Cattle Circulation, Beef Market Control Strategies, and African Agropastoralists in Southern Mozambique, 1900s–30s

Abstract

Focusing on the first decades of the twentieth century but acknowledging longer-term patterns of circulation, this paper discusses how cattle, historically occupying important meanings and roles in the lives of African agropastoralists, was commodified and marketed in southern Mozambique just as Lourenço Marques became the new capital of Mozambique. Highlighting the relations that consolidated between the capital and surrounding cattle-rich areas in a period marked by cattle disease but also the First World War and the Great Depression, the paper looks at the role of different agents and bodies involved in the emerging beef market. Ultimately, the paper shows how African agropastoralists, the main cattle producers in the region, resisted these conditions and tried to engage with markets on their own terms, even in the face of their dwindling control over the different factors that influenced the size and quality of their herds.

While the modern history of cattle in Mozambique has not yet garnered the same scholarly attention as that of South Africa, Kenya, or Zimbabwe, important studies have shown how, during the second half of the nineteenth century, the lives and activities of African agropastoralists in cattle-rich southern Mozambique were affected by warfare, cattle raids, disease, drought, and increased human and animal circulation, alongside the penetration of capitalism and Portuguese colonialism.¹ A significant gap remains when it comes to developments occurring since the move of the capital of Mozambique from the Ilha de Moçambique (Mozambique Island), located in the north of the territory, to Lourenço Marques (today’s Maputo), in the south, at the turn of the twentieth century. As food supply was becoming a more general concern, the supply of meat to the new capital specifically raised questions that had deep implications for the debates surrounding the economic future of southern Mozambique. But it also had significant implications for the nature of relations between colonial authorities and agents like cattle traders, butchers, and European farmers, on the one hand, and African agropastoralists — the main cattle producers — on the other, who mostly fell under the category of indígenas (natives) and had limited rights.²

This article proposes to shed more light on the social and economic life of southern Mozambique in the first decades of twentieth century, on the relations that developed between the capital and the cattle-rich areas surrounding it and between Mozambique and other territories, as well as on official interventions in the cattle sector between the 1900s and the 1930s.³ It argues that issues surrounding the marketing of African cattle — when, where, and how it would be sold, to who and at what price, and for what purpose — became central questions for the colonial state and points of contention between agents with different interests. Two protagonists emerge from this particular history: African agropastoralists, who other agents tried to influence and control in varying ways, and who by resisting these new conditions tried to retain a degree of autonomy over their cattle and their lives; and cattle traders, a group that was the subject of much vitriol precisely because of the impact it had on cattle marketing chains, and on cattle and beef prices, and because of the ways it eluded official control. These developments will be examined in the context of the broader political economy of southern Mozambique in the first decades of the twentieth century, especially marked by the imposition of labor and tax policies, which were significant sources of revenue for the colonial state, and by the appropriation of land in certain regions.

After characterizing longer- and shorter-term patterns of cattle circulation both within Mozambique and between Mozambique and its neighbors, the article will discuss how in the mid-1910s, when Lourenço Marques was facing the effects of a shortage of foodstuffs partly caused by the First World War, municipal and central government officers put in place steps to ensure the provisioning of cattle to the capital and to fix retail beef prices. Then, how after the war, faced with a perceived problem of cattle “surplus,” the case was made for measures to increase African cattle off-take rates in order to raise cattle prices, in the process increasing the value of non-African owned cattle. Finally, it will examine how after the Great Depression the colonial government went further in its intervention in cattle markets and the supply of cattle to the capital by granting an exclusive contract to a cattle producers’ cooperative.⁴

To reconstruct these events, this paper draws on the existing official sources emanating from the colonial veterinary services, created in 1908, and from other relevant services. It also draws on official documentation from the circunscrições, relevant debates in the Conselho do Governo — an advisory body to the colonial government, African and settler newspapers, the memoirs of an administrator, and the limited statistics available for the 1900s–30s period, as well as on missionary sources.⁵ Furthermore, the article builds on the historiography of Mozambique and on the vast scholarship about cattle in Africa, dealing for instance with the persistence of African cattle economies under colonial rule; with African livestock regimes and African attitudes towards cattle; and with settler livestock economies and cattle marketing strategies in Southern Africa.⁶

