Publication Date
2009
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Today's Chicoa.
This settlement is located in the area of Lake Cabora Bassa, on the southern bank of the Zambezi River, in Mozambique (15° 36' S; 32° 20' E). The geonym also designated the nearby mountain range and the surrounding land ("Chicova lands"). The region was dominated by the Tawara chiefs, who had their headquarters in Inhacasse where Chicova's mambo (chief), a Mutapa subject, lived.
Mentioned in Portuguese documents since the 1570's, Chicova has always been associated to the silver mines which triggered the colonization process of the Portuguese crown for the Zambezi valley, and constituted a recurring reason for conflict between the Tawara chiefs and the mutapas (emperors). These silver mines were more important than the gold ones that supplied Mutapa's fairs, as silver was indispensable for Portuguese trade with India and China, dependent on the American supplies. Especially when the latter started declining, after 1600, there was a succession of colonization plans with the appointment of "conquerors" to manage the mines' enterprise.
The control over the mines was the basis for the first royal project of territorialisation of the Portuguese presence in Eastern Africa. In 1569, a huge army, commanded by Francisco Barreto, left Lisbon to conquer the Kingdom of Mutapa. As the attempts to locate profitable gold veins were a failure, Barreto's successor, Vasco Fernandes Homem, turned to the silver mines of Chicova, where he built a fort in 1575. He managed to trade some silver and left a military prison in the fort, which was later on torn to the ground by the Tawaras.
In the first decades of the 1600's, suggestions that there existed abundant mineral mines motivated new royal colonization programmes. In 1607, in exchange for military support, mutapa Gatsi Rusere donated the coveted silver deposits to backwoodsman Diogo Simoes Madeira, and assigned the other mines to the crown. In the following year, it was decided to appoint a general to supervise the mining activities and to build several forts, one of which in Chicova, to control the African chiefs. Next, two conquerors were appointed, Dom Nuno Alvares Pereira (1608-1610) and Dom Estevao de Ataide (1610 - 1613), but they did not get any results. The silver enterprise was then handed to Simoes Madeira who, in 1614, built the fort of Sao Miguel in Chicova. In 1616, attacked by the mutapa and ravished with hunger, the survivors left the place. However, Madeira proved that really existed was silver there, by extracting between 250 and 450 kg of it. The news led to the formulation of a new colonization process in 1617. Dom Nuno Alvares Pereira was nominated governor and conqueror of Rios de Cuama and of the Lands of the Kingdom of Mutapa, with instructions to attract settlers. In 1619, he sent a delegation to the mutapa, who renovated the donation of the mines, and then left for Chicova with the Castilian miner Cristovao Tirado. However, due to several divergences and poor results, the governor gave up this enterprise. After the 1629 treaty with mutapa Mavhura, who declared himself vassal of the Portuguese crown a great expedition was organised in Lisbon with soldiers and couples to colonize the region. In 1633, a group of miners arrived to the Zambezi, under the command of Castilian Dom Andres Vides y Albarado, whose brief attempts to find silver were fruitless. After the miners' death, the colonization process finally came to an end in 1637.
Not knowing about the failure of the royal initiatives, less wealthy merchants stayed in the southern bank of the Zambezi, where they searched for low-quality gold. Circa 1672, the news about the silver beds agitated the region and, in 1676, the Viceroy appointed Joao de Sousa Freire as Governor-general of Rios de Sena. Sousa Freire built a fort in Inhacasse, where a military prison operated for three years, facing the hostility of local chiefs, of the mutapa and of Portuguese merchants. After the captain's death, and without obtaining any metal, the Viceroy closed the military prison in 1680, when 12 Portuguese lived in Chicova.
And it was the reflux of gold trade that finally stirred the interest of the region's merchants for silver. Banned by the changamira of Butua from the fairs of the Karanga plateau in 1693-1695, the merchants concentrated by the Zambezi where they once more found silver in 1696. With it they made ornaments for the Sena church, and from the 190 kg of metal that arrived to Goa, in that same year, 2 bookcases and 4 candlesticks were crafted for the church of Rachol. Lisbon even sent miners to the region in 1700, and silver mining continued approximately until 1720, when the political situation to the south of the Zambezi allowed for the more lucrative mining of gold to continue.
