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| Why Bulawayo1872 |
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In 1872 after scoring
victory, King Lobengula renamed his royal town. The name
was changed from Gibixhegu to Bulawayo. The name
derives from the verb bulala and the locative formative
ko-. Bulala means, in the first instance to kill. It
also means to oppose, persecute or bother. King Lobengula
was thus referring to the figurative meaning of the word
bulala.
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When Cecil John Rhodes overpowered King
Lobengula and his regiments, he ordered a new town be
built on the ruins of King Lobengula's royal town, which
was sited where State House stands today. |
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Northlea High
School was built very close to the ruins of King Lobengula
Bulawayo. By 1894 a new town of a gridiron pattern was
taking shape. Its name was also Bulawayo. In the same
year administrator Leander Starr Jameson declared the
settlement a town. In 1897 it acquired a municipal
status.
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| Even though Bulawayo was declared a
settlement town in 1894, as far as we are concerned and
also as history rightly points out, Bulawayo was born in
1872. It was not born at the hands of Leander Starr
Jameson, but at the hands of Lobengula King of the
Ndebele. |
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