History of Zim
There is evidence of settlements in Zimbabwe dating from as long ago as the second century AD, but these early inhabitants were supplanted around the 5th century by the Mwenemutapa, or Zimbabweans, a Bantu-speaking people in south-eastern Africa. The newcomers may have been the Karanga who are believed to be the ancestors of the modern Shona. As with all the Bantu who migrated from central Africa to the south and to the east, the ancestors of the Mwenemutapa brought iron-smelting and agriculture with them to the region south of the Zambezi River. The region was dominated by the Swahili city-state of Sofala; Zimbabwe, however, was rich in gold. Archaeologists have more recently determined that the site was occupied as early as the 3rd century AD but that its ruins date from the 12th to the 15th century. Known as Great Zimbabwe ("zimbabwe" meaning "stone enclosure"), it was a fortification surrounded by huge, elliptical stone walls made without any mortar and was, during its heyday, the capital of a Shona trading empire that collapsed for reasons that remain unknown.
By about 1100, they had developed an important trade in gold and ivory with ports in present-day Mozambique. Because of the wealth of Zimbabwe and the importance of Sofala as a trading city, the Zimbabweans, from 1000 AD onwards, were exposed to Chinese, Persian, and Indian crafts and culture. The growing trade encouraged the Zimbabweans to centralize their government. Originally ruled by ruler-priests, the Mwenemutapa developed a military and economic kingship of astonishing power and efficiency.
By the 14th century, a large centralized state, later known as the Mwene Mutapa Empire, developed. In the 15th century, after a rapid territorial expansion, the empire divided, and a southern kingdom of Changamire was established.
By 1500, Great Zimbabwe dominated the Zambezi Valley both militarily and commercially (the Mwenemutapa empire); because of this, the new ideas about divine kingship spread throughout the valley and changed the social structures of most of the Bantu people living there. Great Zimbabwe was so far inland that it never felt the political or cultural effects of Islam during its existence. It is perhaps one of the few African urban cultures south of the Sahara to be a fully African civilization, built off of no cultural ideas imported from outside Africa. In the 16th century, the Portuguese sent missionaries to Mwene Mutapa, and by 1629, they had reduced the empire to a vassal state. Changamire conquered most of the Mutapa Empire at the end of the 17th century.
The mfecane (Zulu for "crushing"; period of warfare and forced migrations among the peoples of southern Africa) was initiated by the Zulu under their aggressive military leader, Shaka (1787-1828). In 1818, he embarked on a great expansion of his realm in what is now the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, and during the next ten years, his depredations evicted several other peoples from their lands, setting off large-scale migrations and ultimately resulting in the formation of several new kingdoms. The Basotho nation was thus created by King Moshoeshoe, who gathered his refugee followers in a defensible area of present-day Lesotho. The Ndebele marched north under Mzilikazi to carve out a kingdom on land previously occupied by the Shona in modern Zimbabwe. The Ngoni, led by Zwangendaba, also marched through the Shona country, where they destroyed Changamire in 1834 before they resumed their 20-year, 1600-km (1000 mi) trek into present-day Tanzania.
Ndebele power didn't last long, however. In southeastern Zimbabwe, in 1870, European explorers came upon an impressive ruined city, which they believed to be the biblical city of Ophir - the site of King Solomon's mines. The immediate result was a frantic and utterly unsuccessful search for gold deposits in the surrounding region. In 1890, the fortune-hunting Cecil Rhodes arrived at the head of a private army of settlers and commenced to conquer what he thought might be a rich, gold-producing region. By 1893, Rhodes' British South Africa Company controlled most of present-day Zambia and Zimbabwe. Two years later, the region was named Rhodesia. The area of present-day Zambia became Northern Rhodesia, and the area of present-day Zimbabwe, Southern Rhodesia. From 1896-1897, British forces crushed African rebellions, as new gold discoveries attracted more Europeans to the region.
Before World War I (1914-1918), the white settlers had begun to demand self-government. These demands were renewed after the war, and in 1923, the British proclaimed Southern Rhodesia a self-governing British colony.
