Abstract
This chapter explores twelve photographs from a Portuguese military archive. Part of a pacification campaign in Mozambique, they depict aspects of the military expedition to the Báruè kingdom in 1902. There is a consistency in the way the photographs were taken, the precise framing, composition and carefully chosen backgrounds. The repetition in the act of organizing and producing images in different locations made it one of the operational procedures of the expedition. These photographs are cross-referenced with the memoirs of the expedition commander, João de Azevedo Coutinho. Despite the very few photographs featuring in “restricted” publications, it seems that they did not circulate. Frequently, overwhelmed by dictatorial indexical rules, the lack of competence to provide the necessary information about the subjects they depict means that photographs become victims of their own pasts, useless, inaccessible, condemned to oblivion. Yet, as Enwezor suggests, the photographs are themselves archives. The chapter engages with this potential.
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Notes
- 1.
For a notion of inscription, see Elizabeth Edwards, Photographs and the Practice of History (Great Britain: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), 23–29. The past refers to the beginning of the colonial process, the rich history of the Zambezi Valley.
- 2.
Christopher Pinney, Photos of the Gods (London: Reaktion Books, 2009).
- 3.
John Berger cited in Judit Fryer Davidov, ‘Narratives of Place’, in Alex Hughes and Andrea Noble (eds), Phototextualities: intersections of photography and narrative (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 41.
- 4.
My translation of the Portuguese title.
- 5.
Another publication specifically dedicated to this campaign, J. A. Coutinho A Campanha Do Barué Em 1902 (Lisboa: Typ. da Livraria Ferin, 1904), is a less expanded version of the monograph mentioned earlier, only focused on the campaign. It features 21 ‘illustrations’, a folded map of the region between Sena, Tete and Macequece and the itinerary of the military columns involved in the operation. It also contains three statistical graphs with temperature and altitude and 73 documents with information of the entire organization and the service of the military columns. Apart from the one depicting the imprisoned African leaders on the way to the exile, the set of photographs published are different from the ones in the archive, but convey the same spirit.
- 6.
The Gaza campaign was the first in the context of Effective Occupation, and celebrated the greatest Portuguese victory, putting an end to the powerful Gaza Empire and its king, Ngungunyane. For a brief introduction on this campaign see António José Telo, Moçambique 1895. A Campanha de Todos os Heróis (Lisboa: Tribuna Da História, 2004). On Ngungunyane, see Gerhard J. Liesegang, Ngungunyane, a figura de Ngungunyane, Rei de Gaza 1884–18895 e o desaparecimento do seu Estado (Maputo: ARPAC, 1986).
- 7.
Detail cut excerpted from Map III. Le Mozambique portugais (1854–1857). In René Pélissier, Naissance du Mozambique, Résistance et Révoltes Anticoloniales (1854–1918), Vol. 1 (Orgeval: Pélissier, 1984), 24.
- 8.
Zambezi or Zambesi in English is spelled rio Zambeze in Portuguese, and Zambézia is one of the largest provinces of the country.
- 9.
António Rita Ferreira, Fixação Portuguesa e História Pré-colonial de Moçambique. Estudos e Documentos, 142 (Lisboa: Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical do Ultramar, 1982), 144–239.
- 10.
Allen and Barbara Isaacman. Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and Its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965–2007. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2013, 342.
- 11.
Allen F. Isaacman, The Tradition of Resistance in Mozambique. Anti-Colonial Activity in the Zambesi Valley 1850–1921 (London: Heinemann, 1979), 63 and 55.
- 12.
Isaacman, The Tradition of Resistance, 65. Many of the African soldiers later called cipaios were earlier called chicundas, acting as slave warriors, hunters and police for their landlords. On chicundas see the Isaacmans’ Escravos, Esclavagistas, Guerreiros e Caçadores. A Saga dos Chicundas do Vale do Zambeze (Maputo: Promédia, 2006). On ‘Prazos da Coroa’ see, J. Capela Donas Senhoras e Escravos (Porto: Edições Afrontamento, 1995), 19–41. See also História de Moçambique, Vol. I (Maputo: Imprensa Universitária, 2000), 251–562. Cipaio is a Portuguese term originated from the word ‘shipahi’ (an Indian soldier serving under the British order). Absorbed in the structure of colonial administration, worked as guards, civilian soldiers, police or tax collectors. Also spelled sipai or sipaio, the English term ‘sepoy’ is adopted here.
