2 From Squatters to Smallholders? Configurations of African Land Access in Central and Southern Colonial Mozambique, 1910s–1940s

Bárbara Direito

Introduction

In 1906, Machoana, an indígena (native) African woman, was granted a temporary individual land title, for which she paid 5,000 reis, regarding a tract of land she had been occupying for five years. In the same year, Gimo made a similar request regarding a vacant tract, and was also granted a land title, for which he paid 30,000 reis.¹ These are just two examples of the several land concessions to African indígenas that can be found at the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino in Lisbon, which holds most of the documentation regarding Portugal’s former colonies. The narrow notion of “native property” applicable at the time meant that, in theory, Africans could obtain individual rights to land after twenty years of continuous use of such land.² A few years later, once the 1909 Mozambique Land Law came into effect and purportedly increased the protection awarded to Africans while at the same time stimulating concessions to settlers, the wording was discreetly changed. The new provisions spoke merely of “concessions to natives,” of “occupancy” rights in vacant land, and of “native” reserves. The two worlds of “civilized populations”—mostly of European origin, subject to “modern” legislation and the principles of individual property—and of “natives”—African populations, subject to African customary law and principles of communal property—were to be almost totally separated, with few exceptions.

These subtle changes in land legislation reflected one aspect of the “native” policy that was beginning to take shape as the Portuguese gradually took effective control of Mozambique in the first years of the twentieth century. And much like in other colonial contexts, in Africa and other continents, the Portuguese were “constructing racialized difference” through these laws.³

But the provisions of the land laws, the ideals that inspired the land policies put in place by officials, and the actual reality on the ground were different.⁴ And these three dimensions were in themselves influenced by international, national, and local dynamics that need to be taken into consideration, as well as by different agents, often with opposing interests and powers. Bearing in mind these different nuances and layers, the present chapter will discuss the changing configurations of African land access in Mozambique between the 1910s and the 1940s. It will do so in the context of the tension between divergent goals, new and old: maintaining a steady supply of African labour to public and private projects; maintaining “native” tax revenue; addressing the decline of European settler farming in the 1920s, worsened by the Great Depression; and responding to the demand for agricultural commodities through an agrarian intervention in African production. The latter goal, discussed in Mozambique as much as in Portugal and in international fora during this period, involved the expansion of cash crops, the promotion of “rational” agricultural practices, and technical assistance for Africans, but also population displacement and resettlement. Unlike previous policies that excluded the majority of Africans from land tenure and viewed them mostly as squatters, the plans inspired by this goal proposed a new perspective on African land access and use.

This transformation was justified by the need to increase yields and by a narrative concerning the improvement of living standards for Africans, but it was also based on a degree of paternalism and coercion, laying the ground for post-1945 calls for African “rural development.”

Drawing on an array of sources consulted in different archives and libraries in Portugal and Mozambique, the chapter will discuss the outcomes of the tensions between these different goals in southern and central Mozambique by focusing on three specific configurations: The legalization of Africans living on alienated and vacant land; the separation of plots for individual smallholders inside native reserves; and colonatos, or model settlements, involving the parcelling and distribution of plots to African smallholders on vacant land.⁵ This will allow us to understand the complexity of rural life in colonial Mozambique, to observe the conditions of changing agrarian relations, and to view land as a disputed resource. By looking at the evolution of these instruments in two distinct regions of Mozambique, one governed by a chartered company and the other under direct Portuguese rule, the chapter furthermore seeks to highlight the importance of context by showing how similar circumstances on the ground could lead to different configurations in terms of African access to land. Finally, I also want to discuss how African populations dealt with encroachment upon their land and with mounting disputes with settlers, but also with attempts to transform their farming practices, while trying to maintain their own autonomy.

Land Tenure in Early Twentieth-Century Colonial Mozambique: Principles and Practice

The dominant perspective in Portuguese colonial thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, inscribed in the period’s land laws, dictated the limited access of Africans to land in the name of the economic development of colonial territories, the fight against land speculation, and the safeguarding of Portuguese sovereignty in Africa. More specifically, this meant that the presence of African populations, cultivated lands, and livestock did not constitute an impediment to land concessions. It also meant that the new landholders would have the prerogative to decide the fate of these African occupants, or “squatters.” These principles applied equally to the regions of Manica and Sofala, in central Mozambique, under the rule of a chartered company—the Mozambique Company—between 1892 and 1942, and to the south of Mozambique, a region under direct Portuguese rule (see map 2.1).⁶

The main colonial thinkers and officials of the time argued that this dual system was justified because of the backwardness of African populations and their traditional farming system, based on the periodic search for better agricultural land. They also believed that Africans’ lack of understanding of the concept of individual property could jeopardize the colonial state’s control over land allocation for agriculture and European settlement plans.⁷ Africans were thus to make way for settlers while maintaining their own traditions. This perspective was a clear corollary of the dominant view about African populations as intellectually and morally inferior, and it became a convenient ally of the system of forced labour, the crux of Portuguese colonial policies in Mozambique.⁸

But as important scholarship has shown regarding other territories in southern Africa, the reality of agrarian life was much more complex than colonial officials anticipated in Lisbon, in Lourenço Marques, or in the boardroom of the Mozambique Company. Indeed, the economic and social impact of these laws in the lives of African populations differed from region to region, according to elements such as settler presence, the dimension of land concessions, labour demand, economic interests, the availability of transport infrastructure, population density, and ecological conditions. Some regions would not experience significant dispossession until the 1950s, when Portugal invested in earnest in white settlement in Mozambique. In other areas, as will be shown below, increasing competition over land between Africans and the new landowners, and between their different agricultural practices, interests, and expectations, can be documented as early as the 1900s.

In response to these tensions over land and fearing the loss of a pool of readily available rural labourers and decreasing tax revenue, colonial thinkers and officials, in both Portugal and in Mozambique, called for further “protection” measures, or rights of occupancy, to be extended to African populations. Colonial officials were slowly realizing the difficulty of reaching the delicate balance between promoting economic expansion and maintaining a steady labour force. The “native reserve” (reserva indígena), ubiquitous in southern and southeastern Africa in this period, was one of the instruments used by colonial governments to address these concerns, but also to alleviate mounting rural disputes and to encourage Africans to settle.⁹ Though with specific histories and consequences in South Africa, Southern Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe), or Mozambique, to name only three of the territories where this policy was put in place, reserves were generally aimed at dividing space between settler and African populations, at the symbolic and economic levels. This not only strongly affected the latter’s lives under colonial rule but would in some cases have lasting consequences in post-independence African states. Why colonial officials resorted to reserves and how they justified their existence, as well as the day-to-day reality inside the reserves and their role in the economic and social lives of African populations, varied even within territories and across time, depending on different factors.¹⁰

