Beginning with 1720, the capture, movement and export of people became a dominant feature of the political and economic scenery of northern and central Mozambique, as well as adjacent regions. The ports of Quelimane, Angoche, Ilha de Moçambique, Ibo, Tungué, not to mention northern coastal bays, creeks and islands, emerged into important African slave emporiums where converged multiple caravans of captives from different directions according to the particular interests of African slave traders and their international partners. When conditions for exporting these slaves were poor, the Zambeze valley and the Euro-Asiatic establishments of the coastal regions became crowded with slave populations uprooted from distant societies, which temporarily swelled, often unproductively, the Portuguese, Afro-luso-industanic and Muslim populations of the Swahili littoral. Regardless of the length of their stay, African slaves kept at these coastal trading posts were registered according to their origins. But, after embarking for their final destination of captivity, they there became considered as “mozambiques”, as “makuas” (a generic name given to all peoples of northern Mozambique), or as as “inhambanes” (those who left through the port of Inhambane in southern Mozambique). This “mozambicanization” of slaves departing through the ports of Mozambique raises serious questions about the cultural identities with which they ended up at their final destination. The so-called “moçambiques” in Brazilian ports and in the islands of the Indian Ocean gave rise to cultural manifestations which were referred to locally as from Mozambique. But were they in fact of Mozambican origin? The present contribution focuses on some of the aspects of this “mozambicanization” in the ports of departure.
