Zambia

History

• Pre-History

  That archaic humans were present in Zambia at least 200,000 years ago was shown by the discovery of the Broken Hill skull in Kabwe in 1921, this was the first human fossil ever discovered in Africa. Hence, Zambia is part of the cradle of the human race that stretches along the Great Rift Valley from Ethiopia to South Africa. Archaeological work has uncovered crude implements of stone from the Zambezi river valley dated 3 million years ago. Pigments used for self decoration and possibly rock painting have been found near Lusaka. The use of fire 60 000 years ago has been documented at Lalambo Falls. The earliest evidence of modern humans in Zambia dates back 25 000 years ago, with signs of greater sophistication tool making and of the burial of the dead; these earliest people were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Late Stone Age indications of cave dwelling and religious painting dated to some 15 000 years ago as well as the invention of the bow and arrow have also been unearthed.

  The earliest hunter gatherers, who seem to be of the same group as the modern bushman, were gradually displaced or absorbed by Iron Age Negroid populations between 300BCE and 400CE. Their settlements are found with increasing density throughout Zambia. These people brought with them metal working, slash and burn agriculture (which persists in parts of Zambia today) cultivating sorghum, beans bananas and yams, husbandry of cattle and goats, pottery and dwellings made from boards and plaster. Settlements were small (perhaps a dozen dwellings) and largely self-sufficient. From 350CE onwards there is evidence of copper mining and copper is used both for jewelry and as trade currency. By 800CE a great deal of diversity in material culture is evident and signs that competition for control of trade and mineral resources led to the emergence of small polities. It is perhaps at this time that the ancestors of the Tonga people settled in the area.

  The development of regional trade networks, the emergence of the Shona trading states to the south and higher population level stimulated the development of more complex and stratified societies at Ingombe Ilede in the Zambezi valley. In about 1300 CE a small trader state emerged there whose burial goods included gold beads from the south and glass beads imported from the Swahili Indian Ocean states as well as copper trading currency. Manufactures included cloth woven from cotton weaving, ivory carving and copper jewellery. 

  The Victoria Falls site has abundant Stone Age artefacts of Oldowan Industry. There is also evidence of the succeeding ones. Their artefacts laid down by the Zambezi River were found left high and dry by the cutting down of the river. These objects have been found up and downstream of the Victoria Falls. Other earliest forms of human life have been obtained at Kalambo Falls near Mbala in the Northern Province of Zambia. Kalambo Falls is just about the highest in the world. It has a continuous uninterrupted 221-metre drop, a marvel of Zambian tourism It would appear the fascination the waterfalls have on people today was the same or even greater for our ‘forefathers.’ At Kalambo Falls a number of undisturbed camping places of the terminal Archeulian have been excavated there. They date back to 60,000 years ago. The use of fire is evident by the archaeological dig find of charcoal logs on some of the ‘living’ floors.

• Iron Age 

  Around 3,000BC, late Stone-Age hunter-gatherer groups in Ethiopia, and elsewhere in north and west Africa, started to keep domestic animals, sow seeds, and harvest the produce: they became the world’s first farmers. By around 1,000BC these new pastoral practices had spread south into the equatorial forests of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, to around Lake Victoria, and into the northern area of the Great Rift Valley, in northern Tanzania. However, agriculture did not spread south into the rest of central/southern Africa immediately. Only when the technology, and the tools, of iron-working became known did the practices start their relentless expansion southwards.

  The spread of agriculture and Iron-Age culture seems to have been rapid. It was brought south by Africans who were taller and heavier than the existing small inhabitants. The ancestors of the San/Bushmen people, with their simple Stone-Age technology and hunter-gatherer existence, just could not compete with these Iron-Age farmers, who became the ancestors of virtually all the modern black Africans in southern Africa. This major migration occurred around the first few centuries AD, and since then the San/Bushmen of southern Africa have gradually been either assimilated into the migrant groups, or effectively pushed into the areas which could not be farmed. Thus the older Iron-Age cultures persisted in the forests of the north and east of Zambia – which were more difficult to cultivate – much longer than they survived in the south of the country.

