CECIL RHODES. Super advanced course lesson 19.
Cecil John Rhodes was born at Bishop’s Stortford in 1853. The house he was born in still stands and is open to the public. The town of his birth is a middling sized town in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. His father was a priest in the Church of England. Anglican clergy had high social status but not necessarily a high income. The Rhodes family was respected by all the local people. However, they were middle class rather than upper class. Cecil had three brothers who were older than him. He also had some younger brothers and two sisters. His brothers attended renowned public schools but for some reason Cecil did not.
Despite being the son of a priest, Rhodes said there was only a 50% chance that God existed.
Cecil showed academic promise. He also grew to be 6’1” which was far above average height for the time. However, he was a sickly boy. He suffered from a pulmonary malady. Cecil also had a severe case of asthma and a heart condition. A doctor recommended a drier and warmer climate for the boy’s respiratory condition. Some of his elder brothers were already working in South Africa. Therefore, at the age of 17 he took ship for Cape Town. After a few weeks voyage he landed on what whites called ‘the Dark Continent’. Cecil briefly worked for the Surveyor-General of South Africa. He travelled to the hinterland to meet his siblings. His brother Herbert had a cotton farm. Cecil worked on that and set up a trading business when the farm turned out to be a failure. Cecil had been lent him the then staggering sum of 3 000 Pounds by his very wealthy aunt so the farm’s failure did not set him back much.
Minerals had been discovered under South African soil. Cecil at first made money selling items to the miners: tools, tents, clothes, alcohol and suchlike. He did a booming trade.
In time he bought diamond mining concessions around Kimberley himself. Rhodes was financed by N M Rothschild and Sons. The company’s owner was Jewish. Rhodes was never anti-Semitic. Cecil had other close friends who were Jewish. These included his business partners Barney Barnato and Alfred Beit. Beit was a German Jew who paid for the bridge to be built between South Africa and Zimbabwe. To this day it is known as Beit Bridge. Note that Beit is pronounced ”bite”.
Mr. Rhodes hired black men to dig for him. These men were made to work in the nude in case they discovered a diamond and secreted it in their clothes. Cecil became very affluent indeed. Eventually he achieved a world monopoly on diamonds by controlling the Diamond Syndicate. They limited the supply of diamonds to artificially inflated prices.
Cecil John founded a diamond company called De Beers. It exists to this day. The company is called de Beers because two Dutch immigrants with the surname de Beers. In time de Beers came to have a 95% share of the world diamond market.
Cecil traveled throughout South Africa and to what was then called British Bechuanaland ( Botswana).
In time Rhodes founded fruit farms in South Africa. These prospered. He is to be thanked for diversifying the economy. The Mediterranean climate of South Africa makes it suitable for citrus fruit production and vineyards.
Cecil decided that he wished to study at Oxford University. He sat Responsions which was the admissions exam for Oxford. This exam was in Latin, Ancient Greek and Maths. There was no exam in English on the basis that anyone who has mastered Latin and Greek must have mastered his own language. Many subjects were taught through Latin.
While Cecil was at Oxford the British Empire was rising to its zenith. Britons believe that to know how to turn Pax Britannica they must study Pax Romana.
There was one unwelcome development at Oxford as far as Cecil was concerned. Females were admitted to the university in 1874. Cecil strove not to interact with them.
After a few years Cecil returned to the United Kingdom. It was 1873 and he was 19. He matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford. Oriel was an ancient but not especially distinguished college. It had close links to Rugby School.
After a few months Cecil’s health began to suffer from the humidity. He therefore had to suspend his studies and sail back to South Africa. He returned in the summer to study at Oxford. He continued this pattern. He had to complete nine terms to graduate. It took him nine years. He would come to Oxford in May and stay till the end of August whereupon he would sail for the Cape. His delicate constitution could not tolerate cool or moist climes. He was hugely gratified to graduate from Oxford. Cecil took considerable time off his busy business career to pursue tertiary education. In those days very few businessmen went to university.
Whilst at Oxford, Rhodes made friends with an Irishman named Mr. Rochefort Maguire who later became a Home Rule MP. Perhaps counterintuitively, Rhodes was a staunch advocate of Irish Home Rule. He later made a GBP 10 000 donation to the Irish Home Rule Party. That was an enormous sum for the time. Cecil believed there should be an Irish Parliament in Dublin for the whole of Ireland but that Ireland must continued to be represented in the UK Parliament at Westminster.
