 A stamp issued by the Niassa Company | |
| Industry | International trade |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1891 |
| Defunct | 1929 |
| Fate | Dissolved |
| Headquarters | |
Area served | Portuguese Empire |
The Niassa Company or Nyassa Chartered Company (Portuguese : Companhia do Niassa) was a royal company in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, then known as Portuguese East Africa, that had the concession of the lands that include the present provinces of Cabo Delgado and Niassa between 1891 and 1929. [1] [2]
In the late 19th century, Portugal's dominance of Mozambique began to be challenged by the establishment of neighboring British and German colonies. Although the borders of Mozambique had nominally been fixed by the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, Portugal lacked the capital to exert effective control or economic exploitation of the territory. To help overcome this, in 1891 the Portuguese government authorised three private companies by royal charter to manage portions of Mozambique: the Mozambique Company, the Zambezi Company and the Niassa Company.
The Niassa Company was given a concession which covered the current provinces of Cabo Delgado and Niassa, from the Ruvuma River to the Lúrio River and the Indian Ocean to Lake Niassa, a territory which covered more than 160,000 square km. The terms of the concession were the same as for the Mozambique Company, except for a term of only 35 years. The official charter by the Portuguese government in March 1893.
Although founded by Bernard Daupais, a merchant from Lisbon, his syndicate failed to raise the necessary capital for the company's operations, so from 1892 to 1893 a consortium of French and British capitals bought the concession, moving its headquarters to London. Since most of the territory was Portuguese in name only and had not yet been occupied militarily, this consortium needed to obtain more funds for its operation.
Between 1897 and 1908, three financial groups successively controlled the Niassa Company. The first was the "Ibo Syndicate" which raised enough funds to establish an administrative center in the village of Ibo in 1897. In 1899 the "Ibo Syndicate" became the "Ibo Investment Trust", which raised a small army provided by the Portuguese colonial administration, consisting of 300 Portuguese soldiers and 2800 "sepoys" (Indians recruited in other regions of Mozambique). From 1900 to 1902, the company was successfully able to occupy the inland regions of the concession, including Metangula on the banks of Lake Niassa.
In 1904 the Niassa Company founded the town Porto Amélia, which is now known as Pemba, and Porto Amélia became the headquarters of the company.
Around that time, the company discovered a lucrative source of income. The first local labor supply contracts were drawn up for the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WENELA), as an official Mozambican recruiter for the mines in South Africa. The Niassa Company was dominated by "Nyassa Consolidated" from 1908, with strong participation of South African mining capital. By recruiting for the South African mines, the Niassa Company came into direct competition against the Moslem tribal chiefs, notably the Yao, who still exported slaves to Arabia. Further military action was required from 1909 to 1912 to suppress the slave trade. However, in 1913, the South African mines stopped the import of labor from north of latitude 22 deg South. Although the Niassa Company quickly took steps to change its customers to the mines of Katanga in Belgian Congo, its South African investors lost interest. [3]
In 1913–14, a German banking consortium bought a majority of the shares of the Niassa Company, aiming to bring about a partition of Portuguese Mozambique between Germany and Great Britain. With the outbreak of the First World War, the British government confiscated the German equities and handed them over to an English financial group led by Owen Philipps, chairman of the Union-Castle Line, which conducted several businesses in Portuguese East Africa, but which found the concession to be more of a liability. [4] During the war, the Niassa Company's territory was the scene of several anti-Portuguese resistance operations by the local chiefs aided by the Germans (including in the Kionga Triangle). To resist this invasion, more than 300 kilometers of roads were opened. This also meant the effective occupation of the Mueda Plateau, which was occupied by the heavily armed Makonde people. The Niassa Company only managed to suppress the Makonde by the early 1920s, and the tribe later became the backbone of the FRELIMO movement in the 1960s and 1970s against continued Portuguese colonial rule.[ citation needed ]
Although the Niassa Company created administrative structures in the form of districts regulated by agents, the company existed for the benefit of its shareholders, and was not interested in the development of the territory to any other end. Although one of its main obligations was to create light houses along the Mozambican Coast, the Niassa Company fell short of this goal. [1] On 27 October 1929 the Portuguese government refused to grant an extension of the concession, and the Niassa Company was abolished. [2]
The Niassa Company was never able to raise sufficient revenue from its investor to provide for a viable infrastructure to the area under its control. Its initial capitalization of 300,000 pounds was only a fraction of what was required. Contemporary colonial thought held that the key to profitability would be a railroad from Port Amelia to Lake Niassa, which would open the interior of the territory to investments in agriculture and mines. However, the cost of such a railroad would have been over 3 million pounds, which the company could not afford. [5]
For revenue, the company partly relied on the chibalo system, a corvée labor policy, which forced the natives to work on plantations, and public works projects. Rubber and sisal were primary revenue crops. The chibalo system enabled the Niassa Company to establish plantations and to force peasants to work for them and prevent them from growing their own crops for sale.
In addition, the company relied on a hut tax to fund its operations. Although theoretically a tax on each dwelling, in reality the tax was on each adult person, which could be paid in cash or in produce. The hut tax, which was two escudo in 1921 was increased to 50 escudo in 1927 and to 85 escudo in 1929. This was party due to devaluation of the escudo, but was also due to a dwindling tax base, as thousands of Mozambicans sought refuge in Tanganyika or Nyasaland to avoid the tax. As a tax of 50 escudo was the equivalent of three months paid labor, many people fell deeply into debt or forced labor. [5]
The territories total profits amounted to only 115,000 pounds in 1926, which it was able to maintain only by ever more onerous application of hut taxes and the British investors refused to extend more capital unless the concession was extended past 1929, which it was not. [3] At the time the concession ended, the company owed more than million pounds to its creditors as opposed to only 75,000 ads in assets. [4]
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Africa to the southwest. The sovereign state is separated from the Comoros, Mayotte and Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. The capital and largest city is Maputo.
