Who is rhodes cecil

Rhodes had two other colonies that were named after him — Northern and Southern Rhodesia. Welcome to Africanews Please select your experience. Watch Live. Breaking News Close. News Colonial era statue of Cecil Rhodes will not be removed from Oxford. United Kingdom Despite calls for a statue of the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes to be torn down, the University of Oxford, where the statue is located, said it would not take it down on Thursday.

Related articles. His government also passed the Franchise and Ballot Act which, by raising the property qualification for voters and introducing a literacy test, excluded most Africans from the franchise.

By the s Rhodes was one of the most powerful men in the British empire [6]. In Oxford University awarded him an honorary doctorate of law. The building was completed in and decorated with a number of statues, including one of Rhodes himself.

Alfred Mosely, a diamond merchant and friend of Rhodes, gained permission from the College to erect a plaque to him on the house in King Edward Street where Rhodes had lived in In some respects he can be compared with other nineteenth-century men of wealth and ambition in the colonial world and the USA.

He shared with many others of his time theories of cultural evolution according to which most Africans were not yet ready for equal treatment with Europeans [9]. Rhodes was a businessman and a political deal-maker who prosecuted wars in pursuit of his goals. He held late-Victorian ideals of public service, institution-building, and the importance of an educated ruling class.

For the full text of the Charter see e. Flint, Cecil Rhodes Little Brown, , pp. 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.

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.