Afrikaner and Shona Settlement in theEnkeldoore Area, 1890-1900D. N. Beach.Department of History, University College of Rhodesia,Salisbury.On 31 October 1896, the Enkeldoorn laagercontained the fifth largest European communityin Mashonaland, 194 persons, of whom 118 werewomen and children. There had already been ashift of some local families to Salisbury, becauseof the Shona rising, but the figures given aboveindicate that a considerable European settlementof the southern part of Charter District hadalready taken place. Tbe absence of a mine inthe vicinity or of a township before the rebellionmeans that nearly all of the inhabitants of thelaager had been engaged in farming,1 In fact thiswas then the northernmost outpost of Afrikaner-dom in Africa east of the Kalahari, unless onecounts the by then moribund Laurencedale settle-ment of Van der Byl in Makon-i's district.2 Yetthe Charter District, as defined by the districtmaps of 18944895, already supported a largeindigenous population. In 1895 the chiefdoms ofGambiza, Mutekedza, Maromo and Maburutsialone were estimated to hold 17,072 people, andthese polities covered only the central portion ofthe district.3 Thus Charter at the turn of thecentury, contained a settlement of Europeanagriculturists in large numbers, by Rhodesianstandards, superimposed upon a considerableAfrican farming population. An interestingfeature of the European community was the factthat most of them were Afrikaners.The African people were divided into severalchiefdoms. In the mountains to the west werechiefs Nyika and Mushava, but although theirterritorial claims probably ran east to the Umni-ati River, the land between the mountains and theriver seems to have been relatively sparsely popu-lated. Hardly any land in Rhodesia was unclaimedby African rulers, but since they had far fewerfollowers than they rule today, they were like thecolonial powers in that they could not effectivelyoccupy all the land that they claimed. ThusMaromo's Dzete claimed a nyika that stretchedas far as Umvuma, but their effective occupationwas limited to the land of Zihota, between Enkel-doorn and the Range. Between Zihota, the Umni-ati and the sources of the Sabi lay the chiefdotnof Mutekedza's Hera, which represented an out-lying point of Ndebele influence, as MutekedzaMutiti Chigonero and his predecessors apparentlyrelied upon Lobengula's support, and paid tributethrough two tax-collectors from Bulawayo, Ru-zane and Munondo.4 Between Mutekedza andChirumanzu (Chilimanzi), fifty miles to the south,no other chief regarded the Ndebele as anythingbut an intermittent nuisance against which theShona had evolved a fairly effective defence sys-tem of alarm signals, and underground refugesprotected by guns. North-east of the Range wereMaburutsi's Nobvu, and south of them livedMusarurwa's Rozvi, who had been local admini-strators of the area in the days of the RozviEmpire, and who still retained vestiges of theirformer influence. Musarurwa's "cousins", Sango'sRozvi, held Chigarra Hill south of Enkeldoorn,but were independent of Musarurwa. Aroundthese three small polities in a great arc from theSabi almost to the Sebakwe were the Njanja, a25large group formerly under one chief namedGambiza, but latterly the heads of Houses of theNjanja had become chiefs (Ishe) as well, and evensome of the heads of sub-Houses within theseHouses had attained this rank by 1892. 'File ten-dency of the Njanja paramountcy towards frag-mentation was then well advanced, a tendencywhich culminated in the abandonment of the useof the Gambiza title after the death of GambizaNgwena in 1908. Long before then, however, thereal power lay with the various chiefs of theNjanja. Beyond the Njanja to the south-east layRozvi and Hera groups which were virtually un-touched by European penetration until 1897.5Thus Charter District contained many chieftain-cies occupying the land, but some land still re-mained almost unused, such as that between theMwanesi Range and the Umniati, and that south-west of Enkeldoorn and Chigarra Hill, towardsUmvuma and the Mteo Forest. In this area wereisolated families such as that of Huchu, a brotherof Chirumanzu Chinyama, but there were nochieftaincies to provide the leadership or negotiatewith European penetration. In these zones laypossible sites for an harmonious European settle-ment, but the European tendency to occupy landregardless of previous ownership and to peg neatblocks of farms side by side to facilitate survey-ing meant that this opportunity was missed.The Pioneer Road ran through Charter on thewatershed in order to avoid the danger of floodsin the rainy season. This road, planned by Selous,cut through the lands of Gunguwo, Maromo andMutekedza and at the same time dictated theposition of the earliest European settlements. Theold Hunters' Road from Bulawayo to the HartleyGoldfields entered the district, but stayed westof the Mwanesi Range. The first settlement wasFort Charter between the sources of the Sabiand Ngezi, and it was occupied as a police postthroughout the period. Later it became a minortrading centre. Company post stations weremaintained for a while at the "Umniati Ruins"and on the Tnyatsitsi river, and they came underprivate ownership when the Company abandonedthem. In the first two years of the occupation theCompany did not attempt to make diplomaticcontact with the local chiefs and until the firstpolice patrols into the Njanja and Dzete areaswere made in 1892, and the first Field-Cornetcieswere authorised in the same year, the only contactbetween Africans and Europeans was unofficial.This meant that the first land grants did not con-sider African interests.Under the Company's rule, the process of ac-quiring land was simple. Either the ground waspegged first and then an application was made tothe Surveyor-General for approval, or he issueda grant and the farm