Colonial Economic Disempowerment and the Responses of the Hlengwe Peasantry of the South East Lowveld of Zimbabwe: 1890-1965
Much has been written on how colonialists economically incapacitated Africans through wrestling control of the means of production from them. Some studies have also looked at how various Africans responded to the new order. In the British territory of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) the economic...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa & Association of African Historians
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://codesria.org/IMG/pdf/8._chisi.pdf?3799/fad126d7c417df870c15aa6f61a18ce75fd3afb2 http://hdl.handle.net/11408/3859 |
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| Summary: | Much has been written on how colonialists economically incapacitated Africans
through wrestling control of the means of production from them. Some studies
have also looked at how various Africans responded to the new order. In the
British territory of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) the economic
disempowerment of the Africans was through land alienation. However, the
areas which have received much coverage on the subject in the country are
Matabeleland and Mashonaland on the highveld. Given the economic
attractiveness of these two areas to the colonialists and the resistance that the
Ndebele and Shona in these areas put up, the overshadowing of peripheral areas
such as the S.E. Lowveld, home to the Hlengwe is understandable. However,
though the Hlengwe have attracted little more than an occasional passing reference
in many studies, they were not spared from the colonial experience, especially
the oppression, exploitation and economic disempowerment which other African
groups experienced. Therefore, this article is primarily concerned with filling
the gap created by the seeming lack of interest in the history of the Hlengwe.
Information on Hlengwe colonial history was collected and compiled through
oral interviews and a thorough study of archival materials and written sources.
The article thus establishes that the loss of land led to the loss of economic
independence by the Hlengwe peasantry whose main economic activities were
land-based and that this same loss resulted in the Hlengwe people responding in
diverse ways to the new colonial order. It goes on to explore the dynamics and
variations of the Hlengwe response to colonial rule and exploitation. Most
importantly, it establishes that contrary to what the Native Commissioners
said, the Hlengwe were a warlike people. The article reveals that as they were
integrated more into the orbit of colonial rule and felt its squeeze, they became
more aggressive. |
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