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The Story of Rhodesia/Rudd Concession & Royal Charter

Origins
Rhodes began advocating the annexation by Britain of Matabeleland and Mashonaland in 1887 by applying pressure to a number of senior colonial officials, most prominently the High Commissioner for Southern Africa, Sir Hercules Robinson, and Sidney Shippard, Britain's administrator in the Bechuanaland Crown colony (comprising that country's southern part). Shippard, an old friend of Rhodes, was soon won over to the idea, and in May 1887 the administrator wrote to Robinson strongly endorsing annexation of the territories, particularly Mashonaland, which he described as "beyond comparison the most valuable country south of the Zambezi". It was the Boers, however, who were first to achieve diplomatic successes with Lobengula. Pieter Grobler secured a treaty of "renewal of friendship" between Matabeleland and the South African Republic in July 1887. The same month, Robinson organised the appointment of John Smith Moffat, a locally born missionary, as assistant commissioner in Bechuanaland. Moffat, well-known to Lobengula, was given this position in the hope that he might make the king less cordial with the Boers and more pro-British. In September 1887, Robinson wrote to Lobengula, through Moffat, urging the king not to grant concessions of any kind to Transvaal, German or Portuguese agents without first consulting the missionary. Moffat reached Bulawayo on 29 November to find Grobler still there. Because the exact text of the Grobler treaty had not been released publicly, it was unclear to outside observers precisely what had been agreed with Lobengula in July; in the uncertainty, newspapers in South Africa were reporting that the treaty had made Matabeleland a protectorate of the South African Republic. Moffat made enquiries in Bulawayo. Grobler denied the newspaper reports of a Transvaal protectorate over Lobengula's country, while the king said that an agreement did exist, but that it was a renewal of the Pretorius peace treaty and nothing more.

In Pretoria, in early December, another British agent met Paul Kruger, the President of the South African Republic, who reportedly said that his government now regarded Matabeleland as under Transvaal "protection and sovereignty", and that one of the clauses of the Grobler treaty had been that Lobengula could not "grant any concessions or make any contact with anybody whatsoever" without Pretoria's approval. Meeting at Grahamstown on Christmas Day, Rhodes, Shippard and Robinson agreed to instruct Moffat to investigate the matter with Lobengula and to secure a copy of the Grobler treaty for further clarification, as well as to arrange a formal Anglo-Matabele treaty, which would have provisions included to prevent Lobengula from making any more agreements with foreign powers other than Britain.

Lobengula was alarmed by how some were perceiving his dealings with Grobler, and so was reluctant to sign any more agreements with foreigners. Despite his familiarity with Moffat, the king did not consider him above suspicion, and he was dubious about placing himself firmly in the British camp; as Moffat said of the Matabele leadership in general, "they may like us better, but they fear the Boers more". Moffat's negotiations with the king and izinDuna were therefore very long and uneasy. The missionary presented the proposed British treaty as an offer to renew that enacted by d'Urban and Mzilikazi in 1836. He told the Matabele that the Boers were misleading them, that Pretoria's interpretation of the Grobler treaty differed greatly from their own, and that the British proposal served Matabele interests better in any case. On 11 February 1888, Lobengula agreed and placed his mark and seal at the foot of the agreement. The document proclaimed that the Matabele and British were now at peace, that Lobengula would not enter any kind of diplomatic correspondence with any country apart from Britain, and that the king would not "sell, alienate or cede" any part of Matabeleland or Mashonaland to anybody. The document was unilateral in form, describing only what Lobengula would do to prevent any of these conditions being broken. Shippard was dubious about this and the fact that none of the izinDuna had signed the proclamation, and asked Robinson if it would be advisable to negotiate another treaty. Robinson replied in the negative, reasoning that reopening talks with Lobengula so soon would only make him suspicious. Britain's ministers at Whitehall perceived the unilateral character of the treaty as advantageous for Britain, as it did not commit Her Majesty's Government to any particular course of action. Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, ruled that Moffat's treaty trumped Grobler's, despite being signed at a later date, because the London Convention of 1884 precluded the South African Republic from making treaties with any state apart from the Orange Free State; treaties with native tribes north of the Limpopo were permitted, but the Prime Minister claimed that Matabeleland was too cohesively organised to be regarded as a mere tribe, and should instead be considered a nation. He concluded from this reasoning that the Grobler treaty was ultra vires and legally meaningless. Whitehall soon gave Robinson permission to ratify the Moffat agreement, which was announced to the public in Cape Town on 25 April 1888.

For Rhodes, the agreement Moffat had made with Lobengula was crucial as it bought time that allowed him to devote the necessary attention to the final amalgamation of the South African diamond interests. A possible way out of the situation for Lobengula was to lead another Matabele migration across the Zambezi, but Rhodes hoped to keep the king where he was for the moment as a buffer against Boer expansion. In March 1888, Rhodes bought out the company of his last competitor, the circus showman turned diamond millionaire Barney Barnato, to form De Beers Consolidated Mines, a sprawling national monopoly that controlled 90% of world diamond production. Barnato wanted to limit De Beers to mining diamonds, but Rhodes insisted that he was going to use the company to "win the north": to this end, he ensured that the De Beers trust deed enabled activities far removed from mining, including banking and railway-building, the ability to annex and govern land, and the raising of armed forces. All this gave the immensely wealthy company powers not unlike those of the East India Company, which had governed India on Britain's behalf from 1757 to 1857. Through De Beers and Gold Fields of South Africa, the gold-mining firm he had recently started with Charles Rudd, Rhodes had both the capacity and the financial means to make his dream of an African empire a reality, but to make such ambitions practicable, he would first have to acquire a royal charter empowering him to take personal control of the relevant territories on Britain's behalf. To secure this royal charter, he would need to present Whitehall with a concession, signed by a native ruler, granting to Rhodes the exclusive mining rights in the lands he hoped to annex.

Race to Bulawayo
Rhodes faced competition for the Matabeleland mining concession from George Cawston and Lord Gifford, two London financiers. They appointed as their agent Edward Arthur Maund, who had served with Sir Charles Warren in Bechuanaland between 1884 and 1885, towards the end of this time visiting Lobengula as an official British envoy. Cawston and Gifford's base in England gave them the advantage of better connections with Whitehall, while Rhodes's location in the Cape allowed him to see the situation with his own eyes. He also possessed formidable financial capital and closer links with the relevant colonial administrators. In May 1888, Cawston and Gifford wrote to Lord Knutsford, the British Colonial Secretary, seeking his approval for their designs.

The urgency of negotiating a concession was made clear to Rhodes during a visit to London in June 1888, when he learned of the London syndicate's letter to Knutsford, and of their appointment of Maund. Rhodes now understood that the Matabeleland concession could still go elsewhere if he did not secure the document quickly. "Someone has to get the country, and I think we should have the best chance," Rhodes told Rothschild; "I have always been afraid of the difficulty of dealing with the Matabele king. He is the only block to central Africa, as, once we have his territory, the rest is easy ... the rest is simply a village system with separate headmen ... I have faith in the country, and Africa is on the move. I think it is a second Cinderella."