was then pegged in thegrantee's chosen place. The standard size of farmwas 1500 morgen (about 3,000 acres), but farmstwice or four times as large were not uncommon.The generous grant of 1,500 morgen was intendedto attract farmers from the south. Members ofthe Pioneer Column got free farms, but others hadto pay a quitrent of only £3 a year until a FinalTitle was granted. The main requirement of theCompany was that the farm should be in "bene-ficial occupation", which meant in practice thatthe farmer should be on the farm frequently, anddo a certain amount of work on it. In theorythere should have been one responsible Europeanon each farm, but in practice one owner could"oversee" several farms if they were relativelyclose together.6 In the case of the great land com-panies, one 'ranger' sufficed to "occupy" an areaof up to 170,000 morgen, when such a large areahad been alienated in a single grant.7 The Admini-stration had two contradictory attitudes to landalienation: on the one hand it feared to let theland go in large blocks to land speculators or tofarmers who would not develop it, but on theother hand it wanted an influx of European far-mers and feared that a too rigorous enforcementof occupation clauses would drive settlers away.The result was that although a grant of 1,500morgen was easy to get Š many grants in theGrant Book have the note "verbal" Š it wasusually necessary to apply twice or more to getfurther land. Of course, a friend of some of thesenior officials of the British South Africa Com-pany suffered from no such restriction, as can beseen in the case of Dr. Jameson's friend Sir JohnWilloughby. Even after the foundation of theNative Department in 1894 there seems to havebeen no general policy as to whether farms shouldbe granted near to African lands. Sometimes,indeed, a trader or a missionary would ask for aplot at a chiefs village, for obvious reasons,8 andit will be seen that many farms in Charter coinci-ded with African farmlands. By 1896, however,European settlement had gone so far that W.Landman was promised a farm provided that hegot a letter from the Native Commissioner"stating that your farm does not interfere withany lands".9 This was a formality, because he hadalready been there for at least six months, but itshows a beginning of the awareness that Africanneeds had to be considered.Only a few grants were made in the area in« * IŁi« r261891, and it is not certain whether they were takenup. One was to E. E. Dunne, trader and futureField-Cornet at Charter. Government employeeswere excused from occupying their farms. ChiefNative Commissioner Brabant had a farm nearEnkeldoorn, but was rarely there. In 1892 morefarms were granted, nearly all close to the mainroad, for the benefit of traders in the area whoreceived their goods from Salisbury or Victoriaand needed a permanent base for their work.Alanberry, Altona and the Range were farms ofthis type; the Range farm was later purchased bythe Company for the Native Department, whosesuccessors still use it. In 1892 one of the manyfamilies named Maritz settled on the WashbankRiver, and Colenbrander's friend, Vavasseur,started farming near the Mwanesi Range. Part ofa trek led by John Moodie settled around FortCharter. In 1893 the Ferreira family settled be-tween the Umniati and the Sebakwe, and the Pot-gieters moved west of the Umniati. In 1894 a trekarrived from Chariest own, near Voilksrust, in theSouth African Republic, and a Van der Merwesettled next to the Mwanesi Range. However, in1895 a far greater number of farmers arrived,most of them Transvaalers apparently, and byJune 1896 a large part of the country was peggedfor farms. These farms fell into severa! obviousgroups. In the north there was a cluster aroundFort Charter. In the west some farms faced theUmniati and some lay in the mountains. In thecentre the land between the Washbank, the Seba-kwe and the Umniati was nearly all pegged, andin the south a belt of farms ran from the Gweloroad past the Mteo Forest towards the Victoriaroad. There was no township and the Governmentcontacted the farmers by mail from Salisbury atfirst through the local post contractor, P. H. Be-zuidenhout of the farm "Rietbokspruit" near FortCharter, and then through the Enkeldoorn Field-Cornet, Ferreira, who was at a point called "Vaal-kop" on his farm "Enkel Doom". The only otherofficials in the district were the Native Commis-sioner at the Range, the Police at Fort Charterand the Fort Charter Field-Cornet.The Charter Afrikaners varied widely in type.At one end of the cultural range were the Bezui-denhout brothers of "Alanberry". Lord Milnerdescribed one of them in the following words:"a very fine-looking Dutchman, who spoke Eng-lish so well that I at first mistook his nationality.He keeps the store, but has also a farm of 6,000morgen . . . He was a vigorous, broadmindedman . . ."10 At the other end was the illiteratePetrus Lezare, who never acquired even one farmin the 1890s. There were the Ferreiras, who be-tween them owned seven farms, planned storesand a sawmill and played a leading part in thedistrict. They were probably the nearest localapproach to the Moodies of Melsetter, for in1895-6 the Field Cornet was always a Ferreira.Thus it was around "Vaalkop" on "Enkel Doom"that the nucleus of the future town began, as apostal station. The Ferreiras of Enkeldoorn do notappear to have been very closely connected withColonel Ignatius Philip Ferreira of the AdendorffTrek, and in so far as the origins of the CharterAfrikaners can be traced from correspondence,none of them seems to have come from the Zouts-pansberg and the Adendorff Trek but rather fromthe Southern Transvaal and to a lesser extent theOrange Free State and the Cape Colony. Betweenthe "aristocracy" of Bezuidenhouts and Ferreiras,and the lower class of landless Lezares and otherswas a larger middle class of