“I maintain that we English are the noblest nation under the sun and that the more of the world we populate, the better it will be for the human race. Just imagine what a change it would be for all the vile specimens of human beings to come under Anglo-Saxon influence. /…/ If you are born an Englishman, you have won the first prize in the lottery of life.” (Cecil John Rhodes, the greatest English imperialist of all time). These are but fragments of an admittedly vast body of thought and writing by this self-made super-capitalist and politician, but they sum up the colonial spirit of the 19th century most clearly. Rhodes, who became fabulously rich from diamond and gold mines, believed unwaveringly in the superiority of the British Empire and its divine mission to “civilise” the world. Or, more precisely, a part of the world where whites were not (yet) the dominant race. He felt himself called to fulfil this mission and did not choose the means to achieve it.
By a series of coincidences, the playground of his high-flying ambitions became South Africa, and he became the only Englishman of all time to have a country named Rhodesia. More than a hundred years after Rhodes’s death, Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, like much of sub-Saharan Africa, is still reeling from the remnants of a colonial legacy that plunged the country into decades of exploitation, subjugation and segregation. When, during the global decolonisation movement, it was finally able to try to make sense of its national identity, its transformation into a modern society failed. White supremacy was replaced by one of Africa’s most autocratic regimes under Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe, which was a flourishing and powerful kingdom in the Middle Ages, is today one of the most politically and economically unstable countries in the world.
After all, Cecil Rhodes is not the only culprit in the tragedy of Rhodesia, but he is one of the most characteristic representatives of a generation. A generation of overbearing, uncompromising and self-seeking white men from Western Europe who have taken for granted the right to manage Africa’s rich natural resources and to exploit its indigenous peoples. In a short period between 1860 and 1910, they indiscriminately carved up and divided up the entire African continent like a cake. The colonisation of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) was one of the last dramatic scenes of the scramble for Africa.
Revered as a national hero until too recently, Cecil Rhodes is now portrayed as an increasingly controversial figure and is slowly losing his status as a philanthropist in the history books. In the UK, in recent years, a debate has spread in the public arena about the preservation of his statue on the campus of the prestigious Oxford University.
Oxford was not only Rhodes’s alma mater, but the epitome of imperial intellectual thought, where all the great colonial minds were germinated. That is why Rhodes left him virtually his entire inheritance in the form of the rich Rhodes Scholarship Fund. This was to enable particularly talented men to study at Oxford. Of course, women and Africans were excluded.
The prestigious Rhodes Scholarships are still awarded today, but no longer on the basis of racial and gender discrimination. They have undoubtedly opened the door to a brighter future for many a capable individual. But in the light of the fact that the money for them comes from wealth acquired in an era of uncontrolled diamond and gold mining on foreign soil, they are controversial in themselves.
And while the Rhodes monument in Cape Town, South Africa, fell, the one in Oxford still stands after a vote by the university’s members. Confronting the colonial past in the UK has clearly not yet reached a social consensus and remains much more difficult than elsewhere in the world.
This is also because of Cecil John Rhodes, the man who conquered almost 800,000 square kilometres of territory for the British Empire.
From sickly young man to billionaire in a few years
Cecil was born in 1853, the son of a country parson in the South of England, and was a very sickly young man in his youth. His ill health even forced him to drop out of school, and his doctors did not predict a long life for him. Few could have imagined that this academically mediocre and weak boy of humble roots would become the embodiment of the British Empire and a diamond magnate. He had a congenital heart defect and, on top of that, chronic asthma attacks, and it was these that sent his parents, at the age of seventeen, to South Africa (only part of what is now the country of South Africa) to follow his elder brother. The climate there was pleasantly semi-tropical, and the soft breezes from the Indian Ocean were far more beneficial to him than the humid England.
