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Abstract:
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"During the first 40 years of British colonial rule in Zimbabwe, from 1890 to 1930, European farmers and miners established commercial farms and mines (in prime natural regions i and ii; Figure 1). The Mazoe District of northeastern Zimbabwe embodied the two major pillars of the settler cash economy mining and commercial agriculture. Its capital city was Bindura, which, together with Trojan and Concession, were booming centres of gold and nickel exploitation, facilitated by good road and rail networks to Harare (Salisbury). The colonial state sought to orient settler farmers towards the production of export crops, tobacco, maize and cotton. It encouraged the production of minerals, and cash and food crops, envisaging that a diversified economy would provide greater self-sufficiency for the colony. It also envisaged benefiting the ruling British South Africa Company (1890-1923) by cutting the food import bill and raising the value of land, as well as by building and sustaining a stable European community."
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