rather simple people.They usually had one or two farms each, andmany children for whom, if possible, farms wouldbe obtained, often on alleged "verbal" grants byRhodes or Jameson. At times the Land SettlementDepartment suspected the Enkeldoorn Afrikanersof "manufacturing" relatives in order to obtainfarms.11 They had simple beliefs, sometimes pre-ferring wagon grease to any other treatment forwounds, and in 1896 Dr. Darling recorded thepresence of a flat-earth enthusiast!12There are many ways in which the interests ofthis community of European farmers could haveclashed with those of the resident Africans. First,the territorial question must be examined. AnAfrican village of shifting cultivators who usedthe hoe, had relatively primitive ideas of landusage and depended upon grain crops rather thanlivestock for their basic diet needed more landthan they ever had planted at any given time.Land used continuously became worked out, andnew lands were needed, but unfortunately few ifany Europeans seem to have realised this at thetime. In addition, grazing lands were needed, foras the early history of hut tax in Mashonalandsoon showed, the Ndebele state had not eliminatedcattle and other livestock from Shona society.Also wooded land was required for fuel, andhunting still played a part in African life. Thus itwas misleading to judge the territorial extent ofAfrican villages by the extent of their croplands,and even when an occupied European farm wasnot on African village lands it could still disturbnearby kraals. Much depends on whether a farmwas occupied by its owner. If it was not, then theAfricans within its boundaries might never realise27that their ancestral land had been granted to astranger, until finally he came to start work there.The beacons of such farms were often posts, ant-hills or rocks, and gave no indication to theAfricans of what had happened.This situation existed on a large scale in theestates of the land companies, which had beengranted title to large areas as 'development estates',which were estates that did not have to be devel-oped until a Rand-type boom or a steady increasein land values should make it worth the owners'while to sell them.13 With effect from at leastOctober 1894, the Mashonaland DevelopmentCompany, the Exploring Land and Minerals Com-pany and Willoughby's Consolidated Ltd., allcontrolled by Sir John Willoughy, claimed theCentral, Eastdale, Lancashire, Wiltshire and otherestates. These almost equalled the area of all theother European properties in the district puttogether, for the other land companies operatingnearby, The Goldfields of Matabeleland Ltd. andColenbrander's Matabeleland Development Cor-poration, were small by comparison.14 These greatunoccupied estates had a considerable effect uponthe allocation of land to Africans after the rebel-lion, but because they were unoccupied by Euro-peans they had no effect upon the resident Afri-cans before 1896.As far as the largely Afrikaner farming com-munity of Charter District was concerned, partof the land the farmers occupied did impinge uponAfrican land. Grant, Vavasseur and Bester in themiddle of the Mwanesi Range were in the middleof Mushava's territory, almost all of Maromo'sland of Zihota between Enkeldoorn and theRange was pegged and so was Sango's land southof the Sebakwe. All of these chiefs rose in 1896,but other chiefs with Afrikaner farmers on theirland, such as Chirumanzu who lived south of theMteo Forest, did not rise. Mutekedza, the onlyother important local rebel of 1896, had virtuallyno Europeans on his land because most of it'belonged' to Sir John Willoughby. It is significantthat the Africans of the Charter and Chilimanzidistricts today date the establishment of the farmsthat eventually confined them to the Tribal TrustLands from the time when "Griffin" (C. E. Gilffi-lan) surveyed the land in 1899.15 This suggeststhat the occupation of farms by Afrikaners wasnot a cause of the rebellion of 1896. Probablythis was because the farmers, lacking a miningboom that would create a demand for foodstuffsor a railway for the export of crops, had donevery little farming by 1896. Some of the Charterfarmers had some lands planted before the rising.but many other were content to grow just enoughto keep themselves for the near future, and some,such as Bernadus Bester, left their farms and tookup transport-riding.Our knowledge of the relations between Afri-cans and Afrikaners is limited by the paucity ofdocuments dealing specifically with the area beforethe risings. Charter lay within the SalisburyMagisterial District, but it is not always dearwhether references to this district are intendedto include the Enkeldoorn area. A common accu-sation levelled at European employers of the timewas that they cheated their servants of their wages,lashed them unjustly and illegally, or tried toavoid having to pay them their wages by whippingthem into desertion just before pay-day.16 Evi-dence for this behaviour in Charter is scanty, andcomplicated by the destruction of many courtrecords in 1943. The Salisbury Criminal CourtRegister for 1892-6 shows several surnames oftenfound in Charter records, but the size of SalisburyMagisterial District and the fact that many un-related Afrikaners bear the same name make itdangerous to draw positive conclusions. As forother causes of brutality, a contemporary opinionof an official blamed the language barrier as wellas an unwillingness on the part of Europeans toallow for it: "the Mashonas are in their infancyas working natives, so that they are stupid at workand don't like rising early, [and] these points oftenaggravate employers who, being unable to explainto the natives or too hot tempered to do so, resortto the sjambok."17Other official comment was equally vague andgeneralised at the time. Perhaps the official com-menting on crime in the Salisbury