Patterns of cattle circulation in Mozambique

Important historical and archaeological studies have shown that the southern region of what is today Mozambique, located below the Save River, was historically populated by large herds of cattle, which despite irregular rainfall and often prolonged droughts, played important social, economic, and symbolic roles in the lives of its peoples.⁷ Observing local society at a time when events like the Nguni invasions and the subsequent rise of the Gaza state, followed by the Portuguese military campaigns and the mineral revolution in South Africa, had already begun to transform it in different ways, Henri-Alexandre Junod’s famous ethnography and contemporary reports by colonial officials noted the centrality of cattle in local life and the different ways in which it circulated in historically cattle-rich areas, especially in the Incomati River basin.⁸ Cattle were spread unevenly and circulated in different ways in Tsonga society, in ordinary and in extraordinary circumstances, solidifying the bonds within and between clans. Vital in subsistence strategies, cattle were loaned in times of drought or famine, and to avoid cattle diseases they were distributed between different kraals.⁹ Cattle were also used as gifts or in exchanges with foreign traders and ambassadors.¹⁰ Raiding of cattle was another form of circulation, meant to subtract local sources of wealth and exert control over subject populations, as the history of the Gaza state and of Gungunhana’s strategy of accumulation of local herds demonstrates. But raids were also carried out by the Portuguese troops against African farmers during the military campaigns of the late nineteenth century.¹¹ Lobolo (bridewealth), a central institution in the region, was also typically paid in cattle, but this tradition adjusted to the varying circumstances, as cattle became less available in certain periods for instance due to cattle confiscation, animal disease, or drought.¹² Importantly, by the early 1910s the increasing presence of European settlers in the Incomati basin was starting to create a competition for the local grasslands and the rich nyaka soils favored by local agropastoralists.¹³ In this context of competition for land and the growing migration of men to the Rand mines, Swiss missionaries stationed at Antioka, in Magude, knowing of the importance of cattle in local societies, created an agricultural scheme to help stabilize Christianized populations, where farmers could till a tract of land without fearing eviction, and borrow cattle and ploughs.¹⁴

The African rinderpest panzootic, which not only killed an estimated 90 percent of cattle between 1888 and 1897, but also wildlife, further undermining the livelihoods of many, had considerable environmental, political, and social impacts in Southern Africa.¹⁵ In southern Mozambique — a region which the Portuguese were still trying to incorporate through military operations when the disease hit in 1897, and which had a fledgeling colonial government — administrative, missionary, and military sources from different regions described the quick and widespread death of cattle.¹⁶ Like Natal, after the devastation caused by rinderpest, Mozambique looked to Zanzibar and especially Madagascar, who were not affected by the panzootic, to replenish its herds. But slowly the Transvaal would partially replace them and become a key supplier of slaughter and breeding cattle to Mozambique, particularly in the south. Indeed, as Lourenço Marques grew in administrative, political, and economic importance, South Africa became Mozambique’s preferential commercial partner, shifting away attention from old networks centered on the Mozambique Channel.¹⁷ Important commercial agreements with the colonies that in 1910 would form the Union of South Africa, mostly regarding labor migration but also regulating the trade of different commodities, solidified this alliance.¹⁸ Trade patterns could however be reversed, albeit temporarily: during and shortly after the 1899–1902 South African War, Mozambique instead exported cheap cattle to the Transvaal.¹⁹ Meat byproducts continued to arrive at the Lourenço Marques port from different regions in this period, and statistics also indicate short-lived imports of live cattle from Angola.²⁰