Rhodes and Beit put Rudd at the head of their new negotiating team because of his extensive experience negotiating the purchase of Boers' farms for gold prospecting. Because Rudd knew little of indigenous African customs and languages, Rhodes added Francis "Matabele" Thompson, an employee of his who had for years run the reserves and compounds that housed the black labourers at the diamond fields. Thompson was fluent in Setswana, the language of the Tswana people to Lobengula's south-west, and therefore could communicate directly and articulately with the king, who also knew the language. James Rochfort Maguire, an Irish barrister Rhodes had known at Oxford, was recruited as a third member.

Many analysts find the inclusion of the cultured, metropolitan Maguire puzzling—it is often suggested that he was brought along so he could couch the document in the elaborate legal language of the English bar, and thus make it unchallengeable, but as the historian John Semple Galbraith comments, the kind of agreement that was required was hardly complicated enough to merit the considerable expense and inconvenience of bringing Maguire along. In his biography of Rhodes, Robert I. Rotberg suggests that he may have intended Maguire to lend Rudd's expedition "a touch of culture and class", in the hope that this might impress Lobengula and rival would-be concessionaires. One of the advantages held by the London syndicate was the societal prestige of Gifford in particular, and Rhodes hoped to counter this through Maguire. Rudd's party ultimately comprised himself, Thompson, Maguire, J G Dreyer (their Dutch wagon driver), a fifth white man, a Cape Coloured, an African American and two black servants.

Maund arrived in Cape Town in late June 1888 and attempted to gain Robinson's approval for the Cawston–Gifford bid. Robinson was reserved in his answers, saying that he supported the development of Matabeleland by a company with this kind of backing, but did not feel he could commit to endorsing Cawston and Gifford exclusively while there remained other potential concessionaires, most prominently Rhodes—certainly not without unequivocal instructions from Whitehall. While Rudd's party gathered and prepared in Kimberley, Maund travelled north, and reached the diamond mines at the start of July. On 14 July, in Bulawayo, agents representing a consortium headed by the South African-based entrepreneur Thomas Leask received a mining concession from Lobengula, covering all of his country, and pledging half of the proceeds to the king. When he learned of this latter condition Leask was distraught, saying the concession was "commercially valueless". Moffat pointed out to Leask that his group did not have the resources to act on the concession anyway, and that both Rhodes and the London syndicate did; at Moffat's suggestion, Leask decided to wait and sell his concession to whichever big business group gained a new agreement from Lobengula. Neither Rhodes's group, the Cawston–Gifford consortium nor the British colonial officials immediately learned of the Leask concession.

In early July 1888, Rhodes returned from London and met with Robinson, proposing the establishment of a chartered company to govern and develop south-central Africa, with himself at its head, and similar powers to the British North Borneo, Imperial British East Africa and Royal Niger Companies. Rhodes said that this company would take control of those parts of Matabeleland and Mashonaland "not in use" by the local people, demarcate reserved areas for the indigenous population, and thereafter defend both, while developing the lands not reserved for natives. In this way, he concluded, Matabele and Mashona interests would be protected, and south-central Africa would be developed, all without a penny from Her Majesty's Treasury. Robinson wrote to Knutsford on 21 July that he thought Whitehall should back this idea; he surmised that the Boers would receive British expansion into the Zambezi–Limpopo watershed better if it came in the form of a chartered company than if it occurred with the creation of a new Crown colony. He furthermore wrote a letter for Rudd's party to carry to Bulawayo, recommending Rudd and his companions to Lobengula.

Maund left Kimberley in July, well ahead of the Rudd party. Rudd's negotiating team, armed with Robinson's endorsement, was still far from ready—they left Kimberley only on 15 August—but Moffat, travelling from Shoshong in Bechuanaland, was ahead of both expeditions. He reached Bulawayo in late August to find the kraal filled with white concession-hunters. The various bidders attempted to woo the king with a series of gifts and favours, but won little to show for it.

Between Kimberley and Mafeking, Maund learned from Shippard that Grobler had been killed by a group of Ngwato warriors while returning to the Transvaal, and that the Boers were threatening to attack the British-protected Ngwato chief, Khama III, in response. Maund volunteered to help defend Khama, writing a letter to his employers explaining that doing so might lay the foundations for a concession from Khama covering territory that the Matabele and Ngwato disputed. Cawston tersely wrote back with orders to make for Bulawayo without delay, but over a month had passed in the time this written exchange required, and Maund had squandered his head start on Rudd. After ignoring a notice Lobengula had posted at Tati, barring entry to white big-game hunters and concession-seekers, the Rudd party arrived at the king's kraal on 21 September 1888, three weeks ahead of Maund.

Negotiations
Rudd, Thompson and Maguire immediately went to present themselves to Lobengula, who came out from his private quarters without hesitation and politely greeted the visitors. Through a Sindebele interpreter, Rudd introduced himself and the others, explained on whose behalf they acted, said they had come for an amiable sojourn, and presented the king with a gift of £100.

After the subject of business was eschewed for a few days, Thompson explained to the king in Setswana what he and his confederates had come to talk about. He said that his backers, unlike the Transvaalers, were not seeking land, but only wanted to mine gold in the Zambezi–Limpopo watershed. During the following weeks, talks took place sporadically. Moffat, who had remained in Bulawayo, was occasionally called upon by the king for advice, prompting the missionary to subtly assist Rudd's team through his counsel. He urged Lobengula to work alongside one large entity rather than many small concerns, telling him that this would make the issue easier for him to manage. He then informed the king that Shippard was going to pay an official visit during October, and advised him not to make a decision until after this was over.

Accompanied by Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams and 16 policemen, Shippard arrived in mid-October 1888. The king suspended concession negotiations in favour of meetings with him. The colonial official told the king that the Boers were hungry for more land and intended to overrun his country before too long; he also championed Rudd's cause, telling Lobengula that Rudd's team acted on behalf of a powerful, financially formidable organisation supported by Queen Victoria. Meanwhile, Rhodes sent a number of letters to Rudd, warning him that Maund was his main rival, and that because the London syndicate's goals overlapped so closely with their own, it was essential that Cawston and Gifford be defeated or else brought into the Rhodes camp. Regarding Lobengula, Rhodes advised Rudd to make the king think that the concession would work for him. "Offer a steamboat on the Zambezi same as [Henry Morton] Stanley put on the Upper Congo ... Stick to Home Rule and Matabeleland for the Matabele[,] I am sure it is the ticket."

As October passed without major headway, Rudd grew anxious to return to the Witswatersrand gold mines, but Rhodes insisted that he could not leave Bulawayo without the concession. "You must not leave a vacuum," Rhodes instructed. "Leave Thompson and Maguire if necessary or wait until I can join ... if we get anything we must always have someone resident". Thus prevented from leaving, Rudd vigorously tried to persuade Lobengula to enter direct negotiations with him over a concession, but was repeatedly rebuffed. The king only agreed to look at the draft document, mostly written by Rudd, just before Shippard was due to leave in late October. At this meeting, Lobengula discussed the terms with Rudd for over an hour. Charles Helm, a missionary based in the vicinity, was summoned by the king to act as an interpreter. According to Helm, Rudd made a number of oral promises to Lobengula that were not in the written document, including "that they would not bring more than 10 white men to work in his country, that they would not dig anywhere near towns, etc., and that they and their people would abide by the laws of his country and in fact be his people."

