Why zimbabwe was colonised

Future presidents will be limited to two five-year terms. Mr Mugabe gains a seventh term in office and his Zanu-PF party three-quarters of the seats in parliament. The opposition MDC dismisses the polls as a fraud. Former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa becomes president. Announces plans to stabilise economy and encourage foreign investment. Image source, Getty Images.

Zimbabwe was colonised by Cecil John Rhodes centre in the late s. The country was named Southern Rhodesia after him. European settlers. White minority leader Ian Smith declared independence from Britain. Smith declares independence. Many people took up arms against the white minority government. The signing of the Lancaster House agreement led to independence. Future leader Robert Mugabe is pictured on the right. Independence fighter Joshua Nkomo was a friend and then a rival of Robert Mugabe.

Farm seizures. Squatters invaded hundreds of white-owned farms in a government-supported campaign. The razing of "illegal structures" in left about , people without homes. Food shortages. Galloping price increases rendered Zimbabwe's currency nearly worthless by He then set up a Kingdom in the area previously controlled by the Torwa dynasty who were severly weakened by internal conflict , and made the recently established Danangombe the capital of the new Rozvi Kingdom.

With the establishment of his Kingdom Changamire Dombo moved his army north and counqured the central parts of the Mutapa Kingdom, reducing the latter to a small chieftancy west of Tete. In and in he won a victory against the Portuguese in the battle of Mahungwe and the battle of Dambarare, when the colonial power attempted to take control of gold mines in the interior of Zimbabwe.

By , Changamire Dombo's new Kingdom had replaced the Mutapa as the supreme kingdom in the region. After the death of Changamire Dombo that same year his successors would take up the title Mambo.

The Rozvi Kingdom at its greatest extent. Source: S. Page The succession of the Rozvi Kingdom was organised in a manner so that the eldest brother to the King would become the next Mambo. Although there were exceptions to the rule, Changamire Dombo was for example succeeded by his son. It is thought that the strict guidelines for succession laws were one of the reasons why the Rozvi Kingdom had a greater internal stability than the Torwa dynasty and Mutapa Kingdom which were both riddled with succession struggles.

The Mambo had a lot of authority, but he would also have to rule with the guidance and approval of his council, the Dare.

In addition to this there existed a hereditary duty of the dynasty of Tambare, a noble family of settling electing a ruler when there was no clear heir, and to collect tribute. The Tambare would be a check on both the excesses and power abuses of the Kings. A prominent factor in the success of the Rozvi Kingdom was the establishment of a large and well organised standing army. The army could muster up thousands of men, and could sustain heavy losses while still continuing to be operational.

The army would be organised into different regiments, each with their own commander. The Rozvi could field an array of different weapons such as spears, axes, clubs, bows, and sometimes guns. The army fought in formations which resembled those of Shaka Zulu, and they are said to have favoured close combat. The army made sure all vassal chiefs paid tribute and stayed loyal. Through collusion with religious authorities called Mwari cults the Kings of Rozvi kept control of their population and gained legitimacy through being seen as blessed by the gods.

By the early s the Rozvi Kingdom had been severely weakened. The conflicts, migrations and political upheaval known as the Mfecane was destabilising the whole region at the time and the Rozvi Kingdom was not ready to withstand the external pressures. By this time the Mwari cult and the royal dynasty were in conflict, which threatened the legitimacy of the King, and civil wars within the dynasty itself had depleted the once powerful Rozwi military.

There were several different peoples who migrated through Rozwi lands. Last of the migrating peoples to the area was the Ndebele people who arrived in under the leadership of Gundwane. They settled in the south-western parts of present-day Zimbabwe. The Rozwi and the Ndebele were intermittently in conflict, but both Kingdoms existed for another 20 years.

Many Shona people from the Rozwi Kingdom would settle in Ndebele villages over these years. The struggle between the Ndebele and Rozwi was both militaristic and economic.

The Ndebele had raided much cattle since they had settled in the area and the Rozwi had lost most of their cattle due the many raids in the early s. The Rozwi needed cattle and the Ndebele needed people.

As a result of this many young people from the Rozwi Kingdom moved to Ndebele lands and came to work for them in exchange for cattle.

This exchange of cattle and people helped spread the Ndebele influence in the area. By this point the Rozwi ruling dynasty had retreated to the hills in the east, and they could not hold on to power long. The only choice was to fight back. The Rozwi dynasty attacked the Ndebele and a struggle ensued from to The war was a disaster for the Rozwi and in they surrendered to the Ndebele. They migrated into present-day Zimbabwe during the Mfecane around The first leader of the Ndebele in Zimbabwe was Gundwane, but his dynasty did not last long.

