16 Facts About Eduardo Mondlane

Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane was a Mozambican revolutionary and anthropologist who was the founder of the Mozambican Liberation Front.

Eduardo Mondlane served as the FRELIMO's first leader until his assassination in 1969 in Tanzania.

An anthropologist by profession, Mondlane worked as a history and sociology professor at Syracuse University before returning to Mozambique in 1963.

The fourth of 16 sons of a chief of the Bantu-speaking Tsonga, Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane was born in N'wajahani, district of Mandlakazi in the province of Gaza, in Portuguese East Africa in 1920.

Eduardo Mondlane worked as a shepherd until the age of 12.

Eduardo Mondlane ended his secondary education in the same organisation's church school at Lemana College at Njhakanjhaka Village above Elim Hospital in the Transvaal, South Africa.

In June 1950, Eduardo Mondlane attended the University of Lisbon, in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.

Eduardo Mondlane enrolled at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1951, starting as a junior, and in 1953 he obtained a degree in anthropology and sociology.

Eduardo Mondlane continued his studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Eduardo Mondlane began working in 1957 as research officer in the Trusteeship Department of the United Nations which enabled him to travel to Africa and work on a PhD dissertation at Northwestern University.

Eduardo Mondlane concluded his PhD in 1960 and resigned from his United Nations position in 1961 to be allowed to participate in political activism.

Eduardo Mondlane took up a teaching position at Syracuse University that same year where he helped develop the East African Studies Program.

However, Eduardo Mondlane showed little interest in the offer and later joined the Mozambican pro-independence movements in Tanzania, who lacked a credible leader.

In 1962 Eduardo Mondlane was elected president of the newly formed Mozambican Liberation Front, which was composed of elements from smaller independentist groups.

In FRELIMO's early years, its leadership was divided: the faction led by Eduardo Mondlane wanted not merely to fight for independence but for a change to a socialist society; dos Santos, Machel and Chissano and a majority of the Party's Central Committee shared this view.

The socialist position was approved by the Second Party Congress, held in July 1968; Eduardo Mondlane was re-elected party president, and a strategy of protracted war based on support among the peasantry was adopted.