The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
THE house at the end of Laurel Avenue in Sauerstown, Bulawayo looks fairly innocuous.
From the outside looking in, its appearance is less than ordinary.
Rust has set in on the gate meant to keep out any potential intruders and at close inspection, it is easy to see that it thirsts for more than a coat of paint.
Instead, it looks like its begging any onlooker who gazes upon it to put it out of its misery, to allow it to rest wherever old and rusty gates go when they have outlived their usefulness.
For companionship, this rusty gate has a bunch of wild grass and weeds growing all around it, making it appear as if it is surrounded by a small forest.
A patchwork fence, reinforced by wood here and there, completes the air of abandonment the entrance hangs over the house at the end of Laurel Avenue.
However, beyond such ordinary appearance, beyond the gate lies perhaps one of Bulawayo’s least appreciated heritage sites.
On that seemingly derelict piece of land, not far from the State House, are the remains of what was once Grass City, or Emazengeni as locals called it, the hub of economic activity before and after the onset of colonialism in Bulawayo.
It is the place where, on 4 November 1893 the first British flag was raised over Bulawayo, King Lobengula’s capital after British South Africa Company (BSAC) forces led by Major Patrick Forbes drove the native Ndebele from the town.
The tree where that flag was hoisted still stands today.
It is from here that King Lobengula instructed his chiefs to burn his capital as he journeyed northwards.
It was called Emazengeni by the Ndebele because of three structures, which still stand today, which were made of brick and metal.
However, before it even earned that name, it was referred to only as Dawson Stores.
“When the white people arrived, Dr Sauer, who was a staff member for Cecil John Rhodes, took that whole area and made it his farm,” historian Cont Mhlanga says.
“That’s where the name Sauerstown came from. Initially, before the white people invaded, the place was called Dawson Stores.
It was a place that had been granted to Dawson by King Lobengula and he had established his business there.
Of course, locals did not refer to it as Dawson Stores but instead, they referred to it as Emazengeni because of how the place had been constructed.”
According to Mhlanga, Dawson Stores was constructed out of necessity after King Lobengula’s relocation from Old Bulawayo.
“The building was the second shopping centre to be constructed in the kingdom.
The first shopping centre constructed was to the east of Old Bulawayo. It was the first shopping centre and it was built by the Greeks.
When King Lobengula moved and came to what is now known as Emahlabathini, which is his new capital, it then turned out that shop was now too far and the white family that had built that shop near Old Bulawayo decided that they were not going to build another shop near the capital.
It was then that the King then allowed Dawson to come in and build the shop,” he recounts.
Dawson Stores, Mhlanga says, became the economic nerve centre of Bulawayo, with traders coming from far and wide.
The structures, which still stand to this day, were the brainchild of a white sailor that King Lobengula had picked up enroute to Bulawayo.
“So, it was a collaboration necessitated by service provision.
This was a marketplace, a shop where citizens in the kingdom could buy goods from all over the world.
It was also an export centre, with people in the kingdom bringing things to Dawson who would package them and export them.
It was a trade centre constructed by the King and Dawson and largely built by black people with education of bricklaying.
They had learnt this from a sailor that the Ndebele people called Mabuyana, meaning someone that just appeared.
That sailor is the same person that had built brick houses in the older capital with the same team of Africans that he had trained in brick laying.
So, it had nothing to do with colonisation but trade at the time.
It was a centre where everyone came to buy modern products,” he says.
The tree on which the Union Jack was tied, now towers over most buildings on the historical site.
“Bulawayo has three important trees. It is this tree where they tied the Union Jack, the tree where they were hanging people and the Indaba Tree which is inside State House.
This tree is still intact even after all this time. Of course, it was still a very small thing back then.
That is the tree that you see in the history books,” he says.
The Grange, as the family that bought the area off the Dawson Trust later christened the place, was also the site of the first police station, the first hospital and the first post office as it became the administrative hub of the city after the BSAC took over.
“The white people when they came, obviously they would go to that kind of centre.
So, they came in and stayed around there, waiting to see the King. It then became a big township made out of grass.
When the colonisers came, they made it even bigger, made out of dagga and grass and gave it a name, calling it Grass Town.
It later became Sauerstown,” concludes Mhlanga.
