa). Thence he proceeded northwards, calling at all the Arab ports of East Africa till he once more re-entered the Red Sea. Returning to Cairo he learnt that his companion, Paiva, had been killed, but he met the two Jews, Abraham and Joseph. By the last-named he sent back word of his discoveries to King John II, and then starting off with Abraham of Beja he visited Mecca and Medina and finally landed at Zeila (N. Somaliland) and travelled to Abyssinia. The information sent back by de Covilham decided the despatch of an expedition under Vasco da Gama to pass round the Cape of Good Hope to the Arab colonies, and thence to India. Vasco da Gama set out in 1497, and made his famous voyage round the Cape (calling at and naming Natal on the way) to Sofala, where he picked up an Arab pilot who took him to Malindi, and thence to India. On his return journey Vasco da Gama took cognizance of the island of Mozambique, and visited the Quelimane river near the mouth of the Zambezi. Numerous well-equipped expeditions sailed for India within the years following Vasco da Gama’s discoveries. While India was the main goal before the eyes of their commanders, considerable attention was bestowed upon the founding of forts along the East coast of Africa, both to protect the Cape route to India, and to further Portuguese trade with the interior of Africa. In nearly every case the Portuguese merely supplanted the Muhammadan Arabs, who—possibly succeeding Phoenicians or Sabaeans—had established themselves at Sofala, Quelimane, Sena (on the Zambezi), Moçambique, Kilwa, Zanzibar, Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu, and Magdishu. Sofala was taken by Pedro de Anhaya in 1505. Tristan d’Acunha hoisted the Portuguese flag on Sokotra Island and at Lamu in 1507, in which year also Duarte de Mello captured and fortified Moçambique. Kilwa and the surrounding Arab establishments were seized between 1506 and 1508; and a little later the remaining places already mentioned on the East coast of Africa were in possession of the Portuguese, who had also Aden on the south coast of Arabia, the island of Ormuz on the Persian Gulf, and various places on the coast of ’Oman, including Maskat. Meantime, for thirty years, Pero de Covilham remained a prisoner at the Court of the Emperor of Abyssinia, though treated with the utmost distinction.
Before this period of the world’s history, and from the time of the earlier crusades, a legend had grown up of the existence of Prester (priest) Johannes—some Christian monarch of the name of John, who ruled in the heart of Asia or of Africa, a bright spot in the midst of Heathenry and Islam. The court of Prester John was located anywhere between Senegambia and China; but the legend had its origin probably in the continued existence of Greek Christianity in Dongola and Abyssinia. Pero de Covilham having at last located Abyssinia, and an Abyssinian envoy having proceeded to Lisbon in 1507 to invite an alliance, a Portuguese embassy sailed round the Cape of Good Hope to the Red Sea and landed (apparently at Masawa) in 1520. With this embassy were two priests, one of whom (Alvarez) thirty years afterwards wrote an interesting account of Northern Abyssinia. The priest-missionaries remained for a long time in Ethiopia; but the lay-members of the mission returned after a residence of five years, bringing Covilham away with them. But he died on the way back.
The Turks meanwhile had taken possession of Egypt and Western Arabia, and became very jealous of Portuguese interference with Abyssinia and the Red Sea. They stirred up a Somali warrior, Muhammad Granye, furnished him with artillery, and urged him to conquer Abyssinia. This Muhammadan Somali from the Danákil country commenced invading and raiding Abyssinia from 1528. A Portuguese priest, Bermudez, was sent to Lisbon to beg for assistance. This was sent by way of India, whence came in 1541 a strong Portuguese fleet to Masawa. Six months afterwards the fleet landed at Masawa a force of 450 Portuguese soldiers under Christoforo da Gama. But after carrying all before them the Portuguese unwisely split their forces. Muhammad Granye, having received Turkish and Arab reinforcements, captured Christoforo da Gama’s camp, and put that gallant Portuguese to death. Ultimately, however, with the help of the remaining Portuguese, the Abyssinian Emperor defeated Muhammad Granye, who was himself slain by da Gama’s attendant, Pedro Leon (1542). Portuguese Jesuit missionaries remained in Abyssinia until 1633 and penetrated into countries which have only been since revisited by Europeans within the last few decades. Father Pedro Paez discovered the source of the Blue Nile in 1615; and Father Lobo visited the same region and much of S.W. Abyssinia in 1626. Portuguese civilization distinctly left its mark on Abyssinia in architecture and in other ways. The very name which we apply to this Empire of Ethiopia is a Portuguese rendering of the Arab and Indian cant term for “negro”—Habesh—a word of uncertain origin.
From the beginning of the 16th century the Portuguese visited the coasts of Madagascar, as will be related in the chapter dealing with that island. They had also discovered in 1507 the Mascarene islands (named after a sea-captain, Mascarenhas) now known by the names of Réunion and Mauritius, though they made no permanent settlements on either. Madagascar, which was first sighted by Diogo Diaz in 1500, was named the Island of St Laurence.
On the West coast of Africa geographical discovery was soon followed by something like colonization. The island of Madeira, which had been known to the Portuguese in the 14th century, was occupied by them in the 15th, and a hundred years afterwards was already producing a supply of that wine which has made it so justly famous[57]. The island of St Helena—afterwards to be seized by the Dutch and taken from them by the English East India Company—was discovered by the Portuguese in 1502; and this island also, at the end of a century of intermittent use by the Portuguese, possessed orange groves and fig trees which they had planted.