In the case of Mozambique, Inhambane, a province located in the southern part of the territory, constitutes a particularly interesting case for the study of the land question in this period, as well as the practical consequences of native reserves and other instruments of rural ordering of space, populations, and economic activities. Specific local ecological conditions—namely, the fact that the region’s soils are predominantly sandy and lacking in water and that rainfall is irregular, making it prone to periodic hunger and drought—strongly shaped the type of occupation and uses of the land in Inhambane. Understandably, the majority of the population and the economic activities of the province were concentrated in the fertile lands along the Indian Ocean coast.¹¹ The majority of the population in the province (339,501 in 1917) lived on subsistence farming and occasionally sold coconuts, cashews, and mafurra (Trichilia emetica) in markets. Cultivators mostly grew foodstuffs like maize, manioc, sweet potato, banana trees, and coconut trees, among other crops. Cashew and madura trees grew naturally across the region.¹² Migrant labour would play a key role in the history of the province: Thousands of men would eventually join migrant labour flows to Natal’s sugar plantations and the Rand’s mines across the border, a movement that Portuguese and South African authorities later turned into a profitable business through bilateral agreements.¹³

From the 1860s, Inhambane’s coastal areas attracted a number of settlers and companies interested in growing sugar cane, a crop that seemed exceptionally suited to local ecological conditions. But instead of growing it for actual sugar production and perhaps turning Inhambane into a smaller Natal, they quickly realized that better profits could be obtained from the sope business. Sope was the local name for the alcoholic spirit made from sugar cane that was extremely popular among African populations.¹⁴ Unable to resist the gradual land alienation occurring in the region, many Africans were forced by landowners to grow sugar for sope instead of traditional foodstuffs. By the early twentieth century, Inhambane’s coastal areas had become a point of contention between different authorities in Mozambique and the metropole, but also the site of growing tensions between settlers and African farmers, to which the latter sometimes responded by moving to avoid forced sugar cultivation.

Dismayed by the concentration on sugar cane in a region they believed could become a centre of agricultural production and fearing that African farmers would leave Inhambane without a labour force and stop paying their taxes, local officials proposed the creation of native reserves in the region, a possibility that was already included in the 1909 Land Law. Reserves, the governor of Inhambane argued, could be used to allow African farmers to grow foodstuffs, to ensure a stable labour force, or to keep European and African areas separated.¹⁵ As a result of official pressure, the first reserve in the region, covering the entire district of Zavala, with 102,575 inhabitants and the highest population density in the province, would be created in 1911, with several others being created in the following years.¹⁶

The districts of Manica and Chimoio, located in central Mozambique near the border with Southern Rhodesia, witnessed similar developments during the same period. These districts were part of the provinces of Manica and Sofala, an area of approximately 135,000 square kilometres placed under the rule of the Mozambique Company between 1892 and 1942. Formed mostly with foreign capital, this chartered company had a corporate structure with headquarters in Lisbon and an administrative structure in Manica and Sofala centred in Beira, its capital. Like other chartered companies, it had obligations vis-à-vis its shareholders and vis-à-vis the Portuguese state, but in many ways, it did not act much differently from other colonial powers with territories under their direct administration.¹⁷

When it came to the land question, company officials were faced with the same dilemmas as officials in Mozambique under direct Portuguese rule. As they were interested in attracting white settlers and companies to Manica and Sofala, regions like Manica were a priority. Located in the west of the territory and bordering Southern Rhodesia, the district of Manica, with 10,050 square kilometres and a budding gold mining industry, took on a central role in the company’s initial years, concentrating an important part of the African labour demand, for mines, infrastructure construction, and agriculture.¹⁸ Shona-speaking peoples in the region had historically engaged in agriculture in the region’s fertile lands, their preferred foodstuffs being millet, sorghum, and maize, but were also involved in gold mining in mountainous areas.¹⁹ Understandably, this centrality of Manica was reflected in the geography of land concessions. Indeed, the company’s land policy in the first years of the twentieth century reflected the aspiration to develop the western area of the territory, as the best lands—namely, in the districts of Manica and Chimoio—were swiftly set aside for settlers, many of them interested in growing maize for export and to supply the region’s mines. Manica and Chimoio would quickly become centres of maize production, largely as a result of the company’s supply of forced labour to settler farmers, but also due to a generous land concession policy and other forms of support.²⁰ As small and medium-sized land grants increased in strategic areas near the railway line connecting central Mozambique to Southern Rhodesia, so did the conflicts between white settlers and African farmers, who were responsible for significant agricultural production in the region.²¹

To avoid conflicts with settlers, damages to their gardens, or simply to avoid forced labour, in the early 1910s many African farmers escaped to other areas, while others were evicted by landowners without any compensation. Similar to what happened in the coastal areas of Inhambane, as a reaction to the situation in Manica and Chimoio, in 1913 a number of company officials proposed the demarcation of native reserves in these districts to “protect” African crops, but also to ensure a labour supply and maintain tax revenues.²² The first reserves in Manica and Chimoio would, however, only be created in 1916.²³

The districts of Zavala, in Inhambane, and Manica and Chimoio, in the Mozambique Company’s territory, thus had a great deal in common at the beginning of the twentieth century: Both regions’ best lands had attracted settlers, in one case interested in growing sugar cane, in the other maize; landowners depended on African labour for their production; conflicts had arisen between settler and African farmers, and situations of abuse had been reported; and authorities had come to perceive these tensions as a result of the confluence of the labour, land, tax, and agriculture questions, to which native reserves had been advanced as a solution. These cases were also similar on another level. According to available sources, even though reserves were created on paper in specific areas of Inhambane and Manica and Chimoio, they did not have their intended results. In Manica and Chimoio, few farmers moved to the reserves and authorities did not force them to do so. In both Inhambane and Manica and Chimoio, some reserves originally included land concessions that were not vacated, while parts of others were eventually granted to or illegally occupied by settlers, thus revealing the porous boundaries of property divisions in these regions, the volatility of official policies, and the ineffectiveness of the government of Mozambique and of the company. African populations, in turn, were not always informed about reserves or were understandably dubious about their merits, especially when they included lands with poor soils or when they were situated in peripheral areas, far from markets, roads, or their workplaces, as was the case in Manica. Farmers would furthermore continue to periodically move to better agricultural lands near riverbanks, especially in times of drought, showing that officials had also been unable to curb one of the African farming practices to which they most objected.²⁴

Reserves were therefore not the panacea some officials had naively hoped they would be, nor did they contribute to a neat and stable separation between Africans and settlers or to conflict-free rural areas. They were furthermore not consensual in Mozambique’s colonial society. In the 1920s, official land policies in Inhambane faced opposition, particularly from groups of European farmers, who feared reserves would bar them from accessing the best land they felt they were entitled to, jeopardise the supply of a steady labour force, and ultimately allow African farmers to become their competitors.²⁵ Reserves nevertheless continued to be created on paper, and by 1942, as map 2.2 shows, thousands of hectares had been set aside.

In central Mozambique under company rule, until the 1940s several reserves would also be created, in the province of Manica but especially in the Zambezi Valley (province of Sofala), which was increasingly attracting the interest of companies determined to expand sisal, sugar, and cotton plantations. Reserves were furthermore created in areas where African rice, cotton, coconut, or fruit tree production was particularly strong, activities that the company wanted to stimulate.²⁶ Ultimately, the company’s native reserve geography followed a specific logic: In areas of strong European settlement, like the districts of Manica and Chimoio, reserves were mostly created in areas with poor soils and located far from markets and roads; in the Zambezi Valley and in existing sites of African production, reserves were normally larger in size and located in areas with a higher African population density. In the first case, reserves solved the competition for the best lands in favour of settlers, barring African farmers from competing with settler agriculture, while in the second case reserves were spaces of inclusion of African farmers in the capitalist system, under company and large concessionary surveillance, and were also thought of as an incentive to African agriculture.²⁷

The Legalization of Africans Living Inside Alienated and Vacant Land

Though advanced as a solution to the problems that some officials perceived in rural areas, the native reserves created since the 1910s in Mozambique were not the only instrument of ordering of space available to administrations. Indeed, while new reserves were put in place in the 1920s, authorities also turned their attention to what was happening inside alienated and vacant land.

