page_title: Zimbabwe
section_title: Colonial era and Rhodesia (1888–1964)
hierarchical_section_title: Zimbabwe / History / Colonial era and Rhodesia (1888–1964)
caption_attribution_description: English: The Pioneer Column of the British South Africa Company reached the site of Fort Salisbury on 12 September 1890, which was celebrated from 1920 as Pioneers' Day. The next morning, at 10 am on 13 September 1890, a full dress parade of the column was held. The seven-pounder gun fired a royal salute and Canon Balfour said a prayer as the column's Lieutenant Edward Tyndale-Biscoe hoisted the flag atop the kopje overlooking the site of the future capital, Salisbury.
context_page_description: Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique. The capital and largest city is Harare. The second largest city is Bulawayo. A country of roughly 14 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona, and Ndebele the most common.
  Since the 11th century, present-day Zimbabwe has been the site of several organised states and kingdoms like the most notably Rozvi and Mthwakazi kingdoms, as well as a major route for migration and trade. The British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes first demarcated the present territory during the 1890 where they first conquered Mashonaland which was a self Sovereign and later in 1893 they conquered Matabeleland after a fierce resistance by Matabele people through a war known as First Matabele War.
context_section_description: In the 1880s European colonists arrived with Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company (BSAC, incorporated in 1888, chartered in 1889). In 1888 Rhodes obtained a concession for mining rights from King Lobengula of the Ndebele peoples.
  He presented this concession to persuade the government of the United Kingdom to grant a royal charter to the company over Matabeleland, and its subject states such as Mashonaland as well.
  Rhodes used this document in 1890 to justify sending the Pioneer Column, a group of Europeans protected by well-armed British South Africa Police (BSAP) through Matabeleland and into Shona territory to establish Fort Salisbury (present-day Harare), and thereby establish company rule over the area. In 1893 and 1894, with the help of their new  Maxim guns, the BSAP would go on to defeat the Ndebele in the First Matabele War. Rhodes additionally sought permission to negotiate similar concessions covering all territory between the Limpopo River and Lake Tanganyika, then known as "Zambesia".
  In accordance with the terms of aforementioned concessions and treaties, mass settlement was encouraged, with the British maintaining control over labour as well as over precious metals and other mineral resources.
  In 1895 the BSAC adopted the name  "Rhodesia" for the territory, in honour of Rhodes. In 1898 "Southern Rhodesia" became the official name for the region south of the Zambezi, which later adopted the name "Zimbabwe". The region to the north, administered separately, was later termed Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia). Shortly after Rhodes' the disastrous Rhodes-sponsored Jameson Raid (December 1895 - January 1896) on the South African Republic, the Ndebele rebelled against white rule, led by their charismatic religious leader, Mlimo. The Second Matabele War of 1896-1897 lasted in Matabeleland until 1896, when a British operation had Mlimo assassinated. Shona agitators staged unsuccessful revolts (known as Chimurenga) against company rule during 1896 and 1897.
  Following these failed insurrections,the Rhodes administration subdued the Ndebele and Shona groups and organised the land with a disproportionate bias favouring Europeans, thus displacing many indigenous peoples.
  The United Kingdom annexed Southern Rhodesia on 12 September 1923. Shortly after annexation, on 1 October 1923, the first constitution for the new Colony of Southern Rhodesia came into force.
  Under the new constitution, Southern Rhodesia became a  self-governing  British colony, subsequent to a  1922 referendum. Rhodesians of all races served on behalf of the United Kingdom during the two World Wars in the early-20th century. Proportional to the white population, Southern Rhodesia contributed more per capita to both the First and Second World Wars than any other part of the Empire, including Britain itself.
  The 1930 Land Apportionment Act restricted black land ownership to certain segments of the country, setting aside large areas solely for the purchase of the white minority. This act, which led to rapidly rising inequality, became the subject of frequent calls for subsequent land reform. 
  In 1953, in the face of African opposition, Britain consolidated the two Rhodesias with Nyasaland (Malawi) in the ill-fated Central African Federation, which Southern Rhodesia essentially dominated. Growing African nationalism and general dissent, particularly in Nyasaland, persuaded Britain to dissolve the Union in 1963, forming three separate divisions. While multiracial democracy was finally introduced to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, however, Southern Rhodesians of European ancestry continued to enjoy minority rule.
  Following Zambian independence (effective from October 1964), Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front (RF) government in Salisbury dropped the designation "Southern" in 1964 (once Northern Rhodesia had changed its name to Zambia, having the word Southern before the name Rhodesia became unnecessary and the country simply became known as Rhodesia afterwards). Intent on effectively repudiating the recently-adopted British policy of "no independence be
caption: The Union Jack was raised over Fort Salisbury on 13 September 1890
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