Elusive Histories diversifies a historiography in which South Africa’s role as a destination for migrant labour dominates the subregion. This work and other recent scholarship remind us of a more expansive economic position. Alongside rural farms and mines, Southern Rhodesia’s two main cities, Bulawayo and Salisbury, were significant urban centres that drew migrants from across the region. Zoe Groves’ Tracing Machona (2020) explored this theme in the context of Malawi. Here, the Isaacmans and Chadya extend this consideration to Mozambicans who were drawn to Rhodesia’s comparative economic prosperity.
By early 1959, more than 200,000 individuals from Mozambique were legally resident in Rhodesia (p. 71). While their view of Rhodesian society is far from rosy, the authors note that ‘the migrants who shared their stories with us all agreed that they were appreciably better off in the British colony than in Mozambique’ (p. 75). This assessment is based on a generous data pool – the authors and their research assistants conducted more than 200 interviews with Mozambican migrants or their relatives.
The reminiscences of these migrants, obtained by the researchers over a period spanning half a century, constitute the richest component of the work. Consequently, as the authors acknowledge, the bulk of their work focuses on the period from 1945 to 1980. However, the scholarship is also grounded in wide-ranging primary research. Interviews are complemented by material from national archives in Portugal, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
As the book’s title suggests, the authors lament ‘the limits of the colonial archives’, which ‘left many gaps in their knowledge’ (p. 14). These constraints ensure that the Isaacmans and Chadya are generally restricted to drawing on colonial reports for statistical data or anecdotal accounts. The archival material simply does not provide the authors with the ability to extrapolate any narratives in depth. While much of the challenge is indeed one of sources, there are some shortcomings in the framing.
In some places, there is either padding or an uneven chronicle. The book’s third chapter, ‘The many faces of forced labor in Mozambique’, describes the torrid economic situation in colonial Mozambique that motivated migration to Rhodesia. While brief mention is made of the postwar economic boom that Rhodesia experienced in the 1940s and 1950s, there is no corresponding effort to provide similarly detailed context on the comparatively brighter economic or political situation that the migrants encountered in Rhodesia. Additional background on the 1958 Foreign Labour Migratory Act that sharply restricted the migration of Mozambicans would have been especially informative (p. 119).
The authors largely divide their account into explorations of Mozambican labour either in the Rhodesian countryside or in the capital, Salisbury (now Harare). It is puzzling that, aside from a vague two-sentence paragraph, there is no effort to recover how Mozambique’s independence in 1975 was received by migrants in that city (p. 192). Only a single note cites material from the Harare municipal archives – which does not appear in the bibliography. Given the presence of Mozambican cultural and civic groups in the city, council records might have been a fruitful avenue to pursue further.
An examination of Umtali (now Mutare), the third-largest Rhodesian urban centre, situated on the Mozambican border, might also have been profitable. The authors conducted a number of interviews with Mutare-based individuals. Although some Rhodesian periodicals are cited, the Umtali Post is not among them.
A particularly illuminating revelation from Elusive Histories is the large number of Mozambicans who were employed as municipal employees by the city of Salisbury. Many of these workers served in menial jobs that locals were unwilling to do, cleaning public bathrooms or collecting garbage. However, some served as municipal police or even in office jobs. One of the most intriguing interviewees, Mangou Bayota, is also one of the most prominently featured. Bayota, a municipal office worker, later became active with civic and Mozambican nationalist organizations operating inside Rhodesia (p. 178).
There are some sloppy errors, surprising for a multi-authored volume. Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence, which occurred in late 1965, is twice positioned as having taken place in 1964 (pp. 11, 182). A major Zimbabwean nationalist organization, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union, is said to have been formed in 1963, two years after it came into existence (p. 177).
Nevertheless, it is clear that the book could be written only because the first author, Allen Isaacman, was longitudinally attuned to tracking scattered fragments of connections between the two colonies and has supervised a cohort of Zimbabwean PhD students over his lengthy scholarly career. Overall, Elusive Histories is a valuable addition to the burgeoning transnational historiography of Rhodesia.
