THE Portuguese tried many times to invade Zimbabwe, but failed.
They attempted the divide and rule tactic by supporting the Mutapa with weapons against rebel Shona groups, but were unsuccessful.
In 1571, they joined a rebel group against the Mutapa led by Chikanga and ransomed their influence to gain leverage with the Mutapa kings.
For some time, Portuguese interests were being observed by the Mutapa until the advent of a Mutapa ruler called Kapararidze.
He tried to end the white religion and bring back the traditional way of governance. The Portuguese eventually attacked and killed Kapararidze in 1632 and placed a puppet ruler in his place.
Last week, we spoke of a group of advisors at the Zimbabwe court, known as VaMwenye who were responsible for the rejection and death of Goncalo da Silveira.
These VaMwenye, though not originally from Zimbabwe, were blacks and had lived in the land for centuries.
But because their ancestors were from Arabia, they retained the title VaMwenye, meaning ‘foreigners’.
When the Portuguese arrived in Zimbabwe, they called these blacks ‘Muhammadans’ because of their mannerisms which greatly resembled the Islamic Moors of Europe.
The VaMwenye were kinsmen of the Sena people of Mozambique and had a Venda offshoot located below the Limpopo River.
Modern scholars mistake these blacks who were present at Masvingo since long ago to be mixed-race Arabs, yet the people called VaMwenye in Zimbabwe are black to this day and retain the history of having come from both Arabia and Masvingo.
Rulers with the title Changamire emerged and grew strong from a descendant of these advisors of the Mutapa in Zimbabwe.
The title Changamire attests to the closeness between this man and the Muslims of the east African coast because it contains the Arabic word Amir (Emir) which means ‘Muslim ruler’.
The prefix ‘chang’ can be linked to another term from the East spelt ‘zhang’ and is Chinese for ‘senior’; altogether resulting in the name Changamire meaning ‘Senior Muslim ruler’.
Such words that originated from the mixing of Arabic and Chinese languages were common in the east-coast of Africa.
The Changamire dynasty grew in the south of Zimbabwe uninterrupted and by 1640 they had become a notable force.
The Changamire and the Omani people from the Persian Gulf had close ties and the Omanis fought the Portuguese beginning 1652 CE.
In 1695 CE, the Changamire took control of the Mutapa state that had been ruled by puppet leaders since the assassination of Kapararidze.
The inhabitants of Zimbabwe had been called vaRozvi, meaning fighters, since the time they began fighting against the Portuguese.
Changamire, along with the Rozvi people, drove out the Portuguese from Zimbabwe and other parts of Mozambique.
Together, they were called the Changamire – Rozvi dynasty and were associated with the Torwa State which would emerge in the south.
By 1696 CE, the Portuguese were confined to Sena, Tete and Sofala; otherwise the Arabs had control over the trade of the rest of the coast and paid tribute to the Changamire.
Changamire had never depended on trade with the Portuguese and after his victory in reclaiming authority over Zimbabwe and Mozambique, he traded almost exclusively with Arabs and other non-Portuguese groups from the East.
From this point on, the Portuguese would no longer make advances in Zimbabwe.
During this period in Europe, Portugal was under a lot of pressure and countries like Netherlands, Britain, France and Spain were competing and warring against Portugal for colonies and influence.
Spain had conquered Netherlands for some time, but even before the Dutch attained independence, they had begun sailing the seas.
They finally broke away from the Spanish king’s dominion and acquired freedom to navigate where they pleased.
The Dutch then set their eyes on Portugal, which had fallen to the Spanish, and went after Portuguese colonies.
The Dutch took over the West-African coast and slave markets.
They also took over Brazil and Angola using black slave labour to produce white sugar which was very profitable.
However, Brazil and Angola were eventually won back by the Portuguese.
The Dutch then followed the Portuguese to the East Indies i.e. Malaysia and Indonesia which were called the Spice Islands.
Britain had its colonies in India and other parts of mainland Asia.
Although they were rivals with the Dutch, they were both Protestants, thus co-operated with each other.
The British had their East India Company and the Dutch had their own East India Company.
The Dutch East India Company was larger and more organised.
Whites from these European countries with colonies in Asia would stop over at the Cape of South Africa for refreshments and rest.
There they found sweet inland water, fresh fruits and livestock from the blacks they found there.
These blacks were a mixture of the Khoi Bushmen and the Negro–Bantu to form what the Dutch termed the Hottentots.
These Hottentots retained many Khoi features in their phenotype and language, but kept livestock, unlike the Bushmen who lived off hunting and gathering.
After the wreck of a Dutch ship called Haarlem, the victims established a little fort and settlement at Table Bay.
After they were rescued, Dutch travellers appealed for a large fort to be built on the Cape for the purpose of permanent settlement.
The Dutch East India Company sent a company servant called Jan Van Riebeeck to undertake this mission in the winter of April 1652.
A fort was built, a garden planted and a market to buy livestock from locals established.
He soon noticed the Hottentots were divided and distrustful of each other.
They wanted copper items, alcohol and tobacco from the whites in exchange for their livestock, but would speak ill of each other in the spirit of jealousy.
The whites used this disunity against the Hottentots to effectively colonise them.
The process began with whites retaliating harshly when their cattle were stolen and resulted in all-out land invasions that the Hottentots could not accept.
The Hottentots began fighting the whitemen, but were met with lethal retaliation which led to the massacre of many blacks because they were armed with significantly inferior weapons to those of the Europeans.
The Dutch called for more whites from the Netherlands.
But this time they called for whites who were not servants of the Dutch East India Company.
They were called ‘Free Burghers’ and their main purpose was to farm the land, resulting in them being eventually known as Boers, which is simply Dutch for ‘farmers’.
The Dutch company servants lived in the towns and were paid by the Dutch East India Company unlike the Boers who entered the countryside to farm for profit. From 1657 onwards, the Dutch began using slave labour from the East Indies, Madagascar and Mozambique to farm and build their settlements.
West Africans were initially brought to work the land, but they usually escaped inland after arrival.
The Boers increased and devastated the local population as their expansion inland entailed the displacement of the indigenous blacks.
The cattle rearing Hottentots soon found themselves allying with the Boers in fighting off their Khoi or Bushmen kinsmen because they occasionally hunted their livestock as if it were game.
As a result, the Bushmen were almost exterminated.
The Hottentots began dressing and acting like whites.
Those of the Bushmen and Hottentots who were resentful of the new developments from the Cape fled further inland and lost their land and livelihood.
Riebeeck left the Cape for Netherlands in 1662 and for 17 years, the Dutch colony had no formal leader.
The Boers and company servants did as they pleased.
Because there was great unavailability of white women, the Dutch resorted to miscegenation with Hottentots and eventually produced mixed-race communities like that of the Griqua.
The Boers also barbarically acquired land, cattle, sheep and goats by robbing the indigenous blacks after killing and dispersing them.