Download a persistent traffic

A PERSISTENT TRAFFIC: PORTUGAL, MOZAMBIQUE, AND THE SLAVE EXPORT
TRADE IN THE MOZAMBIQUE CHANNEL AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
Lorna Mungur
History and Classical Studies
McGill University, Montreal
October 2013
A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree
of Master of Arts
© Lorna Mungur, 2013
2
ABSTRACT
This research examines the illegal slave trade in the Mozambique Channel at the end of
the nineteenth century. Although outlawed by Portugal and then heavily regulated by colonial
powers, the trade persisted in important numbers. The project describes the measures taken
throughout the century to regulate and prohibit the slave trade, and demonstrates how they
ultimately failed.
Le sujet de cette recherche est la traite illégale d’esclave dans le canal du Mozambique à
la fin du dix-neuvième siècle. La traite fut interdite par le Portugal ainsi que durement prohibée
par d’autres puissances coloniales telles que la Grande-Bretagne. Cependant, elle persista en
nombres importants. Ce projet examine les mesures prises à travers le siècle afin d’interdire la
traite des esclaves et conclut qu’elles échouèrent à réprimer la traite des esclaves.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………5
Introduction………………………………………………………………………..... 6
Chapter I
The Structure of the Slave Trade in the Mozambique Channel………………..……13
Chapter II
Regulation of the Slave Trade and Slavery in the Portuguese Empire………..……..27
Chapter III
Increased European Presence in Southeast Africa……………………..………….....43
Chapter IV
A Look into Slaving Activities from Mozambique Island, 1878-1898………..……. 59
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….. .74
Appendixes…………………………………………………………………………...78
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….79
List of Maps
Mozambique………………………………………………………………….14
The Peoples of East Central Africa…………………………………………..18
The Rose Coloured Map: Portuguese Claims in Africa……………………...45
Madagascar and the Mozambique Channel…………………………………..62
5
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people have supported me throughout this year-long project. First, I would like to
thank my supervisor, Dr. Gwyn Campbell, for his support and valuable insight. I am grateful for
his faith in my research. He has given me the opportunity to travel to Portugal to do valuable
archival research, much needed for this project. I would also like to thank the Indian Ocean
World Centre and McGill’s department of History and Classical studies for their financial and
educational support. I would like to thank the members of the Indian Ocean World Centre for
their help, advice, and constructive criticism. It is an honour to be part of such a wonderful team.
I would also like to thank the Project Manager at the Indian Ocean World Centre, Lori
Callaghan. She was always there when I needed assistance, she helped me with my complicated
paperwork, she put me in touch with people who could assist me in my research, she taught me
the basics of Excel, and she was always available to chat. I would also like to thank Dr. Margaret
Kalacska for her help analysing the database I compiled.
This project would not have been possible without the support I got in Lisbon, Portugal. I
would like to thank the members of the Arquivo histórico ultramarino for helping me navigate
through historical documents, and assisting me during the seven weeks I was there. I also would
like to thank the friends I made in Lisbon who made my stay unforgettable.
I would like to thank the people close to me, who supported at all times: François
Anderson De Serres, Junie Latte, Étienne Pineault. I am especially grateful to my dear friend,
Katherine-Anne St-Louis, for always being there for me, and for taking the time to edit my work.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents for their unwavering support in me.
6
INTRODUCTION
In 1807, Great Britain abolished the slave trade in its empire. Fifty years later, the
Atlantic slave trade had, for the most part, ended. In Europe, the end of the Atlantic slave trade
was seen as a victory for humanitarian forces. It was believed by many to mark the end of the
global traffic in slaves. However, forced labour and migration remained a common practice in
East Africa, after the end of the Atlantic slave trade and it did not end with the closure of the
Brazilian and Cuban markets in the middle of the nineteenth century, as it is commonly argued.
The East African slave trade has conventionally been depicted as an Arab or Islamic
phenomenon, which could only be ended by European intervention. The portion of the East
African slave trade in the Mozambique Channel has been described as a residual trade, not
important in numbers, especially compared to the Atlantic slave trade. However, it had
considerable impact in reshaping societies in Mozambique and in the islands importing slaves
such as Réunion, Madagascar, Mayotte, Nossi Bé and Zanzibar. Moreover, groups other than
Arab traders were involved, including Europeans. Thus, though it involved relatively small
numbers compared to the Atlantic slave trade, it was of major significance in the region.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the slave trade had been outlawed by Portugal, and
European powers had gained control of most of the African continent. Laws to abolish the slave
trade, to patrol land and sea and to punish belligerents were put in place, but ultimately failed to
suppress the traffic. This research argues that despite the measures adopted to end slave
trafficking in the Mozambique Channel, the practice persisted. The failure of colonial powers to
stop the traffic in human beings in the region can be attributed to the lack of resources put into
the anti-slave trade campaign, and to the many loopholes in the regulations. Moreover, while
slavery and the fight against it were important humanitarian issues, they were used to justify
7
increasing European presence in Africa, European powers’ objectives in Africa were, first and
foremost, economic and territorial.
This work will be divided in four sections. The first will discuss the different structures
shaping the slave trade in the Mozambique Channel, such as geography, the monsoon system,
trading routes and centres, the people involved, and the supply and demand for slaves. The
second section will address the multiple attempts by Portugal to abolish the slave trade and
slavery in its empire. Encouraged by its ally Great Britain, Portugal enacted a series of decrees
and laws prohibiting the trade in slaves and slavery in its possessions, but they ultimately failed
due to lack of resources.
The third section examines the increasing European presence in Southeast Africa. The
Berlin Conference of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa brought many more
Europeans to the region. Indigenous rulers such as the Sultan of Zanzibar came under European
influence, and foreign presence in the interior provoked a violent backlash from Arab traders,
unhappy about their loss of economic and political sovereignty. The conflict in turn propelled an
increase in the flow of slaves to markets on the Mozambican coast. The Brussels Conference of
1889 put in place laws and regulation to prohibit the trade in East Africa, and territory around the
Mozambique Channel were particularly targeted.
However, the measures put in place by Portugal and by the Brussels Act did not succeed
in suppressing the slave trade in the Mozambique Channel. The continued slave trade forms the
core of the fourth section of this dissertation. This section is based on archival research done at
the Arquivo histórico ultramarino (overseas historical archive) in Lisbon, Portugal. It is more
specifically based on the port records of shipping entries and exits from Mozambique Island and
points to continued illegal slaving activities
8
Historiography
The slave trade in the Mozambique Channel is a subject that has not been explored to the
same extent as the slave trade in West Africa, or in North-East Africa. The literature on the
subject is thus limited to a few scholars. This is partly due to the availability of sources, which
tend to focus on the northern portion of the East African coast, supplying slaves to Muslim
markets and the belief that the trade in slaves from Mozambique largely died out with the closure
of the Brazilian and Cuban markets respectively in 1851 and 1862. However the slave trade from
southern East Africa, which was under the rule of the Portuguese Crown, remained vibrant
throughout the nineteenth century with exports to the French colonies of the Western Indian
Ocean, Zanzibar and Madagascar, and the Northern Muslim markets.
In his study of East Africa over an extended time period, Edward Alpers has focused
chiefly on the ivory and the slave trades1. Alpers also emphasises the role of Madagascar in the
East African slave trade and considers the large island as the “missing link” in the history of East
Africa in general. Gwyn Campbell also argues that Madagascar’s role is crucial in the study of
East African trade history.2 He argues that the East African slave trade south of Kilwa was
sustained after the closure of the Brazilian market in the 1850s by growing demand for slaves
from the French islands and Madagascar. The Merina Empire in Madagascar constituted one of
the largest regional markets for slaves due to an economy that was based from the 1870s on
unfree labour. However, Madagascar was unique as it also was a supplier of engagés and slaves
to the French sugar islands. This is explained by the failure of the Merina Empire to control the
1
See Edward Alpers, Ivory & Slaves in East Central Africa, London : Heineman, 1975 ; East Africa and the Indian
Ocean, Princeton : Markus Weiner Publishers, 2009.
2
Gwyn Campbell, “Madagascar and Mozambique in the Slave Trade of the Western Indian Ocean 1800-1861”
Slavery and Abolition 4, (1988) : 165-192 ; Campbell, “The East African Slave Trade, 1861-1895 : The Southern
Complex”, The International Journal of African Historical Studies 22, (1989), 1-26.
9
western and southern parts of the island, where bands raided the central highlands for slaves,
thus accentuating the labour crisis in Imerina.3
In his work on the Portuguese Empire during the nineteenth century, Richard Hammond
characterises Portuguese overseas expansion as “uneconomic imperialism”, in that Portugal
valued its colonies chiefly for the status it gave them as an imperial power. Indeed, Hammond
considered that the colony of Mozambique was inefficiently governed, and argued that the
failure to abolish the slave trade in Africa was a result of Lisbon’s impotence in its overseas
territories4.
José Capela on the other hand sees Portuguese colonialism in Africa in another light. He
believes that the abolition of the slave trade in 1836 and of slavery in 1876 in Portuguese
colonies were policies that stemmed not from economic rationale, but from the pressure placed
upon Portugal by Britain.5 Furthermore, he considers slavery to have been of central importance
in Mozambican history. He qualifies the colony as a “slavocracy” because it functioned from the
work and trading of slaves, and nothing was produced without servile labour. It is even with the
work of slaves that colonisers occupied most of what is now known as Mozambique. He further
adds that the slave was the greatest founder of the colony. Thus, Capela argues that in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the political, economic and social history of Mozambique
developed around enslavement and the slave trade6.
Although studies have been made on slave trading activities in East Africa, the extent of
these practices is still obscure. Capela succeeded in compiling a list of slave ships operating in
3
Ibid.
Richard Hammond, Portugal and Africa 1815-1910: A Study in Uneconomic Imperialism, Standford: Standford
University Press, 1966, 46.
5
Pedro Lains, “Causas do colonialismo português em Africa, 1822-1975”, Analise Social 33, (1998): 464. See also
José Capela, O tráfico de escravos nos portos de Moçambique, Porto: Afrontamento, 2002
6
Ibid. 25.
4
10
the Mozambique Channel and in the colony. However, his registry stops at 1860. After that date,
the only information available depends on ships suspected of slave trading activities, or seized.7.
By analysing ship registries available in the Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, I aim to determine
to what extent slaves were acquired and shipped across the Channel between 1878 and 1898.
Although the data I examined is limited to Mozambique Island, it provides an insight on the
status of the slave trade in the colony. Since Mozambique Island was the colony’s capital and
administrative centre until 1894, it was also the most regulated and populous centre. It remained
a major port even after 1894 when the colonial administration was moved to Lourenço Marques.
Hence, if slavers were able to operate from Mozambique Island or make a stop there without
being arrested, it is safe to assume that it was even easier to practice illicit activities in the rest of
a colony that suffered from a lack of Portuguese presence and colonial law enforcement.
However, the conclusions that can be drawn from the data set are limited since it gives us
information on ships that stopped at Mozambique Island only. This statistical analysis is
incorporated in a study of the history of the slave trade in Mozambique, deeply influenced
British and Portuguese relations in the region.
Definitions of slavery
In this project, the conventional definition of slavery applies. Regulations of the slave
trade were framed in a way that defined slaves as chattel. Chattel slavery is usually seen as the
antithesis of freedom. Chattel slaves are defined as individuals under the complete domination of
a master who has power of life and death over them. Masters could sell their slaves at any
moment, and controlled their daily and domestic lives, including their progeny. Furthermore, the
7
Ibid.133; 307-354
11
slave status was hereditary.8 European powers attempting to regulate the trade saw slaves as
beings brought against their will to the coast and sold to plantation colonies. They were thus
taken from their homes through violent means as described by Lieutenant Barnard, serving in the
British Navy in the Mozambique Channel: “the slaves that are brought from the interior are poor
half-starved looking creatures, attached to each other by ropes round the neck”9. The belief of
widespread violence in the slave trade is also represented in a bill for the suppression of the
Portuguese the slave trade drafted by Britain wherein vessels carrying “shackles, bolts or
handcuffs” were liable for seizure as slave vessels.10 Chattels were capital assets, through
coercion, bore dividends with their labour and reproductive capacities. In slave owning societies,
the division between enslaved and free was accentuated by the slave’s legal inferiority and his
status as a foreigner, thus an outsider.11
However, other forms of servile labour were also used in the region in order to
circumvent slave-trading regulations. A major example is “engagé” labour. This form of labour
was theoretically contractual, and workers had to give their agreement by signing a work
contract before embarking for the French colonies of the Indian Ocean. However, this system did
not differ much from traditional slave trading activities as most of the workforce was forcibly
brought to the coast and engaged in a contract, unaware of the terms.12 It has been argued that
contractual forms of labour, typically called indentured labour, were also servile and
exploitative. Although nominally free, labourers may have been coerced to migrate, and were
then confined to the plantations that hired them. For example, Richard Allen suggests that
8
Suzanne Miers, “Slavery: A Question of Definition” in Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean
Africa and Asia, Routledge, 20033.
9
Lieutenant Barnard. Three Years Cruise in the Mozambique Channel, London : Dawsons, 1848, 217.
10
Parliamentary Papers 1839 (93). A bill for the suppression of the Portuguese slave trade, 8.
11 Gwyn Campbell, “Introduction” in Gwyn Campbell The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia,
xxv.
12
Suzanne Miers, “Slavery: A Question of Definition” in Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean
Africa and Asia, 4.
12
‘praedial slaves’, or other unfree persons in southern India who had no choice in the matter when
they migrated, might have been “recruited” as indentured labourers for Mauritius. Once in
Mauritius, however, they were all confined to the plantations, poorly fed, housed and clothed,
and worked just as the slaves had been.13 Indentured labour is defined by the contractual
engagement of a worker for a period between three and five years to an employer. Labourers
worked in exchange for payment of passage, accommodation, food, clothing, and low wages14.
The conventional view of this form of labour is one of a coercive labour system. Hugh Tinker is
one of the first historians to study indentureship. In his work, he argues that indentured labourers
were slaves, similarly to the ones they were replacing on the plantations. He thus qualifies the
system as a “new system of slavery”15.
It is important to note that unfree labour in the Indian Ocean world varied widely in form.
The chattel slavery and indentured labour, both associated with labour in plantation sectors were
not widespread. In this region, slaves were mostly female, and contrary to plantation slavery,
enslaved individuals were employed in activities removed from direct production. Slaves’
involvement in trade, domestic labour, the military and administration had nevertheless
important economic impacts16.
Throughout this research, the terms “Portuguese East Africa” and “Mozambique” will be
used interchangeably. They refer to the Portuguese colony of Mozambique in East Africa.
“Mozambique Island” will be used to refer to the administrative centre of the colony, situated on
Mozambique Island.
