Alluring Opportunities: Tourism, Empire, and African Labor in Colonial Mozambique 9781501768330

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ALLURING OPPORTUNITIES

A volume in the series Histories and Cultures of Tourism Edited by Eric G. E. Zuelow A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress​.­cornell​.­edu.

ALLURING OPPORTUNITIES

TO U R I S M , E M P I R E , A N D A F R I C A N ­L A B O R I N CO LO N I A L M OZ A M B I Q U E

Todd C level and FOREWORD BY ERIC G. E. ZUELOW

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2023 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress​.­cornell​.­edu. First published 2023 by Cornell University Press Librarians: A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-5017-6831-6 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-5017-6833-0 (pdf ) ISBN 978-1-5017-6832-3 (epub) Cover photograph: Africans propelling visitors and a vehicle across the Pungue River with poles, n. d. Photo courtesy of Vasco Galante.

To Julianna, Lucas, and Byers

C o n te n ts

Foreword by Eric G. E. Zuelow  ix Acknowl­edgments  xv

Introduction: The Codevelopment of Tourism in Colonial Mozambique

1

1. The Promise and Delivery of Tourism in a Colonial Space

22

2. “Eu­rope in Africa”: Tourism in Lourenço Marques

50

3. Urban Nightlife: The Power­f ul Allure of the “Forbidden Fruit”

74

4. The Lure of the Game: International Hunters and African Guides

92

5. Safari: Shooting Mozambique’s Wildlife with a Camera

117

Epilogue: Postcolonial Legacies of Colonial-­era Tourism

140

Notes  157 Bibliography  173 Index  189

Foreword

Tourism expanded during the twentieth c­ entury to become one of the world’s largest industries and its biggest employer. ­There ­were many reasons: improved transportation technology that brought down costs, po­liti­cal efforts to promote leisure travel, an increase in the number of cultural mediators telling p­ eople what to see and how to see it, a dramatic increase in the standard of living in many places, and so on. Tourism was born in Eu­rope and exported along the vector of empire. By the postwar years most states around the world recognized that it brought in revenue with comparatively ­little investment, even as it showcased national identity by celebrating unique cultures, histories, and sites/sights. What was more, tourism fueled the development of infrastructure that could benefit hosts and guests alike. Ultimately, it was good politics, bolstering regimes and turning the foreign visitor into “a friend who w ­ ill return whenever he can.” We know quite a bit about tourists. Most want to escape the everyday, moving from the humdrum of home life into a fantasy in which they want for nothing, enjoying experiences without consequence, and consuming sites/ sights that showcase postcard-­ready perfection. They want something that looks natu­ral, effortless—­real. But of course, attracting and pleasing tourists does require effort on the part of hosts, even if it is desirable to hide the l­ abor as much as pos­si­ble. Tourists certainly do not want to think about the work that goes into providing their leisure. Historians have traditionally a­ dopted much the same attitude and long paid scant attention to tourism workers. This is curious, especially when considering the evolution of tourism history as a topic of study. The field largely began as an exploration of working-­class British identity even as it ignored tourism workers. It originated from the Marxist concerns of British historians who ­were inspired by the groundbreaking ideas of E. P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm (among ­others) during the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s.1 Scholars, anxious to learn where and when factory workers first identified as a separate social class, traced how increasing real wages, combined with dreadful living conditions in Britain’s growing cities, prompted workers to seek a new type of break from work: a trip ix

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to the seaside. Business ­owners had long faced work stoppages when their employees opted to observe “holidays” such as Saint Monday, a practice whereby workers simply took Mondays off. Now they realized that scheduling annual holidays was better for the bottom line b­ ecause they could plan for it while improving morale at the same time.2 Workers ­were central to the story, but the workers discussed w ­ ere not employed in the leisure business. Admittedly, tourism history pioneer John K. Walton wrote a now-­classic text about the Blackpool landlady,3 but such a focus apparently did not inspire a rush of histories. Some workers ­were evidently less in­ter­est­ing than ­others. Instead, the developing field of tourism history moved in other directions. Vari­ous scholars explored the creation of tourist sites, the evolution of tourism mediators such as guidebooks, the role of tourism in shaping identities, and state efforts to use tourism, among other subjects. Most scholarship dealt with Eu­rope and the United States. Tourism workers and most of the rest of the world ­were largely skipped over. ­Today ­things are changing. In the previous two books in this series, Stephen L. Harp and Blake C. Scott offer some of the first sustained treatment of tourism l­abor. According to Harp, North African laborers built the French Riviera as we know it ­today and they ­were treated appallingly as they did so. Workers ­were condemned to shanty towns called bidonvilles, largely ­because landlords refused to rent to them. Perhaps that fact mattered only symbolically, however: salaries ­were low enough that they could not have afforded to rent a flat anyway. The term bidonville originated in North Africa and denoted rapidly constructed “container towns” in which poverty-­stricken agricultural workers lived while trying to make a living. The word’s use is telling: a reflection of imperialist ideas celebrating French superiority and condemning the “backwardness, disease, and dirt” of colonies inhabited by Black Africans. Locals in coastal towns such as Nice responded by demanding the removal of ­these temporary communities, alleging crime and poor sanitation. Racist politicians added their weight, forcing the workers to move frequently in order to build new bidonvilles in new locations before the cycle repeated itself.4 Writing about the Ca­rib­bean, Blake C. Scott tells a story that is ­little brighter: Black-­and Brown-­skinned workers condemned to low-­paid ser­vice work in fancy ­hotels. While t­hese workers ­were deemed suitable for serving drinks, carry­ing bags, or turning down beds, they ­were not permitted on the premises where they worked ­unless they ­were in uniform. Eventually the racial and class tensions overflowed, making the ­Hotel Tivoli a target for gunfire, rocks, and Molotov cocktails.5 The Tivoli was not the only ­hotel to attract protesters and unrest, especially in colonial settings where ­these institutions reflected “chauvinistic sentiments.”



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Serving as “contact zones” between hosts and guests, locals and power­ful outsiders, they “furnished . . . ​subalterns the very means of speaking back by exchanging gossip about guests, or mischievously violating their privacy.” Of course, “speaking back” sometimes meant more direct confrontation: “alleged thefts, gambling, physical confrontations, and strikes.”6 It is prob­ably ­little won­ der that the ­Hotel Shepheard in Egypt fell victim to anticolonial protests in 1952 or that Fidel Castro famously set up his first headquarters, “­Free Havana,” in the Hilton ­Hotel ­after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.7 The in­equality showcased by putting host beside guest was inescapable, a “focal point and fault-­line for . . . ​ identity, status, and social relations.”8 As Scott aptly summarizes, “Inside, guests wined and dined enjoying modern comforts, while sharply uniformed and dark-­ skinned locals catered to their travel desires. From the outside looking in, this exclusive system was a sign of what was wrong with the colonial world. As bastions of privilege, yet dependent on racialized and exploited ­labor, ­hotels evolved into battlegrounds between the colonial past and an undecided f­ uture.”9 Although Todd Cleveland’s account—­the first sustained exploration of African tourism l­abor, based on more than sixty oral histories as well as printed sources—­certainly confirms the existence of racism in Mozambique, Alluring Opportunities complicates ­matters. ­There is no glossing over the real­ity that, as described in chapter 1, the colonial state instituted “strict control of Indigenous residents” and ­were therefore ­free to “harness their ­labor” while making significant profits. Black tourism workers w ­ ere paid less than whites for ­doing the same job and had to enter by separate entrances. They could not enjoy the ­hotels or clubs where they worked as guests. Relationships with white employers and guests ­were far from equal. And yet, Cleveland reports in the introduction, “Irrespective of the demeaning treatment that many of ­these workers endured, the social ascension that many of them nonetheless experienced problematizes analyses that reductively emphasize their victimization.” Tourism workers earned more than ­those in other lines of work, enough that they could afford to save money and build homes. The added pay meant that they could gain status within their community, developing other­ wise unattainable skills that promised further upward mobility ­after in­de­pen­ dence. As Rodrigues Pelembe, a ­hotel ­house­keeper in the 1970s, put it: “­There was a difference between me and ­others in my neighborhood ­because I could afford what ­others could not. Although my salary was not much, I could count on tips. And, I was actually able to build myself a ­house. I could also buy clothing for my m ­ other—­scarves and fabrics. So, again, t­here was a noticeable difference between my ­mother’s grooming habits and appearance and ­those of other guys’ ­mothers” (in the introduction). Cleveland’s other interviewees often recount similar stories.

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Mozambique, like other Eu­ro­pean colonies held by vari­ous states, was ruled by the Portuguese based on princi­ples that placed whites above all o ­ thers. Yet it was not pos­si­ble to rule the colony without making use of African ­labor, and this was especially true with the development of tourism during the twentieth ­century. As described in chapter 1, Lisbon had ­little choice but to “tolerate this form of interracial interaction.” Tourism generated complicated contacts between tourists, mi­grant workers, locals, and resident settler populations. In theory, ­there was a codified set of racial policies that governed such engagements, but tourism created “impor­tant exceptions to t­ hese conventions.” Black tourism workers report being treated differently from their day-­to-­day experience outside of the industry, while tourism created a space where Blacks and whites interacted in “highly unconventional ways” that deviated from “prevailing colonial standards.” Tourism workers benefited from this, enjoying contact with outsiders that lacked the usual uneasiness of other areas of life. T ­ hese communications held other benefits for African workers as well. Many used the opportunity of interacting with outsiders to gain language skills which benefitted them when they assisted visitors, while facilitating further upward mobility. The relative appeal of tourism work drew mi­g rant workers to the business when they ­were often quite young, many in their early teens, and they often stuck with it for much of their working lives. Given the alternative—­working in South African mines, for example—­this is prob­ably not surprising. Pelembe is a case in point. He left school and started working when he was very young in order to escape poverty. ­There was ­little choice. Miners like his ­father ­were earning less and less money d­ oing dangerous work while being frequently mistreated. By contrast, tourism offered comparatively agreeable working conditions and salaries w ­ ere at least stable. What is more, employment opportunities ­were increasing in number, climbing from around a thousand jobs in the 1940s to almost three thousand by the early 1960s. The benefits evidently bred a certain equanimity. Even with the vari­ous negatives, and in stark contrast to some of the previously mentioned cases, which took place in other colonial or postcolonial settings, ­there was never any ­labor unrest among tourism workers in Mozambique. Following the in­de­pen­dence strug­gle and the withdrawal of Portugal from the country in 1975, the new government deemphasized tourism for a time, yet, as described in the epilogue, the “knowledge and skillsets of workers in the tourist sector persisted.” Africans who “developed par­tic­u­lar skillsets during the colonial period” through tourism work ­were ultimately able to capitalize “on them to secure impor­tant positions in the industry following in­de­pen­dence.” When the tourism industry reemerged, ­these individuals ­were able to help promote the industry, to manage businesses, and to attain more



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prominent roles in the institutions where they worked. In some cases, they ­were even able to pass their talents on to ­f uture generations, as did Fernando Cunica, who moved seamlessly into postcolonial life as a chef before passing the f­ amily trade along to his son. Life during the colonial period was not easy, he told Cleveland, but “If I was not a professional, my ­children would have died of hunger.” Now, Cunica hoped that transmitted culinary skills would provide his son with opportunities abroad to further hone his craft. The story of tourism ­labor in Africa is terribly impor­tant for our growing understanding of tourism history, but Cleveland’s book is impor­tant for other reasons as well. It adds a ­g reat deal to our knowledge of empire tourism generally and African tourism in par­tic­u­lar. As with tourism ­labor, the history of tourism outside Eu­rope and the United States is only beginning to develop; African tourism history is in its early stages and it remains uneven in its geographic coverage and subject ­matter.10 Presently, we have a solid outline of the story in Egypt, which stretches back as far as the Greek and Roman period.11 Beyond that, the current storyline begins in the l­ater nineteenth c­ entury and is often associated with safari tourism, in which white men attempted to demonstrate their masculinity by killing big-­game animals.12 ­There is undoubtedly much more to learn, a ­great deal of it almost certainly intertwined with the story of Eu­ro­pean imperialism. Indeed, empire tourism is an impor­tant feature of colonial administration in many places and a significant number of indigenes ­were ultimately keen to utilize it for their own ends as well.13 A handful of ­earlier scholars give us tantalizing examples. Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt from 1863 to 1879, was anxious to work with Thomas Cook and Son, as well as with the British administrators in his country, to develop tourism as it promised a valuable revenue stream.14 During the early twentieth c­ entury, Indians w ­ ere the first to make use of package tours operated on the sub-­continent by Thomas Cook and Son in order to see their country for themselves. More than this, South Asians of vari­ous po­liti­cal inclinations published guidebooks as a way of subtly communicating how best to understand their country and its diverse cultures, traditions, and landscapes. This knowledge was employed to serve a range of po­liti­cal agendas.15 In the aftermath of World War II, regimes such as t­hose in the Belgian Congo hoped to use tourism to repair tarnished reputations and to reenergize the colonial enterprise in the face of decolonization pressures. Tourism served as fruitful propaganda.16 Cleveland’s account offers a much more comprehensive case study. In Mozambique, tourism generated money, functioned as propaganda, fueled the creation of infrastructure, and inspired environmental conservation efforts. According to authorities anxious to cast their regime in a glowing light, as described in the epigraphs to chapter 1, the industry promised a place where “all races and religions

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live together in perfect harmony” and where visitors could experience natu­ral beauties, stay in first rate accommodations, and become “a friend who ­will return whenever he can.” That violent revolutionary strug­gle erupted shortly ­after ­these statements ­were uttered should not distract us from the diverse potential that the colonial regime evidently ­imagined leisure travel to offer, a potential that motivated nearly a ­century of development effort. On the face of it, tourism is innocent fun. Beneath that veneer, however, it is an exercise of power. It certainly was a venue for the sort of Orientalist knowledge Edward Said described almost fifty years ago.17 Cleveland’s excellent study makes clear that it is more than that: it was also an economic engine, a po­liti­cal and diplomatic tool, a source of interactions between myriad groups, and a means of social and economic advancement for ­people whose opportunities ­were other­wise ­limited. All ­these outcomes undoubtedly have downstream implications that should generate further study. By revealing ­these diverse realities, Cleveland has done tourism historians, Africanists, and scholars of empire a ­great ser­vice. His is an impor­tant book. Eric G. E. Zuelow

A ck n o w l­e d gm e n ts

One of my favorite endeavors as I near the completion of the protracted book publication pro­cess is perusing the folder in which I have placed e­ very one of the hundreds, or even thousands, of emails I have sent and received related to the proj­ect so that I do not inadvertently leave anyone out of this very section. The earliest emails, which inherently date back many years, are usually uninformed queries sent to colleagues seeking suggestions for relevant source materials or requests to interlibrary loan staff to kindly order materials not owned by the University of Arkansas. ­Later, exchanges with research assistants, prospective publishers, and funding agencies are more common, while the most recent emails are almost always correspondence with someone involved in the production pro­cess at the press. Inevitably, I come across exchanges with individuals about whom I had completely forgotten, which generates varying degrees of guilt depending on the significance of their contribution to the book. But what I most enjoy is the relentless reminder of how wonderful it was to meet and interact with such a wide variety of p­ eople over the course of the research, writing, and publication pro­cesses. Many of ­these exchanges bring back fond memories of, for example, moments spent in the field, ­whether working or socializing with f­amily, friends, or individuals I met during the research pro­cess, such as in­for­mants or assistants. ­These exchanges also remind me of the generosity that ­these ­people displayed in an attempt to assist me with my work; writing a book is a truly collaborative undertaking. In the ensuing paragraphs, I strive to express my sincerest gratitude to ­every one of t­hese individuals and genuinely apologize if my methods, as outlined ­here, ­were insufficient to identify every­one who merits this recognition. As I commenced this book and attempted to gain my footing in what was a new area of study for me, Fernando Arenas, Andrea Arrington, Marcos Vinicius Santos Dias Coelho, Karen Fung, Allen Isaacman, Adam Kaul, Libby Lunstrum, Ken Orosz, Kathleen Sheldon, Trevor Simmons, Wendy Urban-­ Mead, Julie Weiskopf, and Doug Wheeler patiently answered my earliest questions about tourism studies and drew my attention to useful source ma-

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terials. Rachel Dwyer, a member of the staff of the African Studies Library at Boston University, deserves special mention for locating, organ­izing, scanning, and sending to me a considerable amount of extremely impor­tant material as I was struggling to make sense of my findings during t­ hese early stages of the proj­ect. Subsequently, Glenda Dannenfelser helped me work my way through ­these items. Fi­nally, Gill Berchowitz read an early version of my book proposal and, as always, provided useful feedback, while Clark Jeffs generously sent along old brochures targeting American big-­game hunters that his com­pany, Safari Outfitters, based in Cody, Wyoming, circulated featuring hunting safari trips to Mozambique during the colonial period. As I transitioned to Portugal to begin the archival and, to a lesser extent, oral research, I was assisted by the vari­ous staff members at the Biblioteca Nacional, the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, and the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa. Sara Moreira and Luís Gameiro, from the Cinemateca Portuguesa–­Museu do Cinema, deserve special mention for their unrelenting support as I learned how to navigate what was for me a new repository. Alice Barreiro and Isabel Coelho, from the Arquivo Histórico do Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros, similarly merit this degree of praise, and for exactly the same reasons. It was at this archive that I met Pierre Edwards, a resident of Pretoria, South Africa, who was ­there conducting his own research. I would l­ater stay with Pierre at his h ­ ouse and benefit from the vari­ous interviews he arranged for me. His considerable generosity and hospitality—­especially ­toward someone he barely knew—­were incommensurate with the minimal Portuguese-­English translation that I provided for him at the archive. While in Portugal, Cláudia Castelo, Bárbara Direito, Moira Forjaz, Amélia Frazão Moreira, and Sofia Sampaio also provided valuable assistance, as did Pedro and Isabel Botte. And, as always, I benefited from the studied insights into Portugal’s colonial past that my good friends Jorge Varanda and Nuno Domingos provided ­every time I inquired. My next stop was in South Africa, which I visited twice in order to interview individuals who had traveled to Mozambique as tourists during the colonial period. While Pierre Edwards arranged the initial visit, the subsequent visit was part of a longer trip, driving with my ­family from Cape Town to Durban and on to Eswatini, before flying from Johannesburg to Mozambique. As part of this journey, Natanya van der Lingen kindly made arrangements with her ­mother, Margie van der Lingen, to spread the word around her retirement community in Durban that I would be on-­site one day in early June 2017 and that I was e­ ager to speak with anyone who had traveled to colonial Mozambique as a tourist. Indeed, Margie constructed and then posted flyers announcing my visit all over the lobby. In what ended up being a marathon day, I conducted fourteen separate interviews with individuals and c­ ouples—­surely,



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my most productive and enjoyable day over the entire course of the research pro­cess. I cannot thank t­ hese in­for­mants enough for sharing their experiences with me and, in the case of Gordon and June Alison and Dave and Jean Denley, also sharing photo­g raphs from their travels. On arrival in Mozambique, it was wonderful to reconnect with Eléusio Viegas Filipe, with whom I had attended gradu­ate school at the University of Minnesota, and to spend quality time with both his immediate and extended families. Eléusio and, at times, Eusébio Xerinda helped me to locate and interview Mozambicans who had been employed in the tourism sector during the colonial period. Again, I ­will remain forever grateful to ­those in­for­mants who ­were willing to share their experiences, which, at times, w ­ ere demeaning or even humiliating. Meanwhile, Jane Flood can only be described as manna. From the time we met, she never ­stopped trying to help me with my book. Initially, she provided useful source materials while also introducing me to scores of p­ eople, including former employees in the industry whom I ­later interviewed. She even arranged for babysitters so that my wife and I could periodically enjoy an eve­ning out in Maputo, and eventually or­ga­nized a team to translate and transcribe my recorded interviews. In par­tic­u­lar, Angela “Angie” Macaamo remains among the most superb babysitters and transcribers with whom I’ve ever had the plea­sure of interacting. While in Mozambique, David Ankers, Sidney Bliss, Euclides Gonçalves, John Marrone, António Botelho de Melo, Domingos Muala, Marlino Mubai, Paulo Negrão, and Bita Rodrigues also provided valuable assistance. ­Going forward, I deemed a return trip to Portugal to attend the annual “Amigos da Gorongosa” luncheon worthwhile. The current director of the park, Vasco Galante, had encouraged me to make this journey in order to meet and interview some of the individuals who ­were in charge of vari­ous aspects of the park during the colonial period. In fact, since the day I first contacted Vasco, he has been indispensable to this book. Quite simply, the chapter on Gorongosa would not have been pos­si­ble without his relentless assistance. The very first day we exchanged emails, he sent me over a dozen individual emails that included source materials, videos, park personnel lists, and similar information. G ­ oing forward, he has helpfully and quickly responded ­every single time I have reached out to him with one query or another. As such, it was wonderful to fi­nally dine with him in Lisbon and meet so many folks who all share an interest in Gorongosa’s well-­being. Among ­these individuals, Albano Cortez, Fernando Gil, Celestino Gonçalves, and José Canelas de Sousa have all been remarkably helpful. As the research phase of the book wound down and the writing began, I received key input and assistance from Christian von Alvensleben, Reimar von

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Alvensleben, Rolf Baldus, Chase Barney, Jacob S. Dlamini, Gaby Hale, David Hardy, Lilly Havstad, Alex Marino, Amanda Rector, João Sarmento, Werner Schmitz, Tancredo Tivane, and Elaine Wood. Moreover, as the manuscript neared competition, Maggie Bridges, Fiona Claire Capstick, Richard Curtis, Jorge Ribeiro Lume, and Lynne Tinley all made key contributions. Meanwhile, the editor of the series in which this book appears, Eric G. E. Zuelow, as well as the acquisitions editors, Emily Andrew and Bethany Wasik, all of whose faith in this proj­ect was unwavering, waited patiently for me to finish, while also providing impor­tant suggestions that have undoubtedly strengthened this book. I am also grateful to the vari­ous anonymous reviewers, as well as to the Editorial Board at Cornell University Press, for providing feedback that has significantly enhanced the final product. Special mention is also warranted for a handful of other individuals, as their contributions ­were never ­limited to a par­tic­ul­ar stage or moment during this long pro­cess. First, I’d like to thank my s­ ister, Kim Cleveland, who read and provided feedback on every­thing from my initial research, funding, and book proposals to the latest drafts of the series of chapters that compose the book. Staff members in the Department of History at the University of Arkansas, including Melinda Adams, Andrea Breckenridge, Stephanie Caley, Brenda Foster, and Jeanne Short, have also provided a dizzying range of support as the book evolved from idea to finished product. Similarly, the Interlibrary Loan staff members at Mullins Library at the University of Arkansas have procured materials from across the globe—­and in rec­ord time—­over the years that this book has taken. Bob Shacochis also merits special mention, as he generously shared with me transcripts of his interviews with vari­ous individuals related to Gorongosa National Park, some of whom had passed away before I began my research. And I would be remiss if I failed to extend a special thank-­you to Dave Morton, to whom I have directed countless questions about Mozambique’s past and pre­sent, knowing that he ­will furnish a deeply edifying response ­whether via email, phone, or Zoom. Funding from vari­ous sources at the University of Arkansas, including the Arkansas Humanities Center, facilitated the proj­ect, from start to finish. Fi­nally, I extend my deepest gratitude to my wife, Julianna, and our two boys, Lucas and Byers. Although only my name appears on the book cover, they are the driving force ­behind all my work. They inspire and support me and serve as a constant reminder that learning about the past and utilizing this knowledge to better understand the pre­sent are absolutely vital. For every­thing that I am aware they do and for all the many more ­things they do of which I’m hopelessly unaware: thank you/muito obrigado.

ALLURING OPPORTUNITIES

Introduction The Codevelopment of Tourism in Colonial Mozambique

On July 16, 1955, in Beira, a medium-­sized city on the central coast of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, the regional bishop inaugurated the Grande ­Hotel at a resplendent event. This sanctification was occasioned by the grandeur and immensity of the ­hotel complex: billed by its developers as the “Pride of Africa,” it was, at the time, the largest on the continent, featuring luxurious dining facilities, well-­appointed rooms, well-­stocked lounges, and an Olympic-­size swimming pool overlooking the adjacent Indian Ocean. During the triumphant event, the governor-­general of the colony, Gabriel Maurício Teixeira, boasted, “This h ­ otel holds a place of honor due to its conceptual grandness and its manifest perfection, not just in Beira but throughout the entire territory . . . ​thereby honoring both the province of Mozambique and the spirit of the Portuguese colonizer.”1 For the cosseted collection of over four hundred international and domestic attendees, the ­hotel instantiated Portuguese endeavor, commitment, and imperial competence. This was, by all accounts, an exceptional day in the history of Portugal’s empire. However, without the daily, unrecognized efforts of countless African laborers, celebratory proceedings such as this one would never have come to fruition. Indeed, conspicuously absent from the series of salutations on that day was any acknowl­edgment of the thousands of African workers who had,

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over the preceding de­cade, built the monumental structure or the scores of African h ­ otel staff actively servicing the fete. Although the assembled guests may have dismissed ­these workers as mere “fixtures”—­indistinguishable from the furniture or other decor—­just as most tourists indifferently regarded African staff in h ­ otels and other destinations elsewhere in the colony, they ­were quite vis­i­ble in local society. Rodrigues Pelembe, who worked as a ­hotel ­house­keeper in the early 1970s in Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), the capital city, identified some of the tangible benefits that employment in that industry afforded him. “­There was a difference between me and o ­ thers in my neighborhood b­ ecause I could afford what ­others could not. Although my salary was not much, I could count on tips. And, I was actually able to build myself a h ­ ouse. I could also buy clothing for my ­mother—­scarves and fabrics from which she could make clothes. So, again, ­there was a noticeable difference between my m ­ other’s grooming habits and appearance and t­ hose of other guys’ ­mothers.”2 Thus, while foreign tourists embraced the opportunity to travel to vari­ous locations in Mozambique, many Indigenous laborers seized the opportunity to secure employment in the colony’s tourism industry in an effort to realize social mobility via both the steady wages that they earned and their daily interactions with sojourning clientele. This book reconstructs the history of tourism in colonial Mozambique via extended examinations of ­these interconnected “alluring opportunities” and the ways that they changed over time, leading up to in­de­pen­dence in 1975. By the 1960s, if not sooner, the colony had become the premier tourist destination in Southern Africa, annually attracting upward of half a million international visitors e­ ager to experience “exotic,” “foreign” Mozambique. As a 1971 tour book for the colony extolled, “Cross the border by sea or air, and immediately you are in a dif­fer­ent world: a vivid and exciting blend of tropical Africa and Continental Eu­rope . . . ​a tourist’s paradise.”3 Meanwhile, as a period of significant economic growth in the colony beginning in the 1950s generated an increasing number of employment opportunities, African workers in the tourism industry w ­ ere actively forging new relations with friends, ­family members, and neighbors. By the early 1970s, the sector employed some four thousand p­ eople, almost all of whom w ­ ere male (both men and boys), owing to colonial notions of gendered l­abor.4 By weaving together accounts of foreign tourists’ experiences in this Portuguese territory and the lived experiences of Indigenous laborers who facilitated and ser­viced ­these visits, the book underscores the interdependence of ­these other­wise disparate populations while also highlighting the vital contributions that both groups made to the development of tourism in colonial Mozambique.

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The Gradual Development of an Otherworldly Destination Long before Mozambique became a touristic jewel, the industry, like the colony itself, developed from ­humble beginnings. Portugal’s modern empire in Africa was predicated on distant historical claims linked to a series of visits by famed explorers, including Vasco da Gama, who had dubbed Mozambique “the land of the good ­people” following his initial encounters with local residents in 1498, rather than based on con­temporary economic or military capacity. Indeed, Portugal’s golden age had arguably concluded by the seventeenth ­century and since then the country had operated on the fringes of Eu­rope. On the eve of formal colonialism in Africa at the end of the nineteenth ­century, Portugal’s groundbreaking, if far removed, history of exploration continued to psychologically buoy its populace. Yet even this power­ful nostalgia for a distant time could not mask the severe economic challenges that Portugal was experiencing during this period. Undaunted, the diminutive nation attended the notorious 1884–1885 Berlin Conference, at which vari­ous Eu­ro­pean imperial powers made claims on African lands, effectively “carving up” the continent. Subsequently, Portugal labored to subjugate local populations in the territories it had claimed, which the “effective occupation” stipulation agreed on by the Berlin signatories mandated. Indeed, although the Portuguese had established control over much of the Mozambican colony by the early twentieth c­ entury, periodic uprisings persisted ­until the end of the 1910s (map I.1). An array of draining military campaigns stretching across Portugal’s imperial claims in Africa exacerbated the nation’s already precarious financial situation. Lisbon consequently strug­gled to develop the colony. The relocation of the capital from Mozambique Island in the far northern stretches of the territory to the emerging southern port city of Lourenço Marques (LM) in 1898 constituted a mea­sure to generate much-­needed revenue. This decision notwithstanding, the state coffers still offered sparse funds to invest in touristic infrastructure. However, even in t­ hese challenging, initial de­cades of formal colonialism, stretching from the 1880s into the early twentieth c­ entury, Lisbon was acutely cognizant of the territory’s touristic potential. Driven by ­these financial calculations, the state e­ ither funded or facilitated the initial development of the colony’s touristic infrastructure and an array of holiday destinations. Around the turn of the twentieth c­ entury, ­these efforts included the generation of basic transportation and recreational infrastructure in LM. Public works proj­ects, often completed by conscripted African laborers, included the construction of a seaside walkway and boulevard (the marginal) and squares and ave­nues lined by restaurants and cafés.5 ­These undertakings

Map I.1.  Map of Mozambique. Courtesy of Maggie Bridges.

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constituted the foundation for further touristic development, including the erection of a series of landmark ­hotels and the creation of municipal beaches and adjacent campgrounds. Owing to this modest, if effectual, development, a 1931 tour book for Mozambique described its capital as “one of the most charming cities in the ­whole African subcontinent.”6 In order to both generate and staff this touristic infrastructure, the nascent industry desperately needed laborers. Since the 1870s, the southern stretches of Mozambique had been serving as an expansive Indigenous l­abor pool of young men for South Africa’s mines.7 As such, over the course of the colonial period in Mozambique, millions of young men traveled to ­these work sites, initially attracted by the higher wages that ­were available, but increasingly over time, as real wages declined, simply to escape local forced l­ abor requirements (shibalo), which persisted ­until the early 1960s, and to earn money that was crucial for their well-­being and that of their families.8 As Charles van Onselen has contended regarding l­ abor options for male residents of Southern Mozambique, “Given the choice between laboring ­under near-­slave conditions on your doorstep for no, or ultra-­low, wages or industrial servitude at higher cash wages . . . ​in a neighboring country, toiling in the mines became a ‘popu­lar’ choice—or, s­ hall we say, one of the few sensible choices available.”9 Yet many Mozambicans did seek alternative, “sensible” employment within the colony to comply with their l­abor and tax obligations, and they remain convinced that this approach was ultimately more rewarding. For example, Albino José Cumbe, who worked in vari­ous positions at an assortment of restaurants and ­hotels in LM, explained to me that “some of the mi­grant laborers who worked in South Africa . . . ​came back with only enough money to eat . . . ​for a month, ­after years of working in South Africa. They ­were never able to build a comfortable ­house.”10 Other tourism industry workers I interviewed had, like Cumbe, similarly eschewed South Africa but offered testimony that contradicted his claims that only minimal compensation was awarded to t­ hose mi­ grant laborers who had opted to work in the mines. Regardless of the accuracy of ­these individual accounts regarding remuneration in the South African mines, over time, an increasing number of Mozambican laborers ­were able to secure steady employment and avoid forced ­labor without ever having to leave the colony. Eventually, efforts to develop tourist infrastructure extended north along the Mozambican coast from Lourenço Marques to Beira. Further inland, the colonial government established an array of concessionary hunting reserves, or coutadas, in an effort to formalize an industry that would pay both po­liti­cal and economic dividends for Lisbon. The state also, though to a lesser extent, invested in locations further north, including Mozambique Island, the former

6 I n t r o d u c t i o n

colonial capital and now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Arguably, the last major touristic development in the colony prior to in­de­pen­dence was the 1960 transformation of the expansive Gorongosa reserve in Central Mozambique into a national park. This transition provided sanctuary for the region’s renowned fauna and consequently attracted tens of thousands of visitors each year to view the resident wildlife. For colonial officials, the roughly concurrent outbreak of the war for in­de­ pen­dence in the colony tempered their cele­bration of Gorongosa’s emergence as a world-­class tourist destination. In 1964, nationalist Frelimo guerrillas launched a campaign to dislodge Mozambique’s colonial overlords, having been emboldened by similar insurgencies in two of Portugal’s other African territories, Angola and Guiné (Guinea-­Bissau), which had commenced in 1961 and 1963, respectively.11 Undeterred or, in some cases, simply unaware of the conflict in Mozambique, which mainly occurred in the northern stretches of the colony and, thus, was far removed from most of the major tourist sites, the inflows of visitors continued uninterrupted. Rhodesian (Zimbabwean)–­ born Moira Forjaz, now a Mozambican resident, offered a local perspective on the sustained growth of the tourism industry during the conflict. “It was in the north that the fighting and all that was happening . . . ​even ­after the war started in Mozambique in ’64 you still had more and more tourists coming ­every year as if nothing was ­going on. And, they truly ­didn’t know. But, of course, we did.”12 Meanwhile, historian David Morton offers a macro-­level explanation of the unremitting touristic flows into the colony: “In the 1960s, Mozambique’s economy surged owing to the lifting of restraints on local industry, the growth of the South African economy, the flourishing of Lourenço Marques as a major South African tourist destination, and a massive build-up of the Portuguese military presence, already underway before the eventual outbreak of the war for in­de­pen­dence.”13 Even prior to the commencement of hostilities, the regime had been complementing its efforts to develop Mozambique’s tourism industry with a global marketing campaign aimed at attracting foreign visitors. The Portuguese state proved remarkably effective in t­ hese efforts, attracting high-­profile guests to Mozambique’s range of hunting reserves, including a series of American astronauts, members of Eu­ro­pean royalty, and, among other luminaries, John Wayne, Gregory Peck, and James Michener. Lisbon also a­ dopted less explicit methods to promote tourism in the colonies, subtly blending touristic promotion and imperial propaganda in ways that highlighted the intertwined appeal of the colonies with the purported benefits and benignity of the Portuguese colonial proj­ect. Working discreetly through a series of individual and commercial intermediaries, the regime employed public relations firms to tailor propaganda to Ameri-

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can, British, and French tastes, targeting conservative audiences with touristic advertising catered to their cultural and po­liti­cal proclivities. The Portuguese regime also engaged in less furtive touristic activity, facilitating easy cross-­border access into Mozambique for predominately white South African and Rhodesian (Zimbabwean) visitors, though small numbers of Indian, Black, and Coloured tourists also featured in ­these inflows; collectively, they comprised upward of 90 ­percent of the tourist traffic to the colony (map I.2).14 ­These regional visitors w ­ ere ­eager to experience Mozambique’s “pristine” beaches, “continental” cities, and game reserves “teeming with wildlife,” while the colony’s proximity, affordability, and overall ambiance also appealed to them. During our conversation, Ruth Van Wyk, a Rhodesian who began visiting Mozambique in the late 1950s, fondly recalled ­these sojourns: “It was so close . . . ​it

Map I.2.  Southern Africa during the colonial period. Courtesy of Maggie Bridges.

8 I n t r o d u c t i o n

was so easy. So, you could go for the weekend. It d­ idn’t have to be just for the weekend, though. We often went for ten days at a time and had a proper holiday. We ­were just farmers, and it was wonderful, in part b­ ecause the climate is perfect. And, it was clean—it was just ­great fun. It was so relaxing, a cheap holiday and a ­great atmosphere. I love ­those memories, I ­really do. It was g­ reat.”15 Mozambique’s “Latin” culture also undeniably appealed to t­ hese white, primarily Anglo-­Saxon, visitors. For example, Forjaz laughed about her initial visit to the colony sans her parents. When she returned to Rhodesia and presented them with garlic, apparently her ­family’s first exposure to the plant, she claimed, “They had never even heard of it!”16 Like Van Wyk, Forjaz similarly cited Mozambique’s proximity while also praising its power­ful allure, invoking the enchantment of the French capital as she continued: “And it was so close. Overnight, you ­were in Paris.”17 For many Southern African settlers, Mozambique’s culture also featured a casualness and progressiveness absent in their homelands. In practice, many of ­these would-be tourists ­were introduced to ­these aspects of the colony before they ever crossed the border via regional shortwave broadcasts of LM Radio (Lourenço Marques Radio). Indeed, virtually e­ very South African I interviewed fondly reminisced about David Davies’s Sunday eve­ning program, “Hit Parade,” which featured the latest pop m ­ usic from around the world, including artists who ­were banned in South Africa, such as The Beatles.18 LM Radio’s allure notwithstanding, many young South Africans had to tune in surreptitiously lest they provoke the wrath of their conservative, disapproving parents. Foreign visitors to Mozambique also typically enjoyed the colony’s less stringent approach to social interactions, which included relaxed racial relations, especially when compared with South Africa’s apartheid system. Consequently, tourists from across Southern Africa generally appreciated the palpable reduction in racial tension ­after they crossed the border into Mozambique. And, of course, Coloured or Black visitors even more readily welcomed this divergent atmosphere. For example, as a teenager in the early 1970s, Edmund February and his ­family, members of the Coloured community in Cape Town, crossed into Mozambique a­ fter making the long drive to visit Kruger National Park, as his ­mother was ­eager to witness “colonial architecture” firsthand. February recalled that “­there was undoubtedly a sense of relief when you crossed into Mozambique b­ ecause ­there was so much less racial tension. . . . ​I was young at that time, but you could feel it from my parents, this significant weight coming off.”19 For other tourists, particularly white males from the region, this relative social permissiveness constituted an opportunity to engage sexually with African ­women, an endeavor known locally as “sleeping Black.” This relative le-

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niency and other sociocultural differences rendered Mozambique exceedingly alluring to Southern African residents. As one self-­identifying Anglo-­Saxon visitor to the colony in the early 1970s explained regarding ­these divergences, “This land . . . ​is the only state in southern Africa that has not at some time come u ­ nder British domination, or been influenced by the British way of life. That is what makes Mozambique so foreign, so stimulating and intriguing, to its neighbors. The citizens speak a strange tongue . . . ​they look and dress differently and observe Latin customs, which are novel to the descendants of Anglo-­Saxons, the Dutch, and other ­peoples of southern Africa.”20 Some forty years e­ arlier, a tourist pamphlet had featured an antecedent, similarly touting a passage to an otherworldly place on arrival in Mozambique and presciently declaring Lourenço Marques “the city that w ­ ill make one forget Africa.”21 Tracing the historical contours of this rather peculiar characterization, this book reconstructs the codevelopment by African laborers and foreign visitors of a tourism industry in colonial Mozambique that, ironically, prompted many guests to “forget” that they ­were in Africa. I contend that the successful transformation of the colony into one of the most visited on the continent was attributable to tourists’ experiential detachment from the “au­ then­tic Africa” that so many other destinations strove to manufacture and their dialectical encounter with a no less “real,” yet highly divergent, variety of the continent.

Historiographical Significance Although a handful of scholars have written about the often-­violent pro­cess of establishing game parks and reserves in colonial Africa, we know comparatively ­little about the histories of other touristic pro­cesses on the continent, and even less about the African guides of both hunting and “camera” safaris, the African builders of the array of ­hotels and casinos, and the African staff members who crucially ser­viced t­ hese sites.22 Yet it was squarely on the backs of ­these individuals, almost all of whom w ­ ere male, that tourist industries across colonial Africa w ­ ere developed, comprising sectors that as early as the 1920s had, in certain settings, become impor­tant sources of foreign currency for Eu­ro­pean colonizing nations, including Portugal.23 Similarly, the profound impact of tourism on intracommunity dynamics in Africa’s past has thus far received scant scholarly attention.24 ­Until the intersections of African tourism and l­ abor history are more thoroughly examined, the generations of workers who facilitated the creation and expansion of industries across the continent ­will remain in the shadows of history.

10 I n t r o d u c t i o n

In reconstructing the histories of ­these laborers in Mozambique from the origins of the tourism industry at the end of the nineteenth c­ entury ­until the conclusion of the colonial period in 1975, this book is the first to consider the daily experiences of guides, trackers, ser­vice staff, and other workers in the genesis and development of this sector. Indeed, even as throngs of tourists streamed into Mozambique, ­these Indigenous workers are almost completely absent in the travel accounts the visitors penned.25 Nor have scholars of Africa previously showcased or engaged in any sustained manner with ­these laborers’ experiences. As such, this book constitutes the initial academic engagement with ­these workers, who s­haped an industry that grew in both economic and po­liti­cal importance to Portugal as international pressure to relinquish its colonial empire increased throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. I contend that this paucity of scholarly consideration is imputable to a succession of paradigmatic analytical trends within African historiography. In order to establish the oppressive nature of colonial regimes and, correspondingly, the creative ways in which Africans negotiated them, the first generation of scholars interested in ­labor history on the continent gravitated ­toward spaces and instances of contention between Indigenous workers and Eu­ro­pean capital. Inevitably, this penchant led researchers to sizable work sites, such as mines and large-­scale agricultural enterprises, at which significant numbers of (male) African employees articulated their grievances and engaged in a range of “resistive” acts.26 More recently, studies of ­labor in colonial Africa have expanded the subjects of investigation, centering both men and ­women in a range of occupations and remunerative activities.27 Yet scholars have retained their focus on Indigenous re­sis­tance and noncompliance—­assiduously searching for ever-­more-­ subtle forms of t­hese actions—in an effort to continue to highlight African agency and resourcefulness.28 This durable framework is manifest in the Mozambican ­labor historiography on which this study builds, which casts work sites as terrains of strug­gle and contention on which African laborers and colonial and/or com­pany officials engaged in an antagonistic, at times aggressive, and relentless dynamic composed of action, response, and counterresponse.29 In any history of tourism in Africa, however, patterns of Indigenous ­labor dissent or discordance are wanting.30 I argue that this quietude is attributable to the financial capacity and attendant social ascension that African workers’ wages and daily interactions with tourists afforded them. Reliable incomes enabled ­these laborers to circumvent Indigenous systems predicated on age and gender, conferring opportunities for social mobility on many of them. Moreover, for a large number of t­ hese ser­vice industry employees—­vis-­à-­vis workers in less interactional occupations—­daily exposure to and eventual proficiency

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in Eu­ro­pean languages and customs facilitated further ascension. Consider the testimony of Vasco Manhiça, who, in the early 1960s, at the age of twelve, began working as a message boy for the Inhaca ­Hotel, located on the eponymous island some twenty miles offshore of LM, and who now manages a major business ­hotel in the center of Maputo. Twelve years old was not ­really the right age to start working. But, t­ hings came so fast. Within three years, I was already a head receptionist, ­because I was very clever. . . . ​Slowly, slowly, I started to deal with the clients and they would help me learn their languages, b­ ecause it was very impor­tant for me to communicate with the guests. Actually, at school I had a few En­ glish classes, but not enough that I would say, “Yah, my En­glish was from school.” Rather, it was from dealing everyday with the ­hotel clients.31 The book also features analytical utility that transcends Africa’s borders by complicating the narrative established and reinforced by an ample corpus of lit­er­a­ture that stresses the exploitation of Indigenous tourism workers.32 Conditions for African laborers in the tourism industry in colonial Mozambique ­were undoubtedly demanding, often featuring racially motivated verbal and physical abuse, and offering, owing to institutionalized racism, typically modest wages, which ­were, in any event, lower than salaries paid to Eu­ro­pean staff. Consider the exemplary words of Fernando Cunica, who in 1967, at nineteen years old, began working in the kitchen of a popu­lar Lourenço Marques restaurant. “The Portuguese cooks used to beat us and call us stupid Blacks. Some would rub pepper in their hands and then slap us in the face. If you protected your face, they would punch you in the stomach. . . . ​If they taught you something one day, they did not want to repeat it the next day. But, we had to bear all that. I needed the job. It was torture, but t­ here was nothing we could do.”33 In addition to potentially enduring aggression at the hands of white overseers, African employees w ­ ere often humiliated by the very tourists they ­were serving. As Pedro Manhiça, a former h ­ otel employee in Lourenço Marques, remarked to me, “I think the h ­ otel industry is good, but it requires a lot of patience around the guests . . . ​­because some even threatened you. . . . ​ They often insulted you, but you still had to say, ‘I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry,’ no m ­ atter what. You had to be h ­ umble.”34 Irrespective of the demeaning treatment that many of t­ hese workers endured, the social ascension that many of them nonetheless experienced problematizes analyses that reductively emphasize their victimization. My in­for­mants also regularly cited the many intangible benefits associated with their vari­ous occupations in the industry. For example, Luís Macuácuá,

12 I n t r o d u c t i o n

who started in the ­hotel and restaurant sectors in LM in the early 1970s, explained, It was an honor to work in the industry b­ ecause we used the basic princi­ ples of tourism: courtesy, delicacy, and hospitality. . . . ​We had pride working ­because you learned to eat well. . . . ​You w ­ ere proud to work in the industry ­because you w ­ ere identified as a man who dresses better. It was all about pride. . . . ​Imagine making a cake: it was pride. Imagine preparing a steak: it was pride. At that time, I was so proud of preparing meals for ­people coming from outside of Mozambique—­from South Africa, Amer­i­ca, Italy. It was about pride and gratification.35 Citing similar immaterial advantages, José Manhique, a former ­hotel employee, indicated, “Tourism not only brings monetary gains, but also brings foreign culture, which shapes the citizens of our country. Tourism for me is a science that shapes our personal be­hav­ior. In terms of culture, Mozambican citizens gained something with tourism, including a change in attitude and culture. . . . ​ I started to change my lifestyle, copying the foreigners who stayed at my ­hotel. Actually, this contact with foreigners changed my be­hav­ior and I implemented what I learned in my home.”36 Upon Mozambique’s in­de­pen­dence in 1975 and the attendant exodus of Portuguese settlers, Africans with notable competence and/or longevity in the industry newly utilized their training and experience to sustain it. Upon assuming power, the fledgling Frelimo government appointed t­ hese veterans to supervisory positions at ­hotels, game reserves, and other tourist destinations. Consequently, ­these workers not only experienced social ascension during the colonial era but ­were also well positioned upon in­de­pen­dence to further advance their c­ areers. This study also contends that through daily interaction within the tourism industry, white employers and Black employees could forge meaningful relationships, which complicate the durable, dichotomous narrative of the oppressive colonizer and the oppressed, colonized subject. In par­tic­u­lar, hunting safari operations generated innumerable scenarios in which white hunters and Black trackers deepened their bonds, including by spending extended periods of time alone in the bush and, with some regularity, saving each other’s lives while in the field. Although t­ hese relationships remained paternalistic and inherently unequal, safari operators bestowed considerable authority on ­these invaluable Africa employees, without whom the commercial hunting industry would have been inviable, and other­wise treated them with significant re­ spect. For example, Werner von Alvensleben, an ethnic German who ran the expansive Safarilandia hunting concession in central Mozambique, over time

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cocultivated a profound fellowship with his ethnic Shangaan tracker, Johannes, who even ran the operation during the director’s periodic absences. Writing some years ­later, von Alvensleben reflected, “Johannes was a friend indeed, and looking back, I know I owe him a g­ reat deal of success I had in many aspects of my safari work and the sound advice given to me by my local Shangaan friend.”37 This ­human dynamic, which complicates the set of prevailing asymmetrical interracial relations according to which socie­ties throughout colonial Africa ­were or­ga­nized, would have been unfathomable in most scenarios beyond the sphere of tourism. Fi­nally, the book contributes to analyses of empire by considering the roles that tourist investment and revenue played in its perpetuation. Neither of t­ hese aspects features in historical debates surrounding “imperial balance sheets,” such as the one in which R. J. Hammond and Clarence-­Smith engaged regarding ­whether Portugal’s colonial empire provided primarily economic or primarily po­liti­cal value.38 Yet Eu­ro­pean governments allocated funds for both touristic infrastructure and promotion in their African colonies, to varying degrees, and derived financial benefits from t­ hese investments—­again, to varying degrees. In Mozambique, for example, by the 1950s, tourism constituted a major source of badly needed foreign exchange, and, by the ­middle of the de­cade, the industry was annually generating over a half million pounds of revenue, a figure that would increase significantly in subsequent years.39 Rather than deeming tourism peripheral to the colonial proj­ect, Portugal’s durable dictator, António Salazar, who directed the nation’s Estado Novo (New State) regime from 1933 u ­ ntil 1968, and his successor, Marcelo Caetano, who held office ­until 1974, both identified the economic potential of the industry in the colonies and actively sought to realize it. The pursuit of this “alluring opportunity” was extraordinary given the l­imited ­human and material resources, in general, that Lisbon had at its disposal. The state’s ongoing allocation of scarce funds for touristic development while it was actively engaged in simultaneous counterinsurgencies in three of its African territories, Angola, Mozambique, and Guiné, further underscores this unwavering commitment. A regime with less conviction regarding the economic utility of tourism would have rapidly reallocated ­these vital monies for the vari­ous military campaigns in which it was embroiled. Tourism also served po­liti­cal and propagandistic purposes for the Estado Novo, especially following the commencements of the wars for in­de­pen­dence in its African colonies. Having disregarded Eu­ro­pean nations’ abandonment of imperial territories elsewhere in Africa beginning in the late 1950s, the regime intransigently resisted mounting international pressure to decolonize, locking itself in a strug­gle to retain its African possessions. Elsewhere, scholars have

14 I n t r o d u c t i o n

examined historical scenarios in which authoritarian states have developed tourism industries primarily for po­liti­cal, rather than economic, ends, including Kristin Semmens’s study of Nazi Germany and Stephanie Hom’s exploration of fascist Italy.40 Semmens’s argument that the Nazis “institutionalized tourism as an ideological m ­ atter” echoes in the Estado Novo’s determinations, as does the latter’s contention that “colonial tourism disavowed the violent, insidious nature of imperialism, covering it over with a patina of leisure and making palatable, even pleas­ur­able  .  .  . ​the unchecked de­mo­li­tion of economic, po­liti­cal, and social systems.”41 Even more directly analogous to the Mozambican case, Andrew Wrigley has considered the ways that the Belgian colonial state attempted to utilize tourism as a po­liti­cal instrument to forestall decolonization in the Congo. Yet, as he cogently contends, Brussels was not genuinely interested in attracting tourists; rather, the state generated touristic materials to promote the allegedly positive results of its ongoing colonial proj­ect in Central Africa “as a responsible nation of empire.”42 Tellingly, in the mid-1950s, the Congo was only attracting roughly ten thousand tourists annually; during this same period, Mozambique was drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.43 In practice, rather than discouraging prospective tourists, the Portuguese regime wanted as many p­ eople as pos­si­ble to visit the colony. Moreover, in contrast to colonial governments elsewhere in Africa that targeted wealthier guests, the Estado Novo encouraged anyone of any means who was potentially interested in visiting Mozambique to act on that inclination.44 To this end, the state cultivated touristic experiences for visitors across the socioeconomic spectrum—­from guests who slept on the beach, brought all their own provisions, and generally kept to themselves, known locally as “banana tourists,” to travelers who patronized elite h ­ otels or who paid exorbitant fees to hunt in the colony’s renowned game reserves and enthusiastically engaged with members of local society. And, for the most part, the colonial government did not attempt to conceal certain aspects of Mozambican society or to sanitize t­ hese visits, even ­after the outbreak of hostilities in 1964. Nor did it try to fabricate a scripted touristic experience by offering a specious taste of “Real Africa,” as did contemporaneous Eu­ro­pean settlers in nearby Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) regarding tourism to Victoria Falls.45 The majority of tourists to Mozambique, hailing from Southern Africa themselves, came to escape Africa, or at least their version of it, and, si­mul­ta­neously, to embrace a largely unfamiliar strain of Eu­rope. Ultimately, irrespective of who they ­were and why they came, the Estado Novo hoped that each satisfied tourist would, on returning home from Mozambique, contribute their voice to a millions-­strong chorus of positive publicity for the increasingly embattled regime.

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Methodology and Sources The evidentiary base for this study includes archival materials related to the advocation, development, and administration of tourism in Portugal’s empire, as well as oral testimony from tourists who visited colonial Mozambique and from African laborers who served in the industry during this period. The archival sources, including newspapers, colonial reports and documents, tourism/ propaganda films, memoirs, travel accounts, and English-­and Portuguese-­ language travel guides, offer considerable insights into both the development of Mozambique as an alluring tourist destination and the plans Lisbon devised and implemented to realize this objective. ­These materials also reveal how deeply intertwined Portugal’s touristic and po­liti­cal aims became over time as, in practice, state-­directed efforts to promote travel to vari­ous sites in its overseas empire often amounted to ­little more than imperial propaganda for the country’s dictatorial regime. In practice, the Centros de Informação e Turismo (CITs), the governmental departments that oversaw tourism in the African colonies, worked closely with both the Ministry of Foreign Relations and the PIDE, Portugal’s vaunted secret police force. Collectively, ­these entities strove to ensure that all forms of touristic promotion and the corresponding experiences of foreign visitors served to generate and enhance the commendatory image of empire that Lisbon was painstakingly endeavoring to cultivate.46 Despite the richness of ­these archival materials, they have significant limitations as they almost never penetrate the daily lives of the thousands of Africans employed in the colonial-­era tourism industry. Even when ­these laborers do appear in the written rec­ord, the prevailing racial attitudes of the period conditioned the (white) authors of t­ hese items to mention the workers e­ ither pejoratively or in purely functional terms, void of any personal dimensions. Only commercial hunting operators diverge from this paradigm, frequently complementing preferred African employees in their memoirs.47 However, even t­ hese accounts are often replete with condescension, and they fail to consider ­these individuals’ plights beyond their respective employment sites. Due to the limitations of the written rec­ord and b­ ecause this book strives to reconstruct the interconnected touristic impressions and experiences of foreign visitors to the colony and the daily, lived experiences of Africans in the tourist industry, oral testimony figures prominently in the narrative. This form of evidence was amassed via more than sixty interviews, conducted primarily in Mozambique but also in Portugal and South Africa.48 During this pro­cess, I interviewed dozens of Africans who formerly worked in the industry, servicing the hordes of foreign tourists who descended on the colony’s cities, beaches, and game reserves. T ­ hese interviews yielded invaluable interior accounts of

16 I n t r o d u c t i o n

the daily lives of African subjects in colonial Mozambique and the vari­ous strategies they employed over time to navigate this exacting environment. I also gathered testimony from American, En­glish, Irish, Portuguese, and, predominantly, South African and Rhodesian tourists who traveled to vari­ous locations in colonial Mozambique across the de­cades. T ­ hese interview sessions generated valuable insights into the considerable appeal of Mozambique as a tourist destination, especially due to its relaxed race relations vis-­à-­vis the severity of the apartheid system in South Africa. For example, as Jean Kissin, a South African who honeymooned in Mozambique in 1962, explained to me, “Remember, in ­those days, ­there was no apartheid in Mozambique. Blacks and whites could dance together, love together, what­ever together . . . ​It was lovely to see the interaction between Black and white in Mozambique and to be able to talk to a Black person without feeling that somebody was looking at you or something like that. It was a lovely feeling.”49 Although Kissin did not deeply comprehend the racial landscape in the colony, her sincerity was both unquestionable and insightful. Moreover, her sentiments remind us that although apartheid was, at its core, profoundly racist, the social convictions of individual South Africans did not inherently reflect the views of their oppressive government. Although oral testimony is vital to the historical reconstructions this book features, as with archival material, it too has evidentiary limitations and must be treated equally as critically. For example, even with oral interviews in my methodological toolbelt, certain figures in Mozambique’s touristic past remained elusive. Indeed, although African ­women ­were only employed in negligible numbers in the industry, some did participate in the nightlife scene in LM as performers or prostitutes. Yet regrettably, I was unable to locate any ­women to interview who had engaged with tourists in ­either of ­these capacities (nor, of course, did they feature in the archives). The resultant relative absence of ­these and, on occasion, other African voices in certain sections of the book impedes the evidentiary balance that I strove to achieve throughout, thereby requiring other forms of evidence to drive the narrative in ­these segments. At other times, in­for­mants’ testimony, such as that of Jean Kissin, was laced with nostalgia for a “magical” time, during which safety and security prevailed for foreign visitors and Mozambique had not yet been ravaged by a protracted civil conflict (1976–1992).50 As such, their con­temporary testimony often unintendedly contrasted a touristically alluring “then” with a considerably less appealing “now.” Regardless, by carefully identifying the vari­ous influences that s­ haped their testimony, the oral evidence they furnished retains significant epistemological utility, powerfully informing the book’s contentions and conclusions.

