SOME prevalent colonial cattle diseases included tick infections, trypanosomiasis, myiasis (screw worm that resulted from tick bites causing damage to hides), quarter evil (from which 3 142 cattle died), which together with east coast fever killed close to 10 000 indigenous cattle in the west, east and central areas of Zimbabwe.
Together with rinderpest, rabies, redwater, lung sickness and other murrains that proliferated and remained rampant during this period included worm parasite, bottleneck jaw, liver fluke (fasciola gigantic), ephemeral fever, conical fluke, mange, (paramphistonium cervi), quarter evil (black leg), veld sickness, rift valley fever, paramphistomiasis, anthrax (basillus anthracis), and ‘umkuzaan’ — (dichapetalum cymasum) that was brought in by Mzilikazi’s rustled cattle and now endemic to north and northwest Matabeleland; foot and mouth disease transmitted by contact with other infected animals or by the shared use of drinking and grazing areas, notably from the buffalo, bovine rhinotracheitis and vibriosis — both cattle venereal diseases common with high concentration and movement of cattle.
These lethal epizootic diseases forced Cecil John Rhodes and the British South Africa Company (BSAC) (since nothing was done without his knowledge and acquiescence) to introduce measures in the early 1900s (to control their spread and hoped for eradication) that prohibited the movement of cattle and enforced the confiscation and destruction of all cattle, including indigenous cattle, found straying.
The measures proved unpopular, since the slaughter of beasts was ritually sanctioned and further accelerated the impoverishment of African communities; thereby further deteriorating relations between the indigenous people and white settlers compounded by the increasing tax burden and enforced limitations of grazing areas for indigenous cattle.
The colonies of Transvaal, Orange Free State and the Cape Colony in South Africa had already been susceptible to a number of cattle diseases since the second half of the 19th Century: lung sickness in 1855 was followed by redwater in 1870-1871, whose similarities with east coast fever caused confusion and uncertainty in Southern Africa when east coast fever re-appeared at the beginning of the 20th Century, that continued to ravage the region well beyond the 1940s.
The third and most devastating cattle disease was rinderpest, an ‘acute, febrile, highly contagious and fatal disease for all cloven-hoofed ruminants’.
Rinderpest broke out in northern Natal in July 1897 and by early 1898, the disease was spreading rapidly throughout Natal and Zululand where 98 percent of the cattle died.
The last rinderpest outbreak in the territory under British colonial white minority rule occurred in September 1898, on Salisbury Commonage (now Mbare).
The scourge of rinderpest had plagued mankind, devastating his livestock since ancient times.
From the 9th Century, epizootics swept Europe every 40-50 years, which only ended in circa 1750, decimating herds of livestock and other animals.
The disease penetrated the Egyptian Lower Nile Valley from Asia and spread as far south as Khartoum during the 1884-1885 British campaigns in Sudan.
The expansion of the Sahara Desert eastward effectively barred the virus from spreading further southward into the vast Savannah grasslands of southern Africa.
In 1889, as part of the European subjugation and division of Africa that followed the Berlin Conference in 1884-1885 and the subsequent scramble for Africa, the Italian army invaded Eritrea bringing with them rinderpest-infected cattle from India.
The catastrophic consequences resulted in the greatest famine in recorded Ethiopian history.
For several years, the virus spread progressively southwards through central Africa, annihilating vast herds of indigenous cattle and wild game.
Thousands of people died or were on the verge of starvation. By the end of 1890, rinderpest had spread southwest to Lake Tanganyika; devastating Masai cattle herds in northern Tanzania and southern Kenya.
A colonial felon was quoted as saying: “These powerful and war-like pastoral tribes had their pride, but have been humbled and our progress facilitated by this awful visitation – the rinderpest.”
The disease devastated vast areas in Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana Namibia and South Africa.
Up to 90 percent of the indigenous cattle in parts of central, eastern and southern Africa were eradicated.
This devastation occurred at the height of the scramble for Africa and Western colonisation, rendering the people desolate; powerless to resist the early occupation by white settlers.
As a result, colonial conquests by the Italians, Germans and Britons in East Africa and other parts of Africa were unencumbered.
Under the aegis of Colonel F. Smith, Dr A. Theiler and Dr G. Turner, sub-Saharan veterinary departments encountered a myriad of challenges achieving effective disease control. These included, among others, an inadequate number of trained veterinary personnel, inadequate and erratic funding, lack of co-operation by farmers, few diagnostic laboratories, repeated unavailability and high cost of drugs.
The Zambezi River arrested the rinderpest’s march south from Tanganyika until in 1896 when a herd of colonial missionary cattle crossed the Zambezi River and were driven down to Bulawayo, where they were sold.
On March 3 1896, the disease was identified in cattle in the Bulawayo area from where it rapidly spread.
By March 16 1896, the virus reached Tuli on the southern border from where it spread further.
Three weeks later, cattle were dying in Mafeking.
On March 24 1896, Salisbury (Harare) was proclaimed an infected district.
Cattle were not permitted to enter or leave without permission from the controller of cattle H. M. Taberer.
At the same time, the Animals Diseases Act No. 2 of 1881 (of the Cape Colony), was adopted in this country; augmented by instructions that ‘all infected cattle were to be immediately destroyed to curb the outbreak’.
Wildebeest and buffalo also played a major part in the spread of the disease.
Government Notice No. 53 of 1896, issued by controller of cattle required all cattle inspectors to inform the public where rinderpest broke out among cattle; the owners had the option to shoot the infected cattle or to try to cure them.
The horrendous cattle mortality rate in the colonial territory (Zimbabwe) causing the outbreak of the Second Uprising in 1894 were soon replicated in the Transvaal area of southern Africa where urgent measures were taken to arrest the spread of the contagion.
Art and education consultant, artist and lecturer Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD in Art Theory and Philosophy and a Doctorate of Business Administration in Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, musician, art critic, practising artist and corporate image consultant.
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