LECTURE 1
THE KHOISAN AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT
Introduction:
Khoisan are historically the earliest inhabitants of Southern Africa.
They dominated Southern Africa for hundreds of years before the arrival of the Bantu groups.
Archaeological evidence obtained from sites on the West Coast such as Kasteelberg show occupation by herders between 1600 and 1800 years ago, ie around 200-400AD
They owed to a great extent their livelihood to the natural environment conditions which obtained.
This is demonstrated by the fact that they derived the three basic fundamentals of life; food, shelter and clothing from the flora and fauna of the region.
The San
They were referred to as hunter-gatherers. [Bushmen by whites; Twa by Xhosa, Roa by Sotho and San by Khoikhoi]
They occupied the mountainous, plateau and coastal areas of Southern Africa as evidenced by their paintings on rocks and cave walls throughout the sub-continent.
They were neither herders nor agriculturalists, so they depended on hunting and gathering. [ie they survived on what the environment provided]
Archaeological evidence has proven that the San might have made meat an important part of their diet before the invention of projectile weapons.
How was this possible without weapons?
The San killed newly born or sick animals
Ran down animals
Scavenging
They drove large animals over cliffs or into swamps and then slaughtered them.
Meat was thus an important part of their diet from time immemorial.
As their Stone Age technology improved they made use of poisoned arrows
Hunting was so important to them to the extent that their semi-nomadic existence was governed by the movement of the game and the change in seasons.
They jealously guarded their hunting grounds. [as proven by their conflicts with the whites]
Division of Labour:
In the San communities there was division of labour according to gender and age.
Man was the hunter and the woman the gatherer.
Women secured most of the food that was consumed. They acquired a knowledge of botany which matched man’s awareness of the animal world.
They collected any non-poisonous foods, plants, insects and small animals that their environment provided. [honey, insects such as locusts, grasshoppers, termites and cater-pillars, tortoises, dassies, dune mole rats, mice etc]
L. van der Post says, the eggs of ants were the greatest delicacy and were called Bushman rice. [caution is to be taken here because they were not agriculturalists so how did they know about rice] In the wooded Savanna of Southern Africa, nature offered a great variety of products which were collected by women; berries, wild melons [known as tsamma a good source of food and water], fruits, juicy green leaves, roots and stems.
Small bulbs [bulbous plants] which could be eaten raw or peeled or roasted under the ashes were also found in abundance.
The groups that lived along the coast caught fish, lobsters, seals and sea-birds and gathered large quantities of shell-fish notably limpets [patched on rocks] and mussels [shelled]. Brian eEbden, says that oysters and mussels were a delicacy among the Khoisan and giant heaps of shell deposits dating back more than 2000 years ago were found along the coastal regions in South Africa. They also killed whales that were stranded along the coast.
The San lived in total harmony with nature posing no threat to wildlife and vegetation by over-hunting or gathering. [But the simplicity of their technology could have been a contributing factor
Their socio-political organization was influenced by the availability of game and other resources. When game was scarce the group split into smaller parties. In severe prolonged droughts women chewed the bark of some trees which acted as a contraceptive so as to prevent the growth of population.
To provide liquid in dry areas and for times of drought they stored water in ostrich shells which they buried deep in the sand and they are reported to have recovered the shells with great accuracy.
Their simple technological innovations were influenced by their natural environment. They made their hunting and gathering tools materials such as stone, wood, fibre, reed, leather, shell, ivory, leaf, and sinews [strong cord joining muscle to bone]
This is reflected from the assemblages of such material from caves and shelters throughout Southern Africa.
Stone was used for making cutting and scrapping tools and arrows and grinding stones.
Leather was used for making clothes and storage facilities. There are many rock paintings depicting women with weighted digging sticks, who seem to be carrying leather bags for transporting foodstuffs from one place to another.
Two kinds of such string bags or nets were discovered by archaeologists. One is the fine-meshed bag which was found at Kelkhoutboom and Windhoek Farm Cave. [must have been used for carrying tubers]
The second is the larger meshed bag known only from the fragment found at the Diepkloof Cave in the Western Cape.
Their homes were temporary shelters made of grass and bushes or convenient caves in hills or mountains.
By 1600, most San, their numbers practically impossible to determine lived in drier areas of Southern Africa. [WHY?]

The Khoi-khoi
They were mainly pastoralists, keeping flocks of sheep and large herds of cattle. Their diet was supplemented by edible plants collected by women and game hunted by men.
There is a possibility that their shepherding began in Stone Age Times because sheep bones were found in association with stone tools and pottery in cave sites near the Cape of Good Hope.
The Portuguese found the Khoikhoi spread parallel to the coast on both sides of Southern Africa [ie parallel to Atlantic and Indian Ocean] [This means they spread from coast to coast]
Khoikhoi society was hierarchical. The people lived in communities of about 500 to 1000 people under a recognized authority. Related clans had their tribal area and clan members used water and other resources, [pasture, game, wild fruit and vegetables] within their own area. Outsiders /other unrelated clans had to obtain permission first from the tribal head to use local resources. However, the land and its resources did not belong to the chief but to the community.
The rights granted to outsiders to exploit resources were temporary, which is the reason why there was a war when the first Europeans established the first settlement at the Cape.
A good source of water was the most important resource to the khoikhoi herders. Taking water without permission was an act of aggression. At one time a Portuguese sailor Bartholomew Dias was attacked for taking water without permission.
Availability of water and good grazing determined their movements. The movements were also influenced by seasonal change. E.g some groups close to the coast utilized the pasture at the Cape in Spring when the country further north was dry.
The environment also had a major impact on the social organization in that when the grazing area became too small for the group, separation became inevitable and a new tribal group emerged.
Their hunting and gathering activities were recorded by Vasco Da Gama. He recorded that they ate sea-wolves, whales, seals, gazelles and roots of plants and honey and that they kept dogs, “which barked like those found in Portugal.”
From the environment the Khoikhoi were also able to take care of their clothing and shelter needs. They used the skins of animals as cloaks against the Winter cold and their simple shelters were often woven of grass and were light enough to be carried on the back when the people moved/changed camp.
The Khoikhoi later interacted with Bantu groups. B. e EBden, says that, the interaction between the Khoisan and northern settlers the Bantu were amicable to an extent that some elements/features of Bantu groups were fundamentally altered. He says that marriages between the royal houses of Khoikhoi and tribes like the Xhosa were common- place. [Mandela, MP Tony Yengeni and the chief of the AmaRarebe tribe, Phathekile Holomisa have Khoikhoi blood – but they do not want to admit it.]
They traded with Bantu and acquired copper and iron which they fashioned into tools, weapons and ornaments.
They acquired dagga from modern day Mozambique and they also cultivated it themselves.
By 1600 most of the Khoikhoi numbering about 50000 lived along the southwest coast of the Cape.

