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2009
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A settlement, and later a town, located on the right shore of the Zambezi River, in what is nowadays the Sofala Province, in Mozambique (17º 26 S; 35º 01' E). The toponym also referred to the area comprising the district captaincy of Sena (the Sena district), belonging to the Cuama Rivers government, later named Sena Rivers, under the rule of the Mozambique captaincy.
The Sena region was inhabited by the Tonga people. Portuguese historical reports from the 16th century mention the existence of a political unit of considerable size, run by a chieftain called Samupango, who was a subject of the Monomotapa. There was at the time a Muslim station closely associated to the trade route from which gold extracted on the north of the Karanga plateau was put on the market through the Zambezi, in competition to an older itinerary leading to Sofala.
The cluster of thatched huts that formed the Portuguese settlement emerged near the Muslim locality and at about a league's distance from the Sena capital centre, Inhamiói. The settlement was probably created in the mid-sixteenth century by merchants trying to get into the gold trade activity. Its existence is documented since 1561, when a group of 10 or 15 Portuguese and some Goans with their families and slaves amounted to 500 persons in the settlement. In the beginning of the 1570s the number of Portuguese living at Sena had risen to 20, which was the exact number of Muslim merchants as well.
The arrival in 1569 of the army that came from Lisbon with the purpose of capturing the Monomotapa changed the administrative situation of the Portuguese settlement, which had been run by the merchants until then. Francisco Barreto, the governor of Mozambique and the expedition commander, razed down the Muslim settlement, while field-marshal Vasco Fernandes Homem captured some Tonga chieftains. In 1572, Barreto erected the São Marçal fort, a humble structure built in mud. It housed a small chapel, named after the same saint, and the trading post building. The mutapa's envoys recognised the sovereignty of the captain of the fort, and Sena was incorporated into the Portuguese administration. By 1590, when 50 Portuguese among 800 Christians were living in the fort, which had been repaired and stone reinforced, a more complex social structure had already been established: a factor and chief castellan, a clerk, a constable and a priest, in addition to four craftsmen and seven slaves had been taken in.
As soon as the supremacy of the Zambezi route was secured, Sena became an important fluvial port. It supplied the gold fairs of the Karanga plateau, on the south of the river, and the Marave territory, on the north, where the machira (cotton fabrics regionally made) trade was established. Indian merchandise (fabrics and beads) which were shipped along the river from the Quelimane port, were unloaded at the Sena trading post which, in its turn, was run by the Crown or by the captain of Mozambique. The merchants at the Sena settlement bought them and either drove them towards the Manica fairs and the Bororo, through the Shire river, or sold them to the Tete traders who carried them to the Monomotapa fairs. All gold and ivory traded at those fairs took the reverse route into the Mozambique Island, and from there they were shipped to India.
The territory of the district captaincy of Sena was expanded in the beginning of the 17th century by conquest and by the celebration of treaties with African chieftains. It stretched over an extended region bordered to the East by the Zambezi River, from Luabo Island, at the delta, to Luenha River. I went on for about 97 to 130 miles eastward towards Kiteve and Barue, through the M'Sangadze, Pompue and Muíra rivers.
This territory was further extended by 1644 when in reward for assistance received from Sisnando Dias Baião, the Kiteve chieftain granted him the chieftaincy of Gobira, later named Cheringoma. With this acquisition, Sena territory reached as far as the Sofala fortress. These lands - some of them extremely vast - were leased to the residents according to the prazos da coroa regime.
Sena asserted itself as the seat of the Portuguese government in the Zambezi valley. Its district governor and judge added to the afore-mentioned posts that of Cuama Rivers captain, the main figure of authority in the region, a subordinate officer to the captain of Mozambique. Sena was the place of residence of all Mozambique captains who visited the region. By the turn of the 17th to the 18th century, the post of lieutenant-general and governor of Sena Rivers was created, showing the importance of the place. In addition to all this, Sena was also the religious see of the Mozambique captaincy, since it was the customary place of residence of ecclesiastical authorities until 1752, the date of the administrative detachment of Estado da India, when these authorities moved to the island of Mozambique.
The settlement, located between three hills, was on an extremely unhealthy site as it exhibited on its open lands vast pools of stagnant water used for making adobe. In fact, all buildings were made with adobe, except for some architectonic elements that required stone imported from other regions. In spite of this, all written accounts of that time mention the inhabitants' rich and spacious houses, surrounded by large courtyards. On the periphery of these big houses were the lath-and-plaster huts of the slaves and free Africans, circa 3,000 by the end of the 18th century.
