The Prazos were large estates leased or granted to colonists, settlers and traders in Portuguese Africa; intended to exploit the continent's resources, guarantee control over the land, stimulate agricultural production, facilitate European settlement and be a source of revenue for the government. These were given in exchange for a fixed annual fee, based on laws promulgated by the medieval kings of Portugal, Afonso V and Manuel I, and established in the 17th century. Prazos operated like semi-feudal entities and were most commonly found in the Zambezi River valley (aka 'Zambezia'). These leaseholders, the Prazeiros (who became known locally early on as 'muzungos', signifying a white man, boss or patron- though they were of diverse origin, with most of those who went on to dominate the region being Indians from Goa, and after many generations of intermarriage with African women, all of them became African in appearance and culture) were required to occupy and develop their granted land, and could not sell or sub-let it, otherwise their grants would in theory be cancelled; in practice though, these stipulations were frequently violated, with rampant absenteeism, and with the prazo grants becoming hereditary. And by the mid-18th century, with those more Africanized Prazos adhering to local customs of matrilineal inheritance, a number of women, known as the 'Zambezi donas', became Prazeiros themselves, and were succeeded by their daughters rather than their sons.
A Prazeiro was also allowed to employ Africans (or any other non-white 'colonos', for that matter), trade in all commodities, held responsible for administering justice in the land comprised in their grant and also collecting taxes from its inhabitants, out of which they were supposed to pay an annual rent to the crown, and to maintain sufficient armed retainers to keep the peace. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, the term Chikunda was not yet in general use for the armed retainers of a Prazeiro, who could include chattel slaves; however, although many chattel slaves were acquired by capture or purchase to undertake agricultural work, mining or as house-servants or craftsmen on the Prazos, it became normal from the mid-18th century for the retainers who became soldiers or administrators to offer themselves as voluntary unfree dependents in return for protection and a prospect of advancement and enrichment, with the term chikunda, probably deriving from the Shona verb meaning “to conquer”, becoming reserved for the armed clients of the Prazo owners, and other designations used for personal or household slaves. The chikunda of each prazo came from diverse backgrounds, because prazeiros preferred recruits without local ties, but they developed a loyalty to the group to which they belonged; often being recruited from areas of conflict or famine, offering themselves voluntarily or, in some cases, coming as captives. The Prazeiros only rarely removed the local chiefs resident on their estates, preferring to retain them as subordinates, and a few attempted to start commercial agriculture, but expropriated the surplus products of their peasants. The majority, though, chose to focus upon maximizing their profits from the trade in ivory and slaves.
At their height in the 17th century, individual prazeiros such as António Lobo da Silva could have upwards of 5000 chikunda, some reputedly owning as many as 15000; in the mid-eighteenth century, the total chikunda population in Zambezia was estimated at 50000. In a survey of 1766, the two largest prazos were said to have around 700 and 500 chikunda. In early times, the chikunda were usually armed with bows and spears but, by the mid-18th century, some were armed with muskets. The chikunda usually lived in small fortified villages, often near the margins of the larger prazos. Each chikunda village was headed by the owner's deputy called a capitão, or headman. These villages generally produced food to support the chikunda and also made a contribution in cash or goods to their master. If the prazo owner was strong, the chikunda acted as a defence and police force, keeping order and collecting tribute, but under a weak owner or in times of famine, they could become little more than bandits, preying on local communities and disregarding their nominal patron. Individuals were incorporated into the ranks of the chikunda through a ritual under which they swore lifelong loyalty to the prazeiro. However prosperous or anarchic they might become, the chikunda could only rarely become completely free of their patron, who guaranteed their status as warriors and their security; though some chikunda did manage to break away from their masters, leave their prazos and hunt for ivory in the Shire valley, where they competed with Yao traders in the mid-18th century.
But the great Mozambique drought of 1794 to 1802, and subsequent droughts and smallpox epidemics lasting into the 1830s, destroyed the agricultural economy of the Zambezia prazos, as the cultivators could not feed themselves, let alone produce surpluses sufficient to maintain the chikunda and prazeiros. Many chikunda deserted their prazos, and some formed armed bands seeking any means to survive, thereby worsening the situation created by drought. Other former chikunda returned, or attempted to return, to their homelands and resume their old lives, or merged into the local peoples as peasants. A few used their military skills to become elephant hunters and, in the time of Ndebele incursions, they used their guns against the invaders. Some bands of chikunda became elephant hunters, and travelled as far north as the area around Nkhotakota and the Luangwa valley in search of new herds to exploit. They married women from the local Chewa and Tumbuka peoples and their offspring soon lost their identity as chikunda.
