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THE NORTHEASTERN FACTOR IN SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY: REEVALUATING THE VOLUME OF THE SLAVE TRADE OUT OF DELAGOA BAY AND ITS IMPACT ON ITS HINTERLAND IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2020

LINELL CHEWINS Open the ORCID record for LINELL CHEWINS [Opens in a new window]  and
PETER DELIUS Open the ORCID record for PETER DELIUS [Opens in a new window]
LINELL CHEWINS
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand
PETER DELIUS
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand
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Abstract

This article, largely on the basis of in-depth research in archives in Lisbon, provides an account of the trading systems linking Delagoa Bay to its southern hinterland. Within this framework we argue that the role of the slave trade has been previously underestimated. There is evidence that the booming demand for slaves in Brazil and on the Mascarene Islands hit this region with force. The scale of that trade is difficult to establish because it was, by and large, illicit and so not systematically recorded. There are indications of a significant trade prior to 1823 and a substantial one after that date. There is also evidence that northern Nguni groups, including the Zulu kingdom, were deeply involved in this trading system. The main sources of captives, however, were militarily weak societies, like the Tembe, which lived closer to the Bay.

Keywords

South AfricaMozambiqueSouthern Africaslave tradekingdomsstatesprecolonial
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 89 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The late Patrick Harries provided invaluable support to this project. He made extremely helpful comments on Chewins’ MA thesis and provided advice on and access to key sources for her PhD research. Phil Bonner, another major contributor to this field of research, read a draft of this article shortly before he died and provided very encouraging and illuminating comments. We are deeply saddened by their passing and by the fact that we will not be able to share the fruits of our research with them. John Wright's comments and unwavering criticism have helped us hone our arguments. Benedict Carton also provided valuable comments on arguments and suggestions on sources. The constructive criticism provided by this journal's readers was very helpful. We both wish to acknowledge financial support from the National Research Fund (NRF).

References

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21 This archive of overseas naval history is organised into three different sections covering the history of the Mozambican coast. Firstly, there are the 267 caixas (boxes), ranging in date from 1605 to 1893, generally containing letters from governors of various ports to the governor-general of Mozambique Island. There is a partial catalogue of these boxes available online that describe the contents of each document. The archive also contains a collection of books or codíces (bound volumes of copied outgoing letters) from the governor-general of Mozambique Island. Lastly, there are letters addressed to the Secretário de Marinho e Ultramar (Secretary of the Overseas and Navy, or SEMU). The SEMU holds letters from governors of Portuguese settlements, including Lourenço Marques and Inhambane, as well as letters of other personnel that touch on events at these ports.

22 L. Chewins, ‘Trade at Delagoa Bay: the influence of trade on political structures 1721–1799’, (unpublished MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 2015), 14.

23 The country trade refers to independent English merchants, many of them ex-servants of the Company, licensed to trade in the Indian Ocean as far as the Cape of Good Hope. See Bulley, A., The Bombay Country Ships, 1790–1833 (Richmond, VA, 2000), 1Google Scholar. Chandler plied his trade at Delagoa Bay for seven years. See Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU) Moç CU Cx 28, d. 49, Antonio Joze de Mello, ‘Report of Antonio Joze de Mello’, n.d.

24 Meisterle, S., ‘Country trade under the imperial flag: William Bolts and the second Austrian East India Company’, Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 9:2 (2008), 2, 63–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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26 Lobato, A., História do Presídio de Lourenço Marques, 1782–1786, Volume I (Lisbon, 1949), 125Google Scholar; Carlson, S. H., Trade and Dependency: Studies in the expansion of Europe (Uppsala, 1984), 154–5Google Scholar.

27 Sleigh, D., Die Buiteposte: VOC-Buiteposte onder Kaapse Bestuur, 1652–1795 (Pretoria, 1993), 715Google Scholar.

28 Chewins, ‘Trade’, 115.

29 The National Archives, London, United Kingdom (TNA) ADM 1/2269, W. F. W. Owen, Captain of HMS Leven, to Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty, 11 Oct. 1823.

30 Wright, J., ‘Turbulent times: political transformations in the north and east, 1760s–1830s’, in Hamilton, C., Mbenga, B. K., and Ross, R. (eds.), The Cambridge History of South Africa, Volume I: From Early Times to 1885 (Cambridge, 2012), 211–52Google Scholar, 224; J. Wright, ‘Political transformations in the Thukela-Mzimkhulu region in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries’, in Hamilton (ed.), Mfecane Aftermath, 168–9.

