Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Samora Machel was the main Mozambican nationalist leader during the 1970s. He took over after the assassination of Eduardo Mondlane , becoming the first president of Mozambique in 1975, and remaining in office until his death in 1986. Samora Moises Machel was born on September 29, 1933 at Xilembene (or Chilembene), Gaza Province, Portuguese East Africa (as Mozambique was then referred to internationally), his family having strong military traditions – his great-grandparents and his grandparents fought the Portuguese. He attended a Roman Catholic mission school and then went on to study nursing at the township of Xai-Xai, and then to Lourenço Marques (modern-day Maputo), where he became a medic. In the meantime, during the 1950s his parents had their farmland confiscated and given to Portuguese settlers. As a result, some of the family had to go to work in South African mines; one of Machel's brothers was killed in a mining accident there. It was not long before Machel began to get angry about why black nurses were paid less than white nurses while they did the same work, and he soon became attracted to Marxism . In 1963 Machel left Mozambique to work in Dar-es-Salaam, and then joined the Mozambican nationalist movement, the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, FRELIMO), which had been formed the previous year. He was sent to Algeria to be trained ... log in or subscribe to read full text