The Ndebele was plagued by infighting after his death which halted their expansion in the s. After the death of Gundwane, another group of Ndebele entered the area under Mzilikazi Khumalo, who would quickly seize power over the local Ndebele people. From to was a period in which the Ndebele focused on nation building and consolidating previous gains.

This process was led by Mzilikazi and reached the Ndebele in Zimbabwe by the s. Mzilikazi is thought to have been born around in contemporary South Africa. He was the leader of the Khumalo clan and served under Shaka Zulu until they had a falling out at around He fled north after this and came to contemporary Zimbabwe where he seized power over the Ndebele there from Gundawe in Mzilikazi then began to conquer the various peoples and villages surrounding his Kingdom. Despite coming as conquerors and raiders the Ndebele would adopt many of the local customs and many of the local people already living in the area would assimilate into Ndebele villages.

Some did this as explained above through the economic pressure due to a lack of cattle outside of the Ndebele state. One of the traditions which was the Ndebele took on was the Mwari cult. By the once powerful Rozwi Kingdom had completely surrendered to the Ndebele. Mzilikazi died in and in the succession crisis from which followed his son Lobengula became the new King.

Some historians argue that Lobengula needed the Mwari cult and the legitimacy they provided for his ascension to power. In the Ndebele was a consolidated state and at the height of their power. He needed this legitimacy as he did not have the legitimacy as a conqueror which his father enjoyed. The power of the Ndebele Kings were also reliant on the distribution of cattle and materials in exchange for services.

This created a complex client-patron relationship between the people and the ruling elite. Land was not owned by anyone, but simply distributed by the King to anyone who needed it at the time. Cattle on the other hand was guided by two modes of ownership, one was communal and one was private. King Lobengula son of Mzilikazi. The late 's was a time when the European colonial powers were increasing their efforts to conquer the African continent.

By during the Berlin Conference European leaders had settled which Eurpoean nations would control what parts of Africa and the scramble for Africa had begun. There was of course a difference between drawing borders on a map and actually controlling the area.

The British begun their incursions into the area in the s, but the Portuguese had made several attempts to conquer resources inland since the s. In exchange for wealth and arms, Lobengula approved several franchises to the British.

The most far reaching one was the Rudd concession giving Cecil John Rhodes exclusive mineral rights in much of the lands east of his main territory. Rhodes used this concession to obtain a royal charter a formal document issued by the British monarch granting him rights and power to form the British South African Company, in Lobengula thought that the arms and ammunition he received from the concession would help him repel the European invaders.

Not only was Lobengula pressured by British incursions however, but the Portuguese was also giving a large amount of fire arms to smaller chiefs and kings in the area to undermine his authority. The large amount of fire arms made some of the smaller vassal chiefs of the Ndebele Kingdom more defiant.

In June , Lobengula sent warriors down to Fort Victoria now Masvingo to put down the rebellion led by a Shona chief in the area who had refused to pay tribute. In previous years the King of Ndebele had been cautious to not attack any of the white colonisers in the past, but the colonial authorities had for the previous three years looked for an excuse to begin a full scale war with the Ndebele. With the punitive raid they had that excuse.

The colonial authorities claimed that they were in command of the area and any disputes should be settled by them. The Ndebele were met by soldiers from Fort Victoria who demanded that they left, the Ndebele leadership refused, and a struggle which left an unknown number of casualties ensued.

This was the beginning of the First Matabele War. In October the British colonialists attacked the Ndebele forces who was weakened since many of their soldiers had been sent off to attack King Lewanika of Barotseland, who was a puppet of the British authorities.

The Ndebele could not hold back the colonial conquerors who advanced through their lands, pillaging, looting and burning as they went. The aim of the British colonial forces was to conquer the capital of the Ndebele Kingdom, called Bulawayo, and to kill or kidnap the King. The idea was that if they could capture the King then he would have to surrender the Kingdom.

However, when the British reached Bulawayo November that same year, the city had been burned to the ground by its inhabitants and King Lobengula had fled north. The British chased after Lobengula as he moved north, and in the process a Ndebele force ambushed a patrol headed by Alan Wilson, and killed him and the 34 soldiers who came with him.

In early Lobengula died of an illness and with him crumbled much of the Ndebele resistance. The reason for this was that the King was an essential aspect of Ndebele identity and especially unity. Not long after this the conquest of the Ndebele people was complete, and by the whole country of Zimbabwe was a British colony. The colony was named Rhodesia after Cecil Rhodes who was instrumental in its creation.

