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Person1853 – 1902

Cecil Rhodes

British mining magnate and prime minister of the Cape Colony who championed the Cape-to-Cairo vision; Rhodesia was named after him

Sent to South Africa for his health at seventeen, he made a fortune in the Kimberley diamond fields and through De Beers came to dominate world diamond production. His British South Africa Company seized what are now Zimbabwe and Zambia, named Rhodesia after him. He was prime minister of the Cape Colony (1890–1896) but resigned after the failed Jameson Raid. In his will he founded the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford.

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1 related event

  1. 1
    1899 – 1902South African War (Boer War)related figure

    Britain fought to take the gold-rich Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. It won at great cost and gained control of South Africa.

Themes this person appears in

  • Imperialism and the Partition of the World1839 – 1914

    From the Tanzimat to Sarajevo — seventy-five years in which the powers carved up West Asia, India, Southeast Asia, Africa and the Pacific, and the peoples there answered with reform and resistance