MagisterialDistrict was thinking of Charter as well as therest of the district when he wrote: "the publicwill take the law entirely into their own hands[unless laws punishing African desertion fromwork are enforced] and brutal assaults on nativesat the hands of ignorant and violent persons maytake the place of a duly controlled system of lash-ing, administered under the sentence of a court oflaw."18 After four months in Charter Native Com-missioner Meredith wrote: "I have often heardmen speak of having flogged their boys as if theyhad accomplished a wonderful feat. This must bestopped."19 A later comment throws more light onthe matter: "I think that in time labour fromthat quarter [Mozambique] will be plentiful whenthey find that they are not subjected to the sametyrannies and oppression of the Transvaal andPortuguese governments especially the former, asfor example, it is difficult to get natives to work28I-* >for the Dutch farmers In the district owing to theirhaving been accustomed to beating their nativesunder the Transvaal Government where no justiceis accorded a native,"20 Very many Enkeldoomfarmers were from the Transvaal, and if Trans-vaal custom was still strong in 1899, how muchstronger it must have been in 1895.On the other hand there is a natural limit tothe extent to which brutality can go undetected.The tendency of Shona labourers to flee from thescene of brutality or such disasters as mine acci-dents was well known at the time, and indeedwas, as has been seen, the alleged cause of someacts of violence.21 If brutality in Charter had beenso vigorous or so widespread as to cause massdesertions from work, the employers would havemade fresh demands upon the Native Commis-sioners for fresh labour on a considerable scale;yet there is no like demand recorded in the NativeCommissioners' reports of the time before therebellion. The causes of the rebellion in. the Char-ter District have still to be examined in closedetail, but it seems that no over-riding importancecan be attached to the Afrikaner settlement, whichonly partly impinged on African land and wasonly partly effective in the sense that few farmershad done enough work to disturb the Africaninhabitants. Indeed the work of the Native Depart-ment seems to have been an equally importantcause. This article, however, is more concernedwith the effect of the rebellion upon the Afrika-ners than with the rebellion itself.Already, in July 1895. a farmer named Maritzhad been murdered near his farm in Sango'scountry. His murderer escaped from custody, andthe motive remains obscure.22 This murder arousedcomment but no-one took fright. In March 1896news came that the NdebeJe and some of theShona of Matabeleland had risen. The burghers ofthe district were called into laager at Enkeidoornunder Commandant Lamprecht on 30 March andlived in considerable squalor until the middleof May. The burghers had been sending patrolstowards Nhema's and Banka's chiefdoms in Mata-beleland, and when these scouts reported that thecountry seemed peaceful in that direction, thelaager was broken up and the people wereallowed to leave.23 The Afrikaners however didnot go back to their farms, but gathered in groupson farms nearer to Enkeldoom, such as "DoomKasteel" and "Alanberry."24 All seemed well, butin June the full force of the Shona rising fell uponthem. In the confused flight towards the Enkel-doom and Charter laagers, thirteen European menwere murdered, as well as many Africans whowere in their employ.25 Indeed, one of the factorsthat comes out of the trials of the murderers isthat men were killed not for direct personalreasons but because they were Europeans orworked for Europeans. Thus a Xhosa mantrading for a European near Charter "had beenwarned he was going to be killed and was goingto give me [his wife] his money when he was shot,he knew he could not get away as there wereMashonas living all around ... I know them [theprisoners] both well, they are neighbours, theyhad no quarrel with Billy [the victim].*^The nightmarish quality of sudden attack bymen who seemed friendly right up to the lastmoment may have been a military asset, but thekilling of women and children proved to be ablunder on the part of the rebels, because it soinfuriated Europeans that they were little inclinedto show mercy when positions were reversed. Theprincipal operations against the rebels were under-taken by forces from outside the district: Deal'scolumn which when returning from Matabelelandattacked several villages, Brabant's force fromDelingwe and other forces from Salisbury, andthe final campaign in the central part of the dis-trict was that of the British army against Mute-kedza in September 1896. However, the people ofEnkeldoom also mounted attacks on local rebelchieftaincies and inflicted heavy casualties, as inthe attack on the village on the Sebakwe on 1September.27 On the other hand, although theburghers were capable of giving aid to the mainCompany and Imperial forces who defeated mostof the rebels in the district, their experiences inJune seemed to have induced a state of semi-permanent nervousness. For example, in Augustone of three Shona girls, captured near theSebakwe River and put to work as servantsaround the laager some time before, was executedfor attempting to leave the area with her Africanlover who was thought to be a spy. The militaryreason for the execution was that she might informsome Ndebele supposed to be in the area that thelaager was in a weak state, but in view of the wayshe came to the laager it seems incredible thatanybody could have thought that she was a spy.28This illustrates the state of nervousness that wasprevalent among the Enkeldoorners after the Junekillings. The Enkeldoorn laager remained in beingthrough 1897, but its garrison did not fire a shotin anger.29 The Company finally persuaded thelast burghers to leave the laager