Cecil Rhodes (Cecil John Rhodes) was born on July 5th, 1853 in
Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England where his father was a
clergyman. The fifth son amongst a family of nine children he was
afforded a grammar school education until he was diagnosed with a
tubercular lung condition at age sixteen and doctors advised his
parents to send him out to South Africa so as to benefit from the
country's drier climate.
In 1870 Rhodes sailed off to southern Africa where he joined
his eldest brother Herbert, who was trying his hand at farming in
the coastal region of Natal. In the same year, diamonds - which
had unexpectedly been discovered for the first time in southern
Africa two years before - were suddenly being found in staggering
quantities in the inland area now known as Kimberley. When Cecil
arrived in Durban in September he found that Herbert had already
departed for the diamond area. When Herbert returned to where
Cecil was lodging with friends he related that he had had only a
very little success diamond hunting.
In March 1871 Herbert left again for the diamond fields whilst
Cecil remained tending crops expecting to earn a return
sufficient to meet the cost of a university education. In
happened however that crop prices fell dramatically leaving no
chance of profit and in October Cecil followed Herbert in seeking
his fortune as a diamond hunter.
By 1873 Rhodes finances were sufficiently established through
his involvements in the diamond fields as to fund his hoped for
education and he travelled back to England to pursue studies at
Oxford University's Oriel College. It happened however that his
health was again very seriously threatened, this time as a result
of a bout of pneumonia contracted after a wet day's rowing on the
river Thames, and he had to spend some more time in Africa
returning periodically to work towards his degree.
Alongside his own control of several diamond workings Rhodes
also proved to be an astute businessman. At one time he arranged
for the largest capacity water pump in southern Africa to be
hauled to Kimberly where it was used in keeping diamond workings
open during the seasonal rains. In the dry season this pump was
able to be used in the production of a scarce and desireable
commodity - Ice Cream.
Rhodes was instrumental in amalgamating the major mining
interests of Kimberley into one organisation, De Beers Mining
Company, which he finally established, under his own control but
with a junior partner named Charles Dunell Rudd, in April 1880. A
primary aim of this company being an attempt to regulate the
mining and sale of diamonds. Rhodes considered that diamonds are
not really intrinsically valuable and that the demand for them
was essentially related to young couples looking to become
engaged. Given the profusion of diamonds at Kimberly Rhodes
considered that unless care were taken the market could be
flooded bringing down prices.
Rhodes finally graduated in 1881 and in that same year gained
one of the newly established parliamentary seats in Barkly West,
near Kimberley, that he was to hold for the remainder of his
life. After this election as a member of the Cape Parliament much
of Rhodes' irrepressible energy was directed towards his
expansionary plans - his ultimate dream being `to paint the map
(British) red' from `Cape to Cairo.'
Other aspirations were also stirring in southern Africa. A
numerous Dutch (Boer or Farmer) opinion being inclined to favour
the formation of a United States of South Africa that was to
include such Boer republics of the Transvaal. Rhodes strove to
modify this aspiration towards any such Union operating within
the British Empire. On May 2nd 1883 the first German protected
territory outside Europe came into being when a young merchant
named Fritz Luderitz acted on Bismarck's consent in extending
such protection by running up the German flag over his own
trading station on the Atlantic coast south of the Congo. The
possibility of a rival Dutch or German colonisation to the north
of Cape Colony allowed the British to view their own control of
that area with favour. Rhodes' interest in expansionism led to
his appointment in 1884 as resident deputy commissioner in
Bechuanaland a territory to the north that Rhodes hoped to see
attached to Cape Colony.
In 1888 De Beers was restructured as De Beers Consolidated
Mines, Ltd. and this company has continued to exercise a monopoly
over Kimberly diamond production. Rhodes also won mining rights
from the Matabele King Lobengula whose domain lay to the north of
Bechuanaland.
