Cecil John Rhodes Estates Act

This week we do it a little differently and take a brief history course into the life and legal legacy of Cecil John Rhodes, whose name the country was once named after.

A man, who has a whole Act of Parliament dedicated to his will and legacy.

Cecil John Rhodes will remain a notorious and controversial figure, who to this day still divides opinion the world over, but more poignantly in Zimbabwe and South Africa depending largely on which side of history or skin colour you are.

A worthy god like hero to some and a thief and bloodthirsty thug to others.

Whatever the sentiment hate, love, angst or admiration, one thing for certain is his enduring effect on this country's history cannot be ignored.

His legacy remains, for better or worse, an inseparable part of Zimbabwe's history and indelibly etched in the country's statutes. It is not possible to do justice to his story in just one article, so we will look at only a few salient facts as they relate to the law.

A brief history

His history has been well documented and those interested in further reading are spoilt for choice.

There is no end to the mystery and indeed controversy of how one man's vision could affect the lives of generations of people for years to come long after his death.

Suffice to say he was a man of colossal dreams and daring ambitions far beyond his time.

He was not afraid to dream big.

His mind's eye straddled Cape Town and Cairo, as he envisioned a railway line running the entire length of the African content linking it solely for the benefit and conquest of the white race and his companies - the British South Africa Company and the De Beers Company.

Even as poor health troubled him all his life, he still managed to achieve more in one lifetime than could be thought possible by ordinary people.

He was a white supremacist, explorer, politician, adventurer, farmer, mining magnate, businessman, conqueror and dreamer.

He openly described black people as barbarians and is attributed with laying the foundation stone for apartheid in South Africa.

He considered the Anglo Saxon race as "the first race in the world and the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race". He believed and championed the expansion of the British empire, with the intention of making Britain a superpower.

In his relatively short life, he managed, even as a British citizen, to become Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, while simultaneously establishing a strong foothold in the real estate of the territory north of the Limpopo in far flung places like Nyanga and Matopos in an age of ox drawn wagons and fledgling steam trains.

Despite not being a citizen of this country, he still managed to have the country named after him - Rhodesia.

So influential was he, that, even in death, he still commandeered his dead body to be moved by train from Cape Town to Bulawayo to be buried in the Matopos Hills, as he wished and wrote in his famous will.

Rhodes Estate Act Chapter 20:17

The Rhodes Estate is part of a very large estate straddling interests and property in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Britain.

The estate is significant to the legal legacy of the country's real estate, so much that it required an Act of Parliament to administer it.

The list of land and assets in the Nyanga and Matopos estates puts even the most seasoned monopoly player to shame.

The Act provides for the development, administration and maintenance of the Rhodes Estates.

Rhodes owned vast tracts land in Nyanga and Matobo in his personal capacity.

This country truly was his oyster that even in his death he continued to own his own large pieces of Zimbabwean soil.

Part of the lands were bequeathed to the State and now comprise National Parks, while some are still private property administered by the Rhodes Trust.

The extent of the lands in the Estate is stipulated in the Act and any changes to the area size have to be stipulated in a Statutory Instrument by the Lands minister.

Needless to say, his influence continues to dominate the country's present and future legal discourse.

The Rhodes Trust

The local Rhodes Estate is a part of the wider Estate in the Rhodes Trust, which is an educational charity.

The trust provides scholarships to study at the world's most prestigious universities to candidates from selected countries of which were British colonies.

Rhodes' estate not only affects laws in Zimbabwe, but also the laws of the United Kingdom and South Africa.

He left an even bigger estate in South Africa, the foot of his expansive business and political empire.

Locally and most interestingly, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe is the appointed trustee of the Rhodes Estates.

In that capacity the President holds the estate lands for the benefit of the people of Zimbabwe. The estate is run professionally through the committees of the Rhodes Nyanga Park and the Rhodes Matopos National Park.

The Nyanga and Matopos Funds

The professionally-managed funds are designed to generate money for the estate using the assets.

The Rhodes Nyanga and Matopos Committees administer the lands and property in the estate for the commercial benefit of the estate and, hence, nourish the trust.

Commercial activities include rentals from lease of properties and income from agricultural, mining and other activities.

Burial at world's view

Cecil John Rhodes died in 1902 at only 48 years of age. He was buried at Matobo Hills, a relatively short distance from where King Mzilikazi was buried.

Rhodes loved the Matobo Hills so much from his expeditions and had acquired vast tracts of land in the environs. Section 16 of the Rhodes Estates Act expressly prohibits the burial of any other person on the hill or at least within a two kilometre radius of his grave.

However, Leander Starr Jameson and 34 British soldiers killed in the Shangani Patrol are buried alongside him. It is not clear why this is so, as it is in contravention of his will and the Act.

In spite of his chequered history, with the Matabele people, Ndebele chiefs attended his funeral and reportedly honoured him with the Matabele royal salute.

The funeral drew tens of thousands of people from within and out of the country. He stipulated in his will "I admire the grandeur and loneliness of the Matopos and, therefore, I desire to be buried in the Matopos on the hill I used to visit in a square to be cut in the rock on top of the hill". And so, he is buried exactly as he directed overlooking the breath taking rocky surroundings.

Visitors to the Matobo National Park will still see his grave exactly as it was set more than a century ago. Since independence, there have been calls from various quarters and interest groups to exhume his grave and remove his remains from the site.

They argue that his burial at the site is in poor taste and an affront to black people.

The site was and is still considered a sacred shrine by locals.

Despite the calls for exhumation, it is not likely to ever be done because, as irony would have it, the trustee is the President of Zimbabwe and his obligation is to take care of the estate and property of Rhodes and safeguard his will.

The grave is protected in terms of both the Rhodes Estates Act and the National Museums and Monuments Act (Chapter 25:11).

Tampering with it is a criminal offence and, hence, Cecil John Rhodes is guaranteed to rest in eternal and prosperous peace by the Zimbabwe government.

Miriam Tose Majome is a lawyer and a teacher. She can be contacted on enquiries@legalpractitioners.org