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“If you can educate the Native woman …”: Debates over the Schooling and Education of Girls and Women in Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1934

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Carol Summers
Carol Summers*
Affiliation:
University of Richmond
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Extract

At the turn of the century, European settlers, officials, and missionaries in Southern Rhodesia were apathetic about promoting African girls' schooling. By the late 1920s, however, all sectors of the European community—settlers, officials, and missionaries—were debating whether, and for what reasons, girls should attend mission schools. Europeans discussed girls' and women's schooling as a strategy for coping with problems in the social and economic development of the region. Some Native Commissioners hoped that disciplined moral education would encourage women to remain in rural areas and take responsibility for their families, supporting the system of migrant labor. Many missionaries hoped that domestic education could train women to build peasant households in rural areas and Christian havens for educated African men. Some settlers called for servant-training programs as ways of enlisting African women's support of European society. These educational strategies for coping with tensions caused by social change proved highly contradictory, however. Ultimately, the rhetoric of social engineering was more prominent than the results in the education of girls and women in Southern Rhodesia.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , Winter 1996 , pp. 449 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by the History of Education Society 

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References

The following abbreviations for archives appear in the notes: ABC—American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archives, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; CWM—Council for World Mission Archives, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, U.K.; JAH—Jesuit Archives, Prestage House, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe; NAZ—National Archives of Zimbabwe, Borrowdale, Harare, Zimbabwe; USPG—United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (Church of England) Archives, Rhodes House Library, Oxford University, Oxford, U.K.; WMMS—Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Archives, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, U.K.

1 The quotation of the title is from Native Commissioner (NC) Gokwe to Superintendent of Natives (SoN) Gwelo, Feb. 1924, NAZ, S138/150. NCs and other officials are referred to by post rather than by name. Only mission schools were open to African girls.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Schreiner's, Olive novel, Trooper Peter Halkett of Mashonaland (1897), and Marshall Hole, H., cited in Beach, D. N., War and Politics in Zimbabwe, 1840–1900 (Gweru, 1986), 122–24. On spying, see Rosmead, to Chamberlain, Joseph, Court of Inquiry into Shooting of Woman and Child, 6 Sept. 1896 (inquiry date), Public Records Office CO879/520/2222. For accounts of Cecil Rhodes's meeting with Ndebele leaders, see Sykes, Frank W., With Plumer in Matabeleland: An Account of the Operations of the Matabeleland Relief Force during the Rebellion of 1896 (New York, 1897; 1969). For a later example, see the enquiry into the conduct of the NC Belingwe (de Laessoe). Depositions [Nkombri?], [Nohlala?], 25 Nov. 1906, NAZ, A3/18/13.Google Scholar

3 Schmidt, Elizabeth, Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870–1939 (Portsmouth, N.H., 1992), ch. 2; and NC Gutu, Annual Report (1920) NAZ, S2076, and idem, Annual Report (1908) NAZ, N9/1/11. For examples of early colonial images of women, see O'Neill, Fr., Zambesi Mission Record 4 (1910): 77–79; Heyman, Col., “The Labour Problem,” Bulawayo Chronicle, 20 Oct. 1911.Google Scholar

4 Jeater, Diana, Marriage, Perversion, and Power: The Construction of Moral Discourse in Southern Rhodesia, 1894–1930 (Oxford, Eng., 1993). For example, see Mundy, Major, “A Higher Standard of Diet in Kraal Life,” Southern Rhodesia Advisory Board for Native Development, 16 Dec. 1931, NAZ, S170/1160; Palmer, Robin H., Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia (Berkeley, Calif., 1977); and Phimister, Ian R., An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890–1948: Capital Accumulation and Class Struggle (London, 1988).Google Scholar “If you can educate the Native woman …” Google Scholar