31 N. J. Hafkin, ‘Trade, society, and politics in northern Mozambique, c. 1753–1913’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Boston University, 1973), 26.

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35 Capela, J. and Medeiros, E., O tráfico de escravos de Moçambique para as ilhas do Indico, 1720–1902 (Maputo, 1987), 19–20Google Scholar.

36 Alpers, E. A., ‘The French slave trade in East Africa (1721–1810)’, Cahiers d'Études Africaines, 10:37 (1970), 82, 123CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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41 Hafkin, ‘Trade’, 68.

42 Alpers, E. A., ‘“Moçambiques” in Brazil: another dimension of the African diaspora in the Atlantic world’, in Curto, J. C. and France, R. Soulodre-La (eds.), Africa and the Americas: Interconnections during the Slave Trade (Trenton, NJ, 2005), 43Google Scholar.

43 Alpers, ‘“Moçambiques”’, 44, 49.

44 Filliot, Traite, 166.

45 Allen, R. B., ‘The Mascarene slave-trade and labour migration in the Indian Ocean during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’, Slavery & Abolition, 24:2 (2003), 33–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other works that describe the Mascarenes as a centre of a substantial regional slave network include Campbell, G., ‘Madagascar and Mozambique in the slave trade of the western Indian Ocean 1800–1861’, Slavery & Abolition, 9:3 (1988), 166–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Allen, ‘Constant demand’, 43–72; and Allen, ‘Satisfying’, 45–73. Slaves were also exported to Madagascar (see Campbell, ‘Madagascar’, 166), as well as Dui and Daman (see Machado, ‘Forgotten corner’, 17–32). The rise in the slave trade in response to prohibiting legislation appears to have been universal. Benguela serves as an example: see Candido, M., An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland (Cambridge, 2013), 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Bethell, L., The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade (Cambridge, 1970), 71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the period 1822–7, an average of sixty slave ships landed each year in the province of Rio de Janeiro; in 1828, over 110 ships landed 45,000 slaves, and almost the same number landed in 1829. In 1830, 30,000 slaves landed in the first six months of the year.

47 Chalhoub, S., A força de escravidão, ilegalidade e costume no Brazil Oitocentista (São Paulo, 2012), 35Google Scholar.

48 Chalhoub, A força, 36.

49 There was a ‘great volume’ of slaves imported by Brazil during 1828–30. See Rodrigues, J., ‘Outras experiências no fim de tráfico’, in Rodrigues, J. (ed.), O infame comércio: Propostas e experiências no final do tráfico de africanos para o Brasil (1800–1850) (Campinas, Brazil, 2000), 174Google Scholar.

50 Bethell, Abolition, 71; Chalhoub, A força, 36.

51 de Araújo, C. E. M., ‘Fim do tráfico’, in Schwarz, L. M. and Gomes, F. dos Santos (eds.), Dicionãrio da escravidão e liberdade (São Paulo, 2018), 232Google Scholar.

52 Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra, MS 169/209-34, F. de Santa de Thereza, ‘Plano e Relaçao da Bahia denominada Lourenço Marques, na Costa de Natal, ao norte do Cabo da Boa Esparança junto ao promo[n]torio da latitude de 26 graos, e não menos das terras adjaçentes, seus habitadores, reys, rios, comercio, costumes', 6 Aug. 1784, 30n.

53 Lobato, A., História Fundação de Lourenço Marques (Maputo, 1948), 35Google Scholar.

54 Lobato, História do Presídio I, 127.

55 Lobato, A., História do Presídio de Lourenço Marques, 1787–1799, Volume II (Lisbon, 1961), 13Google Scholar.

56 AHU Moç Cx 146, d. 68, letter of Governor Teodorico José Pereira Ramos, 20 June 1814.

57 TNA ADM 1/2269, report of W. F. W. Owen, Captain of HMS Leven, ‘The Portuguese settlements and the dominions of the eastern coast of Africa’, 15 Apr. 1823. Owen wrote this report from Simon's Bay, after his departure from Delagoa Bay on 7 Aug. 1822.

58 AHU CU Moç Codíce 1393, Letter from Governor Matozo to the governor-general of Mozambique Island, 11 July 1821.

59 Ibid.

60 Owen, W. F. W., Narrative of Voyages to Explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia and Madagascar, Volume I (London, 1833), 80Google Scholar. There is no equivalent discussion in Boteler, T., Narrative of Discovery to Africa and Arabia (London, 1835)Google Scholar.

