Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in
southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...
who served as
Prime Minister of the Cape Colony
This article lists the governors of British South African colonies, including the colonial prime ministers. It encompasses the period from 1797 to 1910, when present-day South Africa was divided into four British colonies namely: Cape Colony (p ...
from 1890 to 1896. He and his
British South Africa Company
The British South Africa Company (BSAC or BSACo) was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expecte ...
founded the southern African territory of
Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
(now
Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
and
Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
), which the company named after him in 1895. He also devoted much effort to realising his vision of a
Cape to Cairo Railway
The Cape to Cairo Railway is an unfinished project to create a railway line crossing from southern to northern Africa. It would have been the largest, and most important, railway of the continent. It was planned as a link between Cape Town i ...
through British territory. Rhodes set up the
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world.
Established in 1902, it is ...
, which is funded by his estate.
The son of a
vicar
A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English p ...
, Rhodes was born at
Netteswell House,
Bishop's Stortford
Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt, near the border with Essex, just west of the ...
,
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...
. A sickly child, he was sent to South Africa by his family when he was 17 years old in the hope that the climate might improve his health. He entered the diamond trade at
Kimberley
Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to:
Places and historical events
Australia
Queensland
* Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas
South Australia
* County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia
Ta ...
in 1871, when he was 18, and with funding from
Rothschild & Co
Rothschild & Co SCA is a multinational Private banking, private and alternative assets investor, headquartered in Paris, France and London, United Kingdom. It is the flagship of the Rothschild banking group controlled by the British and French br ...
, began to systematically buy out and consolidate diamond mines. Over the next two decades he gained a near-complete monopoly of the world diamond market. His diamond company
De Beers
The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...
, formed in 1888, retains its prominence into the 21st century.
Rhodes entered the
Cape Parliament
The Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope functioned as the legislature of the Cape Colony, from its founding in 1853, until the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, when it was dissolved and the Parliament of South Africa was establish ...
at the age of 27 in 1881, and in 1890, he became prime minister. During his time as prime minister, Rhodes used his political power to expropriate land from black Africans through the
Glen Grey Act
In the colonial history of South Africa, the Glen Grey Act was an 1894 Act of the Parliament of the Cape Colony. Instigated by the government of Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes, it established a system of individual (rather than communal) land ...
, while also tripling the wealth requirement for voting under the
Franchise and Ballot Act
The Franchise and Ballot Act (1892) was an act of the Cape Colony Parliament, driven by Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes, which raised the property franchise qualification, thus disenfranchising a large proportion of the Cape's non-white voters, and ...
, effectively barring black people from taking part in elections.
[History of South Africa Timeline (1485–1975)](_blank)
After overseeing the formation of Rhodesia during the early 1890s, he was forced to resign in 1896 after the disastrous
Jameson Raid
The Jameson Raid (Afrikaans: ''Jameson-inval'', , 29 December 1895 – 2 January 1896) was a botched raid against the South African Republic (commonly known as the Transvaal) carried out by British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson ...
, an unauthorised attack on
Paul Kruger
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904), better known as Paul Kruger, was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and State Preside ...
's
South African Republic
The South African Republic (, abbreviated ZAR; ), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republics, Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result ...
(or Transvaal). Rhodes' career never recovered; his heart was weak, and after years of ill health he died in 1902. At his request he was buried at
Malindidzimu in what is now Zimbabwe; his grave has been a controversial site.
In his last will, he provided for the establishment of the international
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world.
Established in 1902, it is ...
at
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
, the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. Every year it grants 102 graduate and postgraduate scholarships. It has benefited prime ministers of Malta, Australia, and Canada, United States President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
, and many others.
With the strengthening of international movements against racism, such as
Rhodes Must Fall
Rhodes Must Fall was a protest Social movement, movement that began on 9 March 2015, originally directed against a statue at the University of Cape Town (UCT) that commemorates Cecil Rhodes. The campaign for the statue's removal received glob ...
, Rhodes' legacy is a matter of debate to this day. Critics cite his confiscation of land from the black indigenous population of the
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
, and his promotion of false claims that southern African archeological sites such as
Great Zimbabwe
Great Zimbabwe was a city in the south-eastern hills of the modern country of Zimbabwe, near Masvingo. It was settled from 1000 AD, and served as the capital of the Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe from the 13th century. It is the largest stone struc ...
were built by European civilisations.
Origins
Rhodes was born in 1853 in
Bishop's Stortford
Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt, near the border with Essex, just west of the ...
, Hertfordshire, England, the fifth son of
the Reverend
The Reverend (abbreviated as The Revd, The Rev'd or The Rev) is an honorific style (form of address), style given to certain (primarily Western Christian, Western) Christian clergy and Christian minister, ministers. There are sometimes differen ...
Francis William Rhodes (1807–1878) and his wife, Louisa Peacock.
Francis was a
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
man who served as
perpetual curate
Perpetual curate was a class of resident parish priest or incumbent curate within the United Church of England and Ireland (name of the combined Anglican churches of England and Ireland from 1800 to 1871). The term is found in common use mainly ...
of
Brentwood, Essex
Brentwood is a town in Essex, England, in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt 20 miles (30 km) north-east of Charing Cross and close to the M25 motorway. The population of the built-up area was 55,340 in 2021.
Brentwood is a t ...
(1834–1843), and then as vicar of nearby Bishop's Stortford (1849–1876), where he was well known for never having preached a
sermon
A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present context ...
longer than ten minutes.
Francis was the eldest son of William Rhodes (1774–1855), a brick manufacturer from
Hackney, Middlesex. The family owned significant estates in London's
Hackney and
Dalston
Dalston () is an area of East London, in the London Borough of Hackney. It is northeast of Charing Cross. Dalston began as a hamlet on either side of Dalston Lane, and as the area urbanised the term also came to apply to surrounding areas i ...
which Cecil would later inherit.
The earliest traceable direct ancestor of Cecil Rhodes is James Rhodes (
fl.
''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...
1660) of Snape Green,
Whitmore, Staffordshire
Whitmore is a village, civil parish and small curacy in the county of Staffordshire, England, near Newcastle-under-Lyme. Besides Whitmore, the parish also includes the hamlets of Acton, Butterton and Shutlanehead.
The name ''Whitmore'' can be f ...
.
Cecil's siblings included
Frank Rhodes, a
British Army
The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
officer.