5 Charles van Onselen notes that at the beginning of the century, when firms in need of workers were debating whether to pursue South African styled migrant labor policies or work toward a settled, proletarianized labor force, a few important mining officials wanted settled labor and were willing to bring women into the areas of the mines. These settled labor advocates were a minority however. van Onselen, Charles, Chibaro: African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1933 (London, 1976), 76–77. See Barnes, Terri, “African Female Labour and the Urban Economy of Colonial Zimbabwe, with Special Reference to Harare, 1920–39” (master's thesis, University of Zimbabwe, 1987), and Yoshikuni, Tsuneo, “Black Migrants in a White City: A Social History of African Harare, 1890–1925” (Ph.D. diss., University of Zimbabwe, 1989) and idem, “The Origins and Development of the Salisbury Municipal Location: A Study of Municipal Control of African Workers in Colonial Harare, 1892–1923” (paper presented at the Henderson Seminar, History Department, University of Zimbabwe, 1984); Bishop Paget and Archdeacon Christelow, NAZ, S1561/48.Google Scholar

6 For example, Pelly, D. R. [Church of England], Letters, Mashonaland Paper 3 (Jan. 1893). This was true even in the school of Miss Nancy Jones, a black American missionary at Mount Selinda. G. Wilder to American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABC), 27 Apr. 1894, ABC, 15.4, vol. 20, item 277; the need to pay students to attend school effectively vanished by around 1900, however, when demand for education outstripped supply. Zambesi Mission Record 1 (1900): 301; H. Juliette Gilson to ABC, 3 Mar. 1900, ABC, 15.4, vol. 25, item 202; Thompson to ABC, 4 Sept. 1904, ABC, 15.4, vol. 28, item 58; Julia Winter to ABC, 31 Jan. 1905, ABC, 15.4, vol. 26, item 100; Wilder to ABC, 15 Feb. 1906, ABC, 15.4, vol. 28, item 255; Bradford to White, 18 May 1915, WMMS Women's Work, Rhodesia correspondence, microfilm box 3.Google Scholar

7 See Summers, Carol, “Educational Controversies: African Activism and Educational Strategies in Southern Rhodesia, 1920–1934,” Journal of Southern African Studies 20 (Mar. 1994): 3–25, esp. 9–11, 16, 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 This was generally done under the provisions of the Private Locations Ordinance; for Jesuit and Dutch Reformed examples, see “Agreement under Section 5 of the Private Locations Ordinance, 1908,” (1912) JAH, box 126/5, and Orlandini to NC Gutu, 23 May 1921, NAZ, NVG 3/2/1; Inspector Gwelo (Mather) to Director of Native Development, 24 Sept. 1929, NAZ, S2307/1/1, and Mukiyo Esthinus, Deposition, 20 Apr. 1931, NAZ, S1542/M8. Challiss, R. J., “The Foundation of the Racially Segregated Educational System in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1923, with Special Reference to the Education of Africans” (Ph.D. diss., University of Zimbabwe, 1982), 92.Google Scholar

9 Gaul, Bishop, Mashonaland Quarterly 47 (Feb. 1904): 3–5 (emphasis in text).Google Scholar

10 For an example of the usefulness of education in the colony's early years, see Hlatywayo, Jonas to Gilson, H., 21 Mar. 1901, ABC, 15.4, vol. 25, item 221. For a detailed examination of one family's rise, and the tensions involved, see Ranger, Terence O., Are We Not Also Men? The Samkange Family and African Politics in Zimbabwe, 1920–64 (Portsmouth, N.H., 1995).Google Scholar

11 Posselt, F. W., NC Marandellas, to Chief Native Commissioner (CNC) Salisbury, 5 June 1930, NAZ, S1561/64. The remainder of the above file consists of descriptions of cases of sexual misconduct arising in mission schools of their district. For a missionary's perspective, see Wilder, G., Report of the Chikore Station (1906) ABC, 15.4, vol. 23, item 100. Sykes, Fr., Zambesi Mission Record 2 (1902): 24–4 and 2 (1903): 181.Google Scholar

12 The strongest images of African female students as sexual predators emerge in discussions in reports of NCs faced with irate fathers. For examples, see NC Gutu to SoN Victoria, 21 Oct. 1918, NAZ, NVG 3/2/1; F. W. Posselt (NC Marandellas) to CNC 5 June 1930, NAZ, S1561/64; and “Notes from the Different Stations: Driefontein,” Zambesi Mission Record 8 (July 1927): 184.Google Scholar

