History of Southern Africa 1752-1880






Portuguese Forts on Moçambique's coast an Outpost of Portuguese India, 1505-1752



At the time of Vasco da Gama's exploration of East Africa's coast, the ports of SOFALA, QUELIMANE and MOÇAMBIQUE were thriving; Sofala was the outlet of the MWANAMUTAPA KINGDOM in the interior (in modern Zimbabwe) which exported gold.
In 1505 the Portuguese occupied the city of Moçambique and established a factory in Sofala. In order to exclude Swahili traders from the Mwanamutapa gold trade, the Portuguese established trading posts at SENA and TETE on the Zambezi river (1531) and in Quelimane (1544). Several attempts to conquer Mwanamutapa (1569-1572, 1574) failed; in the early 17th century the Portuguese managed to gain imnfluence at the court of Mwanamutapa.
Portugal's interest in the East African coast lay in the domination of Mwanamutapa's foreign trade. Portugal's trading posts were administrated from Goa (India) until 1752.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		History of Mocambique, from Infoplease
DOCUMENTS
REFERENCE



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on November 7th 2004

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