The Founding of Rhodesia

THE FOUNDING OF RHODESIA Cecil Rhodes.—The first conception of Rhodesia came to Rhodes at Oxford in 1878. Sir Sidney Shippard, who afterwards succeeded him as commissioner in Bechuanaland, has recalled how, walking in Christchurch meadows, Rhodes and he "discussed and sketched out the whole plan of British advance in South and Cen tral Africa." In 1888, with the prestige of an unexampled financial achievement, vast wealth, and an idealistic temperament that re fused to recognize as permanent the hostility either of men or circumstances, Rhodes was ready to give effect in Africa to the thoughts which had first germinated in his mind ten years before at Oxford. There was no time to lose. In 1887 Portugal joined (on paper) Mozambique to Angola by claiming the whole of the interior between them—a claim to which Germany and France assented, but which the British Government at once repudiated. In the same year it was known at the Cape that the Boers were preparing to make a settlement in Mashonaland. This news spurred to action Rhodes, who was then deputy resident commis sioner in Bechuanaland. On his motion, but with the sanction of the high commissioner, J. S. Moffat, the British Resident at Bula wayo, made on Feb. 11, i888, a treaty, under which Lobengula bound himself not to enter into correspondence with any foreign power without the knowledge and consent of the high commis sioner. On Oct. 3o, again with the high commissioner's sanction, Rochford Maguire and two others obtained from Lobengula, in return for a monthly payment of oo and a supply of rifles and ammunition, a concession of the right to search for, and work, minerals within his territory. This concession was then transferred to an association which Rhodes had formed, in con sideration of the association's undertaking to provide the capital necessary to put it into effect, and to share the net receipts with the concessionaires. On April 3o, 1889, the asso ciation's proposals for the formation of a company to develop the Bechuanaland Protectorate were submitted to the British Government. The objects of the proposed company were: (1) to extend northwards the railway and telegraph systems; (2) to encourage emigration and colonisation; (3) to promote trade and commerce; and (4) to develop and work mineral and other concessions under the management of one powerful organisation, thereby obviating conflicts and complications between the various interests that had been acquired within those regions, and securing to the native chiefs and their subjects the rights reserved to them under the several concessions.

British South Africa Company.

The Company received its charter on Oct. 29, 1889. Rhodes, as general manager in South Africa, arranged to carry the railway northward from Kimberley, and enrolled a force of Soo police to protect the settlers, who were to be established on the Mashonaland plateau : and nine months later the Company took possession of what an agent of the French Government termed not ineptly "the pick of Central Africa on both sides of the Zambesi." The pioneer expedition of 200 European settlers, 15o African labourers, and the police, broke camp on the Matcloutsie river on June 28, 189o; and, commanded by General Pennefather and guided by Selous, reached Fort Salisbury, a distance of 400 miles through virgin country, on Sept. 12. The cost of the expedition, exclusive of grants of land and mineral rights to the pioneers, was £89,285 los.; and the occupation was effected "without the loss of a single life, and without the necessity of firing a shot." The Company's police, however, came into collision almost at once with the Portu guese authorities on the eastern border at Massikessi. Further conflict was avoided by the modus vivendi of Nov. i 1, and the terms of this arrangement were embodied, together with the set tlement of the limits of the Portuguese territories east and west, in the Anglo-Portuguese convention of June it, 1891. Under this instrument, which governs the relations of Rhodesia to Mozam bique, Portugal undertook to construct, or allow the construction of, a railway from Beira, the natural port of the interior, to the Rhodesian frontier; to limit the duties upon goods in transit to and from British territory through Mozambique to 3%; and to recognize the Zambezi and Shire rivers as international water ways. A year later, when the first administrator, A. R. Colquhoun, had been succeeded by Dr. (afterwards Sir L. S.) Jameson, the Company's possession was again challenged. In 1891 a Boer trek, 4,000 strong, was organized by Col. Ferreira to effect a settlement in Mashonaland, but was defeated by the firm action of Jameson and Lord Loch, the high commissioner.