Internal trade flows between areas around Lourenço Marques (then known as Delagoa Bay), and areas in the interior like Tembe had also intensified since the late eighteenth century to provision whaling ships in the port.²¹ Though the dimension and the political implications of this flow of foodstuffs and cattle are disputed, a recent study posits that cattle trade in the region intensified in the second decade of the nineteenth century.²² By the early twentieth century, the change in political center from Mozambique Island to Lourenço Marques also intensified preexisting commercial relations between urban and surrounding historically cattle-rich rural areas like Magude, Sabié, and Manhiça in the Incomati River basin.²³ The dozens of shopkeepers of European and Asian origin that had scattered in those regions and opened small cantinas (shops), especially after the fall of the Gaza state, and had established connections with commercial houses in Lourenço Marques, ensured those relations.²⁴ Sources show that cattle transactions, mostly involving Africans but also a small number of non-African cattle owners, took place in informal markets that frequently involved itinerant cattle traders as middlemen. In some cases, traders would approach African owners directly in their homesteads, while in others the latter would come to the cantinas to try to sell their cattle in exchange for gold, like they often did to sell maize in exchange for wine and cloth.²⁵ The men who acted as cattle traders could be Portuguese or Indian cantineiros, but European cattle owners sometimes also traded cattle.

Importantly, sources show Africans used, and both sold and purchased cattle from and to non-Africans in different circumstances: after returning from stints in South African mines, some men were able to invest their salaries in cattle, both to pay lobolo, or simply to replenish the herds depleted by war, diseases, and drought. Some also invested in ox-ploughs.²⁶ In the Antioka scheme, some farmers had the opportunity to borrow both cattle and ploughs from Swiss missionaries.²⁷ In the 1940s, documentary and oral sources indicate that women in the Limpopo valley not only handled cattle and ploughs, activities that were traditionally reserved for men, but also purchased both cattle and ploughs with their revenues from cotton farming.²⁸ Cattle was typically sold in more vulnerable circumstances: during or after droughts, to pay taxes or to purchase maize in times of poor yields and famine.²⁹

An additional factor contributing to the flow of African cattle to the slaughterhouse was cattle disease. East Coast Fever (“ECF”), a protozoonosis of cattle transmitted by the brown ear tick, caused the death of thousands of cattle in Southern and East Africa in the first decades of the twentieth century.³⁰ Faced with multiple outbreaks in different circunscrições in the south, the veterinary services of Mozambique, established in 1908,³¹ put in place harsh sanitary police measures to complement the relatively ineffective quarantines and the bans on cattle sales and movement in certain areas: between 1908 and 1917, Portuguese authorities reportedly culled 25,000 head of cattle during the stamping out process that followed in the vast areas considered contaminated.³² African cattle owners, which were disproportionally targeted by the stamping out, protested the unequal treatment of African and non-African owners and the violence of these measures, and complained about the little compensation they received. The role of traders in this process, who managed to buy cattle in infected areas for very low prices or by deceiving African owners, was also much criticized.³³ In Marracuene, some owners were advised to go to the slaughterhouse in the capital to ensure they received proper compensation, instead of selling their cattle to traders, while others, suspicious of official policies, preferred killing their cattle rather than having it culled by authorities.³⁴

Dealing with the carestia de vida in times of war

Because of the drought that had recently hit the Sul do Save, in the early 1910s Lourenço Marques was reportedly facing a carestia de vida (shortage of food). The start of the war in Europe worsened these circumstances, namely by disrupting trade and raising foodstuff prices. But according to João Albasini, a prominent figure of the Black and mestiço urban elite who frequently criticized the government but also traders, the shortage of cattle had different origins: it was a result of the unfair stamping out policy to deal with ECF. Traders had taken advantage of African owners, tricking them into selling their cattle for low prices, and veterinary authorities were unwilling to effectively protect owners from exploitative traders. Understandably, Albasini continued, African owners were now refusing to sell their cattle for less than six or seven gold pounds. “We are thus paying today for past errors,” he lamented.³⁵

If Albasini’s interpretation of the facts was correct, by refusing to sell their cattle African owners were thus resisting both the practices of traders and the colonial state’s stamping out measures.³⁶ In September 1914, and following the example of Lisbon, Porto, and Luanda, the Câmara Municipal (Mayor’s Office) of Lourenço Marques decided to intervene in the cattle market: cattle purchased directly in the circunscrições surrounding Lourenço Marques with the help of local officials would be brought to the slaughterhouse and then a municipal “regulatory” butcher would sell beef at fixed retail prices. The câmara was admittedly trying to reduce the role of traders in the commodity chain and especially their ability to influence retail prices.³⁷ Traders quickly protested the measure, arguing they were being unjustly targeted, accusing the câmara of trying to become a competitor, and even threatening to close their businesses, but the câmara maintained its position.³⁸ The African press, in turn, lauded the opening of the municipal butcher in the name of the fight against “unbridled and greedy exploitation.”³⁹ It furthermore pointed a finger at a specific firm, the Companhia das Carnes Verdes (Pinho, Santos e Ca.), the main cattle trader and owner of butchers operating in the capital, who it accused of speculative practices.⁴⁰

