2 Agricultural Betterment, The Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA)

CODESRIA
Cultivating Conflict: Agricultural 'Betterment', the Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA)
and Ungovernability in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1951–1962
Author(s): Guy Thompson
Source: Africa Development / Afrique et Développement, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2004), pp. 1-39
Published by: CODESRIA
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m Africa Development, Vol. XXIX, No. 3, 2004, pp. 1-39
© Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 2004
(ISSN 0850-3907)
Cultivating Conflict: Agricultural

'Betterment', the Native Land Husbandry
Act (NLHA) and Ungovernability
in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1951-1962'
Guy Thompson51
Abstract
in the 1950s, the white minority regime in Zimbabwe launched an ambitious
development scheme for peasant agriculture, known as the Native Land
Husbandry Act. It was abandoned in 1962 in the face of massive rural opposition.
This paper explores the key provisions of this surprising scheme and its origins
in the political economy of the colony and the contradictory interests of the
settler community. It then looks at why Africans rejected the measure, arguing
the NLHA undermined key peasant strategies for production, environmental
management, and survival in the colonial order. Peasants initially tried to evade
the impositions of the scheme, but then became defiant as the state tried to
coerce them to follow the law. Protests spread throughout the country, creating
a state of ungovernability that threatened white rule. These developments played
a key role in rural mobilisation and the emergence of land-based nationalism in
Zimbabwe, factors that continue to shape the political and social landscape today.
Résumé
Dans les années 50, le régime de minorité blanche avait initie un ambitieux
programme de développement destiné à l'agriculture paysanne, connu sous le
nom de Native Land Husbandry Act. Celui-ci a été abandonné en 1962, face à la
farouche opposition rurale qui s'en est suivie. Cette contribution analyse les
principales dispositions de ce surprenant programme, ses origines, dans le cadre
de l'économie politique coloniale, ainsi que les intérêts contradictoires des
colonisateurs. Elle se penche ensuite sur les raisons pour lesquelles les Africains
ont rejeté ce programme, en avançant que le NLHA menaçait les principales
Department of History and Classics. University of Alberta. Canada.
Africa Development, Vol. XXIX, No. 3, 2004
stratégies de production des agriculteurs, de même que la gestion environnementale

et la survie au sein de l'ordre colonial. Les paysans avaient d'abord tenté de se
soustraire aux règles imposées par ce programme, puis ont commencé à se rebeller,
lorsque l'état a tenté de les contraindre à respecter ce dernier. Des protestations
s'élevèrent de tous les coins du pays, créant ainsi un état de «non gouvernabilité»
qui menaçait le régime blanc. Ces évolutions ont joué un rôle clé dans la
mobilisation rurale et l'émergence d'un nationalisme fondé sur la terre, au
Zimbabwe. Ces facteurs continuent de modeler le paysage politique et social
d'aujourd'hui.
Introduction
The Mugabe government's recent Fast Track Land Reform programme

has brought Zimbabweans' struggle with the difficult legacies of colonial
land and agricultural policies into wide public awareness once again. State
land grabs, rural political unrest, authoritarian decision-making and
violence, however, have a long history in Zimbabwe, extending back to
the foundation of the colonial state. This paper explores a key period in
the country's agrarian history, when the white minority regime embarked
on a huge social engineering and development project to reshape the
productive, social, and economic order of the African reserves through
the 1951 Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA). A massive extension of
state power, the measure undermined key peasant fanning practices and
survival strategies within the colonial order. Rural Africans initially tried
to evade the impositions of the law, but as enforcement intensified, peasants
began to confront officials and defy orders. By late 1961, rural opposition
and unrest threatened state control of the countryside, creating a state of
ungovernability in many reserves that compounded the state's efforts to
contain nationalist organisation and township protest. While intensified
repression was a key component of the white minority regime's response,
they also tried to reduce African opposition by modifying the NLHA and
other racial regulations. These initiatives failed, however, provoking a
political crisis within the settler community that led the government to
reduce its role in the reserves and brought the extremist Rhodesian Front
to power.
The events of the 1950s and early 1960s therefore played an important
role in Zimbabwe's agrarian and political history, leaving legacies that
continue to shape the political and social landscape today. The rural
developments of this period, however, have received relatively little
academic attention, particularly in comparison with the extensive
discussion of the liberation war and the period from 1890 to 1945.2 My
intention in this paper, then, is to shed more light on this important period,
Thompson: Cultivating Conflict
but I also want to emphasise the impact of the NLHA on peasant cultivation
techniques, methods of environmental management, production strategies,
and rural social relations. The paper will build on the existing scholarship
on state intervention in the Zimbabwean countryside that explores land
seizures and forced relocations of Africans, agricultural 'improvement'
efforts in the 1920s and 1930s, and the role of agricultural innovators.31
also engage with the historical scholarship on the development of
nationalism, exploring how the period of NLHA implementation saw a
massive upsurge in rural political mobilisation and growing articulation
of African grievances about land, key developments behind the recent
political turmoil in Zimbabwe.4
This paper provides an extended treatment of the NLHA and its legacy.
It discusses how the measure fit into the political economy of colonial
Zimbabwe, why peasants objected so vociferously to its implementation,
the rapid spread of rural resistance, and the political crisis that growing
African opposition provoked, emphasising several themes. I argue for the
continued importance of peasant agriculture to the colonial economy after
the Second World War, when industrialisation and the dramatic expansion
of settler tobacco production created a massive demand for basic
foodstuffs, which was partially met by fanners in the reserves. Studying
the NLHA also illuminates other contradictions of settler colonialism,
particularly the conflicts within the bureaucracy and white interests that
influenced the law's introduction and implementation. These came to a
head in the political crisis of 1961 and 1962. On a different level, the
discussion of peasant understandings of state initiatives argues that the
NLHA imposed a much more onerous labour regime that undermined
farmers' production strategies and ecological management techniques
rooted in indigenous knowledge. It was these realities, combined with the
social disruptions of the law and the coercive ways in which it was
implemented, that fuelled rural opposition and created conditions of
ungovernability in many reserves. While these developments laid the basis
for the later liberation war and recent conflicts over land, 1 argue that the
relationship between peasants and nationalists was a complicated one,
compounded by the divisions that emerged in rural communities because
of popular mobilisation. Finally, 1 want to emphasise the legacies of this
period, which continue to shape social and political dynamics in
Zimbabwe, particularly as many of the modernist assumptions of the
NLHA can be seen in the technocratic approaches of the post-independence
state agricultural extension services as well as the current agrarian policies
of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The bulk of this paper rests on a close reading of a variety of written

sources that primarily illuminate the colonial political economy and the
dynamics of the government and settler community, although they also
provide insight into nationalist activity and, to a lesser degree, peasant
protest. These sources include records of cabinet, newspapers,
administrative files, government propaganda, and contemporary
scholarship on the economy. To get at peasant understandings of state
initiatives, rural social dynamics, and the complexity of peasant political
activity, 1 am also drawing on material from an extended study of social,
cultural, and agrarian change in the Madziwa Communal Area in
northeastern Zimbabwe. This larger project rests on life history interviews
with 115 elderly residents of Madziwa, which took the form of extended
conversations that were shaped by the participants as well as my questions
and the input of my research assistants, rather than a fixed protocol.5
The Law
A detailed discussion of the legislation itself is a necessary, albeit rather
dry, first step to understanding the goals of, and reactions to, the NLHA.
The law was a complex measure that gave the settler state extensive
powers over the inhabitants of the reserves and Special Native Areas
(SNAs), allowing officials to direct peasant production, control land use,
and determine who could have access to farm land."1
The first section of the law allowed the state to decide how people
farmed and how they used the land through a range of regulations.7 These
included measures to proclaim permanent, separate grazing, arable,
residential and garden areas, the right to allocate holdings within these
spaces, and the authority to restrict access to them. Officials could also
forbid cultivation in areas that were seen as ecologically sensitive, such
as wetlands, river flats and stream banks, as well as issue orders to fence
off or protect springs and headwaters. This section further empowered
authorities to direct peasants' farming practices by requiring landholders
to follow approved cropping systems and to build contour ridges, storm
drains and grass buffer strips to control soil erosion in their arable holdings.
In theory, the approved cropping systems were to be adapted to local
environmental conditions, but in practice the state imposed a single model
throughout the country. It forbade inter-cropping, while requiring farmers
to grow crops in rows, work manure or compost into their lands to improve
soil fertility, and to follow a four year rotation of maize with manure,
followed by maize or sorghum, then groundnuts, beans or another legume,
and finally finger millet.
Officials determined who could farm in the reserves and SNAs under
the second and third sections of the act, which introduced a system of
arable and grazing permits. Farm rights were distributed to male heads of
households on the basis of permanent individual tenure within the arable
blocks. Each man was allocated a standard holding of basically equal
size, which officials set according to the area's rainfall; in the wetter regions
of the country, the standard holding was 6 to 8 acres, while in the driest
areas it could reach 15 acres. Polygynous men received an extra 1/3 of a
holding for each wife after the first, while chiefs and village headman
received an extra allocation in recognition of their duties. Holdings could
not be subdivided, nor could they be used as collateral for loans as the
farming permit conferred use rights rather than full ownership.
Grazing rights were issued in a similar fashion, and were restricted to
recognised landholders. Officials calculated the stock carrying capacity
of the area based on its size, rainfall, and soil conditions, then set a standard
holding calculated in Large Stock Equivalents (LSE). One LSE was defined
as 1 head of cattle or 5 goats or 5 sheep. The typical standard holding was
6 LSE, but this ranged up to 20 in drier regions where stock keeping was
more important.
As the law was implemented, anyone who currently owned animals or
had worked land in the last growing season was eligible to receive a land
and grazing permit. Any person with the right to reside in the area could
apply for left-over rights, but most reserves were overpopulated. Therefore,
there were few, if any, permits available to applicants and many regions
were so overcrowded that the current residents received smaller holdings
than the ideal standard unit. Stock allocations were much more restrictive.
Most animal owners had to reduce their herds, even those with 3 or 4
animals. Those who did not currently own stock, or had only one or two
LSE were restricted to that number. Permits could be bought and sold, so
that young men coming of age and returning labour migrants could look
for rights, but they were unlikely to obtain them. Ambitious farmers could
purchase additional holdings, although the NLHA imposed an individual
limit of three grazing and three arable permits. While rights were basically
restricted to adult men, women who were divorced, widowed, over 25
and unmarried, or whose husbands were missing, were eligible to receive
their own allocation.
The fourth section of the law provided for the designation of village
and business sites in the reserves and SNAs, as part of Rhodesia's grand
segregation plans. Blacks were only allowed to live in towns or other
designated white areas as long as they were employed, and were made to
return to their reserve of origin at the end of their contract. Before the
NLHA was introduced, returnees took up farming, but as land access was
restricted under the measure, village areas were seen as necessary to
accommodate former migrants and others without farming rights. The
fifth section of the law allowed officials to recruit forced labour for
government conservation works in the African areas. Any male landholder
who had not been employed for 3 months in the last year could be recruited
for up to 90 days, paid at the prevailing wage rate in the area.
The NLHA was designed to be gradually implemented throughout the
country. Each reserve and SNA had to be individually proclaimed to bring
the act into force, while each section of the act could be introduced when
local officials thought it was appropriate. Finally, the law also set penalties
to enforce its provisions. Violations of regulations under the first section
of the law were punished by a fine of £1 or a week in jail; this rose to £15
or three months for a third offense, while a fourth charge could lead to
confiscation of the land right. Animals that were grazed illegally were
seized and sold, while crops grow in violation of the law were ploughed
under.
Despite the sweeping changes in peasants' lives implied by the NLHA,
the law was not an innovation. Rather, it drew on models introduced by
Christian missionaries throughout southern Africa and earlier state
initiatives in Southern Rhodesia through the 'native' agriculture department
and community betterment schemes." What was truly new about the NLHA
was that it provided officials with extensive coercive powers and brought
a number of earlier programmes together into a comprehensive scheme.
State betterment efforts in the 1920s and 1930s were haphazard, limited
to a few areas, and relied on peasants voluntarily following the advice of
agricultural and community demonstrators. More basically, the earlier
measures were poorly funded, reflecting white farmers' deeply rooted
fear of black competition as well as the reluctance of settlers to spend
state revenues on Africans.9 Thus the passage of the NLHA and its
expansion into an expensive, extensive modernisation scheme is something
of a dilemma, one that can only be understood in light of fundamental
changes in the colony's political economy.
Origins of the NLHA

