Cecil john rhodes in zimbabwe whoever betrays

This enterprise was not without its problems. France had a conflicting strategy in the late s to link its colonies from west to east across the continent [ 54 ] and the Portuguese produced the " Pink Map ", [ 55 ] representing their claims to sovereignty in Africa. Rhodes wanted to expand the British Empire because he believed that the Anglo-Saxon race was destined to greatness.

I contend that every acre added to our territory means the birth of more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far". Furthermore Rhodes saw imperialism as a way to alleviate domestic social problems - "In order to save the 40,, inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines.

The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists". Rhodes wanted to develop a Commonwealth in which all of the British-dominated countries in the empire would be represented in the British Parliament. As Rhodes also respected and admired the Germans and their Kaiser , he allowed German students to be included in the Rhodes scholarships.

He believed that eventually the United Kingdom including Ireland , the US, and Germany together would dominate the world and ensure perpetual peace. Rhodes's views on race have been debated; he supported the rights of indigenous Africans to vote, [ 63 ] but critics have labelled him as an "architect of apartheid " [ 64 ] and a " white supremacist ", particularly since We must adopt a system of despotism, such as works in India, in our relations with the barbarism of South Africa".

I do not go so far as the member for Victoria West, who would not give the black man a vote. If the whites maintain their position as the supreme race, the day may come when we shall be thankful that we have the natives with us in their proper position. He once stated "I prefer land to niggers" and referred to the 'Anglo-Saxon race' as "the best, most human, most honourable race the world possesses".

However others have disputed these views. For example, historian Raymond C. Mensing notes that Rhodes has the reputation as the most flamboyant exemplar of the British imperial spirit, and always believed that British institutions were the best. Mensing argues that Rhodes quietly developed a more nuanced concept of imperial federation in Africa, and that his mature views were more balanced and realistic.

According to Mensing, "Rhodes was not a biological or maximal racist. Despite his support for what became the basis for the apartheid system, he is best seen as a cultural or minimal racist ". If Rhodes was a racist, he would not have enjoyed cordial relations with individual Africans, he would not have regarded them as capable of civilisation, and he would not have supported their right to vote at all.

And yet he did all these things. On domestic politics within Britain, Rhodes was a supporter of the Liberal Party. Rhodes worked well with the Afrikaners in the Cape Colony; he supported teaching Dutch as well as English in public schools. While Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, he helped to remove most of their legal disabilities. Scholar and Zimbabwean author Peter Godwin , whilst critical of Rhodes, writes that he needs to be viewed via the prisms and cultural and social perspective of his epoch, positing that Rhodes "was no 19th-century Hitler.

He wasn't so much a freak as a man of his time Rhodes and the white pioneers in southern Africa did behave despicably by today's standards, but no worse than the white settlers in North America, South America, and Australia; and in some senses better, considering that the genocide of natives in Africa was less complete. For all the former African colonies are now ruled by indigenous peoples, unlike the Americas and the Antipodes, most of whose aboriginal natives were all but exterminated.

Godwin goes on to say "Rhodes and his cronies fit in perfectly with their surroundings and conformed to the morality or lack of it of the day. As is so often the case, history simply followed the gravitational pull of superior firepower. Rhodes never married, pleading, "I have too much work on my hands" and saying that he would not be a dutiful husband.

Once, when twitted [teased] with his preference for young men, he retorted, 'Of course, of course, they must soon take up our work; we must teach them what to do and what to avoid. Rhodes' biographers have been divided on the question of his sexuality. John Gilbert Lockhart and C. Woodhouse denied that Rhodes was homosexual, while Stuart Cloete and Antony Thomas took the view that he was asexual.

Robert I. Rotberg and Brian Roberts have asserted that he was homosexual. The princess falsely claimed that she was engaged to Rhodes, and that they were having an affair. She asked him to marry her, but Rhodes refused. In reaction, she accused him of loan fraud. He had to go to trial and testify against her accusation. During the Second Boer War Rhodes went to Kimberley at the onset of the siege , in a calculated move to raise the political stakes on the government to dedicate resources to the defence of the city.

The military felt he was more of a liability than an asset and found him intolerable. The officer commanding the garrison of Kimberley, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Kekewich , experienced serious personal difficulties with Rhodes because of the latter's inability to co-operate. Despite these differences, Rhodes' company was instrumental in the defence of the city, providing water and refrigeration facilities, constructing fortifications, and manufacturing an armoured train , shells and a one-off gun named Long Cecil.

