Matabeleland food shortages. Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo finally reconciled their political differences by late 1987. The roots of discord remained, however, and in some ways increased as Mugabe's rule became increasingly autocratic into the 21st century. In the early 1990s, a Land Acquisition Act was passed, calling for the Mugabe government to purchase mostly white-owned commercial farming land for redistribution to native Africans. Matabeleland has rich central plains, watered by tributaries of the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, allowing it to sustain cattle and consistently produce large amounts of cotton and maize. But land grabbing, squatting, and repossessions of large white
Apostolic Prefecture of Zambesia in opposing the mission. There were unsuccessful expeditions from the base in Bulawayo, one led by Father Depelchin to the north beyond the Zambesi and one led by Father Augustus Law went 300 miles east to the Portuguese border. In 1893 Lobengula was overthrown when Bulawayo and Matabeleland were seized by the British South Africa Company. A number of other Catholic missionaries entered the new territory with the Sisters of St. Dominic starting public hospitals, and later opening schools for the children of the settlers. The progress of the mission was slow, with the adult population still attached to paganism