History

• Pre-history

  Evidence of Stone Age cultures dating back 100,000 years has been found, and it is thought that the San people, now living mostly in the Kalahari Desert, are the descendants of Zimbabwe’s original inhabitants. The remains of ironworking cultures that date back to ad 300 have been discovered. Little is known of the early iron-workers, but it is believed that they were farmers, herdsmen, and hunters who lived in small groups.

  Prior to the arrival of Bantu speakers in present-day Zimbabwe the region was populated by ancestors of the San people. The first Bantu-speaking farmers arrived during the Bantu expansion around 2000 years ago. These Bantu speakers were the makers of early Iron Age pottery belonging to the Silver Leaves or Matola tradition, third to fifth centuries A.D., found in southeast Zimbabwe. This tradition was part of the eastern stream of Bantu expansion (sometimes called Kwale) which originated west of the Great Lakes, spreading to the coastal regions of southeastern Kenya and northeastern Tanzania, and then southwards to Mozambique, southeastern Zimbabwe and Natal.

  The earliest important trading center is at Mapungubwe, on the bank of the Limpopo. The settlement is established by a cattle-herding people, whose increasing prosperity leads to the emergence of a sophisticated court and ruling elite. In 1075 the ruler of Mapungubwe separates his own dwelling from those of his people. He moves his court from the plain to the top of a sandstone hill, where the rules from a palace with imposing stone walls.

  It is the first example of the Zimbabwe of this region – a word in Shona, the local Bantu language, meaning literally ‘stone houses’. Zimbabwe becomes the characteristic dwellings of chieftains, and about 100 hilltop ruins of this kind survive. Easily the most impressive is the group known as Great Zimbabwe, which in the 13th century succeeds Mapungubwe as the dominant Shona power – with a kingdom stretching over the whole region between the Limpopo and the Zambezi.

  Proto-Shona-speaking societies first emerged in the middle Limpopo valley in the 9th century before moving on to the Zimbabwean highlands. The Zimbabwean plateau eventually became the center of subsequent Shona states, beginning around the 10th century. Around the early 10th century, trade developed with Arab merchants on the Indian Ocean coast, helping to develop the Kingdom of Mapungubwe in the 11th century. This was the precursor to the more impressive Shona civilizations that would dominate the region during the 13th to 15th centuries, evidenced by ruins at Great Zimbabwe, near Masvingo, and other smaller sites. The main archaeological site uses a unique dry stone architecture.

• The Different kingdoms

  A later phase of the Gokomere culture was the Zhizo in southern Zimbabwe. Zhizo communities settled in the Shashe-Limpopo area in the tenth century. Their capital there was Schroda (just across the Limpopo River from Zimbabwe). Many fragments of ceramic figurines have been recovered from there, figures of animals and birds, and also fertility dolls. The inhabitants produced ivory bracelets and other ivory goods. Imported beads found there and at other Zhizo sites, are evidence of trade, probably of ivory and skins, with traders on the Indian Ocean coast.

  From about 1300 until 1600, Mapungubwe was eclipsed by the Kingdom of Zimbabwe. This Shona state further refined and expanded upon Mapungubwe’s stone architecture, which survives to this day at the ruins of the kingdom’s capital of Great Zimbabwe. From c. 1450 to 1760, Zimbabwe gave way to the Kingdom of Mutapa. This Shona state ruled much of the area that is known as Zimbabwe today, and parts of central Mozambique. It is known by many names including the Mutapa Empire, also known as Mwene Mutapa or Monomotapa as well as “Munhumutapa”, and was renowned for its strategic trade routes with the Arabs and Portugal. The Portuguese sought to monopolize this influence and began a series of wars which left the empire in near collapse in the early 17th century.

