By taking wealth of the are for Britain denied Southern Africans potential wealth. He tarnished the legacy of Oxford University as he showed there was a lack of equality of the races. He believed in Social Darwinism, that white British are superior to black Africans. He pushed black people off lands, increased their taxes and made it hard for voting. At the time, Rhodes was significant due to his wealth he was making for Britain, and the colony of Rhodesia.
Worried that the Moffat Treaty was too weak to hold Matabeleland, and convinced that the Dutch and Germans were making plans to take the territory and desperate for exclusive mining rights in the region, Rhodes concocted to his own plan to take control of the territory. The BSAC was a commercial-political entity aiming at exploiting economic resources and political power to advance British finance capital. Through Rhodes influence however, Rudd was able to win over the support of the local British officials staying with Lobengula, a move which ultimately convinced Lobengula that Rudd had more power and influence than any of the other petitioners seeking concessions from him.
After much negotiation Rudd was eventually able to get Lobengula to sign a concession giving exclusive mining rights to the BSAC in exchange for protection against the Boere and neighbouring tribes.
This concession became known as the Rudd Concession. Lobengula however feared his people would be defeated if they attacked the whites, and so it is likely that he signed the Rudd Concession in the hopes of gaining British protection and thereby preventing a Boer migration into his lands which would then incite his warriors to battle.
For Lobengula his options were essentially to either concede to the British or to the Dutch. In the belief that he was protecting his interests he sided with the seemingly more lenient and liberal British. Like so many documents signed by Africans during the colonial period, the Rudd Concession was however not what it claimed to be, but rather became a justifying document for the colonisation of the Ndebele and the Shona.
It gave the company full imperial and colonial powers as it was allowed to create a police force, fly its own flag, construct roads, railways, telegraphs, engage in mining operations, settle on acquired territories and create financial institutions. This proposal, which would cost the British taxpayer nothing but would extend the reaches of the British Empire, eventually found favour in London.
The charter was officially granted on 29 October For Rhodes is BSAC with its Royal charter was the means whereby which to expand the British Empire, which a timid government and penurious British treasury were not about to accomplish.
Rhodes reclining on one of his many voyages to the north. After gaining his charter from the British Government Rhodes and his compatriots in the BSAC essentially felt that Matabeleland and Mashonaland were now under their control. Rhodes was determined that white settlers would soon occupy Matabeleland and Mashonaland, and the Ndebele could not resist them.
Johnson was joined by Frederick Selous, a hunter with professed close knowledge of Mashonaland. Despite Lobengula capitulating and giving permission for vast numbers of BSAC miners to enter his territory, Rhodes calculated a new plan to gain power in the region.
By sending in this column, Rhodes had deviously planned a move which would either force Lobengula to attack the settlers and then be crushed, or force him to allow a vast military force to take seat in his country.
In the words of Rutherfoord Harris, a compatriot of Rhodes:. The men who formed part of the Pioneer Column were all promised both gold concessions and land if they were successful in settling in Mashonaland. They settled at the site of what was later to become the town of Salisbury, present day Harare, marking the beginning of white settler occupation on the Zimbabwean plateau. In conceding Mashonaland to the BSAC Lobengula had avoided going to war with the British and had kept his people alive, and much of his territory intact.
But unfortunately he had only been able to delay the inevitable. Gaining the Matabeleland territory would also play directly into Rhodes megalomaniac vision of expanding the British Empire across Africa. This was however a ploy, consciously concucted by Jameson in conjunction with Rhodes, in order to ensure that the British Government would not object to their further intrusions into Matabeleland by creating the impression that the Ndebele were the first aggressors.
To fight their war the company recruited large bands of young mercenaries who were promised land and gold in exchange for their fighting power. The final blow any hopes that the Ndebele might avoid war, came when Jameson was able to convince the British Government that Lobengula had sent a massive impi of 7 men into Mashonaland, who then gave Jameson leave to engage in defensive tactics. There is no indication that the impi Jamseon reported on had ever existed.
I am tired of hearing nothing but lies. What Impi of mine have your people seen and where do they come from? I know nothing of them. It was however far too late for Lobengula.
With the permission to engage in defensive action from the British Government Rhodes joined Jameson in Matabeleland and his group of mercenary soldiers struck a quick and fatal blow at the Ndebele. The Ndebele Impis were helpless in the face of this brutal killing technology and were slaughtered in their thousands. Lobengula himself realised he could not face the British in open combat and so he burnt down his own capital and fled with a few warriors.
He is presumed to have died shortly afterwards in January of from ill health. Most of the money to pay for this war came directly from Rhodes Consolidated Goldfields Company, which by this point had begun to produce excellent yields from the deeper lying gold fields. 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. Who was Cecil Rhodes and what did he do? By Alex Finnis Reporter. Campaigners have been trying to get the statue removed from an Oriel College building for years.
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