CHAPTER V 



THE PRAZOES, THEIR ORIGIN AND INDUSTRIES : 

 COCONUTS, RUBBER, OIL-SEEDS, COFFEE, COTTON, 

 SUGAR, TOBACCO, AND MINERALS 



Not only in Zambezia, but in almost all parts 

 of the Portuguese Province of Mozanabique, the 

 system of leasing large areas of land to syndicates 

 and private individuals has been customary for 

 several centuries, the practice having arisen chiefly 

 from the inability or disinclination of the State to 

 increase its burden of administrative expenditure 

 by adding to its establishment of colonial officials. 

 As we have seen in a previous chapter, the first 

 prazoes, as these districts of land came in time to be 

 called, were established about the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century, since it would appear that many 

 of the Portuguese at that time resident in the basin 

 of the Zambezi succeeded in obtaining considerable 

 grants of land from the native chiefs to whom it 

 then belonged. Some of these men are said to have 

 secured the allegiance of prominent sections of 

 some of the existing tribes, and to have led the 

 lives of petty rulers, even making war on sur- 

 rounding chieftains, as well as, on occasion, upon 

 such of their own countrymen as were similarly 



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