RODESIA

RHODESIA. -

I. GEOGRAPHY

This is the name given to the great (1.1 million sq. km.) inland region of southern Africa, situated between the middle Limpopo (Transvaal) to the south, Mozambique and Nyasaland to the east, Tanganyika and the Belgian Congo to the north, and Angola and Bechuanaland to the west. The name derives from that of Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), who succeeded in extending British influence over these territories as early as 1890, having discovered their extraordinary wealth and foreseen their assured future.

Rhodesia does not form a single political unit but two distinct ones: Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, separated by the course of the middle Zambezi from Sambala to Zumbo. The former is almost twice as large as the latter and consists overall of a high plateau averaging over 1,000 m. in elevation, in which there are extensive low-lying areas (the courses of the Zambezi, its tributaries the Kafue and Luangwa, and the Chambesi-Lupula), while the northernmost zones rise to over 2,600 m. Southern Rhodesia, enclosed between the Kalahari and the Inyangani Mountains, is also formed by a series of plateaus, which in the central zone maintain an altitude of around 1,200 m. The climate has a subequatorial character (tempered by altitude), more pronounced in Northern Rhodesia, where rainfall is also more abundant and conditions for white settlement are less favourable due to the presence of areas infested by malaria and tsetse fly.

The recent colonization of Rhodesia has increasingly revealed its immense and varied resources. Agriculture has good prospects, both for cereals and, even more so, for coffee, tobacco, cotton, peanuts, and fruit trees. Forestry can also yield good profits, but livestock farming (2.7 million head of cattle in Southern Rhodesia) is even more promising and already allows for a large export of meat. However, the true wealth of the two Rhodesias lies underground, containing coal, gold, iron, silver, asbestos, tungsten, platinum, chromium (Southern Rhodesia), copper, zinc, lead, vanadium, tin, manganese (Northern Rhodesia), etc., in quantities and locations such that a grand-scale industrial development can be foreseen in the not-too-distant future. Indeed, industries are already in full swing (steelworks, refineries, chemical products, fertilizers, textiles, etc.), but their more rational expansion is conditioned by the solution of two essential problems of Rhodesia: the influx of labour and the availability of adequate outlets for production.

The indigenous population consists of Bantu Negroes, mostly pagan. Europeans number fewer than 150,000, of whom only 23,000 are in Northern Rhodesia. Settlements are still sparse and small: only Salisbury and Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia exceed 50,000 inhabitants.

Northern Rhodesia is a protectorate with a government appointed by the Crown, which heads two councils, one legislative and one executive, partly elected; Southern Rhodesia, which has been a colony since 1923 and enjoys greater autonomy, tends toward the status of a Dominion, to which Northern Rhodesia and other units of British Central-Southern Africa might eventually be added.

---

RHODESIA - 1) State or colonial boundaries; 2) ecclesiastical circumscription boundaries; 3) railways.

---

RHODESIA. -

II. HISTORY

The territory that later became known as Rhodesia began to attract European interest in the mid-19th century, when the gold rush in the Transvaal spread northward. The region, which had long been of interest to Europeans due to its mineral wealth, was then part of the indigenous kingdom of the Matabele and constituted an exceedingly important zone for the further expansion of British influence on the continent. Its occupation by the Boers would have shattered the British dream of uniting the Cape Colony and the Bechuanaland Protectorate with the British territories of East Africa and would have isolated British possessions in the southernmost tip of the continent. Fearing that the Boers of the Transvaal might invade Matabeleland, Cecil Rhodes, through an emissary named Moffat, concluded a treaty in 1888 with Lobengula, king of the Matabele, by which the indigenous ruler agreed not to cede his territories to others without British consent. The following year, Rhodes obtained from the British government the recognition of the British South Africa Company (of which he was one of the directors), with the purpose of exploiting and administering Matabeleland and Mashonaland. Its sphere of activity was vaguely defined as the region north of the Cape Colony and west of the Portuguese dominions in East Africa, but as early as 1891 the Company extended its influence north of the Zambezi River, and thus into what is now Northern Rhodesia. After the great Matabele uprising in 1896, white settlement developed in Rhodesia, favoured by mineral wealth and soil fertility. When the concession of the British South Africa Company expired in 1915, it was extended for another ten years due to the outbreak of the First World War, until in 1923 and 1924 the two Rhodesias attained colonial status. Subsequently, Southern Rhodesia achieved significant political autonomy, approaching the status of a Dominion within the Commonwealth, and in 1948 its Prime Minister, Sir Godfrey Huggins, attended the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in London. Northern Rhodesia, whose borders were precisely defined in 1911, also came under direct Crown administration, represented by a Governor-General assisted in his administrative duties by an Executive Council. The discovery in 1931 of particularly rich copper deposits helped to promote white immigration and highlighted the need to implement measures for the indigenous population, both in terms of their participation in the government of the region and in terms of favourable social legislation. Currently, the union of the two Rhodesias with the Nyasaland territory is being promoted. In 1944, the Central African Council was therefore established, composed of the governors of the three territories, the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, and nine members (three from each territory). In February 1949, at a conference between representatives of the three territories, the possibility of creating a federation on the Australian model was extensively discussed.