- 13.
Quelimane is a city port at the mouth of an offshoot of the Zambezi River, and Chinde, one of its most important ports.
- 14.
When the Companhia de Moçambique finally occupied that territory, they built at Tambara the fort considered by Coutinho to be ‘the best building of this genre I know in Africa’. See Coutinho, Memórias de um Velho Marinheiro, 587; 583.
- 15.
Surprisingly, despite the two days’ heavy confrontation, the initial combat at Tambara is not included in the last list. See the discussion on Fig. 3.3. Aringas are large fortified encirclements where the elite lived and to where people from surrounding fields would converge in case of war. See José Capela, ‘Como as aringas de Moçambique se transformaram em Quilombos (How in Mozambique the aringas became maroons)’, Tempo, 10 (20) (2006), 72–97, www.scielo.br/pdf/tem/v10n/20/05.pdf accessed 8/01/2017.
- 16.
Coutinho, Memórias de um Velho Marinheiro, 630.
- 17.
Marquês de Lavradio, Portugal Em África Depois de 1851 (Lisboa: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1936), 281.
- 18.
See discussion on Fig. 3.7.
- 19.
The Tonga of the lower Zambezi are descended from the Chona-Caranga (Shona-Karanga in English orthography), a cultural and linguistically distinguished people, that since the fifteenth century inhabited the extensive lands limited by the rivers Punguè, Zambezi, Luenha, Zangue, Mucua, Mucombeze and Msicadzi. This contradicts H. P. Junod and others’ perception that Tonga (Tsonga) was a derogatory terminology applied to these people by the Nguni invaders. In A. Rita-Fereira, Fixação Portuguesa e História Pré-Colonial de Moçambique, 78–79. See the ‘introduction to the Thonga Tribe’ in Henri Phillipe Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, Vol I (New York: University Books INC, 1962), 13 onwards. On page 15 Junod explains the origin of the spelling Thonga and its significance. On the Alliance between the Barue and Tonga see Isaacman, Tradition to Resistance, 58.
- 20.
See map in 3.3. The entire expedition was divided in three columns that depart from different positions in the assault to Báruè. The first column was the principal, commanded by Azevedo Coutinho himself. Pombeirar refers to the grimacing, provoking, teasing, jumping and signalling challenges before fighting, or during the drumming before combat.
- 21.
Coutinho, Memórias de um Velho Marinheiro e Soldado de África, 588.
- 22.
Coutinho, Memórias de um Velho Marinheiro e Soldado de África, 649.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Ibid., 647. Missongue was the great aringa of Chipitura, one of the contenders for the throne of Báruè, friendly to the Portuguese who support him on the succession fights, See Isaacman, The tradition of Resistance, 55.
- 25.
Basto became an administrator of the Companhia de Moçambique and died a navy admiral. In José Capela, Donas, Senhores e Escravos, 131.
- 26.
These refer to the earlier campaigns led by the greatest Portuguese hero, Mouzinho de Albuquerque, between 1894 and 1898.
- 27.
Coutinho, Memórias de um Velho Marinheiro e Soldado de África, 608. The action of the lieutenant is also mentioned on page 591 of the book.
- 28.
José Capela, Donas, Senhores e Escravos, 131.
- 29.
Ibid., 599.
- 30.
This study adopts western semiotic conventions yet acknowledges other perspectives, mindful that the meanings of the enunciations below and above are more complex. For example, in certain parts of Mozambique chiefs tended to sit on the straw mats (esteira) and talked to servants or to visitors who stand before them.
- 31.
Coutinho, Memórias de Um Velho Marinheiro e Soldado de África (Lisboa: Livraria Bertrand, 1941), 538.
- 32.
For a schematic description of the principal events of the Effective Occupation process in relation to Mozambique, see René Pélissier, Naissance du Mozambique. Résistance Et Révoltes Anticoloniales (1854–1818) (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1984), 102–106.
- 33.
On Baía de Lourenço Marques, earlier known as Baia da Lagoa (Delagoa Bay) see, David William Hedges, ‘Trade and Politics in Southern Mozambique and Zululand in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century’ (PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1978); Eduardo de Noronha, O Districto de Lourenço Marques e a África do Sul (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1895), 35.