In the company’s territory, in the early 1900s officials had not legislated specifically on the possibility of African individual property because they argued Africans could avail themselves of the general law. Some Africans had in fact already received land titles in Sofala, and authorities would just need to protect their rights in case landholders decided to evict them from their concessions.²⁸ And even when tensions between Africans and European settlers emerged in the districts of Manica and Chimoio in the early 1910s, as European farmers often encroached on African gardens, forced African farmers to work, or evicted them altogether, not all officials were convinced that native reserves were the right solution, arguing that the territory had a “labour problem,” not a land one. Convinced of the need to support European agriculture in Manica and Chimoio by ensuring a stable and readily available labour force, some officials argued that the company needed to encourage Africans to remain on alienated land, even though European farmers might feel this was against their interests.²⁹

A few years later, the situation of African farmers in alienated land had worsened, as a report from Chimoio shows, with African chiefs complaining of several abuses in European farms. Though difficult to quantify, the situation was so worrying that during the banjas that were held between local colonial officials and African chiefs, the district administrator had advised populations to move to native reserves.³⁰ When in the early 1920s the territory was faced with what European farmers and many officials called a “labour crisis” and therefore could not afford to lose more labour force, authorities felt it was finally time to act. In the new 1924 Land Law, the company was unequivocal about the need to compensate African farmers when the landowners occupied their gardens and it laid out a procedure with official intervention to move African farmers to areas with sufficient acreage inside alienated land.³¹ These measures, officials hoped, would be sufficient to end the abuse in alienated lands.

In parallel, the 1920s witnessed the steady decline of European production in Manica and Chimoio. For the president of the company’s board of directors, writing in a 1923 report, the farmers were the ones to blame for this outcome, as they had followed poor economic strategies, especially by concentrating almost exclusively on maize, a crop whose price was volatile in international markets.³² For the director of the recently created Native Affairs Division, António Serpa, the solution for the decline of European agriculture and for what he saw as the “problem of the productivity” of the region was two-pronged: investing in African agriculture, a strategy he had been defending for a few years, as well as in companies, rather than in small and medium individual European settlers. Investing in African agriculture and companies, Serpa claimed, was cheaper and more effective than continuing to support settler farms—namely, in Manica and Chimoio—since European settlers required considerable company financial support, and African farmers tended to move from areas of European settlement to avoid encroachment on their lands.³³ To encourage Africans to produce more, access to individual property would be essential, Serpa argued. Without it Africans would neither settle permanently nor fully dedicate themselves to agriculture.³⁴ Since, in the context of international criticism against Portuguese labour policies, the company felt it was important to show it was acting to improve labour practices in its territory, these changes were explicitly envisaged not only as a way of boosting the economy, but also as a way of promoting the well-being of African populations and “civilizational progress.”³⁵

One of the ways of increasing African productivity discussed in this period was improving the conditions for African farmers living inside alienated land, a concern that was not exclusive to the Mozambique Company. Indeed, in Mozambique under direct Portuguese rule, Africans could since the 1918 Land Law receive occupation titles when living in vacant land under specific circumstances.³⁶ The 1918 bill also entrusted the Native Affairs and Survey Departments with overseeing compensation and eviction procedures in alienated land, on which African “squatters” had to be consulted before a decision was to be taken. Local administrators were, moreover, urged to defend “natives” against any “attacks” on their occupancy rights.³⁷ But when Africans were indeed evicted, they would only be given lands with similar conditions inside reserves, or alternatively they could occupy new vacant lands and eventually request an occupancy title. Other tailor-made solutions could also be reached, as in the dispute that opposed a Portuguese owner and African tenants in Maxixe, Inhambane. The latter had traditionally benefited from a number of trees in the area that later had been included in a land concession. When the owner tried to bar tenants from picking cashew from the trees to profit from the increasing price of copra and cashew nuts, African tenants complained to authorities. An agreement was eventually reached between the owner and the African farmers, with the latter agreeing to pay two cans of cashew nuts annually in order to remain on the property.³⁸

As conflicts in alienated land continued, in 1927 a commission was nominated by the government of Mozambique to draft the rules on the amount of land to be demarcated for squatters inside concessions. Two categories of land were defined, and two corresponding areas for squatters generally recommended: “poor” soils, where tracts for Africans should be of five hectares per hut, and “rich” soils, where two hectares per hut would be sufficient.³⁹ To further contribute to the “protection” of African squatters and prevent abuses, in the late 1930s additional legislation was enacted. By demanding that tenancy be made official in a contract approved by local authorities, where squatters agreed to pay landlords in cash, wage work, or in kind, they were in effect transformed into tenant labourers or sharecroppers.⁴⁰

In the Mozambique Company’s territory, the Great Depression had brought new opportunities for African farmers, who had been growing their crops on vacant or alienated land newly abandoned by impoverished European landowners. To stimulate this emerging sector, company authorities decided to officially designate the most dynamic ones as “African farmers,” a suggestion previously made in Portuguese and international fora by experts and colonial officers.⁴¹ This formal recognition, benefiting, for instance, farmers who were growing maize in the district of Manica—once the stronghold of European agriculture—using imported implements and even animal traction, was made through incentives such as an exemption of forced labour to those who had yields of up to thirty bags of maize.⁴² Officials nevertheless acknowledged that these measures had to be limited to avoid competition with settlers, since the company wanted to continue to encourage European agriculture.⁴³

Research about the regions of Manica and Sofala where Africans benefited from this formal recognition as “African farmers” shows that it contributed to social differentiation and an improvement of living conditions, but also that this differentiation confirmed pre-existing hierarchies present in local societies. Furthermore, it shows that these farmers where not completely shielded from disputes with European settlers, who feared their competition in the agricultural sector.⁴⁴

The Separation of Plots for Individual Smallholders inside Native Reserves

As discussed above, even though reserves were originally created to “protect” African farmers and their livelihoods, the reality on the ground was often very different. Sources from mid-1920s Inhambane show how easily areas inside reserves that were actually being used by African farmers were alienated to settlers, or how Africans were forced by settlers to pay to stay and use land that had supposedly been set aside for them freely.⁴⁵ This situation was probably a result of factors such as authorities’ unwillingness to intervene more strongly in the agrarian relations that were forming in rural areas, in spite of the injustice to African farmers; the continuing will to alienate land to settlers; the lack of a cadastral survey and of clear demarcations between alienated land and reserves; and the limited presence of officials in the districts.

But unlike in the districts of Manica and Chimoio under company rule, where most Africans refused to move to reserves because of their poor quality and location, and therefore probably did not perceive reserves as a way of improving their situation, in Inhambane there is some indication that farmers actually valued local reserves. In fact, Africans were actually the ones proposing the demarcation of individual tracts of land inside reserves: In 1926, for instance, a group of local African chiefs presented a written plea to authorities regarding what they viewed as “the land shortage problem” in the province and asked for individual plots to be assigned to them inside reserves.⁴⁶ This proposal was rejected in early 1927.