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By interlacing testimony from both foreign “guests” and their local “hosts”—­ the constituent parties in any touristic encounter—­this book aims to generate a holistic reconstruction of the history of tourism in colonial Mozambique. Ultimately, by exploring the ways that African workers capitalized on opportunities within the industry, the book strives to prompt reconsiderations of Indigenous ­labor and social mobility in colonial Africa, while also opening up new ways of thinking, more broadly, about the ways in which tourism shapes pro­cesses of empire, interracial interactions, and power relations.

Organ­ization Following this chapter, the ensuing chapter introduces colonial Mozambique, including the shifting social, racial, po­liti­cal, and economic conditions that its Indigenous residents negotiated daily, as well as Lisbon’s investment in and attentive oversight of the increasingly impor­tant tourist industry in the territory. Subsequently, a series of chapters traces the development of vari­ous types of touristic activity, which w ­ ere each associated with specific locales and experiences, namely, cities, nightlife, hunting reserves, and game parks. Across ­these geothematic chapters, I explore the par­tic­u­lar appeal of t­ hese diverse forms of tourism and Africans’ participation in them. I also highlight change over time within each chapter to provide a diachronic understanding of the contours of ­these individual segments of the broader tourist industry and how African laborers both engaged with ­these subsectors and attempted to profitably navigate t­ hese spaces. Chapter 1 provides an overview of Portugal’s imperial exploits in Africa with a focus on the history of colonial Mozambique. The chapter considers the territory from a number of perspectives: as a place in which institutionalized racism rendered daily life for Africans exceedingly challenging; as a consistent financial concern—­and often a burden—­for the metropole, thereby heightening the allure of touristic revenues; and as a key partner in the “unholy alliance” forged between Lisbon and the white-­minority regimes in Pretoria and Salisbury ­(Harare).51 As part of this broader examination, I outline the Portuguese state’s development of Mozambique’s transportation infrastructure and its promotion of the colony’s tourism industry, initially for economic purposes but, increasingly, for po­liti­cal and propagandistic ends, all of which w ­ ere intended to legitimize and reinforce the empire. On numerous occasions, intraregional tourism served to tighten the bonds between Portugal, South Africa, and Rhodesia, inextricably linking tourism and state politics. For example, during an attempt

18 I n t r o d u c t i o n

by a private charter airline in the mid-1960s to expand ser­vice into Mozambique, officials from South Africa’s national airline, South African Airways (SAA), and its Portuguese counterpart, Transportes Aéreos Portugueses (TAP), in conjunction with high-­ranking administrators from both regimes, colluded to prohibit ­these new routes, thus protecting their investments and ultimately bankrupting the upstart com­pany. In practice, se­nior officials in the Estado Novo regularly intervened in tourism-­related issues—­for example, by reacting to other­wise innocuous “letters to the editor” in South African newspapers in which visitors to Mozambique voiced even the slightest discontent—­further underscoring the links between tourism and the politics of empire. Chapter 2 focuses on the range of touristic dynamics in the colony’s capital city, Lourenço Marques, on which visitors from around the globe descended. In par­tic­u­lar, South Africans and, to a lesser extent, Rhodesians engaged in a form of regional escapism, flocking to LM for a taste of Southern Eu­ro­pean urbanity (figure I.1). Oral testimony from Black, white, and Coloured Southern African tourists confirms the exotic appeal of Mozambique, while also highlighting some of its more compelling features. The “alien” activities in which ­these visitors engaged included, inter alia, attending bullfights, touring Catholic cemeteries, marveling at colonial architecture, taking brewery tours, and simply relaxing at sidewalk cafés. As Harry Hawthorne, who first traveled to Mozambique from neighboring Swaziland (Eswatini) in 1966 while on his honeymoon, explained to me, “It was just dif­fer­ent—it was Eu­ro­pean. It was Eu­ro­pean café society, it was completely dif­fer­ent. . . . ​I think the biggest asset that Mozambique had was the Eu­ro­pean culture, the sophisticated Eu­ro­pean café culture, which was so dif­fer­ent from . . . ​anything in South Africa. It was much more relaxed.”52 Owing to t­ hese markedly divergent features, the assortment of constituent urban touristic activities generated myriad livelihood opportunities for African laborers—as bartenders, cooks, servers, maître d’s, and staff in ­hotels, restaurants, and other venues—­which they strategically seized in order to achieve financial security and pursue social mobility. Chapter 3 maintains the focus on Lourenço Marques, drawing the reader into the realm of unrestrained revelry and, at times, debauchery that characterized touristic nightlife in the city. Nightlife revolved around Rua Araújo, known locally as “Sin Street.” The hours ­after the sun set held par­tic­u­lar appeal for white male tourists from South Africa, which featured a culture that was both staid and socially and sexually suppressive. A ­ fter crossing the Mozambican border, t­ hese visitors immediately enjoyed the colony’s racial permeability, newly gaining access to what would have been “forbidden fruit” back home. For example, in LM, t­ hese men could openly cavort with African ­women and also frequent striptease clubs and casinos, none of which was permissible

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Figure I.1.  Advertisement for tourism to Lourenço Marques, c. 1920s. Courtesy of Antonio Botelho de Melo.

or, in many cases, even pos­si­ble, in their homelands. As one South African reveler told a visiting Glaswegian journalist, both of whom found themselves on “Sin Street” during a 1961 visit: “This could never happen in Durban [South Africa].”53 Again, African residents engaged with t­ hese tourists in an array of remunerated capacities—as musical performers and waitstaff, but also, much less agreeably, as prostitutes in the nightclubs, bars, casinos, and even on the streets of the colony’s largest cities. Although ­these livelihoods ­were often precarious, many Africans labored gainfully in ­these vibrant nocturnal spaces. Chapter 4 examines the history of commercial hunting safaris in the colony. Early in the twentieth ­century, local authorities recognized that Mozambique’s big game had the potential to generate significant revenue. Consequently, they began delineating spaces (coutadas) that enticed overseas sportsmen, while si­mul­ta­neously forbidding Africans from engaging in sustenance hunting. Over time, the colony would attract a well-­heeled hunting clientele, helping

20 I n t r o d u c t i o n

Mozambique earn the moniker, “The land of millionaires.” Africans eventually returned to ­these spaces, though not as hunters, as that undertaking remained proscribed; rather, they gained employment as trackers, guides, and gunbearers, ser­vices essential to the viability of this burgeoning, lucrative industry. As Portuguese hunter Carlos Antero exemplarily remarked in 1952, “Skilled African trackers and hunters are indispensable auxiliaries to the white man . . . ​ They are able to tell from the footprints how many animals passed by a given spot, where they are heading and when, their size, and so forth, so that, once he knows t­hese ele­ments, he can select the best way to approach and show the [white] hunter the most con­ve­nient spot from where to shoot.”54 Yet, as Dane Kennedy has cautioned regarding ­these types of relationships, “laudatory sentiments aimed at indigenous assistants regarding indigenous assistants ­were often selective, self-­serving, and coded in racial categories and cultural biases.”55 Regardless, as the colonial sun began to set and Eu­ro­pean operators began to flee Mozambique, ­these trusted, talented, and experienced employees assumed leading positions in an assortment of long-­standing concessionary hunting enterprises. Chapter 5 maintains the focus on Mozambique’s celebrated game but pivots to reconstruct the development of the camera safari industry. Somewhat belatedly embracing conservation in the name of profits, in 1960 colonial officials converted the expansive Gorongosa reserve in central Mozambique into a national park, rendering it a formally protected animal sanctuary that quickly drew increasing numbers of visitors from around the world. Even if the tourist infrastructure at Gorongosa was always modest, the space featured a density of wildlife that even its more famous South African neighbor, Kruger National Park, could not match. In 1971, the Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke affirmed Gorongosa’s won­der during a visit to the park, remarking to his local guide (although in terms that ­were patently hyperbolic), “Visiting Gorongosa is as thrilling as landing on the moon.”56 African employees ser­viced Duke and thousands of other international visitors as rangers and guides and as staff at Chitengo, Gorongosa’s only permanent camp, taking g­ reat pride in safeguarding the well-­being of the park and, of course, its famous fauna. Fi­nally, an epilogue considers both the immediate plight and enduring legacy of Mozambique’s tourist industry as the colony transitioned to in­de­pen­ dence in 1975, subsequently endured a devastating civil conflict (1976–1992), and, more recently, has begun anew to attract large numbers of tourists. Although Africans active in the industry during the colonial era often seamlessly replaced departing Eu­ro­pean supervisors, tourism in Mozambique contracted considerably during the ensuing hostilities. Following the conclusion of the conflict, however, many Africans returned to the rebounding industry. Many

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of t­ hese individuals also transmitted occupational knowledge and skills to their ­children, such that, for example, sons of former chefs are now serving in that same capacity, often at the same establishments. Moreover, this remarkable legacy, rooted in the colonial period, is likely to persist, as livelihood opportunities within the industry continue to expand in con­temporary Mozambique.

C h a p te r   1

The Promise and Delivery of Tourism in a Colonial Space Mozambique has sought to tell the world of its natu­ral beauties, making them easily accessible, setting up ­hotels, inns, and camp sites; it has tried to attract the tourist by making his journey, as well as his stay, easier, showing him what the province produces and welcoming him warmly, wanting to make of him a friend who ­will return whenever he can. —­Vasco de Gama Rocha e Castro, in the 1971 Anuário Turistico de Moçambique (Tourist yearbook of Mozambique) Mozambique, a Latin Enclave in the midst of English-­speaking Africa . . . ​where all races and religions live together in perfect harmony. . . . ​The Portuguese world on four continents is an irresistible call for escape and discovery. —­Narrative from the 1973 Portuguese film, Turismo em 4 continentes (Tourism on 4 continents)

The “Latin enclave” of Mozambique undeniably generated for many tourists “an irresistible call for escape and discovery,” thereby fulfilling the film’s vaunt and, as Rocha e Castro suggested, also “making a friend of him who ­will return whenever he can.” As outlined in the previous chapter, the colony offered regionally incomparable experiences for visitors. Indeed, Mozambique is endowed with a number of natu­ral attributes, including abundant sunshine, an extended coastline, an agreeable climate, and celebrated wildlife, which collectively enhanced its already considerable appeal. But, it also featured alluring ­human dynamics and cultural mores that ­were incongruent with the more stringent systems that prevailed elsewhere in the region. So divergent ­were race relations in Mozambique from t­ hose dynamics in, for example, South Africa, that a female visitor to the colony from Cape Town in the late 1950s remarked in a newspaper column summarizing 22

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her trip, “We ­were very conscious that in Portuguese territories the distinction is rather between ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized,’ not between white and Black. A man’s suitability for any job seems to be judged rather by his capabilities than by his colour, and Eu­ro­pe­ans, Chinese, Indians, and Africans all work side by side. This makes for a completely dif­fer­ent racial feeling.”1 Notwithstanding the relative cordiality of Africans and Eu­ro­pean settlers in the colony, the South African tourist’s perception that meritocracy reigned reveals ­little more than her unawareness, irrespective of her apparent earnestness. As was the case throughout Portugal’s empire in Africa, Mozambique’s Indigenous residents ­were subjected to a host of racially discriminative policies and practices that left them vulnerable to vari­ous forms of oppression and exploitation. For example, as longtime LM resident, Fernando Sitoi, explained to me, “During the colonial era, we could only go downtown and look into the win­ dows of shops. We could walk around the city [center], but not at night. At 9:00 p.m., we ­were not supposed to be in the central streets. Only the whites could do that.”2 Although, over time, Lisbon relaxed some of t­ hese exigencies and enacted ­limited socially integrative mea­sures, colonial socie­ties in the empire remained racially tiered ­until the Portuguese flag was lowered for the final time. The strict control of Indigenous residents enabled the state to harness their ­labor, which generated considerable profits for the colony and, by extension, the Estado Novo. As with Angola, Mozambique was well positioned to deliver both revenue and, owing to its size and location, geopo­liti­cal prestige for the diminutive metropole. By the 1930s, Lisbon recognized that it could add tourism to its stable of means to generate funds from the colony. To this end, the state mobilized its available ­human and financial resources to develop the industry. ­These efforts included the establishment of administrative entities to oversee the emerging sector and the creation, expansion, and enhancement of the requisite transportation infrastructure, including road, rail, air, and sea networks, which facilitated the arrival of ever-­increasing numbers of tourists. By the 1950s, with the industry flourishing, Lisbon recognized that tourism also had utility as a regional diplomatic tool. The continuous touristic flows of white settlers deriving from Rhodesia and South Africa deepened relations between Lisbon, Salisbury, and Pretoria—­the three nodes of the “unholy alliance.” This intraregional tourism served to tighten the bonds between Portugal and t­ hese sympathetic administrations, thereby inextricably linking tourism and state politics. Lisbon’s diplomacy-­through-­tourism offensive, however, was not restricted to its “alliance” partners. Mozambican tourism officials regularly traveled throughout the region, cooperating with their counter­parts in an effort to deepen diplomatic relations. T ­ hese endeavors ­were particularly impor­ tant following the transition from colonies to sovereign states that virtually

24 Chap t e r  1

all Mozambique’s neighbors experienced during the 1960s. If tourism in the colony had commenced rather innocuously and organically, over time it constituted an impor­tant weapon in Lisbon’s politicodiplomatic arsenal. This chapter outlines the development of tourism in Mozambique, from the initial arrival of the Portuguese to the regime’s unrelenting efforts to utilize the industry to perpetuate the empire. As part of this sweeping engagement with Portuguese overrule, I examine the shifting po­liti­cal economy in the colony; the vari­ous daily dynamics between Africans, settlers, and tourists; and the per­sis­ tent economic appeal of tourism for the regime. In order to transform Mozambique into an alluring tourist destination and, thereby, generate the prospective, resultant revenues, the Estado Novo established a series of oversight agencies and, over time, constructed robust transportation networks to facilitate visitors’ arrivals. Fi­nally, I examine the centrality of tourism in relations with the regimes in Pretoria and Salisbury, as well as the ways that Portugal effectively used touristic flows to engage in regional diplomacy more broadly.

The Portuguese in Africa: From Explorers to Colonial Overlords The Portuguese first reached the sites in Africa that would eventually constitute their empire on the continent in the 1400s. In a number of places on Africa’s western, southern, and eastern shores, the Portuguese w ­ ere the first Eu­ro­pe­ans to arrive. Subsequently, they parlayed their navigational precocity to generate considerable wealth via flourishing trades in gold and slaves, among other items. The waves of Eu­ro­pean commercial imitators that followed in Portugal’s footsteps quickly outpaced the originators of the commerce between Eu­ro­pe­ans and sub-­Saharan Africans. Yet the vari­ous Portuguese outposts along Africa’s western and southern coasts endured, primarily as embarkation points for slaves being transported across the Atlantic and as dumping grounds for metropolitan exiles, known as degradados. Other­wise, ­these stations waned in importance and influence over time, languishing for centuries and yielding few tangible benefits for Lisbon. As Eu­ro­pean nations contemplated, and eventually engaged in, the violent invasion of Africa during the second half of the nineteenth c­ entury, Portugal was compelled to formally claim imperial space on the continent to preserve ­these scattered territories. Reflective of Portugal’s severely eroded standing in Eu­rope, Lisbon predicated ­these territorial assertions on its history of commercial interaction in sub-­Saharan Africa, which dated back to its initial forays, centuries e­ arlier. Ultimately, internecine power politics and rivalries among

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the Eu­ro­pean heavyweights facilitated Portugal’s other­wise unlikely establishment of an empire in Africa. Consequently, plenipotentiaries from Lisbon departed from the 1884–1885 conference in Berlin with geo­g raph­i­cally incommensurate, yet formally recognized, claims to five territories: Angola, Mozambique, Guiné, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe. In order to justify the initial conquest and ensuing overrule of African territories, the Portuguese fostered power­f ul notions of Eu­ro­pean cultural superiority and, correspondingly, Indigenous inferiority. T ­ hese increasingly accepted “truths” w ­ ere reinforced at ­every turn, thereby influencing racial sentiments and, attendantly, interracial interactions in the colonies. Isabel Castro Henriques has described this specious, hierarchical stance as pure “my­thol­ogy,” which not only condescended to Africans, but also portrayed Portugal as a victim of the other Eu­ro­pean imperial nations. The narrative asserted that rival continental powers allegedly “had ‘illegitimate’ African appetites,” since, ­after all, the Portuguese had been the first Eu­ro­pe­ans to arrive in sub-­Saharan Africa.3 Henriques further contends that “this situation led to the reinforcement of ideas and prejudices that had already taken root in Portuguese society, in which the somatic, the Negro, and social, the slave, ­were articulated together to define the African.”4 Another mea­sure that Lisbon took to legitimate and consolidate control in its African empire was to encourage metropolitan citizens to relocate to the colonies. As part of the broader po­liti­cal and economic calculus of the Estado Novo, the regime facilitated the relocation of thousands of citizens to the colonies, in part to rid the metropole of under-­or unemployed members of the population, but also to stimulate the colonial economies. Influxes of t­ hese (often destitute) settlers significantly altered the demographic and economic landscapes in the two colonies that received the overwhelming majority of ­these individuals: Angola and Mozambique. In the latter, for example, the settler population almost tripled from 1930 to 1950, increasing from 17,842 to 48,213, before more than doubling from 1950 to 1960, to 97,245 residents, and doubling again by 1974, to over 200,000 p­ eople.5 In both Angola and Mozambique, settler populations grew more than tenfold between 1930 and 1970.6 In ­these two settings, waves of incoming Portuguese rapidly displaced long-­ standing mestiço (mulatto) populations, newly occupying low-­level positions in the colonial bureaucracies that members of the mixed-­race communities had previously held. Prior to ­these Portuguese arrivals, mestiços had provided invaluable ser­vice in the strapped administrative apparatuses that featured in the empire. With Lisbon unable to allocate sufficient h ­ uman resources to African outposts, Portuguese men had long miscegenated with local w ­ omen, motivated by a combination of libido, h ­ uman nature, and administrative necessity.

26 Chap t e r  1

As such, Lisbon tolerated this form of interracial interaction, even if it did not actively encourage it. With the overthrow in 1926 of the Republic of Portugal, a short-­lived government that itself had come to power only ­after toppling the Portuguese monarchy in 1910, the colonies ­were increasingly eyed as sources of revenue rather than as spaces to develop meaningfully. With the emergence of the corporatist, authoritarian Estado Novo in 1933, expenditures for the empire ­were slashed while Lisbon continued to squeeze what­ever revenues it could from the territories. With the advent of the new regime, the relative fiscal and po­liti­cal autonomy that the colonies had enjoyed u ­ nder the republic came to an abrupt end; power was increasingly centralized. Just two de­cades l­ater, Portugal was powerless to prevent the winds of decolonization from blowing across the continent, inaugurated by E ­ ngland’s conferment of in­de­pen­dence to its Gold Coast colony (Ghana) in 1957. By the 1960s, ­these breezes had turned to gusts, with a steady succession of colonies transitioning to in­de­pen­dent states. Yet, while the British, French, and Belgians all abandoned their African colonial proj­ects, Portugal’s dictatorship clung ever more tightly to its empire. In a bid to stress the indivisibility of the colonies and the metropole, in 1951 the regime had recast ­these possessions as “overseas provinces,” signifying that they w ­ ere as integral to Portugal as w ­ ere the vari­ous regions of the metropole. This obstinacy and artifice did not, however, come without cost. With colonial empires rapidly disappearing, Portugal’s po­liti­cal position was becoming increasingly anachronistic. Moreover, the global left, which by the 1960s also featured a large number of newly in­de­ pen­dent African states, was openly condemning Portugal for its resolute preservation of the empire and, more specifically, the racist policies in place in its colonies. Even staunch allies of Portugal, such as the United States, ­were privately imploring Lisbon to relax statutory controls in the empire. In another blow to the regime, in 1961 the Indian army forcibly annexed the historic Portuguese colony of Goa on the western coast of the subcontinent; protestations w ­ ere all the enfeebled Iberian state could muster. The early 1960s constituted an ominous time for Portugal and its empire. As mentioned e­ arlier, in 1961, the Angolan war for in­de­pen­dence commenced, followed shortly thereafter by nationalist eruptions in Guiné (1963) and Mozambique (1964). T ­ hese three conflicts would each rage for over a de­cade, with the Portuguese conceding the most territory in Guiné. With mounting numbers of Portuguese conscripts losing life or limb in the fighting in the African bush, ­these increasingly unpop­u­lar wars w ­ ere crippling an already teetering state. Fi­nally, in 1974, a group of mid-­level army officers, tapping the sentiments of the war-­weary Portuguese citizenry, staged a largely bloodless coup

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that toppled the Estado Novo regime and thereby ended the colonial conflicts almost immediately, paving the way for the in­de­pen­dence of the African territories. Portugal’s colonial adventure on the continent had fi­nally concluded.

Portugal’s African Colonies: Po­liti­cal Economies and Daily Life Following the consolidation of colonial control in Portugal’s imperial claims in Africa, Indigenous residents newly operated in po­liti­cal economies that ­were marked by racial vio­lence and exploitation. Consistent with other imperial Eu­ ro­pean nations active in Africa, Portugal’s colonial proj­ect was predicated on racial and cultural superiority, cloaked in an altruistic “civilizing mission.” For African subjects, the sternest ele­ments of this “mission” included the imposition of taxes, the implementation of forced ­labor schemes, and the daily threat of vio­lence for any ­actual or perceived incompliance. Harnessing Africans’ ­labor was vital to generate revenues, but Indigenous populations other­wise constituted l­ ittle more than burdens for a metropole that lacked the resources to develop its colonial possessions, though the realization of widespread social improvements was never a genuine objective for the regime anyway. Over time, influxes of Portuguese settlers saw sleepy colonial outposts transformed into lively urban destinations, most profoundly in Mozambique and Angola. Consequently, their respective capital cities of Lourenço Marques and Luanda eventually featured urban centers with any array of concrete buildings populated exclusively by settlers, and concentric rings of suburbs in which Black Africans, mestiços, and, complicating this other­wise steadfast racial configuration, poor whites resided in less durable structures, though the latter’s numbers ­were comparatively small. The residents of ­these hardscrabble suburban or periurban areas ­were typically impoverished, but far from destitute. Following the overthrow of the Portuguese Republic in 1926 and the subsequent implementation of Salazar’s authoritarian Estado Novo regime, the colonies became even more commercially friendly. Owing to a spate of new policies that reduced Africans to legally marginalized and exploitable colonial subjects, or indígenas, in rural areas, settlers and private enterprises could newly access cheap, bound Indigenous l­abor. Only by achieving assimilado (assimilated) status, an intermediate social and l­egal position that afforded qualified individuals certain protections and benefits, could Africans improve their plight. Yet the passage to formal assimilation was open to only a scant few; fewer than 1 ­percent of colonized subjects ever achieved this status. The Estado Novo regime did ­little, if anything, to alter this social configuration ­until newly in­de­pen­dent African

28 Chap t e r  1

nations elsewhere on the continent began to utilize the international bodies at their disposal, such as the United Nations and the International L ­ abor Organ­ ization, to malign, condemn, and increasingly isolate the resolute Portuguese state. Begrudgingly, Lisbon began to revise certain colonial policies. In the early 1960s, for example, with the wars for in­de­pen­dence underway, the regime dismantled the forced l­abor schemes and began allocating additional funds to extend (albeit skeletal) education and health-­care infrastructures, while continuing to actively promote tourism, primarily in Mozambique, but also in Angola. Even if ­these decisions ­were po­liti­cally motivated—­calculated, though belated, efforts to win the “hearts and minds” of Indigenous residents—­ Africans did, nonetheless, benefit from the relaxation of social and economic policies. Indeed, as Domingos has argued, “The toning down of the social segregation mechanisms, especially a­ fter . . . ​1961, created the conditions to speed up the dynamics of mobility that w ­ ere already in place. The need for economic mobility demanded the end of po­liti­cal obstacles.”7 Yet Marcelo Bittencourt reminds us that despite t­ hese concessions, the politicomartial events of the 1960s “radicalized the Portuguese colonial authorities; the eyes and ears of the government agencies came to suspect any type of association . . . ​in which Blacks and mestiços congregated.”8 As such, even as whites, Blacks, and mestiços began mixing with greater fluidity, often within formerly segregated spaces, pervasive suspicion and tension engendered by the wars for in­de­pen­ dence marked the vari­ous colonial settings.

Multidirectional Social Relations and Interactions in Colonial Mozambique As mi­g rant laborers and foreign tourists descended on vari­ous destinations in the colony, they entered into a web of social relations, even if only temporarily, that also included resident settler populations. Black Mozambicans and Eu­ ro­pean settlers interacted according to codified colonial racial policies, in which the former ­were intended to serve the latter, but ­there ­were impor­tant exceptions to t­ hese conventions. For example, many Africans employed in the tourism industry acclaimed their white supervisors and experienced treatment that diverged from the prevailing norms dictated by colonial law. Meanwhile, visiting tourists interacted with both Black and white Mozambicans as they engaged the city’s touristic infrastructure and activities, often in highly unconventional ways. In the following sections, I explore the constituent social rela-

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tions of t­ hese broader dynamics, examining the vari­ous interactions between Africans, Portuguese settlers, and tourists. Considering this web of relations through the lens of tourism reveals an array of interactions that often diverge from prevailing colonial standards.

Portuguese Settler-­African Resident Dynamics A Portuguese-­produced 1966 tourism-­propaganda film entitled Moçambique—­ Turismo, claimed that Lourenço Marques was a “multi-­racial city, where African and Eu­ro­pean traditions are face to face, mingling at e­ very hour of the day,” before eventually concluding, “Touristic Mozambique, with all the marvelous diversity of its scenery, its cities, races, and religions, reflects the joy of what y­ ou’ve been watching.”9 In practice, t­ hese types of alluring sentiments attracted foreign visitors, e­ ager to witness this form of seemingly harmonious racial interaction. But even if t­ here was a greater degree of racial tolerance in Mozambique than in other settings in Southern Africa, the racial hierarchy was firmly entrenched in the colony and its cities, where interracial interaction was a daily occurrence. As Fernando Cunica, who worked as a cook in a Portuguese-­managed restaurant during the colonial era, explained, “You had to be ready to work. If someone was not able to work, the colonizers would beat him, not to kill him, but to open his eyes. They ­were racists.”10 Reconstructing race relations in colonial Lourenço Marques is, in fact, a challenging endeavor. On one hand, it is undeniable that racial dynamics ­were less stringent in the city than they w ­ ere elsewhere in Southern Africa—­arguably, almost anywhere e­ lse in colonial Africa. Random video footage of street scenes in the city reveals Africans serving in a variety of roles—as waitstaff, traffic police, and shoe shiners—­but also as smartly dressed urban residents joining the throngs of Portuguese settlers making their way along the city’s sidewalks to one destination or another. A South African reporter commented on this urban population in a 1958 article following a visit to the city, noting that “some of the best-­dressed p­ eople I have seen are Africans. Young Africans wear neat Khaki shorts, white shirts, socks, and shoes. On the outskirts of the city are some signs of poverty, but, in the main, the Africans the tourist sees look healthy and well-­dressed.”11 Yet images and impressions such as ­these belie Africans’ second-­class citizenship. Prior to the arrival of the waves of tourists, Black residents of LM had been forcibly relocated to make way for the general expansion of the city; new white-­only residential areas that accommodated the influxes of settlers; and even the construction of recreational spaces, such as a golf course. Indeed,

30 Chap t e r  1

the Polana Golf Club, which had been originally established in the city in 1908, moved in the 1950s to the flatlands below Polana Caniço. As the historian David Morton explains, “The ­people who lived in reed ­houses in the way of the links ­were pushed up the slope, and t­ hose who resisted w ­ ere burned out of their homes.”12 It’s hard to reconcile images of torched homes with claims aimed at prospective tourists that local residents of all races harmoniously mingled on a daily basis. Even in the absence of vio­lence, most settlers believed that Black urban residents existed to serve them, and the colonial laws undergirded this notion. Urban Africans cleaned and cooked for colonists as domestic servants; waited on them in the city’s cafés, restaurants, and bars; taxied them from one place to another using a variety of modes, including rickshaws, and shined their shoes. Leonard Ingalls, a New York Times journalist writing about the colony in the 1950s, observed that “­there are still many restrictions on Negroes in Mozambique and some meanness ­toward them by individual whites that none of the authorities h ­ ere ­will deny.”13 Indeed, Blacks ­were forbidden to enter, for example, nicer ­hotels and a number of other establishments in the city. Commenting on settlers’ oppressive posture t­ oward Africans, Thomas Henriksen, in his 1978 book, Mozambique: A History, reflected on his experiences during a 1973 visit to the colony: “Two years before in­de­pen­dence, this writer’s observations confirmed the oral and written testimony of o ­ thers on the racial surliness with which many Portuguese addressed Black waiters, cooks, messengers, and servants, who ­were ­little more than paid slaves. Just as unmistakable was the bitterness ­toward whites expressed in the eyes of a few Black workers and passers-by in the urban centers.”14 Luís Sarmento, a settler born in LM, confirmed ­these racial dynamics, describing the city to me as “a white town. You ­wouldn’t see Black p­ eople around, with the exception of servants and workers . . . ​­there was a kind of a curfew in ­those days. All servants, Blacks, ­were supposed to move out of town by nine in the eve­ning . . . ​though it w ­ asn’t always strictly enforced. Regardless, every­thing that moved in this town was intended to serve the whites, the colonials, the ‘cream’ at the top.”15 António Chavana, who was still working at the long-­standing, luxurious Polana H ­ otel when I interviewed him in 2017, regretted that t­ hese colonial conventions and dynamics continued to influence the actions of some Mozambicans in LM. “Some Black ­people are still afraid to come into the Polana. . . . ​But that is how we w ­ ere educated [during colonialism], that you cannot come into this ­hotel. This is still in p­ eople’s minds, b­ ecause even if you invite someone t­oday to come h ­ ere to have a coffee, they refuse, saying ‘No, I cannot go to the Polana.’ But, if you ask them ‘Why?’ They ­don’t know why. They cannot say. They still have this fear. That was our colonial education.”16

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Foreign Tourist–­African Resident Dynamics Relations between tourists and the Africans with whom they interacted w ­ ere typically much less severe, even if the latter w ­ ere primarily still servicing ­these guests. In general, most visitors spoke complementarily of ­these African employees, who assisted tourists in a variety of ways. The sentiments of frequent South African visitor John Wilson perfectly capture the general approval of Africans in the industry, while his brevity also reflects the minimal interaction many guests had with their Indigenous hosts. “The Portuguese whites ran every­thing. And the Portuguese Blacks, they ­were very friendly, very nice.”17 Similarly, many visitors ­were impressed with their professionalism, even if they did not necessarily offer commentary regarding their perceived demeanor. According to Rhodesian Moira Forjaz, commenting on African employees in the industry in LM and Beira, “Black Mozambicans ­were fantastic professionals in ­those [colonial] days. They would train to the ‘T.’ ”18 Regardless, ­these employees w ­ ere still exposed to overtly racist tourists, often hailing from Southern Africa, who did ­little to hide their disdain for the Black Mozambicans who ser­viced them while on holiday. Prior to their arrival, tourists ­were exposed to a number of dif­fer­ent sources that provided impressions of Mozambique’s African population long before they ever encountered them in person. T ­ hese carefully crafted images w ­ ere not, of course, constructed by African residents, but by the Portuguese colonial authorities. On one hand, as part of the regime’s propagandistic efforts, ­these films, guides, and other materials cast the colony’s cities as racially harmonious, so as to refute, if only subtly, claims of colonial oppression. For example, a 1956 tourism guide for LM attempted to affirm this seemingly content subject of empire, boasting of the “correctness of the Portuguese African, with his frank and respectful smile.”19 Yet, for the most part, the colonial authorities w ­ ere not interested in visitors interacting in a touristic manner with Africans. For example, officials generally eschewed the vari­ous types of ethnic or cultural tourism, which included Indigenous villages and folklore museums, that featured elsewhere on the continent.20 Ultimately, the Portuguese ­were ­eager to showcase the Lusophone world that they had constructed in Africa, far removed from the metropole, rather than highlight the Indigenous communities that operated on the fringes of this universe. This focus notwithstanding, the racial composition of the ­labor force in the tourism industry in Mozambique’s cities meant that visitors would inevitably interact with Africans employed in the sector. ­These workers assisted tourists in many of the same ways that they did the colonists, but without the same levels of uneasiness. The Portuguese settlers in LM had constructed a society that

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depended on a Black underclass for its very survival, while tourists visiting the colony merely needed short-­term assistance while they traveled in a foreign land. Interactions between foreign visitors and local African tourism workers occurred in a number of settings, from h ­ otels to golf courses, at which local boys often caddied. Although only minimal conversation was required in most of t­ hese scenarios, language gaps could, at times, complicate t­ hese dynamics. Africans working in the industry, or even just residing in urban areas, could usually speak passable Portuguese, but ­unless the foreign tourists derived from Portugal or Brazil, this means of communication was not an option, anyway. Eventually, some Africans employed in the sector picked up En­glish or other Eu­ro­pean languages, typically informally. In one rather unusual scenario, though, at the Coimbra Restaurant in LM, the management used to arrange a time each day for African employees to interact with English-­speaking customers in order to learn the language.21 However, the most common verbal solution typically involved communicating using one of Southern Africa’s vernacular or pidgin languages, such as Fanagalo (or Fanakalo) or Chilapalapa. ­These languages had been developed as lingua francas on regional mines to enable foremen of Eu­ro­pean descent to communicate with a wide range of African laborers, as well as to facilitate communication between ­these ethno-­ linguistically disparate workers. But they also had utility in the tourist industry in Mozambique, given many Southern African tourists’ and Indigenous residents’ familiarity with them. As John Jones, who lived in Rhodesia and, subsequently, in South Africa during this period, explained regarding his frequent touristic visits to LM, “The lingua franca in the city was Fanagalo. So, we used to speak Fanagalo with a lot of p­ eople. It helped, for example, when you wanted to buy souvenirs from [Black] Mozambicans. I’ve still got a mask.”22 Although most tourists harbored complementary opinions of their Indigenous hosts, at other times racism or at least racialism colored t­ hese interactions. Indeed, though many Southern Africans appreciated the more relaxed race relations in Mozambique, not all of them checked their racism at the border. For example, South African Pierre Edwards explained to me that: One of my colleagues . . . ​recalled that he went to LM with his grandparents, but it was only a pit stop ­because they ­were actually ­going up north. But . . . ​they got hungry and they went into a ­little café and it was very dirty. They sat in the same dining hall with some Black guys . . . ​and his grand­mother gave him one look and said, “No, this is not for us.” So instead of traveling further into Mozambique, they went back to South Africa, to Kruger Park. . . . ​And, it was just ­because of ­these Blacks in the same room. It was something e­ lse for certain South Africans.23

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Similarly, a South African newspaper reporter indicated in his article on tourism in LM that “Many apartheid-­minded South African visitors dislike the racial structure ­here. They complain that the African police ‘can do what they like.’ ” And, fi­nally, a much more extreme example comes from the testimony of Vasco Manhiça, who worked at the Inhaca ­Hotel during the colonial period. I remember one group from South Africa. ­There was a lady, a very old lady. I remember her sitting in the pool when one of my colleagues went to serve her a sandwich and a drink. When he arrived with the stuff she looked at him and started to vomit. And when they asked why she had that type of reaction, her son said that she vomited “­because my mom lives in South Africa in the Orange ­Free State,” where . . . ​apartheid was very strong. So, when she saw a Black guy serving the sandwich and the food she just vomited. . . . ​I still remember her face, it’s something that I’ll never forget.24

Foreign Tourist–­Portuguese Settler Dynamics Foreign visitors and local Portuguese settlers, w ­ hether they ­were in the tourism industry or not, ­were also forced into an array of interactions, especially during the height of the tourist influxes, known simply as “the season,” which extended from roughly April u ­ ntil August, peaking in July.25 Racial affinity generated an immediate bond between resident and visiting whites, both operating amid a much larger Black population. For example, Allen Isaacman, an American who first visited Mozambique in 1969, indicated that settlers right away urged him and his wife to “Be careful, to lock our t­ hings, to be wary of the Black h ­ otel workers, 26 ­because they would rob us and steal our t­ hings.” Moreover, predicated on a shared settler experience, interactions between visitors from elsewhere in Southern Africa and Portuguese residents ­were typically agreeable and, at times, even amorous. But t­here w ­ ere occasionally issues between t­hese two communities and, of course, local Portuguese who did not derive their livelihoods via tourism bemoaned the arrival of throngs of foreigners to their other­wise idyllic city. Most troublesome in t­ hese relations was the penchant for South Africans to adopt an extremely liberal sartorial and, by extension, behavioral approach while in LM, which was at odds with their much stricter approach back home. Similarly, although the city may have featured more relaxed relations between residents of vari­ous races, local residents (including many Africans) w ­ ere typically much more sharply and conservatively dressed. ­These divergent approaches came to a head in the late 1950s during what we might refer to as the “bikini and barefoot crisis.”

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During the height of the season in 1958, Portuguese colonial authorities and high-­ranking officials in Pretoria became involved in an issue stemming from the practice of South African tourists baring too much skin as they meandered around the city, shopping, dining, or just strolling. Female tourists ­were accused of wearing swimwear into shops, while men ­were apparently walking around town “barefoot and in dirty khaki shorts.”27 As LM resident Luís Sarmento explained, “The South Africans w ­ ere barefoot tourists; they loved to be barefoot. I used to see lots of white South Africans . . . ​and they used to flock to the city, barefoot, the ­whole day. ­Father, ­mother, kids, every­body was barefoot. And the city was very clean, by the way, so they ­didn’t mind g­ oing barefoot everywhere.”28 Moreover, both South African men and w ­ omen w ­ ere apparently engaging in “rowdy be­hav­ior, drinking excessively, making nuisances of themselves in public places and exhibiting disrespectful or offensive attitudes to Portuguese residents and even to the local police.”29 Along with alarming many in the local settler population, American and South African consular officials had been observing and noting this be­hav­ior for years, but it fi­nally came to a head in 1958. At the start of the season, Portuguese settlers began volubly complaining about this practice. Anthony Heard, a reporter for South Africa’s Cape Times, summed up the issue as follows: Lourenço Marques (LM) is a gay and lively city, but it is common knowledge that the Portuguese p­ eople, by custom, indulge in no public excesses of be­hav­ior or dress. The main trou­ble seems to be that tourists, many of them young working girls, come to LM bursting to “live it up.” This has a marked effect on the Portuguese living in the city. South Africans have been notorious for wearing too l­ ittle. The modestly-­dressed Portuguese have been shocked to see scantily-­clad tourists strolling around the shopping crowds. In addition, I was told that some . . . ​of the local girls have in the past abandoned their traditional modesty of attire in an attempt to impress the tourists.30 Many other South Africans similarly condemned this be­hav­ior, concerned it would tarnish their image abroad, while also pointing out that this type of be­hav­ior would never be tolerated back home and, thus, it should not be exhibited elsewhere ­either. Comments made by a South African national who had resided in Lourenço Marques for de­cades prior to the explosion of this issue are particularly exemplary of this sentiment: ­ hese girls apparently throw modesty to the wind and frequent public T places in the briefest of brief shorts, with not very much covering their bosoms ­either. Girls clad only in bathing costumes have been known to

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climb out of cars in the centre of the city and walk quite unconcerned into a tearoom. This type of be­hav­ior has infuriated the average Portuguese and can only be described as DISGUSTING. They would never dare behave like that if they went to Durban, Port Elizabeth, or Cape Town on holiday. In fact, many of them would prob­ably be prosecuted for public indecency. It is impor­tant to point out that the Portuguese are a highly civilized p­ eople with hundreds of years of culture and tradition ­behind them. They do not take kindly to this sort of be­hav­ior.31 Eventually, this m ­ atter of alleged immodesty reached the highest levels of officialdom in Pretoria, prompting the South African minister of foreign relations, Eric Louw, to publicly criticize it in an open address to the citizens of the country. By July  1, 1958, shortly a­ fter Louw’s public reprimand, Portuguese colonial authorities had instituted a ban on “too-­brief swimwear,” which included a hefty fine of roughly £25 for any violators, though transgressors ­were entitled to a warning before the penalty was imposed. For perspective, a meal for four with drinks at a restaurant in LM cost roughly £4 at the time. ­These new regulations ­were posted on signs at the city’s beaches, while their enforcement was assigned to a branch of the Portuguese navy, which patrolled the beach areas daily. The combination of South African and Portuguese official and moral pressures on this comportment seems to have effectively curbed it. Fines ­were apparently never necessary, though they prob­ably served as a power­ful deterrent. By the time Anthony Heard, the Cape Times reporter, arrived in LM in mid-­July, he observed that “All the ­people I have spoken to, including beach officials, claim that the be­hav­ior and dress of tourists have improved overnight. . . . ​The only bikinis I have seen in LM are on advertisements. . . . ​I have seen no one wearing shorts or plunging necklines in the shopping area.”32 Moreover, this touristic ­matter, although (temporarily) damaging relations between South African tourists and Portuguese residents of LM, brought the regimes in Pretoria and Lisbon closer through cooperation to end a practice that threatened to strain this already-­strong alliance. The affair also reveals how concerned Estado Novo officials ­were with tourism as a tool to strengthen this cooperation. So engrossed was Lisbon with the regional allegiance and, more broadly, with Portugal’s international reputation, that it was common for high-­level administrators to concern themselves with other­wise inconsequential articulations regarding tourism in its colonies. In this case, the “bikini and barefoot” ­matter had prompted a disgruntled South Africa visitor to LM, a Mrs. Ras, to craft a letter to the editor of the Pretoria News imploring Eric Louw to visit the city himself before placing blame on

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South African tourists for the affair.33 In less than a week, a retort penned by Vasco Palmeirim, the official commercial representative of the Mozambique Railways Administration, appeared in the same section of the same newspaper.34 Palmeirim politely, but firmly, addressed each of Mrs. Ras’s grievances, ­eager to pre­sent the colony in a favorable light. That I encountered ­these letters, clipped from the ­actual Pretoria News newspapers in which they had appeared, in Portugal’s Ministry of Foreign Relations archive underscores the importance the regime placed on this type of seemingly trivial commentary. Generating positive press via tourism, while rebutting any negative publicity— no m ­ atter how obscure—­was of grave consequence to the Estado Novo.

Tourism and the Economics of Empire It is difficult to determine with any degree of certainty exactly how eco­nom­ ically beneficial the colony of Mozambique was for the metropole. Lisbon was ­under no obligation to publicize its imperial bud­gets, and although it released copious data regarding export quantities and values, administrative and bureaucratic costs are much more difficult to ascertain. Regarding tourism, it is inherently challenging to mea­sure revenues, as many are indirect—­impossible to separate from, for example, returns from business travel. Moreover, touristic revenues often flowed to private proprietors even as the state was expending funds to support the industry. Regardless, it is reasonable to assert that promoting tourism in Mozambique constituted a solid investment for Lisbon. Indeed, contemporaneous analysts and con­temporary historians concur that touristic activity in the colony generated profits for Lisbon, even despite the significant outlays required to prompt and facilitate ­these constituent influxes. Injections of touristic revenue helped the Portuguese state rectify two ongoing economic concerns: chronic deficits in the balance of trade and insufficient foreign exchange earnings. In the 1930s, while the tourism industry was still in its infancy, Portugal’s economy lost its primary revenue generator—­ remittances from emigrants—­exacerbating an already dire financial scenario. As Clarence-­Smith explains, “Brazil, the U.S. and France had been the main destinations of Portuguese emigrants in the 1920s, but all three countries practically closed their gates to immigrants during the recession. Moreover, exchange controls interrupted the flow of funds from established communities of Portuguese abroad, creating terrible hardships for relatives in certain parts of the country. Between 1931 and 1945, emigration to foreign countries fell to the lowest levels recorded since the 1860s.”35 Even though ­these flows resumed following the conclusion of World War II, remittances could not cover

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the trade deficit, prompting Salazar to look even more intently on the colonies as crucial sources of revenue. During the period when tourism in Mozambique reached its apogee, roughly from the early 1950s ­until the conclusion of the colonial period, ­there is scholarly consensus that the industry was generating vital revenue and foreign exchange for the regime. For example, Allison Herrick has contended that “net foreign exchange earnings from the tourist trade from 1957 to 1959 amounted to 36.1 million escudos, 48.0 million escudos, and 25.9 million escudos, respectively, and contributed t­oward offsetting deficits in balances of commodity trade in t­ hose years.”36 An article in a governmental journal dedicated to the colony’s ports, railroads, and transportation set the figure for 1957 at 40.2 million escudos, confirming Herrick’s estimates, while crowing that this amount “represents an appreciable acquisition of foreign exchange.”37 Across the Portuguese empire, only in Macau—­the “Monaco of the Orient”—­did tourism generate similarly sizable amounts of foreign exchange. And, as Clarence-­Smith argues, it was the “foreign exchange from the empire that filled the trade gap and allowed Salazar to build up his legendary reserves of gold and foreign exchange,” though this characterization of Portugal’s overall economic well-­being is surely exaggerated.38 ­There ­were, however, many ­factors that complicate ­these other­wise laudatory statements and figures regarding touristic revenue. One complication, as outlined in the preceding chapter, was the propensity for South African tourists to bring their own provisions with them and, often, to sleep on Mozambique’s beaches, thereby minimizing local interaction and consumption. A 1951 report generated by the U.S. consul in Lourenço Marques, confirmed this practice. “High prices can discourage purchases in local stores. Visiting South Africans adopt strange dietary habits, subsisting largely on bananas, and similar low-­cost items.”39 ­These “banana tourists” lowered estimations of how much each entering tourist spent, on average, and helped to further obscure the ­actual figure. ­Because it is impossible to determine exactly how much an individual tourist spends while on holiday, economists often attempt to determine an average amount and then multiply that figure by the total number of visitors. During the colonial period, Portuguese officials and external observers ­were busy generating averages using this method, often reaching vastly divergent conclusions. For example, in 1949, a local newspaper estimated the average expenditure per tourist at £15 (roughly 1,340 escudos), while a report by a University of Leeds researcher set that amount at £45 (approximately 3,620 escudos) for the ensuing year; the significant discrepancy in the figures suggests that at least one of ­these studies was wildly inaccurate.40 Almost twenty years ­later, Lourenço Marques City Hall produced a report indicating that the figure was slightly less

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than 1,000 escudos, or roughly £14.50, per visitor.41 Of course, year-­to-­year fluctuations in currency values and even spending habits can account for some of ­these discrepancies, but it is clear that this methodology generates only very general figures that most likely only vaguely reflect expenditure realities. Although it may be impracticable to quantify with precision the impact of tourism in Mozambique, from at least the 1950s, its economic importance to the colony was never in question. Even during years when the state may have lost foreign exchange on its overall tourism account, as Herrick argues occurred from 1960 to 1964, the overall, longer-­term effects ­were unquestionably positive.42 For example, a report from the U.S. Consul in the colony noting the economic contributions of tourism indicated that “the province’s trade balance has been traditionally marked by deficits; commodity imports far exceed exports. However, substantial invisible earnings from transit shipping trade, mi­g rant ­labor in adjacent countries, tourists, foreign investments, and Government loans have helped to balance the deficit.”43

Realizing Mozambique’s Touristic Potential Irrespective of exactly how significant the role that tourism played in Mozambique’s financial success was, the state increasingly referred to the prominence of this activity in economic rather than ideological terms, regardless of its obvious propagandistic value. As Maria Cardeira da Silva and Amélia Frazão-­ Moreira have contended, “Tourism and the economization of leisure was not merely rhetorical and propagandistic . . . ​when the state became owner of this activity . . . ​it was the economic language that prevailed, in official texts and in newspapers.”44 In an effort to generate both economic and po­liti­cal dividends from tourism, the Portuguese state actively developed the requisite infrastructures to support the industry. T ­ hese undertakings w ­ ere multipronged and wide-­ ranging, and included the creation and funding of administrative entities responsible for overseeing and promoting tourism; road and railroad construction and maintenance; the designation of public lands for conservation and hunting; and, eventually, the construction of airports capable of h ­ andling international, long-­distance air travel. ­These initiatives in Mozambique ­were part of a series of broader development plans that signaled the regime’s growing interest in generating revenue from the colonies.45 With each new plan, Lisbon extended larger investments and loans and even diverted funds it was receiving via the Marshall Plan to “build and modernize harbors, airports and railways in Mozambique.”46

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The Evolution of the Administrative Infrastructure for Tourism To facilitate and promote tourism in the colony, over a series of de­cades the governments in Lisbon and LM established a number of administrative entities that w ­ ere charged with ­these tasks. In practice, ­these agencies blurred the line between tourism and propaganda. Indeed, for Portuguese officials, promoting the touristic appeal of Mozambique inherently necessitated a narrative that highlighted the alleged benefits of Portuguese development, benevolence of Portuguese overrule, and superiority of Portuguese culture, to be exported and cultivated around the world in an assortment of overseas territories. The creation by decree of the Conselho do Turismo (Tourism Council) in 1907 seemingly marks the earliest formal administrative oversight of tourism in Mozambique. This body was comprised of “no more than twelve members appointed by the governor-­general of the colony, from among ­those individuals who have an interest in local and provincial development.”47 Meanwhile, in Lisbon, touristic activity in the colonies was continuously managed by the Agência Geral do Ultramar (General Agency of the Overseas Territories), which itself was a dependent agency of the Ministério do Ultramar (Ministry of the Overseas Territories). The establishment in 1959 of the Center for Information and Tourism of Mozambique (CITM) constitutes the most substantial administrative development in the colony’s touristic history.48 This enactment formalized the oversight of tourism in the colony, while also transferring a significant amount of authority from Lisbon to Lourenço Marques, a noteworthy development for a regime that relentlessly safeguarded the power it had centralized. CITM’s core tasks, although at times elastic in nature, w ­ ere as follows: “To promote the divulgence and understanding of the most impor­tant facets of Portuguese life; to orientate, encourage, and co-­ordinate all popu­lar culture activities, having as their aim the moral and intellectual elevation of the population; and to promote and facilitate the expansion of tourism.”49 The entity was to be supported by town councils, aided by municipal tourist committees, tourist boards, regional tourist committees, and district and local tourist branches. The end of the 1960s witnessed additional auspicious developments for Mozambican tourism. In 1967, Lisbon fi­nally financed the “Fundo de Turismo,” or Tourism Fund, which was to be administered by the CITM; ­these monies, intended to finance and promote tourism, had been authorized almost two de­cades previously.50 The following year, the Portuguese dictator, Salazar, suffered a stroke, which propelled Marcelo Caetano to the office of prime minister. With the po­liti­cal and economic benefits of tourism by then abundantly

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clear, Caetano was even keener to promote and encourage this sector—­ including in the metropole—­than his pre­de­ces­sor had been, prompting him to quickly elevate its importance within state and colonial apparatuses. The CITM’s rapidly expanding bud­get during the 1960s reflects this heightened emphasis, rising from 1,657,000 escudos in 1962 to 5,872,000 escudos in 1970. Further examination of CITM publications and internal correspondence reveals that, in practice, the increased funding it was receiving was also applied to endeavors that transcended the sphere of tourism. In 1961, for example, in an internal report examining the foreign press, CITM officials obsessed about the alleged collaboration of unnamed “African leaders with vari­ous British organ­izations to finance nationalist movements, raising money for the ‘Southern Africa Liberation Fund,’ which includes the liberation of Angola and Mozambique.”51 Although the in­de­pen­dence of vari­ous Southern African territories was, indeed, on the horizon, the speculative—­even paranoiac—­ nature of the document suggests that the lines between the agency’s touristic, informational, and propagandistic missions w ­ ere fundamentally blurred. This melding of functions reflected the emerging conviction within the Estado Novo that tourism was not just po­liti­cally and eco­nom­ically valuable, but also, following the outbreak of war in Angola in 1961, crucial to the defense of the empire. In the regime’s Second Overseas Tourism Yearbook, published in 1967, rather than considering that the commencement of hostilities in the colonies might deter visitors, the authors forged ahead, justifying the publication of the volume as “a modest contribution to the massive work of defending Overseas Portugal, for all Portuguese.”52 Silva Cunha, the overseas minister, echoed t­ hese sentiments regarding the importance of tourism to the very survival of the nation in the face of the counterinsurgencies it was waging. Speaking at the conclusion of the Second National Congress of Tourism, held in LM, he forcefully argued for the continuing outlay of funds for tourism promotion and development: “Proceeding in this way also contributes to the defense [of the nation], since a healthy, balanced, and progressive economy maintains our moral strength and is also a source of resources for sustaining the strug­gle that we do not want, but which does not frighten us, and that we w ­ ill continue ­until the final victory.”53

Traveling to Mozambique: The Road Network Transportation infrastructure constituted the foundation on which the tourist industry was built. As mentioned previously, conscripted Mozambicans completed the majority of ­these public works proj­ects, and by the 1930s, the infrastructural fruits of this forced ­labor ­were abundantly evident. For exam-

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ple, according to a 1931 tourism brochure, LM featured “streets that are laid out on the rectangular plan, mostly macadamised and tar-­surfaced, are wide, and are well-­drained. Except in the central business area, they are all bordered with trees, the Flamboyant and Jacaranda predominating. The aspect is both restful and pleasing to the eye.”54 Notwithstanding the facile access that the state enjoyed to inexpensive shibalo l­abor, road networks remained l­imited ­until a­ fter World War II, especially beyond the capital city. By the 1950s, road conditions had appreciably improved, particularly between LM and the all-­important touristic pool of Johannesburg, which are separated by roughly 400 miles, 55 of which are on the Mozambican side. A 1957 tourist guide written by South African John Anthony contentedly declared, “A ­family car can make the Johannesburg-­Lourenço Marques trip with comfort in nine hours. It is a distance of roughly 400 miles on a tarred road.”55 John Wilson, who began traveling from Johannesburg to LM beginning in 1959, confirmed the state of this transborder road while describing to me his frequent excursions to Mozambique. “We used to go for about four or five days at a time. . . . ​You’d go down on a Thursday after­noon and come back on a Tuesday. A nice easy r­ ide. . . . ​The roads w ­ ere fully paved, the w ­ hole way. They w ­ ere not double highways then; they w ­ ere single highways. But, t­ here was not as much traffic.”56 Conversely, the thoroughfare that brought the second largest stream of tourists into the colony, spanning from Salisbury, Rhodesia, to Beira, remained much more rudimentary u ­ ntil the 1960s. For example, a Rhodesian tourist from 1957 described the road on the Mozambican side in a letter to the editor of the Citizen newspaper, printed in Salisbury, that also caught the attention of the Portuguese authorities: “The roads ­were a shocking mess. Deep corrugations, deviations, sandy stretches and potholes—in fact, you had to bull-­doze your way through.”57 The 208 miles from the Rhodesian border post at Umtali to Beira took a car traveler over seven hours to traverse. Other Rhodesian tourists headed to Mozambique’s second largest city, however, w ­ ere much less critical, nor did the road conditions appear to have deterred them in any way. Another commentator from 1957, for example, offered the following: “­There are bad parts on the road. The 35-­mile stretch that is not tarred was very bad. But, we must remember, this is the first Easter that we have been able to use the road. Last year it was ­under ­water. Now ­there are 112 miles of tar . . . ​it took me 5 ½ hours from the customs post [at Umtali] to Beira.”58 Regardless of the exact road conditions, over time the allure of Beira was too much to resist for growing numbers of Rhodesians. As Newitt explains, “­After the Second World War, the white population of British Central Africa grew rapidly and Beira beckoned to them as a seaside resort offering w ­ ater

42 Chap t e r  1

sports and an ele­ment of Latin culture. Beira lay within a weekend drive of the white cities of Rhodesia, and ­there soon emerged ­hotels, restaurants, and yacht clubs.”59 Irrespective of a visitor’s par­tic­u­lar route into the colony, overland travel required tourists to stop at customs and immigration before entering. South Africans passed through the checkpoint at Komatipoort and, subsequently, its Mozambican counterpart at Ressano Garcia. Further north, Umtali, on the Rhodesian side, complemented Machipanda in Mozambique to form the transnational crossing point on the way to and from Beira. Tourists almost universally characterized as “­simple” the procedures involved in ­these border crossings, while an annual Mozambican government publication from 1949 also offers insight, indicating that for South Africans, no visa was required; their cars ­were automatically registered; no fees ­were collected; a voucher was provided that had to be returned upon departure; and stays ­were valid for up to three months.60 During the busy holiday seasons, however, tourists reported significant delays on the Mozambican side, which they often attributed to surly customs officials. One account from a South African traveler in 1967, which appeared in Johannesburg’s newspaper The Star and quickly caught the attention of se­nior Portuguese authorities in both LM and Lisbon, was particularly condemning of this experience: With the Best ­Will in the world, one can hardly say that Mozambique welcomes one with open arms. What it does do, though, and this was illustrated this holiday weekend, is arrange a three-­hour wait for tourists outside the Customs post and a mass of paperwork once you get through the gate. It is also pos­si­ble to march directly into the Customs section and wait patiently ­there for attention only to be told, once you are within grappling distance of an official, that you should have gone to the passport section first, this lurking just around the corner. Once you have managed to complete all the necessary paperwork, the chap in the Customs post ­will extract Rand 4.50 from you and you are ­free to taste the delights of the Continental atmosphere. . . . ​On Saturday, holiday-­makers who ­were looking forward to relaxing in LM found that they had to endure a three-­ hour wait at the border post. When they returned yesterday, the situation was even worse, and motorists ­were delayed for up to four hours.61 Despite experiences, and resultant missives, such as this one, most visitors complemented the efficiency of the officials who staffed the border posts. As John Wilson explained regarding the Mozambican customs and immigration pro­ cess, “In ­those days it was not a prob­lem . . . ​you ­didn’t even need a visa. You just showed your passport, had it stamped, and off you went.”62

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Traveling to Mozambique: The Railroad Network The road network connecting Mozambique to neighboring areas facilitated the entry of the vast majority of tourists, but many o ­ thers took advantage of the rail network that linked ­these territories. Of par­tic­u­lar touristic importance was the constellation of connections that spanned Salisbury and Bulawayo in Rhodesia, Johannesburg in South Africa, and Lourenço Marques and Beira in Mozambique. Traveling by train generally took longer but was innately more agreeable than driving. The most impor­tant route by volume was the link between LM and Johannesburg, which eventually became daily. Conversely, train transport between Rhodesia and Mozambique was less frequent, though it remained vital to conveying touristic traffic into the colony. As early as the late 1920s, promotional advertisements in the Rhodesia Herald noted that Beira was a “holiday destination and place to relax, and as a place for contemplation of the marvels of nature in the magnificent trains that connect the port to its hinterland.”63 Even so, Beira would not begin attracting significant numbers of Rhodesians u ­ ntil some de­cades ­later. Although trains transported fewer visitors to Mozambique than did automobiles, the railways played an outsized role in the colony’s touristic history. For one, trains preceded automobile traffic into the colony, even if their primary purpose was to transport cargo from Mozambique’s neighbors to LM’s excellent port. More importantly, the state railway entity, the Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (CFM) also functioned as a travel agent and promoter of tourism, publishing the original tour guides of the colony and actively encouraging South Africans and Rhodesians to visit—­via its trains, of course. Indeed, LM’s famed train station, fashioned in the beaux arts style and completed in 1916, served as a railway terminus, but also as a travel agency, housing a tourist office that regularly published brochures and guides (figure 1.1). Along with Lourenço Marques’s City Hall, no entity did more than the CFM to promote tourism to Mozambique prior to the 1950s, at which time the state deliberately intervened to further develop this increasingly impor­tant sector of the economy.