- 34.
António Ennes, A Guerra de África em 1895 (Lisboa: Prefácio, 2002), 33. The ship belonged to the French company Méssageries Maritimes. In addition to the Portuguese men sent to launch the military campaign in Mozambique, French officials and soldiers involved on the first preparations for the expedition to Madagascar were also on board.
- 35.
The two men were fighting the Makololo people at the Shire River, the core of the major period of tension in the relations between Portugal and Great Britain, whose peak was the issue of the Ultimatum that ended the Portuguese Pink Map dream. This was considered a determining factor for the fall of the Portuguese constitutional monarchy. The Makololo people were deeply connected with Livingstone’s passage in the region. See Nuno Severiano Teixeira, O Ultimatum Inglês. Política externa e política interna no Portugal de 1890 (Lisboa: Alfa Testemunhos Contemporâneos, 1990). The British Ultimatum deprived Portugal of the rich region later known as Rhodesia. See Malyn Newitt, A History of Mozambique (London: Hurts & Co.1995), 391.
- 36.
1907 no Advento da República. Mostra bibliográfica 15 de Março a 9 de Junho (Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional, 2007), 7–8.
- 37.
The uprising initiated by the military was later joined by supporting civilians. They met the troops loyal to the monarchy who reacted indiscriminately against the crowd. Both civilians and military rioters were tried by war councils aboard warships and more than 200 people were sentenced to 15–18 years in prison.
- 38.
1910, O Ano da Républica (Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, 2010), 11.
- 39.
The initiatives to revive monarchical heroes happened in different parts of the nation including African territories. In Lourenço Marques, a great monument to Mouzinho de Albuquerque and a statue of António Ennes were erected in 1940.
- 40.
The Portuguese New State (Estado Novo), or the Second Republic, was the corporatist authoritarian fascist regime installed in Portugal in 1933 as a result of a long process of modern authoritarianism that gave birth to the Portuguese National Union, an organization formed in the wake of the coup d’état of 28 May 1926, in reaction to the unstable Republic that from “5 October 1910 to 29 May 1922 had forty-five governments and 29 attempted coups d’état.” See Fernando Rosas, “A Crise do Liberalismo e as Origens do «Autoritarismo Moderno» e do Estado Novo em Portugal,” Penélope: revista de história e ciências sociais, No 2, Fevereiro 1989), 133.
- 41.
Wikipedia, accessed 15/09/2016.
- 42.
Capela, Como as aringas de Moçambique se transformaram em Quilombos, 72–97.
- 43.
That expedition confronted the warlord Bonga and resulted in an “enormous carnage” in which many Portuguese found “the most horrible, useless and inglorious death.” Coutinho, Memórias, 587; Manuel António de Sousa, also called m’zungo Gouveia in the Zambezi Valley, landlord of Gorongosa was referred to as a good “black supplier.” See, Azevedo Coutinho. O Combate de Macequece. (Lisboa: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1935), 54; Coutinho, Manuel António de Sousa, Um Capitão-Mor Da Zambézia (Lisboa: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1936). For a succinct introduction on António Manuel de Sousa, see Joel Serrão and A. H. de Oliveira Marques, Nova História da Expansão Portuguesa. O Império Africano 1825–1890 (Lisboa: Editorial Estampa, 1998), 627. See also Eric Axelson, Portugal and the Scramble for Africa (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1967).
- 44.
Coutinho, Memórias, 571.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Isaacman, The Tradition of Resistance, xxiii.
- 47.
J. Tagg, The Burden of Representation. Essays on Photographs and Histories (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 36.
- 48.
Ibid., 36.
- 49.
Kabudo Kagoro was a former Macombe whose medium spirit called Sviruko was believed to have magic powers. Isaacman, The Tradition of Resistance, 62–63; Coutinho, Memórias, 598.
- 50.
Isaacman, The Tradition of Resistance, 63.
- 51.
The introduction of changes in the colonial military regime started in 1784, a remarkable date as suggested in José Justino Teixeira Botelho, História Militar e Política dos Portugueses em Moçambique, da Descoberta a 1833 (Lisboa: Centro Tipográfico Colonial, 1934), 452.
- 52.
