Tag: o level revision notes

World War I or the First World War, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918.

A constitution is a system of laws and principles, usually written down, according to which a country or organisation is governed. The   initial   Constitution   of   Zimbabwe   was developed from the Independence Constitution.

The Dutch led by Jan van Riebeck landed at the Cape in 1652 and established a half way station to India that would supply passing ships with fresh water, vegetables and meat. It was meant to be a temporary settlement but ended up being permanent. African ethnic  groups  like  the  Khoisan,  Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, Sotho and Pedi were later conquered, lost their sovereignty and incorporated into new political arrangements known as colonies such as Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal and Orange Free State. The British conquered the Dutch in 1806 and took over the Cape. In 1910 the four colonies were joined together to form the Union of South Africa.

In the first Chimurenga/Umvukela, Africans were defeated because they fought the whites separately as Karanga, Zezuru, Manyika and Ndebele; were not united as one nation. They were divided as they had not yet all fully experienced colonial cruelty. They had few guns and used poor fighting methods and inferior weapons like spears, bows and arrows.

The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was a colonial federation that consisted of three southern African territories—the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia and the British protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland—between 1953 and 1963.

While there may be other positive effects colonialism, colonialism made African colonies dependent by introducing a mono- cultural economy for the territories. It also dehumanized African labour force and traders. It forced Africans to work in colonial plantations at very low wages and displaced them from their lands.

After colonisation the African people’s way of life completely changed. People were forced to become servants of a group of whites who came from Europe. Chiefs  lost  their  power  to  plan  and  direct  the political, economic and social destiny of their lives. The Europeans  gave  themselves  good  land  and Africans were assigned the rocky and infertile land which received little or no rain.