  They first appear in the archaeological record approximately 2000 years ago. While there is a record of almost continual settlement in the Zambian marshlands, there is a patchy early Iron Age history across the river in Zimbabwe. The river itself must have been a formidable barrier to southern expansion of early Iron Age communities, the low carrying capacity of what is now northwestern Zimbabwe must also have been something of a deterrent. Among the more interesting Early Iron Age sites of southwestern Zambia 

  • Kumadzulo: This was a large 7th century village about 55km northwest of Livingstone on the edge of the Bovu River dambo. 
  • Chundu Farm: The remains of an 8th century village were discovered about 20km upstream from the Victoria Falls.
  • Kamangoza: This was a small agricultural settlement dating back to the 10th century and was part of the Kalomo Tradition at a time when agriculture was strongly supplemented by hunting and gathering. The presence of copper at Kamangoza indicates trade with communities in northern Zambia.
  • Dambwa: This important site lies in what is today western Livingstone. It was seriously damaged by sand extraction and only a small section was left intact by the time archaeologists were made aware of its existence.
  • Sinde, Simbusenga and Mukuni: These were early Tonga sites where the huts were small and round (diameter about 2,5m) with wall poles set in shallow trenches.

  The Khoisans were the only inhabitants of most of Zambia until the 4th century, when Bantu started to migrate from the north. They had far more developed technology – they were farmers and had iron and copper tools and weapons, as well as knowledge of pottery-making. They lived in small self-sufficient villages of wattle-and-daub huts, growing sorghum and beans, as well as keeping cattle and goats.

• The Arrival of European

  In the 12th century, waves of Bantu-speaking immigrants arrived during the Bantu expansion. Among them, the Tonga people (also called Ba-Tonga, “Ba-” meaning “men”) were the first to settle in Zambia and are believed to have come from the east near the “big sea”. The Nkoya people also arrived early in the expansion, coming from the Luba–Lunda kingdoms in the southern parts of the modern Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Angola, followed by a much larger influx, especially between the late 12th and early 13th centuries. With the introduction of agriculture the population grew, and more, and more land became cultivated. Ivory was an export, and cotton textiles an import. One of the best-known archaeological sites for this period is Ing-ombe Ilede near Siavonga close to the Kariba Dam, uncovered in 1960. The increase in trade resulted in larger political units and more complex social structures.

  The Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama explored the East African coast in 1498 on his voyage to India. By 1506, the Portuguese claimed control over the entire coast. This control was nominal, however, because the Portuguese did not colonize the area or explore the interior. Later in the 18th century the other Portuguese explorer Francisco de Lacerda became the 2nd portugese explrere to arrive. Lacerda led an expedition from Mozambique to the Kazembe region in Zambia (with the goal of exploring and to crossing Southern Africa from coast to coast for the first time), and died during the expedition in 1798. The expedition was from then on led by his friend Francisco Pinto. This territory, located between Portuguese Mozambique and Portuguese Angola, was claimed and explored by Portugal in that period.

  Other European visitors followed in the 19th century. The most prominent of these was David Livingstone, who had a vision of ending the slave trade through Christianity, Commerce and Civilization. He was the first European to see the magnificent waterfalls on the Zambezi River in 1855, naming them the Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. The first Briton to record having set foot on Zambian soil was David Livingstone. In 1851 he started his well-known exploration of the upper Zambezi River, and in 1855 he became the first European to see Mosi-oa-Tunya, the waterfall on the Zambezi River, which he named after Queen Victoria – the Zambian town near the Falls is named after him. Livingstone later died in Zambia in 1873.

  When the first Europeans arrived, the most powerful states in pre-colonial Zambia were the kingdom of Barotseland in the upper Zambezi, and the kingdom of Mwata Kazembe on the Luapula. The Lozi people of Barotseland had refused Arab and Portuguese traders access to their territory. When the kingdom was first established is uncertain, but it was certainly in existence by the 18th century, the Lozi calling themselves Aluya and their country Ngulu. Its ruler was called the Litunga. He had two capitals: in the dry season he stayed in the middle of the Zambezi flood plain at Lealui, while at the start of the rainy season he moved to Limulunga, above the flood water level, a move that is still celebrated in the annual Kuomboka festival.

• Colonial Britain and Germany, Portugal, and Belgium

  In 1888, Cecil Rhodes, spearheading British commercial and political interests in Central Africa, obtained a mineral rights concessions from local chiefs. In the same year, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, now Zambia and Zimbabwe, were proclaimed a British sphere of influence. In the beginning the territory was administered by Rhodes’ British South Africa Company (BSAC), which showed little interest in the province and used it mainly as a source of labour. The most important factor in the colony’s economy was copper, the discovery of which is due partly to an American scout, Frederick Russell Burnham, who in 1895 lead and oversaw the massive Northern Territories (BSA) Exploration Co. expedition which established that major copper deposits existed in Central Africa.

  Along the Kafue River in then Northern Rhodesia, Burnham saw many similarities to copper deposits he had worked in the United States, and he encountered natives wearing copper bracelets. The unique butterfly shape of Zambia resulted from agreements in the 1890s between Britain and Germany, Portugal, and the Belgian king Leopold II, and these in turn rested on treaties, mostly stereotyped in form, between Rhodes’s agents and African chiefs. At this stage there was little resistance to white intrusion. The most immediate threat to African land and labour came in Ngoniland, thought by whites to be rich in gold, and the Ngoni duly fought company troops in 1898. The Bemba, however, faced no such challenge and in any case were deeply divided, while the Lozi king believed that alliance with the company would protect his empire against both the Portuguese and the Ndebele.