Maria Carrilho, Forças Armadas e Mudança Política em Portugal no século XX. Para uma Explicação Sociológica do Papel dos Militares (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda. 1985), 110. At that time Portugal dreamed about a coast-to-coast empire, from Angola to Mozambique, embodied in the 1616 Pink Map. Disagreements between Portugal and Great Britain culminated with the English Ultimatum of January 1890. Confronted with war Portugal immediately withdrew from the zones in conflict and lost rich African regions (such as Rhodesia) whose appropriation was based on its historical rights. Valentim Alexandre and Jill Dias (coord.), A Questão Colonial no Portugal Oitocentista, O Império Africano (1825–1890) (Lisboa: Editorial Estampa, 1998), 115–126.; Ângela Guimarães, Uma Corrente do Colonialismo Português: a Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa – 1875–1895 (Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, 1984), 15–16. The Portuguese capitulation in response to the British Ultimatum is considered to be the main cause of the fall of the monarchical system in Portugal.
- 53.
Fátima da Cruz Rodrigues, ‘Antigos Combatentes Africanos das Forças Armadas Portuguesas A Guerra Colonial como Território de (Re)conciliação’ (PhD Thesis, Coimbra University, 2012), 112. For the Campaigns see also Carrilho, Forças Armadas e Mudança Política em Portugal no século XX, 110.
- 54.
Colonel Eduardo A. de Azambuja Martins, O Soldado Africano de Moçambique (Lisboa: Agência Geral das Colónias, 1936), 10.
- 55.
In F. C. Rodrigues, ‘Antigos Combatentes Africanos das Forças Armadas Portuguesas’, 112.
- 56.
Marco Fortunato Arrifes, A Primeira Grande Guerra na África Portuguesa, Angola e Moçambique (1914–1918) (Lisboa: Edições Cosmos, Instituto de Defesa Nacional, 2004), 244.
- 57.
See E. A. Azambuja Martins, O Soldado Africano de Moçambique, 9–10.
- 58.
René Pélissier, Les campagnes coloniales du Portugal, 1844–1941 (Paris: Pygmalion Flammarion, 2004), 310.
- 59.
Régulo is a Portuguese term, from the Latin regulus, a minor king. It was used to denote African customary leaders or chiefs of various kinds—including kings, queens and sultans—who were empowered (and paid) by the colonial administration to control local communities on behalf of the Portuguese. Some of them were representative of a genuine chiefly tradition; others were simply imposed on communities by the authorities. In Colin Darch (compiler), Historical Dictionary of Mozambique, 3rd ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, forthcoming).
- 60.
José Freire Antunes, A Guerra de África (1961–1974) (Lisbon: Círculo De Leitores, 1995), 120.
- 61.
A. Rita-Ferreira, Fixação Portuguesa e História Pré-Colonial de Moçambique, 256. On a-chikunda see Isaacman & Isaacman, Escravos, Esclavagistas, Guerreiros e Caçadores. A Saga dos Chicundas do Vale do Zambeze (Maputo: Promédia, 2006). On page 365 the authors explain how the Chicundas were transformed into sepoys.
- 62.
The sepoys (African police) played an important part in supporting the thorough implementation of the régulo’s role. In some cases, they were more powerful than régulos and even arrested African chiefs who failed to fulfil their duties of collecting taxes and supplying labour. See, Sayaka Funada-Classen, The origins of war in Mozambique: a history of unity and division (Stellenbosch: African Minds, 2013), 66.
- 63.
Patricios means person of the same country; initially referred to the ones belonging to the aristocracy.
- 64.
The Prazeiros were the holders of the Prazos, a land-holding system granted to private individuals by the Portuguese Crown. The system was set in place in the Zambezi Valley in an attempt to populate the area with European natives to solidify control over the Mozambican hinterland.
- 65.
The first three companies of sepoys from India arrived in 1781 but, due to disasters and particularly diseases, they were quickly reduced to 11 men. See João José de Sousa Cruz, Revista Militar n. 2545/2546- February/March 2014. www.revistamilitar.pt/artigo/907 accessed 27/9/2016. The aringa of Massangano is highlighted in the map in Fig. 3.1.
- 66.
See Isaacman & Isaacman, Escravos, Esclavagistas, Guerreiros e Caçadores. On page 365 it is explained how the Chicundas were transformed into sepoys.
- 67.
Coutinho, Memórias, 559–560.
- 68.
To compare with the regular soldiers in Fig. 3.3.