In the first decades of the sixteen hundreds, the fort was already decaying and the dwellers were building their houses with stone. During that century no attacks were launched against the settlement, and the strong palisades fencing the houses were sufficient to protect the population. But early in the 18th century, in face of the high probability of an attack coming from the Butua changamira, the population felt the need to fortify Sena. During the rule of captain-general Dom João Fernandes de Almeida, Francisco Pereira Valentão, an engineer from India specialised in mudwalled construction, rebuilt the fort of Saint Marçal in abobe. The only stone element in the fort was the coat of arms on the main gate with an inscription indicating the year of construction (1704) and the governor's name. This gate was known on the region as "mualo ua sena" and in time stimulated the creation of a new identity for the local Tonga people as they became known as a-senas. Squarely shaped, the fort had four bastions housing two warehouses, belonging to the trading post, and two barracks. Given the poor building materials, repair work on the fort had to be done at frequent intervals, and the walls had to be thatched during the rainy season - a task performed by the population. By Royal decree, the protection of the fort was ensured by a company of 30 soldiers from 1647 on. The garrison was later reinforced with 20 more men, and provided a detachment to the Manica fair after this fair was re-founded in 1719.
Though strikingly different from European urban centres, Sena presented similar institutions when compared to them. There are records of a Misericórdia (A Santa Casa da Misericórdia (Holy House of Mercy) was a charitable institution, run by a secular brotherhood [translator's note]) whose brotherhood acted also in the capacity of City Council members, though lacking in the corresponding powers. When the Misericórdia church was destroyed by a fire around 1720, the brotherhood broke up, and would not be restored until 1771, under the rule of governor Baltazar Pereira do Lago. The settlement also comprised a Dominican convent, since the 1580s, and a Jesuit College, from 1610 on. A school was established on the latter, and one of the teachers gave music lessons. There were four churches open to the public. The collegiate church was Nossa Senhora da Assunção, also called a cathedral, because the ecclesiastical ruling body took seat there. The other churches were Santa Catarina (also called Nossa Senhora do Rosário or St. Dominic's Church), in the Dominican convent, São Salvador (or Saint Paul's Church), attached to the Jesuit College and including a chapel (Nossa Senhora das Mercês), and the Misericórdia Church. In the vicinity of the settlement was the Church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios of Macambura, also established by the Dominicans, and further away were the Jesuit churches of Caia and Luabo. The Misericórdia Church was destroyed by a fire around 1720. When the institution was re-established, its church was incorporated in São Salvador Church. There were two more chapels: Santo António, already in ruins in the 18th century, and another one belonging to one of the main houses of the settlement. This last chapel was by the end of the 18th century the mother church at Sena, given the decaying condition of the church of Nossa Senhora da Assunção.
The royal decree of 1761 raised the settlement to town and a city council was established on the 15th of July, 1764. At the same time, the district captain and judge was replaced by a commander. The city council left the facilities it had occupied before - the Jesuits' old houses attached to the church of São Salvador - and moved to a new building in the 1770s. In 1767, the capital city of Sena Rivers was transferred to Tete. The company which protected the fort of São Marçal also moved to the new capital city. Only a small military detachment remained at Sena. In spite of having lost its former administrative status, the town remained for some time the most populated one in the Zambezi valley. In 1783, 499 Christians were registered there, children included. The following year, a primary school was established there by the governor of Sena Rivers, António de Melo e Castro, with the purpose of replacing the Jesuits school which had been closed for 25 years. Its central location in relation to Portuguese establishments in the region enabled the town to keep an important role in the trading network of the Zambezi valley. All goods that were shipped up the river were unloaded at Sena either in order to feed the commercial routes that started there or to pursue their way towards Tete. In addition to this, all newcomers remarked that the inhabitants remained the wealthiest in the Sena Rivers region.
Sena is currently a small village with very few signs of the early adobe buildings. The fort of São Marçal was the object of several reconstruction actions during the eighteen hundreds before it was handed over to the Mozambique Company, in 1899, an organism thenceforth compelled to survey its conservation. It was however in a very advanced state of decay and collapsed shortly after. The main gate was turned into a monument by itself - a padrão - and that is the sole element from the older construction still in existence.
Piles of dirt, stones and bricks, still defining the limits of the area where the fortress and all its component parts used to be, are all that is left of the old Portuguese fort now.
