Mozambique history

I learned something about Mozambique today that surprised me very much. I was reading that there was slavery in Mozambique even before whites came and took Africans to be slaves elsewhere, back in the 1400's. I was so surprised! People think of Africa as such an innocent place that was taken advantage of back in the days of slavery, and, as it may be true that they may have been taken advantage of, I'm not quite so sure they were innocent. It was common to buy and sell humans here in Mozambique, and they themselves had slaves. When the white man came, they sold humans to them too. Why not make a little more money? They could probably charge more too. Also, I've been reading about the history in Mozambique. In my very abbreviated version, this is what I have learned: Mozambique was colonized by the Portuguese late 1400's who took control of the ports so they could do trading - spices etc. They built things and educated, started companies, corporations, and the like. Then from 1964 to 1974 (10 years!) there was the Portuguese colonial war. Mozambique did not want to be "ruled" by the Portuguese anymore and fought their way out. They gained independence in 1975. During the last year, some 250,000 Portuguese fled the country, but when they gained independence, they ordered all Portuguese to leave the country in 24 hours and were only allowed to take 20kg luggage with them. Many returned to Portugal penniless as they were unable to salvage their assets. The president Samora Machel, was Marxist, and established a one party state. But within 1 year civil war broke out with a growing opposition party. These two parties duked it out for 15 years with massive bloodshed. During the rule of Machel the people experienced war, collapsed infrastructure, lack of investment in productive assets, widespread famine, almost no healthcare, indiscriminate targeting of civilians, mass executions, economic collapse. Thousands of people were sent to "re-education camps" where they subsequently died. An estimated 1 million Mozambicans died during this war, 1.7 million took refuge in neighboring countries, and another million were internally displaced. Machel died in a plane crash in 1986. When his successor took over, he started peace talks, and essentially put an end to the Marxist ways of leadership. Peace finally returned to Mozambique in 1992. That is a long war! Remember, they actually started fighting in 1964! That's 28 years!!! I have read and heard stories of child warriors, especially up in the North of Mozambique where most of the fighting was. This poor war-torn country has only had 13 years of peace. Can you imagine? What a way of life! The life expectancy in this country is 49, and I'm guessing that it's mostly because of the war. I have only seen 2 or 3 old Mozambicans. It's a wonder that they have made it through, and by God's grace, are recovering. I simply cannot imagine the terror of ongoing killing for nearly 30 years. The thing that truly boggles my mind is that in the city of Maputo (the capitol) there are several statues of Samora Machel (you know, the guy who ruled when everything went to pot) and his face is on every piece of currency. Mozambicans revere him and think that he was a great leader. I'm baffled by this looking in as an outsider. I'm interested to learn more Portuguese and see if I can understand what the true feeling is about what happened. I wonder if they will talk about it?