Cecil Rhodes

"'The world is nearly all parceled out, and what is left of it is being divided, conquered and colonised. 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 yet from so far.' - Cecil Rhodes" Cecil John Rhodes PC (5, July, 1853 - 26, March, 1902) was a British businessman, colonialist, diplomat, philosopher, politician and statesman. During his career, Rhodes served as a Member of Parliament, Managing Director of the British South Africa Company and fifth Prime Minister of the Colony of Cape Good Hope.

Rhodes' administration abolished slavery and sharecropping, deployed forces during the Second Anglo-Ndebele War, established land reserves for Bantu tribes, expanded Britain's South African colonies, imposed a tax on unemployed Africans, instituted a system of racial segregation, limited the electoral franchise to British and Dutch settlers and supported the failed raid on the Republic of South Africa.

Rhodes' company annexed the Kingdom of Barotseland and the territories of the Tswana peoples of southwest Africa, coordinated a programme of colonial settlement in the Colony of Southern Rhodesia, deployed forces during the First and Second Anglo-Ndbele Wars, conquering the Kingdom of Ndbeleland and defeating King Lobengula, established the Royal Rhodesian Mounted Police and the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Council, expelled Bantu tribes from annexed regions, founded the colonies of Northern and Southern Rhodesia, oversaw the construction of intercolonial railways and telegraphs extending from the Colony of Cape Good Hope to the Colony Northern Rhodesia and utilized paramilitary forces to suppress the Arab slave trade north of the Zambezi River.

Rhodes personally authored the Land Tenure Act of 1894 and the Franchise and Ballot Act of 1892, limiting the electoral franchise to British and Dutch settlers, commanded the British South Africa Company's paramilitary forces during the Second Anglo-Ndebele War and the Siege of Kimberly, founded the British South Africa Company and De Beers Mining Company and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the British South Africa Company.