Childhood
England and Jersey

Rhodes attended the
Bishop's Stortford
Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt, near the border with Essex, just west of the ...
Grammar School
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...
from the age of nine, but, as a sickly,
asthmatic
Asthma is a common long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheez ...
adolescent, he was taken out of grammar school in 1869 and, according to
Basil Williams, "continued his studies under his father's eye ..."
At age seven, he was recorded in the 1861 census as boarding with his aunt, Sophia Peacock, at a boarding house in
Jersey
Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...
, where the climate was perceived to provide a respite for those with conditions such as
asthma
Asthma is a common long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wh ...
. His health was weak and there were fears that he might be
consumptive (have tuberculosis), a disease of which several of the family showed symptoms. His father decided to send him abroad for what were believed the good effects of a sea voyage and a better climate in South Africa.
South Africa

When he arrived in Africa, Rhodes lived on money lent by his aunt Sophia. After a brief stay with the Surveyor-General of
Natal
NATAL or Natal may refer to:
Places
* Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil
* Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa
** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843)
** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...
,
P.C. Sutherland, in
Pietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg (; ) is the capital and second-largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa after Durban. It was named in 1838 and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. The town was named in Zulu after King ...
, Rhodes took an interest in agriculture. He joined his brother Herbert on his cotton farm in the
Umkomazi valley in Natal. The land was unsuitable for cotton, and the venture failed.
In October 1871, 18-year-old Rhodes and his 26-year-old brother Herbert left the colony for the diamond fields of
Kimberley
Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to:
Places and historical events
Australia
Queensland
* Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas
South Australia
* County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia
Ta ...
in Northern Cape Province. Financed by
N M Rothschild & Sons
Rothschild & Co SCA is a multinational private and alternative assets investor, headquartered in Paris, France and London, United Kingdom. It is the flagship of the Rothschild banking group controlled by the British and French branches of the Rot ...
, Rhodes succeeded over the next 17 years in buying up all the smaller diamond mining operations in the Kimberley area.
His monopoly of the world's diamond supply was sealed in 1890 through a strategic partnership with the London-based Diamond Syndicate. They agreed to control world supply to maintain high prices. Rhodes supervised the working of his brother's claim and
speculated on his behalf. Among his associates in the early days were
John X. Merriman and
Charles Rudd. Rudd later became his partner in the
De Beers Mining Company and the Niger Oil Company.
During the 1880s,
Cape vineyards had been devastated by a
phylloxera
Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera (''Daktulosphaira vitifoliae'' (Fitch 1855) belongs to the family Phylloxeridae, within the order Hemiptera, bugs); orig ...
epidemic. The diseased vineyards were dug up and replanted, and farmers were looking for alternatives to wine. In 1892, Rhodes financed The
Pioneer Fruit Growing Company at
Nooitgedacht, a venture created by Harry Pickstone, an Englishman who had experience with fruit-growing in California. The shipping magnate
Percy Molteno had just undertaken the first successful refrigerated export to Europe. In 1896, after consulting with Molteno, Rhodes began to pay more attention to export fruit farming and bought farms in Groot Drakenstein,
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...
and Stellenbosch. A year later, he bought Rhone and
Boschendal and commissioned
Sir Herbert Baker
Sir Herbert Baker (9 June 1862 – 4 February 1946) was an English architect remembered as the dominant force in South African architecture for two decades, and a major designer of some of New Delhi's most notable government structures. He was ...
to build him a cottage there. The successful operation soon expanded into
Rhodes Fruit Farms, and formed a cornerstone of the modern-day Cape fruit industry.
Education
In 1873, Rhodes left his farm field in the care of his business partner, Rudd, and sailed for England to study at university. He was admitted to
Oriel College, Oxford
Oriel College () is Colleges of the University of Oxford, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title for ...
, but stayed for only one term in 1874. He returned to South Africa and did not return for his second term at Oxford until 1876. He was greatly influenced by
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...
's inaugural lecture at
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
, which reinforced his own attachment to the cause of British
imperialism
Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...
.
Among his Oxford associates were
James Rochfort Maguire, later a fellow of
All Souls College
All Souls College (official name: The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, of Oxford) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full me ...
and a director of the
British South Africa Company
The British South Africa Company (BSAC or BSACo) was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expecte ...
, and Charles Metcalfe. Due to his university career, Rhodes admired the Oxford tutorial system. Eventually, he was inspired to develop his scholarship scheme: "Wherever you turn your eye—except in science—an Oxford man is at the top of the tree".
While attending Oriel College, Rhodes became a
Freemason
Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
in the
Apollo University Lodge
Apollo University Lodge No 357 is a Masonic Lodge based at the University of Oxford aimed at past and present members of the university. It was consecrated in 1819, and its members have met continuously since then.
University of Oxford
Membersh ...
. Although initially he did not approve of the organisation, he continued to be a
South African Freemason until his death in 1902. The shortcomings of the Freemasons, in his opinion, later caused him to envisage his own secret society with the goal of bringing the entire world under British rule.
Diamonds and the establishment of De Beers

During his years at Oxford, Rhodes continued to prosper in
Kimberley
Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to:
Places and historical events
Australia
Queensland
* Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas
South Australia
* County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia
Ta ...
. Before his departure for Oxford, he and C.D. Rudd had moved from the
Kimberley Mine to invest in the more costly claims of what was known as old De Beers (''Vooruitzicht''). It was named after Johannes Nicolaas de Beer and his brother, Diederik Arnoldus, who occupied the farm.
After purchasing the land in 1839 from David Danser, a
Koranna chief in the area, David Stephanus Fourie, forebear of Claudine Fourie-Grosvenor, had allowed the de Beers and various other Afrikaner families to cultivate the land. The region extended from the
Modder River
The Modder River is a river in South Africa. It is a tributary of the Riet River that forms part of the border between the Northern Cape and the Free State provinces. The river's banks were the scenes of heavy fighting in the beginning of the ...
via the Vet River up to the
Vaal River
The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Oce ...
.
In 1874 and 1875, the diamond fields were in the grip of depression, but Rhodes and Rudd were among those who stayed to consolidate their interests. They believed that diamonds would be numerous in the hard
blue ground that had been exposed after the softer, yellow layer near the surface had been worked out. During this time, the technical problem of clearing out the water that was flooding the mines became serious. Rhodes and Rudd obtained the contract for pumping water out of the three main mines. After Rhodes returned from his first term at Oxford, he lived with Robert Dundas Graham, who later became a mining partner with Rudd and Rhodes.