13 Barnes, , “African Female Labour,” 13, 17–20, 29, 45–46, and Yoshikuni, , “Black Migrants in a White City,” 138–39, 149. See Neville Jones, Hope Fountain Annual Report (1921) CWM, 6/1, and idem, (1926), CWM, 6/4. Mariya and Hester, with three years at the Anglican mission of St. Monica's, went in 1908 to teach the lowest classes at, respectively, St. Faith's and Epiphany missions. Lloyd, E., Mashonaland Quarterly 63 (Feb. 1908): 13. This is the first mention I have found of local African (as opposed to South African) female teachers. Female teachers did not become common until the 1920s. Ranger has challenged the notion that the missions marginalized women, pointing to the central role of elite women such as Grace Samkange in the Wesleyan women's organization, Ruwadzano, but he also acknowledges that Samkange was highly exceptional. Ranger, , Are We Not Also Men?, 32–62.Google Scholar

14 Sloan, Agnes, “The Black Woman,” Native Affairs Department Annual (1923): 60–69. For a sampling of the complications, see Reports and Decisions of the Court of Appeal for Native Civil Cases (Salisbury, various dates), esp. Leah v. Joshua (18 Jan. 1932); Masawi v. Mzanenamu (1 Nov. 1932); Gatsi v. Dokasi (9 Dec. 1932); Decisions of the High Court of Southern Rhodesia, Dayimano v. Kgaribaitse (22 Oct. 1931); Rex v. Crispin Katsuwa (3 Nov. 1927); Ellen v. Jim (20 Aug. 1931); Rex v. Chenemata, Rex v. Mzanenamu (20 and 27 Apr. 1932); and Rex v. Machingura (4 Aug. 1932). For an example of female attempts to redefine marriage, see Assistant NC Mtetengwe to NC Gwanda, 5 Mar. 1924, NAZ, S138/150.Google Scholar

15 Yoshikuni, “Black Migrants in a White City,” 81–82, 138–39. For settler concepts of peasantry, see Gilchrist, , Legislative Assembly Debates 6 (1927): 151–55.Google Scholar

16 Summers, Carol, From Civilization to Segregation: Social Ideals and Social Control in Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1934 (Athens, Ohio, 1994), ch. 5. For examples of native development, see the Legislative Assembly Debates 13 (1933), esp. speeches by Davies, (p. 973); Cowden, (pp. 982–83); and Huggins, (p. 995).Google Scholar

17 NC Marandellas ( Posselt, F. W.), “Native marriage and the status of the woman,” 30 Nov. 1923, NAZ, S138/150. Until the Legal Age of Majority Act, African women in Southern Rhodesia, Rhodesia, and Zimbabwe were jural minors, unable ever to become legal adults, regardless of age.Google Scholar

18 O'Neill, Fr., Zambesi Mission Record 4 (1911): 267–74; Diary, Brotherhood, Mashonaland Quarterly 35 (Feb. 1901): 18–20; Upcher, , Mashonaland Quarterly 40 (May 1902): 7–9; Bishop to Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 28 June 1899, USPG/CLR 142; NC Sinoia to SoN Salisbury, 23 Feb. 1924, NAZ, S138/150; NC Chilimanzi to SoN Victoria, 10 Mar. 1924, NAZ, S138/150; NC Fort Rixon to SoN Bulawayo, 20 Mar. 1924, NAZ, S138/150.Google Scholar

19 NC Gwanda to SoN Bulawayo, 27 Feb. 1924, NAZ, S138/150.Google Scholar

20 NC Marandellas to CNC, 12 May 1924, NAZ, S138/150.Google Scholar

21 NC Marandellas (Posselt, F. W.), 12 May 1924, NAZ, S138/150; Howman, Native Advisory Committee Documents (1921? 1931?) NAZ, S235/486.Google Scholar

22 Posselt, F. W. T., Native Affairs Advisory Committee, Minutes (1931) [cover says 1921, apparently a mistake], 79–80, NAZ, S235/484; Howman, Native Advisory Committee Documents, 46–48. See Summers, , From Civilization to Segregation, chs. 3, 4, and 6.Google Scholar

23 For example, Wilkerson, Industrial Institute Annual Report (1908), CWM, 4/2.Google Scholar

24 Jones, , Hope Fountain Annual Report (1916), CWM, 5/2.Google Scholar

25 Jones, , Hope Fountain Girls' School Annual Report (1922), CWM, 6/2.Google Scholar

26 Simmonite, , Hope Fountain Girls' School Annual Report (1925), CWM, 6/3; Cowling, Inspector's Report, Hope Fountain Girls' School (1927), CWM, 7/1.Google Scholar

