Eduardo Mondlane: The Struggle For Mozambique

Eduardo Mondlane, a nationalist leader and the founding president of the Mozambican Liberation Front, wrote a text called “The struggle for Mozambique”. He explains what the situation in colonial Mozambique was at the time and the tribulations that the country faced under Portugal’s rule. He brings to light certain cases, the episodes of the nationalist struggle in Mozambique and its aftermath. This essay will analyse the text of Mondlane and give an account of his reasoning’s.
According to Mondlane relations between Portugal and Mozambique began in the late 1400’s with the main interest of opening a safer route to India for means of trade. This was not the case for long. They discovered how rich the country was in natural resources and realised how the country apparently lacked political development and implemented an immense plan of control. During the 16- and 1700’s the Portuguese had authority over the northern and central parts of Mozambique and introduced Christianity as part of the plan to gain control. The Prazo system was also introduced in this time and contributed to their colonial success to a certain extent. In the second half of the nineteenth century Portugal used every colonial conquest technique to gain control over Mozambique by using infiltration by Portuguese traders who spied and mapped out the whole region and sent in their military forces to contest against resistance from local rulers. It was at the beginning of the twentieth century when