13
Richard Allen, “The Mascarene Slave Trade and Labour Migration in the Indian Ocean during the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries” in Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, 33-45.
14
Hazareesingh, K. “The Religion and Culture of Indian Immigrants in Mauritius and the Effect of Social Change”,
Comparative Studies in Society and History 8, (1966): 244-245.
15
Hugh Tinker, A New System of Slavery, 18.
16 Gwyn Campbell, “Introduction” in Gwyn Campbell The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia. 13
CHAPTER I
THE STRUCTURE OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE MOZAMBIQUE
CHANNEL
The Portuguese colony of Mozambique has 2100 kilometres of coastline with many more
or less isolated harbours and settlements, each surrounded by belts of rural estates trading with a
relatively independent hinterland.17 The island of Mozambique, the colony’s administrative
centre until 1894, was until 1870 a mandatory transit stop for all vessels importing and exporting
commodities, including slaves.18 To understand the slave trade in the Mozambique Channel, it is
essential to examine the environmental, geographical, political and economic factors that
influenced its structure and activities. This chapter will provide an overview of the different
complexes that are essential to the structure of the slave trade. The structure of the slave trade in
the region was shaped by the monsoon system, populations in the hinterland, the establishment
of trading routes, colonial settlements such as port-cities and trading centres, market factors
determining the supply and demand for slaves, and the Portuguese settlement system known as
the Prazo system.
17
G. Liesegang, “A First Look at the Import and Export Trade of Mozambique, 1800-1914” in Liesegang, Pasch,
Jones Ed. Figuring African Trade, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1983, 451. See map I in the Appendix, page 23.
18
Ibid.
14
Map I: Mozambique
15
The Monsoon System
Human movement in the Indian Ocean has been constrained and enabled throughout
history by the monsoon winds. The wind system cannot be ignored when studying maritime
history, especially in the Indian Ocean. The monsoons follow quite a regular pattern in the
Arabian Sea as they blow from the southwest from May to September and from the northeast
from November to March.19 The winds are generated by the rotation of the earth, and by climate.
During the summer, heat warms the continental landmass (Asia) north of the ocean. Hot air rises
and creates a low-pressure zone. The air from the sea then moves into this low-pressure zone,
rises in an upward air current, cools down and thus produces clouds and rain. In the winter, the
reverse occurs. This pattern is most obvious in the Arabian Sea, because of the high Tibetan
plateau to the north, and warm tropical waters to the south. The monsoon winds largely
determined when vessels and people could travel across the Indian Ocean.20
There is some regional specificity to the monsoon wind system. The most suitable time to
sail from India to the Swahili Coast, which at its southern extremity is marked by Cape Delgado
at the northern entrance of the Mozambique Channel, was in December, when the monsoon is
established all the way south to Zanzibar, and a direct voyage took from twenty to twenty-five
days.21 The Mozambique Channel marks the southern limit of the monsoon system, but
southward flowing currents can carry ships as far as Mozambique Island, but then encounter
south-easterlies blowing towards the coast. The convergence of the wind systems at the mouth of
the Mozambique Channel creates a regime of variable winds and unstable weather, including
tropical cyclones, which renders voyages south of Cape Delgado dangerous and difficult.22
19
Michael Pearson, The Indian Ocean, London : Routledge, 2003, 19.
Ibid.
21
Abdul Sherriff, Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean, London : Hurst and Co. 2010, 21.
22
Ibid.
20
16
From May to September, the monsoons change. The arc of desert areas from Somalia to
Central Asia becomes a zone of low pressure, sucking in moist winds and provoking large
precipitations over the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia.
This in turn creates the
southwest monsoon, which enables ships and travellers from East Africa to sail to Arabia and
India. Their voyage is assisted by the fact that the Equatorial Current reaches the East African
coast near Cape Delgado where it splits, the strong north-flowing stream facilitating the journey
north from East Africa.23
The monsoon season inevitably influenced the slave trade in the Mozambique Channel.
By the latter part of the nineteenth century traders coming from Asia to Zanzibar or Madagascar
did not lay idle while waiting for the reversed monsoon system to take them home. In 1873, Sir
Bartle Frere, in correspondence respecting his mission to East Africa, wrote to Earl Granville:
[...] the northern Arab dhows, which used to be laid up at Madagascar whilst waiting for
the change of monsoon, are now, I am told, rarely allowed to lie idle. After landing their
Indian supercargo with the import cargo of cloth, &c., at Madagascar, they stand over to
the opposite Portuguese coast, pick up a small cargo of slaves at the outports, with which
they return to Madagascar, making sometimes more than one trip of the kind before it is
time to return northwards. These dhows are said frequently to put into the Comoro
Islands for water and provisions and sometimes clandestinely part with some of their
slaves there; but they generally put into the Sakalava port or unfrequented harbours
which abound on the Madagascar coast […]24.
Hence, the monsoon wind system enabled foreign traders to partake in the regional slave trade
and other commerce before making the voyage back to Asia.
23
Ibid.
Parliamentary Papers 1873 (820) Correspondence respecting Sir Bartle Frere's mission to the East Coast of
Africa, 42.
24
17
Trading Routes and Centres
Mozambique Island was supplied with slaves through trading routes that ran to the Yao,
Makua and southern Lunda homeland, and southern Tanzania.25 In the northern part of
Mozambique, the Makua supplied the slaves to be exported from Mozambique Island and Ibo
and slaves came mainly from the Nsenga, Manjanga, and southern Chewa chieftaincies in the
highland regions north of the Zambezi River.26 Arab and Swahili traders, subjects of the Sultan
of Zanzibar, were the main traders involved in the internal slave trade. They took advantage of
the lack of Portuguese presence in the hinterland to organise the slave trade around Lake Nyassa
and the Zambezi Valley, in collaboration with Makua and Yao chiefdoms27.
In 1877 and 1878, an inquiry was made into the slave trade in Mozambique, and
presented during a session of the Chamber of deputies in Lisbon. The report concluded that
enslaved Africans came from ports situated in the region of Quivolane, from the Bay of
Mocambo to Moginquale, including the rivers Infusse and Quissimanjulo. They also were traded
in the region of Sangage and Moma, between Angoche and Quizungo River, close to
Quelimane.28 Arabs from Zanzibar and Madagascar, known as “Mujojos” in Mozambique,
conducted this trade in dhows that transported cattle and goats to Mozambique, where the cargo
was discharged legally at customs before the vessels made their way during the night to the ports
mentioned above to purchase slaves.29
25
Gwyn Campbell, “Madagascar and Mozambique in the Slave Trade in the Western Indian Ocean 1800-1861”,
Slavery and Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies 9, (1988)176.
26
Ibid. 177, Alpers, Ivory & Slaves in East Central Africa, London: Heineman, 1975, 226.
27
José Capela & Eduardo Medeiros. “La traite au depart du Mozambique vers les îles françaises de l’Océan Indien”
in Bissoondoyal U. Ed. Slavery in South West Indian Ocean, Moka: Mahatma Gandhi Institute, 1989, 248-249.
28
José Capela, O tráfico de escravos nos portos de Moçambique, 1733-1902, Porto: Edições Afrontamento, 2002,
114.
29
Ibid. 114.
18
Map II: The Peoples of East Central Africa
Source: Edward Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, 9.
19
Markets for Slaves
There were two main markets for slaves exported from Mozambique. Until 1851, the
biggest demand was from Brazil. From fifteen to eighteen Brazilian vessels arrived at
Mozambique Island between July and October each year to trade for slaves. D. Fr. Bartolomeu
dos Mártires, Prelate of Mozambique from 1819 to 1828, recorded that in 1819, Brazilian traders
bought 9,242 slaves, 1,804 of whom died before embarkation. Furthermore, 1,200 slaves who
had been collected at Mozambique Island died before they could be bought. Thus, in 1819, at
least 10,442 slaves had been carried to the island for sale to Brazilian slavers alone30. After 1830,
when the trade to Brazil was declared illegal, obtaining numbers on the slave trade became
difficult. Leslie Bethell compiled British Foreign Office statistics of the Brazilian slave trade,
which indicate that approximately 500,000 slaves were brought illegally into Brazil between
1830 and 185531 while Edward Alpers estimates that approximately a quarter of that were from
Portuguese East Africa. This conclusion is based on the assumption that the trade between 1830
and 1855 continued at a pace relatively similar to the trade between 1828 and 1830, for which
numbers are available.32
French colonies in the western Indian Ocean were a second market for slaves from
Portuguese East Africa despite British and Portuguese efforts to prohibit the traffic. Arab and
Swahili vessels participated in the trade as intermediaries. It was common for slaves to be
purchased off the coast of Mozambique, carried to the Comoros where French traders purchased
and transported them to the Seychelles before introducing them to the Mascarenes. The central
aspect of this system was the period of francisation that occurred at the Seychelles; the slaves
30
Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Africa, 211.
Leslie Bethell, The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 88-390. See
Figure II in Appendix
32
Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Africa , 212. See figure I in Appendix
31
20
were taught rudimentary French then imported in Bourbon and Mauritius under the pretext that
they were already the slaves of French residents.33
It is conventionally argued by historians on the region such as Edward Alpers, James
Duffy and Richard Hammond, that most of the slave trade from Mozambique ended with the
closure of the Brazilian market in 1851, and the Cuban market in 1862.34 However, Arab traders
kept trading in slaves for markets in Madagascar, the Comoros, Reunion and Zanzibar. This
contraband activity was difficult to control due to the many creeks and harbours that provided
shelter for dhows, while the short distance to these destinations also facilitated the trade.35 One
of the factors promoting the persistence of the East African slave trade was the demand for
labour in the French colonies of the Indian Ocean due to the expansion of plantation agriculture
in the nineteenth century. The French controlling the Mascarene Islands had since the eighteenth
century sought to tap into the Mozambican slave market. The 1769 royal decree opening the
Mascarenes to free trade by all French nationals increased trade with traditional sources of
chattel labour such as Madagascar, and led French merchants to frequent East African slave
markets such as Kilwa, Zanzibar and Mozambican ports.36
The expansion of plantation agriculture created a great demand for cheap labour, and led
to French planters circumventing the prohibition on the slave trade in Portuguese East Africa and
in the French empire through hiring engagé or contract labour. The French recruited these “free
workers” from the territory under the control of the ruler of Zanzibar, and in Portuguese East
33
Ibid. 214.
See Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Africa; Duffy, Portuguese Africa, Hammond, Portugal and Africa 18151910: A Study in Uneconomic Imperialism.
35
Richard Hammond, Portugal and Africa 1815-1910: A Study in Uneconomic Imperialism, Standford: Standford
University Press, 1966, 58.
36 Richard Allen, “The Mascarene Slave Trade and Labour Migration in the Indian Ocean during the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries” in Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, 34. 34
21
Africa.37 The engagés were nominally free and employed for five years. However, Africans were
captured in the interior of Africa and brought to the coast to be entered into contracts.38 Lyons
McLeod, who became the first British resident consul in Mozambique in 1856, provided an
interesting description of the process. Each French vessel carried on board an official (delegate)
to supervise the transaction. When slaves reached the deck of the vessel, an Arab interpreter
would ask the labourers, in the presence of the official, if they engaged themselves voluntarily
for five years. Then the interpreter would assure the official that “the slave is willing to become a
Free Labourer at Réunion, in every instance.”39 McLeod reported that the official did not speak
the native language, and did not understand the question the slave was being asked, or the answer
he provided. Nevertheless “being assured by the Arab that the slave is willing to go to Réunion,
the FRENCH DELEGATE is satisfied, and if asked if the slaves are willing to leave Africa, he
declares, on his honour that ‘he does not know any thing of the contrary’ ”40.
The French engagé system was a thriving business while it lasted. According to McLeod,
French traders paid $30-40 for each slave embarked in Portuguese ports. Of this sum, $12-18
went to Portuguese officials for cooperating with the French.41 The great need of French planters
and their readiness to pay high prices stimulated the traffic of slaves in East Africa. The
Portuguese shipped slaves down the Zambezi from areas around major inland Portuguese
settlements, such as Tete, Sena, and the Shire valley.42 The French government, pressured by
London and Lisbon, banned the engagé system in 1859, but it was not strongly enforced.
Furthermore, French ships were free to carry any cargo because of the lack of a right to search
37
Moses Nwulia, Britain and East Africa, Washington: Three Continent Press, 1975, 31. See also : José Capela &
Eduardo Medeiros. “La traite au depart du Mozambique vers les îles françaises de l’Océan Indien” in Bissoondoyal
U. Ed. Slavery in South West Indian Ocean, Moka: Mahatma Gandhi Institute, 1989.
38
Hammond, Portugal and Africa, 58.
39
Lyons McLeod, Travels in East Africa, London : Cass, 1860, 304-305.
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid. 306.
42
Nwulia, Britain and East Africa, 33.
22
agreement between France and other European powers because of France’s belief in “free
navigation”, meaning the ability to travel freely without being searched in international waters.43.
The Merina Empire in Madagascar was also an important purchaser of slaves from
Southeast Africa. Although Madagascar was traditionally an exporter of slaves, a market for
imported Africans developed in the nineteenth century. This was the result of autarkic policies in
the Merina Empire, which promoted economic expansion based on the exploitation of servile
labour. Economic prosperity in the 1860s and 1870s led to an expansion of wealth and thus an
increase in slave ownership.44 From the end of the 1870s, the economy of the empire relied
heavily on the exploitation of unfree labour. However, the Merina Empire did not control the
southern and western parts of the island, and thus could not rely on the people who inhabited
these regions as workers. Moreover, raids on regions controlled by the Merina launched by bands
of Sakalava, Bara, and Merina refugees for slaves to be exported to the French islands increased
the Merina need for external supplies of labour .45
The Franco-Merina war of 1882-1885 and the $2 million indemnity imposed on the
Merina by the French at the end of the hostilities impoverished the imperial Merina treasury. At
the same time, foreign trade earnings fell, as the price of some staple exports slumped on the
world market, and foreign traders moved more and more to independent regions of the island to
avoid higher duties charged in ports under Merina control. Consequently, the Merina court
intensified its exploitation of peasant unfree labour, which had always been the basis of the
imperial economy. However, labourers reacted by fleeing in large numbers to the areas beyond
43
Members of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Brussels Conference on the Slave Trade, London,
1889, 44.
44
Gwyn Campbell, “The East African Slave Trade, 1861-1895: The Southern Complex” in The International
Journal of African Historical Studies 22, (1989), 6.
45
Ibid.