And by the 1840s, with many of the former prazeiros who'd survived the droughts and epidemics having left Zambezia, five powerful families came to dominate along the middle Zambezi; the da Cruz, Caetano Pereira, Vas dos Anjos, Ferrão and Alves da Silva, who were joined in the 1860s by a sixth family, the de Sousa. All of these families were of Indian (Goanese) origin, with the sole exception of the Alves da Silva who were originally from Portugal. And all of these remaining major families based their economies on the slave trade, despite its legal abolition in 1830, or hunting for ivory, rather than agriculture, which had largely been abandoned. Through intermarriage with the families of leading African chiefs, they were recognised as the legitimate holders of several chieftaincies by their African subjects, and they adopted African titles and the indigenous symbols of kingship and patronized local religious cults, yet also received Portuguese offices or military ranks that gave them an official status. The areas controlled by these predominantly Afro-Goan families far exceeded those of earlier prazos, effectively becoming small independent kingdoms, giving at best token allegiance to the Portuguese crown. Their leaders subsequently attempted to extend their influence still further, either by forcing neighbouring African chiefs to acknowledge their sovereignty or driving out those that resisted.
And a few other less prominent, but still significant families also emerged as economical and environmental degradation coupled with upheaval and migration of peoples took its toll on the prazos, when certain ex-chikunda took the initiative to flee north and northwest to establish their own states, modelled on the prazos. The most successful of these may have been José Rosário de Andrade, known as Kanyembe ("the ferocious"), who began assembling a private army in the 1870s and established his operations along the Upper Zambezi west of Zumbo, now the westernmost town in Mozambique (i.e, in present-day Zambia and Zimbabwe), from which he either traded with or raided the surrounding countryside. In the 1880s, this warlord was said to have 10000 chikunda at arms; but Kanyembe died in the late nineteenth century, and by 1903 the Portuguese would defeat his state along with the rest of runaway chikunda forces. And another was the Arujo Lobo, whose head was called Matakenya and who operated in the Luangwa and Lower Shire valleys. The chikunda of these two Prazeiros in particular had a reputation for exceptional savagery, never trading with local peoples but taking slaves and ivory by force, disrupting local agriculture, and causing famine and death wherever they went. One economic reason behind their expansion was the increasing demand for ivory, which had already led to the depletion of elephant herds in many areas nearer the coast and to the search for new ivory sources inland: in areas where the ivory supply had been exhausted by overhunting, slaves were taken instead.
Portuguese attempts to co-opt the rulers of these minor Afro-Goan and Afro-Portuguese feudal kingdoms/principalities into the colonial system by granting them full legal title to the land they occupied, tax exemptions and even sums of cash generally failed. All of these maintained large numbers of armed chikunda, each having several thousand armed men at their disposal. In this period, the term chikunda (or achikunda with the collective prefix) was applied exclusively to the professional soldiers of the Afro-Goan or Afro-Portuguese families; who had ceased to be clients of the prazeiros when the Zambezia agricultural system had collapsed, and were now recruited through gifts of modern weapons, land or wives, and retained by being allowed to share in the profits (of slave raiding). Some physically fit slaves were also selected, mostly from those areas north of the Zambezi (formerly encompassed by the Maravi Confederacy) that were the focus of raiding for slaves. Each of the Zambezia states had a significant force of chikunda divided into regiments, usually based near the borders of its territory to facilitate slave raiding and as protection against external threats. Their military strength was based on a combination of strong defensive fortifications and European firearms, including breech-loading rifles later in the 19th century, and the chikunda set themselves apart from the rest of the native population by residing in separate fortified towns, called aringas, which were a development of the traditional stockaded village.
