In the following email I was disputing a statement by Pat Anderson that "Europeans arrived and took land, developed it and large commercial farms appeared."
Already the way you put it is wrong. You talk as if blacks were not capable of developing large commercial mechanized farms. Remember Pat, at the time Europeans came to Zimbabwe in 1890, the Ford Model T had not even been invented so there was no farm mechanization to talk of.
At that time Africans were ahead of whites in terms of agricultural skill. They owned more livestock and they grew better crops. Whites, who were then running away from poverty and disease in Europe, actually relied on black produce in order not to starve. At that time blacks didn't even want to work for whites on mines or on farms which is why whites had to resort to a hated forced labour system called Chibharo (The Rape).
My maternal grandfather had to relocate from Njanja to Manyene in an attempt to get away from the Chibharo system. My grand-uncle Sekuru Madzorera used to tell how he had his hands tied together, tied to a saddle and then made to run behind a horse as he was corralled for the Chibharo system. These are people who I saw with my own eyes and whose stories I heard with my own ears.
Zimbabwe's agriculture developed to world class standards starting around the 1940s, ten years after the Land Apportionment Act robbed blacks of their land. It is a hurtful insult to suggest that blacks at that time couldn't develop advanced agriculture because of incapability. Yet it is very clear that they were forcibly held back by the racist system then in operation.
My own grandfather was one of the first farmers to grow wheat in Mutoro native purchase areas. White farmers used to come and buy wheat from him. He had to abandon the capital intensive crop because of lack of support for blacks from the system as well as plain discrimination such as selective pricing for produce based on race.
Whites could make money by buying produce from blacks at the 'black price' and selling it on at the 'white price.' Those are some of the practices that make whites appear to have been better.
They were not any better but they used violent repression to take the resources for themselves as well as hold back the blacks from the natural course of development.
Once people understand that point they will stop harping about whites having 'developed' Africa or being better farmers, but know that they actually held back Africa by preventing the population from advancing with the rest of the world at their natural pace.
Now Africa is having to start where the world was a century ago. That is not a condemnation of black capabilities but a condemnation of the oppressive system that was saddled upon the blacks.
As usual let me point that my sentiments are not the gospel truth but are based on logical consideration of the plainly apparent facts. Other are free to arrive at their own conclusions. However, as the facts stand, I strongly believe my own conclusions are substantially correct.
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