So young Cecil ended up in Africa quite by accident, unaware of the fact that in a few years it would become the focus of a global hunt for wealth. He was in the right place at the right time, and his entrepreneurial acumen was soon evident. He and his brother initially experimented with cotton farming, a risky and not particularly profitable activity. But this first venture was already a success and started to bring in money for the young Rhodes. Brother Herbert was much less persistent and, unable to stay in one place for long, he wandered around the interior of the country in the hope of finding more tempting employment in the company of like-minded people.
Fortune seems to have favoured the Rhodes brothers. In 1870, Herbert was part of an expedition that discovered diamonds near Kimberley, still widely known as one of the world’s largest deposits (now in South Africa). He immediately sent a letter to Cecil, saying only ‘Come’.
Word of the sensational discovery spread quickly and crowds of adventurers from all over the world flocked like ants to the site. It was in no-man’s land, somewhere between British and Dutch territories, but Britain had the better of the deal and claimed it before the arrival of Cecil Rhodes. The diamond rush began, and within two years it had changed the face of southern Africa forever, politically and socially as well as economically. From a relatively insignificant colony, a rich commercial and financial centre emerged, where interests of all kinds were intertwined on a daily basis. The world’s richest tycoons began to flock there in an attempt to multiply their wealth.
Kimberley was the Wild West of Africa and the population grew to 40,000 in just a few months! The excitement of a big find was indescribable and it was no rarity to discover stones worth as much as two thousand pounds each (over £200,000 in today’s money). The Rhodes brothers were also so successful during their experimental dig that Cecil became financially independent at the age of seventeen. By the time he was 25, he had laid the foundations for the greatest fortune of the Victorian era. He became a billionaire and controlled the largest mines and the largest share of the diamond trade in southern Africa.
Despite his unusual appearance, his distinctive white flannel trousers and his pale and perpetually panting face, he has earned a reputation as a daring entrepreneur in an enviably short space of time. Diamonds have always been a highly speculative business, characterised by huge market fluctuations. With nerves of steel, Rhodes negotiated, speculated, invested, struck bargains and forged profitable friendships. He could not give up, and when the site seemed to be plundered, he was one of the few who persisted. It paid off literally overnight. He also knew how to win the loyalty and devotion of the locals more than any other white man, by paying the local workers a month in advance for their work.
Another of his shrewd commercial moves was the consolidation of the land on which mining operations were carried out. Slowly, he bought up smaller plots of land, even if they were apparently unprofitable. By consolidating them and making new finds, he soon had a complete advantage over his competitors. He set up De Beers, which was co-funded by the tycoons Beit and Rothschild, and of which he was Chairman of the Board. De Beers eventually became the world’s largest international diamond mining, exploitation, manufacturing and trading corporation. It only lost its monopoly at the beginning of the 21st century.
But his goal was not just to get rich, and he was not interested in profits to line his own pockets. He lived a modest, almost ascetic life. He walked around the Kimberley with the Meditations of his greatest role model, the Roman emperor, philosopher and Stoic Marcus Aurelius. The righteous Aurelius was known for his austerity and worked for up to eighteen hours a day. “Don’t act as if you have ten thousand years to live! Death hangs over you! So be good while you live, while you are given. Above all, do not give way to distraction and overstrain yourself, but be free and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal being.”
Rhodes clearly felt deep down that he was not destined to live very long because of his illness. And indeed, he had his first heart attack before the age of 20. But he had so much more to do! He was in a hurry, because his ambition was immense.
Fighting for Africa
Rhodes’ life’s work was to expand the British Empire and its interests. This mindset was also permeated by the Oxford spirit, as the then already wealthy Rhodes enrolled at Oxford to fill the gaps in his formal education. So firmly was he convinced of the civilisational superiority of the English nation that he delusively believed that he would be the one who would enable it to dominate the whole world. He thus devoted most of the rest of his life to the fulfilment of that goal. He had, of course, no shortage of followers in those golden days of imperialism and the European hunt for colonies.