Each aringa consisted of a wooden stockade, supported by earthworks in the form of a ditch and bank, often with inner walls protecting the more important sections of the town, with one large aringa, Massangano, having fortifications 1,300 metres long and 150 to 180 metres wide. The achikunda used a mixed creole language among themselves, and disdained agriculture, but took part in tax collection, trading, slave raiding and ivory hunting, as well as military duties. And although many came from matrilineal societies, the chikunda observed patrilineal descent and venerated the spirits of former chikunda, rather than their own ancestral spirits. To further distinguish themselves from local peasant farmers, chikunda had their own patterns of facial tattoos, filed their teeth and wore imported Calico cloth, whereas most local people wore Barkcloth. And although the Prazeiros extended the area of nominal Portuguese influence westward, and fought off invading Ngoni incursions, their forces, the achikunda, were used not only against indigenous African rulers but, from 1849, in fighting among themselves and even against any government forces sent against them.
The government attempted to reform the system in the mid-19th century, but failed to do so. Until 1868, the governors of Mozambique and Tete had few troops of their own and preferred to use the chikunda of any prazeiros loyal to the Portuguese government, or from any minor state opposed to whatever ruler they targeted, rather than using soldiers from metropolitan Portugal or Goa. These nominally loyal chikunda had been used with some success in the 1850s against slave trading by the Sultan of Angoche and the Pereira family, but two families continued to give the Portuguese governors trouble: the Vas dos Anjos in the Lower Shire, and the da Cruz, who ruled a section of the middle Zambezi in Manica and Tete provinces, centered on the aringa of Massangano. The Vas dos Anjos were forced out of their aringa at Shamo, near the junction of the Shire and Zambezi, in 1858, but were allowed to regroup further north up the Shire, near its confluence with the Ruo River; the da Cruz posed much more of a problem. After successes against the Sultanate of Angoche, and the Pereira and Vas dos Anjos families, the governor of Tete, Miguel Gouveia, assembled a force of chikunda from the prazos around Tete in July 1867 to attack Massangano, which was only a few days march away. However, Gouveia's force was ambushed by the da Cruz's chikunda while on route to Massangano: most of the government chikunda were massacred and Gouveia himself was executed by the da Cruz forces.
Between November 1867 and May 1869, three more expeditions were sent against Massangano, with increasing numbers of troops from Portugal and Goa, artillery and assistance from the chikunda of the de Sousa state of Gorongos, only for all of them to fail. The expedition of November 1867, mounted in the rainy season, managed to blockade the Massangano aringa, but it ran out of supplies and ammunition, albeit managing to withdraw in good order. The next expedition of May 1868 managed to besiege Massangano and caused significant casualties among its defenders, only for the counterattack from the da Cruz chikunda to rout the government forces, causing them heavy casualties. And the last and largest expedition, of May 1869, was partly defeated by its own size as there was insufficient river transport for the troops or their supplies, with the Da Cruz chikunda harassing those Portuguese forces that had to march overland to Massangano and their supply lines to such an extent that the planned attack on Massangano had to be aborted, and continuing night attacks from the Da Cruz chikunda forcing the Portuguese forces to scatter with heavy losses.
The da Cruz were subsequently left in peace for about 20 years, and were recognized by the Kingdom of Portugal as an autonomous, effectively independent state. However, they made little use of their military successes, and chose to never bother diversifying their economy to become anything more than a bandit state, garnering their revenue exclusively from the slave trade and the tolls it could impose on river traffic, rendering the areas under their control increasingly more sparsely populated and uncultivated. The formal abolition of the institution of slavery in Mozambique 1875 and of the prazo system in 1878 had little immediate effect on the Afro-Goan and Afro-Portuguese families. Just as the formal abolition of the slave trade in 1830 had simply promoted a clandestine trade that lasted into the 20th century, so the abolition of slavery made no immediate change to the unfree status and situation of the peasants in these minor states, situated mainly in Mozambique, but with a small number extending their influence into what are now parts of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.
Another attempt was made in the 1890s with no different results, but the introduction of the concessionaire companies about that time, the 1890 British Ultimatum and the Portuguese Colonial Act of 1930 contributed to the end of the prazo. The minor states in and around the Zambezi River valley were brought under closer Portuguese control as a result of the Scramble for Africa, which required colonial powers to bring territories they claimed under their jurisdiction, the doctrine of "effective occupation". Between 1891 and 1902, the Mozambique Company took control of this area. and the former roles of the chikunda in securing slaves and ivory and providing internal and external security for those states became redundant, although many ex-chikunda were involved in the Barue Uprising of 1917-1918 against the Portuguese government. A few communities along the Zambezi and Luangwa river valleys preserve their chikunda heritage, although most former chikunda have merged into their host communities.