The Second World War and the years following it brought unprecedented
prosperity for Europeans in Southern Rhodesia. The economy not only
expanded rapidly, but diversified. In mining, the least successful of the
major sectors, output grew by 157 percent from 1946 to 1953, as the
structure of the industry changed.10 Gold production declined slightly, as

many small white controlled mines that had emerged in the depression
closed. Asbestos and chrome production, dominated by large foreign
owned companies, grew in scale and importance." The output of large
scale agriculture, legally restricted to Europeans and heavily supported
by state subsidies, expanded ten times between 1937 and 1958.12 Maize,
beef, and dairy production all rose, but tobacco grew the most quickly;
the 1950 harvest of 107 million pounds was five times that of 1939. The
number of registered growers increased from 1000 in 1945 to 2150 in
1950, then to 2669 in 1958, reflecting not just the conversion of existing
farms to tobacco production, but expansion in the number of white farmers,
fed by immigration, government land sales and the subdivision of large
estates.13
However, it was manufacturing that expanded most quickly, with annual
growth rates averaging nearly 25 percent between 1944 and 1948.14 Overall
output grew ten times between 1940 and 1955, while the number of
factories rose from 299 in 1939 to 473 in 1948, 714 in 1953 and 918 in
1957.15 Manufacturing overtook mining as the second largest sector in
the economy during the war, behind European agriculture, and it continued
to grow in relative importance through the 1950s. Firm size and output
also increased, reflecting mechanisation and expansion in textile and
metals manufacturing. Most of the larger operations were foreign owned,
due to heavy investment by outside interests in secondary manufacturing.'6
Overall rapid economic growth was encouraged by a number of factors.
The war fostered import substitution, while rapid European immigration
after 1945 provided skilled individuals, new markets and opportunities in
construction. Capital flight from the UK and South Africa fuelled foreign
investment, while the emergence of the sterling zone and tight dollar import
restrictions within it provided ready markets for Southern Rhodesia's
exports.17 At its core, it remained a colonial economy, dependent on
primary product exports; the most important of which were tobacco,
replacing US imports in British markets, along with chrome and asbestos
for military uses in the US and UK.li! Despite falling production, gold
exports were vital because of their support for the pound, and averaged
£6 million a year.19 Exports represented 45 percent of GDP; manufactured
goods were of limited importance, serving only the small regional market.20
Cheap labour underwrote all sectors of the economy, including secondary
industry, but was especially important to the labour intensive commercial
agriculture and mining sectors. Short term male migrancy, drawing large
numbers from Southern Rhodesia, as well as colonial Malawi, Mozambique,
and Zambia was a key feature, secured by pass laws, low wages and
extractive taxes. Most of the costs of reproducing labour were borne by
peasants, especially rural women throughout the region.21
Economic expansion and diversification were not the result of
consistent state policy, nor a clear commitment to promoting
industrialisation.22 Rapid growth in the 1940s and 1950s has blinded
researchers to the divisions and contradictions of this period; they have
created an image of unmitigated settler success which rested on white
unity and the dominance of industrial interests. This in turn has made
them far too ready to see the small openings offered to Africans under the
liberal facade of'racial partnership' that Southern Rhodesia and the Central
African Federation promoted to contain black opposition and overseas
criticism as real gains.23 There were some new educational and employment
opportunities and a slight easing of petty racial restrictions, mainly for
the tiny black elite, but these did little to alter the structures of domination
and exploitation, especially as they had no impact on the lives of the
majority of Africans. There were indeed strong cohesive forces in the
settler community. White Rhodesia was a small society. In 1951 there
were only 138 000 Europeans in the country, with a pervasive culture and
extensive informal social contacts which fostered an appearance of
homogeneity. Moreover, whites were united by their desire to maintain
their distance from the black majority, an undercurrent of fear of Africans,
and a common goal of securing European privilege and domination.24
White political conflicts were also obscured by the dynamics of the
state, which was effectively a corporatist system.25 The colony was
dominated by the ruling United Rhodesia Party (URP) despite the existence
of several other political parties. Led by Godfrey Huggins, Prime Minister
from 1933 to 1953, the URP had drawn in many of its former critics,
merging several times with opposition organisations. Huggins built up a
range of inclusive mechanisms to attract the major white interest groups,
including formal consultative bodies and the governing boards of parastatal
corporations that ran key sectors of the economy. The executive branch
engaged in extensive informal consultation, a process that was reinforced
by the small size of the European population, exclusion of Africans, and
limited formal party organisation. Many important meetings took place
between government officials and leading individuals over lunch,
sundowners, or within social and sports clubs.26
Below the surface however, there were important fissures in whites'
apparent unity. There were significant class divisions. Professionals,
managers and owners of large business interests, and successful, well
capitalised farmers generally felt their positions were secure. White

workers, clerical employees, owners of small businesses and poorer
farmers - many of whom were Afrikaners - were suspicious of the elite
and concerned to protect their privileges which rested on a range of laws
restricting opportunities for Africans. Large economic interests,
particularly foreign owned companies in manufacturing and mining were
much less committed to maintaining Rhodesia's rigid racial order, at least
measures that protected lower level European employees and provided
them with high salaries and generous benefits. They recognised that
promoting blacks into'white' jobs would reduce their costs, while many
manufacturers produced mainly for the African market, and could see
that African advancement would increase their sales.-7
These divisions were reflected in two competing visions of the best
means to secure white dominance of the colony. To oversimplify a little,
this split can be typified as a divide between 'little Rhodesia' types and
advocates of a 'greater Rhodesia'.28 Proponents of a greater Rhodesia
believed that the future of white domination would only be assured by
building a modem state in central Africa, based on an expanding industrial
economy and political amalgamation with Northern Rhodesia and
Nyasaland. They were generally willing to make some concessions to
Africans, particularly economic changes that would give black workers
and peasants more purchasing power while integrating them more fully
into the capitalist economy. A few liberals within this group were ready to
offer minor political and social openings to elite Africans, seeing such
initiatives as away to contain black opposition and overseas criticism.
Greater Rhodesia advocates were mainly drawn from the upper levels of
white society; professionals, successful farmers, managers and owners of
larger businesses, as well as government officials.29
Little Rhodesia types had a much narrower and defensive outlook.
They were suspicious of the Federation, believing it was better for Southern
Rhodesia to stand alone and push for constitutional concessions from
Britain that would advance the colony towards dominion status, thereby
guaranteeing white control. While they benefited from the growing
industttJ sector, they worried that it would lose momentum, an attitude
that was rooted in a fear of African advancement and competition, as well
as memories of earlier economic contractions. They were primarily
concerned with securing white privilege and control by building on earlier
measures that protected Europeans, including wider segregation, job
reservation, and state support for settlers, particularly farmers. Africans
were mainly seen as cheap labour, so little Rhodesia types were hostile
10 Africa Development, Vol. XXIX, No. 3, 2004
towards welfarist measures, especially as they would draw o

revenues. They held that the state's main concerns in the
were basic control and labour mobilisation. Support mainl
white workers, lower level employees, and the less prosper
particularly the Afrikaner minority. Many government off
also adhered to this view.30
These divisions ran through post war debates on
development, political reforms, and state policies towards A
consensus was supposed to emerge within Southern Rhodesi
mechanisms, but in the changing economic climate after the S
War and the diverse interests it created, government decisions
on awkward compromises and some initiatives were only in
long delays, if at all. In the booming economy, there was w
for some greater Rhodesia policies, such as the successful c
Federation.31 But other measures were blocked by the de
the white lower classes and little Rhodesians, particularly
farmers and small gold mine owners who had disproportio
because they produced vital exports. Industrial interests w
compromise to maintain the basic stability of the colo
recognised that export earnings provided the income to p
products. Therefore, industrial policy remained ambivalent, re
of African urbanisation as well as worries about the impact
of manufacturing on labour costs for mining and farmin
reasons, little was done to promote the stabilisation of th
workforce, particularly measures that were the logical co
the NLHA, such as allowing Africans to buy houses, settl
in urban areas, or creating a pension system.33 Deep divisio
African education, which stalled expansion for years, refle
between industries that wanted increased funding to trai
workers, and the white majority who were concerned by
implications for black advancement.33
The introduction of the NLHA illustrates the working of
compromises. Its passage rested on the seemingly contradictory
made, which allowed the law's proponents to win acceptanc
economic interests and overcome the suspicions of little Rh
particular, the measure promised to address a number of the cen
facing the colony after the Second World War, problems that th
economic expansion and the bases of white prosperity.
Having lost self-sufficiency in major foodstuffs during
colony had a serious food crisis.34 There were shortages o
Thompson: Cultivating Conflict 11
and dairy products in the late 1940s. These w