in January 1898,but then only on condition that they were givenassurances that the Africans to the south andnorth-west would be put in locations, that cheap29ammunition, seed and tools would be available,and that more police patrols would be made.30In view of the fact that the last serious fightingwithin 30 miles of Enkeldoorn was on 30 October1896 at Sango's, this reluctance of the burghers toleave the laager is difficult to explain. Even inOctober the rebellion in the area was virtuallyover, so that individuals could travel about thedistrict alone, and the Native Commissioner atthe Range nearby recorded only two minor actionsbetween friendly and rebel Africans in the sixmonths after the British Army defeated Mute-kedza in September. The answer would seem tobe that the burghers had in June 1896 receiveda shock that affected them for some years after-wards. For example, in January 1899 the farmerswere in laager again, and in July a "scare" cameup the telegraph line from Orton's Drift thatChirumanzu's people had risen. Once more theburghers moved into laager, only to find that therumour was baseless. In December 1899 similarrumours put the district in a state of tension.31A local resident even recalls a "scare" in 1904 thatput Enkeldoorn into laager, and another as lateas about 1911.32This sort of fear seems to have exceeded that inany other part of the country, where businessreturned to normal shortly after the fightingceased. This is perhaps the first step towards thetraditional view of Enkeldoorn as a particularlybackward, rustic, half-comic place, although thediversion of the Gwelo-Salisbury railway throughthe Que Que and Gatooma mining areas wasprobably more decisive in this respect. One mightask whether relations between the employer andhis servant had improved. Labour in Charter wasrelatively plentiful after the rebellion was over,but Taylor wrote in 1899: "I have great difficultyto get natives to work for Dutch farmers owingto ill-treatment by some and withholding of theirwages."33 Earlier, in April 1898, just after theAfrikaner farmers had returned to their lands,he had noted that "the supply of labour is cer-tainly much greater than the local demand, butthough this is so the demand from Enkeldoorncannot be supplied on account of the bad namethe Boers there have ... I even have difficultyin getting boys for the English in Enkeldoorn, aseverybody living there is looked upon as a Boer,and it is difficult to convince them to thecontrary."34The people of Enkeldoorn showed little sign ofpolitical consciousness as Afrikaners in this period.Most of them entered Rhodesia before the Jame-son Raid, when Rhodes was still Prime Ministerof the Cape with the support of the AfrikanerBond, and in any case to enter Rhodesia at allmeant submission to the British flag and theCompany's rule. The idea of an Afrikaner politi-cal dominion in the north had ended with theAdendorff Trek as far as Rhodesia was concerned.Again, the Charter Afrikaners had not settled inquite so many formally organised treks as theirMelsetter counterparts, and unlike them they hadno-one with them of political importance in therepublics such as M. J. Martin in Melsetter, whogained guarantees from Rhodes regarding thelanguage rights of the Melsetter Afrikaners.35After the Raid ruined Rhodes' relations with theAfrikaners in the south, the rebellions followedso closely that there was no time for any ant'i-British feeling around Enkeldoorn to attractofficial comment. During the risings and in theyears afterwards the Afrikaner community reliedso heavily upon Rhodes and the Company formilitary and economic support that an anti-British attitude was out of the question. A fewmen from Enkeldoorn fought in the Boer War onthe republican side, but in spite of the fears ofofficials the burghers showed no signs of givingtrouble in any way.36 Even when a depression ledsome families to emigrate to Tanganyika, a resi-dent wrote to warn readers of De Transvaaleragainst such a move, as "the German Govern-ment is not nearly like the English Government. . . the laws of the German Government are un-bearable to anyone who has been under Englishrule."37 A fair comment on Afrikaner politicalfeelings in Enkeldoorn up to 1905 would be thatthey reflected the varying shades of Afrikaneropinion in the South African colonies and repub-lics and not a single stereotype, and that theAfrikaners' remoteness from other such commu-nities, and the terms under which they entered thecountry tended to reduce these feelings to virtualinsignificance.In any case the history of the Afrikaner popu-lation of Enkeldoorn and the farms nearby wasonly a part of the history of Charter District afterthe rebellions. The problems of resettling theAfrican polities of Maromo, Sango and Mute-kedza which had been defeated in battle, thefuture relations with the chiefdoms that hadstayed neutral or collaborated with the Europeans,and the extent to which the great land grants madeto Sir John Willoughby's concerns and other landcompanies by the Jameson administration were tobe recognised, occupied the Government to amuch greater extent. The local official who had todeal with all these questions was Native Commis-30sioner Taylor, whose service at the Range until1901 laid the foundations of the present divisionof African and European land in Charter Districttoday. Taylor had an enormous task when heresumed his administration, and it was necessaryfor him to be allocated an assistant from 1897 to1898. His first task was to supervise the surrendersand to check on rumours of more risings. Thushe interviewed chiefs anxious to profess theirloyalty, including some whom he subsequentlyarrested and held or punished.38 Every effort wasmade to collect guns from those involved in therebellion, and efforts were made to arrest thekillers of the initial period of fighting until acircular was issued in December 1898 whichordered the Native Commissioners not tocontinue.39 The Native Commissioner was alsoexpected to supervise the collection of grain byCompany traders who bought large quantities forthe troops engaged in the fighting in Hartley.Mazoe and Salisbury Districts.