Complete Zambian Textbook

The Road to Independence A History of Zambia to 1964 A multi-media workbook for Zambian students Multi media 1 - Introductory audio clip with background photomontage - Kaunda speaking on the BBC Radio Programme The Future Guardians broadcast four days before the publication of the Monckton Report 13.58 mins after start “...we do hope our own children and other sympathetic people from other races will help us to write our own history...” - 2 - Contents 1. An introduction to history skills 2. Early Zambian history 3. Zambia and the Slave Trade 4. The influence of the British missionary and explorer David Livingstone 5. Lewanika, Lobengula, Rhodes - the British start to take control of Zambia 6. The toppling of Giants - the falls and deaths of Lobengula and Rhodes 7. The British Government and its links to the British South Africa Company 8. An Assessment of Rhodes 9. British Rule of Zambia up to 1914 10.World War I and the fighting in and around Zambia 11.The Effects of World War I on Zambia 12.Zambia After World War One, Changing British Attitudes and the Development of the Copper Belt 13. Early Zambian Protest Movements 1929-1953 – the First Steps Towards Independence 14.British Colonial Rule of Zambia to 1939 15.World War II and Zambia 16.British Colonial Rule After World War II 17.Final Steps to Independence 18.Assessments of Kaunda and Nkumbula 19.Some Wider Thoughts Page 2 - 3 - Chapter 1 An Introduction to History Skills This workbook gives an outline of Zambia’s history up to 1964. This was when Zambia secured its independence from Great Britain. Throughout the pages there are some exercises that will help you think like a historian. The exercises will focus on these skills: - Inference - Purpose - Comparison - Usefulness These skills are very important as they help students to think very carefully about what they read. They will help students learn to question views and opinions. Hopefully they will help students reach their own judgements. The skill of inference is basically about being able to dig beneath the surface of what someone has said. It means finding out the deeper meaning of something. So, for example, if someone says: “The vegetables have grown well this year and we have a very good harvest” we can infer that the weather was good even if they have not said anything specifically about the weather. The skill of purpose is to do with working out what the message of a source is, what the context of the source is (in other words what was happening when the source was written or spoken) and the overall purpose of the source. Essentially the purpose of a source is what the person writing, saying or doing something wanted to achieve. The skill of comparison is about seeing if people have similar or different views about something. So, for example, if a person from Zambia and a person from South Africa were asked to give their views about the Zambian football team they would give very different answers. The Zambian would probably say that the team was good. The South African would probably say that it was not so good. The skill of usefulness is a very important one. Historians use this to find out how far they can trust someone’s views. Historians would ask some key questions such as: - Was the person there at the time? - Were they talking about all the relevant things? - Were they talking about all the relevant places? - Are they biased (that means being one-sided)? Historians make a distinction between primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources were written at the time of an event. Secondary sources were written afterwards by historians. The exercises in this workbook are based on historical sources relating to Zambia. Some are primary sources and some are secondary sources. Some are very one-sided. There are two important things about sources. The content is what is said in the source. The caption – usually written in Page 3 - 4 - italics like this – explains who wrote or said what is in the source and when they wrote or said it. For the caption it is good to ask some important questions: - What type of source is it: a diary entry, a history book, a newspaper article, etc.? This is known as the ‘nature’ of the source. - Who wrote it? When and why did they write it Page 4 - 5 - Chapter 2 Early Zambia History Long ago, before Zambia existed - in fact before most modern day African countries existed - several groups of people lived in the region of central Africa now called Zambia. The main tribes living in what is now known as Zambia in the eighteenth century were the Chewa, Lozi, Lunda and Bemba, there were also many other smaller tribes who lived here, some of whom were under the control of these larger tribes. The Chewa people lived in the east of the area that is now called Zambia. The Lozi lived in the west, and the Bemba and Lunda lived in the north. These groups were farmers and hunters; they produced cotton and salt, they mined copper and smelted iron to produce spearheads and agricultural tools. A map of Zambia as it is today Tanzania Democratic Republic of the Congo Angola Copper Belt Malawi Mozambique Zimbabwe Namibia Add map from Royal Geographical Society of 1933 showing the tribal areas within Zambia Page 5 - 6 - Chapter 3 Zambia and the Slave Trade At this time only Africans lived here, though some European traders had visited the coast of Africa, none had ventured inland very far. These were many Portuguese traders who were exploring the area. They had come from the Portuguese colony of Goa on the west coast of India and around the end of the 1600s/start of the 1700s they established trading posts at Zomba and Feira. [To support the trading posts the Portuguese also set up some farms called plantations.] But the trading stations were abandoned in the 1830s after clashes with an Nsenga chief who lived nearby. Initially ivory was the main goods these people traded, but later slaves became more important. These were people taken by some tribes - sometimes in battles, more often in raids - and sold for goods such as beads and guns. The Chewa tribe particularly suffered from the actions of the slave raiders - [principally the Bemba tribe who were known for their warlike behaviour]. Some African slaves worked on the plantations set up by these Portuguese traders. The slave trade was not new. It had been going on within Africa for hundreds of years. But in the eighteenth century it expanded massively. This was due to the Europeans who started to use African slaves to work in plantations in the West Indies, and North and South America. West Africa was most badly affected by this trade. The British were the ones who started it off and developed what became known as the ‘Triangular Trade’. Graphic to be added showing the Triangular Trade British traders would bring guns, beads, agricultural tools and clothes (all made in Brtiain) to the west coast of Africa. Here they would exchange them for African slaves who would be shipped out to plantations in places like Jamaica. Their journey across the Atlantic was horrific and was referred to as the ‘Middle Passage’ as it was the middle section of the triangular trade. They would usually be chained together and kept in very cramped conditions. The more slaves a trader could get on their ship, the more money they could earn when they were sold on arrival (that is assuming they survived the voyage and many did not). The African slaves would spend the rest of their lives working cotton, sugar or tobacco plantations. The produce of these plantations would be shipped back to Britain - and so completing the triangle. This trade was really profitable as ships were never empty and each journey led to much income for the slave traders, not just British slavers, but also French, Dutch, Portuguese and American. Whole cities prospered as a result of the money made from slavery, including Bristol and Liverpool in Britain. In fact most white countries were involved in this awful trade in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Page 6 - 7 - Question 1: Why did the slave trade flourish in the mid eighteenth century? But at first African slaves taken from Zambia did not get shipped out west, they were sent east. These slaves were taken to the east coast where they were put on slave ships - usually chained together in appalling conditions - and shipped out to work on sugar plantations owned by the French in their colonies in Mauritius and Reunion. While the horrors of the western slave trade have been discussed a great deal by historians, those on the eastern side of Africa have not been covered in anything like the same detail and this is an area for more study in the future. Though the British were among the first to enter into the large scale slave trade, they were also the first to end it. Around the end of the eighteenth century opinions began to change and people in Britain began to think that slavery was wrong. An anti-slavery campaign grew and put pressure on the government. It eventually worked and the British abolished the slave trade in 1807 and banned slavery in1833. Other countries followed and the northern states in the United States of America abolished the slave trade in 1809, France in 1815 and Spain and [Portugal] in 1820. However, the slave traffic did not stop immediately (indeed, some of the southern states of America continued it up until the 1860s).

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