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Cecil Rhodes

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Cecil Rhodes.
Cecil Rhodes.

The Right Honourable Cecil John Rhodes (July 5 1853 – March 26 1902) was a British-born South African businessman, mining magnate, politician. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today controls 60% of the world's diamonds and at one time controlled 90% of the world's diamonds. He was also the coloniser of the state of Rhodesia, which was named after him. Rhodesia (later Northern and Southern Rhodesia) eventually became Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Rhodes profited greatly by exploiting Southern Africa's natural resources, proceeds of which founded the Rhodes Scholarship upon his death. Rhodes is famous for having declared: "all of these stars... these vast worlds that remain out of reach. If I could, I would annex other planets".

Childhood in England

Rhodes was born in 1853 in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England. He was the son of Francis William Rhodes, a priest in the Church of England, and his wife Louisa Peacock Rhodes. He had a lot of siblings. As a teenager he dropped out of grammar school because of ill health and he was sent to Natal in South Africa because his family thought the hot climate there would improve his health. There he was to help his brother Herbert on his cotton farm.

South Africa

After a brief stay with the Surveyor-General of Natal, Dr. P. C. Sutherland, in Pietermaritzburg, Rhodes took an interest in agriculture and joined his brother Herbert on his cotton farm in the Umkomaas valley in Natal. In the colony, he established the Rhodes Fruit Farms in the Stellenbosch district. In October 1871, Rhodes left the colony for the diamond fields of Kimberley. He 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 C. D. Rudd, who later became his partner in the De Beers Mining Company and Niger Oil Company. After he first came to Africa Rhodes supported himself with money lent by his Aunt Sophia Peacock.


Education

In 1873, Rhodes left his diamond fields in the care of his partner, Rudd, and sailed for England to complete his studies. He was admitted to Oriel College, Oxford, but stayed for only one term in 1873, returning for his second term in 1876. He was greatly influenced by John Ruskin's inaugural lecture at Oxford, which reinforced his own attachment to the cause of British imperialism. Among his Oxford associates were Rochefort Maguire, later a fellow of All Souls College and a director of the British South Africa Company, and Charles Metcalfe. His university career engendered in him an admiration for the Oxford "system" which was eventually to mature into his scholarship scheme: "Wherever you turn your eye — except in science — an Oxford man is at the top of the tree".

While attending Oxford, Rhodes joined a secret fraternity called Freemasonry. Although his initial view of it was not positive, he continued to be a Freemason until his death in 1902. He was appalled by the fact that the Masons had so much influence and yet they did not use it to try to make changes in society and he disliked Masonry because it was apolitical. But he later decided to start his own secret society with the goal of bringing the entire world under British rule. He said that the Jesuits inspired it. .

Diamonds

File:Rhodesia-GSmedal.jpg
The Rhodesian General Service Medal, awarded to Rhodesian armed forces during the Rhodesian Bush War / Second Chimurenga. The medal bears Rhodes' portrait.

Whilst at Oxford, Rhodes continued to prosper in Kimberley. 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) which owed its name to Johannes Nicolaas de Beer and his brother, Diederik Arnoldus de Beer, the original owners of the Vooruitzicht farm.

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 and he and Rudd obtained the contract for pumping the water out of the three main mines.

In April 1880, Rhodes and Rudd launched the De Beers Mining Company 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.

Politics

In 1880, Rhodes prepared to enter public life at the Cape. With the incorporation of Griqualand West into the Cape Colony in 1877, the area obtained six seats in the Cape House of Assembly. Rhodes chose the constituency of Barkly West, a rural constituency in which Boer voters predominated. Barkly West remained faithful to Rhodes even after the Jameson Raid, and he continued as its member until his death.

The chief preoccupation of the Cape Parliament when Rhodes became a member was the future of Basutoland, where the ministry of Sir Gordon Sprigg was trying to restore order after a rebellion, the Gun War, in 1880. The ministry had precipitated the revolt by applying its disarmament policy to the Basuto. In 1890, Rhodes became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and implemented laws that would benefit mine and industry owners. He introduced the Glen Grey Act to push Black people from their lands and make way for industrial development.

Rhodes' policies were instrumental in the development of British imperial policies in South Africa. He did not, however, have direct political power over the Boer Republic of the Transvaal. He often disagreed with the Transvaal government's policies, and felt he could use his money and his power to overthrow the Boer government and install a British colonial government supporting mine-owners' interests in its place. In 1895, Rhodes supported an attack on the Transvaal, the infamous Jameson Raid. It was a failure, and Rhodes had to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape.

Rhodesia

Rhodes used his wealth to pursue his dream of creating a British Empire in Africa. His British South Africa Company, which had its own paramilitary police force, was used to control Mashonaland, in present-day Zimbabwe. The company had hoped to start a "new Rand" from the ancient gold mines of the Mashona, but the gold had been largely depleted long before, so many of the white settlers who accompanied the British South Africa Company to Mashonaland became farmers. When the Matabele and the Mashona - the two main, but rival tribes - separately rebelled against the coming of the white settlers, the British South Africa Company defeated them in the Matabele Wars (1893-1897). The various tribal lands were grouped together and given the name "Rhodesia" in honour of Cecil Rhodes. As the company's influence extended north, land north of the Zambezi was claimed by the company, and named Northern Rhodesia. Today, these territories form the states of Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Rhodes decreed in his will that he was to be buried in Matobo Hills, so when he died in the Cape in 1902 his body came up by train and wagon to Bulawayo. His burial was attended by Matabele chiefs, who asked that the firing party should not discharge their rifles as this would disturb the spirits. Then, for the first and probably the only time, they gave the white man the Matabele royal salute "Bayete". Rhodes is buried along side both Leander Starr Jameson and the 34 white soldiers killed in the Shangani Patrol.