Though the stamping out measures continued, despite the protest of African owners and local colonial officials, the veterinary services put in place policies to restock the Sul do Save. Through the zootechnical station in Umbeluzi and zootechnical posts in strategic regions, officials hoped especially African farmers, the main cattle owners, would come to improve their cattle through crossbreeding their Landim cows with sires from imported breeds. The services also promoted cattle trade through the creation of monthly cattle fairs in Magude and Moamba (Sabié), where cattle sales between owners and traders would be supervised by authorities.⁴¹ Magude, the circunscrição with the highest cattle population in the south, had recently been connected by railway to Moamba, in turn connected to the Lourenço Marques line. And even though the main goal of the Magude station was to transport sugar from the plantations of the neighboring property owned by Incomati Estates, officials hoped it would also bring live cattle to the capital. The first fair, scheduled to take place on 19 September 1915, was not the success authorities had hoped, even though a few head were sold.⁴²

In the coming years, fairs eventually disappeared, only to return in the 1930s, as will be discussed below. The câmara continued to purchase cattle directly through local officials in different circunscrições, and both the câmara and the veterinary services also organized cattle auctions, announced in newspapers, to supply the municipal butcher but also military units.⁴³ The Sul do Save was now participating in the war economy, much like neighboring territories had done.⁴⁴ Furthermore, perhaps because of the carestia, in 1917 the câmara decided that hunting licenses would also include the possibility of selling bushmeat at fixed prices in the capital’s butchers.⁴⁵

When it comes to cattle and the provisioning of beef, then, by the late 1910s, Lourenço Marques was beginning to have a “cheap and predictable system of food supply,” as Jane Guyer has discussed for other African cities, mostly due to the direct intervention of the câmara in the market and its “regulatory butcher.”⁴⁶ Over the years, the câmara responded both to the carestia and the demand for beef coming from the growing capital, but also to the demand for beef from military units, participating in the war economy, by procuring cattle in the circunscrições and in the Transvaal. The government was also supporting this effort through the action of its veterinary services, in turn assisted by local officials in the circunscrições, who purchased the necessary cattle in the interior.⁴⁷

During this period, however, the African press continued to report that African owners had been forced to sell their cattle for silver coin (and not gold coin), that they had been forced to sell against their will and that they were still being exploited by traders, a sign that authorities had not been able to control the activities of these intermediaries.⁴⁸ By September 1917, official cattle provisioning measures seemed to have become ineffective or insufficient. According to João Albasini, who was sensitive to the predicament of both African owners in the interior and city dwellers who wanted to consume meat at reasonable prices, the shortage of beef in the capital “reeked of speculation.” Even though the Sul do Save had large herds, the population’s demand for beef could not be met. Albasini suggested different explanations for this shortage: the “firm” [Companhia das Carnes Verdes] had cattle but was reluctant to sell it for low prices; African producers had good yields that year and therefore did not feel the need to sell cattle to pay their taxes or to purchase maize; the pound was lower; and Africans only sold for gold coins. Meanwhile, the câmara had been purchasing cattle in the Transvaal for high prices and supplying much of it to the military units, losing money in the process and limiting the availability of beef for the civilian population. This situation could not continue for long, Albasini claimed, fearing an increase in retail prices.⁴⁹

The “surplus” problem and the debate on an exclusive cattle contract

With the end of the First World War, the contracts that had ensured the supply of cattle to military units, to which both the municipal butcher and regular butchers responded, also came to a halt. By then, cattle owners, African and European, were also unencumbered by ECF quarantines, and the regional cattle herd was increasing at a rate of 12 percent annually.⁵⁰ Incomplete statistics from 1918 indicate that the herd of the province of Lourenço Marques numbered around 50,000 head, most of which was owned by Africans.⁵¹

