Indians in Mozambique

Arabic geographer Al-Idrisi (12th century) noted Indian settlements at Sofala[6] and describes that settlements incorporated several towns, including Sayuna, which was;medium in size and its inhabitants are a collection of people from Hind [India], Zunuj [Mogadishu according to Trimingham] and others….Vasco da Gama also found Hindu traders in Mozambique when he paid the first Portuguese visit to ports there in 1499.

[7] By the 1800s, Vanika merchants from Diu had settled on the Island of Mozambique; in cooperation with Portuguese shippers, they were active in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

[9] More Gujaratis began to flow into Mozambique from South Africa in the latter half of the 19th century, also as petty traders or employees of the large Indian trading firms.

[14] This produced a significant change in settlement patterns; whereas many Indian migrants had effectively been sojourners, leaving their families in India while they did business abroad, they instead brought their wives and children over to Mozambique, thus cutting a bit more of their ties to their country of origin.

Indians circumvented the regulations by firing their non-trusted workers and naming the remaining ones as partners, so that they would not count towards the total number of employees.

This strategy would suffice through World War II, as Portugal's official neutrality meant that Portuguese ships remained untouched by either Allies or Axis, and trade volumes picked up.

[16] Though the price of cashew nuts dropped, warehouse owners and exporters were largely unaffected; suppliers were hardest hit, often going out of business and returning to paid employment.

[18] Indian independence and Partition in 1947 had brought with it a choice for South Asians in Mozambique: Pakistani nationality, or that of the Republic of India.