Rhodes used his position and influence to lobby the British government to relieve the siege of Kimberley, claiming in the press that the situation in the city was desperate. The military wanted to assemble a large force to take the Boer cities of Bloemfontein and Pretoria , but they were compelled to change their plans and send three separate smaller forces to relieve the sieges of Kimberley, Mafeking and Ladysmith.

Although Rhodes remained a leading figure in the politics of southern Africa, especially during the Second Boer War, he was dogged by ill health throughout his relatively short life. He was sent to Natal aged 16 because it was believed the climate might help problems with his heart. On returning to England in , his health again deteriorated with heart and lung problems, to the extent that his doctor, Sir Morell Mackenzie , believed he would survive only six months.

He returned to Kimberley where his health improved. From age 40 his heart condition returned with increasing severity until his death from heart failure in , aged 48, at his seaside cottage in Muizenberg. The government arranged an epic journey by train from the Cape to Rhodesia, with the funeral train stopping at every station to allow mourners to pay their respects.

It was reported that at Kimberley, "practically the entire population marched in procession past the funeral car". Rhodes has been the target of much recent criticism, with some historians attacking him as a ruthless imperialist and white supremacist. In December , Cain Mathema , the governor of Bulawayo, branded the grave outside the country's second city an "insult to the African ancestors" and said he believed its presence had brought bad luck and poor weather to the region.

Many considered this a nationalist political stunt in the run up to an election, and Local Chief Masuku and Godfrey Mahachi, one of the country's foremost archaeologists, strongly expressed their opposition to the grave being removed due to its historical significance to Zimbabwe. Then-president Robert Mugabe also opposed the move.

Cecil john rhodes in zimbabwe whoever betrays

In the early s during the height of the land reform and racial tensions, ZANU-PF politicians called for a change in all the country's school names with colonial ties, however, efforts were mostly fruitless as most people felt that it was unnecessary and names of places they live in reflect the diverse identity and cultural heritage of the country but called for the government to embrace the history of the country and allow room for new names for new places in the ever-growing towns and cities.

In his second will, written in before he had accumulated his wealth, Rhodes wanted to create a secret society that would bring the whole world under British rule. His biographer calls it an "extensive fantasy. Rhodes's final will—when he actually did have money—was much more realistic and focused on scholarships. He also left a large area of land on the slopes of Table Mountain to the South African nation.

Part of this estate became the upper campus of the University of Cape Town , another part became the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden , while much was spared from development and is now an important conservation area. South Africa's Rhodes University is named after him. In his last will, he provided for the establishment of the Rhodes Scholarship.

Over the course of the previous half-century, governments, universities and individuals in the settler colonies had been establishing travelling scholarships for this purpose. The Rhodes awards fit the established pattern. Rhodes' aims were to promote leadership marked by public spirit and good character, and to "render war impossible" by promoting friendship between the great powers.

Rhodes Memorial stands on Rhodes's favourite spot on the slopes of Devil's Peak , Cape Town, with a view looking north and east towards the Cape to Cairo route. From to Rhodes's house in Cape Town, Groote Schuur , was the official Cape residence of the prime ministers of South Africa and continued as a presidential residence. The cottage today is operated as a museum by the Muizenberg Historical Conservation Society, and is open to the public.

A broad display of Rhodes material can be seen, including the original De Beers board room table around which diamonds worth billions of dollars were traded. Rhodes University College, now Rhodes University , in Grahamstown , was established in his name by his trustees and founded by Act of Parliament on 31 May The residents of Kimberley, Northern Cape elected to build a memorial in Rhodes's honour in their city, which was unveiled in The ton bronze statue depicts Rhodes on his horse, looking north with map in hand, and dressed as he was when he met the Ndebele after their rebellion.

Captivated by the unspoilt and breathtaking beauty of the area, he immediately purchased a parcel of farms totalling 40, ha and then proceeded to import cattle from Mozambique and develop extensive plantations of apple and fruit trees. When he died in , Rhodes bequeathed most of the estate to the nation, and this now forms the Nyanga National Park.

Rhodes's original farmhouse has been meticulously preserved and is now the Rhodes Nyanga Hotel. Memorials to Rhodes have been opposed since at least the s, when some Afrikaner students demanded the removal of a Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town. Following a series of protests and vandalism at the University of Cape Town, various movements both in South Africa and other countries have been launched in opposition to Cecil Rhodes memorials.

These include a campaign to change the name of Rhodes University [ ] and to remove a statue of Rhodes from Oriel College, Oxford. Moreover, an article by Amit Chaudhuri , in The Guardian , suggested the criticism was "unsurprising and overdue". In after the country's independence the statue was removed to the centenary park at the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe.

