Abstract
This chapter discusses the first major anti-colonial revolt in colonial Zimbabwe (in 1896 and 1897), which began to be labelled retrospectively as the first chimurenga from the late 1950s as a nationalist movement arose, leading a decade later to the guerrilla-based war of liberation or second chimurenga in the 1970s. It considers the overall character and trajectory of the first chimurenga, in particular its modalities of organisation and mobilisation, as the book seeks to draw parallels between the first anti-colonial revolt and the second and, notably, the third chimurenga. In addition to understanding the general dynamics of the first chimurenga, the chapter also highlights certain themes, such as gender and spirituality, which are pertinent to our latter analyses of the other zvimurenga. At the same time, it must be highlighted that there are very few full-length analyses of the first chimurenga, and no real insights about local dynamics, which means that any examination of this revolt remains somewhat thin and shallow.
Keywords
- First chimurenga
- Terence ranger
- Nehanda
- Spirit mediums
- Mashonaland
- Matabeleland
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Helliker, K., Bhatasara, S., Chiweshe, M.K. (2021). The First Chimurenga. In: Fast Track Land Occupations in Zimbabwe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66348-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66348-3_2
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