“Africa is at our disposal and it is our duty to take it”, Rhodes was convinced. By the time he arrived, the so-called scramble for Africa was in full swing. In the south, the rich gold deposits and the first diamonds, discovered in 1866, were additional reasons. In the north, with the decline of the Ottoman Empire, power was redistributed and shared mainly between the English and the French. The Industrial Revolution and technological progress required more and more raw materials and labour, and made it possible to penetrate into the heart of the black continent. Europeans were encouraged to do so by the discovery of antimalarial drugs.
Interest in Africa did not, of course, arise overnight, and Europeans have been present there since the great “discoveries” of the early modern period, mainly because of the boom in world trade – including the slave trade – and new trade routes. The Portuguese were the first to make contact with sub-Saharan Africa, the seafarer Bartolomeo Dias sailed as far as the Cape of Good Hope in 1888, and the legendary Vasco da Gama circumvented it and reached India before the end of the 15th century. But they only established trading posts and did not settle permanently, and by the early 18th century their influence was slowly declining in favour of England and France, which had become the main players and rivals in the region.
But even before that, the Dutch were the first to settle Africa permanently at the end of the 17th century. Without lofty colonial ambitions comparable to those of the English and French, the Dutch were first and foremost commercially oriented. Thus, their settlements, including Cape Town, were also trading bases for the Dutch East India Company on their way to India and the Far East. Their descendants who settled on African soil became known as the Boers and were predominantly farmers.
With the arrival of the British, however, the chessboard has been reshuffled, as they have started to settle in large numbers and introduce aggressive planned immigration. They also introduced Western culture and English became the official language of administration and the judiciary. They abolished slavery in their colonies. Relations with the Boers became increasingly strained by the territorial aspirations of the British, and they headed north to avoid the British. This led to the creation of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Nevertheless, the rivalry resulted in the Boer Wars, which Britain eventually won.
At the end of the 19th century, other European powers were also becoming increasingly greedy. Few people are unaware of at least certain episodes of this period and of the pan-European Berlin Conference of 1885, which officially supported it and opened it up to new pretenders. The historical background to the process was complex and multilayered, reflecting the geostrategic situation and the attempt to maintain a careful balance on domestic, European soil.
The Conference was the brainchild of the Iron Chancellor of Prussia and one of Germany’s most important politicians, Otto Von Bismarck, the great unifier of Germany. After the end of the internal disputes and the Franco-Prussian War, Germany – albeit belatedly – wanted to get involved in the colonial battle as soon as possible and to get its share of the territorial pie.
For three months, Bismarck entertained and pampered the representatives of fourteen Western countries, including the USA, in his luxurious Berlin palaces, in order to draw the borders within Africa and avoid disputes or even wars between them. They had a four-metre map of Africa in front of them and drew the borders mostly by meridians and parallels. Not a single African envoy was present at the conference and only two of the delegates had ever set foot on African soil.
The rights of the hosts were not discussed. But the architects of the new Africa spelled out the precise conditions under which annexation and occupation of territory were henceforth internationally recognised. Thus, annexation could only be formally valid if the occupation of the territory was de facto and approved by the indigenous ruler. The latter had to personally sign and seal the treaties and land concessions. Private corporations immediately set up shop in the hitherto “unconquered territories”. They extorted signatures from local tribal kings through bribes and false promises. Illiterate and dependent on white interpreters, they often had no idea what they were signing.
Rhodes’ dream of a British imperial takeover of the world
The most active colony hunters were Britain, France, Germany, Portugal and Belgium. They divided up Africa somewhat like this – taking into account previously conquered territories and spheres of interest, where the Dutch also played an important role. Great Britain (Egypt, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, parts of Sudan, most of Southern Africa, Sierra Leone), France (Algeria, Tunisia, French West Africa – Senegal, parts of Sudan, Gabon and French Equatorial Africa), Germany (South-West Africa – Namibia, Togo, Cameroon and parts of East Africa, future Tanzania), Portugal (Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea) and Belgium (especially the notorious Belgian Congo). The Spanish also got some territory in Morocco, and the Italians later got Eritrea, parts of Somalia and Libya. Until the First World War, only Liberia and Ethiopia were free – the latter was later conquered by the Italians, but not for long.
