WEBVTT - Part Two: Cecil Rhodes: The First Proud Boy 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:07.800 M. Welcome back to Behind the Bastards legally the only podcast. Um, 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:12.520 We've we've achieved our domination of global media, and it 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.000 is now a felony to operate any other podcast on 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:22.520 the Internet. So stuck on that, losers. Yeah, we imperialized podcasts. 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:26.520 Hold on, let me just at the period catch. I'm 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.560 about to throw you a diamond through the iPad M. Yeah, 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:35.560 that's a flesh. I also just date some potatoes. I apologize. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:40.559 He also just ate some potatoes. He apologizes properly. How 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:42.720 are you still doing? How are you feeling after part one? 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:50.640 You know, Yeah, I feel the way I think everyone 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:57.320 every guest feels after slightly defeated, feeling like I knew 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:00.960 this but I didn't know it. And my day is 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:06.520 great because I enjoyed talking to y'all. But yeah, but 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.240 also like the feeling between part one and part two 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:11.560 of every episode of this podcast, you just know that 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:14.479 it's going to get worse. It's all you get worse. Yeah, 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.800 you're just like impending you guys got a two day break, Yes, 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:25.280 impending doom. But also I'm still thinking about him flashing 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:30.080 his diamonds at parties. Just the flex of that, Like 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.400 I can't get that image out of my head and 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.640 how I feel about it. It's so hard to process 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.480 how I feel about that because it's he sucks, but 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:44.440 it's so fucking cool. But like, yeah, got to respect 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:51.400 the hustle sometimes rest like goddamn, okay, yeah so uh. 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:54.240 In that last episode, I didn't go into overwhelming detail 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.360 about all of the Cape Colony politicking, but Cecil engaged in. 0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:59.760 But he was not just building a business, going to 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:01.760 you know, getting to know people within the sort of 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:05.000 the Empire's political strata. A lot of his friends would 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.680 be very influential. Um. The parties that they would go 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.320 to when he was back, you know home in in 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.320 in England were often held at like a Nancy Astor's house. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.960 Miss Astor, who was like this this fairy fancy. She 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.160 was a very big figure and sort of like the 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:23.799 Victorian era of British high society. Uh, and later became 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:25.880 a backer of the Nazis. If you've ever heard that 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.600 that story about like Winston Churchill, where like some lady 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.720 walks up to him and says, um is that yeah 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.280 you uh no, no, it's the um uh. If she 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.359 was like if if you were my husband, I would 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:39.480 do something or other and he says like, yeah, I'd 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.320 kill you. And if I were if you were my husband, 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.120 if you were my wife, I'd let you. Is more 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.280 or less how it goes. Yeah, So she's like one 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.360 of his confidants when she's younger. Like a lot of 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.840 people who go on to run the empire, um are 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.400 friends of Cecil's in in his younger life. So he's 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.320 politicking with that set of people. And by the way, 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.359 a decent chunk of them. Mind up backing the not season, 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:04.880 you know, the whole World War two period, um and uh, 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.280 but back in the Cape Colony, he's also he's getting 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.200 very directly involved in politics. He's not just meeting people, 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:12.959 he's he's getting he's into he gets he's getting elected 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.240 to parliament. He's like he's he's doing politics in the 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.000 Cape Colony and he becomes very very successful at it. 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:23.000 He's very good at being a politician. Um. So yeah, 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.920 that's that's happening during this whole period that we were 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.160 talking about last episode. UM. One of his very first 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.960 political forays happened in eighteen eighty three when he was 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.040 a member of the Cape Parliament. Boers from the Transvaal 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.480 had conquered some of the land of an African chief 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.080 named men kurwani Uh, and they proclaimed their conquest to 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.560 be a new republic Stella Land. Now they were not 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.160 the only white guys out there who were like creating 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.560 countries via machine gun. Another group of Boers conquered and 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.040 declared a republic nearby a few months earlier. So like 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.080 this was happening a number of times, and Cecil hated it, 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:58.440 not because it was wrong for them to steal the 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.840 land of African tribes, but because all these new republics 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.400 disturbed his dream of a South Africa united under the 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:10.040 English colors or under British colors, whatever um And the 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.320 founder Rotberg writes, I saw that this is his speech 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.520 to the Parliament. I solemnly wore in this house that 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:17.839 if it departs from the control of the interior, we 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.680 shall fall from the position of the paramount state in 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.599 South Africa, which is our right in every scheme of 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.600 federal union in the future, to that of a minor state. 