IN the formative years of the Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA), from a Rhodesian Government policy perspective, game and tsetse control were an integral part of the implementation of the policy.

It was noted that the anxieties that gave rise to the NLHA, originated in reserves far to the south and east, for example, Selukwe (Shurugwi), Gwelo (Gweru), Fort Victoria (Masvingo), Gutu and Chibi (Chivi), where the central and alignment of indigenous communities, in the name of both conservation and instilling modern farming practices, had been underway for some two decades prior to the 1940s.

The absence of a central system in Sanyati can be explained by the fact that the policy could only be implemented where native reserves had been created. 

Some of the tenets of this programme were only effected concurrently with the NLHA, because prior to the arrival of the ‘new immigrants’ from nearby ranching areas, there were no native reserves in the area. 

It was observed that: “A remarkable Government document laying out a five-year plan for the implementation of the Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA),” illustrated with striking clarity “the importance of constructing a coherent explanatory narrative of past failures in these southern and eastern communities.” 

A document titled, What the Native Land Husbandry Act Means to the Rural African and to Southern Rhodesia: A Five-Year Plan that will Revolutionise African Agriculture is indicative of the Native Agriculture Department’s zeal to spearhead a ‘revolution’ in African agrarian practice since the1920s. 

The document stated: “From 1926 onwards, the history of Native agriculture in Southern Rhodesia has been that of a continuous battle between the steadily increasing pressure of a growing population on the restricted land resources, and the efforts of the Native Department to establish those methods which would check the soil erosion and human degradation which are the inevitable concomitant of the old system – i.e. shifting cultivation, under new conditions.”

By the mid-1940s, it began to be recognized that:“propaganda, instruction and voluntary acceptance of the new methods were inadequate. 

With restricted funds and limited staff, the Native Department was doing most valuable work and had achieved some remarkable results, but, faced with the background of centuries ’old tribal custom embodied in communal systems of land use, progress was slow.”

It was believed then, that: “The economic and political stability of the Africans would be restored, with private title to land being the instrument through which individual men (Africans) would become the interested conservators of their land or natural resources in general. 

Hence, a settled and thriving agricultural population is probably one of the best sheet-anchors of political stability, in particular when the land user has ownership rights, with appropriate safeguards in his own interest, in the land he occupies. 

Full implementation of the Native Land Husbandry Act will do more than stabilise the native agricultural population.  

By discontinuing a system which allows the native to vacillate between spells of work in the European area and spells of semi-loafing in the Reserve, it will do much to stabilise also the industrial working population. 

An important factor in this context is that in general under the new conditions the families will be with the workers in the non-agricultural occupations and the workers will be with their families on the land, in contrast to the present position. 

Stabilised populations based on the complete family unit offer the soundest prospect both for the social advancement and the political stability of the African in the future.”

Although no specific mention of differentiation was made in policy discourse, the full implementation of the NLHA was intended to scuttle this process. 

African progress was only tolerated in so far as it was subordinate to white settler-interests. 

Notwithstanding this, differentiation on the basis of land ownership, labour, gender and capital accumulation became even more pronounced. 

Most of the new ‘immigrants’ (Madherukas) self-allocated themselves land (madyiro), and became employers of labour as they furthered their accumulation prospects and established more stabilised rural families and homes.

Thus the envisioned: “a modernist type of development envisioned ‘complete family units’ replacing the ragged fragmented pieces of industrialised African social life,” resulted.

It was aptly observed at the time by a native affairs official that: “In no aspect of native culture have the effects of the part-time system been more deplorable than upon family life and morals.  The frequent and often long absence of large numbers of men from the reserves has led to a preponderance of the one sex over the other in both the European and the Native areas.  

The evils of this are too obvious to need elaboration.  

In the European areas the men turn to illicit and often impermanent unions, the offspring of which tend to grow up without discipline and in unsatisfactory surroundings. 

The absence of fathers makes for marital instability and deprives the children of that necessary paternal discipline and the wives of that help and support without which family life cannot be satisfactorily maintained.” 

It was against this backdrop that the Madherukas (new immigrants) to the area were received and that the autocratic NLHA, was implemented in Sanyati. 

Dr Michelina Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher, industrial design consultant, lecturer and specialist hospitality interior decorator. She is a published author in her field.  

For views and comments, email: linamanucci@gmail.com