61 Ibid.

62 Personal communication with Ben Carton, 30 Aug. 2018.

63 The National Library of South Africa (NLSA), Cape Town campus, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society microfilm collection (NLSA-WMMS) MSE 13, slide 31.

64 Wylie, Myth of Iron, 551n82.

65 TNA ADM 1/2269, letter from W. F. W. Owen, Captain of HMS Leven, to Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty, 19 June 1824.

66 The Portuguese used the term Mapsitis in 1830. The Mapsitis claimed Dingaan sent them and their families to look for copper mines and bead trees. As they were ‘despatched’ along with their families, it is unlikely that the Zulu king sent them. Invoking Dingane's name may have been intended to make groups wary of challenging them, knowing full well Shaka had died. The letter, written in 1830, states that they left four or five years previously (1824–5) and went via Delagoa Bay, past Inhambane, to Sofala. From there they turned to Quisanga inland of Sofala, and turned home via Uteve, north of Sofala. They ravaged the countryside as they went, stealing cattle and copper bracelets, taking women, and killing anyone who opposed them. In 1830 they were back home. Despite the invocation of Dingane's name, insinuating Zulu affiliation, the group was likely to have been the Nxaba Msane, who had settled above the Save River. There is no record of a large group of people tracing their steps back to Natal past Inhambane and Delagoa Bay during 1830, or after, when they were ‘already back home’ (‘já da volta o seu pais’). AHU Moç CU Cx 238, d. 19, letter from Francis Miguel Rodrigues Nunes to the governor-general of Mozambique Island, 4 Aug. 1830.

67 Lobato, A., Quarto estudos e uma evocação para a história de Lourenço Marques (Lisbon, 1961), 107Google Scholar. ‘Izites went raiding on the northern beaches’.

68 Lobato, Quarto, 111.

69 The Magakala Pedi recall a leader called Switi, a corruption of Zwide, who settled near the Steelpoort valley with his followers. Maroteng Pedi recall chief Sfete living in the Steelpoort Valley — a key trading route to Delagoa Bay. See Delius, P., The Land Belongs to Us: The Pedi Polity, the Boers and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Transvaal (Berkeley, 1984), 22Google Scholar.

70 Chewins’ forthcoming doctoral thesis fully explores the case of Antonio Ribeiro.

71 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, Pasta 2, Capilha 1, report from Alexandre Thomaz de Morreau Sarmento, 8 June 1835, Lisbon.

72 According to Threlfall, Zwide turned the Vatua out of the country, ‘and they ha[d] been trying to find another for two or three years’, suggesting the presence of the Nwandwe at and around Delagoa Bay from 1820. School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) archives, University of London, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Archive (SOAS-WMMA) MMS 17/02/04/14, letter from W. Threlfall to unknown, Aug. 1823.

73 Owen, Narrative, 80.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid.

76 TNA ADM 1/2269, ‘Description of Delagoa Bay’, A. Osborne, surgeon of the HMS Leven, 1822.

77 Owen, Narrative, 80.

78 Wylie, Myth of Iron, 245.

79 TNA ADM 1/2269, letter from W. F. W. Owen, Captain of HMS Leven, to Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty, 19 June 1824.

80 Owen, Narrative, 255.

81 TNA ADM 1/2269, letter from W. F. W. Owen, Captain of HMS Leven, to Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty, 19 June 1824.

82 TNA ADM 1/2269, report of W. F. W. Owen, Captain of HMS Leven, 15 Apr. 1823. The slave ship belonged to Vincente Thomas dos Santos, details of this slave trader below.

83 ‘Estas terras achão todas perseguidas pellos Vatuas he hum inimigu que tem espalhadus terrors panicus por todos estes sertoens’ (‘These territories are persecuted by the Vatuas and an enemy that has spread panicked terror in all these hinterlands’). Quoted in Lobato, Quarto, 106.

84 Zwangendaba moved northeast along the coast, ‘northward of the river Mannise [Nkomati River]’. See J. D. Omer-Cooper, The Zulu Aftermath: A Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Bantu Africa (Evanston, IL, 1966), 57; and G. Liesegang, ‘Nguni migrations between Delagoa Bay and the Zambezi, 1821–1839’, African Historical Studies, 3:2 (1970), 323.

85 Etherington, The Great Treks, 172.

86 Lobato, Quarto, 106; SOAS-WMMA MMS 17/02/04/14, letter from W. Threlfall to unknown, Aug. 1823.

87 TNA ADM 1/2269, letter from W. F. W. Owen, Captain of HMS Leven, to Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty, 19 June 1824.

