He was at once sent to Sofala, where he remained four years with Father João Madeira.
Sofala | The town of Sofala, as depicted in the 1974 film ''The Cars That Ate Paris | Sofala Province |
The nadir of Portuguese fortunes was reached in the 1830s and 1840s when Lourenço Marques was sacked in 1833 and Sofala in 1835; Zumbo was abandoned in 1836; Afro-Portuguese settlers near Vila de Sena were forced to pay tribute to the Gaza Empire and Angoche fought off a Portuguese attempt to prevent it from slave-trading in 1847.
The last chartered company to administer territory directly in Africa was the Companhia de Moçambique in Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique), which handed over rule of the colonies of Manica and Sofala to the Portuguese republic's colonial government in 1942.
At the zenith of its power in the 15th century, the Kilwa Sultanate owned or claimed overlordship over the mainland cities of Malindi, Inhambane and Sofala and the island-states of Mombassa, Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafia, Comoro and Mozambique (plus numerous smaller places) - essentially what is now often referred to as the "Swahili Coast".
In 1891 the Mozambique Company was chartered to administer the Manica and Sofala areas, for which they issued their own stamps until 1942.
Churches can be found in Sofala, Tete, Manica, Zambezia and Maputo Provinces with 8,700 members and 128 congregations.