Cecil Rhodes: Difference between revisions

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Historian Richard A. McFarlane has called Rhodes "as integral a participant in southern African and British imperial history as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln are in their respective eras in United States history.  Most histories of South Africa covering the last decades of the nineteenth century are contributions to the historiography of Cecil Rhodes." According to McFarlane, the aforementioned historiography "may be divided into two broad categories: chauvinistic approval or utter vilification".{{sfn|McFarlane|2007}} Paul Maylam identifies three perspectives: works that attempt to either venerate or debunk Rhodes, and "the intermediate view, according to which Rhodes is not straightforwardly assessed as either hero or villain".{{sfn|Maylam|2005|p=4}}
Historian Richard A. McFarlane has called Rhodes "as integral a participant in southern African and British imperial history as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln are in their respective eras in United States history.  Most histories of South Africa covering the last decades of the nineteenth century are contributions to the historiography of Cecil Rhodes." According to McFarlane, the aforementioned historiography "may be divided into two broad categories: chauvinistic approval or utter vilification".{{sfn|McFarlane|2007}} Paul Maylam identifies three perspectives: works that attempt to either venerate or debunk Rhodes, and "the intermediate view, according to which Rhodes is not straightforwardly assessed as either hero or villain".{{sfn|Maylam|2005|p=4}}
=== Rhodesia ===
{{main|Company rule in Rhodesia}}
[[File:Rhodes matabele 1896.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Rhodes and the Ndebele ''izinDuna'' make peace in the Matopos Hills, as depicted by Robert Baden-Powell, 1896]]
The BSAC had its own police force, the [[British South Africa Police]], which was used to control Matabeleland and Mashonaland, in present-day Zimbabwe.{{Citation needed|date=August 2010}} The company had hoped to start a "new Rand" from the ancient gold mines of the ''Shona''. Because the gold deposits were on a much smaller scale, many of the white settlers who accompanied the BSAC to Mashonaland became farmers rather than miners. When the Ndebele and the Shona—the two main, but rival, peoples—separately rebelled against the coming of the European settlers, the BSAC defeated them in the First Matabele War and Second Matabele War. Shortly after learning of the assassination of the Ndebele spiritual leader, ''Mlimo'', by the American scout Frederick Russell Burnham, Rhodes walked unarmed into the Ndebele stronghold in Matobo Hills.{{sfn|Panton|2015|p=321}} He persuaded the ''Impi'' to lay down their arms, thus ending the Second Matabele War.{{sfn|Farwell|2001|pp=539–}}
By the end of 1894, the territories over which the BSAC had concessions or treaties, collectively called "Zambesia" after the [[Zambezi River]] flowing through the middle, comprised an area of 1,143,000 km² between the Limpopo River and [[Lake Tanganyika]]. In May 1895, its name was officially changed to "Rhodesia", reflecting Rhodes' popularity among settlers who had been using the name informally since 1891. The designation Southern Rhodesia was officially adopted in 1898 for the part south of the Zambezi, which later became Zimbabwe; and the designations [[North-Western Rhodesia|North-Western]] and [[North-Eastern Rhodesia]] were used from 1895 for the territory which later became [[Northern Rhodesia]], then [[Zambia]].{{sfn|Gray|1956}}{{sfn|Gray|1954}}
Rhodes decreed in his will that he was to be buried in Matobo Hills. After his death in the Cape in 1902, his body was transported by train to Bulawayo. His burial was attended by Ndebele chiefs, 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 and 34 British soldiers killed in the Shangani Patrol.{{sfn|Domville-Fife|1900 |p=89}} 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.{{sfn|Laing|22 February 2012}}
=== "Cape to Cairo Red Line" ===
[[Image:Colonial Africa 1913 map.svg|thumb|right|upright|Map showing almost complete British control of the Cape to Cairo route, 1914<br>{{Legend|#fbc5c0|British control}}]]
{{main|Cape to Cairo Railway|Cape to Cairo Road}}
One of Rhodes' dreams (and the dream of many other members of the British Empire) 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 had a rival strategy in the late 1890s to link its colonies from west to east across the continent and the Portuguese produced the "Pink Map", representing their claims to sovereignty in Africa. Ultimately, Belgium and Germany proved to be the main obstacles to the British dream until the United Kingdom seized Tanganyika from the Germans as a League of Nations mandate.


== See also ==
== See also ==
* [[Cecil John Rhodes Statue]]
* [[Cecil John Rhodes Statue]]
== Notes ==
== Notes ==
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