freely exploiting dt every opportunity.
The missionaries, just as today, were
big masters who accumulated properties
and many slaves, whom they sold to the
feudal lords and masters. They had an
exploitation system which consisted in
plantations equal to those of today. In
all parts of the Monomctapa Kingdom,
soldiers, missionaries and traders could
be seen actively plotting and planning
against the Africans' land, resources
and population The Portuguese population rose to 1.000 men, a number that
has never been i overpassed until the
twentieth century.
The kings of Portugal esily forgot
the leesson. The men of Vasco Homen
wanted to dominate every aspect of
trade as well as the African people. In
the nineteenth century a great number
of Portuguese missionaries and feudal
lords wanted to impose their laws upon
the African leaders and chiefs. The Portuguese began their new policy of demanding more cheap labourers or slaves
for plantations. The number of conflicts
increased considerably in the region of
the Zambezi. King Monomotapa was
by then converted into a christian and
therefore easily exploited. The vandals
disseminated the seeds of misunderstanding with the neighbouring chiefs through the king, and thus, through tribal
disputes, they dominated the whole Zambezi. The main reason of these disputes was the refusal of the other chiefs to
be baptized. It was a great struggle,
known in history as the dispute of 1628.
With the death of King Monomotapa, the lackey of the Portuguese, his
son Manuza acceded to the throne in
1628 Hostile as he was to the Portuguese
colonialists, he immediately declared
war against the Portuguese ostentation
and   Interferences in  the affairs of  the
state. After various attacks, the Portuguese garrison surrendered and retreated
to the island of Mozambique leaving
the new kin g in peace. The retreat of
the colonialists did not last long, for,
through some christian members of the
royal family, the Portuguese were finally
able to succeed in convincing the king
to also become a christian. The- king
was baptized as Filipe, having solemnly
promised vassalage to the King of Portugal, to the Dominican missionaries,
settlers and traders of Zambezi, giving
them everything they wanted. This was
the first time in the history of Mozambique the Portuguese succeeded to maintain a brief domination over a great
part of. the Macalanga peoples.
King Filipe s first practical defeat
was to consent to the slave traffic in the
plantations owned by the missionaries
.and feudals. However, this government
of the lackeys did not last long. In 1688
the Macalangas declared war on the
Portuguese. These fights went on for
many years. The African population,
scattered and demoralized by the long
wars; lost and fell once more prey into
the hands of the colonialists.    <
In 1752 the colonial administration
was no longer dependent of Goa Thus,
the first Governor General of Mozambique Francisco de Melo Castro was appointed. This colonialist government
accentuated the slave trade. It is caT-
culated that from 1780 to 18OO, more than
15,000 slaves were expatriated yearly to
America, a number which rose to 25,000
until about the year 1850. Minister Sa
de Bandeira's law in ISI'6 abolishing
slavery found no support in Mozambique. Contrarily, the slave traffic was
accelerated until 1840 when the British
strongly intervened and exercised pressures against the Portuguese Government.
7 • —