As more cattle became available, producer prices plunged, giving a renewed urgency to the old debate regarding the future of livestock in southern Mozambique.⁵² Much like elsewhere in Southern Africa, different actors had different views on this problem and varying responses to it, but two questions became central: African cattle and regional competition. Because most of the cattle was in African hands, many of the parties involved believed the future of the livestock economy of the South depended on the policy towards African cattle. Protectionist measures were also advanced to stop competition from South Africa.⁵³ In a letter sent to the governor of Mozambique in March 1919, a group of European farmers from the region criticized the quality of both the indigenous cattle breed, the Landim, and of the cattle imported from the Transvaal. They argued that neither could form the basis of the chilled or frozen beef industry they hoped the government would help them build.⁵⁴ According to another view, the region needed to follow the example of South Africa — where the government had avoided monopolies and white farmers had joined forces to create a central agency gathering several producer cooperatives — by forming different cooperatives to advance the interests of milk, hides, and beef producers.⁵⁵ In October 1923, during the negotiations for the new convention with South Africa, the recently formed Associação do Fomento Agrícola de Moçambique (Mozambique Farmer’s Association) pleaded with the governor to protect southern Mozambique’s livestock sector from the cheap cattle and dairy coming from the Transvaal.⁵⁶ The associação was echoing the fears already expressed a few months earlier by a group of more than fifty African farmers from Magude, who had asked the government to suspend cattle trade with South Africa so that they could sell their own cattle and pay their taxes.⁵⁷ Their request was denied because officers believed the region was always going to have a cattle surplus problem, regardless of the cattle coming from the Transvaal.⁵⁸

The cattle question was again raised during the minister of colonies’ visit to Mozambique in July 1929, at a time when the Sul do Save already had 343,948 cattle, with Africans owning nearly 79 percent.⁵⁹ The Associação do Fomento argued that the fact that owners were unable to export cattle to neighboring colonies or profitably sell them in the internal market because the government had not heard their concerns was turning cattle into an “inert fortune.” According to the associação, Portugal needed to help Mozambique by ensuring regular imports of live cattle: it was the only way the cattle sector would be able to turn the page on the crisis it had been facing for years.⁶⁰ In turn, a veterinary officer stationed in Inhambane claimed the government had to enforce the rule included in the labor regulation regarding the daily supply of beef to African worker’s rations. Investing in canned meat, he argued, was a solution that would allow the placement of half of Mozambique’s herd. After a few years, and once the profit allowed the improvement of animals, Mozambique could then consider exporting live animals.⁶¹

Unsatisfied with their situation and perhaps inspired by the recent creation of the Meat Producers’ Exchange in South Africa, in 1926 a group of cattle traders and owners lobbied the veterinary services for the creation of a beef marketing board. They envisioned the board specifically helping them survive during the rainy season, when little cattle was available for purchase and when prices were driven up by the competition of local officials purchasing cattle.⁶² But according to the veterinary services — which denied this request — the government did not have the means to procure cattle to satisfy the current demand because Africans were unwilling to sell. Instead, the services proposed to grant an exclusive contract of the supply of the Lourenço Marques slaughterhouse to a firm that would be responsible for procuring cattle, though they conceded that this strategy could hinder African owners, who would be forced to sell at a fixed price.⁶³

The idea of an exclusive contract continued to mature, reaching the Conselho do Governo in July 1928 in a proposal to create a meat board tabled by the representative of the Associação do Fomento, José Cardoso.⁶⁴ Though inspired by the 1926 plan, the proposal followed the lines suggested by the veterinary services, in that it would fix the price of purchase to the owner, and the emphasis was placed on the “protection” of cattle owners’ and consumers’ interests, rather than on the situation of traders and their “large profits.” In a context of lowering cattle prices and stabilizing retail prices of beef, one of the members of the conselho explained, the profits of traders had increased by 20 to 90 percent. Since the Sul do Save lacked the necessary infrastructure, owners were unable to export cattle and were therefore left at the mercy of traders, with little margin for negotiation.