Traveling to Mozambique: Sea and Air Networks Sea and air networks ­were responsible for far fewer arrivals than even railways, but nonetheless constituted the transportation method of choice for many tourists. The advantages of each are obvious enough, with some travelers unable to expend the time required to undertake the aesthetically pleasing sea passage from South Africa en route to Lourenço Marques. Meanwhile, as hunting

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Figure 1.1.  1920 postcard of the Lourenço Marques Train Station, the first in the colony.

became a larger revenue generator for the colony and its famed reserves began to increasingly attract sportsmen and -­women from throughout the global north, accommodating long-­distance flights into the colony became vital for this subindustry. Some four centuries ­after Vasco da Gama and his crew touched down in Mozambique, tourists began reaching the colony by boat, journeying from nearby Cape Town or Durban. Sea travel, of course, took longer than did overland routes and was also more expensive. In 1959, for example, the fare for sea passage from Cape Town was roughly twice as much as a rail ticket.64 Over time, the cities of Lourenço Marques and Beira became both destinations and brief stopovers on longer cruises for thousands of seagoing South African tourists. For example, a travel guide from 1957 indicated that “many visitors visit Lourenço Marques from Durban by taking the overnight trip by sea. . . . ​A very popu­lar holiday is to come up the east coast by liner, disembarking at L.M., and then catching the ship as it returns, a week or so l­ater, on its way down south again.”65 By the end of the 1950s, LM also featured as a stop on a number of high-­end global cruises. For example, an advertisement in the September 27, 1959, edition of the New York Times promoted an “87 Glorious Days Round-­the-­World Cruise to peaceful exotic lands of the Southern Hemi­sphere” that took passengers to Mozambique’s capital city, as well as to other such “exotic” destinations as Bora Bora, Auckland, and the Galapagos Islands.66 For t­hose travelers who possessed the money but lacked the time for sea travel, an air network connected Mozambique to the broader world. Although a trickle of visitors to the colony was arriving via air by the late 1920s, it was not

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­ ntil the mid-1930s that air traffic began to measurably impact tourism.67 In reu sponse, in 1936, the colonial government created the Divisão de Exploração dos Transportes Aéreos (DETA) to provide and oversee air transport to, from, and within Mozambique. In addition to an array of domestic destinations, DETA established one international route: Lourenço Marques–­Johannesburg-­Durban (South Africa), reinforcing the touristic connections between Mozambique and South Africa. Even as air ser­vice expanded, the numbers of tourists arriving via this form of transport remained reasonably modest prior to the 1960s. For example, in 1951, some 8,780 passengers arrived via air in Mozambique.68 As the de­cade unfolded, t­ hese ser­vices and the numbers of passengers arriving by plane gradually increased, eventually including a route on TAP, Portugal’s national carrier, that connected Lisbon and LM via Luanda (Angola). By the 1970s, advances in engineering had reduced the in-­air flight time between LM and Johannesburg to a mere forty-­five minutes.

Regional Air Travel as Regional Politics Beyond the business of moving passengers between South Africa and Mozambique, air travel also linked the regimes in Pretoria and Lisbon po­liti­cally, as each government rushed to protect their national interests in the face of mounting external pressures. In practice, po­liti­cal developments within Africa related to air travel accelerated and deepened this u ­ nion. In 1963, for example, most members of the newly formed Organ­ization of African Unity (OAU) “broke diplomatic and commercial relations with Pretoria and Lisbon, closing their airport facilities and disallowing overflights by Portuguese and South African airlines.”69 Portugal and South Africa responded by newly sharing flight routes and facilities and, as officials in Pretoria and Lisbon ­were both striving to protect touristic revenue, ensuring that South African Airways and TAP/ DETA controlled most passenger travel between South Africa and Mozambique. To this end, officials from the two countries signed a formal air-­travel agreement on May 7, 1963. Just five years ­later, however, South Africa–­based International Air was encroaching on this other­wise lucrative arrangement, flying chartered passengers from South Africa to LM, in violation of the formal agreement. What ensued highlights the intensifying po­liti­cal dimensions of tourism in Southern Africa during the colonial period. The first to react was the South African transportation secretary, D. J. Joubert, who wrote to his Mozambican counterpart, Victor Veres, on February 1968, concerned about the “adverse financial effect on TAP-­ South African Airways operations” and “most grateful to hear ­whether you are

46 Chap t e r  1

able to do anything in the m ­ atter.”70 Veres was initially indifferent to the South African official’s inquiry, fully aware that International Air was “catering mostly for a category of traffic that would not fly at all if prevented from using charter flights,” and was, thus, reluctant to disrupt t­hese profitable arrivals. Following this exchange, the managing director of International Air, Monty Rosen, appealed to Veres to defend his com­pany against the increasingly aggressive South African authorities, whom he accused of “interfering in Portugal’s internal affairs” owing to its actions regarding t­hese flights.71 Ultimately, this m ­ atter of “dangerous competition” for South African Airways reached the highest levels of the Portuguese regime, landing in the Ministry of the Overseas Territories, which administered the colonies, and ultimately on the desk of Angelo Ferreira, the director of foreign affairs. Given the regional importance of Portugal’s relations with South Africa, Ferreira deferred to the authorities in Pretoria, citing the original 1963 agreement and a reaffirmation of this accord in March 1966, even as he acknowledged the deleterious impact it would have on International Air’s operations. A lethal mix of tourism, politics, and economics ultimately bankrupted Monty Rosen’s business.

Neighborly Maneuvers: Tourism as Diplomacy Cognizant of the importance of tourism in regional politics, officials in Lisbon and their surrogates in Lourenço Marques ­were ­eager to address any diplomatic rows that the industry might generate, while also using the burgeoning traffic to establish and strengthen relationships with its array of neighbors. Moreover, the Portuguese desperately needed, in par­tic­u­lar, South African investment in Mozambique. As Clarence-­Smith has argued, “South African investment in Mozambique had many more po­liti­cal linkages . . . ​and was only part of a package of military and po­liti­cal cooperation, l­abor recruitment, transport facilities and tourism. The South African state directly or indirectly provided much of the capital put into the Portuguese colonies. . . . ​Other South African companies ­were active . . . ​in banking and in the booming construction business, closely linked to the expansion of South African tourism.”72 Although Lisbon primarily exerted its politicotouristic energies to deepen relations with Salisbury and Pretoria, it also actively employed tourism for diplomatic ends with an assortment of international bodies and regional nations. In 1952, for example, LM hosted the Fourth International Congress of Tourism, an event that showcased tourism in Africa; previous versions had been held in the Belgian Congo (Costermansville) in 1938, in Algiers in 1947, and in Nairobi in

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1949. As Silva and Frazão-­Moreira have argued, the conference served “to confirm Portugal’s conformity to international institutions and the recommendations of modern nations, ­whether related to conventions regarding tourism, race (in accordance with UNESCO directives), or to flora and fauna in its natu­ral state (thereby abiding by the London Conservation Convention of 1933).”73 Marcelo Caetano, the f­ uture prime minister of Portugal, attended the event and, during one of many speeches delivered by Portuguese officials, declared: A country should not only facilitate for ­those who visit it the contemplation of its natu­ral beauties, the admiration of its constructive efforts, and the comforts of its hospitality, but also the comprehension of the way of life of its inhabitants, from the character of its society and even the particularities of its government and administration. . . . ​We, the Portuguese, desire only that our visitors feel good when among us. We worship hospitality; we have a sense of fraternity. With ­these blessed lands, some sea, some sun, and the good disposition of the guests, I believe that a visitor ­will take away from Portuguese Africa pleasant memories.74 On the completion of the Congress, the all-­male attendees, hailing from around the world, and any accompanying wives, all of whom had been accommodated in Lourenço Marques’ finest ­hotels, ­were whisked away to the touristic corners of the colony, selecting from a menu that included Beira, Mozambique Island, and Gorongosa. Officials from Mozambique w ­ ere also actively promoting tourism in conjunction with representatives from the colony’s regional neighbors, even as many of t­ hese territories transitioned from imperial possessions to sovereign states. In 1969, for example, officials from Mozambique traveled to Madagascar, which had secured its in­de­pen­dence from France some nine years previously, and, partnering with local authorities, initiated flights between Beira, LM, and Tananarive (Antananarivo), the island nation’s capital city, on DETA and Tananarive Airlines.75 The following year, CITM officials’ regional promotion of tourism entailed an even more extensive assortment of endeavors, including attendance at a tourism conference and related meeting in Malawi (in­de­pen­dent since 1964); participation in the inaugural Festival of the Indian Ocean, held on the island of Ré­union, a French territory; a reciprocal visit to Mozambique by tourism officials from Madagascar; reciprocal visits by the tourism directors from Mozambique and the Comoros Islands, which was, at the time, still a French colony; and travel to Lesotho (a sovereign state since 1966) for the inauguration of the Holiday Inn Casino and H ­ otel in the capital city of Maseru.76 As the war for in­de­pen­dence raged in the northern stretches

48 Chap t e r  1

of Mozambique, CITM officials w ­ ere busy traversing the region to promote the colony’s appeal, seemingly blithely unconcerned with the armed strug­gle. Over a series of de­cades, an assortment of individuals, public entities, and private investors collectively generated the requisite touristic infrastructure to facilitate Mozambique’s transformation into an elite destination. This development was, however, by no means inevitable. At least ­until the early 1930s, metropolitan officials primarily considered Mozambique to be a valuable transshipment destination for commodities deriving from Rhodesia, South Africa, and other points of origin in the interior; a ­labor reservoir for the South African mines; and the source of a modest supply of exports that the regime forced its Indigenous residents to produce. Yet, over the course of the de­cade, which included the establishment of the Estado Novo, Lisbon increasingly deemed the potent amalgamation of tourism and propaganda an admixture that strengthened the bond between the metropole and the colonies. As Silva and Oliveira have contended, “By the mid-1930s, the relationship between tourism and propaganda for the Estado Novo was indelible, and the synchronization of tourism initiatives . . . ​with the need for affirmation of the overseas territories is evident.”77 An examination of the ensuing four de­cades of Portuguese overrule in Mozambique through the prism of tourism complicates an array of widely held understandings of interracial dynamics in colonial Africa. The primarily white foreign tourists to Mozambique, while keen to enjoy the benefits of the prevailing racial hierarchy in the colony, generally interacted amiably with Black tourism workers when forced to engage. Conversely, although ­these visitors and local Portuguese settlers ­were almost exclusively white, cultural and behavioral differences often overshadowed any racial affinity that may have existed, in turn generating considerable social tension between t­hese communities. Viewing the concluding de­cades of the colonial period in Mozambique through a touristic lens also elevates the po­liti­cal and economic importance and centrality of an industry that has been primarily considered peripheral in analyses of empire. Given the l­imited resources at Lisbon’s disposal, its considerable investment in the sector reveals a calculated assessment of tourism’s po­liti­cal and economic potency, while ­these financial outlays and associated promotional activity also strengthened the already solid diplomatic bonds between Portugal’s vital allies in Pretoria and Salisbury. Given that the very survival of the empire was at stake, Lisbon’s deliberate investment of scarce resources in foreign tourism is undoubtedly striking, but also highlights the comprehension of the industry as a key weapon in the imperial toolbox. Scholars would do well to consider this application within colonial proj­ects elsewhere on the continent.

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Over time, the regime’s efficacious mea­sures prompted growing numbers of foreign visitors to travel to Mozambique, where on arrival they ­were delighted by an array of appealing natu­ral and cultural features. The first, and often only, destination for most of ­these visitors was LM. More than any other space in the colony, the capital city offered the “Latin flavor” that tourists craved, in addition to myriad other alluring attributes. On arrival, tourists flocked to local bars and restaurants to consume the “exotic” cuisine, including heaping mounds of Mozambique’s legendary prawns and intoxicating beverages such as the Portuguese Vinho Verde, all of which was served by fleets of African waitstaff who ­were, themselves, participating in the booming tourist economy.78 Once in the city, ­these visitors felt animated, transported to a dif­fer­ent world. It is this vibrant, dynamic urban space that the ensuing chapter explores, reconstructing the touristic appeal and the vari­ous ways that African and Portuguese residents engaged with the ever-­increasing numbers of foreign visitors.

C h a p te r   2

“Eu­rope in Africa” Tourism in Lourenço Marques

We hope that in this guide we ­shall manage to bring you not only information and plenty of facts, but also some of the magic and charm of this delightful city and the glorious beaches nearby. . . . ​Lourenço Marques is a city in the continental style. Tree-­lined streets and pavement cafes, long white sands, and a carefree atmosphere, dancing, swimming, sailing, fishing, hunting, riding—­these and hundreds of other pleasures are an everyday part of this charming city. —­John Anthony, from his tour guide, Lourenço Marques and the Moçambique Coast, 1957. Mining job? Me? To do what? For me to use a shovel all the time? No, no. I never wanted to go to South Africa. My friend, if you want to make me happy, then give me a kitchen. In the kitchen, you have the advantage of eating a slice of meat. ­Whether the meat is chewy or not . . . ​at least you ­will not go hungry! —­Fernando Cunica, laughingly responding to my question regarding why he chose to travel to LM to work in a restaurant instead of traveling to South Africa to work on the mines, as so many Mozambicans did during the colonial era, 2017.

Over the course of the colonial period, Lourenço Marques attracted both the readers of tour guides such as John Anthony’s and mobile laborers such as Fernando Cunica, promising to enrich, in one manner or another, all t­ hose who made the journey to the city. For foreign visitors, urban Mozambique offered opportunities to engage in a wide range of activities, including the vari­ous “pleasures” that Anthony listed, but also seemingly prosaic ones, such as enjoying a beverage at an outdoor café, and more “exotic” ones, such as attending a bullfight or visiting a Catholic cem-

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etery. ­These possibilities rendered the environments in the array of cities in colonial Mozambique markedly divergent from tourists’ homelands, even for visitors deriving from elsewhere in Southern Africa. Indeed, a 1973 touristic-­ propaganda film narrated in En­glish, entitled Africarama, reminded prospective tourists from the region that LM was: “The ­g reat Latin city of Southern Africa . . . ​though they drive on the left, and roast beef and marmalade h ­ aven’t found a home t­here. Nor is cricket ever likely to take the place of bullfighting.”1 Although the entire colony was broadly appealing to would-be tourists, it was the urban environments that w ­ ere the most alluring, spaces in which all of the most touristically desirable aspects of Mozambique ­were both highly concentrated and easily accessible. Meanwhile, for rural Africans seeking employment, ­these urban milieus, namely LM and, to a lesser extent, Beira, offered significantly more remunerative opportunities than did their home communities while also enabling them to avoid shibalo. Although laborers secured employment in an array of industries, the tourism sector absorbed many of ­these mobile workers. And, of course, ­these cities already contained large numbers of African residents who joined mi­g rant laborers in seeking and securing work in the industry. It was in the colony’s urban h ­ otels, bars, and restaurants that Black Mozambican employees from a range of provenances interacted with local Portuguese overseers and clients, as well as with foreign tourists from around the world, forging new lives for themselves and their families predicated on ­these new livelihoods. This chapter examines the urban experiences of both tourists and Africans employed in the industry, the two entities that ­were vital to the remarkable growth of the sector over the course of the colonial period. Foreign tourists ­were drawn to Mozambique by an enticing mix of cultural, social, and entertainment features, but it was in the colony’s capital city that ­these appealing aspects w ­ ere most salient. In addition to considering LM’s power­f ul allure for tourists, the chapter also reconstructs the city’s increasingly magnetic appeal for Black Mozambicans seeking remunerative work, primarily to avoid e­ ither mine employment in South Africa or forced ­labor in the colony. Over time, both the tourists and workers who descended on LM ­were treated to an assortment of novel possibilities and opportunities that collectively ensured the relentless expansion of both the tourism industry and the city itself. Fi­nally, the chapter reconstructs the history of LM’s ­hotel landscape and, more extensively, examines the experiences of African laborers in the sites where they most frequently interacted with foreign tourists: h ­ otels and restaurants.

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The ­Great Latin City: The Touristic Appeal of Lourenço Marques By the 1930s, LM was firmly on the regional tourism map and was steadily gaining a following from much further abroad. A poem in a 1931 tour guide aimed at Southern Africans captures LM’s beauty: “Come and see the trees in bloom / Sense Frangipani’s lush perfume / Blossoms rare of ­every hue / White and yellow, red and blue / Bougainvillea, Oleander; Flamboyant and Jacaranda / In the gardens, streets and parks / Come and See; Lourenço Marques.”2 De­cades ­later, this visual and olfactory allure not only persisted, but had intensified. South Africa tourist John Wilson, a regular visitor to LM during the late colonial period, confirmed the leafy city’s durable appeal. “It was extremely dif­fer­ent. Beautiful wide roads. They had one road . . . ​called the Ave­nue of the 24th of July. It was magnificent—­wide, with lovely palm trees. Beautiful sidewalks with hand-­installed mosaics, and ­there w ­ ere sidewalk cafés where you could eat prego rolls. It was truly wonderful. . . . ​It was lovely just sitting out on the sidewalk. In South Africa, in ­those days, ­there ­were no sidewalk cafés.”3 Perhaps reporter Leonard Ingalls’s succinct declaration regarding the Mozambican capital in 1956 was the most complimentary: “In a municipal beauty contest, Lourenço Marques would win easily.”4 The city’s alluring aesthetics notwithstanding, tourists began arriving in increasingly large numbers, in ­g reat part b­ ecause the destination could genuinely accommodate visitors from across the socioeconomic spectrum. For example, as elite visitors gathered on the back lawn of the posh Polana ­Hotel sipping drinks and enjoying their unobstructed, eastward view of the Indian Ocean, out of sight on the sands below their perch, droves of primarily South African tourists of lesser means spent their stays camping seaside. The municipal government oversaw t­ hese beach sites, at which guests could ­either rent tents or bring their own. By at least the 1950s, r­ unning ­water and sanitation ­were both pre­sent in ­these seaside settings, while cottages—­known locally as rondavels—­were also available to rent in “attractively laid out, park-­like surroundings.”5 The city’s beaches ran some four to five miles northward and, for the most part, offered safe swimming conditions, while, over time, a growing number of restaurants that catered to tourists opened along the stretch northward to the Costa do Sol area, near the mouth of the Incomati River. As one tourism guide touted regarding this experience, “Nowhere e­ lse in Africa can you enjoy the exotic atmosphere of a Latin city and combine it with such a cheap, open air holiday by the sea.”6 During school holidays in July, t­hese beach sites ­were completely filled with guests, requiring bookings well in ad-



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vance. However, during less busy periods, it was usually pos­si­ble to arrange a site without any advance notice. Meanwhile, a growing number of mid-­range accommodations options welcomed visitors who could not afford the city’s premium h ­ otels but wanted to temporarily reside somewhere more comfortable than the municipal beaches. Regardless of where tourists stayed, they w ­ ere undeniably attracted by LM’s Eu­ro­pean flavors. One 1938 publication imploring tourists to visit Lourenço Marques even went so far as to declare that the city, “unlike the towns of the South African Union, has not yet been Africanized, even ­after 400 years of occupation. It is considered that the visitor from the Union finds it difficult to believe that he is still in his subcontinent.”7 Similarly highlighting the city’s Eu­ ro­pean bona fides, writing in 1951, author C. F. Spence posed to readers of his book, The Portuguese Colony of Moçambique: An Economic Survey, the following question: “What is it that Lourenço Marques can offer that the rest of Southern Africa cannot?” and answered it: “In essence, it is what is generally referred to as a ‘continental’ atmosphere . . . ​it is what the French, Italian, and Portuguese coastal resorts offer to British and American visitors. It means to South Africans what Nice, Cannes, Monte Carlo, Biarritz, and Estoril mean to the tourist in Eu­rope.”8 For many Southern African tourists, the Latin dimensions of the LM experience ­were of primary importance. They wanted to escape, not simply to Eu­rope, but to an urban, Latin Eu­rope, which the capital city offered in abundance. But t­ hese alluring differences ­were not just discernable to Southern Africans. For example, an American New York Times reporter who was canvassing Southern Africa in the late 1950s, characterized LM as follows: “The city is a change from British Africa and, in fact, has many touches of metropolitan Portugal. ­There are sidewalk cafes, good wines, and very ­little stuffiness.”9 Another dimension of Lourenço Marques’s appeal was its cosmopolitan atmosphere. As early as the 1920s, tourism materials ­were attempting to attract foreign visitors to the city by claiming that “Lourenço Marques is novel. It is a rare mixture of Africa and Eu­rope, with a spice of the Orient.”10 Indeed, owing to Portugal’s activity throughout the Indian Ocean basin over the centuries, which included an array of colonies—­most notably, Goa, on the Indian subcontinent—­the city featured significant demographic diversity, which deepened its exotic allure. In 1936, an American visitor echoed t­ hese ­earlier sentiments, writing about the approach to the city by sea. “As the ship approached port, ­there are glorious views of the town and suburbs. A l­ittle ­later, one sees the chanting dock workers, and then the antics of Indian snake charmers on the quay below.”11 Over time, regardless of how much forewarning tourists

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may have had, the city’s sizable Asian communities continued to strike visitors. For example, in the mid-1960s, tourist José Maria d’Eça de Queiroz remarked that Lourenço Marques’ most striking feature is the intensely cosmopolitan atmosphere . . . ​all integrated in a common way of life . . . ​though often preserving still their ancient picturesque customs. Thus we may see a South African, solid and sunburnt, in shorts, golf socks, and dark blue blazer . . . ​passing between the t­ ables of the open-­air cafes by Pakistani or Chinese ­women, gracefully dressed ­after the fashions of their distinct countries. . . . ​Lourenço Marques may be defined as follows: a beautiful city, definitely Portuguese, influenced by En­glish habits, and already perfumed by the Orient.12

Olé: The Power­ful Allure of the Bullfight Although visitors to Lourenço Marques had a wide range of entertainment and recreational options, the bullfight most exemplifies the alien appeal of the city and was, accordingly, extremely popu­lar with foreign tourists. It is unclear exactly when or­ga­nized bullfighting began in Mozambique, but in 1956 a new ring was inaugurated in LM that would subsequently host countless tourists up ­until the conclusion of the colonial period. The or­ga­nizer of ­these events, Manuel Gonçalves, would bring renowned Portuguese matadors to the colony specifically to coincide with the height of the tourism season, though local Africans also performed, as forcados, who play an impor­tant, if dangerous, role in the spectacle.13 In par­tic­u­lar, South African visitors ­were keen to observe this Latin pastime, which occupied attendees for roughly three hours. As Artur Garrido Jú­nior, who was born in LM in 1950, explained, “The arena would become full of tourists during ‘the season.’ The Mozambicans did not care that much, but the South Africans filled the ring to see the fights.”14 The Portuguese, unlike other bullfighting prac­ti­tion­ers, do not kill the bull in the ring, which appealed to many of the foreign spectators. John Jones, a Rhodesian tourist, confirmed this sentiment. “The other ­thing we used to go to LM for was the bullfights. My wife ­doesn’t like any cruelty to animals, but we used to attend ­because they d­ on’t kill the bulls.”15 In spite of their appreciation of the event, foreign tourists in attendance apparently lacked an understanding of the vari­ous maneuvers that comprised the per­for­mance. For example, a 1971 guidebook for LM included the following passage: “The Portuguese bystander observed: ‘You can always tell the South Africans in the crowd. They do not



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know the form. Usually, they clap when they should be jeering like the Portuguese.’ ”16 On at least one occasion, a South African tourist exhibited an even more inappropriate form of engagement, allegedly becoming part of the proceedings. As South African C. J. Du Piesanie explained to me, a South African rugby player named Daan Retief, who briefly played for the national team starting in 1955, was attending a bullfight in LM when he leaped over the wall and tackled the bull by the horns. Du Piesanie proclaimed: “Retief was a bit of a farmer, and he grabbed the bloody ­thing by the horns . . . ​­really, this happened! He pulled it down.”17 Of course, most visitors w ­ ere not nearly as enthusiastic as Retief had apparently been, but they truly seemed to enjoy the spectacle, both ­because the bull was not killed in front of them and ­because the animal typically got in some good licks during the per­for­mance. As Jean Denley, a South African who, with her husband, regularly traveled to colonial LM as a tourist, explained, “What they do, which I thought was pretty fair, is have a team of about eight to ten guys [forcados] and ­they’re ­there to catch the bull with their hands. The first guy in the line would take the brunt of it, even though the horns ­were padded. In the first round, it was a l­ittle bull, so he was ok. But, in the second round, it was a big bull, and the guy actually got carted off with broken ribs. The other guys jumped out of the ring and ­didn’t want to go back in!”18

The Remunerative Appeal of Lourenço Marques for African Laborers If tourists increasingly exercised their mobility to travel to the Mozambican capital, so too did African men and boys from throughout the colony seeking remunerative opportunities. Mozambicans who traveled to the capital seeking work joined local residents in this endeavor, similarly e­ ager to secure employment in an industry that was far less taxing than laboring on the South African mines, and much more proximate to friends and ­family. ­These male mi­g rant workers, who primarily found work at ­hotels, restaurants, and bars, ­were often quite young, typically in their late teens or just slightly older, and predictably performed entry-­level jobs, such as opening doors for customers entering or exiting vari­ous establishments. But promotions typically materialized rapidly for ­those employees who proved to be both capable and reliable, thereby enabling them to increase their wages and, in turn, their social status. Mi­g rant wage earners ­were also often responsible for helping to support the ­family members they had left ­behind in rural areas. In fact, it was the poverty that many of ­these families ­were experiencing that had driven ­these boys and young men to LM in the first place.

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Mozambicans entertaining relocating to Lourenço Marques to seek work ­ ere attracted by the gainful possibilities t­here, but also motivated by their w aversion to one of the primary remunerative alternatives: work in the South African mines. Albino José Cumbe is one example of a Mozambican who was both attracted to the capital city and deterred by the prospect of traveling to South Africa to engage in mi­g rant ­labor, as so many ­others from the southern regions of the colony did. Cumbe was born in Gaza province, to the north of Lourenço Marques, and by 1971, at the age of twelve, he was working on a local, South African–­owned c­ attle farm. In part owing to the disagreeable conditions at that work site, he de­cided to leave for the capital city and quickly found employment at an establishment called Snack Bar Zorba in Matola, in LM’s western suburbs, though life t­ here was not as easy as he had, arguably naively, anticipated: I suddenly de­cided to stop working on the farms. I was in grade four at the time, but where I lived ­there was no way to continue on to grades five and six and my ­father was not in a position to move me elsewhere. I had to go to the c­ attle ranch, but at that time, grade four was still something, and I already had life experience. So, I de­cided to flee to Lourenço Marques thinking that it was better to go to work for a white far from my f­ather and not to be mistreated . . . ​when I arrived, I discovered that it was worse than in Gaza. . . . ​I had a friend, though, in the city who already had some experience. . . . ​He got me a job and the boss liked me ­because I had never worked in the city of Lourenço Marques, so I was not “smart” yet. I was dif­fer­ent from a person coming from another place in the city with two or three years of experience. They preferred a person who came from the field for the first time ­because they could exploit us better, so it was more advantageous for the boss.19 Prior to landing at the snack bar, Cumbe had sought work in LM with the railroad and also as a longshoreman at the port, but he lacked the requisite level of education. Regardless, he explained to me that he preferred “a place where I could be somewhat safe, a place where I could have better sleeping conditions and a day off to walk around the city, perhaps in the outskirts of the city, where I might come across a relative of someone I knew from back home,” which is exactly the scenario he enjoyed while at Zorba’s.20 The case of Rodrigues Pelembe further underscores some Mozambicans’ disinclination to travel to South Africa to seek employment in the mines. Born in 1955 in Gaza province, Pelembe traveled to LM in 1970 seeking work. Commenting on his situation, he explained that “I started working early ­because of the poverty. My f­ ather was a mineworker, but you know how t­ hings w ­ ere



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at the time. The miners ­were earning less and less, and it was not enough to support the ­family . . . ​When I ­stopped studying to leave for the city, I was at grade three, but I left before finishing it. I left Gaza b­ ecause the conditions at our ­house ­were not proper and, besides, my ­father did not have the money to pay the school fees.”21 Fortunately, Pelembe’s u ­ ncle was employed at the time in the laundry room at ­Hotel Tamariz in LM and helped him to secure employment at the establishment, cleaning guests’ rooms. Other Mozambicans who sought employment in the capital hailed from areas closer to the city and found work in other sectors before securing jobs in the tourist industry. For example, Fernando Cunica came from Manhiça District, which was located in the same province as LM. Relocating to the city as a young teenager, he was originally employed as a domestic servant before being hired at the popu­lar, long-­standing Piri Piri restaurant in the heart of Lourenço Marques. As Cunica explained, “I was born in Manhiça in March of 1948. . . . ​It was time for me to find a job, but it was only pos­si­ble ­here, in LM. So, when I arrived ­here, I worked as a domestic worker. So, I did that for a while. ­After working as a domestic worker, I grew up a bit. I left that position and I went to ask for a job at Piri Piri. That was in 1967.”22 In general, domestic workers did not earn as much as laborers in the tourism industry, while working conditions varied depending on the par­tic­ul­ar employer.

Sites of Touristic Interaction: ­Hotels and Restaurants Among the first African laborers whom guests encountered on arriving in Mozambique’s cities ­were porters, doormen, and clerks as they entered their ­hotels, though visitors may have previously observed myriad other locals from car or train win­dows. T ­ hese “hosts” epitomized the African employee in the sector: deferent, welcoming, and attentive. As tourism became an increasingly impor­tant component of the colonial economy, additional h ­ otels w ­ ere constructed to accommodate the growing number of foreign visitors, while Africans increasingly found employment at ­these businesses, particularly in LM. ­Hotels offered t­ hese laborers relatively agreeable working conditions and, in many cases, opportunities for promotion, even if salaries remained largely stagnant and an occupational ceiling for Africans remained firmly in place in most of ­these establishments. Regardless of t­hese disagreeable aspects of h ­ otel employment, they remained one of the primary sites in which foreign tourists and African tourism workers interacted. In the following section, I reconstruct the experiences of ­these two parties over time in ­these key touristic settings.

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Throughout the history of tourism in urban, colonial Mozambique, LM always featured the most ­hotels and rooms, with Beira a distant second. The capital city also featured an array of accommodation types, ranging from ­hotels and pousadas (inns) to pensões (pensions) and camping sites, but most foreign visitors stayed in ­hotels and, to a lesser extent, on the municipal beaches, with pousadas and pensões primarily accommodating domestic travelers. Only from 1929 did the colonial government begin to keep accurate rec­ords associated with t­hese establishments, which, in turn, enables an examination of vari­ous trends within this growing industry, including occupancy volumes, touristic destinations, and employment opportunities for Africans. Even then, however, statistics from the early years offer only a partial glimpse into ­these touristic developments, while in subsequent de­cades this type of quantitative data was even less forthcoming, often obscuring more than it revealed. Nevertheless, ­these official, published statistics offer some valuable insights into vari­ous aspects of the industry, especially in the initial years of their publication. For example, in 1929, a total of 7,079 guests stayed in ­hotels in Lourenço Marques.23 The Polana ­Hotel hosted 1,991 of them, or some 28 ­percent of the overall figure. The Carlton ­Hotel was second, with 1,242 guests (17.5 ­percent). By the following year, the total number of guests jumped to 8,790, with the Polana hosting 3,319 (37.8 ­percent). In 1929, t­ here ­were a total of 19 ­hotels in LM, with that number growing to 20 the following year. Across the entire colony, t­ here ­were only roughly 40 h ­ otels, such that approximately half ­were located in the capital city. Interestingly, 25 of the 40 establishments ­were owned by Portuguese, while o ­ thers ­were owned by Germans, Greeks, En­glish (which could also mean South Africans), Italians, and Polish, suggesting that the colony not only featured a diverse Eu­ro­pean mi­g rant population, but that its tourism industry had already been identified as a sector worthy of foreign investment. Regardless of owner­ship, LM was the premier destination for ­hotel guests, as from 1929 through the early 1930s, the capital city was annually attracting over 75 ­percent of all h ­ otel clientele, including over 80 ­percent in 1934 (27,346 out of 33,879 guests in total).24 In 1929, December was the peak month, but by the early 1930s, it was joined and then surpassed by the winter months, which spanned from June to August, suggesting that “the season” had already been established, even by this early date. It is within ­these early statistics that we are afforded our first insights into African ­hotel employees in urban colonial Mozambique. For example, in 1932, the government published the first quantitative account of t­hese laborers based on data collected in 1931. That year, 571 African personnel w ­ ere employed, as well as 48 Eu­ro­pean, 15 “Misto” or mixed race, and 79 (racial) “­Others.”25 Reflecting the racial hierarchy in place in Mozambique, the average daily salary for Eu­ro­



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pean workers in the ­hotel industry, colony-­wide, was 70.0 escudos, 47.50 for Mistos, and 5.50 for Africans (no data was provided for “­Others”). In LM, Africans earned 6.50 escudos daily, while in distant Quelimane, far to the north, that figure dropped to 1.50.26 By the following year, African salaries in LM had jumped to 8.50 escudos per day, while the state also newly included gender in overall employment figures. Of the 582 men and 26 w ­ omen working in the ­hotel industry, 485 and 8 ­were African men and ­women, respectively.27 Unfortunately, wages ­were not listed by gender in the 1933 publication, yet they w ­ ere in the 1934 edition (though oddly not differentiated according to race), revealing that across the colony, men earned, on average, 4.67 escudos daily (though 7.50  in LM) and, somewhat surprisingly, ­women earned 7.50 (no geographic breakdown provided). That was the last year that salaries of any sort w ­ ere published, possibly suggesting that the regime in Lisbon was reluctant to offer quantitative evidence of the institutionalized racism that the colony featured. Throughout the ­Great Depression and on through World War II, the ­hotel industry gradually expanded its African l­abor force, though men predominated, with total female employees dipping to as low as zero in 1934, while never exceeding 20 in any year. The h ­ otel industry was clearly never intended for African ­women, owing to an oppressive combination of both colonial and Indigenous gender norms and expectations. Yet for African males, the industry steadily grew, regularly featuring over 1,000 employees by the late 1940s, coinciding with the explosion of tourism, and subsequently ballooning to almost 3,000 annually by the early 1960s. Throughout this period, upward of two-­thirds of ­these jobs ­were located in ­hotels in LM. Nor did overall employment opportunities wane in the sector ­after the war for in­de­pen­dence in the colony commenced in 1964. From the perspective of historical reconstruction, the regime unfortunately discontinued its practice of publishing statistics broken down by race during the 1960s, suggesting it was trying to cast Mozambique as a society that disregarded race as a social category, a part of its broader public relations campaign.28 Colonial Lourenço Marques offered an array of upmarket ­hotels, including the H ­ otel Girassol, which a 1956 guide to the city boasted was “the most recent and up-­to-­date H ­ otel in Portuguese East Africa,” and the venerable ­Hotel Cardoso, which remains an upmarket option for guests.29 As was common, the higher-­end ­hotels also featured the finest restaurants. For example, a 1952 guide to the city’s ­hotels and pensions declared that the ­Hotel Europa featured “excellent meals prepared by Eu­ro­pean cooks.”30 Beyond this haute cuisine, guests of all means w ­ ere ­eager to consume the city’s famed prawns. A 1957 guide to the city confirmed their appeal, even if somewhat hyperbolically: “Once you have tasted prawns and like them, beware. They ­will enslave

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you. Long ­after you have returned home from L.M. you ­will dream of sizzling, hot plates of golden prawns being brought to you for dinner. On the dream ­table in front of you w ­ ill be cool, white wine and the carcasses of the prawns that you have already pushed into your mouth. When you wake you w ­ ill find that it was all a dream, and you ­will take to plaguing your neighbors as they set off for their L.M. holiday—­‘please try to smuggle back some prawns for me.’ ”31 This combination of quality accommodations and enticing cuisine was a potent draw for tourists ­eager to sample the hospitality and tastes of the city. Nowhere was this combination more appealing than at the city’s famed Polana ­Hotel. Designed by the acclaimed En­glish architect Sir Herbert Baker, the Polana was constructed in the “Palace Style,” and was considered “not only one of the most prestigious places to stay in Southern Africa, but also one of the best in the world.”32 Yet, prior to its inauguration in 1922, the eastern part of the city was largely undeveloped. Occupying the space that overlooked the ocean where the ­hotel would stand was a field that LM’s British community had built, which could be used for soccer or nine-­hole golf. Although removed from the city center, the Polana immediately altered the touristic geography of LM, including via the extension of the electric tram line to the h ­ otel and surrounding neighborhood almost immediately a­ fter it opened its doors on July 1, 1922. So profound was this touristic re­orientation that a 1961 tourism film boasted that “Polana is the center of cosmopolitan life in LM.”33 The ­hotel was financed by South African capital, in the name of the Delagoa Bay Lands Syndicate, and run jointly with the state. Aided by state subsidies for a time, the Polana retained its grandeur throughout the other­wise financially bleak 1930s, during which time it was purchased by I. W. Schlesinger. During this de­cade, foreign del­e­ga­tions visiting South Africa newly began devising ways to include Mozambique on their itineraries, all so they could stay at the celebrated property. During World War II, the Polana ­Hotel became a den of spies, as did many other establishments in Lisbon. Owing to Portugal’s neutrality, agents from both the Axis and Allied powers descended on the Iberian nation and its overseas territories, ­eager to secure ­favor with Salazar’s Estado Novo, primarily to gain access to coveted natu­ral resources. In LM, the agents of the vari­ous powers “spied variously on port movements, colonial officials, and each other.”34 On any given eve­ning, the ­hotel bar might host operatives from South Africa, ­England, the United States, Germany, Italy, and, of course, Portugal. Plots ­were hatched and foiled each eve­ning, although it is unclear w ­ hether t­ hese schemes constituted significant military or diplomatic developments or w ­ ere simply alcohol-­infused intrigue. In the 1960s, Schlesinger’s son, John, sold the Polana to the Mozambican government, marking a transition of the property back into the hands of the state.



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The establishment, known as “The G ­ reat Lady of Africa,” had returned home, so to speak. During this pro­cess, the ­hotel seamlessly changed hands, never losing its majesty or luxuriousness. Testimony from Jean and Ivor Kissin, a South African c­ ouple who visited LM some four times a year starting in the early 1960s, illuminates the Polana’s stature and its clientele during this period: Well, for us, the city prompts the most wonderful, wonderful memories. We have been ­going ­there since 1962. We got married, and we went ­there for our honeymoon, stayed at the Polana . . . ​and ­every now and again we used to hive off to LM, as it was called in ­those days, and stay at the Polana. We started off, b­ ecause we had just got married, in the back, not facing the ocean. And, then, eventually, we moved over to the front. But, it was wonderful. It was a holiday place. ­People from all over the world came—­beautiful ­people. I know that’s a bit snobbish, but that’s the way it is, or was. We used to get up in the morning, go down to the pool, every­-­ body used to mix, and then we’d have lunch on the lawns, and then we used to go to sleep and then have after­noon tea. The ­women who used to come ­were beautifully dressed, like for high tea. And we used to come in our beach clothes and sit in the foyer . . . ​­because we ­were in our swimsuits and they ­were coming in with their diamonds and minks and that’s just how it was.35

The Social Ascension of African ­Hotel Workers If foreign tourists enjoyed the Polana and the assortment of other ­hotels in the capital city, ­these establishments meant something entirely dif­fer­ent for Africans in Lourenço Marques: employment opportunities. ­These laborers generally enjoyed agreeable working conditions, even if the wages they earned underscored the exploitation that marked colonial-­era l­ abor relations. Opportunities for promotion, at least to supervisory-­level positions, ­were somewhat ­limited, but workers who stayed in their Eu­ro­pean bosses’ good graces could typically expect to increase their salaries, avoid abuse (verbal and at times physical), learn a foreign language, and, in general, experience social mobility owing to reliable, if modest, wages. LM’s ­hotels w ­ ere, however, other­wise forbidden spaces for the city’s African population; t­hese establishments w ­ ere intended for white, primarily foreign, clientele. As Luís Macuácuá, a long-­time ­hotel employee in the city, who, by the time of our interview had become the general secretary of the National Trade Union of Workers in the ­Hotel Industry, explained: “We [Blacks] could only

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be at ­hotels as workers. And, if that was not enough, h ­ otels had a guest entrance in the front and an entrance for Blacks in the back. We, as Blacks, could not enter through the main door that the customers and guests ­were using. So, during the colonial time, it was not easy.”36 Even if Black Mozambicans could access ­these establishments as ­viable clientele, António Chavana, who worked at the Polana during the colonial era, explained that “for t­ hose of us who grew up in the colonial times, t­ here was an organ­ization responsible for punishment and reprimand, known as the PIDE. Even if a Black could have come to the Polana, for example, to have a drink one day, an agent was sent to your home to find out why you ­were not having a drink near where you worked, or where you lived, in Xipamanine, for example. So, it was easier to have one in Xipamanine than to have one ­here [the Polana], to avoid all ­those questions.”37 ­Those African employees who assisted guests operated on the fringes of the ­hotel experience for ­these visitors, visibly opening doors, portering luggage, serving food and drink, and cleaning rooms, but also much less visibly tending to laundry and other maintenance out of sight from any tourists. Prior to ­these visitors’ arrivals, Blacks often appeared in advertisements for h ­ otels in publications aimed at prospective tourists, often with exaggerated physical features, which reflected prevailing racist and racialist views within white circles on the continent, as well as further abroad.38 ­Because African ­hotel workers ­were largely insignificant in the eyes of the state and often invisible to tourists, oral testimony from employees who worked in the sector during the colonial period is vital to reconstructing t­ hese laborers’ experiences. The earliest substantive insights into t­ hese workers’ plights come from Luis Macuácuá, the aforementioned Trade Unionist, who boasted of Mozambicans’ mastery via an account of a regional competition of h ­ otel workers held in 1951 in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe): Fortunately, ­because of the professionalism of Black Mozambicans in the ­hotel industry at that time, we came out victorious. . . . ​The governor then was Gabriel Teixeira, who was popularly called “Malalanhane” [a pejorative term used to describe an extremely thin person]. . . . ​When the professionals in that competition—­the cooks and the ­table servers—­ returned to Mozambique, they felt and saw the enjoyment on the face of the governor. So, they took the opportunity to ask permission to create a workers’ association: the association of the ­table waiters. Surprisingly, the governor authorized it!39 This attention to professionalism was, in fact, a long-­standing feature in the industry in LM. Indeed, although most Africans gained employment in the h ­ otel sector through friends or relatives, many of my in­for­mants indicated that it



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was pos­si­ble to receive formal training via “a course” that one could take at an instructional center in the city. It remains unclear, however, exactly where this training occurred, perhaps reflecting the confusion between colonial-­era and postcolonial versions of this fa­cil­i­ty, but it may well have been in place prior to the competitive success of 1951, presumably partially facilitating it, or coming into being as on outgrowth of the formal association formed in the aftermath of the victory. Fortunately, one of my in­for­mants, Salvador Fulane, was a beneficiary of this type of professional training and, thus, offered some insight into the pro­cess. Fulane was born in 1956, in Bilene Macia, a district some one hundred miles up the coast from LM, and eventually made his way south to the capital city in the early 1970s. Following a lackluster initial job, in 1974 he pursued the training course that would help him launch a ­career in the ­hotel industry. Interestingly, his instructors w ­ ere all Black Mozambicans who had considerable experience serving high-­level Portuguese administration officials and military officers. The attention to detail and overall professionalism was obvious as Fulane described to me his training regarding how to provide t­ able ser­vice as a waiter. “If, for example, you have a t­ able of two ­couples and one has a child, how do you serve them? And, if one ­couple has a child, who do you serve first? In this case, the one with the child, then the two ladies, and then you go on to their husbands. And, you also have to know how to properly remove the dishes. First, you begin with the c­ hildren. In that time—­not now, but in the colonial time—we used to do it like that, and then you moved to the older diners, beginning with the wives and finishing with their husbands. But, now that’s changed.”40 Following his training, Fulane landed a job at the prestigious Cardoso H ­ otel, staying t­ here from 1974 through in­de­pen­dence, and explained that many of his classmates found similar work elsewhere among the city’s array of high-­end ­hotels, including the Tivoli, the Turismo, and the Girassol. ­These success stories notwithstanding, ­there ­were scant celebratory occasions for African ­hotel employees. In general, the jobs they performed ­were repetitive, devoid of any appreciable differences from day to day, month to month, or even year to year. However, t­here w ­ ere some experientially impor­ tant occupational differences within the ­hotel sector. For example, ­house­keeping staff enjoyed more conventional hours, starting early and working over the course of the day to tidy the rooms, finishing up by late after­noon, and even earned meaningful tips from guests. Rodrigues Pelembe, a member of a ­hotel ­house­keeping staff in the capital city in the early 1970s, recalled that “­those tips enabled me to improve my grocery purchases, helped me pay my rent, and I could even buy a few clothes for my ­mother and my ­family.”41 Conversely, waiting t­ ables at ­hotel restaurants and bars entailed working late into the eve­ning,

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or even early morning, but generated greater tip money. Interestingly, my in­ for­mants regularly remarked on the generosity, or lack of thereof, of certain nationals when it came to t­ hese gratuities in vari­ous settings within the city’s ­hotels. For example, when I asked Salvador Fulane which tourists left the most generous tips, he enthusiastically indicated that it was “the Boer! It was the Boer. The Boer would never count his money. Any money that he took out, he would give to you.”42 Higher up the occupational hierarchy at h ­ otels ­were African receptionists, who also typically managed African staff and ­were required to speak En­glish in order to converse with foreign guests. Accordingly, they enjoyed higher salaries, but w ­ ere also saddled with considerably more responsibility. Employees such as Rodrigues Pelembe, a member of a h ­ ouse­keeping staff, also had to navigate relationships with ­hotel ­owners and se­nior man­ag­ers, who ­were invariably white. Beyond the racially dictated power differential, many of ­these African employees w ­ ere also quite young, thereby adding a generational dimension to ­these already asymmetrical interactions. Pelembe, for example, started at the ­Hotel Tamariz in 1970, when he was only fifteen years old. Explaining his relationship with the Portuguese h ­ otel ­owners, a “Sr. Mario and Sra. Madão,” Pelembe indicated that “they ­were very demanding, but we ­were very close to them. However, keep in mind that I was just a child. But, the relationship was like that, and ­because they left the work for us to perform, it meant that they trusted us. I never had any prob­lems with them. When the boss was being demanding, we said, ‘He is being bad to us.’ But, he was not r­ eally being bad; he just wanted ­things done the right way.”43 African employees also had to navigate relationships with tourists frequenting the city’s h ­ otels. In­for­mants generally indicated that t­ hese visitors ­were cordial, even if they ­were unable to communicate owing to the language barrier, although ­there was, at least initially, a dimension of intimidation owing to the prevailing racial hierarchy. As Salvador Fulane explained regarding his training, “The instructors made us go to h ­ otels to practice our exercises and methods, so that we would have more experience and, thus, not be afraid to see whites, not be afraid to serve any kind of customer.”44 Irrespective of the interracial comfort levels of African staff, h ­ otel guests, at times, could become verbally or even physically abusive. Pedro Manhiça, who joined the staff at the Cardoso ­hotel in 1976 at age eigh­teen, following four years servicing settlers and tourists at a tennis club in the city center, indicated that his ­brother, who worked at the Cardoso during the colonial period, used to tell him, “A visitor could beat you if you did not do something properly. But, you could not do anything about it if you wanted to keep your job. You just said: ‘I’m sorry’ and moved on, b­ ecause if you de­cided to push back, you would lose your job.”45



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An aversion to losing one’s income was, of course, eminently understandable, as ­these wages enabled ­hotel workers to survive the exacting colonial milieu. And, in practice, many h ­ otel employees ­were able to do much more than just simply survive. In many cases, ­these posts facilitated the social mobility of African laborers in the sector. Even doormen, whose position required no formal education, could experience this type of ascension and the respectability it bestowed upon them. Speaking again of his b­ rother, who was a doorman for “many years” at the Cardoso H ­ otel before advancing to receptionist, Pedro Manhiça boasted that at first, we could just afford the basics on his low salary. But all the time that I stayed with him, I never starved. And, over time, he built a ­house, even before he became a receptionist. At first, it was made of mud, but then he built a h ­ ouse of zinc and wood, and then, afterwards, he made one with blocks . . . ​­There w ­ ere very few other ­houses of zinc and wood in the neighborhood [Hulene]. It had a sitting room and three bedrooms, and a cement floor . . . ​When he finished it, which took time, the neighbors respected him, even the few of them who had nicer ­houses.46 Additional testimony from Manhiça indicates that his ­brother was apparently very careful with money, pooling his tips and salary, abstaining from alcohol, and buying the building materials for his h ­ ouse over time, in installments, from a local shop. Manhiça’s ­brother’s frugality notwithstanding, the ability to construct a ­house from durable materials underscores the material benefits that even the lowest-­level positions at the city’s ­hotels provided ­these employees.