* Charter also sup-plied the rebels with food, Mashayamombe send-ing convoys to collect grain as late as July 1897.4tTaylor's principal problem was that of settlingthe refugees from the dispersed clans of Mute-kedza, Maromo and the mountains to the west ofthe district. Daily, families came to the Range tohand in their guns and surrender, and it was Tay-lor's responsibility to locate them on a suitablepiece of ground. It was Company policy to putsuch surrendered people on land away from theirtraditional hilltop strongholds, because anotherrising was feared. As early as 4 October 1896Taylor was demanding to be told "what definiteplans the Company have made regarding NativeReserves, so that I can act on them, and now isthe time this should be carried out."42 Taylorwas worried that it might be too late to sow cropson the 'locations' if he did not act at once. In theend he seems to have acted on his own initiativeand forwarded an account of what he had donefor subsequent approval. Some ex-rebel villageswere left where they were because there was notime to move them. Even such places as Sango'swhere resistance had been strong were left aloneuntil 1898.43 The most urgent cases were thosegroups that had lost their chiefs, Mutekedza andMaromo. On 4 October 1896 Taylor began tochoose sites for locations and by 19 October hehad chosen a location for half of Mutekedza'sHera, a spot just north of Gabajena's, west of theVictoria road.44 By March 1897 he had two loca-tions, 'Masugandoro' and 'Matshimbudzana',which became the nuclei of the present-day Ma-nyeni and Narira Trust Lands respectively.45 Whenthe 7th Hussars and the British South Africa Policeattacked the rebels in the Mwanesi Range in Nov-ember 1896 and January 1897 many refugees cameto surrender at the Range and were located inthe two main "Reserves" as the locations came tobe called. They had to stay there until the end ofthe fighting, and many remained in Manyeni andNarira permanently. The result was that whenthe Ngezi Reserve was surveyed in 1903 it cov-ered 37,500 acres but held only 396 people.46Meanwhile the central reserves were becomingseriously overcrowded. Gabajena's old lands andthe 'Masugandoro' location covered about thearea of the present Manyeni Trust Land. East ofthe main road Taylor allocated all land betweenthe Nyazwidzi and Sabi rivers up to a line fromthe Range to Mount Wedza for African occupa-tion, but although this left most of the Heracountry to European ownership the African landwas to be reduced even further in later years.47The question of land occupation became vitalfrom the moment that the farmers returned to theland, and by a tragic irony those Shona mostaffeoted were those who had been loyal or neutralduring the rebellion, for the ex-rebels had beenmoved to the reserves. For example on Lategan's"Hugosfontein" and "Veeplaats" farms were thefive kraals of Huchu, the brother of the impor-tant loyal chief Chirumanzu. In December 1899Huchu told Taylor that "he was very short offood ... as the demand and supply of labour tothe farms left a lot of his ground unsown and theconsequence was that he was short of grain ©veryyear." Taylor's detective confirmed that there wasreal hunger in Huchu's village.48 Although it canbe proved that more farms were occupied in 1898than in 1896, this increase does not seem to haveaffected the resident Africans at once. Some pre-ferred to stay where they were for the time being,but the demand for rent or labour by the farmersgradually produced a reaction like that of thechief who, on being told "that he and some of hispeople were living on private farms and that theowners desired the payment of rent, he repliedthat he and his people knew and recognised theGovernment only, and if the fanner desired reve-nue no doubt the trees and stones on the farmwould provide that, [for] he and his people wouldmove to a Reserve."49 The prospect of such amove was not such an absolute hardship to aShona dan at that time, because although 'ances-tral lands' were mentioned earlier it should notbe forgotten that migrations to new land were notuncommon in the past. Maromo's Dzete peoplecame originally from the Mangwendi-Mrewa3!area. The question was whether the Reserves werebig enough. Nobody had then foreseen the 'popu-lation explosion' but even at the turn of the cen-tury available land was limited. That is to say, itwas limited if one accepted the full claims of theCompany's most favoured "farmer", Sir JohnWilloughby. Unfortunately, that is exactly whatthe Company did.In 1899 the agent of Willoughby's Mashona-land Central African Estates started to collect arent from the villages on that vast tract of land,50but the real trouble lay in the Wiltshire and Lan-cashire Estates to the east. Taylor's eastern "loca-tion" of 1896 had been expanded into the proposedNarira and Sabi Reserves, bounded by a line fromthe Range to Mount Wedza. This included someof the high country pegged by Willoughby's com-pany. Taylor wanted some of this for the Africansbecause the lower angle between the Sabi and theNyazwidzi was badly watered and some betterplanting land nearer to the watershed wasneeded.51 However, when Taylor requested per-mission to take the area he wanted for a Reservehe was told that he could only take the land notpegged by Willoughby's Exploring Lands andMinerals Company.52 By 1902 this company hadbegun to demand rent from villages still on theirmain estates, and to enforce its payment. NativeCommissioner Posselt realised that the ManyeniReserve could not easily take people from theWiltshire