A History of Zambia

PROFILE

Region: Sub-Saharan Africa

Climate: Moderately sub-tropical, regionally arid

Leader(s): Edgar Lungu, since 2015 (at time of writing)

Population: 16,212,000

Capital: Lusaka

Largest City: Lusaka
Currency: Zambian Kwacha
Languages: English, Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga, Lozi, Chewa, Nsenga, Tumbuka, Lunda, Kaonde, Lala, Lamba, Luvale, Mambwe, Lenje, Namwanga, Bisa, Ushi, Ila, Mbunda, Ngoni, Senga, Lungu, Toka-Leya

Independence: 1964 from the United Kingdom

Territories or Colonies: None

THE FACTS

Zambia, officially The Republic of Zambia is a country in the Southern African region of Africa and bordered by our previous country Zimbabwe as well as Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Namibia.

It is climatically very similar to our last entry Zimbabwe and in fact was part of the same colony while under British rule. Zimbabwe was Rhodesia and Zambia, even though it is much bigger, was Northern Rhodesia.

ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL AND PRECOLONIAL HISTORY (????-1500s)

The ancient history of Zambia very closely follows that of our previous entry Zimbabwe as they are both in similar areas. Zimbabwe had a group of people that mixed with Bantu immigrants to the north from South Africa, then developed empires and kingdoms that did trade in the Indian Ocean.

Zambia too, follows this similar arc. Zambia was populated mainly with nomadic herders (as this was basically the only job you could have if you were a nomad, besides forrager). Herding was an alternative to both hunting and gathering and agriculture as it allowed a large amount of food, with less work than hunting all day, every day.

If you were part of a hunter-gatherer society, those were you two options. Hunt or gather. With herding there was slightly more varied occupations. You could be basically a cowboy and wrangle livestock and grow the herd or you could be a scout looking for new grazing lands and grasses to feed the animals or you could forage and gather fruits and nuts and things like that.

It probably wasn’t so cut and dry, one group wasn’t JUST a hunter-gathering society or JUST a nomadic one. Some nomadic groups did do a fair bit of hunting and gathering, just as hunter-gatherer societies did have groups that wandered off to graze livestock.

However, this being said agriculture was not introduced and agricultural societies didn’t usually do a whole lot of nomadic grazing, because agriculture requires a set population to stay in one place and nomads do, by definition, the exact opposite of that, but Zambian people are an interesting exception. The Zambians practiced Slash-and-Burn agriculture (which sounds pretty metal by the way.) This means stopping and planting for a season, harvesting and moving on and repeating.

Now, I’m not saying herding or agriculture, or this combination that Zambians did are better than the others, but Agriculture did make way for huge societies which often became powerful Kingdoms or Empires (which are often bad themselves, because of like slavery and stuff), but huge Empires did do a lot of good like developing education, philosophy and writing. This is all because of food surplus. If you can grow a large volume of food, not everyone needs to farm, so people can do things like write and make pottery and art and explore.

But, these early Zambians were mainly nomadic hunter-gatherers, until the Bantu (you’ll remember the Bantu from the Zimbabwe post) show up. The Bantu are hugely prolific in African history and will show up or at least be mentioned in almost every African post I do, I expect.

Victoria Falls, on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe

IRON AGE KINGDOMS (1500s-1798)

At this point, around the 1200s and 1300s the Bantu migrate north. Some stop in Zimbabwe to set up shop, but some keep on going up to Zambia. Eventually the Bantu meet with the nomadic tribal cultures of the area and introduced a more traditional form of agriculture, by just staying in one place.

The Bantu, who were technologically more advanced brought with them metallurgy and ironworking. This combination of traditional agriculture and badass iron swords led to the growth of larger empires as seen in Zimbabwe.

A third thing was also integral in the advancement of the larger kingdoms in Zambia and it’s a recurring theme tackled in Zimbabwe. BOOM. Indian Ocean trade is back and the Zambians, like the Zimbabweans were well connected to the Indian Ocean. You can tell on a map that the Zambians were ever closer to the Indian Ocean, which was a winning formula for making a truckload of money.

