Mkwati declared to his people in the Somabula forests to the east and beyond that the Shangani River was the boundary between the ‘whitemen’ and the Mlimo or Mwari cult people, writes Dr Felix Muchemwa in his book The Struggle For Land in Zimbabwe (1890 – 2010) that The Patriot is serialising.

THE fifth indaba on January 5 1897, the most comprehensive indaba, was held in the city of Bulawayo, not in the Matopo Hills.
At that fifth indaba, Ndebele chiefs were rewarded not with the ancestral land they had held before conquest in 1893, but with money and strictly ceremonial power positions in the British South Africa Company (BSAC) administration.
Of the 10 chiefs appointed to the BSAC administration, six were ex-First Chimurenga warrior chiefs.
These were Nyamanda, who became head induna of the Bulawayo District; Nkomo, head induna of Inyati District; Somabulana, head induna of Upper Insiza District; Sikombo, head induna of Umzingwane District; Umlugulu, head induna of Gwanda District; and Dhliso, head induna of Matopo Hills District.
Siginyamatshe was captured in the Filabusi District in October 1897, but his life was spared.
In the meantime, as Ndebele warrior chiefs were surrendering en masse from October 1896, Mkwati, Mtini, Makumbi and Mpotshwane remained resolute and defiant in the Somabula forests.
Mkwati declared to his people in the Somabula forests to the east and beyond that the Shangani River was the boundary between the ‘whitemen’ and the Mlimo or Mwari cult people.
Very few of Mkwati’s followers surrendered or accepted Cecil John Rhodes’ peace terms of the Matopo Hills indabas.
However, due to heavy patrols by the imperial forces under Badden Powell in the Somabula forests, Mkwati was forced to retreat eastwards and into Mashonaland, where he arrived at Chief Mashayamombe’s village in October 1896.
Makumbi, who commanded the northern First Chimurenga forces, was later captured, sentenced to death on August 19 1897 and hanged on November 15 1897.
Mtini, commander of the Ngnoba regiment, was captured in May 1897 and hanged later that year.
Mpotshwana, the Nyamandhlovu regimental commander, was captured in July 1897 and his life was spared, but he died in prison in October the same year. (Ranger T.O. 1967: pp.259-267)
Sixth indaba: June 23 1897
Attempts to resuscitate the land issue at the subsequent sixth indaba on June 23 1897 were totally ignored by Rhodes since the much needed railway line from Mafeking to Bulawayo had finally been completed and had the capacity to ferry military reinforcements in thousands for any new outbreak of war in Matabeleland. (Ranger T.O.1967: p.340)
On July 9 1898, in an article headlined ‘The recent trials and the causes of the late rebellion’, the European settler newspaper, The Rhodesia, defined the causes of the First Chimurenga in Matabeleland in 1896 as follows:
“The actual causes of the rebellion have been variously ascribed to lack of police, confiscation of cattle, conduct of the Native police, forced labour and chagrin of chiefs whilst watching their past powers of life and death and raiding disappear before their eyes. (Rhodesia, p. 154. 1898).
In its final analysis, The Rhodesia newspaper concluded that the real cause of the First Chimurenga in Matabeleland was the loss of power by Ndebele chiefs over the life and death of Ndebele people and the power to raid nearby territories.
There was no mention of land by The Rhodesia newspaper as a cause of the ‘rebellion’, and yet the real power the Ndebele chiefs had lost was the power to allocate land which had been totally confiscated by the BSAC and its European settler-farmers and miners.
It was land which had dominated the peace talks at the Matopo Hills indaba, not Ndebele chiefs’ power over life and death nor over Ndebele raids.