  Although the western stream Kalundu tradition was ancestral to Shona ceramic wares, the closest relationships of the ancestral Shona language according to many linguists[14][15][16][17][18] were with a southern division of eastern Bantu – such languages as the southeastern languages (Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, Tsonga), Nyasa and Makwa. While it may well be the case that the people of the western stream spoke a language belonging to a wider Eastern Bantu division, it is a puzzle which remains to be resolved that they spoke a language most closely related to the languages just mentioned, all of which are today spoken in southeastern Africa.

  After the Shona speaking people moved into the present day Zimbabwe many different dialects developed over time in the different parts of the country. Among these was Kalanga. The Zimbabwean plateau eventually became the center of subsequent Kalanga states. The Kingdom of Mapungubwe was the first in a series of sophisticated trade states developed in Zimbabwe by the time of the first European explorers from Portugal. They traded in gold, ivory, and copper for cloth and glass. From about 1250 until 1450, Mapungubwe was eclipsed by the Kingdom of Zimbabwe. This Kalanga state further refined and expanded upon Mapungubwe’s stone architecture, which survives to this day at the ruins of the kingdom’s capital of Great Zimbabwe. From circa 1450–1760, Zimbabwe gave way to the Kingdom of Mutapa. This Kalanga state ruled much of the area that is known as Zimbabwe today, and parts of central Mozambique. It is known by many names including the Mutapa Empire, also known as Mwenemutapa was known for its gold trade routes with Arabs and the Portuguese.

• European contact

  The Portuguese, who arrived on the east coast of Africa at the end of the 15th century, dreamed of opening up the interior and establishing a route to connect their eastern settlements with Angola in the west. The first European to enter Zimbabwe was probably António Fernandes, who tried to cross the continent and reached the neighborhood of Que Que (now Kwekwe). Nearly 50 years later the Mwene Matapa (“emperor”), Negomo Chirisamhuru Mupunsagutu, was baptized by a Jesuit father, and in 1569 an abortive Portuguese military expedition entered the interior in search of gold.

  As a direct response to Portuguese aggression in the interior, a new Kalanga state emerged called the Rozwi Empire. Relying on centuries of military, political and religious development, the Rozwi (which means “destroyers”) removed the Portuguese from the Zimbabwe plateau by force of arms. The Rozwi continued the stone building traditions of the Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe kingdoms while adding guns to its arsenal and developing a professional army to protect its trade routes and conquests. Around 1821, the Zulu general Mzilikazi of the Khumalo clan successfully rebelled from King Shaka and created his own clan, the Ndebele. The Ndebele fought their way northwards into the Transvaal, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake and beginning an era of widespread devastation known as the Mfecane.

  A second great movement of the Bantu peoples began in 1830, this time from the south. To escape from the power of the great Zulu chief Shaka, three important groups fled northward. One of them, the Ndebele, carved out a kingdom. When Dutch trekboers converged on the Transvaal in 1836, they drove the tribe even further northward. By 1838, the Rozwi Empire, along with the other petty Shona states were conquered by the Ndebele and reduced to vassaldom. The Ndebele were warriors and pastoralists, in the Zulu tradition, and under their formidable chief Mzilikazi they mastered and dispossessed the weaker tribes, known collectively as Shona (Mashona), who were sedentary, peaceful tillers of the land. For more than half a century, until the coming of European rule, the Ndebele continued to enslave and plunder the Shona. During this period, however, British and Afrikaner hunters, traders, and prospectors had begun to move up from the south, and with them came the missionaries. Robert Moffat visited Mzilikazi in 1857, and this meeting led to the establishment in 1861 of the first mission to the Ndebele by the London Missionary Society.

• Colonial British

  By the time the British began arriving in the mid-19th century, the Shona people had long been subjected to slave raids. The once-powerful Urozwi Empire had been destroyed in the 1830s by the Ndebele, who, under Mzilikaze, had fled from the Zulus in South Africa. David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary, and explorer were chiefly responsible for opening the whole region to European penetration. His explorations in the 1850s focused public attention on Central Africa, and his reports on the slave trade stimulated missionary activity. In 1858, after visiting Mzilikaze, Robert Moffat, Livingstone’s father-in-law, established Inyati Mission, the first permanent European settlement in what is now Zimbabwe.

