Land Apportionment Act of 1930
[1] The Act led to the eventual overpopulation of Native Reservations, and limited African access to quality land that resulted in large economic and social inequality.
[3] Various southern Bantu peoples inhabited Matabele and Mashonalands (what is now known as Zimbabwe) for thousands of years according to fossilized evidence and discovery of present tribes' artifacts stretching over the last 9 centuries.
Alongside archived DNA proof of African Peoples around Great Zimbabwean ruins as early as 1500s and various tribal oral history accounts paint a picture of the native settlements and land past.
[4] The exploration and subsequent settlement of European Christian missionaries in the late 19th century greatly increased the population of foreigners, with the areas temperate climate found suitable by most of these new immigrants.
In 1889 Britain granted royal charters to two firms that merged to form the British South Africa Company as a vehicle for Imperial wealth extraction.
[1] The council had reasoned that exposure to white settlers in South Africa made these migrants more capable of adhering to the idea of individual land tenure, as opposed to communal ownership.
[1] This segment of the population were often those employed in higher wage positions such as catechism teachers connected to missionaries; the purchase of land allowed these individuals to accumulate more wealth and resources than others in the community.
[1] With agriculture growing increasingly important to Southern Rhodesia 's economy, white settlers began to see the practice of subsistence and small scale farming as an inappropriate use of farmland.
[9] Documents at the time also speak of a portion of the African population that accepted the 1930 Act, on the grounds that it would give them increased access to landownership and that segregation would prove beneficial to not only the white settlers.
[1] The lands available for purchase were far from the technical services and resources needed for proper farming, with some lacking access to water or suffering from overuse and soil erosion.
[2] Within twenty years, the Land Apportionment Act had created a crisis in terms of population size and ecological damage on the native reserves.
[1] Towns and urban centers became dominated by white settlers, and black Zimbabweans who became the majority population were forced to live in townships miles from cities where they were able to rent.
[2] In 1951, the white majority passed the Native Land Husbandry Act in order to create a landless peasant population that would aid in the industrialization of the state.
[2] The act also established strict guidelines on grazing, land allocation, and ownership rights within the reserves, in hopes of increasing agriculture production.
[14] The issue intensified, with the 2000s witnessing an attempt by the Zimbabwe government, along with peasant farmers, youth, and veterans, to seize land from white settlers.