and other controls, but expensive dollar impo
British pressure for self-sufficiency.35 Con
economic damage peaked during the 1947 dr
The seriousness of the maize position goes beyon

of the past twenty years read against the expan
make it clear that unless we take a bold step no
Colony are likely to falter, on from hand to mo
which prospective and expanding industry sh
qualms on that account.36
Many white farmers were reluctant to grow fo

and scarce labour in increasing production of
far more profitable. The state refused to coerce
farmers' influence.37 Instead, there was a new i
as a key sector of the economy, with African p
grains and groundnuts to supply basic foo
workforce in the towns, mines and commerc
for the growing food processing industry.3
inequalities in land access, land quality, and
farmers, mainly in the reserves, produced roug
maize in the colony from 1947 to 1954, along w
groundnuts and small grains.39
The colony also faced a serious labour shor
vital mining and white farming sectors wh
conditions harder than in manufacturing. Sh
averaged 15 percent in 1949, ranging up to 45 p
Like the food shortage, this challenge raised
impact on the national economy.
It is clear that the rapid development of S

neighbouring territories has outstripped the lab
steps are taken to meet the anticipated demand
suffer a severe setback during the most importa
This was a regional problem. Not only did it aff

but more than half of Southern Rhodesia's w
from neighbouring colonies, where it w
development would further reduce the num
Rhodesia. The state faced intense pressure to
seekers, especially as wages had risen as workers
shortage gave them new leverage with emplo
The tight labour market encouraged a new assertiven

workers, reflected in the emergence of new worker
successful strikes in Salisbury and Bulawayo. Scatt
through the post-war years, culminating in the 1948 g
was marked by worker frustration with the cautious leade
unions and elite political movements.43 The general s
alarmed whites, feeding fears that state control of th
was weakening. There was also growing concern about
as rural discontent and peasant restiveness accelerated
period, often associated with the activities of the new
Voice Association (BAVA).44
Much of the rural unrest was the result of the state's ef
relocate Africans living on designated white land, whic
for farming by new immigrants. Peasants in such area
through passive resistance and the courts, in some ca
assistance.45 The new white landowners were frustrate
of the relocations. This had a wide political impact as t
Europeans supported intensified racial segregation
Africans moved off designated white land as quickly as
promises made when the Land Apportionment Act (L
1930. In 1948, nearly one-third of the African populati
were living as tenants and squatters in European areas.
Moving thousands of peasants presented a massive lo
Many of the reserves were already overpopulated, especiall
so that thousands more people could not be forced in
threatening the viability of the family fanning that unde
Despite intense white pressures not to assign more land
African area, the government did add 4.1 million acres
However, a significant proportion of this land wa
occupied by Africans, so that it mainly eased the probl
quality, black occupied, white land part of the African
relocating thousands by a paper transfer.47 NAD o
concentrated on measures to increase the carrying capac
areas, allowing more people to be pushed into the res
With this goal, the state began to more aggressively su
of the agricultural betterment programme and to forc
with them. The main initiatives were limiting and reducin
creating nucleated settlements and restricting individu
permanent arable and grazing areas were established.4*
Linked to these measures was a settler envir

attributed the consequences of overpopulation -
declining soil fertility - to peasants' farming
who had adopted new tools and techniques:49
As is to be expected, the Native is rarely a

conserving the soil; his concern is to get crops
the disease of erosion is spreading at an alarmin
methods of agriculture have given place to the
the Natives' quest for more and more land has t
clad hills into gaunt spectres of ruin. One trust
hill, formerly covered with grass and trees, los
having been attacked by Native cultivation.50
Environmental degradation was seen as a key pa

presented as a rural crisis in the post war years
the extent of the damage to the African areas i
be hard to conclude that no important physi
Officials used environmental concerns to just
areas and to win greater funding for the NAD,
reporting and exaggeration to make the
environmental alarmism, which peaked durin
again during the transitional years of the late 19
wider settler insecurity.51 Soil erosion becam
the perceived undermining of white control of
in a period of economic transition and insecu
were particular targets of concern. Not only
resources, but their presence on European lan
segregation, as the black sea ate away the isl
The NLHA promised to address a variety of
raising the carrying capacity of the African are
relocations and promote racial segregation. In
argued that the law would create a prospero
foundations for political stability. More in lin
racial policy, it gave the NAD greater powers
lives of peasants, intruding much further into
It also held out the promise of a larger, cheaper
work force, as young men and migrants los
dependent and vulnerable proletariat, sub
Proponents of the law argued that food pro
peasants adopted new methods and were draw
This would provide cheap food, while reduci
14 Africa Development. Vol. XXIX, No. 3, 2004
limits on the accumulation of holdings would prevent

with white farmers. As mral people produced and bought
became more dependent on their wages, the cash econo
creating a larger market for the colony's industries. F
offered a solution to the rural crisis by protecting the ph
at minimal cost to the state, while simultaneously all
cram more people into the African areas.
These diverse motives behind the NLHA highlight i
Conservation, segregation, agricultural modernisation, and
control intermingle in a manner that echoes one o
drawings, where perspective suddenly shifts and new
The varied meanings and interpretations of the law a
Their diversity reflects the government's efforts to
political interests, and it is this very malleability of the N
its passage when many other proposed initiatives faile
or severely constrained in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Implementation and High Modernism

In the years immediately following its passage, imple
NLHA was very slow. Work began in only three of th
SNAs between 1951 and 1954. Financing for programm
was limited, as its proponents were unable to build su
government, and were fighting critics within the NA
measure was poorly thought out.53 During this initial
technocratic group of officials drawn mainly from the ag
of the NAD and the Natural Resources Board drafted
expensive programme to rapidly implement the NLH
country, arguing it would transform African farming
successful, largely because it did not require any additi
rather it relied on already planned expenditures on Af
revenues from state development levies on Africa
borrowing against future income from these levies - inclu
dramatic increase in production, sales, and crop lev
NLHA. Cabinet approval rested primarily on the
accelerated implementation that were most desirable f
that it would facilitate forced relocations by allowing
more Africans into the reserves and provide funds f
development in remote SNAs, making resettlement in
- as well as its proclaimed developmental, conservatio
benefits.54
So in 1955, the NAD launched a highly

fully implement the NLHA in almost all
end of 1961, making the act the centerpi
for the colony's African population. The p
stabilisation and modernisation schemes
allowed the Rhodesian regime to agg
programme, using the plan to blunt growin
racial policies, thereby creating condi
investment from outside the colony, and ju
The Todd government promoted the N
through film, government publications,
Administration, diplomatic tours, and
eventually winning the approval of inter
liberal proponents within the NAD led th
as a high modernist development scheme th
and the role of peasant agriculture in the
and cattle holdings and permanently design
NLHA was supposed to bring order, ratio
modernity - to the reserves:
The methodical and systematic layout of

areas. Technical officers find it easier to
Administrative control, so essential t
improvement programmes, is complete. T
stabilises an area, the fundamental problem
maximum number of native farmers and
land use and farm planning on an organised,
State propaganda further presented the N

that Africans supported, a modem developm
out of their purported backwardness:
Consulted on every detail in the Land Hus

have had the courage and wisdom to p
revolution, which cuts straight across thei
tribal customs. A revolution which is leadin
ladder to western standards.58
The reserves were also supposed to be eco

implementation of the act. Officials argued
implementation would lead to a 50 percen
produced in the African areas within 5
cattle output in 8 years, lifting the average
from £17 to £41 per annum.59 The proponents of the

the benefits of this growth would be felt throughout the
Africans became model consumers:
The doubling and more of the cash income from the produce of Native
Agriculture will open up a huge market for agricultural and household
requisites and a wide range of these and other commodities will find rapidly
increasing sales in the Native areas, to the great benefit of trade and industry
generally.60
Thus the NLHA was promoted as a model development scheme, a

paternalistic measure that would bring modernity and economic progress
to the reserves, while spreading its benefits to all the occupants of the
colony under benevolent white rule.
These arguments for economic transformation were based on dubious
figures from a single reserve, so that the prophetic image of the colony's
future really rested on officials' belief in the inherent superiority of
modernity, and assumptions about African primitivism and the need for
European guidance.61 In common with the general racism of white settlers,
these ideas shifted responsibility for the consequences of state policies
that impoverished blacks to essentialised African characteristics.
Moreover, contrary to the assumptions behind the NLHA, black peasants
were already heavily involved in produce markets, and had adopted a
variety of new tools and techniques. Yields - for those who used indigenous
methods as well as those who had adopted new ones - were much higher
than officials thought.6- There were real challenges facing peasant
agriculture, but they were not some form of'primitivism'. Rather, they
were rooted in labour problems, shortages of draught power, lack of capital,
land shortage, and soil exhaustion, in which state land policies,
discriminatory pricing, low wages and measures to extract labour played
a central role.63 These were key features of the colonial political economy,
which the modernist dreams of the NLHA did not challenge.
The plans for accelerated implementation of the NLHA rapidly ran
into trouble, and fell far behind schedule. Financing presented tremendous
difficulties, as the planned international loans did not materialise until
I960.69 There were chronic staff shortages, organisational problems and
planning confusion. More basically, the implementation schedule was
wildly optimistic and therefore unrealistic. By April 1959, four years into
the scheme, only 25 percent of individual land rights and 28 percent of
stock rights had been distributed in the areas that were scheduled for
completion by I960.65 Most importantly, implementation of the NLHA
encountered growing resistance from peasants t

the late 1950s and early 1960s. Initially these reactio
implementation, but as the coercive efforts of o
opposition expanded dramatically, eventually t
and colonial dominance itself.
Resistance and ungovernability

