The Massingire Rising of 1884

The Massingire acquired an identity separate from that of the other Maganja peoples under the leadership of a family of Indian origin called Vas dos Anjos. During the 1870s they became involved in a series of wars with the Makololo chiefs of the Shire, and the raids carried out by the Makololo on Portuguese territory threatened to implicate the Scottish mission in the Shire Highlands. In 1882 the Portuguese annexed Massingire after the deposition of the Vas dos Anjos chief, and in 1884 the whole area rose in rebellion supported by dissident elements on the prazos of the lower Zambezi. The Portuguese thought that the Makololo were responsible for the rising and that they had been aided by the Church of Scotland mission. The Massingire had, in fact, made many attempts to obtain official or unofficial British protection, and it is possible that they may have thought that their connections with the British would grant them the same sort of immunity as that enjoyed by the Makololo. When the frontiers were finally drawn in 1891, Massingire was divided, the larger part falling to the Portuguese

Ancient history · Archaeology · Colonialism · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Portuguese · Shire · African history and culture studies · History · South African History and Culture

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  Open Access•C S Lancaster•American Ethnologist•1974

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• The ‘Aringa’ at Massangano

  Open Access•M D D Newitt, Malyn Newitt et al.•The Journal of African History•1967

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• The Portuguese on the Zambesi from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries

  Open Access•M D D Newitt, Malyn Newitt•Race•1968

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