DUTCH SETTLEMENT AT THE CAPE
European settlement in South Africa began in 1652 though attempts to colonise the area had begun in 1620 when an English Captain of the English East India Company claimed the Cape area for King James 1 of England. James did not accept the offer.
The first settlement was established by Jan van Riebeeck at the Cape. [an employee of the Dutch East India Company (VOC)]
The settlement was to serve as a revictualing/ refreshment station for European sailors.
-settlers were expected to produce fresh vegetables and wheat
-breed cattle and sheep for fresh meat.
-establish friendly relations with the Khoikhoi for the barter of sheep and cattle.
-build a fort to house the garrison and cat as a hospital for sick sailors.
-set up navigation marks for ships.
At this stage the company did not have any intentions of creating a new colony in South Africa, because earlier expeditions had proven that there were no rich mineral deposits in the vicinity of the Cape.
However, with time a large European community came into existence.
L. Thompson attributes the development of the community to two key factors.
-the Company would save money if some company workers became independent farmers selling their farm produce to the Company.
-the area was mosquito and tsetse-fly free.
-the Khoisan were too weak to resist the Dutch.
The first 9 workers were freed to become farmers in 1657. These independent farmers were known as the free burghers and were mainly of Dutch and German origin.
In 1688 150 French Huguenots who were escaping religious persecution in France were allowed to settle at the Cape.
So within 36 years there was a big community.
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND THE Indigenous GROUPS AT THE CAPE( Loss of Khoisan Sovereignty)
In summary terms the establishment of the Dutch Settlement at the Cape was a curse to the indigenous people especially the San and Khokhoi.
The Dutch-Khoisan interaction was chiefly characterized by wealth transfer from the Khoisan to the Dutch. This was done in three phases.
Khoikhoi-Dutch/ European Interaction
(a)The first phase of interaction was characterized by “cordial” relations.
The period was dominated by barter trade between the two groups.
However, it should be pointed out that though the relations were friendly, this was the beginning of exploitation of the indigenous groups by the whites in South Africa.
The Dutch brought alcohol, tobacco, beads and some metal goods for which they got sheep and cattle from the Khoikhoi, through a system of barter trade.
The exchange rate was unfair in that the whites were bringing luxury items while the khoikhoi were bringing their most important means of production; cattle and sheep.
The unfairness in the transactions is clearly brought out by L. Thompson when he says that, misunderstandings were a common occurrence during the barter trade that some of them resulted in bloodshed.
All having been said and done it is abundantly clear that the Boer farmers that emerged in South Africa acquired their cattle and sheep from the Khoikhoi.
(b) After 1652 there was a drastic change to the relationship as a result of the establishment of a permanent European settlement. The settlement automatically curtailed Khoisan freedom of movement in the area. This heightened Khoisan resentment of the entrenchment of a white community in their area.
This was followed by a war from 1659-60.
Inorder to prevent further skirmishes Riebeeck created a boundary between the Boer settlement and Khoisan chiefdoms in the Cape area by planting a hedge of bitter almonds.
The Khoi were to keep outside the hedge and the Europeans inside.
This was the first phase of land alienation. The Khoikhoi lost some of their best pasturelands.
By 1662, company farms had been established at Rondenbosch, Wynberg and along the Liesbeck Valley.
Besides loss of land, the coastal Khokhoi lost the trade opportunities with passing sailors.
By 1677, the Saldanha Bay had been established as a European fishing base, thus denying the Khoisan access to their traditional fishing grounds.
(c) The Final Phase of the Demise of Khoisan Chiefdoms.
The phase of interaction which caused the demise of the majority of Khoisan polities started in 1679.
The demise was a result of three main factors; (a) Population Growth and Land Shortage: By the time that Simon van der Stel arrived at the Cape as a new Commander, most of the burghers were land hungry because human and livestock population had increased. [Dutch believed in large families and early marriages] (b) The company’s change of policy towards colonization. Van der Stel’s main task was to encourage or promote the immigration and settlement of whites at the Cape and to turn the station into a colony. (c) Natural calamities: outbreak of smallpox and leprosy.
The population growth meant that, the colony had to expand beyond Riebeek’s hedge.
Van der Stel wasted no time in expanding the settlement. He gave Boer families farms as large as they thought they could cultivate.
In 1688 French Huguenots arrived and they were given large farms as well. As more Huguenots arrived the settlement spread further north and east deep into Khoisan territory, as far as Waveren along the Berg Valley by 1699.
An increase in the number of livestock farmers at the Cape saw a majority of them trekking in search of fresh grazing. L. Thompson says a frontier Boer society which regarded it its right to take the Khoi grazing land emerged. This society saw the Khoisan as a nuisance and a source of cheap labour.
The understaffed Company which was far placed from the interior failed to contain/ control the Boer expansion.
As a result during the first three quarters of the 18th Century the nomadic Boer stock farmers, who had become law unto themselves, spread out from the Cape to the interior, occupying land wherever there was water and good pasture.
By barter and pilfer the Boers obtained Khoi sheep and cattle.

Natural Calamities
Khoi clan life which had started to break up as a result of Boer activities was dealt a blow in 1713 when smallpox swept through the Cape killing about a quarter of the Khoi population in a period of about six weeks.
The disease was carried inland by the fleeing Khoikhoi and it decimated the interior Khoisan population.
The Khoikhoi never recovered from the effects of this epidemic. To exacerbate the situation there was another outbreak of smallpox in 1755 which was immediately followed by an outbreak of leprosy before another outbreak of smallpox in 1767. This was a terrible 12 year period for the Khoisan]
The Khoi population in South Africa was drastically reduced.
The survivors of these natural catastrophes who remained at the Cape became apprenticed [to be enslaved] to the Dutch but others withdrew North. By being apprenticed it meant that Khoi labour was engaged in the production of goods / wealth that did not benefit them directly.
As the trekboers extended their territory inland, the Khoikhoi lost their land and cattle, their chiefdoms collapsed and most of them accepted life as farmhands. However, as from 1761 some Khoikhoi groups crossed the Orange River and settled in Namibia.Some joined the Griqua communities and others were assimilated into Xhosa culture.
Boer expansion was halted at the Great Fish River, when they met the vanguard group of Bantu migration in 1776.
By 1778 the Khoikhoi had ceased to exist as a separate ethnic entity.

THE SAN
From the onset of Boer settlement at the Cape the San fought hard to protect their hunting grounds and traditional way of living.
Major San attacks on outlying Boer farms occurred in 1715, 1739, 1747 and 1750.
However, counter-Boer raids were quite destructive of San property and life.
The San were hunted like wild animals and indiscriminately shot. Men were killed while women and children were enslaved. Thus their social and economic security was destroyed through a deliberate elimination of the male element from them.
In 1774 one trekboer commando killed about 500 San.
From 1792 the government offered a reward of £3 for any San captured and one attack in the Swellendam area killed over 300 San.
These attacks appear to have continued into the early 19th century.
The few San who refused to change their way of life retreated to the desert wastes in the Kalahari [Namibia and Botswana].
The San were dehumanized, lost their land and left with no place to call home in their traditional homeland as a result of trekboer expansion.