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.200 What we now want, Rhodes urged his colleagues in a 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:36.520 memorable phrase, is to annex land, not natives. That's that's 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:44.479 a key phrase interesting. Yeah. Roads made it clear that 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:49.520 he was quote no negro phillist, like that is a word, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.440 because people accused him because he wasn't like overtly physically 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.080 cruel to his workers. He was accused of being a 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.359 negro file. That was a term they used. That was 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:03.360 like a word that you like file. Yeah. And here 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.159 he's defending himself by saying, I'm not a negro philist, 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.320 and I hold the distinct view that we must extend 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.760 our civilization beyond our present borders. We don't need any 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:13.680 of them on the land that they currently own. We 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:18.039 just need the land. Um. And I don't want your wallets. 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.280 I don't, I don't, I don't want your I just 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:25.400 want to land bro dag. Now he urged the Parliament 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.000 to basically carry out a military action against the whites 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.160 of Stella Land, the bowers who would who would usurped 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.239 Mankawan Land? But he didn't want to give the land back, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.200 and he wrote or he he said, the natives abound 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.960 gradually to come under the control of the Europeans. I 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.760 feel that it is the duty of this colony. Then, 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.320 as it were, her younger and more fiery sons go 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.200 out and take land to follow in their steps with 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.120 civilized government. That's the purpose of fiery young men is 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.479 to go out and take land. Yeah. I still you know, 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:55.720 that's part of like my history that's unclear is like, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:57.880 you know, I knew those British colonies, that I knew 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.640 those Dutch colonies, but it ended up the Dutch end 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.839 up getting it. I just don't know how that happened. 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:10.560 Is Yeah, So the first first Bowler war happens, I 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:12.560 think not that long after he comes to Africa in 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:14.040 the first place, and it's pretty small. I think like 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.880 three people die. Um, but there is fighting and on 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.840 kind of between the British and between the Boers, um, 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.599 and they're both really shitty to the natives. I should like, 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.520 this isn't a good guy, bad guy. You're fighting over 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.440 a house that ain't yours. Yeah, I stole it fair 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.960 and square. Yeah. In this instance, like he failed, like 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.880 he urged the Cape Colony to basically like send out 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.080 a military force to attack these new republics, and he 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.240 did not succeed in that. Um. The government of the 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:44.760 Empire from one thing was like we don't really want 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:46.800 to get involved in this. We already have enough land. 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:48.800 Down there, like, and that's one of the things you see. 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.800 Cecil once more land than the people actually running the 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.440 British Empire wanted to have, because he's getting it too fast. 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.200 He's acquiring it too quickly, and they're like, we can't, like, 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.880 we can't digest all of this. It's actually kind of 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.400 a strain on our resources to try to govern it. 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.440 His his attempt to take both these republics by force fails. 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.480 But the treaty that comes as a result of this 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.760 between the Empire and the Transvaal gives Britain responsibility for 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:16.000 a vast chunk of land north of the Cape Colony uh, 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.760 a lot of what would become Zimbabwe um. And this 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.280 is obviously land that they get responsibility for in this 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.080 treaty that other people live in and are governing themselves 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.200 in at the time. So we're already a country, guys, don't, Yeah, 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:34.640 what's happening. Yeah. In eighteen nineties, Cecil was elected Prime 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.280 Minister of the Cape Colony. So at this point he's 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.880 like he is he is the power in in Southern Africa. 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.600 He controls the most powerful political entity in the region 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.760 um and he also is again personal owner of most 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.680 of the world's diamonds. So he's hit his zenith here. 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:55.720 After almost twenty years of methodically building power, Rhodes is 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.239 ready to launch his first major attempt to unine Southern Africa, 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.120 which is of course a precursor to taking all of 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.640 Africa for the British Empire. So in eighteen ninety he 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.360 forms the British South Africa Company, which is an umbrella 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:11.880 business that he uses to coordinate all of his enterprises. 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:13.760 He's one of the first guys to start setting up 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.920 shell companies. Um. Some of what he does is to 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.800 like make fake false competition over diamonds, to like drive 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.560 up the price of diamonds. It also is what he 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.160 does if you think back to our Wonga coup episode 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.440 or anything on on on Eric Prince. He uses this 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:33.280 company to buy a mercenary army. Um. Yeah, And I 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.320 want to read a quote from a book called The 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.000 Heartless Stone, which is about the diamond trade by Tom Sohlner. 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:41.360 Quote by Rhodes's own admission, the company aimed to do 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.600 more than mine diamonds. In fact, it aimed to annex 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:49.120 other African nations, conduct diplomacy with local chiefs, build railroads, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:53.000 raise a standing army and even wage war. De Beers 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.000 was a law to itself and accountable to no one. 