British South Africa Company replaces Matabele kingdom
Security
Clause 3 of the BSAC Charter allowed the company to obtain powers necessary for the preservation of public order in, or for the protection of, the territories comprised in its concessions, and Clause 10 allowed the company to establish and maintain a police force. This did not permit the formation of an army but BSAC created a paramilitary force of mounted infantrymen in 1889 which was virtually its army and which allowed it to defeat and replace the Matabele kingdom and then overcome resistance of the Shona north of the Limpopo river in the First Matabele War and Second Matabele War. It was the first British use of the Maxim gun in combat (causing five thousand Ndebele casualties). The company carved out and administered a territory which it named Zambezia, and later, Rhodesia, which now covers the area occupied by the republics of Zambia and Zimbabwe.