After these talks with Rudd, Lobengula called an indaba (conference) of over 100 izinDuna to present the proposed concession terms to them and gauge their sympathies. It soon became clear that opinion was split: most of the younger izinDuna were opposed to the idea of any concession whatsoever, while the king himself and many of his older izinDuna were open to considering Rudd's bid. The idea of a mining monopoly in the hands of Rudd's powerful backers was attractive to the Matabele in some ways, as it would end the incessant propositioning for concessions by small-time prospectors, but there was also a case for allowing competition to continue, so that the rival miners would have to compete for Lobengula's favour. For many at the indaba, the most pressing motivator was Matabeleland's security. While Lobengula considered the Transvaalers more formidable battlefield adversaries than the British, he understood that Britain was more prominent on the world stage, and while the Boers wanted land, Rudd's party claimed to be interested only in mining and trading. Lobengula reasoned that if he accepted Rudd's proposals, he would keep his land, and the British would be obliged to protect him from incursions by the Boers.

Rudd was offering generous terms that few competitors could hope to even come close to. If Lobengula agreed, Rudd's backers would furnish the king with 1,000 Martini–Henry breech-loading rifles, 100,000 rounds of matching ammunition, a steamboat on the Zambezi (or, if Lobengula preferred, a lump sum of £500), and £100 a month in perpetuity. More impressive to the king than the financial aspects of this offer were the weapons: he had at the time between 600 and 800 rifles and carbines, but almost no ammunition for them. The proposed arrangement would lavishly stock his arsenal with both firearms and bullets, which might prove decisive in the event of conflict with the South African Republic. The weapons might also help him keep control of the more rambunctious factions amid his own impis. Lobengula had Helm go over the document with him several times, in great detail, to ensure that he properly understood what was written. None of Rudd's alleged oral conditions were in the concession document, making them legally unenforceable (presuming they indeed existed), but the king apparently regarded them as part of the proposed agreement nonetheless.

The final round of negotiations started at the royal kraal on the morning of 30 October. The talks took place at an indaba between the izinDuna and Rudd's party; the king himself did not attend, but was nearby. The izinDuna pressed Rudd and his companions as to where exactly they planned to mine, to which they replied that they wanted rights covering "the whole country". When the izinDuna demurred, Thompson insisted, "No, we must have Mashonaland, and right up to the Zambezi as well—in fact, the whole country". According to Thompson's account, this provoked confusion among the izinDuna, who did not seem to know where these places were. "The Zambezi must be there", said one, incorrectly pointing south (rather than north). The Matabele representatives then prolonged the talks through "procrastination and displays of geographical ignorance", in the phrase of the historian Arthur Keppel-Jones, until Rudd and Thompson announced that they were done talking and rose to leave. The izinDuna were somewhat alarmed by this and asked the visitors to please stay and continue, which they did. It was then agreed that inDuna Lotshe and Thompson would together report the day's progress to the king.

Agreement
After speaking with Lotshe and Thompson, the king was still hesitant to make a decision. Thompson appealed to Lobengula with a rhetorical question: "Who gives a man an assegai [spear] if he expects to be attacked by him afterwards?" Seeing the allusion to the offered Martini–Henry rifles, Lobengula was swayed by this logic, and made up his mind to grant the concession. "Bring me the fly-blown paper and I will sign it," he said. Thompson briefly left the room to call Rudd, Maguire, Helm and Dreyer in, and they sat in a semi-circle around the king. Lobengula then put his mark to the concession, which read: "Know all men by these presents, that whereas Charles Dunell Rudd, of Kimberley; Rochfort Maguire, of London; and Francis Robert Thompson, of Kimberley, hereinafter called the grantees, have covenanted and agreed, and do hereby covenant and agree, to pay to me, my heirs and successors, the sum of one hundred pounds sterling, British currency, on the first day of every lunar month; and further, to deliver at my royal kraal one thousand Martini–Henry breech-loading rifles, together with one hundred thousand rounds of suitable ball cartridge, five hundred of the said rifles and fifty thousand of the said cartridges to be ordered from England forthwith and delivered with reasonable despatch, and the remainder of the said rifles and cartridges to be delivered as soon as the said grantees shall have commenced to work mining machinery within my territory; and further, to deliver on the Zambesi River a steamboat with guns suitable for defensive purposes upon the said river, or in lieu of the said steamboat, should I so elect, to pay to me the sum of five hundred pounds sterling, British currency. On the execution of these presents, I, Lobengula, King of Matabeleland, Mashonaland, and other adjoining territories, in exercise of my sovereign powers, and in the presence and with the consent of my council of indunas, do hereby grant and assign unto the said grantees, their heirs, representatives, and assigns, jointly and severally, the complete and exclusive charge over all metals and minerals situated and contained in my kingdoms, principalities, and dominions, together with full power to do all things that they may deem necessary to win and procure the same, and to hold, collect, and enjoy the profits and revenues, if any, derivable from the said metals and minerals, subject to the aforesaid payment; and whereas I have been much molested of late by divers persons seeking and desiring to obtain grants and concessions of land and mining rights in my territories, I do hereby authorise the said grantees, their heirs, representatives and assigns, to take all necessary and lawful steps to exclude from my kingdom, principalities, and dominions all persons seeking land, metals, minerals, or mining rights therein, and I do hereby undertake to render them all such needful assistance as they may from time to time require for the exclusion of such persons, and to grant no concessions of land or mining rights from and after this date without their consent and concurrence; provided that, if at any time the said monthly payment of one hundred pounds shall be in arrear for a period of three months, then this grant shall cease and determine from the date of the last-made payment; and further provided that nothing contained in these presents shall extend to or affect a grant made by me of certain mining rights in a portion of my territory south of the Ramaquaban River, which grant is commonly known as the Tati Concession." As Lobengula inscribed his mark at the foot of the paper, Maguire turned to Thompson and said "Thompson, this is the epoch of our lives." Once Rudd, Maguire and Thompson had signed the concession, Helm and Dreyer added their signatures as witnesses, and Helm wrote an endorsement beside the terms: Lobengula refused to allow any of the izinDuna to sign the document. Exactly why he did this is not clear. Rudd's interpretation was that the king considered them to have already been consulted at the day's indaba, and so did not think it necessary for them to also sign. Keppel-Jones comments that Lobengula might have felt that it would be harder to repudiate the document later if it bore the marks of his izinDuna alongside his own.

Announcement and reception
Within hours, Rudd and Dreyer were hurrying south to present the document to Rhodes, travelling by mule cart, the fastest mode of transport available. Thompson and Maguire stayed in Bulawayo to defend the concession against potential challenges. Rudd reached Kimberley and Rhodes on 19 November 1888, a mere 20 days after the document's signing, and commented with great satisfaction that this marked a record that would surely not be broken until the railway was laid into the interior. Rhodes was elated by Rudd's results, describing the concession as "so gigantic it is like giving a man the whole of Australia". Both in high spirits, the pair travelled to Cape Town by train, and presented themselves to Robinson on 21 November.