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.480 So again, the South British South Africa Company and De 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:01.480 Beers as essentially the same thing in this period because 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.520 they're run by the same guy. It's just it's a 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:07.240 shell company, you know, it's it's yeah, it's so crazy too, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.000 like to just like you know why we talked in 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.120 the first episode about this, like like these people live 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:17.960 on another planet and in that planet, it's like controlling 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:24.360 all of the money and resources ain't enough. You still 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.360 got to become prime minister, you know what I'm saying 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.959 Like that, you like how you in college, then you 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.800 ain't gotta be in college? You know with pocket diamonds, 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.040 do you expect them from pocket diamonds? Guy? This is 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:41.080 this seems on par It's very saying like that is 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.720 the we know, like that is the on that is 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.040 the next step is you want to get in political power. 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:50.320 It's like why, like do you It's never enough. It's 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:55.280 never ever enough, never enough. Um, now here's the thing. 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:59.240 So he uh, this this period of time, like the 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:05.840 it's not popular or appropriate anymore for a corporation to 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.720 have an army in the traditional sense of the word, 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:10.960 because the British East India Company has kind of run 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.640 into some a lot of that ended very ugly in 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.800 Afghanistan and in chunks of India. Um So, but he 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.920 buys an army. He just calls them police. Um So, 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.760 he gets about a seven hundred man army with machine guns, 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.040 field artillery. It is an army, but he calls them police. 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:30.960 And he puts together a group of two hundred settlers 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:33.160 and he sends them into a place called Mashona Land, 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.880 which is roughly present day Zimbabwe, in order to search 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.599 for gold. And he sends his army in not to 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:42.839 invade Mashona Land, but to protect the settlers, because that's 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:49.320 what police do is they protect man. There is nothing 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:53.480 new man, nothing. I mean, it's kind of new then. 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:58.160 But yeah, I was just gonna protect you. Yeah, We're 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.800 just going to protect, to serve and protect you, not them. 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.120 So they picked Mashona Land because it was much more 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.280 weakly defended than its neighbor to the south, Mata Belly Land, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:10.960 which was governed by a king named Loban Goula, who 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.520 they to whom the people in Mahona Land owed fealty. 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.520 So they were part of Loban Goula's kind of empire. 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:18.560 But this is not really a country in the traditional 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.720 sense of the term. It's systems of influence between different 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.559 groups of tribes that are mostly autonomous, but like the 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.480 Mashona will pay tribute to Loban Goula and he's yeah, 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:31.800 like anyway, it's it's it's yeah. Um. So Rhads in 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.880 Great Britain successfully negotiate a treaty with Loban Goula which 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.920 guaranteed them mineral rights to the territory. And this is 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:39.560 going on for a couple of years before he becomes 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.480 Prime Minister. Um. And the way that the treaty is 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.600 negotiated becomes a problem for Rhodes because it's only mineral 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:49.000 rights and his real ambition is to found a new country, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.160 which he doesn't have the right to do, but he 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.080 plays along for the sake of legal nicety. And if 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:57.880 you've paid attention to any thing written accurately about colonialism, 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:02.280 you know what a treaty between white people and native Yeah, yeah, 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:08.720 their placeholders for guns. Yeah, except for I guess recently, 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.439 we did make good. The Supreme Court made us make 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:13.839 good on exactly one of the treaties we made with 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:15.719 the Native Americans here in the United States, which is 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.720 why like half of Oklahoma is now not under federal 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:22.520 law enforcement, juristiction or something. I don't fully understand the situation, 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.080 but it's something like that. Like there was a treaty 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:26.920 that they signed and they were like, look, we have 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.440 this in the Supreme Court had to be like, yeah, 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:31.600 we have to actually take this series, we have to 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:38.080 do this. Yeah. So good Oklahoma, So yeah, half of 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.280 it at least. So the colonists quickly established a capital 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.120 h Salisbury Um and they found our Salisbury whatever, and 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.320 they found the land to be fertile. But they gradually 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.120 realized that there was no gold there, which was a 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.720 problem again because they don't have rights to anything else, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.480 only the minerals um. And it meant that because there 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:58.360 wasn't gold, his company is burning through Da Beer's capital 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:00.600 without anything to make up for the losses, and by 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.640 the first year they're out by seven hundred thousand pounds. 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:05.880 So they start taking austerity measures. He has to cut 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:07.840 most of the police force and shutters a lot of 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.280 the administrative functions, which he shouldn't have been doing. Anyway, 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.359 because this isn't allowed to be a country, but he's 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.600 treating it as one. You're unnecessary in the first place, 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.959 But everything that comes next is very complicated, which is 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:22.480 often the case when the Britain acquired chunks of Africa. 