Conclusion

Periodisation is a necessary part of ordering the past, but it does sometimes mask continuities. The history of white farmers in Marandellas does not fit entirely comfortably into three distinct and distinguishable phases; there is too much that continues from one period to its successor. Land settlement, labour, tobacco markets, for example, all presented recurrent and broadly similar problems. Nevertheless, Marandellas passed through three phases which are, if not chronologically precise, analytically separable. The first phase was marked by impermanence and the slow process of establishing a communal white presence which was politically dominant and established Southern Rhodesia as a white man’s country. The second phase represents the move from communal permanence to a higher level of individual permanence, in which the social and economic infrastructure of the colony became settled. The third phase builds upon the foundations of the interwar years and witnesses growth not only in the wealth of the country but also in its political conflicts.