The People
Mozambique's first inhabitants were the San (Bushmen). Between the first and fourth centuries AD, there was an increase in the movement of the Bantu-speaking peoples, who were migrating through the Zambezi River valley, and moved onto the plateau and coastal areas of Mozambique.
The Bantu were farmers and ironworkers. They grew crops and raised cattle. Their settlements took on increasing complexity. By the 10th century, settlements featured stone enclosures, and their inhabitants played an important role in intra-African trade to the west.
Over the next several centuries, traders from north-eastern Africa and later from the Middle East and Asia arrived by sea, prompting ports along the Mozambican coast to flourish. Sofala, among the most prominent ports, developed as a trade centre for gold from the interior. The beads, cloth, and other goods brought by Arab and Asian traders attracted caravans of agrarian-based traders from inland Mozambique. They in turn distributed the goods to the African interior. A struggle for control of this trade developed, and it was soon won by the cattle-owning chiefs of the Karanga in the south and the Makua in the north. Slave trading was also common throughout this period.
From about the year 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts became regular ports of call on the new route to the east. 'Mozambique' first described a small coral island at the mouth of Mossuril Bay, then the fort and town on that island, São Sebastião de Moçambique, and later extended to the whole of the Portuguese colonies on the east coast of Africa. The square fort at the northern extremity of the island was built in 1510 entirely of ballast stone brought in from Portugal.
By the late 1700s demand for slaves had grown markedly in response to European colonization of Mauritius and Réunion. When prolonged droughts started in Mozambique in the 1760s and became endemic from the 1790s, crops failed, cattle suffered, chiefdoms faltered, and traditional patterns of long-distance commerce were disrupted. Banditry and slave raiding increased, and large numbers of slaves were brought to the coast. By 1800 Mozambique had become one of the world’s major slave-trading centres. Hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans were sold to slave traders and sent to the Americas. Until at least the 1870s, no other form of commerce generated as much Profit.
Under pressure from Britain, Portugal outlawed the slave trade in Mozambique in 1842, finally abolishing slavery altogether in 1878.
Mozambique has an estimated population of 19,686,505 in 2006. The population is made up of 10 different ethnic groups and 13 languages, the largest is the Makua people boasting 40% the population and hale from the Northern provinces. The second biggest is the Tsonga people from the South with about 25% of the population. The rest is split between the Chope, Shona, Sena, Nyanja & Nyungue making up around 25% from the central provinces, The Chuabo, Yao, Ndau and Makonde make up the remainder. A small % consists of various minority groups of which the Portuguese are the largest, others being the Indian and Chinese. Portuguese is the official language of the country, although it’s not spoken in the countryside.
The Bantu were farmers and ironworkers. They grew crops and raised cattle. Their settlements took on increasing complexity. By the 10th century, settlements featured stone enclosures, and their inhabitants played an important role in intra-African trade to the west.
Over the next several centuries, traders from north-eastern Africa and later from the Middle East and Asia arrived by sea, prompting ports along the Mozambican coast to flourish. Sofala, among the most prominent ports, developed as a trade centre for gold from the interior. The beads, cloth, and other goods brought by Arab and Asian traders attracted caravans of agrarian-based traders from inland Mozambique. They in turn distributed the goods to the African interior. A struggle for control of this trade developed, and it was soon won by the cattle-owning chiefs of the Karanga in the south and the Makua in the north. Slave trading was also common throughout this period.
From about the year 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts became regular ports of call on the new route to the east. 'Mozambique' first described a small coral island at the mouth of Mossuril Bay, then the fort and town on that island, São Sebastião de Moçambique, and later extended to the whole of the Portuguese colonies on the east coast of Africa. The square fort at the northern extremity of the island was built in 1510 entirely of ballast stone brought in from Portugal.
By the late 1700s demand for slaves had grown markedly in response to European colonization of Mauritius and Réunion. When prolonged droughts started in Mozambique in the 1760s and became endemic from the 1790s, crops failed, cattle suffered, chiefdoms faltered, and traditional patterns of long-distance commerce were disrupted. Banditry and slave raiding increased, and large numbers of slaves were brought to the coast. By 1800 Mozambique had become one of the world’s major slave-trading centres. Hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans were sold to slave traders and sent to the Americas. Until at least the 1870s, no other form of commerce generated as much Profit.
Under pressure from Britain, Portugal outlawed the slave trade in Mozambique in 1842, finally abolishing slavery altogether in 1878.
Mozambique has an estimated population of 19,686,505 in 2006. The population is made up of 10 different ethnic groups and 13 languages, the largest is the Makua people boasting 40% the population and hale from the Northern provinces. The second biggest is the Tsonga people from the South with about 25% of the population. The rest is split between the Chope, Shona, Sena, Nyanja & Nyungue making up around 25% from the central provinces, The Chuabo, Yao, Ndau and Makonde make up the remainder. A small % consists of various minority groups of which the Portuguese are the largest, others being the Indian and Chinese. Portuguese is the official language of the country, although it’s not spoken in the countryside.