THE BANTU MIGRATIONS
The term Bantu refers to different ethnic groups which speak similar languages with a common root ‘NTU’ which means a person and are found in Africa South of a line running from the Bight of Biafra to the Indian Ocean near the Kenya-Somali border and all the way down to South Africa. GROUP | AREA OF ORIGIN | PERSON SINGULAR | PLURAL FOR PERSON | The Kongo | Atlantic Ocean | Muntu | Bantu | The Swahili | Indian Ocean | Mtu | Watu | The Duala | Cameroon | Moto | Bato | The Mongo | Equatorial Forests | Bonto | Banto | The Xhosa | Eastern Cape | Umntu | Abantu | The Shona | Zimbabwe | Munhu | Vanhu | The Ndebele | Western Zimbabwe | Umntu | Abantu | | | | |

Dr Wilhelm Bleek in 1862 [A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages] postulated that the many languages spoken across central, southern, eastern and parts of western Africa must be part of a single language group, because they shared so many characteristics.
The general thesis still stands today though there have been many modifications to the details of the thesis since 1862.
Pre-Expansion Demography of Sub-Saharan Africa
Before the Bantu expansion, Africa south of the Equator was populated by the Neo-lithic [new-stone age] hunting and foraging people. Some of them were ancestral to the modern Central African forest peoples – so-called pygmies who now speak Bantu languages.
Southern Africa was populated by Proto-Khoisan speaking people –whose descendants now occupy the arid regions around the Kalahari desert.
In Eastern Africa were the Hadza and Sandawe-speaking populations with a greater concentration around the modern Tanzania area. Their languages are said to have been distantly related to Khoikhoi and San languages.
According to Felix Chami, The Bantu are thought to have displaced the Khoisan speaking foragers who were yet to adopt iron technology, pottery making and agriculture.
Theories of Bantu Migration
There are two basic theories that explain the migration of the Bantu. The first one was advanced by Joseph Greenberg in 1963. He analysed and compared several hundred African languages including non-bantu languages and concluded that proto-Bantu, the hypothetical ancestor of bantu languages had strong affinities [close /strong similarities] with a group of languages spoken in South-Eastern Nigeria. He then proposed that Bantu languages had spread east and south from there, to secondary centres of further dispersion over hundreds of years.
Malcolm Guthrie was quick to challenge Joseph Greenberg’s ideas and provided another theory.
He focused more exclusively on the relationship between Bantu languages. He analysed different Bantu languages and found that the most stereotypical of them [that bore the expected qualities of] were those spoken in Zambia and southern DRC. He then concluded that the Bantu speakers had spread in all directions from the Zambia-DRC area.
Guthrie further postulated that they spread at almost the same pace in all directions.
However subsequent research and study of Bantu languages especially loanwords for adaptations in agriculture and animal husbandry on the wider Niger-Congo language family rendered this thesis untenable.
In the 1990s Jan Vansina proposed a modification of Greenberg’s ideas in which dispersions from secondary centres resembled Guthrie’s central node idea, but from a number of regional centres rather than just one creating linguistic clusters.

BANTU EXPANSION.
It is unclear when exactly the spread of Bantu speakers began from their core area. So periodisation of the movements is murky. However, current scholarly understanding of the migration is a synthesis of Joseph Greenberg and Malcolm Guthrie’s theories.
This now places the proto-Bantu homeland near the southwestern modern boundary of Nigeria and Cameroon or the Benue Cross rivers area and regards the Bantu languages as a branch of the Niger-Congo language family.
The first of these movements or the first expansion called North Bantu by J.C. Vansina was a slow movement eastwards and southwards from the original homeland to the rainforest area and areas west of the Great Lakes Region.
[Draw Map showing North Bantu, Proto-West Bantu and Proto-East Bantu.]
In the North Bantu area, Proto-Bantu spawned [gave birth to] a number of new languages as new dialects emerged. Two major dialects among these were the cradle for later further large scale expansion called Proto-West Bantu and Proto-East Bantu.
WEST-BANTU EXPANSION
Proto-West Bantu was first spoken in Northern Congo and Eastern Gabon, while Proto-East Bantu developed just west of what is now Uganda.
The West Bantu expansion began as the North Bantu or first expansion was coming to an end. They followed major rivers and moved southwards and arrived at the southwestern border of the rainforest as early as 900BC. Here they lived and farmed in the Savannah grasslands.
From here the expansion continued further south to northern Angola where they met the dry woodland environment.
By about 500BC it is believed that some pioneering groups had emerged into the savannahs in modern day DRC, Angola and Zambia. The eastern expansion of the West Bantu was halted when they met the East Bantu, East of the Kasai River so they continued southwards to the drier woodland areas.
Though they were still speaking the same language new dialects were emerging.
By about 200 BC the vanguard W. Bantu speakers had spread as far as Northern Namibia. Movement further south became slower because of the desert conditions. In this area they met and interacted with the Khoikhoi. Some Bantu groups e.g the Bergdama were absorbed by the Khoikhoi and abandoned their language.
Others in Southern Angola added pastoralism to agriculture, while still others in Namibia called Herero preserved their language but adopted most of the KhoiKhoi way of life.
Vansina says that the Bantu dominated the local groups through rapid population increase. He argues that their settled way of life allowed for a faster increase of population than the nomadic life of the original groups in the new area.
EAST BANTU
They moved south from the Proto-East Bantu area into what is now Eastern and south eastern DRC and Zambia. From this area they moved into southeastern and eastern Africa proper.
Vansina says that these first movements occurred before the East Bantu speakers had acquired any knowledge of metallurgy [scientific study of obtaining and using metals.]
In eastern Africa’s Great lakes region the Bantu learned how to farm grain crops and adopted cattle or animal husbandary from inhabitants of the area. [Nilotes according to J.D Omer-Cooper].
A mastery of metallurgy around 800BC enabled them to impose their languages on others.
Up to about the first century AD there does not seem to have been any movement of the Bantu from the Great Lakes region.
However by about 250AD-300AD, iron-smelting technology and new style of ceramics had reached southern Mozambique and Northern Natal where herding and grain farming were also introduced. The technology might have been brought to the area by pioneering groups of the East Bantu.
On another note , linguistic evidence has proven that, the East Bantu were not the first Bantu speakers into some of the areas in southern Africa. So there must have been some earlier minor Bantu migrations into parts of eastern and southern Africa. These were the central Bantu who must have been a fusion between the East and West Bantu.
J.D. Omer-Cooper believes that the Central Bantu were involved in a West-East movement from the Shaba area of DRC and that they were part of the Luba-Lunda peoples. They included the Yao, Makua, Chewa and the Maravi (Malawi). In the 17th Century the Bisa, Bemba and Lozi and founders of the Lunda kingdom of Kazembe also moved into Zambia from the Shaba area.
However, the East Bantu appear to be the group that spread furthest southward covering parts of Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
By the time that the Great Zimbabwe empire collapsed between the 14th and 15th century, Bantu people had completed their colonization of Southern Africa, except for the western and northern areas of the Cape.

