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Early Iron Age cultures in present-day Zimbabwe were supplanted by Bantu-speaking peoples who migrated into the area after the 5th cent. AD In the early 16th cent. the Portuguese developed trade with Shona-dominated states, which in the 1830s became subject to Ndebele invaders. In 1889 Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company obtained a charter to colonize the region, which they called Rhodesia. The company founded (1890) Fort Salisbury and in 1893 defeated the Ndebele and took control of the territory. In 1922 the settlers rejected incorporation into the Union of South Africa and chose to make Southern Rhodesia a self-governing British colony, a status achieved in 1923. Thereafter a series of white governments developed the economy but failed to share the benefits with the African majority.
 | Joining Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi), in 1953 Southern Rhodesia became a member of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which disbanded in 1963, when the other members moved toward independence. Ian Smith, a staunch conservative who became prime minister in 1964, proclaimed unilateral independence from Britain in 1965, an act the British denounced as rebellion. In 1970 Rhodesia became a republic, with complete separation of the franchise along racial lines. UN economic sanctions were applied against the Smith regime, and two African nationalist groups, led by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, launched guerrilla attacks against the government. |
| Smith and three moderate black leaders agreed (1978) to set up an interim biracial government, and elections were held in 1979, but Britain and the black nationalists rejected the settlement. Finally, a London conference reached an accord on legal independence under black majority rule, and the new state of Zimbabwe came into being in 1980. The government of national unity, established upon independence, ended in 1982, when Prime Minister Mugabe ousted Nkomo from the cabinet. Mugabe united with opposition leaders in 1987 in an attempt to end factional strife. |
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