IN February 1899, British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled “The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands” in which he urged the US to take up the “burden” of empire, as had Britain and other European nations when colonising Africa.

Theodore Roosevelt, later to become president, described it as “rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view.” However, not everyone, particularly in the developing world, was as impressed as Roosevelt. African-Americans, among many others, rapped the notion of the “white man’s burden.” And one of the prominent responses to Kipling’s poem was “The Black Man’s Burden,” written by African-American clergyman and editor Hubert Johnson and published in April that same year. Hubert Johnson argued that the mistreatment of brown people in the Philippines was an extension of the mistreatment of African-Americans at home. There was nothing noble in imperialism.

The bottom line is the black man has a burden of ensuring that his history, which has over the years been misconstrued as being synonymous with the history of the white man’s arrival in Africa, is corrected and captured for posterity. It is a history of not being seen nor heard; a history of being manipulated and subjugated.
The onus is on us Africans to correct the historical distortions.
I flew this kite before in 2006, and I raise it again this year in the hope that someone in the high offices takes note and does something about it. In spite of having a rich history of stolid, defiant resistance to all forms of colonial or neo-colonial domination, we Zimbabweans are notoriously modest. We do not seem to celebrate this history except waiting for days or events. Why don’t we, for instance, have even a Zimbabwe history month to mark the milestones that helped define us as the nation we are today?

I have said it before and I will say it again. If ever there is a month that deserves to be called Zimbabwe history month, it is April, a month littered with numerous milestones stretching from the First, Second to the Third Chimurenga wars.
One hundred and fourteen years ago, on April 27 1898, the architects of the First Chimurenga War, Mbuya Chahwe, the medium of the Nehanda spirit, and Sekuru Gumboreshumba, the medium of the Kaguvi spirit also known as Murenga, were hanged by the settler regime for daring to challenge colonial dispossession. It is from the Kaguvi spirit, that was alternatively known as Murenga, meaning “war spirit”, that the name Chimurenga was derived.

Mbuya Nehanda along with Zindoga, Hwata and Gutsa wrongly stood accused of murdering a brutal white native commissioner, one Henry Hawkins Pollard of the British South Africa Company who lived near Mazowe and terrorised people in that district.
Rhodesian legal documents classified Mbuya Nehanda modestly as a Mashona woman residing at Chitawa’s Kraal in the Mazowe District; Zindoga as a native kitchen boy residing at Nehanda’s Kraal; and Hwata and Gutsa as native hunters residing at Hwata Kraal.

The four along with Sekuru Kaguvi were arraigned in the High Court of Matabeleland that sat in Salisbury on February 20 1898 and were subsequently convicted on March 2 1898 in a case entered as “The (British) Queen against Nehanda”.
They were sentenced to death by hanging.

The execution was authorised by the (British) High Commissioner for South Africa, one Alfred Milner, and endorsed by the (British) Imperial Secretary on March 28 1898. The presiding judge was Judge Watermayer, with Herbert Hayton Castens Esquire, as “the acting Public Prosecutor Sovereign within the British South Africa Company territories, who prosecutes for and on behalf of her majesty”.

The warrant for Mbuya Nehanda’s death commanded that she be executed within the wall of the gaol of Salisbury between the hours of 6 and 10 in the afternoon. A Roman Catholic priest, one Fr Richertz, was assigned to convert Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi, Hwata and Zindoga. It is said the hapless Catholic priest failed to make headway with Mbuya Nehanda but managed to convert Sekuru Gumboreshumba, whom he baptised as Dismas, the ‘‘good’’ thief.

Gutsa, Hwata and Zindoga were also converted and similarly hanged.
According to Fr Richertz’s account, Mbuya Nehanda “ . . . called for her people and wanted to go back to her own country Mazoe and die there . . . When I saw that nothing could be done with her, the time of the execution having arrived, I left Nehanda and went to Kaguvi who received me in good dispositions. Whilst I was conversing with him, Nehanda was taken to the scaffold. Her cries and resistance, when she was taken up the ladder, the screaming and yelling disturbed my conversation with Kaguvi very much, till the noisy opening of the trap door upon which she stood, followed by the heavy thud of her body as it fell, made an end to the interruption”, he wrote.

Fr Richertz, however, conveniently forgot to mention the other words Mbuya Chahwe said to him, that “Mapfupa angu achamuka (my bones will surely rise)”.
Fr Richertz may have considered it heresy, especially from a woman who had refused to be converted to “Christianity”, but he did not know that the settler regime had just killed the mediums of the Nehanda and Kaguvi spirits but the spirits proper remained to influence the war effort.

Sixty-eight years later, Mbuya Nehanda’s prophesy came true when seven of her bones rose up in style on April 28  1966 to fire the first shots of the Second Chimurenga war.

They struck just five months after Smith announced his Universal Declaration of Independence (UDI) and 20 months after the Rhodesian regime banned the nationalist movements Zapu and Zanu in August 1964.
It is not clear whether it was by design or providence that the seven cadres intended to hit on the exact date Nehanda was executed but were somehow delayed by logistical problems and did so a day later.

The seven cadres — Simon Chingosha Nyandoro, Godwin Manyerenyere, Christopher Chatambudza, Arthur Maramba, Chubby Savanhu, Godfrey Dube and David Guzuzu — who entered the country from Zambia struck near Manyame River in Chinhoyi.
Their aim was to destroy power pylons to cut off electricity coming from Kariba Dam and plunge the country into darkness. This was supposed to be the signal for other groups that were strategically placed in towns like Mutare, Rusape, Chegutu and Mvuma that the war against the Smith regime had begun.

