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.
Cecil John Rhodes
(
5 July
1853
?
26 March
1902
) was a British mining
magnate
and politician in
southern Africa
who served as
Prime Minister of the Cape Colony
from 1890 to 1896. He 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. In his last will, he provided for the establishment of the prestigious international
Rhodes Scholarship
at
Oxford University
, the oldest graduate scholarship in the world.
The world is nearly all parcelled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of these stars that you 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 clear and yet so far.
- Equal rights for all civilized men south of the Zambesi.
- Gordon Le Sueur,
Cecil Rhodes the Man and His Work
(1913: 2009), pg. 76
- Le Sueur states that Rhodes originally said, c. 1893: "Equal rights every
white
man south of the Zambesi", as reported in the press, and he later "clarified" it.
- The world is nearly all parcelled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of these stars that you 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 clear and yet so far.
- Quoted in
The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes
(1902) by William T. Stead (a compilation of Rhodes' legal will and other biographical material)
- 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 the means of livelihood are attainable by
energy
,
labour
and
enterprise
, and especially the occupation by
British settlers
of the entire
Continent of Africa
, the
Holy Land
, the
Valley of the Euphrates
, the Islands of
Cyprus
and
Candia
, the whole of
South America
, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the
Malay Archipelago
, the seaboard of
China
and
Japan
, the ultimate recovery of the
United States of America
as an integral part of the
British Empire
, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the
Imperial Parliament
which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity.
- 1877 will, quoted in
Cecil Rhodes
by John Flint
- 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.
- 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.
- You are an
Englishman
, and have subsequently drawn the
greatest
prize in the lottery of life.
- The native is to be treated as a child and denied
franchise
. We must adopt a system of despotism, such as works in
India
, in our relations with the barbarism of
South Africa
.
- Magubane, Bernard M. (1996). The Making of a Racist State: British Imperialism and the Union of South Africa, 1875?1910. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press.
ISBN 978-0865432413
.
- Pure philanthropy is very well in its way but philanthropy plus five percent is a good deal better.
- Attributed by J. C. Johari,
Voices of Indian Freedom Movement
(1993), Anmol Publications,
ISBN 9788171582259
, p. 207
- We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.
Quotes about Cecil Rhodes
[
edit
]
- When Cecil Rhodes sent in his agents to rob and steal in
Zimbabwe
, they and other
Europeans
marveled at the surviving ruins of the
Zimbabwe culture
, and automatically assumed that it had been built by white people. Even today there is still a tendency to consider the achievements with a sense of wonder rather than with the calm acceptance that it was a perfectly logical outgrowth of human social development within Africa, as part of the universal process by which man’s labor opened up new horizons. The sense of reality can only be restored by making it clear that the
architecture
rested on a foundation of advanced
agriculture
and
mining
, which had come into existence over centuries of
evolution
.
- I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake.
- There are two roads to progress: Railroads and Cecil Rhodes.