"No Real Freedom for the Natives": The Men in the Middle and Critiques of Colonial Labor in Central Mozambique

This article examines how administrators in Mozambique engaged in the international debate over labor practices in colonial Africa. Although they worked within a regime of legalized forced labor, some expressed ambivalence over their position, criticizing both the principle and the practice of forced labor. These "men in the middle" held mindsets shaped both by awareness of the broader debate over what forms of labor were acceptable in "modern" empires and by interactions with the Africans over whom they ruled. The article tracks the evolving debate around African labor rights from the 1920s to the 1940s, following discussions within the League of Nations, between Portuguese government departments, and across levels of administrative hierarchy within Mozambique.