Bantu migrations Bantu-speaking peoples migrated into Mozambique as early as the 4th century BC. It is believed between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, waves of migration from the west and north went through the
Zambezi River valley and then gradually into the plateau and coastal areas of Southern Africa. They established agricultural communities or societies based on herding cattle. They brought with them the technology for smelting and smithing iron.
Swahili Coast From the late first millennium AD, vast
Indian Ocean trade networks extended as far south as present day
Vilankulo, as evidenced by the ancient port town of
Chibuene. Beginning in the 9th century, a growing involvement in Indian Ocean trade led to the development of numerous port towns along the entire East African coast, including modern day Mozambique. Largely autonomous, these towns broadly participated in the incipient
Swahili culture. Islam was often adopted by urban elites, facilitating trade. In Mozambique,
Sofala,
Angoche, and Mozambique Island were regional powers by the 15th century. The towns traded with merchants from both the African interior and the broader Indian Ocean world. Particularly important were the gold and ivory caravan routes. Inland states like the
Kingdom of Zimbabwe and
Kingdom of Mutapa provided the coveted gold and ivory, which were then exchanged up the coast to larger port cities like
Kilwa and
Mombasa.
Portuguese Mozambique (1498–1960) , former capital in Northern Mozambique and prominent in the country's history The
Island of Mozambique, after which the country is named, is a small coral island at the mouth of Mossuril Bay on the
Nacala coast of northern Mozambique, and was first explored by Europeans in the late 15th century. When Portuguese explorers reached Mozambique in 1498, Arab-trading settlements had existed along the coast and outlying islands for several centuries. From about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts displaced the Arabic commercial and military hegemony, becoming regular ports of call on the new European sea route to the east, The voyage of
Vasco da Gama around the
Cape of Good Hope in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, and society of the region. The Portuguese gained control of the Island of Mozambique and the port city of Sofala in the early 16th century, and by the 1530s, small groups of Portuguese traders and prospectors seeking gold penetrated the interior regions. Here they set up garrisons and trading posts at
Sena and
Tete on the Zambezi and tried to gain exclusive control over the gold trade. Slavery in Mozambique pre-dated European-contact. African rulers and chiefs dealt in enslaved people, first with Arab Muslim traders, who sent the enslaved to Middle East Asia cities and plantations, and later with Portuguese and other European traders. In a continuation of the trade, slaves were supplied by warring local African rulers, who raided enemy tribes and sold their captives to the
prazeiros. The authority of the
prazeiros was exercised and upheld amongst the local population by armies of these enslaved men, whose members became known as
Chikunda. By the early 20th century the Portuguese had shifted the administration of much of Mozambique to large private companies, like the
Mozambique Company, the
Zambezia Company and the
Niassa Company, controlled and financed mostly by British financiers such as
Solomon Joel, which established railroad lines to their neighbouring colonies (South Africa and
Rhodesia). Although slavery had been legally abolished in Mozambique, at the end of the 19th century the chartered companies enacted a forced labour policy and supplied cheap—often forced—African labour to the mines and
plantations of the nearby British colonies and South Africa. Due to their unsatisfactory performance and the shift, under the
corporatist Estado Novo regime of
Oliveira Salazar, toward stronger state control of the
Portuguese Empire's economy, the companies' concessions were not renewed when they ran out. This was what happened in 1942 with the Mozambique Company, which, however, continued to operate in the agricultural and commercial sectors as a corporation, and had already happened in 1929 with the termination of the Niassa Company's concession. In 1951, the Portuguese overseas colonies in Africa were rebranded as Overseas Provinces of Portugal. The
Mueda massacre of 16 June 1960 resulted in the death of
Makonde protestors, which provoked the struggle of independence from Portuguese rule of Mozambique.
