My daughter and I own a place in Tofo, Mozambique and during the recent bad weather the thatch blew off the roof. Now our roof could be likened that of an early wooden cathedral, it is so high and to replace the thatch is no easy matter. So my thoughts have been in Mozambique which led to remembering a trip I had to the confluence of the Zambezi and the Luangwa rivers. Here it is that Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique meet. This little corner of our continent has a fascinating history to.
I stayed at Bridge Camp situated just off the Great East Road in Zambia. This was a good few years ago so I don’t know if the camp is still there. I had read a bit about this area so drove down to the town of Luangwa that in fact was originally called Fiera.
There is mention of a settlement called Zumbo in the Fiera district in 1546 that was abandoned in 1600. This was a Jesuit station about two and a half miles up the Zambezi from Fiera on the south bank. On modern maps Zumbo and Tete are about 220 miles apart. The Portuguese arrived here in 1546 and traded in gold ivory and copper as did a small party of Portuguese from Goa, India in 1720 that established a settlement on the small island of Chitakatira in the Zambezi. Francisco Pererir was the leader and earned his sobriquet of “The Terror” but kept the small community together. Eventually they outgrew the island and moved to Zumbo on the left bank of the Luangwa River.
Two different settlements existed at Zumbo and Fiera. In 1726 Father Pedro do Santissima Tridade, a Dominican priest, was installed as the vicar of Zumbo. During the thirty years that he stayed there he acquired the status of a cultural hero among the local population. According to legend he came from Sofala, itself the stuff of legends one being that it was called the city of gold and the Arabs used it as a port from which they travelled to the interior to buy gold, ivory and slaves. Sofala lies South of Beira but has a large sandbank in the entrance so that Beira was built to the north using much of the stone of the old Sofala buildings for its streets.
Father Pedro became famous for his piety and his medicines were still remembered over a hundred years later when David Livingstone passed this way on his trans-Africa journey. Livingstone’s diary of 29th March 1856 reads “Oil of Father Pedros. Received the recipe for curing wounds from Mr. Candido and he calls it Oleo of Frei Pedros.”
From 1730 the main route for ivory trade, slaves, gold, copper and malachite from the north between the Kafue basin in Zambia and the Lunda and Biso country in Mozambique must have been down the Luangwa River to Zumbo and Feira. Glass beads that have been found on the Iron Age sites are likely to have been imports at this time. In the following years Chiefs by the name of Mburuma succeeded one another and one of the chiefs enlisted the aid of Chief Mpuka during an attack. As a reward he granted land along the west bank to Chief Mpuka who had been married to a Portuguese woman, who was killed in the fighting. The people of Chief Mpuka live there to this day.
One can still see the remains of the slave pits where slaves were kept in readiness for transportation onwards. One of the local chiefs, Kanyembo, had ambitions of creating a super race for he would measure his young men against a tree of about 6 ft. If they failed to grow to this height he would sell them to the slavers.
I sat on the opposite bank, in Zimbabwe, on the crumbling walls of the slave pits, tears in my eyes and goose bumps on my arms for the suffering of those who lost their freedom here.
There is a memorial at Fiera that reads as follows:
FIERA
These are records of a 16th century Portuguese settlement here abandoned in 1600. In the early 18th century Portuguese colonialists arrived at Chitakatira Island moving soon afterwards to Zumbo with a subsidiary trading centre (Fiera) here. From 1730 to 1760 both settlements prospered greatly.
In 1745 a church and a convent were built here by Father Pedro Da S Trindade, a Dominican and vicar of Zumbo for 30 years. In 1804 Chief Mburuma 1V of the Senga destroyed Zumbo.
The merchants moved to Fiera but Zumbo was soon reoccupied to be destroyed again. In 1818 both settlements were again rebuilt but from 1826 trade gradually declined until shortly after 1830 when both settlements were abandoned.
In 1856 David Livingstone visited and saw the broken bell of the Mission. In 1887 John Harrison Clark (Changa Changa) set up his headquarters here maintaining law and order in the district.
The Chartered Company built their first boma here in 1902 and the township became an important staging post on the cattle route from Tanganyika to Southern Rhodesia. Its importance declined with the building of the railway.
BWANA CHANGA CHANGA
A strange tale indeed. Rumour has it that John Harrison Clark, called Bwana Chang Changa, hailed from the Eastern Province. He was in love with a local girl who was promised to another. The two rivals fought and John shot his rival. Thinking he was dead John fled and wandered north where he landed up at Fiera. He arrived when the local Chief had died with no suitable replacement available. The tribe made John their Chief and called him Changa Changa. He married several of the local ladies and had many offspring. He trained the Senga tribes young men into an army to ward off slave traders while he indeed traded in ivory. He ruled here for some years until visited one day by one of Cecil Rhodes’s young men, Neville Pickering I believe. He was offered land if he would leave the tribe so that Rhodes’s men could develop the area. There is another story about his dealings with the British South African Company but my version is what I dug up in the Archive library in Cape Town.
John headed south and landed up at a mine that was then called Broken Hill now known as Kabwe. Here he became storemaster and ever since the mine storemaster is called Bwana Changa Changa (Bwana meaning Boss). He made history in becoming the owner of the first motor car in Zambia.
I love coming across these forgotten corners of our continent and ferreting out the history. When in Cape Town I visit the South African library and burrow into the old tomes, discovering many tales that Google does not have. The staff there are so helpful and recognize me when I appear every year or so. Then I head for the delightful restaurant in the Gardens started so long ago by the Dutch East India company to victual its ships seeking the sea route to the east, with centuries old trees around me and a glass of wine to hand.
Molly's Musings On Life And Travel 