Know Africa.
FYI: Rhodesia is the colonial name of the country that is now known as Zimbabwe. Its name was changed in 1980.

Isn’t history grand when you don’t have to memorize it? I remember when I had to learn about King Lobengula and the Ndebele tribe when I was doing my A-Levels in Zimbabwe. At the time, it all seemed boring and pointless — see this article where I touched upon this – but in retrospect, I find it so fascinating how all the little pieces fit together, and how invaluable the knowledge is. It’s key to understanding the social politics of Zimbabwe today.


The chameleon gets behind the fly, remains motionless for some time, then he advances very slowly and gently, first putting forward one leg and then another. At last, when well within reach, he darts his tongue and the fly disappears. England is the chameleon and I am that fly.
—Lobengula

Lobengula was a Ndebele king, an ethnic group in Southern Africa. His kingdom was the last of the major African states to be destroyed by the colonialists in southern Africa.

In the early 19th Century, after a big quarrel with Shaka Zulu, King Mzilikazi fled Zululand with his people and fought his way into what is now known as Zimbabwe, where he established the Ndebele kingdom. His son, Lobengula was, in some ways, lucky to have lived long enough to ascend to the throne. Rumor or not, it is said that Lobengula and Nkulumane, along with their mothers, were sentenced to death by their father, Mzilikazi. However, Mncumbatha Khumalo felt pity for him, released him and instructed him to go and hide. Mncumbatha Khumalo returned and told the King that he had followed his orders. However, Mzilikazi eventually discovered the truth, took pity on Lobengula, but didn’t want him to enter his court yard. One of the chiefs took care of Lobengula, and as a result, Lobengula did not get first hand experience of how state affairs were run.


Lobengula became king after the death of his father and ruled the Ndebele during a time of crisis in central Africa. The Berlin Conference cut Africa into spheres of influence for the European powers, eager to establish colonies. The Ndebele kingdom’s geographic position made it the center across which the ambitions of the Europeans collided. Lobengula’s soft spot and sympathy for the British missionaries eventually led to the downfall of the Matebele Kingdom, which encompassed both Matebeleland (Ndebele people) and Mashonaland (Shona people). The kingdom was rich in natural resources — hence, very attractive to the European powers. Unfortunately, through various concessions and treaties, Lobengula was tricked into signing over his Kingdom to the authority of Cecil John Rhodes.


The British happens to be the best people in the world, with the highest ideals of decency and justice and liberty and peace, and the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for humanity.
—Cecil Rhodes

The British worked through Cecil Rhodes to establish themselves in the Matabele kingdom. Rhodes, then premier of the Cape Colony, had a dream to create a vast British colony which would stretch from the Cape of Good Hope all the way north to Egypt. The railway line he planned to build to link Cape Town and Cairo would run through Ndebele territory. He also wanted a British presence in central Africa, to block Boer movement northward.

But Rhodes wasn’t the only one with plans that would require Lobengula’s acquiescence. The Portuguese dreamed of a link between Angola and Mozambique across Ndebele country, and the Germans wanted one between South-West Africa and Tanganyika. From the Congo, the Belgians were pressing southward toward Lobengula’s domains and the Boers from the Transvaal had their eyes on the fertile lands on the northern side of the Limpopo.

The British sent a missionary, John Smith Moffat, to Lobengula’s court, to keep an eye on British interests. Lobengula easily welcomed him as a bearer of spiritual tidings. The missionary persuaded the King to sign a treaty with the British, by which Lobengula agreed not to cede land to any European power without the consent of the British. Sections of the Matabele army opposed the treaty, on the score that it surrendered the sovereignty of the Ndebele to the British. However, Lobengula believed that the man of God wanted a friendship which would protect that very sovereignty.


Reverend John Smith Moffat

Rhodes followed with a delegation to Lobengula – they asked for permission for Rhodes to trade, hunt, and prospect for precious minerals in Ndebele territory. Lobengula said yes. This came to be known as the Rudd Concession. In return Rhodes offered 1, 000 Martini-Henry rifles, 100, 000 rounds of ammunition, an annual stipend of £1,200.00, and a steamboat on the Zambezi. All that for measly gold and diamonds? Sarcastic tone. Rhodes formed the British South Africa Company to explore the concession, and organized 200 pioneers, promising each of them a 3, 000-acre farm on Ndebele land, and sent them north with a force of 500 company police.

Rhodes’s plans infuriated the Ndebele. Lobengula canceled the concession and ordered the British out of his country. Too little too late though because, as he had only spears to ensure respect for his commands (isn’t that the epitome of African stereotype), the British ignored his order, proceeded to complete the road link with the south, and brought in even more settlers.

In August 1889, King Lobengula wrote to Queen Victoria to complain:


“The white people are troubling me much about gold. If the queen hears that I have given away the whole country it is not so.”

Lobengula next tried diplomacy, an art in which he had never excelled. He gave a concession to Edouard Lippert from Johannesburg in the Boer Republic. Lippert was to make an annual payment to Lobengula for a lease which gave him the right to grant, lease, or rent parts of Ndebele land in his name for 100 years. This attempt to play the Boers against the British was Lobengula’s undoing. Lippert turned around and sold the concession to the very company Lobengula had expelled. The company cut up Lobengula’s land and distributed the promised farms to the pioneers.

The company’s British shareholders were pleased with Rhodes’s strategy. Encouraged by his victory, Rhodes next planned to extend the railway line. But by this time, Lobengula and his people weren’t going to allow further incursions into their land.

This meant war.

British telegraph wires were cut near Victoria. The British retaliated by seizing the cattle found near the scene of the crime. Lobengula’s cattle. They were beefing for real now – pun intended haha. The Ndebele military clamored for their return, but luckily war was averted by the British negotiating a settlement.

While these developments were taking place, the British extended their control over land which Lobengula claimed. Black communities which had owed allegiance to Lobengula were encouraged to come under British rule. They willingly (and stupidly) did so because Lobengula had not treated his weaker neighbors with much understanding. It quickly became clear that British intentions and Lobengula’s independence and reign as king were incompatible. War broke out toward the end of 1893; the Ndebele army was crushed, and Lobengula fled northwards and died about a month later.

In 1895, the country became known as Rhodesia, and 85 years later, on April 18, 1980, rose the independent African nation of Zimbabwe.
http://lavieamonavis.com/2011/07/27/know-africa-king-lobengula-his-inadvertent-contribution-to-the-rise-of-rhodesia/