The reason put forth by Augusto Cabral, the director of the Native Affairs Department and a fervent supporter of the reserves, for rejecting their plea was that setting aside plots inside the reserves would violate the principle that underpinned their very creation. He also feared it would lead to the same “dangers” for the rest of Africans living in them identified inside European estates: differentiation and the establishment of servile relations.⁴⁷ For Cabral, the author of ethnographies of Inhambane and of Mozambique more generally, reserves should ideally be areas where populations would live according to local custom, where Africans would enjoy the land communally, and not individually, as Europeans did.⁴⁸ Interestingly, even though Augusto Cabral took this decision in 1925, he apparently was not familiar with the new land law applicable to the territory under the rule of the Mozambique Company, and specifically with its provisions on titling inside the reserves.⁴⁹

How did the company come to approve these provisions? Sources show how this outcome was informed by the practice of land concessions in Manica and Sofala and the “problems” that officials perceived. Following a surge in requests for individual land titles under the 1924 Land Law by African farmers, the Cadastral Department had been faced with their inability to afford demarcation fees. To avoid these costs while at the same time satisfying the requests made by these farmers, authorities decided to allow land titling for Africans inside reserves, where in their view demarcation was not necessary.⁵⁰ According to the provisions in the 1924 Land Law, these farmers could eventually become actual owners of the plots after twenty years of permanent occupation. Furthermore, similarly to the rules that applied outside reserves, a plot inside a reserve would be considered vacant and therefore susceptible of being titled if it had not been cultivated or if its occupiers had been absent for twenty-four months consecutively.⁵¹

The first individual plots inside reserves would be titled in 1931 in Sofala, after authorities confirmed that the farmers making the requests had already been tilling the land for a considerable period of time.⁵² By 1932, as requests for similar titles increased and several doubts arose, the company’s administrative advisory board issued an opinion on the size of the plots to be set aside inside reserves. It recommended one hectare of land per farmer and additionally half a hectare per child over fourteen or per wife for polygamous farmers, up to a total maximum of fifteen hectares.⁵³

In the same year, in the meantime, José Ferreira Bossa, the acting governor of Manica and Sofala, issued his “Instructions for the Development of Native Agriculture.” The 1932 legislation based on these instructions aimed at stimulating African agriculture through the organization of “native property” was partly a response to the shortcomings of the 1924 Land Law when it came to defining plots inside native reserves.⁵⁴ While continuing to encourage Africans to settle in reserves through individual property titles, without which Bossa felt Africans would be limited to their “ancestral practices” and nomadism, it adopted measures aimed at “modernizing” and “rationalizing” agricultural and economic practices, in line with international debates on this topic and plans put in place elsewhere in southern Africa.⁵⁵ But since this plan had to be compatible with the “labour crisis” and the “rhythm of the national interest,” unsurprisingly not all reserves would be included so as to avoid creating direct competition to European agriculture, then facing a steady decline.⁵⁶ The districts of Manica and Chimoio, as well as other centres of “European colonization,” would be excluded from this plan. The technical support given to Africans inside the reserves would also be more limited than in European areas, with seeds and implements being lent, rather than freely distributed. And the trade-off for the fact that farmers would have the ability to grow the crop of their choice was the stronger presence of extension services in the company’s reserves, and therefore of vigilance on their activities, as well as the limits to the areas they could have under cultivation and the fact that a correctional sentence would be the consequence of the abandonment of the plots distributed.

The Nhangau Colonato and the Parcelling and Distribution of Land to African Smallholders on Vacant Land

A third type of configuration advanced in this period to stimulate African agriculture was the colonato, or model settlement. Available evidence shows that between the 1920s and the early 1940s only one settlement of this type was created in Mozambique, in the Mozambique Company’s territory. In the 1950s and ’60s, however, as settlement and villagization schemes gained popularity across colonial Africa as social engineering tools, becoming part and parcel of late colonialism’s “development” apparatus (see deGrassi’s chapter in this volume), Mozambique would also come to know several comparable settlements created for different purposes.⁵⁷

Perhaps influenced by a similar idea suggested by a former governor, or by the discussions on African agriculture taking place across Africa and in European metropoles, Abel de Sousa Moutinho, the district administrator of Beira in the early 1930s, was the Portuguese official behind the colonato created in the Mozambique Company’s territory.⁵⁸ In December 1933 he sent a draft project on aldeias indígenas, or native villages, to the governor of the territory, hoping they would be created in different parts of Manica and Sofala. But even before that, in June 1932, he had decided to visit the prospective site of the first model settlement near Beira, the capital of the territory, alongside the director of the Department of Agriculture, Lereno Antunes Barradas. Since much of the land in the vicinity had already been alienated, he chose the forest of Nhangau, an area with several hamlets of a sizeable density where African farmers mostly cultivated rice.⁵⁹

Having finally received government ascent for this unique project, construction work started in the area shortly thereafter. In early October 1935, the first group of Africans started settling in the areas allocated to them inside the Nhangau settlement. With 80 hectares, 51 houses built according to a style of “transition to the European civilization,” and 174 inhabitants chosen by the local chief, Moutinho hoped Nhangau would help promote a “segregation of interests,” whereby African production would be stimulated but without competing with European agriculture.⁶⁰ The model settlement would also work as a “centre of civilizational dissemination.”⁶¹ The aims of the colonato of Nhangau were thus productive, in that Moutinho hoped to transform African farming systems, as much as social and political ones. But like the reserves or the tracts of land set aside in alienated land analyzed in this chapter, the settlement was not meant to jeopardize the settler sector.

Because of the nature of this specific model settlement—under which each family would receive a plot of land that would have to be cultivated for a specified number of hours each day, while the children would take care of the livestock, with company officials and experts providing technical supervision and assistance—this configuration of African land access had a clear paternalist dimension. But it also had a coercive dimension that was not present in the other instruments of rural ordering analyzed in this chapter.⁶² Nhangau was clearly planned as a social engineering tool, where African farmers would be taught “modern” farming techniques and grow the crops authorities directed them to.

Given that populations in the region had been known to escape their fiscal and labour duties when necessary, while also taking advantage of opportunities to improve their livelihoods by remaining on alienated land, it would be difficult to anticipate what the outcome of an experiment like Nhangau could be. By 1940, in a paper analyzing the first years of the model settlement, Moutinho thought that it had been a success. Those that argued Africans should be left to their traditions had been proven wrong, he added.⁶³ He also believed that as many as twenty-two families were ready for their “emancipation” and could become individual landholders of plots of at least four hectares. After three years they would receive a temporary title, and after seventeen they would become full landowners.⁶⁴ The use of the word “emancipation” is particularly interesting in this case: From what would those families be emancipating themselves? African “traditions”? On the conditions they were experiencing inside the model settlement, Moutinho made no mention, choosing to simply celebrate the socio-economic differentiation that seemed to be taking place in Nhangau.