In southern Africa, the century-long British-Dutch rivalry added to the complexity of the situation, and with the arrival of the Germans, the British began to fear that the two neighbouring nations would fraternise to their detriment. Britain eventually skilfully wrested territory from the Dutch, which it united in 1910 to form the Union of South Africa (Cape Colony, Natal, Rhodesia, Oranje and the Transvaal).
And it was Cecil Rhodes and his megalomaniacal imperial ambitions that played a decisive role in this last venture. He fought against German and Boer expansion. At the same time as the fabulous wealth that diamonds brought him, the door to politics was opened. Money was for him only a means to a higher end – the expansion of British interests and territory – and he successfully used it to buy British and African allies.
Rhodes – known to many as the Napoleon of South Africa – dreamt of a British Africa stretching from the Cape of Good Hope in the south to Egypt in the north. They would be linked by railways and telecommunications. This would also lead to the creation of modern industrialised countries in Africa under the British Crown.
“I wanted to be useful for my country, England. Every square kilometre we annex to our territory means more descendants of the English people in the future. The world is limited, so we must conquer as much of it as we can as soon as possible.”
He dreamt not only of a complete takeover of Africa, but also of the Middle East, especially the Holy Land, Cyprus, South America, the Pacific islands, parts of China, Japan and even a British takeover of the USA. He envisioned nothing less than a new world order. For the good of mankind, God would grant the British, on the basis of their superiority, the right to rule over all the continents. In 1880, he became a Member of Parliament in the Cape Colony, and even its Prime Minister ten years later.
As mentioned, he also wanted to unite all British African colonies into the Union of South Africa. “I believe in the United States of Southern Africa as part of the British Empire. I believe that the confederate states in the colony will be virtually independent under a responsible government, but will retain important privileges because of their ties to the empire. /…/ The only question is whether this colony should remain confined to its present area or whether it should extend civilisation into the interior of Africa.”
As was the Victorian custom, he looked to Greek and Roman imperial thought for inspiration and spent a lifetime reading classical literature. Despite his wealth, he was aware of his humble roots and of his lack of formal education to achieve greatness. He tried to supplement this by studying at Oxford, where he enrolled when he was already a successful entrepreneur in the Cape Colony. Although academically rather mediocre, he failed to get into the most prestigious of colleges. So he lived a double life for several years, between South Africa and England, and only managed to get a degree from Oxford in six years.
Oxford was the intellectual centre of the world, completely steeped in imperial ideology and mentality, and Rhodes was completely captivated by it. He also became a member of the Masonic Lodge and even entertained the idea of forming a secret society whose members would be the most influential contemporaries who would together control the British takeover of the world. To this day, there is no consensus as to how far, if at all, Rhodes was able to realise the idea of such a society. The fact is, however, that his illness made him increasingly aware of his own transience, which was reflected in the manic writing of his will. He left behind at least seven wills. In the last of these, he detailed the operation of the Rhodes Scholarship Fund, which was intended to provide for bright young white colonists who, after his death, would faithfully spread his imperialist legacy.
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North – the creation of Rhodesia
With millions of pounds in the bank, a successful financial and political career, and an Oxford degree in his pocket, Cecil was convinced he could and must achieve more. The time had come to break north, and the route led through the heart of Africa.
In 1889, he applied for a royal charter, or licence, to exploit land north of the Limpopo River. He had to lobby hard, even bribing and persuading the media, to secure the public’s favour and thus the Crown’s. Rhodes was extremely useful to the British, and in fact became an instrument of their foreign policy, helping them to stop the Portuguese, who were also trying to conquer the interior of Africa, by uniting their western and eastern territories – Angola in the west with Mozambique in the east. The second reason was to stop the Dutch Boers, who also wanted to go north, where gold deposits had been discovered in 1860 in what is now Zimbabwe.
