When white settlers first encountered the majestic Great Zimbabwe, they promptly dismissed any notion that the dzimba dze mabwe (houses of stone) could have been the handiwork of Africans. They deemed the African race insufficiently advanced to undertake such a monumental engineering endeavour.
A Portuguese explorer of the 16th century conjectured that Great Zimbabwe lay in the “land of Ophir,” a Biblical locale believed to be the fabled source of King Solomon’s gold. Subsequently, several European historians and theologians speculated that these magnificent stone structures were the work of Phoenicians, Egyptians, or other non-African peoples. In their estimation, black Africans could not possibly have constructed such a staggering edifice: the spectacular stone dwellings, enclosed by a formidable 15-metre-high wall crowned with a conical tower at one end, which stood as a testament to advanced architectural skill and labour organisation that, in their view, lay beyond the capabilities of the indigenous population. Such assumptions reflected the Eurocentric biases of the era rather than acknowledging the rich and sophisticated indigenous heritage behind these awe-inspiring ruins. In 1538, the Portuguese writer Joao de Barros remarked:
“When and by whom these edifices were raised, as the people of the land are ignorant of the art of writing, there is no record, but they say they are the work of the devil, for in comparison with their power and knowledge it does not seem possible to them that they should be the work of man.”
The reality, however, is that there are some two hundred similar, albeit smaller, sites scattered across Africa, including those at Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manyikeni in Mozambique. Of all these, Great Zimbabwe, situated near Masvingo town, stands tallest in magnitude. The Karanga-speaking Shona people crafted these imposing structures between the 11th and 15th centuries AD. At its zenith, the site flourished as an ancient city housing approximately 18,000 inhabitants.
The Lemba people, Africans reputed to possess partial Jewish ancestry, claim to have erected Great Zimbabwe, though this assertion lacks compelling evidence.
Closer to home, we had our own visionary, Msyamboza, at Chibanzi in Dowa. He spearheaded numerous projects that brought honour and advancement to his village. Beyond his prowess as a marksman, he introduced irrigation schemes that bolstered his cultivation of wheat, onions, and other crops. He pioneered bread baking and soap making among the villagers. In the 1800s, seeing people adorned in cloth garments was a rarity; yet the people of Chibanzi proudly wore such attire. Msyamboza also mandated the construction and use of pit latrines—a forebear to what the Ministry of Health now champions as a “no to open defecation” policy—already practised in Chibanzi over a century ago.
Visitors who journeyed to Chibanzi often wondered if its residents had lived in South Africa, thereby absorbing European cultural influences. The Malawian author Samuel Josiah Nthara immortalised Msyamboza’s life in a chi Nyanja book published in 1945. This work was translated into English by the former Nyasaland missionary Cullen Young, who published it in London in 1948 under the title Headman’s Enterprise: An Unexpected Page in the History of Central Africa (emphasis added). Indeed, everything Msyamboza accomplished was astonishing within the African hinterland of that era—much like the emergence of Great Zimbabwe, an extraordinary phenomenon in the heart of the continent.
Iron smelting has been practised in Africa since prehistoric times. Archaeological findings reveal that it flourished in West and Central Africa centuries before Christ, and spread throughout the continent alongside human migrations. The Bantu peoples carried the knowledge eastwards and southwards. The founders of the Maravi state—after which present-day Malawi is named—were master iron smelters. The very name Malawi is testament to this, meaning “flames,” a nod to the countless kilns that dotted the landscape, emitting fiery glows from their iron-smelting furnaces.
Iron smelting in Africa was once widely presumed to have foreign origins, the belief being that Africans acquired the skill from outsiders. However, recent scholarship decisively reveals that iron smelting was invented and refined autonomously within Africa.
As French scholar Gerard Quechon asserted, quoted in Stanley B. Apern’s 2014 Cambridge University Press article: “indisputably, in the present state of knowledge, the hypothesis of autochthonous [indigenous] invention is convincing.” Quechon further cites American archaeologist Peter Schmidt, who stated, “The hypothesis for independent invention is currently the most viable among the multitude of diffusionist hypotheses.”
To all innovators: never be disheartened by those who belittle you or your capabilities simply because you are African. Search within your reservoir of potential creativity and unleash it upon an unsuspecting world.