Despite his optimism, Moutinho’s pet project would come to an end shortly thereafter. With the termination of the Mozambique Company’s charter, in 1942 the territory of Manica and Sofala came under direct Portuguese rule, and a number of the new officials working in the region considered Nhangau a failure.⁶⁵ In 1949, what was left of the settlement was turned into an asylum for beggars living on the streets of Beira. A prison, where many Africans would be incarcerated over the years, would later be built in its vicinity. As an investigation carried out in the region has shown, the Nhangau settlement had been built by correctional workers, and the families chosen to live in it had remained there against their will.⁶⁶ This coercive dimension probably helps to explain the failure of Nhangau. In other model settlement schemes in colonial Africa, native smallholders managed to negotiate with officials and experts and even influence the agricultural practices being promoted.⁶⁷ The evidence thus far shows that this was not the case at Nhangau. But another partial explanation for the failure of Nhangau, which needs to be further explored, could lie in the opposition of the company’s own director of the Native Affairs Department to the settlement, as he explicitly opposed the social model proposed by Moutinho.⁶⁸

In spite of this short-lived experience, the idea of villagization and agricultural schemes for African smallholders would continue to gain ground in the following years, attracting officials with ambitious economic plans and motivated experts from different areas.⁶⁹ And the perception in official circles in Portugal was actually relatively favourable to Nhangau, which would be discussed in coming projects in the 1940s aimed at promoting the “social and economic organization of native populations” as an example of the move toward fixed agriculture.⁷⁰

Final Notes

During the period analyzed in this chapter, officials in both Mozambique under direct Portuguese rule and in the Mozambique Company’s territory seemed to be constantly trying to adjust to the agrarian reality that they had helped create in Mozambican colonial society through a system that institutionalized “racialized difference” in terms of access to land and dispossessed Africans. The tensions between the divergent goals discussed in the chapter’s introduction were always present, with different agents with unequal power, from governors to district officers, to European farmers, to African chiefs, defending varied interests and placing an emphasis on the land question or on the labour one. Land and labour were, however, inextricably linked.

The configurations of African land access discussed here were the result of multiple negotiations, did not receive unanimous support, and were not particularly “successful,” not even by colonial administrators’ standards, perhaps because the contradictions between a steady supply of African labour to European farms and the creation of a class of African yeoman farmers in areas of competition for land could not be solved; because the clash between different farming practices in alienated land, a site of unequal power relations, was inevitable; or because African farmers resisted becoming tenant labourers, sharecroppers, reserve dwellers, or model settlement residents in unfair conditions and fought to maintain their autonomy. There was also a great deal of experimentalism and paternalism, certainly in the case of Nhangau, where the use of coercive methods is still engrained in the memories of the populations in the region today.

If the 1920s signalled an increasing concern on the part of the state and the company with the regulation of agrarian relations inside and across boundaries, which as we saw were porous, the crisis caused by the Great Depression and the further decline of the settler economy would lead authorities to turn even more to the question of African production in the 1940s, a context in which arguments in favour of African access to individual property, with different goals, gained ground. The labour question would nevertheless always be present, as would that of the competition between African and European farmers. The “nomadic habits” of Africans were also increasingly seen as a “problem” for some, or a “backward tradition” for others, incompatible with a territory that had built a network of boundaries and acceptable behaviours. In this context, local land custom and “traditional” agricultural practices were increasingly seen as obstacles to economic growth.⁷¹ And even though native reserves would still be considered necessary in the 1930s and ’40s, officials aimed to make them more effective through technical intervention, while other solutions outside reserves were also proposed, combining incentives and coercion.⁷²

Notes to Chapter 2

Research for this chapter was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, IP, through a CEEC contract (CEECIND/01948/2017), as well as by the Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia (UIDB/00286/2020, https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00286/2020, and UIDP/00286/2020, https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/00286/2020).

1. 1 Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Concessão de terrenos: Moçambique: catálogo. Introdução de Maria Luísa Abrantes (ME, IICT, 1989), AHU.Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino-SEMU-S/Nº-1D-SEMU-DGU-PT 1905 1906 Concessão de terrenos-Procº 645-681 MOÇ.

2. 2 Carta de lei of 9 May 1901 and the Regulamento geral provisório para a execução da carta de lei de 9 de Maio de 1901 sobre concessões de terrenos no ultramar, of 2 September 1901, in Colecção da legislação novíssima do ultramar—1901, vol. 29 (Companhia Typographica, 1902).

3. 3 Tania Murray Li, The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics (Duke University Press, 2007), 48. For a recent reflection on the construction of “racial regimes of ownership” in Canada, Australia, and Israel and Palestine with a strong comparative approach, see Brenna Bandhar, The Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land, and Racial Regimes of Ownership (Duke University Press, 2018).

4. 4 When highlighting this distinction, Malyn Newitt spoke of a “trinity” of “native” policies. Malyn Newitt, Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years (C. Hurst and Co., 1981), 100.

5. 5 By choosing to focus on these three particular configurations in this specific period I am necessarily leaving out other configurations that could also be particularly telling—from the scheme for African smallholders put in place by Swiss Protestant missionaries in the 1910s, to the so-called cotton concentrations of the late 1940s, to cotton co-operatives in the late 1950s. For a discussion of the farming scheme put in place by Swiss missionaries in southern Mozambique in the 1910s, see Heidi Gengenbach, “‘I’ll Bury You in the Border!’: Women’s Land Struggles in Post-War Facazisse (Magude District), Mozambique,” Journal of Southern African Studies 24, no. 1 (1998): 19–22. On the “cotton concentrations,” see Tiago Saraiva, Fascist Pigs: Technoscientific Organisms and the History of Fascism (MIT Press, 2016), 179–80. On co-operatives, see Allen F. Isaacman, “The Mozambique Cotton Cooperative: The Creation of a Grassroots Alternative to Forced Commodity Production,” African Studies Review 25, nos. 2–3 (1982): 5–25.

6. 6 The land law applicable to the regions under direct Portuguese rule in this period was the Carta de lei of 9 May 1901 and the Regulamento geral provisório para a execução da carta de lei de 9 de Maio de 1901 sobre concessões de terrenos no ultramar, of 2 September 1901, in Colecção da legislação novíssima do ultramar—1901, vol. 29 (Companhia Typographica, 1902). The first land law approved for the region of Manica and Sofala under company rule was the Regulamento para a concessão de terrenos por aforamento no território da Companhia de Moçambique, e sobre a ocupação provisória dos mesmos, of 2 July 1892, in Boletim da Companhia de Moçambique (hereafter BCM) no. 2 (30 July 1892). It is important to note that the company’s land law was prepared by the company but approved by the Portuguese government.

7. 7 For a broader discussion of these developments, see Bárbara Direito, “The Land Question in Early Twentieth-Century Portuguese Legal Colonial Thought,” Portuguese Journal of Social Science 16, no. 2 (2017): 181–93; Bárbara Direito, “Land and Colonialism in Mozambique—Policies and Practice in Inhambane, c.1900–c.1940,” Journal of Southern African Studies 39, no. 2 (2013): 353–69; and Bárbara Direito, “African Access to Land in Early Twentieth Century Portuguese Colonial Thought,” in Property Rights, Land and Territory in the European Overseas Empires, ed. José Vicente Serrão, Bárbara Direito, Eugénia Rodrigues, and Susana Münch Miranda (CEHC-IUL, 2014), 255–63.