Present at the meeting of the conselho, the director of veterinary services, João Botelho, agreed with the proposal at least in principle, arguing that it sufficiently protected owners from the “greed” of the traders. The project was also positive for the department itself because it included a tax; a portion of which would help set up a fund to build dipping tanks, essential in the fight against diseases transmitted by ticks. Botelho, however, feared that the price would be fixed at a value that would not appropriately compensate those who wanted to improve their herds. Ultimately, the proposal failed to convince other members of the conselho, who opposed exclusive contracts and favored laissez-faire, or considered the proposed price of cattle too low.⁶⁵

A new proposal concerning the supply of cattle would, however, return to the same conselho a few years later, in a significantly different environment. By 1934, the Great Depression had led to a slump in cattle prices. African owners in southern Mozambique had been forced to sell even more cattle than usual in exchange for maize or textiles. Some, however, preferred culling or eating animals rather than selling them to traders for extremely low prices. Many European owners, unable to maintain their herds, abandoned their farms, while others turned to milk production.⁶⁶ As a result, by the early 1930s, African farmers owned nearly 85 percent of the cattle in the region below the Save River.⁶⁷

And while the Grémio Africano was busy promoting the use of the ox-drawn plough among its members, welcoming the news that forty of them had already signed up as an indication that “the awaited native agriculture was finally starting,” Amadeu Neves — a European cattle owner, member of the Associação do Fomento, and former member of the Conselho do Governo — expressed concern about a decline of the cattle sector. He warned about the actions of traders, who he viewed as unduly profiting from the situation of both European and African owners, and stated that he was in the process of creating a cattle cooperative. Inspired by a recently created milk cooperative, it would both eliminate intermediaries and organize cattle exports to Europe.⁶⁸ In 1933, the Cooperativa dos Criadores de Gado de Lourenço Marques (the cattle producers’ cooperative) was created. Even though indígenas could not become members of the cooperativa, one of its aims was to “protect the interests of native producers, by placing their cattle in the same conditions as that of its members, supplying them with vaccines” and “lending them breeding cattle.”⁶⁹

The exclusive contract in practice

When the question of cattle supply returned to the Conselho do Governo in 1934, the proposal included awarding the new cooperative an exclusive contract. Supporters of the plan argued that the discrepancy between demand and supply of cattle was such that prices were too low, to the point that owners were not compensated for their costs, and both European and African owners were being deceived by the dealers’ tactics. Moreover, now that Europeans had come together in the cattle producers’ cooperative — which by then represented over 300 owners — to defend their interests, it was time to think about African owners: “the native needs to be defended by the government,” stated the proposal, insisting on the presence of officials in cattle transactions. The new cooperative would distribute both European and African cattle, purchased from owners at prices set by the governador geral, under the advice of a cattle owner and a butcher. Retail beef prices, in turn, would be fixed by the subsistence commission, created during the war to regulate food prices.⁷⁰ With this proposal, then, the official rhetoric now seemed to be centred around the “protection” of African owners, in spite of the fact that they had neither been consulted on the best way to defend their own interests nor were they allowed to become members of the cooperative.

The proposal was approved relatively quickly, even though not all members of the conselho agreed with it.⁷¹ The new regulation granted the exclusive of the supply of cattle to the slaughterhouse of Lourenço Marques to the cooperative for a period of two years. The cooperative was tasked with purchasing at least 60 percent of the cattle to be supplied from African owners, who would be paid immediately, in transactions done under the watchful eye of local colonial officials, namely in fairs. Importantly, the price to be paid for the cattle would have to be agreed between the owner, the buyer, and the official, based on arrobamento — a process in which the weight of the animal was visually estimated.⁷² All other forms of cattle trade between indígenas and non-indígenas were prohibited.⁷³

Despite the rhetoric of protection, the regulation was a clear sign that a significant number of European cattle owners, farmers, and butchers had successfully lobbied the government and bodies where Africans were not represented to attempt to control African cattle. These moves aimed to secure the value of the Europeans’ own cattle and the profitability of their businesses, mirroring interventions in other sectors of the economy. But as with other economic interventions, namely in the cotton sector, Africans resisted in different ways.⁷⁴