MFECANE
Summary of Factors Leading to Mfecane
-Rapid population growth.
-Limited population movement
-Introduction of corn and dependence on corn.
-Drought and famine.
-Competition for available resources.
-European slave trade in the region.
Groups Associated with Mfecane: a) Tshaka and the Zulu b) The Mfecane Aftermath;
i) Mzilikazi and the Ndebele ii) Moshoeshoe and the Sotho iii) Zwangendaba and the Ngoni iv) Soshangane and Gaza v ) Sebetwane and The Kololo
Meaning of Mfecane
The concept “Mfecane” was coined by E. Walker in 1928.
The meaning of Mfecane was elaborated or standardized by J.D. Omer-Cooper in 1966.
He defined it as the “wars and disturbances which accompanied the rise of the Zulu’.

J. Cobbing, [1988] says that this term which means ‘the crushing’ has no root in any African language in South Africa.
His student, J.E Richner [2005] argues that the origin of the term is unclear and that the concept is a myth which should not be accorded legitimacy as a historical concept.
Omer-Cooper, who has agreed to modify his ideas with regards to Tshaka’s involvement in the creation of the Mfecane, [in the light of new research] maintains that, there was a ‘mfecane’ and that it was about positive, African initiated, state-building based on African institutions.
E.A. Eldredge [1992] describes it as a period of gross demographic upheaval and revolutionary social and political change which was marked by massive migrations, sporadic raids and battles and frequent periods of privation and famine for many people in the region.

Causes
There is no simple monocausal explanation for these disruptions because they resulted from a complex interaction between factors governed by the physical environment and local patterns of economic and political organization.

[a]Before J.D. Omer-Cooper’s work [1966], the dominant view was that these were ‘Zulu Wars’ or Tshaka’s wars - ie the Zulu-centric mfecane narrative postulated by G.M. Theal.
[b]J. Guy attributes it to competition for diminishing resources which was caused by the increase in human and livestock population in an area where there was limited room for expansion. [Drakensburg Mts, Europeans advancing from the South] In the early 19th Century the region experienced a disastrous famine the Madlatule famine. As a result of the famine into people regrouped villages so as to be able to defend their resources.
[c]Eldredge believes that over and above the environmental crises and competition for natural resources there was also competition for control of slave and ivory trade. In the process weaker groups were absorbed by stronger and wealthier societies which grew bigger and stronger. New strong leaders such as Dingiswayo [Mthethwa], Zwide [Ndwandwe], Tshaka [Zulu] and Moshoeshoe emerged.
[d]The introduction of corn especially maize and dependence on it also contributed to the environmental matrix as a cause of the Mfecane. Maize required extensive arable land yet the land was fast shrinking due to population growth and excessive erosion. It improved the diet hence promoted rapid population growth. Its vulnerability to drought conditions heightened competition for resources during the Madlatule famine.
[e]Eldredge also believes that the violence was prolonged by the activities of Europeans encroaching from both east and west. In the east she says, there were slave traders who found a new supply of ready victims in the area around Delagoa Bay and fostered continued violence to meet their demand for slaves. In the Cape, Boers and frontiers men supplied Griquas and Korana with guns and ammunition they needed to raid neighbouring Africans for cattle and slaves.
JULIAN COBBING’S ARGUMENT
Mfecane was an unquestioned fact/ reality of Southern Africa until the 1980s. In1988 Cobbing questioned its validity in his article, “The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolopo.” [JAH 29, 1988]
He rejected both the term and the narratives which defined it. In 2005 he was supported by J.E. Richner.
He challenged the longstanding orthodoxy that the destabilization in Nguniland was a result of the rise of Tshaka and Zulu.
He argues in his article that ‘Shaka the monster’ was a creation / invention of the Europeans so as to cover up their land occupation and labour/slave procurement activities which had a devastating impact on South Africa.
He also believes that the mfecane theory was established as part of an ‘alibi’ by early missinonaries like Moffat and Melvill, traders like Fynn and Farewell and colonial officers like Sommerset to obscure aspects of their activities and policies in relation to the early 19th Century African inhabitants of Southern Africa.
He believes that the theory was advanced by settler Historians (led by Theal, Cory, Walker and Ellenberger) eager to justify the “empty land thesis” in response to the 1913 Land Act. In this case Tshaka is blamed for the depopulation and devastation of vast territories.
Richner, a proponent of the anti-Mfecane paradigm, and strong supporter of Cobbing argues that the myth of Mfecane was perpertuated by the Apartheid regime because it justified the Bantustan policy as a project for the rehabilitation of the Native areas. {they had so gathered during the days of Tshaka}
Cobbing also argues that African societies did not generate the regional violence on their own.
He argues that Liberal Historians failed to mention the role played by the whites.
He says that the wars and migrations [not mfecane] were a result of, (i) An increasing demand for African slaves by European traders/ Portuguese at Delagoa Bay. Zwide is said to have mounted aggressive slave-raiding campaigns and his Southern raids caused conflicts with Dingiswayo of Mthethwa. Cobbing sees the rise of Tshaka as a defensive reaction against the slave-raiding activities of the Ndwandwe [Zwide] (ii) Eastern Cape colonists were enslaving the Xhosa and were arming and mounting Griqua and Korana raiders, who also traded Sotho-Tswana slaves with the Cape Colony.
Therefore, Cobbing’s thesis absolves the Zulu kingdom of formenting trouble in the area. He says that there is no hard evidence for Zulu ‘agency’ for many of the mfecane’s key events thus he rejects that Mfecane was an African initiated phenomenon.
A Critical Analysis of the Theory.
-His argument has appropriately refocused attention on the more fundamental causes of conflict in this period and the role of slaving in the conflicts. Eldredge says that he is right in saying that Griqua and Korana allies of the white frontier farmers were themselves conducting an illicit slave trade and identify them not Zulu or Nguni as the main sources of violence in the region throughout the 1820s-1830s.
-Cobbing’s radical and provocative critique of the Mfecane has stimulated a host of graduate studies on the concept and prompted a number of scholars to review their work.
- However, Eldredge and Hamilton argue that he distorted chronology and misused evidence.
-His periodisation of events is imprecise.
-Eldredge believes that extensive slave trade at Delagoa Bay only began after the regional conflicts (mfecane) broke out in 1817. So, Cobbing is wrong in saying that the slave trade initiated the violence.
-She believes that he is also wrong in saying that missionaries were engaged in systematic slave raiding and slave trading on the north-eastern Cape frontier.
Hamilton says he failed to fully grasp the complexity of the concept, by concentrating on the myth-making process.
She argues that by arguing that the Europeans invented the myth of the Mfecane and its component elements, Cobbing assumes that the production of History in the 19th Century was carried out by whites only independent of the historical consciousness of the Africans with whom they were in daily contact. Thus she totally rejects his anti-Afrocentricism, with regards to origins of the Mfecane. She argues that Africans were capable of producing history without the aid of whites and Mfecane is one such piece of history. [Africans should not be denied their history by attempts from Cobbing to drag the white factor into the Mfecane debate.]
Cobbing’s assumption that Shaka ‘as a tyrannical despot’ was a creation of Port Natal traders misses the point that, the productions of Shaka took place in the African setting and these productions or images of Tshaka shifted as from the 1820s in response to specific developments and the informants’ relationships with Tshaka. {African voices were part of the process] Thus he fails to take cognizance of regional developments ad local particularities.