8. 8 On forced labour and Portuguese labour policies in Africa, see Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo, The “Civilising Mission” of Portuguese Colonialism, 1870–1930 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). On labour policies in Manica and Sofala, see Eric Allina, Slavery by Any Other Name: African Life under Company Rule in Colonial Mozambique (University of Virginia Press, 2012).

9. 9 The 1909 Land Law was the first in Mozambique under direct Portuguese rule to allow for the possibility of native reserves. Regímen provisório para a concessão de terrenos do estado na província de Moçambique, de 9 de Julho de 1909, in Colecção da legislação novíssima do ultramar—1909, vol. 37 (Companhia Typographica, 1910).

10. 10 On native reserves in southern Africa and their consequences, see Colin Bundy, The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry (David Philip, Currey, 1988); Robin Palmer, Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia (Heinemann, 1977); Christopher Youé, “Black Squatters on White Farms: Segregation and Agrarian Change in Kenya, South Africa, and Rhodesia, 1902–1963,” International History Review 24, no. 3 (2002): 558–602; Jeffrey Butler, Robert I. Rotberg, and John Adams, The Black Homelands of South Africa: The Political and Economic Development of Bophuthatswana and KwaZulu (University of California Press, 1977). On native reserves in Angola, see Vicente Ferreira, A situação de Angola: Circular-consulta enviada às associações comerciais, industriais e agrícolas da província de Angola (Imprensa Nacional, 1927), and also Angola: Relatório da repartição dos serviços de cadastro e colonização (Agência Geral das Colónias. Divisão de Publicações e Biblioteca, 1933). According to the latter report (pp. 12–13), between 1912 and 1932, 154,556 hectares in Angola were declared native reserves.

11. 11 Mouzinho de Albuquerque, Moçambique, 1896–1898, vol. 2 (Agência Geral das Colónias, 1934), 36; Carlos A. dos Santos, Relatório do govêrno do distrito de Inhambane nos anos de 1931, 1932, 1933 e 1934 (Agência Geral das Colónias, 1937), 14–15.

12. 12 In his ethnographic report on Inhambane, Cabral distinguished the crops preferred by the different peoples of the region in different areas and was very critical of the slash-and-burn farming method used. Augusto Cabral, Raças, usos e costumes dos indígenas do districto de Inhambane (Imprensa Nacional, 1910), 102–4. On demographic aspects of Inhambane, see José B. C. Araújo, Relatório acerca da administração do distrito de Inhambane, 1917 (Imprensa da Universidade, 1920).

13. 13 Centro de Estudos Africanos, O mineiro moçambicano: Um estudo sobre a exportação de mão de obra em Inhambane (Centro de Estudos Africanos—Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 1998); Patrick Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity: Migrant Laborers in Mozambique and South Africa, c. 1860–1910 (Heinemann, 1994).

14. 14 Local African populations in Inhambane distilled, for instance, maize, cashew, and manioc to produce local spirits, but also produced fermented spirits. For a detailed description of the techniques they used, see Cabral, Usos e costumes dos indígenas do districto, 94–8. See also Eduardo Medeiros, Bebidas moçambicanas de fabrico caseiro (Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, 1988).

15. 15 José Cabral, Relatório do governador, 1911–1912—Distrito de Inhambane (Imprensa Nacional, 1912), 47–8.

16. 16 According to official sources, Zavala had a density of 63.9 inhabitants per square kilometre. Araújo, Relatório, 110. Not all, however, were in favour of reserves. For a strong critique of reserves, see Augusto Baptista, “Concessão de terrenos. VI. Propriedade e Reservas Indígenas,” O Africano, December 12, 1913. For more on the case of Inhambane, see Direito, “Land and Colonialism.”

17. 17 The origins and powers of the Mozambique Company are discussed in Bárbara Direito, Terra e colonialismo em Moçambique—a região de Manica e Sofala sob a Companhia de Moçambique, 1892–1942 (Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2020), 47–67.

18. 18 Eric Allina-Pisano, “Negotiating Colonialism: Africans, the State, and the Market in Manica District, Mozambique, 1895–c.1935” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2002), 61–2.

19. 19 Allina-Pisano, “Negotiating Colonialism,” 32–5.

20. 20 The company provided different forms of support to European farmers—namely, financial, through credit and loans, but also technical, distributing advice, and seeds. See Direito, Terra e colonialismo, chap. 5.

21. 21 Respostas aos quesitos sobre os três centros de produção à data existentes no Território, anexo à carta n.º 222 do governador interino para o administrador delegado, 17–2–1910, pp. 3–16, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (hereafter “ANTT”)-Fundo da Companhia de Moçambique (hereafter “FCM”), n.º de ordem 2166, n.º 380-AH11. For an early effort at collecting local custom in Manica by one of its administrators, see Cezar Augusto Cardotte, “Usos e costumes indígenas da circunscrição de Manica,” Revista de Manica e Sofala 47 (1907): 128–42. Another company administrator proposed the codification of African custom more broadly in Manica and Sofala in 1909. As many other similar exercises, it was very sparse when it came to the land question. Manoel Monteiro Lopes, “Subsídios para um código de usos e costumes indígenas no território,” BCM, no. 16 (16 August 1909): 117–24.

22. 22 Ofício do chefe da circunscrição de Chimoio para o governador, 21–5–1913, Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique (hereafter “AHM”)-FCM, Administração de Lisboa, processo “Concessões de terrenos,” caixa 140, pasta 7. Carta do governador para o administrador delegado, 21–5–1913, attached to carta da administração da Companhia de Moçambique de Lisboa para os comités de Paris e de Londres, 24–12–1914, p. 7, AHM-FCM, Administração de Lisboa, processo “Concessões de terrenos,” caixa 141, pasta 11.

23. 23 Ordem n.º 3648, 15 February 1916, BCM n.º 4, 15 February 1916. Ordem n.º 3659, 13 March 1916, BCM n.º 6, 16 March 1916.

24. 24 Cópia de quesitos e conclusões da conferência sobre o problema indígena de 15 a 23 de Dezembro de 1925, pp. 10–11, attached to carta n.º 323 do governador para o administrador delegado, 26–12–1925, ANTTFCM, n.º de ordem 2193, RA40. Nota da direcção dos negócios indígenas n.º 64/749, 29–7–1929, AHMFCM, Negócios Indígenas, processos, caixa 24, pasta “P.149, cx 25, Terrenos B) Reservas Indígenas.” See also Cabral, Usos e costumes dos indígenas do districto, 52–3; Soares Zilhão, “Reservas indígenas,” Jornal União, 20 January 1934.

25. 25 José Cardoso, “Associação do fomento agrícola da província de Moçambique,” Boletim da Agência Geral das Colónias 54 (1929): 161.

26. 26 For the case of rice production in the district of Beira, see Ofício n.º 43 do chefe da circunscrição da Beira para o director da agrimensura, 23–2–1921, AHM-FCM, Secretaria Geral, processo n.º 2744, caixa 675. On reserves in Sofala, see Cópia de quesitos e conclusões da conferência sobre o problema indígena de 15 a 23 de Dezembro de 1925, pp. 9–10, attached to carta n.º 323 do governador para o administrador delegado, 26–12–1925, ANTT-FCM, n.º de ordem 2193, RA40; and also Luís de Sá Pereira, Relatório da visita do especialista de algodão à Chemba em novembro de 1925 (Imprensa da Companhia de Moçambique, 1926).

