Colonisation and Early Resistance: notes

How colonisation happened

• Missionaries and explorers came first and wrote about the land and its wealth.
• Rudd Concession (1888): a document Lobengula was tricked into signing, which Cecil Rhodes used to claim mining rights.
• British South Africa Company (BSAC): Rhodes's company, given a royal charter to rule.
• Pioneer Column (1890): the settlers' column that raised the flag at Fort Salisbury (now Harare).

Effects on Africans

• Loss of land and cattle.
• Hut tax and forced labour, which pushed men to work on farms and mines.
• Loss of political power for chiefs.

First Chimurenga (1896 to 1897)

• A war of resistance by the Ndebele and then the Shona.
• Leaders included Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi, who were spirit mediums.
• Africans lost because of weaker weapons, but the war inspired later nationalists.

Common mistake

Do not mix up the First Chimurenga (1896 to 1897) with the Second Chimurenga (the liberation war of the 1960s and 1970s).