The NLHA was wildly unpopular with Africans of all social positions.
Once its implications became clear, criticism was almost universal,
although many people did not express their grievances to colonial
officials.66 Peasants' objections to the act were complex, but at the core of
Africans' complaints lay a rejection of the state's extension of its influence
into rural people's lives, that is, to the essence of the developmental project.
Until the late 1930s, the state generally had limited ambitions in the
reserves: maintaining order at minimal cost, extracting taxes and labour,
as well as some crops, which created space for peasants to carve out some
independence from colonial demands/'7 Many men strove to limit their
participation in the labour market, which required access to other sources
of money for taxes and other family needs that required cash. Most
oscillated between waged labour and fanning, but some men, mainly older
ones, were able to stay in the reserves, avoiding employment through
crop and cattle sales, as well as cash provided by their sons and other
relations. Their relative affluence rested on a variety of patriarchal social
networks that allowed them to benefit from the work of women, their
male relatives and the poor. These were complicated relationships,
moderated by ties of affection and by promises of individual social
advancement, but they were also exploitative/'8 The NLHA introduced a
new balance of power to the countryside, giving the state a much greater
role. This change threatened the bases of rural accumulation, unequal
access to land resources and the social networks that made the 'partial
autonomy' of people in the reserves possible/9 The threat runs through
peasants' specific grievances with the act, which are also bound up with
coercion, dispossession, social disruption, and the loss of personal
economic security, as well as wider objections to white domination.
Dispossession was the most basic grievance people had with the NLHA.
Destocking - the forced sale of domestic animals in excess of the pennitted
number - looms large in people's memories, particularly as the worst-hit
areas faced reductions of up to two-thirds of their animals. While only a
minority, albeit a sizable one, of peasants owned cattle, stock were the
key to rural accumulation, as a source of draught power for ploughing
and a rapidly reproducing asset that could weather po

men controlled cattle, women also recognised their imp
success, as Ambuya Musonza made clear:
They did, yes, the whites came to cut down [the numbers
was wrong, very very wrong. Cattle are our [Africans'
wealth, the one way we have to become rich. How could
The law also forcibly dispossessed people of land, a

migrants and young men access to arable holdings, es
reserves were so overcrowded that men who were not w
the time the NLHA was implemented would likely neve
Among both the Shona and Ndebele, community mem
the right to a plot of land and access to the communal
right was cut off by the law. Africans refused to acc
especially as land provided the basis for economic secu
where the pension system and unemployment benefits
whites. A delegation of elders raised these issues while
Chief Native Commissioner:
Is it lawful for the people to have their things taken away by force? We
have been given lands, but our children have been told they cannot have
lands or live in the area. We have had no good harvests since allocation.
Now our cattle are going. The Native Commissioner says he is carrying
out the laws of the Government when he takes our cattle away. The Native
Commissioner said that we could make our complaints to Salisbury.72
Landlessness became a serious problem as NLHA implementation moved

ahead. In August 1961 the NAD had registered more than 45,000 men
across the country who had applied for land but could not receive plots as
there was no land in their areas. If their families were of typical size, this
meant 225,000 people, about one-fifth of the population, did not have
land.73 The crisis was especially marked in certain regions. In the
Mangwende Reserve more than 40 percent of men from the area did not
receive allocations.74
There were also strong objections to the farming methods promoted
as 'improved' agriculture, as they clashed with many peasants' practices.
Indigenous Shona techniques were based on the hoe, shifting cultivation
and inter-cropping to ensure food security while minimising labour inputs.
Maximal production was sacrificed to ensure a reasonable harvest and
workload in all but the worst years. Many farmers, however, had adopted
ploughs, new crops, and some innovative techniques to expand the area
that they could use and ease workloads while increasing production and
sales. By 1950 field practices varied widely

were disrupted by the NLHA. It cut off shif
key mechanism for peasants to preserve soil
also threatened. It was used to reduce weedin
preserve moisture in the earth, and protect th
rains. NLHA regulations prevented people w
naturally wet areas where groundwater rose to
where water was readily accessible. Both of
controlled by women and played a vital rol
security. Dambo land was used to raise rice
while river banks were used for gardens to pro
and pumpkins that helped people to survive
from mid-January to early April when las
while this year's were ripening.75 Some plough
allowing them to sell considerable amounts
was intended to block this route to accumul
colonial authorities believed that 'improved
more than peasant methods, many Africans
first comprehensive study that measured a
different cropping practices.77
Peasants' most basic complaint concerne
created by the methods advocated by the s
more onerous labour system to maintain fertil
to meet state conservation models than ind
and moving cattle manure to improve soil fert
was stumping fields. Fixed cultivation, esp
exponentially increased the number of weed
to control them.78 The physical conservati
NLHA, particularly the contour ridges and
required took a tremendous amount of hard
completed before the landholders were a
Shingaidze Madewe remembered this diffic
another form of forced labour:
Those agriculture officers, people did not hat

work they gave us was too much. It was chib
pay or help us in any way.7"
Religious objections were also raised to new m

who were possessed by prominent ancest
should not adopt imported techniques.8"
The spatial rearrangements brought by the NLHA

range of concerns. Conflicts over field boundaries s
found adjusting to living in nucleated settlements diffic
flared over personalities, children, dogs, and particula
observation of habits and consumption.81 Maintaining fa
a special challenge, as parents preferred to have at lea
home close to them, who would have primary responsibi
as they aged.82 NLHA regulations about housing stands m
Some people argue that new living patterns had p
cultural effects.
How can we stay with our ways? The Europeans came

lines. We used to live here, there, over there, way over
about. Now we're all crowded together, and have to give
More importantly, the restrictions and demands of t

relationships and social bonds. Land restrictions com
conflicts within the family as women and men argued
which area and what should be grown. This eroded th
independence, rooted in their control of certain crops
land. Arguments also occurred over fanning techniques,
a man wanted to fully embrace 'improved' methods
wanted to assert her right to plant pumpkins and beans
such as maize and millet.84 Disagreements about pro
surfaced along generational lines, especially between
Stock and land restrictions threatened broader social n
generally secured by the payment of 8 to 10 head of cat
family, were complicated by the restrictions on ind
Patronage links were strained. The relatively afflue
grain and lending cattle to hire labour and to secure
community members, practice.! that became increasi
destocking and land limitations.86
The burdens of the NLHA fell disproportionately o
women. They were called upon to perform much ot t
building contour ridges and digging storm drains b
older relatives. Their prospects for marrying, estab
families, and progressing socially were shattered in a
so short that further allocations were impossib
implementation. Independence, accumulation and farm
the centre of male identities, as men aspired to be patria
extended families. Older women and men also viewed
the NLHA with concern, as this severing

opportunities threatened their long term se
support and assistance of their children.
Thus the NLHA posed a wide threat to peasa
economic security, and social networks. How
opposition in the early years of implementati
the first areas selected were reserves where e
been done, so state intrusion was not someth
also meant people in these areas had devel
Chinamora Reserve, the government's NLHA
'illegally' cultivating in 1953, the year followi
while in Manyene and Sabi North reserves p
cattle onto the underutilised Wiltshire Estate
conduct stock counts.87 Previous improveme
enforced, so residents appear to have assum
with the NLHA.
These patterns of grudging acceptance and
common responses as implementation spread int
after 1955. The lack of open opposition, interpr
consent, did not mean that people did not ha
above. Rather, it reflected their fear of the colo
sense of powerlessness to affect state po
expressed this sense of resignation well, exp
complain when implementation began in his
'That was not the time to do that, one could
vein, Levison Chanakira also spoke of the inabili
even when discontent was obvious: 'We did n
realised we were angry. We did not do anything a
Doing nothing meant avoiding confrontati
the state's diktats. After land allocation, ma
arable holdings by moving beacons, working
conservation works such as contour ridges, or
as grazing, particularly where it bordered t
beginning, many people refused to give authorit
stock and land holdings or simply ran away d
census phases of implementation. Such action
administration had to introduce regulations requ
information in 1955.91 In Nata Reserve, commun
moved five times to open up land for white sett
their land allocations, and ploughed where the
This move from evasion to defiance grew as the scale of imp

increased in the late 1950s, and the state's determination t
Act became clear through coercive enforcement mechanism
seized and sold and people prosecuted for NLHA violations
of the countryside. Disrupted meetings and gatherings w
became common. Vociferous public grumbling occurre
Madziwa, often initiated by enraged women. In Leviso
community, residents chanted 'Hatidi, hatidi'- 'we don't wa
want it' - when the Native Commissioner (NC) discussed i
allocation.93 Implementation had to be suspended three tim
one village in Mhondoro Reserve when people refused to
fields and residential sites. Authorities finally abandoned
the year after a riot nearly broke out when the NC confr
who had pulled up the wooden pegs marking allocations.9
Mhondoro community, people discarded the land allocatio
NC distributed them at a public meeting, then surged forward
his tea, and threatened him and the village headman until t
gun and fired two shots into the air.95 Many black
demonstrators, the implementation line agents, were physicall
and some were reportedly killed; many ran away from their a
Violence and sabotage directed against white and black NA
chiefs, and village headmen became more common in 1
Chief Nyakena of Fort Victoria Reserve and his messenge
in February 1961 for enforcing a destocking order, and th
shouted down when he arrived to try and calm people. At a lan
meeting in Buhera in March of 1961, the crowd of 200 peo
the first grantee from accepting his land right. This prom
hit a few people with his revolver, fire several shots into the
to threaten to shoot people - seriously enough that th
Development Officer (LDO) at the meeting seized the gun
ran off but blocked the wheels of the NC's car with piles o
that month in Urungwe Reserve, an unknown group broke
office, burned the land allocation files in the toilet, and then
office and the LDO's Landrover.97
While this intensified opposition was bound up with
accelerating efforts to implement the act, it was also tied t
nationalist activity in the late 1950s. Evaluating the influ
nationalist parties is difficult. The state attributed all rura
outside agitators, and the new African political organi
claimed responsibility. Security and police reports were e
Τ hompson: Cultivating Ccnilict 23
scattered because settlers destroyed many sen

1980 as majority rule loomed. Nationalist idea
as did rumours and stories of confrontation
incidents occurred in places where African p
Nationalists may have played a key role in movi
of anger and rejection to more pointed attack
authorities. Several men in Madziwa Reserve made this association and
said nationalist activists helped people to overcome their fear of
Europeans.98 Leaders of the African National Congress, which operated
from 1957 until it was banned in 1959, did a lot of work in the rural areas.
They frequently attacked the NLHA, saying settlers had stolen people's
land and cattle, arguing the goal of the act was to provide cheap labour
for Europeans.99 The ANC was strongly supported in a number of districts
where implementation pressures were intense, including Sipolilo, Umtali
and the Mhondoro Reserve. Rural party activists detained in February
1959 often raised the NLHA in their complaints. Gibson Nyandoro of
Mhondoro, said during his interrogation by the police:
The complaints I want to put to the Government are that I have 8 cattle of
which 6 are to be 'destocked', that I have 6 acres of land and have been
told that I am to get 8 acres, which is not enough for my needs, that 1 am
not allowed to plant rice in the vlei (dambo), and 1 am not allowed to have
a garden.1(10
While he was being questioned in March 1959 George Chipfatsura of