  In the 1880s, the British arrived with Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company. In 1898, the name Southern Rhodesia was adopted. In 1888, British colonialist Cecil Rhodes obtained a concession for mining rights from King Lobengula of the Ndebele peoples. Cecil Rhodes presented this concession to persuade the government of the United Kingdom to grant a royal charter to his British South Africa Company (BSAC) over Matabeleland, and its subject states such as Mashonaland. Rhodes sought permission to negotiate similar concessions covering all territory between the Limpopo River and Lake Tanganyika, then known as ‘Zambesia’. In 1895 the BSAC adopted the name ‘Rhodesia’ for the territory of Zambesia, in honor of Cecil Rhodes.

  In 1898, ‘Southern Rhodesia’ became the official denotation for the region south of the Zambezi, which later became Zimbabwe. The region to the north was administered separately by the BSAC and later named Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Southern Rhodesia became a self-governing British colony in October 1923, subsequent to a referendum held the previous year. Many Rhodesians served on behalf of the United Kingdom during World War II, mainly in the East African Campaign against Axis forces in Italian East Africa.
  In 1953, in the face of African opposition, Britain consolidated the two colonies of Rhodesia with Nyasaland (now Malawi) in the ill-fated Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland which was dominated by Southern Rhodesia. 

  Growing African nationalism and general dissent, particularly in Nyasaland, persuaded the UK to dissolve the Union in 1963, forming three colonies. As colonial rule was ending throughout the continent and as African-majority governments assumed control in neighboring Northern Rhodesia and in Nyasaland, the white-minority Rhodesian government led by Ian Smith made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965. The United Kingdom deemed this an act of rebellion but did not re-establish control by force. The white minority government declared itself a republic in 1970. A civil war ensued, with Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU and Robert Mugabe’s ZANU using assistance from the governments of Zambia and Mozambique.

• Independent Zimbabwe

  During the years of federation, the parties are formed which will subsequently fight the bitter struggle for the future of an independent Rhodesia. On the African side, the first leader to emerge is Joshua Nkomo. In 1957 he is elected president of the local branch of the African National Congress. After this is banned in Rhodesia, he founds in 1960 the National Democratic Party. When this, in turn, is prescribed, in 1961, he replaces it with ZAPU (the Zimbabwe African People’s Union). His colleagues in ZAPU include Ndabaningi Sithole and Robert Mugabe. Together they split from ZAPU in 1963 and form the rival ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union).

  This political pressure from Rhodesia’s African majority, combined with support for their cause from the United Nations, causes the federal government in 1961 to introduce a new constitution, allowing for African representation in Rhodesia’s parliament. But the proposal creates its own backlash, prompting Ian Smith to found a new party, the Rhodesian Front, committed to white supremacist policies and offering the promise of an independent Rhodesia governed by the European minority. In elections in 1962, the new party wins a surprise victory, replacing the more moderate United Federal Party. Winston Field becomes prime minister, with Ian Smith as his deputy.

  Smith now tries to persuade the British government to grant the Rhodesian Front’s single overriding demand – independence on the basis of white minority rule. Meeting a flat refusal on this issue, he takes matters into his own hands. On 11 November 1965, he publishes a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). In the election, Mugabe’s ZANU party wins a decisive victory over Nkomo and ZAPU. The newly independent nation takes the ancient name Zimbabwe. Mugabe rules at the start in a conciliatory manner.

  The first response of the British government is patient diplomacy (including two meetings between Harold Wilson and Smith on warships off Gibraltar, the Tiger in 1966 and the Fearless in 1968), but this is met by intransigence on Smith’s part. The result is economic sanctions, imposed by the United Nations with British approval in 1968. The sanctions take a long time to bite. Meanwhile, guerrilla activity by separate ZAPU and ZANU forces from across the borders is having rather more unsettling effect – particularly after Nkomo and Mugabe settle their differences in 1976 and form a united Patriotic Front.

