When Portuguese explorers reached
East Africa in 1498,
Swahili commercial settlements had existed along the
Swahili Coast and outlying islands for several centuries. From about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts became regular ports of call on the new route to the east. was first occupied by Portuguese explorers in the late 15th century. They quickly established a fort there, and with time a community sprang up and achieved importance as port of call, missionary base and a trading centre. The island is now a
UNESCO World Heritage Site. The voyage of
Vasco da Gama around the
Cape of Good Hope into the
Indian Ocean in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, and society in the Indian Ocean world. The Portuguese gained control of the
Island of Mozambique and the port city of
Sofala in the early 16th century. Vasco da Gama having visited
Mombasa in 1498 was then successful in reaching India thereby permitting the Portuguese to trade with the
Far East directly by sea, thus challenging older trading networks of mixed land and sea routes, such as the
spice trade routes that used the
Persian Gulf,
Red Sea and
caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean. The
Republic of Venice had gained control over much of the trade routes between Europe and Asia. After traditional land routes to India had been closed by the
Ottoman Turks, Portugal hoped to use the sea route pioneered by da Gama to break the Venetian trading monopoly. Initially, Portuguese rule in East Africa focused mainly on a coastal strip centred in Mombasa. With voyages led by Vasco da Gama,
Francisco de Almeida and
Afonso de Albuquerque, the Portuguese dominated much of southeast Africa's coast, including
Sofala and
Kilwa, by 1515. Their main goal was to dominate trade with India. As the Portuguese settled along the coast, they made their way into the hinterland as (backwoodsmen). These lived alongside
Swahili traders and even took up service among
Shona kings as interpreters and political advisors. One such managed to travel through almost all the Shona kingdoms, including the
Mutapa Empire's (Mwenemutapa) metropolitan district, between 1512 and 1516. By the 1530s, small groups of Portuguese
traders and
prospectors penetrated the interior regions seeking
gold, where they set up garrisons and trading posts at
Sena and
Tete on the
Zambezi River and tried to gain exclusive control over the gold trade. The Portuguese finally entered into direct relations with the Mwenemutapa in the 1560s. They recorded a wealth of information about the Mutapa kingdom as well as its predecessor,
Great Zimbabwe. According to Swahili traders whose accounts were recorded by the Portuguese historian
João de Barros, Great Zimbabwe was an ancient capital city built of stones of marvellous size without the use of mortar. And while the site was not within Mutapa's borders, the Mwenemutapa kept noblemen and some of his wives there. of
Sofala, c. 1665 The Portuguese attempted to legitimate and consolidate their trade and settlement positions through the creation of (land grants) tied to Portuguese settlement and administration. While were originally developed to be held by Portuguese, through intermarriage they became African Portuguese or African Indian centres defended by large African slave armies known as
Chikunda. Historically, within Mozambique, there was slavery. Human beings were bought and sold by African tribal chiefs, Arab traders, and the Portuguese. Many Mozambican slaves were supplied by tribal chiefs who raided warring tribes and sold their captives to the . Although Portuguese influence gradually expanded, its power was limited and exercised through individual settlers and officials who were granted extensive autonomy. The Portuguese were able to wrest much of the coastal trade from Arabs between 1500 and 1700, but, with the
Arab seizure of Portugal's key foothold at
Fort Jesus on
Mombasa Island (now in
Kenya) in 1698, the pendulum began to swing in the other direction. As a result, investment lagged while
Lisbon devoted itself to the more lucrative trade with India and the
Far East and to the colonisation of
Brazil. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Mazrui and
Omani Arabs reclaimed much of the Indian Ocean trade, forcing the Portuguese to retreat south. Many had declined by the mid-19th century, but several of them survived. During the 19th century, other European powers, particularly the
British and the
French, became increasingly involved in the trade and politics of the region. In the
Island of Mozambique, the hospital, a majestic neo-classical building constructed in 1877 by the Portuguese, with a garden decorated with ponds and fountains, was for many years the biggest hospital south of the
Sahara. By the early 20th century the Portuguese had shifted the administration of much of Mozambique to private chartered companies, including the
Mozambique Company, the
Zambezia Company and the
Niassa Company, which established several railroad lines to neighbouring countries. The companies, granted a charter by the
Portuguese government to foster economic development and maintain Portuguese control in the territory's provinces, would lose their purpose when the territory was transferred to the control of the Portuguese colonial government between 1929 and 1942. Although slavery had been legally abolished in Mozambique by the Portuguese colonial authorities, 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 other
European colonies in Africa. The Zambezia Company, the most profitable chartered company, took over a number of smaller holdings and requested Portuguese military outposts to protect its property. The chartered companies and the Portuguese administration built roads and ports to bring their goods to market including a railway linking
Southern Rhodesia with the Mozambican port of
Beira. However, the development's administration gradually started to pass directly from the trading companies to the Portuguese government itself. Because of their unsatisfactory performance and because of the shift, under the regime of
Oliveira Salazar, towards a stronger Portuguese 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 the 1950s, the Portuguese overseas colony was rebranded an
overseas province of Portugal, and by the early 1970s, it was officially upgraded to the status of Portuguese non-sovereign state, by which it would remain a Portuguese territory but with a wider administrative autonomy. 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
Guinea, became part of the so-called
Portuguese Colonial War (1961–74). From a military standpoint, the Portuguese regular army held the upper hand during all of the conflicts against the independentist guerrilla forces, which created favourable conditions for social development and economic growth until the end of the conflict in 1974. After ten years of sporadic warfare and after Portugal's return to democracy through a leftist military coup in
Lisbon which replaced Portugal's regime in favour of a
military junta (the
Carnation Revolution of April 1974), FRELIMO took control of the territory. The talks that led to an agreement on Mozambique's independence, signed in
Lusaka, were started. Within a year, almost the entire ethnic Portuguese population had left, many were killed or fleeing in fear of being killed (in mainland Portugal they were known as ); others were expelled by the ruling power of the newly independent territory. Mozambique became independent from Portugal on 25 June 1975. ==Government==