>The gold-rich northern territories of Mashonaland and Matabeleland similarly attracted the interest of European settlers. Sceptical of their intentions, the ru

>The gold-rich northern territories of Mashonaland and Matabeleland similarly attracted the interest of European settlers. Sceptical of their intentions, the ruler of Matabele, King Lobengula, regularly turned away those who approached him for mining concessions. While he doubted the intention of the miners, King Lobengula trusted missionaries. In 1888, Rhodes and Rudd exploited this situation, convincing the king to sign a treaty of friendship essentially granting the businessmen exclusive mineral rights through John Moffat, a trusted missionary. The treaty, named the Rudd Concession in recognition of Rudd’s role in the agreement, gave the men carte blanche to pursue the economical exploitation of Matabeleland. With the treaty in hand, Rhodes approached the British government for a charter granting a new company, named the British South African Company, the green light not only to mine but also to occupy Matabele and Mashonaland on behalf of and with the consent of the British crown. The government granted the charter in October 1889. With no northern limit, Rhodes hoped to use the gold fields of Mashonaland to fund the settlement of other areas of central Africa such as Nyasaland (present-day Malawi), and to facilitate his ambition of building a railway linking the colonies from Cape to Cairo. Rhodes was not particularly popular among members of the British establishment; but political figures viewed his extension of empire as too successful to challenge.14 Through the British South African Company, Rhodes intended to use private means to exercise imperial expansion. In June 1890, Rhodes and the British South African Company deployed a group of around five hundred white settlers, known as the Pioneer Column, to seize Matabeleland and Mashonaland. The column marched from the southern region of Bechuanaland north into Matabeleland and then onto Mashonaland, where they established a fort named after the British prime minister, Robert Salisbury. The company increased their efforts to colonise the region one year later, when colonialist Harry Johnson took over the administration of Nyasaland as commissioner of the British government and an employee of the British South African Company. The company named the territory Rhodesia in tribute to Rhodes, and ruled it into the early 1920s, when the imperial British government assumed control, until the area became modern Zimbabwe.