African Entrepreneurship Record-Chapter 109 - 104: The Portuguese

October 5, 1867.

Eastern Malawi Lake Area.

Mitomoni Village, located over a hundred kilometers south of Songea City.

The forests in the eastern Malawi Lake area are quite dense, with tall, clustered trees that are distinctly different from the endless savannas in the northern part of the East African colonies.

In the previous life, even by the 21st century, Tanzania’s forest coverage rate remained at around fifty percent. In this era, the forest coverage rate throughout Tanzania is even more substantial.

Unlike tropical rainforests and subtropical forests, the trees in East African forests are not densely packed. There are large gaps between the trees, mainly grassland with very few shrubs, making passage easy, yet without a compass and map, it’s easy to lose direction.

Hence, the eastern Malawi Lake area is currently the least developed land in East Africa. After all, a fire on the savanna can clear a large area of wasteland, but it’s quite difficult to fell these trees with the few people in the East African colonies.

Everything has two sides. The lush forests provide abundant timber resources, and due to transportation limitations, these trees cannot be exported but greatly satisfy the needs of the East African colonies themselves.

Building houses, using as fuel, making tools, all can utilize these abundant resources. According to the current population scale of the East African colonies, developing these timber resources is virtually inexhaustible.

As one of the southernmost villages in the eastern Malawi Lake area, Mitomoni Village is also a small military outpost.

Besides the low walls built of mud and stones, there are makeshift sentry posts constructed of wood, and wooden chevaux de frise at the exit, a configuration somewhat luxurious for the southern indigenous people.

Strictly speaking, East Africa has not yet bordered with the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, after all, Mozambique has a considerable population, but not many Portuguese, most of whom are distributed along the coast.

Naturally, the Portuguese can’t fully control Mozambique, so there are many indigenous tribes within Mozambique, whose relationship with the Portuguese resembles that of vassal states.

As long as they submit to the rule of the Portuguese Kingdom, they are considered compatriots. Of course, this situation is more evident inland, while the indigenous people in the coastal areas controlled by the Portuguese can only work laboriously for the Portuguese, suffering at their whim.

Before the end of the slave trade, Mozambique was an important source of goods for the Portuguese Kingdom.

The Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique was somewhat according to convention—first occupying the coastal ports, then gradually expanding inland along the rivers.

Of course, the Portuguese initially had an additional goal, namely to destroy the Arab influence as much as possible, which also made it a religious war.

In Mozambique, the Portuguese succeeded, as the Arab influence along the coast was indeed weak, and hardly resistant to Portuguese attacks.

But when the Portuguese tried to replicate this action northward, they encountered the Zanzibar Sultanate in its prime, resulting in a stalemate, so the Portuguese shifted from confrontation to cooperation with the Zanzibar Sultanate, jointly developing the coastal interests of the Western Indian Ocean.

Once, the farthest reach of the Portuguese had already extended to parts of Zimbabwe and Zambia, but due to plagues in both places, the Portuguese were forced to retreat to Mozambique, marking the Western colonizers’ first failed attempt to develop the African interior.

Even now, the Portuguese have not succeeded in expanding into the African interior again, at most being an influential foreign force for important inland indigenous kingdoms and tribes.

...

A Portuguese patrol, fully armed, ventured north, led by Tulio Penelli, an officer of the Portuguese colony in Mozambique.

As a Portuguese who frequented the Mozambique colony for years, Tulio Penelli was quite familiar with the local area.

The squad was small, a total of forty-seven men, patrolling the indigenous tribes under the Mozambique colony along traditional routes.

Gradually, Tulio Penelli reached the border between the East African colonies and the Mozambique colony.

In fact, the Portuguese did not know much about the expansion of the East African colonies, only that the Germans defeated the Zanzibar Sultanate, but the Sultanate still existed, merely retreating to Zanzibar Island.

According to the Portuguese’s thinking, the Germans should act similarly to them, mainly concentrating along the coast, at most influencing some inland tribes.

After all, the Portuguese had been developing their influence in Africa for hundreds of years and hadn’t succeeded in penetrating the interior, so the newly arrived Germans would at best develop the coastal plains.

Mitomoni Village is not far from Lake Malawi, quite inland, so Tulio Penelli and his group carelessly set off northward.

Soon, upon reaching the last northern tribe in Mozambique, its chief began reporting recent news to Tulio Penelli.

"Many people fled from the north and were captured by us. They are from northern tribes. It’s said they were recently driven by a group of white-faced people, and many resisters were killed or fled west. These are resisters as well, unwilling to flee west, they used the forest to escape into our territory," the translator said to Tulio Penelli.

"White-faced people?" Tulio Penelli muttered, "Could it be the Germans?"

Unable to decide, Tulio Penelli said to the chief, "Tell me in detail about their appearance, clothing, and weapons."

"Our people checked the north and found a fortress (Mitomoni Village) established there. Their skin color is much like yours (in reality, mostly Chinese), they have the same kind of weapons as you (guns) and clothing similar to yours but more uniform, not as flamboyant as yours (Western clothes being more ostentatious while the East African colony mainly uses military uniforms). The northerners we captured said the others belong to a tribe with a lion totem," the chief replied.

"Seems to be the Germans!" Tulio Penelli told his team, "In that case, we should go visit. Follow my orders and avoid conflict with the Germans."

Soon, under the chief’s guidance, Tulio Penelli and his group arrived near Mitomoni Village, seeing from afar the lion totem the chief mentioned standing in front of the crude fortifications.

Tulio Penelli naturally recognized it as not a local indigenous tribal totem; it was a banner, the coat of arms (emblem) of the Heixinggen family, also the flag of the East African colonies.

Actually, Tulio Penelli only knew it was a European noble family’s banner, as for Heixinggen whatever, there are so many nobles in Europe, especially in the German regions, and as a civilian of the Portuguese Kingdom, Tulio Penelli couldn’t possibly identify them all.

He could tell it was a European noble family’s banner because of the lion on it, which is too common in Europe, with many noble and royal heraldic emblems bearing this symbol. Having an eagle or lion as a coat of arms usually indicates significant lineage.

But this didn’t prevent Tulio Penelli from recognizing it as the German flag. Along the eastern coast, Portuguese merchants could obtain much information from East Africa, especially at the mouth of the Ruvu River (Ruvu River being the border river between the eastern East African colonies and Mozambique colonial regions), where many such flags stood on the opposite shore.

What Tulio Penelli did not expect was that the Germans had already infiltrated the East African interior, establishing a considerable foothold here.

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