Mozambican War of Independence (1961–1974) , some loading
FN FAL,
AR-10 and
H&K G3 As
communist and
anti-colonial ideologies spread out across Africa, many clandestine political movements were established in support of Mozambican independence. These movements claimed that since policies and development plans were primarily designed by the ruling authorities for the benefit of Mozambique's Portuguese population, little attention was paid to Mozambique's tribal integration and the development of its native communities. According to the official guerrilla statements, this affected a majority of the indigenous population who suffered both state-sponsored discrimination and enormous social pressure. As a response to the guerrilla movement, the Portuguese government, from the 1960s and principally the early 1970s, initiated gradual changes with new socioeconomic developments and egalitarian policies. The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (
FRELIMO) initiated a guerrilla campaign against Portuguese rule in September 1964. This conflict—along with the two others already initiated in the other Portuguese colonies of
Angola and
Portuguese Guinea—became part of the so-called
Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974). From a military standpoint, the Portuguese regular army maintained control of the population centres while the guerrilla forces sought to undermine their influence in rural and tribal areas in the north and west. As part of their response to FRELIMO, the Portuguese government began to pay more attention to creating favourable conditions for social development and economic growth.
Independence (1975) FRELIMO took control of the territory after ten years of sporadic warfare, as well as Portugal's own return to democracy after the fall of the authoritarian
Estado Novo regime in the
Carnation Revolution of April 1974 and the failed
coup of 25 November 1975. Within a year, most of the 250,000 Portuguese in Mozambique had left—some expelled by the government of the nearly independent territory, some left the country to avoid possible reprisals from the unstable government—and Mozambique became independent from Portugal on 25 June 1975. A law had been passed on the initiative of the relatively unknown
Armando Guebuza of the FRELIMO party, ordering the Portuguese to leave the country in 24 hours with only of luggage. Unable to salvage any of their assets, most of them returned to Portugal penniless.
Mozambican Civil War (1977–1992) The
new government under President
Samora Machel established a
one-party state based on
Marxist principles. It received diplomatic and some military support from
Cuba and the
Soviet Union and proceeded to crack down on opposition. Starting shortly after independence, the country was plagued from 1977 to 1992 by a long and violent civil war between the opposition forces of anti-communist Mozambican National Resistance (
RENAMO) rebel militias and the FRELIMO regime. This conflict characterised the first decades of Mozambican independence, combined with sabotage from the neighbouring states of
Rhodesia and South Africa, ineffective policies, failed central planning, and the resulting economic collapse. This period was also marked by the exodus of Portuguese nationals and Mozambicans of Portuguese heritage, a collapsed infrastructure, lack of investment in productive assets, and government nationalisation of privately owned industries, as well as widespread famine. During most of the civil war, the FRELIMO-formed central government was unable to exercise effective control outside urban areas, many of which were cut off from the capital. The war was marked by mass human rights violations from both sides of the conflict, with both RENAMO and FRELIMO contributing to the chaos through the use of terror and indiscriminate targeting of civilians. The central government executed tens of thousands of people while trying to extend its control throughout the country and sent many people to "re-education camps" where thousands died. The FRELIMO regime also gave shelter and support to South African (
African National Congress) and Zimbabwean (
Zimbabwe African National Union) rebel movements, while the governments of Rhodesia and later Apartheid South Africa backed RENAMO in the civil war. On 19 October 1986, Machel was on his way back from an international meeting in Zambia when his
plane crashed in the
Lebombo Mountains near
Mbuzini in South Africa. President Machel and thirty-three others died, including ministers and officials of the Mozambique government. The Soviet delegation within the United Nations' Special Investigation Commission (the Margo Commission) issued a minority report contending that the Soviets' expertise and experience had been undermined by the South Africans. Representatives of the Soviet Union advanced the theory that the plane had been intentionally diverted by a false
