Cecil Rhodes

"'The world is nearly all parceled out and what is left of it is being colonised, conquered and divided. To think of the stars we see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clearly and yet from so far.' - Cecil Rhodes"Cecil John Rhodes PC (5, July, 1853 - 26, March, 1902) was a British colonial administrator, businessman, diplomat, guerrilla, land developer, mining magnate, politician, soldier and statesman. During his career, Rhodes served as first Director of the British South Africa Company & the fifth Prime Minister of the Colony of Cape Hope. He was administrator and founder of the Colonies of North and South Rhodesia.

Rhodes' administration annexed the Pondoland and Xhosaland territories to the British Empire sanctioned by the authority of Empress Victoria, deployed military forces to Ndebeleland and Transvaal during the Second Anglo-Ndebele War and the First Anglo-Boer War in the service of Queen Victoria, established the Legislative Council of Southern Rhodesia and the Royal Rhodesian Mounted Police, expelled African tribes from annexed regions, imposed a tax on unemployed status Africans, instituted a system of racial segregation, limited the electoral franchise to British and Dutch settlers, oversaw the construction of electric telegraphs, public railways and public roads and prohibited sharecropping and slave trading.

Rhodes' company annexed the territories of Ndebeleland and Tswanaland to the British Empire sanctioned by the authority of the royal charter of the British South Africa Company, deployed paramilitary forces to the Ndebeleland and Transvaal regions during the First and Second Anglo-Ndebele Wars and the First Anglo-Boer War in service of Queen Victoria, deposed the Inkosi Lobengula from the throne of the Umbuso of Ndebeleland, founded the colonies of North and Southern Rhodesia, managed a colonial settlement programme in the Colony of Southern Rhodesia and utilized paramilitary forces to suppress the Arab slave trade north of the Zambezi River.

Rhodes personally commanded the British South Africa Company's paramilitary forces during the Second Anglo-Ndebele War, the Siege of Kimberly and the company's anti-slavery campaigns, drafted the Land Tenure Act of 1894 and the Franchise and Ballot Act of 1892, restricting the electoral franchise to British and Dutch settlers, established royally administrated land reservations for African tribes and the Rhodes Scholarship for Anglo-Saxon students throughout the Empire at Oxford University, founded the British South Africa Company and the De Beers Mining Company and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the British South Africa Company.