Umtali District explained that he had joined the ANC
because I was not allowed to have enough cattle nor land enough to plough.
Because my cattle were not allowed to walk on the contour ridges... Also
my sons who work in town, if they wish to come back to the reserve are
not allowed to have cattle or any land. I expect Congress to give me more
cattle and more land.101
The move to open defiance and protest in rural communities was a difficult
period for reserve residents, and many people in Madziwa were reluctant
to discuss these developments. In part this reflected the sensitivity of protest
strategies, especially for farmers who are increasingly frustrated with the
current realities of life in Zimbabwe. It was also, however, due to the
turmoil and tensions of the early 1960s, which continue to resonate. Young
men and women, who were most shaiply affected by the NLHA, often
took leading roles in the protests, inverting the gender and age hierarchies
of rural society. Many older people, particularly men, spoke painfully
about the fear they felt during the disturbances - fear of the state's
retribution, but also of the nationalist activists and the y

the area who had mobilised themselves against the state a
of their elders.102
State authorities were most concerned by intensified n
in the late 1950s, reflected in the declaration of the
and banning of the ANC in February 1959. By the ea
the government was worried not only by the activities o
Democratic Party, but by the growing disorder in th
and reserves. Much of the countryside was in a state
while no alternative political order had emerged, state co
down, and officials were no longer able to impose g
especially the NLHA.'03 By October 1960, concern wit
countryside reached the cabinet, which said that the
yet explosive, were dissatisfied'.104 A special three d
Native Affairs Advisory Board (NAAB) was called
discuss the impending likely breakdown of order
established a series of internal NAD review committees, while the
government began public hearings into the operations of the NAD and
the role of peasant production in the national economy.105 By June,
members of the internal Working Party D, set up to consider questions
about land and the role of'tribal' authorities phrased the problem as: 'We
have no time in the bank. We have to buy it. How do we buy it?'10"
Intensified repression was one part of the state's answer. The police
and army were deployed in the reserves, and airforce jets flew over
disturbed areas. Public meetings in the reserves had been forbidden since
early 1960, and the Ν DP was banned in December 1961.107 More than
1300 people were convicted of violating the NLHA in 1961, and a further
1836 were punished in the first six months of 1962."'"The government's
consideration of a number of political proposals formed the second part.
These initiatives were bound up with efforts to win greater constitutional
autonomy from Britain, including proposals to ease racial segregation,
replace the NAD with a single nonracial administration, and abolish the
LA A.100 The third part of the state's answer was to try and reduce the
immediate grievances of rural Africans, hoping this would quiet the
reserves. NLHA implementation was officially slowed in March 1961.
and discussions began on how to modify the law, focusing on landiessness,
drawing the chiefs and headmen into the allocation of land, and finding
additional African areas. The technocrats within the NAD launched a
plan that included temporary land allocations in the grazing areas for the
landless that were to be allocated by the chiefs, and a new system of unit
planning, whereby the chiefs and headmen

in meetings with NAD officials to plan la
for their area. This was part of a wider plan
state as a member of the NAAB made clear:
The essence of the approach is to get the right-holders in a unit to resist

demands from non-right holders, by making them conscious of the value
of their rights and responsibility for the development of their unit. It is
getting back to the classic principle in administration of dividing and
ruling."0
All of these initiatives failed. Peasant defiance and rural unrest continued
to spread. With the police and army presence, however, people increasingly
turned to sabotage rather than public gatherings."1
Behind the scenes, the little Rhodesia faction within the NAD renewed
its attacks on the NLHA. They argued that the law was the root cause of
discontent in the countryside, claiming that its 'supreme confidence in
the power of intellectual planning based on the slide rule and statistics'
ignored important human considerations and the cultural context within
which Africans operated."2 Nationalists had taken advantage of this.
The N.D.P. has used the Government's land policy as the principle weapon
in inciting disaffection towards the Government in the rural areas in their
attempt to drive a wedge between the Chiefs and their people. It is now
abundantly clear that both in concept and application, the Native Land
Husbandry policy has ignored in some ways both tribal authority and Native
law and custom and so enabled the agitator to foment trouble and
opposition.
This critique of the NLHA was part of the broader strategy that the
'culturalist', little Rhodesian clique in the NAD developed to respond to
intense criticism of the department. Rural ungovernability had led to calls
for the abolition of the department and two major inquiries into the
breakdown of state control."4 The culturalists directed criticism towards
the technocrats and NLHA to save the NAD, arguing that the methods
used by the department before the act was introduced had been far more
effective, a form of benevolent paternalism that was compatible with
cultural differences. They presented an essentialised construction of
Africans as communal people, rather than individualists, who could not
operate outside of 'their' framework of kin, chiefs, and patriarchal
dominance. The culturalists called for a drastic scaling back of interventionist
programmes in the reserves and to return control of land, minor
administration, and local judicial matters to the chiefs. This was not
presented as a simple return to the past, but a reaffirmat

NAD as part of a new philosophy, Community Developmen
had the additional advantage of wide international acceptabili
from the United States, which provided and paid for
development advisor in Rhodesia as part of the containmen
The culturalists' effort was partially successful. Rural
continued, but the technocrats were marginalised. In Feb
cabinet suspended NLHA implementation, leaving it
completed in many reserves. This decision was never pub
to avoid any appearance of weakness on the state's part.
NLHA, the budget for African agriculture was slashed,
renamed as the Department of Internal Affairs, continu
administration for the African population under th
Development policy, retaining many of its staff."6 T
ascendancy was secured by the December 1962 elect
Rhodesian Front (RF) ousted the URR There were already
between the RF and the culturalists, and Internal Affair
reorganised to push out any critics of the Front."7 Afric
Development, until then an ill-defined policy, became an
for separate development, that is apartheid. The RF vict
shift in white politics. Urban and rural unrest, growing
criticism of Rhodesia's racial policy, Britain's demands fo
refonns, and especially a marked economic decline that th
prosperity fueled a shift in the white polity, undercutting sup
Rhodesia measures. The RF was the embodiment of little Rhodesian
thinking, with its harsh racial policies, extensive support for the European
community, and willingness to pursue a separate independence for the
colony. Its victory rested on the support of white workers and clerical
employees, but it also reflected a shift in the middle, as people who had
supported some aspects of a greater Rhodesia in the expanding economy
of the late 1940s and 1950s became defensive, looking to secure white
domination and the bases of their privilege."8
Conclusion
The withdrawal of the NLHA was an ambiguous victory for Zimbabwe's
peasants. The settler state was forced to back down, but this was part of
its response to broader challenges than rural ungovernability, including
urban unrest, intensifying nationalist activity, a contracting economy and
political struggles within the European polity. No further implementation
took place after February 1962 and the administration largely disavowed
reserve development schemes. Rural condi

people received land from the chiefs and he
and people regained some of the partial autonom
defend against the intrusive liberalism o
allocation and the settlement patterns of the
generally reversed, so that they remain imp
landscape of many reserves today, albeit as o
have received land from the chiefs, bought i
occupied it in the ensuing years. Houses h
patterns, some adjoining the colonial lines an
countryside. But many who received allocatio
provisions to legitimate their claim to th
communal areas.119
Abandoning the NLHA did not undo racial
the limited post- independence land reform
little to redress that reality, so that most p
overcrowding, environmental degradation, an
The current confusion of the Fast Track Lan
the economic crisis and political turmoil - m
benefit the recent land seizures will have for
areas. While some land has been redistribute
goals behind the programme have been to un
the MDC by extending the promise of new l
members and to increase the number of black commercial farmers.
Moreover, as the liberation struggle intensified after 1962, the
nationalist leadership attacked many dimensions of Rhodesia's complex
web of racial oppression, but their focus on juridical and constitutional
issues meant that peasants' objections to the forms of earlier state
intervention in the countryside were obscured. The obvious racism and
political allegiances of the culturalist faction within the NAD discredited
their critique of the NLHA and the technocrats' approach to peasant
agriculture. After 1980, the dramatically expanded agricultural extension
service in the communal areas revived many of the technocrats' methods.
The service emphasised mono-cropping, manuring, building contour
ridges, and other modernist techniques while maintaining the restrictions
on riverbank and wetland cultivation. Although the post-independence
extension officers lacked the coercive means of the NLHA, many
reproduced colonial ideas about peasant backwardness and the dangers
of indigenous farming techniques, as Michael Drinkwater has argued.120
The idea of individual tenure as a modernising measure that encourages
'responsible land use' has also continued. The majority

areas in the 1980s operated on the Model A basis, whic
rather than full tenure, to individual peasants, and the cu
programme is using the same model for small scale r
opposition MDC's agrarian policy emphasises moving to
in the communal areas, as well as resettlement schemes
Despite the short life of the NLHA, the legacies of the m
continue to influence developments in Zimbabwe today,
landscape, state policies, reform proposals, and agrari
political legacies of the period are also important, refle
in the intense demand for land redistribution, the turmoi
Track Land Reform, and deep popular discontent with
political situation facing the country.
Notes
I would gratefully like to acknowledge financial support for this project from
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University
of Alberta, as well as the Graduate School, History Department and the
MacArthur Interdisciplinary Program on Global Change, Sustainability and
Justice of the University of Minnesota. 1 would also like to thank the members
of the Department of Economic History at the University of Zimbabwe for
their input and support.
This comment applies to the published literature; there are a number of
conference and seminar papers, theses and dissertations that discuss events in
the countryside during this period, but they are, unfortunately, not widely
available.
Major works on the period before 1945 include Giovanni Arrighi, The Political
Economy of Rhodesia, (The Hague, Mouton, 1967), Giovanni Arrighi, 'Labour
Supplies in Historical Perspective: A Study of the Proletarianization of the
African Peasantry in Rhodesia', The Journal of Development Studies, 6 (1970),
pp. 197-234, H. Moyana, The Political Economy of Land in Zimbabwe,
(Gweru, Mambo Press, 1984), Robin Palmer, Land and Racial Domination
in Rhodesia, (London, Heinemann, 1977), Robin Palmer, 'The Agricultural
History of Rhodesia', in Robin Palmer and Neil Parsons (eds.), The Roots of
Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa, (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
University of California Press, 1977), Ian Phimister, 'Discourse and the
Discipline of Historical Context: Conservationism and Ideas about in
Development in Southern Rhodesia, 1930-1950', Journal of Southern African
Studies, 12 (1986), pp. 263-275, Ian Phimister, 'Commodity Relations and
Class Formation in the Zimbabwean Countryside, 1898-1920', Journal of
Peasant Studies, 13 (1986), pp. 240-257, Ian Phimister, An Economic and
Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890-1948: Capital Accumulation and Class
Struggle, (London and New York, Longman,