So then, what would do you guys reckon that the best case scenario for the Prazieros have been? Worth mentioning that they were basically around before the Boers were, dominating the border regions that the Boers wound up expanding into (close to where all the gold and diamond fields were)- how much could they have been empowered if they'd found and tapped into these sources of wealth first? Bonus points if you can come up with a scenario where a matrilineal Kingdom (/Queendom) gets established as a result, and endures all the way to the present day.
A Prazeiro was also allowed to employ Africans (or any other non-white 'colonos', for that matter), trade in all commodities, held responsible for administering justice in the land comprised in their grant and also collecting taxes from its inhabitants, out of which they were supposed to pay an annual rent to the crown, and to maintain sufficient armed retainers to keep the peace. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, the term Chikunda was not yet in general use for the armed retainers of a Prazeiro, who could include chattel slaves; however, although many chattel slaves were acquired by capture or purchase to undertake agricultural work, mining or as house-servants or craftsmen on the Prazos, it became normal from the mid-18th century for the retainers who became soldiers or administrators to offer themselves as voluntary unfree dependents in return for protection and a prospect of advancement and enrichment, with the term chikunda, probably deriving from the Shona verb meaning “to conquer”, becoming reserved for the armed clients of the Prazo owners, and other designations used for personal or household slaves. The chikunda of each prazo came from diverse backgrounds, because prazeiros preferred recruits without local ties, but they developed a loyalty to the group to which they belonged; often being recruited from areas of conflict or famine, offering themselves voluntarily or, in some cases, coming as captives. The Prazeiros only rarely removed the local chiefs resident on their estates, preferring to retain them as subordinates, and a few attempted to start commercial agriculture, but expropriated the surplus products of their peasants. The majority, though, chose to focus upon maximizing their profits from the trade in ivory and slaves.
At their height in the 17th century, individual prazeiros such as António Lobo da Silva could have upwards of 5000 chikunda, some reputedly owning as many as 15000; in the mid-eighteenth century, the total chikunda population in Zambezia was estimated at 50000. In a survey of 1766, the two largest prazos were said to have around 700 and 500 chikunda. In early times, the chikunda were usually armed with bows and spears but, by the mid-18th century, some were armed with muskets. The chikunda usually lived in small fortified villages, often near the margins of the larger prazos. Each chikunda village was headed by the owner's deputy called a capitão, or headman. These villages generally produced food to support the chikunda and also made a contribution in cash or goods to their master. If the prazo owner was strong, the chikunda acted as a defence and police force, keeping order and collecting tribute, but under a weak owner or in times of famine, they could become little more than bandits, preying on local communities and disregarding their nominal patron. Individuals were incorporated into the ranks of the chikunda through a ritual under which they swore lifelong loyalty to the prazeiro. However prosperous or anarchic they might become, the chikunda could only rarely become completely free of their patron, who guaranteed their status as warriors and their security; though some chikunda did manage to break away from their masters, leave their prazos and hunt for ivory in the Shire valley, where they competed with Yao traders in the mid-18th century.
But the great Mozambique drought of 1794 to 1802, and subsequent droughts and smallpox epidemics lasting into the 1830s, destroyed the agricultural economy of the Zambezia prazos, as the cultivators could not feed themselves, let alone produce surpluses sufficient to maintain the chikunda and prazeiros. Many chikunda deserted their prazos, and some formed armed bands seeking any means to survive, thereby worsening the situation created by drought. Other former chikunda returned, or attempted to return, to their homelands and resume their old lives, or merged into the local peoples as peasants. A few used their military skills to become elephant hunters and, in the time of Ndebele incursions, they used their guns against the invaders. Some bands of chikunda became elephant hunters, and travelled as far north as the area around Nkhotakota and the Luangwa valley in search of new herds to exploit. They married women from the local Chewa and Tumbuka peoples and their offspring soon lost their identity as chikunda.