The historical testimonies about the existence of silver in Chicova were deemed as false or unreliable, and samples sent to Goa and Lisbon were said to be from other sources. Nevertheless, studies on the mineralogy of the Zambezi river basin confirmed the existence of that metal in the area. These mines were not an African Potosi, as the Portuguese crown hoped, but the failure of the royal programmes of territorialisation associated to it were due to many opposing factions. The African chiefs feared that the direct mineral exploration by the Portuguese would imply the domination of their territory by the latter. Consequently, they offered clear resistance to them, or used delaying strategies to prevent the location of the mineral veins. On the Portuguese side, royal proposals faced antagonism from Mozambique's merchants and captains. The exploration of these mines by the crown directly implied the formation of a vast administrative service which disturbed trade and threatened the power of great merchants. In the same way, the captains, who until 1673 leased the monopoly of trade to the crown, feared being deprived from their leases.
When the extraction of silver decreased, Chicova became important to the Portuguese for other reasons. During the 18th century, that location became the main port of call on the Tete route to the new market of Zumbo, along the Zambezi. Due to the Cabora Bassa rapids, the route between Tete and Chicova was made by land and, from there, people used canoes until they reached the market. In Chicova, caravans gathered to cover the rest of the way. Given the role it occupied on this route, Chicova was frequently harassed by Mutapa lineage chiefs, who seized the merchandise to demand large compensations.
Except for the periods when Chicova had active forts and military prisons, it did not have appointed Portuguese captains. Portuguese merchants who lived in the region were under the ruling of local chiefs. Nowadays, there aren't any visible material remnants of the Portuguese presence in that place.
Bibliography:
AXELSON, Eric, Portuguese in South-East Africa 1600-1700, Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1969. NEWITT, Malyn, A history of Mozambique, London, Hurst & Company, 1995. REAL, Fernando, Geologia da Bacia do Zambeze (Moçambique), Lisboa, JIU, 1966. RODRIGUES, Eugénia, Portugueses e Africanos nos Rios de Sena. Os Prazos da Coroa nos Séculos XVII e XVIII, Dissertação de Doutoramento em História, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2002.
Translated by: Marília Pavão
This settlement is located in the area of Lake Cabora Bassa, on the southern bank of the Zambezi River, in Mozambique (15° 36' S; 32° 20' E). The geonym also designated the nearby mountain range and the surrounding land ("Chicova lands"). The region was dominated by the Tawara chiefs, who had their headquarters in Inhacasse where Chicova's mambo (chief), a Mutapa subject, lived.
Mentioned in Portuguese documents since the 1570's, Chicova has always been associated to the silver mines which triggered the colonization process of the Portuguese crown for the Zambezi valley, and constituted a recurring reason for conflict between the Tawara chiefs and the mutapas (emperors). These silver mines were more important than the gold ones that supplied Mutapa's fairs, as silver was indispensable for Portuguese trade with India and China, dependent on the American supplies. Especially when the latter started declining, after 1600, there was a succession of colonization plans with the appointment of "conquerors" to manage the mines' enterprise.
The control over the mines was the basis for the first royal project of territorialisation of the Portuguese presence in Eastern Africa. In 1569, a huge army, commanded by Francisco Barreto, left Lisbon to conquer the Kingdom of Mutapa. As the attempts to locate profitable gold veins were a failure, Barreto's successor, Vasco Fernandes Homem, turned to the silver mines of Chicova, where he built a fort in 1575. He managed to trade some silver and left a military prison in the fort, which was later on torn to the ground by the Tawaras.