The Social Ascension of African Restaurant Workers The myriad restaurants in Lourenço Marques that catered to visitors to the colony also provided ample employment opportunities for Africans, especially ­after tourism began to explode in the 1950s. African boys and men worked as cooks, though rarely as head chefs; t­able attendants, cleaning and clearing dishes; kitchen cleaners; waiters, especially by the 1970s, alongside Portuguese and Indians; bartenders, though less commonly; and, for a handful of highly experienced individuals, as “Chefes da (Dining) Hall,” roughly equivalent to a maître d’ but also including some managerial duties. None of ­these positions required extensive education, and employees secured ­these vari­ous posts in similar fashion to hotel workers, often through friends or relatives already working at a par­tic­u­lar establishment. Yet many o ­ thers—­often very young, without

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any experience, and with clothing that matched their socioeconomic status—­ were able to secure work on their own. Only a­ fter they began earning money would some workers don suits for interviews with prospective new employers, their sartorial choices signaling that they ­were industry veterans. As Eugénio Abilio Mathe, a former restaurant employee, indicated, “The Portuguese like fresh and clean ­things. They did not like dirty employees; they wanted you to come clean and well-­polished. For example, concerning waiters, ­those who ­were experienced, when coming to ask for a job at a ­hotel or at a restaurant would go dressed in their suits.”47 Although t­ hese restaurant employees ser­viced countless tourists (and locals) and ­were vital to the burgeoning dining-­out industry in the city, they ­were largely invisible in the eyes of the state, which inexplicably exhibited even less interest in ­these laborers than in African ­hotel workers. They also remain virtually absent from tourists’ accounts of their visits to the colony, as interactions with restaurant employees w ­ ere typically less substantive and frequent than with vari­ous ­hotel staff. Albino José Cumbe, who worked as a cook in a popu­lar restaurant in the city in the late 1970s, offers a further explanation for this inconspicuousness. “­Because of racial discrimination, I could only do my job in the kitchen, as the customer was not supposed to realize that the meal was prepared by a Black person. Sometimes, you prepared better food than the [white] chef, yet it was supposed to look like he was the one who prepared it.”48 Given t­ hese inherent and imposed invisibilities, ­here too oral testimony is vital if we are to reconstruct ­these workers’ daily experiences. As with h ­ otel staff, ­these experiences differed according to a restaurant employee’s par­tic­u­lar occupation. African cooks worked alongside Eu­ro­pean chefs and supervisors in hectic kitchens, which featured an intimacy that, aside from h ­ otel restaurants, was generally absent in h ­ otel settings. Waitstaff also typically operated in fast-­paced environments, working closely with floor man­ ag­ers and fellow servers, though a par­tic­u­lar restaurant’s popularity dictated the relative levels of pressure. Waiters, unlike cooks and cleaners, had to be literate to perform their duties. As Eugénio Abilio Mathe, who started working as a doorkeeper at age thirteen, in 1971, before becoming a waiter at the Come e Bebe (Eat and Drink) Restaurant, stressed to me: The waiter had to be someone who knew how to read and write, b­ ecause in order to request drinks from the bar or food from the kitchen, you had to be able to write. In that time, ­there ­were no machines like ­there are nowadays. . . . ​In ­those times, the costumer arrived at a t­ able and ordered something to eat, and you had to have your paper to write it down. You had to have the right paper for the bar, the right paper for



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the checkout, and also the right paper for the kitchen, ­because without ­things written down properly, items would not come.49 Although Mathe left for LM during the ­middle of grade 2 and, thus, had minimal education, between his preliminary schooling and his time at the restaurant prior to advancing to become a waiter, his literacy skills ­were sufficient for his new post. Another ­factor that differentiated certain occupations from ­others was the provision of tips. ­These gratuities ­were common for waiters and, in smaller amounts, for doorkeepers, but also for cooks who entered into arrangements with par­tic­u­lar waiters, just as happens ­today. Predictably, patrons tipped according to the status of the restaurant, with many of the nicest dining options located in the array of elite ­hotels. Although African employees in h ­ otels often learned occupational methods from managerial staff who came from vari­ous Eu­ro­pean nations, cooks in the city’s restaurants ­were invariably trained by Portuguese chefs. T ­ hese African employees ­were required to prepare and generate cuisine that would not have featured in their h ­ ouse­holds, nor would they, as males, typically have been expected to cook at home anyway. Instead, Portuguese kitchen staff taught African workers how to prepare a cuisine that satisfied both settlers and the foreign tourists who zealously consumed it owing to its apparent exoticness and tantalizing flavor. This instructional pro­cess often started early on for t­ hese apprentice cooks. As Albino José Cumbe, who migrated to LM from Inhambane when he was roughly twelve years old, explained regarding his experiences at the Snack Bar Zorba restaurant from 1973 to 1974: At first, I worked in the kitchen as an assistant, and at that time, being clever and curious was an advantage ­because you could spy on the Portuguese chefs to see how they cut an onion, or peeled potatoes and garlic. ­After that, you learned how to make prego no pão [Portuguese steak and garlic sandwich], and then on to bitoque [a Portuguese beef and fried egg dish], good quality food. I was taught by a cook a­ fter he found out that I was curious and had the w ­ ill to learn. He took me from kitchen assistant to personal assistant, but first I had to know every­thing that was used in the kitchen. Collaboration and understanding ­were the most impor­tant ­things.50 Fernando Cunica, who started at the perennially popu­lar Piri Piri restaurant in 1967, echoed Cumbe’s comments. “At first, I washed dishes and did other t­ hings like that. But, then, that same year, I was given another position in the kitchen, making chicken soup and caldo verde [soup]. The owner, Senhor Rodriguez, said to me ‘You, boy, are very clever,’ and then moved me to the kitchen. Then, I

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learned how to season chicken, sometimes 1,000 each day . . . ​and to grill chicken, shrimp, squid, and fish. . . . ​Eventually, my coworkers started calling me ‘boss’!”51 As with ­hotel workers, African restaurant staff ­were similarly compelled to routinely interact with white employees. Yet, in ­these latter settings, ­there ­were typically many more whites pre­sent, while in some cases, it was also pos­ si­ble that an African and a Eu­ro­pean could occupy the same position, even if the latter would earn significantly more. Unlike in ­hotels, interracial relations at restaurants w ­ ere often fraught with tension, perhaps owing to the intensity of the work environment, with white employees regularly reminding Africans of Eu­ro­pe­ans’ alleged superior racial status. Cumbe offers an example of the type of mistreatment that characterized management-­employee relations in the 1970s, even though he enjoyed a solid relationship with his employer at Snack Bar Zorba: Our money was kept in small cans in safe places known only to us, ­because when it was time to be fired you’d take your small can and go. Sometimes, bosses would fire workers just days before the monthly salary was due to be paid or call the police to arrest them ­because they did not have permission to move around the city, so you could work for twenty-­five or twenty-­eight days and be fired or arrested by the police, considered to be a thief ­because you did not have permission to move around the city. If that happened, ­there was nothing you could do but go home, t­ here was nowhere you could go for help.52 Mathe similarly disparaged Portuguese staff in the restaurant industry, maligning their character and, in one particularly damning account, claiming that they deprived him of tip money. “We worked for them b­ ecause they w ­ ere the bosses and we needed the money to survive, but they w ­ ere bad. They told the customers not to tip us and even if they did, the bosses would take some of it off the top—­that’s robbery, robbery. The Portuguese w ­ ere revolting. We just lived with them. . . . ​They have been ­here since 1498, but they are bad and unintelligent.”53 Fernando Cunica painted a similarly bleak picture of life toiling ­under his white superiors at Piri Piri. “­Because whites ­were whites, you had to re­spect them. . . . ​Whites ­were very bad. If they spoke, you should not answer. . . . ​You must talk to them the next day, ask him: ‘Boss, what did I do wrong yesterday?’ And, he ­will admit his ­mistake, but if you start arguing, he ­will beat you.”54 Fi­nally, although this account from Luís Macuácuá about his Portuguese bosses while working as a pastry chef in the early 1970s does not suggest any physical abuse, it highlights the acute condescension that marked overall racial dynamics and attitudes during the colonial era. “In the colonial



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times, I benefited a lot from being a good boy. . . . ​I would never deny the ­orders of the boss. . . . ​I would never refuse. . . . ​As it was said at that time: ‘When you are a good professional, you are also a good boy.’ If you ­were sixty years old, you ­were still a ‘good boy’ to the Portuguese.”55 At times, t­ hese asymmetrical relationships extended beyond working hours, as members of management often hired African cooks to cater private meals at their homes for guests. ­These undertakings enabled ­these laborers to augment their salaries but often also subjected them to the same types of abuse that they w ­ ere forced to endure in the workplace during what would other­ wise have been a day off. Cunica had extensive experience with this type of endeavor, and although his testimony reveals the re­spect ­these bosses had for Africans’ culinary skills, it also illuminates the racism that colored their interpersonal relations, irrespective of location: When I was working in the kitchen, ­there was another white man who knew me. He would say, “That boy knows how to grill chicken, he prepares shrimp very well.” So, he, and o ­ thers, used to take me to their homes and when we arrived he’d say, “­Today, I have ten guests. I want to eat shrimp, I want to eat chicken, I want to eat alheira.” . . . ​They paid me informally. . . . ​I used to save that money to pay my debts. They paid me and then it was, “Hey, stupid Black, clean it up and go away.” That’s how it was, even a­ fter I cooked every­thing very well. And, they might say to you such as: “Hey, your face looks like a vagina.” But, what are you ­going to say? [Laughs] We suffered a lot, but we could take it. Even if you are insulting someone, you still have to pay that person. I did this many, many times, so many times I could not count. Even t­oday, I still go to white ­people’s homes to cook for them like this.56 As with the dynamics with their Portuguese bosses, African restaurant employees w ­ ere similarly forced to carefully navigate, albeit much less frequently, interactions with the white clientele at the city’s dining establishments. Africans ­were expected to remain professional and, in most cases, minimize contact with ­these patrons. In more extreme cases, this type of interaction was forbidden. As Cumbe explained when I inquired about this dynamic: No. For me, it was not pos­si­ble since I am Black. Nor could I express my ideas or suggestions. I c­ ouldn’t even talk to the [white] waiters, b­ ecause that was not part of my job. I guess I could have created conversation with a client, but t­here would be another consequence: the PIDE was ­there to know about ­these t­ hings. They would ask, “Who are you to talk to white p­ eople?” You would be interrogated so the boss would then have

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to come and protect you. “No, this kid is my servant. He cleans ­here.” Nevertheless, they warned you to be careful and never to address ­people you did not know.57 In other settings, however, guidelines regarding engaging white clientele ­were apparently much more relaxed. For example, Cunica indicated that he could interact with white diners at Piri Piri without any trou­ble. “If you w ­ ere busy with work, you w ­ ere not obliged to speak with them. But if you had time to talk, yes, you definitely could talk with the tourists in the restaurant.”58 My in­for­mants also routinely stressed the differences between clientele according to nationality. As with h ­ otel employees, restaurant workers regularly complimented white South African visitors, while disparaging Portuguese tourists and settlers. Cunica’s testimony is exemplary in this re­spect: “The Boers came ­here to eat fish and shrimp. They used to give us a lot of work. Boers are good ­people; ­they’ll eat anything. They are not afraid of food. Even if t­ here are feces nearby, they ­will still eat the food [laughs]. They ­don’t care. On the other hand, the Portuguese client was more careful. I still remember once when I was at Piri Piri, a ­little boy farted loudly and the ­whole dining room stunk, but the Boers continued eating their shrimp, no prob­lem.”59 Despite the hardships that African restaurant staff experienced on the job, the salaries that they earned partially mitigated any periodic unpleasantness and facilitated a solid financial footing. As Cumbe explained, “In 1974, my [monthly] salary was 20 escudos . . . ​which was a lot of money. With that amount, I could buy a return ticket to Gaza, my birthplace. I could also buy a huge loaf of bread and canned sardines to eat on the way.”60 Meanwhile, Mathe, who was only earning roughly between a fourth and a half of that amount in salary, could rely on tips to successfully negotiate life in the city. “At the end of the month, they used to give me only five escudos, maybe ten. . . . ​But customers would give me small amounts in tips for opening the door. . . . ​Combined, it was a lot ­because t­ hings ­were very cheap—­food, clothes too, especially at the Indians’ shops.”61 As did h ­ otel workers, Mathe indicated that certain nationalities tipped better than o ­ thers, while also disparaging the Portuguese as notoriously poor tippers. “­There might be five Portuguese dining and only a few British, Americans, or French, but they would [collectively] give you ten times as much as the Portuguese.”62 In order to increase his wages, Mathe displayed considerable enthusiasm at the restaurant, which enabled him to transition to server, then waiter, and, ultimately, cashier. “I worked for only five months, or so, as a doorkeeper. . . . ​I was clever and intelligent. So, sometimes when ­there ­were no waiters available, they asked me to help in the kitchen to bring the food to the dining hall . . . ​and so that’s how I learned how to serve ­tables.”63



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This increased salary and his generally agreeable working conditions separated Mathe from many ­others who lived in the Maxaquene neighborhood. Responding to my query along t­ hese lines, he replied at length with an in­ter­ est­ing observation related to the divergent physical, or corporal, impact associated with vari­ous occupations: When you ­were walking in the neighborhood, ­people would notice the difference. The person who works on a farm, the person who works in an office, the person who works as a digger, ­there are differences. The body tells you what each person suffers. When you are a farmer, you get burnt directly by the sun. . . . ​But, working in a restaurant, I did not burn. I would be noticed. I used to buy shoes and, on a day off or a Sunday, I wore a white shirt, well-­ironed with well-­polished shoes. . . . ​But, if I was a woodworker or a digger, you could see it. The person’s body says it. The body talks.64 Mathe went on to indicate the material advantages his restaurant work afforded him, tellingly in the same breath in which he admonished the Portuguese. As my interview with him took place in his ­house, he had an opportunity to point to this instantiation of his success and associated work ethic. “I do not have any good memories about the Portuguese. No. But, I was able to have my ­house built ­because of my job and my dedication.”65 Cunica echoed ­these sentiments, indicating that tips, which could easily exceed a waiter’s base salary if they performed their job well, enabled t­ hese types of purchases. “­There ­were ­those who built h ­ ouses just with tip money, and ­there ­were ­those who also bought cars.”66 As was often the case, Africans employed in the industry often erected ­houses in the suburbs of LM, but even more commonly back in their homelands. For example, Luís Macuácuá, who worked as a pastry chef in the city in the early 1970s, gradually built a ­house in Chibuto, some 120 miles northeast of the capital, where he was from, by saving his money over time, though wood and zinc building materials remained beyond his financial reach. As with Macuácuá, not ­every one of t­hese workers could afford to build using durable materials, but many of them did use their earnings to pay bridewealth, or lobolo, which sealed the conjugal arrangement between the families of the betrothed c­ ouple and, thus, facilitated and formalized their marriages. As Cunica explained, “I lived in a ­house made of reeds ­because the money was not enough. . . . ​But, I could afford to buy a w ­ oman, ­because lobolo is a w ­ oman. ­Those who could, would buy a ­woman. So, I took her to my ­house. We had ­children together.”67 For t­hose African employees who ­rose in the ranks to become a restaurant chefe, or boss, the financial rewards ­were greater, but so, too, was the

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responsibility. Moreover, ­these employees ­were also obliged to serve as intermediaries between their white superiors and the African staff they oversaw. Manuel Mugungo Macamo, who was the chefe at Piri Piri in the early 1970s, was one example of an African who occupied this elevated position in an establishment that was popu­lar among tourists. One of Macamo’s staff, Fernando Cunica, remembered Macamo as follows, which included an illuminative anecdote: He did not have prob­lems with anybody, Black or white. He is the one who used to keep the secrets of the colonizers. You would see him at the desk counting money. B ­ ecause the bosses—­both the Portuguese and Macamo—­didn’t know how to speak En­glish, when the American or British customers started asking for, for example, cashew nuts, Macamo would start beating ­people in the kitchen. He would shout, “You son of a bitch, what are they asking for?” As I did not know Portuguese very well yet, much less En­glish, I would answer, “Do you expect me to know every­thing? How to speak En­glish?” And, Macamo would say, “Fuck you, fuck you.” He spoke as if he was alone, but r­ eally he was insulting the foreign customers ­because they did not understand Portuguese!68 At times, selected Africans w ­ ere even afforded remarkable opportunities owing to their acumen and experience. Luís Macuácuá, who worked as a confectioner’s assistant for the Princesa h ­ otel and restaurant conglomerate in the early 1970s, indicated that during this time the com­pany sent three Black Mozambicans—­Senhores Manhiça, Magaiza, and Miguel—to Portugal to learn how to properly oversee the organ­ization’s restaurants and bars, kitchens, and pastry shops respectively. Remarkably, when I pressed Macuácuá to explain why the enterprise would send Mozambicans abroad to learn techniques and managerial skills, he responded: “I think that the o ­ wners ­imagined that one day they would dis­appear . . . ​and then ­these man­ag­ers would maintain the Princesa organ­ization.”69 If Macuácuá is correct, the com­pany’s decision was a farsighted one, anticipating the end of empire while strategically attempting to retain operational control over a lucrative business. The foreign tourist in Lourenço Marques enjoyed a panoply of sights, sounds, cuisine, and activities that could be characterized as Latin or continental and ­were, in many ways, alluringly exotic for t­hese visitors. Over time, t­hese attractions helped to increase the numbers of tourists and, in turn, generated expanding employment opportunities for resident Africans, as well as for many ­others who migrated to the capital in search of steady, ample wages. An array of h ­ otels, restaurants, and other activities kept ­these Africans gainfully employed and the visitors agreeably occupied and pleasantly ser­viced.



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Close examination of the interracial dynamics that African laborers experienced in Mozambique’s ­hotels and restaurants reveals a divergent, less antagonistic set of ­labor relations and social interactions than ­those that characterized larger colonial-­era work sites, such as mines. The jobs at ­these establishments rarely involved physical abuse, even if the potential for it was always pre­sent, while instances of supervisory torment ­were both less severe and less frequent. Moreover, through interaction with Portuguese man­ag­ers and foreign visitors, positions in the tourism industry offered opportunities for the development of occupational and linguistic skills, while also providing remuneration, via wages and tips, that facilitated social ascension. Although scholars have repeatedly characterized colonial-­era work sites in Africa as “terrains of strug­gle,” h ­ uman relations and interactions in ­these relatively agreeable places of employment ­were much more nuanced, suggesting that other, similarly intimate workplaces be considered alongside much larger operations in which exploitative control of African workers required more stringent mea­sures, in turn ensuring more adversarial ­labor relations. Oblivious to many of ­these interpersonal dynamics, foreign tourists ventured out from Mozambique’s array of accommodations and dining establishments each day to enjoy a wide variety of entertainment and recreational options, from swimming and sunbathing at nearby beaches to attending a bullfight. However, t­ here also existed an assortment of alternative activities that only materialized in the eve­ning and continued on into the early hours of the ensuing morning. Gambling, prostitution, striptease shows, and excessive drinking in one of LM’s famed watering holes w ­ ere just some of t­ hese endeavors, most of which revolved around the city’s Rua Araújo, or, as it was known locally, “Sin Street.” It is to this nocturnal setting that the next chapter transports us.

C h a p te r   3

Urban Nightlife The Power­f ul Allure of the “Forbidden Fruit”

Lourenço Marques, framed in the wild beauty of the sub-­tropical African coast and spiced with a suggestion of Oriental mystery, and famed the world over for its magnificent gaming casinos, is a city of astonishing contrasts. —­“Lures of Lourenço Marques,” New York Times, 1936. ­ here w T ­ ere four t­ hings then that you could experience in Mozambique that you c­ ouldn’t in South Africa, and one of t­ hose was a strip club. ­There was nothing like this in South Africa. T ­ here w ­ ere places, but the girls would basically have more clothes on than they would at the beach! But, in Mozambique, they stripped, so we ­were extremely excited. . . . ​So we went ­there while we ­were ­there. . . . ​She was mixed race and very good looking and stripped down to a G-­string and she had two nipple caps and that was it. In South Africa, you ­couldn’t get that in t­ hose days. —­Jackie Edgar Holloway, a South African tourist to colonial Mozambique in the early 1970s, 2017.

Jackie Holloway’s experience on Rua Araújo, locally known as “Sin Street,” constituted just one of the many eve­ning entertainment options that drew tourists to colonial Lourenço Marques. The city truly came alive each eve­ning and on into the ensuing morning, with virtually all of the constituent action revolving around Sin Street.1 In practice, an array of “sins” was available to the guest, including drinking, drugs, gambling (­until it was prohibited in the 1940s), sanctioned prostitution, and an assortment of dancing shows in which Eu­ro­pean and African ­women performed in minimal attire. ­These recreational endeavors ­were especially appealing to white Southern African men, who had no access to them back home, with the exception of drinking. However, even then, alcohol consumption was much 74

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more tightly controlled; in South Africa, for example, t­ here ­were bans on Sunday and religious holidays.2 Even Southern African ­women, who often traveled to LM with their husbands, typically enjoyed at least some of the spectacle of Sin Street, if not ­every “sin” that was on offer. For example, Yvonne Kolbe, a Rhodesian who regularly visited Mozambique as a tourist, remarked, “Rhodesia was sort of a quiet place . . . ​but in Lourenço Marques, it was quite exhilarating. Night life, and ­these ­things ­going on, and the bar . . . ​with ­people coming in and out. It was fantastic.”3 Not all tourists came to indulge their carnal urges, though. Cabarets hosted per­for­mances that ­were reasonably modest in nature and also featured skilled musicians playing live ­music to enhance the shows. Alternatively, the Varietá opera ­house, located on the far end of Rua Araújo, offered an entertainment option for visitors seeking a more sophisticated diversion.4 Other tourists frequented venues throughout the city that featured fado, a mournful Portuguese genre that transported them to a distant, Latin place. Many upscale tourists also opted to dance far removed from Sin Street, in the array of h ­ otels, including the Polana, Girassol, and Cardoso, which featured night clubs (boites), danceable live m ­ usic, formal dress codes, and steep entry prices to ensure that both the clientele and setting would remain serene, even though they usually stayed open ­until two or three in the morning. Other visitors, with less means, danced at clubs while flirting with locals or drank in the vari­ous bars up and down Rua Araújo. Regardless of the par­tic­u­lar endeavor, the mélange of ­peoples each eve­ning in the city was impressive. Locals of all races, tourists, and sailors from an assortment of nations briefly stationed in port, as well as foreign performers, ­were regular features on Sin Street. The thoroughfare ran from the train station to the port and, thus, was ideally located for newly arriving visitors. Inevitably, members of t­ hese vari­ous groups intermingled, their motivations ranging from engaging in remunerated work and cross-­cultural curiosity to revelry and sex. Over time, t­ hese interracial interactions became normalized. As Robert Ruark, the acclaimed journalist who also penned numerous pieces in open support of the Portuguese regime, commented regarding his visit to Rua Araújo in 1962, “I went to a night club the other eve with a high-­ranking official of the Portuguese diplomatic corps, and neither of us saw anything unusual about the fact that we danced with some ladies whose coloration could be best described as coal black.”5 Indeed, high-­level colonial officials, including the high commissioners of the colony, w ­ ere frequent visitors to Sin Street. Irrespective of the par­tic­u­lar participants in the ribaldry, over time eve­nings on Rua Araújo established Lourenço Marques’s corporal appeal, drawing ever greater numbers of visitors to witness and experience it in person. In just a handful of hours, white tourists deriving from Southern Africa could escape

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their staid environments, transporting themselves to a much less stringent place that, for many of them, was delightfully liberating.

The Long History of “Sinful” Activity on Rua Araújo The origins of Sin Street date to the initial de­cades of the twentieth c­ entury. The establishment of Rua Araújo, in the baixa, the region of the city with the lowest elevation, was part of the broader development of Lourenço Marques. It was in the 1920s that the origins of the “sinful” dimensions of the street could first be identified. By then, casinos ­were attracting locals and visitors alike, while prostitution was overt. One Portuguese observer from the de­cade remarked that “African girls went to the mission where they ­were filled with good lessons and salutary examples, and then left t­here, almost all, for prostitution, to whoever would pay”; many of them naturally made their way to LM.6 The area was also quickly earning a reputation as a rough and tumble place. According to one account, “During ­these years, the police authority, specialized and always pre­ sent, maintained order via a mixture of Latin negligence and vigorous blows.”7 Into the following de­cade, the street further solidified its reputation. Harry Manners, a famous hunter active in Southern Africa, described the area as it was in the 1930s as follows: “Rua Araújo is a narrow street near the docks, featuring four gambling casinos, with dance hostesses, and a row of bars, mostly frequented by seamen getting their landlegs unsteady once more.”8 However, as the relationship between church and state in the colony began to tighten from the early 1940s, the sector underwent meaningful change. When the city’s main cathedral, the Sé, opened in May 1944, the occasion prompted a visit by the Roman Catholic cardinal from Portugal, Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, as the papal legate. For locals, this signaled the “end of an era” for Sin Street. Shortly a­ fter the cardinal’s visit, the vari­ous gambling ­houses ­were rendered illegal on moral grounds (though t­ here was also speculation that local officials ­were bemoaning the pauperization of settlers, most of whom lived quite modestly and many of whom had a penchant for gambling) and ­were, thereby, shuttered, while prostitution became, at least temporarily, a much more discreet affair.9 For example, “during a sweep in 1948, 71 ­women ­were arrested for prostitution, of whom 39 ­were found to be infected with venereal disease and set for treatment.”10 If ­these mea­sures marked the end of the initial era of Sin Street, the ensuing period featured few ruptures, beyond the notable absence of ­legal gambling. With the explosion of tourism beginning in the 1950s and the commencement of the war for in­de­pen­dence in the colony bringing waves of young Portuguese

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conscripts to the city in the 1960s, the vari­ous industries centered on and around Rua Araújo thrived anew. Only gambling, at least formally, remained a casualty of the e­ arlier restrictions. Instead, it survived as a clandestine activity. But, for ­those who fancied a wager, it remained reasonably easy to find somewhere to place one. With the array of “sinful” endeavors on offer largely unchanged, combined with the influxes of touristic and martial revelers, by the 1960s, the street had entered a new era. When city residents recall Rua Araújo, it is this unsubdued version of the street and surrounding area that they recollect, obscuring the relatively tranquil periods that had preceded it. By the 1960s, Sin Street had also earned another nickname: “street of trou­ble.” The arrival of thousands of soldiers and sailors, coupled with large volumes of tourists and the ever-­g rowing population of Lourenço Marques itself, translated to ever more ­people descending each eve­ning upon this rather small part of the city in search of entertainment, revelry, debauchery, or some combination thereof. A 1971 tour guide for the city captures this chaotic merriment, deeming that rather than being off-­putting, it is, instead, a “must see”: No visit to LM is complete without an eve­ning in this crowded quarter of night-­clubs, pubs, bright lights, and flashing neon signs. The narrow Rua teems with revelers: sea-­men from the docks, soldiers on leave, tourists from across the borders, and locals having a night on the town. ­Because of the brawls t­ here are police patrols, complete with Alsatian dogs, at almost ­every corner. The night-­clubs—­Pinguim, Oceana, Bar Luso, Aquario and ­others—­open around 9 p.m. and go on u ­ ntil 4 a.m. Usually they pre­sent a cabaret or strip-­show. Male customers w ­ ill prob­ ably be pestered by the girls, or hostesses, who frequent ­these places in droves. The “Street of Trou­ble” has some lively pubs, too, like Texas, Maxims, and Carlton. Some have swing doors leading on to the street which might have come straight from the Wild West.11 Following the outbreak of the war for in­de­pen­dence, the contrast between the carefree revelry that marked each eve­ning on Rua Araújo and the increasingly violent strug­gle between Frelimo guerrillas and Portuguese troops in the Mozambican bush over the fate of the colony was extremely striking. Yet, even as young fighters on both sides lost limbs and lives each day, each eve­ning the party on Sin Street continued, unabated. Indeed, during the 1960s and 1970s, the excitement up and down Rua Araújo in many ways exemplified the vibrant, unrelenting growth of LM, more broadly, during this other­wise tumultuous period. The m ­ usic, arts, fashion, and dance scenes, all of which invigorated the Sin Street atmosphere, w ­ ere thriving. As one observer noted, “Even though the PIDE is nibbling . . . ​and the war developing, the atmosphere in

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the city has become much more sophisticated and multiracial. Art galleries have started to open, a ­whole generation of paint­ers has appeared, and Portuguese and Mozambican sculptors . . . ​fashion stores . . . ​bikinis, mini-­skirts . . . ​ the musical revolution arrived, with LM Radio vomiting rock ­music 24 hours per day, seven days per week.”12 As the epicenter for many of t­ hese trending sociocultural developments, Rua Araújo provided celebrants a place to experiment with t­ hese new styles and fashions, while never judging nor excluding ­those visitors who ­were more tradition-­bound. By the 1960s, Rua Araújo even featured an, albeit under­g round, gay and lesbian scene.

An Original Sin: The Rise and Fall of the Casino on Rua Araújo The opening of casinos on Rua Araújo during the 1920s helped to establish the sector’s reputation as a place to indulge one’s sins. The earliest of ­these gambling ­houses ­were Casino Belo and Casino Costa, with the former located in the heart of the quarter and the latter on the periphery. Casino Belo, named ­after its affluent owner, was the more elegant, more exclusive of the two h ­ ouses. In order to enter, it was mandatory for men to don suits or tuxedos, while ­women w ­ ere required to wear long, formal dresses. The casino was open each eve­ning, seven days a week, and featured a large orchestra that played daily from 9:00 p.m. u ­ ntil 4:00 a.m., with only a half hour interval. Although Casino Belo was more upscale, both gambling ­houses ­were prim and proper places, featuring uniformed ­drivers to take clients back to their ­hotels or to the train station to catch the luxurious Blue Train, which carried passengers to and from South Africa in style. The casinos did permit ­children to enter, accompanied by their parents, though they, too, w ­ ere held to strict standards of comportment. Given that ­these casinos ­were the only gambling ­houses in Southern Africa ­until the Victoria Falls casino opened in 1966, they immediately attracted not only locals, but also considerable numbers of patrons from beyond the colony’s borders.13 A preponderance of t­ hese foreign visitors derived from Johannesburg, reflecting the economic importance of the South African city and the wealth that many of its white residents had accumulated. Although most of t­ hese tourists’ forays to Lourenço Marques’ casinos proved reasonably harmless, with visitors returning home with fond memories of the experience and perhaps even additional funds won on the gaming ­tables, many guests lost more than they could afford. According to one account, “In ­those times, true fortunes ­were won and lost in the casinos of Rua Araújo. ­After a few crazy days at roulette or bac-

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carat, many of the South African tourists d­ idn’t have enough money to buy the return ticket to Johannesburg or Pretoria and ­there was a considerable number of suicides, committed by p­ eople who had lost every­thing that they had.”14 Local officials ­were also apparently alarmed by the deleterious effects that casinos had on LM’s settlers, “who could ill afford to lose money gambling.”15 Despite, or perhaps ­because of, the possibility of financial ruin for imprudent gamblers, the casino industry flourished, with Mozambican gaming officials, technicians, and even croupiers earning such a prominent reputation that they w ­ ere in high demand elsewhere in the world. For all of the industry’s success, however, it was powerless to ­counter the moralistic enjoinder issued by the Catholic Church, which enjoyed the full backing of the overtly pious Estado Novo regime, that it cease operations. Over the course of just two de­cades, the gambling h ­ ouses of Sin Street had enjoyed meteoric popularity and profits, only to suffer an abrupt, unceremonious culmination. The closure of the casinos in the wake of the cardinal’s 1944 visit to the capital city permanently concluded the era of authorized gambling in the colony. ­Going forward, t­here ­were constant implorations to formally reopen the industry, with proponents often citing the economic benefits. Commenters ­were quick to point out the seeming hy­poc­risy that the Estado Novo exhibited by sanctioning gambling in Estoril, a seaside town near Lisbon, but prohibiting it in the colonies. For example, an observer writing in 1951, less than a de­cade a­ fter the casinos ­were shuttered in Lourenço Marques, argued, Of the “continental atmosphere,” LM has an abundance, but by itself it is valueless; it must be supported by the amusements that are always associated with it . . . ​during the eve­ning: casinos and night clubs. Of ­these, the most potent draw is the casino, a proj­ect that has been discussed ardently t­ hese many years past, and whose value as a tourist attraction has been convincingly proven in the days when casinos w ­ ere authorized. A municipal gambling zone in LM as operated in Estoril would provide something obtainable nowhere e­ lse in Southern Africa and if a percentage of revenue w ­ ere directed to charitable ends, as happens with the Provincial Lottery, it would serve a two-­fold purpose.16 Another observer, writing in the 1960s, even suggested that the absence of casinos rendered LM’s other­wise alluring “continental atmosphere” incomplete, thereby jeopardizing the city’s fundamental touristic appeal.17 Regardless, Salazar refused to reconsider his decision and this double standard—­legal gambling in the metropole, but not in the colonies—­would remain in effect throughout

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the colonial era. Undeterred, clandestine forms of gambling continued in and around Sin Street, but the days of overt, authorized gambling had permanently passed. The only time this durable, resolute policy was seriously challenged was, ironically, during the planning in the 1940s of the Grande ­Hotel in Beira, far removed from Sin Street. As the developers of the ­hotel proj­ect initially envisaged the fa­cil­it­y, which eventually opened during the m ­ iddle of the ensuing de­cade, a casino was very much in their designs. In fact, the original name of the ­hotel was to be the Grande ­Hotel Casino da Beira, proof the developers deemed the gambling ­tables that the establishment was intended to feature vital to its success. Encouragingly for ­these investors, the colonial government initially entertained the prospect of a casino in Beira, presumably as a way to increase touristic traffic from nearby Rhodesia. However, the casino licensing pro­cess abruptly died in Lisbon, in part due to the vehement objections of the Catholic Church. This denial ultimately sealed the fate of the Grande ­Hotel, though its ­owners, determined to forge ahead, wrongheadedly refused to sell the proj­ect to interested parties. This decision proved to be ill-­advised, as without casino revenues, coupled with room rates that ­were too costly for most Rhodesian tourists, the operating costs of the fa­cil­i­ty proved to be overwhelming. In 1963, less than a de­cade ­after its grandiose opening, the ­hotel was shuttered.

Beyond Gambling: Alternative Forms of Entertainment Following the closure of LM’s casinos and, of course, even before then, ­there ­were a multitude of other entertainment options for visitors to Sin Street. Many of t­ hese activities w ­ ere, if not always ­wholesome, not as licentious as some of the other undertakings on offer. ­These endeavors included drinking, dancing, attending stripteases, and listening to ­music, which patrons could often enjoy in the same establishment. The types of venues in which one could consume alcohol ranged widely, but the settings for dancing, stripteases, and live ­music generally catered to more upscale clientele, underscoring Rua Araújo’s appeal to an impressively diverse array of visitors.

Fueling the Revelry: Alcohol Consumption on Sin Street Alcohol consumption was pos­si­ble in venues exclusively designed for this purpose, such as Aquario, Bar Luso, and Nautilus, but also in nightclubs, caba-

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rets, strip clubs, and other establishments. The most famous of t­ hese businesses was the Pinguim (Penguin), which all my informants—­Black and white—­ unfailingly mentioned. For example, Dave Denley, a South African tourist who regularly traveled to Lourenço Marques for sailing competitions during the 1960s and early 1970s, remarked, “LM was a ­great place, ­because ­after sailing we used to go down to the dockside to the Penguin Club and places like that. Have you heard of it? The notorious Penguin Club.”18 Or, as one foreigner wrote about the famed establishment in 1961, “At night, if you ­don’t mind slumming, visit the Penguin bar in the seamen’s quarter. But be warned. . . . ​ ­There is not much of a color bar in LM.”19 Alcohol predictably lowered inhibitions for revelers on Sin Street, encouraging and accelerating the vari­ous types of interracial interaction noted by this seemingly concerned observer. Drinking also predictably engendered vio­lence in the quarter. Brawls ­were commonplace, often the product of the explosive mixture of throngs of roisterers, including increasing numbers of foreign and domestic military personnel, and copious alcohol. And, while many of the resultant melees occurred outside on the assortment of streets in the sector, no space in the area was insulated from this type of vio­lence. An example of this tempestuous mix comes from an account penned by Harry Manners, the acclaimed South African hunter, about an eve­ning during which he was frequenting the Casino Costa in the late 1930s with fellow hunter, Wally Johnson. Enjoying drinks while taking in an assortment of dancers and other performers as part of a floor show at the casino, following a musical serenade led by a “blonde, sheathed in a long, green, shimmering low-­cut dress,” Manners remarked that she got a big hand, especially from eight merchant seamen occupying a ­table b­ ehind us. They clapped, hooted and stamped the floor shouting, “Atta baby! Give us some more of what y­ ou’ve got.” I glanced their way. They ­were well along in their cups. At adjacent ­tables sat a few Portuguese, some with dance hostesses, who did not seem very impressed with their neighbors’ be­hav­ior. . . . ​Next came a Portuguese trio. Two men sat on chairs, playing guitars to the accompaniment of a fado sung by a shawl-­wrapped ­woman artiste standing between them. The foreign seamen signified their disapproval of this number by hooting and booing, which brought them glares from the nearby Portuguese patrons. . . . ​ Then the seamen got rowdy and a fight broke out—we got caught up in it and helped to beat the crap out of the seamen, but then ­were arrested by the arriving police. Wally and I shared a cell with a tall, swarthy drunk in a tuxedo, apparently arrested in some other nightclub, before being released at noon the next day.20

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Norma Hancocks, a South African who regularly traveled to Lourenço Marques as a tourist in the 1960s and 1970s, confirmed the per­sis­tence of the same rowdy environment that Manners had described. When I inquired about the nightlife in the city during her visits, she casually replied, “Oh, we never slept at night. Never slept. They had all t­ hese dif­fer­ent nighttime places—­they had the Texas bar, that was the funniest t­ hing. I thought ‘I must go!’ They had ­these swinging doors to enter Texas. You would always see someone punched, swinging, or falling out of t­here. It was kind of rough, but nice to see. The seamen used to go t­ here. I ­will never forget that place.”21 And, to underscore just how raucous both the per­for­mances and the audiences could be, John Murphy, a South African who began traveling to Lourenço Marques in the early 1970s, recounted, “Another ­thing I vividly remember, from a tourist perspective, was the red-­light district. I think they called it ‘Sin Street.’ The American fleet was in the last time I was t­ here, in 1972, and ­there was an Israeli act, in which ­there was a very attractive girl and a man dressed as a gorilla in a cage. As you can imagine, that brought the h ­ ouse down. They had to bring in what we called the ‘snowdrops,’ the military police—­the naval police—to come in and sort out the trou­ble the sailors ­were causing.”22 Of course, not ­every visitor to the quarter e­ ither precipitated or was involved in a brouhaha. In fact, locals often commented on the relatively reserved be­hav­ior of some South Africans, whose roisterous reputation reached the colony well before they crossed the border. During my conversation with Portuguese settlers, Isabel Botte and her son Pedro, who both lived in Lourenço Marques during the colonial period, Pedro commented, “I ­don’t recall major issues with South African tourists. They tended to drink a lot and they could be quite rowdy, but I d­ on’t remember the typical aggressiveness that you would see back in South Africa . . . ​where drinking would often result in some fairly aggressive or destructive be­hav­ior. You ­didn’t see that much in LM, and ­there was also much more re­spect displayed t­ oward the local African population by visitors, even though the Africans ­were the servants in this case, for the tourism industry.”23 Although the introduction of alcohol clearly rendered some visitors more belligerent, it apparently tempered the be­hav­ior of ­others— reflective of the divergent effects that alcohol can have on consumers.

Entrepreneurial ­Women and Ogling Men: Striptease Per­for­mances on Sin Street One of the activities that tourists of all types enjoyed in LM was frequenting striptease venues, known locally as dancings, as well as a series of cabarets, which also featured this type of entertainment. Again, the Pinguim was the

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most famous site for t­ hese acts, but t­ here w ­ ere many competitors up and down Sin Street. ­Because ­these establishments strove to offer entertainment that would appeal to a wide variety of audience members, the stripteases often shared the eve­ning with more straightforward musical per­for­mances, which attracted patrons less inclined to spend the night exclusively watching w ­ omen shed most or all of their clothing. Remarkably, ­these venues so nimbly combined erotic dancing with more w ­ holesome programming that many tourists even brought their ­children to ­these nightly per­for­mances, sitting quietly across the room from, for example, packs of leering, howling seamen. Given the musical dimensions of ­these extended eve­ning sessions, local African musicians w ­ ere also employed by the array of cabarets and dancings, particularly during the “seasons,” the heightened periods of regional tourism to the colony. Artur Garrido Júnior was one of ­these musical performers. Born in LM in 1950, by the end of the 1960s, Garrido Júnior was already playing in a popu­lar pop m ­ usic band called the Bitniks (the phonetic spelling, in Portuguese, of “Beatniks”). Garrido Júnior experienced significant social ascension by entertaining locals and tourists alike, which would ultimately generate numerous travel opportunities for him, including a prolonged stay in Portugal. Recalling his days playing at “A Cave” (The Basement), a cabaret on Rua Araújo that featured a large basement entertainment area, during the seasons, Garrido Júnior explained: The cabaret, A Cave, had a very big, very beautiful basement. T ­ here ­were so many on Rua Araújo . . . ​­there was the Alta Roda, ­there was the Luso, the Pinguim, ­there was the Noite e Dia, the ­whole street was practically cabarets! During the season, the cabarets had a lot of striptease shows ­because they w ­ ere forbidden in South Africa. The South Africans came during the season. They went to the beaches during the day and at night they went to the cabarets to watch stripteases. The shows began at 8:00 p.m., but b­ ecause they lasted all night one h ­ ouse would start their per­for­mances at 8:00 p.m., and another ­house would start at 8:30 p.m., and another would start at 9:00 p.m., and so on. But the owner of A Cave, Isaias Duarte, knew that ­there ­were a lot of young guys from South Africa who also wanted to dance, so he hired the Bitniks. We w ­ ere also out of school during the season, so he would say to us, “­You’re on holidays, you can come and play in my club. But, you guys need to play pop m ­ usic.” So, we played pop ­music, Beatles, ­etc. It was always pumping. . . . ​So, all t­ hese young South African guys went to A Cave. In 1968, Duarte also hired a very famous group from South Africa called African Follies. They did Zulu dances and songs, led by Vickie Busi

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Mhlongo, and also hired a fabulous singer, Madi, who was an Indian boy from Cape Town. . . . ​­After some time, ­there came an invitation for the African Follies to go to Beira, to perform shows in cabarets ­there, and we went with them to Beira.24 Female performers, such as Busi Mhlongo, who entertained the wide range of audience members in ­these venues up and down Sin Street, derived from far and wide. Many of t­ hese w ­ omen, however, w ­ ere dancers or striptease artists, rather than musicians. South African w ­ omen ­were regular sights on the stages of Sin Street’s dancings, as w ­ ere Spaniards, though many other performers w ­ ere local, or at least regional. As South African tourist Jean Kissin conveyed to me, “The dancers ­were all African, all locals, and they ­were wonderful. All the Penguin Club locals w ­ ere wonderful, from the dancers to the waiters. . . . ​­There was never a hint of anything improper or inappropriate. They w ­ ere very, very nice.”25 Other female performers engaged tourists as “dance hostesses”—­essentially, escorts who would share time at t­ ables with male patrons and readily imbibe the alcohol that constituted a requisite part of this arrangement. Sometimes, ­these ­women would even or­ga­nize themselves into groups. For example, the famous Taxi Girls de LM ­were “desperately beautiful South Africans, strictly dressed in long dresses ­every eve­ning . . . ​who talked to their clients, entertained them, and drank a glass or two. Any man could buy a ‘ribbon’ of tickets . . . ​and for each ticket the ‘girl’ would dance with them for the duration of a song.”26 In the 1930s, Harry Manners noted that “many of t­ hese girls [dance hostesses] w ­ ere good-­ lookers, some with dark Latin looks, ­others with fairer hair and skin, perhaps hailing from across the border of my own country of birth [South Africa].”27 Naturally, not ­every tourist embraced this transactional arrangement, formal or other­wise. As South African tourist Nic Grobler explained, “You see, in t­ hose days in South Africa, ­there ­wasn’t anything like that. . . . ​I still remember sitting in one of ­these clubs and ­these ­women came around and we bought them champagne and ­things like that. Then, we found out what this champagne was costing us and we de­cided that we ­didn’t want them around, so we checked out and got out of ­there.”28 Similarly, Neill Drake, a South African newspaper journalist visiting LM in 1969 for a story on the city’s nightlife wrote in his corresponding piece that “on Sin Street, the bars are open almost 24 hours a day and the ­women you encounter in the vari­ous clubs appear to have an unlimited capacity to drink, especially if the drinks are expensive.”29 For ­others, the w ­ hole experience ended up being off-­putting for other reasons. As Jackie Edgar Holloway, a South African tourist, explained regarding a trip he made to Sin Street in the early 1970s, “When the girl fi­nally made an appearance a­ fter a long wait, it was deep into the night; we ­were dead by then. And, some of the guys had too

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much to drink, anyway. And she—­a mixed race dancer—­was not good looking at all. So, it was a huge disappointment to us. And, she ­didn’t strip all the way, anyway. So, we went back to the Polana and we just slept on the beach.”30 But many ­others chose to remain in t­ hese erotic entertainment venues. And they ­weren’t always young men. For example, married South African ­couple Jean and Ivor Kissin regularly frequented the Pinguim to take in ­these per­for­ mances, and it was Jean who insisted they continue patronizing the club, rather than her comparatively prudish husband. The fact that the ­couple stayed at the luxurious Polana ­Hotel during their stays in Lourenço Marques underscores the appeal that Sin Street had for tourists of all means. According to Jean Kissin: We used to go to the Penguin Night Club. In general, Ivor always used to like to be in the front rows for per­for­mances of all types. So, the first time we went, he said he wanted to sit in the front, so I thought, okay. And this lady comes and does a striptease and she’s ­doing it, taking her stockings off in front of Ivor, waving her stockings in front of him, and he is saying: “This is not pleasant.” And he is ­going, “Oh, God.” And I said, “You wanted to sit in front, you ­were the one who wanted to see the boobs and all the rest of it, and now look at it.” And he said, “This is terrible. We simply have to get out of ­here.” Anyhow, we used to go back, ­every night. . . . ​The second night we went ­there—we used to go for years, but I mean the second night we ever went—­Ivor said to the guy, “Please, we must sit at the back.” He would never sit in the front again. . . . ​It ­really was not a pleasant striptease, I can tell you. But I was laughing, I thought it was brilliant. The Penguin was the place to be. We went ­every night. To his shame, Ivor r­ eally hated the Penguin. But, I ­really loved it. To him, it was ugly. He said, “Flashing boobs are not necessary.” Of course, it was ugly, but it was delicious.31 Similarly, John Jones and his wife, originally from Rhodesia before moving to South Africa, began traveling as tourists to LM in 1961, initially for their honeymoon, but subsequently, “just for the night clubs.” According to Jones, “We used to go—it was always a long weekend in September—it was two, three nightclubs in four nights, that type of ­thing. . . . ​­There ­were naked ladies, which ­weren’t allowed in South Africa. We ­didn’t go just for that, but it was an incentive. That was part of the per­for­mance ­every eve­ning and they w ­ ere all Black Mozambican ­women who ­were stripping.”32 Underlining the balance of racy and more conservative per­for­mances over the course of an eve­ning, Moira Forjaz confirmed that her parents would even take her to the Pinguim when they visited LM from Rhodesia. “The club was not only for prostitutes, and t­here was a balcony for p­ eople to observe. My ­sister ­didn’t come, but I went with my

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parents. When I was ­there, ­there was not a full striptease, but t­here was erotic dancing, and prostitutes, and some very good singers, and talented musicians mixed up in all of that. It was not trashy; they ­were ­really talented ­people. Dancers and all that, but in ­those days in Rhodesia it was considered below the ­belt—­‘My God, shut your eyes,’ you know? ­There ­were other places that tourists would go, but the Penguin was the best one.”33 Indeed, an assortment of international musicians and members of Brazilian ballet companies and Flamenco dance troupes ­were among the many talented performers who passed through Sin Street displaying their considerable skills without shedding any clothing.

Fado Nights: Eu­rope in Africa One of the ways that Mozambique showcased its “Eu­rope in Africa” cultural dimensions for foreign tourists was through the promotion of fado, a centuries-­ old melancholic Portuguese musical form. Although fado enabled settlers to connect to the distant metropole, with Portuguese performers regularly touring the colonies, it also appealed to foreigners. Tourists appreciated its sonorous uniqueness as they gratifyingly consumed yet another aspect of what they perceived to be Latin culture, as well as the ­music’s seemingly tangible connection to a distant, exotic Eu­rope. The settings for t­ hese musical per­for­mances ­were fado ­houses, which tourists could visit in­de­pen­dently or as part of “LM-­by-­night” tours, four-­to five-­hour outings that, by the 1970s, w ­ ere reasonably popu­lar for guests. T ­ hese establishments adhered to the Lisbon variety of fado, which consists of a female singer accompanied by two male guitarists.34 Although local fado performers ­were primarily amateurs, con­temporary observers familiar with the genre indicated that they w ­ ere “of a high standard.”35 The most renowned of the fado h ­ ouses in LM ­were the Adega da Madragoa, the Clube dos Lisboetas, and the Restaurante Tipico O Fado, which even more so than the ­others catered to tourists, especially ­those deriving from South Africa. Underscoring the appreciation of fado that many foreigners had, Ivor and Jean Kissin conveyed the following experience to me during our interview, which occurred in LM ­after the outbreak of the war for in­de­pen­dence in the colony: We actually did a funny t­ hing. Amália Rodrigues, the famous fado singer, was performing for the army in LM. We d­ idn’t know this, of course, but we w ­ ere wandering around the streets one night . . . ​and, Ivor said, “Oh my God, Amália.” T ­ here was a poster. We tried to get in through the gate, but it was closed. And the guard told us “No, this is for the

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army. You ­can’t go in ­there.” So, Ivor said, “Oh, come on, Jean.” So, we climbed over the fence. Well, I was young! Once we ­were inside, the soldiers looked at us, but they must have thought that we w ­ ere VIPs, or something, ­because who could ­these two white ­people be h ­ ere in plain clothes, not in uniform? So, we went to the VIP box and saw Amália play. It was absolutely fantastic. Amália was amazing.36 Although the Kissins’ engagement with fado in LM was exceptional, simply by traveling to the capital city they joined countless other foreign tourists who sought to engage with an ­imagined Eu­rope, one that, however far removed, was somehow seemingly proximate. Entering a fado h ­ ouse transported ­these visitors to a distant place, while they remained ensconced in Latin culture, consuming the mournful m ­ usic that flowed from the dual guitars and the soaring vocals. Indeed, the genre centers the Portuguese concept of saudade, a word that captures the feelings of loss or longing. Somewhat ironically, ­these guests, who ­were generally unable to comprehend the Portuguese lyr­ ics, cheerfully consumed sounds and words that ­were, in fact, intended to prompt feelings of woe and absence.