navigational beacon signal, using a technology provided by military intelligence operatives of the South African government. Machel's successor
Joaquim Chissano implemented sweeping changes in the country, starting reforms such as changing from Marxism to capitalism and began peace talks with RENAMO. The new constitution, enacted in 1990, provided for a
multi-party political system, a
market-based economy, and free elections. That same year, Mozambique abolished the people's republic as the country's official name. The civil war ended in October 1992 with the
Rome General Peace Accords, first brokered by the Christian Council of Mozambique (Council of Protestant Churches) and then taken over by the Catholic social service association
Community of Sant'Egidio. Peace returned to Mozambique, under the supervision of the
peacekeeping force of the United Nations.. Electoral rigging is done by the state apparatus. Political opponents are regularly assassinated and imprisoned. flying over the flooded
Limpopo River during the
2000 Mozambique flood In the 1994 elections, FRELIMO won, under Joaquim Chissano, while RENAMO, led by
Afonso Dhlakama, ran as the official opposition. In 1995, Mozambique joined the
Commonwealth of Nations, becoming, at the time, the only member nation that had never been part of the
British Empire. By mid-1995, over 1.7 million refugees who had sought asylum in neighbouring countries had returned to Mozambique, part of the largest repatriation witnessed in sub-Saharan Africa. An additional four million
internally displaced persons had returned to their homes. In early 2000, a cyclone caused
widespread flooding, killing hundreds and devastating the already precarious infrastructure. There were widespread suspicions that foreign aid resources had been diverted by the powerful leaders of FRELIMO.
Carlos Cardoso, a journalist investigating these allegations, was murdered, and his death was never satisfactorily explained. Indicating in 2001 that he would not run for a third term, Chissano criticised leaders who stayed on longer than he had, which was generally seen as a reference to Zambian President
Frederick Chiluba and Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe. Presidential and National Assembly elections took place on 1–2 December 2004. FRELIMO candidate
Armando Guebuza won with 64% of the popular vote, and Dhlakama received 32% of the popular vote. FRELIMO won 160 seats in Parliament, with a coalition of RENAMO and several small parties winning the 90 remaining seats. Guebuza was inaugurated as the President of Mozambique on 2 February 2005 and served two five-year terms. His successor,
Filipe Nyusi, became the fourth President of Mozambique on 15 January 2015. From 2013 to 2019, a low-intensity
insurgency by RENAMO occurred, mainly in the country's central and northern regions. On 5 September 2014, Guebuza and Dhlakama signed the Accord on Cessation of Hostilities, which brought the military hostilities to a halt and allowed both parties to concentrate on the general elections to be held in October 2014. However, after the general elections, a new political crisis emerged. RENAMO did not recognise the validity of the election results and demanded the control of six provinces – Nampula, Niassa, Tete, Zambezia, Sofala, and Manica – where they claimed to have won a majority. In this new violent conflict, in the period 2013–16, about 12,000 refugees fled to neighboring
Malawi, while this time, according to the
UNHCR,
Doctors Without Borders, and
Human Rights Watch, government forces have been the chief aggressors, contrary to the state-owned media's blaming of the Renamo rebels for it: government forces were reported to have torched villages and carried out
summary executions and
sexual abuses. In October 2019, President Filipe Nyusi was re-elected after a landslide victory in
general election. FRELIMO won 184 seats, RENAMO got 60 seats and the MDM party received the remaining 6 seats in the National Assembly. The opposition did not accept the results because of allegations of fraud and irregularities. FRELIMO secured a two-thirds majority in parliament, which allowed FRELIMO to re-adjust the constitution without needing the agreement of the opposition. Since 2017, the country has faced an
ongoing insurgency by Islamist groups. In September 2020,
Islamic State insurgents captured and briefly occupied
Vamizi Island in the Indian Ocean. In March 2021, dozens of civilians were killed and 35,000 others were displaced after
Islamist rebels seized the city of
Palma. In December 2021, nearly 4,000 Mozambicans fled their villages after an intensification of jihadist attacks in
Niassa. On 15 January 2025,
Daniel Chapo was sworn in as Mozambique's fifth president. He had won the
election as the candidate of the ruling FRELIMO party, although the result was rejected by the opposition. ==Geography==