History of the Indians in Mozambique
The history of the Indians in Mozambique describes the history of the people from the Indian subcontinent in what is now Mozambique . After a wave of emigration in connection with the Mozambican civil war and the resulting political developments, around 20,000 people of Indian descent still live here today. Its history spans a good 1000 years, with reliable knowledge of the past 500 years. The first Indians arrived as traders and as a special part of the Swahili society long before the arrival of the Europeans to Mozambique. During the Portuguese colonial period, other Indian traders came along as soldiers and employees of the church or the state. Quite a few integrated themselves permanently as large landowners (“Prazo gentlemen”) into the Afro-Portuguese society that developed in Mozambique in the 16th to 19th centuries. In the 19th century, Indians arrived in large numbers as migrant workers . As the last wave of immigration in the first half of the 20th century, Indians came to Mozambique from British South Africa .
Indian traders in Mozambique before 1500
Northern Mozambique was most likely the southernmost branch of a trading system that was described around 40 AD in the work Periplus Maris Erythraei and linked the Arabian Peninsula , India and the coast of East Africa. It is therefore possible that Indian traders were already trading on the coast of northern Mozambique 2000 years ago. Cities as far as the south of Mozambique were also part of the Swahili society , which can be found on the entire coast of East Africa , to which an - always clearly segregated - Indian diaspora belonged for over 1000 years .
It is certain that the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama , when he reached the island later called Ilha de Moçambique in 1499 , already met Indian traders there.
Indians in Mozambique at the time of the Estado da India: Canarins and Banyans
Soon after the Portuguese rule, which was limited to a few bases, began in what was later to be Mozambique, the history of Indian migration took a different course here than in more northern East Africa. The coasts of today's Tanzania and Kenya were only briefly under Portuguese rule, Mozambique, on the other hand, remained a Portuguese colony for almost 500 years and was part of the viceroyalty Estado da India together with Portuguese India until 1821 . The seat of the viceroy responsible for Mozambique was the Indian city of Velha Goa from 1530 . In the 16th and 17th centuries, Indians from Goa came to Mozambique not only as traders, but also as employees of the Roman Catholic Church or the Portuguese state, as administrators or soldiers.
The Portuguese made a distinction between canarins and banyans among these Indians . The Catholic Church had successfully proselytized in Goa, and Canarins were the predominantly Christian Indians from Goa in southern India, most of whom also had Portuguese family names. Hindus, on the other hand, were given the name Banyans and, in contrast to the Canarins, came mainly from the Portuguese bases in northern India.
There is historical record of Indian traders in the Manica region in the 1560s , far inland in Mozambique, and Indian soldiers in the wars that the Portuguese fought in Zambezia in the 1640s . Contemporary sources mention a Brahmin trader there in the 1660s as well as a "Canarin Doctor" in Zambezia in the 1680s. Indian traders played a central role in the gold trade with the locals far away from the coast and founded the important gold trading center Zumbo , in the most remote part of today's Mozambique.
From the end of the 17th century, the Portuguese encouraged the immigration of Indians from their Indian possessions to Mozambique. The colonial administration's plan to bring Indian farmers to Mozambique to colonize the Zambezi Valley, however, remained almost unsuccessful. Instead, Indian traders and Indian capital came . Indian trading companies such as the Mazanes Banyan Company , which had the monopoly of trade between Mozambique and the Portuguese-Indian Diu since 1688 , gained such influence that tensions arose with the Portuguese traders in East Africa. These tensions combined with religious hatred, and from 1720 the Inquisition in Mozambique became active against Muslim and Hindu traders. Throughout the 18th century there were (futile) anti-Indian advances on the part of Portuguese traders with the aim of keeping Indian traders out of the interior, breaking their monopoly in the textile trade or limiting the number of Indian trading companies on the Ilha do Mozambique. Around 1780 there were 20 Indian trading houses on the Ilha de Moçambique alone and around 300 people of Indian origin living there permanently. Indian traders were to be found in all coastal cities and in the inland marketplaces, the trading center of Inhambane was even more of an Indian than a Portuguese place. Above all, however, they are increasingly appearing as landowners, more precisely Prazo owners in the Zambezi Valley.