27 For examples of conflict, see the correspondence in NAZ, S1542/J1, vol. 2. See documents in NAZ, S170/1171; Jones to LMS, 16 Dec. 1927, CWM, 91/Jones; Jones, Hope Fountain Report on Jeanes Work (1930), CWM, 7/2. See the speeches of Mutuludzi, Mary, Hlazo, Rachel, Mkombochota, Elizabeth, Moyo, Priscilla, and Ncube, Rebecca, Report of the Inter-Territorial Jeanes' Conference (Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, 27 May–6 June 1935 [(Lovedale, 1935): 97–110]).Google Scholar

28 Isabel Ross to LMS, 4 Feb. 1936, CWM, 99; J. Anderson (Hope Fountain) to LMS, 13 Apr. 1936, CWM, 99.Google Scholar

29 For example, Jones, Hope Fountain Girls' School Annual Report (1926), CWM, 6/4. R. MacIntosh, Government Inspector's report on Hope Fountain (1922), CWM, 84/5, and H. Page, Hope Fountain Headmistress's report (1929), CWM, 7/1. The use of domesticity as a career was not unique to Southern Rhodesia. For the Belgian colonies, see Hunt, Nancy Rose, “Domesticity and Colonialism in Belgian Africa: Usumbura's Foyer Social, 1946–1960,” Signs 15 (spring 1990): 447–74. Note, however, that the best evidence available for the professionalization of domesticity in Africa tends to be after the mid-1930s. See also Burke, Timothy J., “Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption, and Cleanliness in Colonial Zimbabwe” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1993), esp. chs. 2 and 5; Priscilla Moyo (1931), and Anderson, W. W., Shangani Report (1931), CWM, 7/3, and Jeanes School Hope Fountain Report (1932), CWM, 8/1.Google Scholar

30 Roxburgh, , Mashonaland Quarterly 46 (Nov. 1903): 12–13. See also Schmidt, Elizabeth, “Race, Sex, and Domestic Labor: The Question of African Female Servants in Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1939,” in African Encounters with Domesticity , ed. Hansen, Karen Tranberg (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992), 221–41.Google Scholar

31 For example, Annie, Mother, Mashonaland Quarterly 60 (May May 1907): 16–17.Google Scholar

32 Personal views of Mrs. Fripp (expressed apart from her position in the Federation of Women's Institutes), Commission on Female Domestic Service (1932), NAZ, S1561/48.Google Scholar

33 Jones, Evidence Taken at Bulawayo, NAZ, S1561/48. See Pape, John, “Black and White: The ‘Perils of Sex’ in Colonial Zimbabwe,” Journal of Southern African Studies 16 (Dec. 1990): 699–720; Schmidt, Elizabeth, Peasants, Traders, and Wives, 155–79; Jeater, Diana, Marriage, Perversion, and Power; and Kennedy, Dane Keith, Islands of White: Settler Society and Culture in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1890–1939 (Durham, N.C., 1987). One witness argued that “native women [are] not nearly developed in any way educationally or morally” that might provide the self-control to allow them to come safely into town and service. Mrs. L. Chataway, 14 Sept. 1932, NAZ, S1561/48. Archdeacon Christalowe and Bishop Paget, NAZ, S1561/48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Jones, , Evidence Taken at Bulawayo, NAZ, S1561/48; Jacobs, C. Mrs., 29 Aug. 1932, NAZ, S1561/48. See also “Educating the Native,” Bulawayo Chronicle, 21 July 1906; and Ethel Maud Cookson Colquhon (Tawse-Jollie), The Real Rhodesia (London, 1924), 265–66. Domboshawa, the first government school for boys, opened in 1920. H. S. Keigwin to CNC, Report on Domboshawa's first six months, 5 Jan. 1921, NAZ, S840/1/33.Google Scholar

35 See Schmidt, , Peasants, Traders and Wives, 160–61, 165–66; Barnes, , “African Female Labour,” and Yoshikuni, , “The Origins and Development of the Salisbury Municipal Location” and “Black Migrants in a White City.” Google Scholar

36 For example, see Marshall Taylor, H., agricultural missionary at Mutambara mission (1925), NAZ, S840/4/41.Google Scholar