When Diogo Cam returned from the Congo in 1485 he brought back with him a few Congo natives, who were baptized, and who returned some years later to the Congo with Diogo Cam and a large number of proselytizing priests. This Portuguese expedition arrived at the mouth of the Congo in 1491 and there encountered a vassal chief of the king of Kongo[58] who ruled the riverain province of Sonyo. This chief received them with a respect due to demi-gods, and allowed himself to be at once converted to Christianity—a conversion which was sincere and durable. The Portuguese proceeded under his guidance to the king’s capital about 200 miles from the coast, which they named São Salvador. Here the king and queen were baptized with the names of the then king and queen of Portugal, João and Leonora, while the Crown Prince was called Affonso. Christianity made surprising progress amongst these fetish worshippers, who readily transferred their adoration to the Virgin Mary and the saints, and discarded their indigenous male and female gods. Early in the 16th century the Kongo kingdom was visited by the Bishop of São Thomé, an island off the Guinea coast, which, together with the adjoining Prince’s Island, had been settled by the Portuguese soon after their discovery of the West coast of Africa. The Bishop of São Thomé, being unable to take up his residence in the kingdom of Kongo, procured the consecration of a native negro as Bishop of the Congo. This man, who was a member of the Kongo royal family, had been educated in Lisbon, and was, I believe, the first negro bishop known to history. But he was not a great success, nor was the next bishop, in whose reign in the middle of the 16th century great dissensions arose in the Kongo church among the native priesthood, which led to a considerable lessening of Christian fervour. After the death of the King, Dom Diego, a civil war broke out; and one by one the males of the royal house were all killed except “Dom Henrique,” the king’s brother. This latter also died soon after succeeding to the throne, and left the state to his son, “Dom Alvares.” During this civil war many of the Portuguese, whom the kings of Kongo had invited to settle in the country as teachers, mechanics and craftsmen, were killed or expelled as the cause of the troubles which European intervention had brought on the Kongo kingdom; but Dom Alvares, who was an enlightened man, gathered together all that remained, and for a time Portuguese civilization continued to advance over the country. But a great stumbling-block had arisen in the way of Christianity being accepted by the bulk of the people—that stumbling-block which is still discussed at every Missionary conference, polygamy. A relation of the king Dom Alvares renounced Christianity and headed a reactionary party. Curiously enough he has been handed down to history as Bula Matadi, “the Breaker of Stones,” the name which more than three hundred years afterwards was applied to the explorer Stanley by the Congo peoples, and has since become the native name for the whole of the government of the Belgian Congo.
In the middle of the 16th century Portuguese influence over Kongo received a deadly blow. That kingdom, which must be taken to include the coast-lands on either side of the lower Congo, was invaded by a savage tribe from the interior known as the “Jagga” people, probably the same tribe as the Ba-Kioko or Ba-jok of Upper Kwango river[59]. The Jaga or Imbangola were powerful men and ferocious cannibals, and they carried all before them, the king and his court taking refuge on an island on the broad Congo, not far from Boma. The king of Kongo appealed to Portugal for help; and that ill-fated but brilliant young monarch, Dom Sebastião, sent him Franciso de Gova with 600 soldiers. With the aid of these Portuguese and their guns the Jaga were driven out. The king, who had hitherto led a very irregular life for a Christian, now formally married, but was not rewarded by a legal heir, and had to indicate as his successor a natural son by a concubine. About this time the king of Portugal pressed his brother of Kongo to reveal the existence of mines of precious metals. Whether there are such in the Kongo country—except as regards copper—has not been made known even at the present day, but they were supposed to exist at that time; and certain Portuguese at the Kongo court dissuaded the prince whom they served from giving any information on the subject, no doubt desiring to keep such knowledge to themselves. The king of Kongo, Dom Alvares, when the Jaga had retired, made repeated appeals for more Portuguese priests, and sent several embassies to Portugal; but Dom Sebastião had been killed in Morocco, and his uncle, the Cardinal Henrique, who had succeeded him and who was the last Portuguese king of the House of Avis, was too much occupied by the affairs of his tottering kingdom to reply to these appeals. But when Philip II of Spain had seized the throne of Portugal he despatched a Portuguese named Duarte Lopes to report on the countries of the Congo basin. After spending some time in Congoland, Duarte Lopes started to return to Portugal with a great amount of information about the country, and messages from the king of Kongo. Unfortunately he was driven by storms to Central America, and when he reached Spain the king was too busy preparing the Great Armada to listen to him. Therefore Lopes went on a pilgrimage to Rome to appeal to the Pope. Whilst staying in Italy, Lopes allowed a papal official named Filippo Pigafetta to take down and publish in 1591 his account of the Kongo kingdom, together with a recital of the Portuguese explorations and conquests in East Africa.
Although Portuguese priests—Jesuits probably—continued for a little while longer to visit the kingdom of Kongo, from the end of the 16th century both Christian and Portuguese influence slowly faded, and the country relapsed into heathenism, in spite of the strenuous efforts made by the Popes of the 17th and 18th centuries, who sent thither Italian, Flemish, and French missionaries. The Portuguese appear to have excited the animosity of a somewhat proud people by their overbearing demeanour and rapacity. They held intermittently Kabinda, on the coast to the north of the Congo estuary, and occasionally sent missions of investiture to São Salvador to represent the king of Portugal at the crowning of some new king of Kongo; and the king of Kongo was usually given a Portuguese name and occasionally an honorary rank in the Portuguese army. But it was not till after the middle of the 19th century that Portugal began to assert her dominion over the Congo countries. France and Britain during the 18th and nearly all the 19th centuries steadily refused to recognize Portuguese rule anywhere north of the Loge river in Angola (south of the Congo Estuary); but Britain in 1884 proposed to do so under sufficient guarantees for freedom of trade set forth in a treaty which was rendered abortive by the opposition of the House of Commons. If this treaty had been ratified it would have brought under joint English and Portuguese influence the lower Congo, besides settling amicably Portuguese and British claims in Nyasaland. The opposition of a knot of unpractical philanthropists in the House of Commons wrecked the treaty, and gave to the other powers of Europe an opportunity for interfering in the affairs of the Congo. The result to Portugal, nevertheless, was that she secured the territory of Kabinda north of the Congo, and the ancient kingdom of Kongo south of that river.
Although the Portuguese discovered the coast of Angola in 1490, they did not attempt to settle in that country until 1574, when, in answer to an appeal of the chief of Angola (a vassal of the king of Kongo), an expedition was sent thither under the command of Paulo Diaz[60]. This expedition landed at the mouth of the Kwanza river, and found that the chief of Angola who had appealed to the king of Portugal was dead. His successor received Diaz with politeness, but compelled him to assist the Angolese in local wars which had not much interest for the Portuguese. Diaz found in the interior of Angola many evidences of Christian worship, which showed that missionaries from the Congo had preceded his own expedition. When Diaz was at last allowed to return to Portugal, the king (Dom Sebastião) sent him back as “Conqueror, Colonizer, and Governor of Angola” with seven ships and 700 men. His passage out from Lisbon in the year 1574 occupied three and a half months—not a long time at that period for sailing-vessels. Diaz took possession of a sandy island in front of the bay which is now known as the harbour of São Paulo de Loanda. Here he was joined by 40 Portuguese refugees from the Kongo kingdom. Eventually he built on the mainland of Loanda the fort of São Miguel, and founded the city of São Paulo, which became and remains the capital of the Portuguese possessions in South-west Africa.