23
Merina control, thus exacerbating the man-power shortage.46 Furthermore, the Merina elite,
which expanded rapidly after the creation of a state-church bureaucracy in 1868, generated a
large demand for servile labour to maintain their luxury lifestyle. This resulted in the large
growth in demand for slaves from the imperial court and bureaucracy, thus promoting a vibrant
slave import trade until the French takeover in 1895.47 East African slaves were imported north
of the river Manambolo while ports to the south of that river exported Malagasy slaves. Most
bays on the northwest coast of the island were used to land African slaves who were then sold to
Merina officials or transshipped to the French islands as engagés. However, the main point of
entry was Maintirano, the closest port to Mozambique.48
The Prazo System and the Supply of Slaves
The institution of slavery was central in the Prazo system, and Prazo holders were
influential in slave trading networks in Mozambique.The Prazo system in Mozambique was
based on the land tenure system in Portugal. Its goal was to control, occupy and dominate a
certain territory. The territory initially taken was automatically considered to be crown land. The
Portuguese Crown subsequently granted concessions to settlers for the duration of three
generations.49 Moreover, it was ceded to women with the goal of establishing permanent
settlements. However, the lack of females in Mozambique led to intermarriage between
Portuguese and Africans. The holder of the land had the right to exploit the territory
46
Ibid. 6-7; Gwyn Campbell, “Madagascar and Mozambique in the Slave Trade of the Western Indian Ocean, 18001861”, in Slavery and Abolition 4, (1988), 165-192.
47
Campbell, “The East African Slave Trade, 1861-1895: The Southern Complex”, 7; Parliamentary Papers 1873
(61), The East Coast of Africa: Correspondence Respecting the Slave Trade, 12-20.
48
Campbell, “The East African Slave Trade, 1861-1895: The Southern Complex”, 7-8
49
José Capela & Eduardo Medeiros. “La traite au depart du Mozambique vers les îles françaises de l’Océan Indien”,
249.
24
economically, which by implication included its inhabitants.50 Domestic slavery was
fundamental to Prazo society. Slaves had multiples functions; some were used for household
tasks in everyday life, while the majority constituted slave “armies” used to police the territory
and fight in times of war.51 Some slaves were obtained in raids, bought at auctions, or received as
presents from chiefs. However, a large portion of slaves were clients who attached themselves to
a protector who would offer them maintenance and opportunities for enrichment and
advancement. Famine and war caused an increase in slave holdings because slaves would attach
themselves to a prazo-holder for security and stability, but in time of peace it became difficult for
prazo-holders to control their men.52
The rising demand for slaves in the first half of the nineteenth century from Brazil, Cuba
and the French islands in the Indian Ocean led to an increase in slave trading activity in the
Zambezi region. The great prazo-holders contributed largely to the cargoes, and came to
dominate trade entirely.53 Although they did not directly depopulate their own prazos by raiding
them for slaves, they did raid their neighbours’ lands. The slave trade introduced violence on a
large scale in the Zambezi region, within the Portuguese community, and between the
Portuguese and neighbouring chiefdoms. The prazo-holders increasingly employed their own
slaves in raids - Dr. Livingstone met one of these bands belonging the Governor of Tete on the
Shire.54 Slaves routes were extended in the interior in the nineteenth century due to scarcity of
supply near the coast. Hence, warfare on the Zambezi intensified. Conflict was exacerbated by
the Ngoni who, from the 1820s, invaded and occupied the territory between Inhambane and
50
M.D.D. Newitt, “The Portuguese on the Zambezi: An Historical Interpretation of the Prazo System”, in Journal of
African History 10, (1969), 72.
51
José Capela & Eduardo Medeiros. “La traite au depart du Mozambique vers les îles françaises de l’Océan Indien”,
249-251; Newitt, “The Portuguese on the Zambezi: An Historical Interpretation of the Prazo System”, 72.
53
54
Newitt, “The Portuguese on the Zambezi: An Historical Interpretation of the Prazo System”, 78.
David and Charles Livingstone, The Zambesi and its Tributaries, London: 1865, 49-50.
25
Lourenço Marques. By 1840, they had extended their domination as far north as the Sena prazos.
The Ngoni invasions threatened the Portuguese settlements with total extinction as many settlers
left the Zambezi River, and large numbers of prazos were deserted.55 This led the Portuguese
crown to modify the social and political structure of the Zambezi settlements. From 1832 a series
of decrees were passed with the aim of reforming and encouraging economic development of the
colony. However, the decrees were not applied, and the wars and invasions caused major
changes in the prazo system. The smaller and weaker prazos were unable to survive and by 1850,
the Zambezi was controlled by four great families.56. The Da Cruz family, for example,
controlled all trade on the river between Tete and Sena. To counter the big clans, the Portuguese
authorities attempted to regain control of the Zambezi valley in wars that lasted until 1888.
During this unsettled time, the supply of slaves was influenced by the degree of stability
in the African interior. Villages and settlements were more vulnerable to slave raiding in times of
natural disaster, conflict and poverty. For example, the Zambezi Wars between the Portuguese
authorities and prazo holders contributed to the slave trade around Tete and Sena. Since the
Portuguese government had no control over the area, the Da Cruz family dominated the illicit
trade in the region. This contributed to the flow of Africans to the coast, disguised as prisoners of
war.57 However, since slave trading had long been outlawed, it is difficult to assess their number.
The slave trade was also influenced by demand. For example, the beginning of the
engagé system coincided with the territorial expansion of the Yao down the eastern side of Lake
Nyassa, to the southern end of the lake. Encouraged by high slave prices, Yao chiefs raided
neighbours for slaves, and traded with Arabs for guns and gunpowder.58
55
Newitt, “The Portuguese on the Zambezi: An Historical Interpretation of the Prazo System”, 79-80.
Ibid, 80-82; James Duffy, Portuguese Africa, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959, 139-145.
57
M.D.D Newitt & P.S. Garlake, “The Aringa at Massangano” in Journal of African History 8, (1967), 136-145.
58
Nwulia, Britain and East Africa, 33.
56
26
Hence, the slave trade was not the result of only the need for cheap labour. To
comprehend the structure of the slave trade in the Mozambique Channel, it is essential to
consider trading, economical, territorial and environmental factors shaping the practice and the
Mozambique Channel region.
27
CHAPTER II
REGULATION OF THE SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY IN THE PORTUGUESE
EMPIRE
During the nineteenth century a series of treaties, agreement and decrees were passed to
regulate, and eventually abolish, the trade in slaves and the institution of slavery itself in
Portuguese East Africa. A discussion of these measures is essential in order to grasp the extent
both of attempts to prevent illicit slaving activities, and of the failure of such attempts. The
Portuguese Crown enacted a series of measures against slavery, the most important of which
were the 1836 Royal Decree abolishing the slave trade throughout its empire, the 1842 Slave
Trade Treaty with Great Britain, and the Abolition of Slavery decree of 1875. However, most
measures proved to be only a symbol of Portugal’s good faith towards the humanitarian cause, as
they were not enforced. Great Britain encouraged other colonial powers to follow in its footsteps
and abolish the slave trade, and Portugal, being its ancient ally, was the first to feel the British
abolitionist pressure. However, as most historians emphasise, Portugal did not have the
necessary means to enforce the various decrees and treaties in Portuguese East Africa.
Furthermore, administrators in Mozambique refused to attempt to implement such measures
because the slave trade and slavery were so important to the colony’s economy. While such
views are too simplistic, it is certain that Portugal’s decision to abolish the slave trade was
mainly due to British diplomatic and economic pressure, not to humanitarian desires as public
opinion in Portugal was generally favourable to the slave trade. Because of the economic
importance of slavery and the slave trade to the Portuguese Empire, a special court, the Real
Mesa Censoria, which had exclusive jurisdiction over the inspection and approval of books and
printed material in Portugal, banned most works arguing for abolition from entering and
28
circulating in the country.59 In addition, most Portuguese intellectuals considered that it was
better not to question something that could disturb the existing order.60 Consequently, the
Portuguese government “stumbled almost blindfolded” into the 1810 Treaty of Friendship and
Alliance and subsequent treaties that committed it to anti-slave trade measures.61.
British Abolitionist Endeavours and Portugal at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century
After abolishing the slave trade in its empire, Great Britain encouraged other European
powers to follow suit. A strong alliance between Great Britain and Portugal meant that the latter
was the first European power to be pressured to abolish the trade in its empire. The leading
industrial power, Britain, exerted major diplomatic pressure on a Portugal weakened by the
Napoleonic wars when its court, unable to stop Napoleon’s army, was forced to flee to Brazil.62
Thus, in 1810, the Prince Regent of Portugal was persuaded to sign the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty
of Friendship and Alliance, in which it agreed to help bring about the gradual abolition of the
slave trade and forbade its subjects to engage in the trade, except in its own possessions.63 The
historian Moses Nwulia considers that 1810 treaty encouraged Great Britain in the “arduous
task” of vanquishing Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsula.64 Britain also sought to influence other
European powers, and the Congress of Vienna gave it the opportunity of “launching propaganda”
for the “moral rehabilitation” of Europe.65 However, while the other European powers that
participated in the Congress agreed that universal abolition of the slave trade was a measure
59
Joao Pedro Marques, The Sounds of Silence :Nineteenth-Century Portugal and the Abolition of the Slave Trade,
trans. Richard Wall, New York: Berghahm Books, 2006, 12.
60
Ibid. 13-14.
61
Ibid. 14.
62
M. Jackson Haight, European Powers and South-East Africa: A Study of International Relations on the SouthEast Coast of Africa 1756-1856, New York: Praeger, 1967, 218-219.
63
Ibid. 219.
64
Moses Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa, Washington: Three Continent Press, 1975, 19.
65
Ibid. 11
29
worthy of their attention and energies, they insisted that it was up to each power to decide when
to accomplish it.66
On January 22, 1815, Portugal signed a new treaty with Great Britain, adding precisions
on the regulation of the slave trade. It reaffirmed Portugal’s right to carry slaves from Africa to
Brazil, but only from Portugal’s possessions in Africa south of the Equator. Portugal reiterated
its commitment to abolition of the slave trade but reserved the right to determine when the traffic
would stop.67 In exchange for its concessions, Portugal was released from the repayment of the
balance due on the loan of £600,000 contracted from Britain during the Peninsular War.68 This
treaty marked a new step in Britain’s campaign for the abolition of the slave trade. Previously, it
had relied on verbal propaganda and diplomacy to persuade other European powers, but the
results had not been satisfying. The powers were not particularly impressed by humanitarian
sermons coming from a country that had become prosperous and powerful as a result of an
international trade in which slavery played a central role. Instead, Great Britain started to give
financial subsidies to encourage other countries to reduce their slave trading activities.69
Two years later, a convention was added to the treaty, affirming Portugal’s right to trade
in slaves but within more specific geographical limits. In East Africa, the trade was limited to the
territory stretching between Cape Delgado and Lourenço Marques.70 Furthermore, ships
participating in the legal slave trade had to carry royal passports, signed by authorised officials in
colonial ports. Portugal and Great Britain were also given the mutual right to search merchant
vessels of either country suspected of carrying slaves that had been embarked illegally.71 In
66
Ibid, 11.
William L. Mathieson, Great Britain and the Slave Trade, 1839-1865, London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1929,
10-11
68
Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa, 20.
69
Ibid. 20; Pedro Cains, “Causas do colonialismo português em Africa, 1822-1975: 468.
70
See map I in the Appendix, page 23.
71
Jackson Haight, European Powers and South-East Africa, 225.
67
30
Mozambique, the legislations meant that it became illegal to trade with foreigners although the
French and Arabs were two important buyers of slaves in Mozambican ports72. However,
Portugal had neither the resources to enforce her obligations, nor the inclination to do so.
The 1836 Portuguese Royal Decree on the Slave Trade
After the signing of the 1815 treaty and 1817 convention, the British government did not
immediately pressure Portugal to abolish the slave trade. The political instability in Portugal
following the Napoleonic Wars was not conducive for negotiations, and civil war gripped the
country between 1828 and 1834.73 However, the conflict ended with the victory of Liberals over
Absolutists. This and the renewed humanitarian fervour in Great Britain following the
Emancipation Act of 1833 led to the resumption of British pressure for the abolition of the
Portuguese slave trade. Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, pressed Portugal to
accept a new treaty, notably to impose a ban on the trade in slaves to Brazil, which had become
independent in 1822, and thus was no longer a Portuguese possession.74 Portugal resisted signing
a new treaty, but Viscount Sá da Bandeira, the Portuguese Prime Minister at the time, issued a
Royal Decree abolishing the slave trade in all Portuguese territories.
The abolition of the slave trade can be interpreted as part of the Liberals’ imperial plan to
restructure and reform overseas colonies through mobilising resources previously concentrated in
the slave trade to modernise the colonies.75 However, measures adopted in Mozambique to
remedy to the colony’s dependence on the slave trade were largely ineffective. For example, the
Lourenço Marques Company was formed to develop agriculture and “legitimate” commerce in
72
Ibid. 225.
Marques, The Sounds of Silence, 230.
74
Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa, 23.
75
Valentim Alexandre, “The Portuguese Empire 1825-90” in Olivier Pétré Grenouilleau ed. From Slave Trade to
Empire: Europe and the Colonisation of Black Africa 1780s-1880s, Routledge: London, 2004, 112-113.
73
31
the region, but the principal official alienated native chiefs, while the new company became
another participant in the slave market76.
Thus, the Royal Decree legally abolished but failed to suppress the slave trade in
Portuguese East Africa. This failure can be explained by various factors. First, slaves constituted
Mozambique’s biggest export and chief source of revenue. Consequently, Marquis d’Aracaty,
the Governor of Mozambique at the time, refused to apply the decree to Portuguese East Africa
on the grounds that it was impracticable to enforce orders issued from home in ignorance of local
conditions.77 He believed that its enforcement would have the result of:
[...] ruining on the one hand, those subjects of Her Majesty who have employed their
capital in the only commerce of exportation [the slave trade], which this province offers
under present circumstances, and, on the other, reducing all those who live by the
revenue of the State, throughout the immense extent of it, to perish of hunger, through the
absolute want of means in which the public coffers would be left78.
Although this statement may seem exaggerated, the colony’s economy depended almost totally
on the slave trade. In 1829, 35 percent of Mozambique’s revenue derived from the slave trade,
while another 40 percent of the revenue was derived from operations connected to the slave
trade.79 Edward Alpers argues that in 1829, the export of slaves provided 55 percent of
Mozambique Island’s customs-house revenue.80 Governors were obliged to tolerate the slave
trade in order to secure the means of defraying public expenditures. Marquis d’Aracaty in his
justification for the suspension of the decree further added: “I have just brought above two
hundred persons to this province, who must live by those revenues […] and senselessly
76
Jackson Haight, European Powers and South-East Africa, 234.
Parliamentary Papers 1839(181) : Lord Howard de Walden to Viscount Palmerston Sub-Enclosure no. 106 :
Letter of Marquis d’Aracaty, 185.
78
Ibid.
