Rhodes And Rhodesia

This volume deals with the conquest and colonization of Zimbabwe and the establishment of Southern Rhodesia, from the beginnings of British involvement in Bechuanaland to the death of Cecil Rhodes. Its emphasis is on the white invaders and its chief concern is white individuals, their motives, actions, and influence on events. The British South Africa Company and the irregularity of its financial and political operations are dealt with in detail. Keppel-Jones also discusses the development in the midst of the indigenous population of an alien white society and state, from their crude beginnings to their emergence in a form still recognizable today. The reader is led to conclude that by 1902 Southern Rhodesia was already set on the road that would lead to the upheavals of the second half of the twentieth-century. The author examines the racial consciousness and prejudice of the white society and addresses an important question: why did the imperial government grant a royal charter to the BSA Company? The facts show conclusively that the imperial government had little interest in Central Africa or care for its fate except when foreign competition appeared. Keppel-Jones also reveals the important role played by black troops employed by the Company in suppressing the rebellions of 1896-7. For opposite reasons, neither blacks nor whites have been willing to recognize this; on the other hand the habit of the 'men-on-the-spot' of making and carrying out decisions without regard to their superiors in London is a commonplace of imperial history. One of the main themes of the book is the tension between the unofficial imperialists, straining at the leash, and the Colonial Office, struggling to hold them back. Rhodes and Rhodesia is based on extensive use of public records, mainly in the Public Record Office, London, and the National Archives of Zimbabwe, of collections of private papers, and of contemporary published works. Arthur Keppel-Jones is professor emeritus of history at Queen's University.

This is the earliest history of the British colony of Rhodesia, written only eight years after the first white settlement and based on exclusive access to the files of Cecil John Rhodes' British South Africa Company. Written by one of Britain's leading war correspondents, A History of Rhodesia is a book of its time: unashamedly jingoistic, pro-Empire, anti-Boer and anti-Matabele, it provides a remarkable insight into the personalities and mindset of the builders of the British Empire.

A highly accessible examination of an international phenomenon

In January 1896, the author's second cousin (thrice removed) embarrassed the British government when as a Boer Commandant he thwarted the attempted overthrow of the Transvaal Republic by a column raised in Cecil Rhodes' company-run colony of Rhodesia. The resulting scandal forced Rhodes to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony.Four years later, in February 1900, a Boer army led by the same cousin (now a general) held off an onslaught by overwhelming British, Canadian and Australian forces for eight days before surrendering in a capitulation which proved to be the turning point of the war, and which still rankles in the hearts of Afrikaners.This memoir chronicles the ebbs and flows in the fortunes of the author's Huguenot and English forebears during their migration northward from the Cape of Good Hope into the African hinterland, and goes on to tell the story of his own Rhodesian childhood. In the early 1960s, the country was enjoying the fruits of a two-decade economic boom; the future looked bright, and the early stirrings of African nationalism were not to be taken seriously.