Racial Domination in Rhodesia, (London, Hein
'The Agricultural History of Rhodesia', in Ro
(eds.), The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central
and Los Angeles, University of California Pre
from the Roots: Reflections on Peasant Resear
Africa', Journal of Southern African Studies
Schmidt, Peasants, Traders and Wives. Sho
Zimbabwe, 1870-1939, (Portsmouth, Heinema
There is some scattered published scholarship
R. Duggan 'The Native Land Husbandry Act o
Middle Class of Southern Rhodesia', Afric
239, Victor E.M. Machingaidze, 'Agrarian Chan
Rhodesia Native Land Husbandry Act and Af
Journal of African Historical Studies, 24 ( 199
'Rethinking the Reserves: Southern Rhod
Reviewed', Journal of Southern African S
While the older literature on the growth of n
war mainly focuses on urban developmen
constitutional debates, there is a growing bod
identity and engagement with nationalism in th
JoAnn McGregor, Terence Ranger, Violence an
in the Dark Forests of Matabeleland, (Portsmo
Bhebe, Benjamin Burombo: African Polit
(Harare: The College Press, 1989), Terence Ra
and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe, (London, Jam
Voices from the Rocks: Nature, Culture and H
Zimbabwe, (Oxford: James Currey, 1999).
1 would like to thank my research assistant
Mahdi, and Obert Kufinya for their invaluab
my doctoral dissertation, 'Cultivating Confli
Modernisation in Colonial Zimbabwe, 192
University of Minnesota, 2000).
Southern Rhodesia's Land Apportionment Ac
racial lines and was the cornerstone of racial
more desirable areas were reserved for Europe
fe-rr>c·tU: minimum economic size was consid
three categories of African land: reserves which
tracts scattered throughout the country; Sp
African occupation in 1949, ostensibly on a t
Purchase Areas where approved black applica
averaged 200 acres. For details see Palmer, La
7. The section that follows describing the law is based on: 'The N
Husbandry Act' in Southern Rhodesia, The Statute Law of South
1951, (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1952), pp. 893-916; A. P
W. von Memerty, 'The Native Land Husbandry Act of Souther
Journal of African Administration, v. 7, no. 3 (1955), pp. 99-109
pp. 103-108; J. E.S. Bradford, 'Survey and Registration of Africa
in Southern Rhodesia', Journal of African Administration, v. 7
pp. 165-170; Mary Elizabeth Bulman, 'The Native Land Husband
Southern Rhodesia: A Failure in Land Reform', (MSc Thesis, U
London, 1970), pp. 5-10.
8. See John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Of Revelation and
Volume 1: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in S
(Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991 ) and John L. Comar
Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 2: The
Modernity on a South African Frontier, (Chicago, University of Ch
1997), William Beinart, 'Soil Erosion, Conservationism and
Development: A Southern African Exploration, 1900-1960'
Southern African Studies, 11 (1984), pp. 52-83, lan Phimist
and the Discipline', Eira Kramer, "'Coercion, not Persuasion". Tr
of the Centralisation Policy in the Reserves, 1935-1951', Paper
The Zimbabwe Economy, August 4th to 10th 1998, University o
9. See Phimister, 'Discourse and the Discipline'.
10. United States Department of Commerce, Investment in the
Rhodesia and Nyasa/and. Basic Information for United States
(Washington, US Government Printing Office, 1956), p. 101.
11. Arrighi, Political Economy, pp. 40-41, pp. 46-48, Phimister,
Social, pp. 220-223.
12. H. Dunlop, The Development of European Agriculture in Rhode
(Salisbury: Department of Economics Occasional Paper No. 5, D
of Economics, University of Rhodesia, 1971 ), pp. 7-8, Mandivam
'The Evolution of Agricultural Policy: 1890-1990' in Mandivam
and Carl K. Eicher (eds.), Zimbabwe's Agricultural Revolut
University of Zimbabwe Press, 1994), pp. 22-24, p. 22 fn, Rog
'Zimbabwe's Land Problem: The Central Issue', Journal of Comm
Comparative Politics, 28 (1980), pp. 5-6, Arrighi, Political Econ
13. Phimister, Economic and Social, p. 225, p. 227, Arrighi, Polit
p. 41, pp. 46^47, Dunlop, pp. 7-8, Ranger, Peasant Consciousne
14. Southern Rhodesia Development Coordinating Commission, T
Report: The Pattern of Progress, (Salisbury, Rhodesian Printing an
for the Government Stationery Office, 1949), p. 16.
15. Leonard Tow, The Manufacturing Economy of Southern Rhod
and Prospects, (Washington, National Academy of Sciences,
Christine Sylvester, Zimbabwe: The Terrain ofContradictoiy D
(Boulder and San Francisco, Westview, 1991), p. 37.
16. Rukuni, p. 22, Howard Simson, Zimbabw

Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 197
p. 17, Arrighi, Political Economy, p. 42, p
and Social, p. 255.
17. Arrighi, Political Economy, pp. 40—41, Na
S2223/23, Cabinet Resolutions of 9/9/47
Chairman of the Public Services Board to th
47, pp. 1-2, NAZ S2223/25 SRC (49), 49th M
p. 6, NAZS2223/26 SRC (50) 22nd Meeting
SRC (50) 42nd Meeting of the Cabinet, 24/
Meeting of the Cabinet, 29/11/50, pp. 1-3.
18. Riddell, p. 4, p. 8. Simson, p. 17, US Com
19. US Commerce, p. 78.
20. Simson, p. 17.
21. Riddell, p. 8, Colin Leys, European Politi
The Clarendon Press, 1959), pp. 107-108,
22. This insight is partly derived from a series of co
Men, Lux Women. Commodification, Consu
Zimbabwe, (Durham, Duke University Press
23. These faults mark all the major works on
both mistakes. Arrighi does make both, while
of industrial interests. Leys is far too ready
Africans during the Federation period as sig
24. White unity is Ley's central argument; se
homogenising forces in settler society. For m
also see Dane Kennedy, Islands of White: Set
and Southern Rhodesia, 1890-1939, (Durham
The population figures are from Tow, p. 93
25. For a fuller discussion of white political dy
Guy Thompson, 'Cultivating Conflict: Moder
in colonial Zimbabwe, 1920-1965' (PhD Disse
2000). This insight into the corporatist natu
is derived from Leys's work and particu
Governmental System in Southern Rhodesia
although he never uses the term.
26. See Murray and Kennedy throughout, Ley
161, Richard Gray, The Two Nations: Aspe
Relations in the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, (
for the Institute of Race Relations, 1960), p
27. See Murray throughout, as well as Arrigh
Arrighi, however overstates the importanc
the unifying forces within the settler comm
on the major interests and the differences
he sees them as unimportant, especially on
28. This model is derived from an extensive rereading of the s

but the main influence is Larry W. Bowman, Politics in Rho
in an African State (Cambridge, Harvard University Press
argument is that while Europeans had a common goal of
domination, they disagreed over the best methods to do
attention, however, to the class roots of different positio
pp. 17-19, pp. 31-3, pp. 43-^4. For other insights into
Hardwicke Holderness, Lost Chance: Southern Rhodesia 1
Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1985), especially pp. 106-
about the Federation, and Gray, p. 227-228.
29. For insight into greater Rhodesia views and the interests t
see Leys, pp. 156-158, Gray, pp. 24-25, p. 277, and Ian Hanco
Moderates and Radicals in Rhodesia, 1953-1980, (London
Helm, and New York, St Martin's, 1984), especially pp. 2
30. Little Rhodesia views are discussed in Leys, pp. 158-159
Details on the little Rhodesian Liberal, Confederate and
are in Leys, p. 164-7, Murray, pp. 105-110, pp. 152-160,
185-186, pp. 265-266, and Gray pp. 306-308.
31. Burke, p. 114.
32. Burke, p. 92, p. 105, pp. 108-110, p. 116.
33. See NAZ S3240/6, SRC (55) 49th Meeting of the Cabinet
34. NAZ SRG - 4 'Report of the Southern Rhodesia Governm
Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations for the Y
35. Southern Rhodesia, Report ofthe Chief Native Commissio
Government Printer, 1948), p. 9, Southern Rhodesia, Develop
Commission, Second Interim Report - Agricultural Prod
Future, (Salisbury, Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Com
p. 2, NAZ S2238/28, SRC (51) 57th Meeting of the Cabine
36. NAZ S3238/7, Cabinet Memoranda, 1946-1947.901 /47 Min
and Lands, Long Term Maize Policy and Drought Relief.
37. Dunlop, pp. 11-12, Phimister, 'Discourse and the Discipl
38. 'Native Reserves' Part in the Country's Economy', Harvest
49, p. 1, 'Real Contribution to Progress', Harvester, v. 3, no.
39. Annual Report of the Chief Native Commissioner, 1947-
of the Grain Marketing Board, 1951-1954. These numbers a
estimates, which likely underreported African production. U
are no figures on African production and sales available betw
40. Development Coordinating Commission, Third Inte
Development Coordinating Commission, Second Interim
S2223/24 SRC (48), 27th Meeting ofCabinet, 26/10/48, N
(52), 19th Meeting of the Cabinet, 15/4/52, pp. 7-8. See
the Chief Native Commissioner for 1945 to 1950. Fora d
and working conditions, see Bhebe, Burombo, pp. 9-18, E.
of the Committee to Investigate the Economic,