Indian prazeiros in Mozambique in the 15th to 19th centuries
The so-called Prazos were a special institution of the Portuguese colonial policy in Africa. Developed from medieval models, a prazo was a kind of fiefdom of the Portuguese king. In the Mozambican Zambezi Valley ( Zambesia ), quasi independent principalities developed from this, and the Prazeiros were the real masters of the country for 400 years. According to a contemporary report from 1766, people of Indian origin made up about a third of the heads of the large Prazo families. According to contemporary sources, the total number of Indians in the Zambezi Valley was 1722 178 people, compared to 300 Portuguese. In the early 19th century there were four powerful Prazo families in central Mozambique, two of which were of Indian origin. The mixed culture usually called “Afro-Portuguese”, which developed in Mozambique, can therefore with some justification also be called an “African-Indian-Portuguese” culture. However, in the 19th century, the members of these families were not recognizable as "Indian" or "Portuguese" in their physical appearance, religion or culture.
Migrant workers from South Africa
Mainly Indians from the Gujarat region came to Mozambique from South Africa in the second half of the 19th century. It is true that the immigration of Asians to Mozambique was stopped in 1899 on the grounds that they were responsible for an outbreak of the plague , and even after this restriction was withdrawn in 1907, Asians who wanted to immigrate to the colony had to pay a disembarkation fee of 3,000 reales in their port of arrival . Increasing hostility among whites in South Africa after 1911, however, led more and more Indians from Gujarat who originally wanted to settle in South Africa to instead turn north - i.e. to Mozambique - to the region around the Delagoa in particular -Bay to settle.
Immigration Restrictions and Racism in the 1920s to 1940s
In the 1920s and 1930s, at the time of Salazar's dictatorship in Portugal, the colonial administration of Portuguese East Africa again issued restrictions on Indian immigration and also prevented the re-entry of Indians who happened to be outside Mozambique at the time of the decree. The effect of these measures, however, was that the Indians, who until then had often only stayed seasonally in Mozambique while their families had stayed in India, now settled permanently and brought women and children to their new homeland.
The Portuguese also issued “race quotas”, according to which at least two white people had to be employed for every non-white employee in a company. The Indians circumvented these regulations, however, by firing untrustworthy employees and identifying the remaining Indian employees as “partners”, who thus did not count towards the number of employees. In 1948 the government countered by counting "partners" as employees and including them in the quota.
Development after 1945
After the years of stagnation between 1928 and 1947, the number of Indians in Mozambique increased significantly in the late 1940s and 1950s:
| year | Europeans | In the |
|---|---|---|
| 1928 | 17 842 | 8 475 |
| 1940 | 27 438 | 9 147 |
| 1950 | 48 213 | 12 630 |
| 1955 | 65 798 | 15 235 |
| 1960 | 97 245 | 17 241 |
| Source: Anuario Estatistico, 1973 | ||
India's independence in 1947 and the subsequent division of the subcontinent into predominantly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan meant that the South Asians in Mozambique had to choose a nationality . Most Hindus and also some Muslims chose Indian citizenship, some of the larger traders with British citizenship a third option. Above all, however, many Indians have now registered their children born in Mozambique as Portuguese. The Indian nationality of the Goans and their descendants was regulated in India by ordinance in 1962 and recognized by Portugal with the treaty of December 31, 1974. On the Portuguese side, residents had the option of registering births in the central register there.
In 1961 the occupation of the Portuguese possessions of Goa, Daman and Diu in India shook the Portuguese-Indian relationship with severe effects on the Indian minority in Mozambique. The Portuguese interned all people of Indian nationality in camps and frozen their bank accounts at the behest of the dictator Salazar. Allegedly to protect the Indian minority, the Portuguese actually tried to use the internment as a bargaining chip for the release of 3,200 Portuguese imprisoned in Goa.
Even after hostilities over Goa ceased, Indians in Mozambique were subject to restrictions. and some therefore settled in other states of East Africa. As a result of the expansion of the Mozambican War of Independence in the 1970s, South Asians left the country in greater numbers. In particular, Ismailis left Mozambique under pressure from their leader, Aga Khan IV, for India, Pakistan or Portugal.