SIGNIFICANCE OF MFECANE
Colonial historians portrayed the Mfecane as a period of widespread warfare, plundering, destruction, forced migration and socio-economic disruptions in general.
However, J.D. Omer-Cooper has proven that it was a period of immense /significant socio-economic and political change in the Southern African region. (a) J.D. Omer-Cooper says, until very recently African societies were thought of as static and stagnant, changing slowly as a result of outside influences. In the light of this view Africans were seen as passive people incapable of making any positive contribution to the pattern of the future. It was thus believed that socio-economic development in Africa was a result of European enterprise acting on passive material.
The causes and consequences of the Mfecane reflect the superficiality of this view because the Mfecane was essentially a process of social, political and military change internal to African society. It is for this reason that C. Hamilton rejects J. Cobbing’s attempt to jettison the ‘Afrocentric macro-myth of the mfecane’ as an explanation for the depopulation of the interior.
(b) It has left a profound imprint on the demographic pattern of Southern and Central Africa and parts of Eastern Africa as far as Tanzania. It is to a large extent responsible for the general distribution of the African population in the region. Some areas became densely populated.
(c) New identities emerged as people of diverse ethnic origin were united and their descendants have maintained these identities and are mainly found in the area where their kingdom was established. [e.g some people are proud to be called Zulu/ Ndebele/ Shangani]
(d) Two modern African states are products of the Mfecane. Lesotho - out of the Sotho of Moshoeshoe and Swaziland out of Sobhuza’s Ngwane.
(e) It was a period which witnessed major African innovations and acts of heroism.
-Tshaka’s military genius and innovations.
- Great kingdoms and leaders emerged and played a major role in the period of the Scramble for Southern Africa and conquest. They signed agreements/ concessions and made decisions that affected the future of the areas where they settled. They also played a major role in early resistance to the establishment of colonial rule e.g; Ndebele in Anglo-Ndebele War 1893 and Umvukela/ Chimurenga 1, 1896.
- Ndebele activities forced Khama and Lewanika to seek British protection. - Ngoni are associated with Maji-Maji rising in Tanzania.
- According to J. McCracken, in Malawi British rule only came to be fully established after the defeat of the Ngoni. In 1896 Gomani, chief of Maseko Ngoni was attacked for disrupting labour recruitment in his area
- Eastern Zambia was only occupied after the defeat of the Ngoni.
- In Zimbabwe, Matabeleland was only occupied after the defeat of the Ndebele.
(f) It opened up some areas for European settlement [ought to guard against colonialist propaganda] Cloete moved a motion urging the government to establish a colony in Natal and described the area as “depopulated by massacre for .200 miles---- or occupied if at all by a few miserable wretches”.
(g) In the colonial period the traditions of the Mfecane played an important part in influencing African attitudes towards resistance to white rule.
(h) In the post-colonial era, political parties in the region are formed along these ethnic lines/ identities.
(i) It helped in cultural fusion/ change, languages [Kololo and Lozi] helped in the spread of art and agricultural knowledge e.g Ngoni spread maize.

RELATIONS BETWEEN WHITE HUNTERS AND AFRICANS IN ZIMBABWE 1850-1890.
The issue of the exploitation and oppression of blacks by whites in Africa is not only a phenomenon of the colonial period. It can be traced back to the time of early contact between whites and blacks in pre-colonial Africa.
In central and western Zimbabwe the second half of the 19th century can be termed the era of the hunter because there was a high influx of hunters into the country who from the 1850s came in search of ivory and other animal products which were in demand in Europe, America and Asia.
Their hunting activities required a lot of cheap labour hence many African men were engaged as aides or labourers.
The African labourers were commonly referred to as ‘boys’ and the hunters ‘master’ or ‘baas.’
The boys performed many tasks including;
-Keeping the hunters out of trouble that would endanger their lives or property.
-Selecting better sleeping sites for them
-Tracking the animal spoor
-Carrying the hunters’ baggage and looking after livestock [cattle and horses]
-Driving wagons
-They cut and carried the elephant tasks and prepared meals.
In short they looked after the welfare of their masters.
However their working conditions were by and large deplorable.
The wages were very low and depended much on the baas’ generosity. E.g
In 1870, Thomas Leask gave each of his servants six pounce of beads and four yards of blue calico for their six months service. He forcefully persuaded them to take the items for they were dissatisfied. He recorded in his diary, “--- they affirmed that I was eating them.” [To be eaten is to be fleeced]
In 1893, Vavaseur sacked two of his boys for demanding their wages. [In a letter to Colenbrander 6 May 1893 he says; “They wanted to talk about their pay. I spoke English to them, but I guess they understood it. ---they kept quiet. --- eventually I sacked two of them and the third went with them. --- the rest were sulky but work better now.]
In 1875 Stoffel Schinderhutte shot and killed his servant who had demanded his wages.
In general the wages were miserly and were only paid after a very long period of service. In the majority of cases wages were not negotiated and all protests no matter what form they took were suppressed.
Besides the low wages the workers were also exposed to horrible working conditions. W. Finaughty, one of the hunters described the working conditions as follows; “At times they were exposed to drenching rain without anything to keep them warm and dry. With the wood too wet to burn they had nothing to scare away the lions with and would always stay under constant fear that a lion or some other animal might grab them for its meal.”
He even confirms that many servants died in this way. Leask also confirms this in one of his diary entries, “After crossing the Umfuli [MUPFURE RIVER] we had very heavy rains with thunder. It poured down during the night and I could hardly sleep for thinking of the poor sick natives who were lying on the ground with only a few bushes for shelter.”
In addition to this there was general abuse of the boys, which included sjamboking /whipping, swearing etc. e.g when Hartley’s wagons struggled to cross the Sebakwe it is reported by Wallis that, “There was whipping, sjamboking, laboring with trees, abusing of Kafirs, swearing, shouting----. However we all got across.”
Boys were treated as inferior beings e.g the death of a ‘boy’ was a non-event and bodies of those accidentally killed could either be left in the bush or hurriedly buried and the business of the day continued as though nothing had happened. E.g when one of Selous’s boys named Mendose was accidentally shot and killed, G. Millais says, “Selous simply asked whether the other boys wished to bury or leave the body for the hyenas to eat.” It was only after the other boys indicated that they wanted to bury his remains that the body was interred in a large deep hole on the side of an ant-hill.” However the death of a white hunter was treated with great respect. E.g when Firmin was was killed by a charging elephant one of the wagons was cleared and the body carried and buried with one of the party leading the funeral service “---- over his lonely grave.” For the whole day no-one went to hunt.
At one time in the Mupfure river area in 1878, Selous who was chasing an elephant, heard from another direction an elephant trumpeting terrifically and he says in his diary, “--- and I thought to myself that one of the Kaffirs was being chased pretty smartly, however, I did not like to leave the elephant I was near.” He only went back to investigate what had happened after killing the elephant that he was chasing.
There was no compensation for those killed, injured / maimed on duty. There is no evidence that the relatives were informed about the misfortunes.
At times the hunters ignored the guides’ instructions with the full knowledge that this would result in severe punishment (which included death) for the guides. This is quite clear that some hunters did not care much about the lives of their guides/ boys. [Writing in his diary on 22 July 1886,] Thomas Leask said, “As some Kaffirs which were sent out this morning brought us some reports of having seen fresh spoor in three different directions we intent to go out tomorrow, search the country thoroughly --- I am afraid Inyoka won’t be able to stop us proceeding. ----still it is probable that Inyoka was told to stop us here.”