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.400 It's it's not often less often is it just naked 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.680 force invading, than it is a series of much more 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.760 limited military engagements and then extensive treaties, and then settlements 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:34.360 come in and then there's a fight, and then there's 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.360 a military engagement more and they just keep eating more 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.240 and more. And that's kind of what happens here. Um. 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:43.600 Naked force is always a part of it, but there's 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.320 also a lot of political maneuvering and negotiation to make 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.480 the rank theft of land seem legal because the British 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:50.800 are like a law loving people. They want to believe 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:55.920 that they're they're going about this properly. Um. The short 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.960 of it all is that King Loban Goula basically sold 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.880 all of the land, right. It's that he had to 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.320 a Boer named Lippert as part of a complex ploy 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.520 to try to play the Boers against the British, because 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:09.000 you can't think of any other way to fight them, 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:11.319 and this doesn't work out. It backfires because none of 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.040 the white people that loban Goula was negotiating with gave 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.280 a shit about abiding by their words. So Lipperts sold 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.120 the claim to Rhodes, who starts selling land occupied by 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:21.720 the Mashona to white settlers and then pocketing the profit 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:26.600 for de beers. The Indigenous People's Act obviously got nothing um. 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.160 So in eighteen ninety three, this leads to an invasion 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.200 of Mashona land by King loban Goula, and his justification 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.680 is that they'd stopped paying him tribute because the white 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.040 guys had taken taken over. So Rhodes uses this invasion 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.920 as a justification to just kind of take everything um. 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.160 And the battles that followed were all absolute nightmares. So 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:49.160 he sends an actual British regular Forces to help fight 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.000 alongside his police forces. And there you know, these are 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:56.320 armies of modern armies with machine guns and field artillery 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.040 uh going up against African armies with the best kind 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:03.040 of antique rifle um. And again it's just a nightmare. 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:04.600 All of these battles at the Battle of they're not 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.520 even really battles at the Battle of Ego Dodd, for example, UM, 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.320 six thousand African soldiers attacked a column of several hundred whites. 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.360 In ten minutes, eight hundred Africans were dead and three 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:20.760 Englishmen were killed. UM and even these profoundly racist colonial 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.200 soldiers were shocked by the bravery of African warriors charging 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.680 these machine gun lines in the way the British soldiers 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:28.520 would be doing a couple of decades later, during World 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.240 War One. UM, one of these soldiers later wrote, it 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.160 was a nasty ten minutes, especially as the Matta Bali 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:37.560 shooting with the rifles was much better than it had been, 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.000 and they came on with wonderful courage to within eight 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.520 yards of the wagons. Because all the fighting they're building 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.600 wagons circles and just shooting out. It made one realize 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.880 what what those terrible machine guns mean. It must have 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.120 required extraordinary courage to come up the hill against the fire. 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:54.680 And again, one of the things that's interesting here is 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.040 if you if you read about Western soldiers in this 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.480 they there's always there's kind of in satements like this, 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.200 you can read this dawning realization that like will be 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:07.560 running into those machine guns. One of these kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.000 you can't. Yeah, you can't work in that field and 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.360 not know someone's there's always a bigger gun. Yeah, which 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.440 I'm sure I know a lot of US soldiers who 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:21.760 have been in Afghanistan and Iraq know about drones. Yes, yes, yes, so. 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.840 The Times correspondent, who was embedded with the British forces, 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.080 also hailed the gallantry of the men he had just 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.520 seen die, quote as showing their tenacity. I may mention 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:32.960 that many were found three thousand yards away from the 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:37.000 spot where they had received their death wound. Um, but 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.400 you know, toughness, courage, it doesn't really matter when the 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:45.720 other side has yeah. Uh, you know they had the 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.800 maximum gun. You know, that's what happened. Whatever happens, we 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:50.880 have got the maxim gun and they have not. So 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.280 after several bloody defeats, Loban Goula eventually fled north with 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.680 most of his remaining soldiers. And I think he killed himself, um, 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.520 you know, poisoned himself. There's some debate about that from 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.800 what I can read. And of course, now that all 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.639 of this land has been conquered, white settlers flood into 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.960 the areas. Uh. They decide early that the original African 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.760 names of these places. We're not going to do um. 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:17.120 Starting in eighteen ninety one, the name Rhodesia grew increasingly popular, 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.800 and Cecil encouraged this, as there's evidence that had been 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.600 his plan for sometimes for years before the invasion, to 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.080 name both of these new illegally conquered nations after himself. 