3. Give three reasons why the missionaries wanted the distraction of the Ndebele state.
Answers
Answer:
The 1893 Anglo-Ndebele War or War of dispossession was a war between the British South Africa Company and the Ndebele under King Lobengula. The Ndebele were defeated and Lobengula fled his capital in Bulawayo.
Lobengula tried to avoid the war as he realised the advantage the Settlers had in their superior weapons like the Maxim gun. Lobengula had 80,000 spearmen and 20,000 riflemen, armed with Martini-Henry rifles, which were modern arms at that time. The British South Africa Company had no more than 750 troops in the British South Africa Company's Police, with an undetermined number of possible colonial volunteers and an additional 700 Tswana (Bechuana) allies.
Causes of the War
The causes of the 1893 War between the whites and the Ndebele were borne in the relationship that existed between the two groups. On the other hand, Ndebeles wanted the whites out of Mashonaland while on the other hand, the whites wanted the Ndebele nation destroyed. Matters came to a head when Lobengula approved a raid to forcibly extract tribute from a Mashona chief in the district of the town of Fort Victoria, which inevitably led to a clash with the Company