Mozambique African National Union

Groups interested in freeing Mozambique from Portuguese colonial rule and making it an independent nation emerged in the early 1900s, shortly after Portugal had defeated the last of the native chieftaincies and established effective control over the territory.

In 1920 or 1923, a government sponsored organisation, the Liga Africana was established in Lisbon for "assimilados" -- members of the tiny minority of Africans in the colonies who had been given citizenship status. Gibson states that "although it gathered together only some twenty African and mulatto intellectuals, [it] had significant repercussions in the colonies." Later, in Mozambique, the Associação Africana was established for assimilated mulattoes; and the Associação dos Naturais de Moçambique" for Whites born in Mozambique. (In the 1950s the latter organisation opened its doors to non-Whites and fought for a non-racial society.) According to Chilcote, "Africans manifested demands through these organisations by urging moderate reforms in the 1930s and focusing discussion on direct participation for the urban masses in the 1940s. The government reacted by replacing elected leaders with administrative appointees and by dominating and interfering with the activities of these organisations." When the Associação Africana came partially under government control, the more determined of the nationalists in it formed the Instituto Negrófilo. This was later forced by the government to change its name to Centro Associativo dos Negros de Moçambique; and was banned in 1965 for alleged subversion and terrorism. The government also intervened in the Associação dos Naturais de Moçambique, replacing its leadership, and, according to Chilcote, ending its effectiveness.

Besides these groups a newspaper, O Brado Africano was established in the early 1920s. One of the first African weeklies on the continent, it provided an oputlet for native dissent. Chilcote, in 1967, wrote that "Although controlled by the Salazar government, it remains African-oriented."

The Casa dos Estudantes do Império was a semi-official centre for African students in Lisbon. It was pronounced subversive and closed by the government in 1965.

By the mid 1950s clandestine political movements had formed. Above ground intellectual nationalism continued: African intellectuals studying at Portuguese universities established the Movimento Anti-Colonista (MAC) as an outgrowth of the Casa dos Estudantes do Império. A few of the African students in Portugal, including the Angolan Mário de Andrade and the Mozambican Marcelino dos Santos, left Portugal and settled in Paris, where, Chilcote says, they "associated with French African advocates of négritude and others who sought an African culture, traditional in tone but modern and sophisticated in content." In South Africa, Mozambican secondary-school students who had been sent there to study formed an offshoot of the Centro Associativo dos Negros de Moçambique called the Núcleo dos Estudantes Africanos Secundários de Moçambique (NESAM). Its tiny membership included several who would go on to become leaders in the liberation movement, including future FRELIMO president, Eduardo Mondlane.

...
Wikipedia