Mightier than the Sword: The Portuguese Pen in Ndau History

Abstract

For scholars of southeastern Africa interested in the early history of the region, the pen of the Portuguese was indeed mightier than the sword. Although most of the first Portuguese arrivals carried either the sword or the cross, they put these down to wield the pen and leave a written record of their triumphs and travails. The documents left by Portuguese soldiers, religious men, and others in the service of the crown provide details that are relative not only to the Portuguese experience but also to African life. This paper focuses on Portuguese writings that describe the area around the port of Sofala and its hinterland, home to the Shona who live south of the Zambezi river on the central Mozambican coastal plain and the Zimbabwe plateau. Both around Sofala and further west in the interior the inhabitants speak Ndau, a dialect of the Shona language. The wealth of evidence left by the Portuguese since the sixteenth century sheds light on changes and continuities in Ndau history.The materials that have survived are amazingly detailed and informative despite their inherent biases. Historians have long recognized the prejudices of the colonizer either creeping into the documents or jumping off the page in a more blatant manner. The examples provided here are no different. The Portuguese, like other Europeans, had certain notions stemming from a Eurocentric mentality that was an integral part of their worldview. In these records, we see how the quest for gold and a ‘civilizing’ mission coalesced into systematic exploitation.