---

RHODESIA. -

III. EVANGELIZATION

The first missionary in what is now Southern Rhodesia, namely in the Kingdom of Monomotapa, was the Jesuit Gonçalo da Silveira in 1560, who succeeded in converting the reigning prince and several chiefs. On 15 March 1561, he fell victim to the intrigues of the Moors at court. A punitive expedition launched by the Portuguese in 1571 failed. From 1577, the Dominicans of the Mozambique convent extended the mission into the Kingdom of Monomotapa, joined by the Jesuits in 1607. In 1628, a war broke out between the Portuguese and the Monomotapa, won by the former under the leadership of the Dominican Luiz do Espiritu Santo, but in 1633 the Portuguese and Dominicans were massacred once more. In 1652, the Dominicans once again succeeded in baptizing the reigning prince, but neither the Dominicans nor the Jesuits were able to establish Christianity securely in the territory of Monomotapa, and in the 18th century the mission came to an end due to political complications and the suppression of the Society of Jesus.

The recent missionary activity of Rhodesia began in the course of the 19th century, in the south from 1879 through the work of the Jesuits, and in the east by means of the White Fathers from 1895. Indeed, in 1879 the Zambesi Mission was entrusted to the Jesuits; it included the present-day southern and northern Rhodesia, the northern part of Bechuanaland, and the territories along the Zambesi in Portuguese East Africa. After great sacrifices and more than ten years of work, they succeeded in establishing themselves in southern Rhodesia. In 1893 the territory was occupied by the English, who quelled the Matabele and Mashona rebellions in 1896. The new situation allowed for greater progress in the apostolate. Later, the Trappists of Mariannhill joined, founding a missionary centre at Triashill, and the Polish Jesuits extended their stations in northern Rhodesia, starting from Broken Hill. In 1915 the Zambesi Mission was raised to the status of an apostolic prefecture; in 1927 the northern part was separated as the apostolic prefecture of Broken Hill. In 1931 the Zambesi prefecture was elevated to an apostolic vicariate under the name of Salisbury, and the western part was ceded to the Mariannhill Fathers as the mission of Bulawayo. To the Polish Jesuits of Broken Hill were added in 1931 the Irish Capuchins and in 1938 the Italian Conventuals. In the southern part of Salisbury, in 1938 the Swiss Bethlehem Missionary Society entered the missionary field.

From 1895 in northern Rhodesia among the Babemba tribe the White Fathers worked. Bishop Giuseppe Dupont achieved great success, indeed he was elected chief of the natives. Assisted by well-trained catechists, he founded flourishing Christian communities. In 1913 the Babembaland was separated from the Niassa vicariate and erected as the apostolic vicariate of Bangweolo, which was divided again in 1933 and 1937. The present ecclesiastical division of Rhodesia is as follows:

Northern Rhodesia:
Kasama, 1913 Apostolic Vicariate of Bangweolo, 1952 renamed Kasama, entrusted to the White Fathers;
Fort Rosebery, 1952 Apostolic Prefecture;
Fort Jameson, 1937 Apostolic Prefecture entrusted to the Missionaries of Africa;
Livingstone, 1936 Apostolic Prefecture under the name of Victoria Falls, 1950 Apostolic Vicariate entrusted to the Capuchins;
Lusaka (formerly Broken Hill), 1927 Apostolic Prefecture, 1946 name changed to Lusaka, 1950 Apostolic Vicariate entrusted to the Jesuits;
Abercorn, 1913 *Missio sui iuris* of the Lwanga, 1937 Apostolic Vicariate entrusted to the Missionaries of Africa, 1951 name changed to Abercorn;
Ndola, 1938 Apostolic Prefecture, 1949 Apostolic Vicariate entrusted to the Conventual Franciscans.