In Pursuit of Sex in the City For many tourists to LM, sex was a primary objective for the journey. Sex was readily available for t­ hese visitors, via trips to formal brothels (invariably run by white madams), informal street encounters, or longer-­term transactional relationships with partners who could be considered paramours.37 The principal clients in ­these interactions ­were white South African men, for whom any type of interracial sexual interaction was strictly forbidden and eventually criminalized in their homeland. In fact, as historian Kathleen Sheldon contends, the heightening numbers of tourists helped to fuel the expansion of prostitution in LM. “An increase in tourism from South Africa and Rhodesia and the presence of sailors at the port of LM contributed to (Mozambican) ­women turning to prostitution in order to earn an income. Residents . . . ​confirmed that ­women came into the city with no legally marketable skills, learned to say a few words in Portuguese and ‘I love you’ in En­glish and began work as prostitutes.”38 Yet, not all the ­women with whom ­these visitors engaged w ­ ere Black. In fact, the majority of prostitutes in the established brothels ­were white, often South African, Spanish, or French, though never Portuguese or white Mozambican. As local resident Fernando Sitoi remarked while explaining the prostitution landscape in the city during the colonial period to me, “Black is Black, but the white

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­ omen ­were valorized. . . . ​The Black prostitutes ­were also valorized, but not as w much. The white prostitutes w ­ ere first class . . . ​their nails done; the difference 39 was enormous.” So, any characterization of the battery in ­these sexual encounters consisting exclusively of white men and Black ­women would be inaccurate. Regardless, for the white male tourist, the “forbidden fruit”—­the Black ­woman—­had an undeniably power­ful appeal. Allen Isaacman, an American who first visited LM in the late 1960s, recalled, “­There was a big red-­light district. And ­there ­were large numbers of South African men and sailors who w ­ ere procuring African w ­ omen. The men came to ‘sleep Black’ and they w ­ ere very open about it. You also saw a lot of Black w ­ omen on the street corners in that pe40 riod.” Largely illiterate, possessing few marketable skills, and barred from employment in many formal sectors, including the tourism industry, many Black ­women turned to prostitution in LM and other urban centers in the colony. Although Rua Araújo was not the only location in the city where transactional sex was on offer, it was the epicenter for this form of commerce, with ­houses of prostitution sprinkled throughout the district, welcoming tourists, soldiers, sailors, or whomever. To be sure, t­here was an area in LM in which sexual ser­vices could be secured for less money, namely, Matlhotlhomane (now Mafalala). According to local resident Artur Garrido Júnior, “Some tourists also went to Matlhotlhomane to avoid the higher prices around Araújo. Some wanted to occupy two prostitutes for the price that one would cost on Rua Araújo, even though tourists w ­ ere still charged more [than ­were locals] at Matlhotlhomane . . . ​You could even pay to sleep t­here, to stay overnight.”41 But, Matlhotlhomane and other locations, such as Lagoas, w ­ ere primarily places in which local men and ­women bought and sold sexual ser­vices. For tourists, Sin Street remained the predominant site for such transactions. Consequently, the thoroughfare was also referred to by locals as “the street of the brothels.”42 The Pinguim played a central role in the history of transactional sex in LM, just as it did for other forms of entertainment. At once a nightclub, a cabaret, and a brothel, the Pinguim was an establishment that could satisfy patrons seeking a variety of delectations. The Pinguim also featured both white and Black prostitutes, which was not always the case at other establishments, such as at the Tamila, a brothel that featured a preponderance of Spanish w ­ omen who w ­ ere formally contracted to travel to the colony to engage in this line of work. Regardless of the venue, female prostitutes would dance while male clients consumed varying amounts of alcohol, invariably served by Black Mozambicans, before offering further ser­vices to ­these men as the eve­ning progressed. ­These sexual provisions would then be rendered on site or at a nearby h ­ otel. The paying clientele was almost exclusively white, though Fernando Sitoi, a Black Mozambican who worked as a bartender in the Portuguese Air Force’s head-

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quarters in LM, offered testimony related to the early 1970s that, although certainly unusual, indicates that exceptions to the color barrier at ­these establishments ­were pos­si­ble: ­ here used to be some Air Force officials who liked me and they told me, T “Tomorrow you should come to work well-­dressed so we can go to Tamila.” So, we went and they presented me to the owner of Tamila as the ambassador for Malawi, so that the prostitutes would come and dance for me. At that time, Portugal and Malawi had a good relationship, so the owner agreed and told the prostitutes to dance for me. We stayed ­there u ­ ntil 5:00 a.m. Most of the prostitutes w ­ ere Spanish, though t­ here ­were some Black ladies . . . ​I never went ­there again, though, ­because they would have discovered that I ­wasn’t actually an ambassador . . . ​I was the only Black man ­there, except the Black men serving the drinks.43 Another scenario in which foreign visitors to LM could procure sexual ser­ vices entailed Black w ­ omen serving as mistresses or paramours, engaged in long-­term (or at least longer-­term) relationships with their periodic partners. In some cases, visiting South African clients would arrive in the city to “stay in the ­house of a prostitute who would cook, clean, and generally provide accommodation during his stay.”44 Beyond the allure of “sleeping Black” for t­hese South African men, this type of personal attention and care was also appealing. In other cases, Chinese, rather than South African, men sought the ser­vices of Black prostitutes, with the engagement similarly taking place in private homes.45 Another type of sexual encounter including tourists consisted of young Portuguese settlers trying to woo visiting South African w ­ omen, known locally as bifas. The term is the feminized plural form of the Portuguese word for “steak,” but, of course, it also sounds like the En­glish word “beef.” Naturally, not all South African men appreciated t­hese advances on their fellow countrywomen, overtures that w ­ ere ultimately intended to lead to more intimate engagements. For example, a South African mineworker on holiday in the city in 1958 reportedly “bitterly resented the sight of young Portuguese—­some of them very dark—­dancing with South African girls.”46 This type of disapproval notwithstanding, as early as the 1920s, t­ hese groups of young domestic men and young foreign w ­ omen ­were amorously interacting in the city. An observation made by the hunter Harry Manners from the 1930s confirms ­these carnal connections: The arrival of a German passenger ship, loaded with tourists from South African ports farther south, gave a good reason for further carousing, as local residents invaded the ship and sampled the real German brew, served in tankards to the sound of German ­music from the ship’s

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orchestra. As the beer flowed, the ­music blared and c­ ouples danced or reeled in an increasing drunken stupor to the beat of the drums and the fanfare of trombones and saxophones. Among the “invaders” ­were a goodly percentage of the local Don Juans, on the lookout for easy conquests with the more-­than-­willing female passengers. The fact that most of the Portuguese conquistadores spoke very ­little En­glish made no dif­ fer­ent to the thoughts uppermost in their minds regarding the final issue. Amor spoke all languages, said one, with a sly wink. The glance and the clinch—it was garantido (guaranteed), from both sides.47 Although settlers’ sons typically enjoyed the liberty to pursue the newly arriving bifas, ­daughters remained ­under their conservative parents’ close watch, unable to interact in any amatory fashion with young South African men. One local observer confirmed that “Portuguese girls w ­ ere usually too closely chaperoned to get similar attention from visiting males.”48 Quite simply, even though society in Mozambique was much more liberal than it was in the metropole, ­these local w ­ omen did not possess the social freedoms that their male counter­parts did, which rendered them beholden to cultural traditions. According one observer, “On the beaches and in the cafés of LM, ­there w ­ ere ‘bifas’ who would leave the locals with their mouths wide open, but the local girls remained stuck in the old ways of their Portuguese parents.”49 One of ­these seemingly resentful “local girls” allegedly remarked that “they [local boys] learn En­glish much faster than we do, ­because they pick it up flirting with South African girls ­here on holiday.”50 In addition to sexual engagements with young Portuguese settlers, ­these female tourists also sought similar encounters with Black Mozambicans, if less frequently. Consequently, it was not only white men who came to the colony to sample the “forbidden fruit.” As Arturo Garrido Júnior, a Black Mozambican who grew up in Lourenço Marques in the 1960s and 1970s, commented regarding the arrival of the bifas and the resulting interracial interactions: The camping area would get full, including with bifas. . . . ​It was a tender name given to them. We would be like, “Look at the bifas, look at the bifas, the bifas,” and ­there was a lot of interaction between the youth, which was very in­ter­est­ing. The South Africans, at least the ones I dealt with, ­were intriguing. They would be apartheid a­ depts on the other side of the wire [border], but when they came ­here, they left that ­behind. . . . ​ For them, it was now in God’s hands, so please help us God!51 He continued, remarking on ­these female tourists’ tendency to behave in a way that was off-­putting to the more conservative ele­ments in the city, while

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also confirming that sexual relations ­were certainly pos­si­ble between local Black Mozambicans and ­these visiting ­women. You see, in that time it was a cosmopolitan city, you could see . . . ​the girls, bifas, who took their cars to drive into the city to go to Scala or to Continental to have a coffee in a bikini—­nothing more than that on! Just sitting down with bikinis and talking. . . . ​Wow, it was something. It was a crazy ­thing, the “season” . . . ​and it was pos­si­ble for us to go back with them somewhere [for sex] at night. They ­were interested in us and we in them. It was no prob­lem! No prob­lem.52 Like most any city, Lourenço Marques by day was a reasonably dif­fer­ent place than it was at night, especially in and around the notorious Rua Araújo. Yet, Sin Street also hosted and encouraged a range of exceptional activity each eve­ning. Although the sector featured racial and gender dynamics ­shaped by colonial conventions and structures, the dizzying variety of overtly permissible, even if illegal, h ­ uman interactions that featured in the area regularly contravened them. For example, empowered Black w ­ omen performed as musicians and dancers for men, ­women, and even ­children each night in Sin Street venues, local Black men slept with visiting white ­women, and both Black and white ­women shed their clothes at stripteases or engaged in transactional sex with a racially diverse array of clients. T ­ hese and other exotic and remunerative possibilities rendered Rua Araújo powerfully magnetic for local residents—­ Black and white—as well as for regional and overseas tourists, even if the Sin Street experience meant something very dif­fer­ent to the vari­ous members of ­these participating parties. Moreover, the wide range of interracial dynamics that highlighted the porosity of socioracial bound­aries on Sin Street remind us that colonial settings in Africa did not always operate according to official policy, even when ­those individuals who established the rules and regulations ­were pre­sent. For all the alluring “sins” that could be committed each eve­ning in the sector, the area also attracted plenty of visitors who w ­ ere not interested in the array of vices on offer. For ­these tourists and ­others, Sin Street amounted to ­little more than an amusing diversion, as they proceeded on their way to engage in a range of alternative recreational activities. One of ­these endeavors was hunting in the colony’s renowned game reserves. ­These sporting destinations attracted numerous guests, all of whom ­were of ample means, and many of whom never spent any time or money in the colonial capital. It is to ­these hunting settings that we turn in the ensuing chapter.

C h a p te r   4

The Lure of the Game International Hunters and African Guides

Mozambique is a land of tourism for millionaires. This remark can be justified if we consider the specialized organ­izations that make hunting the major sport of the province. Hunting is a ­g reat adventure. Man has to overcome the wild beast in a contest of cunning, speed, dexterity, and bravery. Hunting is a big sport in Mozambique . . . ​and it is for an elite who can properly appreciate it. —­Moçambique: Anuário turístico (Mozambique: Tourist yearbook), 1967. In tracking wounded animals, Johannes was superb. On many occasions, in the case of a wounded lion or buffalo, just at the last moment he would spot the movement of the lion’s tail or the flick of a buffalo’s ear. He would nudge or touch me and motion with his head in the direction to warn me in time. On two occasions, he saved me from being bitten by poisonous snakes, once by throwing his ax with deadly accuracy, and another by stepping between me and the snake. —­Werner von Alvensleben, recalling Johannes, his most trusted and essential African employee at the Safarilandia hunting concession, 1997.

In the de­cades that followed the formal colonization of Mozambique, local officials strove to identify sources of revenue to augment the territory’s finances. They quickly determined that hunting tourism would constitute a substantial contributor. In order to make the kind of economic impact t­hese authorities envisioned, wealthy overseas clientele would need to be courted. But even before attempting to entice t­ hese moneyed foreigners to travel to Mozambique to hunt its plentiful game, officials needed to construct an industry virtually from scratch. As part of this extensive pro­cess, colonial authorities instituted regulations that dictated who could 92

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be issued a hunting license, how many animals could be felled, and where this activity could legally occur. As Marcos Coelho has compellingly argued regarding ­these developments, “All of the resources that the colonialists had, including the protection of fauna, the enforcement of laws, and the symbolic creation of racial superiority, ­were utilized.”1 Another key component of this broader pro­cess was the transformation of the array of white game hunters active in the colony into professional safari leaders, many of whom would subsequently go on to achieve international acclaim for their hunting prowess. Indeed, t­ hese individuals have been characterized as “heroic, glamorous, and adventurous figures, known at the time as ‘Princes of the Jungle.’ ”2 Conversely, the colonial government banned Africans from hunting, even for personal or familial sustenance, though Indigenous laborers, such as Johannes, remained vital to the commercial industry for the very reasons outlined above by Werner von Alvensleben. Beyond serving as trusted trackers, guides, and gunbearers, they also worked as cooks, cleaners, and porters to assist the growing numbers of foreigners arriving to hunt Mozambique’s celebrated game. As with Africans employed in the tourist sector in urban settings in the colony, ­these laborers also enjoyed a sense of financial security and derived considerable pride from their contributions to the burgeoning commercial hunting industry. Owing to the potent combination of copious wildlife and highly competent hunting safari staff—­Black and white—­over time, the colony began to attract a well-­heeled clientele. In international hunting circles, colonial Mozambique earned the moniker cited in the epigraph: “The land of millionaires,” owing to ­these wealthy clients and the luxurious experiences t­hese guests could expect. The success of the industry also further confirmed the importance and centrality of hunting in Portugal’s colonial proj­ect, which aimed to subjugate ­human and natu­ral resources in the empire. As Isabel Gould has contended, “The animal hunting expedition was at the heart of Portugal’s colonial imagination. In the African territories, the slaughter of game animals by military officers, colonists, travelers, sportsmen, and tourists pointed t­oward the symbolic and real dominance of the natu­ral environment.”3 In this chapter, I explore the inception and steady development of commercial hunting safaris in the colony. What began as a largely un­regu­la­ted endeavor was transformed over time into a tightly controlled industry that featured seasoned, highly professional outfitters and a proactive colonial government ­eager to protect and expand this revenue stream. The state also increasingly eyed the sector as a propaganda tool. By deliberately inviting eminent politicians, celebrities, and other influential sorts from abroad to hunt the colony’s renowned game, and by ensuring that they had truly sublime experiences while on safari,

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the state was counting on ­these visitors to return home and exclaim the won­ ders of Mozambique and, by extension, the Portuguese colonial proj­ect. As part of this propagandistic strategy, safari operators, with the active support of the Portuguese state, aggressively courted big-­game hunters in the United States and in Eu­rope’s most preeminent countries. As Lisbon grew increasingly anxious owing to the waves of decolonization that crashed across the continent in the 1960s, t­hese international connections grew increasingly impor­tant, with tourism again powerfully mixing with politics in Mozambique. In some ways, African employees in the hunting tourism industry in the colony played an unwitting role in this calculated pro­cess by providing stellar ser­vice to the white safari leaders, who ­were their immediate employers, as well as to the array of foreign guests. Naturally, ­these trusted employees forged close relationships with the white professional hunters that they often accompanied for long stretches in the bush and, as von Alvensleben indicated, even saved their lives on more than one occasion. T ­ hese laborers’ relentless professionalism and deference prompted many hunter tourists to mistakenly perceive the Portuguese colonial proj­ect as a benevolent, efficacious enterprise. Irrespective of t­ hese narrowly derived perceptions, as the colonial period concluded and white safari operators hastily began departing, uncertain of their fate in an in­de­pen­dent Mozambique, many of ­these trusted, talented, and experienced African employees replaced their former bosses in the assortment of concessionary hunting companies.

The Initial De­cades of Hunting Tourism: From Its Inception ­until World War II Hunting tourism in Mozambique began almost immediately, if extremely modestly, following the establishment of Portuguese colonial overrule. A ­ fter defeating the power­ful Gaza empire in the southern portion of Mozambique in 1895, a de­cade ­after the Berlin Conference had concluded, the Portuguese ­were welcoming foreign hunters to the colony to generate revenue.4 For example, in the 1899 list of authorized arms carriers for the District of Gaza, in southern Mozambique, thirty-­one weapons licenses had been granted for venatory purposes, including “two for Austrians, three for South Africans, ten for Britons, one for a Greek, seven for Portuguese, two for Italians, one for an Indo-­Portuguese, and one for an Indo-­British.”5 Although ­these numbers ­were relatively small, even at this early date hunting in the colony had an international profile. ­Until 1903, when the colonial government enacted strict regulations, Eu­ro­pe­ ans and Africans engaged collaboratively in hunting endeavors in Mozambique.

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The former relied on the latter for their tracking expertise, while Africans lacked the firepower that Eu­ro­pean hunters possessed. Angela Thompsell indicates that ­these early–­colonial power dynamics prevailed in British Africa, as well. “With the spread of colonial control, the ability of African p­ eople to exert direct control over British hunting expeditions declined precipitously, but sportsmen and the newly emergent sportswomen still needed help locating and tracking game, finding ­water and navigating the land, all of which opened the door for Africans p­ eople from the weakest to the most power­ful to appropriate British hunting to their own needs and desires.”6 The Portuguese colonial state even formally, if only briefly, sanctioned this type of symbiotic relationship, granting exemptions for Indigenous residents from the forced ­labor regulations it had enacted in 1899 if they w ­ ere actively engaged in “hunting elephants, rhinoceroses, or ostriches.”7 But the aforementioned 1903 legislation ended any semblance of Africans and Eu­ro­pe­ans working together as equals, though, in practice, they never ­really had been. The fledging hunting tourism industry would now feature Portuguese and other Eu­ro­pean sportsmen as the protagonists, with Africans serving in subordinate roles.8 As was the case elsewhere on the continent, the colonial state also criminalized African hunting, newly rendering all Indigenous venatory activity “poaching.” This mea­sure was justified by spuriously claiming that Africans had overhunted certain animals and, in general, hunted in a “cowardly, allegedly unmasculine” manner, such as by using poison arrows to kill game. In real­ity, the under­lying impetus for t­ hese prohibitive mea­sures was the need to deny Africans the livelihoods and nourishment that sustained them. In turn, Indigenous residents ­were pushed into wage ­labor to meet newly imposed colonial tax requirements and, thus, forced to participate in an economy that for them, was structurally unfavorable. Certain antipoaching mea­sures also applied to whites, primarily Portuguese settlers and Afrikaners who clandestinely crossed into Mozambique. But the newly instituted legislation clearly targeted Indigenous hunters and severely increased penalties on them, even for ­those Africans who felled wildlife solely for caloric sustenance or to stop large game from destroying agricultural plots. Although ­these mea­sures never completely s­topped Africans from hunting, the antipoaching mea­sures implemented in colonial Mozambique and elsewhere on the continent did effectively generate capable, experienced, knowledgeable pools of Indigenous ­labor into which hunting safari operators zealously and abundantly dipped. Many Africans strategically seized t­ hese opportunities, unable to avoid incorporation into the colonial economy. As outlined ­earlier, capable, reliable employees could gain the close trust of their employers and, thereby, ascend

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professionally within safari operations. They also enjoyed the meat from felled game and could request otherwise unwanted items, such as hides. Angela Thompsell has indicated that African “gun-­bearers and trackers could also receive small gifts, such as tobacco, and larger gifts or bonuses at the conclusion of a hunt, while their wages, although typically modest, ­were often superior to ­those on offer elsewhere, especially in rural areas of the colony.”9 And employment with a safari operator was undoubtedly preferable to forced ­labor, which snared so many rural Mozambicans. Fi­nally, the acquisition and accumulations of goods and currency that ­these jobs facilitated for African employees had, as Thompsell has argued, the capacity to “disrupt the authority of se­nior hunters, chiefs and elders and severely limit their control over younger men’s access to the hunt and its resources . . . ​necessarily subverting critical social categories” and, thereby, granting the African employees a degree of autonomy and power in their home communities.10 ­Whether formally employed by the fledging hunting tourism industry or hired on an ad hoc basis, ­these Africans ­were indispensable to this emerging sector. Local guidebooks advised hunters arriving from outside Mozambique of the importance of African guides and trackers and also where to locate them. For example, a publication from the early 1930s counseled visiting hunters that “in the Zambezi region, it is pos­si­ble to secure good guides and excellent trackers, who speak Portuguese,” while in Inhambane, “it is easy to obtain good indigenous guides and trackers.”11 The booklet further advised that “it is better to camp near a local village ­because it w ­ ill be easier for the hunter to obtain guides from the region who w ­ ill point out the most preferred points for hunting and indigenous p­ eople to transport w ­ ater and other materials. . . . ​ It is very dangerous for the amateur hunter to leave camp without such helpers . . . ​­because a good tracker knows how to accurately indicate w ­ hether a trail is recent, from the day before, or older, and if the animal was ­running or walking slowly, ­etc.”12 In addition to tracking animals, Africans also carried additional ­rifles and ammunition, as well as other provisions, and, eventually, skillfully butchered any slain animals and transported the meat back to camp. Even the colonial state comprehended the essentialness of t­ hese African laborers. For example, the Provincial Hunting Regulations of 1932 declared that: “It is incumbent on the Hunting Commission to study how to attract . . . ​tourists to hunt in the colony, and may, for this purpose, propose the creation of a special body of indigenous guides.”13 In spite of this clear appreciation of the vital contributions that African guides and hunters w ­ ere making to the growing hunting tourism industry, the racial hierarchy that dictated colonial dynamics ineluctably rendered them subordinates. Colonial officials justified this diminishment by increasingly viewing

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Africans as part of the landscape, associated with the very wildlife they ­were charged with tracking. This conviction rendered African h ­ uman and animal interchangeable “beasts,” both destined to be dominated by Eu­ro­pe­ans.14 For example, in a volume from 1945 that considered hunting in the Portuguese empire, the authors explained that even though some African trackers w ­ ere fantastic, “far superior to the best dog,” they w ­ ere also si­mul­ta­neously, condescendingly linking ­these “lesser” ­humans with utilitarian animals.15 Moreover, the authors contended that despite ­these trackers’ skills, “They are unreliable, and as good as they are, they are sometimes mistaken and in ­those moments, in fact, they intend to elude the Eu­ro­pean hunter.”16 Racist sentiments such as ­these relegated even the most skilled African guides to an inferior position in their interactions with the majority of, though certainly not all, white safari operators and their paying clients. As Marcos Coelho has argued regarding Africans’ alleged shortcomings, “They w ­ ere, therefore, symbolically demoted to the condition of an animal so that Eu­ro­pe­ans could feel at ease to dispose of their specialist work; a­ fter all, the Eu­ro­pean possessed the superior ability to dominate animals.”17 As vital to commercial venatory activities as ­these African laborers w ­ ere, most w ­ ere consistently reminded of their subordinate role in the industry and, more broadly, in the colony.

A “Hunter’s Paradise”: The Promotion of Hunting Tourism in Mozambique With a subjugated African workforce in place, concessionary operators ably managing designated hunting areas (coutadas), and an ample supply of professionalized white hunters ready to lead safaris, the only entities missing in sizable quantities ­were foreign sportsmen and -­women. Initially, English-­and Portuguese-­language newspapers based in the colony trumpeted the experiences on offer for regional hunter tourists willing to travel to Mozambique, while the governments in Lisbon and LM used their informational apparatuses to amplify t­ hese promotional efforts further abroad. For example, the national press agency of Mozambique reprinted an article that had appeared in the bilingual (En­glish and Portuguese) Lourenço Marques Guardian in 1911, imploring foreign hunters to make their way to the Maputo region, in the southern stretches of the colony: “Maputo provides hunters and naturalists with a good field of study and, where pos­si­ble, exploration. Armed with a camera and shotgun, the dashing hunter has superb opportunities h ­ ere, the equivalent of which he w ­ ill not find easily, if he can find them at all. . . . ​The largest herd of elephants in the south of the Zambezi wanders h ­ ere. . . . ​The herd is believed

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to have between 300 and 600 animals and this number is increasing rapidly, as elephants are much feared by indigenous p­ eople, who do not dare hunt them.”18 Another example comes from the Companhia de Moçambique, a concessionary enterprise that controlled an expansive area in the central region of the colony, which prepared a monograph for the Ibero-­American Exposition of 1929, held in Seville. The promotional text promoted hunting in its territory to foreigners with the objective of realizing the touristic potential of the area and, by extension, of the colony.19 Into the 1930s, the regimes in Lisbon and Lourenço Marques continued to promote hunting tourism in Mozambique, as well as in Portugal’s other major African territory, Angola. For example, in 1937, the state commissioned a travel guide entitled Tourism in Portuguese Africa, which it unveiled at the International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life held in Paris that same year, while the following year, Mozambique’s Statistics Department produced a guide entitled Game Hunting in Mozambique. In addition to a number of additional English-­language publications, o ­ thers ­were generated in French, underscoring the foreign target audiences of ­these promotional campaigns. As Isabel Gould has contended regarding ­these comprehensive, alluring materials, “Textual and pictorial depictions of hunting ­were intended to proj­ect sublime images of Portugal’s African empire as a hunter’s paradise. . . . ​The publications for French-­and English-­speaking audiences included art-­nouveau wood-­cut-­style illustrations of animals[,] . . . ​information on animal species commonly found in colonized territories, maps of game districts, useful hunting advice, as well as regulations on game, taxes, and the importation and use of firearms.”20 Naturally, the promotion of hunting tourism waned during World War II and in its aftermath, though as one observer noted, the prospects for hunting in the colony remained highly propitious. “Hunting in Mozambique in 1945 was on par with East Africa in 1905. For the serious hunter, the door was wide open.”21 This interruption notwithstanding, the prewar promotional efforts continued to pay dividends. In 1952, for example, Carlos Antero, in an article entitled “Moçambique: Paraíso de caça” (Mozambique: Hunting paradise) that appeared in a Portuguese tourism journal, contended that “Mozambique’s fame as a hunting region has been established for a long time, mainly by foreigners who have performed won­ders regarding the venatory wealth of the province, which in addition to its exceptional abundance and variety, offers to the true big-­game hunter all the thrills his heart may long for, and without a doubt is capable of satisfying even the most exacting. It is principally for this reason that foreigners have published a sizeable number of works on hunting in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique).”22 The US Consul’s annual economic

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report from 1953 echoed Antero’s declaration, while also providing insight into the colonial regime’s targeted appeals to American hunters: “Experienced sportsmen consider Mozambique better than ­either ­Kenya or Tanganyika [Tanzania] to the north of this province. . . . ​The [State] Tourist Bureau plans to film several shorts on big game hunting for f­ ree distribution to sports clubs throughout Amer­i­ca.”23 By the 1950s the promotional campaign had resumed, and with g­ reat effect. Although foreign sportsmen had traveled to Mozambique prior to the war, ­until the end of the 1950s, most of the shooting of big game in the colony was done by local, almost exclusively white, hunters, referred to as “meat hunters,” to supply food to concessionary companies that featured large African workforces.24 Other local white hunters earned their livelihood by hunting for ivory ­until the state ­stopped issuing permits in 1953, making Mozambique the last place in Africa to ban this practice. Regardless, by the ­middle of the 1950s, the rush to attract tourist hunters and the foreign exchange they would generate was fully in swing. In par­tic­u­lar, the promoters of this brand of tourism in Mozambique newly identified American clients, given their re­spect for the sport and, more importantly, their deep pockets, as the ideal clientele. In order to attract ­these sportsmen, Adelino Serras Pires, an employee at Turismo, a Beira-­based outfitter, traveled to the United States for a month in winter 1959 to “begin serious promotion of my country as a hunting-­safari destination.”25 In Amer­i­ca, Pires and his companions, two professional hunters from Mozambique, confirmed that their main competition was the British colony of K ­ enya. According to Pires, “­Kenya had had a head start of over half a c­ entury in attracting sportsmen and I found that many Americans of the time ­were somewhat reluctant to go to places where En­glish was not spoken.”26 Although this trip failed to attract large numbers of American clients, it set the stage for ­future recruiting trips to the United States, which would prove to be significantly more fruitful. If the surge of American tourist hunters would have to wait u ­ ntil the 1960s, the Eu­ro­pean market was, in the meantime, abundantly fertile. Given Eu­ro­pe­ ans’ proximity to linguistically divergent nations on the continent, ­these hunters ­were much more comfortable traveling to places in which their native tongue was not spoken. Moreover, the fact that they ­were visiting an imperial territory overruled by fellow Eu­ro­pe­ans further eroded any apprehensions they may have harbored. For example, as Pires traveled back to Mozambique following his time in the United States, he ­stopped in Spain and linked up with Max Borrell, the long-­standing hunting and fishing companion of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Subsequently, Pires hosted Borrell and an illustrious Spanish hunter named Enrique Mayer on a thirty-­day safari in Mozambique, and ­later explained

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the far-­reaching impact of this visit. “Max and Enrique returned to Spain, where Max became my agent to promote hunting safaris in Mozambique. The floodgates opened overnight, and my long, special relationship with Spain began. I picked up Spanish very quickly, indeed, and was soon hosting distinguished clients. The word spread like a rogue bush fire in this word-­of-­mouth business, and soon I was receiving requests for information from many other countries. Mozambique was becoming an increasingly popu­lar destination for the foreign sport hunter.”27 By the 1960s and into the early 1970s, Mozambique’s international reputation as a foremost setting for big-­game hunting was cemented. Eu­ro­pe­ans and other tourist hunters continued to arrive, primarily from the global north, with the state maintaining a watchful eye on this clientele as it attempted to maintain support for its durable, if increasingly embattled, colonial proj­ect. Adelino Pires, who personally interacted with ­these clients, acknowledged the po­liti­ cal dimensions of the scenario, even if his primary concern remained the hunt itself: The Eu­ro­pean market was becoming increasingly impor­tant for my business and the Portuguese authorities started taking note. ­People of often enormous po­liti­cal and social clout elsewhere in the world came to Mozambique to hunt with me. I never attached undue importance to this. It was the client who counted, and his or her ability to re­spect Africa’s fauna and flora, to shoot straight and to appreciate just what a privilege it was to be in a wildlife paradise like Mozambique in the 1960s. Lisbon viewed this differently as, understandably, such contacts could be cultivated to support Portugal in the international po­liti­cal arena. . . . ​ Countries cultivate access through ­people who already have it.28 In practice, not e­ very one of t­hese foreign powerbrokers emanated from beyond Africa’s borders or was white. In 1969, for example, the prince of the Royal House of Swaziland (Eswatini) arrived in Mozambique to participate in a hunting safari with only one objective: a leopard fit for a king-­in-­waiting.29 Having gained its in­de­pen­dence from the British the previous year, Swaziland was now a sovereign nation and, thus, of par­tic­u­lar interest to Lisbon, which was courting potential allies on a range of continents, and especially t­ hose adjacent to one of its colonial possessions. As such, Portuguese officials w ­ ere intimately involved in the Swazi prince’s visit to Mozambique. ­Going forward, the Portuguese regime openly confirmed its po­liti­cal ambitions via this form of tourism at a congress in Angola in 1972 regarding wildlife in the overseas empire. In the resulting conference document, the vari­ous participants concluded that hunter tourists generated valuable “propaganda upon

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return to their home countries regarding the economic, social, and po­liti­cal situation of the state where the safaris take place. T ­ here ­were, therefore, many positive aspects, both direct and indirect, to be drawn from investment in [hunting] tourism.”30 Although Eu­ro­pean and African hunter tourists both constituted key, potential po­liti­cal allies, financially the American sportsman remained the primary target. An assessment from the early 1970s suggested that safari prices had increased almost sevenfold since the 1960s, pricing out virtually all South Africans and Rhodesians, while the only currencies listed in Mozambican promotional materials at that time w ­ ere dollars and escudos (the Portuguese tender), underscoring the primacy of the American client.31 But even as American hunting touristic traffic had increased since the 1950s, a 1963 assessment of the situation suggested that more needed to be done, including additional governmental engagement. “The American tourist potential is enormous, provided the conditions offered . . . ​suit their standards of comfort and cleanliness, such that properly or­ga­nized and controlled tourist safari hunting can bring considerable foreign exchange revenue to the country. T ­ here has been a certain amount done privately in the past, but nothing on any proper scale with full Governmental approval and support.”32 Subsequently, the Portuguese and Mozambican governments played more discreet roles in generating American touristic interest in the colony, bankrolling promotional output in the United States, but leaving the more direct recruitment to the hunters themselves, who operated from an interior position within global sporting circles and networks.33 For example, a 1965 Safari Outfitters Inc. newsletter, a Chicago-­based publication widely read by American hunters, boasted to this potential clientele that: “Mozambique is again leading as one of the best territories for a good general bag. Normally, a party of two sportsmen with one PWH [professional white hunter] could reasonably expect to bag about 20 dif­fer­ent va­ri­e­ties of game each, and a total of about fifty heads during a 30-­day safari. . . . ​Also, the quality of trophies is very good; many record-­class antelope heads have been taken, as well as many magnificent lions and, as usual, a ­g reat number of leopards.”34 Although this type of laudatory material was undoubtedly efficacious, the best form of recruitment consisted of personal encounters between professional hunters from Mozambique and American sportsmen, who could shake hands and instantly feel connected. For example, ­after having moved in 1969 from Turismo to Safrique, a much larger operator, Adelino Pires continued his promotional efforts in the United States, benefiting greatly from a friendship he rapidly forged with Bert Klineburger, who ran a safari-­booking agency and taxidermy business in Seattle. With Klineburger’s assistance, high-­profile

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American tourist hunters began to arrive in Mozambique, including Jimmy Doolittle, famous for his bombing raid over Tokyo during World War II, and a stream of astronauts, including James Lovell and Stuart Roosa. Pires met the latter guests in Lisbon, “amid much official protocol-­laden pomp,” as part of an attempt by the Portuguese government to generate as much po­liti­cal capital as pos­si­ble, before the group proceeded on to Mozambique.35 The favorable publicity that t­ hese high-­profile touristic visits w ­ ere generating was not lost on the nationalist Frelimo guerrillas, who eventually attacked hunters on one of Safrique’s concessions in Central Mozambique, confirming the southward pro­g ress ­these nationalist fighters w ­ ere making in the colony. Initially, Frelimo forces simply destroyed uninhabited camps or demanded supplies from camp staff before letting them go. In July 1972, though, this guerrilla activity took an alarming turn for colonial and metropolitan officials. In this case, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, France’s minister of finance and, ­later, president of the country, was due to arrive in Mozambique for a hunting safari. Previously, Frelimo leaders and, in par­tic­u­lar, Cara Alegre, a guerrilla commander who was well respected by both sides in the conflict, had simply been warning safari operators to cease operations in the area, rather than attacking them. But Frelimo was now abandoning that courtesy. According to José Tello, a white professional hunter active in the region, “Frelimo was perhaps the last gentleman guerilla army in Africa. They ­were not attacking civilians or bystanders. I remember in our Safrique hunting camps, Frelimo soldiers left letters two or three times saying ‘Please ­don’t come h ­ ere, ­don’t hunt anymore, ­because we d­ on’t want to hurt you.’ But, ­after a few times, they s­ topped [generating the warning notices] ­because [hunting] tourists w ­ ere ­going back to Spain and saying, ‘Aw, ­there’s no prob­lem ­there.’ ”36 Now colonial officials and safari operators faced the dual challenge of continuing to attract influential clientele, while also ensuring their safety in order to preclude any international uncertainty regarding security in the colony and, thereby, to protect this lucrative industry. Eventually, this balancing act proved unsustainable. On the morning of July 1, 1973, as foreign hunting clients arrived at an airstrip in the bush, at Nhamacala, some 125 miles north of Beira, Frelimo guerrillas attacked. Before the insurgents vanished into the tall grass, one client had been killed and two o ­ thers wounded. The fatality was none other than Dr. Angel Garazaibal, an eminent Spanish surgeon and personal physician to Francisco Franco, while the injuries ­were sustained by Enrique Macpherson Osborne, scion of the Osborne sherry empire, and his wife, Macha.37 According to José Tello, “­After three or four [cease and desist] letters, they attacked. . . . ​The day they shot the doctor of Franco, they had previously advised, ‘Please ­either stop or ­there

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­ ill be trou­ble.’ Frelimo was kind of a gentleman, and I respected some of w them.”38 Colonial officials ­were naturally unable to cover up this high-­profile development, and word quickly spread to Eu­rope and elsewhere. In turn, Safrique reduced its hunting tourism operations to just two zones, both of which ­were far removed from the conflict areas. The Banco Nacional Ultramarino, which oversaw Safrique, eventually de­cided to shut down the entire operation, but Adelino Pires remained defiant, successfully refusing to cancel a single safari through the end of the 1973 season. The seemingly undaunted foreign hunters who arrived to participate in ­these safaris ­were, however, newly and unknowingly accompanied by African commandos from the Portuguese military, masquerading as safari staff.39 Pires’s determination notwithstanding, by 1974, Safrique had completely suspended its hunting tourism enterprise. Instead, it began diverting clients to Safarilandia’s concession, further south, which although at over 18,000 square miles covered an area larger than the country of Switzerland, remained safely removed from the fighting.

The Foreign Tourist Hunter: Profiles, Challenges, and Experiences The entire commercial safari industry in Mozambique hinged on wealthy foreigners courageous enough to travel to a land that was, from where they derived, considered both exotic and mysterious. Over time, ­these clients included the famous—­John Wayne, Gregory Peck, and James Michener, among ­others—­and/or power­ful, including, Juan Carlos, the ­future king of Spain; Simeon II, the former king of Bulgaria; and the aforementioned Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Delighted by the experience, ­these generally seasoned sportsmen and, at times, sportswomen often rebooked safaris following their first engagement with the colony’s wildlife. The most consequential h ­ uman dynamic on safari was between ­these male and female clients and their white professional hunter-­guides, though African employees also interacted with ­these foreign hunters, if only minimally. T ­ hese visitors’ personalities w ­ ere naturally diverse, with many of them infuriating their safari guides owing to their egos, their disregard of local social and hunting protocols, or some other disagreeable comportment. However, many other tourist hunters garnered a ­great deal of re­spect from their hosts, who often struck up lifelong friendships with ­these repeat customers. Regardless of the level of amity between ­these two parties, most of the professional guides preferred Americans over Eu­ro­pe­ans, though t­here w ­ ere certainly exceptions to this generalization.

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Obstructive Egos: Challenges Associated with the Tourist Hunter Hunting safaris ­were inherently wrought with challenges, some of which ­were specifically related to the clientele. But, of course, without ­these foreigners, the industry would have been unsustainable. Consequently, the professional guides had to endure more outrageous, or even illegal, be­hav­ior than they would have preferred. The most frequent obstacle to a successful safari was a client’s ample ego, as manifested in arrogant or even boorish be­hav­ior. For example, as hunter-­guide Wally Johnson lamented about a particularly unpalatable Safarilandia client from Northern Eu­rope, He bitched about every­thing—­pots, pans, beds, lamps, you name it. The prices, at least according to him, w ­ ere astronomical. . . . ​One day, this slob wounded a wildebeest and, as was usual, he made his wife, who was half his size, carry his r­ ifle and ammo. We had [African] gunbearers who ­were paid to do this, and who took pride in their work, but he would have none of it. I fi­nally had to shoot the animal. That bastard used to rebook e­ very year, but I managed to dump him off onto another pro who was unsuspecting.40 Beyond simply being off-­putting, egotistical clients who failed to listen to instructions and disregarded local hunting protocols and laws, such as shooting game that was too young, w ­ ere also a danger to themselves, as well as to other members of their hunting parties. As Johnson recalled, “Some parents I have known have truly wasted money on bringing their kids along on safari. Badly behaved teen­agers are a real danger in the bush, as are self-­assured amateurs who think hunting is a piece of cake they can share anytime with their pals, taking mad risks, shooting badly, and breaking all t­hose rules that go into the ethic of a professional hunter’s life.”41 Although professional guides w ­ ere typically willing to suffer through an assortment of disagreeable be­hav­ior, they, too had their limits. If clients failed to adhere to an array of hunting guidelines that safari guides repeatedly articulated, or continually requested to shoot more game than their license permitted—as often occurred, and which certain, unscrupulous hunting guides tolerated—­ guides could truncate safaris. Even if par­tic­ul­ar tourists wielded significant power and, thus, ­these guides’ punitive actions might have drawn the ire of the Portuguese government, most of them prioritized hunting protocols over other considerations. Yet, at times, higher-­level interventions ­were required to curb a client’s inappropriate be­hav­ior or even to ban them from safari altogether. For example, in one instance when Pires was overseeing Safrique’s operations, he

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reported the following regarding the top l­awyer in France, an attorney retained by the country’s “rich and famous”: He was already hunting with Safrique when I took over the field management. Word reached me that unethical practices ­were taking place at the good ­lawyer’s camp. I paid a surprise visit when I knew for a fact that he and his professional hunter ­were in the field and I ascertained that the reports w ­ ere correct. Female animals had been shot, and the quota for the good ­lawyer had been exceeded. I fired the hunter that day and blackballed the ­lawyer forever ­after from Safrique’s concessions. My colleagues wrung their hands and tried to impress upon me what an impor­tant man he was and so forth. He remained blackballed, the hunter remained fired, and I remain satisfied to this day that that is the only way to deal with unacceptable be­hav­ior in any business.42 If Pires prevented the French hunter from returning to Safrique, Wally Johnson was much more aggressive regarding uncooperative or arrogant clients. Remarking about ­these types, Johnson explained, I’ve had p­ eople like this before. The only ­thing to do is take them back to camp and pack their bags for them. Call in a charter, put them on it, and walk away. I never needed a client so badly that it would cost me my license. I always told them to go get another hunter if they ­wouldn’t listen to me. “We have your money and contract already, so it’s quite up to you,” I’d say. It usually worked with the swollen-­headed ones. Must say, I never had this from ­women. They ­were a delight on safari and listened.43

Minimal but Impor­tant: Interactions between African Employees and Foreign Hunters African safari workers ­were also subjected to the off-­putting be­hav­ior of certain foreign clients, including at base camps and in the bush, but direct interaction with them was typically infrequent. In general, overseas clientele perceived ­these staff members as servants and, therefore, engaged them as infrequently as pos­si­ble, in part owing to the language barrier. However, even if ­these two parties only rarely interacted directly, at times par­tic­u­lar hunting outings for clients w ­ ere only deemed pos­si­ble owing to the prowess of African trackers. For example, when Adelino Pires was contemplating ­whether to take Charles Duke, an astronaut who flew on Apollo 16, on safari, he ultimately cited his trusted trackers as the deciding f­ actor (figure 4.1). “I quickly thought about the press if an astronaut was killed by a lion. But, backed by my chief tracker, Radio,

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Figure 4.1.  A personalized photo­graph from Charles Duke, left, to Adelino Pires, n.d. Photo courtesy of Fiona Claire Capstick, coauthor of Winds of Havoc.

who had the most phenomenal eyesight and hearing, and his assistant, I de­ cided it was a calculated risk and that we would go in ­after a lion.”44 Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to reconstruct interactions between Africans and overseas clients, which ­were minimal in general, and almost always mediated by a white professional hunter, such as Pires, who straddled the worlds of the foreign sportsmen and the African employees. ­These African workers ­were generally comfortable with this arrangement, as it left their employers to manage the safari tourists. At times, however, we are afforded glimpses into client-­employee dynamics in the memoirs penned by white professional hunters, typically when an African employee saved the life of one of the safari participants via a heroic act, which was a reasonably regular occurrence. One such event occurred in Safarilandia, following an American client’s imprudent wounding of a buffalo. With the white professional hunter, a Portuguese named Miguel, on the outing in serious peril, the African tracker, Maedwa was forced into lifesaving action.45 Unfortunately, the client bolted and ignored Maedwa’s imploration to stop, in part b­ ecause the client had the only accessible r­ ifle. Eventually, the American fell and broke his r­ ifle in the pro­ cess and Maedwa was forced to return to Miguel and retrieve his ­rifle, as the buffalo had fi­nally moved away from it. The tracker subsequently felled the

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buffalo. But Miguel’s life would not have been in such serious danger had the overseas client regarded Maedwa’s pleas.

Viva Amer­i­ca! If par­tic­u­lar overseas clients proved to be challenging for a variety of reasons, the comportment and capabilities of American tourist hunters w ­ ere generally well regarded by their safari hosts. Americans also seem to have been more willing to adjust their approach to hunting and ­were apparently also more compliant with local guidelines. Wally Johnson, who preferred American clients, confirmed that “many Eu­ro­pe­ans ­were fantastic ­people and I certainly do not mean to slight them as safari clients, but very generally speaking, Americans seemed to listen to you better. . . . ​I also found that Americans are far less hidebound by traditions and more adaptable in the field.”46 Other professionals in the industry echoed Johnson’s sentiments, although they w ­ ere, at times, much more critical of Eu­ro­pe­ans. For example, Albano Cortez shared with me his impression of the difference between American and Spanish tourist hunters as follows: The be­hav­ior of the Spanish p­ eople and the American p­ eople, which ­were our biggest clients by number, was completely dif­fer­ent. Spanish ­people, they want to kill. Anything that moves they want to kill. This was a big prob­lem for us, ­because we explained to them that you can only shoot one of a species. But, let us imagine, if they see a kudu . . . ​ and they shoot the kudu, then a few days pass and they say, “Hey, I want to shoot another kudu.” We would tell them that’s impossible, but then they offer you . . . ​$200, $500, $1,000 . . . ​trying to get you to look the other way. But, no, it is not pos­si­ble. The American is dif­fer­ent. The American arrives with a license, he can shoot his ten animals, but he only wants four trophies for his wall.47 As the United States was a North Atlantic Treaty Organ­ization (NATO) ally and key partner of Portugal, officials in Lisbon and Lourenço Marques w ­ ere extremely pleased with this deepening bond between Mozambican safari operators and American sportsmen and -­women. The highest profile example of this politicotouristic connection was the steady flow of American astronauts to the colony in the early 1970s. Among t­hese luminaries w ­ ere James Lovell, Stuart Roosa, and Deke Slayton. So successful and inspiring ­were their hunting experiences in Mozambique that Adelino Pires was invited to attend the official launch of Apollo 17 in Florida in December 1972. As Pires recounted, “It was preceded by a special party attended by the ‘who’s who’ in the astronaut

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business. It was a g­ reat time to be alive, and this level of personal recommendation for hunting safaris in Mozambique was of incalculable value.”48 It was of significant touristic value, economic value, and po­liti­cal value, indeed. Although t­hese higher profile touristic interactions received the most attention from government officials, who kept a close eye on ­these affairs, it was the more prosaic interactions that truly cemented the bonds between American hunters and their professional guides. Even though some of the former ­were outlandish caricatures, including one who arrived in a full cowboy outfit all the way down to the spurs, most ­were experienced members of international hunting circles who took this recreational endeavor extremely seriously.49 A Safari Outfitters newsletter from 1964 provides insight into the ways that positive experiences generated goodwill between (white) Mozambicans and Americans, all of which revolved around mutual re­spect for the sport and the constituent skills. In this par­tic­u­lar document, a series of Americans spoke glowingly of Sr. Tony Fajardo, their guide while on safari in the colony, as well as the overall experience. For example, Samuel Ortner of Newark, New Jersey, beamed that “I wish to go on rec­ord at this time that Tony Fajardo is one of the best White Hunters that I have ever worked with in my entire hunting c­ areer,” while George Eckles of Holdenville, Oklahoma, opined, “I have hunted Tanganyika, Uganda, and Somalia, and found Mozambique, with Safari Outfitters, to be the most successful and comfortable trip that I have experienced.”50 And, even more effusively, Wally Taber and his wife, of Dallas, Texas, added, Mrs. Taber and I have enjoyed a total of 20 safaris in all parts of Africa. The safari we have just finished with Tony Fajardo was without question the finest yet! All good ­things one can say about a safari or a White Hunter we must say about this safari and about Tony. Both w ­ ere g­ reat! Tony is one of the finest Hunters in Africa and the greatest leopard hunter of all!!! He is a fine or­ga­nizer and a splendid gentleman. We ­shall never forget.51 When ­these sorts of praiseful sentiments ­were multiplied by countless satisfied hunting clients, they provided invaluable, positive publicity for the hunting safari industry in the colony—­and, by extension, for the Portuguese colonial proj­ect—­which would have been virtually impossible to credibly fabricate.

The Vital Contributions of African Laborers Simply put, without African ­labor ­there would not have been a hunting tourism industry in colonial Mozambique. ­These essential employees served as gunbearers, guides, trackers, skinners, cooks, porters, and even as taxidermists, as well as

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in an array of other capacities. Beyond furnishing their ­labor, their knowledge of the bush and of regional fauna rendered them indispensable to safari outfitters, who employed them in considerable numbers from the onset of the industry ­until its conclusion at Mozambican in­de­pen­dence. Yet ­these African employees always remained subordinate, even as they possessed and shared expert knowledge on a range of subjects. However, as Nancy Jacobs has analogously contended regarding African birders during this era, this work remained appealing, beyond s­imple material gain, to ­these employees, who “found it preferable to other available options. . . . ​Their strategies of valorization w ­ ere of their own devising and individual affect modulated their relation with the work,” while Dane Kennedy has suggested, regarding Indigenous guides who played similar roles for Eu­ro­pean explorers, “All we know for sure is that they found some sort of satisfaction from t­hese challenging enterprises . . . ​perhaps ­because they too enjoyed the adventure and the applause.”52 Once the colonial government began allocating sizable plots of land for commercial hunting safaris, the next step was to construct the requisite infrastructure in ­these reserves. ­These operations, which included main camps with permanent accommodations and offices, field camps, and an assortment of other structures, would never have materialized without African l­abor. For example, in setting up Safarilandia along the Save River at the conclusion of the 1950s, Werner von Alvensleben enlisted the assistance of a local guide well before he hired his coterie of white professional hunters. According to von Alvensleben: Having been granted this concession, I set about exploring where to build my camps. In need of a guide who could show me the area, a colored man (mestiço) by the name of Jaime Bulha was recommended to me by the local chefe de posto [colonial administrator]. Bulha was the illegitimate son of a Shangaan ­mother and a Portuguese businessman living in Beira. . . . ​On the side, Bulha was an ivory poacher who had been caught with a number of elephant tusks he could not account for. He was gaoled, but his poaching activities had given him an intimate knowledge of the Save area.53 In practice, it was common for safari operators to hire former poachers as employees, the former valuing the latter’s knowledge of the terrain and the movements, be­hav­ior, and habits of local wildlife. Another employee at Safarilandia, Johannes, who would eventually become von Alvensleben’s most valuable staff member, also made tangible, crucial contributions to the initial establishment of the operation. ­These efforts included scouting for a site for the main camp, and then clearing the land at Zinhave,

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the location they had collectively identified. Von Alvensleben described their initial encounter and Johannes’ impressive initial contributions as follows: I first met Johannes, a Shangaan born and brought up among the wildlife south of the Save River, when I was sitting in camp with Jaime Bulha next to a ­little fire we had lit. Johannes and his half-­brother, Macurumbane, appeared out of the dark. They kneeled and Johannes clapped his hands, as is the custom of t­ hese ­people, and politely asked us w ­ hether we needed any help. Then he offered to show us the way to his village where we would be most welcomed, and where we should spend the night instead of sleeping u ­ nder a tree. We, however, declined, deciding to stay next to our l­ittle fire, but promised to see him at his village early the next morning. We arrived to find Johannes was already up and waiting for us, and he offered to accompany us on our journey, saying, “This is my country. I s­ hall show you all you want to see.” We quickly learned that we could not have wished for a better guide. I left a c­ ouple of weeks ­later to return to Lourenço Marques to put in motion some additional paperwork in connection with the hunting concession. I left Johannes with instructions to employ some local l­abor and start clearing the site at Zinhave—­which over-­looked both the Save River and Lake Zinhave—­ that I had chosen for our main camp. On my return two weeks l­ater, I found that by employing only a c­ ouple of men, Johannes had managed to do the work I had estimated would take a month at the very least.54 Jorge Faustino Fumo is another example of an African employee who made crucial contributions to the commercial safari industry, though in a much less conventional manner. During the colonial era, Fumo served as a taxidermist for two outfitters, which shipped the prepared animals overseas to the clients who had felled them. As Fumo explained, the work was neither for the lighthearted nor the impatient: The tourists went hunting in the bush. We would sometimes stay out for two or three weeks. The animals ­were skinned in the bush, but the tourists ­were not interested in the w ­ hole animal, only the chest, head, and skin. Most of the time, a lion was skinned to make a carpet, the same with a leopard. But, we would also make benches, wallets, and suitcases from the skin. For the elephants, it was the feet. We would take the animals to the workshop to prepare them, which could take up to six months, and then send them to Amer­i­ca, or Spain, or Brazil, wherever.55 Prior to reaching this level in the industry, Fumo’s professional ­career had begun rather humbly. In the early 1960s, his f­ ather and ­uncle ­were hired by a

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Portuguese husband-­and-­wife taxidermy team that was attached to a commercial safari operator, which required that the f­amily move north, away from LM. In 1968, the wife, Amália Cesar dos Santos asked Fumo’s ­father if she could begin to teach his son, who was sixteen years old at the time, taxidermy while he continued his studies. With his f­ather’s consent, Fumo learned the trade from dos Santos and went about perfecting his skills over the years. Fumo claimed that she treated him like a son, including by daily shuttling him to and from school in her car and patiently teaching him taxidermy when he was not engaged in schoolwork. In addition to apprenticing, he also performed some of the duties of a domestic servant, including cleaning the taxidermy offices and bathrooms and preparing drinks for the employees. For this ser­vice, he began at a salary of 250 escudos, which, he explained, “was enough money to buy trousers, to give some [money] to my ­father, and to still have enough money to buy snacks. I was ­doing something!”56 Just a few years ­later, he had almost tripled that salary. “That was a lot of money, I was ­doing a lot of ­things with that money.” Fumo also indicated, though, that his f­ather and u ­ ncle ­were earning three to four times that amount, enabling his ­uncle to purchase a Land Rover upon Mozambique’s in­de­pen­dence.57 Meanwhile, by 1973, the young taxidermist, Fumo, was married, having saved enough to make conjugal arrangements. Clearly, he was also enjoying the social capital that his education and financial means afforded him. As with the African taxidermists that Nancy Jacobs examined, Fumo, “did not draw on vernacular traditions in his work . . . ​preparators did not perform roles defined by historical African social worlds. The social world of their work was urban and colonial.”58 Ever the dutiful client, Fumo then changed companies, following Amália Cesar dos Santos, his durable patron, who left to start her own safari operation, where he stayed ­until Mozambican in­de­pen­dence in 1975.