Robinson was pleased to learn of Rudd's success. The High Commissioner wanted to gazette the concession immediately, but Rhodes knew that the promise to arm Lobengula with 1,000 Martini–Henrys would be received with apprehension elsewhere in South Africa, especially among Boers; he suggested that this aspect of the concession should be kept quiet until the guns were already in Bechuanaland. Rudd therefore prepared a version of the document omitting mention of the Martini–Henrys, which was approved by Rhodes and Robinson, and published in the Cape Times and Cape Argus newspapers on 24 November 1888. The altered version described the agreed price for the Zambezi–Limpopo mining monopoly as "the valuable consideration of a large monthly payment in cash, a gunboat for defensive purposes on the Zambesi, and other services." Two days later, the Cape Times printed a notice from Lobengula: But the king was already beginning to receive reports telling him that he had been hoodwinked into "selling his country". Word abounded in Bulawayo that with the Rudd Concession (as the document became called), Lobengula had signed away far more impressive rights than he had thought. Some of the Matabele began to question the king's judgement. While the izinDuna looked on anxiously, Moffat questioned whether Lobengula would be able to keep control. Thompson was summoned by the izinDuna and interrogated for over 10 hours before being released; according to Thompson, they were "prepared to suspect even the king himself". Rumours spread among the kraal's white residents of a freebooter force in the South African Republic that allegedly intended to invade and support Gambo, a prominent inDuna, in overthrowing and killing Lobengula. Horrified by these developments, Lobengula attempted to secure his position by deflecting blame. InDuna Lotshe, who had supported granting the concession, was condemned for having misled his king and executed, along with his extended family and followers—over 300 men, women and children in all. Meanwhile, Rhodes and Rudd returned to Kimberley, and Robinson wrote to the Colonial Office at Whitehall on 5 December 1888 to inform them of Rudd's concession.

Lobengula's embassy
While reassuring Thompson and Maguire that he was only repudiating the idea that he had given his country away, and not the concession itself (which he told them would be respected), Lobengula asked Maund to accompany two of his izinDuna, Babayane and Mshete, to England, so they could meet Queen Victoria herself, officially to present to her a letter bemoaning Portuguese incursions on eastern Mashonaland, but also unofficially to seek counsel regarding the crisis at Bulawayo. The mission was furthermore motivated by the simple desire of Lobengula and his izinDuna to see if this white queen, whose name the British swore by, really existed. The king's letter concluded with a request for the Queen to send a representative of her own to Bulawayo. Maund, who saw a second chance to secure his own concession, perhaps even at Rudd's expense, said he was more than happy to assist, but Lobengula remained cautious with him: when Maund raised the subject of a new concession covering the Mazoe valley, the king replied "Take my men to England for me; and when you return, then I will talk about that." Johannes Colenbrander, a frontiersman from Natal, was recruited to accompany the Matabele emissaries as an interpreter. They left in mid-December 1888.

Around this time, a group of Austral Africa Company prospectors, led by Alfred Haggard, approached Lobengula's south-western border, hoping to gain their own Matabeleland mining concession; on learning of this, the king honoured one of the terms of the Rudd Concession by allowing Maguire to go at the head of a Matabele impi to turn Haggard away. While Robinson's letter to Knutsford made its way to England by sea, the Colonial Secretary learned of the Rudd Concession from Cawston and Gifford. Knutsford wired Robinson on 17 December to ask if there was any truth in what the London syndicate had told him about the agreed transfer of 1,000 Martini–Henrys: "If rifles part of consideration, as reported, do you think there will be danger of complications arising from this?" Robinson replied, again in writing; he enclosed a minute from Shippard in which the Bechuanaland official explained how the concession had come about, and expressed the view that the Matabele were less experienced with rifles than with assegais, so their receipt of such weapons did not in itself make them lethally dangerous. He then argued that it would not be diplomatic to give Khama and other chiefs firearms while withholding them from Lobengula, and that a suitably armed Matabeleland might act as a deterrent against Boer interference.

Surprised by the news of a Matabele mission to London, Rhodes attempted to publicly downplay the credentials of the izinDuna and to stop them from leaving Africa. When the envoys reached Kimberley Rhodes told his close friend, associate and housemate Dr Leander Starr Jameson—who himself held the rank of inDuna, having been so honoured by Lobengula years before as thanks for medical treatment—to invite Maund to their cottage. Maund was suspicious, but came anyway. At the cottage, Rhodes offered Maund financial and professional incentives to defect from the London syndicate. Maund refused, prompting Rhodes to declare furiously that he would have Robinson stop his progress at Cape Town. The izinDuna reached Cape Town in mid-January 1889 to find that it was as Rhodes had said; to delay their departure, Robinson discredited them, Maund and Colenbrander in cables to the Colonial Office in London, saying that Shippard had described Maund as "mendacious" and "dangerous", Colenbrander as "hopelessly unreliable", and Babayane and Mshete as not actually izinDuna or even headmen. Cawston forlornly telegraphed Maund that it was pointless to try to go on while Robinson continued in this vein.

Rhodes and the London syndicate join forces
Rhodes then arrived in Cape Town to talk again with Maund. His mood was markedly different: after looking over Lobengula's message to Queen Victoria, he said that he believed the Matabele expedition to England could actually buttress the concession and associated development plans if the London syndicate would agree to merge its interests with his own and form an amalgamated company alongside him. He told Maund to wire this pitch to his employers. Maund presumed that Rhodes's shift in attitude had come about because of his own influence, coupled with the threat to Rhodes's concession posed by the Matabele mission, but in fact the idea for uniting the two rival bids had come from Knutsford, who the previous month had suggested to Cawston and Gifford that they were likelier to gain a royal charter covering south-central Africa if they joined forces with Rhodes. They had wired Rhodes, who had in turn come back to Maund. The unification, which extricated Rhodes and his London rivals from their long-standing stalemate, was happily received by both sides; Cawston and Gifford could now tap Rhodes's considerable financial and political resources, and Rhodes's Rudd Concession had greater value now the London consortium no longer challenged it.

There still remained the question of Leask's concession, the existence of which Rudd's negotiating team had learned in Bulawayo towards the end of October. Rhodes resolved that it must be acquired: "I quite see that worthless as [Leask's] concession is, it logically destroys yours," he told Rudd. This loose end was tied up in late January 1889, when Rhodes met and settled with Leask and his associates, James Fairbairn and George Phillips, in Johannesburg. Leask was given £2,000 in cash and a 10% interest in the Rudd Concession, and allowed to retain a 10% share in his own agreement with Lobengula. Fairbairn and Phillips were granted an annual allowance of £300 each. In Cape Town, with Rhodes's opposition removed, Robinson altered his stance regarding the Matabele mission, cabling Whitehall that further investigation had shown Babayane and Mshete to be headmen after all, so they should be allowed to board ship for England.