Barter Trade with Africans.
Further exploitation of the Africans by the white hunters occurred as the two groups engaged in barter trade, which was very important to the hunters. The hunters engaged in it in order to replenish their food supplies or to replace their animals especially cattle killed by lions or to get good food for their horses. They also engaged in it in order to get cheap ivory which was in the hands of the Africans.
Africans brought their local produce, whilst the whites brought a host of foreign merchandise or goods that the Africans desired e.g rugs, cloth and beads.
D. Carnegie, says goods brought in one ox-wagon could enable exchange with 1500 people. This is clear testimony that the exchange rate was unfair.
Carnegie admits that, the value of calicoes (cloth) sold to Africans for, grain, oxen, goats, ivory, sheep, and gold dust etc, rarely cost more than 3 pence per yard at Manchester in Britain. He even says that, they could get from the natives sheep for a few beads, an ox for a strip of calico and an elephant tusk for a snuff box.
African Response to Exploitation and Oppression
The various methods that the boys used in response to the ill-treatment appear to have marked the genesis of outright African resistance to foreign exploitation and oppression in Zimbabwe.
When some of them were tired or home-sick they feigned illness. To stop some hunters from proceeding to areas they did not like some of the boys misled the hunters by projecting a negative picture of the areas. The opposite was true for the areas they wanted to get to.
At times they deliberately/ purposely lost the spoor if it best suited them.
They also resorted to dodging or desertion to avoid too much exertion.
They could at times carry out acts of sabotage if the hunters were cruel or had ill-treated them. They did this by leading the hunters into the tsetse-fly infested ares. In 1865 Jan Viljoen’s party lost about 40 oxen.
If they had been grossly ill-treated they could even kill the hunters. It is reported that Stoffel Schinderhutte just disappeared from camp one night only to be found dead the following morning outside the camp. A similar fate befell Lucas who also shot and killed his servant simply because he (the servant) had refused to bring him some water.
The villagers would at times repossess their trade goods after concluding the barter trade. Finaughty says that, Napier a hunter who was so fond of Kaffir beer lost all his trade goods in a Ndebele village in 1868. Finaughty’s servant lost his trade goods to chief Matibi and went back faster than he came.

