Why Every Zimbabwean Should Read The Matabele War by Stafford Glass

 

In today’s Zimbabwe, history is too often taught as a simple morality tale: evil white settlers versus noble African resistance. One book quietly dismantles that cartoon version and forces you to confront the uncomfortable truth about what life was really like before Rhodesia. That book is The Matabele War by Stafford Glass, published in 1968.

If you are Zimbabwean — whether Shona, Ndebele, or from the Diaspora — you owe it to yourself to read this meticulously researched account of the 1893 war between Lobengula’s Ndebele kingdom and the British South Africa Company. Glass does not romanticise anyone. He simply lays out the facts, drawn from eyewitness reports, official records, and contemporary documents. And those facts show that the Ndebele were every bit as much colonialists, conquerors, and brutal overlords as any European power — perhaps more so.The Brutality of Ndebele Rule Over the ShonaLong before Cecil Rhodes or the Pioneer Column arrived, the Ndebele (Matabele) had established their own empire in what is now Zimbabwe. They were not “indigenous” to the land in the way modern narratives pretend. They were Nguni invaders from the south, Zulu offshoots who swept north in the 1830s under Mzilikazi, burning, killing, and subjugating the Shona people of Mashonaland.Under Lobengula, this rule became a reign of terror. Ndebele impis (war parties) regularly raided Shona villages for cattle, women, and young men to swell their regiments. Tribute was extracted at spear-point. Refusal meant death. Shona communities lived in constant fear — not of some distant foreign power, but of their Ndebele overlords who treated Mashonaland as a private hunting ground. Glass documents how entire kraals were burned, populations scattered, and survivors reduced to vassals. This was not “inter-tribal friction.” It was systematic conquest and exploitation.The Victoria Raid: Punishment That Became Indiscriminate SlaughterThe spark that ignited the 1893 war was the infamous “Victoria Raid” (also called the Big Raid) of July 1893. It began when Chief Bere (a Shona/Mhari leader in the Fort Victoria district) stole cattle belonging to Lobengula. In response, the Ndebele king sent a large impi of several thousand warriors to recover the cattle and punish those responsible.What was meant as targeted punishment quickly turned into an orgy of indiscriminate violence. Stafford Glass describes how the Ndebele warriors pursued their “orgy of fire and destruction” right outside the town of Victoria. Kraals were burned to the ground. Hundreds of Shona men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood — many of whom had nothing to do with the stolen cattle. The raiders killed with spears and assegais while horrified white residents watched from the safety of the fort. The Ndebele did not limit themselves to the guilty parties; the killing was indiscriminate, sweeping through villages and terrorising entire communities. This was not disciplined warfare. It was the brutal enforcement of Ndebele dominance through widespread terror.The Killings of Chibi, Mazorodze, and NemakondeThese massacres were not isolated. Glass records the targeted executions of Shona leaders who resisted Ndebele demands. In late 1892, Lobengula sent an impi to punish Chief Chibi (also referred to as Mazorodze), whose people had accumulated cattle and shown signs of independence. Chibi was captured, dragged to Bulawayo, and — according to eyewitness accounts — skinned alive as a warning to others. Similar fates befell other defiant Shona chiefs, including Nemakonde. Their deaths were not battlefield casualties. They were public spectacles of cruelty designed to keep the Shona population in perpetual submission.These were the realities of Ndebele “rule.” Not some harmonious African kingdom, but a militarised tyranny built on fear, raiding, and ritualised violence.The Ndebele Were Colonialists and Settlers TooHere is the truth modern textbooks avoid: the Ndebele were colonialists in every sense of the word. They invaded Mashonaland, conquered its inhabitants, imposed their language and military system, and lived off the labour and tribute of the subjugated Shona. They built their capital at Bulawayo on land taken by force. They treated the Shona as second-class subjects — exactly the accusation levelled at white Rhodesians decades later.The difference? The Ndebele brought no railways, no schools, no hospitals, no rule of law, and no end to slavery or ritual killing. They brought the assegai and the knobkerrie. When the Rhodesian pioneers arrived, they did not displace a peaceful democracy — they confronted an expansionist Ndebele state that had already colonised half the country. Glass’s book makes this parallel impossible to ignore.Lobengula’s Personal BrutalityAt the centre of this system stood Lobengula himself — a king whose cruelty shocked even his own warriors. He ordered mass executions, including the skinning alive of rebellious chiefs. He maintained power through fear, eliminating rivals (including members of his own family) and rewarding regiments with the spoils of raids. His court in Bulawayo was a place of arbitrary terror. Glass does not sensationalise; he simply quotes the records. Lobengula was no noble savage defending his people — he was a ruthless despot whose empire was built on the bones of the Shona.Why This Book Matters for Zimbabwe TodayReading The Anglo-Ndebele War will not turn you against your own heritage. It will give you the complete picture that has been deliberately hidden for decades. It shows that pre-colonial Zimbabwe was not a garden of peace and equality — it was a land of conquest, where the strong preyed on the weak. The arrival of white rule did not introduce oppression; it replaced one form of domination with something far more productive: peace, infrastructure, education, and the rule of law that allowed both Shona and Ndebele to live without constant fear of the impi.Zimbabwe inherited a functioning modern state in 1980. Much of that foundation was possible only because the endless cycle of Ndebele raiding and tribal warfare had been broken. Forgetting this history has not made us stronger — it has left us repeating the same mistakes of division and blame.Every Zimbabwean, especially the younger generation fed a diet of selective outrage, should read Stafford Glass’s The Anglo-Ndebele War. It is available through specialist booksellers and online archives of Rhodesiana. Buy it. Read it. Discuss it.Truth is not colonial propaganda. Truth is simply what happened. And the men who fought in 1893 — on both sides — deserve to have their story told without the slogans of today.Read the book. Your understanding of Zimbabwe’s real past depends on it.