In the first decades of the 1600's, suggestions that there existed abundant mineral mines motivated new royal colonization programmes. In 1607, in exchange for military support, mutapa Gatsi Rusere donated the coveted silver deposits to backwoodsman Diogo Simoes Madeira, and assigned the other mines to the crown. In the following year, it was decided to appoint a general to supervise the mining activities and to build several forts, one of which in Chicova, to control the African chiefs. Next, two conquerors were appointed, Dom Nuno Alvares Pereira (1608-1610) and Dom Estevao de Ataide (1610 - 1613), but they did not get any results. The silver enterprise was then handed to Simoes Madeira who, in 1614, built the fort of Sao Miguel in Chicova. In 1616, attacked by the mutapa and ravished with hunger, the survivors left the place. However, Madeira proved that really existed was silver there, by extracting between 250 and 450 kg of it. The news led to the formulation of a new colonization process in 1617. Dom Nuno Alvares Pereira was nominated governor and conqueror of Rios de Cuama and of the Lands of the Kingdom of Mutapa, with instructions to attract settlers. In 1619, he sent a delegation to the mutapa, who renovated the donation of the mines, and then left for Chicova with the Castilian miner Cristovao Tirado. However, due to several divergences and poor results, the governor gave up this enterprise. After the 1629 treaty with mutapa Mavhura, who declared himself vassal of the Portuguese crown a great expedition was organised in Lisbon with soldiers and couples to colonize the region. In 1633, a group of miners arrived to the Zambezi, under the command of Castilian Dom Andres Vides y Albarado, whose brief attempts to find silver were fruitless. After the miners' death, the colonization process finally came to an end in 1637.
Not knowing about the failure of the royal initiatives, less wealthy merchants stayed in the southern bank of the Zambezi, where they searched for low-quality gold. Circa 1672, the news about the silver beds agitated the region and, in 1676, the Viceroy appointed Joao de Sousa Freire as Governor-general of Rios de Sena. Sousa Freire built a fort in Inhacasse, where a military prison operated for three years, facing the hostility of local chiefs, of the mutapa and of Portuguese merchants. After the captain's death, and without obtaining any metal, the Viceroy closed the military prison in 1680, when 12 Portuguese lived in Chicova.
And it was the reflux of gold trade that finally stirred the interest of the region's merchants for silver. Banned by the changamira of Butua from the fairs of the Karanga plateau in 1693-1695, the merchants concentrated by the Zambezi where they once more found silver in 1696. With it they made ornaments for the Sena church, and from the 190 kg of metal that arrived to Goa, in that same year, 2 bookcases and 4 candlesticks were crafted for the church of Rachol. Lisbon even sent miners to the region in 1700, and silver mining continued approximately until 1720, when the political situation to the south of the Zambezi allowed for the more lucrative mining of gold to continue.
The historical testimonies about the existence of silver in Chicova were deemed as false or unreliable, and samples sent to Goa and Lisbon were said to be from other sources. Nevertheless, studies on the mineralogy of the Zambezi river basin confirmed the existence of that metal in the area. These mines were not an African Potosi, as the Portuguese crown hoped, but the failure of the royal programmes of territorialisation associated to it were due to many opposing factions. The African chiefs feared that the direct mineral exploration by the Portuguese would imply the domination of their territory by the latter. Consequently, they offered clear resistance to them, or used delaying strategies to prevent the location of the mineral veins. On the Portuguese side, royal proposals faced antagonism from Mozambique's merchants and captains. The exploration of these mines by the crown directly implied the formation of a vast administrative service which disturbed trade and threatened the power of great merchants. In the same way, the captains, who until 1673 leased the monopoly of trade to the crown, feared being deprived from their leases.
When the extraction of silver decreased, Chicova became important to the Portuguese for other reasons. During the 18th century, that location became the main port of call on the Tete route to the new market of Zumbo, along the Zambezi. Due to the Cabora Bassa rapids, the route between Tete and Chicova was made by land and, from there, people used canoes until they reached the market. In Chicova, caravans gathered to cover the rest of the way. Given the role it occupied on this route, Chicova was frequently harassed by Mutapa lineage chiefs, who seized the merchandise to demand large compensations.
Except for the periods when Chicova had active forts and military prisons, it did not have appointed Portuguese captains. Portuguese merchants who lived in the region were under the ruling of local chiefs. Nowadays, there aren't any visible material remnants of the Portuguese presence in that place.
Bibliography:
AXELSON, Eric, Portuguese in South-East Africa 1600-1700, Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1969. NEWITT, Malyn, A history of Mozambique, London, Hurst & Company, 1995. REAL, Fernando, Geologia da Bacia do Zambeze (Moçambique), Lisboa, JIU, 1966. RODRIGUES, Eugénia, Portugueses e Africanos nos Rios de Sena. Os Prazos da Coroa nos Séculos XVII e XVIII, Dissertação de Doutoramento em História, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2002.
Translated by: Marília Pavão