Although slavery had been legally abolished in Mozambique by the Portuguese colonial authorities, at the end of the 19th century the Chartered companies enacted a forced labour policy and supplied cheap – often forced – African labour to the mines and plantations of other European colonies in Africa. The Zambezia Company, the most profitable chartered company, took over a number of smaller holdings and requested Portuguese military outposts to protect its property. The chartered companies and the Portuguese administration built roads and ports to bring their goods to market including a railway linking Southern Rhodesia with the Mozambican port of Beira. However, the development's administration gradually started to pass directly from the trading companies to the Portuguese government itself.
Although slavery had been legally abolished in Mozambique by the Portuguese colonial authorities at the end of the 19th century the Chartered companies enacted a forced labour policy and supplied cheap – often forced – African labour to the mines and plantations of other European colonies in Africa. The Zambezia Company, the most profitable chartered company, took over a number of smaller holdings and requested Portuguese military outposts to protect its property. The chartered companies and the Portuguese administration built roads and ports to bring their goods to market including a railway linking Southern Rhodesia with the Mozambican port of Beira. However, the development's administration gradually started to pass directly from the trading companies to the Portuguese government itself.