Zimbabwe History: The Incursions Of Ngoni and Ndebele
Zimbabwe History: Before the 1830s, a number of Shona-speaking states and cultures ruled the southwest region of what is now Zimbabwe. The Kalanga line of the Shona were the main group of people living in the area until this time. In the late 1600s, the Changamire Rozvi, a Shona state in the northeast, took over this area.
Over time, the newcomers became part of the Kalanga people. It was the 1820s, and the Rozvi were losing land to the Tswana in the southwest and the Tsonga in the southeast. To make matters worse, Nguni and Sotho groups from south of the Limpopo River in what is now South Africa frequently attacked this region in the middle to late 1830s.
Historians have had a lot of disagreements about what caused these invasions in southern Africa in the 1820s and 1830s. Large groups of people may have gone north during this time, going as far as present-day Malawi and southern Tanzania. This could have been because the Zulu state was growing, there was a drought, or the colonists were funding raids.
Ngoni are northern Nguni (Zulu)-speaking groups that went north of Limpopo in the early 1830s. People like Zwangendaba, Ngwana Maseko, and Nyamazana were in charge of them. The Ngoni’s main strength was their military system, which was based on age groups that didn’t care about local ties. This made it easier to integrate the people they had conquered.
The Ngoni attacked the Rozvi to get cattle and other foods. They used short spears that could stab and shock. It is said that they killed Chirisamhuru, the Rozvi mambo (ruler). The Ngoni raiders did cause damage, but the Rozvi fought back and pushed them farther north and east. In 1835, their main group of several thousand people crossed the Zambezi River.
The Ndebele, who were also northern Nguni speakers who came from south of Limpopo, changed the area in a more lasting way. Early in the 1820s, Mzilikazi led the core of the Ndebele state north of the Drakensberg Mountains. It had been in the Pongola River area before.
For at least ten years, the Ndebele were the most powerful group in the South African Highveld. They took in many Sotho people and made them part of their group. In 1836 and 1837, groups of Boer hikers going north from the Cape Colony beat them. At this point, they had moved further north across the Limpopo.
The Ndebele split into two groups during this move. Mzilikazi led the smaller group, and Gundwane led the larger group. They planned to meet up again. In 1838 and 1839, Gundwane’s group went to the Umzingwani Valley, where the local Rozvi people fought them hard.
But when Mzilikazi’s group came and added to their strength, the Ndebele took over the area. Not like the Ngoni, the Ndebele did not attack and scare the Kalanga people, who they relied on for food. Mzilikazi took over as the Kalanga people’s leader in the area, replacing the Rozvi.
Because the Ngoni took many Rozvi cattle, the Rozvi even agreed to give the Ndebele young men to join their armies in exchange for stolen animals that the Ndebele would take care of in exchange for milk. The Ndebele clearly had the upper hand in this relationship because they could take back their cattle if the Rozvi didn’t like them, but the Rozvi couldn’t take back their young men.
The Rozvi were angry that Mzilikazi was taking their young men, so in the early 1850s, they tried to take back control of the area by raiding Ndebele land. During the great raids of 1854 and 1855, the Ndebele fought back and destroyed the Rozvi state. This caused the Rozvi to give up in 1857.
But Mzilikazi couldn’t expand his power to the northeast because it was hard for him to attack the Rozvi mountain fortresses. During the 1860s, the Ndebele kept attacking Shona groups. In 1866, they beat the Rozvi again, who were no longer a strong force.
This put the Ndebele in charge of the trade routes in the area. In the 1870s, they were very powerful, and many Shona states were their allies. Through the trade in ivory and employment in the diamond mines south of Limpopo, various Shona states had acquired many guns by 1879.
Because the Portuguese were moving west from Mozambique, they gave the Shona weapons. This made it much easier for the Shona hill strongholds to defend themselves against Ndebele raids. Following this, Lobengula, Mzilikazi’s son, lost control of the Ndebele state, which was at that point in the region.
In the late 1880s, the Ndebele were no longer able to go on raids into the central Shona land from the northeast. In the middle to late 1800s, colonial writers said that the Ndebele ruled and attacked the Shona, which was not true. The British South Africa Company (BSAC), Cecil Rhodes’ chartered company, produced advertising that inspired this idea. In 1888, the BSAC fraudulently got a concession from Lobengula that let it take over Mashonaland.
Some tributary states on the Ndebele king’s line gave him power over most of this area, but the BSAC position in what would become the colony of Southern Rhodesia was based on the idea that he did. As part of the settlement of Mashonaland, propaganda said that it was necessary to protect the Shona people from Ndebele raids, which were seen as harmful.
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