On 13 March 1888, Rhodes and Rudd launched
De Beers Consolidated Mines
The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...
after the amalgamation of a number of individual claims. With £200,000 of capital, the company, of which Rhodes was secretary, owned the largest interest in the mine (£200,000 in 1880 = £22.5m in 2020 = $28.5m USD). Rhodes was named the chairman of
De Beers
The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...
at the company's founding in 1888. De Beers was established with funding from
N.M. Rothschild & Sons in 1887.
Politics in South Africa

In 1880, Rhodes prepared to enter public life at the Cape. With the earlier incorporation of
Griqualand West
Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, w ...
into the
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
under the
Molteno Ministry in 1877, the area had obtained six seats in the
Cape House of Assembly. Rhodes chose the rural and predominately
Boer
Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...
constituency of
Barkly West
Barkly West is a town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, situated on the north bank of the Vaal River west of Kimberley.
Establishment and naming
Barkly West was initially known as ''Klip Drift'' (sometimes written as Klipdrift). This ...
, which would remain loyal to Rhodes until his death.
When Rhodes became a member of the
Cape Parliament
The Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope functioned as the legislature of the Cape Colony, from its founding in 1853, until the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, when it was dissolved and the Parliament of South Africa was establish ...
, the chief goal of the assembly was to help decide the future of
Basutoland
Basutoland was a British Crown colony that existed from 1884 to 1966 in present-day Lesotho, bordered with the Cape Colony, Natal Colony and Orange River Colony until 1910 and completely surrounded by South Africa from 1910. Though the Basot ...
.
The ministry of Sir
Gordon Sprigg
Sir John Gordon Sprigg, (27 April 1830 – 4 February 1913) was an English-born colonial administrator and politician who served as prime minister of the Cape Colony on four occasions. Early life
Sprigg was born in Ipswich, England, into a ...
was trying to restore order after the 1880 rebellion known as the
Gun War
The Basuto Gun War, also known as the Basutoland Rebellion, was a conflict between the Basuto and the British Cape Colony. It lasted from 13 September 1880 to 29 April 1881 and ended in a Basuto victory.
Following Basutoland's transformation int ...
. The Sprigg ministry had precipitated the revolt by applying its policy of disarming all native Africans to those of the
Basotho
The Sotho (), also known as the Basotho (), are a Sotho-Tswana ethnic group indigenous to Southern Africa. They primarily inhabit the regions of Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.
The ancestors of the Sotho people are believed to h ...
nation, who resisted.
In 1890, Rhodes became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. He introduced various Acts of Parliament to push black people from their lands and make way for industrial development. Rhodes's view was that black people needed to be driven off their land to "stimulate them to labour" and to change their habits. "It must be brought home to them", Rhodes said, "that in future nine-tenths of them will have to spend their lives in manual labour, and the sooner that is brought home to them the better."
In 1892, Rhodes's
Franchise and Ballot Act
The Franchise and Ballot Act (1892) was an act of the Cape Colony Parliament, driven by Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes, which raised the property franchise qualification, thus disenfranchising a large proportion of the Cape's non-white voters, and ...
raised the property requirements from a relatively low £25 to a significantly higher £75 which had a disproportionate effect on the previously growing number of enfranchised black people in the Cape under the
Cape Qualified Franchise
The Cape Qualified Franchise was the system of multi-racial Suffrage, franchise that was adhered to in the Cape Colony, and in the Cape Province in the early years of the Union of South Africa. Qualifications for the right to vote at parliamenta ...
that had been in force since 1853.
[History of South Africa Timeline (1485–1975)](_blank)
By limiting the amount of land which black Africans were legally allowed to hold in the
Glen Grey Act
In the colonial history of South Africa, the Glen Grey Act was an 1894 Act of the Parliament of the Cape Colony. Instigated by the government of Prime Minister Cecil John Rhodes, it established a system of individual (rather than communal) land ...
of 1894, Rhodes further disenfranchised the black population. To quote
Richard Dowden
Richard Dowden (born 20 March 1949) is an English journalist who has specialised in African issues. Since 1975, he has worked for several British media and was formerly Executive Director of the Royal African Society (2002–2017). He is the a ...
, most would now "find it almost impossible to get back on the list because of the legal limit on the amount of land they could hold".
In addition, Rhodes was an early architect of the
Natives Land Act, 1913
The Natives Land Act, 1913 (subsequently renamed Bantu Land Act, 1913 and Black Land Act, 1913; Act No. 27 of 1913) was an Act of the Parliament of South Africa that was aimed at regulating the acquisition of land. It largely prohibited the sal ...
, which would limit the areas of the country where black Africans were allowed to settle to less than 10%.
At the time, Rhodes would argue that "the native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism, such as works in
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
, in our relations with the barbarism of South Africa."
Rhodes also introduced educational reform to the area. His policies were instrumental in the development of
British imperial policies in South Africa, such as the
Hut tax
The hut tax was a form of taxation introduced by European colonial powers in their African colonies on a "per hut" (or other forms of household) basis. Colonised peoples paid the tax variously in money, labour, grain or stock. This benefited the ...
.

Rhodes did not, however, have direct political power over the independent Boer Republic of the
Transvaal
Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name ''Transvaal''.
* South African Republic (1856–1902; ...
. He often disagreed with the Transvaal government's policies, which he considered unsupportive of mine-owners' interests. In 1895, believing he could use his influence to overthrow the Boer government,
Rhodes supported the
Jameson Raid
The Jameson Raid (Afrikaans: ''Jameson-inval'', , 29 December 1895 – 2 January 1896) was a botched raid against the South African Republic (commonly known as the Transvaal) carried out by British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson ...
, an unsuccessful attempt to create an uprising in the Transvaal that had the tacit approval of
Secretary of State for the Colonies
The secretary of state for the colonies or colonial secretary was the Cabinet of the United Kingdom's government minister, minister in charge of managing certain parts of the British Empire.
The colonial secretary never had responsibility for t ...
Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain (8 July 1836 – 2 July 1914) was a British statesman who was first a radical Liberal Party (UK), Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist after opposing home rule for Ireland, and eventually was a leading New Imperialism, imperial ...
