Jeanne M. Penvenne, Review Article: Valdemir Zamparoni. De escravo a cozinheiro: Colonialismo & racismo em Moçambique. Salvador: Editora da Universidade Federal da Bahia, 2007. Maps, illustrations, tables. 338 pp. no price listed (cloth), ISBN 978-85-232-0440-2.

The book’s structure is essentially cross-chronological: four chapters, an introduction, a two-page conclusion, and a bibliography. Chapter 1 is the most chronological, but subsequent chapters are thematic, with supporting evidence in somewhat, but not consistent, chronological order. Chapter 1, “From the slave trade to conquest,” considers transforming slaves into contract workers. Chapter 2, “Mechanisms for domination,” highlights the moral obligation to work; the creation of natives; hut taxes; expropriation of the best or most economically attractive lands; early dispossession and monopoly crop/product schemes that supported white settlers with black land and labor; and the simultaneous disadvantaging of black farmers, workers, and businesses. Chapter 3, “Forced labor: Theory and practice,” considers prison labor, forced labor, corporal punishment, wage and benefit fraud, abuse of women and children’s labor, the relationship between forced and migrant labor, mission supported “native farmer” schemes, labor control systems, and popular strategies to evade what I called the engineering of inequality. Chapter 4, “Volunteer labor,” returns to the relationship between mine migration to South Africa and labor conditions in Mozambique, and then turns to labor in Lourenço Marques. This chapter contrasts assumptions, practices, and conditions for black and white workers whether employed or unemployed. It closes with closer attention to the specific challenges of urban African women.