During the 1500s the Iron Age Kingdoms of Zambia thrived with a centralized government passing laws to various smaller tribal settlements and governments.

The Iron Age Kingdoms had mostly traded with other Africans which had traded to the outside world and didn’t have a whole lot of contact with outsiders. This also had to do with both Zimbabwe and Zambia being pretty far inland (both countries are very landlocked today).

EUROPEAN VISIT AND COLONIZATION (1798-1964)

The Portuguese arrived in the 1700s, pretty late for the region considering they popped by Zimbabwe almost a hundred years earlier and set up their client “colony”.

The Portuguese originally had the whole region on lock and were one of the few powers in Europe at the time with easier trade access to India and China via their South African “colonies”, which were less colonies, but close trading partners.

The Portuguese explored the region all throughout the late 1700s and early 1800s, a period of extreme in-fighting between the Barotseland Kingdom and other smaller Kingdoms and large tribes. AGAIN, as they did in Zimbabwe the Portuguese tried to exploit infighting to install a leader, but this AGAIN failed. When will Portugal learn that they suck at this.

The 1800s in Zambia were a time marked by the Kingdoms gaining an influx of migrants from South Africa, as did Zimbabwe and Botswana. The displaced Zulu moved north from South Africa after the British led primarily by notorious asshole Cecil Rhodes arrived in South Africa (more in the South Africa post).

British Imperialists continued their march north to the site of present day Victoria Falls, originally named Mosi-oa-Tunya and renamed after the Queen by David Livingstone, who for some reason got a town named after him, but got his when he died of painful internal bleeding from Malaria and Dysentery (a disease that makes you diarrhea out your intestines, soooo…, maybe karma is real).

Imperialism truly started in the mid to late 1880s, when Cecil Rhodes buys mining rights from the local government with his insane amount of money in order to make an insane amount of money. Zambia, at least at first, was a case of imperialism not by gun (although their was a fair amount of killing), but by dollar (or pound, actually).

Cecil Rhodes bought himself into the pockets of local government and slowly expand not only his companies’s influence, but the influence of the British Government, who he was appointed by.

Cecil Rhodes was the leader of the British South Africa Company or BSAC, which kinda looks like Ballsack, so I will call it that from now on. Rhodes was also the leader of De Beers, which he founded in 1888, a company that still exists and still mines diamonds using exploitation, a sign that British colonialism isn’t truly over.

Now, here is where Zimbabwe and Zambia again overlap. The kingdoms of Zimbabwe and Zambia, now being largely ruled by Britain were led by the Ndebele king Lobengula (who you’ll remember from the previous post for selling the natural resources of Zimbabwe and Zambia to Britain, because he wanted that gold money).

His decision affected both countries which at this point consist of homogenous kingdoms, primarily the Ndebele led by Mzilikali and later Lobengula. Cecil Rhodes is pleased with this deal on account of the fact that he now controls almost all of the gold and diamond mines in South Africa and Lobengula is fucked out of everything. Rhodes calls the British to start officially colonizing Zambia and Zimbabwe from the south, incorporating them into the British Empire as Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, respectively.

As you may remember Zimbabwe fought against the British for independent control and Zambia (along with Malawi) helped, because neither of them wanted to be colonized by the British. The British gained control after controversially using newly invented Maxim Water-Cooled Machine Guns to mow down Zambians, Zimbabweans and Malawians with swords and shields, who stood their ground for an impressive amount of time.

In 1911 after a few years of redrawn borders and administrative changes Northern Rhodesia’s political borders start to look like Zambia’s do now. Britain just held the colony for a while for strategic troop placement or just to hold land, but in 1902 copper is found in the Copperbelt region and the Ballsack is on that shit super fast. While Copper isn’t as lucrative as gold or diamonds (both of which Zambia has) Copper isn’t worthless and is useful for minting coins. The U.S. penny was 95% Copper, when even copper became too expensive for pennies and they switched to zinc. Now the penny’s about 2.5% copper. Every other U.S. coin also contains a majority of copper.