88 Delius, ‘Recapturing captives’, 7–23; Delius, The Land, 34–7, 126–47.

89 Both Smith and Hedges do mention the commercial company in passing. Smith focuses on its conflict with successive governors, while Hedges mentions it in connection with its agent, José Antonio Nobre. Hedges, ‘Trade and politics’, 243; Smith, ‘The struggle’, 281.

90 The fort was the official Portuguese trading post, manned by military personnel, while the Exclusive Ivory Commercial Company of Inhambane and Lourenço Marques was a private venture that came into competition with the fort.

91 AHU Moç CU Cx 152, d. 73, request for a passport from Vincente Thomas Dos Santos, master of the Delfim, 10 Mar. 1817.

92 J. Capela, Dicionário de Negreiros em Moçambique, 1750–1897, (https://www.africanos.eu/images/publicacoes/livros_electronicos/EB004.pdf), 2007, 104. This Board received deposits of any valuable goods to auction off to generate revenue for the city.

93 Capela, Dicionário, 13.

94 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, Pasta 2, Capilha 1, letter from Jozé do Nascimento to the Military Governor of the Mozambique Province, 20 Jan. 1835.

95 Ibid.

96 The greatest contribution of the SEMU for understanding trade in the 1820s lies in the documented inquest into Governor Dionizo Antonio Ribeiro's death at the hands of Dingane's generals in 1833. These documents complement the close account of the events recorded in AHU CU Moç Cx 263, d. 80, ‘A Guerra dos Reis do Cabo Natal, Maxacana da Matolla, Macasana do Maputo, e mais Regnos Vizinhos ao Presidio’, 1833, author unknown. This contemporary document shows the events surrounding Ribeiro's death, while illuminating the nature of the relationship between the fort (which served as a trading post) and the Company, as well as the relationships between them and surrounding chiefs.

97 Santana, F., Documentação avulsa moçambicana do Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Volume I (Lisbon, 1964), 485Google Scholar.

98 Capela and Medeiros, O tráfico, 41.

99 ‘Navios Franceses que alli hião á esta trafico denominados — Jan Belier, Espiegle, Levrier, São João, e outro mais (emphasis mine) exportação para Ilha Borbon dous em dous mez’. AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, Pasta 2, Capilha 1, letter from Anselmo Jozé do Nascimento to the Military Governor of the Mozambique Province, 20 Jan. 1835. For the date, see Capela and Medeiros, O tráfico, 41.

100 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1283, Pasta 2, Capilha 1, letter from Sebastião Xavier Botelho, to the Governor-General of Mozambique Island, 2 June 1829.

101 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, Pasta 1, Capilha 2, letter from Anselmo Jozé do Nascimento to the Military Governor of the Mozambique Province 18 Feb. 1835.

102 Santana, Documentação, 458.

103 Capela and Medeiros, O tráfico, 34.

104 Ibid. 41.

105 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, Cx 2, d. 1, letter from the Governor of Delagoa Bay, Caetano da Costa Matoza, 18 Nov. 1834.

106 Ibid.

107 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, letter from Anselmo Jozé do Nascimento to the Military Governor of the Mozambique Province, 20 Jan. 1835.

108 The sum of slaves was calculated by cross-checking of ships listed in the SEMU with the number of slaves these loaded recorded in Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (STDB); see Table 1. The extremely valuable STDB, which only came into existence in 1999 and was therefore not available to either Smith or Hedges, reveals the considerable number of slaves traded from Delagoa Bay. See STDB, (https://slavevoyages.org/voyages/W4LGhqzd), accessed multiple times since 2016.

109 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, Pasta 2, Capilha 1, Letter from Anselmo Jozé do Nascimento to the Military Governor of the Mozambique Province, 20 Jan. 1835.

110 Vessels shipped slaves to Bourbon Island every two months, according to do Nascimento: ‘Navios Franceses que alli hião á esta trafico denominados — Jan Belier, Espiegle, Levrier, São João, e outro mais exportação para Ilha Borbon dous em dous mez’, AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, Pasta 2, Capilha 1, letter from Anselmo Jozé do Nascimento to the Military Governor of the Mozambique Province, 20 Jan. 1835. The SEMU records provide telling insights into the operation of the slave trade, including an important list of Portuguese and French ships entering and leaving Delagoa Bay. The STDB gives the number of slaves embarked at Delagoa Bay for Brazil. Neither of the pioneering academics, Smith and Hedges, had the advantage of these documents, nor the invaluable 1987 study by José Capela and Eduardo Medeiros on slave trafficking to the Mascarenes, based on archival sources found in Lisbon and Maputo (see Capela and Medeiros, O tráfico). Capela (deceased 2014) and Medeiros are important Portuguese historians, as is Alexandre Lobato, who produced reliable studies on the French slave trade, touching on Delagoa Bay and Inhambane, and all trade related to Delagoa Bay, respectively. These works are important because of the paucity of studies on Delagoa Bay and Inhambane.