In British politics, C J Rhodes supported the Liberal Party.
The Masons was an organisation that Rhodes joined. He was sworn in Apollo Lodge which is the Oxford University lodge.
Being an Oxford graduate was Rhodes’ proudest achievement besides the expansion of the British Empire. He noticed, ”wherever you look, except in science, an Oxford man is top of the tree.” Admittedly by the time he died there were only 10 universities in the UK an about 1% of people attended university.
Cecil became one of the richest men in the world. He was a passionate believer in the efficacy and morality of British rule. He entered the political forum. He was elected to the Cape Parliament. Before long he was Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. He raised the wealth qualification required for the right to vote. This disenfranchised most black people. He said he believed in despotism for the country.
C J R had the abrasive racial views that typified the epoch. He used the opprobrious N word in relation to gentlemen and ladies of colour. At that time it was a matter of fact word. There is an apocryphal claim that he said, ”I prefer land to N———”. He alluded to the autochthonous people of South Africa as barbarians and said they ought to be driven off their native soil.
There were some African sovereign states to the north of British territory. It seemed manifest that these should come under the aegis of a European country. But which one would it be? Portugal had held colonies in the African coast for centuries. Germany was expanding her suzerainty into Africa. Cecil was determined that it should be Britain. He founded the British South African Company for the objective of expanding British rule into the interior.
Cecil encouraged his acolyte the Old Harrovian Charles Rudd to go into what is now Zimbabwe. He met King Lobengula of the Ndebele. Lobengula signed the Rudd Concession. It was called that because the king agreed it with Charles Rudd. The king thought it was about mining. It more or less gave his country away. The Ndebele later rebelled but were bested. Rudd and the BSAC (British South African Company) later expanded further north into what is now Zambia. This became a British colony. Zambia and Zimbabwe became Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia respectively. They were named in honour of C J Rhodes.
Lobengula later said he had been duped. He was presented with the Rudd Concession written in English. There was no literacy in his country at the time. One of Rudd’s men translated the document orally into Ndebele. However, Lobengula claims that this document was deliberately mistranslated.
Rhodes’ emissaries went into Barotseland and other places. They persuaded indigenous chieftains to sign concessions. Much of these were to a company directly controlled by Rhodes and not the BSAC. He wanted his representatives to go to the Congo. However, the Belgians attained a concession there first. Rhodes was accused of employing underhand tactics to induce African chiefs to leave their marks on various documents.
Zimbabwe turned out not to contain as much gold as had been anticipated. Many British immigrants became farmers. The Ndebele people revolted against the British twice but were worsted each time. It was 1895 when Zambia and Zimbabwe were officially named Rhodesia.
The Ndebele rebellion against the British was called the Chimurenga. An Ndebele chief who was about to be executed ”my bones shall rise again.” Some black people in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) remembered this and looked forward to a day when they would rebel successful.
Because Cecil had gained so much land and earned a fortune he attracted intense interest in the United Kingdom. He was invited to meet Queen Victoria. She asked him what he had accomplished, ”I have added two provinces to Your Majesty’s empire.”
Megalomania was Rhodes’ flaw. He said he would annex planets if he could. He told someone: remember you are an Englishman and have one first prize in the lottery of life. He wanted to found a society dedicated to the extension of British rule to all corners of the globe. Rhodes admired the Jesuits in their dedication and intelligence. He wanted to found an order similar to theirs but devoted to the expansion of what he called the ‘English Empire.’ He dreamed of bringing the Holy Land (Palestine and Israel) into the British Empire.
At the age of 24 Rhodes had already conceived his ultra imperialist philosophy. He said that British rule would ensure liberty and justice for everyone.
A confirmed misogynist, Rhodes never wed. A Polish woman Countess Radziwill chased him around Cape Town. She claimed to have fallen in love with him. More likely she loved his money. Rhodes held all male dinner parties. Most of his friends were married. He refused to meet their wives or daughters. He never wanted to hear about women.
C J Rhodes believed that some black men should have the right to vote. Many whites disagreed. He also believed that British immigrants should run the colonies through elected legislatures. He did not want London having too much say. There was a lot of white supremacism.
Rhodes disliked the Afrikaner Republics. These were Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The Afrikaners were Dutch speakers who ancestors had arrived in South Africa in 1652. Rhodes wanted these republics to be full parts of the empire. The republics refused. C J Rhodes believed that the Afrikaner republics were not doing enough in furtherance of mining.