And by the 1840s, with many of the former prazeiros who'd survived the droughts and epidemics having left Zambezia, five powerful families came to dominate along the middle Zambezi; the da Cruz, Caetano Pereira, Vas dos Anjos, Ferrão and Alves da Silva, who were joined in the 1860s by a sixth family, the de Sousa. All of these families were of Indian (Goanese) origin, with the sole exception of the Alves da Silva who were originally from Portugal. And all of these remaining major families based their economies on the slave trade, despite its legal abolition in 1830, or hunting for ivory, rather than agriculture, which had largely been abandoned. Through intermarriage with the families of leading African chiefs, they were recognised as the legitimate holders of several chieftaincies by their African subjects, and they adopted African titles and the indigenous symbols of kingship and patronized local religious cults, yet also received Portuguese offices or military ranks that gave them an official status. The areas controlled by these predominantly Afro-Goan families far exceeded those of earlier prazos, effectively becoming small independent kingdoms, giving at best token allegiance to the Portuguese crown. Their leaders subsequently attempted to extend their influence still further, either by forcing neighbouring African chiefs to acknowledge their sovereignty or driving out those that resisted.
And a few other less prominent, but still significant families also emerged as economical and environmental degradation coupled with upheaval and migration of peoples took its toll on the prazos, when certain ex-chikunda took the initiative to flee north and northwest to establish their own states, modelled on the prazos. The most successful of these may have been José Rosário de Andrade, known as Kanyembe ("the ferocious"), who began assembling a private army in the 1870s and established his operations along the Upper Zambezi west of Zumbo, now the westernmost town in Mozambique (i.e, in present-day Zambia and Zimbabwe), from which he either traded with or raided the surrounding countryside. In the 1880s, this warlord was said to have 10000 chikunda at arms; but Kanyembe died in the late nineteenth century, and by 1903 the Portuguese would defeat his state along with the rest of runaway chikunda forces. And another was the Arujo Lobo, whose head was called Matakenya and who operated in the Luangwa and Lower Shire valleys. The chikunda of these two Prazeiros in particular had a reputation for exceptional savagery, never trading with local peoples but taking slaves and ivory by force, disrupting local agriculture, and causing famine and death wherever they went. One economic reason behind their expansion was the increasing demand for ivory, which had already led to the depletion of elephant herds in many areas nearer the coast and to the search for new ivory sources inland: in areas where the ivory supply had been exhausted by overhunting, slaves were taken instead.
Portuguese attempts to co-opt the rulers of these minor Afro-Goan and Afro-Portuguese feudal kingdoms/principalities into the colonial system by granting them full legal title to the land they occupied, tax exemptions and even sums of cash generally failed. All of these maintained large numbers of armed chikunda, each having several thousand armed men at their disposal. In this period, the term chikunda (or achikunda with the collective prefix) was applied exclusively to the professional soldiers of the Afro-Goan or Afro-Portuguese families; who had ceased to be clients of the prazeiros when the Zambezia agricultural system had collapsed, and were now recruited through gifts of modern weapons, land or wives, and retained by being allowed to share in the profits (of slave raiding). Some physically fit slaves were also selected, mostly from those areas north of the Zambezi (formerly encompassed by the Maravi Confederacy) that were the focus of raiding for slaves. Each of the Zambezia states had a significant force of chikunda divided into regiments, usually based near the borders of its territory to facilitate slave raiding and as protection against external threats. Their military strength was based on a combination of strong defensive fortifications and European firearms, including breech-loading rifles later in the 19th century, and the chikunda set themselves apart from the rest of the native population by residing in separate fortified towns, called aringas, which were a development of the traditional stockaded village.
Each aringa consisted of a wooden stockade, supported by earthworks in the form of a ditch and bank, often with inner walls protecting the more important sections of the town, with one large aringa, Massangano, having fortifications 1,300 metres long and 150 to 180 metres wide. The achikunda used a mixed creole language among themselves, and disdained agriculture, but took part in tax collection, trading, slave raiding and ivory hunting, as well as military duties. And although many came from matrilineal societies, the chikunda observed patrilineal descent and venerated the spirits of former chikunda, rather than their own ancestral spirits. To further distinguish themselves from local peasant farmers, chikunda had their own patterns of facial tattoos, filed their teeth and wore imported Calico cloth, whereas most local people wore Barkcloth. And although the Prazeiros extended the area of nominal Portuguese influence westward, and fought off invading Ngoni incursions, their forces, the achikunda, were used not only against indigenous African rulers but, from 1849, in fighting among themselves and even against any government forces sent against them.
