The Matabele rising was represented as the inevitable sequel to the incomplete subjugation of a warlike people, but when the timid Mashonas followed suit it was obvious that no such excuse would suffice. Much light was thrown by missionaries and others upon the treatment meted out to the Mashonas and the Matabele precedent to the outbreak. Sir Richard Martin's report and the publications of the Aborigines Protection Society may be consulted with advantage in this respect. Apart from the general character of that treatment which has been already indicated, many of the details given were of a revolting character. The Rev. John White, Wesleyan minister at Salisbury, in a letter to the Methodist Times dated September 30, 1896, cites the case of one of the Company's officials compelling a native chief by threats of punishment to hand him over his daughter as a mistress:
I brought the matter to the notice of the Administrator and the accused was found guilty of the charge. He shortly after left the country; yet so trivial seemed the offence that within nine months he was back again and held an official position in the force raised to punish the rebels.
It is easy to over-estimate this "social" question, and no doubt exaggerated charges were brought at the time. Sexual relations between native women and white invaders will always be of a loose description; and the break-up of tribal and family authority which follows in the wake of conquest invariably leads to social demoralisation. But, even so, there are recognised decencies, and one incident such as Mr. White describes is in itself sufficient to fire a whole countryside. Nor was it isolated. Assaults upon women by the native police were frequent. Mr. White also relates a shocking story of the slaughter of three chiefs who were arrested when actually on the precincts of a Wesleyan mission station, on the charge of being implicated in the murder of a native policeman. Mr. Thomson says that he made inquiries into the cases referred to by Mr. White, and describes them as of a "peculiarly atrocious character." Wholesale robbing of Mashona cattle seems also to have been rife, Mr. White alleging that "in many districts where previously considerable heads of cattle were to be found, now hardly one exists."