27. 27 For a development of this argument, see Direito, Terra e colonialismo, 249.

28. 28 Relatório sobre o projecto do regulamento de concessões de terreno nos territórios de Manica e Sofala, de 17–4–1907, p. 31, attached to carta do governador para o administrador delegado, 1–8–1907, AHM-FCM, Administração de Lisboa, processo “Concessões de terrenos,” caixa 140, pasta 3.

29. 29 Carta do governador para o administrador delegado (contendo notas de vários chefes de circunscrição e directores de serviços), 21–5–1913, attached to carta da administração da Companhia de Moçambique de Lisboa para os comités de Paris e de Londres, 24–12–1914, pp. 11–14, AHM-FCM, Administração de Lisboa, processo “Concessões de terrenos,” caixa 141, pasta 11.

30. 30 Ofício do chefe da circunscrição de Chimoio para o governador, 15–11–1917, and acta da banja, AHM-FCM, Secretaria Geral, processo n.º 2744, caixa 675. Available sources do not allow us to quantify the exact number of Africans living in alienated land in Manica and Sofala. Youé provides estimates for South Africa (over 1 million), Southern Rhodesia (400,000), and Kenya (100,000) during World War I. See Youé, “Black Squatters,” 558.

31. 31 See articles 8–10 of the 1924 Land Law, Ordem n.º 4669, 12 August 1924, BCM, no. 16 (16 August 1924).

32. 32 Relatório do presidente do conselho de administração Ruy Ulrich, 11–1923, pp. 70–1, ANTT-FCM, n.º de ordem 2193, RA2.

33. 33 Allina-Pisano, “Negotiating Colonialism,” 326–7; Cópia da nota do director dos negócios indígenas, anexo n.º 11 à acta da sessão n.º 17 da JCA, 19–12–1929, pp. 2–3, AHM-FCM, Secretaria Geral, Processos, Processo n.º 506—JCA, caixa 138, pasta “1929.”

34. 34 Relatório sobre assistência social ao indígena, de 1929, pp. 13–14, AHM-FCM, Negócios Indígenas, Processos, caixa 18, processo “112/25.”

35. 35 Relatório sobre assistência social ao indígena, de 1929, pp. 13–14, AHM-FCM, Negócios Indígenas, Processos, caixa 18, processo “112/25.” On the origins and reactions to the criticism against Portuguese labour policies in the 1920s, see Jerónimo, The “Civilizing Mission.”

36. 36 Regulamento para a concessão de terrenos do estado na província de Moçambique, Decreto n.º 3983, of 16 March 1918, Diário do Governo, Iª série, n.º 62, 27 March 1918.

37. 37 See articles 156–64 on African rights to land outside reserves.

38. 38 Areosa Pena, “Distrito de Inhambane fim do milando dos terrenos?,” Tempo 88 (1972): 32–40.

39. 39 Circular n.º 893 A/9/B do director de Agrimensura, 6–5–1927, p. 2, attached to nota do director de agrimensura para o director dos negócios indígenas, 14–10–1927, AHM-Fundo da Direcção dos Serviços de Negócios Indígenas (hereafter “FDSNI”), caixa 1275, pasta “1926–1927.”

40. 40 Portaria provincial n.º 3286, de 19 de Janeiro de 1938, BOM n.º 3, I série, de 19 de Janeiro de 1938; portaria n.º 3796, de 23 de Agosto de 1939, BOM, n.º 34, I série, de 23 de Agosto de 1939.

41. 41 At the Institut Colonial International’s sessions, the link between the increase in African production and individual land tenure, and the idea of creating special conditions for African progressive farmers, was discussed since the 1920s. Daniel Zolla, “Les méthodes à appliquer pour faire produire aux colonies les matières premières à utiliser dans la mère-patrie,” in Compte-Rendu de la Session Tenue à Paris les 17, 18 et 19 mai 1921, ed. Institut Colonial International (Institut Colonial International, 1921), 564–7; E. De Wildeman, “Enquête sur l’extension intensive et rationnelle des cultures indigènes dans les colonies tropicales,” in Compte-rendu de la session tenue à Bruxelles les 24, 25, 26 juin 1929, ed. Institut Colonial International (Établissements Généraux d’Imprimerie, 1929). Similar ideas were supported in Portugal in the 1930s but were met with opposition from officials and experts concerned with the labour question. See José Penha Garcia, “Assistência económica aos indígenas,” in III Congresso colonial nacional de 8 a 15 de Maio de 1930, Actas das sessões e teses, ed. Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa (SGL, Tip. and Pap. Carmona, 1934); and Conclusões, notas e bases propostas nas teses, comunicações e memórias apresentadas ao primeiro congresso de agricultura colonial (Imp. Moderna, 1934).

42. 42 Joel Maurício das Neves, “Economy, Society and Labour Migration in Central Mozambique, 1930–c.1965: A Case Study of Manica Province” (PhD diss., SOAS, London University, 1998), 135; Allina, Slavery by Any, 163–5; Allina-Pisano, “Negotiating Colonialism,” 334–5. According to Anderson and Throup, the measures to improve “African agriculture” put in place in Kenya during the Depression were aimed at ensuring families earned enough to pay their taxes. Without this revenue, they argued, the very survival of the colonial state was at risk. David Anderson and David Throup, “Africans and Agricultural Production in Colonial Kenya: The Myth of the War as a Watershed,” Journal of African History 26, no. 4 (1985): 327–45.

43. 43 Acta n.º 5 da sessão da CAI de 6–6–1934, AHM-FCM, Negócios Indígenas, Processos, caixa 6, pasta “P.32-Cx2.a, Assistência social B-Actas da Comissão de Assistência ao Indígena.” Unlike Manica, in the 1930s Chimoio continued to be the stronghold of European farmers, and officials felt there was no room to stimulate African agriculture. Neves, “Economy, Society,” 145.

44. 44 Neves, “Economy, Society,” 136; Allina, Slavery y Any, 175.

45. 45 “Reservas indígenas,” O Brado Africano, 7 March 1925; “Reservas indígenas,” O Brado Africano, 11 June 1927.

46. 46 Ofício n.º 1470 da direcção de agrimensura para o director dos negócios Indígenas, de 25 de Agosto de 1926, AHM-FDSNI, caixa 1275, pasta 1926–1927.

47. 47 Ofício n.º 427/49 do director dos negócios indígenas para o director de agrimensura, de 22 de Fevereiro de 1927, AHM-FDSNI, caixa 1275, pasta 1926–1927.

48. 48 Augusto Cabral, Racas, usos e costumes dos indígenas do districto; António Augusto Cabral, Raças, usos e costumes dos indígenas da província de Moçambique (Imprensa Nacional, 1925).

49. 49 See articles 5 and 6 of Ordem n.º 4669, of 12 August 1924, BCM n.º 16, 16 August 1924.

50. 50 Relatório do presidente do conselho de administração Ruy Ulrich, 11–1923, p. 42, ANTT-FCM, n.º de ordem 2193, RA2.