Bibliography:
ANDRADE, António Alberto Banha de (ed.), Relações de Moçambique Setecentista, Lisboa, AGU, 1955. MAMAM, Amida, Subsídios para a História de Sena, Maputo, PROMÉDIA, 2000. MONTEZ, Caetano, "Sena. Forte de S. Marçal", in Monumenta, nº 5, 1969. NEWITT, Malyn, A history of Mozambique, London, Hurst & Company, 1995 RITA-FERREIRA, A., Fixação portuguesa e história pré-colonial de Moçambique, Lisboa, IICT, 1982.
Translated by: Leonor Sampaio da Silva
The Sena region was inhabited by the Tonga people. Portuguese historical reports from the 16th century mention the existence of a political unit of considerable size, run by a chieftain called Samupango, who was a subject of the Monomotapa. There was at the time a Muslim station closely associated to the trade route from which gold extracted on the north of the Karanga plateau was put on the market through the Zambezi, in competition to an older itinerary leading to Sofala.
The cluster of thatched huts that formed the Portuguese settlement emerged near the Muslim locality and at about a league's distance from the Sena capital centre, Inhamiói. The settlement was probably created in the mid-sixteenth century by merchants trying to get into the gold trade activity. Its existence is documented since 1561, when a group of 10 or 15 Portuguese and some Goans with their families and slaves amounted to 500 persons in the settlement. In the beginning of the 1570s the number of Portuguese living at Sena had risen to 20, which was the exact number of Muslim merchants as well.
The arrival in 1569 of the army that came from Lisbon with the purpose of capturing the Monomotapa changed the administrative situation of the Portuguese settlement, which had been run by the merchants until then. Francisco Barreto, the governor of Mozambique and the expedition commander, razed down the Muslim settlement, while field-marshal Vasco Fernandes Homem captured some Tonga chieftains. In 1572, Barreto erected the São Marçal fort, a humble structure built in mud. It housed a small chapel, named after the same saint, and the trading post building. The mutapa's envoys recognised the sovereignty of the captain of the fort, and Sena was incorporated into the Portuguese administration. By 1590, when 50 Portuguese among 800 Christians were living in the fort, which had been repaired and stone reinforced, a more complex social structure had already been established: a factor and chief castellan, a clerk, a constable and a priest, in addition to four craftsmen and seven slaves had been taken in.
As soon as the supremacy of the Zambezi route was secured, Sena became an important fluvial port. It supplied the gold fairs of the Karanga plateau, on the south of the river, and the Marave territory, on the north, where the machira (cotton fabrics regionally made) trade was established. Indian merchandise (fabrics and beads) which were shipped along the river from the Quelimane port, were unloaded at the Sena trading post which, in its turn, was run by the Crown or by the captain of Mozambique. The merchants at the Sena settlement bought them and either drove them towards the Manica fairs and the Bororo, through the Shire river, or sold them to the Tete traders who carried them to the Monomotapa fairs. All gold and ivory traded at those fairs took the reverse route into the Mozambique Island, and from there they were shipped to India.
The territory of the district captaincy of Sena was expanded in the beginning of the 17th century by conquest and by the celebration of treaties with African chieftains. It stretched over an extended region bordered to the East by the Zambezi River, from Luabo Island, at the delta, to Luenha River. I went on for about 97 to 130 miles eastward towards Kiteve and Barue, through the M'Sangadze, Pompue and Muíra rivers.
This territory was further extended by 1644 when in reward for assistance received from Sisnando Dias Baião, the Kiteve chieftain granted him the chieftaincy of Gobira, later named Cheringoma. With this acquisition, Sena territory reached as far as the Sofala fortress. These lands - some of them extremely vast - were leased to the residents according to the prazos da coroa regime.
Sena asserted itself as the seat of the Portuguese government in the Zambezi valley. Its district governor and judge added to the afore-mentioned posts that of Cuama Rivers captain, the main figure of authority in the region, a subordinate officer to the captain of Mozambique. Sena was the place of residence of all Mozambique captains who visited the region. By the turn of the 17th to the 18th century, the post of lieutenant-general and governor of Sena Rivers was created, showing the importance of the place. In addition to all this, Sena was also the religious see of the Mozambique captaincy, since it was the customary place of residence of ecclesiastical authorities until 1752, the date of the administrative detachment of Estado da India, when these authorities moved to the island of Mozambique.
The settlement, located between three hills, was on an extremely unhealthy site as it exhibited on its open lands vast pools of stagnant water used for making adobe. In fact, all buildings were made with adobe, except for some architectonic elements that required stone imported from other regions. In spite of this, all written accounts of that time mention the inhabitants' rich and spacious houses, surrounded by large courtyards. On the periphery of these big houses were the lath-and-plaster huts of the slaves and free Africans, circa 3,000 by the end of the 18th century.