Cecil’s doctor was Leander Starr Jameson. He and Cecil Rhodes thought that it was bad the the OFS and Transvaal were not full part of the British Empire. Jameson hatched a plot to lead several hundred armed British men to attack the OFS and Transvaal and overthrow them. The OFS and Transvaal would then be fully integrated into the British Empire. This would mean greater British access to the precious resources of these territories: diamonds, gold, silver, copper, cobalt, iron, manganese, rodium, iridium and platinum.
The Jameson Raid in 1895 was tacitly encouraged by Rhodes. Some believed that Her Majesty’s Government gave a nod and a wink to it. London would have hailed the result if the Jameson Raid had been crowned with victory. Plausible deniability was wanted.
Dr Jameson and his confreres forged a letter. It purported to come from the beleaguered British community in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic. The letter stated that the Britons resident in those states were groaning under heavy oppression and fearing for their lives at the hands of the Boers. The epistle called upon lionhearted Britons to emancipate their countrymen from this insupportable tyranny. Leander Starr Jameson attacked the Afrikaner states but was easily crushed. Jameson was Rhodes’ physician. Dr Jameson was captured by the Boers. The Boers (Afrikaners) chose not to treat the doctor to a led injection. Instead he was released to the British authorities. L S Jameson was shipped back to the United Kingdom. There he stood trial on various charges. He was found guilty and awarded 15 months incarceration.
Frank Rhodes, Cecil’s brother, also participated. Frank Rhodes and some of the other ringleaders were sentenced to death in the Transvaal gaoled while diplomatic representations were made to have them spared. In the end Frank Rhodes and the others were set free after only a few months. The Transvaal Republic did not wish to antagonise the United Kingdom.
Until the Jameson Raid Cecil was Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Cecil resigned in disgrace.
In 1899 the Second South African War broke out. Rhodes believed that the Afrikaners had started it and they must be crushed. He was in very poor health by this time. In 1902 the OFS and Transvaal finally surrendered.
In 1902 it became clear that Cecil was dying. His last words were: ”so much to do, so little done.” He died in March 1902 as the Second Boer War was drawing to a close. As was his wish he was buried on a hill in Zimbabwe. The hill is called ‘World’s View’ because of the splendid vista that it commands over the plains beneath. When Queen Elizabeth II visited Zimbabwe in 1947 she visited the grave of Rhodes. At that time she was a mere princess.
Although Rhodes is reviled by Zimbabweans there is a strong ethic against disinterring the dead. His tomb has not been disturbed to this day.
When Cecil Rhodes died he was worth GBP 3 million. In 2024 values that is about GBP 700 million.
In Rhodes will he set up the Rhodes Scholarships. He foresaw the possibility of a war between the United Kingdom and Germany. He provided scholarships for males from the British colonies, the United States and Germany. Rhodes stated that no one would be turned down on the ground of ethnicity or religion. Men under 26 could study at Oxford University for up to three years. He thought he could foster amity between Germany, the USA and the British Empire. He envisaged the USA re-joining the Empire. In the 1970s the Rhodes scholarships were opened to females.
Rhodes House in Oxford is named after C J Rhodes. Rhodes Scholars meet there.
Rhodes University in South Africa was founded by him. He also left a huge legacy to Oxford University and particularly to his college Oriel. A new building was built with his bequest. He statue adorns the building that was constructed using his benefaction. There is also a plaque on King Edward Street, Oxford marking where the kept academical residences.
Rhodes University in South Africa was named in honour of Cecil.
Zimbabwe was known as Southern Rhodesia and Zambia as Northern Rhodesia. The flag of Rhodesia had the motto ”sit nomine digna” meaning ”may she be worthy of the name.” That is that Rhodesia should deserve to be named after Cecil Rhodes.
C J Rhodes is a contentious figure. Many view him as racialist.
A film called Rhodes of Africa appeared in 1936. It is a hagiography.
In 1996 a scathing biopic entitled Rhodes was released starring Martin Shaw in the title role.
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- In what year was Rhodes born?
- What was his father’s occupation?
- What university did Rhodes attend?
- Why did he shift to South Africa?
- Why did it take him nine years to complete a degree?
- What was the Jameson Raid? Five marks.
- What were Rhodes ambitions for the British Empire? Five marks.
- Did Rhodes like women?
- What is the Rhodes Scholarship scheme? Five marks
- What is your opinion of Rhodes? Five marks.
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