Forging Relationships in the Bush: African Laborers and Their White Employers African workers who ­were both capable and reliable typically generated deep, affective bonds with their direct employers, the white professional hunters. Commenting on the tight relationship between Werner von Alvensleben, the ethnic German hunter who ran Safarilandia, and his prized tracker, Johannes, author Brian Marsh declared that “the re­spect and closeness that Johannes and Werner shared ­were not unusual. Most of the old hunters had similar tales to tell about the trackers who had been with them for a long time. They would have shared many campfires, discomforts, in­ter­est­ing experiences, and dangerous

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situations.”59 Over time, the relationship between von Alvensleben and Johannes evolved into the deepest and most durable at Safarilandia, and most typified the type of genuine, mutual concern and trust that ­were often forged between white employer and Black employee. In fact, at times, von Alvensleben referred to Johannes as both a “friend and mentor,” suggesting an even higher level of amity between ­these two men than was typical of even similarly close relationships between safari operators and their most trusted African employees. Other safari supervisory staff elsewhere in the colony offered similar sentiments about their African employees. For example, industry veteran Adelino Pires remarked, “We in the safari business spent our lives in the wilds and in close contact with the local tribal ­people, from whom our trackers, skinners, cooks, ­drivers, and general camp staff ­were drawn. We spoke their languages; we knew their villages; sometimes we had spent years closely associated with one another. Often two or more generations of the same ­family would be in our employ.”60 Another example of this type of close relationship comes from Harry Manners regarding his “gunbearer, tracker, and headboy,” an ethnic Shangaan named Sayela. Tragically, Sayela died—­gored and crushed by an elephant—­while hunting with Manners. Some years ­later, Manners wrote about his trusted companion, praising his knowledge of the local terrain, fauna, and flora, but also commending his personality, suggesting a deeper bond between the two men. Sayela . . . ​knew the forest and the few waterholes scattered therein as he knew the palm of his hand. . . . ​It was wonderful to see Sayela unravel a tracking prob­lem, or to follow him closely through the tangled labyrinth of thorn bush. . . . ​He sensed when it was better to go on—or better to wait a while and listen intently. Time was no object to him, only final success, even if it meant sleeping in the bush that night. Somewhere he would find a muddy pool or . . . ​a tendril of a creeper leading to a fat, succulent root under­ground, enough to assuage a burning thirst in our throats . . . ​his deep, throaty laugh would spread to the lips of ­others, like a river flowing over its banks when the rains came.61

Trust-­Building Endeavors: Lifesaving in the Mozambican Bush Given the inherent dangers involved in tracking and felling large game while surviving in the bush for extended periods during t­ hese pursuits, white hunters and their Black assistants routinely saved each other’s lives. Far removed from base camps, t­ hese men daily encountered countless challenges and threats

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to their safety that, when surmounted, naturally deepened their trust and re­ spect for one another. As Kenneth Cameron has contended, “The relationship between the [white] hunter and the [African] gunbearer was a peculiar one, partaking of both ser­vice and shared affinity . . . ​when Eu­ro­pean and African confronted a dangerous animal together . . . ​their very lives depended on each other. The hunter protected the gunbearer from a charging animal; the gunbearer, by handing the heavy gun at the precise moment in precisely the right way, made the life-­saving shot pos­si­ble. Some men spoke with enormous affection of their gunbearers, and understandably so: ­here w ­ ere men who had shared the ultimate moments.”62 Dane Kennedy has further argued that t­ hese assistants w ­ ere likely to earn the most voluble laud from their employers, given their sacrifice and fealty. “The . . . ​assistants who received the greatest praise ­were ­those whose conduct could be construed as demonstrating a selfless loyalty to their ‘masters’ ­under difficult and dangerous circumstances.”63 As outlined in the epigraph, at Safarilandia, the invaluable Johannes apparently saved Werner von Alvensleben’s life numerous times from vari­ous types of faunal perils. But it was not always the wildlife on the safari concession that threatened the German’s life, only to have Johannes make a vital intervention. Von Alvensleben explained that Johannes once “saved me from being speared by Safania, as this mad poacher attacked me, and when I was quite unprepared and defenseless.”64 ­Going forward, with the war for in­de­pen­dence ending in the colony and the protracted po­liti­cal transition pro­cess underway, t­hese poaching-­related, lifesaving interventions continued. During this period, many Frelimo soldiers had understandably become more aggressive, not wanting to wait any longer to claim what they perceived was rightfully theirs. In one case, a handful of Frelimo-­linked individuals who had been victims of von Alvensleben’s antipoaching mea­sures plotted to murder him in retaliation. Johannes caught wind of this plan and he and von Alvensleben confronted the wouldbe hitman, who could only offer a series of lies and contradictions before sheepishly disappearing from the area.65 As the threat on van Alvensleben’s life demonstrates, the strug­gle for in­de­ pen­dence in the colony added another layer of danger for safari operators and, attendantly, more opportunities for their African employees to make lifesaving interventions. In this sense, initial decisions to empower and entrust t­ hese African staff members had much farther reaching effects, which even the most farsighted employers could not have been foreseen. For example, Adelino Pires recalled that, while he was with Safrique, In early July 1972 . . . ​I was out hunting with two American clients. My chief tracker, Radio, came to me one night, while we w ­ ere out fly

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camping, and said: “Boss, t­here is trou­ble coming. We must be strong ­because lions do not talk to hyenas.” He did not elaborate, and I did not push him. He was warning me, and it could only have referred to Frelimo. Not one week ­later, I discovered in a few terrible hours just what Radio had meant [the fatal ambush of Safrique clients, outlined previously].66 Pires added more generally that “a relationship of strong, broad-­based trust developed with some of t­ hese ­people, and they would talk to us of changes in the air, of danger.” In this manner, Radio saved Pires’s life on more than one occasion.

Racial Realities: The Limitations of Employer–­Employee Relations in a Colonial Context Although African employees repeatedly saved the lives of their white supervisors and t­ hese bosses’ re­spect for their trusted laborers was unquestionable, safari overseers still harbored paternalistic, or even condescending, sentiments even as they spoke complimentarily about their Indigenous assistants. The following passage from Carlos Antero is exemplary of t­hese two apparently reconcilable sentiments: “Hunting breeds loyalty and a feeling of solidarity among the hunters, and nobody appreciates it and holds it in higher esteem than the negro, who re­spects the courageous white hunter, and serves him faithfully. The native, who lacks good arms and at best possesses only an old shotgun, a hatchet, and such, has the Homeric courage and the subtle art of discovering the animal to stalk up imperceptibly and kill it—­risking his life, and sometimes losing it.”67 Professional hunter Wally Johnson’s comments about African safari employees, including his head gunbearer and tracker in Mozambique, Luís, is, as with Antero’s, similarly ambivalent—at once, both laudatory and (culturally) condescending: I always enjoyed the Africans. I learned so much from them—­and, especially, about them. It’s fascinating what a culture gap ­there is between our worlds, but we always got on extremely well. In fact, I owe my life to a few of them, and they to me. . . . ​But sometimes the difference in cultures was impossible to fathom. They w ­ eren’t lesser ­people, of course—­just dif­fer­ent from their white fellow countrymen when it came to way of life and values. . . . ​A good example was my head gunbearer and tracker, Luís, whom I prob­ably knew better than any man on earth. . . . ​He was very loyal, but ­there are some ­things beyond my un-

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derstanding in terms of bush logic. . . . ​Luís was with me through thick and thin, mostly rather skinny, for a straight 25 years. One day, he was gone. No good-­byes, nothing. Gone. The o ­ thers w ­ ouldn’t divulge what had happened, so I just bided my time, eventually finding out months ­later that he’d gone to work for another safari operator. I felt very hurt. I thought we had been friends a­ fter all we’d been through together. I was a just employer and tried to be decent to all. Well, he just walked out and I never saw him again. That be­hav­ior is not uncommon.68 Angela Thompsell’s contention that “white hunters’ descriptions (of African assistants) are framed by imperial ideologies and are frequently riddled with misperceptions and frustrating silences” would certainly inform an assessment of Johnson’s comprehension of the actions of his assistant Luís.69 At times, the limitations associated with ­these relationships ­were not cultural, but rather ­were grounded in the inherent power differential between white employer and Black employee operating in a colonial context. For example, even as Bulha and von Alvensleben traversed the terrain together attempting to identify an ideal site for Safarialandia’s main camp, spending hours alone in the bush and cultivating their bond, the asymmetrical power relations, predicated on the prevailing racial hierarchy in the colony, s­ haped the ­human dynamic. In one situation during this quest, the employer recalled, Bulha was ­behind the wheel one day as we drove along the Save’s south bank . . . ​and I wanted him to drive across the river . . . ​but Bulha emphatically refused, saying Sr. Werner, I well know what is g­ oing to happen. Whilst the ­water is not high, the sand is loose, and the Jeep ­will get stuck. Then you, the white man, w ­ ill find a place to sit in the shade of a big tree while I, the mulatto, ­will walk the three miles back to the last village to get some help. Then it w ­ ill be I, Bulha, who w ­ ill have to clean out the crankcase, change the oil and have no end of trou­ble.70 Although it is somewhat surprising that Bulha initially defied his boss, it’s not surprising that the scenario that the employee envisioned played out exactly as he had predicted. Although Bulha and von Alvensleben’s relationship grew over time, t­ here w ­ ere certain racial protocols that remained inviolable owing to the broader socioracial environment in the colony. Hunting tourism in Mozambique delivered both financial and po­liti­cal capital for the colonial regime right up ­until in­de­pen­dence in 1975. The two key entities employed in the industry w ­ ere the professional white hunter and the African laborer, some of whom cocultivated deeply trusting, if still paternalistic,

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relationships owing to their shared experiences and challenges, which included saving each other’s lives with some regularity. The relationships produced by this “enforced intimacy” do not fit facilely into understandings of interracial dynamics in colonial milieus in Africa, reminding us that especially in settings well removed from the colonial gaze, ­there was ample space for individual negotiation and selective application of socioracial mores. In practice, t­ hese arrangements, even if tacit, ­were crucial to retaining ­these essential laborers. Meanwhile, foreign clientele was also vital to the durable success of the industry, even as some of them challenged their temporary minders owing to their arrogance, incompetence, or some combination thereof. Although the commercial safari industry persisted ­until the conclusion of the colonial era, another form of tourism that also featured Mozambique’s renowned fauna exploded upon the touristic scene in the beginning of the 1960s following the opening to the public of Gorongosa National Park: the photographic safari. This fledging industry would eventually outpace the more established commercial safari industry in terms of sheer volume, but the two endeavors should not always be considered discreet. At times, hunting parties would spend weeks in the bush shooting game before relocating to Gorongosa to relax and view the wildlife, rather than fell it, and vice versa. Just as the colony’s hunting reserves attracted power­ful international figures, so too did Mozambique’s camera safari destinations begin to entice this impor­tant clientele, thereby generating additional po­liti­cal and propagandistic capital for the increasingly beleaguered Portuguese regime. It is to this more recent sector of the tourism industry that we turn in the ensuing chapter.

C h a p te r   5

Safari Shooting Mozambique’s Wildlife with a Camera

Gorongosa! This strong, sonorous name is famous throughout the area—­and, one day, ­will also be famous beyond the borders of Mozambique, perhaps as famous throughout the world as Kruger Park. . . . ​It is the amazing abundance and variety of its wildlife that ­will enable it to achieve this fame. In Mozambique, it is the ­g reat sanctuary for animal species. And in Africa it ­will be . . . ​the most in­ter­est­ing of all the national wildlife protection parks or reserves. . . . ​ Gorongosa unites the savannah, the river, and the jungle in its geographic ensemble, which is unsurpassably picturesque. —­Henrique Galvão, from his book, Ronda de África: Outras terras, outras gentes: Viagens em Moçambique, 1948. One night, the head waiter, an el­derly black man who was known as Tikki, beat the drum as he always did to announce that dinner was ready. The drumming seemed longer than usual and soon ­after he ­stopped, the guests—­including some Portuguese soldiers—­started moving in through the wide doors of the restaurant. It was then that machine-­gun fire rang out. Bullets whizzed through the open doors, breaking crockery and entering the ceiling and walls. ­People still out on the verandahs fell flat or crouched ­behind t­ ables. ­After the initial two or three bursts, the shooting died down. . . . ​Tikki was jailed for his part in relaying through his drumming the message that the [Portuguese] soldiers w ­ ere not carry­ing their guns and ­were unprepared. Many of the black p­ eople who worked with us ran away from Chitengo soon ­after this: our dear Vasco led his 14 ­children far away from the park and sat out the troubled time elsewhere. —­Lynne Tinley, describing the attack in 1973 by Frelimo guerrillas on the Chitengo tourism compound in Gorongosa National Park.

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In many re­spects, Galvã­o’s paean and Tinley’s harrowing account of the attack on Chitengo constitute the touristic bookends of Gorongosa during the colonial period. The former was penned just as the expanse was being transformed from a space in which animals w ­ ere hunted into a wildlife sanctuary, while the event that Tinley describes effectively concluded the park’s existence as a major touristic asset for the colony. But it was a time roughly halfway between t­ hese two developments that was most transformative for Gorongosa; the opening of the space as a national park in 1960 marked the explosion of the camera safari in Mozambique, with foreign visitors subsequently arriving in ever-­expanding numbers to observe and photo­graph Gorongosa’s celebrated wildlife, rather than to shoot it. Although hunting tourism remained both financially and po­liti­cally impor­tant to the colonial and metropolitan regimes right up ­until in­de­pen­dence, camera safaris played similar roles as they increased in popularity over the 1960s and into the early 1970s. T ­ here w ­ ere a number of locations in the colony in which visitors could engage in this activity, but the most densely populated with big game and, thus, the most popu­lar, was Gorongosa. The formal establishment of the space as a national park reflected a broader, international thrust to generate profits in the name of conservation. But, as Gorongosa began to increasingly attract influential visitors from abroad, along with throngs of white South African and Rhodesian tourists, accounts of t­ hese guests’ positive experiences at the park and, more broadly, in the colony, also provided significant po­liti­cal capital for the increasingly isolated Estado Novo. Consequently, the tourism apparatus in the colony, in partnership with entities in Portugal and further abroad, relentlessly promoted the Gorongosa experience following the expansion of the requisite touristic infrastructure at the park in the early 1960s. The consequent influxes of visitors that ­these promotional efforts—­and, of course, the grandeur of the space itself—­thus generated w ­ ere ably facilitated and ser­ viced by African laborers, the backbone of Gorongosa’s workforce. ­These laborers, some forced and some voluntary, helped to construct the park’s initial, and subsequently expanded, road and w ­ ater networks, as well as an assortment of administrative structures and facilities, while also serving as rangers, trackers, ­drivers, and guides in the field, and as vital staff members at Chitengo, the park’s sole visitor accommodations site.

Gorongosa’s History prior to National Park Status It is pos­si­ble to trace Gorongosa’s history as a place that attracted outsiders, including hunters, explorers, and naturalists who w ­ ere interested in its fauna and

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Map 5.1.  Gorongosa National Park. Courtesy of Maggie Bridges.

flora, as far back as the end of the nineteenth ­century. From 1891 to 1940, the concessionary Mozambique Com­pany oversaw virtually all aspects of daily life across an expansive region that spanned the central part of the colony, in which Gorongosa is situated (map 5.1). Extant accounts of Gorongosa during this period come largely from hunter-­naturalists, such as the following from Frenchman, William Vasse, from 1904: “This sojourn . . . ​­will remain one of the most vivid of my memories. The thousands of animals, scattered over the arid plains, the flocks of wading, web-­footed, and many other kinds of birds which fly over at sunrise to feed; the peaceful, solemn, yet imposing landscape, bounded on the blue horizon by the mountains of Gorongosa and Chiringoma.”1 The initial mea­sure protecting this magnificent space dates to 1920, at which time the Mozambique Com­pany set aside 1,000 square kilo­meters (386 square miles) to be utilized for hunting by com­pany officials and their guests. The following year, the Gorongosa Game Hunting Reserve was formally established, with an area of some 39 square miles, which concomitantly called for what would be the first of three large-­scale socially and environmentally destructive

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evictions of Indigenous residents from the area prior to 1950, with ­others to follow over the course of that de­cade.2 As Domingos João Muala has contended, “This first eviction un­balanced natu­ral and cultural food chains that the evictees had established within the ecosystem. In the following de­cades, as the reserve kept expanding . . . ​[and] evicting more Gorongosans, the entire ecosystem experienced additional changes, which resulted from disruptions to the food chain, resettlements, and economic pressure by both the Gorongosans and colonists alike over the exploitation of natu­ral resources.”3 Although it is unclear how many residents w ­ ere dispossessed during this initial forced relocation, the third eviction, which occurred in 1948, affected some one thousand ­house­holds, roughly six to eight thousand ­people.4 Irrespective of the exact figures, vio­lence marked each of t­hese relocation pro­cesses. Consequently, even long a­ fter the Portuguese left Mozambique, local residents remain traumatized. As one local official remarked to a journalist from the New Yorker in 2009, “In the colonial times, many p­ eople lived in the area that is now the park [Gorongosa], and when it became the park, the Portuguese burned their homes and scattered the ­people. ­These are the associations that the word ‘park’ carries for many local residents.”5 In practice, t­hese evictions served a number of purposes for the colonial authorities. First, the removals granted exclusive access to the land to white hunters and, eventually, white tourists. This exclusion of Indigenous ­peoples, including residents who had lived ­there for generations, reflected the imposed racial hierarchy that granted allegedly superior Eu­ro­pe­ans access to coveted resources of all va­ri­e­ties while denying them to “inferior” Africans. Second, officials deemed the evictions as essential to returning the land to a pristine state, in g­ reat part b­ ecause it would be “indigenous-­free.”6 Even scientists concerned with Gorongosa’s ecosystem maintained that its “natu­ral” state could not be reestablished if local residents remained in place.7 In par­tic­u­lar, ­these Western researchers maligned Indigenous agricultural practices, which they contended precluded the realization of “natu­ral” conditions. Fi­nally, especially regarding the l­ater forced removals, the land needed to be devoid of Indigenous residents for tourists, who wanted to be transported to an “­imagined wilderness,” populated only by wildlife, so as to generate the sense that they had, indeed, traveled back in time. In fact, this approach to wildlife tourism persists, as following the end of the colonial period on the continent, African governments uniformly rejected pleas by evicted residents to return to their erstwhile lands, thereby perpetuating the manufactured artificiality of ­these uninhabited spaces. Forcibly removing local residents ensured that tourists, such as this one from 1964, could proudly, if unknowingly, proclaim that in entering Gorongosa, “I visited a world as pure as the first dawn.”8

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In the years that followed the 1921 creation of the hunting reserve, ­there ­ ere very few notable developments at Gorongosa. However, at some point w in the aftermath of this mea­sure, an intrepid man with a seemingly conservationist bent named José Ferreira took up residence in a thatched hut in what would ­later become Chitengo camp, near the southern entry to the reserve, in order to “guard the wildlife.”9 Regardless of ­whether Ferreira knew it at the time, Chitengo was the ideal place for his residency, as it is virtually the only place in Gorongosa that does not flood during the rainy season. Generally, the rains fall from December to March, flooding the plains, multiplying the numbers of mosquitos, and facilitating the growth of tall grasses, which inhibits wildlife viewing. ­Going forward, on November 21, 1935, in an effort to preserve habitats for nyalas and black rhinos, both of which w ­ ere highly prized hunting trophies, the Mozambique Com­pany expanded the reserve to 1,236 square miles. José Henriques Coimbra, who was notoriously aggressive t­ owards the local Indigenous populations, became Gorongosa’s first warden, while the pioneering Sr. Ferreira became its first guide.10 It is impor­tant to recall that at this point Gorongosa was still exclusively a hunting reserve, with conservation efforts intended solely to preserve coveted game for elite sportsmen. A 1935 letter crafted by a Mozambique Com­pany official to a local colonial administer features this singular purpose. “A visit to Beira ­will soon be made by the British Cruiseliner, Carlisle, which ­will include a hunting trip for the respective officers in the open plains of Gorongosa. It is hereby recommended that you take mea­sures to ensure that t­ hese illustrious guests ­will not find the animals too dispersed or excited, which would make it difficult for them to have a successful hunt.”11 Although it is unclear what the com­pany official could do to guarantee this venatory outcome, the directive nevertheless underscores the primary function of the reserve at this time. Regardless, it appears as though efforts to showcase Gorongosa’s wildlife for foreign hunters ­were remarkably effective. For example, just a few years ­after the British officers visited Gorongosa, a propaganda pamphlet trumpeted that “if Africa is a hunter’s paradise, Mozambique is one of the most privileged corners of this paradise. . . . ​The territory of the Com­pany of Mozambique is . . . ​ the one that enjoys the reputation of the best hunting. Indeed, the celebrated ‘tandos’ or ‘dambos’ of Gorongosa are remarkable, extensive plains where bullocks, zebras, lions, buffaloes, elephants, and many species of antelope number in the thousands. It is this part of the colony that is most frequented by foreign tourists.”12 By the conclusion of the Mozambique Com­pany’s concession in 1940, Gorongosa had become so popu­lar for hunting parties that a headquarters and

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tourist camp ­were built on a floodplain near the Mussicadzi River, at Chicari, roughly six miles from Chitengo. However, due to the flooding that the rainy season inevitably generated, the site was abandoned within just two years. ­Going forward, a pride of lions occupied the buildings and, when accessible, the site became an extremely popu­lar attraction for tourists, known as the Casa dos Leões, or Lions’ House.13 In fact, lion sightings in Gorongosa—at the Casa and elsewhere—­became so routine that, ­after the space was converted to a national park, a Rhodesian travel firm was offering full refunds to any clients who failed to see a lion while on safari. Apparently, the agency never had to pay.14 Following the conclusion of the Mozambique Com­pany’s charter, the management of Gorongosa transitioned to colonial officials, who shortly thereafter began to recognize the space’s touristic potential, with praise increasingly heaped on “one of Mozambique’s greatest trea­sures.”15 Gorongosa’s new warden, Alfredo Rodrigues, began the pro­cess of transforming the reserve into a profitable tourist destination, which would feature wildlife intended to be shot with cameras instead of r­ ifles. ­These efforts included the aforementioned 1948 eviction, which was prompted by an expansion of the reserve’s bound­aries to further incorporate a range of animals’ habitats. Soon afterwards, construction began on a new headquarters and a range of facilities at Chitengo, including a restaurant, bar, and accommodations. Some thirteen hundred visitors would arrive the following year. Meanwhile, new transportation options w ­ ere both highlighting Gorongosa’s wildlife and threatening it. For example, by the 1950s, new airline routes that passed over the expanse afforded passengers spectacular views of the reserve’s animals, helping to further enhance its touristic appeal; indeed, word began to spread that the faunal “variety and abundance in Gorongosa was greater even than in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.”16 But, by flying low, the pi­lots w ­ ere also “putting to flight ­great herds of wild animals owing to the strange noise to which they w ­ ere not accustomed.”17 Concerned about the impact that increased transportation options and flows w ­ ere having on Gorongosa’s resident wildlife, in the early 1950s, the colonial government created a “12,000-­square-­kilometer [4,633-­square-­mile] protection zone around the reserve to mitigate the impacts of the road that linked Beira to Rhodesia [Zimbabwe], which passed through the reserve.”18 In 1955, the state placed its Veterinary Ser­vices division in charge of wildlife management throughout the colony, including at Gorongosa. This decision would be key to protecting the reserve’s animal populations, which ­were essential if the space was to be transformed into a world-­class camera safari destination. By this time, hunting was largely forbidden in Gorongosa, though high-­level local colonial administrators (and their guests) retained this entitle-

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ment. As Armando Rosinha, who served as the director of the Veterinary Ser­ vices and, ­later, as the park’s third administrator, explained, “The privilege was not for every­body, but the administrator had the right to take guests to Gorongosa to hunt. When it became a national park, it was forbidden, but before that it was not so difficult to hunt if you knew the right p­ eople. It was like a private game reserve. When the Veterinary Ser­vices took over, our goals ­were fairly basic: to stop poaching, to accurately define the bound­aries of the park, and to keep the wildlife healthy and at ease as much as pos­si­ble.”19 Despite Rosinha’s considerable efforts, poaching remained a prob­lem throughout this period. As with modern-­day dynamics between armed, often-­ desperate poachers and conservation rangers, the interactions between ­these two entities in colonial-­era Gorongosa ­were similarly dangerous. In instances when Gorongosa staff prevailed, they would arrest the poachers, confiscate their guns, and take them to the colonial authorities. As Rosinha explained: I arrested many ­people. . . . ​Then I would take them to the municipal court and make a report describing what they ­were ­doing and hand them over to the administrator. Basically, they would stay in jail u ­ ntil the administrator held a trial. If they had killed a rhino it was the worst offense. If it was a small animal, though, I would not arrest them. We would take their guns and make sure that they left the area. . . . ​But, with big animals ­there w ­ ere big prob­lems. We would arrest the guys and even if we w ­ ere 50 or 100 kilo­meters (roughly 30–60 miles) away from the administration post, we would drive them ­there and deliver them to the authorities.20 Although poaching persisted despite t­ hese punitive mea­sures, from a tourism perspective this illicit activity remained safely out of the gaze of the photo-­ snapping visitors. Moreover, given the abundance of Gorongosa’s wildlife, poaching made only a negligible impact on a safari participant’s prospects of witnessing this renowned fauna.

Becoming a National Park: Gorongosa on the G ­ rand Touristic Stage In part due to this plenitude of wildlife, by the end of the 1950s, more than six thousand visitors ­were entering Gorongosa annually, while the state had granted the tourism concession in the reserve to the Sociedade Comercial de Manica e Sofala, a Beira-­based operation.21 ­These visitors to the site included luminaries from vari­ous walks of life, including American astronauts who had walked on the moon, the d­ aughter of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, and “top

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politicians, and distinct Western personalities, from Portugal, the British colonies, Eu­rope, and Amer­i­ca . . . ​which increased Lisbon’s concerns about preserving the park’s wildlife habitats.”22 Following Gorongosa’s transition in 1960 from a reserve to a national park, this celebrity traffic only increased. Indeed, from the mid-1960s onward, as Maria Romão, who spent a portion of her upbringing living in the park while her ­father, Fernando, served as the director, declared, “Gorongosa had achieved an undeniable aura of glamor as a safari destination.”23 She continued, recalling that “John Wayne came and left ­behind some Zippo lighters inscribed with the words ‘Stolen from John Wayne.’ My ­father also hosted the Apollo astronauts who told him that ­going on safari in Goron­ gosa was more exciting than walking on the moon.”24 ­Every prominent guest required that se­nior park officials provide individualized, unrelenting attention, which often included directors personally conducting safaris for ­these high-­profile visitors. As with commercial hunting in the colony, this touristic endeavor also featured impor­tant po­liti­cal and propagandistic dimensions, which mean that park administrators and se­nior veterinary officials served as the face of the regime during t­hese visits. Indeed, as Rosinha averred, “Gorongosa became the ‘shop win­dow’ of the colony, with no official guest [of the state] coming to Mozambique without their program including a stay at Chitengo.”25 By 1964, the concession for the park had been shifted to Safrique, or the Sociedade de Safaris de Moçambique, largely for po­liti­cal reasons. Safrique was backed by power­ful interests in the metropole, including the Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU), which primarily ser­viced the colonies. The Estado Novo awarded Safrique the concession to oversee the daily operations at Gorongosa, but also to polish the image of Portugal’s colonial proj­ect; again, propaganda, politics, and tourism w ­ ere deeply intertwined. As Albano Cortez explained: The BNU invested so much money in Safrique . . . ​for the reconstruction of the roads, landing strips, communications, ­etc. to improve the conditions for visitors g­ oing forward. It was b­ ecause we ­were in competition with other destinations, like K ­ enya, for example. . . . ​so Gorongosa had to be able to compete in the safari market. And, safari is a magic world that opens up access to very influential p­ eople, not only rich ­people, but also politicians, diplomats, the aristocracy, bankers, and so forth. They w ­ ere interested in safari, so we [Portugal] invested ­there. It was po­liti­cal . . . ​the images of Africa, namely Mozambique, impressed ­those p­ eople—­some of them very impor­tant ­people, politicians and so

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forth. So, they are in Mozambique and what did they see? In South Africa, it’s all about apartheid and so on. But, at Gorongosa, we have dances around the fire and so forth, and we are all together.26

The Development of Touristic Infrastructure Befitting a National Park On July 23, 1960, the colonial state declared Gorongosa a national park, encompassing over two thousand square miles. Although guests had been arriving in rather modest numbers throughout the 1950s, this decision signaled that the regime was ready to showcase Gorongosa to the world. In preparation for the anticipated touristic influxes, hundreds of miles of dirt roads had been opened (with input from Kruger Park officials) and Chitengo had been further developed. ­These crucial pieces of touristic infrastructure, in turn, facilitated comfortable access to the park’s bountiful fauna. Over time, both Chitengo and the road network ­were steadily expanded, largely financed by the colony’s Fauna Protection Fund, the coffers of which w ­ ere filled by hunting licenses and taxes, fines related to illegal hunting, and sales of animal remains and trophies.27 For example, in 1960, the compound at Chitengo had thirty-­eight guest rooms scattered across an array of rondavels and bungalows, two swimming pools (one for adults, one for c­ hildren), and a gift shop. But, by the m ­ iddle of the 1960s, it could accommodate one hundred overnight guests, and featured an expanded restaurant that served up to four hundred meals per day, as well as a post office, gas station, first-­aid clinic, and shop selling local handicrafts. Guests streamed into Chitengo from April to November, which roughly delineated the dry season in the region. Prices at Chitengo ­were affordably set in order to attract the largest number of visitors. But even though tourists of varied means generally donned casual clothing during the day, the eve­nings ­were much more formal, with guests “dressing elegantly and with care.”28 A visitor’s account from 1965 suggests that the facilities, touristic dynamics, and overall environment at Chitengo ­were all highly agreeable: Several buildings, simply but carefully constructed, offer the indispensable comforts to anyone wanting to spend a short holiday in the wonderful kingdom of the wild animal. In the bar or on the comfortable esplanade, shaded by yellow acacias, one can enjoy refreshments of all kinds. In the spacious and gay restaurant, excellent meals and delicious

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wines from the best regions of Portugal are served. When night falls, electric lights illuminate the l­ ittle camp city; an island of light in the dark and mysterious sea of the forest. . . . ​It is pleasant to walk about the grounds u ­ nder the vast star-­spangled sky while, all around the camp, the hyenas break the silence of the night with their sorrowful howls. Several groups of tourists can be seen. Every­one is talking of game and of the mysteries of the bush. The first-­timers are enthusiastically enquiring about the best paths to take on the following day, in order to see elephants, buffaloes, lions. . . . ​The veterans, with the air of experts, give advice, suggest pos­si­ble routes and tell stories—­stories that sound like fables—of encounters with herds of 200 elephants, of 1,000 buffaloes, of im­mense hordes of wildebeest, of lions so much at ease that they look at you with scornful indifference, showing not the slightest interest in the passing cars. The stories seem incredible and give rise to astonishing and skeptical comments.29 Meanwhile, the paving of the Beira–­Rhodesia road and construction of the “drum bridge” (pontoon) over the Pungwe River further facilitated access to the park.30 ­These improvements helped to almost double the annual number of visitors: from 6,096 in 1960 to 12,219 in 1968, with the latter figure nearly doubling again by 1971, reaching over 20,500 guests.31 Other visitors arrived via plane, touching down following a short flight from Beira on an airstrip adjacent to Chitengo, which pi­lots typically had to buzz prior to landing to chase off grazing impala, wildebeest, buffalo, or elephants.32 The last major infrastructural improvement to Chitengo came in 1972, when it was connected to the colony’s electrical grid. Previously, a generator, which typically ran from 5:00 a.m. u ­ ntil 10:00 p.m., had powered the lights and recently acquired air conditioning units at the compound. As Luís Fernandes, the park’s deputy administrator from 1963 to 1975, remarked, “Chitengo had evolved from a boomtown camp to a fully developed, self-­sufficient park headquarters and tourist resort, its fame as a safari destination spreading around the world.”33 Not every­one, though, was as enthusiastic about t­ hese infrastructural developments, even as officials in Lourenço Marques and Lisbon ­were keener than ever to exploit Gorongosa’s touristic potential. For example, Armando Rosinha, u ­ nder whom Fernandes served, had forcefully argued in a report from the mid-1960s that science and conservation, rather than tourism, should be prioritized in the park. Rosinha was acutely concerned that Gorongosa would ultimately be nothing more than a “­hotel business.”34 Similarly, Kenneth L. Tinley, an ecobiologist hired by the Veterinary Ser­vices in the late 1960s to study the possibility of expanding the park’s bound­aries, pitted tourism against

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conservation and suggested that Portuguese officials needed to embrace the latter lest Gorongosa and other parks in the colony become “urbanized playgrounds.” However, their voices w ­ ere predictably drowned out by the din of touristic activity in the park and the considerable, associated revenues. In 1966, however, tourism in Gorongosa did experience a moderate setback following the state’s decision to reduce the park’s area to 1,455 square miles. Although colonial officials justified the adjustment by claiming it would grant more arable land to local farmers, the mea­sure, in fact, constituted an appeasement to the power­f ul bloc of hunting safari operators active in the adjacent coutadas, as it newly afforded their clients expanded access to game. Consequently, Rosinha, and ­others intricately involved with the park, w ­ ere profoundly disappointed by this decision. Irrespective of this lament, even this spatial reduction did nothing to impede the relentless growth of tourism in Gorongosa.

Promoting Eden Although Gorongosa’s natu­ral beauty and magnificence ­were inherently alluring, the colonial regime had to engage in an array of marketing activities to convince foreign visitors to make the journey. T ­ hese promotional efforts ­were naturally intended to generate revenue, but also to revise any unfavorable impressions of the Portuguese colonial proj­ect that foreigners might harbor, and, thus, they also featured po­liti­cal dimensions. Gorongosa was central to this propagandistic campaign; indeed, in many ways, the park had become the touristic showpiece across the entirety of Portugal’s empire in Africa, and undoubtedly so for Mozambique. As Amélia Frazão-­Moreira has argued, following Gorongosa’s transition to national park status, it “became the symbol of tourism in Mozambique, and always appeared in publicity for colonial tourism. Publicity at that time highlighted and praised the diversity of the park’s vegetation, but, most of all, the diversity of wildlife that could be seen t­ here (figure 5.1).”35 One way the regime showcased the park was through film. Beginning in the early 1960s, documentaries of Gorongosa ­were produced and subsequently circulated around the world. Miguel Spiguel, a Portuguese filmmaker, was among the more notable of the many individuals who strove to enhance impressions of the Portuguese colonial proj­ect through ­these stunningly shot documentary films, which ­were essentially propaganda tools wrapped in a veneer of natu­ral beauty.36 Given their intended purpose, the films w ­ ere typically e­ ither commissioned or subsequently purchased by the state’s propaganda

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Figure 5.1.  Observing lions while on safari in Gorongosa National Park, c. 1965. Photo courtesy of Jorge Ribeiro Lume.

agencies in both the metropole and the colonies and ­were widely distributed, both domestically and internationally. In par­tic­u­lar, Sofia Sampaio has contended that “Spiguel’s travelogues are imbued with the regime’s understanding of tourism as propaganda.”37 Consequently, following the 1974 coup d’état that overthrew the Estado Novo, Spiguel was publicly disavowed owing to his close association with the authoritarian regime. He died a year l­ater. In addition to reaching vari­ous audiences via film, the Portuguese regime periodically arranged for members of the global media to visit the colony, which invariably included a trip to Gorongosa, its prized showpiece. ­These often extended, meticulously scripted tours increased in frequency once the strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence began in the mid-1960s, as t­ hese junkets afforded the colonial government opportunities to demonstrate to the handpicked guests how ostensibly negligible Frelimo’s impact was and to highlight the efficacy of the Portuguese colonial proj­ect. According to Fernando Costa, who guided media members during a visit in 1969, as the armed strug­gle was expanding: With the war heating up, the Portuguese government, determined to escalate the propaganda war with some good publicity, invited a stream of foreign correspondents to come to Mozambique and visit its showcase of enlightened stewardship, Gorongosa National Park. As I could

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speak En­glish, I had to accompany some of t­ hese impor­tant ­people, such as this very nice, very beautiful Swedish lady . . . ​a photographer for Time and Life, two very impor­tant American magazines. I took her around the park for close to a month and she took photo­g raphs and photo­g raphs and photo­g raphs. One day we ­were back in camp and she said to me, “This is ­really beautiful, ­really beautiful, but ­there is an even more beautiful place in Africa.” And I replied that “It is very difficult to find a more beautiful place than Gorongosa.”38

Indigenous Contributions to the Making of Gorongosa into a Touristic Asset Africans made key contributions to developing Gorongosa into a world-­class tourist attraction in a variety of dif­fer­ent ways. Initially, they helped build the road network, which over time became quite extensive. ­These arteries enabled visitors to traverse the vast expanse in their own vehicles or in specialized “safari cars”—­Volks­wagen vans whose roofs ­were cut out so that passengers could stand upright to view the wildlife and capture it with their cameras. African laborers also constructed the touristic infrastructure at Chitengo and had, almost certainly, e­ arlier engaged in the construction of the eventually abandoned Lions’ House facilities. G ­ oing forward, Africans assisted visitors in the field as guides and at Chitengo as servers, cooks, and cleaners. They also served as scouts and rangers, operating beyond the tourist gaze to protect Gorongosa’s precious wildlife. Over time, the African ­labor force steadily expanded, exceeding some five hundred employees by the early 1970s. At Chitengo, the Indigenous workforce, u ­ nder the supervision of Captain Pinto Soares, who had been placed in charge of Gorongosa in 1948, and his deputy, Corporal Alfredo Rodrigues, was central to the compound’s initial development. According to Soares, “We asked the Portuguese administration for assistance and they sent us 387 natives to help clear the land for the airstrip and do what­ever ­else needed to be done. They came from Vila Paiva, only men, and built their own huts close to the river.”39 ­These local workers w ­ ere clearly victims of the forced ­labor regime, shibalo, that prevailed in the colony.40 For ­these conscripted laborers’ efforts, Captain Soares provisioned them with food, clothing, and a modest monthly salary, with one month’s wages automatically deducted to satisfy colonial tax requirements. Although shibalo workers often labored ­under acutely abusive overseers, it appears that Soares was less aggressive than some of his counter­parts elsewhere in Mozambique and, in general, harbored some degree of re­spect for the colony’s Indigenous residents. For

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example, in comparing them to local populations in the Portuguese colony of Angola, where he also served, he remarked: “The mentality of the natives of Mozambique was very dif­fer­ent from the mentality of the natives of Angola. . . . ​The natives of Mozambique are very civilized, they too have an appetite for studying life and interacting with ­people. . . . ​They ­were amazing ­people. The best time for me was learning their language, knowing the words, knowing the p­ eople, knowing the life, and the life was Africa.”41 More specifically, regarding the plight of the local workers who constructed Chitengo, Soares provided a similarly upbeat, similarly patronizing, account, “The laborers on the isolated reserve, situated within one of the richest cotton-­g rowing districts in Mozambique, had easy access to a trading post attached to a cotton mill at nearby Bue Maria, where for the first time in their lives they could afford to purchase such luxuries as shoes and bicycles, umbrellas and tools and radios, material goods rarely seen before around Gorongosa except in the hands of men who went off to South Africa to find work in the mines.”42 Over time, many more Africans contributed to the development of Gorongosa absent any statutory coercion. However, even when local workers willingly engaged, that did not preclude them from enduring physical abuse at the hands of their white overseers. For example, as Victor Santos, who managed Chitengo from 1953 to 1958, unreservedly declared, “I was ­running every­thing, checking to see if the rooms w ­ ere clean, et cetera. Sometimes the cook was drunk, sitting drunk in a chair cooking, and I would have to beat him, which caused me prob­lems with the administrator in Vila Paiva, who told me I cannot beat Black ­people. I said, ‘Well, I’ll beat anybody if I have to. And, if I have to, I’ll beat you, too.’ ”43 Irrespective of the potential for physical abuse, local residents sensing financial opportunity, or at least an escape from shibalo, opted to work at Gorongosa in a number of capacities over time. One vital task they performed was shuttling visitors back and forth over the Pungwe River, both before the drum bridge was constructed and afterward, during the rainy season (figure 5.2). As one tourist described this experience following a 1963 visit, “The natives’ chanting seems to adapt itself to the rhythm of the slow movement across the river.”44 Kenneth Tinley’s wife, Lynne, who lived with him in Gorongosa from 1967 to 1971, recalled this undertaking in greater detail, pointing out both the skill and reliability of t­ hese crucial African workers: In the dry season, the Pungue River could be crossed by means of a floating plank and drum bridge, but as the river began to rise during the early summer rains the bridge had to be released and a pontoon was put to work ferrying traffic from one bank to another. ­Every vehicle traveling to and

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Figure 5.2.  Africans propelling visitors and a vehicle across the Pungwe River with poles, n.d. Photo courtesy of Vasco Galante.

from the park, or Vila Paiva to the northwest of us, had to be poled over the swollen river. Ten bare-­torsoed local men, lethargic and bilharzia-­ridden, but wise in the ways of the Pungue and her currents, would use long, stout mambo poles to push the pont upstream into the lee of an island and then let her float down with the current, guiding her ­until she beached at exactly the right spot on the opposite bank. With a number of vehicles ahead, it could take up to four or five hours to cross the river. And if you arrived too late at night, you just had to camp on the side of the Pungue ­until the pont-­pushers came on duty again early the next morning.45 Once tourists had safely arrived at Chitengo, they relied on local employees, who served as cooks, cleaners, waitstaff, and, in much smaller numbers, in supervisory positions. The restaurant man­ag­ers and waiters ­were all African, had under­gone training or already had experience working in ­these capacities, and all had some degree of En­glish language proficiency. As José Canelas explained, “They could speak En­glish . . . ​Some of them had ­family members who had been working on the mines in South Africa, and o ­ thers came from Rhodesia, where En­glish was spoken. But, none of them had gone to school to learn En­glish.”46 African employees at Gorongosa also served as field guides, whom visiting tourists could hire to help them navigate the expansive park and, more

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importantly, locate and identify the coveted fauna. As was the case with the colony’s hunting concessions, some of t­hese guides ­were former poachers and, thus, knew both the terrain and game intimately. Regardless of ­these employees’ par­tic­u­lar backgrounds, they w ­ ere invaluable members of the park staff. For example, a Rhodesian tourist from the 1960s remarked on the courage and composedness of the African guide that he and his wife had hired. “Our guide would take us right in the ­middle of a herd of elephants. I was a bit scared. . . . ​But, he said, ‘No, it’s alright.’ So, we just trusted him. He was very good.”47 A South African visitor’s account from 1971 further underscores the value and overall utility of t­ hese African employees. “Gorongosa provides African guides whom you can hire at Chitengo rest-­camp for one Rand for a morning or after­noon session . . . ​you can get lost choosing your route from the multiplicity of tracks crisscrossing the flats. For this reason alone, a guide is worthwhile, but in addition, he knows where the best game concentrations ­will be found. Moreover, he has keen eyes and w ­ ill spot a lion a mile away—or a camouflaged cheetah only a few feet from the roadside.”48 Other African employees at Gorongosa w ­ ere just as essential to the tourist experience, but w ­ ere not nearly as vis­i­ble to guests as ­were the safari guides, the serving staff at Chitengo’s bar and restaurant, and the h ­ ouse­keepers who made up their rooms each day. Among the most vital of ­these workers ­were park guards, field staff, and, starting in 1968, rangers. It was during that year that a man named Justino Matias became the first Black Mozambican to serve in this capacity (and, several years ­later, would become the director of the park). Guards, rangers, and field staff ­were all responsible for protecting Gorongosa’s invaluable fauna from poachers—­white and Black—­and, in general, helping to maintain healthy wildlife populations in the park. T ­ hese w ­ ere excellent positions for local Africans and even more so for ­those who worked during Albano Cortez’s directorship, as he remarkably offered the same wages for both Black and white guards, which rarely occurred in colonial contexts. “We had some park guards, some Black and some white. They w ­ ere at the same level and had the same salary and every­thing.”49 As with hunting guides, field staff often formed close bonds with their white bosses, as they often traveled together during long stretches in the bush, constantly protecting each other against the myriad dangers that t­hese settings featured. For example, a Portuguese employee at Gorongosa during the 1960s, who l­ater wrote a memoir of his experiences at the park, wrote fondly about Vasco, his trusted field companion, and even included a photo­g raph of him in the book with the following caption: “The open Land Rover in which we did all of our field work. On the left, beside the author, is our inseparable Vasco, invaluable companion during all the work we did at Gorongosa.”50 It is likely

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that Kenneth Tinley was referring to the same Vasco when he wrote many years ­later that “Vasco Matondo was a former elephant hunter who became my tracker, friend, and right-­hand man. He assisted me in the field; writing notes, pressing plant specimens and helping to dig soil profiles. He also kept a sharp eye out for curious lion, buffalo or elephant who may be attracted by the sound of digging! Vasco was a master Mbira [thumb piano] player and his playing often made light of hot mosquito infested nights.”51 Naturally, not ­every local resident benefited from the touristic development of the park the way that Vasco and ­others did. ­Going back to the initial forced relocations, many locals resented the pro­cess of transforming the space in this manner. Over time, Gorongosans performed much of the difficult work of carving out the park’s road network and helping to construct the vari­ous touristic infrastructure, often earning minimal compensation for their efforts. ­These dynamics undermined cooperation between park officials and local residents, prompting many of the latter to engage in poaching as a form of survival, but also as a challenge to the discriminatory policies that had been pursued against them over the de­cades of Gorongosa’s transformation. Perhaps most demeaning was the state’s prioritization of tourists, most of whom did not hail from Mozambique, over ­these longtime residents. As Muala has argued, “By denying Gorongosans, who w ­ ere forced to witness the parade of tourists through their homesteads, the ability to become active o ­ wners, buyers, and consumers of the park’s ecotourism, Portugal made the park more impor­tant to outsiders than to Gorongosans.”52 For all the pain that the touristic development of the park generated for many local residents, it did offer them some benefits beyond simply the prospect of employment. For example, by the late 1960s, local residents, African park staff, and members of their immediate families ­were all afforded educational opportunities owing to the beneficence of two Portuguese w ­ omen who ran an informal school in Gorongosa. Formal education in the region was other­wise unavailable, as the colonial regime had deemed the area too isolated for a state-­f unded school, nor was the government, in general, inclined to outlay funds for the educational advancement of the Indigenous population. Spearheading this effort was Zilda Fernandes, who had been a schoolteacher in Vila Paiva when, in 1966, she met her f­ uture husband, Luís Fernandes, who had by then worked his way up to deputy administrator of the park. Married in 1967, Zilda joined Luís as a full-­time resident of Gorongosa and soon afterwards launched the school out of a modest fa­cil­i­ty. As Zilda explained: “I started the school with five grades: pre-­school for ­those who did not speak Portuguese, and then First, Second, Third, and Fourth grades. Each grade had the same curriculum—­Math, Science, Portuguese language, Geography—­but

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at dif­fer­ent levels. The c­ hildren came from seven in the morning u ­ ntil noon. Then, from two ­until six in the after­noon, the African ­women whose husbands worked at the park would come to be taught. And, ­after that, at night, the workers and el­derly community members. That was my schedule, e­ very day, but I enjoyed it im­mensely.”53 With upward of 500 workers and f­ amily members living in the Chitengo compound, as well as many o ­ thers who came from beyond the immediate site, the school was quickly servicing a large, and growing, number of students. Over time, the school became so popu­lar that Zilda convinced her ­sister, Inez, to assist. More educational supplies w ­ ere added to the park’s bud­get, and a new residence was built to accommodate Inez and her husband, who had been hired as a scout at Gorongosa. Luís Fernandes explained that “many ­people came to the classes with Zilda and Inez ­because we had accommodations for p­ eople living on the other side of the Pungwe River to come to Chitengo and stay during the week to work in the park. T ­ here ­were men and ­women learning Portuguese . . . ​and ­there had never been anything like that and it changed lives. During ­those years we ­were ­there, many ­things grew and prospered. I’m not saying it was b­ ecause of me; it just happened to be at that time.”54 Although all the interactions at the school between African employees, local residents, and the two teachers occurred beyond the touristic gaze, revenues from the increased visitor traffic to Gorongosa facilitated t­ hese educational developments. Ultimately, the educational and economic opportunities that the park generated helped to temper some of the physical and emotional pain and associated hardships that the series of evictions and the local institution of forced ­labor had so powerfully and durably inflicted.

The Strug­gle Reaches the Park: The De Facto End to Gorongosa as a Tourist Attraction Frelimo formally commenced the war for Mozambican in­de­pen­dence on September 25th, 1964. But as indicated previously, the fighting was mainly relegated to the north, far from Gorongosa. By 1972, however, the strug­gle for African in­de­pen­dence that had been sweeping across the continent since the end of the 1950s fi­nally reached the park’s gates. The arrival of a com­pany of Portuguese troops and the stationing of members of a volunteer group in Gorongosa marked the beginning of the de facto end of the park as a colonial-­era tourist destination. On July 18, 1973, the attack that every­one had been anticipating fi­nally arrived, depriving the colonial regime of one of its premier touristic assets.

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As the strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence that Frelimo was waging advanced southward, Gorongosa increasingly became an area ripe for contestation. The guerrilla organ­ization relied on the sovereign government of Tanzania (1961), and the more recently in­de­pen­dent Republic of Malawi (1964), for rearguard support. In response to this southward thrust, although t­here w ­ ere allegedly sightings of flechas, Black Mozambicans employed by the Portuguese secret police, in the park prior to 1972, the stationing of a Portuguese com­pany in Gorongosa that year marked the first formal colonial military presence in the park. This unit was charged with the defense of Gorongosa as part of the regime’s regional strategy. In a complementary role, the Organização Provincial de Voluntários (OPV), the Provincial Organ­ization of Volunteers, was responsible for maintaining security at Chitengo and at an array of inspection posts within the park and, in general, for the safety of the tourists, as scarce military resources could not be allocated to accompany t­hese visitors on safari. The colonial government was determined to maintain touristic flows to the park as part of a broader attempt to demonstrate to the world that the impact of the conflict was negligible and that they had the guerrillas comfortably ­under control. Although park administrators generally lauded the state for its concern regarding the preservation of tourism at Gorongosa, they ­were frustrated by their exclusion from discussions related to the defense of the park. In par­tic­u­lar, they disliked the presence of the OPV, which was composed of a mestiço (mixed race) supervisor and rank-­and-­file Black Mozambicans, all of whom w ­ ere loosely overseen by a Portuguese military adjunct who coordinated the array of provincial militias. As Armindo Rosinha explained, “The O.P.V., recruited in LM, was composed of marginal, mostly unsavory ele­ments from the worst parts of the city. They revealed themselves to be enemies of the park and the fauna, as they hunted wildly for food and profit, damaged vehicles and property, behaved poorly, and, in general, sowed confusion among the nearby resident populations.”55 Celestino Gonçalves was similarly uncomplimentary about the volunteers. “The O.P.V. was a rather untrustworthy band of characters who had mobilized in Lourenço Marques, infamous for their swaggering presence in the capital’s nightclubs. Mostly known as bar fighters and braggarts, their competence as paramilitaries was, to put it mildly, dubious.”56 Chitengo was especially impacted by the arrival of this group, as the oasis newly featured barracks for the OPV, in addition to its much more idyllic tourist accommodations. Prior to the assault on Chitengo in July 1973, Frelimo had, in fact, previously struck in the area. ­Earlier that year, a Gorongosa employee had been kidnapped and subsequently killed, while in the adjacent Nhamacala coutada, in spring 1973, Frelimo had again attacked. In that raid, the nationalist guerrillas killed a Spanish neurosurgeon who was on a hunting safari in the reserve. The famous Frelimo

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Figure 5.3.  Ranger team, including two Mozambicans: Figueira (standing in bed of truck) and Castigo Mamunanculo (second back left), 1973. Photo courtesy of Albano Cortez.

commander, “Cara Alegre” (Happy Face), however, maintained that his troops ­were, at that time, pre­sent in the area solely for po­liti­cal purposes. “I was t­ here, but my mission was to work with the ­people, not to operate in the park. I was ­there on a po­liti­cal mission. . . . ​The park was a very special area reserved for tourists, and it was not good for us soldiers to go t­here and trou­ble ­people who are very happy t­ here and visiting the animals. . . . ​During the armed strug­gle, we, Frelimo, protected the animals.”57 Irrespective of the veracity of Cara Alegre’s claims, Albano Cortez, the park’s fifth director, and newly on the job at that time, had steadily been receiving accounts from his surveillance staff operating in the region about increased Frelimo activity (figure 5.3). As Cortez explained, “I began receiving regular reports from my scouts and rangers working in the bush: ‘Frelimo is h ­ ere, they have contacts, they took our guns.’ ­These encounters did not always go well for my men. Sometimes, park employees ­were mistreated, beaten. ­After that, we knew that something was ­going to happen.”58 Cortez was correct. At roughly 7:00 p.m. on July 18, a small Frelimo unit, ­under the direction of Cara Alegre, attacked Chitengo. Remarkably, no one was injured during the brief engagement, but the touristic impact was irreversible. Cortez offered this eyewitness account of the assault: “Every­body was in the restaurant b­ ecause it was the dinner hour and they started to shoot at us. I think t­ here w ­ ere six of them b­ ecause I could see the flashes of their Ka-

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lishnikovs from the other side of the fence near the airstrip. Every­body went down on the floor and tried to get away. It only lasted two minutes, maybe less. But nothing happened, ­really. Nobody was injured. And five minutes ­later, the Portuguese paratroopers who had been deployed to Gorongosa began to spray bullets everywhere so as to say, ‘We are ­here.’ ”59 Yet it was ­these very same soldiers who had enabled the attack, as a policy that was intended to reassure tourists may, ironically, have facilitated the ambush. As Perrera Charles explained, “I was having my dinner with the guests, as well as with the soldiers. T ­ here was a rule that the soldiers w ­ ere not allowed to carry guns when they went to eat in the restaurant ­because the guests would be uncomfortable. Frelimo came in and attacked. . . . ​Every­body was surprised and started ­running in all directions and by the time the Portuguese soldiers went to get their guns, Frelimo had already gone into the bush.”60 Charles also echoed the accusation that Lynne Tinley leveled at Tikki, the head waiter, in this chapter’s epigraph. “The cook’s f­ather, Tikki, communicated with someone [in Frelimo] and told him that when you hear the drums it means the guests and soldiers are ­going for dinner, and they ­aren’t armed when they do. So, Frelimo waited ten minutes ­after the drums started and then began shooting.”61 In the aftermath of the attack, Cortez phoned the governor of Beira, Col­ o­nel Sousa Teles, to inquire how to proceed. Cortez desperately wanted to close Gorongosa to guests. But, as tourism was so closely intertwined with the regime’s po­liti­cal and propagandistic efforts, Sousa Teles insisted that the park remain open. Even ­after Cortez conveyed to the col­o­nel that t­ here ­were bullet holes in the walls at Chitengo, the governor gave him express instructions not to close the park and to leave the holes intact so that they remained vis­i­ble, imploring him to “just clean t­ hings up.”62 Sousa Teles was keen to show foreign visitors and observers that Frelimo guerrillas w ­ ere nothing more than “terrorists,” willing to kill innocent civilians. Despite the col­o­nel’s resolve, the following day delivered even more ominous developments for Gorongosa’s touristic prospects. The majority of the park’s guests, including the Rhodesian president, Clifford Dupont, who had experienced the previous eve­ning’s ambush, left the morning ­after the attack. But as ­these visitors streamed out, a Unimog truck carry­ing Portuguese paratroopers flipped over on the way into Chitengo, killing five of them immediately, and seriously injuring two o ­ thers. Irrespective of t­ hese casualties, Cortez questioned the overall conviction of the Portuguese troops and leadership in engaging the guerrillas in the region, explaining that: The next day, t­ here was a small plane taking soldiers from Vila Paiva to Chitengo in order to go ­after the guerillas. I ­don’t know how many, but

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this plane made a lot of trips. And when they w ­ ere ready to go out into the countryside, they said to me, “Okay, we need a map.” I said, “If you want, I can give you someone from my staff to guide you b­ ecause they know the park like they know their own hands.” “No, that’s okay, we just need a map,” they said. And it took them hours to or­ga­nize themselves: 3 o ­ ’clock, 4 o ­ ’clock, about 5 ­o’clock they went. And they forgot the map. So, you can see what was happening. ­There was not much interest in finding the guerillas or for combat. A ­ fter that, we w ­ ere very concerned about our safety. It was very difficult.63 Portuguese troops ­were not the only ones to descend upon the park in the aftermath of the attack. The following day, Luís Fernandes arrived via plane to Chitengo. Fernandes provided the following account of the situation on the ground. “­People ­were in a kind of panic, ­people w ­ ere afraid. . . . ​We de­cided to go into the park, and we ­were near the Lion House and I saw something in the grass, and I thought, ‘Maybe it’s the lions?’ So, I ­stopped and opened the door and got out to look, but did not see anything, though a shiver began ­going up my spine.”64 Fernandes’ intuition was accurate, as the Frelimo guerrillas who had attacked Chitengo w ­ ere still hiding at the Lion House ­after having spent the night t­ here. Fernandes continued, “When I fi­nally met them a­ fter the war, they told me, ‘We saw you that day. If you had picked up your gun, we would have shot you.’ But, I never picked up my ­rifle. I ­don’t know why? I was lucky.”65 Less than two weeks ­later, Albano Cortez resigned from his position as director, while the numbers of tourists willing to visit the park predictably plummeted. And, the smattering of guests who did arrive ­were newly l­ imited regarding which areas of the park they could visit—­essentially, just Chitengo and a few nearby safari tracks. As Fernando Costa l­ater remarked, “Although Gorongosa remained open throughout the war, that was a po­liti­cal sleight of hand, win­dow dressing for the Portuguese government.”66 The regime had effectively lost one of its prized touristic assets, and at a time when it arguably needed it most. By the end of the colonial period, Mozambique featured a handful of national parks, but Gorongosa was, by some distance, the most popu­lar destination for tourists, as well as the most impor­tant—­politically, eco­nom­ically, and propagandistically—­for the colonial regime. Owing to its plentiful wildlife, Gorongosa could have much ­earlier joined the ranks of highly regarded camera safari locations in Southern Africa, but the Portuguese authorities moved relatively gradually in transforming the space from a hunting reserve to a preeminent touristic asset, including the construction of the requisite infrastructure.

