The occupation and development of Rhodesia are so comparatively recent—(Rhodes and Dr. Jameson were fighting the Matabeles at Bulawayo in 1896)—that any account of the country must at the outset include a brief historical approach to the time of my visit last May. Probe into the beginnings of any African colony and you immediately uncover intrigue and militant imperialism. Rhodesia is no exception.
For ages the huge continent of which it is part was veiled behind mystery and darkness. The northern and southern extremes early came into the ken of the explorer and after him the builder. So too with most of the coast. But the vast central belt, skirted by the arid reaches of Sahara on one side and unknown territory on the other, defied civilization until Livingstone, Stanley, Speke, and Grant blazed the way. Then began the scramble for colonies.
Early in the eighties more than one European power cast covetous glances at what might be called the South Central area. Thanks to the economic foresight of King Leopold, Belgium had secured the Congo. Between this region which was then a Free State, and the Transvaal, was an immense and unappropriated country,—a sort of no man's land, rich with minerals, teeming with forests and peopled by savages. Two territories, Matabeleland, ruled by Lobengula, and Mashonaland, inhabited by the Mashonas, who were to all intents and purposes vassals to Lobengula, were the prize portions. Another immense area—the present British protectorate of Bechuanaland—was immediately south and touched the Cape Colony and the Transvaal. Portuguese East Africa lay to the east but the backbone of Africa south of the Congo line lay ready to be plucked by venturesome hands.
Nor were the hands lacking for the enterprise. Germany started to strengthen the network of conspiracy that had already yielded her a million square miles of African soil and she was reaching out for more. Control of Africa meant for her a big step toward world conquest. Paul Kruger, President of the Transvaal Republic, which touched the southern edge of this unclaimed domain, saw in it the logical extension of his dominions.
Down at Capetown was Rhodes, dreaming of a Greater Britain and determined to block the Kaiser and Kruger. It was largely due to his efforts while a member of the Cape Parliament that Britain was persuaded to annex Bechuanaland as a Crown Colony. Forestalled here, Kruger was determined to get the rest of the country beyond Bechuanaland and reaching to the southern border of the Congo. His emissaries began to dicker with chiefs and he organized an expedition to invade the territory. Once more Rhodes beat him to it, this time in history-making fashion.
Following his theory that it is better to deal with a man than fight him, he sent C. D. Rudd, Rochfort Maguire, and F. R. ("Matabele") Thompson up to deal directly with Lobengula. They were ideal envoys for Thompson in particular knew every inch of the country and spoke the native languages. From the crafty chieftain they obtained a blanket concession for all the mineral and trading rights in Matabeleland for £1,200 a year and one thousand rifles. Rhodes now converted this concession into a commercial and colonizing achievement without precedent or parallel. It became the Magna Charta of the great British South Africa Company, which did for Africa what the East India Company did for India. Counting in Bechuanaland, it added more than 700,000 square miles to the British Empire.
Like the historic document so inseparably associated with the glories of Clive and Hastings, its Charter shaped the destiny of the empire and is associated with battle, blood, and the eventual triumph of the Anglo-Saxon over the man of colour. Other chartered companies have wielded autocratic power over millions of natives but the royal right to exist and operate, bestowed by Queen Victoria upon the British South Africa Company—the Chartered Company as it is commonly known—was the first that ever gave a corporation the administrative authority over a politically active country with a white population. The record of its rule is therefore distinct in the annals of Big Business.
It was in 1899 that Rhodes got the Charter. In his conception of the Rhodesia that was to be—(it was first called Zambesia)—he had two distinct purposes in view. One was the larger political motive which was to widen the Empire and keep the Germans and Boers from annexing territory that he believed should be British. This was Rhodes the imperialist at work. The other aspect was the purely commercial side and revealed the same shrewdness that had registered so successfully in the creation of the Diamond Trust at Kimberley. This was Rhodes the business man on the job.
The Charter itself was a visualization of the Rhodes mind and it matched the Cape-to-Cairo project in bigness of vision. It gave the Company the right to acquire and develop land everywhere, to engage in shipping, to build railway, telegraph and telephone lines, to establish banks, to operate mines and irrigation undertakings and to promote commerce and manufacture of all kinds. Nothing was overlooked. It meant the union of business and statesmanship.
Under the Charter the Company was given administrative control of an area larger than that of Great Britain, France and Prussia. It divided up into Northern and Southern Rhodesia with the Zambesi River as the separating line. Northern Rhodesia remains a sparsely settled country—there are only 2,000 white inhabitants to 850,000 natives—and the only industry of importance is the lead and zinc development at Broken Hill. Southern Rhodesia, where there are 35,000 white persons and 800,000 natives, has been the stronghold of Chartered interests and the battleground of the struggle to throw off corporate control. It is the Rhodesia to be referred to henceforth in this chapter without prefix.