of Africans Employed in Urban Areas, January
41. 'Report of the Commissioner of Native Labour
Rhodesia, Report of the Chief Native Comm
Government Printer, 1948), pp. 38-39.
42. Development Coordinating Commission, T
Development Coordinating Commission, First
Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Company for
Office, 1948) p. 28-29, Report of the CNC, 1947, p
Report of the CNC, 1948, (Salisbury: Governme
S2223/22, Cabinet Meeting of 8/3/46, NAZ S222
of the Cabinet, 6/7/48, p. 4, NAZ S2223/25, SR
Cabinet, 30/8/49, p. 2, NAZ S2223/26 SRC (50),
24/10/50, p. 10, SRC (50) 48th Meeting of the C
43. See Bhebe, Burombo, pp. 37-72, Terence Range
Samkange Family and African Politics in Zimbab
Heinemann, 1995), pp. 108-122, and Phimiste
274-82 for detailed discussions of the general st
44. See Bhebe, Burombo, pp. 85-89, pp. 101 -102, P
pp. 262-4.
45. See Bhebe, Burombo, pp. 85-89, pp. 101-102.
46. Ν AΖ S2959/1, Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Question
of Additional Land for Native Occupation, June 1948, p. 4.
47. John Godfrey Mutambara, 'Africans and Land Policies: British Colonial Policy
in Zimbabwe, 1890 - 1965', (PhD Dissertation, University of Cincinnati,
1981), p. 543, pp. 564—, Dunlop, p. 3.
48. Kramer, Phimister, 'Discourse and the Discipline', pp. 271^1.
49. NAZ RG - P/NAT 3, 'Secretary for Native Affairs Memorandum and Plan for
the Development and Regeneration of the Colony's Reserves and Native Areas',
dated 4/9/43, p. 3, Annexure 4, p. 1, Southern Rhodesia, Report of the
Commission to Enquire into the Preservation etc. of the Natural Resources of
the Colony, (Salisbury, Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Co, 1939), pp. 11
12, p. 19, p. 57, Southern Rhodesia, Report of the Native Production and
Trade Commission, (Salisbury, 1945), p. 10, p. 29, Roger Howman, 'Industry
and Human Erosion', NADA (Native Affairs Department Annual), No. 21
(1944), p. 20.
50. Native Production and Trade Commission, p. 12, p. 19.
51. See Beinart, 'Soil Erosion', especially p. 53, p. 65, p. 68, William Beinart,
'Introduction: The Politics of Colonial Conservation', Journal of Southern
African Studies, 15 (1989), pp. 143-161, Kate B. Showers, 'Soil Erosion in
the Kingdom of Lesotho: Origins and Colonial Response, 1830s -1950s', Journal
of Southern African Studies, 15 (1989), pp. 263-286, NAZ RG - P/NAT3,
Secretary for Native Affairs 'Memorandum and Plan for the Development
and Regeneration of the Colony's Reserves and Native Areas', dated 4/9/43,
pp. 1-3, pp. 9-10, C. Winnington-Ingram, 'Note Followin

African Farming Areas in Southern Rhodesia', Jour
Administration, v. 7, no. 2 (1955), p. 68.
52. Commission ... Natural Resources, p. 38. The phrase
taken from Kennedy's work; it serves as a metaphor for
isolation from Africans, as well as the pattern of Rhodesi
which, in an oversimplified image, reserved the central high
for Europeans as an island surrounded by the sea of Afric
53. Paul Carbery, 'The Land Husbandry Act of 1951: The Dial
and Improvement of African Reserves', (MA Thesis, Unive
1987), pp. 29-30, Bulman, p. 11 ; for the bureaucratic atta
NAZ S2818/12.
54. NAZ S2808/1/34, 'LHA: Minutes of a Meeting in the Office of the Secretary,
Native Economic Development, 8/6/53', p. 1, S3001/3, 'Implementation of
theNLHA', dated 21/4/54, pp. 2 -3, NAZ S2818/12, Natural Resources Board
to Secretary, Mines, Lands and Survey, 1/5/54, Southern Rhodesia, What the
Native Land Husbandry Act Means to the Rural African and to Southern
Rhodesia, (Salisbury, Government Printer, 1955), pp. 18-22, NAZ S3240/5,
SRC (55) 18th Meeting, 18/4/55, p. 7, 21st Meeting of the Cabinet, 6/5/55,
pp. 1-5, SRC (55), 22nd Meeting of the Cabinet, 13/5/55, pp. 1-2, NAZ
S3240/6 Cabinet Conclusions July-December 1955, SRC (55) 53rd Meeting,
17/11/55, p. 2-3, NAZ S2808/2/7 NLHA Review, 'Report by the Secretary
for Native Agriculture'. [1958], Schedules 9 and 10.
55. See Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society. The Labor
Question in French and British Africa, (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1996), and Alexander, pp. 45-46, NAZ S2818/12, NLHA Circulars,
MB 8873/LAN 20/2/51 Undersecretary Native Economic Development to
Assistant Secretary Native Economic Development, 2/3/53, NAZ S3240/5
Cabinet Conclusions January to June 1955, SRC (55) 14th Meeting, 31/3/55,
p. 1, NAZ S 3240/4 Cabinet Conclusions 1954, SRC (54) 48th Meeting, 31/
8/54, p. 8, SRC (54) 57th Meeting, 19/10/54, p. 1.
56. For example, see the newspaper Nhume, published for African staff of the
government, Reports of the CNC and Director of Native Agriculture, 1955
1961, as well as What the Land Husbandry Act Means', the two films made by
the Central African Film Unit were The New Acres and Changing the Land.
For international academics' approval, see Kingsley G Garbett, 'The Land
Husbandry Act of Southern Rhodesia', in Daniel Bieybuck (ed.) African
Agrarian Systems, (London: Oxford University Press, 1963) and Montague
Yudelman, Africans on the Land (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,
1964). 1 am working from James Scott's definition of high modernism in James
C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human
Condition Have Failed, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
57. Pendered and von Memerty, p. 109.
58. What the NLHA Means, p. iii.
59. What the NLHA Means, p. 13.

60. What the NLHA Means, p. 13.
61. The figures were extracted from crop sale f
and 1953; see Pendered and von Memerty, p
and production figures reflected closer state
and the assumptions of officials who made th
62. NAZ FG-P/STA, Federation of Rhodesia
African Agriculture, Southern Rhodesia, 19
July 1962), Preface.
63. Kramer, pp. 15-16, NAZ S2818/12, Natur
Mines, Lands and Survey, 1/5/54, p. 4,
Assessment Committee in ANC Shabani's Of
- NLHA', circa May 1950, p. 2, J.D. Jordan
Appreciation', Rhodes-Livingstone Journal
full discussion of these problems, see my d
64. The World Bank, IBRD, and United S
Administration gave the project very low r
the administration funded implementation
the next year's budget and stripping the N
stabilisation funds. In 1960, the World Ban
African agriculture, including the NLHA. N
July-December 1958, SRC (58) 44th Meeting
8/10/58, p. 2, NAZ Records Centre, Box 45
1702/LAN 20/12/B NLHA Finance, Acceler
pp. 2-5, Financing the NLHA Programme f
2234/MAR 40/3/4 Under Secretary, Nativ
NLHA Committee, /9/57, pp. 3-5, NLHA S
Fourth Meeting, p. 3-4, NAZ S2808/2/
Committees, Β 621/3359/176/1 Memo, NL
Plan, 21/1/56, pp. 1-2, 3359/196/1 Und
Development to CNC, 30/6/56.
65. Two years earlier, in April 1957 only 16
implementation by 1960 had had individual
had been distributed in only 18 percen
implementation was slowing down. Nationa
between areas; the 1959 survey found that s
in 9 percent of the African areas covered b
9 percent of Mashonaland West had had lan
2/7, NLHA Review, Annual Report of the
Native Agriculture and Land Husbandry, 19
Act, dated April 1959, p. 6, Table 8a.
66. When the legislation was introduced, it p
the white authorities. They held Select Comm
of African political organisations took part. Most gave their gr

mainly as they were convinced by their lawyers that as the
introduced regardless of their arguments, it would be better to of
and suggestions than to reject the act outright. See Holderne
67. This oversimplifies a little as there were arguments from mis
officials for a more extensive state role in the reserves, but un
changed during the Second World War, only a few token pr
introduced.
68. See Schmidt, and the detailed discussion of these issue
dissertation.
69. The idea of'partial autonomy' of peasants is derived from
work. See Allen Isaacman, Cotton is the Mother of Poverty:
and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938-1961
Heinemann, 1996), especially the conceptual discussion on p
fuller explanation of its manifestations in Zimbabwe se
dissertation, as well as Terence Ranger's arguments about sel
in Peasant Consciousness.
70. State cattle ownership figures are extremely inaccurate because of widespread
evasion of registration to avoid dipping fees and destocking. This included
lending animals and registering them in the user's name, building on older
cattle lending practices called kuronzera in Shona and mafisa in siNdebele.
While figures varied from area to area, I believe it can be safely assumed that
on average about 1/3 of reserve families had their own animals, and roughly
half owned or had use rights of at least one animal. See Kramer, pp. 15-16,
NAZ S2818/12, Natural Resources Board to Secretary Mines, Lands and
Surveys, 1/5/54, p. 4. For a brief description of disguising stock ownership,
see Ngwabi Bhebe's descriptions of the ways his mother 'hid' her animals in
the introduction to Benjamin Burombo.
71. Interview with Ambuya Musonza, Madziwa Communal Area, 18/4/97.
72. NAZ S2808/2/6, 'Record of a Meeting'. Undated, but likely circa June 1960.
73. NAZ S2817/2, DSD 39/10/2, Working Party D, Paper No. 16 Annexure B,
August 1961.
74. Southern Rhodesia, Report of the Mangwende Reseiwe Commission of Inquiiy,
(Salisbury, Government Printer, 1961), p. 12.
75. For a fuller discussion of different farming methods - indigenous, adopted
and innovative - see my dissertation. These arguments are partly derived from
Paul Richards' work, especially 'Ecological Change and the Politics of African
Land Use', African Studies Review, 26 (1983), pp. 1-72. Dambo land is also
commonly known by the Afrikaans term, vlei. The Latin name for tsenza, also
called shezha, is coleus esculentus; I have not been able to find an English
name for it, or to see it as it is now rarely grown, but it is supposed to be
similar to a sweet potato. For a full discussion of dambo farming see Richard
Owen, Katherine Verbeek, John Jackson and Tammo Steenhuis (eds.) Dambo
Farming in Zimbabwe: Water Management, Cropping and Soil Potentials
for Smallholder Farming in the Wetlands, (Har