Lobengula's enquiry
Meanwhile, in Bulawayo, South African newspaper reports of the concession started to arrive in the middle of January 1889. William Tainton, one of the local white residents, translated a press cutting for Lobengula, adding a few embellishments of his own: he told the king that he had sold his country, that the grantees could dig for minerals anywhere they liked, including in and around kraals, and that they could bring an army into Matabeleland to depose Lobengula in favour of a new chief. The king told Helm to read back and translate the copy of the concession that had remained in Bulawayo; Helm did so, and pointed out that none of the allegations Tainton had made were actually reflected in the text. Lobengula then said he wished to dictate an announcement. After Helm refused, Tainton translated and transcribed the king's words: This notice was published in the Bechuanaland News and Malmani Chronicle on 2 February 1889. A grand indaba of the izinDuna and the whites of Bulawayo was soon convened, but because Helm and Thompson were not present, the start of the investigation was delayed until 11 March. As in the negotiations with Rudd and Thompson in October, Lobengula did not himself attend, remaining close by but not interfering. The izinDuna questioned Helm and Thompson at great length, and various white men gave their opinions on the concession. A group of missionaries acted as mediators. Condemnation of the concession was led not by the izinDuna, but by the other whites, particularly Tainton.

Tainton and the other white opponents of the concession contended that the document conferred upon the grantees all of the watershed's minerals, lands, wood and water, and was therefore tantamount to a purchase receipt for the whole country. Thompson, backed by the missionaries, insisted that the agreement only involved the extraction of metals and minerals, and that anything else the concessionaires might do was covered by the concession's granting of "full power to do all things that they may deem necessary to win and procure" the mining yield. William Mzisi, a Fengu from the Cape, who had been to the diamond fields at Kimberley, pointed out that the mining would take thousands of men rather than the handful Lobengula had imagined, and argued that digging into the land amounted to taking possession of it: "You say you do not want any land, how can you dig for gold without it, is it not in the land?" Thompson was then questioned as to where exactly it had been agreed that the concessionaires could mine; he affirmed that the document licensed them to prospect and dig anywhere in the country.

Helm was painted as a suspicious figure by some of the izinDuna because all white visitors to Bulawayo met with him before seeing the king. This feeling was compounded by the fact that Helm had for some time acted as Lobengula's postmaster, and so handled all mail coming into Bulawayo. He was accused of having hidden the concession's true meaning from the king and of having knowingly sabotaged the prices being paid by traders for cattle, but neither of these charges could be proven either way. On the fourth day of the enquiry, Elliot and Rees, two missionaries based at Inyati, were asked if exclusive mining rights in other countries could be bought for similar sums, as Helm was claiming; they replied in the negative. The izinDuna concluded that either Helm or the missionaries must be lying. Elliot and Rees attempted to convince Lobengula that honest men did not necessarily always hold the same opinions, but had little success.

Amid the enquiry, Thompson and Maguire received a number of threats and had to tolerate other more minor vexations. Maguire, unaccustomed to the African bush as he was, brought a number of accusations on himself through his personal habits. One day he happened to clean his false teeth in what the Matabele considered a sacred spring and accidentally dropped some eau de Cologne into it; the angry locals interpreted this as him deliberately poisoning the spring. They also alleged that Maguire partook of witchcraft and spent his nights riding around the bush on a hyena.

Rhodes sent the first shipments of rifles up to Bechuanaland in January and February 1889, sending 250 each month, and instructed Jameson, Dr Frederick Rutherfoord Harris and a Shoshong trader, George Musson, to convey them to Bulawayo. Lobengula had so far accepted the financial payments described in the Rudd Concession (and continued to do so for years afterwards), but when the guns arrived in early April, he refused to take them. Jameson placed the weapons under a canvas cover in Maguire's camp, stayed at the kraal for ten days, and then went back south with Maguire in tow, leaving the rifles behind. A few weeks later, Lobengula dictated a letter for Fairbairn to write to the Queen—he said he had never intended to sign away mineral rights and that he and his izinDuna revoked their recognition of the document.

Babayane and Mshete in England
Following their long delay, Babayane, Mshete, Maund and Colenbrander journeyed to England aboard the Moor. They disembarked at Southampton in early March 1889, and travelled by train to London, where they checked into the Berners Hotel on Oxford Street. They were invited to Windsor Castle after two days in the capital. The audience was originally meant only for the two izinDuna and their interpreter—Maund could not attend such a meeting as he was a British subject—but Knutsford arranged an exception for Maund when Babayane and Mshete refused to go without him; the Colonial Secretary said that it would be regrettable for all concerned if the embassy were derailed by such a technicality. The emissaries duly met the Queen and delivered the letter from Lobengula, as well as an oral message they had been told to pass on.

The izinDuna stayed in London throughout the month of March, attending a number of dinners in their honour, including one hosted by the Aborigines' Protection Society. The Society sent a letter to Lobengula, advising him to be "wary and firm in resisting proposals that will not bring good to you and your people". The diplomats saw many of the British capital's sights, including London Zoo, the Alhambra Theatre and the Bank of England. Their hosts showed them the spear of the Zulu king Cetshwayo, which now hung on a wall at Windsor Castle, and took them to Aldershot to observe military manoeuvres conducted by Major-General Evelyn Wood, the man who had given this spear to the Queen after routing the Zulus in 1879. Knutsford held two more meetings with the izinDuna, and during the second of these gave them the Queen's reply to Lobengula's letter, which mostly comprised vague assurances of goodwill. Satisfied with this, the emissaries sailed for home.

Royal Charter
In late March 1889, just as the izinDuna were about to leave London, Rhodes arrived to make the amalgamation with Cawston and Gifford official. To the amalgamators' dismay, the Colonial Office had received protests against the Rudd Concession from a number of London businessmen and humanitarian societies, and had resolved that it could not sanction the concession because of its equivocal nature, as well as the fact that Lobengula had announced its suspension. Rhodes was originally angry with Maund, accusing him of responsibility for this, but eventually accepted that it was not Maund's fault. Rhodes told Maund to go back to Bulawayo, to pose as an impartial adviser, and to try to sway the king back in favour of the concession; as an added contingency, he told Maund to secure as many new subconcessions as he could.

In London, as the amalgamation was formalised, Rhodes and Cawston sought public members to sit on the board of their prospective chartered company. They recruited the Duke of Abercorn, an affluent Irish peer and landowner with estates in Donegal and Scotland, to chair the firm, and the Earl of Fife—soon to become the Duke of Fife, following his marriage to the daughter of the Prince of Wales—to act as his deputy. The third and final public member added to the board was the nephew and heir apparent of the erstwhile Cabinet minister Earl Grey, Albert Grey, who was a staunch imperialist, already associated with southern Africa. Attempting to ingratiate himself with Lord Salisbury, Rhodes then gave the position of standing counsel in the proposed company to the Prime Minister's son, Lord Robert Cecil. Horace Farquhar, a prominent London financier and friend of the Prince of Wales, was added to the board at Fife's suggestion later in the year.

Rhodes spent the next few months in London, seeking out supporters for his cause in the West End, the City and, occasionally, the rural estates of the landed gentry. These efforts yielded the public backing of the prominent imperialist Harry Johnston, Alexander Livingstone Bruce (who sat on the board of the East Africa Company), and Lord Balfour of Burleigh, among others. Along with Grey's active involvement and Lord Salisbury's continuing favour, the weight of this opinion seemed to be reaping dividends for Rhodes by June 1889. The amalgamation with the London syndicate was complete, and Whitehall appeared to have dropped its reservations regarding the Rudd Concession's validity. Opposition to the charter in parliament and elsewhere had been for the most part silenced, and, with the help of Rhodes's press contacts, prominently William Thomas Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, opinion in the media was starting to back the idea of a chartered company for south-central Africa. But in June 1889, just as the Colonial Office looked poised to grant the royal charter, Lobengula's letter repudiating the Rudd Concession, written two months previously, arrived in London.

Maguire, in London, promptly wrote to the Colonial Office, casting doubt on the letter's character on the grounds that it lacked the witnessing signature of an unbiased missionary. He concurrently wrote to Thompson, who was still in Bulawayo, to ask if there was any sign that the king had been misled during the repudiation letter's drafting. Around the same time, Robinson's strident attacks on parliamentary opponents of the Rudd Concession led to Lord Salisbury replacing him with Sir Henry Brougham Loch. Rhodes claimed not to be worried, telling Shippard in a letter that "the policy will not be altered". Indeed, by the end of June 1889, despite the removal of Robinson and the sensation caused by Lobengula's letter rejecting the concession, Rhodes had got his way: Lord Salisbury's concerns of Portuguese and German expansionism in Africa, coupled with Rhodes's personal exertions in London, prompted the Prime Minister to approve the granting of a royal charter. Rhodes returned victorious to the Cape in August 1889, while back in London Cawston oversaw the final preparations for the chartered company's establishment. "My part is done," Rhodes wrote to Maund, soon after reaching Cape Town; "the charter is granted supporting Rudd Concession and granting us the interior ... We have the whole thing recognised by the Queen and even if eventually we had any difficulty with king [Lobengula] the Home people would now always recognise us in possession of the minerals[;] they quite understand that savage potentates frequently repudiate." A few weeks later, he wrote to Maund again: with the royal charter in place, "whatever [Lobengula] does now will not affect the fact that when there is a white occupation of the country our concession will come into force provided the English and not Boers get the country". On 29 October 1889, nearly a year to the day after the signing of the Rudd Concession, Rhodes's chartered company, the British South Africa Company, was officially granted its royal charter by Queen Victoria. The concession's legitimacy was now safeguarded by the charter and, by extension, the British Crown, making it practically unassailable.


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Micronations/List of already existing micronations/The Confederated Empire of Bir Tawil and Territories

The Confederated Empire of Bir Tawil and Territories is an Independent and Sovereign Empire that claims territories in Bir Tawil and the United States and disputed Machias Seal Island. Though they say they are a nation Pursuant to the Montevideo Convention they are classified as a micronation.

They are organized as an Empire with various ranks of nobility that are sold to their Citizens, they also make ID cards and passports and have two chivalric orders.

They also allow businesses to incorporate in their Empire for a 500 dollar filing fee then a license renewal fee every year promising no taxes and that the companies will never have to divulge financial information. Emperor Bryce Ivrea I and his wife are the rulers of the nation.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/December 10

Today is Ada Lovelace’s birthday. She realized that Babbage’s Analytic Engine could represent not only numbers, but also generic entities such as words and music.


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User:Nalbarian

I'm from Assam, India. I'm an Engineer and currently I live in New Delhi.

If you've any advice and guidance to offer then please feel free to share.

title: User:Nalbarian


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User talk:153.107.36.240

JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 06:22, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

title: User talk:153.107.36.240


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History of video games/Platforms/Hasbro Toaster VR

Development
The Toaster VR was under development from 1992 to 1995 with an expected launch in 1996.

Legacy
Hasbro spent millions of dollars developing the Toaster VR before deciding to cancel the project.

The Hasbro Toaster VR is remembered as a potentially industry changing product that was not launched in favor of safer bets in the market.

Technology
The Hasbro Toaster VR would have been a 3D oriented system.

An unspecified VR system being made by Hasbro at the time, potentially the Toaster, used three ARC cores for processing.


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The Story of Rhodesia/Territorial Expansion

North to the Zambezi, rivalry with Portugal
The projected Company sphere was initially Matabeleland and its immediate neighbours between the Limpopo River and the Zambezi. Portugal's colonies in Angola and Mozambique, coastal territories respectively to the west and east of this general area, were over three centuries old, and Lisbon's alliance with Britain formally dated back to the 1386 Treaty of Windsor. However, the exceedingly lethargic pace of local Portuguese colonisation and development was such that even in the 1880s, Portugal's dominions in Mozambique comprised only a few scattered ports, harbours and plantations, all of which were administered from the island of Mozambique, just north of the Mozambique Channel. Angola differed little, with gigantic tracts of hinterland coming under the largely nominal purview of Portugal's modest colony on the coast.

Rhodes quietly planned to annex some of Mozambique into the Company domain so he could establish a major port at the mouth of the Pungwe River. He thought this might make an ideal sea outlet for his proposed settlement in Mashonaland, the area directly to Matabeleland's north-east where Lobengula held dominion over many Mashona chiefs. Rhodes believed that the Portuguese claim to Mozambique was tenuous enough that he could win much of it without provoking major ire: "the occupation of the Portuguese even along the coast line is in most places merely a paper one," he wrote to Whitehall in late 1889, "and if this has not been recognised by international agreement I think it might be left open." But contrary to Rhodes's opinion, general consensus at the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 had made Portugal's hold over the Mozambican coastline very secure. The Portuguese had expanded inland during the late 1880s, creating Manicaland in the eastern Mashona country. They founded Beira, a port on Rhodes's proposed Pungwe site, in 1890. Portugal issued the so-called "Pink Map" around this time, laying claim to the very corridor of land between Angola and Mozambique that Rhodes desired. The British government issued a firm ultimatum against the Portuguese claims in January 1890; Lisbon swiftly acquiesced and left the area open for the Company's drive north.

Pioneer Column
The Pioneer Column, initially comprising about 100 volunteers referred to as pioneers, was raised by the Company during 1890. Led by Major Frank Johnson, a 23-year-old adventurer, the column was designed by the Company to be the instrument by which it would not only acquire Mashonaland, but also begin its development. Men from a wide variety of backgrounds therefore filled its ranks; according to one member, "prospectors predominate, but nearly every trade and profession under the sun is represented ... one troop is called the gentlemanly troop because the majority in it are brokers". Most of the pioneers self-identified as South African rather than British, and many of them were Afrikaners. At Rhodes's insistence, several sons of the Cape Colony's leading families were also included. Each pioneer was promised 3000 acre of land and 15 mining claims in return for his service.

Lobengula gave his approval to the ostensibly non-military expedition, but many of his izinDuna (advisors) were fiercely against it, seeing it as an appropriation of Matabele territory. Wary that one or more of these izinDuna might turn rogue and attack the pioneers, the Company gradually enlarged the escorting detachment of British South Africa Company's Police until it numbered 500 men, headed by Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Pennefather, an officer seconded from the British Army. To Johnson's chagrin, the Imperial officer was also given ultimate command of the column.