. The raid was a catastrophic failure. It forced Cecil Rhodes to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, sent his oldest brother Col.
Frank Rhodes to jail in Transvaal convicted of
high treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its d ...
and nearly sentenced to death, and contributed to the outbreak of the
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
.
In 1899, Rhodes was sued by a man named Burrows for falsely representing the purpose of the raid and thereby convincing him to participate in the raid. Burrows was severely wounded and had to have his leg amputated. His suit for £3,000 in damages was successful.
Expanding the British Empire
Rhodes and the Imperial Factor

Rhodes used his wealth and that of his business partner
Alfred Beit
Alfred Beit (15 February 1853 – 16 July 1906) was an Anglo-German gold and diamond magnate in South Africa, and a major donor and profiteer of infrastructure development on the African continent. He also donated much money to university ed ...
and other investors to pursue his dream of creating a
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
in new territories to the north by obtaining
mineral concessions from the most powerful
indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology)
In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...
chiefs. Rhodes' competitive advantage over other mineral prospecting companies was his combination of wealth and astute political instincts, also called the "imperial factor," as he often collaborated with the British Government. He befriended its local representatives, the British
Commissioner
A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something).
In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to incl ...
s, and through them organized British
protectorate
A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a State (polity), state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over ...
s over the mineral concession areas via separate but related treaties. In this way he obtained both legality and security for mining operations. He could then attract more investors. Imperial expansion and capital investment went hand in hand.
The imperial factor was a double-edged sword: Rhodes did not want the
bureaucrat
A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can compose the administration of any organization of any size, although the term usually connotes someone within an institution of government.
The term ''bureaucrat'' derives from "bureaucracy", wh ...
s of the
Colonial Office
The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created in 1768 from the Southern Department to deal with colonial affairs in North America (particularly the Thirteen Colo ...
in London to interfere in the Empire in Africa. He wanted British settlers and local politicians and governors to run it. This put him on a collision course with many in Britain, as well as with British
missionaries
A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...
, who favoured what they saw as the more ethical direct rule from London. Rhodes prevailed because he would pay the cost of administering the territories to the north of South Africa against his future mining profits. The Colonial Office did not have enough funding for this. Rhodes promoted his business interests as in the strategic interest of Britain: preventing the
Portuguese, the
Germans
Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...
or the
Boers
Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...
from moving into south-central Africa. Rhodes's companies and agents cemented these advantages by obtaining many mining concessions, as exemplified by the Rudd and Lochner Concessions.
Treaties, concessions and charters
Rhodes had already tried and failed to get a mining concession from
Lobengula
Lobengula Khumalo ( 1835 – 1894) was the second and last official king of the Northern Ndebele people (historically called Matabele in English). Both names in the Zimbabwean Ndebele language, Ndebele language mean "the men of the long shields ...
, King of the
Ndebele
Ndebele may refer to:
*Southern Ndebele people, located in South Africa
*Northern Ndebele people, located in Zimbabwe
* Sumayela Ndebele (Northern Transvaal Ndebele), located in South Africa
Languages
*Southern Ndebele language, the language of ...
of
Matabeleland
Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi ...
. In 1888 he tried again. He sent
John Smith Moffat, son of the missionary
Robert Moffat, who was trusted by Lobengula, to persuade the latter to sign a treaty of friendship with Britain, and to look favourably on Rhodes's proposals. His associate Charles Rudd, together with Francis Thompson and Rochfort Maguire, assured Lobengula that no more than ten white men would mine in Matabeleland. This limitation was left out of the document, known as the
Rudd Concession, which Lobengula signed. Furthermore, it stated that the mining companies could do anything necessary to their operations. When Lobengula discovered later the true effects of the concession, he tried to renounce it, but the British Government ignored him.
During the company's early days, Rhodes and his associates set themselves up to make millions (hundreds of millions in current pounds) over the coming years through what has been described as a "''
suppressio veri'' ... which must be regarded as one of Rhodes's least creditable actions". Contrary to what the British government and the public had been allowed to think, the Rudd Concession was not vested in the
British South Africa Company
The British South Africa Company (BSAC or BSACo) was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expecte ...
, but in a short-lived ancillary concern of Rhodes, Rudd and a few others called the ''Central Search Association'', which was quietly formed in London in 1889. This entity renamed itself the ''United Concessions Company'' in 1890, and soon after sold the Rudd Concession to the Chartered Company for 1,000,000 shares. When Colonial Office functionaries discovered this chicanery in 1891, they advised
Secretary of State for the Colonies
The secretary of state for the colonies or colonial secretary was the Cabinet of the United Kingdom's government minister, minister in charge of managing certain parts of the British Empire.
The colonial secretary never had responsibility for t ...
Viscount Knutsford to consider revoking the concession, but no action was taken.
Armed with the Rudd Concession, in 1889 Rhodes obtained a
charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...
from the British Government for his British South Africa Company (BSAC) to rule, police, and make new treaties and concessions from the
Limpopo River
The Limpopo River () rises in South Africa and flows generally eastward through Mozambique to the Indian Ocean. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a group of Tsonga settlers led by Hosi Rivombo who settled in the mou ...
to the great lakes of Central Africa. He obtained further concessions and treaties north of the
Zambezi
The Zambezi (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than half of t ...
, such as those in
Barotseland
Barotseland (Lozi language, Lozi: ''Mubuso Bulozi'') is a region between Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe including half of north-western province, southern province, and parts of Lusaka Province, Lusaka, Central Province, Zambia, Central, ...
(the Lochner Concession with King
Lewanika
Lewanika (c. 1842–1916) (also known as Lubosi, Lubosi Lewanika or Lewanika I) was the Lozi Litunga (King) of Barotseland from 1878 to 1916 (with a break in 1884-5).
A detailed, although biased, description of King 'Lubossi' (the spelling used) c ...
in 1890, which was similar to the Rudd Concession); and in the
Lake Mweru
Lake Mweru (also spelled ''Mwelu'', ''Mwero'') (, ) is a freshwater lake on the longest arm of Africa's second-longest river, the Congo. Located on the border between Zambia and Democratic Republic of the Congo, it makes up of the total length ...
area (
Alfred Sharpe
Sir Alfred Sharpe (19 May 1853 – 10 December 1935) was Commissioner and Consul-General for the British Central Africa Protectorate and first Governor of Nyasaland.
He trained as a solicitor but was in turn a planter and a professional hu ...