79
Liesegang, “A First Look at the Import and Export Trade of Mozambique, 1800-1914”, 466.
80
Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, 210.
77
32
(estupidamente) [it is senseless] to cut off the means of subsistence, by suppressing the only
branch of public revenue which can furnish me the necessary means of meeting this increase of
expense.”81 This highlights the extent of the colony’s dependence on the illicit activity.
Moreover, the ills of Portugal’s colonial system ensured the failure of the decree. The
Portuguese government was notorious for paying its colonial civil servants poor and irregular
salaries, often in the form of goods, such as cloth, rather than money. It should be noted however
that cloth was used as form of currency in the interior of Mozambique, and its use was not
necessarily evidence of poor salaries.82 However, it was not a popular for of payment and the
majority of officials saw the slave trade as a more profitable alternative. Lieutenant Barnard, who
was part of a British Naval surveillance of the Mozambique Channel between 1842 and 1845,
believed that “the [Portuguese] Governors come out here with the avowed purpose of making a
fortune by conniving at the slave trade and other speculations, their salary being only 1,000
dollars per annum, paid in blue Dungaree.”83 He cited the example of the Governor of
Quelimane, who earned “7,000 dollars from each slaver.”84 The financial benefits derived from
supporting the slave trade were such as to encourage widespread official collusion.
Even had the colonial government wanted to enforce the anti-slavery measure, it did not
have the means to do so. First, the colony had an armed force of only 100 to 300 soldiers to
patrol its vast territory.85 Second, demand for slaves was voracious as, due to the increase of
British anti-slave trade patrols in West Africa, Brazilian and to a lesser extent Spanish merchants
81
Parliamentary Papers 1839 (181), 185.
Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa, 23
83
Lieutenant F. Barnard, Three Years Cruise on the Mozambique Channel, 14.
84
Ibid. 15
85
Campbell, “Madagascar and Mozambique in the Slave Trade in the Western Indian Ocean 1800-1861”, 174.
82
33
shifted part of their trading activities to East Africa.86 For Sá da Bandeira, the demand for slaves
was the crucial reason for the failure of the decree. He wrote in 1839 that
as long as there are people who are willing to purchase slaves, there be others who will
fetch them from Africa for sale; and as America continues to increase in its prosperity, so
will the necessity become more urgent for a supply of labour, thereby augmenting the
importation of slaves87
The demand from America is reflected in the increase of vessels trading under the Portuguese
flag in Rio de Janeiro and Havana. It was reported that in 1836 that six vessels bearing the
Portuguese flag left Havana for Africa. However, in 1837, this number had increased to forty. In
the same year, 51 vessels arrived from in Havana from Africa, and all but three bore the
Portuguese flag.88 Hence, “the Trade under the flag of Portugal had increased to eight times the
amount which it had reached the preceding year”89 despite abolition. The Parliamentary Papers
reported another example in 1837, stating that 92 vessels “laden with slaves had landed their
cargoes in or near Rio; that every one of these vessels bore the Portuguese flag; and that from
these vessels upwards of 41,600 slaves were landed in Brazil.”90
In summary, the 1836 Royal Decree abolishing the slave trade did not achieve the goal of
suppressing the exportation of slaves from Portuguese East Africa. Although it was argued
previously that the abolition of the slave trade was part of a plan to modernise Portugal’s
overseas possessions, the failure to suppress the slave trade was also the result of a lack of desire
either in Portugal or the colonies to abolish it. Although by the 1830s and 1840s Portuguese
society was more aware of the debates surrounding slavery, it was highly tolerant of the slave
86
Nwulia, Britain and Slavery in East Africa, 24.
Viscount Sa da Bandeira, The Slave Trade and Lord Palmerston’s Bill, 1840. 5.
88
Parliamentary Papers 1839 (181), Lord Howard de Walden to Viscount Sa da Bandeira, 148.
89
Ibid.
90
Ibid, 149.
87
34
trade and generally opposed to its immediate abolition. Indeed, it was widely believed that the
anti-slave trade campaign was a British strategy designed to harm the country’s interests.91 For
instance, the newspaper O Nacional argued that Britain’s abolitionist pressure from 1835 was
strategy to do away with what remained of the Portuguese empire; if Lisbon yielded to British
demands, it would ultimately lose its possessions in Africa, and the country would suffer
financial collapse.92 More importantly, this was also the opinion of certain factions in the
government, especially in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For example, in a pamphlet written in
1838, the Foreign Minister Sá da Bandeira argued that the means employed by Britain to abolish
the slave trade were inefficient, as it could not patrol the entire coastlines of Africa and America.
He also criticised British pressure to abolish the slave trade only in the Portuguese Empire.93 He
believed that “the only means of suppressing the Slave Trade is the total abolition of slavery in
America, and in other countries where it exists and where slaves are imported.”94 Thus, the
abolition of the slave trade in Portuguese dominions was not considered to be a measure that
could work. The 1836 decree can then be characterised as an attempt by Portugal to avoid British
diplomatic pressure; it was a sign of good faith, as it was widely believed in Portugal that its
content would not be applied95.
The British government, vexed at the non-application of the 1836 abolition and the
continuation of the slave trade in Portuguese colonies, resumed negotiations with Portugal for an
anti-slave trade treaty, through the British ambassador in Lisbon, Howard de Walden. The goal
was to have a treaty that would permit a naval force to deal with recalcitrant merchants and
officials and thus suppress the slave trade. However, the negotiation process stalled as neither
91
Marques, The Sounds of Silence, 147.
Ibid. 128.
93
Sa da Bandeira, The Slave Trade and Lord Palmerston’s Bill, 8.
94
Ibid.
95
Marques, Sounds of Silence, 148.
92
35
country was open to accept all of the other’s demands. Lisbon’s main preoccupation in the wake
of Marquis d’Aracaty’s refusal to implement Lisbon’s wishes was the enforcement of central
control over its territories in Africa. Sá da Bandeira pushed for the inclusion of an article that
would oblige Britain to assist Portugal were there to be insurrection in the colonies:
If the British Government be willing to stipulate in the additional article, […] to afford
Portugal prompt and efficacious assistance, with the view of maintaining her dominions
in Africa in obedience, as is indispensable by reason of the opposition already manifested
thee to the Decree of the 10th of December 1836, which certainly be augmented by the
execution of the Treaty in question, and of which the natives as well as foreigners would
avail themselves, for exciting and fomenting insurrection s in that part of the world, the
result of which to Portugal might be the loss of those dominions, where the slave-dealers,
who are at the same time the wealthiest and the most influential men of the country, as
well as the most eminent of the class opposed to the abolition of that traffic, are capable
[…] to stir up and commit all kinds of excesses, Her Majesty’s Government will feel
great satisfaction in having the Treaty signed forthwith.96
Portugal was also opposed to making the slave trade a crime equivalent to piracy, which Sá da
Bandeira wrote to Howard de Walden in 1838. It would make slave trading a crime of high
treason, punishable by death under Portuguese law.97 However, “there exists in Portugal an
almost irresistible repugnance to the infliction of this punishment, which, as his Lordship will
have had the occasion to notice during his residence in this country, is very rarely resorted to,
because the juries evince the greatest reluctance to declare an accused person guilty, when the
declaration is to be followed by such a punishment.”98 Thus, Sá da Bandeira could not approve
this article, because he feared it would alienate public opinion. He further added:
[...] that to declare it felony of piracy would not only not produce the least help towards
its suppression, inasmuch as so far from attaining the object in view, of restraining the
96
Parliamentary Papers 1839(181) : Viscount Sa da Bandeira to Lord Howard de Walden, 211.
Ibid.
98
Ibid.
97
36
repetition of the offence by the terror of the greatness of the punishment denounced
against it, its impunity would in the greater number of cases be thereby promoted, but it
would also cast such an odious stigma on the Treaty, as would be sufficient to make it
encounter, […] the most decided and the most vigorous opposition99.
However, Lord Palmerston was opposed to negotiating with Portugal any modification of
the British draft of the slave trade treaty. This is evident in the exchanges between the
ambassadors to Lisbon and Sá da Bandeira. For example, in July 1838, George Sulyarde
Jerningham, secretary of the British legation, wrote that he had been instructed to inform Sá da
Bandeira “that any further delay in concluding this Treaty, or any further proposal of alterations
in this draft, must be considered by Great Britain as tantamount to a refusal on the part of
Portugal to fulfill the engagements by which she is bound in this matter.”100 He threatened that if
Portugal obstructed negotiations further Britain would do:
as she thought fit; and that therefore, her Government, with the frankness which ought to
characterize the relations between friendly states, declared, that if Portugal any longer
delayed concluding the Treaty proposed for this object by Great Britain, the latter would,
without further hesitation, proceed to accomplish by its own means the end for which if
had failed to obtain the co-operation of Portugal.101
The British Government could not “possibly permit the continuance of that system of piracy and
war against the human race, which, to the scandal of the civilized world, is at the present pursued
with impunity by the Portuguese flag.”102 Thus, in 1838, with a new treaty still in abeyance,
Britain was considering ignoring Portuguese sovereignty and directly policing the slave trade
under the Portuguese flag.
99
Ibid.
Parliamentary Papers 1839 (181) : Mr. Jerningham to Viscount Sa da Bandeira, 303.
101
Parliamentary Papers 1839 (181) : Enclosure to Mr. Jerningham to Lord Palmerston, 206.
102
Ibid.
100
37
Proof that the slave trade in East Africa was increasing rather than decreasing further
outraged British abolitionists who pressured the British Parliament to adopt coercive measures
against Portugal. In 1839, leading abolitionist Thomas Buxton published The African Slave
Trade and its Remedy in which he underlined the vitality of slave trafficking and accused the
Portuguese of “lending” its flag to other nations in order to facilitate slave trading, stating, “it is
perfectly true that the Portuguese flag is obtained with the greatest facility at a very moderated
price.”103 The accusations caused considerable public concern and contributed to Lord
Palmerston decision to submit an act to Parliament in 1839 with the goal of regulating the
Portuguese slave trade. In the light of Portugal’s procrastination over the affair, Lord Palmerston
viewed this Act as a necessity. It permitted “British cruisers to search and seize suspected or
actual slavers flying Portuguese colours precisely as though they were the property of British
subjects.”104 The British proposals inevitably provoked resentment in Portugal and its colonies.
The new Governor of Mozambique, J.P. Marinho, who believed that no European power could
secure absolute dominion in Asia without controlling East Africa, suspected that, once it had
suppressed the Western Indian Ocean slave trade, Britain would seize Mozambique and the rest
of East Africa which, he claimed had more resources than the Cape of Good Hope or New
Holland (Australia), and via the Red Sea, was closer than either to Europe.105 However, the act
was enacted and British naval ships conducted systematic raids on the coasts of Portuguese
colonies, and established a blockade of Mozambique Island from which it excluded “suspicious
characters”, especially Banians and Arabs. The blockade also led to shortages and a rapid rise in
103
Buxton, The African Slave Trade and its Remedy, 1840, 211; see also Jackson Haight, European Powers and
South-East Africa, 231.
104
Nwulia, Britain and East Africa, 25.
105
Jackson Haight, European Powers and South-East Africa, 238.
38
the price of imported commodities including provisions.106 Despite the heightened animosity this
caused amongst the Portuguese, the British maintained pressure on Portugal and its colonies until
1842 when the Slave Trade Treaty was signed between the two powers.
The 1842 Slave Trade Treaty
The 1842 Slave Trade Treaty between Portugal and Great Britain can be seen as the
result of the 1836 Royal Decree’s failure to suppress the Portuguese slave trade. The Portuguese
government agreed to sign because it realised that it was playing a losing game. It knew that
because Britain was the world’s foremost power, and it could do nothing against the actions of
the British Navy in East Africa, no future commercial treaty with Britain would be possible
without a formal renunciation of the slave trade.107 Hence, in 1842, Portugal agreed to a treaty on
most-favoured-nation terms in which it reduced duties on British manufactured goods and fish in
return for Britain opening its colonial trade to Portuguese ships.108 Furthermore, slave trading
was declared an act equivalent to piracy.109 The treaty also included an equipment clause that
permitted Britain to judge which vessels were or were not slavers: Those carrying equipment
such as bolts and shackles, spare planks that could be fitted as a slave deck, “excessive” amounts
of water and provisions, and unusually large cooking apparatus were pronounced to be slave
vessels and liable to seizure whether or not they actually engaged in the slave trade.110 Moreover,
106
Ibid. 239.
Ibid. 240.
108
Parliamentary Papers 1842 (415) Treaty of commerce and navigation, between Her Majesty and the Queen of
Portugal. Signed at Lisbon, July 3, 1842; Jackson Haight, European Powers and South-East Africa, 241.
109
Parliamentary Papers 1842(414) : Treaty between Her Majesty and the Queen of Portugal, for the suppression of
the traffick in slaves signed at Lisbon, July 3, 1842. 14.
110
Ibid. 11
107
39
in 1847, Portugal granted Britain the right to enter harbours, inlets and rivers along the coast of
Portuguese East Africa in order to search for hidden slave ships.111
Although the treaty enabled Britain to attack the slave trade with more force in East
Africa, it failed to make any significant impact on the trade, which continued to be widely
practiced. The anti-slave squadron in East Africa was limited, and the Portuguese did not have
many resources to police illegal activities.112 In 1842, for example, it possessed only 340 troops
in the districts of Quelimane, Tete and Senna, and those comprised “convicts, mulattos, and
blacks, miserably clad and worse fed.”113 The slave trade to Brazil continued, even after 1851,
when the Brazilian Government officially prohibited it. Although it is difficult to have an
accurate estimation of the number of slaves imported into Brazil after it was declared illegal,
estimates by different authorities all indicate that the slave trade to Brazil grew steadily in the
mid-forties to reach a peak during the years 1846-1849.114 Probably between 19,000 and 22,000
slaves were brought to Brazil in 1845, and from 50,000 to 57,000 for the years 1846-1849.115
Because the presence of a greater number of anti-slavery patrols in West Africa had shifted a part
of trading activities to the Western Indian Ocean, and British anti-slavery patrols from the Cape
of Good Hope were concentrating their efforts in the waters off Tamatave in Madagascar,116 it
can be assumed that a quarter of slaves illegally entering Brazil were from East Africa.117 For
example, on his arrival in Quelimane on May 12th 1843, Barnard noted that “upwards of 2,000
slaves were ready in the neighbourhood of the town for embarkation, […] and slave-vessels were
expected from Rio [de Janeiro] daily, so that my arrival at Quilimane put those who had so much
111
Nwulia, Britain and East Africa, 25.
Hammond, Portugal and Africa, 57.
113
Barnard, Three Years Cruise on the Mozambique Channel, 18.
114
Bethell, The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade, 388-395. See figure II in Appendix, page 25-26.