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Central to this pro­cess, although often operating beyond the tourist gaze, ­ ere the countless African laborers who constructed Gorongosa’s road netw works and the range of facilities in and around Chitengo that ­housed the park staff and administrators, and temporarily accommodated the increasing numbers of visitors. O ­ ther African employees protected the famed fauna from poachers, serving as rangers and trackers, largely out of the sight of visitors, even as they formed tight bonds with their Portuguese supervisors. Yet many other African employees interacted face-­to-­face on a daily basis with t­hese guests, servicing them at Chitengo or accompanying them as guides as t­hese visitors set out to locate and photo­graph Gorongosa’s famed wildlife. Unfortunately, the minimal testimony available from both tourists and t­hese African employees obscures our understanding of the nature of ­these interactions, but what scant evidence that is available suggests that they ­were less racially antagonistic than w ­ ere some of the engagements in, for example, urban settings. This absence may be attributable to t­hese guests’ dependence on this staff. Indeed, the knowledge that Black safari guides possessed was invaluable to visitors who had l­imited time to engage Gorongosa’s wildlife. While at Chitengo, the well-­being of t­hese tourists was entirely dependent on a range of African employees; simply put, t­ here was nowhere e­ lse to dine, drink, or stay. It is also clear that by the 1960s and 1970s, when most of t­ hese visitors entered Gorongosa, the directors of the park, including Albano Cortez, w ­ ere not as racially rigid than their pre­de­ces­sors had been, thereby creating a more respectful, if still far from equal, culture that guests may have sensed while t­ here. In many re­spects, the park was still in its infancy when a hail of Frelimo bullets effectively deprived the colony of this valuable resource, even if the shooters may have missed their intended, more immediate targets that eve­ ning. Even prior to the attack, the simultaneous presence of Frelimo guerrillas and Portuguese troops had unsettled the area, generating further hardships for local communities, many of which had already been forcibly relocated. The presence of large numbers of armed combatants on both sides of the conflict also correspondingly increased poaching activity in and around Gorongosa, as ­there w ­ ere simply more mouths to feed. Local residents also participated, as the park and adjacent spaces had become increasingly difficult to police. Although Gorongosa never closed during the strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence, the attack on Chitengo ushered in a new era for the park and its resident wildlife, rendering both more vulnerable, especially ­after the commencement of the civil war in 1976.

Epilogue Postcolonial Legacies of Colonial-­era Tourism

On a breezy, sunny Sunday after­ noon in June 2017, I sat with my wife and our two ­children at a waterside restaurant in Catembe, just across the bay from Maputo. We had arrived by ferry some hours ­earlier with Eléusio Filipe Vargas, his wife, and their infant son, and w ­ ere now languidly consuming lunch on a deck overlooking the bay. Eléusio and I had attended gradu­ate school together some years ­earlier and he was now actively assisting me with the research for this proj­ect, namely, by trying to identify and subsequently interview Mozambicans who had worked in the tourism industry during the colonial period. As was our habit, when we frequented the city’s older, more popu­lar establishments, we would inquire if ­there w ­ ere any se­nior employees who may have been on staff t­ here, or elsewhere, during the colonial era. Unfortunately, ­these inquiries often proved fruitless, with current staff indicating that they had no coworkers who w ­ ere that old. But, this time was dif­fer­ ent. Rather than engaging with a se­nior member of the staff, though, we w ­ ere instead introduced to the chef, Fernando, someone seemingly in his late-­thirties and, thus, too young to have worked during the colonial period. ­After complementing Fernando on the superb food, he sat down with us and explained that his ­father had been a chef at the very same restaurant during the colonial era and that his ­father had maintained his culinary skills and, thus, his livelihood for some de­cades following in­de­pen­dence. Moreover, Fernando had learned how to cook from his f­ather (also named Fernando), who had passed along his knowl14 0



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edge and skills over time. Although Eléusio and I assumed that ­these types of occupational continuities and epistemological transmittals often occurred across generations, this was the first time we had had a tangible confirmation. The chef then offered to arrange an interview with his f­ather, to which we readily agreed. Beyond the excitement of locating another in­for­mant for the proj­ect, this touristic link, which crossed the colonial-­postcolonial divide, suggested that this book not conclude with the transitional period following the 1974 coup and the formal handover of power from the Portuguese to Frelimo the following year; rather, it should trace ­these impor­tant continuities and connections through the aftermath of in­de­pen­dence, on into the years well beyond this po­ liti­cal divide. On the ferry r­ ide back across the bay to Maputo l­ater that eve­ning, this epilogue began to take shape. On April 25, 1974, the Estado Novo regime was overthrown in a largely peaceful coup d’état, known as the Carnation Revolution. The uprising was led by mid-­level military officers who ­were both exhausted and jaded from waging simultaneous, protracted counterinsurgencies in three of Portugal’s “overseas provinces” in Africa. The po­liti­cal developments that ensued in the empire differentiated from colony to colony depending on a number of f­ actors, but the coup leaders made it clear from the onset that April 25th would mark the beginning of the transition to full in­de­pen­dence for each of Portugal’s African territories. In Mozambique, it was clear that Frelimo would inherit the reins of the nation but that exactly when would be a ­matter of negotiation. With Portuguese troops demoralized and many supporting the leftist coup leaders, but without a cease-­fire in place and the guerrillas still unable to access the state levers of power, uncertainty, tension, and, to a lesser extent, lawlessness, reigned. But, the transformative po­liti­cal events also generated a cautious jubilation among the indigenous population, which could newly see national sovereignty on the horizon. Portuguese settlers also began to sense the seemingly inevitable, prompting many to immediately depart the colony, with tens of thousands more to follow. This initial period stretched on into early September 1974, at which point the new Portuguese government and Frelimo leadership signed the Lusaka Accord. The compact recognized Mozambican in­de­pen­dence and set June 25, 1975, as the date for the formal transference of power, marking the birth of the sovereign nation. Upon in­de­pen­dence, tourism in Mozambique suffered for a number of reasons. First, the fledgling Frelimo government deliberately deemphasized the sector, unwilling to allocate scarce resources to further develop, or even maintain, the industry. Moreover, as most businesses that ­were central to the sector

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­ ere controlled by Portuguese or foreign interests, the industry quickly lost w valuable capital and h ­ uman resources. Fi­nally, Frelimo’s leftist agenda placed it squarely at odds with the white minority regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa, the sources of the vast majority of Mozambique’s touristic flows. Consequently, tourism predictably declined following in­de­pen­dence and, ­going forward, virtually dis­appeared a­fter the onset of the country’s devastating civil conflict in March 1976, which by its conclusion in 1992 had rendered Mozambique the fifth poorest country in the world.1 Yet the knowledge and skillsets of workers in the tourist sector persisted, which assisted both the recovery of the industry following the end of the conflict in 1992 and its continued growth ­today.

Touristic Uncertainty and Opportunity: In the Wake of April 1974 in Urban Mozambique Foreign tourists ­were naturally wary of traveling to Mozambique following the transformative events of April 1974. The more intrepid, or simply curious, of them came anyway, but most o ­ thers opted for more stable destinations. On arrival, visitors to urban settings in the colony encountered hordes of edgy settlers and excited indigenous residents, as well as considerable social unsettledness, but the overall touristic experience was, in practice, relatively unchanged. On the other side of the touristic equation, Portuguese and Mozambicans employed in the sector in urban locales could do l­ittle more than to maintain their professional activities, even as anxiety about both their long-­and short-­term remunerative prospects swelled within them. ­These employers and laborers ­were rightly concerned about the reduction in visitors, as tourist inflows thinned following the coup in Lisbon. In response, just weeks ­after the po­liti­cal developments in Portugal, a consortium of stakeholders in the industry, including: the Portuguese airline, TAP; Mozambican Railways; the Tourism Fund; and two large h ­ otel groups, formed in an attempt to ­counter this decline in foreign guests. Armed with sizable funding, the collective launched a “hard sell” offensive aimed at white Southern Africans who had, for de­cades, enjoyed Mozambique as a type of neighboring playground.2 Regardless, the ongoing fighting in the colony—or “terrorist activity,” as the South African media referred to it—­coupled with a cholera outbreak and petrol restrictions, hamstrung the consortium’s promotional efforts from the outset. In turn, ­hotels began downsizing their staffs and reducing guest capacity, including the Polana, which closed its entire top floor.



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The Touristic Experience in Lourenço Marques Despite the hardships and uncertainty following the Carnation Revolution, from a touristic perspective, Lourenço Marques was, if anything, an even more agreeable destination for visitors than it had been previously. Peter Vundla, one of only a small number of Black South Africans who w ­ ere legally permitted to travel to Mozambique during the apartheid era, visited the colony a number of times a­ fter April 1974, but prior to formal in­de­pen­dence.3 As with t­hose tourists who had preceded him—­Black, white, and Coloured—he, too, felt the de-­ escalation of racial tension on crossing the border, but also, newly, the alluring excitement generated by the po­liti­cal developments, for both Black Mozambicans and Black South Africans. As Vundla explained, “When you crossed the border, t­ here was a sense of relief owing to better race relations, but ­there was also an anticipation for the new regime. We, as Black South Africans, believed that if the Portuguese government could fall, then next would be the apartheid government . . . ​that freedom for us was around the corner.”4 Vundla’s observations during ­these visits also afford insight into the increasingly unstable situation in the colony. Even the journey itself, from Swaziland, where he was living at the time, to LM reflected this disquiet. During our interview, for example, he cited seemingly endless roadblocks, many of which constituted nothing more than opportunities for shakedowns, but given the relative strength of the South Africa Rand, he downplayed the financial impact of t­ hese confrontations, even when he paid. Vundla also witnessed both opportunistic locals and foreigners rushing to identify and pursue scenarios generated by the transformative developments that promised material gain. “We would interact with Eu­ro­pe­ans, as many of them w ­ ere staying at the same ­hotel [Polana] as us. The Polana was like a racial corridor . . . ​with lots of shady characters. Money was exchanging hands and ­there was a lot of deal-­making. The Portuguese who lived in homes around the Polana ­were leaving ­because Frelimo was coming down from the north. Lots of t­ hose homes w ­ ere being occupied by Frelimo supporters. They w ­ ere getting them dirt cheap, and they ­were lovely homes.”5 Fellow South African tourists Jean and Ivor Kissin, who w ­ ere staying in LM just days before Mozambique’s formal in­de­pen­dence, also experienced firsthand this panic among the Portuguese settlers. According to Jean: We had this horrible experience. A Portuguese lady came to me and she said, “Jean, we are g­ oing by car tomorrow and I need you to please—­ you’re South African—­please would you take my jewelry?” And I went to Ivor and I said, “She’s asked me to take her jewelry, can I do that?” And Ivor said, “You just ­can’t.” And I said, “Oh, Ivor, please. I’ve got to

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take it. I’ll get through, but she w ­ on’t.” Ivor said, “Jean, I’m sorry, you cannot do that. As horrible as it is, you just cannot do that.” Well, we did not do it and that both­ered me, but when we arrived at the airport to go home it was just as well, ­because I was stripped naked. I had long hair like I have now, but it was all up in a bun and I had pins in it, but I had to pull out all the pins and put my hair down. I was furious about that. . . . ​I ­don’t know what­ever happened to that ­woman.6 Meanwhile, the Polana H ­ otel, where the Kissins w ­ ere staying during their encounter with the departing settler, strug­gled uncharacteristically in the wake of Mozambican in­de­pen­dence. Following the outbreak of the Mozambican civil war in 1976, the ­hotel fell into disrepair owing to the significant decline in the numbers of tourists and the lack of state resources to maintain the g­ rand establishment. Given Frelimo’s ideological leanings, the establishment was more likely to host a visiting gymnastics team hailing from b­ ehind the Iron Curtain (which it did) during this period, anyway, than international tourists ­eager to experience every­thing Maputo had to offer.

The Fate of the (Once) Grande ­Hotel Further north, in Beira, the Grande ­Hotel perfectly reflected the pre-­and postin­de­pen­dence turmoil in Mozambique. By 1975, the fa­cil­i­ty had long since been shuttered owing to insolvency, and had been used only twice for functions since closing its doors to the public in 1964.7 However, on the very first day of in­de­pen­dence, the ­hotel hosted the initial wedding in the city u ­ nder the new regime. Shortly thereafter, Frelimo set up its Revolutionary Committee in the establishment, with the swimming pool bar serving as the main office. In keeping with this novel purpose for the fa­cil­i­ty, the basement was newly used to h ­ ouse po­liti­cal prisoners, while officers lodged their families in the guest rooms upstairs.8 As one longtime Mozambican resident characterized this moment, “The message was clear: in in­de­pen­dent Mozambique, whoever was not with Frelimo, was against it.”9 ­Today, the ­hotel sits as a reminder of the country’s colonial past and subsequent civil conflict, populated by thousands of squatters living in squalid conditions (figure E.1).

Eve­ning Adjustments: The Last Sins on Rua Araújo It was not just the h ­ otel industry that was affected by the sweeping po­liti­cal and social developments. So, too, w ­ ere vari­ous forms of entertainment in Mo-



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Figure E.1.  Con­temporary image of the Grande ­Hotel in Beira. Photo courtesy of Vlad Sokhin, Panos Pictures.

zambique’s urban settings. The site at which so many of t­ hese featured was the (in)famous “Sin Street,” which consequently became a primary target for the new regime. Arriving in the capital following years in exile and/or in the bush fighting for in­de­pen­dence, far removed from LM, the leaders of Frelimo ­were apparently horrified by the customs and be­hav­iors of ­those who frequented—­either as vendors or consumers of a variety of perceived vices—­ Rua Araújo.10 The “bohemian life” that Sin Street exuded was newly cast as “immoral, de­cadent, cap­i­tal­ist, and exploitative of, among other t­ hings, the bodies and vulnerabilities of Mozambican w ­ omen.”11 ­Until Frelimo took power in June 1975, though, businesses in the sector continued operations largely as usual. As Vundla replied when I inquired how he occupied his time in LM during the transitional period: “Just the usual. Exploring, dining out, lazing around the pool at the Polana, sleeping, and lots of debauchery along that famous street . . . ​just having a good time.”12 Yet, the “usual” good times on Sin Street would soon conclude. The new regime was determined to abolish this “relic of the city,” including by changing the name of the thoroughfare to Rua de Bagamoyo as part of the broader pro­cess of “Africanizing” the nation in an attempt to create a rupture with its

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colonial past. Even more significantly, following an official speech denouncing transactional sex, Frelimo also closed the array of establishments along the street that it referred to as “dens of prostitution.”13 Many African ­women making a living in this manner ­were eventually sent to reeducation camps.14 Of course, ­these mea­sures did not completely eradicate prostitution; in fact, as António Garrido Jú­nior noted, many contemporaneous residents observed that removing sex workers from Sin Street only displaced them to other locations around the city.15 Regardless, the regime’s hostility t­ oward foreign tourism was manifest in this mea­sure, as it undermined the industry by eliminating one of its major draws. By November 1975, the determined regime had also set about cleansing the capital city of anyone perceived to be involved in drugs, theft, or vagrancy as part of its broader war against “hunger, nudity, poverty, polygamy, racism, regionalism, illiteracy, obscurantism, capitalism, and imperialism, among other ‘evils.’ ”16 Shortly afterward, on Heroes’ Day, celebrated annually on February 3rd in Mozambique, night clubs in which dancing featured became the next target of the revolution. As Garrido Jú­nior explained, “From midnight of that day, t­ here was national mourning. . . . ​All the fun h ­ ouses w ­ ere closed. It was forbidden to dance, and so on. It was a day of mourning. All the police and ­those guys said, ‘Starting ­today, no one dances in this country.’ ”17 In just a handful of months, Sin Street had transformed from a hedonistic destination for so many domestic and foreign revelers to a quiet corner of Mozambique’s rapidly transforming capital city. LM’s musicians also suffered as a result of the divergent cultural course that Frelimo charted for the country. The vari­ous nightclubs that had been targeted by the regime had served as ­these entertainers’ venues, as well, so the closure of ­these businesses similarly hurt them. More broadly, the regime was increasingly heavy h ­ andedly stifling the type of personal liberty that had characterized Sin Street in the name of national unity, vilifying allegedly harmful foreign cultural influences in the pro­cess.18 As musician Artur Garrido Júnior explained, “­These cultural policies ­were excessive, especially by certain leaders. For example, I was about to be sent to a reeducation camp . . . ​­because I sang Otis Redding! That was considered to be ‘imperialist ­music’ and I was supposedly ‘alienating the Mozambican youth.’ ”19 Although local ­music briefly flourished in the wake of this novel emphasis on national culture(s) and unity, some of ­these emerging musicians eventually abandoned the country, primarily owing to the privations associated with the civil conflict and the inability to carve out a livelihood in this fashion.



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The Plight of Urban Tourism Workers Following the Portuguese Exodus Most, if not all, Mozambicans suffered during the years following in­de­pen­ dence, largely owing to the catastrophic civil conflict (1976–1992), which pitted the Frelimo regime against Renamo, a rebel group arguably manufactured, and certainly backed, by Rhodesia and, subsequently, South Africa. Yet, many laborers who had worked in ­hotels and restaurants during the colonial period fared comparatively well during this period owing to the skills they had previously developed in the sector. Denied managerial opportunities during colonialism, they newly began assuming key positions owing to the flight of Portuguese settlers.20 For example, Albino José Cumbe, who had begun working at the Polana H ­ otel in 1974, described the situation following the exodus of white staff and how he benefited from their departure: It worked out well for me—­it’s still working out well for me—­because I had already learned how to do kitchen work and could also work the ­counter and could teach colleagues. The boss had no one . . . ​when the settlers fled, the white employees also ran away, so we took their places. . . . ​ My experience during the colonial period helped me then and continues to help me t­oday. Back then, re­spect for our white bosses was, at once, both fear and re­spect, but a person like me could learn what he wanted to learn . . . ​You had to have discipline and demonstrate that you could work, you had to make an effort. . . . ​I am still [in 2017] employed at the Polana, in the ware­house, ­because of the work ethic that I developed.21 Eugénio Abilio Mathe described a similar scenario, in which employees, including his cousin, who had developed par­tic­u­lar skillsets during the colonial period capitalized on them to secure impor­tant positions in the industry following in­de­pen­dence. In Mathe’s case, when the Portuguese boss at the Come e Bebe (Eat and Drink) restaurant, where he was employed, left Mozambique the establishment was newly overseen by a Workers’ Commission before eventually being transformed into the Centro de Informação e Turismo (Center of Information and Tourism).22 As Mathe explained regarding the exodus of the Portuguese, The [Mozambican] head of the kitchen and the [Mozambican] chief of the hall already knew how to do the jobs . . . ​to do the shopping and the vari­ous work in the restaurant. . . . ​­After the boss left, the Workers Commission took over. My cousin, who was man­ag­er, became the boss and was responsible for every­thing. . . . ​He already knew where to shop, what

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to buy in the market—­the fish, squid, crab, and meat. Even the beer, 2M or Preta, he used to purchase based on his prior experiences.23 Owing to the occupational skills that he had honed prior to in­de­pen­dence, Mathe maintained a job at the establishment throughout the vari­ous managerial transitions. Commenting on the benefits that this sustained employment bestowed on him and his f­amily during this other­wise difficult time in Mozambique, Mathe explained that “In 1977, I bought zinc sheets and sent them to my home province. I also bought sheets and built a small house—­two bedrooms and a living room. I bought a t­able with six chairs and dishes. T ­ here was plenty to eat and drink and I could dress my ­family: my ­father, my ­mother, and my wife. I even got married that year.”24 The following year, Mathe completed a training course for waitstaff and parlayed that into a position at the posh Cardoso ­Hotel, where he worked ­until 1984. ­After an ensuing, brief stint as a military conscript, he landed at the Continental H ­ otel ­because, as he indicated, “My work was always in ­hotels and tourism.” ­There, he served food and drinks before moving to the iconic Piri Piri restaurant, where he was still working when we sat down for our interview in July 2017. The personal story of Fernando Cunica, the chef and f­ ather of the son that Eléusio and I had so fortuitously met at the restaurant in Catembe, even more powerfully illustrates the utility and durability of skills cultivated during the colonial period. Like so many other Mozambicans, Cunica migrated to LM seeking work, in his case in 1967. Cunica landed at the Piri Piri, where he was hired as a dishwasher before graduating to the kitchen, initially charged with making soup before expanding his culinary repertoire. G ­ oing forward, Cunica seamlessly transitioned across the colonial-­postcolonial divide, though during our interview he did note a series of spiteful articulations by his Portuguese bosses as they prepared to depart the colony. Cunica explained that t­ hese overseers threatened the Mozambique staff, declaring “We ­will leave and you ­will suffer a lot h ­ ere . . . ​Who do you think you are? You are Blacks without brains. You can kill me, but you ­will not be able to manage this country.”25 Cunica eventually left the Piri Piri in 1981, ­because, as he asserted, “a good cook is one who is always moving.”26 Commenting on the suffering that marked the 1980s, during which time his son, the ­future chef, was born, “You cannot compare that time with any other time. It was very difficult then. . . . ​If I was not a professional, my ­children would have died of hunger.”27 Cunica would go on to work in a number of kitchens over the ensuing de­cades, including with cooks of many nationalities, before eventually starting a culinary school and a catering business, both of which ­were still flourishing at the time of our interview. Connecting his culinary development to his son’s life and c­ areer, he added “My son is



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a ­great boy. He h ­ andles his life well, alone. . . . ​I made myself available to you for this conversation ­because of my son. He is a ­great cook. . . . ​I taught him how to cook; you saw that. I still hope that he w ­ ill go abroad one day. He is still young. He is still at the right age. Someone ­will take him abroad to learn other ­things. But, I am too old for that.”28 Although I confess that I am currently unaware of the professional fate of the ju­nior Fernando, I can confirm that his food was, indeed, sumptuous.

Touristic Uncertainty and Opportunity: In the Wake of April 1974 in Rural Mozambique Unlike in urban settings, in rural areas of Mozambique that had been highly contested, such as Gorongosa, Frelimo guerrillas, Portuguese soldiers, and local residents and employees endured an uneasy existence in the aftermath of the Lisbon coup, fueled by lingering animosity and plenty of firearms. The coutadas also featured a similar restiveness. In t­hose settings, emboldened poachers, soldiers hunting illegally, and the exodus of Portuguese staff collectively hindered operations. Regarding both camera and hunting safari operations, Frelimo officials acknowledged that the state required Portuguese (or other foreign) expertise to maintain them, even if many hardline ele­ments within the party wanted all Portuguese expelled from the country. Given that very few Mozambicans had ascended to managerial positions during the colonial era owing to institutionalized racism, the new regime appealed, if often reluctantly, to key Portuguese personnel to remain in the country following in­de­pen­dence, with some success. Yet Frelimo also promoted Mozambican professionals who had demonstrated par­tic­ul­ar competence, reliability, and responsibility during the colonial period to supervisory posts following in­de­pen­dence.

The Beginning of the End: Hunting Tourism Following the Portuguese Coup D’état In the aftermath of the coup d’état in Portugal, t­ here was considerable uncertainty within Mozambique’s hunting circles. Undeterred, foreign clients continued to arrive in the colony and many commercial operators, including the energetic Adelino Pires, deemed it imperative to continue offering safaris. Before Pires left Safrique and headed to Safarilandia to accept the directorship of that operation, though, Frelimo officials reached out to him. Together, in conjunction with his trea­sured chief tracker, “Radio,” whom Frelimo also trusted,

Figure E.2.  Adelino Pires (on the far right), with Radio (to Pires’s left), Luís Santos, and a Frelimo guerrilla, 1974. Photo courtesy of Fiona Claire Capstick, coauthor of Winds of Havoc.



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they negotiated the rebuilding of one of the destroyed camps in Safrique’s concession and Frelimo’s guarantee of safe passage for international clientele (figure E.2). In turn, Pires led a “classic safari” in the area for three Americans, who understood ­they’d be operating in a “hot zone.”29 However, following media disclosure of this undertaking, Portuguese military leaders and certain Frelimo officials condemned it, thereby rendering it the last safari of this type in the northern region. Many of Mozambique’s white professional hunters and safari operators not only rued this seemingly fateful development, but also expressed concerns over the fate of the industry given the uncertainty of the transition to Frelimo overrule. For example, Wally Johnson’s expressions of discontent and lament, offered some years removed from ­these events, drip with colonial nostalgia for a time, place, and experience that could never be relived: “In 1975, the harassment by Frelimo had already started. At least I managed to survive and rec­ ord my story . . . ​concerning a world nobody ­else can now know. It is buried, together with the remains of a hunting country that stood with the best, and which ­will be remembered by many as having given them a safari experience that no money on earth can now bring back or even remotely duplicate.”30

The Plight of Hunting Tourism Workers African employees in the hunting tourism industry experienced the sweeping po­liti­cal developments in vari­ous ways, with some filling the shoes of departed Portuguese professionals, while o ­ thers, owing to reduced demand, sought work in other sectors. One individual who was profoundly impacted by the transition to Mozambican in­de­pen­dence was Johannes, the talented member of Werner von Alvensleben’s staff at Safarilandia. The German had departed the colony a­ fter the coup in Lisbon ushered in the period of incertitude, relocating to Angola to run safaris ­there with the aforementioned Radio, his chief tracker, and a handful of other Black Mozambican staff. Meanwhile, Frelimo appointed Johannes as the caretaker of the Save concession in which Safarilandia was located owing to his intimate knowledge of the operation and his unrefuted competence. However, the goodwill exhibited by the new regime ­toward this ascendant employee did not last long. One day early on in Johannes’s tenure, a group of Frelimo soldiers arrived at the main camp at Zinhave followed by a large, empty truck. According to von Alvensleben, who learned of t­ hese proceedings subsequent to their occurrence, The commander of ­these troops then ordered them to strip the well-­ outfitted buildings and to put every­thing in the truck, to which Johannes

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strongly objected. Every­thing in the Safarilandia camps was not government property, and Johannes had received no authority from the ­people who appointed him to release it. He was badly beaten up . . . ​arrested and thrown in jail. T ­ here he remained, without trial for several months. . . . ​ He was eventually released, broken in health and spirit, and returned to his home village near Zinhave. He died a few months ­later.31 Conversely, the transition to the in­de­pen­dence era for Mozambican taxidermist, Jorge Faustino Fumo, had a much more fortuitous outcome. Not only did Fumo move from a position at Cambaco, a safari operation, to a similar post at the impressive Museu de História Natu­ral (Museum of Natu­ral History) in the capital city, so too did any animals that had already been prepared, but which had been left ­behind or ­were simply unclaimed at the safari outfitter’s camps as it wound down operations. The museum also hired Fumo’s ­father, ­uncle, and cousin. Over time, Fumo ascended to a supervisory role at the museum, while maintaining an interest in hunting and periodically practicing taxidermy prior to retiring in 2010, exactly thirty-­five years a­ fter Mozambique’s in­de­pen­dence. Over the course of his ­career, Fumo attempted to pass along his taxidermy skills to his son in the hopes that the latter could make a living in the profession. According to Fumo, I trained my son when I went to perform [taxidermy] jobs, including a ­couple of times to Beira. He always claimed that “This [work] is difficult,” but he is my adjutant. Before I retired, I spoke with the museum director so that maybe he could have a job t­ here ­because he is good, he works with me at home. The director indicated that t­ here was a formal course in taxidermy that he should take, but it did not go well. We continue to work at my ­house, preparing chemicals . . . ​I have a lot of molds from the old safari days . . . ​heads of lions, zebras, impalas . . . ​I have them with me, but when I die, I w ­ ill throw them away.32 Given his intention to discard ­these items, Fumo’s stated claim to me that he was the last remaining taxidermist in Mozambique was both striking and entirely convincing.

The Strug­gle Continues, in Gorongosa Gorongosa experienced considerable tumult in the aftermath of the coup in Lisbon before the park was eventually stabilized. During the strug­gle for in­de­ pen­dence, areas in and around the park had served as active theaters for the



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conflict and none of the entities—­Frelimo, the Portuguese army, or the ragtag volunteer organ­ization OPV—­had any intention of relinquishing their arms during the ensuing transitional period. In order to deescalate the situation, colonial and Frelimo officials agreed that the reviled OPV needed to be removed. Although the park had remained open following the attack on Chitengo in 1973, the tourism traffic had dried up, so t­hese volunteers occupied much of their time (illicitly) hunting the park’s famed fauna. As Celestino Gonçalves opined, “­These guys volunteered and ­were sent to Gorongosa, even though ­there had been no tourism for some time. It was a disgrace. They w ­ ere criminals, bandits. They w ­ ere the biggest native poachers. The scum of the earth.”33 Further complicating ­matters was the OPV’s enduring allegiance to the Estado Novo, even a­ fter the events of April 1974. At one point, they even seized a radio transmitter in LM to maintain contact with individuals in Portugal who remained loyal to the regime. In order to remove the volunteers from Gorongosa, the colonial governor dispatched Gonçalves to the park with a satchel full of cash to entice them to return to Lourenço Marques and, just in case, a submachine gun to compel them. Gonçalves’s account of what ensued underscores the chaos that marked the park during the transitional period: “I arrived in Chitengo by plane and asked the commander of the Portuguese forces to go with me to speak with the commander of the volunteers. . . . ​Luís Fernandes was the man responsible for the park at that time, but he was in Portugal on holiday, and an interim staff was supposed to be ­running the place, but ­there was only anarchy. Nobody was in charge, nobody was respecting anyone, and they all had guns and ­were well-­armed for war. They w ­ ere soldiers and bandits at the same time.”34 Given this contested scenario, Gonçalves faced a considerable challenge on his arrival. Ultimately, though, he was able to convince the volunteers to accept the money, surrender their firearms and uniforms, and decamp for LM, even as their commander threatened the envoy’s life and personally refused to submit to the ­orders issued by Gonçalves on behalf of the governor. With the OPV removed, Gonçalves’s next task was to protect the park’s wildlife, which was increasingly at risk due to the uptick in poaching. To safeguard the fauna, he knew that he had to work with Frelimo, as they ­were the ­future of the country. ­After relaying his intentions to the park staff, he reached out to Frelimo through a local intermediary and explained the ensuing developments as follows: I fi­nally met with the Frelimo leader, a guy called “Happy Face,” Commandante Cara Alegre. This was the same guy who shot up the restaurant

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in July of ’73, and I told him that Gorongosa faced a very serious situation ­because poachers w ­ ere destroying the park, and he agreed that action was necessary to protect it. I wrote up a report explaining the situation and delivered it to this Frelimo commander, who said he would send it to Samora Machel [the Frelimo leader who became the first president of Mozambique], and I invited Cara Alegre to come to Chitengo to or­ga­nize ­matters and re-­institute some sense of discipline. So, he came with his staff. But, before Cara Alegre arrived, another Frelimo commander who was camped out with his men at Bue Marie kidnapped me.35 Thankfully for Gonçalves and the handful of Portuguese soldiers who w ­ ere also abducted, the rival Frelimo commander was solely interested in the fate of the OPV. With that issue already resolved, they ­were quickly released and the rival Frelimo groups w ­ ere invited to Chitengo the next day. According to Gonçalves, “Every­thing went well. . . . ​We had a meeting with the scouts, the workers, the staff of the park, the Portuguese military, and both Frelimo groups. Cara Alegre declared that ‘Anyone from now on who is undisciplined ­will be punished by Frelimo, so you have to do your duty to protect the park.’ Then we all sat down together for a big lunch prepared by Safrique.”36 ­Going forward, Frelimo’s commitment to work collaboratively for the conservation of Gorongosa proved to be genuine. Their resolve included the integration of dozens of soldiers into the park’s team of scouts to combat poaching during the transitional period, which helped maintain animal populations. According to Luís Fernandes, who was overseeing vari­ous aspects of the park at this time, regarding this arrangement, “Every­thing was perfect. ­There ­were a lot of prob­lems elsewhere in Mozambique, tension between Frelimo and the Portuguese, but in Gorongosa ­there was no prob­lem. The Frelimo guys adapted very well to the system at the park. I can only say good ­things about them. They even went to school and ­were taught by Zilda. They would come to school with their machine guns and put them on the floor and sit down for their lessons. No prob­lems.”37 Collectively, this efficacious collaboration between Frelimo and the park’s professional custodians, combined with external assistance from a host of countries, including Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and Samora Machel’s commitment to conservation in Gorongosa ensured a healthy existence for Gorongosa and its faunal inhabitants in the years following the transition to sovereign rule in Mozambique. Overseeing the park during this initial period following in­de­pen­dence was Matias, who had served as Gorongosa’s first Black ranger before subsequently ascending to the directorship, and his successor



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and fellow countryman, Augustino Macadona, who had begun as a scout on a hunting reserve before moving to the national park.38 Meanwhile, Gonçalves had agreed to stay in Mozambique to help oversee Gorongosa, though from a distance, via a post in Maputo. Of all his postin­de­ pen­dence accomplishments, he was arguably proudest of Mozambique’s success at a 1981 tourism exposition held in Bulgaria, the aim of which was to help teach developing countries how to utilize the industry to generate revenues. Although Gonçalves was originally slated to travel with the Mozambican del­e­ga­tion, Frelimo’s minister of agriculture barred him from representing the country ­because he was Portuguese. Nonetheless, the Mozambican exhibition, which “also included live animals—­impalas, sables, and kudus—as well as a remarkable array of mounted trophies,” earned first prize at the event.39 Shortly thereafter, at a ceremony at the presidential palace, Samora Machel honored the participants, including individuals, such as Gonçalves, from Mozambique’s Wildlife Department, who had also contributed to the endeavor, but who had not traveled to Bulgaria. Although tourism had not been a priority for Frelimo, the new stewards of Gorongosa remained appreciative t­ oward ­those who bolstered the sector through their conservation efforts. Tragically, the same year that the success in Bulgaria was celebrated, Renamo attacked Chitengo. As had happened already in so many places elsewhere in the country, the civil conflict reached and subsequently overwhelmed Gorongosa. From a touristic perspective, by 1983 the park was shut down and abandoned. However, g­ oing forward, Renamo used the location for its base of operations and, thus, Gorongosa experienced heavy fighting between the warring parties, thereby decimating the animal populations.40 Even ­after the conflict concluded in 1992, it took de­cades for the park to return to its former faunal and, therefore, touristic preeminence. Reconstructing the vibrant history of tourism in colonial-­era Mozambique required that I sit down and interview Mozambicans in the twenty-­first c­ entury about their past ­labor and social experiences in the industry. Yet, ­these historical conversations also provided myriad comparative insights into con­temporary Mozambique. Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the ways that Mozambicans perceive working in the sector and its broader utility then versus now is captured in the testimony of Pedro Manhiça, who was first employed in the industry in 1974 before moving to the Cardoso H ­ otel in 1976, where he was still employed when I interviewed him in 2017. Manhiça’s long ­career in the tourism sector featured a number of highlights, including earning sufficient funds to purchase a ­house in 1984. But, much more illuminative

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regarding the shifting sentiments of workers in the industry was his statement comparing ­labor and tourism across the colonial-­postcolonial divide. “Now, it is much better working in tourism . . . ​we have a lot of advantages. . . . ​Now, life is better. Most importantly, we are working to make Mozambique g­ reat.”41 Let us hope Manhiça and other Mozambicans ultimately succeed in this commendable endeavor.

N ote s

Foreword

1. For an explicit discussion of leisure and working-­class identity formation, see Hobsbawm, Workers: Worlds of ­Labor, 202–204. 2. For an impor­tant account of the development of seaside holidays, see Walton, “The Demand for Working-­Class Seaside Holidays in Victorian ­England.” 3. Walton, The Blackpool Landlady. 4. Harp, The Riviera, Exposed. 5. Scott, Unpacked, 139–141. See also Scott, “Revolution at the ­Hotel,” 150–151. 6. Peleggi, “The Social and Material Life of Colonial ­Hotels,” 140–144. 7. Scott, “Revolution at the ­Hotel,” 160–161. 8. Jennings, “From Indochine to Indochic,” 160. 9. Scott, Unpacked, 139. 10. For several examples, see Anderson, “The Development of British Tourism in Egypt”; Crush and Wellings, “The Southern African Plea­sure Periphery”; Hom, “Empires of Tourism”; McGregor, “The Victoria Falls 1900–1940.” 11. Casson, Travel in the Ancient World, 32, 85. 12. See Thompsell, Hunting Africa; Simmons, “Selling the African Wilds.” 13. See Baranowski, Endy, Hazbun, Hom, Pirie, Simmons, and Zuelow, “Discussion: Tourism and Empire.” 14. Hunter, “Tourism and Empire.” 15. Zuelow, “Negotiating National Identity through Tourism in Colonial South Asia and Beyond.” 16. Wrigley, “Against the Wind.” 17. Said, Orientalism. Introduction

1. Relatório e contas da Sociedade de Turismo de Moçambique, 1. 2. Interview with Rodrigues Pelembe. 3. Alexander, Holiday in Mozambique, 1. 4. Abdula, Breda, and Eusébio, “Tourism in Mozambique,” 384. 5. The construction of the marginal required nearly three miles of fill and the construction of a seawall some three meters high. See Penvenne, African Workers and Colonial Racism, 38. 6. Lourenço Marques Directory 1931, 145. 157

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TO PAG ES 5– 10

7. For further information on the origins and experience of this arrangement, see van Onselen, Night Trains; Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity. 8. First, “The Gold of Mi­g rant ­Labour,” 13. 9. Van Onselen, Night Trains, 43. 10. Interview with Albino José Cumbe. 11. Frelimo, an acronym for the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, was a nationalist organ­ization formed in 1962 to fight for the in­de­pen­dence of the colony. It is now Mozambique’s dominant po­liti­cal party. 12. Interview with Moira Forjaz. 13. Morton, “Age of Concrete,” 175. 14. “O turismo em Moçambique—­Algumas considerações da odrem estatística,” 25. The term “Coloured” was codified during the apartheid era in South Africa, primarily to label individuals who ­were neither Black, White, nor Asian. As such, this racial category encompassed a variety of p­ eople, including many who w ­ ere multi-­ethnic. The label endures in con­temporary South African society, but without the pejorative nature associated with the same term in the American context. The white-­minority regime in Rhodesia did not relinquish power ­until 1980, at which time the new nation ­adopted the name Zimbabwe. 15. Interview with Ruth Van Wyk. 16. Interview with Moira Forjaz. 17. Interview with Moira Forjaz. 18. It is unclear if the Portuguese regime was using English-­language programming on LM Radio specifically to appeal to would-be tourists from South Africa or if it was part of a broader outreach effort. 19. Interview with Edmund February. 20. Alexander, Holiday in Mozambique, 1971. 21. Direcção dos Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique & The South African Railways and Harbours, Lourenço Marques, 93. 22. See, for example, MacKenzie, The Empire of Nature; Carruthers, “Creating a National Park, 1910–1926”; Brooks, “Images of ‘Wild Africa’ ”; Garland, “The Elephant in the Room.” 23. Kathleen Sheldon indicates that even though the Portuguese did offer training in domestic skills, including cooking, to small numbers of Mozambican girls, colonial conventions of gendered l­abor and social roles precluded their employment in restaurants, nor did this training translate to employment as domestic servants, as only a small fraction of domestic workers in the colony ­were female. Sheldon, Pounders of Grain, 103. 24. Anthropologists, dating back to Valene Smith’s landmark Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, have long been concerned with the cultural impact on receiving communities, but this focus has traditionally been on con­temporary, rather than historical, interactions and influences. Edward Bruner has extensively examined the transformative impacts (or lack thereof ) that feature in touristic encounters in Africa. See, for example, Bruner, Culture on Tour. 25. Trevelyan, “Lourenço Marques,” 3. 26. For example, see Crisp, The Story of an African Working Class; Isaacman, Cotton Is the ­Mother of Poverty. 27. For example, see Cleveland, Diamonds in the Rough.

NOTES TO PA G ES 10– 16

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28. For example, see Brown, “We W ­ ere All Slaves.” 29. For example, see Allina, Slavery by Any Other Name. 30. For example, see chapter 5 of Arrington-­Sirois, Victoria Falls and Colonial Imagination in British Southern Africa, 143–178. 31. Interview with Vasco Manhiça. 32. See, for example, Schmidt and Van Beek, African Hosts and Their Guests. 33. Preto is a pejorative term in Portuguese used to denigrate Africans (generally Black Africans). Interview with Fernando Cunica. 34. Interview with Pedro Manhiça. 35. Interview with Luís Macuácuá. 36. Interview with José Manhique. 37. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 282. 38. Hammond, Portugal and Africa; Clarence-­Smith, Third Portuguese Empire. 39. “O Problema do Turismo em Moçambique,” 14. 40. Semmens, Seeing Hitler’s Germany; Hom, “Empires of Tourism,” 281–300. 41. Semmens, Seeing Hitler’s Germany, 32; Hom, “Empires of Tourism,” 300. 42. Wrigley, “Against the Wind,” 193. 43. Wrigley, “Against the Wind,” 208. 44. Philipp Bachmann has examined this phenomenon in K ­ enya prior to the onset of mass tourism in that setting, for which the country became somewhat notorious. See Bachmann, Tourism in K ­ enya. Albert Grundlingh has similarly explored this marketing approach in apartheid South Africa, prior to a shift in touristic strategy. Grundlingh, “Revisiting the ‘Old’ South Africa,” 103–122. 45. For discussion of the term “real Africa,” see Keim, Mistaking Africa. For information regarding the development of Livingstone, Zambia, as a tourist attraction, see Arrington, “Power, Culture, and Colonial Development around Victoria Falls,” 266–283. One exception to this relative transparency was the, albeit remote, construction site in Tete province of Cahora Bassa Dam, in 1969–1974, which the Isaacmans have cogently argued the regime made inaccessible owing to its economic and po­liti­cal importance. Isaacman and Isaacman, Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development. During our interview, Allen Isaacman also indicated that the colonial state made it very difficult for him to conduct research in Mozambique in 1969. Interview with Allen Isaacman. 46. The Portuguese government launched the Center for Information and Tourism of Mozambique (CITM) in 1959, but the entity had a series of pre­de­ces­sor agencies. 47. See, for example, Manners, Kambaku!; Marsh, Baron in Africa. 48. I am also extremely grateful to Bob Shacochis, who shared with me the testimony from interviews he had conducted in 2009 and 2010 with vari­ous Portuguese and Mozambicans who w ­ ere associated with Gorongosa during the colonial period. Many of the in­for­mants had already passed away by the time I commenced my research in 2016, thereby rendering this testimony invaluable to my reconstruction of Gorongosa as a tourist destination (chapter 5). 49. Interview with Jean Kissin. 50. It is arguably misleading to refer to the early years of hostilities as a civil conflict, as the re­sis­tance group Renamo (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana) was created and funded by the Rhodesian security ser­vices and was initially comprised primarily of former Portuguese military and security forces, escaped prisoners, and a

16 0 NOTES

TO PAG ES 17– 32

small number of disaffected Black Mozambicans, some of whom w ­ ere Frelimo deserters. For more information on the conflict, see Finnegan, A Complicated War. 51. The relationship between Rhodesia, South Africa, and Mozambique (Portugal), although always cozy owing to shared experiences and objectives, was formalized via a secret military alliance consummated in 1960. For further information on this alliance of white minority-­r uled states in Southern Africa, see Afonso and de Matos Gomes, Alcora; Maria Paula Meneses, Rosa, and Martins, “Colonial Wars, Colonial Alliances”; Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses and McNamara, The White Redoubt. 52. Interview with Harry Hawthorne. 53. Trevelyan, “Lourenço Marques,” 3. 54. Antero, “Moçambique,” 62. 55. Kennedy, The Last Blank Spaces, 188. Kennedy’s work examines relationships between Eu­ro­pean explorers and a range of African assistants and intermediaries but the power dynamics are consistent with t­ hose that prevailed between Eu­ro­pean hunters and Mozambican employees. 56. Frazão-­Moreira, “Narratives of ‘Belonging in Nature,’ ” 1. 1. The Promise and Delivery of Tourism in a Colonial Space

1. Joan Alexander, “­Family Holiday in L.M.,” 1. 2. Interview with Fernando Sitoi. 3. Henriques, “Africans in Portuguese Society,” 79. 4. Henriques, “Africans in Portuguese Society,” 79. 5. Newitt, A History of Mozambique, 467. 6. Bender, Angola u­ nder the Portuguese, 20; Domingos, “Urban Football Narratives and the Colonial Pro­cess in Lourenço Marques,” 2163. 7. Domingos, “Football in Colonial Lourenço Marques,” 235. 8. Bittencourt, “Jogando no campo do inimigo,” 17. 9. Pascal-­Angot, Moçambique—­turismo (I)? 10. Interview with Fernando Cunica. 11. Heard, “Found Many S. Africans in L.M.,” 1. 12. Morton, Age of Concrete, 213. 13. Ingalls, “Racial Attitudes Help Mold Cities,” 12. 14. Henriksen, Mozambique, 127. 15. Interview with Luís Sarmento. 16. Interview with António Chavana. 17. Interview with John Wilson. 18. Interview with Moira Forjaz. 19. For further analy­sis of ­these tourist materials, see Martin, Maputo, 59 20. Regarding tourism, the regime was undoubtedly more interested in promoting the “Latin” aspects of the colony, which linked it more closely with the metropole, than the Indigenous dimensions. 21. Interview with Armando da Silva Maleiane. In this instance, the in­for­mant was describing the experiences from the 1950s of his f­ ather, who was too frail to sit for the interview. His ­father also worked at the famous Piri Piri restaurant, also in Lourenço Marques.

NOTES TO PA G ES 32– 40

161

22. Interview with John Jones. Zulu forms the core of Fanagalo, but it also includes ele­ments of En­glish and Afrikaans, as well as some Portuguese and words from other African languages. This simplified language only contains some two thousand words in total, rendering it easy to learn quickly. 23. Interview with Pierre Edwards. 24. Interview with Vasco Manhiça. In many ways, this response was even more remarkable, as many white families in South Africa had Black domestic servants who cooked and served meals. 25. The En­glish term “season” was always used to describe this period, regardless of one’s native tongue. 26. Interview with Allen Isaacman. 27. De Freitas, “Semi-­Nude Girls Caused the Fuss in L.M,” 13. 28. Interview with Luís Sarmento. 29. De Freitas, “Semi-­Nude Girls Caused the Fuss in L.M,” 13. 30. Heard, “Found Many S. Africans in L.M.,” 1. 31. De Freitas, “Semi-­Nude Girls Caused the Fuss in L.M,” 13. The capitalization appears in the original account. 32. Heard, “Found Many S. Africans in L.M.,” 1. 33. Ras, “Rudeness and High Prices in L.M.,” 1. 34. Palmeirim, “Treatment of S.A. Visitors in L.M.” 1. 35. Clarence-­Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire, 155. 36. Herrick, Area Handbook for Mozambique, 249. 37. “O problema do turismo em Moçambique,” 14. 38. Clarence-­Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire, 155. 39. US Consuls in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique, 1950–1963, “Dispatches from U.S. Consuls in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique: Annual Economic Report—­ Mozambique—1951,” 11. 40. “O turismo de Moçambique,” 1; Grünthal, “Tourism in Under-­Developed Countries of Africa,” 179. 41. “O turismo em Moçambique—­considerações algumas,” 25. 42. Herrick contends that by 1965 the government had stemmed t­ hese alleged losses and that foreign exchange earnings that year amounted to 13.6 million escudos. Area Handbook for Mozambique, 249. 43. Wight, “Basic Data on the Economy of Mozambique,” 5. 44. Silva and Frazão-­Moreira, “Coleccionistas, turistas, caçadores,” 117. 45. Lisbon launched the first National Development Plan for Mozambique in 1953, followed by a successive Six Year Plan (1959–1964) and then another Six Year Plan (1968–1973), following a transition plan that ran from 1965 to 1967. 46. Henriksen, Mozambique: A History, 136. 47. Província de Moçambique, Conselho de Turismo, 3. 48. Lisbon had established similar agencies in Angola and Goa just prior to launching the Mozambican version. 49. Anuário turistico de Moçambique, 92. 50. Moçambique: Anuário turístico, número tres, 9. 51. Centro de Informação e Turismo de Angola, “Gabinete da imprensa estrangeira,” 1.

16 2 NOTES

TO PAG ES 40– 52

52. Moçambique: Anuário turístico, número dois, 2. 53. Agência Geral do Ultramar (hereafter, AGU), “Discurso de Silva Cunha, 1966,” 13. 54. Lourenço Marques: On the Edge of the East, 15. 55. Anthony, Lourenço Marques and the Moçambique Coast, 9. 56. Interview with John Wilson. 57. Brignall, “Never Again, He Says,” 1. 58. Morgans, “Did He Want A Red Carpet?,” 21. 59. Newitt, A History of Mozambique, 469. 60. Anuário da Colónia de Moçambique 1948, 348. 61. Man on the Reef, “Get On Your Marques for Paper-­Chase,” 21. 62. Interview with John Wilson. 63. Silva and Frazão-­Moreira, “Coleccionistas, turistas, caçadores,” 116. 64. Alexander, “­Family Holiday in L.M.,” 1. 65. Anthony, Lourenço Marques and the Moçambique Coast, 9. 66. Travel advertisement in the New York Times, September 27, 1959. 67. For example, the first flight from Lisbon to Lourenço Marques left on September 5 and only arrived fifty-­one days ­later, on October 26, 1928. See Lima, História dos Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique, 251. 68. Repartição Técnica de Estatística, Anuário estatístico—1949, 464. 69. Herrick, Area Handbook for Mozambique, 1970. The OAU was founded in 1963 by thirty-­two member states. The organ­ization strove to eliminate colonial overrule while also combating the neo­co­lo­nial relations that plagued newly in­de­pen­dent nations, while also seeking greater economic and po­liti­cal integration. In 2002, the body was replaced by the African Union. 70. Letter ­housed at the Arquivo Histórico Diplomático, in Lisbon (hereafter, AHD). Letter from D. J. Joubert, the secretary for transport for the Republic of South Africa, to Victor Veres, director general of civil aviation in Portugal (February 2, 1968): 1. 71. AHD, Letter from Monty Rosen to the head of the civil aeronautics (Victor Veres) in L.M. (March 6, 1968): 2. 72. Clarence-­Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire, 208. 73. Silva and Frazão-­Moreira, “Coleccionistas, turistas, caçadores,” 118. 74. “IV Congresso Internacional de Turismo Africano,” 84, 88. In the address, Caetano would go on to praise the colony’s cuisine and ­hotels. 75. Sousa, “Coordenação do turismo na África Austral,” 3. 76. Both Malawi and Lesotho had been British imperial territories. 77. Silva and Oliveira, “Paquetes do império,” 262. 78. Vinho Verde, literally translated as “green wine,” is not labeled as such owing to its color but rather ­because the wine is released shortly ­after the grapes are harvested, rendering it “young” rather than hued. It is an effervescent wine that typically features lower levels of alcohol than most wines. 2. “Eu­rope in Africa”

1. J. N. Pascal-­Angot, Africarama. 2. Lourenço Marques: On the Edge of the East, 3.

NOTES TO PA G ES 52– 59

163

3. Interview with John Wilson. The ave­nue remains an impor­tant thoroughfare in the city. Of Portuguese origin, a prego roll consists of steak, a roll, and garlic butter— in short, a ­simple steak sandwich. 4. Ingalls, “Racial Attitudes Help Mold Cities,” 1. 5. Spence, Moçambique, 133. 6. Anthony, Lourenço Marques and the Moçambique Coast, 47. 7. Statistical Department, Portrayals of, 2. 8. Spence, The Portuguese Colony of Moçambique, 89. 9. “Highlights on a Tour of Southern Africa,” 1. 10. Alexander, Holiday in Mozambique, 42. 11. “Lures of Lourenço Marques,” 1. 12. Queiroz, Santuário Bravio, 41. 13. Somewhat ironically, one of the most famous matadors during this period was (Ricardo) Chibanga, a Black Mozambican who would hone his skills in Portugal before performing in Spain and France and, eventually, around the world. Forcados are responsible for subduing the bull during the per­for­mance and are quite often injured in the pro­cess. In Portugal, forcados typically derived from the lower classes, which may explain why Black Mozambicans participated in this manner in Lourenço Marques. 14. Interview with Artur Garrido Júnior. 15. Interview with John Jones. 16. Alexander, Holiday in Mozambique, 56. 17. Interview with C. J. Du Piesanie. 18. Interview with Jean Denley. 19. Interview with Albino José Cumbe. 20. Interview with Albino José Cumbe. Contrary to Cumbe’s suppositions, neither railroad employees nor longshoremen worked seven days a week. 21. Interview with Rodrigues Pelembe, Maputo, Mozambique, July 7, 2017. 22. Interview with Fernando Cunica. 23. All h ­ otel statistics for the year of 1929 can be found in República Portuguesa. Repartição de Estatística da Colónia, Anuário Estatístico—1929, 364–365. 24. Colónia de Moçambique, Anuário Estatístico—1934, 84. 25. Colónia de Moçambique, Anuário Estatístico—1931, 78. Over time, the term mestiço replaced misto to describe ­these mixed-­race individuals, who enjoyed an intermediate social and ­legal status in Portugal’s African colonies. 26. Colónia de Moçambique, Anuário Estatístico—1931, 78. 27. Colónia de Moçambique. Anuário Estatístico—1932, 110. 28. It is in­ter­est­ing that as racial designations w ­ ere abandoned with the publication of the 1966 edition, the state introduced employment by occupation, devising three categories: administrative; kitchen and pantry; and other ser­vices; which would have loosely reflected occupation by race, with whites primarily employed in administrative work and African men and w ­ omen in jobs that comprised the other two categories. See Direcção Provincial dos Serviços de Estatística, Província de Moçambique. Anuário Estatístico—1964, 464–465. In the 1970s, “Reception” was also briefly added as a category. 29. Silva, The City of Lourenço Marques Guide, 20. 30. Guia dos Hotéis e Pensões de Lourenço Marques, 9.