For six years perfect peace subsisted between the Portuguese and the natives; then, afraid that the Portuguese would eventually seize the whole country, the king of Angola enticed 500 Portuguese soldiers into a war in the interior where he massacred them. But this massacre only served to show the splendid quality of Paulo Diaz, who was a magnificent representative of the old Portuguese type of Conquistador. Leaving Loanda with 150 soldiers—nearly all that remained—he marched against the king’s forces near the Kwanza river, and routed them with great loss, being of course greatly helped in securing this victory by the possession of muskets and cannon. The Angolese were defeated repeatedly before they gave up the struggle; but at length in 1597 the Portuguese had established themselves strongly on both banks of the river Kwanza. In that year 200 Flemish colonists were sent out by the king of Spain and Portugal. In a very short time all were dead from fever. In spite of many reverses, however, the Portuguese slowly mastered the country south of the Kwanza nearly as far as Benguela. Portuguese traders and missionaries probably travelled inland up the Congo as far as the Bateke country or Stanley Pool. In 1606 an interesting but unsuccessful attempt was made to open up communication across south-central Africa between the Kwanza and the Zambezi settlements. But the explorer never got beyond the King of Kongo’s capital, that potentate refusing him permission to proceed further into the interior. Nevertheless, from Portuguese annals it is clear that numerous venturesome priests and soldiers attempted at this period to penetrate Darkest Africa, and were never heard of again. What a subject for romance would be their experiences in these lands, at that time absolutely free from the influence of the European—a condition which no longer applied to the natives of Darkest Africa when Stanley first made known the geography of those regions. For in the three and a half centuries which had elapsed, even those savages in the heart of Africa, who possibly knew nothing of the existence of white men, had nevertheless adopted many of the white man’s products as necessities or luxuries of their lives, such as maize, tobacco, sweet potatoes, manioc, papaws, chillies, the pine-apple, and the sugar cane.
We may here fitly consider the greatest and most beneficial results of the Portuguese colonization of Africa. These wonderful old Conquistadores may have been relentless and cruel in imposing their rule on the African and in enslaving him or in Christianizing him, but they added enormously to his food-supply and his comfort. So early in the history of their African and Indian explorations as about 1510 they brought from China, India, and Malacca the orange tree, the lemon and the lime, which, besides introducing into Europe (and Europe had hitherto only known the sour wild orange and the lime, brought by the Arabs), they planted in every part of East and West Africa where they touched. They likewise brought the sugar cane from the Mediterranean and the East Indies and introduced it into various parts of Brazil and West Africa, especially into the Islands of São Thomé and Principe and the Congo and Angola countries. Madeira they had planted with vines in the 15th century; the Açores, the Cape Verde Islands and St Helena with orange trees in the 16th century. The cacao tree was introduced into São Thomé in 1822. From their great possession of Brazil, overrun and organized with astounding rapidity, they brought to East and West Africa the Musk duck (which has penetrated far and wide into the interior of Africa), chili peppers, maize (now grown all over Africa, and cultivated by many tribes who have lost all tradition of its foreign origin), wheat (into Zambezia)[61], tobacco, the tomato, pine-apple, sweet potato (a convolvulus tuber), manioc (from which tapioca is made), rice (into West Africa), haricot beans and lentils, onions, guavas, jackfruit, papaws, small bananas, ginger and other less widely known forms of vegetable food. The Portuguese also introduced the domestic pig into West Africa, and the domestic cat, possibly also certain breeds of dogs; in East tropical Africa the horse is known in the north by an Arab name, in the centre by the Portuguese word, and in the extreme south by a corruption of the English. Take away from the African’s dietary of today the products that the Portuguese brought to him from the far East and far West, and he will remain very insufficiently provided with necessities and simple luxuries. I may add one or two dates concerning these introductions by the Portuguese:—the sugar cane and ginger were first planted in the island of Principe, off the coast of Lower Guinea about 1520; maize was introduced into the Congo (where it was called maza manputo) about 1560[62].
In 1621 a chieftainess, apparently of the Kongo royal family, known as Jinga Bandi, came to Loanda, made friends with the Portuguese, was baptized, and then returned to the interior, where she poisoned her brother (the chief or king of Angola), and succeeded him. Having attained this object of her ambitions, she headed the national party, and attempted to drive the Portuguese out of Angola. For 30 years she warred against them without seriously shaking their power, though on the other hand they could do little more than hold their own. But a much more serious enemy now appeared on the scene. The Dutch, who took advantage of the union between the Spanish and Portuguese thrones in 1580[63] to include the Portuguese empire as a theatre for their reprisals against Spain, made several determined attempts during the first half of the 17th century to wrest Angola from the Portuguese. They captured São Paulo de Loanda in 1641, one year after Portugal had recovered her independence under the first Bragança king. The Portuguese concentrated on the Kwanza. The Dutch attempted by several treacherous actions to oust them from their fortresses on that river. At last, however, following on the reorganization of the Portuguese empire after 1640, reinforcements were sent from Brazil to Angola, and a siege of São Miguel took place. The Portuguese imitated with advantage the Dutch game of bluff, and by deceiving the besieged as to the extent of their army they secured the surrender of 1100 Dutch to under 750 Portuguese. In the preliminary assault on the Dutch at São Paulo de Loanda the Portuguese lost 163 men. After the recapture of this place they proceeded methodically to destroy all the Dutch establishments on the Lower Guinea coast as far north as Loango. In the concluding years of the 17th century nearly all the remaining Portuguese missionaries in the kingdom of Kongo[64] migrated to the more settled and prosperous Angola. In 1694 Portugal introduced a copper coinage into her now flourishing West African colony—flourishing, thanks to the slave trade, which was mightily influencing the European settlement of West Africa.