Rhodes, of course, had more in mind than just the exploitation of the territory and its natural resources; he wanted to invest in the development of the country, establishing railways, telegraph lines, trade routes. He set up the British South Africa Company and invested £200 000 from the De Beers ‘diamond’ company.
Rhodes’s newly-formed company was therefore granted permission by the London government to exploit the land, which lies to the north of the British Cape Colony. This was yet another in a series of authorised companies typical of the colonial period. These companies were granted broad commercial and political powers by governments, which gave them de facto commercial and imperial legitimacy. They could set up their own police force, have their own flag, build roads, railways and telegraphs. The most famous examples are the British East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company and so on.
He stumbled upon a proud African kingdom with a thousand-year history. Larger than Germany and France combined, the kingdom was surrounded on all sides, but it was vast and wealthy. It was ruled by the warlike Matabele (also known as Ndebele) people to the east and surrounded by the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique to the west. The Matabele were numerous, warlike, disciplined and undefeated. They subdued the Mashona people in the east and the Bechuani people, in what is now Botswana, in the west. The key to the north, of which Rhodes dreamt, was in the hands of their mighty king, Lobengula.
Early European explorers and missionaries, such as the eminent David Livingstone, described the land and its inhabitants. Their strength and pride made a great impression on all. Even at the time of Rhodes’ arrival, there were many missionaries in the country, but for years they had been trying without success to convert the natives to the Catholic faith.
Boer gold-hunters in particular have been knocking on Lobengula’s door, trying to get mining rights. Lobengula was a wily and defiant negotiator, but he soon realised that he would not be able to resist the mounting pressure for long. He had already granted the first concession to exploit the land in 1870. He and his military leaders were also blinded by the promises of Western goods, such as firearms, alcohol, sugar and tea.
The terms set by the Berlin Conference were clear and the competitors knew that they needed his signature for concessions to exploit Lobengula’s land. Rhodes said: “The King of the Matabele is the only obstacle on the road to Central Africa. Once we have his territory, everything else will be easy.”
So he sent his closest associates to the Lobengula court in Bulawayo to persuade the King to sign a treaty that would be disastrous for him. Rhodes’ closest confidant was a physician of dubious reputation and a man of nerves of steel, Leander Starr Jameson. Lobengula, plagued by a number of health problems, quickly endeared himself to him. Not only did he successfully treat his palsy, but he was also generous with a number of stunning substances to calm the great king. According to some accounts, Jameson literally drugged Lobengula.
After six weeks, Lobengula only succumbed to the pressure, but the British were still quite tired to sign him. Among other things, they had to sit for hours in the scorching sun and negotiate, and they had to observe local customs: they had to eat kilos of half-cooked meat, because Lobengula was a real glutton.
Why did this proud ruler finally succumb to the pressure? Partly because of the bribes, of course, but at the same time the British were the only ones who promised to protect him from others. The Moffat Treaty (named after the chief negotiator and brother-in-law of the legendary Livingstone) stipulated, among other things, that Lobengula would not grant any concession over his territory without the knowledge and permission of the British Crown.
In the light of what has been described, the allegations that Lobengula did not actually know very well what he was signing are almost certainly true. The document was translated for him by white missionaries, and it is highly unlikely that the full contents were not disclosed to him. Among other things, he was assured that no more than ten whites would ever be dug up at any one time, but it turns out that this was not in the contract at all. When he saw through the ruse, he and a delegation went straight to London and complained in person to Queen Victoria. “It was only three months after I signed the document that I found out that I had granted the rights to all the minerals of my country to these British people.” Victoria kept him waiting for a week, but finally told him that she was unfortunately unable to accept him.
And so, on 13 September 1890, somewhere in the heart of the African continent, the British flag flew. A new British colony was born, with its capital Salisbury, named after the British Prime Minister. Rhodesia was not officially named Rhodesia until 1895, and Cecil Rhodes initially suggested Zambezia, after the Zambezi River which flows through its heart. Rhodesia was divided into Southern and Northern Rhodesia, and until 1918 was in the hands of unelected men of the British South Africa Company.