115
Ibid.
116
Capela, O trafico de escravos nos portos de moçambique, 100.
117
Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, 212.
112
40
at stake in a great ferment.”118 Again, in December 1852, the American brig Camargo reached
Ilha Grande in the south of Rio de Janeiro with 500 to 600 slaves brought from Quelimane.119 .
Abolition of Slavery and the Status of Libertos
British pressure to abolish the slave trade in Mozambique mounted considerably
following the publication of the account of David Livingstone’s Zambezia expedition of 18581864.120 Livingstone’s plea to combat the slave trade by introducing Christianity, commerce and
civilisation in the interior threatened Portugal’s claims to the territory that it did not effectively
occupy.121 It also influenced Bartle Frere who visited Mozambique Island in 1872 to discuss with
the Portuguese Governor, José Rodrigues Coelho do Amaral, reports that the slave trade was still
active there. Frere subsequently informed Earl Granville that
[...] there is, undoubtedly, a considerable Slave Trade still carried on within the
Portuguese possessions. General Amaral, the Governor of Mozambique, himself admitted
this; no one with whom I conversed denied it, and that it is so is moreover evident from
the numbers of freshly imported slaves whom we saw on the Island of Mozambique.
General Amaral informed me that he believed the chief part of this contraband trade was
carried on in Arab dhows with Madagascar, that the papers of these dhows were
frequently irregular, but whether from ignorance or willful neglect he could not say […]
He estimated the contraband slave trade which he lamented he had not the means of
stopping, at 2,000 souls per annum. But I have little doubt that the estimates of nearly
five times that number, which I heard from people who have better opportunities of
knowing than his Excellency can possess, are nearer the truth.122
The Governor of Mozambique thus acknowledged the existence of a contraband slave trade, but
indicated that it was practiced on a much smaller scale than previously.
118
Barnard, Three Years Cruise on the Mozambique Channel, 138.
Ibid.
120
Allan K. Smith, “The Idea of Mozambique and its Enemies 1890-1930”, in Journal of Southern African Studies
18, (September 1991):498.
121
Suzanne Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1975, 25.
122
Parliamentary Paper 1873 (820) Correspondence respecting Sir Bartle Frere's mission to the East Coast of Africa,
42-43.
119
41
Bartle Frere included in his report the account of Frederic Elton, the British Consul at
Mozambique. Elton pointed to an active slave trade in the regions of Angoche and Quelimane,
and on the Zambezi for export to Madagascar:
At Quilimane and on the Zambesi, on the adjoining rivers, such as the Mecusa and the
Mariagomo, and especially on the Angoxa, the question of the implication in slave traffic
becomes serious, and the extreme difficulty with which reliable information can be
collected is hardly appreciable to people at a distance. The involved interest, distrust, and
above all, the intense jealousy of all foreign interference, combine to render both a
tedious and disagreeable task. The custom of permitting individuals to own small armies
of slaves has worked the complete destruction of all law, and the seeds of rebellion have
been sown.123
Frere asserted, as Livingstone had done before him, that foreign capital was needed in
Mozambique, in order to lay the basis of civilisation and end the slave trade:
The presence of a Consul at Mozambique would doubtless speedily attract to that fertile
but almost neglected province many English traders and much English capital, a state of
things which, as I have already stated in a previous dispatch, the Governor-General is
most anxious to see brought about. Hitherto, with no one to protect British interests, our
traders have been naturally shy of venturing there. The development of commerce which
would thus ensure would in itself be one of the greatest possible checks to the Slave
Trade, and the presence of a Consul would encourage the Portuguese authorities to take
more active steps than they have hitherto done for its suppression, while he would always
be in a position to furnish her Majesty's cruizers with information as to the probable
whereabouts of a slaver, or the shipment of cargoes on dhows.124
Increased British pressure, and the fear of encroachment by other foreign powers upon
territory it claimed to the interior of Mozambique, led Portugal to issue a decree on April 19,
1875 aimed to free all libertos by 1878. The status of “libertos,” created in 1854, was defined as
a “freedman” [ie. freed slave] with the obligation to continue working without pay for a specific
123
Ibid. 79.
Parliamentary Paper 1873 (820) Correspondence respecting Sir Bartle Frere's mission to the East Coast of Africa,
76.
124
42
period. In 1869, the state of slavery was abolished in all Portuguese territories, although slaves
remained libertos until 1878.125
Andrade Corvo, Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1871 to 1878, considered
the decree as a decisive step towards the elimination of the illegal slave trade and thus towards
the advance of “civilisation” in Africa. The decree formed part of Corvo’s plan to promote
economic growth in its colonies through legitimate commerce, and to formalize traditional
Portuguese claims to Zambezia, a region that was attracting increasing attention from other
European powers. .126 Corvo realised that abolition would be very difficult in Mozambique
where there existed considerable areas over which the Portuguese exerted little influence that
were addicted to slavery, but believed that with the help of Britain, the slave trade could be
suppressed.127 He advocated that Portugal strengthen her ties to Britain while also diversifying
her alliances with other powers. On the other hand, Frederic Elton, the British consul in
Portuguese East Africa, was not as optimistic. He expected no changes in Mozambique because
slaveholders were confident in the maintenance of Portuguese inactivity in the colony.128
Thus as British pressure mounted, Portugal passed a number of measures as the
nineteenth century progressed intended to progressively undermine both the slave trade and
slavery in its colonies. Unfortunately, all the measures taken were ineffectual and the
continuation of illicit activities in her overseas territories would prove to be a disadvantage in
Portugal’s negotiations with foreign powers its claims to hinterland Mozambique.
125
Gervase Clarence-Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire 1825-1975, Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1985, 75-77.
126
Ibid.
127
James Duffy, A Question of Slavery, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967, 61.
128
Ibid. 60-70.
43
CHAPTER III
INCREASED EUROPEAN PRESENCE IN SOUTHEAST AFRICA
The nineteenth century was marked by significant shifts on the African continent brought
by increasing European presence and territorial expansion. Portugal’s historical claims to
territory in the interior of Africa, initially unchallenged largely due to lack of European
penetration in the continent, was increasingly under threat as the nineteenth century unfolded.
The subject of this chapter will be the changes that occurred following the Berlin Conference in
1884. This led to the Scramble for Africa, which considerably impacted on the Portuguese
presence in Southeast Africa, and significantly shifted the balance of power in the region.
Portugal lost territory and its privileged position as one of the few European powers in the
region, indigenous rulers such as the Sultan of Zanzibar came under European influence, and the
intrusion of foreign powers into in the east African interior provoked a violent backlash from
indigenous peoples and non-European traders that resulted in increased slave-trading activities.
This backlash and its result will be discussed later in this chapter. Although the Scramble was
driven mainly by territorial and economical imperatives, the increased presence of Europeans led
to more publicity about the slave trade and thus greater pressure on European governments to act
to suppress the practice resulting in the Brussels Conference on slave trade in 1889.
Historians have long overlooked Portuguese long-standing claims in the African
continent. For example, Richard Hammond argues that Portugal did not care much for its African
colonies, that it had there “no industries seeking overseas markets, no middle class seeking
overseas fortunes, no capitalists seeking overseas investments, no large military forces seeking
overseas employment.”129 However, in the 1880s, Portugal like other European nations was
129
Richard Hammond, “Some Economic Aspects of Portuguese Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries”, L. Gann & P.
Duignan eds., Capitalism in Africa, 1870-1960, Cambridge: 1975, 256. 44
affected by an economic recession that aroused renewed interest in Southern Africa which it
considered to have great economic resources and the potential to become a “new Brazil.”130
Portugal claimed territory stretching in East Africa along the coast from Delagoa Bay to Cape
Delgado, and in West Africa from Cape Frio to Ambriz. The Portuguese also claimed land
further north, at the mouth of the Congo, and the territory between Mozambique and Angola.131
As the first colonial power to explore this region, Portugal claimed priority rights to it, or at least
assumed it was reserved for Portuguese exploitation.
130
Gervase Clarence-Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire 1825-1975, Manchester : Manchester University Press,
1985, 81. 131
Eric Axelson, Portugal and the Scramble for Africa 1875-1891, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press,
1967, 3-5 . 45
Map III: The Rose Coloured Map: Portuguese Claims in Africa
Source: Bibliotheca nacional de Lisboa
46
In 1875, there was no other European power in Southern Africa except Great Britain.
Hostility between the two allies seemed improbable at the time, but by 1891, Portugal had been
“humiliated” by its ancient ally and deprived of many of its claims across Africa. It had been
confined to rigidly demarcated territory and forced to surrender areas claimed as Portuguese to
Britain and the British South Africa Company, to France and to the Congo Free State. The
extent of Portuguese territory in Africa, the small white population, the nature of that population,
and the comparative lack of administrative and material development made Portugal extremely
vulnerable during the period of the Scramble for Africa132.
Public opinion in Britain was not favourable to Portugal’s presence in Africa. It
considered that Portuguese policy in Mozambique lacked any humanitarian impulse; the colony
was commonly regarded as a dumping ground for convicts, and slavery thrived there.133 It was
not known how many slaves or other forms of servile labour existed in Mozambique in the late
nineteenth century. In 1854, when a decree had freed state-owned slaves and defined the rights
and obligation of libertos, there were 40,086 registered slaves in Mozambique.134 In 1858, a
further decree declared that all remaining slaves in Portuguese possessions, including
Mozambique, would be liberated within 20 years. In 1869, it was declared that libertos would be
liberated on 27 April 1877. However, Zambezia was still plagued by a clandestine slave trade
and the governor-general of Mozambique, in his 1875 report, declared that 2000 to 4000 slaves a
year were being exported from Portuguese East Africa.135 This weakened Portuguese standing in
the international arena; other European powers argued that the continued presence of slave
132
Axelson, Portugal and the Scramble for Africa, 3. Jame Duffy, Portuguese Africa, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1959, 203-207. 133
Axelson, Portugal and the Scramble for Africa, 18. 134
J. de Andrade Corvo, Estudos sobres as provincias ultramarinas, vol.1 Lisbon, 1883, 336. 135
Ibid, 344-346. 47
trafficking and the lack of provisions for welfare and education in Mozambique were grounds for
denying Portuguese claims to hinterland regions of Southern Africa.136
The Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1884
In 1879, Britain and Portugal negotiated the Treaty of Lourenço Marques, which
established the principle of free transit in African waters, including the Zambezi River, thus
providing for joint naval action against slave traders and even permitting the Royal Navy to
operate in the territorial waters of Mozambique. Although the idea of joint action was the central
aspect of the treaty, it was not put in practice due to the resignation of the government in
Portugal. Moreover, the new government did not ratify the agreement.137 In 1884, in the belief
that Portugal could serve British interests in Africa, Britain revived the idea in a proposal for a
Anglo-Portuguese treaty that recognised Portuguese claims to the mouth of the Congo in return
for Portuguese tariff concessions, agreement to open the Congo and the Zambezi to the trade of
all nations, suppression of slavery and the slave trade, granting Britain the right of search in the
territorial waters of Mozambique, and agreement to protect missionaries in its territories.138
However, the signature of the treaty was delayed due to opposition from British traders,
abolitionists and missionaries who, unimpressed by Portugal’s past record, did not believe the
regulations would be applied. The main opposition came from business circles led by James
Hutton and Sir William Mackinnon who supported the efforts of King Leopold of Belgium to
create a state in Central Africa in the belief that Portuguese control over the mouth of the Congo
would hinder British trade, whereas Leopold would open up Central Africa to the commerce of
Axelson, Portugal and the Scramble for Africa, 18. Ibid.30-32, 36-37. 138
Ibid, 60-63. Allan K. Smith, “The Idea of Mozambique and its Enemies”, Journal of Southern African Studies 17,
(1991), 497; Edward Hertslet, The Map of Africa by Treaty, London: 1896, 713-714. 136
137
48
all nations and missionaries of all denominations. 139 Portugal’s mediocre record against the slave
trade induced the Anti-Slavery Society to support this position, and the society was joined by
Protestant missionaries, who feared they would be discriminated against if the area belonged to
Portugal because of its strong ties to the Catholic Church.140 Furthermore, British public opinion
was hostile to Portugal’s role in Africa. The writings of David Livingstone, Thomas Buxton, and
Verney L. Cameron141had created the widespread impression that some form of slavery came de
facto with Portuguese occupation.142
While the agitation in Britain delayed the signature of the treaty, opposition from other
foreign powers vetoed it. The treaty clearly gave commercial advantage to Britain in the Congo
region, and placed the lower banks of the river in the possession of Portugal. Opposition to this
treaty by both France and Germany resulted in the calling of the 1884 Berlin Conference on
Africa, and the main issue of the conference was the Congo question.143 Humanitarian issues
played a very small part in the negotiations. The aim of France and Germany was to maintain
freedom of trade and navigation on the Congo and free navigation on the Niger, and to agree to a
procedure for future annexations in Africa.144
The Berlin Conference and its Consequences
The result of the Berlin Conference and the subsequent Scramble for Africa are wellknown subjects for any student of African history. Hence, the focus of this section will be on
their consequences for Portugal in East Africa, and on the slave trade in the region. The
Suzanne Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1975,169. Ibid, 170. 141
See T.F. Buxton, The Remedy: Being a Sequel to the African Slave Trade, London, 1840; V.L. Cameron, Across
Africa, London, 1877, 2 vols. , D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, London: 1857. 142
Duffy, Portuguese Africa, 210. 143
Ibid. 144
Roger Louis, “The Berlin Congo Conference “ in Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial
Rule, Gifford & Louis eds. New Haven : 1971, 170-210. 139
140
49
Scramble for Africa took place in two distinct phases: a demarcation of coastal territories, and a
rush for the interior. In the first phase, Portugal’s ambition was to obtain the Congo estuary and
coast, but in the end it was awarded with the coast up to the estuary, and the Cabinda enclave,
but not the north bank of the Congo River. The recognition of King Leopold’s Congo was a hard
blow for Portugal. However, as late as 1886 it still formally claimed the area between Angola
and Mozambique. This led the Iberian country into a conflict with Cecil Rhodes’ vision of
British control from Cape Town to Cairo. There were clashes between Rhodes’s forces and
Portuguese expeditions that caused Scottish missionaries working in the Lake Nyassa region to
ask for the protection of the British government.145 This conflict eventually led to the ultimatum
of 1890 in which Britain asked Portugal to withdraw from the contested territory or face military
action. The ultimatum provoked a reaction of anguish and violence in Portugal. It was one of the
rare times when the Portuguese public took an intense interest in African affairs. The ultimatum
placed colonialism at the centre of nationalist discourse in Portugal and fostered the idea that
every portion of national territory was sacred. However, the Portuguese government had no
choice but to comply if it wished to keep its African empire.146 It nevertheless lost the trading
interests it had established in the interior of central Africa to the Belgian Congo and Britain,
which reduced the hope of turning its African possessions into a “New Brazil.”147
The impact of the Scramble on the Swahili coast to the north of Mozambique, and its
East African interior, also had a direct impact on Portuguese East Africa. The recognition by
leading European powers of the Congo State and the proclamation of the German protectorate in
145
Gervase Clarence-Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire: A Study in Economic Imperialism, Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1985, 82-83
146
Parliamentary Papers 1891 (C.6495), Correspondence respecting the Anglo-Portuguese Convention of August 20,
1890, and the Subsequent Agreement of November 14, 1890, 150-157; Joseph Frederick Mbwiliza, Towards a
Political Economy of Northern Mozambique: The Hinterland of Mozambique Island 1600-1900, Columbia
University, 1987, 169-170; Duffy, Portuguese Africa, 219.
