Zimbabwe belongs to which continent

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. The effects of the government cuts would lead to protests and discontent amongst most Zimbabweans.

About Us. Client Feedback. Contact Us. Privacy Policy. Site Map. Powered by SBI! Find out more about our Bush Telegraph "Your newsletter keeps me informed about new and old and is the best I've seen in a long while - informative, not commercial, just plain perfect! Skliros Don't worry. I am at least 16 years of age. I have read and accept the privacy policy.

I understand that you will use my information to send me a newsletter. Email Name I am at least 16 years of age.

The continent of Antarctica contains the geographic South Pole and is entirely in the Southern Hemisphere. Most of Asia is located in the Northern Hemisphere, with some islands situated in the Southern Hemisphere. These include:. Southern Hemisphere Countries Australia Australia is located in the Southern Hemisphere.