Oom Paul's People / A Narrative of the British-Boer Troubles in South Africa, with a History of the Boers, the Country, and Its Institutions

by Howard Clemens Hillegas

Mr. Rhodes determined to break the barriers which excluded white men from the native chief's domain, and sent three agents to treat with Lobengula. The agents made many valuable presents to the old chief, and in 1888, after much engineering, secured from him an exclusive concession to search for and extract minerals in Bechuanaland. The payment for the concession included five hundred dollars a month, a thousand rifles and ammunition, and a small gunboat on the Zambezi.

After Mr. Rhodes discovered the real value of the concession, he and a number of his friends formed the British South Africa Company, popularly known as the Chartered Company, and received a charter from the British Government, which gave to them the exclusive right of governing, developing, and trading in Lobengula's country. Several years afterward the white man's government became irksome to Lobengula and his tribes, as well as to the Mashonas, who occupied the immense territory adjoining Bechuanaland on the east, and all rebelled. The result was not unlike those of native rebellions in other countries. The natives were shot down by trained English soldiers, their country was taken from them, and those who escaped death or captivity were compelled to fly for safety to the new countries of the north.

The British South Africa Company in 1895 practically became the sole owner of Rhodesia, the great territory taken from Lobengula and the Mashonas; and Mr. Rhodes, having realized part of his dream, began casting about for other opportunities whereby he might extend the empire.

Mr. Rhodes was then in the zenith of his glory. He was many times a millionaire, the head of one of the greatest capitalistic enterprises in the world, the director of the affairs of a dominion occupying one tenth of a continent, and the Premier of Cape Colony. His power was almost absolute over a territory that stretches from the Cape of Good Hope into Central Africa, and then eastward to within a few miles of the Indian Ocean. He had armies under his command, and two governments were at his beck and call.

But Mr. Rhodes was not satisfied. He looked again at the map of Africa, already greatly changed since he placed his hand over it in the Kimberley shop, but the dream was not realized. He saw the Transvaal and the Orange Free State flags still occupying the positions he had marked for the British emblem, and he plotted for their acquisition.

The strife between the Boers and the Uitlanders in the Transvaal was then at its height, and Mr. Rhodes recognised the opportunity for the intervention of England that it afforded. Mr. Rhodes did not consider it of sufficient importance to inquire concerning the justice of the Uitlanders' claims, nor did he express any sympathy for their cause. In fact, if anything, he felt that if the Uitlanders were unjustly treated by the Boers their remedy was simple. Once he blandly told a complaining Uitlander that no Chinese wall surrounded the Transvaal, and that to escape from the alleged injustice was comparatively easy.

To Mr. Rhodes the end was sufficient excuse for the means, and, if the acquisition of the two republics carried with it the loss of his Boer friends, he was willing to accept the situation. The fall of the Transvaal Republic carried with it the subsequent fall of the Orange Free State, and, in order that he might strike at the head, he determined to commence his campaign of exterminating republics by first attacking the Transvaal.

Whether he had the promise of assistance from the Colonial Office in London is a subject upon which even the principals differ. Mr. Rhodes felt that his power in the country was great enough to make the attack upon the Transvaal without assistance from the home Government, and the plot of the Jameson raid was formed.

He retired to Groote Schuur, his home at Cape Town, and awaited the fruition of the plans he had so carefully made and explained. His lieutenants might have been overhasty, or perhaps the Uitlanders in Johannesburg might have feared the Boer guns too much; whatever the reason, the plans miscarried, and Mr. Rhodes experienced the first and greatest reverse in his brilliant public career.

The dream which appeared so near realization one day was dissolved the next, and with it the reputation of the dreamer. He was obliged to resign the premiership of Cape Colony, many of his best and oldest supporters in England deserted him, and he lost the respect and esteem of the Dutch inhabitants of South Africa, who had always been among his stanchest allies. The heroic Rhodes, the idol of Cape Colony, found himself the object of attack and ridicule of the majority of the voters of the colony. The parliamentary inquiry acquitted him of all complicity in the Jameson raid, it is true, but the Dutch people of South Africa never have and never will.