In 1758 the Portuguese extended their rule northwards from São Paulo de Loanda into the Ambriz country, where however their authority continued very uncertain till about 1885. About the same time Benguela was definitely occupied; and Portuguese influence continued extending slowly southward until, in 1840, it reached its present limits by the establishment of a settlement (now very prosperous) called Mossamedes, almost exactly on the fifteenth parallel of south latitude[65].
Between 1807 and 1810 attempts were made to open up intercourse with the Lunda kingdom of the Mwata Yanvo, and thence across to the colony of Moçambique, but they proved only partially successful. In 1813 and in the succeeding years a renewed vigour of colonization began to make itself felt in the creation of public works in Angola. Amongst other 19th century improvements was the bringing of the waters of the Kwanza by canal to São Paulo de Loanda, which until then had no supply of good drinking water. The Dutch had attempted to carry out this, but were interrupted. The Portuguese efforts in the early part of the last century proved unsuccessful, but in 1887 the canal was at last completed, and it made a great difference to the health of the town. Portuguese rule inland from Angola waxed and waned during the 19th century, but on the whole was greatly extended. Livingstone found Portuguese in 1855 established to some extent on the upper Kwango, an affluent of the Congo, and for long the eastern boundary of Angola. From this, however, they had to retire owing to native insurrections; though now their power and their influence have been pushed far to the east, to the river Kasai.
In 1875 a party of recalcitrant Boers quitted the Transvaal owing to some quarrel with the local government, trekked over the desert in a north-westerly direction, and eventually blundered across the Kunene river (the southern limit of Portuguese West Africa) on to the healthy plateau behind the Shela Mountains. It was feared at one time that they would set the Portuguese at defiance and carve out a little Boer state in south-west Africa. About this time, also, Hottentots much under Boer influence and speaking Dutch invaded the district of Mossamedes from the coast region; but by liberal concessions and astute diplomacy, joined with the carrying out of several important works, like the waggon road (now the railway) across the Shela Mountains, the Portuguese won over the Boers to a recognition of their sovereignty, though they have since left the country and returned to German or British South Africa.
Slavery was not abolished in the Portuguese West African dominions until 1878; but the slave trade had been ostensibly forbidden in the first quarter of the 19th century. Prior to that time the slave trade had brought extraordinary prosperity to the islands of São Thomé and Principe, to the Portuguese fort on the coast of Dahomé, and to Angola, all of which countries were more or less under one government. The abolition of the slave trade however caused the absolute ruin of Principe (which has not yet recovered), the temporary ruin of São Thomé (the fortunes of this island have since revived owing to the cultivation of cinchona and the enormous extention of the planting of cacao), and the partial ruin of Angola, which began to be regarded as a possession scarcely worth maintaining. Brazil (though it had been severed from the crown of Portugal) did almost more than the Mother Country to revive trade in these dominions. Enterprising Brazilians such as Silva Americano came over to Angola in the sixties and seventies of the 19th century, started steam navigation on the river Kwanza, and developed many industries. Through Brazilian, United States, and British influence a railway was commenced in the eighties to connect São Paulo de Loanda with the rich interior, especially with the coffee districts on the water-shed of the Congo. Another railway of even greater importance has been begun by a British company in the Benguela district south of the Kwanza River. This line starts from Lobito Bay, near Benguela, and is destined to cross Angola at its broadest and ultimately reach the copper and gold mines of Katanga in the Belgian Congo. American and Swiss protestant missionaries have formed important settlements on the Bailundo uplands. The magnificent island of São Thomé, just under the Equator, possesses mountains which rise high into a temperate climate. On these, as already related, flourishing plantations of cacao, cinchona and coffee have been established. Public works in the shape of good roads and bridges have been carried out in many parts of Angola, and this country is certainly the most successful of the Portuguese attempts at the colonization of Africa. Unfortunately the “boom” in cacao (cocoa, chocolate) and the fact that it is a capricious tree, not easy to acclimatize and only growing to perfection in a few parts of tropical America and the west coast of Africa, notably São Thomé, induced the Portuguese government from 1880 onwards to push the interests of São Thomé at the expense of Angola. A kind of slave trade under the guise of “apprenticeships” was revived in South and East Angola, which made its effects felt on the Congo populations as far inland as the Kasai and Lomami. These apprentices, once landed in São Thomé (they were regularly bought and sold) never, or hardly ever, obtained their liberty or received regular pay for their work. In all other respects they were kindly treated. But this policy led to native wars and insurrections in the Angola hinterland, and attracted attention and condemnation in Europe.
In the autumn of 1904 the Portuguese forces in Southern Angola sustained a disastrous defeat near the Kunene river from the Kuanyama (Cuanhama) people, a tribe connected linguistically with the Ovambo and the Ovaherero (Damara). Bantu negroes, speaking dialects of this Ondonga or Herero group and distantly allied in racial origin with the Zulu-Kafir stock, inhabit the south of Angola and are formidable warriors. These disturbances in Southern Angola have died down since the hinterland of Benguela was opened up to profitable commerce by the Anglo-Portuguese railway concessionaires who are building a line from Lobito Bay eastwards to Katanga.
Portuguese rule was extended in 1885 northwards to the southern shore of the Congo, and over the small territory of Kabinda, which is separated by a narrow strip of Belgian territory from the Congo estuary. On the other hand the Portuguese protectorate over Dahomé—a protectorate which never had any real existence—was abandoned to France together with its only foothold, São João d’Ajudá[66]. The Portuguese forts on the Gold Coast had not been held very long before they were captured by the Dutch at the beginning of the 17th century. Portugal, in spite of discovering and naming Sierra Leone, never occupied it; but in varying degree she continued to maintain certain fortified posts amid that extraordinary labyrinth of rivers and islands in Senegambia, between the Gambia and Sierra Leone. This is a district of some 14,000 square miles in extent, to-day carefully defined, and known as Portuguese Guinea. But in the seventies of the 19th century it was doubtful whether Portuguese sovereignty over this country had not been abandoned. England, which exercised exclusive influence in these waters, attempted to establish herself in the place of Portugal, but the Portuguese protested and proclaimed their sovereignty. The matter was submitted to arbitration, and the verdict was given against England. Consequently the Portuguese reorganized their colony of Guinea, which in time was separated from the governorship of the Cape Verde islands. There was a serious native rising in 1908, but it was suppressed. In the present condition of Portuguese Guinea, however, the native tribes are practically independent.