In the first decades of the sixteen hundreds, the fort was already decaying and the dwellers were building their houses with stone. During that century no attacks were launched against the settlement, and the strong palisades fencing the houses were sufficient to protect the population. But early in the 18th century, in face of the high probability of an attack coming from the Butua changamira, the population felt the need to fortify Sena. During the rule of captain-general Dom João Fernandes de Almeida, Francisco Pereira Valentão, an engineer from India specialised in mudwalled construction, rebuilt the fort of Saint Marçal in abobe. The only stone element in the fort was the coat of arms on the main gate with an inscription indicating the year of construction (1704) and the governor's name. This gate was known on the region as "mualo ua sena" and in time stimulated the creation of a new identity for the local Tonga people as they became known as a-senas. Squarely shaped, the fort had four bastions housing two warehouses, belonging to the trading post, and two barracks. Given the poor building materials, repair work on the fort had to be done at frequent intervals, and the walls had to be thatched during the rainy season - a task performed by the population. By Royal decree, the protection of the fort was ensured by a company of 30 soldiers from 1647 on. The garrison was later reinforced with 20 more men, and provided a detachment to the Manica fair after this fair was re-founded in 1719.
Though strikingly different from European urban centres, Sena presented similar institutions when compared to them. There are records of a Misericórdia (A Santa Casa da Misericórdia (Holy House of Mercy) was a charitable institution, run by a secular brotherhood [translator's note]) whose brotherhood acted also in the capacity of City Council members, though lacking in the corresponding powers. When the Misericórdia church was destroyed by a fire around 1720, the brotherhood broke up, and would not be restored until 1771, under the rule of governor Baltazar Pereira do Lago. The settlement also comprised a Dominican convent, since the 1580s, and a Jesuit College, from 1610 on. A school was established on the latter, and one of the teachers gave music lessons. There were four churches open to the public. The collegiate church was Nossa Senhora da Assunção, also called a cathedral, because the ecclesiastical ruling body took seat there. The other churches were Santa Catarina (also called Nossa Senhora do Rosário or St. Dominic's Church), in the Dominican convent, São Salvador (or Saint Paul's Church), attached to the Jesuit College and including a chapel (Nossa Senhora das Mercês), and the Misericórdia Church. In the vicinity of the settlement was the Church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios of Macambura, also established by the Dominicans, and further away were the Jesuit churches of Caia and Luabo. The Misericórdia Church was destroyed by a fire around 1720. When the institution was re-established, its church was incorporated in São Salvador Church. There were two more chapels: Santo António, already in ruins in the 18th century, and another one belonging to one of the main houses of the settlement. This last chapel was by the end of the 18th century the mother church at Sena, given the decaying condition of the church of Nossa Senhora da Assunção.
The royal decree of 1761 raised the settlement to town and a city council was established on the 15th of July, 1764. At the same time, the district captain and judge was replaced by a commander. The city council left the facilities it had occupied before - the Jesuits' old houses attached to the church of São Salvador - and moved to a new building in the 1770s. In 1767, the capital city of Sena Rivers was transferred to Tete. The company which protected the fort of São Marçal also moved to the new capital city. Only a small military detachment remained at Sena. In spite of having lost its former administrative status, the town remained for some time the most populated one in the Zambezi valley. In 1783, 499 Christians were registered there, children included. The following year, a primary school was established there by the governor of Sena Rivers, António de Melo e Castro, with the purpose of replacing the Jesuits school which had been closed for 25 years. Its central location in relation to Portuguese establishments in the region enabled the town to keep an important role in the trading network of the Zambezi valley. All goods that were shipped up the river were unloaded at Sena either in order to feed the commercial routes that started there or to pursue their way towards Tete. In addition to this, all newcomers remarked that the inhabitants remained the wealthiest in the Sena Rivers region.
Sena is currently a small village with very few signs of the early adobe buildings. The fort of São Marçal was the object of several reconstruction actions during the eighteen hundreds before it was handed over to the Mozambique Company, in 1899, an organism thenceforth compelled to survey its conservation. It was however in a very advanced state of decay and collapsed shortly after. The main gate was turned into a monument by itself - a padrão - and that is the sole element from the older construction still in existence.
Piles of dirt, stones and bricks, still defining the limits of the area where the fortress and all its component parts used to be, are all that is left of the old Portuguese fort now.
Bibliography: