Colony of Southern Rhodesia
British colony
←   ←   ← 1923–1953 1963–1965 1979–1980 →   →   →
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem God Save the Queen
Capital	Salisbury
Language(s)	English
Government	Constitutional monarchy
Monarch
- 1923-1936	George V
- 1936	Edward VIII
- 1936-1952	George VI
- 1952-1980¹	Elizabeth II
Governor
- 1923-1928	Sir John Robert Chancellor
- 1959-1969²	Sir Humphrey Gibbs
- 1979-1980	Lord Soames
Premier, then Prime Minister
- 1923-1927	Sir Charles Coghlan
- 1933-1953	Sir Godfrey Huggins
- 1964-1979	Ian Smith
History
- BSAC Charter signed	1889
- Self-governing colony	October 1, 1923 (1923)
- Federation	1953-1963
- UDI	11 November 1965
- Republic declared	3 March 1970
- Zimbabwe Rhodesia	1 June 1979
- Independence	April 17, 1980
Currency	S. Rhodesian Pound Rhodesian pound Rhodesian dollar
¹ After 3 March 1970, position not recognized by Rhodesian government. ² After November 11, 1965, position not recognized by Rhodesian Government.

Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia. Since 1980 and the institution of a majority African government, the area has been renamed Zimbabwe and all traces of former British, Rhodesian, and white rule, laws, property, and nomenclature have been removed as part of President Robert Mugabe's policy of Africanization.

History[link]

Origin as 'Rhodesia'[link]

The territory was originally referred to as 'South Zambezia' but the name 'Rhodesia' came into use in 1895. The designation 'Southern' was adopted in 1901 and dropped from normal usage in 1964 on the break-up of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and Rhodesia became the name of the country until the creation of Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979. Legally, from the British perspective, the name Southern Rhodesia continued to be used until April 18, 1980, when the name Republic of Zimbabwe was formally proclaimed.

Rhodesia was named after Cecil Rhodes, the British empire-builder who was one of the most important figures in British expansion into southern Africa, and who obtained mineral rights in 1888 from the most powerful local traditional leaders through treaties such as the Rudd Concession and the Moffat Treaty signed by King Lobengula of the Ndebele.

The British government agreed that Rhodes' company, the British South Africa Company (BSAC), would administer the territory stretching from the Limpopo to Lake Tanganyika under charter as a protectorate. Queen Victoria signed the charter in 1889. Rhodes used this document in 1890 to justify sending the Pioneer Column, a group of white settlers protected by well-armed British South Africa Police (BSAP) and guided by the big game hunter Frederick Selous, through Matabeleland and into Shona territory to establish Fort Salisbury (now Harare). In 1893-94, with the help of their new maxim guns the BSAP would go on to defeat the Ndebele in the First Matabele War, a war which also resulted in the death of King Lobengula and the death of most of the members of the Shangani Patrol. Shortly after the disastrous Jameson Raid of the BSAP into the Transvaal Republic, the Ndebele were led by their spiritual leader Mlimo against the white colonials and thus began the Second Matabele War (1896–97) which resulted in the extermination of nearly half of the British settlers. After months of bloodshed, Mlimo was found and shot by the American scout Frederick Russell Burnham and soon thereafter Rhodes walked unarmed into the Ndebele stronghold in Matobo Hills and persuaded the impi to lay down their arms, effectively ending the revolt.^[1]

In 1899, a Legislative Council was created for governing civil affairs of the Company, with a minority of elected seats, through which the BSAC had to pass government measures. As the Company was a British institution in which settlers owned and capitalists owned most shares, and local Black African tribal chiefs the remainder, and the electorate to this council was limited to those shareholders, the electorate was almost exclusively white settlers. Over time as more settlers arrived and a growing number had less than the amount of land required to own a share in the company or where in trades supporting the company as workers, successive activism resulted in first increasing the proportion of elected seats, and eventually allowing non-share holders the right to vote in the election. Prior to about 1918, the opinion among the electorate supported continued BSAC rule but opinion changed because of the development of the country and increased settlement. In addition, a decision in the British courts that land not in private ownership belonged to the British crown rather than the BSAC gave great impetus to the campaign for self-government. In the resulting treaty government self-government, Crown lands which were sold to settlers allowed those settlers the right to vote in the self-governing colony.

Adoption of the name 'Southern Rhodesia'[link]

The territory north of the Zambezi, now Zambia, which was the subject of separate treaties with African chiefs, was administered separately by the BSAC as North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia from 1890 and 1897 respectively. The whites in the territory south of the river paid it scant regard though, and generally used the name 'Rhodesia' in a narrow sense to mean their part. The designation 'Southern' was used from 1901, especially when the BSAC merged the administration of the two northern territories as Northern Rhodesia in 1911.

As a result of the various treaties between the BSAC and the black tribes, Acts of Parliament delineating BSAC and Crown Lands, overlapping British colonial commission authority of both areas, the rights of the increasing number of British settlers and their descendents were given secondary review by authorities. This resulted in the formation of new movements for expanding the self-government of the Rhodesian people which saw BSAC rule as an impediment to further expansion.

The Legislative Council election, in 1920, returned a large majority of candidates of the Responsible Government Association and it became clear that BSAC rule was no longer practical. Opinion in Britain and South Africa favoured incorporation of Southern Rhodesia in the Union of South Africa, but, by forcing the pace of negotiation, the Southern Rhodesians obtained unfavourable terms and the electorate backed Responsible Government in a 1922 referendum. Self-government began in October 1923. Charles Patrick John Coghlan was the first Premier of Southern Rhodesia and upon his death in 1927 he was succeeded by Howard Unwin Moffat.

During World War II, The Southern Rhodesian military units participated on the side of the United Kingdom. Specifically, Southern Rhodesian forces were involved in the East African Campaign. Southern Rhodesian forces had the highest loss ratio of any constituent element, colony, dependency, dominion, or nation of the British Empire forces during World War II. Additionally, the Rhodesian pilots earned the highest number of decorations and ace appellation 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 in thanks to the efforts of the Rhodesian people.

Stamp of Southern Rhodesia of 1947, issued for the royal visit in Southern Africa, in April 1947. This 1 penny red figured King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Economically, Southern Rhodesia developed an economy that was narrowly based on the production of a small number of primary products (notably, chrome and tobacco). It therefore became very 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. Following ethnic cleansing campaigns throughout other parts of the European colonial empires in Africa, more numbers of settlers from Belgian Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, and later Angola and Mozambique as well as increased birth rate, raised the Rhodesian population to 600,000 by 1976.

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 British, CAF and Rhodesian governments and some 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 started awarding its own degrees. In 1980 it was renamed the University of Zimbabwe.^[2]

1953–1965[link]

Land apportionment in Rhodesia in 1965

In 1953, with calls for independence mounting in many of its African possessions, the United Kingdom created the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (or the Central African Federation 'CAF'), which consisted of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi, respectively). The idea was to try to steer a middle road between the differing aspirations of the Black Nationalists, the Colonial administration and the White settler population. The CAF sought to emulate the experience of Australia, Canada and South Africa – wherein groups of colonies had been federated together in order to form viable independent nations. Originally designed to be "an indissoluble federation", the CAF quickly started to unravel due to the low proportion of British and other white citizens in relation to the larger Black tribal populations. Additionally, by incorporating the tribes within the Dominion as potential citizens, the Dominion created the paradoxical situation of having a white elite owning most of the land and capital, whilst using cheap black labor. The recipe was ripe for creating a black nationalist movement. Accordingly, in the face of such a movement, it suffered the fate of similar ventures undertaken in the closing days of Empire including the West Indies Federation and East African Community.

The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved on January 1, 1964. However, it was expected that only Nyasaland would be let go, whilst the remainder of Rhodesia both north and south would be united together. Although, Northern Rhodesia had a large white population of over 100,000, as well as additional British military and civil units and their dependents, most of these were relatively new to the region, were primarily in the extraction business, had little landed interests, and were more amenable to allowing black nationalism than the Southern Rhodesians. Accordingly, Northern Rhodesia was granted independence by Britain on 24 October 1964. However, when the new nationalists changed its name to Zambia and began tentatively at first and later in rapid march an Africanization campaign, Southern Rhodesia remained a British colony, resisting attempts to bring in majority rule. The colony attempted to change its name to Rhodesia although this was not recognised by the United Kingdom. The majority of the Federation's military and financial assets went to Southern Rhodesia as (a) the British Government did not wish to see them fall into the hands of the nationalist leaders, and (b) Southern Rhodesia had borne the majority of the costs of running the Federation. With regard to the latter, however, Northern Rhodesia was the wealthiest of the three member states (due to its vast copper mines) and actually contributed more to the overall building of infrastructure than the other two members. Southern Rhodesia, recognising an inevitable dissolution of the Federation, was quick to use federal funds in building up their 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. This situation caused some embarrassment for the Zambian government later when it was a "front line state" in support of insurgents into Rhodesia in that its major source of electric power was controlled by the Rhodesian state.

Return to 'Rhodesia'[link]

With the colony of Northern Rhodesia no longer in existence, in 1964 Southern Rhodesia reverted to the name Rhodesia (see next section).

In 1965, Rhodesia unilaterally declared itself independent under a white-dominated government. After a long civil war between the white government and two African nationalistic organisations (ZIPRA and ZANLA), Britain resumed control for a brief time and then granted independence to the country in 1980, whereupon it became Zimbabwe.

Legal aspects of the name since 1964[link]

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.^[3] On 23 October the Minister of Internal Affairs notified the Press that the Constitution would be amended to make this official. The Legislative Assembly then passed an Interpretation Bill to declare that the colony could be referred to as Rhodesia; the Bill received its third reading on December 9, 1964, and therefore passed to the Governor for assent.

However, no assent was granted to the Bill. The Southern Rhodesia (Annexation) Order in Council 1923, section 3, provided that Southern Rhodesia "shall be known as the Colony of Southern Rhodesia" and the Southern Rhodesia (Constitution) Act 1961 and the Order in Council which followed it both referred to it as such. These were United Kingdom measures and it was ultra vires for the Southern Rhodesian institutions to amend them.^[4]

The Rhodesian government, which had begun using the new name anyway, did not press the issue. The Unilateral Declaration of Independence was in the name of Rhodesia. While the new name was widely used, 'Southern Rhodesia' remained the colony's formal name in United Kingdom constitutional theory: for example, the Act passed by the United Kingdom Parliament declaring the independence a legal nullity was entitled the Southern Rhodesia Act, 1965. When the rebellion was formally declared at an end by the passing of the Constitution of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia (Amendment) (No. 4) Act 1979, the United Kingdom resumed the governance of the colony under the direct control of the Governor under the name of Southern Rhodesia.

See Rhodesia article for information about Southern Rhodesia in 1965-1980.

Evolution of Southern Rhodesia[link]

Evolution of Southern Rhodesia

See also[link]

• Albert John Lutuli, famous South African born in Southern Rhodesia
• Rhodesia
• Zimbabwe
• History of Zimbabwe
• Prime Minister of Rhodesia
• Tati Concessions Land, a region detached from Matebeleland and annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate, now Botswana
• Unilateral Declaration of Independence (Rhodesia)
• Administrative posts of the British South Africa Company in Southern Rhodesia

Bibliography[link]

• Blake, Robert, A History of Rhodesia, New York, Knopf, 1978. ISBN 978-0-394-48068-8

References[link]

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