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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2009
Gungunyane, paramount chief of the Shangana of Gazaland, 1884–95, was a very shrewd diplomat. A study of his diplomacy with Europeans suggests that his major goal was Shangana independence of action. From the beginning of his reign, Gungunyane was pressured to give concessions in both economic and political spheres. His capital was on the edge of the Rhodesian plateau until mid-1889, when the chief moved a large portion of his people as well as his capital southward to the Limpopo valley, Mozambique. This significant dislocation influenced later negotiations with Portugal. Although the chief was a strong personality, he was subject to pressures from his immediate—and in this case, warlike—African advisors. In negotiations with the British South Africa Company, the Mozambique Company and the Portuguese government, the African leader enjoyed the benefits of a fearful military reputation, a wide-reaching espionage system, and conflicts between British and Portuguese concession-seekers. A master of playing both ends against the middle to maintain his freedom of movement, Gungunyane found, nevertheless, that his diplomatic programme was undermined by Portuguese superiority in the use of firearms, disunity among the Shangana and their tributaries, and growing social disintegration caused by alcoholism, emigration, and European encroachment. His final military defeat by Portuguese forces in 1895 was not a true index of his talent as an African diplomat.
1 The traditional Portuguese rendering, ‘Gungunhana’, has been replaced by the Shangana or Shangaans pronunciation. The writer visited the Gaza area both in Mozambique and in Rhodesia in 1967 and heard the word pronounced as ‘Gungunyane’.
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