  At first the BSAC administered its territory north of the Zambezi in two parts, North-Eastern and North-Western Rhodesia. In 1911 these were united to form Northern Rhodesia, with its capital at Livingstone, near Victoria Falls. World War I bore heavily on the territory. The British government hoped to increase white settlement as part of a wider strategy to strengthen British influence between South Africa and Kenya. Land was reserved for white ownership along the railway line, in the far north, and in the east. When World War II broke out in 1939, Britain contracted to buy the whole output of the Copperbelt. British dependence on undisturbed copper production meant that white mine workers were allowed to maintain an industrial colour bar. In 1948 these gave rise to the Northern Rhodesia Congress. Some of its members sat on the African Representative Council.

  In 1928 enormous copper deposits were discovered in the region which then became known as the Copperbelt, transforming Northern Rhodesia from a prospective land of colonization for white farmers to a copper exporter. By 1938 the country produced 13% of world’s copper extraction. The sector was developed by two companies; the Anglo American Corporation (AAC) and the South African Rhodesian Selection Trust (RST), who controlled the sector till independence.

  The poor safety record and increased taxes triggered a strike of African mineworkers in 1935, known as the Copperbelt strike. The strike was crushed by the authorities; six miners were killed. During the Second World War white miners came out on strike in 1940. Realizing the importance of their products for the war, they demanded higher salaries. This strike was followed by another by African mineworkers. Even before the war, there had been talks about merging the two Rhodesian, but the process had been halted by the British authorities, and brought to an absolute stop by the war. Finally, in 1953, both Rhodesia were joined with Nyasaland (now Malawi) to form the Central African Federation. Northern Rhodesia was the centre of much of the turmoil and crises that afflicted the federation in its last years. At the core of the controversy were insistent African demands for greater participation in government and European fears of losing political control.

• Independent Zambia

  In 1953, Northern Rhodesia became a member of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Even though the overwhelming majority of Africans in the territory was opposed to the federal arrangement, the British government decided that Northern Rhodesia would participate in the federation.  In 1956, however, the copper boom came to an end. Whites in Northern Rhodesia became increasingly aware of how far the federal tax system channeled copper profits into Southern Rhodesia. Many Africans were thrown out of work, while little had been done to help African farming or education, despite federal propaganda for “partnership.” A new generation of leaders in Congress wanted Northern Rhodesia to become an independent African state, as Ghana had become in 1957. In 1958, led by Kenneth Kaunda, a former teacher and civil servant, these radicals split off from Congress to found the Zambia African National Congress and its successor, the United National Independence Party (UNIP). Britain accepted that Africans would have to be given more power than the federal government was willing to concede.

  In 1960, a royal commission reported that, despite clear economic benefits, the majority of Africans in both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland was opposed to the continuance of federation in its present form. In 1962 UNIP organized a massive campaign of civil disobedience, but it agreed to take part in elections under a new constitution, and an election later that year gave Africans a majority in the legislature. Nyasaland’s desire to secede from the federation was acknowledged by the British government. The federation was dissolved at the end of 1963. Early in 1964 an election based on universal adult suffrage gave UNIP a decisive majority, and it was supported by nearly a third of the white voters. On October 24 the country became the independent Republic of Zambia, within the Commonwealth and with Kaunda serving as executive president.

  Following its initiation into the federation, the government of Northern Rhodesia underwent constitutional changes, with a growing emphasis on African representation. Africans had not been represented on the Legislative Council until 1948, when two were named to that body. An enlarged Legislative Council, convened in 1954 just after the formation of the federation, included four Africans selected by the African Representative Council. A new constitution, introduced in January 1959, aimed at replacing the council with a political system based on a greater degree of cooperation between the races.

  Discussions on a revision of this constitution began in December 1960 but were brought to an early close by disagreement between the European-dominated United Federal Party and the United National Independence Party (UNIP). But agreement was finally reached, and a new constitution came into effect in September 1962. Elections later that year produced an African majority in the Legislative Council, which then called for secession from the federation, full internal self-government under a new constitution, and a new National Assembly based on a broader, more democratic franchise. On 31 December 1963, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was formally dissolved. On 24 October 1964, Northern Rhodesia became an independent republic, and its name was changed to Zambia. Kenneth Kaunda, the leader of the ruling UNIP, became the nation’s first president.