PORTUGUESE PRESENCE IN EAST AFRICA: MOZAMBIQUE
Leonard Thompson describes Portuguese presence and activities in East Africa in the period prior to the Scramble for Africa as ‘creeping imperialism.’
A.F. Isaacman and B. Isaacman describe it as “theoretical control of a vast empire.”
P Harries, clearly expresses how tenuous the Portuguese control of the empire was by saying, “Well over three hundred years after the first Portuguese set foot on the shores of the Delagoa Bay [Maputo] the Lusitanian empire [which means Portuguese empire] retained only a fragile presence in the area.”
In 1843 the governor of Lorenco Marques [Maputo] wrote despondently that the outpost perched on the northern edge of the bay “lay at the mercy of blacks, who are acquainted with our weaknesses and have hemmed us within the confines of our fort.”
These assertions are true, because Portugal only established its full control of Mozambique in the late 19thcentury and early 20th century.
The first Portuguese to reach Mozambique was Vasco da Gama on his way to India in 1498.
By 1508 the Portuguese had gained partial control over the commerce of the Indian Ocean and by 1515 they had dislodged the Arabs/Swahili from the area.
Whilst they established their overseas capital at Goa in India, they built their fortresses and administrative centres in East Africa at Sofala [1501], Sena [1531] and Tete [1531] and at Quelimane [1544].
However their goals in East Africa were purely economic. They wanted to exploit the gold resources of the interior kingdoms and to open trade routes to the gold producing areas from the coastal areas.
Reduced flow of gold to Sofala, forced them to seek direct dealing with the Mwenemutapa kingdom.
Their first step was to religiously conquer the Mwenemutapa so so as to gain access to the gold mines. To achieve this goal they sent a missionary expedition to convert the Mwenemutapa, his family and court officials. However the plan failed when Father Goncalo da silveira and his converts were killed by the Mwenemutapa who believed that they were spies of the Portuguese.
The Portuguese used the murder of Silveira as a pretext for the invasion of the empire.
In 1569, 1000 Portuguese soldiers under Francisco Barreto were sent to the Mwenemutapa kingdom with orders to gain control of the gold mines, expel Muslim traders [thought to have influenced the Mwenemutapa to kill Silveira.] and secure safe access for Portuguese missionaries.
The expedition was a dismal failure because the soldiers succumbed to malaria and other debilitating tropical diseases and stiff African resistance. They were therefore unable to exert control over the Shona.
Another expedition sent in 1574 suffered a similar fate. [Vasco Fernandes Homem].
Thus by the late 16th century and early 17th century the official Portuguese presence in the interior was limited to small trading stations along the Zambezi.
However during the reign of Mavura [1628] [used Portuguese to gain power by ousting Kapararidze in 1628.] and his successors the Portuguese gained increasing influence in Mwenemutapa empire and the price of their alliance with the Portuguese was a drastic reduction in the size of their territory and in the number of their followers because the Portuguese became intimately involved in civil wars that led to the demise of the kingdom by the end of the 17th century. NB. The soldiers were not official Portuguese soldiers but rather armies provided by settlers [prazeros].
In the 1690s the Changamire [Dombo] [ROZVI] conquered most of the northern part of Shona country ousting the Portuguese from the entire area of the goldfields and they never returned in strength.
Though there are claims that Mozambique was being ruled by Portuguese at Goa up to 1752, the said Portuguese administration was ineffective.
The ineffectiveness was caused by a number of factors. * Mozambique was a low priority area in Portugal’s overseas territories. * Portugal lacked an efficient administrative system capable of instituting, transmitting and enforcing government proclamations throughout the Zambezi area. Its officials were incompetent and were people deemed unworthy of more important posts in India, Brazil and Angola. * The officials were corrupt, and used their offices for private profit rather than to promote the interests of the Portuguese government. * There were a relatively small number of officials and settlers. By 1600 there were about 200 settlers but by 1700 they were less than 50. [Thompson] Most of them were [dubious characters] absconded soldiers and sailors, prostitutes, a few orphan girls and monks. * The army was an ineffective fighting force because it was too small, inadequately trained, always lacked supplies and was plagued by poor organization. [The army rarely exceeded 200 men between the 17th Century and 18th Century] * The mortality rate among the Portuguese was too high.
So their control was theoretical.
The Prazo System
A.F. Isaacman and B. Isaacman, say throughout the 17th and 18th century the prazo system ‘theoretically represented Portugal’s principal colonial presence in the Zambezi valley.”
It came into existence in the 16th century.
After 1629 the Portuguese government tried to regularize it to promote Portuguese settlement. It was only in 1667 that relevant laws to regularize it were introduced.
Under the system land was given to Portuguse settlers by the authorities for a period of three generations.
The prazeros [land-owners] were to spread Portuguese culture, control people and the land in their areas.
Estates [prazos] were also to be allotted to Portuguese orphan girls and inherited in the female line. The heiresses were obliged to marry men from Portugal.
Unfortunately the system failed again to protect Portuguese interests.
In 1677 an expedition of settlers was actually dispatched from Portugal but little is known of its fate, except that it had no significant results. [Thompson]
Weaknesses of the System in Representing Portuguese Interests
-the prazeros became too wealthy and too powerful that the Portuguese government failed to control them. So prazos were ‘states within states.’
-Prazeros had their own private armies and always ignored decrees from Portugal [ So they were generally independent of the Portuguese crown.
-Successive generations of prazeros married non-Portugese [Africans and Indians] and most Portuguese elements were assimilated into the African culture. They spoke African languages, were illiterate, practiced polygamy, believed in witchcraft and performed functions of African chiefs. [Thompson]
-By the mid-18th Century most of the prominent prazeros had undergone a profound change in their racial and cultural identity and were no longer willing to act as Portuguese imperial agents and were opposed to Lisbon’s attempts to infringe upon their autonomy.
-The prazeros withheld soldiers, services and taxes, but some of them were too weak to control Africans who always refused to pay taxes [Tonga, Chewa, Tawara, Sena and Manganja polities] [So where they were strong they refused to cooperate with Lisbon, whilst where they were weak they failed to enforce Portuguese laws]
By the 19th Century [1800+] there was a hostile relationship between Lisbon and the Afro- Portuguese people.
The beginning of the 19th century witnessed a further weakening of the Portuguese influence in East Africa.
-From the 1820s-1830s a number of chiefdoms attacked the prazeros and dislodged a number of them from the prazos.
-Gaza Nguni attacks which began in 1832 and lasted for more than 20 years almost brought the prazo system to an end. By 1840 the Ngoni had occupied 28 of the 46 prazos still in existence and incorporated them in the Gaza kingdom. [So the system was at the verge of collapse]
As the prazo system declined many other African chiefdoms regained their territories.
-By 1836 most Portuguese had retreated from the inland centres and the Portuguese administrative network was reduced to the towns of Tete and Sena and the port of Quelimane where there were incompetent and corrupt officials.
In the years immediately after the Gaza civil war of 1858-1862, Lourenco Marques [Maputo] fell under an expansionist Swazi kingdom. To the south of Delagoa Bay, the Maputo and Tembe chiefdoms were under the sway of their powerful Zulu neighbour while to the north of the Limpopo the Gaza established an empire stretching to the Sabi and even Zambezi rivers.
Thus by the time of the Scramble for Africa, Portuguese control of Mozambique was theoretical.
R. Hallet says it was the Geographical Society of Lisbon which publicized Portugal’s historical work in Central Africa and “did far more --- than legislation and speeches to dramatize the Portuguese presence in Africa and helped restore natural pride in the traditional abilities of Portuguese explorers.”

NINETEENTH CENTURY INTRUDERS IN ZAMBIA

QUESTION
*Discuss the impact of nineteenth century invasions on Zambian communities.
*Is it true that socio-economic and political change was inevitable? Introduction
Before the nineteenth century Zambia had very few contacts with Europeans and none directly with Arabs and the world of Islam. [A. Roberts, “The Nineteenth Century in Zambia”, in T.O. Ranger, (ed) Aspects of Central African History, Oxford, Henemann Educational Books, 1968, p. 71)
In the 19th Century this pattern changed. Intruders came from the North and South.
Northen intruders: Arabs, Swahili, and Nyamwezi or Yeke.
Southern intruders: Kololo, Ngoni and Europeans.
The groups introduced major economic and political changes.
NB. The three major Zambian political entities were the Bemba, Lunda, and Lozi kingdoms.
Other groups: Ila and Tonga (South of Zambia); Chewa and Nsenga (East); Bisa, Ushi, Tabwa (North-east Zambia), Lala and Lamba (Central); Kaonde, S. Lunda and Luvale (North-west)

Early Contacts with the Portuguese
- The Portuguese were the first Europeans to show an interest in Zambia.
- They were mostly searching for gold and silver but towards the end of the 18th Century they wanted to link the west coast (Angola) to the east coast (Mozambique).
- In 1798 they [were spurred by the British occupation of the Cape in 1795] sent an expedition to open up trade with Kazembe so as to tap his trade route westward to Mwata Yamvo and Angola.
- The expedition failed to achieve its goals of the Kazembe's resistance and the death of the Portuguese expedition leader de Lacerda.
- In 1827 the Portuguese failed again to establish a colony on the route to Kazembe.
- In 1831 they tried again to Angola with Mozambique but failed due to Kazembe's hostility and the appalling hardships they suffered on the journey. * Thus the Portuguese never had a major impact on the Zambian communities in the 19th Century. However most of the history of north-eastern Zambia is known throughthe Portuguese records especially the Journal of Antonio Gamitto.