In 1889 Cecil Rhodes formed the British South Africa Company
and obtained a Royal Charter from the British Government to
occupy Mashonaland. In 1890 he took office as Prime Minister of
the Cape, from which office he had involvement later that year
with the establishment of the British outpost of Fort Salisbury
(named after the British prime minister of the day) deep in
Mashonaland. By 1894 Mashonaland and neighbouring Matabeleland
had been subjugated and were united under the name of
Rhodesia.
In the late 1830's a number of Boers had become frustrated
with the oppressive interference of their British rulers of the
Cape and made a `Great Trek' northwards across the Vaal river
where they hoped to live as they themselves pleased. The original
Trekkers defeated a native opposition to their presence and were
later joined by many Boer migrants. All of this led up to the
establishment of a Transvaal Republic in 1860. Although Rhodes
viewed the Transvaal Republic as an inconvenient obstacle to
British expansionism in southern Africa it was, generally
speaking, of little interest to anyone but their own citizens
until 1887, when fabulously rich gold reefs were discovered in
the Witwatersrand area.
The prospect of sudden and amazing wealth lured tens of
thousands of non-Boers, many of them English, into the Transvaal
to seek their fortunes. The Transvaal's president, Paul Kruger,
refused to grant these 'uitlanders' (aliens) meaningful political
rights, and Rhodes used this denial as an excuse to conspire to
overthrow the Boer-dominated government.
He organised his close friend, Dr. Leander Jameson, to lead a
column of some 500 armed men to Pretoria with the aim of
triggering an insurrection against the Kruger government. The
Jameson Raid, which took place in December 1895, was a complete
fiasco and resulted in a polarisation of animosity between
Englishman and Boer throughout the country. Rhodes was severely
censured by the British government for his involvement and forced
to resign his premiership of the Cape in early 1896.
In the aftermath of the Jameson Raid, Rhodes spent much of
this time up in Rhodesia, where he devoted himself to the
development of his beloved country. Tensions had been rapidly
building up between Rhodes' pioneers and the country's indigenous
Shona and Matabele population. They eventually rose up in armed
revolt against the white settlers, resulting in widespread loss
of life. In 1896 - in what was undoubtedly his finest hour -
Rhodes and three companions rode, by invitation but unarmed, deep
into a Matabele stronghold in the Matopo Hills to negotiate for
peace.
In October 1899, the simmering tensions between the British
and the Boers finally resulted in the outbreak of the Boer war.
Rhodes was in Kimberley at the time and was trapped there during
a four month siege of the town by 5,000 Boer commandos. As well
as playing an important supervisory and morale-building role in
the defence of Kimberley - most of whose citizens were employed
by his De Beers company - he even had his workshops manufacture a
special artillery piece, called `Long Cecil', to help ward off
the attackers.
Rhodes, who had a weak and troublesome heart for much of his
life, passed away at his beachside cottage at Muizenberg near
Cape Town on March 26th, 1902 at the age of only 49. He died just
two months before the end of the Anglo-Boer War. By the time of
his death, Rhodes had been instrumental in bringing almost one
million square miles of Africa under British dominion.
At the age of 19 Rhodes had first written out his "Last Will
and Testament." This brief document, prepared at a time when
Rhodes' possessions were modest indeed, included, as its central
objective, the furthering the interests of the British Empire.
The Will that was valid at the time of Rhodes' death established
the funding of 57 scholarships - now famous as the Rhodes
Scholarships - as a practical way of attempting to meet such
objective.
Rhodes actually left the greater part of his vast fortune for
the establishment of these scholarships at his alma mater,
Oxford University. Rhodes decreed that these scholarships were to
be awarded to young men in regard to:
'literary and scholastic attainments; his fondness
of, and success in, manly outdoor sports; his qualities of
manhood, truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for the
protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship,
and his exhibition during his school days of moral force of
character and of instincts to lead and take an interest in his
schoolmates'.
In 1977 the British parliament legislated in relation to
Rhodes' will such that more Rhodes Scholarships (94) are
available and are now open to being awarded to females as well as
males and also to persons of a wider range of national origins
than Rhodes had himself envisaged.
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