But its long and rich history, written over centuries, has been ignored by the white man, who has twisted it to his own advantage.
The seized history of a flourishing medieval civilisation
A closer look at the past is necessary to understand the land Rhodes uncompromisingly invaded. Its most fascinating and unique pre-colonial period was the heyday of the great Zimbabwean culture from the 11th to the 15th centuries, which gave the modern country its name.
But because most of Africa’s history is a white construct, and because its history was written by white people, this civilisation was virtually unspoken of until the mid-20th century. Or rather, its origins were shamelessly distorted in order to better serve as a tool of colonial propaganda.
In 1867, the German explorer Adam Render chanced upon the heavily vegetated ruins of a huge stone complex in the south-east of what would become Rhodesia, today near Masvingo. He was astonished by the discovery, which covered more than seven square kilometres. It is the largest ancient stone structure in Africa south of Egypt. It was named Great Zimbabwe because “zimbabwe” means “big stone houses” in the local language. There are at least 200 similar, but much smaller, ‘zimbabwe’ dotted around southern Africa.
His descriptions of the find attracted a lot of attention on his return to Cape Town, and he soon returned to the site with archaeologist Karl Mauch. They began to uncover the remains of an ancient stone city, home to up to 18,000 people and surmounted by an acropolis with a royal palace. This overlooked the so-called Great Enclosure with its solid walls, over eleven metres high, built without cement from stones compressed into an identical size and shape. Remnants of sewers and many elaborate artefacts were also found. The city was comparable in size to medieval London, but the finds certainly suggest that it was the centre of a lively trade between East and West.
All of this was indicative of the remarkable engineering skills of the builders of these buildings and the complex social structure. So the question was: ‘Who created this masterpiece? And where are these people now?”
No one asked locals in the area about the history of the ruins. Nor did it occur to the first explorers that such an advanced complex could have been built by Africans, undeveloped barbarians. Several interpretations of the origin of the site quickly emerged, all of them Eurocentric. Thus, these ancient buildings were built by Arabs or Jews. Perhaps even Indians or Chinese, almost all of them, that is, except for the ‘incompetent’ Africans. There were whole rumours that King Solomon’s fabulous mines were there and that the palaces were the property of the Queen of Sheba. The Europeans therefore looted everything they could and took many artefacts.
Fortunately, today, despite the lack of written sources, we know quite a lot about the civilisation that built Great Zimbabwe. It even had contacts with India and China, and above all with the Portuguese, the first Europeans to report it. The seat of a flourishing kingdom of the Shona (a.k.a. Mashona) people, rich in gold, with a sophisticated administration and army, it was favourably situated, with ample rain and fertile soil. Because of its altitude, there was also no malaria. It reached its peak in the middle of the 15th century, then began a slow slide into decline, and by the time of Rhodes’s arrival it was a forgotten page in the ‘insignificant’ history of ‘insignificant people’.
The colonists have therefore imposed their own version of history and shamefully politicised Zimbabwe’s important cultural heritage in order to justify their role in ‘civilising’ the country. Those archaeologists and scientists – and there were not a few – who had previously tried to convince the world that these were the remains of an indigenous people fell into disfavour and many were expelled from the country.
It was only with Mugabe and the creation of the state of Zimbabwe in the early 1980s that the truth came out officially. To redefine their identity, Zimbabweans have looked to the past for inspiration. They even named the young country after the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, which became a symbol of pride in the colonial trappings of an independent nation. Today, Great Zimbabwe has UNESCO World Heritage status.
Rhodes, of course, also came across Great Zimbabwe, as it was at the centre of his newly acquired territory. And although he funded the first formal archaeological excavation of the area, the results were only confirmation of the then-prevalent theory that it was built by Semitic peoples.
The early years of Rhodesia and the decline of Cecil Rhodes
In general, his policy towards the natives was extremely superior, and he believed that the two races were so different that it was better for them to live as separately from each other as possible. He was a fervent advocate of segregation, both social and spatial. With the concessions he won, his friendship with the natives was over and those tribal rulers who dared to resist met a cruel end.