Political Views

Although Rhodes is considered by historians to have been an extreme imperialist and racist, in his opinions on British politics Rhodes was a supporter of the Liberal party (source Flint, John E. Cecil Rhodes). Rhodes's only major impact on British politics was his supported of the Irish nationalist party, led by Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891). He contributed a great deal of money to the Irish nationalists


ref name=thomas>Thomas, Anthony (1997). Rhodes: The Race for Africa. London Bridge. ISBN 0-563-38742-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)</ref>. Although Rhodes made his support for the Irish nationalists conditional upon an autonomous Ireland still being represented in the British Parliament (source Flint, John E. Cecil Rhodes). Rhodes was much more tolerant of the Dutch-speaking whites in the Cape Colony than the other English-speaking whites in the Cape Colony were. He supported teaching Dutch as well as English in public schools in Cape Colony and even loaned money to support this cause. He also while Prime Minister of Cape Colony helped to remove most of the legal disabilities that English-speaking whites had imposed on Dutch-speaking whites (source Flint, John E. Cecil Rhodes. He was a friend of Jan Hofemeyer, leader of the Afrikaner Bond, and became Prime Minister of Cape Colony largely because of Afrikaner support (source Flint, John E. Cecil Rhodes)..

Princess Radziwill

In the last years of his life, Rhodes was stalked by a Polish princess named Catherine Radziwill (1858–1941), who came from a noble Polish-Lithuanian dynasty called Radziwiłł. Radziwill falsely claimed to people that she was engaged to Rhodes, or that they were having an affair. She asked him to marry her, but Rhodes refused. She eventually got revenge by falsely accusing him of loan fraud. He had to go to trial and testify against her accusation. He died shortly after the trial in 1902. She wrote a biography of Rhodes called Cecil Rhodes:Man and Empire Maker. Her accusations were eventually proven false.

During the Boer War

During the Boer War Rhodes went to Kimberley to help during the siege, but he was more of a liability than an asset, he was a constant nuisance. The British military could not stand him. In particular Lieutenant Colonel Kekewich disliked Rhodes because of Rhodes's inability to cooperate with the military. Rhodes kept demanding that the military adopt his plans and ideas instead of just doing as they said . (source Pakenham, Thomas The Boer War)


Rhodes' will and the Rhodes Scholarship

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.

Rhodes wanted to create a secret society that would bring the whole world under British rule. So, he set aside much of his will for the establishment of this secret society. The exact words are as follows:

To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity.

As a result of his will, however, the Rhodes Scholarships were established instead. The program enabled and still enables students today, from territories either formerly under British or still currently, or from the USA or Germany, to study at the University of Oxford. Rhodes died in 1902, and was considered at the time one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Rhodes' will 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, part became the Kirstenbosch gardens, while much was spared from development and is now an important conservation area. Rhodes Memorial stands on Rhodes' favourite spot on the slopes of Devil's Peak, with a view looking north and east towards the Cape to Cairo route. Rhodes' house in Cape Town, Groote Schuur, has recently been inhabited by the ex deputy president Jacob Zuma. The cottage in Muizenberg where he died is a national monument. Rhodes was laid to rest at World's View, a hilltop located approximately 35 kilometers south of Bulawayo, in what was then Rhodesia. Today, his grave site is part of Matobo National Park, Zimbabwe.

In 2004, he was voted 56th in the SABC3's Great South Africans.

Popular culture

  • Mark Twain's 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.
  • The will of Cecil Rhodes is the central theme in the science fiction book Great Work of Time by John Crowley, an alternate 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 1996, BBC-TV made an eight-part television drama about Rhodes called Rhodes: The Life and Legend of Cecil Rhodes. It was produced by David Drury and written by Antony Thomas. In it, Rhodes was played by Martin Shaw. It premiered on PBS in 1998. It tells the story of Rhodes's life through a series of flashbacks in conversations between him and Princess Catherine Radziwill and also between her and people who know him. It also shows the story of how she stalked and eventually ruined him. In the movie, Cecil Rhodes is played by Martin Shaw, the younger Cecil Rhodes is played by his son Joe Shaw, and Princess Radziwill is played by Frances Barber. In the movie Rhodes is portrayed as ruthless and greedy. http://www.slate.com/id/3305/

See also

References

  1. Death Of Mr. Rhodes, The Times, 27 March 1902; pg. 7
  2. S. Gertrude Millin, Rhodes, London, 1933, p.138
  3. ^ Thomas, Anthony (1997). Rhodes: The Race for Africa. London Bridge. ISBN 0-563-38742-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  4. ^ Flint, John (1974). Cecil Rhodes. Little Brown and Company. ISBN 0316286303. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  5. £200,000 (1880) = ~£12.9m (2004) =~ $22.5m ()
  6. Roberts, Brian (1969). Cecil Rhodes and the princess. Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-01603-7.
  7. Complete Works of Mark Twain. Following the Equator (Part 2). Chapter XIII. Cecil Rhodes' Shark and his First Fortune; Chapter LXIX. The Most Imposing Man in British Provinces;

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