Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire. What a dream, but yet it is probable, it is…
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Cecil Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes PC (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British businessman, mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his British South Africa Company founded the southern African territory of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895. South Africa's Rhodes University is also named after him. Rhodes set up the provisions of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate, and put much effort towards his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory. The son of a vicar, Rhodes grew up in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, and was a sickly child. He was sent to South Africa by his family when he was 17 years old in the hope that the climate might improve his health. He entered the diamond trade at Kimberley in 1871, when he was 18, and over the next two decades gained near-complete domination of the world diamond market. His De Beers diamond company, formed in 1888, retains its prominence into the 21st century. Rhodes entered the Cape Parliament in 1880, and a decade later became Prime Minister. After overseeing the formation of Rhodesia during the early 1890s, he was forced to resign as Prime Minister in 1896 after the disastrous Jameson Raid, an unauthorised attack on Paul Kruger's South African Republic (or Transvaal
I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under…
Africa is still lying ready for us, it is our duty to take it. It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes.
I’m far too busy to have a wife and children. What would I know about nappies and so forth? No, no – I prefer to build empires rather than families!
I wanted to conquer Rhodesia because I truly believe that Africa would be happier, richer and safer as part of the British Empire. People say that this empire-building was all about ‘taking’ and ‘stealing’: but life in Rhodesia was very good – even for the people we conquered.
For a little while I made myself Prime Minister of South Africa, but I find politics very slow and boring really.
Personally, I’ve never killed anyone in my life. I’ve never even shot a lion! But when I hear that people are resisting British rule, what am I supposed to say to my soldiers?
People say I ‘stole’ gold and diamonds from Africa – but before I got there no one seemed to show interest in these natural resources. Besides, every single rock and nugget of gold I took out of the ground I had a legal right to: I bought the land from the colonial government – and, remember, I also…
When I left England for the first time in 1871 much of the world had already been colonised by Britain: Australia in 1770; India in 1757, and Canada in 1763. South Africa, however, was only partly controlled by Britain, and I saw this as a place where I might become as famous as Captain Cook, Robert…
I wish these history teachers would be more accurate! I did not ‘conquer South Africa’ – I conquered the land to the north of the present country of South Africa: a place that was named, in my honour, Rhodesia.
The marvelous thing about England is her luck.
Wherever you turn your eye—except in science—an Oxford man is at the top of the tree.
Having read the histories of other countries, I saw that expansion was everything, and that the world’s surface being limited, the great object of present humanity should be to take as much of the world as it possibly could. I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the…
So little done, so much to do.
Ask any man what nationality he would prefer to be, and ninety nine out of a hundred will tell you that they would prefer to be Englishmen.
...you are an Englishman, and have subsequently drawn the greatest prize in the lottery of life.
I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race...If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible...
In order to save the forty million inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, our colonial statesmen must acquire new lands for settling the surplus population of this country, to provide new markets... The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question.
To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where…