The Cape Verde Islands are a very important Portuguese asset three hundred miles off the north-west coast of Africa. They have been continuously occupied and administered since their discovery in the 15th century. They possessed then no population, but are now peopled by a blackish race descended from Portuguese, Negroes and Moors. In one or two of the healthier islands are white settlers of Portuguese blood. Owing to the magnificent harbours which these islands offer to shipping, especially São Vicente, and their use as a coaling station, they may yet figure prominently in the world’s history.
Both Ascension and St Helena were discovered and named by the Portuguese. The first-named was never continuously occupied until England took possession of it as an outpost of Napoleon’s prison in 1815. St Helena was taken in the early part of the 16th century by the Dutch, and passed into the hands of the English in the middle of that century. Another Portuguese discovery was the most southern of those isolated oceanic islets, Tristan d’Acunha, which bears the name of its discoverer, but which, so far as occupation goes, has always been a British possession[67].
On the East coast of Africa Portuguese colonization did not commence until the 16th century had begun, and Vasco da Gama, after rounding the Cape, had revealed the existence of old Arab trading settlements and sultanates between Sofala and Somaliland.
The need of ports of call on the long voyage to India caused the Portuguese to decide soon after Vasco da Gama’s famous voyage to possess themselves of these Arab settlements, the more so because hostilities against the “Moors” were a never-ending vendetta on the part of Spaniard and Portuguese, while the conquest was at that date an easy one, as the Portuguese had artillery and the East African Arabs had none.
By 1520, the Portuguese had ousted the Arabs and had occupied in their stead Kilwa, Zanzibar, Pemba, Mombasa, Lamu, Malindi, Brava (Barawa), and Magdishu (Magadoxo), all north of the Ruvuma river. South of that river they had taken Sofala and Moçambique. Here they had, it is said, established a trading station in 1503; but Moçambique island[68] was not finally occupied by them till 1507, when the existing fortress was commenced and built by Duarte de Mello. The fort was then and is still known as “the Praça de São Sebastião.” It had been decided before this that Moçambique should be the principal place of call, after leaving the Cape of Good Hope, for Portuguese ships on their way to India; but, when in 1505 the Portuguese deliberately sanctioned the idea of a Portuguese East African colony, they turned their attention rather to Sofala as its centre than to Moçambique. Sofala, which is near the modern Beira, was an old Arab port and sultanate, and had been for some 1500 years the principal port on the south-east coast of Africa, from which the gold obtained in the mines of Manika (Monomotapa, i.e. Southern Rhodesia) was shipped to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Consequently the first proposed Portuguese settlement on the East coast of Africa was entitled “the Captaincy of Sofala.” But later on Moçambique grew in importance, and eventually gave its name to the Portuguese possessions in East Africa.
The Quelimane river, taken to be the principal exit of the Zambezi by the Portuguese, was discovered and entered by Vasco da Gama in the early part of 1498, and was by him called the “River of Good Indications.” He stayed a month on this river, where there seems to have been, on the site of the present town of Quelimane, a trading station resorted to by the Arabs, who were even then settled in Zambezia. The name Quelimane (pronounced in English Kehmane) is stated by the early Portuguese to have been the name of the friendly chief who acted as intermediary between them and the natives, but it would rather appear to have been a corruption of the Swahili-Arabic word “Kaliman,” which means “interpreter.”
The first “factory” or Portuguese trading station at Quelimane was established about the year 1544; and by this time the Portuguese had heard of the River of Sena (as they called the Zambezi) and of the large Arab settlement of Sena on its banks. They had further heard both from Quelimane and from Sofala of the powerful empire of Mohomotapa[69], and especially of the province of Manika, which was reported to be full of gold. Having found it too difficult to reach Manika from Sofala, owing to the opposition of the natives, they resolved to enter the country from the north by way of Sena, on the Zambezi; consequently, in 1569, an exceptionally powerful expedition left Lisbon under the command of the Governor and Captain-General Francisco Barreto. After a preliminary tour up and down the East coast of Africa as far as Lamu, and a rapid journey to India and back, Francisco Barreto with his force, which included cavalry and camels, landed at Quelimane, and set out for Sena. The expedition was accompanied, and, to a certain extent, guided by a mischief-making Jesuit priest named Monclaros, who wished to avenge the assassination of his fellow-priest, Gonçalo de Silveira, martyred not long previously in the Monomotapa territories. Francisco Barreto found on arriving at Sena that there was already a small Portuguese settlement built alongside an Arab town. These Arabs appear to have got on very well with the first Portuguese traders, but they evidently took umbrage at Barreto’s powerful expedition, and are accused of having poisoned the horses and camels. What really took place, however, seems to have been that the horses and camels were exposed to the bite of the Tsetse fly, and died in consequence of the attacks of this venomous insect. From Sena, Barreto sent an embassy to the Emperor of Monomotapa, whom he offered to help against a revolted vassal, Mongase. After receiving an invitation to visit the emperor, a portion of the Portuguese force commenced to ascend the right bank of the river Zambezi, but apparently never reached its destination, because it was so repeatedly attacked by the hostile natives that it was compelled to return to Sena. Shortly afterwards there arrived the news of a revolt at Moçambique, and consequently Barreto, together with the priest Monclaros, having handed over the command of the expedition to a lieutenant, entered a canoe, descended the Zambezi to the Luabo mouth, and from there took passage in a dau to Moçambique. He and Monclaros subsequently returned to Sena, but Barreto died soon after his arrival. The Portuguese chroniclers of this expedition write with considerable bitterness of the Jesuit Monclaros, to whose counsels most of the misfortunes and mistakes are attributed. The expedition after Barreto’s death returned to Moçambique, and attempted later on to enter Monomotapa by way of Sofala, but was repulsed.