The column was to move roughly east from Macloutsie, a small camp near the border of Matabeleland and Bechuanaland, and then march north to its destination. It would build a road as it went, founding minor forts along the way, and establish a major town in Mashonaland, whereupon the pioneers would be released to farm, prospect and trade. Frederick Courteney Selous, a famed hunter with intimate knowledge of Mashonaland, was made the column's "intelligence officer". He chose as its intended destination an open patch of veld he had discovered during his travels, which he called Mount Hampden. The proposed site was about 650 km to the north-east of Macloutsie. The column departed on 28 June 1890, and on 11 July crossed the Tuli River into Matabeleland. Its first settlement, Fort Tuli, was inaugurated near the riverbank. Though Johnson was nominally in command of the pioneers, he was generally seen as untried and green when contrasted with the experienced, respected authority of Selous. According to most contemporary accounts, Selous was effectively in control. The officers were outwardly harmonious, but Johnson was privately troubled by pangs of jealousy. The column was initially accompanied by about 200 Ngwato provided by the Tswana chief Khama, who had firmly aligned his country with Britain. The Ngwato provided much assistance in building the new road, but animosity soon developed between them and the whites, principally because the latter were not used to treating blacks as equals. By mutual consent, the Ngwato returned home. As the column continued its march north, Selous split off with a small section and headed east to challenge the Portuguese in Manicaland. Pennefather and Johnson continued at the head of the main force and founded Fort Victoria, Fort Charter, and, on 12 September, Fort Salisbury.

The site of Salisbury was a naturally flat and marshy meadow, bounded by a rough kopje. The pioneers were about 15 km short of Mount Hampden, but Pennefather climbed the kopje, surveyed the open veld and insisted that it was "magnificent", so they need go no further. He reported back to Rhodes in triumphant tones: "Site selected ... All well. Magnificent country. Natives pleased to see us". On the morning of 13 September 1890, about 10:00, the officers and men of the Pioneer Column paraded atop the kopje before an improvised flagstaff. With the column standing to attention, Lieutenant Edward Tyndale-Biscoe hoisted the Union Jack, a 21-gun salute was fired, and three cheers were given for the Queen. Work then began on the fort, which was completed by the end of September. The Pioneer Column was then disbanded.

Eastern skirmishes with Portugal
Instructed by Rhodes to hurry east, Selous met with the Manica chief, Mtassa, on 14 September 1890, and agreed with him a concession whereby Mtassa promised not to ally with any other foreign power, and granted the Company exclusive rights to mine within his territory, as well as to build railways, bridges, canals and other projects typical of colonial settlement. In return, the Company gave Mtassa rifles and other equipment (worth £100 in total), and a promise of protection against attacks by the Portuguese or the neighbouring Shangaan (or Tsonga) people. Portugal despatched a small force to militarily overwhelm Mtassa and reclaim the area in early November 1890.

Captain Patrick Forbes rode to Mtassa's aid from Salisbury, quickly routed the Portuguese, and thereupon advanced all the way to Beira, securing further concessions from local chiefs along the way to build a railroad. Tense negotiations between Britain and Portugal followed, finally concluding with a treaty signed in Lisbon on 11 June 1891: prominent among the numerous territorial revisions was the integration of Manicaland into the Company domain as part of Mashonaland. Britain concurrently recognised Portugal's authority over the entire Mozambican coast, putting an end to Rhodes's designs for a Company port on the Mozambique Channel.

North to Katanga
Representatives of the Company crossed the Zambezi to venture even further north. The Shire Highlands of Nyasaland, far to the north-east on the banks of Lake Nyasa, had been settled by a modest number of British missionaries for about a decade, and in Barotseland, to the north-west, King Lewanika hosted François Coillard of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. Rhodes sent Elliot Lochner north to negotiate with Lewanika in late 1889, and in June 1890 the king signed the Lochner Concession, which gave the Company rights to mine, trade and build railways in Barotseland in return for British protection over his domain from external threats, and a British resident in Lewandika's court at Lealui. The British government thereupon chartered the Company to defend Barotseland, as well as all country to the east as far as Nyasaland, and to the north as far as Lake Tanganyika and Katanga.

A country where resources were scarce and tropical disease was rampant, Barotseland offered comparatively few economic opportunities for the Company and little incentive for white immigration. The main objective of Lochner's expedition was all along to clear a path towards Katanga, a mineral-rich area further north, where Msiri ruled the Yeke Kingdom. Katanga was also coveted by the owner of the Congo Free State, King Leopold II of the Belgians, whose representatives Rhodes hoped to beat there. "I want you to get Msiri's," Rhodes told one of his agents, Joseph Thomson; "I mean Katanga ... You must go and get Katanga."

The efforts of Thomson and Alfred Sharpe to secure a Company concession over the area were furiously rebuffed by Msiri in late 1890, and ultimately foiled by the 1891–92 Stairs Expedition—a multinational force in Leopold's service, led by a Canadian British Army officer, Captain William Grant Stairs—which violently clashed with the obstreperous Msiri, and eventually shot him dead when an attempt to arrest him turned into a firefight. Msiri had been in the habit of displaying the heads of his enemies atop poles outside his boma (enclosure), and the expedition's men hoisted his own head alongside them in an attempt to strike fear into the locals. The country promptly capitulated to the Free State, ending the Company's expansion north.

The Company did little to fulfil Britain's obligations to Lewandika; having failed in Katanga, its hierarchy saw Barotseland as an unworkable inconvenience that might later be exchanged with Portugal. Whitehall, by contrast, regarded Lewandika's domain as an important buffer against further Portuguese claims inland. Neither the Company nor the British government proved eager to take practical responsibility for the Barotse; in 1894, while informing Britain of his willingness to administer on Whitehall's behalf north of the Zambezi, Rhodes stressed that he would not take Barotseland. The promised British resident at Lealui remained conspicuously absent, despite Lewandika's repeated enquiries, until the appointment by Rhodes of Robert Thorne Coryndon in 1897.


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The Story of Rhodesia/Matabele Wars

Events leading to the first Matabele War
Before the first Matabele War, Cecil Rhodes and King Lobengula had good relationships. Lobengula knew that the Zulu’s attempt to rebel failed miserably so he initially decided to peacefully negotiate. However, this did not last long. In 1893, a band of 400 cattle thieves went to Fort Victoria to run away from the Matabele. The European settlers watched the Matabele slaughter the robbers. This gave Rhodes a reason to attack Matabeleland.

Start of the first Matabele War
Rhodes employed Leander Jameson to layout the battle plan. Major Patrick Forbes, the officer commanding, led a column from Salisbury, and met Major Allan Wilson, leading the column from Fort Victoria. They advanced towards Bulawayo, however a small pox outbreak prevented any action by the Matabele until October 25th. By then, the column had crossed the Shangani River, and set up a laager. Then, 6000 Matabele attacked, but the battle didn’t last long and the Matabele were forced to retreat due to the Maxim Guns and combined fire from Martini-Henrys.

Destruction of Bulawayo
The Battle of Bembezi happened on November 1st, 1893. The Matabele decided to show how fearless they are by conducting frontal attacks on the maxim guns. There were 700 British South Africa Compmay (BSAC) soldiers in the battle and 7000 Matabele, however Forbes and his men still won because of their superior weapons. John Edmond sings about this battle in his song, “The Battle of Bembezi”:

We fought them at the Bonko, 'twas just the other day They laid an ambush in our path - we went another way To capture Bulawayo and stop a fearful war The Sal’sbry Horse, Victoria Rangers and the old Cape Corps

On the first day of November of eighteen ninety-three We fought the Matabele at the Battle of Bembezi

We formed a laager on the hill at mid-day for to rest We saw an Insukamini regiment towards the west We swung the seven-pounder 'round; let a big one fly And from the east the Amaveni gave their battle cry

On the first day of November of eighteen ninety-three We fought the Matabele at the Battle of Bembezi

The wild Ingubu with the fierce Imbezu on the right Came charging from the northern bush, they were a fearful sight And near 6000 warriors - we stopped them on the run The bravest of the brave could never match the Maxim gun

On the first day of November of eighteen ninety-three We fought the Matabele at the Battle of Bembezi

Because of Lobengula’s pride, he didn’t want that BSAC to capture Bulawayo, so he decided to burn it instead. Then he fled in order to not be captured. On November 4th, Bulawayo was captured. On November 13th, Major Forbes organisée his column and started in pursuit of Lobengula.