When it came to cattle marketing, judging from the heated discussions that ensued in the press, it became clear that different actors in Mozambican society had very strong and opposing views about the regulation, the increased power of the state in the cattle sector, and the role of the cooperative. Many of those who opposed the law viewed it as an unjustified monopoly while those in favor of market regulation through the cooperative framed the contract’s exclusivity as benign. The debate started in the pages of Notícias, the main settler newspaper, then continued in the Democracia, also aimed at settler audiences, and in O Brado Africano, the successor of O Africano, primarily aimed at Black and mestiço audiences.⁷⁵

The most vocal opponents of the regulation shared their views in the short-lived Democracia, despite the pressure the newspaper reportedly suffered not to criticize it. In a series of opinion pieces published in April and May 1934, an unidentified author criticized the government for promoting a monopoly and described how cattle fairs had not been successful thus far and had even been suspended in Magude.⁷⁶ A direct account of the fairs held in Magude in 1934 can be found in the memoirs of the local administrator of the circunscrição between 1929 and 1936. Before 1934, according to Theodorico Botte, owners in Magude only sold cattle reluctantly, when they needed money in times of hunger or to pay taxes. During the first fair of 1934, many Africans turned up, but could not agree with the prices suggested by the cooperative’s buyer, who favored the interests of his employer. During the second fair, Botte, with the discreet assistance of a mestiço arrobador, insisted on fair prices, and several head were sold. But after that, the cooperative simply stopped showing up. Botte, adamant on finding a more objective weighing system than the arrobamento, subsequently suspended the fairs until a scale could be obtained.⁷⁷

Manuel Gonçalves Caruço, a self-described “old settler” living in Magude and an experienced cattle trader, also openly criticized the regulation in several pieces published in Democracia, where he accused O Brado Africano and other newspapers of being loyal to the cooperative. The argument that followed between Caruço and the editors of O Brado illustrates agrarian relations in the cattle-rich circunscrições of southern Mozambique and the tensions surrounding the terms of the 1934 contract.

According to Caruço, he had frequently exchanged cattle for maize with African owners, but only in periods of food scarcity when maize prices increased. He also explained how prices were negotiated and how it was customary to pay a bonus to African owners, locally known as a bacela.⁷⁸ As a trader, he had purchased smaller-sized cattle from African owners, while the cooperative was only interested in larger cattle.⁷⁹ Before the Depression, he argued, when Africans wanted to sell cattle to pay their taxes, they were often advised by local officials to wait or to find a job instead. But in the early 1930s, due to locusts, unemployment in the south, and reduced demand for labor migrants in the Transvaal, many Africans had little alternative but to sell their cattle, with some living almost exclusively on this income.⁸⁰

Expelled from the cooperative as a result of what he maintained was a smear campaign, Caruço detailed how the cooperative began by only sending cattle to the slaughterhouse purchased from its preferred sellers while simultaneously informing African owners that they could no longer sell in cantinas.⁸¹ Only the major capitalists were making profits, he argued, while everyone else in the commodity chain was losing: Africans were selling few head; the state was losing money because it sold few purchase licenses and failed to collect taxes; railways were losing because they were carrying less cattle; cantineiros were losing money because there was less purchasing power; and consumers were paying more for beef.⁸²

In the pages of O Brado Africano opinions were markedly different. According to “F.A.”, the “old way of doing business,” in which a bag of maize is traded for a head, “is dead.” African owners were selling cattle for the best price and then spending the money they earned in the shops. Even though all parties involved had benefited from the recent regulation, some people still continued to be sceptical about its merits, fearing the exploitation of African owners. But at least in Magude, F.A. argued, the local official would not allow that to happen.⁸³ In a reply to Caruço, José de Albasini, João de Albasini’s brother, corroborated the view that the regulation was having positive effects in rural areas. Citing a few cases, namely that of chief Ngubana, who had sold his cattle in a cattle fair for the price indicated by the arrobador — which in any case was much higher than what he would have been paid before the regulation — Albasini concluded “the wealth of Magude has increased.”⁸⁴

