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Cecil Rhodes: Difference between revisions
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'''Cecil John Rhodes''' PC (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902){{sfn|The Times|27 March 1902}} was a British businessman, mining magnate and politician in South Africa, who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his [[British South Africa Company]] founded the southern African territory of [[Rhodesia (region)|Rhodesia]] (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895. South Africa's Rhodes University is also named after him. Rhodes set up the provisions of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate, and put much effort towards his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory. | '''Cecil John Rhodes''' PC (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902){{sfn|The Times|27 March 1902}} was a British businessman, mining magnate and politician in South Africa, who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his [[British South Africa Company]] founded the southern African territory of [[Rhodesia (region)|Rhodesia]] (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895. South Africa's Rhodes University is also named after him. Rhodes set up the provisions of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate, and put much effort towards his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory. | ||
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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}} | ||
== Childhood == | |||
=== England === | |||
[[File:Cecil Rhodes as a boy.jpg|thumb|Rhodes as a boy]] | |||
[[File:Rhodes Arts Complex and Bishop's Stortford Museum - geograph.org.uk - 592543.jpg|thumb|Rhodes' birthplace, now part of Bishop's Stortford Museum; the bedroom in which he was born is marked by a plaque]] | |||
Rhodes was born in 1853 in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England. He was the fifth son of the Reverend Francis William Rhodes and his wife Louisa Peacock Rhodes. His father was a Church of England clergyman who was proud of never having preached a sermon longer than 10 minutes. His siblings included Francis William Rhodes, who became an army officer. | |||
Rhodes attended the Bishop's Stortford Grammar School from the age of nine, but, as a sickly, asthmatic adolescent, he was taken out of grammar school in 1869 and, according to Basil Williams,{{sfn|Williams|1921|p=}} "continued his studies under his father's eye (...) His health was weak and there were even fears that he might be consumptive, a disease of which several of the family showed symptoms. His father therefore determined to send him abroad to try the effect of a sea voyage and a better climate. Herbert [Cecil's brother] had already set up as a planter in Natal, South Africa, so Cecil was despatched on a sailing vessel to join Herbert in Natal. The voyage to Durban took him seventy days, and on 1 September 1870 he first set foot on African soil, a tall, lanky, anaemic, fair-haired boy, shy and reserved in bearing." His family's hope was that the climate would improve his health. They expected he would help his older brother Herbert{{efn|This is not the same person as the cricketer Herbert Rhodes}} who operated a cotton farm.{{sfn|Thomas|1997|p=}} | |||
==Expanding the British Empire== | |||
=== Rhodesia === | === Rhodesia === | ||
{{main|Company rule in 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]] | [[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. | The BSAC had its own police force, the [[British South Africa Police]], which was used to control Matabeleland and Mashonaland, in present-day Zimbabwe. 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}} | 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}} | ||
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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. | 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. | ||
== Notes == | == Notes == | ||