  By 1978 Smith recognizes the need for concessions. He comes to an agreement with a moderate African leader, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, leader of the UANC (United African National Council). In return for guarantees securing white political and economic interests, multi-racial elections will be held in 1979. With the Patriotic Front banned from participating, Muzorewa emerges as prime minister of a transitional government. But nothing is solved. The Patriotic Front continues its guerrilla campaign. The situation is finally resolved at talks in London in December 1979, attended by all three African leaders. UDI is overturned and Rhodesia reverts briefly to the status of a British colony. Britain agrees to provide funds to purchase the land of British farmers willing to sell, for a much-needed land distribution programme. Elections are organized for February 1980.

• Robert Gabriel Mugabe

  Mugabe was born to a poor Shona family in Kutama, Southern Rhodesia. Following an education at Kutama College and the University of Fort Hare. Angered that Southern Rhodesia was a British colony governed by a white minority, Mugabe embraced Marxism and joined African nationalist protests calling for an independent black-led state. After making anti-government comments, he was convicted of sedition and imprisoned between 1964 and 1974. 

  On release, he fled to Mozambique, established his leadership of ZANU and oversaw ZANU’s role in the Rhodesian Bush War, fighting Ian Smith’s predominantly white government. He reluctantly took part in the peace negotiations brokered by the United Kingdom that resulted in the Lancaster House Agreement. The agreement dismantled white minority rule and resulted in the 1980 general election, at which Mugabe led ZANU-PF to victory.

  Mugabe’s initial calls for racial reconciliation failed to stem deteriorating race relations and growing white flight. Relations with Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) also declined, with Mugabe’s government crushing ZAPU-linked opposition in Matabeleland during the Gukurahundi between 1982 and 1985; at least 10,000 people, mostly Ndebele civilians, were killed by Mugabe’s Fifth Brigade.

  Internationally, he sent troops into the Second Congo War and chaired the Non-Aligned Movement (1986–89), the Organisation of African Unity (1997–98) and the African Union (2015–16). Pursuing decolonization, Mugabe’s government emphasized the redistribution of land controlled by white farmers to landless blacks, initially on a “willing seller-willing buyer” basis. Frustrated at the slow rate of redistribution, from 2000 Mugabe encouraged the violent seizure of white-owned land. Food production was severely impacted, leading to famine, drastic economic decline, and international sanctions. Opposition to Mugabe grew, although he was re-elected in 2002, 2008 and 2013 through campaigns dominated by violence, electoral fraud and nationalistic appeals to his rural Shona voter base. Following a 2017 coup, Mugabe resigned the presidency.

  Having dominated Zimbabwe’s politics for nearly four decades, Mugabe has been a controversial and divisive figure. He has been praised as a revolutionary hero of the African liberation struggle who helped to free Zimbabwe from British colonialism, imperialism and white minority rule. Conversely, he has been accused of being a dictator responsible for economic mismanagement, widespread corruption, anti-white racism, human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.

• Source 

  http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad28#ixzz5JE3YSIpL

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe

  http://www.zimembassy.se/health.html

  https://www.geni.com/projects/Zimbabwe-Tribes-and-People/23140

  https://www.heritage.org/index/country/zimbabwe

  http://www.zimfa.gov.zw/index.php/zimbabwe-in-brief/agriculture

  http://www.economywatch.com/world_economy/zimbabwe/industry-sector-industries.html

  https://www.export.gov/article?id=Zimbabwe-Banking-Systems

  https://www.mfw4a.org/zimbabwe/financial-sector-profile.html

  https://wikitravel.org/en/Zimbabwe

  https://www.britannica.com/place/Zimbabwe/The-economy#ref44155

  https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/africa/zimbabwe-political-geography/zimbabwe-ruined-city#ETHNIC_GROUPS

  http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Zimbabwe

  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/zi.html