's 1890
Kazembe
Kazembe is a traditional kingdom in modern-day Zambia, and southeastern Congo. For more than 250 years, Kazembe has been an influential kingdom of the Kiluba-Chibemba, speaking the language of the Eastern Luba- Lunda people of south-central ...
concession). Rhodes also sent Sharpe to get a concession over mineral-rich
Katanga, but met his match in ruthlessness: when Sharpe was rebuffed by its ruler
Msiri
Msiri (c. 1830 – December 20, 1891) founded and ruled the Yeke Kingdom (also called the Garanganze or Garenganze kingdom) in south-east Katanga (now in DR Congo) from about 1856 to 1891. His name is sometimes spelled 'M'Siri' in articles in F ...
, King
Leopold II of Belgium
Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908.
Born in Brussels as the second but eldest-surviving son of King Leo ...
obtained a concession over Msiri's dead body for his
Congo Free State
The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (), was a large Sovereign state, state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by Leopold II of Belgium, King Leopold II, the const ...
.
Rhodes also wanted
Bechuanaland Protectorate
The Bechuanaland Protectorate () was a British protectorate, protectorate established on 31 March 1885 in Southern Africa by the United Kingdom. It became the Botswana, Republic of Botswana on 30 September 1966.
History
Scottish missionary ...
incorporated in the BSAC charter. But three
Tswana
Tswana may refer to:
* Tswana people, the Bantu languages, Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions
* Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people
* Tswanaland, ...
kings, including
Khama III
Khama III (c. 1837 – 21 February, 1923), referred to by missionaries as Khama the Good also called Khama the Great, was the '' Kgosi'' (meaning king) of the Bangwato people.
Ancestry and Youth
Malope, a chief of the Bakwena, led his people fr ...
, travelled to Britain and won over British public opinion for it to remain governed by the British Colonial Office in London. Rhodes commented: "It is humiliating to be utterly beaten by these niggers."
The British Colonial Office also decided to administer
British Central Africa
The British Central Africa Protectorate (BCA) was a British protectorate proclaimed in 1889 and ratified in 1891 that occupied the same area as present-day Malawi: it was renamed Nyasaland in 1907. British interest in the area arose from visits ...
owing to the activism of
David Livingstone
David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, and an explorer in Africa. Livingstone was married to Mary Moffat Livings ...
trying to end the
East African Arab-Swahili slave trade. Rhodes paid much of the cost so that the British Central Africa Commissioner Sir
Harry Johnston
Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston (12 June 1858 – 31 July 1927) was a British explorer, botanist, artist, colonial administrator, and linguist who travelled widely across Africa to speak some of the languages spoken by people on that continent. ...
, and his successor
Alfred Sharpe
Sir Alfred Sharpe (19 May 1853 – 10 December 1935) was Commissioner and Consul-General for the British Central Africa Protectorate and first Governor of Nyasaland.
He trained as a solicitor but was in turn a planter and a professional hu ...
, would assist with security for Rhodes in the BSAC's north-eastern territories. Johnston shared Rhodes's expansionist views, but he and his successors were not as pro-settler as Rhodes, and disagreed on dealings with Africans.
Rhodesia

The BSAC had its own police force, the
British South Africa Police
The British South Africa Police (BSAP) was, for most of its existence, the police force of Southern Rhodesia and Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe in 1980). It was formed as a paramilitary force of mounted infantrymen in 1889 by Cecil Rhodes' Britis ...
, which was used to control
Matabeleland
Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi ...
and
Mashonaland
Mashonaland is a region in northeastern Zimbabwe. It is home to nearly half of the population of Zimbabwe. The majority of the Mashonaland people are from the Shona tribe while the Zezuru and Korekore dialects are most common. Harare is the larg ...
, in present-day
Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
. The company had hoped to start a "new
Rand
The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...
" from the ancient gold mines of the
Shona
Shona often refers to:
* Shona people, a Southern African people
** Shona language, a Bantu language spoken by Shona people today
** Shona languages, a wider group of languages defined in the early 20th century
** Kingdom of Zimbabwe, a Shona stat ...
. Because gold deposits weren't as plentiful as they had hoped, many of the white settlers who accompanied the BSAC to Mashonaland became farmers rather than miners. White settlers and their locally-employed Native Police engaged in widespread indiscriminate rape of Ndebele women in the early 1890s.
The
Ndebele
Ndebele may refer to:
*Southern Ndebele people, located in South Africa
*Northern Ndebele people, located in Zimbabwe
* Sumayela Ndebele (Northern Transvaal Ndebele), located in South Africa
Languages
*Southern Ndebele language, the language of ...
and the
Shona
Shona often refers to:
* Shona people, a Southern African people
** Shona language, a Bantu language spoken by Shona people today
** Shona languages, a wider group of languages defined in the early 20th century
** Kingdom of Zimbabwe, a Shona stat ...
—the two main, but rival, peoples—took advantage of the absence of most of the BSAP for the Jameson Raid in January 1896; they separately rebelled against the coming of the European settlers, and the BSAC defeated them in the
Second Matabele War
The Second Matabele War, also known as the First Chimurenga, was fought between 1896 and 1897 in the region that later became Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The conflict was initially between the British South Africa Company and the Mata ...
. Rhodes went to Matabeleland after his resignation as Cape Colony Premier, and appointed himself Colonel in his own column of irregular troops moving from
Salisbury
Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...
to
Bulawayo
Bulawayo (, ; ) is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council claimed it to be about ...
to relieve the siege of whites there. He remained Managing Director of the BSAC (with power of attorney to take decisions without reference back to the Board in London) until June 1896, defying Chamberlain's calls to resign, and he gave instructions that no mercy be shown in putting down the rebellion, telling officers that "Your instructions are" he told a major, to "do the most harm you can to the natives around you."
He ordered a police officer to "kill all you can", even those Ndebele who begged for mercy and threw down their arms. Shortly after learning of the assassination of the Ndebele spiritual leader, Mlimo, by the American scout
Frederick Russell Burnham
Major (rank), Major Frederick Russell Burnham Distinguished Service Order, DSO (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the British South Africa Company and to t ...