16 4 NOTES

TO PAG ES 60– 71

31. Anthony, Lourenço Marques and the Moçambique Coast, 39. 32. Ellert, Moçambique Mosaic, 329. 33. Spiguel, “Férias em Lourenço Marques.” 34. Cowell, “­Grand Mozambique H ­ otel,” 1. 35. Interview with Jean Kissin. 36. Interview with Luís Macuácuá. 37. Interview with António Chavana. 38. For example, see Guia dos Hotéis e Pensões de Lourenço Marques. 39. Interview with Luís Macuácuá. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate corroborative material regarding this event or any preceding or subsequent competition, but Macuácuá’s testimony was compellingly detailed. 40. Interview with Salvador Fulane. 41. Interview with Rodrigues Pelembe. 42. Interview with Salvador Fulane. 43. Interview with Rodrigues Pelembe. 44. Interview with Salvador Fulane. 45. Interview with Pedro Manhiça. 46. Interview with Pedro Manhiça. 47. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 48. Interview with Albino José Cumbe. 49. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 50. Interview with Albino José Cumbe. 51. Interview with Fernando Cunica. Caldo verde is a Portuguese soup that includes greens, potatoes, onions, and sausage. 52. Interview with Albino José Cumbe. 53. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 54. Interview with Fernando Cunica. 55. Interview with Luís Macuácuá. 56. Interview with Fernando Cunica. Alheira is a traditional Portuguese smoked sausage composed of a variety of dif­fer­ent meats, though primarily poultry, as well as bread, garlic, olive oil, and hot pepper. 57. Interview with Albino José Cumbe. 58. Interview with Fernando Cunica. Interestingly, Armando da Silva Maleiane indicated that his ­father, who also used to work at Piri Piri, but before Cunica, learned En­glish from interacting with customers and that the restaurant actually or­ga­nized a time each day when his ­father could interact with English-­speaking customers. Interview with Armando da Silva Maleiane. 59. Interview with Fernando Cunica. 60. Interview with Albino José Cumbe. 61. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 62. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 63. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 64. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 65. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 66. Interview with Fernando Cunica. 67. Interview with Fernando Cunica.

NOTES TO PA G ES 72– 84

165

68. Interview with Fernando Cunica. 69. Interview with Luís Macuácuá. 3. Urban Nightlife

1. Ricardo Rangel’s 2004 book, Pão Nosso de Cada Noite, captures this nighttime revelry through an illustrative series of black and white photo­graphs of Rua Araújo that he took during the colonial period that I would strongly encourage readers to access. Unfortunately, the foundation that oversees his work (Rangel passed away in 2009) denied me permission to includes some of ­these images in this book. 2. In 1966, the Victoria Falls Casino opened in Rhodesia, but this was a rather late development in this history and many Rhodesians continued to prefer to travel to Mozambique for the reasons outlined in this and ­earlier chapters. 3. Interview with Yvonne Kolbe. 4. It is widely believed that the Varietá was the second opera ­house constructed on the continent, with the first located in Cairo. Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado na Rua Araújo em Lourenço Marques,” 15. 5. Ruark, “Portuguese Integration,” 72. 6. Sheldon, Pounders of Grain, 61. 7. Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado,” 18. 8. Manners, Kambaku!, 35. 9. Spence, Moçambique, 133. 10. Sheldon, Pounders of Grain, 61. 11. Alexander, Holiday in Mozambique, 52. 12. Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado,” 22. 13. Given that Victoria Falls is located in the far northwestern reaches of Zimbabwe, Mozambique remained the obvious, much more proximate, choice for South Africans. 14. Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado,” 18. 15. Spence, Moçambique, 133. 16. Spence, The Portuguese Colony of Moçambique, 89. 17. Spence, Moçambique, 133. 18. Interview with Dave Denley. Depending on the source (oral or archival), the establishment was variously referred to as the Penguin Café, Penguin Bar, or simply the Penguin. It is unclear if the business ever formally changed its name or if ­these vari­ous monikers simply reflected shifting local labels. 19. Trevelyan, “Lourenço Marques,” 3. 20. Manners, Kambaku!, 36. More information on fado per­for­mances is provided ­later in this chapter. 21. Interview with Norma Hancocks. 22. Interview with John Murphy. 23. Interview with Pedro Botte. 24. Interview with Artur Garrido Júnior. (Vickie) Busi Mhlongo would go on to become an international m ­ usic star. According to some accounts, she even received a Grammy nomination (though I was unable to locate any evidence of the nomination), among other forms of recognition during her long ­career. She passed away in 2010. 25. Interview with Jean Kissin.

16 6 NOTES

TO PAG ES 84– 96

26. Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado,” 17. 27. Manners, Kambaku!, 36. 28. Interview with Nic Grobler. 29. Drake, “Uma viagem a Lourenço Marques onde todas as bareirras são derrubadas,” 7.The article first appeared in The Star ( Johannesburg) and was reprinted with the author’s permission. 30. Interview with Jackie Edgar Holloway. 31. Interview with Jean Kissin. 32. Interview with John Jones. 33. Interview with Moira Forjaz. 34. The other style, Coimbra fado, is exclusively sung by male performers. 35. Nabarro, “O fado em Moçambique até 1973: Um esboço.” The article was originally written in 1972–1973. 36. Interview with Jean Kissin. 37. Apparently, one brothel was managed by “a lady who was known in the city for her generosity and who had several ­children who graduated from school in South Africa.” Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado,” 18. 38. Sheldon, Pounders of Grain, 61. 39. Interview with Fernando Sitoi. 40. Interview with Allen Isaacman. 41. Interview with Artur Garrido Júnior. 42. I first learned of this nickname from Moira Forjaz during our interview. 43. Interview with Fernando Sitoi. 44. Newitt, A History of Mozambique, 607. 45. Interview with Fernando Sitoi. 46. Heard, “Found Many S. Africans in L.M.,” 2. 47. Manners, Kambaku!, 17. 48. Manners, Kambaku!, 17. 49. Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado,” 22. 50. Alexander, Holiday in Mozambique, 4. 51. Interview with Arturo Garrido Júnior. 52. Interview with Arturo Garrido Júnior. 4. The Lure of the Game

1. Coelho, Maphisa & Sportsmen, 177. 2. Silva and Frazão-­Moreira, “Coleccionistas, turistas, caçadores,” 124. 3. Gould, “Hunters of Empire,” 141. 4. The Gaza Empire extended from roughly the 1820s u ­ ntil its defeat in 1895, and it encompassed territory that comprised areas of con­temporary Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Mozambique. 5. Coelho, Maphisa & Sportsmen, 178. 6. Thompsell, Hunting Africa, 3. 7. Coelho, Maphisa & Sportsmen, 178. 8. Coelho, Maphisa & Sportsmen, 177. 9. Thompsell, Hunting Africa, 96.

NOTES TO PA G ES 96– 106

167

10. Thompsell, Hunting Africa, 96. 11. Martinho, Colônia de Moçambique, 20–22. 12. Martinho, Colônia de Moçambique, 27. 13. Boletim Oficial de Moçambique, Diploma legislativo no. 343. 14. Coelho, Maphisa & Sportsmen, 234. 15. Galvão, Montes, and Freitas, A caça no império Português, 406 16. Galvão, Montes, and Freitas, A caça no império Português, 541. 17. Coelho, Maphisa & Sportsmen, 242. 18. Província de Moçambique—­relatório e informações—­anexo ao “Boletim official,” 121. The Lourenço Marques Guardian was a biweekly, bilingual newspaper that was published in the Mozambican capital from 1905 to 1951. 19. A companhia de Moçambique, A companhia de Moçambique. 20. Gould, “Hunters of Empire,” 143. 21. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 279. 22. Carlos Antero, “Moçambique,” 62. 23. US Consuls in Lourenço Marques, “Dispatches from U.S. Consuls in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique,” 11. 24. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 44. One such com­pany was the Sena Sugar Estates in the Zambezi region. 25. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 46. 26. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 46. 27. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 47. 28. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 63. 29. In April 2018, the official name of the country was changed from Kingdom of Swaziland to Kingdom of Eswatini. Eswatini is the name of the country commonly used in the local Swazi, or siSwati, language. 30. Teixeira, Reunião para o estudo dos problemas da fauna, 11. 31. Alexander, Holiday in Mozambique, 15. 32. Spence, Moçambique, 18. 33. For example, in exchange for a series of articles in mainstream publications that spoke favorably of Portugal’s colonial proj­ect, American writer Robert Ruark was granted VIP status by Portuguese and Mozambican officials, which, among other ­things, afforded him safari holidays in the colony at reduced rates. 34. Safari Outfitters, Inc. Newsletter, 1. 35. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 79. 36. Testimony from José Lobão Tello, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 37. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 94. 38. Testimony from José Lobão Tello. 39. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 98. T ­ hese special forces ­were known as the Grupos Especiais Paraquedistas (GEPs). 40. Capstick, The Last Ivory Hunter, 101. 41. Capstick, The Last Ivory Hunter, 161. 42. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 78. 43. Capstick, The Last Ivory Hunter, 101. 44. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 99. 45. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 116.

16 8 NOTES

TO PAG ES 107– 120

46. Capstick, The Last Ivory Hunter, 108. 47. Interview with Albano Cortez. 48. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 80. 49. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 153. 50. Safari Outfitters, Inc. Newsletter, 2. Mr.  Eckles subsequently booked another thirty-­day safari with Safari Outfitters for July 1965. 51. Safari Outfitters, Inc. Newsletter, 2. Both Tabers bagged sizable leopards while on safari in Mozambique. 52. Jacobs, Birders of Africa, 21; Kennedy, The Last Blank Spaces, 191. 53. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 86. 54. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 281. 55. Interview with Jorge Faustino Fumo. Like ­others employed in the safari industry, Fumo reserved his highest praise for Americans, claiming, “The Italians wanted the work done so fast, and the Spanish ­were the most demanding, but the Americans would never say that they wanted the job done tomorrow.” 56. Interview with Jorge Faustino Fumo. 57. Interview with Jorge Faustino Fumo. 58. Jacobs, Birders of Africa, 180. 59. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 281. 60. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 84. 61. Manners, Kambaku!, 43. 62. Cameron, Into Africa, 22. 63. Kennedy, The Last Blank Spaces, 163. 64. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 282. Von Alvensleben had always aggressively pursued and harassed poachers, including by destroying traps and snares, patrolling for t­ hese transgressors, and turning them over to the colonial authorities when he captured them. His zeal clearly influenced Johannes as well. According to Von Alvensleben, “­There was not an African throughout this vast track of land who did not know him and re­spect Johannes, and t­ here was not a poacher, e­ ither African or Eu­ro­pean, who did not fear him. No ­matter how cunningly a snare . . . ​had been concealed, Johannes’ sharp eyes would find it.” Marsh, Baron in Africa, 281. 65. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 280. 66. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 84. 67. Antero, “Moçambique,” 62. 68. Capstick, The Last Ivory Hunter, 125. 69. Thompsell, Hunting Africa, 8. 70. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 86. It was unusual for mestiços to know how to drive, and even more so for Black Mozambicans, but Bulha had previously been employed as a bus driver for the Witwatersrand Native ­Labour Association (WNLA), which recruited mi­g rant Mozambican laborers for the South African gold mines. 5. Safari

1. Vasse, Three Years’ Sport in Mozambique, 121. 2. Many of t­ hese evictees ended up as forced laborers for the Mozambique Com­ pany, working cotton and sugar fields. See Muala, “Gorongosa,” 50. 3. Muala, “Gorongosa,” 43.

NOTES TO PA G ES 120– 127

169

4. French, “Like Leaves Fallen by Wind,” 199–200. 5. Gourevitch, “The Monkey and the Fish,” 106. 6. Tinley, “Framework of the Gorongosa Ecosystem,” 29. 7. Muala, “Gorongosa: A History of an African Landscape,” 4. 8. Wentzel, “Mozambique,” 230. 9. “Brief History of Gorongosa National Park.” 10. Local animosity ­toward Coimbra was so intense that when he injured his leg while on duty, local residents celebrated. See Muala, “Gorongosa,” 66. 11. “Brief History of Gorongosa National Park.” 12. Rosinha, “Alguns dados históricos sobre o Parque Nactional da Gorongosa.” 13. The lions used to climb to the top of one of the structures via an outdoor staircase in order survey the plains that stretched out in e­ very direction, looking for prey. For video of the lions on t­ hese structures, see Gorongosa National Park, “The Lion House of Gorongosa National Park (60’s).” Following in­de­pen­dence, the government razed the structures. 14. Silva, Gorongosa, 63. 15. Frazão-­ Moreira, “Narratives of ‘Belonging in Nature’ in Gorongosa (Mozambique).” 16. “Brief History of Gorongosa National Park.” 17. “Brief History of Gorongosa National Park.” 18. “Brief History of Gorongosa National Park.” 19. Testimony from Armando Rosinha, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 20. Testimony from Armando Rosinha. 21. “Brief History of Gorongosa National Park.” The concession would subsequently change hands a few times before the park closed. 22. Muala, “Gorongosa,” 64. Among the earliest of t­ hese visitors was Amália Rodrigues, the famous Portuguese fado singer, who came to the park in 1951, just a few months ­after the restaurant at Chitengo was opened. James Michener also notably visited Gorongosa. 23. Testimony from Maria Romão, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 24. Testimony from Maria Romão. 25. Rosinha, “Alguns Dados Históricos sobre o Parque Nactional da Gorongosa.” 26. Interview with Albano Cortez. 27. Testimony from Armando Rosinha. 28. Queiroz, Santuário Bravio, 65. 29. Silva, Gorongosa, 42. 30. The Pungwe could usually be traversed during the dry season, but pontoons ­were necessary during the rainy season. 31. Despite ­these encouraging numbers, it is notable that Kruger National Park was averaging over twenty thousand visitors per month by 1967. See Tinley, “The Conservation of Ecosystems,” 29; David, “Turismo cinegético,” 49; “Brief History of Gorongosa National Park.” In 1965, this figure stood at 8,136. See Dias, “A caça em Moçambique e o turismo,” 27. 32. Lynne Tinley, Drawn from the Plains, 117. 33. Testimony from Luís Fernandes, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 34. Rosinha, “Alguns dados históricos sobre o Parque Nactional da Gorongosa.” 35. Frazão-­Moreira, “The Words about a ‘Sea of Trees.’ ”

17 0 NOTES

TO PAG ES 127– 143

36. Professionally, Spiguel was one of the most “prolific directors and producers of Portuguese tourism films in the 1960s, specializing in travelogues about Portugal and the Portuguese colonies.” See “Miguel Spiguel.” 37. Sampaio, “Miguel Spiguel.” 38. Testimony from Fernando Costa, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 39. Testimony from Pinto Soares, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 40. ­Under this system, in order to retain some semblance of power, traditional authorities ­were obliged to furnish men and boys from among their subjects to ­labor for ­either the colonial state or concessionary companies for a set period of time in exchange for food, minimal wages, the satisfaction of their taxation obligations, and, at times, accommodations. 41. Testimony from Pinto Soares. 42. Testimony from Pinto Soares. 43. Testimony from Victor Santos, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 44. Marjay, Mozambique, 26. 45. Tinley, Drawn from the Plains, 123. 46. Interview with Albano Cortez and interview with José Canelas. 47. Interview with John Jones. 48. Alexander, Holiday in Mozambique, 134. 49. Interview with Albano Cortez. 50. Queiroz, Santuário Bravio, 63. 51. Tinley, Montane to Mangrove, 149. 52. Muala, “Gorongosa,” 67. 53. Testimony from Zilda Fernandes. 54. Testimony from Luís Fernandes. 55. Rosinha, “Alguns dados históricos sobre o Parque Nactional da Gorongosa.” 56. Testimony from Celestino Gonçalves, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 57. Testimony from Cara Alegre, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 58. Testimony from Albano Cortez. 59. Testimony from Albano Cortez. 60. Testimony from Perrera Charles, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 61. Testimony from Perrera Charles. 62. Albano Cortez, “Relato do Dr. Albano Cortez.” 63. Testimony from Albano Cortez. 64. Testimony from Luís Fernandes. 65. Testimony from Luís Fernandes. 66. Testimony from Fernando Costa. Epilogue

1. Chingono, The State, Vio­lence and Development, 71. 2. Stan Maher, “Hard-­Sell Tourist Drive,” 4. 3. At the time, Vundla was living in Swaziland (Eswatini). He was a Black South African professional who had been granted the rare permission to travel abroad to further his education, in his case at Columbia University in New York, and then work abroad, and was thus able to use his South African passport to travel to Mozambique.

NOTES TO PA G ES 143– 148

171

4. Interview with Peter Vundla. 5. Interview with Peter Vundla. 6. Interview with Jean Kissin. 7. In 1971, it was used for the visit of members of the US Congress and a second time (in ­either 1969 or 1971, depending on the source) for the wedding of the ­daughter of an influential Portuguese figure in Mozambican society. See Sarmento and Linehan, “The Colonial H ­ otel,” 287; Stoops, Grande ­Hotel. 8. Murphy, “In Mozambique,” 1. 9. Melo, “A Beira e o Grande ­Hotel.” 10. Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado,” 2. Regardless, Portuguese troops and apparently even the last high commissioner of the colony, Vítor Crespo, continued to frequent Sin Street throughout this transitional period. Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado,” 3. 11. Melo, “Deus, o negócio e o pecado,” 3. 12. Interview with Peter Vundla. 13. Gonçalves, Memorando, 8. 14. Cowell, “Grande Mozambique ­Hotel,” 12. In Beira, Frelimo reportedly used the basement of the Grande H ­ otel as a prison to detain t­ hese ­women. See Stoops, Grande ­Hotel. 15. Interview with Artur Garrido Júnior. 16. Malaune, “A History of ­Music and Politics in Mozambique from the 1890s to the Pre­sent,” 130. 17. Interview with Artur Garrido Júnior. 18. For an excellent account of the role of m ­ usic during this period, see: Malaune, “A History of ­Music and Politics in Mozambique.” 19. Interview with Artur Garrido Júnior. Júnior also shared a humorous account of Joaquim Chissano, who, in 1975, was Frelimo’s minister of foreign affairs, before assuming the presidency in 1986. Apparently, Chissano showed up to an establishment, the Folclore, one eve­ning before they had all been closed, and not only defied the party’s order not to dance but implored every­one pre­sent to join him, which they eagerly did. 20. On assuming power, Frelimo gave ­people of Portuguese descent the option to stay in the new nation for three months or to leave. If they desired to leave the country ­after the initial three-­month period, they only had twenty-­four hours and could only take with them up to twenty kilograms of personal items. Consequently, the policy became known as “24–20.” 21. Interview with Albino José Cumbe. 22. The Frelimo government established vari­ous workers commissions, especially ­after it began to nationalize businesses, including restaurants. Subsequently, the state set up formal training courses for ser­vice industry laborers, initially relying on individuals, such as Luís Macuácuá, who had gained experience during the colonial period, to serve as the instructors, who, in turn, used their knowledge to recruit and train ­others. Interview with Luís Macuácuá. 23. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 24. Interview with Eugénio Abilio Mathe. 25. Interview with Fernando Cunica. 26. Interview with Fernando Cunica. 27. Interview with Fernando Cunica.

17 2 NOTES

TO PAG ES 149– 156

28. Interview with Fernando Cunica. 29. Pires and Capstick, The Winds of Havoc, 113. 30. Capstick, The Last Ivory Hunter, 213. 31. Marsh, Baron in Africa, 289. Relocating to Angola proved to be an extremely short-­term solution, as Angola gained in­de­pen­dence shortly ­after Mozambique did. As such, von Alvensleben only stayed in Angola for two months before leaving for Rhodesia, while the Mozambicans who had accompanied him returned home. 32. Interview with Jorge Fumo. 33. Testimony from Celestino Gonçalves, interviewed by Bob Shacochis. 34. Testimony from Celestino Gonçalves. 35. Testimony from Celestino Gonçalves. 36. Testimony from Celestino Gonçalves. 37. Testimony from Luís Fernandes. 38. While Macadona was serving as director, Samora Machel and his entourage visited Chitengo, his only known visit to Gorongosa. 39. Testimony from Celestino Gonçalves. 40. For example, between 1972 and 2001, the number of cape buffalo counted in the park fell from 13,000 to just 15; the wildebeest count fell from 6,400 to just 2; hippos declined from 3,500 to 44; and instead of 3,300 zebras, ­there w ­ ere only 12. Elephant herds and lion prides, too, ­were reduced, by 80 to 90 ­percent. And ­there ­were no hyenas, black or white rhinos, or wild dogs. Gourevitch, “The Monkey and the Fish,” 99. 41. Interview with Pedro Manhiça.

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Interviews Conducted by the Author

In Portugal Isabel Botte. July 12, 2016. Pedro Botte. July 12, 2016. Albano Cortez. March 3, 2018. José Canelas. March 3, 2018. Moira Forjaz. July 7, 2016.

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In South Africa Tish Adams. June 6, 2017. Gordon Allison. June 6, 2017. June Allison. June 6, 2017. Dave Denley. June 6, 2017. Jean Denley. June 6, 2017. Pierre Edwards. April 7, 2017. Marley Van Gogh. June 6, 2017. Nic Grobler. April 8, 2017. Norma Hancocks. June 6, 2017. Harry Hawthorne. June 6, 2017. Margaret Hawthorne. June 6, 2017. Jackie Edgar Holloway. April 7, 2017. John Jones. June 6, 2017. Ivor Kissin. June 6, 2017. Jean Kissin. June 6, 2017. Yvonne Kolbe. June 6, 2017. John Murphy. June 6, 2017. C. J. Du Piesanie. April 7, 2017. John Wilson. June 6, 2017. Ruth Van Wyk. June 6, 2017. Winnifred Van Wyk. June 6,2017.

In Mozambique António Chavana. July 3, 2017. Feliciano Chimene. June 23, 2017. Albino José Cumbe. June 29, 2017. Fernando Cunica. June 28, 2017. Salvador Fulane. July 10, 2017. Jorge Fumo. July 12, 2017. Artur Garrido Júnior. July 10, 2017. Luís Macuácuá. June 20, 2017. Armando da Silva Maleiane. July 5, 2017. Pedro Manhiça. July 5, 2017. Vasco Manhiça. June 29, 2017. José Manhique. July 4, 2017. Zacarias Matavel. June 21, 2017. Eugénio Abilio Mathe. July 4, 2017. Rui Monteiro. June 27, 2017. Paulo Negrão. July 8, 2017. Luís Nhaca. July 3, 2017. Rodrigues Pelembe. July 7, 2017. Luís Sarmento. June 27, 2017. Fernando Sitoi. July 8, 2017.

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Other Locations Edmund February, via Zoom. November 12, 2020. Allen Isaacman, Fayetteville, Arkansas. November 15, 2016. Peter Vundla, via Zoom. December 10, 2020. Interviews Conducted by Bob Shacochis Cara Alegre. September 2010. Rui Alfonso. 2010. Baldeu Chande. 2010. Perrera Charles. July 2010. Albano Cortez. June 2010. Fernando Costa. August 24, 2009. Luís Fernandes. June 28, 2010. Zilda Fernandes. June 28, 2010. Vasco Galante. 2010. Fernando Gil. August 26, 2009. Celestino Gonçalves. June 27, 2010. Beca Jofrisse. 2010. Adolfo Macadona. 2010. Augustino Macadona. 2010. Maria Romão, 2010. Armando Rosinha. June 26, 2009. Victor Santos. June 26, 2010. Pinto Soares. June 25, 2010. José Lobão Tello. January 25, 2010. Roberto Zolho. July 1, 2010.

187

Index

Page numbers in italic refer to figures and maps. Adega da Madragoa, 86 advertising and marketing: brochures and guides, 31, 41, 43, 44, 62, 121; films, 15, 22, 29, 31, 51, 60, 99, 127–28, 170n36; on hunting, 96, 98–99; on Lourenço Marques, 19, 50–52, 77. See also tourism promotion and development Africa, colonialism in, 3, 24–25. See also Angola; Mozambique; Portuguese colonialism; Rhodesia; South Africa African Union, 162n69 African workers in tourist industry, 1–2, 5, 9–13, 15–16; bullfighting, 54–55, 163n13; exploitation of, 11, 56, 61, 73; female performers and prostitutes, 16 (see also urban nightlife); gender of, 2, 9, 16, 18–19, 59, 88; at Gorongosa National Park, 118, 129–34, 131, 139; hunting tourism, 20, 97, 105–16, 151–52; physical abuse of, 11, 61, 64, 68–69, 73, 129–30; racial demographics, 58–59; social relations with foreign tourists, 31–33; social relations with Portuguese settlers, 29–30; types of employment, 18–19; in urban areas, 51, 55–57 (see also Beira; Lourenço Marques); working conditions, 57, 71, 163n20; in years a­ fter in­de­pen­ dence, 147–56, 171n22. See also ­hotels; race relations; restaurants; social ascension; wages and tips Africarama (1973), 51 airline industry, 18, 43–46, 122, 126, 142 alcohol consumption, 74–75, 80–82, 88 American hunters, 99, 101–3, 107–8 Angola, 6, 13, 25–27, 40, 98, 130, 151, 172n31 Antero, Carlos, 20, 98–99, 114 Anthony, John, 50 anticolonial nationalism, 6, 13, 26, 28, 40, 76, 162n69; Frelimo guerrillas, 6, 77, 102–3,

113, 128, 134, 158n11; Mozambique war for in­de­pen­dence, 26, 47–48, 76–77, 113–14, 128, 134, 141–42. See also decolonization apartheid, 8, 16, 143, 158n14 Aquario bar, 80 assimilado (assimilated) status, 27 astronauts, 6, 20, 102, 105–8, 106, 123–24 Baker, Herbert, 60 Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU), 103, 124 Bar Luso, 80 bars: in Chitengo, 122, 125–26, 132; in Lourenço Marques, 19, 30, 49, 51, 55, 60, 63–67, 75–77, 80–84 bartenders, 18, 65, 88 beaches, 5, 7, 14, 35, 37, 50, 52–53, 58, 73 Beira, 1, 41–43, 47, 121, 126, 144 Beira–­Rhodesia road, 126 Belgian colonies, 14, 26 Berlin Conference (1884–1885), 3, 25, 94 bifas, 89–91 “bikini and barefoot crisis,” 33–36 Bitniks (pop ­music band), 83 Bittencourt, Marcelo, 28 border crossings, 42 Borrell, Max, 99–100 Botte, Isabel, 82 Botte, Pedro, 82 British colonies, 26 brothels, 87–89, 166n37. See also prostitution Bulha, Jaime, 109–10, 115, 168n70 bullfighting, 54–55, 163n13 Busi Mhlongo, Vickie, 83–84, 165n24 cabarets, 75, 77, 80–84, 88 Caetano, Marcelo, 13, 39–40, 47 Cahora Bassa Dam, 159n45 189

19 0 I n d e x

Cambaco safari operation, 152 camera safaris. See Gorongosa National Park Cameron, Kenneth, 113 Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (CFM), 43 Canelas, José, 131 Cape Times, 34–35 Cape Verde, 25 Cara Alegre (“Happy Face”), 102, 136, 153–54 Cardoso ­Hotel, 59, 63–65, 75, 148, 155 Carlton ­Hotel, 58 Carnation Revolution, 141 Casino Belo, 78 Casino Costa, 78 casinos, 9, 18–19, 74, 76–81, 165n2 Catholic Church, 76, 79–80 Center for Information and Tourism of Mozambique (Centro de Informação e Turismo, CITM), 15, 39–40, 47–48, 147, 159n46 Cerejeira, Manuel Gonçalves, 76 Charles, Perrera, 137 Chavana, António, 30, 62 Chibanga, Ricardo, 163n13 Chicari Camp, Gorongosa, 122 Chilapalapa language, 32 Chissano, Joaquim, 171n19 Chitengo Camp, 20, 121–22, 124–26, 129–34, 172n38; Frelimo attack on, 117–18, 135–39, 153; map of, 119; Renamo attack on, 155. See also Gorongosa National Park civil conflict (1976–1992), 16, 20, 142, 147, 155 “civilizing mission,” 27. See also racial hierarchy Clarence-­Smith, William Gervase, 13, 36–37, 46 Clube dos Lisboetas, 86 Coelho, Marcos, 93, 97 Coimbra, José Henriques, 121 Coimbra Restaurant, 32 colonialism in Africa, 3, 24–25. See also Portuguese colonialism colonial nostalgia, 3, 16, 151 Come e Bebe (Eat and Drink) restaurant, 66, 147 Comoros Islands, 47 Companhia de Moçambique, 98 Congo, 14 Conselho do Turismo (Tourism Council), 39 conservation, 118, 121, 123, 124, 126–27, 154–55

Continental ­Hotel, 148 cooks: at Gorongosa, 129, 131; for hunting safaris, 93, 108, 112; in restaurants, 65–69, 72, 140–41, 148–49. See also restaurants Cortez, Albano, 107, 124, 132, 136–39 Costa, Fernando, 128, 138 coutadas (concessionary hunting reserves), 5–6, 19–20, 97–98, 109–10, 127, 149. See also hunting tourism; Safarilandia; Safrique Crespo, Vítor, 171n10 cruise ships, 44 culture, 8; foreign, 12; Frelimo government and, 146; racial hierarchy and, 114–15; tourists’ be­hav­ior and dress, 33–35. See also Latin culture Cumbe, Albino José, 5, 56, 66–70, 147 Cunha, Silva, 40 Cunica, Fernando, 11, 29, 50, 57, 67–72, 148–49 customs and immigration, 42 da Gama, Vasco, 3, 22, 44 dance hostesses, 84 Davies, David, 8 decolonization, 13–14, 26, 94. See also anticolonial nationalism Delagoa Bay Lands Syndicate, 60 Denley, Dave, 81 Denley, Jean, 55 DETA (Divisão de Exploração dos Transportes Aéreos), 45, 47 diplomacy, tourism as, 23–24, 46–49. See also Portuguese colonialism domestic workers, 57, 158n23, 161n24 Domingos, Nuno, 28 Doolittle, Jimmy, 102 doormen, 57, 65 dos Santos, Amália Cesar, 111 Drake, Neill, 84 drug use, 74, 146 Duke, Charles, 20, 105–6, 106 Du Piesanie, C. J., 55 Dupont, Clifford, 137 Eckles, George, 108 education, 133–34 Edwards, Pierre, 32 elephants, 95, 97–98, 109–10, 112, 121, 126, 132–33, 172n40 En­glish language, 11, 32, 64, 72, 90, 97–99, 131, 158n18, 161n24, 164n58

I n d e x Estado Novo regime (New State), 26–27, 128; overthrow of, 27, 141. See also Caetano, Marcelo; Portuguese colonialism; Salazar, António Estoril, Portugal, 79 Europa ­Hotel, 59 Eu­ro­pean culture, 18, 53. See also Latin culture Eu­ro­pean hunters, 95, 97, 99–101, 160n55 exploitation: of Indigenous populations, 23, 27, 145; of natu­ral resources, 120, 126; of workers in tourist industry, 11, 56, 61, 73 fado (musical genre), 75, 86–87, 169n22 Fajardo, Tony, 108 Fanagalo (or Fanakalo) language, 32, 161n22 Fauna Protection Fund, 125 February, Edmund, 8 Fernandes, Luís, 126, 133–34, 138, 153, 154 Fernandes, Zilda, 133–34 Fernando (chef ), 140–41 Ferreira, Angelo, 46 Ferreira, José, 121 Figueira (ranger), 136 films, tourism-­propaganda, 15, 22, 29, 31, 51, 60, 99, 127–28, 170n36 forcados, 54–55, 163n13 forced ­labor (shibalo), 27–28, 40–41, 51, 168n2, 170n40; exemptions for hunting, 95–96; at Gorongosa National Park, 118, 129–30, 134 forced relocation: in Gorongosa area, 119–21, 133, 139, 168n2; in Lourenço Marques, 29–30 foreign exchange, 36–38, 99, 161n42 Forjaz, Moira, 6, 8, 31, 85 Franco, Francisco, 99, 102, 123 Frazão-­Moreira, Amélia, 38, 47, 127 Frelimo (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique), 150; “24–20 policy,” 171n20; anticolonial nationalism and war for in­de­pen­dence, 6, 77, 102–3, 113, 128, 134, 158n11; attacks at Gorongosa, 117–18, 134–39; government in years ­after in­de­ pen­dence, 12, 141–55, 171n14, 171n22, 171nn19–20. See also civil conflict (1976–1992) French colonies, 26, 47 Fulane, Salvador, 63–64 Fumo, Jorge Faustino, 110–11, 152, 168n55 Galvão, Henrique, 117–18 gambling, 9, 18–19, 74, 76–81, 165n2

191

game hunting. See hunting tourism Game Hunting in Mozambique (1938), 98 Garazaibal, Angel, 102 Garrido Júnior, Artur, 54, 83, 88, 90, 146, 171n19 gay and lesbian nightlife, 78 Gaza Empire, 94, 166n4 gendered ­labor, 2, 9, 16, 18–19, 59, 88, 158n23 General Agency of the Overseas Territories, 39 Ghana, 26 Girassol ­Hotel, 59, 63, 75 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry, 102, 103 Goa, 26, 53 Gold Coast, 26 golf courses, 29–30, 32, 60 Gonçalves, Celestino, 135, 153–55 Gonçalves, Manuel, 54 Gorongosa Game Hunting Reserve, 119–21 Gorongosa National Park, 117–39; African workers at, 118, 129–34, 131, 139; documentary films on, 127–28; establishment of, 6, 118, 123–25, 138–39; Frelimo attacks at, 117–18, 134–39; history of, 118–23; map of, 119; photos of, 128, 131; promotion of, 20, 47, 116–18, 127–29; safari as imperial propaganda, 116, 118, 124, 127–29, 137; touristic infrastructure, 118, 125–27, 129, 133; wildlife populations, 172n40; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 149, 152–55, 172n38. See also Chitengo Camp Gould, Isabel, 93, 98 Grande H ­ otel in Beira, 1–2, 80, 144, 145, 171n14 Grobler, Nic, 84 guidebooks and brochures. See advertising and marketing guides: Indigenous, 92–93, 109–13, 132–33, 151–52, 168n64; white professional hunters, 20, 92–94, 96, 97, 99–116, 120, 149–50 Guiné (Guinea-­Bissau), 6, 13, 25, 26 gunbearers, 20, 93, 96, 104, 108, 112–14 Hammond, R. J., 13 Hancocks, Norma, 82 Hawthorne, Harry, 18 Heard, Anthony, 34, 35 Henriksen, Thomas, 30 Henriques, Isabel Castro, 25 Herrick, Allison, 37–38, 161n42 “Hit Parade” (radio show), 8

19 2 I n d e x

Holloway, Jackie Edgar, 74, 84 Hom, Stephanie, 14 ­hotels, 1, 57–65; types of, 52–53, 58; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 144, 145 ­hotel workers: at Gorongosa, 132; professionalism, 62–63; race relations and, 64; social ascension of, 61–65; wages and tips, 59, 61, 63–64; working conditions, 2, 11, 61, 64; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 147 housing, 65, 71, 129, 148 hunting bans, 19–20, 93, 95. See also poachers hunting tourism, 92–116; African workers in, 20, 97, 105–16, 151–52; at Gorongosa, 118–21; history of, 94–97; as imperial propaganda, 93–94, 100–101, 108, 167n33; international clientele, 92–93, 99–108, 149–50, 150, 168n55; lifesaving events, 92, 106, 112–14, 116; promotion of, 19–20, 97–103; race relations in, 12–13, 20, 94–97, 111–16; white professional hunters and safari operators, 20, 92–94, 96, 97, 99–116, 120, 149–50; in years a­ fter in­de­ pen­dence, 149–52. See also coutadas (concessionary hunting reserves); Gorongosa Game Hunting Reserve imperial propaganda: administrative agencies and, 39–40; camera safaris at Gorongosa National Park, 116, 118, 124, 127–29, 137; hunting tourism and, 93–94, 100–101, 108, 167n33; on racial harmony, 31; tourism promotion as, 6–7, 13–15, 48 India, 26 Indigenous ­people. See African workers in tourist industry; anticolonial nationalism; forced ­labor (shibalo); forced relocation; race relations infrastructure: administrative, 39–40; at Gorongosa national park, 118, 125–27, 129, 133; transportation, 23, 40–46, 122, 125, 129, 133 Ingalls, Leonard, 30, 52 Inhaca ­Hotel, 11, 33 International Air, 45–46 International Congress of Tourism, 46–47 International ­Labor Organ­ization, 28 interracial relationships, 25–26, 81, 84, 87–88, 91, 146. See also mixed-­r ace (mestiço) individuals; sexual relationships Isaacman, Allen, 33, 88, 159n45 ivory, 99

Jacobs, Nancy, 109, 111 Johannes (hunting guide), 92–93, 109–13, 151–52, 168n64 Johannesburg, 41, 43, 78 Johnson, Wally, 81, 104–5, 107, 114–15, 151 Jones, John, 32, 54, 85 Joubert, D. J., 45 Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, 103 Kennedy, Dane, 20, 109, 113 ­Kenya, 99, 159n44 Kissin, Ivor, 61, 85–87, 143–44 Kissin, Jean, 16, 61, 84, 85–87, 143–44 Klineburger, Bert, 101 Kolbe, Yvonne, 75 Kruger National Park, 20, 122, 125, 169n31 Lagoas, 88 languages, 11, 61, 64, 72, 90, 97–99, 131, 158n18, 161n22, 161n24, 164n58; vernacular, 32 Latin culture, 8–9, 22, 42, 50–55, 86–87, 160n20 Lesotho, 47 Lion House, 122, 129, 138, 169n13 lions, 101, 121–22, 126, 128, 132, 152, 169n13 literacy, 66–67 LM Radio, 8, 78, 158n18 Lourenço Marques (LM), 50–73; aesthetics, 52; alcohol consumption, 74–75, 80–82; Asian communities in, 53–54; bullfighting in, 54–55, 163n13; continental atmosphere, 53, 79; as cosmopolitan, 53–54; ­hotels, 2, 57–65, 72–73; Latin Eu­ro­pean culture of, 50–55 (see also Latin culture); public works proj­ects, 3–5, 40–41, 43, 44; race relations in, 29, 73 (see also race relations); restaurants, 59–60, 65–72; settlers in, 27 (see also Portuguese settlers); tourism, 18, 52–73; tourism advertisements, 19; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 143–49. See also Rua Araújo (“Sin Street”); urban nightlife Lourenço Marques and the Moçambique Coast (1957), 92 Lourenço Marques Guardian, 97, 167n18 Louw, Eric, 35 Lovell, James, 102, 107 Luanda, Angola, 27 Luís (tracker), 114–15 Lusaka Accord, 141

I n d e x Macadona, Augustino, 155, 172n38 Macamo, Manuel Mugungo, 72 Macau, 37 Machel, Samora, 154–55, 172n38 Macuácuá, Luís, 11–12, 61–62, 68, 71–72, 171n22 Madagascar, 47 Maedwa (tracker), 106–7 Malawi, 47, 135 Maleiane, Armando da Silva, 160n21, 164n58 Mamunanculo, Castigo, 136 Manhiça, Pedro, 11, 64–65, 155–56 Manhiça, Vasco, 11, 33 Manhique, José, 12 Manners, Harry, 76, 81, 84, 89–90, 112 marriage, 71, 111 Marsh, Brian, 111 Marshall Plan, 38 matadors, 54–55, 163n13 Mathe, Eugénio Abilio, 66–67, 70–71, 147–48 Matias, Justino, 132, 154 Matlhotlhomane (Mafalala), 88 Matondo, Vasco, 133 Maxaquene neighborhood, 71 Mayer, Enrique, 99–100 Michener, James, 6, 103, 169n22 mi­g rant laborers, 28, 38; in Lourenço Marques, 51, 55. See also mining industry in South Africa Miguel (professional hunter), 106–7 mining industry in South Africa, 5, 32, 48, 50, 55–57, 131, 168n70 Ministry of Foreign Relations, 15, 36 Ministry of the Overseas Territories, 39, 46 mixed-­race (mestiço) individuals, 25–26, 58, 74, 85, 135, 163n25, 168n70 Moçambique: Anuário turístico (Mozambique: Tourist yearbook), 92 Moçambique–­Turismo (1966), 29 Morton, David, 6, 30 Mozambican Railways, 142 Mozambique: anticolonial nationalism and war for in­de­pen­dence, 26, 47–48, 76–77, 113–14, 128, 134, 141–42 (see also Frelimo); civil conflict (1976–1992), 16, 20, 142, 147, 155; colonial period, 3, 25–26 (see also Estado Novo regime; Portuguese colonialism); in­de­pen­dence, 12, 141; maps of, 4, 7; urban areas (see Beira; Lourenço Marques); in years a­ fter in­de­pen­dence, 20–21, 140–56

193

Mozambique Com­pany, 119–22 Mozambique Island, 5–6, 47 Muala, Domingos João, 120, 133 Murphy, John, 82 Museu de História Natu­ral (Museum of Natu­ral History), 152 National Development Plan for Mozambique, 161n45 nationalism. See anticolonial nationalism National Trade Union of Workers in the ­Hotel Industry, 61 Nautilus bar, 80 Nazi Germany, 14 Newitt, Malyn, 41–42 New York Times, 74 Nhamacala coutada, 135–36 nightclubs, 19, 80–81, 85, 88, 135, 146 nightlife. See urban nightlife Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), 14 occupational categories, 163n28 opera ­houses, 75, 165n4 Organização Provincial de Voluntários (OPV), 135, 153–54 Organ­ization of African Unity (OAU), 45, 162n69 Ortner, Samuel, 108 Osborne, Enrique Macpherson, 102 Osborne, Macha, 102 Palmeirim, Vasco, 36 Peck, Gregory, 6, 103 Pelembe, Rodrigues, 2, 56–57, 63–64 photography safari tourism. See Gorongosa National Park physical abuse, 11, 61, 64, 68–69, 73, 129–30 PIDE (Portugal’s secret police force), 15, 62, 69, 77 Pinguim (Penguin Club), 81–82, 84–86, 88–89, 165n18 Pires, Adelino Serras, 99–108, 112, 113–14, 149–50, 150 Piri Piri restaurant, 57, 67–68, 70–71, 148, 160n21 poachers, 95, 109, 113, 123, 132–33, 139, 149, 153–54, 168n64. See also hunting bans Polana Golf Club, 30 Polana ­Hotel, 30, 52, 58, 60–62, 75, 85, 142–44, 147 police. See PIDE

19 4 I n d e x

Portuguese colonialism: African territories, 3, 25–26 (see also Angola; Mozambique); alliances with South Africa and Rhodesia, 17, 23, 34–35, 160n51; bureaucracies, 25–26; counterinsurgencies, 13, 40, 141 (see also anticolonial nationalism); development plans for Mozambique, 161n45 (see also tourism promotion and development); economic value of, 2, 13, 17, 23, 26, 36–38; history of, 24–27; po­liti­cal economies, 27–28; po­liti­cal value of, 13–14, 17–18, 23–24, 40, 45–49, 160n51; racial policies, 23, 28–30, 163n28 (see also racial hierarchy; racism); social and economic policies, 27–28. See also Estado Novo regime Portuguese Republic, 26, 27 Portuguese settlers, 25, 27; exodus of, 12, 141, 143–44, 147, 151, 171n20; social relations with African residents, 29–30; social relations with foreign tourists, 33–36 postcolonial legacies, 20–21, 140–56 poverty, 55–57, 142, 146 power relations, 17, 24–25, 115. See also Portuguese colonialism; race relations; racial hierarchy Princesa ­Hotel, 72 propaganda. See imperial propaganda prostitution, 16, 19, 74–76, 87–89, 146 Provincial Hunting Regulations, 96 Pungwe River (also Pungue), 126, 130–31, 131, 134, 169n30 Queiroz, José Maria d’Eça de, 54 race relations: in colonial Mozambique, 8–9, 16, 22–23, 28–36, 48, 69–70, 73, 75, 143; in ­hotels and restaurants, 66–73; in hunting tourism, 12–13, 20, 94–97, 111–16; in safari industry, 129–30, 139; sexual relationships and, 8–9, 18–19, 87–91; in South Africa, 8, 16, 22–23, 143, 158n14. See also racial hierarchy; racism racial hierarchy, 25, 29, 48, 58–59, 64, 96–97, 115, 120 racism: institutionalized, 11, 17, 23, 27–30, 58–59, 61–62, 66, 96–97, 109, 133, 149; in interpersonal interactions, 25–33, 64, 68–69, 114–15, 148, 159n33 “Radio” (tracker), 105–6, 113–14, 149, 150, 151 railroads, 43, 78

rangers, 20, 118, 123, 129, 132, 136, 139, 154 Ras, Mrs., 35–36 remittances, 36–37 Renamo (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana), 147, 155, 159n50. See also civil conflict (1976–1992) Restaurante Tipico O Fado, 86 restaurants, 59–60; African workers in, 65–72, 132, 140–41; cooks in, 65–69, 72, 148–49; waiters, 30, 62–63, 65–67, 69–71, 131; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 147–49, 171n22 Retief, Daan, 55 Ré­union, 47 Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), 17–18, 158n14, 159n50, 160n51; alliances with South Africa and Portugal, 17, 23, 34–35, 160n51 roads, 40–42, 122, 125–26, 129, 133 Rodrigues, Alfredo, 122, 129 Rodrigues, Amália, 86–87, 169n22 Romão, Maria, 124 Roosa, Stuart, 102, 107 Rosen, Monty, 46 Rosinha, Armando, 123–24, 126–27, 135 Rua Araújo (“Sin Street”), 18–19, 74–75, 91, 165n1; brothels, 88 (see also prostitution); casinos, 78–80; entertainment options, 80–86; history of, 75–78; during transitional period, 144–46, 171n10 Rua de Bagamoyo, 145 Ruark, Robert, 75, 167n33 Safarilandia (hunting concession), 12–13, 92, 103, 104, 106, 109–13, 115, 149–52 Safari Outfitters, 101, 108 safari tourism. See Gorongosa National Park; hunting tourism Safrique (hunting concession), 101–5, 113–14, 124, 149–50 Salazar, António, 13, 37, 39, 60, 79 Sampaio, Sofia, 128 Santos, Luís, 151 Santos, Victor, 130 São Tomé and Príncipe, 25 Sarmento, Luís, 30, 34 Save concession, 151 Sayela (tracker), 112 Schlesinger, I. W., 60 Schlesinger, John, 60 schools, 133–34 scouts, 109, 129, 134, 136, 154–55 sea travel networks, 43–44

I n d e x Second Overseas Tourism Yearbook (1967), 40 segregation, 28 Semmens, Kristin, 14 settlers. See Portuguese settlers sexual relationships, 8–9, 16, 18–19, 74–76, 87–91, 146 Shangaan ­people, 13, 109–10, 112 Sheldon, Kathleen, 87, 158n23 shibalo. See forced ­labor sidewalk cafés, 18, 52–53 Silva, Maria Cardeira da, 38, 47 Simeon II, 103 Sitoi, Fernando, 23, 87–89 skinners, in hunting industry, 108, 110–12 slave trade, 24 Slayton, Deke, 107 Smith, Valene, 158n24 Snack Bar Zorba, 56, 67–68 Soares, Pinto, 129–30 social ascension, 2, 10–11, 17, 73; of ­hotel workers, 61–65; of musical performers, 83; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 147–49 social relations. See race relations Sociedade Comercial de Manica e Sofala, 123 Sousa Teles, Col­o­nel, 137 South Africa: alliances with Rhodesia and Portugal, 17, 23, 34–35, 160n51; apartheid, 8, 16, 143, 158n14; culture, 8; mines, 5, 32, 48, 50, 55–57, 131, 168n70 South African Airways (SAA), 18, 45–46 South African and Rhodesian tourists, 7–8, 16, 22–23, 158n18, 165n2; be­hav­ior and dress, 31–35, 70; on camera safaris, 118; at casinos, 78–79; Latin culture of Lourenço Marques and, 18, 53–55; racial demographics of, 7–8, 18, 143, 158n14; sexual relationships with African ­women, 8–9, 18–19, 74–76, 87–91, 145–46; travel to Mozambique, 41–42, 126; urban nightlife and, 74–75, 78–79, 81–85; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 142 Southern Africa: map of, 7; nationalist movements in (see anticolonial nationalism); regional politics, 17–18, 45–49, 160n51. See also Mozambique; Portuguese colonialism; Rhodesia; South Africa; Swaziland Spence, C. F., 53 Spiguel, Miguel, 127–28, 170n36 striptease per­for­mances, 74, 81–86, 91 Swaziland (Eswatini), 18, 100, 143, 167n29

195

Taber, Wally, 108 Tamariz ­Hotel, 57 Tamila (brothel), 88–89 Tananarive Airlines, 47 Tanzania, 135 taxidermy, 110–11, 152 Taxi Girls de LM, 84 Teixeira, Gabriel Maurício, 1 Tello, José, 102 Thompsell, Angela, 95–96, 115 Tinley, Kenneth L., 126–27, 133 Tinley, Lynne, 117–18, 130–31, 137 tips. See wages and tips Tivoli ­Hotel, 63 Tourism Fund (Fundo de Turismo), 39, 142 Tourism in Portuguese Africa (1937), 98 tourism ­labor. See African workers in tourist industry tourism promotion and development, 1–9, 17–21; administrative infrastructure, 39–40; economics of empire and, 36–38, 48 (see also Portuguese colonialism); Gorongosa National Park, 118, 127–29; historical significance of, 9–14; history of, 22–49; hunting industry, 97–103; Portuguese colonial history and, 24–27; transportation infrastructure, 23, 40–46, 122, 125, 129, 133; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 142. See also advertising and marketing; imperial propaganda tourists, 2, 6–9; on camera safaris (see Gorongosa National Park); high-­profile, 6, 20, 93–94, 102–3, 105–8, 106, 107, 123–24, 169n22; at ­hotels, 57–61; on hunting safaris, 92–93, 99–108, 149–50, 151, 168n55 (see also hunting tourism); in LM (see Lourenço Marques; urban nightlife); Portuguese settlers and, 33–36; social relations with African residents, 31–33; socioeconomic status of, 14, 37; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 142–46. See also South African and Rhodesian tourists trackers, 20, 93, 95–97, 108, 111, 133, 139 transportation infrastructure, 23, 40–46, 122, 125, 129, 133 Transportes Aéreos Portugueses (TAP), 18, 45, 142 Turismo (hunting operation), 99, 101 Turismo em 4 continentes (1973), 22 Turismo ­Hotel, 63

19 6 I n d e x

United Nations, 28 United States: relations with Portugal, 107; tourist hunters, 99, 101–3, 107–8 upward mobility. See social ascension urban nightlife, 16, 18–19, 74–91; bars, 19, 30, 49, 51, 55, 60, 63–67, 74–77, 80–84; cabarets, 75, 77, 80–84, 88; fado per­for­ mances, 75, 86–87, 169n22; gambling and casinos, 9, 18–19, 74, 76–81, 165n2; prostitution, 16, 19, 74–76, 87–89, 146, 166n37; striptease per­for­mances, 74, 81–86, 91; vio­lence in, 81–82; in years ­after in­de­pen­dence, 144–46. See also Rua Araújo (“Sin Street”) van Onselen, Charles, 5 Van Wyk, Ruth, 7–8 Vargas, Eléusio Filipe, 140–41, 148 Varietá opera ­house, 75, 165n4 Vasco (field guide), 132–33 Vasse, William, 119 Veres, Victor, 45–46

vernacular languages, 32 Veterinary Ser­vices, 122–23, 126–27 Victoria Falls, 14, 165n13 Victoria Falls Casino, 165n2 Vinho Verde, 49, 162n78 von Alvensleben, Werner, 12–13, 92–94, 109–13, 115, 151–52, 168n64, 172n31 Vundla, Peter, 143, 145, 170n3 wages and tips, 5, 10–11, 55–57, 73; at Gorongosa, 132; ­hotel workers, 59, 61, 63–64; in hunting tourism, 96; restaurant workers, 70–71 waiters, 30, 62–63, 65–67, 69–71, 131 Wayne, John, 6, 103, 124 Wildlife Department, 155 wildlife hunting. See hunting tourism wildlife sanctuaries, 6, 20, 117–18. See also Gorongosa National Park Wilson, John, 31, 41, 52 Workers’ Commission, 147, 171n22 World War II, 60, 98 Wrigley, Andrew, 14