THE DOWNFALL OF LOBENGULA The Cause, History and Effect of the Matabeli War 1893

Lobengula had tried to avoid outright war with the company's pioneers because he and his advisers were mindful of the destructive power of European-produced weapons on traditional Matabele impis attacking in massed ranks. Lobengula reportedly could muster 80,000 spearmen and 20,000 riflemen, armed with Martini-Henry rifles, which were modern arms at that time. However, poor training meant that these were not used effectively.

Lobengula maintained Ndebele's power over a huge section of Highveld until the Witwatersrand gold discoveries of 1886 drew attention to the gold in the Ndebele kingdom and in neighbouring Mashonaland. Soon after, a treaty of friendship signed with the British in February 1888 was distorted by the British government in order to declare the kingdom a British protectorate. In October 1888, Lobengula signed what he thought was a limited mineral concession with a group of Cecil Rhodes's business associates, led by C.D. Rudd, but it too was distorted: manipulated to appear as a gold concession to his entire kingdom. In 1889 it was accepted as authentic by the British government and used to charter the British South Africa Company. Lobengula refused the BSAC access to the areas under his control, and in 1890 the BSAC invaded nearby Mashonaland. After British settlers failed to find much gold in Mashonaland, Leander Starr Jameson, the BSAC administrator after 1891, induced settlers to join an invading force against Lobengula's Ndebele kingdom in September 1893 with promises of gold claims, land and cattle. To justify the invasion, mendacious claims were made that the Ndebele intended to attack Mashonaland. Faced with this attack, as well as a simultaneous invasion by British imperial forces from the south, Lobengula burned his capital, Bulawayo, annihilated a column sent to capture him, and disappeared in the direction of the Zambezi River. It is conventionally presumed that he died in late 1893 or early 1894.