, and after participating in the cavalry charge at one of the last pitched battles of this phase of the war, Rhodes' associate Johan Colenbrander arranged for a meeting with the remaining Ndebele chiefs. Rhodes and a few colleagues walked unarmed into the Ndebele stronghold in
Matobo Hills
The Matobo National Park forms the core of the Matobo or Matopos Hills, an area of granite kopjes and wooded valleys commencing some south of Bulawayo, southern Zimbabwe. The hills were formed over 2 billion years ago with granite being forced t ...
. In a series of meetings between August and October, he persuaded the
Impi
is a Nguni word meaning war or combat and by association any body of men gathered for war, for example is a term denoting an army. were formed from regiments () from large militarised homesteads (). In English is often used to refer to a ...
to lay down their arms, thus ending the Second Matabele War.
In the aftermath of the war in Matabeleland, but whilst the uprising in Mashonaland was being suppressed, Rhodes returned to London to give evidence to the UK House of Commons Select Committee of Enquiry into the Jameson Raid. As Rhodes had incriminating telegrams demonstrating the complicity and foreknowledge of the Raid by Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, he and his solicitor were able to blackmail Chamberlain into retaining the BSAC Charter, leaving the
Company in charge of administering the territory north of the Limpopo even as it became a
Crown colony
A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony governed by Kingdom of England, England, and then Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain or the United Kingdom within the English overseas possessions, English and later British Empire. There was usua ...
. Rhodes returned to Mashonaland, further overseeing the suppression of the uprising there into 1897. The scandal attached to his name did not prevent him rejoining the board of the BSAC in 1898. He remained an MP in the Cape Parliament and a Privy Councillor.
By the end of 1894, the territories over which the BSAC had concessions or treaties, collectively called "Zambesia" after the
Zambezi River
The Zambezi (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than half of t ...
flowing through the middle, comprised an area of 1,143,000 km
2 between the
Limpopo River
The Limpopo River () rises in South Africa and flows generally eastward through Mozambique to the Indian Ocean. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a group of Tsonga settlers led by Hosi Rivombo who settled in the mou ...
and
Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika ( ; ) is an African Great Lakes, African Great Lake. It is the world's List of lakes by volume, second-largest freshwater lake by volume and the List of lakes by depth, second deepest, in both cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. ...
. In May 1895, its name was officially changed to "Rhodesia", reflecting Rhodes's popularity among settlers who had been using the name informally since 1891. The designation
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British Crown colony in Southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as South ...
was officially adopted in 1898 for the part south of the Zambezi, which later became Zimbabwe; and the designations
North-Western and
North-Eastern Rhodesia
North-Eastern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in south central Africa formed in 1900.North-Eastern Rhodesia Order in Council, 1900 The protectorate was administered under charter by the British South Africa Company. It was one of what were ...
were used from 1895 for the territory which later became
Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in Southern Africa, now the independent country of Zambia. It was formed in 1911 by Amalgamation (politics), amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia and North ...
, then
Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
. He built a
house for himself in 1897 in Bulawayo.
Rhodes decreed in his will that he was to be buried in Matopos Hills (now Matobo Hills). After his death in the Cape in 1902, his body was transported by train to
Bulawayo
Bulawayo (, ; ) is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council claimed it to be about ...
. His burial was attended by Ndebele chiefs, now paid agents of the BSAC administration, who asked that the firing party should not discharge their rifles as this would disturb the spirits. Then, for the first time, they gave a white man the Matabele royal salute, Bayete. Rhodes is buried alongside
Leander Starr Jameson
Sir Leander Starr Jameson, 1st Baronet, (9 February 1853 – 26 November 1917), also known as Starr Jameson, was a British colonial politician, who was best known for his involvement in the ill-fated Jameson Raid.
Early life and family
He w ...
and 34 British soldiers killed in the
Shangani Patrol
The Shangani Patrol (or Wilson's Patrol) was a 34-soldier unit of the British South Africa Company that in 1893 was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors in pre-Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), during the First Mata ...
. Despite occasional efforts to return his body to the United Kingdom, his grave remains there still, "part and parcel of the history of Zimbabwe" and attracts thousands of visitors each year.
"Cape to Cairo Red Line"
One of Rhodes's dreams was for a "red line" on the map from the Cape to Cairo (on geo-political maps, British dominions were always denoted in red or pink). Rhodes had been instrumental in securing southern African states for the Empire. He and others felt the best way to "unify the possessions, facilitate governance, enable the military to move quickly to hot spots or conduct war, help settlement, and foster trade" would be to build the "Cape to Cairo Railway".
This enterprise was not without its problems.
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
had a conflicting strategy in the late 1890s to link its colonies from west to east across the continent and the Portuguese produced the "
Pink Map
The Pink Map (), also known as the Rose-Coloured Map, was a map prepared in 1885 to represent the Kingdom of Portugal's claim of sovereignty over a land corridor connecting the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique during the Scramble fo ...
", representing their claims to sovereignty in Africa. Ultimately,
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
and
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
proved to be the main obstacles to the British objective until the United Kingdom conquered and seized
Tanganyika from the Germans as a
League of Nations mandate
A League of Nations mandate represented a legal status under international law for specific territories following World War I, involving the transfer of control from one nation to another. These mandates served as legal documents establishing th ...
in
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
.
Political views
Rhodes wanted to expand the British Empire because he believed that the
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
race was destined to greatness.
In what he described as "a draft of some of my ideas" written in 1877 while a student at Oxford, Rhodes said of the English, "I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. 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." Rhodes bemoaned that there was little land left to conquer and said "to think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. 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 40,000,000 inhabitants of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
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. Rhodes explicitly stipulated in his will that all races should be eligible for the scholarships. It is said that he wanted to develop an American elite of
philosopher-kings who would have the United States rejoin the British Empire. As Rhodes also respected and admired the Germans and their
Kaiser
Kaiser ( ; ) is the title historically used by German and Austrian emperors. In German, the title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (). In English, the word ''kaiser'' is mainly applied to the emperors ...
, 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, but critics have labelled him as an "architect of
apartheid
Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
" and a "
white supremacist
White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine ...
", particularly since 2015.
According to Magubane, Rhodes was "unhappy that in many Cape Constituencies, Africans could be decisive if more of them exercised this right to vote under current law
eferring to the Cape Qualified Franchise" with Rhodes arguing that "the native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism, such as works in India, in our relations with the barbarism of South Africa". Rhodes advocated the governance of indigenous Africans living in the Cape Colony "in a state of barbarism and communal tenure" as "a subject race. 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". He thought that those lands which were occupied by the "most despicable specimens of human beings" should be inhabited by Anglo-Saxons.
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". In a 2016 opinion piece for ''The Times'', University of Oxford, Oxford University professor Nigel Biggar argued that although Rhodes was a committed Imperialism, imperialist, the charges of racism against him are unfounded. In a 2021 article, Biggar further argued that:
On domestic politics within Britain, Rhodes was a supporter of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party. Rhodes' only major impact was his large-scale support of the Irish nationalist party, led by Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891).
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. He was a friend of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Onze Jan), Jan Hofmeyr, leader of the Afrikaner Bond, and it was largely because of Afrikaner support that he became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Rhodes advocated greater self-government for the Cape Colony, in line with his preference for the empire to be controlled by local settlers and politicians rather than by London.
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."
Personal relationships
Personal life
Rhodes never married, pleading, "I have too much work on my hands" and saying that he would not be a dutiful husband. According to his personal banker, Lewis Mitchell, Rhodes "took, on occasions, a singularly human interest in the welfare of young men, and read their characters with discernment... 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.'" According to his secretary, Philip Jourdan, he "seemed to have a liking for young men" and was "particularly partial to people with blue eyes." Graham Bower, the deputy to Hercules Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead, Sir Hercules Robinson, described the relationship between Rhodes and his private secretary Neville Pickering as "an absolutely lover-like friendship."
Rhodes' biographers have been divided on the question of his sexuality. John Gilbert Lockhart and Montague Woodhouse, 5th Baron Terrington, C.M. Woodhouse denied that Rhodes was homosexual, while Stuart Cloete and Antony Thomas took the view that he was Asexuality, asexual. Robert I. Rotberg and Brian Roberts (historian), Brian Roberts have asserted that he was homosexual. According to Rotberg, that Rhodes was homosexual is "indisputable on the basis of the available evidence." The BBC's biographical drama series ''Rhodes (TV series), Rhodes'' (1996), written by Antony Thomas, treated him as gay. Robin Brown has claimed in ''The Secret Society: Cecil John Rhodes's Plan for a New World Order'' that Rhodes was homosexual who was in love with Neville Pickering, and that he established "... a homosexual hegemony—which was already operative in the Secret Society—[and] went on to influence, if not control, British politics at the beginning of the twentieth century". Paul Maylam of Rhodes University criticised Brown's book in a review for ''The Conversation (website), The Conversation'' as "based heavily on surmise and assertion" and lacking "referenced source material to substantiate its claims", as well as being riddled with basic factual errors.
Princess Radziwiłł
In the last years of his life, Rhodes was stalking, stalked by Polish princess Catherine Radziwill, Catherine Radziwiłł, born Rzewuski family, Rzewuska, who had married into the szlachta, noble Polish family Radziwiłł. 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. She wrote a biography of Rhodes called ''Cecil Rhodes: Man and Empire Maker''. Her accusations were eventually proven to be false.
Second Boer War

During the
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
Rhodes went to
Kimberley
Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to:
Places and historical events
Australia
Queensland
* Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas
South Australia
* County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia
Ta ...
at the onset of the Siege of Kimberley, 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, Siege of Mafeking, Mafeking and Siege of Ladysmith, Ladysmith.
Death

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 1872, 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 1902, 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". He was finally laid to rest at his request at
Malindidzimu, a hilltop located approximately south of
Bulawayo
Bulawayo (, ; ) is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council claimed it to be about ...
, in what was then Rhodesia. The site was of supreme importance to Indigenous religion in Zimbabwe, Shona traditional religion as the shrine of Mwari, with this action interpreted as a gesture of colonial triumph and conquest over indigenous Africans. Today, his gravesite is part of Matobo National Park,
Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
.
Legacy

Rhodes has been the target of much recent criticism, with some historians attacking him as a ruthless imperialist and white supremacist. The continued presence of his grave in the Matopos (now Matobo) hills has not been without controversy in contemporary Zimbabwe. In December 2010, 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.
In February 2012, Mugabe loyalists and ZANU-PF activists visited the grave site demanding permission from the local chief to exhume Rhodes's remains and return them to Britain. 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.
In 2004, Rhodes was voted 56th in the SABC 3 television series ''Great South Africans (television series), Great South Africans''. A preparatory school in the Midlands town of Gweru in Zimbabwe is named after him. In the early 2000s 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 1877 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 envisioned a secret society to extend British rule worldwide, including China, Japan, all of Africa and South America, and indeed the United States as well:
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.
Rhodes Scholarship

In his last will, he provided for the establishment of the
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world.
Established in 1902, it is ...
. 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. The scholarship enabled male students from Territorial evolution of the British Empire, territories under British rule or formerly under British rule and from Germany to study at Rhodes's alma mater, the University of Oxford. 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.
Memorials

Rhodes Memorial stands on Rhodes's favourite spot on the slopes of Devil's Peak (Cape Town), Devil's Peak, Cape Town, with a view looking north and east towards the Great North Road, Zambia, Cape to Cairo route. From 1910 to 1984 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.
His birthplace was established in 1938 as the Rhodes Memorial Museum, now known as Rhodes Arts Complex, Bishops Stortford Museum. The cottage in Muizenberg where he died is a provincial heritage site in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. 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 1904.
The residents of Kimberley, Northern Cape elected to build a memorial in Rhodes's honour in their city, which was unveiled in 1907. The 72-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 Second Matabele War, rebellion.
The founder of the original country of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Cecil John Rhodes first visited Nyanga, Zimbabwe, Nyanga in the Eastern Highlands of the country in 1897. Captivated by the unspoilt and breathtaking beauty of the area, he immediately purchased a parcel of farms totalling 40,000 ha and then proceeded to import cattle from Mozambique and develop extensive plantations of apple and fruit trees. When he died in 1902, 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.
Opposition

Memorials to Rhodes have been opposed since at least the 1950s, when some Afrikaners, Afrikaner students demanded the removal of a Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town. A 2015 movement, known as "Rhodes Must Fall" (or #RhodesMustFall on social media), began with student protests at the University of Cape Town that were successful in getting university authorities to remove the Rhodes statue from the campus.
The protest also had the broader goal of highlighting what the activists considered the lack of systemic post-apartheid racial transformation in South African institutions.
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
Oriel College () is Colleges of the University of Oxford, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title for ...
. The campaign was covered in a documentary by Channel 4, which was called ''The Battle for Britain's Heroes''. The documentary was commissioned after Afua Hirsch wrote an article on the topic. Moreover, an article by Amit Chaudhuri, in ''The Guardian'', suggested the criticism was "unsurprising and overdue". Other academics including Kehinde Andrews, prominent British academic and author specialising in Black studies, have vocally spoken in favour of #RhodesMustFall.
However, Oriel College opted to keep the Rhodes statue, despite the protests. Oriel College claimed in 2016 they would lose about £100 million worth of gifts if they removed the statue. Nevertheless, in June 2020, the college voted in favour of setting up an independent commission of inquiry, amid widespread support for removing the statue.
A statue of Rhodes was erected in the city of
Bulawayo
Bulawayo (, ; ) is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council claimed it to be about ...
in 1904 in the city centre. In 1981 after the country's independence the statue was removed to the centenary park at the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe.
''Encyclopædia Britannica'', discussing his legacy, wrote of Rhodes that he "once defined his policy as 'equal rights for every white man south of the Zambezi' and later, under liberal pressure, amended 'white' to 'civilized'. 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... There is no clause that binds us to find 'the good' in Rhodes' character, nor to sanitise the imperialist, colonial agenda he propagated".
In June 2020, amid the wider context of George Floyd protests in the United Kingdom, Black Lives Matter protests, the governing body of Oxford's Oriel College voted to remove the statue of Rhodes located on the college's façade facing High Street, Oxford, Oxford's High Street. The actual removal was not to take place until at least early spring 2021, when a commission set up by the college delivered its report on the future of the statue. In May 2021, the commission reported that, while the majority of members supported the statue's removal, the costs to do so were prohibitively high, and the college would therefore not be taking action.
Popular culture
* Mark Twain's sarcastic summation of Rhodes ("I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake"), from Chapter LXIX of ''Following the Equator'', still often appears in collections of famous insults.
* He is depicted, along with other Cape notables, in the 1899 artwork Holiday Time in Cape Town in the Twentieth Century, in Honour of the Expected Arrival of a Governor-General of UNITED South Africa, Holiday Time in Cape Town by James Ford''.''
* The will of Cecil Rhodes is the central theme in the science fiction book ''Great Work of Time'' by John Crowley (author), John Crowley, an alternative history in which the Secret Society stipulated in the will was indeed established. Its members eventually achieve the secret of time travel and use it to restrain World War I and prevent World War II, and to perpetuate the world ascendancy of the British Empire up to the end of the twentieth century. The book contains a vivid description of Cecil Rhodes himself, seen through the eyes of a traveller from the future British Empire.
* In the British film ''Rhodes of Africa'' (1936, directed by Austrian filmmaker Berthold Viertel), Rhodes was portrayed by Canadian actor Walter Huston.
* Rhodes is the unofficial mascot of Uncomfortable Oxford, an Oxford-based tour guide and history organisation which focuses on British imperial history. Much of their promotional material, tours and speeches all focus on Rhodes's statue outside of
Oriel College, Oxford
Oriel College () is Colleges of the University of Oxford, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title for ...
, and they were central to organising the 2020 Oxford George Floyd protests, Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd.
* Rhodes was played by Ferdinand Marian (actor), Ferdinand Marian in the Nazi film ''Ohm Krüger'' (1941), where he—like all other British characters in the film—was presented as an outright villain.
* In 1901, Rhodes bought Dalham Hall, Suffolk. In 1902, Colonel
Frank Rhodes erected the village hall in the village of Dalham, near Bury St Edmunds, to commemorate the life of his brother, who had died before taking possession of the estate.
* Rhodes was a peripheral but influential character in the historical novel ''The Covenant (novel), The Covenant'' by James Michener.
* His memorial at Devil's Peak also served as a temple in ''The Adventures of Sinbad'' episode "The Return of the Ronin".
* The 1976 Hugh Masekela album ''Colonial Man'' has a song titled "Cecil Rhodes".
* Cecil Rhodes was the subject of a South African television mini-series, ''Barney Barnato (TV Series), Barney Barnato'', made in 1989 and first aired on SABC in early 1990.
* In 1996, BBC-TV made an eight-part television drama about Rhodes called ''Rhodes (TV series), Rhodes: The Life and Legend of Cecil Rhodes''. It was produced by David Drury and written by Antony Thomas. It tells the story of Rhodes' life through a series of flashbacks of conversations between him and Princess Catherine Radziwiłł and also between her and people who knew him. It also shows the story of how she stalked and eventually ruined him. In the serial, Cecil Rhodes is played by Martin Shaw, the younger Cecil Rhodes is played by his son Joe Shaw, and Princess Radziwiłł is played by Frances Barber. In the serial Rhodes is portrayed as ruthless and greedy. The serial also suggests that he was homosexual. Countering the implication of Rhodes' homosexuality, historian and journalist Paul Johnson (writer), Paul Johnson wrote that Rhodes had been falsely smeared by the programme, commenting: "In nine tendentious hours, Rhodes is to be presented as a corrupt and greedy money-grabber, a racist and paedophile, whose disgusting passion was to get his hands on young boys ... the BBC has spent £10m of our money putting together a farrago of exaggerations and smears about this great man." Peter Godwin said of the film that "it feels like a work overwhelmingly informed by malice, consistently seizing on the very worst interpretation of the man without really attempting to get under his skin. Rhodes was no 19th-century Hitler. He wasn't so much a freak as a man of his time."
* Rhodes features prominently in Wilbur Smith's ''Ballantyne'' series of novels, fictional stories based amongst real events in Rhodes' lifetime.
* Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard (''b.'' 1911) believed himself to be the literal reincarnation of Cecil Rhodes.
[Russell Miller, ''Bare-faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard'' (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1987)]
Ch. 15
257–259.
See also
* Statue of Cecil Rhodes, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
* Statue of Cecil Rhodes, Company's Garden, South Africa
* Rhodesia (region)
References
Notes
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Monographs
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* Galbraith, John S. ''Crown and Charter: the Early Years of the British South Africa Company'' (1974).
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* Judd, Denis, and Keith Surridge. ''The Boer War: A History'' (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013).
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Websites
PBS: Empires; Queen Victoria; The Changing Empire; Characters : Cecil Rhodes*
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