Invasions From The South: Ngoni and Kololo
The Mfecane had a great impact on Zambia.
The Ngoni of Zwangendaba that had crossed the Zambezi in 1835 finally settled at Ufipa (South of L. Tanganyika)
After the death of Zwangendaba in 1845 they dispersed in different directions and around 1870 Mpezeni and his Ngoni settled among the Chewa in Eastern Zambia.
They impacted heavily on the political and socio-economic organisation of the area.
The long established Mkanda Chiefdom of eastern Zambia was totally destroyed.
They raided the locals for cattle and captives to increase their armies. They disrupted the trade system of the area. Roberts says they had little use for trade and they put the captives to work rather than sell them to slave traders.
However they adopted the local language [Nyanja].

The Ndebele who established themselves at Bulawayo around 1840 raided across the Zambezi among the chiefless Tonga thus disrupting the latter's peace and tranquility.

The Kololo under Sebitwane overran the Lozi kingdom in 1840.
Unlike the Ngoni and Ndebele, the impact of the Kololo invasion/intrusion was not very destructive.
They impacted on the leadership style in a profound way. The Kololo king was the army captain and was freely accesssible to his fellow warriors unlike the Lozi kings that were hedged about by rituals and taboos and were kept secluded from the people. Men of the same age group [not just members of the royal family] with the king were made territorial governors.
The Kololo did not destroy the mounds and canals of the flood plain which continued to be cultivated by the Lozi.
The Kololo also imposed their language with amazing speed upon the various dialect-groups of Barotseland and this was an important unifying influence.
However, the Kololo were defeated by the Lozi under Sepopa in 1864. The Lozi killed as many Kololo men as they could and spared the women and children but many features of the former Lozi society had undergone major transformation by then.
Invasions from the North: Nyamwezi (Yeke), Arabs and Swahili.
Before the 19th Century there was very little contact between Zambian and Tanzanian communities.
However in the 19th C Zambian communities were drawn into the trading systems of the Nyamwezi [from Western Tanzania] and traders from Zanzibar.
The Nyamwezi or Yeke firmly established themselves in the area.
Msiri, a Nyamwezi caravan leader obtained guns from the Portuguese and built a formidable empire based on trade and raiding.
He cut into Kazembe's trade with Mwata Yamvo and even collected tribute from Kazembe's former subjects.
The Nyamwezi also traded with Bemba chiefs to whom they sold copper in exchange for ivory.
Arabs who seem to have first visited the Kazembe in the 1830s had by 1840 registered their presence in the area in big numbers.
This created some hostility between Arabs and Yeke.
However the Arabs and Swahili found local allies in the form of the Bemba. In the 1860s the Arabs got large quantities of ivory from the Bemba in exchange for cloth, beads and shells.
The Arabs established themselves among the Lungu in north-eastern Zambia and defeated many local chiefdoms, includung the Tabwa under Nsama.
The Arabs in the northern and eastern parts of Kazembe’s kingdom and the Yeke in the southern and western areas undermined the Kazembe’s authority and the Kazembe could no longer enforce his monopoly of ivory or dictate the terms of trade.
The impact of the Arab presence was economic as well as political.
In 1872 a Lunda prince overthrew the Kazembe with Arab assistance. This was a political revolution in that it was the first time that a Lunda prince had attained kingship for by law they were guarded at the capital and denied political office.
After this event Arab and Yeke interfered in political matters and aided many rival Lunda groups and princes to ascend to the throne.
The Kazembe kingdom which was once the chief power in north-eastern Zambia waned in authority. [So Arabs upset the balance of power in the area]
Some kingdoms such as the Bemba kingdom grew in strength.
The Bemba built their wealth and strength through allying with Arabs.
Through this alliance they gained guns from the Arabs and became effective partners in the business of hunting and collecting ivory and raiding other ethnic groups for slaves.
By the 1880s the Bemba had conquered much territory to the south and west of their kingdom.
As Kazembe power declined the Bemba power [the Chitimukulus] rose.

The Mambari and Chikunda: Traders from the East and West
These were African and Portuguese-coloured traders from Angola and Mozambique.
Their expeditions into Zambia were mainly in search of slaves and ivory.
After 1848, they pushed as far as Barotseland from Angola and exchanged guns and cloth for ivory and slaves. Thus they helped in introducing the slave trade in Barotseland.
In many parts of Zambia the slave-trade intensified as a result of their activities.
Until the end of the 19th Century, the lower Luangwa was a favourite hunting ground of slavers known as Chikundas.
Their activities were quite destructive.
Socio-Cultural Impact
In summary terms, Ngoni, Swahili, Arabs and Yeke intruders had an unsettling and destructive impact.
However they also left a major socio-cultural imprint.
New food crops were introduced- e.g cassava. The crop alleviated the food shortages normally experienced before the harvest among many Zambian communities. The crop was also adopted by some groups as their staple food.
It was the Yeke who brought cassava to the Bemba kingdom.
The Yeke also introduced sweet potatoes in north-eastern Zambia. Maize reached Zambia through contacts with Portuguese Africa. It was spread by the Ngoni who had adopted it in the 1830s from the Portuguese on the lower Zambezi.
New languages were introduced –e.g the Lozi adoption of Kololo.
Islam made a little impact on Zambia while Christianity spread after the arrival of white missionaries from the south.
There was a growth in the exchange of artistic and ceremonial practices [music, dance, architecture, etc]

Missionaries and Other Europeans from the South.
Members of the London Missionary Society were the first group to establish themselves in north and eastern Zambia in the 1880s.
Members of the Scottish mission who had begun work in Malawi in 1875 also established an out-station close to Bemba country in 1883.
They hoped to end the illegitimate slave trade in the area and spread missionary work.
But their resources were too limited to make any meaningful progress.
The people tired of harassment by slave raiders saw them as protectors and their stations as centres of refuge.
They were seen more as powerful white chiefs than men of the cloak [religion]. So their missionary work had very little impact.
In Barotseland the major missionary work was that of Coillard and Arnot.
Arnot who arrived in 1882 from the Cape encouraged Lewanika the Lozi king to ally with Khama than the Ndebele.
With the Scramble for Africa gaining in momentum and the Ndebele threat a reality, Lewanika chose to follow Khama’s example and form an alliance with the whites for his survival.
In 1890, following the advice of Coillard and Khama he signed the Lochner concession which gave the B.S.A.C mining rights throughout Barotseland. It also offered Lewanika protection and a £2000 salary per year. Another clause was a promise to develop trade and build schools and telegraphs in Barotseland.
In 1891 the British government recognised the Company’s protectorate over Barotseland. This was followed by a series of agreements being signed between the British and other European powers establishing the Boundaries of British territory north of the Zambezi.
By 1900 African resistance had been suppressed throughout Zambia.
Thus European arrival in Zambia from the South in the 19th century saw Zambia falling into the British sphere of influence as a colony of Britain.

[A summary of Andrew Roberts’s article: ‘The nineteenth century in Zambia,’ in T.O. Ranger, (ed) Aspects of Central African History, Oxford, Heinemann Educational Books, 1968.]