51. 51 Article 7 of Ordem n.º 4669, of 12 August 1924, BCM n.º 16, 16 August 1924.

52. 52 Acta da 3.ª sessão da JCA, 20–3–1931, p. 2, AHM-FCM, Secretaria Geral, processo n.º 506, caixa 139. Attachment to acta da 9ª sessão da JCA, 3–9–1931, AHM-FCM, Secretaria Geral, processo n.º 506, caixa 139. Relatório da direcção de agrimensura relativo ao ano de 1931, p. 6, AHM-FCM, Relatórios, Agrimensura, caixa 23.

53. 53 Acta da 11.ª sessão da junta consultiva de administração, 11–11–1932, p. 2, AHM-FCM, Secretaria Geral, processo n.º 506, caixa 138.

54. 54 Ordem n.º 6501, of 30 September 1932, BCM n.º 19, 1 October 1932.

55. 55 José Ferreira Bossa, “O Regime de concessão de terras aos indígenas nas colónias de África,” Boletim Geral das Colónias, no. 117 (1935): 3–27. The 1932 legislation mentioned the survey on the “extension of native agriculture” carried out by the Institut Colonial International in 1929 as an influence to its principles and wording. Ordem n.º 6501, 30 September 1932, BCM n.º 19, 1 October 1932. The Master Farmer Scheme, implemented in neighbouring Southern Rhodesia, aimed to solve the problems of overcrowding and overstocking in reserves. On this scheme and its consequences for progressive African farmers, see Eira Kramer, “The Early Years: Extension Services in Peasant Agriculture in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1925–1929,” Zambezia 24, no. 2(1997): 159–79; and Terence Ranger, Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe: A Comparative Study (James Currey, 1985).

56. 56 Preamble, Ordem n.º 6501, of 30 September 1932, BCM n.º 19, 1 October 1932.

57. 57 On other colonatos and aldeamentos created in late-colonial Mozambique, see César de Castro Coelho, Aspectos da política de povoamento em Moçambique (ISCSPU, 1965); and Neves, “Economy, Society.” The possibility of draining wetlands and parcelling lands for European and African farmers had been discussed in the context of the 1920s surveys of the Limpopo Valley, in southern Mozambique, but work would only start in the 1950s. On the Inhamissa scheme, created exclusively for African farmers, see José Firmino de Sousa Monteiro and Viriato Faria da Fonseca, “Breve notícia sobre o resgate e parcelamento do machongo de Inhamissa,” Moçambique: Documentário Trimestral, no. 71 (1952): 6–36; and also J. L. Torres, “Some Settlement Schemes in the Gaza District of Southern Mozambique,” South African Journal of Economics 35 (1967): 244–55. For a discussion of similar schemes put in place in the context of the liberation war in Mozambique, see João Paulo Borges Coelho, “Protected Villages and Communal Villages in the Mozambican Province of Tete (1968–1982): A History of State Resettlement Policies, Development and War” (PhD diss., Bradford University, 1993). For the case of Angola, see F. Boaventura, “Os colonatos indígenas em Angola,” Agros, nos. 1–2 (1951): 44–50; Samuël Coghe, “Reordering Colonial Society: Model Villages and Social Planning in Rural Angola, 1920–45,” Journal of Contemporary History 52, no. 1 (2017): 16–44; and Bernardo Pinto da Cruz, “The Penal Origins of Colonial Model Villages: From Aborted Concentration Camps to Forced Resettlement in Angola (1930–1969),” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 47, no. 2 (2019): 343–71.

58. 58 Massano de Amorim, governor of Manica and Sofala in the early 1920s, had suggested the creation of farms to stimulate African agriculture in his agricultural development plan. His idea was rejected due to the fear that these farms would require labourers needed in European farms. See his Bases para a organização dos serviços e trabalhos agrícolas e para o desenvolvimento e fomento da agricultura nos territórios da Companhia de Moçambique, 13–8–1923, pp. 1–2, ANTT-FCM, n.º de ordem 2199, n.º 11-RG11.

59. 59 Abel de Sousa Moutinho, “Colonização indígena,” Boletim da Sociedade de Estudos de Moçambique 15 (1934): 75–95; Abel de Sousa Moutinho, “Colonização indígena. A povoação-granja modelo do Nhangau,” Boletim da Sociedade de Estudos de Moçambique 42 (1940): 47–68.

60. 60 Moutinho, “Colonização indígena,” 1940, 47–9; and “Colonização indígena,” 1934, 76. Several photographs documenting the construction of the settlement and the first agricultural works at Nhangau can be consulted online at the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo’s website (accessed 10 November 2021): https://digitarq.arquivos.pt/details?id=3678321 and https://digitarq.arquivos.pt/details?id=3678345. Although the photographs were taken at Nhangau, located near Beira, in Sofala, they are wrongly catalogued as having been taken in the district of Chimoio, in Manica.

61. 61 Moutinho, “Colonização Indígena,” 1940, 67.

62. 62 Moutinho, 53–4.

63. 63 Moutinho, 53.

64. 64 Moutinho, 60.

65. 65 Zachary Kagan-Guthrie, “Labor, Mobility and Coercion in Central Mozambique, 1942–1961” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2014), 213.

66. 66 Zack Kagan-Guthrie, “The Chili Pepper and the Banana Tree—Methods and Narratives in the Colonial History of Central Mozambique,” unpublished paper presented at the Colonialism and Imperialism Workshop, Princeton University, December 2011, 7–8. I thank the author for his permission to cite this unpublished paper.

67. 67 Monica M. van Beusekom, “Disjunctures in Theory and Practice: Making Sense of Change in Agricultural Development at the Office du Niger, 1920–60,” Journal of African History 41, no. 1 (2000): 79–99.

68. 68 Parecer n.º 22/II relativo ao projecto de decreto intitulado organização social e económica das populações indígenas, Diário das sessões da Assembleia Nacional, Câmara Corporativa, 3º suplemento ao n.º 104, de 16 de Abril de 1941, 10.

69. 69 On agricultural policies and the role of experts, see Joseph M. Hodge, The Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Ohio University Press, 2007).

70. 70 Francisco J. V. Machado, “Projecto de organização social e económica das populações indígenas,” Boletim Geral das Colónias, no. 178 (1940): 163–80. Parecer n.º 22/II relativo ao projecto de decreto intitulado organização social e económica das populações indígenas, Diário das sessões da Assembleia Nacional, Câmara Corporativa, 3º suplemento ao n.º 104, de 16 de Abril de 1941, 10.

71. 71 Sara Berry, “Debating the Land Question in Africa,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44, no. 4 (2002): 646–7.

72. 72 Agricultural policies promoting cash crops in post–World War II Mozambique would resort to similar combinations of incentives and coercion, but also technical assistance. See Otto Roesch, “Migrant Labour and Forced Rice Production in Southern Mozambique: The Colonial Peasantry of the Lower Limpopo Valley,” Journal of Southern African Studies 17, no. 2 (1991): 239–70; M. Anne Pitcher, “From Coercion to Incentives: The Portuguese Colonial Cotton Regime in Angola and Mozambique, 1964–1974,” in Cotton, Colonialism and Social History in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. Allen Isaacman and Richard Roberts (Heinemann, James Currey, 1995), 119–43.