But he probably regarded the possibility of native Africans becoming 'civilized' as so remote that the two expressions, in his mind, came to the same thing. As part of his legacy, on his death Rhodes left a significant amount of money to be used to finance talented young scholars "race" was not a criterion at Oxford. Currently, in Oxford a number of those South African and Zimbabwean recipients of funds from his legacy are campaigning for his statue to be removed from display in Oxford.

When asked if there was any double standard or hypocrisy in being funded by the Rhodes Scholarship fund and benefiting from the opportunity, whilst at the same time campaigning against the legacy of Rhodes, one of the South African campaigners, Ntokozo Qwabe , replied that "this scholarship does not buy our silence There is no hypocrisy in being a recipient of a Rhodes scholarship and being publicly critical of Cecil Rhodes and his legacy Contents move to sidebar hide.

Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. English mining magnate and politician — For other people named Cecil Rhodes, see Cecil Rhodes disambiguation. The Right Honourable. Rhodes, c. Origins [ edit ]. Childhood [ edit ]. This section needs additional citations for verification.

Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. December Learn how and when to remove this message. England and Jersey [ edit ]. South Africa [ edit ]. Education [ edit ]. Diamonds and the establishment of De Beers [ edit ]. Politics in South Africa [ edit ].

September Learn how and when to remove this message. Expanding the British Empire [ edit ]. Rhodes and the Imperial Factor [ edit ]. Treaties, concessions and charters [ edit ]. Rhodesia [ edit ]. Main article: Company rule in Rhodesia. Rhodes was born in the summer of , the fifth son of a parson who prided himself on never having preached a sermon longer than 10 minutes.

A sickly, asthmatic teenager, he was sent to the improving climate of his brother's cotton plantation in Natal. By , he had amalgamated the De Beers mines under his control, giving him dominion over 90 per cent of the world's diamond output. Rhodes imprinted his personality on the region with monarchical energy: dams, railway engines, towns and anti-dandruff tonics were all named after him.

But his expansionist zeal was not always matched at home in Britain. Apart from increasing our obligations in every part of the world, what advantage do you see to the English race in the acquisition of new territory? Great Britain's position depends on her trade, and if we do not open up the dependencies of the world which are at present devoted to barbarism, we shall shut out the world's trade.

It must be brought home to you that your trade is the world, and your life is the world, not England. That is why you must deal with these questions of expansion and retention of the world. Global capitalism and imperial expansion developed in collaboration; shared aims, aspirations, patterns of influence. Today, most of the world's political empires have been dissolved and discredited, but the routes along which capital moves remain the same.

His reputation in Britain accrued a lasting tarnish. A defence of his character, published in and co-authored by the pseudonymous "Imperialist", offers an insight into the charges against him: "Bribery and corruption", "neglect of duty", "harshness to the natives" and the allegation that "that Mr Rhodes is utterly unscrupulous". After Rhodes's fatal heart attack on 26 March , the death notices were ambivalent.

News editors across the world cleared their pages for obituaries and reports of public grief in South Africa, but few wholehearted endorsements of his career emanated from London. The conquered lands were named Southern and Northern Rhodesia, to honour Rhodes. Today, these are the countries of Zimbabwe and Zambia. By the s these conquered territories were being called Southern and Nothern Rhodesia.

In July Rhodes became the Prime Minister of the Cape colony , after getting support from the English-speaking white and non-white voters and a number of Afrikaner-bond, whom he had offered shares in the British South Africa Company. One of Rhodes most notorious and infamous undertakings as Prime Minister in South Africa, was his institution of the Glen Grey Act , a document that is often seen as the blueprint for the Apartheid regime that was to come.

On 27 July , Rhodes gave a rousing speech, full of arrogance and optimism, to the Parliament of Cape Town that lasted more than minutes. This land shortage coupled with a tax for not engaging in wage labour would push thousands of Africans into the migrant labour market. These were all measures essentially designed to ensure a system of labour migration which would feed the mines in both Kimberley and the Rand with cheap migrant labour.

This section of the act instigated the terrible migrant-labour system that was to be so destructive in 20th century South Africa. Another pernicious outcome of the Glen Grey Act was its affected on African land rights claims and restricted and controlled where they could live. This act was eventually to become the foundation of the Natives Land Act , a precursor to much of the Apartheid policy of separate development and the creation of the Bantustans.

Lastly the Glen Grey Act radically reduced the voting franchise for Africans. A unified South Africa was an incredibly important political goal for Rhodes, and so when the Afrikaner Bondsmen came to Rhodes to complain about the number and rise of propertied Africans, who were competing with the Afrikaners and characteristically voted for English, rather than Afrikaans, representative.

