From Enslavement to Environmentalism: Politics on a Southern African Frontier

Chapter 2: From Citizenship to Land-Grabbing in Vhimba, Zimbabwe, 1893-1990

2 FROM CLiENTSHIP TO LAND-GRABBING IN VHIMBA, ZIMBABWE, 1893-1990 CADASTRAL POLITICS ARE NOT INTRINSIC TO VHIMBA. PEOPLE MADE Vhimba into the hornet's nest of turf battles that it is today. As much as events andprocessesmaintainedforced laborin Gogoi, Mozambique,aquite different historical sequence institutionalized cadastral politics on the northern bank ofthe Rusitu River. This chapter recounts that transformation and distinguishes it from the continuity of ambulatory enslavement in Gogoi in the same period. Vhimbaresidentsidentifythree transformationsin landholdingthatprogressively dispossessed them. The first began with the arrival of white settlers a few years before uprisings convulsed much of Mashonaland and Matabeleland. In 1892-93, Dunbar Moodie and four other families trekked from the Orange Free State. Eight additional, larger treks followed in quick succession (Olivier 1957:146, 156-57), and the administration of the British South Africa Company formalized their land-grabbing with a cadastre, or propertymap, and compensatorynative reserves.l Completethough it was, the seizure of the Chimanimani upland did not directly displace African smallholders. Those able to tolerate labor tenancy continued farming the unused parts of the undercapitalized pioneer estates. It was not until the 1950S that a second transformation destroyed smalllioiding on the plateau. After buyingthe failing farms, theBorderTimbers corporation and thegovernment Forestry Department planted the plateau with pine, eucalyptus, and wattle (a commercialacacia species). Afforestation, then, finallyforced the remainingsmalllioiders intothe reserve. Conservationinstigatedthe third and final waveofland alienation. In 1965, theDepartment ofNational Parks 45 PART 1. COLONIZATION. FAILED AND SUCCESSFUL gazettedalmosthalfofthe Ngorimareserveas anextensionofChimanimani National Park. The annexation and delayed efforts to implement it drove another batch ofsmallholders into Vhimba. These seizures ofland and the eviction of inhabitants put a premium on territorial control. In addition to the three phases of land-grabbing, other processes promoted the territorialization ofVhimba in less direct ways. Native commissioners and missionaries outlawedforms ofmarriage connectedto maleand female clientage. With the spread ofcash for bride-wealth, chiefs and other lineageheads became increasinglyunableto use marriageas ameansofaccumulating wealth in people. Similarly, destitute people ceased pledging themselves to affluent families as the Rhodesian governmentinstituted permanentmechanismsto aUeviatefamine.These seeminglydisconnected policies made Vhimba's leadership poor in people and, thereby, encouraged it to value territory. Asecond set ofsocioeconomic developments produced moremixed results. Britishadministrationlegalizedand implemented avariety of forms of labor, ranging from forced to free and involving chiefs in different degrees. Chibaro, as it was known, could have reinforced chiefs' control over and wealth in people, as it had so decisively in Mozambique. Yet, each Rhodesian variant of chibaro fell short of its Portuguese equivalent .Thesedistinctive policiesand practicesreflected Portugal'sandBritain's vastly unequal ability to collect information about the landscape and to administer it and its people. For example, no map of property existed for Gogoianditsenvironsuntilthe1960s.Acrossthe Rusitu, however. Rhodesian settlers, as discussed, created a cadastre in 1894, a year after their arrival. This chapter tallies up the changes in landownership, labor, and marriage in Vhimba and in Chief Ngorima's area and traces how, under these influences, the focus of local politics gradually shifted from accumulating clients to contesting territory, turf, and hectares. 1892: THE BALANCE OF FORCES On the eve ofwhite colonization, the Ngorima chieftaineywas ripe for such a transition. The Gaza Nguni had drastically weakened the Ngorima chieftaney . KufakweniNgorimafought Mzilaandlost. Inthe1870S, hefled toGutu and died in exile. Those of his people who remained behind sought refuge from the frequent raids in the caves and ravines ofthe Chimanimani range. It is unclear whether any leader arose in Kufakweni's absence. KeithFalconer 'sexpedition of1890 found that, "Aboutfifteen monthsagothe paramount chiefwas raided by Gungunyana and the whole ofhis tribe broken 46 FROM CLIENTSHIP TO LAND-GRABBING IN VHIMBA up and ruined ... and there is now no headman of any importance from the Lusiti to Shimanimani [from the Rusitu River to the Chimanimani Mountains]:'2In consequence, "the nativeswere evidentlyreally reallyvery poor."3 Other accounts omit this attacked (and apparently murdered) chief and describe the return of Kufakweni's son, Mushanembeu, in or around 1890, as the restoration of long-absent leadership.4 Whatever the political chronology, Ngorima's people remained poor. In 1892, J. J. Leverson noted: "More than three or four huts are seldom met with together, and these are ofthe mostwretcheddescription. Verylittleis obtainable in the wayoffood supplies. The natives have no cattle and appear to live in dread of a raid by Gungunyane" (Leverson 1893:515). In 1899, Ngorima's area still compared unfavorably with Mafussi's, in Portuguese East Africa. Leaving his base at Ngorima's, a...