Matabeleland area has important gold deposits. Industries include gold and other mineral mines, and engineering. There has been a decline in the industries in this region as water is in short supply. Promises by the government to draw water for the region through the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project have not been carried out. The region is allegedly marginalised by the government. Around the 10th and 11th centuries the Bantu-speaking Bakalanga arrived from the south and settled in Mapungubwe on the Limpopo and Shashi river valleys. Later they moved north to Great Zimbabwe. By the 15th century, the Bakalanga had established a
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