For some time to come further exploration of the Zambezi or of the interior of Moçambique was put a stop to by the struggle which ensued with the Turks. Towards the end of the 16th century (in 1584), following on the conquest of Egypt and at the instigation of Venice, the Turkish Sultan sent a powerful fleet out of the Red Sea, which descended the East coast of Africa as far as Mombasa, and prepared to dispute with Portugal the dominion of the Indian Ocean. The Turks, however, were defeated with considerable loss by the Admiral Thomé de Sousa Coutinho; and Portuguese domination was not only strengthened at Zanzibar and along the Zanzibar coast, but was also affirmed along the south coast of Arabia and in the Persian Gulf.
At the end of the 16th century the Portuguese had terrific struggles with the natives in the interior of Monomotapa, behind Kilwa, on the mainland of Moçambique[70], and in the vicinity of Tete on the Zambezi; and shortly afterwards appeared the first Dutch pirates in East African waters, some of whom actually laid siege to Moçambique. In 1609 there arrived at Moçambique the first Portuguese Governor of the East coast of Africa, this province having been separated from the Portuguese possessions in India, and withdrawn at the same time from the spiritual jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Goa, and placed under the Prelate of Moçambique. Meantime the efforts to reach the gold-mines to the south of the Zambezi had been so far successful that a considerable quantity of gold was obtained not only by the officers, but even by the private soldiers of the different expeditions; but the expectations of the Portuguese as to the wealth of gold and silver (for they were in search of reported silver-mines on the Zambezi) were considerably disappointed; and later on, in the 17th century, their interest in these East African possessions waned, largely on account of the poor results of their mining operations. The Dutch in 1604-7 twice attacked Moçambique, and again in 1662 sought to obtain possession of the little fortress island. In the middle of the 17th century, however, a new source of wealth was discovered—the Slave Trade—which for two hundred years following gave a flickering prosperity to these costly establishments on the East coast of Africa. In 1645 the first slaves were exported from Moçambique to Brazil. This action was brought about by the fact that the province of Angola had fallen for a time into the hands of the Dutch, and, therefore, the supply of slaves to Brazil was temporarily stopped.
In consequence of this, Moçambique and the Zambezi for some years replaced West Africa as a slave market. In 1649 the English first made their appearance on this coast; and two years afterwards the Portuguese were perturbed by the definite establishment of a Dutch colony at the Cape, and by the establishment of French factories on the coast of Madagascar—events which are prophetically described by a contemporary writer as “Quantos passos para a ruina de Moçambique!”—“So many steps towards the ruin of Moçambique!” At the same time the Arabs in the Persian Gulf drove the Portuguese out of Maskat, and towards the end of the 17th century began to attack their possessions on the Zanzibar coast. By 1698 Portugal had lost every fortress north of Moçambique; and in that year this, their last stronghold, was besieged straitly by the Arabs and very nearly captured. In fact it was only saved by the friendly treachery of an Indian trader who warned the Portuguese of an intended night attack. All of these posts on the Zanzibar coast were finally abandoned[71] by the Portuguese in the early part of the 18th century by agreement with the Imam of Maskat, who founded the present dynasty of Zanzibar. In 1752 this fact was recognized by the formal delimitation of the Portuguese possessions in East Africa at the time when they were also again removed from any dependency on the Governor of Goa. In this decree of the 19th of April, 1752, the government of Moçambique was described as extending over “Moçambique, Sofala, Rio de Sena (Zambezi), and all the coast of Africa and its continent between Cape Delgado and the Bay of Lourenço Marquez (Delagoa Bay).” Hitherto commerce in Portuguese East Africa had been singularly restricted, and after being first confined to the Governors and officials of the state, was then delegated to certain companies to whom monopolies were sold. In 1687 there was a fresh arrival, after a considerable interval, of Indian traders, who established themselves on the Island of Moçambique; and by degrees the whole of the commerce of Portuguese East Africa was thrown open freely to all Portuguese subjects, though it was absolutely forbidden to the subjects of any other European power, and considerable anger was displayed when French and Dutch endeavoured to trade on the islands or on the coast in the province of Moçambique. In the middle of the 18th century the practice of sending the worst stamp of Portuguese convicts to Moçambique was unhappily adopted in spite of the many protests of its governors. About this same time also there occurred a series of disasters attributable to the deplorable mismanagement of the Portuguese officials. The fortresses of the gold-mining country of Manika had to be abandoned, like Zumbo[72] on the upper Zambezi. The forts on the mainland opposite Moçambique were captured by an army of Makua; and the Island of Moçambique itself very nearly fell into the hands of the negroes of the mainland.
Towards the close of the 18th century, however, occurred a great revival. In fact, the period which then ensued was the only bright, and to some extent glorious phase of Portuguese dominion in South-east Africa. A remarkable man, Dr Francisco Jose Maria de Lacerda e Almeida (a Brazilian), was made Governor of Zambezia at his own request, and commenced the first scientific exploration of southern Central Africa. His journey resulted in the discovery of the Kazembe’s division of the Lunda empire, a country on the Luapula and Lake Mweru. It is interesting to note that in 1796, only one year after the British had seized Cape Town, Dr Lacerda predicted that this action would lead to the creation of a great British Empire in Africa, which would stretch up northwards like a wedge between the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Moçambique. But Dr Lacerda in time fell a victim to the fatigues of his explorations; and Portuguese interest in East Africa waned before the life-and-death struggle which was taking place with France in Portugal itself. Long prior to this also, in the middle of the 18th century, the Jesuits had been expelled from all Portuguese East Africa; and with them had fallen what little civilization had been created on the upper Zambezi. In fact, it may be said that after Lacerda’s journey the province of Moçambique fell into a state of inertia and decay, until Livingstone, by his marvellous journeys, not only discovered the true course of the Zambezi river, but drew the attention and interest of the whole world to the development of tropical Africa.
On all old Portuguese maps, indeed on all Portuguese maps issued prior to Livingstone’s journeys, there was but scanty recognition of the Zambezi as a great river. It was usually referred to as the “rivers of Sena,” the general impression being that it consisted of a series of parallel streams. No doubt this idea arose from its large delta; on one or two maps, however, the course of the Zambezi is laid down pretty correctly from its confluence with the Kafue to the sea; but the fact cannot be denied that its importance as a waterway was quite unknown to the Portuguese, who usually reached it overland from Quelimane and travelled by land along its banks in preference to navigating its uncertain waters. The Shire was literally unknown, except at its junction with the Zambezi. The name of this river was usually spelt Cherim, but its etymology lies in the Mañanja word chiri, which means “a steep bank.” Admiral W. F. W. Owen, who conducted a most remarkable series of surveying cruises along the West and East coasts of Africa in the early part of the 19th century, was the first to make the fact clearly known that a ship of light draught might enter the mouth of the Zambezi from the sea and travel up as far as Sena.