Mozambique was a Portuguese colony, overseas province and later a member state of Portugal. It gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
Portuguese Mozambique or Portuguese East Africa were the common terms by which Mozambique was designated during the period in which it was a Portuguese colony. Portuguese Mozambique originally constituted a string of Portuguese possessions along the south-east African coast, and later became a unified colony, which now forms the Republic of Mozambique.
The economy of Mozambique is $14.396 billion by gross domestic product as of 2018, and has developed since the end of the Mozambican Civil War (1977–1992). In 1987, the government embarked on a series of macroeconomic reforms, which were designed to stabilize the economy. These steps, combined with donor assistance and with political stability since the multi-party elections in 1994, have led to dramatic improvements in the country's growth rate. Inflation was brought to single digits during the late 1990s, although it returned to double digits in 2000–02. Fiscal reforms, including the introduction of a value-added tax and reform of the customs service, have improved the government's revenue collection abilities.
Cabo Delgado is the northernmost province of Mozambique. It has an area of 82,625 km2 (31,902 sq mi) and a population of 2,320,261 (2017). As well as bordering Mtwara Region in the neighboring country of Tanzania, it borders the provinces of Nampula and Niassa. The region is an ethnic stronghold of the Makonde tribe, with the Makua and Mwani as leading ethnic minorities.
The British South Africa Company was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expected mineral wealth of Mashonaland but united because of common economic interests and to secure British government backing. The company received a Royal Charter modelled on that of the British East India Company. Its first directors included The 2nd Duke of Abercorn, Rhodes himself, and the South African financier Alfred Beit. Rhodes hoped BSAC would promote colonisation and economic exploitation across much of south-central Africa, as part of the "Scramble for Africa". However, his main focus was south of the Zambezi, in Mashonaland and the coastal areas to its east, from which he believed the Portuguese could be removed by payment or force, and in the Transvaal, which he hoped would return to British control.
The Makonde are an ethnic group in southeast Tanzania, northern Mozambique, and Kenya. The Makonde developed their culture on the Mueda Plateau in Mozambique. At present they live throughout Tanzania and Mozambique, and have a small presence in Kenya. The Makonde population in Tanzania was estimated in 2001 to be 1,140,000, and the 1997 census in Mozambique put the Makonde population in that country at 233,358, for an estimated total of 1,373,358. The ethnic group is roughly divided by the Ruvuma River; members of the group in Tanzania are referred to as the Makonde, and those in Mozambique as the Maconde. The two groups have developed separate languages over time but share a common origin and culture.
Pemba is a port city and district in Mozambique. It is the capital of the province of Cabo Delgado and lies on a peninsula in Pemba Bay.
The Mozambican Civil War was a civil war fought in Mozambique from 1977 to 1992. Like many regional African conflicts during the late twentieth century, the Mozambican Civil War possessed local dynamics but was also exacerbated greatly by the polarizing effects of Cold War politics. The war was fought between Mozambique's ruling Marxist Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), the anti-communist insurgent forces of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), and a number of smaller factions such as the PRM, Mozambican National Union UNAMO, Mozambique Revolutionary Committee COREMO, Union of the Peoples of Mozambique UNIPOMO and Mozambique Democratic United Front FUMO.
Cuamba is a city and district of Niassa Province in Mozambique, lying north west of Mount Namuli. Before independence the town was known as Nova Freixo.
Mueda[ˈmwɛða] is the largest town of the Makonde Plateau in northeastern Mozambique. It is the capital of the Mueda District in Cabo Delgado Province. It is the center of the culture of the Makondes, and the production of their ebony sculptures.
Chibalo was the system of debt bondage or forced labour in the Ultramar Português, most notably in Portuguese Angola and Portuguese Mozambique.
The Mozambican War of Independence was an armed conflict between the guerrilla forces of the Mozambique Liberation Front or FRELIMO and Portugal. The war officially started on September 25, 1964, and ended with a ceasefire on September 8, 1974, resulting in a negotiated independence in 1975.
Nyassa may refer to:
The Mozambique Company was a royal company operating in Portuguese Mozambique that had the concession of the lands in the Portuguese colony corresponding to the present provinces of Manica and Sofala in central Mozambique.
Niassa Reserve is a nature reserve in Cabo Delgado Province and Niassa Province, Mozambique. Covering over 42,000 square kilometres, it is the largest protected area in the country. The reserve is part of the Trans-Frontier Conservation Area and links to the Tanzanian Lukwika-Lumesule Game Reserve. It will connect to the Lake Niassa Reserve when it is completed.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of the Nyassa Company.
Theodorico César de Sande Pacheco de Sacadura Botte, commonly known as Theodorico de Sacadura Botte, was a Portuguese colonial administrator and entrepreneur.
The Zambezia Company was the third leasing company of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, established on 25 May 1892. Its concession regions covered the areas of Chire, bordering Nyasaland, Zumbo, and Luenha.
Mozambican nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Mozambique, as amended; the Nationality Law and Nationality Regulation, and their revisions; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Mozambique. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Nationality describes the relationship of an individual to the state under international law, whereas citizenship is the domestic relationship of an individual within the nation. Mozambican nationality is typically obtained under the principle of jus soli, i.e. by birth in the territory, or jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth in Mozambique or abroad to parents with Mozambican nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalization.
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