Less than two years later, in early 1936, the veterinary services contacted the administrators of the circunscrições to evaluate the situation and collect suggestions on ways to improve the work of the cooperative, as the initial term of the exclusive contract was coming to an end. In a telling response, the administrator of Manhiça argued that both African owners and the state had benefitted from the regulation. The former had been selling their cattle even when they did not need to pay their taxes, while being protected from the “greed” of traders. As a result, the state’s ability to collect taxes had improved. But there were also shortcomings: in his view, the arrobamento had to be replaced by a fairer weighing system using scales. He had in fact advised owners not to sell their cattle in situations where he feared the price proposed by the cooperative’s buyers was too low. Furthermore, he admitted there was little competition in the fairs, and he suspected licensed buyers could be forming cartels.⁸⁵

This view seemed to be in line with Botte’s descriptions of the fairs he supervised in Magude in 1934. But also, with the testimonies gathered by O Brado Africano’s editors and correspondents in the circunscrições in 1936. Fairs were taking place in distant locations and many owners had to walk dozens of kilometres only to come back empty handed, in the process weakening their herds. Ultimately, though prices were higher, fewer head were being sold, and African owners were “desperate,” longing for the time when traders came knocking on their doors to buy cattle. As such, sales between African owners and between African owners and traders, continued clandestinely.⁸⁶

In 1936, in line with other agricultural policies put in place in regard to maize and cotton, colonial authorities renewed the exclusive contract through a new regulation. While this contract continued the use of the arrobamento system and fairs, it respectively conceded the need for the gradual implementation of scales and created the Meat Trade Board — a body where African owners were once again not represented — tasked with advising the veterinary department in fixing quotas of cattle for sale in each circunscrição.⁸⁷ Over the years, the quotas for each circunscrição and for African and European cattle varied according to different criteria, with European owners lobbying for higher quotas when it was in their interest to sell more cattle, while African owners turned to clandestine markets.⁸⁸ The latter continued to resist selling when the prices fixed were too low, and on certain occasions had to be coerced into selling their cattle. In the late 1940s, colonial officials, much like in previous decades, continued to fear that the unreliability of the arrobamento system would cause African owners to opt out. If cattle prices were too high, however, officials felt Africans would have an incentive to sell their cattle, depleting the Sul do Save’s herd. Even with regular fairs, quotas, and coercion, controlling African cattle in southern Mozambique was not a foregone conclusion.⁸⁹

Conclusion

Further investigation, relying on additional written or oral sources, is necessary to complement the findings of this paper and especially to understand the changing circumstances of African agropastoralists and their cattle; a context which was complicated by the expansion of cash crop production in the Incomati basin, European settlement, land expropriation, and late colonial development policies. But, all in all, the experiences of African agropastoralists, the principle cattle owners in the region, as well as the evolution of cattle marketing policies, share many similarities with other territories in Southern and East Africa in this period. This warrants broader consideration of the case of Mozambique in the historiography of cattle in Africa.

Much as has been shown to be the case in other areas of Southern and East Africa, this paper demonstrated that the “external factors which promote or inhibit exchange and marketing” which Carole Kerven identified in her long-term study about market integration of pastoralists in Africa, were also present in different ways in southern Mozambique: drought, livestock disease, government taxes, government interventions, infrastructure, land policies, and demand and prices.⁹⁰ Focusing especially on “government interventions” like the municipal butcher and the exclusive contract granted to the cooperative in the context of cycles of expansion and contraction of markets partly caused by elements like demographic growth, the First World War, and the Great Depression, this paper also shows how the colonial state tried to capture African cattle to ensure beef supply to the capital, but also to serve the interests of European cattle owners and to guarantee African farmers paid their taxes. As authorized private agents were given a greater role in rural areas, replacing local administrative and veterinary officials and traders in the marketing chain, the state retained a supervisory role in fairs and continued to fix prices. But even as the relations between Lourenço Marques and its cattle-rich periphery were being transformed to ensure a predictable supply of cattle, African owners found ways of engaging with markets on their own terms, selling cattle in fairs when they needed to, refusing to sell when the circumstances were unfavorable, protesting the effect of cheap South African cattle in the market or traders’ tactics, or — in a sign of the ambiguous relation they had with the latter — selling clandestinely to traders when necessary. This “tactical approach” to the cattle trade, to borrow Kerven’s expression, the conditions of which undoubtedly varied according to the position African owners had in the increasingly stratified colonial society of the south and in their own communities, illustrates rich social and economic dynamics shaping Mozambique in the first decades of the twentieth century.⁹¹