All Roads Lead to Rhodes

THE CAPE PENINSULA: ALL ROADS LEAD TO RHODES

On Saturday, July 28^th, despite continued dreary weather, I decided to drive down the Cape Peninsula as this was the last full day I had in this extremely interesting country. Although the weather could have been better, I had a very knowledgeable guide and driver in the form of John Bydell. A life-long resident of nearby Athlone, an area that, under Apartheid, was designated as a community only for coloreds, Mr. Bydell continues to raise his daughters in the community in which he grew up. As such, John knew the many ins/outs of the Cape Peninsula and I enjoyed myself immensely driving down this beautiful stretch of oceanfront land. Indeed, while, unfortunately, some beaches had been off-limits to John growing up, in a way, this provided him and his friends with an opportunity to discover other lesser-known spots of beauty. Today, John uses this knowledge and his love for local history well by taking tourists around the cape in a way most unfamiliar to those visitors opting instead to take prescribed tour buses.

At the base of the Eastern side of Table Mountain, and commanding superb views of the Cape Flats, the area to which coloreds, Indians, and others were moved during Apartheid, lies the Rhodes Memorial; a homage to Cecil John Rhodes who had been a one-time prime minister of the Cape Colony, founder of De Beers Diamond Mines, perhaps the instigator of the second Anglo-Boer War, benefactor of Kirstenbosch Gardens and the Rhodes Scholarship (Oxford), cotton, fruit/wine farmer, nation builder, and transportation/telegraph industrialist. It is a classically styled memorial consisting of eight bronze lions and is quite imposing amidst some superb fur/pine trees.

Cecil Rhodes came to South Africa in the 1870s, from England, because of Tuberculosis and general poor health. He initially joined his brother who had come to South Africa a few years earlier to start a cotton farm. It was not long, however, that Cecil was also managing some small diamond mine claims held by his brother in Kimberley. Having made some shrewd investments, Cecil Rhodes was soon able to acquire his own diamond interests and incorporated his various holdings under the name of De Beers who was the original owner of the claims acquired by Rhodes. In time, Rhodes would work with other diamond magnets, such as Barney Barnato, in regulating the prices of diamond sales. From these earnings, Rhodes would have commissioned the building of his Cape residence – Groote Schuur – which he later bequeathed to South Africa as the home for a succession of prime ministers and would become interested in invigorating the wine/fruit preserve industry on farms, like Boschendal, which reside in the now famous wine producing region outside of Cape Town.

Rhodes supported trade with the Mtebele (sp?) in the area of today’s Zimbabwe. In time, Rhodes was able to gain large land concessions from the Mtebele chief in exchange for a nominal amount of trinkets and provisions in kind. As land concessions grew and white pioneers settled in this rich mining and agricultural area, Mtebele land was renamed Rhodesia in Rhode’s honor. Today, this is the nation of Zimbabwe.

As prime minister, Rhodes would take South Africa into the then modern world by finishing the train line from Cape Town to Johannesburg as well as having telegraph lines to the outside world put in place. Unfortunately, Rhodes would have to step down after he was implicated in the Jameson’s Raid fiasco in the Transvaal when Jameson, Rhodes doctor/friend, attempted and failed to overthrow Paul Kruger, the Afrikaner Prime Minister of the Free State, in an attempt to have the Free State fall into line over diamonds/gold policy with the British controlled Cape Province. This would happen, of course, after the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1899/1901.

After resigning and in a bid to arrest his now inflamed Tuberculosis, Rhodes retreated to a small cottage in Saint James, which lies just outside of Kalk Bay and Simon’s Town, today, the home of the South African Navy. Weakened from the stress related to a criminal case involving the forging of his name on checks issued by Princess Radziwill of Poland, Rhodes died at the cottage after suffering from a heart attack. While Princess Radziwill claimed to have been Rhodes’ mistress, this nor theories that Rhodes was homosexual have been substantiated. Rhodes died, unmarried, in 1902 uttering “So much to do…so little time.” Although President Mugabe of Zimbabwe continues to threaten that Rhode’s grave will be removed from Zimbabwe, Rhodes remains buried in that country alongside his friend, Dr. Jameson.

Today, the cottage and bed in which Rhodes passed are open for viewing by the public. The current caretakers/curators, Mr. Gibbs, and his wife were far more than gracious in answering my questions on all matters Rhodes. Mrs. Gibbs, in fact, is descended from some of the first white settlers to Rhodesia who had first tried their luck on the Pampas of Argentina. Being a history fanatic, such as myself, Mr. Gibbs and I also had a very nice conversation on the similarities of immigration in both the United States and South Africa. One interesting side note to history offered by Mr. Gibbs was that, during the siege of Kimberley, during the second Anglo-Boer War, Rhodes too had been trapped by the Afrikaners. However, due to the ingenuity of an American engineer at De Beers, Mr. Lampen (sp?), a canon was developed that allowed Kimberley and the diamond mines to withstand the siege.

Following this foray into South African history, the rest of my tour of the Cape Point was rather leisurely as I browsed antique shops and ate seafood in Kalk Bay, took photographs of the penguin colony on Boulders Beach, saw the actual Cape point where the cold ocean current of the Atlantic Ocean meets the warm ocean current of the Indian Ocean, and almost ran over a family of wild baboons in Kommetjie.

My next to last post will involve my reflections on having visited with administrators of a high school in a former township. In preview, there are actually a lot of similar challenges for public educators in both the United States and South Africa.