Title:
|
The Ndebele Under the Khumalos, 1820-1896.
|
The Ndebele state emerged in the 1820s, crossed to the north
first of the Vaal, later of the Limpopo, where in the Matopos region
of modern Rhodesia it flourished until it was finally destroyed by the
British in 1896. The political structure of the kingdom closely
reflected the interlinkage of a number of fundamental economic forms
of co-operation, among which grain cultivation and the raising and subsequent
activities of amabutho (currently translated as 'regiments')
stand out. The 'local' emphasis of the former, as opposed to the
'universal' nature of the latter, as well as the particular process
of Ndebele*A abu h evolution - which produced the major 'chieftaincies'
or iligaba - in turn produced strong tensions between the central state
authority, as symbolized by the Khumalo kings, and the outlying
'provinces'. In the Ndebele kingdom the centre held the parts together,
nonetheless, and the Ndebele became extremely efficient raptors, either
assimilating or holding in a subservient tributary position neighbouring
African peoples, or repeatedly attacking them until their potential
economically to disrupt the state was neutralized. The eventual collapse
of Lobengula's state occurred not only because these features of
African society and struggle were alien to, and misrepresented in terms
of 'Christian' or 'Victorian' capitalist morality by Europeans, but
because these same Europeans, spear-headed by the missionaries, Rhodes
and the British South Africa Company, were determined to seize control
of the economic potential of the kingdom - its alleged gold, and
genuine land, labour and cattle - and, in the guise of subjecting the
Ndebele to European 'civilizing' processes, to subvert the economic,
and hence the political, structure of the state, and bend it to the
needs of European capitalism.
|