111 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, Pasta 2, Capilha 1, letter from Jozé do Nascimento to the Military Governor of the Mozambique Province, 20 Jan. 1835.

112 Stuart, J. and Malcolm, D. M. (eds.), The Diary of Henry Francis Fynn (Pietermaritzburg, 1986), 7Google Scholar. Makasane provided military assistance to Dingiswayo to vanquish the Qwabe by requesting musket-carrying soldiers from the Portuguese fort. In return, Dingiswayo promised to direct all his ivory through Makasane on the way to the market at Delagoa Bay.

113 British Library (BL) ADD MS 33837, letter dated 1 May 1823, author and recipient unknown, f. 33.

114 SOAS-WMMA MMS 17/02/04/14, W. Threlfall to unknown, Aug. 1823.

115 Ibid.

116 To illustrate how seriously the Zulu took transactions and retaliated in violence, Big George is a case in point. He took a tusk without payment, and twenty-five ‘Bratwahs’ killed all his relatives. See NLSA-WMMS MSE 13, slide 31.

117 TNA ADM 1/2269, report of W. F. W. Owen, Captain of HMS Leven, 15 Apr. 1823.

118 AHU CU Moç Cx 227, d. 20, Memoria, written by Antonio Jozé Lamego Cabral, Captain of the Commission, 26 July 1830.

119 AHU Moç Cx 263, d. 80, ‘A Guerra dos reis do Cabo Natal’.

120 AHU CU Moç Cx 262, d. 134, letter to the Conselho Ultramarino, unknown author, 25 Aug. 1832.

121 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284 Cx 2, d. 1, letter from João Alexandre de Almeida, Major-Adjutant of Government Orders, 18 Feb. 1833. For the reference to the ferry, see BL ADD MS 33837, letter dated 1 May 1823, author and recipient unknown, f. 32. For the tent, see SOAS-WMMA MMS 17/02/04/14, letter from W. Threlfall to unknown, Aug. 1823.

122 AHU CU Moç Cx 262, d. 134, letter to the Governor-General of Mozambique Island, n.d., ca. 1832; AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284 Cx 2, d. 1, letter from the Governor of Delagoa Bay, Caetano da Costa Matoza, 18 Nov. 1834.

123 Ibid.

124 AHU CU Moç Cx 262, d. 134, letter to the Governor-General of Mozambique Island, n.d., ca. 1832. The Maputo and Zulu representatives had regular meetings at chief Makasane's homestead, discussing commercial matters; see BL ADD MS 33837, letter dated 1 May 1823, author and recipient unknown, f. 33.

125 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284 Cx 2, d. 1, letter from Jozé do Nascimento to the Military Governor of the Mozambique Province, 20 Jan. 1835.

126 AHU CU Moç Cx 239, d. 92, letter to the General-Governor of Mozambique Island, Paulo José Miguel de Brito, 30 Oct. 1830. Anselmo was called ‘a bad man’ for calling the Vatua to war against him. The slave trader's motive for this friendship therefore was likely assistance in warfare, relying on Dingane's army to raid in the territory of Matola for the purpose of capturing slaves.

127 AHU CU Moç Cx 239, d. 92, letter to the General-Governor of Mozambique Island, Paulo José Miguel de Brito, 30 Oct. 1830.

128 AHU CU Moç Codíce 1393, letter from Governor Matozo to the Governor-General of Mozambique Island, 11 July 1821.

129 AHU SEMU L1 Moç 1284, Pasta 2, Capilha 4, report by Caetano da Costa Matozo, 18 Nov. 1834.

130 P. Delius, The Land, 35–8, 137–8, 146; Bonner, P., Kings, Commoners and Concessionaires: The Evolution and Dissolution of the Nineteenth-Century Swazi State (Cambridge, 2002), 47–64Google Scholar. Inboekeling was the term used for the name of the apprentice, entered into a register. Apprenticeship is generally agreed to be a form of slavery.

131 Harries, ‘Slavery’, 309.

132 Ibid..

133 Cobbing, ‘The Mfecane as alibi’, 202.