Livingstone’s great journey across the African continent in the earlier fifties attracted the attention of the British nation and Government to the possibilities of this region, so highly favoured by nature in its rich soil and valuable productions. Livingstone was appointed Consul at Quelimane, and placed at the head of a well-equipped expedition intended to explore the Zambezi river and its tributaries. Prior to this the Portuguese had abolished the slave trade by law, though slavery did not cease as a legal status till 1878, and had thrown open Portuguese East Africa to the commerce of all nations; and undoubtedly these two actions were an encouragement to the British Government to participate in the development of Southeast Africa, especially as Livingstone’s journeys had shown conclusively that the rule of the Portuguese did not extend very far inland, nor to any great distance from the banks of the lower Zambezi. The second Livingstone expedition may, therefore, be regarded as the first indirect step towards the foundation of the present Protectorate over British Central Africa (Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia), which dependencies follow to a great extent in their frontiers the delimitations suggested by Dr Livingstone at the close of his second expedition.
A jealous feeling, however, arose at the time of Livingstone’s explorations between Portuguese and British; and considerable pressure was brought to bear on the British Government to abandon the results of Livingstone’s discovery. These representations, together with other discouraging results of British enterprise in East and West Africa, induced the British Government during the later sixties and earlier seventies to hold aloof from any idea of British rule in the interior of the continent. Meantime the Portuguese were making praiseworthy efforts to develop these long-neglected possessions. Great improvements were effected, and a wholly modern aspect of neatness and order was given to the towns of Quelimane and Moçambique, which in many respects compared a few years ago favourably with other European settlements on the East coast of Africa. Large sums were spent on public works; indeed, in the year 1880, not less than £157,000 was provided by the mother-country for the erection of public buildings in Portuguese East and West Africa; and at this period the handsome hospital in the town of Moçambique was erected, together with a good deal of substantial road and bridge making. A good many more military posts were founded; and Zumbo, on the central Zambezi, at the confluence with the Luangwa, was reoccupied. Nevertheless, Livingstone’s work, and especially his death, inevitably drew the British to Zambezia. In 1875 the first pioneers of the present missionary societies travelled up the Zambezi and arrived in the Shire highlands. In 1876 the settlement of Blantyre was commenced, and the foundations of British Central Africa were laid. These actions impelled the Portuguese to greater and greater efforts to secure the dominion to which they aspired—a continuous belt of empire stretching across the continent from Angola to Moçambique; and an expenditure exhausting for the mother-country was laid out on costly expeditions productive not always of definite or satisfactory results. This policy culminated in the effort of Serpa Pinto to seize by force the Shire highlands, despite the resistance offered by the Makololo chiefs[73], who had declared themselves under British protection. Thence arose the intervention of the British Government and a long discussion between the two powers, which eventually bore results in a fair delimitation of the Portuguese and British spheres of influence, and the annulling of any inimical feeling between England and Portugal in their African enterprises. Moçambique proper (i.e. the provinces N.E. of the Zambezi) has proved a costly dependency to the mother-country. From the year 1508 to 1893 there was always annually an excess of expenditure over revenue, sometimes as much as an annual deficit of £50,000. In the year 1893, for the first time since the creation of the colony, a small surplus was remitted to Lisbon. It is questionable whether this possession will ever prove profitable to Portugal. At the present day nearly two-thirds of the trade is in the hands of non-Portuguese (Indians and Europeans). The bulk of the wholesale commerce between Ibo and Quelimane is carried on by German, Dutch, and French firms; and the retail trade is conducted by British Indians, or by natives of Goa and other Portuguese Indian possessions.
The Chartered Company of “Nyassa” has a virtual monopoly of the hinterland trade between Lake Nyasa and the Ibo coast, and administers the country between the Lurio river on the south and the Ruvuma on the north. In Portuguese Zambezia exists the Zambezia company with a number of minor concessionaires; and most of these hold prazos or leases of prescribed areas, in which they have exclusive trading rights and a virtual mastery over the natives, who are consequently at times rebellious when exactions of labour in lieu of or in addition to taxes are levied on them. There is and has been very little real Portuguese colonization of the Moςambique and Zambezia provinces. The vicious spirit of the old slave trade days still taints the local administration. The Angoshe region between Moςambique Island and the northern vicinity of the Quelimane river is almost independent of Portuguese authority under powerful Arab-Negro Muhammadan “Sultans,” who until quite recently shipped over many dau-loads of slaves to Madagascar.
The chief article of trade in the Moςambique province is ground-nuts—the oily seeds of the Arachis hypogæa, a species of leguminous plant, the seed-pods of which grow downwards into the soil. These ground-nuts produce an excellent and palatable oil which is hardly distinguishable in taste from olive oil, and indeed furnishes a considerable part of the so-called olive oil exported from France. This, perhaps, is the reason why the ground-nuts find their way finally to Marseilles. The india-rubber of Moçambique is of good quality and fetches a high price in the market. Other exports are oil-seeds derived from a species of sesamum, copra, wax, ivory and sugar. Some copper and malachite are exported from the Nyassa company’s territories north of the Lurio. A few enterprising people started coffee plantations on the mainland near Moçambique some years ago; but the local Portuguese authorities immediately put on heavy duties and taxes, so that the coffee-planting industry was soon killed. The same thing may be said about the coco-nut palm. At one time it was intended to plant this useful tree in large numbers along a coast singularly adapted for its growth; but, owing to the fact that the local Portuguese Government imposed a yearly tax on each palm, the cultivation of the coco-nut was given up. The ivory comes chiefly from Ibo and Cape Delgado, and also from Quelimane, and is derived from elephants still existing in the Zambezi basin and in the eastern parts of Nyasaland. Nevertheless, most of the products above alluded to, with the exception of ivory, are only furnished by the fertile coast belt; for beyond the twenty-mile strip of cultivated land which extends more or less down the whole coast of Moçambique, the interior of the country is dry and arid except in certain favoured river valleys, and in the splendid mountain region of Namuli, between Angoshe and the upper Shire river.