In the British government decided that the colony, which would six years later be called Rhodesia, was to be governed by the British South Africa Company. The Company was controlled by Cecil Rhodes until , when he died, and they governed present-day Zambia and Zimbabwe until the establishment of the Colony of Southern Rhodesia which later became Zimbabwe in The early years of company rule was tumultuous and marked by the Ndebele-Shona rising or what is also known as the first Chimurenga While much of the colonial forces were assisting the ill fated Jameson Raid in the Transvaal Republic, the Ndebele people rose up in rebellion against the colonial conquerors in March and the Shona people in June that same year.

It is debated whether this was a coordinated effort or two separate rebellions. What is known is that the rebellion took the white settlers by surprise. Many of the major settlements, such as Bulawayo, were under siege by Ndebele or Shona forces, but a direct attack on fortified settlements were difficult because of the settlers use of machine guns. In late May the siege of Bulawayo was broken by colonial forces from as far away as Kimberley and Mafikeng in present-day South Africa.

Despite the end of the siege the war with the Ndebele continued until July when they negotiated a separate peace treaty with Cecil Rhodes. The various Shona leaders would continue their fight until they were defeated one after the other, and by all the leaders of the rebellion had been either captured or exiled. Rhodesia was set up, not as an indirect rule colony such as Nigeria or Egypt , but rather as a settler-colony in the style of Australia or Canada. This meant that land seizures, segregated colonial governance and attracting settlers through special white privileges, were central policies.

The weakness of the early colonial state, and the long distance between London and Salisbury present-day Harare , meant that the colonial administration was dependant on alliances with local African leaders to effectively govern the territory and to stifle rebellion.

Central Ndebele chiefs were for example given back some of the cattle looted during the s in an effort to get their cooperation. This allowed the colonial authorities to exclude the African population from direct rule and keep them away from civil power.

After the wars of the s Ndebele and Shona people were forced into reserves to dispossess them of their land. Settler violence was commonly and arbitrarily meted out against African people and particularly common was the rape of black women by white men.

White police officers were most frequently accused of raping black women. In it was made illegal for a black man to have an extramarital sexual relationship with a white women, but no such law was made for white men. It is therefore clear that the colonial state quietly condoned if not encouraged the sexual violence against black women. Land was taken away from Africans and heavy taxes imposed as a way of forcing them into wage labour.

As small scale farmers the African people in Rhodesia were self sufficient and had no need for seeking wage labour in the white cities.

Yet the settlers needed cheap labour to work in mines, farms and factories around the colony. There were also put into place laws which forced Shona and Ndebele people to sign long-term contracts which forced them to stay in labour compounds. The result of these laws were that black people become slave labour in the white economy.

In the settler population of Southern Rhodesia voted for becoming a colony ruled directly by the British Empire rather than being incorporated into the Union of South Africa. This prompted the creation of the Colony of Southern Rhodesia in August In , for geopolitical and logistical purposes, the three colonies of Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia was amalgamated into one federation.

African people and African political representatives in the three colonies rejected the federation, but were completely ignored. The idea of a federation of colonies in southern Africa was one which the British Empire had long played with. As early as there were talks about the possibility of a broader federation to minimise administration costs in the colonies.

However Southern Rhodesian settlers desired a self-government and only after this was achieved in did they entertain the idea of a larger federation of colonies. By the time a commission began to work on how a federation could be a practical reality in it was Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia who was against it on the basis that they rejected the strict racial segregation of Southern Rhodesia.

However, after decades of negotiations the federation became a fact on 3 September, The various African political movements for national liberation were divided on the question of a federation. To begin the struggle against the federation they organised the All African Congress to mobilise the opposition. Robert Mugabe , then a school teacher and a member of the African National Congress ANC , denounced the federation as an instrument to suppress self-determination.

On the other side future struggle icons such as Joshua Nkomo and Jasper Savanhu participated in the talks which made the federation a possibility, and black members of the United Rhodesia Party URP worked in the federation structures. The reason for their support was that it was thought that the legislation of the new federation would bring an end to the segregationist laws particular to Southern Rhodesia. In the late 's the various movements for national liberation in Nyasaland Malawi and Northern Rhodesia Zambia were gaining momentum.

The independence of Ghana in became an inspiration to other liberation movements on the continent. In the British government relented to the demands of national independence for Zambia and Malawi. The two countries would become independent states in thus effectively ending the Federation of Rhodesia.