To disenfranchise Africans the Act raised the property requirements for the franchise and required each voter to be able to write his own name, address and occupation before being allowed to vote. This radically curtailed the number of Africans who could vote, essentially marking the beginning of the end for the African franchise. This new law allowed for the voter-less annexation of Pondoland.

The Glen Grey Act also denied the vote to Africans from Pondoland no matter their education or property. Although Rhodes' policies were instrumental in the development of British imperial policies in South Africa, he did not, however, have direct political power over the Boer Republic of the Transvaal. He often disagreed with the Transvaal government's policies and felt he could use his money and his power to overthrow the Boer government and install a British colonial government supporting mine-owners' interests in its place.

In , Rhodes precipitated his own spectacular fall from power when he supported an attack on the Transvaal under the leadership of his old friend, Leander Jameson. Despite his meteoric loss of power and prestige Rhodes nonetheless continued his political activities. In mid the Shona and Ndebele people in Southern Rhodesia, present day Zimbabwe, rose up against their colonial oppressors in a bid for freedom.

Rhodes personally travelled to the region to take charge of the colonial response. In his attacks on the Ndebele and Shona he was vindictive, resorting to a scorched earth policy and destroying all their villages and crops. After months of fighting Rhodes decided that conciliation was the only option. Looking to negotiate a peace settlement with the Ndebele and Shona he headed into the Matopo Mountains where a great indaba was held.

Rhodes asked the chiefs why the Africans had risen up in war against the colonisers. The chiefs replied that the Africans had for decades been humiliated by the white settlers, subjected to police brutality and pushed into forced labour. The chiefs saw this as a promise that the conditions for them and their countrymen would be improved, and so they agreed with Rhodes that they would end their hostilities.

As a part of their agreement Rhodes spent many days in the Matopo hills, and every day the Ndebele would come to him and voice all their complaints. In belief that their worries and complaints would be given just recognition, the Ndebele and Shona chiefs laid down their arms and returned to their fields. Thereafter, Rhodes was in ill-health, but he began concentrating on developing Rhodesia and especially in extending the railway, which he dreamed would one day reach Cairo, Egypt.

After the Anglo-Boer war that broke out in October , Rhodes rushed to Kimberley to organise the defence of the town. However, his health was worsened by the siege, and after travelling to Europe he returned to the Cape in February Rhodes was buried at the Matopos Hills, Rhodesia Zimbabwe. Rhodes never married and he did not have any known children and there is some suggestion that he was homosexual.

This suggestion is based on the care and concern he showed to some men, but it is not enough to offer any solid truth. Cecil John Rhodes. First name. Last name. Date of birth. Date of death. Source Rhodes fell ill shortly after leaving school and, as his lungs were affected, it was decided that he should visit his brother, Herbert, who had recently immigrated to Natal.

The BSAC was given powers to maintain law and order. To this end the company was expected to develop settlements for European settlers in Africa. The company was invested with the right to create its own political administration. Profits were made from diamonds and gold and these profits were re-invested in the company, allowing it to expand its area of influence.

The name Zimbabwe derives from a historical stone structure known as Great Zimbabwe House of Stones , which is the second largest in Africa after the Egyptian pyramids [xiii]. In the early times the country was home to indigenous San people who can be traced to as far back as BC. As a result of these invasions a variety of different ethnic groups became scattered around the region.

British conquest began in with the arrival of Cecil John Rhodes. This marked the beginning of the eighty years long colonial rule, which led to the gradual expansion of white population settling in the region and the development of an economy based on agriculture, mining and later manufacturing. Mashonaland was not only chosen for its natural resources, it was chosen above Matabeleland because of its weak forces.

At that time it was easier to target than Matabeleland. Matabele warrior. Photograph courtesy of Martin Plaut. Rhodes deceitfully obtained Lippert Concession, which was about the rights to land and minerals granted to Eduardo Lippert from King Lobengula, Rhodes bought the concession from Lippert and then gave BSAC the legal right to obtain large tracts of land from the locals.

Land was transferred to white settlers who took part in the occupation of Mashonaland. They were met with disappointment when it was discovered that the gold had been exhausted during ancient times. However they were surprised by the quality of the agricultural land and climate. As a result the company sought to extend their right to land ownership and an incident that happened in made this possible.

Incensed by this Lobengula sent a punitive expedition to get what he regarded as his tribute. However, Rhodes knew about the transaction and bought the concession from Lippert thus strengthening his position.