British South Africa Company Period (1889-1923) In late 1889, the United Kingdom granted the British South Africa Company a
Royal Charter authorizing the company to acquire, administer, and develop territory "north of British Bechuanaland and to the north and west of the South African Republic and to the west of the Portuguese Dominions." At the time, the region was recognized by the British to be under the nominally authority of
King Lobengula, the leader of the
Ndebele kingdom which controlled
Matabeleland and the British forbid the company from taking any actions in his domain without his prior authorization and consent. Following the acquisition of the
Rudd Concession from Lobengula in 1888, Rhodes quickly set to work on establishing a presence in the region. In 1890, the first company-backed expedition was launched when the
Pioneer Column set out from South Africa and established Fort Salisbury (now
Harare) in
Mashonaland and began to develop it as the central hub for the administration of company-held territory. In 1893, relations between the company and the Ndebele broke down following an Ndebele raid and the beginning of the
First Matabele War. The war decisive defeat of the Ndebele, the death of the Lobengula, and the conquest and expansion of Company operations into Matabeleland. In 1895, the company unsuccessfully attempted to stage a coup in the neighbouring
Transvaal Republic with the hope of seizing the territory on behalf of Britain. Company forces, led by the chief administrator
Starr Jameson, planned to link up with British workers to overthrow the Transvaal government and request aid, at which point Company forces would link up and intervene to assist the rebels. The raid serious diplomatic embarrassment for Britain and caused long-lasting damages to their relations with the Afrikaners and nearly resulted in the company charter being revoked. The capture of nearly the entire
British South Africa Police force left the British South Africa Company with almost no men in the region to defend itself. The Ndebele, sensing the vulnerability of the company and a chance to drive out the newly established white presence in the region, and rose up in revolt against the company and began launching attacks against undefended white properties and killing the colonists beginning the
Second Matabele War. Taken by surprise and completely unprepared, many white settlers were killed in the initial fighting and it was only with the arrival of reinforcements from South Africa that the war turned in favour of the settlers, though it would still take another year of fighting to pacify the territory. The British blamed the British South Africa Company for its recklessness during the
Jameson raid and their treatment of the Africans as the principal causes of the uprising and began to take steps to curtail some of the company's authority to prevent them from happening again. The reforms that followed began the slow transition away from Company rule towards settler control of government. In 1898, the name "Southern Rhodesia" became the official name for the colony following the promulgation of the Southern Rhodesia Order In Council on the 20th of October 1898. That same year a
legislative council was created to manage civil affairs and to pass legislation. At first the Company held a fixed majority of the seats on the council with the minority of the seats being elected by the settlers, but over time the number of elected seats would expand and elected seats would outnumber unelected seats and expand with the growing population. Qualifications to vote for council members were nominally race-neutral, requiring that would-be voters either own greater than £75 in property or a registered mining claim in an electoral district, or have a salary over at least £50 per annum. In practice the restrictions excluded virtually all Africans from being able to vote, with the number of Africans registered to vote only reaching roughly fifty individuals by 1904. Shortly after annexation, on 1 October 1923, the first constitution for the colony came into force. Southern Rhodesian forces were involved in
East African,
North African,
Italy, and
Burma campaigns and participated in the
Battle of Madagascar. Southern Rhodesian suffered the highest loss ratio in the
British Empire forces during World War II. Additionally, the Rhodesian pilots earned the highest number of decorations and ace appellations of any group within the empire. This resulted in the royal family paying an unusual state visit to the colony at the end of the war to thank the Rhodesian people. Economically, Southern Rhodesia developed an economy that was narrowly based on production of a few primary products, notably chrome and tobacco. It was therefore vulnerable to the economic cycle. The deep recession of the 1930s gave way to a post-war boom. This boom prompted the immigration of about 200,000 white settlers between 1945 and 1970, taking the white population up to 307,000. A large number of these immigrants were of British working-class origin. In the 1940s, the founding of a university to serve central African countries was proposed. Such a university was eventually established in
Salisbury with funding provided by both the British and Southern Rhodesian governments and private sources. One condition of British funding was that student admission should be based on "academic achievement and good character" with no racial distinction.
University College of Rhodesia (UCR) received its first intake of students in 1952. Until 1971 it awarded degrees of the
Universities of London and
Birmingham. In 1971 UCR became the University of Rhodesia and began awarding its own degrees. In 1980 it was renamed the University of Zimbabwe. File:BSAC settlers Southern Rhodesia.jpg|White settlers in Southern Rhodesia, 1922 File:Rhodesie Sud timbre 1drouge 041947.jpg|A
postage stamp commemorating the royal visit of 1947
Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (1953-1963) In 1953, the United Kingdom united the colony of Southern Rhodesia and the protectorates of
Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and
Nyasaland (Malawi) into the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The intention behind the creation of the federation was to replicate the model that the British had implemented in Dominion of Canada, Australia, and South Africa to turn several independently unviable colonies into a single viable state and to create a bloc that could manage the differing aspirations of the growing African nationalists movements in each territory, and hopefully temper the influence of South African apartheid that was growing in Southern Rhodesia. Northern Rhodesia was the wealthiest of the three member states (due to its vast copper mines) and had contributed more to the overall building of infrastructure than the other two members did. Southern Rhodesia, recognising an inevitable dissolution of the Federation, was quick to use federal funds in building its infrastructure ahead of the others. A key component of this was the building of the
Kariba Dam and its
hydroelectric facility (shafts, control centre, etc.), which was situated on the Southern Rhodesian side of the
Zambezi Gorge. (1853–1902), Founding chairman of the board of directors of
De Beers Mining Company, funded by Nathaniel, 1st Lord Rothschild The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland dissolved on 1 January 1964. In the break up, the majority of the Federation's military and financial assets were transferred to the Southern Rhodesian government leaving it with the second largest military in Southern Africa behind only South Africa. The reason that it was transferred to the Southern Rhodesian government was that Southern Rhodesia had borne the brunt of the expenses of the federation and the British did not want to see it fall into the hands of the African nationalists.
Southern Rhodesia Until The Unilateral Declaration of Independence (1963-1965) On 7 October 1964, the Southern Rhodesian government announced that when
Northern Rhodesia achieved independence as Zambia, the Southern Rhodesian government would officially become known as the Rhodesian Government and the colony would become known as Rhodesia. While the new name was widely used Southern Rhodesia remained the official name of the colony and the United Kingdom continued to refer to it under that name in legislation including
Southern Rhodesia Act 1965 which declared Southern Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence illegal and without legal effect. In 1965,
Rhodesia unilaterally declared itself independent under a white-minority controlled government headed by
Ian Smith. Beginning a
long civil war between the white-minority controlled government and two African nationalist organizations the
Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZAPU) and
Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANU) who received support from neighbouring African countries as well as the
Soviet Union and
People's Republic of China. the Salisbury government, realising the situation was untenable, and facing strong international pressure, concluded the
Internal Settlement with black nationalist leaders in March 1978. A
general election a year later resulted in the creation of a unity government, which in December 1979 concluded the
Lancaster House Agreement, whereby Britain resumed control of the colony for a brief period before granting independence to the renamed Zimbabwe on 18 April 1980 ==Judiciary==