1995).
76. See Ranger, Peasant Consciousness.
77. NAD officials complained constantly about Africans' refusal to see the
superiority of 'improved' methods, and had estimated crop production and
yield figures, rather than measuring them. The first rigorous evaluation of
farming outputs found African yields were roughly three times the figure that
the NAD had unquestioningly used since at least the 1920s. See Sample Survey
of African Agriculture.
78. Group interview with the women of the Dambaza family, Madziwa Communal
Area, 27/10/97. This was a recurrent complaint about using manure.
79. Interview with Shingaidze Madewe, Madziwa Communal Area, 24/5/98,
Kramer, p. 3.
80. Interview with Mhondoro Gumboromwe, Madziwa Communal Area, 20/5/
98. The mhondoro is the ancestral spirit, who agreed to be invoked and
interviewed.
81. Interview with Jojo Mandaza, Mai Sophia and Mai Rita, Madziwa Communal
Area, 16/10/97.
82. Interview with VaMukeri, Madziwa Communal Area, 17/10/97.
83. Conversation with anonymous man in Madziwa Communal Area, 6/11/97.
84. Interviews with VaKapfunde and VaNyamapfene, 23/10/97, women of the
Dambaza family, 27/10/97, Madziwa Communal Area.
85. Interviews with Sinet Makamba, 6/5/98, Charles Mutyakambizi, 28/5/98,
Madziwa Communal Area.
86. Interview with VaMutmabi, Madziwa Communal Area, 10/11/97.
87. NAZ LAN 20/7/D14/52, NLHA, 'Chinamora Reserve, 1953', NAZ LAN 20/
7/D18/53, Administrative Assistant, NLHA to Assistant Secretary, Native
Economic Development, 27/3/54.
88. Interview with Shingaidzo Madewe, Madziwa Communal Area, 24/5/98.
89. Interview with Levison Chanakira, Madziwa Communal Area, 30/5/98.
90. NAZ S2808/1/5, Land Development Officer, Buhera, Report for the
Assessment Committee, undated, but likely from 1959.
91. NAZ S2808/2/3, Confidential, NC Nkai to PNC Matabeleland, 6/10/55.
92. Carbery, pp. 48-49, pp. 55-56.
93. Interviews with Joseph Musikiwa, 9/10/97, Levison Chanakira, 30/5/98,
Madziwa Communal Area.
94. NAZ S2825/4, clippings of'Mhondoro Reserve', African Daily News, 27/10/
59, and 'Near Riot in Mhondoro', African Daily News, 21/10/59.
95. Nathan M. Shamuyarira, Crisis in Rhodesia, (London: Andre Deutsch, 1965),
p. 97.
96. Interviews with Cephas Mushonga, Mutare, 23/5/97, VaCotto, Madizwa
Communal Area, 2/11/97, Shamuyarira, p. 95.
97. NgwabeBhebe, 'TheNational Struggle, 1957-1962' in Canaan

Turmoil and Tenacity: Zimbabwe 1890-1980, (Harare, The Colle
p. 97. For a nationalist interpretation of resistance to the NLHA, see
98. Interviews with Charles Mutyakambizi, 28/5/98, Agrippa Zuda,
Barwa, 5/5/98, Madziwa Communal Area.
99. NAZ S3240/12 Preventative Detention (Temporary Provision
Statement of Case, Morris Nyagumbo, p. 1, Preventative Detenti
Provisions) Act, 1959, Statement of Case, John Chikoya, p. 2
Detention (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1959, Statement of Case
p. 1.
100. NAZ S3240/12 Preventative Detention (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1959,
Statement of Case, Gibson Nyandoro, p. 2.
101. NAZ S3240/12 Preventative Detention (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1959,
Statement of Case, George Solomon Majoki Chipfatsura, p. 2.
102. Interviews with VaMutmabi, 10 November 1997, Titus Musokwa, 25 May 1998,
Nelson Kabvundu, 5 May 1998, VaMrewa and VaMushoniwa, 18 October 1997,
Staben Barwa, 5 May 1998, Joseph Musikiwa, 9 October 1997, Madziwa
Communal Area.
103.1 am using ungovernability as it was promoted by the South African liberation
movements in the late 1980s, particularly the African National Congress,
South African Communist Party and United Democratic Front, who advocated
defying the apartheid government's authority to the point where it lost control.
Their efforts concentrated on the townships, rather than the rural areas.
104. NAZ S3240/18, SRC (60), 57th Meeting, 10/10/60, pp. 1-5.
105. NAZ Records Centre Box 84526, DSD 38/1, 'Special NAAB Meeting, 20
22 March 196Γ, pp. 1-3.
106. NAZ Records Centre Box 98229,1195/DSD.39/10/2 Working Party D Paper
8, Robinson Commission Report, p. 1.
107. NAZ S 2827/2/2/8, volume 2, 'Annual Report of the Native Commissioner,
Matobo District, 196 Γ, S2827/2/2/8 volume 3, 'Annual Report of the Native
Commissioner, Sipolilo, 1961 ', p. 19. Bhebe, 'National Struggle', pp. 106-107.
108. Bhebe, 'National Struggle', p. 107.
109. Bowman, pp. 35-44, Hancock, pp. 92-100.
110. NAZ Records Centre Box 84526, DSD 38/1, 'Special NAAB Meeting, 20
to 22 March 1961, Annexure B', p. 3.
111. NAZ S2827/2/2/8, volume 2, 'Annual Report of the Native Commissioner,
Matobo District, 1961 ', S 2827/2/2/8 volume 3, 'Annual Report of the Native
Commissioner, Umvuma'.p. 11, 'Annual Report of the Native Commissioner,
Umtali', p. 28.
112. From the Mangwende Commission of Inquiry, cited in Machingaidze, p. 585.
113. NAZ Records Centre, Box 98229, 1131/DSD.39/10/2 Working Party D,
First Meeting, 6/7/61, p. 1.
114. Mangwende Commission of Inquiry, So

Commission Appointed to Inquire into and
Judicial Functions in the Native Affairs an
(Salisbury, Government Printer, 1961).
115. NAZ Records Centre, Box 98229, 113
First Meeting, 6/7/61, NAZ Records Cent
African Development' by James Green
Development Adviser to Chairman, Natural
Green, the US-provided advisor's, records
discussion of this struggle within the NAD
Production and the NLHA, 1945 -1965 ' in A
(eds.), The Zimbabwe Economy, (Harare: Univ
116. NAZ S 3240/21, SRC (61) 55th Meeting
NAZ S3240/22, SRC (62) 7th Meeting of the C
Rhodesia, Financial Statements, 1961-19
Financial Statements, 1962-1963, p. 7,
Statements, 1963-1964, p. 7, pp. 10-11, pp.
of implementation, see Phimister, 'Rethink
117. Interview with J.D. Jordan, Harare, 21/2
118. Bowman, pp. 41 -44, p. 104, Hancock, pp
was also the official policy for Europeans
administration, in line with the RF's racial
119. Interview with VaChiimbira, Madziwa C
Nyambara, 'Land Disputes in the "Comm
Case of Gokwe District in the 1980s and 19
of Economic History, University of Zimb
communication from Jens Andersen.
120. See Michael Drinkwater, The State and
Communal Areas, (New York, St Martin's Pre
Encouraging Sustainable Smallholder
(Lypiatt,Glos, UK, Environment and De
Agricultural Services Reform in Southern
121. Whiteside, pp. 49-51, Movement for Dem
to Social Justice. The MDC's Economic Pro
Stabilisation. Recovery and Transformation
at http://www.zwnews.com/RESTARTp
Communal Areas, Recommendations', Agr
Statement (June 2000) available on t
www.mdczimbabwe.org/policy/policy.htm

2 Agricultural Betterment, The Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA)

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2 Agricultural Betterment, The Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA)

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CODESRIA

Cultivating Conflict: Agricultural

Department of History and Classics. University of Alberta. Canada.

stratégies de production des agriculteurs, de même que la gestion environnementale

The Mugabe government's recent Fast Track Land Reform programme

The bulk of this paper rests on a close reading of a variety of written

Origins of the NLHA

structure of the industry changed.10 Gold production declined slightly, as

capitalised farmers generally felt their positions were secure. White

towards welfarist measures, especially as they would draw o

and dairy products in the late 1940s. These w

The seriousness of the maize position goes beyon

Many white farmers were reluctant to grow fo

It is clear that the rapid development of S

This was a regional problem. Not only did it aff

The tight labour market encouraged a new assertiven

Linked to these measures was a settler envir

As is to be expected, the Native is rarely a

Environmental degradation was seen as a key pa

limits on the accumulation of holdings would prevent

Implementation and High Modernism

So in 1955, the NAD launched a highly

The methodical and systematic layout of

State propaganda further presented the N

Consulted on every detail in the Land Hus

The reserves were also supposed to be eco

from £17 to £41 per annum.59 The proponents of the

Thus the NLHA was promoted as a model development scheme, a

encountered growing resistance from peasants t

Resistance and ungovernability

and a rapidly reproducing asset that could weather po

The law also forcibly dispossessed people of land, a

Landlessness became a serious problem as NLHA implementation moved

sales. By 1950 field practices varied widely

Those agriculture officers, people did not hat

Religious objections were also raised to new m

The spatial rearrangements brought by the NLHA

How can we stay with our ways? The Europeans came

More importantly, the restrictions and demands of t

the NLHA with concern, as this severing

This move from evasion to defiance grew as the scale of imp

scattered because settlers destroyed many sen

While he was being questioned in March 1959 George Chipfatsura of

retribution, but also of the nationalist activists and the y

planning, whereby the chiefs and headmen

The essence of the approach is to get the right-holders in a unit to resist

presented as a simple return to the past, but a reaffirmat

reserve development schemes. Rural condi

'responsible land use' has also continued. The majority

Struggle, (London and New York, Longman,

16. Rukuni, p. 22, Howard Simson, Zimbabw

28. This model is derived from an extensive rereading of the s

of the Committee to Investigate the Economic,

pp. 1-3, pp. 9-10, C. Winnington-Ingram, 'Note Followin

59. What the NLHA Means, p. 13.

of African political organisations took part. Most gave their gr

for Smallholder Farming in the Wetlands, (Har

97. NgwabeBhebe, 'TheNational Struggle, 1957-1962' in Canaan

114. Mangwende Commission of Inquiry, So

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