It was with such a following that Mr. Rhodes commenced his higher political career in Cape Colony. When, in 1884, he became Commissioner of Bechuanaland, the vast and then undeveloped country adjoining the colony on the north, and made his first plans for the annexation of that territory to the British Empire, he received the support of the majority of the voters of the colony. His first plan of securing control of the territory was not favourably received by the Colonial Office in London, and no sooner was it pronounced visionary than he suggested another more feasible.
Bechuanaland was then ruled by a mighty native chief, Lobengula, whose vast armies roved over the country and prevented white travellers and prospectors from crossing the bounds of his territory. In the minds of the white people of South Africa, Bechuanaland figured as a veritable Golconda--a land where precious stones and minerals could be secured without any attendant labour, where the soil was so rich as to yield four bounteous harvests every year.
Mr. Rhodes determined to break the barriers which excluded white men from the native chief's domain, and sent three agents to treat with Lobengula. The agents made many valuable presents to the old chief, and in 1888, after much engineering, secured from him an exclusive concession to search for and extract minerals in Bechuanaland. The payment for the concession included five hundred dollars a month, a thousand rifles and ammunition, and a small gunboat on the Zambezi.
After Mr. Rhodes discovered the real value of the concession, he and a number of his friends formed the British South Africa Company, popularly known as the Chartered Company, and received a charter from the British Government, which gave to them the exclusive right of governing, developing, and trading in Lobengula's country. Several years afterward the white man's government became irksome to Lobengula and his tribes, as well as to the Mashonas, who occupied the immense territory adjoining Bechuanaland on the east, and all rebelled. The result was not unlike those of native rebellions in other countries. The natives were shot down by trained English soldiers, their country was taken from them, and those who escaped death or captivity were compelled to fly for safety to the new countries of the north.