Estate, because it already held 3,600people although it had only been intended for3,000. He therefore tried to get a strip of landon the Wiltshire Estate as an additional reservefor those who could not or would not pay rent.The Chief Native Commissioner Taberer recom-mended this grant but Milton, the Administrator,felt differently: "I am not prepared to purchaseland for these people, nor, generally, to increasethe area of .existing reserves. There are vast areasreserved in the Victoria District and the Reservesin Hartley alone are sufficient for the wholenative population."53 The Exploring Lands andMinerals Company then threatened to sue theAfricans on the land if they did not pay rent, andso Posselt tried to promote the offer of some Head-men to buy Sand from Willoughby.54 To this theGovernment replied that this was not the concern,of the Native Department. In 1900 the Sabi,Narira and Manyeni Reserves covered an esti-mated 454,000 acres, of which some were of poorquality as noted above, and had a population of32,823.55 By 1963 when the Wiltshire and Lanca-shire Estates (formerly Willoughby's) werebought for the African people, they covered346,200 acres, but their African population hadshrunk to 2,610.56 If it had not been for the hugegrants of land made to men such as Willoughby,overcrowding would not have become such aproblem in the Reserves.Some conclusions can be drawn from the factsgiven above in this article, although there remainsmuch work to be done on the area. First, CharterDistrict is one of the few areas involved in therising in 1896 that possessed a large Europeanfarming community. Yet there is no definite con-nection between the occupation of farms and therising, for some occupied areas were neutral orloyalist, and the biggest rebel polity, Mutekedza's,was not really touched by European farmers'claims. Moreover, there is little indication that theAfrikaner farmers of the area had done enoughwork to disturb the people on whose lands theyhad settled. This suggests that the occupation offarms and the presence of European farmers werenot a major cause of rebellion. On the other handa second conclusion can be drawn, that althoughthe boundaries claimed by the fanners or landcompanies were ephemeral in 1896, the fact thatthey existed on paper and that the first Africanreserves were only hasty creations intended todeal with the refugee problem caused by thefighting of 1896-7, meant that today's division ofland in Charter between Africans and Europeansis based upon such factors as Selous' choice of aroad, the Company's generous allowances of landto settlers and speculators, and the chances ofwar. Finally one can see that although the earlyAfrikaner farmers of Enkeldoorn were neitherhomogenous nor politically conscious their experi-ences of 1896 gave them a common heritage thatmay perhaps be found among their descendantsin the area today.REFERENCESAll the documentary materials cited are held in theNational Archives of Rhodesia in Salisbury, and unlessotherwise stated are in the records of the Administration of the British South Africa Company.Abbreviations are used as follows:A.Ag.Admin.BAR.AssistantActingAdministratorBritish Army in RhodesiaBSA Co.BSAP.C.Comm.British South Africa CompanyBritish South Africa PoliceChiefCommandant32F-C. Field-CornetGOC. General Officer CommandingGov Rep. Government RepresentativeNC. Native CommissionerOC. Officer CommandingPP. Public ProsecutorRM. Resident MagistrateSec. .SecretarySec. NA. Secretary for Native AffairsSurv-Gen Surveyor-GeneralUCR. University College of Rhodesia; Ł *Ł1. BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 1898 Report on the Native Disturbances in Rhodesia, 1896-97. [London]p. 122. DEPARTMENT OF LAND SETTLEMENT, General Correspondence, Towns and Villages, Enkeldoorn[hereafter cited as L2/2/175/8], Sec. of Admin, to Surv-Gen. Salisbury, 26.xii.1896.2. OFFICE OF THE ADMIN., Out Letters to Cape Town Office, 28X1892 - 26.xii.1892 [hereafter cited as A2/8/3],Ag. Sec, of Admin, to Sec. of Cape Town Office, 14.X.1892.3. DEPARTMENT OF THE STATIST, Reports, Interim 1895 [hereafter cited as F4/1/11], NC. Charter to CNC.Salisbury, 14.vi.1895, enclosed in Sec NA. to Statist Salisbury, 21.ix.1895. In 1904 the population of Charter Districtwas estimated as 41,723, OFFICE OF THE CNC, Correspondence, Statistics and Censuses, Native Census of 1904[hereafter cited as N3/3/5], NC. Charter to Statist Salisbury, Return for 1904.4. UCR. HISTORY DEPARTMENT TRANSCRIPTS: INTERVIEWS, 13.U969 Mr. E. M. Dzwova, Manyeni;14X1969 Mr. Gondo Zigomo, Manyeni.5. OFFICE OF THE CNC, In Letters, NC. Charter [hereafter cited as N1/1/2J, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury,3.viii.l897.6. DEPARTMENT OF LAND SETTLEMENT, Out Letters, General, 5.LU895 - 9.U896 [hereafter cited as Ll/2/4],Surv.-Gen. to C. P. Hartmann, 7.x. 1895; RECORDS OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SOUTHERN RHODESIA;LANDS DEPARTMENT, Registers, Grants 1893-1897 [hereafter cited as S.I 107], grant to J. Adlam, 27.vi.1893.7. LANDS DEPARTMENT, Registers, Farms, Chilimanzi "Central Estates" [hereafter cited as S.253, vol. 6];DEPARTMENT OF LAND SETTLEMENT, Correspondence, Correspondents' Files, Native Department, l.ix.1894-10.x.1907 [hereafter cited as L2/3/43], NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 7ii.l899.8. S.I 107, Grant to Wesleyan Mission, Gwenda's, 4.viU893.9. Ll/2/4, Surv.