HomeOld_PostsRepressive fast-track removals of blacks from their land

Repressive fast-track removals of blacks from their land

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THE Responsible Government in Southern Rhodesia was in power from the end of British South Africa Company (BSAC) rule in 1923 to the beginning of UDI in 1965.  

During this period, Rhodesia was a self-governing colony of Britain which was more representative of the white population.

Once the hoped-for mining potential of the ‘Second Rand’ of the region had failed to materialise, agriculture became the country’s dominant enterprise and principal export earner.  

White settler farmers controlled much of this key sector and enjoyed a correspondingly dominant political importance. 

Chief Munyaka Wozhele, and his people used to live in Lalapanzi (Rarapasi) from where they were moved to Rhodesdale in 1925 by the Native Commissioner (NC), for Que Que (KweKwe), commonly referred to by the locals as ‘Mudzviti Hari’. 

Mudzviti is a Shona word that was used to refer to the NC, District Commissioner (DC) or District Administrator (DA).

Since Rhodesdale (the area from which the new immigrants to Sanyati were moved from), was a European ranching area, the Chief and his people were bound to be moved again to a settlement designed for Africans.  

This would be the culmination of an idea muted prior to the granting of Responsible Government to Rhodesia in 1923, when the question of allocating separate defined areas in which Europeans and Africans could respectively and exclusively acquire land had arisen in the Rhodesian legislature. 

Since the 1920s, a number of African applicants were denied permission to buy land by the Director of Land Settlement on the grounds that African ownership would depreciate the value of adjacent European land.  

The settlers also regarded the relatively small-scale purchases of land by the Africans which had taken place by 1921 as the beginning of a massive influx of advanced Africans into the European area. 

Hence, the Morris Carter Commission or the Lands Commission of 1925, which was appointed to test opinion on the question of land segregation in Rhodesia succinctly enunciated European fear of the ‘inevitable racial conflict’ which would ensue if a policy of land segregation was not adopted then.

The Land Apportionment Bill which resulted from the Morris Carter Commission’s report became law in 1930.  

Although the law did not take effect until April 1931, under the terms of the new Act, the rights of the Africans to land ownership anywhere in the colony were rescinded. 

Africans were only compensated for their loss by being given the exclusive right to purchase land in the so-called Native Purchase Area (NPA) or move outright to what were known as Native Reserves.  This could explain partly why Chief Wozhele was moved from Lalapanzi — (Rarapasi?). 

Using the same argument, the Europeans also intended to set aside Rhodesdale for their occupation and push the indigenous population further out of ‘white enclaves’ such as Rhodesdale.   

The imminent move was however, deferred if not put on hold, by the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, when the African population was called upon to make its contribution in support of the Allied cause. 

As Rhodesian Europeans and Africans fought side by side for the attainment of a common objective, all racial differences seemed to have been swept under the carpet, only to be resurrected at the conclusion of the war.  

No sooner had the war ended than the demobilised African soldiers started to be accorded the status of second-rate citizens. 

In spite of their sacrifice in aid of the Allies, Chief Wozhele’s people, were not spared from the racist inclination that was to dominate the post-war years. 

In 1946, a year after the termination of Second World War, in a less startling move to those familiar with the settler philosophy of the day, the NC for Que Que (Kwekwe), in tandem with his Provincial Native Commissioner, unashamedly served Chief Wozhele with notification of removal in due course from Rhodesdale to Sanyati Reserve in the north-western part of the country. 

In the following year, 1947, serious famine was allayed by the prompt and expeditious importation of yellow mealie-meal — known in locally as ‘Kenya’, from the United States of America.   

That year also marked the installation of boreholes and the construction of new roads in the Sanyati Reserve in preparation for the settlement of Wozhele’s people there.

On receiving the news of the impending eviction of Chief Wozhele and his followers, the whites prevailed upon the Chief to go on a preliminary inspection of Sanyati Reserve.  

He was not pleased with what he saw during reconnaissance because the area was tsetse and mosquito infested. 

It resembled a jungle in that it was characterised by dense forest and was inhabited by dangerous wild animals such as elephants, lions, hyenas and poisonous snakes. 

There was hardly any decent infrastructure by way of roads, bridges, schools, stores, grinding mills or reliable water sources. The only noticeable service was a rudimentary road infrastructure to facilitate travel by the NC or DC.

The only distinguishable human inhabitants of the area at that time, the people of Chief Neuso, lived in one line in the middle of this thick bush.  

In spite of his resistance to go to this inhospitable backwater of the country, the Chief’s trip was immediately followed by the decisive meeting between the Native Commissioners of Gatooma (Kadoma) and a new Native Commissioner of Que Que , also attended by Chief Wozhele, confirmed his removal together with his people, including Headman Mudzingwa, to Sanyati. 

Despite Benjamin Burombo’s influence of ‘Zuva Ravira’ — a term that literally signified that the ‘sun has set’; coined to mean that the time had come to fight and resist unjust colonial prescriptions such as the forced removal of Africans from their original homes implemented under the detested Land Apportionment Act.

Indeed, the die had been cast as the first wave of ‘immigrants’ was forcibly moved to Sanyati in 1950. 

The year marked the beginning of repressive fast-track removals of unprecedented magnitude for most of the people living on what was designated by white Rhodesian settlers as Alienated and Crown Lands.

Dr. Michelina Rudo Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian Researcher, Industrial Design Consultant, Lecturer and Specialist Hospitality Interior Decorator.  She is a published author in her field.  For Comments E-mail: linamanucci@gmail.com

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