Bantu migrations[edit] Further information: Bantu expansion Bantu-speaking peoples migrated into Mozambique as early as the 4th century BC.[17] It is believed between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, waves of migration from the west and north went through the Zambezi River valley and then gradually into the plateau and coastal areas of Southern Africa.[18] They established agricultural communities or societies based on herding cattle. They brought with them the technology for smelting[19] and smithing iron. Swahili Coast[edit] Arab-Swahili slave traders and their captives on the Ruvuma River From the late first millennium AD, vast Indian Ocean trade networks extended as far south into Mozambique as evidenced by the ancient port town of Chibuene.[20] Beginning in the 9th century, a growing involvement in Indian Ocean trade led to the development of numerous port towns along the entire East African coast, including modern day Mozambique. Largely autonomous, these towns broadly participated in the incipient Swahili culture. Islam was often adopted by urban elites, facilitating trade. In Mozambique, Sofala, Angoche, and Mozambique Island were regional powers by the 15th century.[21] The towns traded with merchants from both the African interior and the broader Indian Ocean world. Particularly important were the gold and ivory caravan routes. Inland states like the Kingdom of Zimbabwe and Kingdom of Mutapa provided the coveted gold and ivory, which were then exchanged up the coast to larger port cities like Kilwa and Mombasa.[22] Portuguese Mozambique (1498–1975)[edit] Further information: Portuguese Mozambique Detail of the Island of Mozambique, former capital in Northern Mozambique and prominent in the country's history Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte Fort São Sebastião The Island of Mozambique after which the country is named, is a small coral island at the mouth of Mossuril Bay on the Nacala coast of northern Mozambique, first explored by Europeans in the late 15th century. When Portuguese explorers reached Mozambique in 1498, Arab-trading settlements had existed along the coast and outlying islands for several centuries.[23][24] From about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts displaced the Arabic commercial and military hegemony, becoming regular ports of call on the new European sea route to the east,[18][25] the first steps in what was to become a process of colonisation.[25][26] The voyage of Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, and society of the region. The Portuguese gained control of the Island of Mozambique and the port city of Sofala in the early 16th century, and by the 1530s, small groups of Portuguese traders and prospectors seeking gold penetrated the interior regions. Here they set up garrisons and trading posts at Sena and Tete on the Zambezi and tried to gain exclusive control over the gold trade.[24] In the central part of the Mozambique territory, the Portuguese attempted to legitimise and consolidate their trade and settlement positions through the creation of prazos.[24] These land grants tied emigrants to their settlements, and inland Mozambique was largely left to be administered by prazeiros, the grant holders, while central authorities in Portugal concentrated their direct exercise of power on, in their view, the more important Portuguese possessions in Asia and the Americas.[24][27] Slavery in Mozambique pre-dated European-contact. African rulers and chiefs dealt in enslaved people, first with Arab Muslim traders, who sent the enslaved to Middle East Asia cities and plantations, and later with Portuguese and other European traders. In a continuation of the trade, slaves were supplied by warring local African rulers, who raided enemy tribes and sold their captives to the prazeiros. The authority of the prazeiros was exercised and upheld amongst the local population by armies of these enslaved men, whose members became known as Chikunda.[24] Continuing emigration from Portugal occurred at comparatively low levels until late in the nineteenth century, promoting "Africanisation".[24] While prazos were originally intended to be held solely by Portuguese colonists, through intermarriage and the relative isolation of prazeiros from ongoing Portuguese influences, the prazos became African-Portuguese or African-Indian.[24][25] View of the Central Avenue in Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, ca. 1905 Although Portuguese influence gradually expanded, its power was limited and exercised through individual settlers and officials who were granted extensive autonomy. The Portuguese were able to wrest much of the coastal trade from Arab Muslims between 1500 and 1700, but, with the Arab Muslim seizure of Portugal's key foothold at Fort Jesus on Mombasa Island (now in Kenya) in 1698, the pendulum began to swing in the other direction. As a result, investment lagged while Lisbon devoted itself to the more lucrative trade with India and the Far East and to the colonisation of Brazil.[18] The Mazrui and Omani Arabs reclaimed much of the Indian Ocean trade, forcing the Portuguese to retreat south. Many prazos had declined by the mid-19th century, but several of them survived. During the 19th century other European powers, particularly the British (British South Africa Company) and the French (Madagascar), became increasingly involved in the trade and politics of the region around the Portuguese East African territories.[28] Portuguese language printing and typesetting class, 1930 By the early 20th century the Portuguese had shifted the administration of much of Mozambique to large private companies, like the Mozambique Company, the Zambezia Company and the Niassa Company, controlled and financed mostly by British financiers such as Solomon Joel, which established railroad lines to their neighbouring colonies (South Africa and Rhodesia). Although slavery had been legally abolished in Mozambique, at the end of the 19th century the chartered companies enacted a forced labour policy and supplied cheap—often forced—African labour to the mines and plantations of the nearby British colonies and South Africa.[18] The Zambezia Company, the most profitable chartered company, took over several smaller prazeiro holdings and established military outposts to protect its property. The chartered companies built roads and ports to bring their goods to market including a railroad linking present-day Zimbabwe with the Mozambican port of Beira.[29][30] Due to their unsatisfactory performance and the shift, under the corporatist Estado Novo regime of Oliveira Salazar, toward a stronger Portuguese control of Portuguese Empire's economy, the companies' concessions were not renewed when they ran out. This was what happened in 1942 with the Mozambique Company, which, however, continued to operate in the agricultural and commercial sectors as a corporation, and had already happened in 1929 with the termination of the Niassa Company's concession. In 1951, the Portuguese overseas colonies in Africa were rebranded as Overseas Provinces of Portugal.[29][30][31] The Mueda massacre of 16 June 1960, resulted in the death of Makonde protestors, which provoked the struggle of independence from Portuguese r