Sunni Muslims and Hindus, on the other hand, remained in the country for the most part even after independence, although they were mainly active as traders and were thus more affected by the socialization of the economy. Often times, one member of the family made the sacrifice of staying and doing business despite the uncertainties, while others emigrated to neighboring countries, Portugal or South Asia.
The capital Maputo and the Ilha do Moçambique have the largest proportion of people of Indian descent today . As a result of the story described above, some of them speak Portuguese as their first language today, while others speak Hindi or Gujarati .
See also
literature
- Newit, Malin: History of Mozambique
- Indian Transnationalism in Mozambique, Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies (8): 277-306 (PDF; 349 kB)
- Singhvi, LM (2000), "Other Countries of Africa", Report of the High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, pp. 89–109 (PDF; 182 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1995, ISBN 0-253-34007-1 : 181
- ↑ Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1995, ISBN 0-253-34007-1 : 107
- ↑ Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1995, ISBN 0-253-34007-1 : 181
- ↑ Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1995, ISBN 0-253-34007-1 : 181f., There further references
- ↑ Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1995, ISBN 0-253-34007-1 : 182/183
- ↑ Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1995, ISBN 0-253-34007-1 : 227
- ↑ Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1995, ISBN 0-253-34007-1 : 305
- ↑ Pereira Bastos: Indian Transnationalisms in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique 2005 in: Samples. Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies No. 8/2005, vol. 5, p. 283. See: here ( Memento of the original dated May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 349 kB)
- ↑ Zamparoni, Valdemir (2000): "Monhés, Baneanes, Chinas e Afro-maometanos - Colonialismo e Racismo em Lourenço Marques, Moçambique, 1890-1940", Lusotopie: 191–222, ISSN 1257-0273 , p. 204.
- ↑ Pereira Bastos: Indian Transnationalisms in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique 2005 in: Samples. Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies No. 8/2005, vol. 5, p. 284. See: here ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 349 kB)
- ↑ Pereira Bastos: Indian Transnationalisms in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique 2005 in: Samples. Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies No. 8/2005, vol. 5, p. 289. See: here ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 349 kB)
- ↑ Pereira Bastos: Indian Transnationalisms in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique 2005 in: Samples. Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies No. 8/2005, 5th year p. 290-291. See: here ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 349 kB)
- ↑ Pereira Bastos: Indian Transnationalisms in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique 2005 in: Samples. Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies No. 8/2005, vol. 5, p. 290. See: here ( Memento of the original dated May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 349 kB)
- ↑ quoted from Malyn Newitt: A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1995, ISBN 0-253-34007-1 : 475
- ↑ Bastos, Pereira: Indian Transnationalisms in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique; 2005 in: Samples. Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies No. 8/2005, Vol. 5, p. 294. See: here ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 349 kB)
- ↑ According to (Portuguese) law № 12533 of October 23, 1926, i. V. m. Law № 308-A / 75 of June 24, 1975.
- ↑ Singhvi, LM (2000), "Other Countries of Africa", Report of the High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora, p. 106 Singhvi, LM (2000), "Other Countries of Africa", Report of the High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, p. 106 ( Memento of the original dated April 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 182 kB)
- ↑ Pereira Bastos: Indian Transnationalisms in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique 2005 in: Samples. Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies No. 8/2005, 5th year, p. 294. See: here ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 349 kB)
- ↑ Singhvi, LM (2000): Other Countries of Africa, Report of the High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs ( Memento of the original of April 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 182 kB), p. 106
- ↑ Pereira Bastos: Indian Transnationalisms in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique 2005 , in: Samples. Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies No. 8/2005, 5th year, p. 298. See: here ( Memento of the original dated May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 349 kB)
- ↑ Pereira Bastos: Indian Transnationalisms in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique 2005 in: Samples. Vienna Journal for Critical African Studies No. 8/2005, 5th year, p. 301. See: here ( Memento of the original dated May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 349 kB)
