HomeOld_PostsVictoria Agreement: Mission to murder and dispossess

Victoria Agreement: Mission to murder and dispossess

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THE Ndebele were not at ease with the whiteman, the so-called Rudd Concession had alerted them to the treachery of the whiteman, he was no man’s friend, what he really wanted was to steal their land and wealth, nothing less.

The whiteman coveted their wealth, the largest herd south of the Zambezi, gold, and land suitable for lucrative business prospects especially ranching. 

To satisfy this lust for what was not theirs, they commanded that it becomes theirs through force of arms. 

They killed in order to plunder and loot the wealth of the land. 

A mission targeting an innocent people in their homeland was planned. 

And so Leander Starr Jameson, in 1893, gathered 948 men, to invade Matabeleland to kill, plunder and loot; no justice, no cause, no reason for invading Matabeleland except to get by force what belonged to others.

It was a mercenary mission, for all those involved in this tragedy were going to kill and destroy for a reward.

In their Victoria Agreement with Jameson each would be rewarded thus:

– 6 350 hectare farm

– 15 reef and five alluvial gold claims

– Loot of Ndebele cattle

– Loot of Lobengula’s treasure

The Ndebele carried on with their lives, unaware of this diabolic plan being hatched against them.

The band of thieves descended on the Ndebele heavily, the Ndebele fought back, but they were no match for the heavily armed whites who had the element of surprise on their side.

As the cornered Ndebele surrendered, the parcelling out of Matabeleland began as per the Victoria Agreement. 

These they shared out among themselves as per the Victoria Agreement

The so-called volunteers grabbed about 2,5 million hectares of Ndebele land. 

At the end of the land expropriation, the robbers held 3 556 000 hectares of land which ‘represented virtually 100 percent of the only habitable land … in Matabeleland. 

The rest of the land was infested with tsetse fly and mosquitoes…(Muchemwa: 2015). 

The Ndebele had to leave their habitable ancestral lands for the disease ridden lands or stay as rent-paying tenants subject to summary evictions. 

When it suited them, the whites used these Ndebele ‘tenants’ on ‘their’ land as forced labour, otherwise they evicted them.

The startling avarice of Jameson and Rhodes, the chief architects of the robbery of the land of the Ndebele starkly reveals what the invasion of Matabeleland was all about.

Cecil John Rhodes, Maurice Heany, Hans Sauer, Frederick Courtney Selous, Author Rhodes, just the five of them seized the whole of Matabeleland South. 

The Matopo Hills District was exclusive to Cecil John Rhodes. 

The Ndebele resident in this area were banished out of it.

In addition Heany and Selous’s Gold Reefs and Estates company, the colonialists looted 88 400 hectares, 773 gold claims and 1 200 cattle.

Johan Colenbrander took thousands and thousands of Ndebele cattle, John Willoughby grabbed Umzingwane District, Gwelo District, where he expropriated an additional 2 000 land claims and 8 850 cattle. 

There are other chief looters: The Belingwe Development Company looted 38 000 hectares and 891 gold claims; the Gwanda Gold Prospecting Company,

20 000 gold claims; the Pioneer Gold Reef Mining Company, 42 000 hectares and 261 gold claims.

The poverty we face today has nothing to do with the colour of our skin but is a result of white grand theft.

After looting the land, cattle and gold fields the whiteman still stripped the Ndebele to the bone.

The police coerced Indunas, chiefs and headmen to supply the white farmers with young men for forced labour on the farms and mines.

The police would also carry out dawn raids on villages to capture young men to work in the mines and farms as forced labourers forcing young men to desert their homes. 

The villagers were treated as slaves, forced at gunpoint to reveal hidden cattle and young men, at times women and children, were raped and killed in the process.

The whites also introduced a Hut Tax of 11 shillings to force Ndebele men to work on the farms and in the mines to raise this amount.

The Hut Tax could also be paid in the form of goats, sheep, cattle, gold or labour thus creating the main source of revenue for the BSAP for constructing infrastructure on farms stocked with cattle goats and sheep looted from them. 

Stripped of their labour force, who would work for their families and communities?

Stripped of all livestock, how would they feed their families? 

Extorted of their gold, the Ndebele still managed to eke out here and there, and they became ever more desperate for means of survival.

Out of the murder, plunder and looting, grew a booming economy in Bulawayo and surrounding districts, but it was a blood economy from which the Ndebele did not benefit.

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