Abstract Legally instituted in 1914 and implemented in Mozambique between 1917 and 1961, the racist citizenship classifications established under Portuguese colonial rule led to the creation of the category of ‘assimilated’ ( assimilados ) category – Africans who were legally defined as having renounced their so-called ‘racial customs’. The documentation produced in the process of acquiring ‘assimilated’ status provides valuable insights into the complexities of African experiences, particularly in their engagement with, and resistance to, Portuguese colonial exploitation. Drawing on sources from the Mozambique Historical Archive, this article examines three key dimensions of African experiences within the framework of assimilationist policy: (1) the social profiles of Africans who sought legal recognition as ‘assimilated’; (2) the strategies of negotiation, accommodation, and resistance employed by Africans within the colonial racial hierarchy; and (3) the intersection of Portuguese assimilationist legislation with broader global shifts in European colonialism and its impact on colonial governance in Mozambique.
Matheus Serva Pereira (Wed,) studied this question.