Lack of proper equipment and explosives saw the cadres fail to bring down the pylons near Lions Den, the Rhodesians got wind of the operation and descended on the people who were harbouring them.
But the gallant fighters, who had retreated to Golden Kopje, dared the Rhodesians to come out and fight, and the cowardly Rhodies came complete with helicopter gunships and all sorts of weapons to face seven men armed only with AK-47 assault rifles.

The seven commandos gave as much as they took as the battle lasted from about 9am to around 4pm. Eyewitness accounts say several helicopters and scores of Rhodesian soldiers were gunned down and littered the battle scene when the seven cadres were finally wiped out. It is important to note that they were only overcome because they had inferior weapons and ran out of ammunition, while the enemy was armed to the teeth and had the advantage of going back to base to replenish both ammunition and manpower.

The bodies of the seven cadres were never seen again after the Rhodesians took them.
The nationalist leaders learnt a lot from the battle of Chinhoyi and future incursions inflicted heavy losses on the Rhodesian regime that was finally brought to its false knees in 1979.

In the intervening period, another milestone again occurred, on April 4 1975, when Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who had just been released from an 11-year incarceration by the Smith regime, crossed into Mozambique in the company of Cde Edgar Tekere.
The following is the verbatim account of the crossing that President Mugabe gave during an interview with Power FM ahead of his 82nd birthday in 2006.
“It was on Saturday morning and we decided to leave in the afternoon of that day. Old Tangwena, late now, Chief (Rekayi) Tangwena at whose home we had slept was instructed by his wife to lead us. Mai Tangwena vaisvikirwa, vakati zvanzi izvo iwe Tangwena pachako tungamirira vana ava. So he accompanied us. There we were, we had two young men carrying our bags and I think there were five of us and we decided to cross the border.

“There was this big boundary road they called Bhinya. It was also so called after the name of the person who was chief native commissioner . . . I will think of it. We had to cross the broad road, not tarred, but just a dirt road, gravel, not tarred because it was meant to facilitate the vigilance that the Rhodesians kept on the people.

“So we crossed that, after looking at both sides of the road, we moved on and at night we had to cross rivers. There was a small river that we crossed and upon putting our shoes back, I could not distinguish the right from the left. Ndakaita sambuya vangu vaimbouya kuchurch vakapfeka matennis vachiti yekurudyi yoenda uku (laughs indicating his left foot). Ndakatozoona zuva ratobuda kuti that was the disaster that had attended my feet.
“You know the Tangwenas had been fighting for Gaerezi Ranch. It was that resistance, vaivingwa from time to time vachipfurwa. Ndiro chaidzo dzaiboorwa

nemabullets kuti vabve, their children were all taken away to a school somewhere, but they resisted. We got to a village where two headmen vekwaTangwena decided to get away from this problem and settled on the Mozambican side, and two headmen had remained. So they were four.
“We were drenched, very wet and we needed fire, so early in the morning fire was lit for us outside. I noticed that my shoes had done harm to my toes and we were not prepared to continue. So we remained there for quite some time. Kwakanga kusina masoja eFrelimo akawanda, so we had to relay our presence to them, and

from that place word was sent ahead that we were there and we then got to a base that was close to Tete, this place was called Vam-Vam.
“We were at Vam-Vam for quite some time that’s where we met vana Mao and others who had been recruited in Highfield. From there we were taken along a road in the direction of a town yaimbonzi Villa Guveya, now Katandika. It was while we were at Vam-Vam that Mozambique celebrated its independence. We stayed at Katandika for a month or two. From Katandika we were taken to Chimoio, and there we met many more and now we were moving with other comrades that we had met along the way.

“That is where we met vanaChamu (Oppah Muchinguri) vachiri vadiki and many others. We had some students from university, vana (Zororo) Duri, vana (Christopher) Mutsvangwa vana Gula Ndebele, vana (John) Mayowe, who had left university, we met them there.
“There were about 5 000 to 6 000 of us kuChimoio. It was a little outside the town, and then the governor decided that some of our cadres who had been trained who were in Tete should be informed about our presence. There were about three ladies and mukuru wavo akavatora ndiMai (Joice) Mujuru, and there were about four or five male cadres. So they came and saw us and came back, and we asked them to take control because they were trained cadres.

“So that was the journey, and all the while we were with Chief Tangwena, right up to the end taive naChief Tangwena, and when we came back, we came back with him also. He was quite a gallant cadre, very strong,” President Mugabe said.
The President was to gallantly lead the war effort from Mozambique for the next five years. He participated in all the peace initiatives up to the Lancaster House

Constitutional Conference of September 10 to December 15 1979 that paved way for the first democratic elections in March 1980.
It was a month later, again in April, that the new Zimbabwe was born on April 18.
This was the month that the Union Jack was pulled down and the Zimbabwean flag, as we know it, rose majestically in its place at midnight on April 18 as the heir to the British throne Prince Charles and Governor Lord Soames saluted the new nation and its people.

This was the day that defined us as a people as the then Prime Minister-elect, Cde Mugabe, laid out the policy of reconciliation in his maiden address, much to the amazement of terrified Rhodies who thought they would be made to account for their war crimes.
That is April, a month that traces a century of resistance, from Nehanda to Mugabe.