The British government had demanded that they would not grant independence to any country which would not accept majority rule, which Southern Rhodesia refused.

The new country took the name Rhodesia and was ruled by a white minority government and was immediately condemned by both the United Nations UN and the British government. The late s saw an increased amount of resistance to colonial rule in Southern Rhodesia and the other Southern African countries.

New political parties fighting for the liberation from white minority rule were getting increasingly organised and militant. The colonial authorities, frightened by the momentum towards independence, began to arrest struggle leaders and ban organisations. Between and over a thousand activists were arrested by the Rhodesian state police. Robert Mugabe was elected as General Secretary, although he was in Ghana at the time. As stated above in Ian Smith was elected Prime Minister, and declares Rhodesia an independent country under white minority rule in The election of Smith and his Patriotic Front brought with it more and increasingly severe repression.

After the murder of a white farmer the Rhodesian security forces attempted to arrest the leadership of both the major liberation parties. After this incident and the increased oppression of their political activities both ZANU and ZAPU decided that they could only achieve national liberation through armed struggle. Joshua Nkomo was that same year arrested and imprisoned by the Rhodesian government until Another way for the Rhodesian regime to punish black people who took part in the organisations struggling for national liberation was to confiscate their property and make their families homeless.

For the next 15 years the two liberation armies would fight the Rhodesian security forces in what is known either as the Rhodesian Bush War or as the second Chimurenga. The first larger military engagements between Zimbabwean and Rhodesian forces was in In the beginning the war went well for the Rhodesian security forces.

They won most engagements and the liberation armies did not have a major impact on the economy nor could they take and hold significant territories. There was a strong cooperation between the colonial regimes in South Africa, Mozambique and Rhodesia, and in they formally created an alliance in what is called; 'the Alcora'.

After the armed struggle intensified and the Rhodesian state was beginning to struggle. The conscription of white men was extended in age and in the amount of time each man had to serve. This also became a drain on the Rhodesian economy as such a large part of the white work force was fighting in the war. By the mid's, as Mozambique gained its independence from Portugal and South Africa was withdrawing most of its military support, it was impossible to win for the Rhodesian forces.

ZANLA had two major internal insurrections by mainly the young and educated members of the organisation who joined up in the early 's. After the main mission of the Rhodesian regime was now to gain a negotiated settlement which would allow for the white people of Rhodesia to hold on to their privileges.

In return a Woolworth's department store in Salisbury was bombed by liberation forces in September of In and over a thousand Zimbabwean refugees in Mozambique were killed by Rhodesian forces. ZIPRA forces, in return, shot down two civilian planes one in and one in killing people in total.

The agreement basically stated that there would be national elections held where all white people and some black people could vote for a new national government.

This election was held about a year after the agreement was made. Rhodesia got a new flag and was now renamed Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, although the new country remained unrecognised internationally. The entire Internal Settlement was condemn by the United Nations. After the elections the new government began negotiations with the various parties fighting for national liberation.

All the various militias would return to Zimbabwe and stay in camps supervised British soldiers and as soon as possible Zimbabwe would hold new national elections. Robert Mugabe then became the first Prime Minister of an independent Zimbabwe. The years after independence was politically turbulent in Zimbabwe.

The reason for the arrests and the sackings was that arms-caches had been discovered on ZAPU owned properties. In all the police stated that they found 31 arms caches hidden in the Gwaai area and around Bulawayo. The exit of ZAPU members from the government meant the end of the National Unity government and more trouble was brewing on the horizon.

The army was called in to put down any dissidents in the area in an operation called Gukurahundi. The army killed civilians which they claimed harboured dissidents, but it soon became obvious that it had become a campaign of indiscriminate killings of the Ndebele people in the area. He also stated that anyone who fed or hid dissidents was part of the war. These statements were understood as any person in Matabeleland was potentially a dissident and therefore a target for war.

The killings continued until and by that time an estimated The s would be no less politically turbulent. In the late s and early 90s there were protests by university students against corruption and there was large scale pressure for an increased inclusion of black Zimbabweans into the economy. There had been few attempts at land reform so most of the arable land was still in the hands of white Zimbabweans.

These structural adjustment programs came as a demand if developing countries wanted more loans from the international financial institutions. They included cuts in public spending, opening up the boarders for free trade, cutting of taxes, democratisation of the political system and privatising the economy. The measures were supposed to bring economic growth, but usually had disastrous effects.

They also led to serious protests and strikes by particularly public sector employees, as this had a great effect on their salaries.