From 1953 to 1963, Southern Rhodesia was a member of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, along with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (present-day Malawi). The 1962 election was boycotted by African nationalists, led notably by Joshua Nkomo, to protest voting restrictions, but their movements were banned by the white government. When the Federation was dissolved in 1963, white settlers pressed for independence, which the British government refused to grant without safeguards for ultimate African control. In 1964, Nyasaland became independent as Malawi, Northern Rhodesia as Zambia, and Southern Rhodesia changed its name to Rhodesia. Great Britain refused to grant independence to Rhodesia until it gave the African majority a great political voice. After two years of abortive negotiations with the British, the Rhodesian white government, led by Ian D. Smith, declared independence on November 11, 1965. Rhodesia was the first British colony to break away without consent since the United States did so nearly 200 years earlier. Economic sanctions were immediately imposed by the United Kingdom, and later, the United Nations used a total embargo on trade to pressure the white government to grant political rights to the country's indigenous people.
In 1970, Rhodesia declared itself a republic. It was never recognized by Britain, however or by any other nation, and negotiations with the British government continued. One settlement proposal, drawn up in November 1971, was abandoned the following May when a British commission found it "not acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole."
In the mid-1970s, the dissolution of Portugal's empire in Africa left Rhodesia in an increasingly isolated position. Pressured by South Africa to take a more conciliatory stance, Smith then initiated talks with black leaders. Joshua Nkomo and other nationalists were released from detention in 1974, but negotiations during the next two years brought no accord. Guerrilla activities intensified.
In late 1976, Nkomo, head of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), and Robert Mugabe, leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), formed the Patriotic Front (PF). Both leaders lived in exile at the time. In 1977 and 1978, the PF began a guerrilla campaign to overthrow the Smith regime. Foreseeing his defeat, Prime Minister Smith, in March 1978, signed an accord with three relatively moderate black leaders, headed by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, calling for universal suffrage and the establishment of black-majority rule, with safeguards for whites. In 1979 elections, Bishop Muzorewa's party won 51 of the 100 parliamentary seats; another 28 were reserved for whites. Muzorewa formed a coalition government with Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front and took office as prime minister of the new state of Zimbabwe Rhodesia (later shortened to Zimbabwe). However, Muzorewa failed to win popular support, because his government was widely perceived as a black front for continued white rule. Widespread fighting ensued before a cease-fire was arranged; a settlement was reached at a conference in London later in 1979, and Britain briefly resumed control of the country.
In 1980, free democratic elections were held. Mugabe became prime minister, his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) winning by a landslide victory. Independence for Zimbabwe came on April 17, 1980. The new government proclaimed the country the Republic of Zimbabwe. Prime Minister Mugabe consolidated his power; in 1982, he dismissed Nkomo from his government. Mugabe's party won a landslide victory in 1985, the first general election since independence. In late 1987, an amended constitution replaced the position of prime minister with that of executive president, which combines the posts of head of state and head of government.
After ZANU-PF and Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) merged under the name of ZANU-PF, Mugabe officially appointed Nkomo a vice president, in addition to Simon Muzenda, in 1990. In elections held that same year, Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party won decisively.
In 1992, after special constitutional provisions protecting white landowners expired, the Zimbabwean government passed an act to redistribute much of the white-owned government land to hundreds of thousands of black peasants. Although white farmers contested the act, in 1994, the High Court ruled that the redistribution and resettlement of property was constitutional. Later, the act came under severe criticism when a study revealed that almost all of the appropriated lands had not been redistributed but had been leased to government officials.
In April 1995, Zimbabwe held general elections in which Mugabe's ZANU-PF won 63 out of 65 available seats in the House of Assembly. The opposition won one more seat, however, in a special election held in November 1995, after the April voting results for the seat were cancelled due to evidence of voting fraud. Mugabe then won presidential elections in March 1996, but both opposition candidates, Bishop Muzorewa and Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, withdrew at the last minute, arguing that the election process was unfairly weighted in favour of the ruling party. Muzorewa and Sithole urged their supporters to boycott the election. As a result, the election had the lowest voter turnout since 1980, with only 31 percent of voters participating.
In 1997, Mugabe announced a new program of land redistribution. About 1500 white-owned commercial farms, comprising almost half of Zimbabwe's total commercial farmland, were designated to be nationalized without compensation in mid-1998 and divided among landless blacks or blacks with smaller farms. This plan was met with strong protests from white farmers.
