Inhambane

Inhambane stands on a sheltered inlet of the southern Mozambican coast. Long before a permanent Portuguese establishment, the bay connected coastal Tonga communities and inland societies with merchants crossing the Indian Ocean. Ivory was among the goods sought here, while cotton cloth and beads entered networks reaching inland. The port drew traders from many shores.

Portuguese ships visited the bay from the sixteenth century, but a permanent Portuguese post was established in 1729. Local Tonga traders remained important intermediaries between the port and the interior. During the eighteenth century Indian merchants joined the trade in ivory and enslaved people, exchanging imported cloth and beads for goods and captives. In 1834 Soshangane's forces attacked Inhambane, bringing the violence of the emerging Gaza kingdom to the port.