“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.” [George Orwell]
IN 1891, Rhodes became prime minister of the Cape Colony, a position he would hold for the next five years. Addressing the Cape Parliament, Rhodes proclaimed: “If you were to sleep for five and twenty years, you might find a gentleman called your prime minister sitting in Cape Town and controlling the whole, not only to the Zambezi but to Lake Tanganyika.”
Now known as the “Colossus,” he initiated railway systems that ran from the Cape through the Orange State of the Boers. But before this venture got underway, matters within the Cape Colony remained to be settled. The discovery of seemingly limitless gold reserves in Witwatersrand brought thousands of “Uitlanders” (“foreigners”) to the Transvaal, which remained under the rule of the “Boers” (Dutch settlers).