The government attempted to reform the system in the mid-19th century, but failed to do so. Until 1868, the governors of Mozambique and Tete had few troops of their own and preferred to use the chikunda of any prazeiros loyal to the Portuguese government, or from any minor state opposed to whatever ruler they targeted, rather than using soldiers from metropolitan Portugal or Goa. These nominally loyal chikunda had been used with some success in the 1850s against slave trading by the Sultan of Angoche and the Pereira family, but two families continued to give the Portuguese governors trouble: the Vas dos Anjos in the Lower Shire, and the da Cruz, who ruled a section of the middle Zambezi in Manica and Tete provinces, centered on the aringa of Massangano. The Vas dos Anjos were forced out of their aringa at Shamo, near the junction of the Shire and Zambezi, in 1858, but were allowed to regroup further north up the Shire, near its confluence with the Ruo River; the da Cruz posed much more of a problem. After successes against the Sultanate of Angoche, and the Pereira and Vas dos Anjos families, the governor of Tete, Miguel Gouveia, assembled a force of chikunda from the prazos around Tete in July 1867 to attack Massangano, which was only a few days march away. However, Gouveia's force was ambushed by the da Cruz's chikunda while on route to Massangano: most of the government chikunda were massacred and Gouveia himself was executed by the da Cruz forces.
Between November 1867 and May 1869, three more expeditions were sent against Massangano, with increasing numbers of troops from Portugal and Goa, artillery and assistance from the chikunda of the de Sousa state of Gorongos, only for all of them to fail. The expedition of November 1867, mounted in the rainy season, managed to blockade the Massangano aringa, but it ran out of supplies and ammunition, albeit managing to withdraw in good order. The next expedition of May 1868 managed to besiege Massangano and caused significant casualties among its defenders, only for the counterattack from the da Cruz chikunda to rout the government forces, causing them heavy casualties. And the last and largest expedition, of May 1869, was partly defeated by its own size as there was insufficient river transport for the troops or their supplies, with the Da Cruz chikunda harassing those Portuguese forces that had to march overland to Massangano and their supply lines to such an extent that the planned attack on Massangano had to be aborted, and continuing night attacks from the Da Cruz chikunda forcing the Portuguese forces to scatter with heavy losses.
The da Cruz were subsequently left in peace for about 20 years, and were recognized by the Kingdom of Portugal as an autonomous, effectively independent state. However, they made little use of their military successes, and chose to never bother diversifying their economy to become anything more than a bandit state, garnering their revenue exclusively from the slave trade and the tolls it could impose on river traffic, rendering the areas under their control increasingly more sparsely populated and uncultivated. The formal abolition of the institution of slavery in Mozambique 1875 and of the prazo system in 1878 had little immediate effect on the Afro-Goan and Afro-Portuguese families. Just as the formal abolition of the slave trade in 1830 had simply promoted a clandestine trade that lasted into the 20th century, so the abolition of slavery made no immediate change to the unfree status and situation of the peasants in these minor states, situated mainly in Mozambique, but with a small number extending their influence into what are now parts of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.
Another attempt was made in the 1890s with no different results, but the introduction of the concessionaire companies about that time, the 1890 British Ultimatum and the Portuguese Colonial Act of 1930 contributed to the end of the prazo. The minor states in and around the Zambezi River valley were brought under closer Portuguese control as a result of the Scramble for Africa, which required colonial powers to bring territories they claimed under their jurisdiction, the doctrine of "effective occupation". Between 1891 and 1902, the Mozambique Company took control of this area. and the former roles of the chikunda in securing slaves and ivory and providing internal and external security for those states became redundant, although many ex-chikunda were involved in the Barue Uprising of 1917-1918 against the Portuguese government. A few communities along the Zambezi and Luangwa river valleys preserve their chikunda heritage, although most former chikunda have merged into their host communities.
So then, what would do you guys reckon that the best case scenario for the Prazieros have been? Worth mentioning that they were basically around before the Boers were, dominating the border regions that the Boers wound up expanding into (close to where all the gold and diamond fields were)- how much could they have been empowered if they'd found and tapped into these sources of wealth first? Bonus points if you can come up with a scenario where a matrilineal Kingdom (/Queendom) gets established as a result, and endures all the way to the present day.