As early as 1890, he founded the so-called Pioneer Corps, a motley crew of adventurers of various professions, as well as vagabonds, speculators and mercenaries, whom he attracted with carefully crafted propaganda and fabrications about the legendary goldfields of the Queen of Sheba’s time. It turned out that there was very little gold, but they managed to get rich with large quantities of copper found later.
The first years of the new protectorate were marked by frequent rebellions by the indigenous people, especially the Matabele, relatives of another warlike people of southern Africa, the Zulu.
While the Matabele settled the Zimbabwean plateau only in the early 19th century, fleeing the Boers in search of a new homeland, the Mashona, the other main people, had been in the area for centuries (founders of Greater Zimbabwe). The Matabele were much more militant and quickly subjugated the Mashona, treating them as second-class vassals. But in the end, even the combative and well-organised Matabele were defeated by Rhodes’ few troops, mainly because of the use of the newly invented firearms, the infamous Maxim machine guns. It was in the Matabele war that they were first used. In just a few days, thousands of soldiers fell under their fire and Lobengula was defeated. He died a few months later and the loss of his leader had a devastating effect on his people. One last attempt by the two peoples, the Mashon and the Matabele, to revolt failed in 1896 and the actual colonisation of the territory began.
Rhodes was able to devote himself to the administration and development of his new country. In particular, he began to recruit more manpower, as the Pioneer Corps started with only two hundred members. This corps was the beginning of a “white” Rhodesia. By 1918, there were already over 40,000 whites and they owned a territory five times the size of Great Britain. The two million black inhabitants were for the most part forcibly relocated to trust territories or reserves.
In his megalomaniacal ambitions, Rhodes and his crony Jameson also turned against the Boers, in their desire to annex their territory to Britain. But the so-called Jameson Raid of 1895 was a complete failure and marked the beginning of Rhodes’ downfall. He fell out of favour with the British Crown and had to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, while his dream of South African unity was shattered. Many believe that it was this attack that led to the subsequent Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899, which the British won.
For Cecil Rhodes, the days were now truly numbered. His health was failing completely and he spent the last months of his life wandering aimlessly between England and Africa. At 48, he was a pale shadow of the budding young entrepreneur who had embarked on the adventure of a lifetime more than twenty years earlier. Handsome and puffy-faced, with grey hair and gasping for air, he looked like a sickly man in his seventies.
He died in March 1902 near Cape Town. His last words best epitomise the man who spoke them: ‘There is so much more to do. And so little has been done.” Rhodes’ coffin was transported by train to Rhodesia and thousands of people paid their last respects to him on that journey. He wanted to be buried on the hill he meaningfully named World’s View, which today is located in the middle of the Matobo National Park and is visited by thousands of visitors every year. The site is set above a beautiful and peaceful landscape that encourages the visitor to reflect on the legacy of that controversial giant of history, Cecil John Rhodes.
Rhodes, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe – the unfinished story
The twentieth century plunged Rhodesia, and Africa in general, into decades of exploitation, unrest and, ultimately, more or less successful independence movements. Their fates are immeasurably tragic. For the vast majority have turned from liberating and hopeful beginnings into even more dictatorial ones than their colonial forebears. This is certainly true of Zimbabwe today.
Each of Africa’s many countries has a unique story to tell, and today the question is increasingly being asked what role men like Cecil Rhodes actually played in their history. Unfortunately, the apologist mentality is still present and we often still have the feeling that it is Britain that is not ashamed of its colonial past. Confronting it is not easy, of course, but ultimately a deeper, more open and more sustained public debate could help to confront the ghosts of the past.
Or as Mark Aurelius, Rhodes’ role model, wrote: “Do only what is serious and prudent, not frivolous. Even if it is unpopular. Only actions speak for themselves.” Rhodes underlined this passage in the Meditations of Aurelius. In the light of the legacy he left, he might have acted differently today.
