Cuama

Cuama was a coastal trading place among the southern islands of the Zambezi delta, near the Luabo channel. The name came to be used for the river mouth and, on old nautical maps, for the river and its many channels. Water, mangroves and shifting sandbanks make the delta a difficult entrance to the vast country beyond.

In the sixteenth century Portuguese merchants sought the gold of the interior by way of the rivers of Cuama, travelling upstream towards fairs in the Mutapa lands. The Crown claimed a monopoly over this commerce, but the route depended on the knowledge and labour of people who navigated the waterways and carried goods inland. Quelimane later became an important alternative entrance to the Zambezi trade.