-Gen. to W. Landman, 22.ii.1896.10. HEADLAM, C. ed. 1931 The Milner Papers, 1897-1905, 2 vols. (-1933) London, Cassell, vol. 1, p. 133.11. DEPARTMENT OF LAND SETTLEMENT, Out Letters, General, 28.JC.1897 - 23.ti.1898 [hereafter cited as Ll/2/9],Surv-Gen. Salisbury to Ag. Gov Rep. Enkeldoorn, 23.xi.1897.12. HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS COLLECTION: DARLING PAPERS [hereafter cited as HIST. MSS. DA6/1/1],Dr. J. J. ffolliott Darling to S. Darling, 2.ix.l896.HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS COLLECTION, PELLY PAPERS, REMINISCENCES [hereafter cited as HIST.MSS. PE3/2/1], Rev. D. Pelly to family, 27.viii. 1896.13. LONDON OFFICE OF THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY. In Letters, from Salisbury 1896-1897 [here-after cited as LO 5/4/21, C. E. Wells to Surv-Gen., 15.ii.1897.14. S.253, vol. 6, sub nomine.15. UCR. HISTORY DEPARTMENT TAPES: INTERVIEWS, 13X1969 Mr. E. M. Dzwova, Manyeni; 9.XU.1968 Head-man Bangure, Chilimanzi.16. BRITISH SESSIONAL PAPERS 1897 Report by Sir R. E. R. Martin, K.C.M.G. on the Native Administration ofthe British South Africa Company, together with a Letter from the Company Commenting upon that Report. {Vol.62, p. 561 ff.) C. 8547, p. 44.17. OFFICE OF THE CNC, In Letters, Replies to Circulars, Native Labour 1895 [hereafter cited as Nl/2/2], NC.late of Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 2.xii.l895.18. F4/1/1, Interim Report of RM's Office Salisbury, 3O.viii.1895.19. Nl/2/2, NC. late of Charter to CNC, Salisbury, 2.xii.l895.20. OFFICE OF THE CNC, Reports, Monthly, January-March, 1899 [hereafter cited as N9/4/2], N.C. Charter to CNC.Salisbury, 31.iii.1899.21. OFFICE OF THE CNC, In Letters, NC. Hartley [hereafter cited as Nl/1/3], NC. Hartley to CNC, 17.vii.1895 and6.viii.1895.22. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, In Letters, Miscellaneous, l.viiiJ894-3.xii.1895 [hereafter cited as Jl/9/1], F-C.Enkeldoorn to RM. Salisbury, 14.vii.1895; Nl/1/2, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 10.X.1895 and 7.xil895,23. OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATOR, In Letters, Rebellion, Telegrams, March 1896 [hereafter cited as Al/12/31],F-C. Ferreira to Ag. Admin. Salisbury, 30.iii.1896; OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATOR, In Letters, Rebellion,Telegraphic Conversations, May 1896 [hereafter cited as Al/12/11], Vintcent to Rhodes.24. HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS COLLECTION, REMINISCENCES OF MRS. LOOTS [hereafter cited as HIST.MSS. MISC/LO 5/1/1].25. BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY 1898 Report on the Native Disturbances in Rhodesia, 1896-97, pp. 62-63.26. DISTRICT COURTS, Criminal Cases, Salisbury, 1891 and 1898 [hereafter cited as D3/5/1], Regina versus Kondo andMatongwa, 18.iv.1898, evidence of Bin.27. HIST. MSS. DA6/1/1, Dr. J. J. ffolliott Darling to Darling, 2.ix.l896.3328. OFFICE OF THE GOC. BAR., Correspondence, Courts Martial and Courts of Enquiry, I.vi.l896-U.xii.l896 [here-after cited as BA 2/3/1], PP. to Admin., 23.xi.1896.29. OFFICE OF THE RM., Enkeldoorn, Sundry Papers, Enfceldoom Garrison, Diaries, 1897 [hereafter cited as DE7/2/1], passim.30. OFFICE OF THE RM., Enkeldoorn, In Letters, Subject Files, Native Rebellions [hereafter cited as DEI/2/9],Admin. Salisbury to Gov. Rep. Enkeldoorn, 24.1.1898.31. Nl/1/2, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 24.U897 and 27.iii.1897; DEI/2/9, Correspondence between Admin.Salisbury and RM. Enkeldoorn, 1.i. 1899-15.vii. 1899; OFFICE OF THE CNC, Correspondence, Inter-Departmental,Charter [hereafter cited as N3/1/5], NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 5.xii.l899.32. ORAL INTERVIEWS. Oral/TUl, Mr. G. W. I. Tully. UCR. HISTORY DEPARTMENT TRANSCRIPTS:INTERVIEW, 21.vii.1969 Mr. G. W. I. Tully.33. OFFICE OF THE CNC, Reports, Monthly, April-June 1899 [hereafter cited as N9/4/3], NC. Charter to CNC.Salisbury, 30.vi.1899.34. OFFICE OF THE CNC, Reports, Annual, 1897-1898 [hereafter cited as N9/1/4], NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury,April 1898.35. OLIVIER, S. P. 1957 Many Treks Made Rhodesia. Cape Town, Howard Timmins, p. 64.36. OFFICE OF THE RM. Enkeldoorn, In Letters, General, 15.i.l898-28.ii.l922 [hereafter cited as DEI/1/2], OC. FortCharter to Comm. BSAP., 26.ii.1900 and G. H. Pidcock to OC. Fort Charter, 26.ii.1900.37. DEI/1/2, L. J. Hoffman, "Elminie" to Department of Agriculture, Salisbury, 21.iv.1905.38. Nl/1/2, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 22.X.1896, 9.vi.l896 and 21.iv.1897.39. OFFICE OF THE CNC, Circulars, 1894-1903 [hereafter cited as N4/1/1], CNC. Circular No. 47, 15.xii.1898.40. Nl/1/2, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 13.X.1896.41. OFFICE OF THE NC. Hartley, Out Letters, General, 1897-1898 [hereafter cited as NSE2/2/1], NC. Hartley toCNC. Salisbury, l.vii.1897.42. OFFICE OF THE OC. BAR., Correspondence, Military Operations in Mashonaland [hereafter cited as BA2/8/1],NC Charter to Ag. Admin. Salisbury, 4.x.1896, quoted in telegram, Ag. Admin. Salisbury to Admin. Bulawayo,6.X.1896.43. OFFICE OF THE RM. Enkeldoorn, In Letters, General, 1896-1898 [hereafter cited as DEI/1/1], ANC. Charter toO.C Enkeldoorn, 18.vii.1897.44. Nl/1/2, Range Diary, 19.X.1896.45. Nl/1/2, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, ll.iii.1897.46. N3/1/5, C.Sec. of Admin, to Ag. CNC. Salisbury, 25.xi.1903.47. NR/1/5, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 12.xi.1900.48. N3/1/5, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 5.xii.l899.49. OFFICE OF THE CNC, Reports, Annual, NC.'s, 1902-1903 [hereafter cited as N9/1/8], NC. Charter to CNC.Salisbury, 31.iii.1903.50. L2/3/43, NC. Charter to Surv-Gen., 23.5.1899.51. N3/1/5, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 12.xi.1900.52. N3/1/5, CNC. Salisbury to NC. Charter, 23.xi.1900.53. N3/1/5, Ag. CNC. Salisbury to C. Sec. of Admin., Salisbury, 25.iii.1903, and endorsement.54. N3/1/5, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 3.vi.l904.55. N3/1/5, NC. Charter to CNC. Salisbury, 12.xi.1900.56. KAY, G. 1964 The Distribution of African Population in Southern Rhodesia: Some Preliminary Notes. Lusaka,Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, Communication No. 28, p. 19.34