After the Ballsack has finished getting rich off the land they finally allow the British Government Proper to take hold of the land in 1924. The copper deposits become increasingly useful in the 40s during WWII, when copper was used to make bullets. The dangerous and exploitative conditions of copper mines led to several strikes by white and Zambian copper miners.

The final stage of colonialism for Zambia (and Zimbabwe and Malawi, too) was when the British government joined Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland to create a huge SUPER-COLONY!

In 1964 the SUPER-COLONY’s residents want out, more specifically out of the British Empire, so they join forces negotiate independence for all the countries. Northern Rhodesia secedes as Zambia, writes a constitution and goes off on it’s own way, Southern Rhodesia secedes as just Rhodesia and eventually Zimbabwe and Nyasaland secedes as Malawi (but that’s another story for the Malawi post).

POST-COLONIAL HISTORY (1964-PRESENT)

After the yoke of British rule is lifted in 1964 Zambia is relatively prosperous in the beginning years of its independence. Zimbabwe was having a rough time with independence as you may remember from the previous post. Zimbabwe was locked in a war for independence until 1979, but Zambia was peaceful during this time. The money that used to go to Ballsack or the British Government from Copper and Gold mining now is being redirected to the Zambian government which leads to an economic boom.

However, Zambia makes a crucial mistake so many countries have made in the past and are making right now. They put all their eggs in one basket. When copper prices fell in the mid-seventies Zambia’s basket was stomped on and their economy crumbled. The semi-dictator at this point Kenneth Kaunda was heavily criticized for his economic plan and lack of ideas on how to fix things. The reason I call him a semi-dictator because he was the head of the only political party in Zambia allowed to run in an election (which makes elections literally one sided), he once said “The power which establishes a state is violence; the power which maintains a state is violence; the power which eventually overthrows it is violence” which I guess is self-aware, but still, and when you google “Zambian Dictator” Kenneth Kaunda is the first result.

In 1991 the policy of not letting any other political parties besides Kaunda’s party UNIP to exist was ended, which immediately led to Zambian people telling UNIP to “get the fuck out.” The MMP, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (cool idea) wins 85% seats in parliament because the Zambian people are refreshed by the idea of not having to vote for UNIP.

But, eventually as these kind of things go the once idealized MMP and to an extent their scowly leader Frederick Chiluba begin to start violating human rights and embezzling money and being really shady in general. Then, recently unseated Kaunda is like “see look, I’m gone one minute and your new president starts violating human rights!” so the Zambian people are forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda

Tensions become increasingly more… tense, when laws are passed that make Kaunda’s presidency unconstitutional and he’s shot at a rally and then arrested (geez, this guy is having a hard time, although I don’t really have sympathy because of his semi-dictatorial status). THEN! Right when Kaunda is released from house arrest after two years his son Wezi is assassinated (people don’t know who, but others think it was Chiluba and the MMP).

Oh my. While Zambia’s postcolonial history had smooth beginnings the country has faced a lot of struggle, food shortages, semi-dictators, political unrest and the like, but Zambia has a new president after a few years with a string of acting presidents and a random white guy (Guy Scott) as a leader. This new guy Edgar Lungu head of the racist-sounding Patriotic Front, who are actually a progressive Socially Democratic Socialist party, neat.

So far he seems fairly anti-death penalty and seems to be proposing actual plans for fixing the country’s rapidly inflating currency, the Kwacha, unlike Mugabe’s fix for Zimbabwe’s financial woes of “just print more money”.

ZAMBIA FACTS

Zambia was and is home to a genre of music popular in the 70s called Zamrock, a combination of psychadelic rock and funk music, popularized by Rikki Ililonga, WITCH, the Peace, Amanaz and Chrissy “Zebby” Tembo.

Next up, Yemen from the Early Spice Trade to Today.

WITCH, a Zamrock band.

SOURCES

http://www.zambiatourism.com/about-zambia/history

www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad27