Southern Rhodesia

Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked, self-governing colony of the British Empire in what is today the country of Zimbabwe. The colony's territory was initially conquered and administered by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), which was founded in 1888 by Cecil Rhodes for the purpose of occupying and settling the region. Following years of growing white immigration into the region, the settler minority voted to reject entering into a union with South Africa in favour of establishing a settler-run legislative assembly under the framework of responsible government.

The colony's economy declined significantly during the Great Depression and it experienced a high degree of white settler emigration and turnover. In the Second World War, Southern Rhodesian colonial forces actively participated and the war caused an economic boom. Following the war, the colony experienced a large population boom as many whites began to immigrate to the colony. Southern Rhodesian politics were racially dominated by the white minority who restricted the right to vote based on a person's income or ownership of property. The settler-controlled government also passed racially discriminatory land-ownership restrictions, banned Africans from having higher levels in the civil service for most of its history, and implemented an extensive racial pass system that limited Africans' ability to live and work in most of the colony.

In 1953, Southern Rhodesia entered into a union with the protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland to form the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which dissolved in 1963 due to internal tension. In 1962, the right-wing Rhodesian Front party won the Southern Rhodesian general election. In 1965, the South Rhodesian government under Prime MinisterIan Smith issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence and oversaw the escalating Rhodesian Bush War between the white-minority controlled government and African nationalist forces.

Following the collapse of white-minority rule and the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement the colony was briefly reinstated under British supervision until it was granted full independence as the Republic of Zimbabwe in 1980.