Borderland Battleground: Local-State Relations during the Mozambique War of Independence

This paper examines the impact that various transnational networks had on state and non-state actors during the Mozambican War of Independence. Operating within the context of decolonization and the Cold War, an array of geopolitical pressures shaped the attitudes and responses of Portuguese, Tanzanian, and Frelimo leaders involved in the war. The borderland between Tanzania and Mozambique became a physical and ideological battleground for the competing fronts. Populations on either side of the Ruvuma River were forcefully resettled into concentrated villages where their economic production, education, and mobility could be controlled according to state designs. Local populations, however, did not respond passively towards the war and increased state intervention. Indigenous peoples had traversed the Ruvuma River for centuries, creating extensive transnational networks to ensure their livelihoods and pursue socioeconomic opportunities. Decades of neglect, isolation, and exploitation by the British and Portuguese colonial states had strengthened the self-reliant identity of indigenous peoples throughout the borderland region. Utilizing oral histories and archival materials from Tanzania, Britain, and the United States, this paper argues that local populations in southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique continued to rely upon transnational networks and their mobility as a strategy to avoid the war and/or the authority of the state.