147
Clarence-Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire: A Study in Economic Imperialism, 85.
50
East Africa, in territory claimed by the Sultan of Zanzibar, effectively stripped the latter of any
control in the interior of Africa. The sultan was left only with coastal territories. To make their
east African colonies profitable, Britain and Germany handed them over to chartered companies,
active from 1888. However the companies found their ability to raise revenue from customs was
limited on the coast by the Sultan’s commercial treaties, and in the interior by the Berlin Act.
Hence, they concentrated on the export of ivory, the most profitable “legitimate” commodity.148
To exploit ivory they had to have access to the far interior of the continent where herds of
elephants roamed.149
European incursion into East and Central Africa provoked a counter-reaction from Arab
traders in the region. Until the late 1870s, relations had been cordial between Europeans and
Arabs. Neither group aimed to gain political power over the region claimed by the sultan of
Zanzibar, nor were the few European missionaries and travellers seen as a threat to traders
controlling the interior in East Africa.150 However, when Europeans started to settle the interior,
it aroused Arab suspicions. In some instances, Europeans were fairly well received. The African
Lakes Company found Arab traders open to deal with them. However, in places such as
Buganda, Tabora and Ujiji, the arrival of Europeans was strongly opposed because they agitated
to gain political control. 151 Moreover, when the sultan of Zanzibar withdrew from the continent,
some of his followers in the interior aimed at acquiring control themselves and driving out the
Europeans152.
148
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 190-192.
H.M. Stanley, The Congo and the Founding of its Free State, London, 1885, 160-162.
150
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 190-192.
151
François Renault, Lavigerie, l’esclavage africain, et l’Europe I, Paris, 1971, 301-303.
152
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 192-194; François Renault, Lavigerie, l’esclavage africain, et
l’Europe I, 210-212.
149
51
Europeans soon found themselves in a precarious situation in East Africa. The Arab
backslash, although uncoordinated, was widespread and Arabs had allies amongst Africans who
associated with their trading system. In some places, fighting broke out. For example, in 1886,
the Congo State’s post at Stanley Falls was attacked and the King’s agents pushed out. Also,
around Lake Tanganyika, the White Fathers were forced to abandon some of their stations.
Again, in 1887, at the northern tip of Lake Malawi, the African Lakes Company and British
missionaries became involved in a war with Mlozi, an Arab freebooter trying to establish himself
as the local ruler.153
In Nyasaland, war broke between European settlers and Arabs led by Mlozi.154 Edward
O’Neill, the British consul at Mozambique who had taken part in the fight against Mlozi,
informed the Anti-Slavery Society that settlers were being attacked by slave hunters bent on
destroying Western and Christian influence. Arab power, he said, was spread through the slave
trade, and a large revival of the traffic had begun. This accusation contributed to the construction
of the image of the ‘Arab’ as the quintessential east African slave trader. This negative view
fuelled by high-ranking British officials thus justified European expansion in the African
interior. The Anti-Slavery society demanded that the British government help the settlers in the
conflict. However, the government was limited because the coastal access to the interior was
controlled by other powers. Hence, it had to rely on the help of Zanzibar and Portugal, which
reluctantly let arms and ammunitions travel through their territory to reach the settlers155.
War in the East African interior led to an increase in slave trading activities. During these
conflicts, large regions were ravaged and terrorised, and many people enslaved. In some places,
whole populations were sold into slavery and replaced by followers to ensure control of trading
153
Renault, Lavigerie, l’esclavage africain, et l’Europe I, 210-212.
Renault, Lavigerie, l’esclavage africain, et l’Europe I, 210-212.
155
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 197-198.
154
52
routes.156 Thus, the conflict produced a steady stream of slaves to the coast, and by the spring of
1888, consuls in Zanzibar, Mozambique, and on the west coast of Madagascar were reporting an
increasing in the trade. When Europeans and their allies started to slowly gain control of the
territory west of the lakes, more reports on the increase of slave raiding and trading made their
way to Europe. There were now more Europeans in the interior to report the events, and whereas
in the past slavers had kept their operations out of sight of missionaries, they now marched their
captives in full view of them.157
Cardinal Lavigerie, founder of the White Fathers, missionaries who had missions around
Lake Victoria and Tanganyika, began a crusade to shed light on the slave traffic in Africa. His
aim was to save his missionary enterprise from ruin because of the conflict. The fathers struggled
to protect the fugitives from pillaging and wars, which raged around them, and even tried to buy
back members of their flock who had been enslaved.158 Lavigerie appealed to public opinion in
Europe with the goal of informing the Western world of the state of the slave trade in Africa.
During a gathering in London called by the Anti-Slavery Society, Lavigerie paid tribute to
Britain’s long struggle against the slave trade and called for it to wipe out slavery completely
from the earth in accordance with Livingstone’s dying wishes.159 Lavigerie did not say anything
that had not been already reported by explorers, missionaries or consuls, but his great oratory
skills made a deep impression on all who heard him, and the press relayed his words to a wider
audience.160
The arrival from Africa of a high dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church bearing the
message that in Central Africa atrocities were being committed daily, and that hundreds of
156
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 194.
Parliamentary Papers 1887 (C.5428) Correspondence Relative to the Slave Trade, 13-40.
158
Renault, Lavigerie, l’esclavage africain, et l’Europe I, 381-382.
159
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 203.
160
Renault, Lavigerie, l’esclavage africain, et l’Europe II, 79-81.
157
53
thousands of innocent people were being killed or condemned to a life of enslavement, caused a
sensation in Western Europe.161 In Britain, the general reaction was that the anti-slavery cause
should become more vigorous. By presenting the slave trade as a desperate human problem in
urgent need of a solution, Lavigerie breathed new life into a movement that had been losing
momentum. The first official response to the cardinal’s crusade came from the Foreign Office in
London, where Salisbury proposed a slave trade conference:162
Do you contemplate freeing the slaves throughout Africa? Or simply forbidding the sale
of slaves? Or the transport of slaves in caravans? Or only kidnapping? […] Let us take
the simplest and easiest—the prohibiting of kidnapping. How are you to prevent that, or
any other crime, unless you are Governors of the country? And how is Africa to be
governed by 100 Belgians with 40,000 pounds in their pockets? They might be strong
enough to block one particular slave-road; but the caravans would simply go a little to the
north or a little to the south of them. […] What we really can deal with is the coast, and
this generation will have done its part if it destroys the export slave trade. I think under
the circumstances, Vivian might be instructed to sound the Belgians, whether they would
be willing to summon a Conference of the Powers controlling the coast of Africa for this
purpose. They would be Great Britain, Germany, Portugal, France, Italy, Turkey, Egypt,
Spain, Morocco.163
Hence, the idea of a conference became prominent in Europe. Furthermore, Lavigerie’s work led
Britain to hope for greater cooperation by France’s in the fight against the export of slaves.
The Brussels Conference
The idea for a conference on the slave trade was revived in 1889 and the date set for
November 18, 1889. In August, invitations were sent out asking the seventeen chosen powers to
attend the conference in Brussels to discuss measures to end the slave trade by land and sea.
There were no limits set on the field of discussion and delegates were free to suggest any
practical measures they thought were important. All invitations were accepted. However, it was a
161
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 204.
Renault, Lavigerie, l’esclavage africain, et l’Europe II, 93.
163
Minute by Salisbury, 1 Sept 1888, FO 84/1927, in Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 207-208.
162
54
British initiative, and French diplomats thought that it was a pretext for Britain to both prolong
its occupation of Egypt, and pressure France, as it had Portugal, to sign a grant for the right to
search. Portugal was also suspicious of British motives. It was involved in territorial disputes
with Britain and the Congo Free State and feared that the conference would lead to further
annexations in Africa that would undermine its interests.164To bolster its traditional claims in
Africa, Portugal furnished a list of stations from which it intended fighting slave raiders, and a
map showing railways it planned on building to encourage legitimate commerce.165 However,
such Portuguese claims were ignored by Britain which concluded treaties laying the foundation
for its rule in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, which in turn led to the 1890 ultimatum sent by
Salisbury to Lisbon, forcing Portugal to keep its forces south of the River Ruo which marks the
frontier between present-day Malawi and Mozambique.166
The Brussels Conference confirmed all existing treaty rights to search, visit and detain
ships at sea, as well as in territorial waters within an East African maritime zone running from
the Gulf of Oman in the north to Quelimane in the south, including Madagascar.167 Each power
was to police its own shipping, but their flags could be used by indigenous vessels only if they
were owned and skippered by ‘respectable’ people, not previously convicted of slaving.168 The
vessels were to be registered annually and to be clearly marked with their names and registration
numbers. Furthermore, no Africans could be part of the crew of a dhow or embark as passengers
unless they had been seen, listed, and given identifying marks on embarkation, such as linen
bracelets sealed with the consular seal. Passengers and crew then also had to be identified at
164
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 234.
Ibid. 239.
166
A.J. Hanna, The Beginnings of Nyasaland and North Eastern Rhodesia 1859-95, Oxford, 1956, 139.
167
Parliamentary Papers 1890 [C.6048], General act of Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Article XXI-XXII.
168
Ibid. Articles XXV-XXXII.
165
55
landing. Throughout the continent, Africans could board indigenous vessels only at ports with
‘competent’ authorities, and in the slave trade zone, disembark at such ports.169
Suspected vessels were to be taken to the nearest authorities of the country whose flag it
was flying and each power had to appoint competent authorities in the zone. Enquiries would
then be held in the presence of the captor and wrongful arrests would be compensated. Suspected
slave traders were to be tried by their national courts and according to their own laws. This
system was expected to be cheap and prompt and to result in slavers being tried in the zone. It
was the responsibility of each power to pass adequate legislation for the infliction of
punishments.170
All slaves detained against their will were to be freed and disposed of according to the
treaties with individual powers or, if no agreement existed, handed over to the territorial
authorities that would return them to their home or help them resettle.171 Furthermore, an
international bureau was to be set up at Zanzibar to assist in the suppression of the slave trade to
which the respective colonial powers had to send information regarding records of the conviction
of slavers, specimens of the papers dhows had to carry in the zone, and registers of vessels
permitted to fly their flag. This information was to be available to naval, consular and judicial
officers concerned with anti-slavery activities.172
Britain was pleased with the maritime clauses of the Brussels Act, especially because it
had persuaded France to agree to the arrest of suspected slavers and to strict rules to prevent the
abuse of her flag.173 However, this system had large loopholes. For example, a French vessel
169
Ibid. Articles XXXV-XXXVI.
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 242-243 ; Parliamentary Papers 1890 [C.6048], General act of
Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Articles V-LIX.
171
Parliamentary Papers 1890 [C.6048] General act of Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Article LII.
172
Ibid. Article XLI.
173
Ibid. Article XXI-XXII.
170
56
could clear port with its papers in order, pick up slaves, land them secretly at their destination
and sail into port again having complied with all regulations. Since searching was not allowed if
intercepted, except in the case of suspected slaving activities, vessels only had to hide their illicit
cargo for them to escape detection. The act left France in a privileged position, as it was the only
power with no right of search treaty with Britain.174
The conference recognised that measures had to be taken to suppress markets for slaves
as demand rather than supply fuelled the trade. Britain applied pressure on the Merina
government in Madagascar, and the French on the Sultan of Johanna, to introduce anti-slave
trade measures. The French also claimed that they had abolished slave trafficking to their
territories in the Comoros, and they took measures to reduce the abuse of their flag in East
African waters.175 In practice, however, little changed. Slave trafficking continued to
Madagascar.176 Furthermore, French regulations for ensuring that slaves did not travel on their
vessels were easily evaded. For example, slavers copied the linen bracelets stamped with the
consular seal used to identify bona fide passengers. Captains of slavers sent their crews posing as
passengers to get the necessary papers from French officials and then landed slaves in their place
armed with these papers.177 By the spring of 1890, evidence of these fraudulent activities led the
French to forbid the embarkation of all African travellers on their vessels.178
Moreover, no colonial power was prepared to tackle slavery on its territory. Indeed, the
institution of slavery in Africa was not discussed during the conference.179 France refused to
permit any of her territories being described as pays de destination - defined as a country where
174
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 245.
Ibid. 246-247.
176 Gwyn Campbell, “The East African Slave Trade 1861-1895”: The Southern Complex, The International Journal
of African Historical Studies, 22, (1989), 1-26.
177
Ibid. 248.
178
Ibid.
179
Parliamentary Papers 1890 [C.6048] General act of Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Article LXII.
175
57
slavery was still legal. The Comoro Islands and Madagascar were also excluded, although
slavery was still legally recognized in the latter.180 As a result of the Brussels Act, pressure was
put on those countries categorized as pays de destination to prevent all import, export and transit
of slave and to strictly survey ports and slave routes.181 All illegally imported slaves and
fugitives who reached their borders were to be freed, given manumission papers, returned to their
country if possible and, if not, they were to be protected and helped to earn a living.182
The conference also paid attention to the overland slave trade and ultimately concluded
that the best means of suppressing it was by the “progressive organization of the administrative,
judicial, religious, and military services” in the territories under colonial rule.183 The colonial
powers participating in the conference agreed to the gradual establishment of fortified posts on
the coast and in the interior to serve as centres of refuge and civilisation where Africans would
be organised to defend themselves, be taught farming and trade, and be ‘civilised.’184 Roads and
railways were to be built to link the interior with the coast and give easy access to inland
waterways.185 However, suppression of the domestic slave trade was to “proceed gradually, as
circumstances permit, either by […] these means […] or by any other means which they may
consider suitable.”186
To avoid territorial disputes and encroachment, each power was to act only in its own
dominions and territorial waters187. It was each power’s responsibility to supervise trade routes
and the interception and pursuit of slave caravans. However, the article stipulated that they were
to do so only: “as far as circumstances shall permit, and in proportion to the progress of their
180
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 249.
Parliamentary Papers 1890 [C.6048] General act of Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Article, LXII-LXIII.
