 Starting with 1884, the people staged a series of violent rebellions against the Portuguese.In 1897, the Portuguese attempted to collect an annual and steep "hut tax" from Africans, along with conscription of 2,000 African males for work, which the Sena people along with Tonga and Cambuenda peoples violently opposed.The Portuguese officials responded with military might, arrests and forced transfers of the local people into South African mines and South Rhodesian plantations between 1900 and about 1960, when a nationwide FRELIMO resistance congealed to overthrow the Portuguese rule and gain independence.