African Sovereigns and Rhodesia's Loot Economy: Matuzviadonha

An African-centered forensic study of the British settler colonization of Zimbabwe, and of the African self-liberation effort.

The assumed absence of African voices from the archives of European colonization of Africa reinforces imperialist historiographies. Mhoze Chikowero’s African Sovereigns and Rhodesia’s Loot Economy, a theoretical study of the British settler colonization of Zimbabwe from an African perspective, is the antidote. Going beyond conventional typologies of resistance, neutrality, and collaboration, he delves into the logics, blueprints, processes, and outcomes glossed over by earlier historians. He also draws on his personal history as a descendent of a key actor in Chimurenga (African self-liberation), Mambo Mutekedza Muchecheterwa Chiwashira, as well as on his knowledge of MaDzimbabwe languages.

Chikowero draws on newly available colonial archives, African voices long regarded as absent, and grounded research methodologies. Where conventional Africanist scholarship concerns itself with a few prominent African actors, he catalogues the names of whole communities of individuals who participated both in epic battles and in the daily fabric of African life under the colonial strain. His work repositions Africans not as unthinking victims surprised by the colonial invasion and pillage, but as conscious thinkers, theorists, and prosecutors of Chimurenga.