182
Ibid. Article LXIII.
183
Ibid. Article I.
184
Ibid.
185
Ibid.
186
Ibid. Article III.
187
Parliamentary Papers 1890 [C.6048]General act of Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Article II and III.
181
58
administrative organization”188. Hence, there was no obligation to set up posts to combat the
slave trade in the interior. Colonial officials justified this by arguing that new posts would most
likely be useless as slave traders could use new trading routes if some came under the control of
Europeans189. The colonial powers had a year after the ratification of the Brussels Act to pass
laws imposing penalties for slave trading and raiding.190
The act came into operation in 1892 and remained in force until 1919. In the
Mozambique Channel, the export trade declined as the coast, the sources of supply in the
interior, Zanzibar, the Comoros, Madagascar and Johanna came under European control.
However, a smuggling trade continued, possible through the exploitation of loopholes in the
Brussels Act.191 For example, for at least another fifteen years, the French issued their flag to
Omani dhows and failed to stop slaving under their colours. Slaves were brought to Oman from
as far as Mozambique.192 For Portugal, the Brussels Act was a watershed. It had to abandon the
idea that it had historical rights to territory and put in place practical ways to make its colonies
viable. The change implied the intensification of Portuguese interests, and an attempt to carry out
historic programs of occupation and development in the midst of territorial loss and changing
balance of power in Africa.193 However, the Brussels Act failed to stop the slave trade in
Mozambique.
188
Ibid. Article XV.
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 278.
190
Parliamentary Papers1890 [C.6048] General act of Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Article V.
191
B.C. Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf 1894-1914, Berkeley : 1967, 160-184.
192
Ibid. 183-184.
193
Duffy, Portuguese Africa, 223.
189
59
CHAPTER IV
A LOOK INTO SLAVING ACTIVITIES FROM MOZAMBIQUE ISLAND, 1878-1898
This fourth and last chapter is based on archival research in the overseas historical
archive (Arquivo histórico ultramarino) of Lisbon, Portugal. It attempts to shed light on slave
trading activities between 1878 and 1898 in the Mozambique Channel by examining maritime
movement in and out of Mozambique Island derived from the Boletim Oficial de Moçambique,
which gathered annual data for the colony of Mozambique. Port entries and exits for the colony’s
capital, Mozambique Island, are recorded in detail in these documents. Although Lourenço
Marques replaced the island as the colony’s administrative centre in 1894, the Boletim continues
to record port entries for Mozambique Island up to 1898. For each vessel, the name, type of
embarkation, nationality, tonnage, captain, size of the crew, travel time and destination are noted.
In some cases, information is available on the cargo carried and the number of passengers.
The aim of this chapter is to use this data in order to provide a micro analytical look into
slave trading activities in the Mozambique Channel. The existing historiography tends to end
with the closure of the Brazilian and Cuban markets in 1851 and 1862. Academics such as
Edward Alpers and Richard Hammond acknowledge that a residual slave trade remained in the
Mozambique Channel, but they do not provide an in depth study of the phenomenon. Alpers,
notes that the sudden closure of the Brazilian market sharply reduced the slave trade in
Mozambique but acknowledges that it continued on a minor scale until the end of the century.194
Hammond argues that in the second half of the nineteenth century, the residual trade that
remained was different in nature, and conducted mostly by Arab traders who could evade capture
194
Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, London: Heinemann, 1975, 224-225; Alpers, “Slave Trade and
Slave Routes of the East African Coast” in Zimba, Alpers & Isaacman eds. Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa,
Maputo: Filsom Entertainment, 2005, 61.
60
because of shelter provided by the many creeks and gulfs on the Mozambican coast.195
Hammond’s account is problematic as it qualifies the slave trade as Arab or Islamic even though
the Atlantic slave trade never was characterized as a Christian or European practice.196 José
Capela’s work forms an exception in that he attempted to analyse the slave trade until 1904 in
the ports of Mozambique. However, his findings are based on records of suspected and seized
vessels, so although he attempts to quantify the number of vessels involved, his work concerns
only vessels suspected of slave running, and he provides no analysis of the trade itself.197
The nature of the trade being illicit, official records of the Boletim Oficial de
Moçambique do not provide information on slaves being transported aboard the ships. Vessels
used different means to disguise their cargoes, such as registering them as passengers, passing
them as crewmembers, or embarking and disembarking slaves after having cleared port.198
Hence, examining port logs cannot provide sound evidence of slave trafficking. However, it can
help to establish a plausible hypothesis. Unfortunately, there is no way for us to know if the
people registered as passengers were in fact really passengers, but vessels with varying crew
sizes, travelling under different flags, and/or taking an unusually long time to reach their
destination could have been involved in illicit activities.
In this chapter, it will be argued that slave-trading activities in the Mozambique Channel
in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century were still widespread, despite the attempts to
curb it discussed in the previous chapters. This argument will be based on the findings from the
port logs for Mozambique Island, as well as on information from European travellers and
officials. As one of the most important ports in Mozambique, Mozambique Island was highly
195
Richard Hammond, Portugal and Africa, 1815-1910, A Study in Uneconomic Imperialism, Stanford : Stanford
University Press, 1966.
196
Ibid. 13.
197
José Capela, O Tráfico de escravos nos portos de Moçambique, Porto: Edições Afrontamento, 2002, 310-354.
198
Arquivo histórico ultramarino, Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, Lisbon, 1877-1898.
61
frequented by vessels. It was also the Mozambique port most visited by foreign visitors, many of
whose reports of local activities would reach Europe. Thus, evidence there of slave trading
would indicate that slave trafficking was also practiced in other less occupied ports, and probably
on a larger scale. This chapter will examine the ways used to circumvent slave-trading
prohibitions, the participants in the trade, and specific examples of slave trading voyages.
62
Map IV: Madagascar and the Mozambique Channel
Source: Gwyn Campbell, “The East African Slave Trade, 1861-1895: The ‘Southern Complex’”,
Internationl Journal of African Historical Studies, 22, (1989), 2.
63
How to Avoid Capture: Slavers’ Methods
In 1889, European powers were in discussions regarding steps to be taken to effectively
end the slave trade in Africa, especially in Central and East Africa. Despite naval patrols in East
African waters and a common desire to suppress the trade, the numbers of slaves being traded on
the coast remained high. One paper on the East African slave trade presented at the Brussels
Conference stated:
It is difficult to give a correct estimate of the number of Slaves arriving annually on the
coast from the interior, but probably we shall be not far wrong if we place it at not less
than 20,000. Of this number a considerable portion is absorbed in the requirements of
native chiefs and traders on the coast, where they are employed in navigating native
vessels, in agriculture, and in domestic service of various kinds. Not less than from 5,000
to 6,000 are exported annually to the Island of Pemba alone […] a not inconsiderable
number find their way into the Island of Zanzibar, whilst the Persian Gulf, Madagascar,
the Comoro Islands, Réunion, and the small French possessions of Mayotte and Nossi Bé
are the recipients of the balance of slaves exported from the East Coast.199
Although the numbers mentioned are estimates, it shows that the trade was not negligible,
despite attempts to suppress it. On the Mozambique coast, slavery and the export of slaves were
formally illegal. However, the lack of a regular British naval presence, and the unwillingness of
local Portuguese officials to implement the measures, meant that both slavery and the slave trade
continued. Edward O’Neill, British Consul at Mozambique, lamented in 1882 the lack of patrols
in East African waters. He stated that “the largest number of English cruisers employed in the
Mozambique waters—which includes for slave trade suppression purposes the opposite
Madagascar coast and the Comoro Islands—has been three, more usually two”.200
199
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Papers on the Brussels Conference on the Slave-Trade, London: 1889,
6
200
Henry Edward O’Neill, The Mozambique and Nyassa Slave Trade, London : British and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Society, 1885, 8.
64
Moreover, even when anti-slavery patrols were present, slavers devised various methods
of evading capture. A common way of transporting slaves was to provide them with appropriate
documentation and pass them off as crewmembers. Thus, a vessel that in the official records was
noted as having fluctuating numbers of crewmembers could be an indication that it was involved
in slave smuggling. For example, the Arab dhow Fatel Ker of thirty tons traveling between
Mozambique Island and Madagascar in 1881-1882, and 1891-1892 had a crew size varying
between ten and twenty-two. For some voyages, it had a crew size of fourteen, of twenty, or of
eleven. The average crew size for a 30-ton ship was 11.47 based on 173 ships of this tonnage.201
Hence, the Fatel Ker had an unusually large crew size on some of its trips. In 1886 and 1887, the
French vapour Erymanthe of 1293 tons, under the authority of Captain Remes, made various
voyages between Mozambique Island and Zanzibar, Majunga (Mahajanga) and Nossi-Bé. On
March 17, 1886, it travelled to Zanzibar with 69 crewmembers, on June 22 1886, it returned to
Mozambique Island with a crew of 50, and on March 26, 1887, sailed for Majunga with 76
crewmembers.202 The French steamship Èbre of 1170 tons, under the command of Captain
Verlanque, showed a similar pattern. In 1885 and 1886, it carried crews varying between 50 and
80 men in voyages to and from Majunga, Zanzibar and Ibo.203 Unfortunately, there is no
information available on the cargo being carried on these vessels, which might have provided a
form of explanation for the need for a fluctuating number of crewmen. However, after 1889, with
the passage of the Brussels Act, ships were obligated to register annually, and no Africans could
be part of the crew unless they had been seen, listed and identified with markers such as linen
201
Arquivo histórico ultramarino, Database compiled from Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, 1881-2, 1891-2.
Ibid. 1886-7.
203
Ibid. 1885-6.
202
65
bracelets.204 The need for this law indicates that smuggling slaves as sailors was previously a
common practice.
It is also important to note that many of these ships also transported passengers, but no
information is available on their nationality or the reason for their travels. Slaves could also be
passed as simple travelers and thus be listed as passengers. As of 1889, with the Brussels Act, all
passengers had to be properly identified by wearing linen bracelets stamped with the consular
seal.205 However, it was common for slavers to send their crewmen to acquire proper
identification, which was then given to the slaves to pass them off as simple travelers.206 The
consular seal could also be forged, and it thus became almost impossible to identify fake
crewmen or fake passengers.207
Furthermore, the Brussels Act specified that in order to prevent slave smuggling,
Africans could board indigenous vessels such as Arab dhows only in ports with “competent”
authorities. However, the word “competent” was not defined and it was not clear what type of
authority was needed in ports deemed competent.208 Indeed, the vagueness of the law made it
quasi inapplicable. Unfortunately, there is a hole in the historical evidence when dealing with the
subject of passengers. In the port logs, the number of passengers on board a vessel is listed, but
there is no personal information available. Therefore, we do not know where they were from and
why they were traveling. We can guess their destination, assuming that their final destination
was the same as that of the vessel. For example, the Arab dhow Babo Salamo traveled from
204
Parliamentary Papers 1890 [C.6048], General act of Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Article XXXV-XXXVI.
Ibid.
206
Suzanne Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1975, 248.
207
Ibid.
208
Parliamentary Papers 1890 [C.6048], General act of Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Article XXXV-XXXVI.
205
66
Mozambique Island to Madagascar on May 24, 1891. Nine passengers were on board, but we
have no information on who they were and what were their travel purposes.209
Another way for slavers to avoid capture was by using the French flag. It is commonly
believed by historians that Arab dhows were the ones doing most of the slave trading, 210 but they
often flew the French flag to avoid being searched.211 As discussed in the previous chapters,
France was the only country which did not have a right of search agreement with other European
powers. Examples of the use of the French flag are numerous in the contemporary accounts.
Henry E. O’Neill, the British Consul at Mozambique, wrote to Lord Granville in 1880:
A dhow from Mayotté was wrecked upon this coast, and some of the crew came to me
and complained that the owner, a Banian trader and British subject, had thrown them on
shore at Mozambique, and that they had no means of returning to their homes at Mayotté.
Sending for the owner, who declared to be a British subject, I asked for his papers, and
found, to my surprise, they were French, and that he had been sailing for several years
under French colours. He also stated, and the papers verified this, that he was the sole
owner of the dhow. Asking him how it was that he, a British subject and sole owner of
the vessel, was sailing it under French colours, he replied that he had lived nearly ten
years at Mayotté, and that it was more convenient for him to have French papers. It
appeared to me to be a clear case in which the French flag was being wrongfully used,
whether for the purpose of taking advantage of some differential duty in those French
Colonies, or of avoiding inspection by our cruisers, it was impossible to say.212
In 1889 France agreed to the right of search but only if vessels were suspected of slave
dealing and in the demarcated slave trade zone. France also engaged to prohibit the wrongful use
of its flag.213 However, since only suspected vessels could be searched, slavers using the French
209
Arquivo histórico ultramarino, Database compiled from Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, 1891.
See Richard Hammond, Portugal and Africa, 1815-1910, A Study in Uneconomic Imperialism, Stanford :
Stanford University Press, 1966.
211
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Papers on the Brussels Conference on the Slave-Trade, London : 1889,
6
212
Parliamentary Papers, 1882 (c.3160)Correspondence with British Representatives and Agents Abroad, 56.
213
Parliamentary Papers 1890 [C.6048], General act of Brussels Conference, 1889-90, Article XXI-XXII.
210
67
colours could still partake in the trade as long as they hid their activities. The British and Foreign
Anti-Slavery Society denounced the limited French concessions at the Brussels Conference:
France has hitherto lagged behind the rest of Europe in the practical desire to extirpate
the East African slave-trade. Her flag has been used to shelter the infamous traffic, and
her opposition to the acceptance of such limited right of search as was found to be the
only operative means of repressions on the West Coast and in the neighbourhood of Cuba
and San Domingo has prevented any effectual attempt to restrain that abuse.214
The society believed that France was reticent in allowing the right of search not because of its
belief in freedom of navigation, but because of its colonies’ labour needs:
The French possessions must be mentioned as places where Slaves are absorbed, because
it is notorious that Africans are introduced as free labourers into the islands mentioned
[Comoros, Mayotte, Nossi Bé, Réunion], having been purchased and redeemed with the
view to their introduction.”215”
The data collected for this research shows examples of vessels traveling under different
colours. Although it was purportedly employed only transporting cattle from Madagascar to
Mozambique Island and Madagascar, the dhow Babo Salamo under the authority of Master Jabo
was listed as Arab in September 1891 and April 1892, and as French in July and August 1892
going to and coming back from Madagascar – a ploy to avoid being searched.216 The vessel Fatel
Karimo conducted by Master Assane similarly used variously Arab and French colours, between
June 1895 and April 1897 in trips to and from Madagascar.217José Capela notes that vessels
214
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Papers on the Brussels Conference on the Slave-Trade, London : 1889,
44.
215
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Papers on the Brussels Conference on the Slave-Trade, London : 1889,
6
216
Arquivo histórico ultramarino, Database compiled from Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, 1891-1892.
