When was zambia colonized

People began to live in caves and rock shelters, the walls of which they decorated with paintings. But a surviving drawing of an eland at Katolola in the Eastern Province suggests that this art was more than decorative, that it had a ritual or religious meaning: it has been shown in South Africa that this animal was sacred to the Late Stone Age people there.

This spiritual and artistic development occurred alongside another, the invention of the bow and arrow, which revolutionised hunting and also gave humans a mechanical weapon of war, a musical instrument, and a method of starting fire! It has been determined that the people of the Late Stone Age neither tilled the soil nor kept livestock. The Zambian Stone Age people probably resembled the present-day San, but towards the end of the period here, there is evidence, from skeletal remains of Negroid physical features, that the hegemony of the aboriginal population was coming to an end.

During the centuries between BC and AD Zambia was gradually taken over by Negroid people, who by the later date had occupied the whole country. In the early years of independence Zambia's economy flourishes.

The mineral rights of the British South Africa Company now accrue to the state. And copper prices rise dramatically, largely because of the needs of the Vietnam War. But the economy takes a serious downturn during the s. There is a major collapse in the price of copper in , while the cost of imported oil soars. Even more significant is the damage caused by Zambia's proximity to Rhodesia.

With the declaration of UDI by Ian Smith, in , Zambia becomes the frontline state in Africa's struggle against this act of white supremacy. Kaunda takes a lead in opposing the Smith regime - a stance which includes offering safe havens to guerrilla forces operating across the borders against Rhodesia, but which also invites armed retaliation by Rhodesian forces.

Even more significant is the economic consequence of being a land-locked neighbour of a nation which the international community is trying to isolate, after the imposition of UN sanctions on Rhodesia in Rhodesia has in the past been Zambia's main trading partner. It has also been the route by which Zambia's copper travels to the sea at Beira.

Now an expensive railway link has to be constructed, with a massive Chinese loan, to the distant port of Dar es Salaam. These difficulties cause Kaunda to impose a state of emergency.

With regular renewals by parliament, this evolves gradually into a state of normality. Kaunda's rule becomes increasingly authoritarian.

Political opponents are harassed. In a new constitution turns Zambia into a one-party state. By the late s the economy is in such a decrepit state that there are food riots in several towns. Finally, in , the national assembly withdraws the ban on political parties other than UNIP.

Multiparty elections are held in October of this year. Their startling result gives Kaunda and Zambia undeniable credit, rare in Africa at this time, for high electoral standards. In the elections Kaunda's party, UNIP, is left with less than one sixth of the seats in the national assembly.

The s remain a time of great difficulty for Zambia. Copper suffers a further decline in value. Efforts to reform the bloated civil service inherited from Kaunda are painful and not entirely successful. And the MMP begins to lose its early reputation for a serious commitment to democracy and human rights. This is seen in particular in the continuing career of Kenneth Kaunda, who makes it plain that he hopes to regain his presidency.

Strenuous efforts are made to prevent his standing against Chiluba. Before the presidential election an amendment is added to the constitution requiring candidates to have parents who were native Zambians Kaunda's were born in Malawi.

In an opposition rally is fired on by police and Kaunda is slightly wounded. Later in the same year he is accused of having abetted an abortive military coup. He is placed under house arrest, but is released in June when all charges are withdrawn.

Meanwhile in Chiluba is re-elected to the presidency for the second of the two consecutive terms allowed in the constitution. The ideology of the colonial administration was paternalistic, stressing the civilizing activities of administrators, missionaries and settlers in meeting the needs of the Africans of the territory.

The practice, on the other hand, was frankly racist and exploitative. The territory was not developed to become an integrated, balanced economy serving the needs of the population, but rather to serve the interests of the British economy as a supplier of raw materials and labour and as a site of profit extraction.

The best land was reserved for whites and no efforts were made to develop indigenous agriculture or manufacturing, or to share the profits of mining with the colonized. Valued only as units of cheap labour, the local population was the object of control through measures such as pass laws and through residential segregation. Between the privileged elite and the hewers of wood and drawers of water lay a small intermediate class of South Asian traders and craftsmen and those of mixed race parentage Holmes , Hansungule et al , Lambert Undated.

In a Legislative Council was established to represent the interest of white settlers and the franchise was so qualified as to exclude Africans Lambert Undated.

Though mining of copper and lead had begun early in the century the situation was transformed by the discovery of extensive copper and cobalt deposits in the central northern areas which drew some 4 skilled settlers mainly from South Africa and 20 indigenous unskilled labourers into its extraction. As in South Africa, both wage and job discrimination on the basis of race was practiced. Whites doing the same jobs as blacks earned more, while the more lucrative skilled work was reserved for whites.

Blacks were prohibited from forming trade unions to level the bargaining playing field through collective action. Auxiliary industries to supply goods and services to the mining operations flourished Hansungule et al Most of the skilled labor was recruited from Europe and South Africa, but large numbers of semi-skilled and unskilled workers were recruited from the rural areas within Northern Rhodesia.

Working on the mines provided income for a growing number of Northern Rhodesians. These incomes increased in the s and s as workers organized themselves into trade unions and demanded higher wages and improved working conditions.

Labor migration and urbanization resulted in a dramatic increase in the demand for food. In the s and s, a small, but significant, group of European settler farmers were encouraged to grow maize staple food and raise cattle to meet the food needs. These farmers were sold choice land that was taken away from African subsistence farmers, who were forced to move to less productive land.

Moreover, in order to protect the market of the European settler farmers, the colonial government made it very difficult for African farmers to sell surplus maize and cattle to the urban markets. While some participants in the urban and commercial agriculture sectors benefited from the copper explosion, most rural dwellers did not.

This is particularly true for African farmers, who were forced to move off good land to make way for European settler farmers. In areas of Northern Rhodesia where workers were recruited to work in the mines, there was considerable suffering. Before , African workers were poorly paid. After paying for food and lodging, they had little left to send home to their families at their rural homes where their absence negatively affected food production. In rural areas where many men migrated to work in the mines, there was a substantial reduction in food production.

In the s, Audrey Richards, a British economist, studied the impact of migrant labor on the Northern province of Northern Rhodesia, a primary source of migrant labor to the Copperbelt. Her studies showed that widespread malnutrition and poverty-related disease existed in this area.

Her studies suggested a direct relationship between migration to the mines and greater poverty in rural Northern Rhodesia. This was prior to the discovery of copper. The development of the copper industry resulted in the immigration of European settlers to work in the mines and as commercial farmers.