The prefecture comprised all Rhodesia south of the Zambesi River, that part of Bechuanaland which is north of the Tropic of Capricorn and east of the 22nd degree of longitude, that part of Rhodesia north of the Zambesi, south of the Congo Free State, and west of the 30th degree longitude.
The Zambesi mission was founded in 1877, and entrusted to the English Province of the Society of Jesus; its limits were defined by Propaganda in 1879.
In 1879 the first party of missionaries under Henri Depelchin, the first superior, started from Grahamstown, Cape Colony by oxen drawn wagon to Bulawayo.
The Matabele were at the time hostile to Christianity, with their king, Lobengula, playing a crucial part in opposing the mission.
A number of other Catholic missionaries entered the new territory with the Sisters of St. Dominic starting public hospitals, and later opening schools for the children of the settlers.