- 69.
The Báruè settlements called aringas or gutas were surrounded by very thick, strong and tough palisades of wooden logs built for defence purposes with layout adapted to the terrain.
- 70.
The generic name of the Baobab tree honours Michel Adanson, a French naturalist and explorer. There are eight distinct species and the one occurring in dried parts of Africa is called Andansonia Digitata. They have a great historical significance. Besides hosting spiritual cults, their heavy presence offered defensive possibilities, ‘a natural fortress’ for people frequently raided from the east prior to the colonial enterprise. See Patricia Hayes, ‘Northern exposures: The Photography of CHL Hahn’ in J. R.Forte, P. Israel, L. Witz (eds), Out of History. Re-Imagining South African Pasts (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2016), 149.
- 71.
These ideas are inspired by the reading of Hansen, ‘Kracauer’s Photography Essay’, 96–97.
- 72.
Achille Mbembe, On the Post Colony (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2015), 2.
- 73.
See the section regarding Fig. 3.4 in this chapter.
- 74.
Capela, Donas Senhores e Escravos, 115.
- 75.
See discussion regarding Fig. 3.6, Regular Soldiers.
- 76.
In Coutinho, Memórias, 614.
- 77.
Coutinho, Memórias, 538.
- 78.
Coutinho, Memórias, 641.
- 79.
In a collection of numbered and dated volumes, assembling correspondence from the Administration in Africa of the Company of Zambézia (1892 to 1908), there are letters referring to “the damages derived from the campaign of Azevedo Coutinho for the pacification of Maganja da Costa […] for being the seasons of harvests and collection of the mussoco. Letter No. 23 extra, from M. Machado in Lisbon 2/7.1898.” António Rita Ferreira, Coletânea de Documentos, Notas Soltas e Ensaios Inéditos para História de Moçambique (Author’s edition, 2012), 164.
- 80.
In, Rita-Ferreira, Fixação Portuguesa E História Pré-Colonial de Moçambique, 241. Newitt instead relates the Zambesi Valley convulsions with the survival of the Afro-Portuguese war-lords and their chikunda captains, a “peculiar mix of commerce, banditry and feudal lordship.” See, M. Newitt A History of Mozambique, 368.
- 81.
Frelimo guerrillas started a war against the Portuguese colonial regime in 1964. The struggle ended in 1974, but a military organization called the Resistência Nacional de Moçambique (RENAMO) conducted what today is known as the war of the sixteen years against the country’s government. Despite maintaining its armed wing, the peace agreement signed in 1992 transformed Renamo into a political party and is the greatest opponent to the Frelimo government in the Democratic Republic of Mozambique.
- 82.
Jornal Savana, 31 March 2017. The article “Deslocados Indecisos,” reported that many refugees were encouraged to stay in the camps to reduce local support of RENAMO guerrillas. Mozambican press confirmed the existence of mass graves in the Province of Manica but nothing is known about the buried. In the refugee camps in Zimbabwe and Malawi, people have denounced atrocities perpetrated by the governmental forces, from whom they ran away.
- 83.
Ann Laura Stoler, ‘Colonia Aphasia: Race and Disable Histories in France.’ In Public Culture 23:1 DOI 10.1215/08992363-2010-08 (Duke University Press, 2011), 125.
- 84.
Allen Feldman, Archives of the Insensible: Of War, Photopolitics, and Dead Memory (University of Chicago Press, 2015), 172.
- 85.
See Paul Lowe ‘Traces of Traces: Time, Space, Objects, and the Forensic Turn in Photography’. Humanities 2018, 7,76; doi:10.3390/h7030076), p 4 of 18.
- 86.
Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson, Photography’s other Histories (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 6.
- 87.
Some concepts are borrowed from Robin Kelsey, “Of Fish, Birds, Cats, Mice, Spiders, Flies, Pigs, And, Chimpanzees: How Chance Casts the Historic Action Photograph into Doubt” in J. Tucker (ed.), Photography and Historical Interpretation (Malden: Wesleyan University Press, 2009), 60.
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Assubuji, R. (2023). Stopping for the Camera: Photographs of the Portuguese Expedition to Báruè, Mozambique, 1902. In: Vicente, F.L., Ramos, A.D. (eds) Photography in Portuguese Colonial Africa, 1860–1975. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27795-5_3
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