Chimanimani Mountains: History
The Ndau people have lived in the area around the Chimanimani Mountains for centuries. In the early 19th century, Nguni-speaking people left what is now South Africa to settle in the Save River valley. The Nguni leader Soshangane founded the Gaza Empire, which subjugated the area from the Limpopo to the Zambezi rivers, including the local Ndau people. In the late 19th century the Gaza Empire came into conflict with European colonial empires – the British expanding north from South Africa, and the Portuguese expanding from the coast of Mozambique into the interior.
The Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1891 fixed the boundary between the United Kingdom's and Portugal's colonial possessions in southern and eastern Africa, and divided the Chimanimani mountains between the British Southern Rhodesia colony and Portugal's Mozambique colony. Differing interpretations of the treaty language by the governments of the UK and Portugal revived the boundary dispute, and settlement of the boundary between the Zambezi and Save rivers was arbitrated by Paul Honoré Vigliani, an assistant to the King of Italy. The arbitration was completed on January 30 1897, establishing the international boundary which has persisted until the present day. The new boundary split the Ndau communities who live on either side of it.
The government of Southern Rhodesia established Chimanimani National Park in 1949, with an original area of 82 km2. The park was later expanded to 155 km2. In 1953, the colonial government of Mozambique gazetted the forest reserves of Maronga, Zomba, and Moribane on the mountains' southeastern slope. Both colonial governments also expanded logging and agriculture during the 1940s and 50s. Southern Rhodesia's forestry department and private companies created extensive plantations of pine, wattle, and Eucalyptus in the mountains and valleys west of the National Park boundary. The Mozambican colonial government established sawmills and timber concessions in the lower-elevation forests and dense woodlands southeast of the mountains.
Mozambique became independent from Portugal in 1975, but suffered a civil war from 1977 to 1992. Southern Rhodesia declared independence as Rhodesia under an exclusive white-minority government in 1965. The Rhodesian Bush War, or Zimbabwe Independence War, raged from 1964 to 1979.
During the war, mountain passes in the Chimanimani area were frequently used by guerilla fighters moving between Zimbabwe and their camps in Mozambique, and the guerrillas laid mines along local roads to disrupt the local economy. The passes were heavily mined by Rhodesian government forces to prevent guerilla movements. In 1980, a settlement was reached which gave the country's black majority full political participation, and the country was renamed Zimbabwe. Decades later land mines remain a hazard in the area, particularly after heavy rain.
In 2003, the Mozambican government created Chimanimani National Reserve, with an area 640.6 km2 that encompasses the high mountains on the Mozambican side.
== References ==