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.840 By eighteen nine five the term was in regular use, 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.640 and in eighteen nineties seven it became official. So there's 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.840 two rhodes Is. Actually there's Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.760 and both become the personal property of Cecil rhodes Um. 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.639 When asked about this, he told a friend, well, you know, 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:43.879 to have a bit of country named after one is 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.760 one of the things a man might be proud of. You. 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:52.400 You know what, Broke likes his pocket diamonds. Now he's 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.399 got pocket rhodes Now he's got And I think he 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.639 is the only person in history who has ever personally 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:03.879 owned two countries named after him. And you look, not 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.280 in his honor is not named after his in his 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:11.199 honor is mad and is he is? And he and 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:18.480 he named it. Lord, I can't oh m, that's just Lord, 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:27.320 give me the confidence and just success of mediocre white guys. Yep, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.520 if I could just be as wow that man anyway, 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:39.439 naked confidence, naked confidence and reckless ambition. Yeah, good stuff. 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.560 Who says you can't? Yeah, you like, what do you 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.200 tell that guy? What do you talk about me? You can't? Bro? 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.399 Like what if? What if you were in seventh says 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.680 you can't? Exactly where you can't? Yeah? What are you 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:54.639 in seventh grade with him? And you're just like and 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:57.760 he like beat you in like freaking kickball, and you're like, 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.160 I just I just don't. I just want this guy 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.479 to lose. And then you run into him at like 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.240 a pub in London. He's got two countries. Yeah, He's 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.600 like yeah ah, and you're such a piece of ship. 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:15.040 Yeah yeah yeah, and he as racists like to point out, 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.080 because again, this guy is beloved by racists. He did. 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.320 Rhodes did a lot of lovely things to to connect 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.560 and modernize Africa. He had telegraph cables laid from Cape 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.800 Town to Cairo. He had train tracks laid across the continent. 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:32.600 There's the most famous illustration of him is a political 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:35.760 cartoon that you've almost certainly seen, where he's he's standing 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.600 as like a giant caricature of him is standing in 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.399 the center of the continent of Africa with like telegraph 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.480 cables across him, and it's called the New Colossus of Rhodes. 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:49.720 Um and yeah, that's like that, that's his reputation in 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.800 this period of time. Um. Yeah. And and he's doing this, 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.000 he's putting all this together to connect to the continent 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.919 because connecting it will prepare it for British control and 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.159 prepare it to have a unified culture under the Anglo 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:04.439 Saxon race, which is what he wants for Africa and 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:09.000 everywhere that's not Africa. Um. So he conquers other people, 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.520 including them out of l a people. Um and he yeah, 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:16.320 it's it's uh, it's it's horrible. He could. He's doing 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:18.639 a lot of conquering and he's he's in the field 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:20.840 for a significant amount of this. He's not like fighting, 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:23.840 but he's following his armies along. He's in attent. He 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.320 loves doing this. He loves being on the ground and 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.919 being sort of feeling the dust and his lungs and 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:34.720 being a part of it. Um. Yeah, yeah, it's it's 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:36.920 it's the same as like those people who like sat 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:38.960 up on a hill to watch the battles in the 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.679 Civil War, you know, except for he wants to be 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:44.159 directing that ship and he doesn't want there to be 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.080 a chance that the people fighting back will win. It's 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.080 a movie. Yeah. So while all this is going on, 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:52.800 the Mighty de Beer's company was still chugging right along. 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.400 Cecil had gained almost complete control over the Diamonds planets 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.480 diamond supply so quickly and improved production so much that 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.120 he ran into a problem. There were too many diamonds. 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:04.720 It turned out that the little bastards are actually pretty common. 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:06.720 In order to avoid a collapse in the value of 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:08.920 the mineral that was funding his illegal wars of expansion, 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:12.760 Cecil hatched a scheme. So he starts laying off thousands 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:14.960 and thousands of his workers, and he creates a bunch 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.919 of policies that inflated the price of diamonds that restricted 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.119 the supply artificially. He's one of the first guys. He 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:24.080 creates artificial scarcity. I shouldn't say he's one of the 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.040 first guys, because we talked about in our Birth of 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:30.439 Capitalism episode, the first corporation that ever existed traveled to 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.199 the Spice islands, committed genocide and then killed all of 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:36.359 the nutmeg on every island but the one that they 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:38.640 had their farms on in order to that's the scar 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:45.119 This this is the Dutch the Dutch East Um India Company, 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.360 I think it was. This is before even that. Yeah, 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.880 maybe you listen to the episode, I get it right there. Um. 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:56.360 But yeah, So he creates artificial scarcity for the diamond 0:21:57.160 --> 0:21:59.439 for diamonds because he realizes that's the only way to 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.320