Portuguese influence, though not always Portuguese rule, was carried southward to the northern shore of Delagoa Bay at the end of the 17th century. Here the settlement of Lourenςo Marquez was founded as a trading station. At the beginning of the 18th century this Portuguese station was abandoned; and the Cape Dutch came and built a factory there, which however was destroyed by the English in 1727. Nevertheless Portugal continued to assert her claims to Lourenço Marquez; and when, in 1776, an Englishman named Bolts (formerly in the employ of the English East India Company), who had entered the service of Maria Theresa in order to found an Austrian Company to trade with the East Indies from Flanders, came thither with a large following composed of Austrian-Italian subjects, and made treaties with the chiefs of Delagoa Bay, the Portuguese protested and addressed representations to the Austrian Government. These protestations would have been of but little avail had not a terrible outbreak of fever carried off almost all the European settlers. The Austrian claim was therefore abandoned; and the Portuguese continued at intervals to make their presence felt there by a quasi-military commandant or a Government trading establishment. When Admiral Owen’s expedition visited Delagoa Bay between 1822 and 1824, they found a small Portuguese establishment on the site of the present town of Lourenço Marquez[74]. Realizing the importance of this harbour, and finding no evidence of Portuguese claims to its southern shore, Captain Owen concluded treaties with the King of Tembe by which the southern part of Delagoa Bay was ceded to Great Britain. The Portuguese made an indirect protest by removing the British flag during Captain Owen’s absence, but the flag was rehoisted in 1824. Owen’s action, however, was not followed up by effective occupation, though on the other hand the Portuguese did nothing to reassert their authority over the south shore of the bay until, in the sixties, the growing importance of South Africa led the British to reassert their claims. The matter was submitted to arbitration, and Marshal MacMahon, the President of the French Republic, was chosen as arbitrator. His verdict—a notoriously biassed one—not only gave the Portuguese the south shore of Delagoa Bay, but even more territory than they actually laid claim to. Britain had to some extent prepared herself for an unfavourable verdict by a prior agreement providing that whichever of the two disputing powers came to possess the whole or part of Delagoa Bay should give the other the right of pre-emption.
Reading the vast mass of evidence brought forward and preserved in Blue Books, it seems to the present writer that any dispassionate judge would arrive at these conclusions: That the Portuguese claim to the northern shore of Delagoa Bay was valid; but that over the southern shore of this important inlet they had exercised no occupation and raised no claim until the arrival of Admiral Owen and his treaty-making; and that even after the action taken by Admiral Owen, they did nothing beyond removing the flag he had raised, and effected nothing in the way of occupation or treaty-making on their own account. Owen’s procedure was not repudiated by the British Government, who besides had other rights over the territory in question inherited from the Dutch. Owen’s intervention was not, it is true, succeeded by immediate occupation; and the British case would have been a very weak one judged by the severe rules of the Berlin Convention of 1884. But then, if Portuguese territory in East Africa had been delimited by the same severe rules, it would have been reduced to a few fortified settlements. Great Britain had a fair claim to the south shore of Delagoa Bay; and the award of Marshal MacMahon was a prejudiced one, said to have been mainly due to the influence of his wife, who was ardently in favour of the Portuguese for a variety of reasons.
In 1887-9 a railway was constructed under a concession by the Portuguese between Lourenço Marquez (Delagoa Bay) and the Transvaal border by a group of English and American capitalists, with results which are set forth in Chapter VII. This railway was seized and extended by the Portuguese in 1889.
Subsequently to the Delagoa Bay award, the Portuguese made determined efforts to explore and conquer the South-east coast of Africa and the countries along the lower Zambezi. To the extreme north of their Moçambique possessions they had a dispute with the Sultan of Zanzibar as to the possession of Tungi Bay and the south shore of the mouth of the river Ruvuma. After their disastrous struggle with the Arabs in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Portuguese had defined the northern limit of their East African possessions as Cape Delgado; and Cape Delgado would have given them the whole of Tungi Bay, though not the mouth of the Ruvuma. It is evident that the Sultan of Zanzibar was trespassing as a ruler when he claimed Tungi Bay, though not when he claimed the mouth of the Ruvuma. Portugal, losing patience at the time of the division of the Zanzibar Sultanate between England and Germany, made an armed descent on Tungi Bay in 1889, and has since held it, though the Germans withdrew from her control the Ruvuma mouth, which they claimed as an inheritance of the Sultan of Zanzibar.
The establishment of the British South African Company in 1889 and the consequent development of Mashonaland and Matebeleland subjected the Portuguese territories south of the Zambezi to a searching scrutiny on the part of these merchant adventurers, who laid hands on behalf of Great Britain on all territory where the Portuguese could not prove claims supported by occupation or ruling influence. The strongest temptation existed to ignore Portuguese claims on the Pungwe river and to push a way down to the sea at Beira; but a spirit of justice prevailed, and no real transgression of Portuguese rights was sanctioned by the British Government, or indeed attempted by the Company. In June, 1891, after several unsuccessful attempts, a convention was arrived at between England and Portugal, which defined tolerably clearly the boundaries of British and Portuguese territories in South-east, South-west, and South-central Africa. Rights of way were obtained under fair conditions both at Beira and at Chinde (Zambezi Delta[75]). Since 1891 a friendly feeling has been growing up between the British and the Portuguese.
The Portuguese have been making steady efforts to bring under control their richly endowed East African province. For some time after their settlement with Great Britain they were menaced in the south by the power of Gungunyama, a Zulu king who ruled over the Gaza country, and had been in the habit of raiding the interior behind the Portuguese settlements of Lourenço Marquez and Inhambane. The Portuguese warred against him for three years without satisfactory results, until Major Mouzinho de Albuquerque, by a bold stroke of much bravery, marched into Gungunyama’s camp with a handful of Portuguese soldiers and took the king prisoner. For this gallant action he was eventually promoted to be Governor-General of Portuguese East Africa, and then did something towards bringing under subjection the turbulent Makua tribes opposite Moçambique.