217
Ibid. 1895-1897.
68
carrying cattle to Mozambique Island from Madagascar would, after clearing port and
discharging their cargo, travel to smaller ports during the night in the Quivolane region, the
Infusse River, and the bay of Sangage to embark slaves illegally.218 They would clear port
without difficulty since their papers were in order, and avoid being searched on the sea because
of the limited searching agreements with France.
Nineteenth-Century Accounts on the Slave Trade
Nineteenth-Century accounts abound with evidence of slave dealing activities in the
Mozambique interior, coast and waters. These accounts, coupled with evidence from the port
logs of Mozambique Island, indicate clearly that a slave trade was commonly practiced, and not
just a residual or marginal activity. José Capela listed all the vessels suspected or arrested
because of slaving activities.219 By analysing a larger set of data from ordinary port records, we
see that many more slaving vessels were able to go unnoticed. It is important to examine the data
available in light of testimonies on the perseverance of the trade in East Africa.
Before the Scramble for Africa, the British consul at Mozambique, Edward O’Neill,
reported on the evidence of slave exports from the coast, between Mozambique and Quelimane
to Madagascar. He wrote in 1882 that there were “three dhows, from Mayinterano
[i.e.Maintirano] on the Madagascar coast, in the Quizungu, awaiting for slavers. Moreover, I
hear that in the Moma River there is a collection of slaves being made for export to
Madagascar.”220 O’Neill listed further proof of slaving in the same document, and argued for the
need for more naval patrols in the region. The isolation of certain points unvisited by patrols was
218
Capela, O Tráfico de escravos nos portos de Moçambique, 114.
Capela, O Trafico de escravo nos portos de Moçambique, 310-354.
220
Parliamentary Papers 1882(C. 3160), Correspondence with British Representatives and Agents Abroad, 61.
219
69
the ideal condition for the illicit practice. The coast of Mozambique had many natural harbours
and creeks accessible in smaller embarkation, facilitating hiding from naval patrols.221
This is further illustrated by the assessment of slaving activities in Mozambique for the
year 1880. Official documents show that the “sum total of fifteen dhows discovered employed in
the Mozambique export Slave Trade during the past year, thirteen of which, there can be little
doubt, have been successful in their shipments.”222 These included the shipment of a large cargo
of slaves from the Quizungu at the beginning of January, the unsuccessful attempt to ship slaves
by two slaving dhows, the successful attempt by one from the Kivolane-Infusse district in
October and November, and the clearance of a dhow, which had lost sixteen slaves from thirst on
a previous voyage, from the Lurio River at the end of November.223 Although fifteen slave
trading dhows may seem a small number, they were only the vessels suspected or known to have
taken part in the trade. Furthermore, O’Neil reported on January 30 1881, that he had
[...] received information, from a source I believe to be reliable, that some Johanna slavedealers had arrived in the Mosembo country, and were now collecting slaves at Nakusha,
the village of the Chief of that district. Their dhow was stated to be in Kisimajulu
Harbour, a little-frequented and favourable port immediately to the south of Fernan
Veloso Bay, which I visited and reported on in my journey on the coast in June last.224
The French were also very active in slave dealing activities in the Mozambique Channel.
British accounts in 1887 illustrate that the slave trade on the southwest coast of Madagascar,
practiced by the French or vessels using the French flag, increased due to rising demand for
labour in Réunion. Slaves were brought from Mozambique to Madagascar and then transferred to
Réunion. The increase in the traffic was such that British subjects at Tulear, in St-Augustine Bay,
221
Ibid, 61.
Ibid, 63.
223
Ibid, 63-64.
224
Ibid. 67.
222
70
Madagascar, wrote a petition imploring the British government to take measures against it.225
British vessels were also involved. In 1886, three vessels were reported to have landed their
slaves in Réunion and then were captured: the French Venus and Bretagne, and the British Town
of Liverpool226. The account of this capture is important as it highlights the participation of
British vessels and subjects in the trade. The Town of Liverpool was a vessel coming from
Mauritius. Four sailors on board were from Mauritius and thus British subjects, and two others
were from Madagascar.227 Consul John Haggard further confirmed the participation of
Europeans in the trade, by stating in November 1886, “the vessels and people employed in the
Traffic are European, and occasionally British.”228 The participation of a British brig in slave
dealing activities so late in the century was extensively covered in correspondence between
British officials, as it was highly controversial. However, it is unlikely that it was the only British
vessel taking part in the illicit traffic.
The increase in demand in Réunion coincided with the European conflict with Arabs
during the Scramble that led to the enslavement of large numbers of Africans in the interior of
the continent. European consuls in Zanzibar, Madagascar and Mozambique all noted the increase
of slaves being brought and traded. The dataset indicates a higher number of vessels involved in
suspicious activity in the years between 1886 and 1891.229 Many Europeans also participated in
the process, as when African and Arab traders brought slaves to the coast, Europeans often
purchased them in exchange for arms.230 Arab vessels also carried slaves to Madagascar and
225
Parliamentary Papers 1888 (C.5428) Correspondence Relative to the Slave Trade: 1887. Consul Haggard to
Earl of Iddesleigh, January 1887, 140-141.
227
Ibid. 140-1, 146.
Ibid. 149.
229
Arquivo histórico ultramarino, Database compiled from Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, 1886-1891.
230
Miers, Britain and the Ending of the Slave Trade, 196-199.
228
71
other islands, but José Capela notes that a large number of their voyages went unrecorded
because their small size enabled them to avoid control in ports.231
The data set indicates a number of British vessels traveling to and from Mozambique
Island that were possibly involved in slave running. One such vessel was the British vapour
Kerbela of 1,468 tons under Captain Alexander the crew size of which varied from 85-98. On
January 16, 1897, it entered Mozambique Island from Zanzibar with eighty-five sailors.
However, on February 2, 1897, it left Inhambane with ninety-eight crewmen, stopped in
Mozambique Island, and proceeded to Zanzibar with the same number of crew.232 In the same
vein, the steamer Burmah, operating in 1878 and 1879, carried approximately 70 sailors from
Mozambique Island to Zanzibar and Majunga and Aden, but returned with 59-60.233 In the East
African slave trade, as opposed to the West African trade, there were few ships specializing in
carrying slaves only. Rather, dhows generally carried a handful of slaves as part of a cargo that
comprised other goods. Given this, small discrepancies in crew size could indicate slave
smuggling.234
Portuguese vessels also participated in slave trading activities. An important number of
ships in the data set show signs indicative of this. For example, on March 10 1893, the vessel
Tartane of fifty-eight tons under Master Rossiam Salimo traveling from Antonio Ennes to
Mozambique Island transported fifteen crewmen, instead of between five and seven, as on its
other voyages. Furthermore, the same ship, on three different trips, took variously seven, eight
and fifteen days to reach its destination of Antonio Ennes.235 However, the average travel time
from Antonio Ennes to Mozambique Island is two and a half days with a standard deviation of
231
Capela, O Tráfico de escravos nos portos de Moçambique, 103.
Arquivo histórico ultramarino, Database compiled from Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, 1897.
233
Ibid. 1878-1879.
234 Capela, O trafico de escravos nos portos de Moçambique.
235
Ibid. 1893-1894.
232
72
2.15. This means that a travel time higher than five days is unusual. The average travel time has
been calculated based on travels between Mozambique Island and Antonio Ennes, between 1878
and 1898, compiled in the dataset.236 One explanation for this would be bad weather causing
delays. However, the longer travel time is a recurrent pattern for this vessel, and the other
explanation is that it may have been stopping after leaving Antonio Ennes to gather slaves, and
disembarked them at another point before reporting to Mozambique Island.237
The case of the Portuguese brig Flor de Diu is an interesting one. It made more than
twenty trips between 1878 and 1886 and the size of its crew was highly irregular; it varied
between thirteen and forty-one. Because of the highly irregular size of the crew, it is difficult to
establish a pattern, but three trips stand out. On August 16, 1881, the Flor de Diu sailed from
Quelimane to Mozambique Island with eighteen crewmen on board in fourteen days. On June 23,
1882, it left Inhambane with twenty-three sailors and took also fourteen days to reach its
destination. On August 18, 1885, it traveled from Inhambane to Mozambique Island with twenty
crewmen. What stands out about these trips is the combination of crew and travel time. The
average crew size for a 103-ton ship is twelve. The average travel time to reach Mozambique
Island from Quelimane and Inhambane is respectively six and eight days. In other instances, it
took the vessel only five days.238 Such irregular numbers, notably its higher than normal crew
size and higher than normal travel time probably indicate that it was transporting slaves that it
disembarked at various points en-route without being noticed by patrols.
This chapter illustrates that the slave trade was still active in the latter part of the
nineteenth century, despite increasing European pressure to abolish it. Slavers had numbers of
ways to evade capture and circumvent regulations, and the various examples provided
236
Arquivo histórico ultramarino, Travel time table compiled from Boletim Oficial de Moçambique.
Ibid.
238
Arquivo histórico ultramarino, Database compiled from Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, 1878-1886. 237
73
demonstrate that they succeeded. Furthermore, slave trading was not only an Arab or African
phenomenon. European subjects, French, British and Portuguese, also were active participants in
the trade. Hence, despite laws put in place throughout the century, and the tightening of colonial
powers’ grip on Africa following the Berlin Conference and the Brussels Conference, loopholes
were still exploited. Demand remained high, and this largely dictated supply which, however,
was greatly boosted due to conflicts in the East African interior.
74
CONCLUSION
The nineteenth century was marked by a push for the abolition first of the slave trade and
then of slavery. Portugal, being Britain’s ancient ally, was encouraged to follow the path set by
Britain in banning the slave trade in 1807, and slavery in its imperial domains in 1833. Although
Portugal did enact measures to regulate and abolish the slave trade and the institution of slavery,
both were still practiced in its colony of Mozambique up to the end of the nineteenth century.
Most of the literature assumes that, with the closure of the Brazilian and Cuban markets in in
1851 and 1862, the slave export trade declined, and was maintained only by Arab slavers dealing
with African indigenous groups. However, demand largely dictated the traffic, and demand, from
Madagascar and the French islands of the Western Indian Ocean remained high. This ensured
that slave trafficking remained highly profitable and tempted into the trade not only Arabs but
also Europeans. The measures put in place to prohibit the trade by Portugal, Britain, and the
Brussels Act ultimately failed due to many loopholes in the laws and the lack of patrols on land
and in sea. Slavery was an important humanitarian issue, and was used to justify increasing
European presence in Africa. However, European powers’ objectives were primarily economic
and territorial. Colonial powers, including Portugal, failed to suppress the slave trade because
their priority was economic development. They failed to put in place the necessary resources to
patrol and police slave trading activities in their territories. Thus, the illegal slave trade in the
Mozambique Channel continued up to at least the end of the nineteenth century, despite British
pressure, Portuguese anti-slave trade regulations, and diplomatic cooperation between colonial
powers to suppress the trade.
The first chapter of this dissertation highlighted the different structures defining the slave
trade in the Mozambique Channel. The monsoon system, the supply and demand for slaves,
75
trading routes and centres, and markets for slaves, were all important factors determining how
the trade persisted. In the interior, different groups of people such as the Yao, Makua and the
Prazo holders actively participated in the slave trading complexes, furnishing ports with slaves to
be shipped off to islands in the Indian Ocean. The main markets for slaves at the end of the
nineteenth century were the French islands of the Western Indian Ocean and Madagascar.
The second chapter discussed the laws and regulation put in place during the nineteenth
century by Portugal to prohibit the slave trade and slavery in its empire. It argued that these
measures, and collaboration with Great Britain, failed to stem the slave export trade from
Mozambique. The empire lacked the financial resources to actively police its colony, and
Mozambique’s economic survival depended on revenues from the slave trade. Furthermore, the
traditional Portuguese colonial system, in which officials and statemen participated actively in
the trade in order to acquire wealth, remained unreformed. Thus, the regulations put in place with
the 1836 royal decree abolishing the trade in the Portuguese empire, the 1842 Slave Trade treaty
between Portugal and Britain, and the 1875 decree abolishing the institution of slavery on
Portuguese territory ultimately failed.
The third chapter showed how the increased European presence in Africa at the end of the
nineteenth century, led to a shift in balance of colonial power in the continent that undermined
the historical territorial claims of Portugal - to the benefit of Britain, Germany and the Congo
State who argued that the persistence of the slave trade in Portuguese territory meant that slavery
came de facto with Portuguese occupation. The increased European presence in Africa provoked
a backlash from Arab and indigenous peoples, who fought Europeans for control of trading
routes in the interior. The conflict led to an increase of slave raiding and dealing, throwing
thousands of slaves on the market. With more European officials, travelers and missionaries in
76
the interior of Africa, there were more people to report on these activities perceived as ‘barbaric’
in Europe. The persistence of the slave trade caused a stir in Europe, especially through the work
of Cardinal Lavigerie.
The consequence of this was the Brussels Conference on the Slave Trade. The Brussels
Act put in place a series of laws aiming at ending the slave trade on land and sea. However, the
main loophole in the Brussels Act was the limited right of search agreement with France.
Although France was in favour of ending of the slave trade, its colonies in the Indian Ocean
remained a large market for slaves and, notoriously, its flag was used by slavers who took
advantage of the limited right of search agreements.
In sum, the laws put in place in the Portuguese empire, Britain’s advocacy to end the
slave trade, the increased European presence in Africa, and the Brussels Act were not successful
in effectively suppressing the trade. The last chapter argued, that the trade remained much more
active that the literature to date suggests. With the use of a database built from port logs from
Mozambique Island found in the Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, it is clear that numerous
vessels participated in the slave trade between 1878 and 1898. The port entries and exits from
Mozambique Island reveal the prevalence of factors, such as the carrying of irregularly sized
crews, highly variable travel times, and the use of different flags, that are indicative of illicit
trade – the most profitable of which was the traffic in slaves. Although the information gathered
from the analysis of the database cannot be verified with hard evidence, it can be assumed with
quasi certainty that they indicate the persistence of a vigorous slave trade – something confirmed
in many contemporaneous accounts from European consuls, missionaries and travellers. Hence,
it cannot be taken for granted that the slave trade ended with the closure of the markets in
America. Furthermore, it cannot be assumed that the slave trade remained as an ‘African’ and
77
‘Arab’ problem. While European powers passed measures against the slave trade, they were
rarely effective due to a lack of resources, and lack of cooperation by officials on the ground.
Moreover, European subjects were active participants in the slave trade until the end of the
century.
78
APPENDIXES
Figure I: The Slave Trade between 1810 and 1830
Source: Edward Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa, 213.
Figure II: Statistics on the Slave Trade to Brazil
79
Source: Bethell, The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade, 388-390.
80
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