Shangani Patrol
The pursuing party was delayed by difficult routes and heavy rains, and did not catch up with Lobengula until December 3. Major Allan Wilson, in command of thirty-four troopers known as the Shangani Patrol, crossed the Shangani river and bivouacked close to Lobengula's quarters. In the night the river rose, and early the next morning the Matabele surrounded the Shangani Patrol, overwhelming Wilson and his followers. 31 men of the Shangani Patrol perished in the encounter, while the remaining three (American scouts Frederick Russell Burnham and Pearl "Pete" Ingram, and an Australian named Gooding) crossed the swollen river under orders from Wilson, and returned to Forbes to request reinforcements. However, Forbes' forces were unable to cross the river in time.

Defeat of Matabele
Lobengula died from smallpox on January 22 or 23 1894. Meanwhile, the Ndebele warriors gradually succumbed to the company's superior firepower. Soon after the king’s death, the Ndebele izinDuna submitted to the British South Africa Company. Charges were later made in the British House of Commons against the company, accusing them of having provoked the Ndebele in order to secure their territory. However, after enquiry the company was exonerated from the charge by Lord Ripon, the Colonial Secretary.

Following the end of the war, one of Lobengula's izinDuna said that just before Forbes' column had reached the Shangani on 3 December 1893, the king had attempted to buy the pioneers off. According to this story, two Matabele messengers, Petchan and Sehuloholu, had been given a box of gold sovereigns, and instructed to intercept the column before it reached the river. They were to tell the whites that the king admitted defeat, and offered this money in tribute if the BSAP would turn back. "Gold is the only thing that will stop the white men," Lobengula reportedly said. Petchan and Sehuloholu reportedly reached the column on 2 December 1893, and gave the money and the message to two men in the rear guard. No man who had been attached to the column confirmed this, but company authorities thought it unlikely that the Matabele would simply invent such a story. Two officers' batmen were accused of accepting the gold, then keeping it for themselves and not passing on the message. The evidence against them was inconclusive, but they were found guilty and sentenced to 14 years' hard labour by the Resident Magistrate. They were released after two years, however, because the maximum term the Magistrate could give was three months; the convictions were ultimately quashed altogether on a re-assessment of the evidence by the High Commissioner's legal team. The truth of the matter has never been conclusively resolved.

Aftermath of the the First Matabele War
Within nine months the rebuilt town of Bulawayo had a population of 1,900 colonials with over 2,000 more prospectors in the various goldfields. A new company, the African Transcontinental Company, was founded under the auspices of Col. Frank Rhodes, brother of Cecil, with the ultimate purpose of connecting the Cape with Cairo. The railway from Cape Town passed Mafeking, and approached the Rhodesian frontier, reaching Bulawayo in 1897. The east coast line to connect Salisbury (now Harare) with Beira, Mozambique (then Portuguese East Africa Colony) was completed in 1899.

Maxim gun
The First Matabele War was the first wartime use of a Maxim gun by Britain and it proved to have a decisive impact. In less than optimal situations, such as hilly or mountainous terrain or dense vegetation with poor lines of sight, the Maxim gun resulted in little direct impact on enemy deaths. But as a psychological weapon, the Maxim gun was truly phenomenal. It generated a sense of fear in the Ndebele and made the British South Africa Police seem invincible. In one engagement, for example, 50 company soldiers with just four Maxim guns fought off 5,000 Ndebele warriors.

Introduction to the Second Matabele War
In March 1896, the Mlimo (Matabele spiritual leader) convinced the Matabele and the Shona that the drought, locust, plagues, and the cattle disease. She also predicted the end of white people in Africa. At the time, there were only 48 BSAP men to protect Rhodesia because the rest were in Transvaal after the failed Jameson Raid.

Rebellion
The Mlimo planned to wait until the night of 29 March, the first full moon, to take Bulawayo by surprise immediately after a ceremony called the Big Dance. He promised, through his priests, that if the Matabele went to war, the bullets of the settlers would change to water and their cannon shells would become eggs. His plan was to kill all of the settlers in Bulawayo first, but not to destroy the town itself as it would serve again as the royal kraal for the newly reincarnated King Lobengula. The Mlimo decreed that the settlers should be attacked and driven from the country through the Mangwe Pass on the Western edge of the Matobo Hills, which was to be left open and unguarded for this reason. Once the settlers were purged from Bulawayo, the Matabele and Shona warriors would head out into the countryside and continue the slaughter until all the settlers were either killed or had fled.

However, several young Matabele were overly anxious to go to war, and the rebellion started prematurely. On 20 March, Matabele rebels shot and stabbed a native policeman. Over the next few days, other outlying settlers and prospectors were killed. Frederick Selous, the famous big-game hunter, had heard rumours of settlers in the countryside being killed, but he thought it was a localised problem. When news of the policeman's murder reached Selous on 23 March, he knew the Matabele had started a massive uprising.

Nearly 2,000 Matabele warriors began the rebellion in earnest on 24 March. Many, although not all, of the young native police quickly deserted and joined the rebels. The Matabele headed into the countryside armed with a variety of weapons, including: Martini-Henry rifles, Winchester repeaters, Lee-Metfords, assegais, knobkerries and battle-axes. As news of the massive rebellion spread, the Shona joined in the fighting, and the settlers headed towards Bulawayo. Within a week, 141 settlers were slain in Matabeleland, another 103 killed in Mashonaland, and hundreds of homes, ranches and mines were burned. A particularly tragic case occurred at the Insiza River where Mrs. Fourie and her 6 small children were found mutilated beyond recognition on their farmstead. Two young women of the Ross family living nearby were similarly killed in their newly built home.

Siege of Bulawayo
With few troops to support them, the settlers quickly built a laager of sandbagged wagons in the centre of Bulawayo on their own. Barbed wire was added to Bulawayo's defences. Oil-soaked fagots were arranged in strategic locations in case of attack at night. Blasting gelatin was secreted in outlying buildings that were beyond the defence perimeter, to be exploded in the event the enemy occupied them. Smashed glass bottles were spread around the front of the wagons. Except for hunting rifles, there were few weapons to be found in Bulawayo. Fortunately for settlers, there were a few working artillery pieces and a small assortment of machine guns.

Rather than wait passively, the settlers immediately mounted patrols, called the Bulawayo Field Force, under such figures as Selous and Frederick Russell Burnham; these rode out to rescue any surviving settlers in the countryside and went on attack against the Matabele. Selous raised a mounted troop of forty men to scout southward into the Matobo Hills. Maurice Gifford, along with 40 men, rode east along the Iniza River. Whenever settlers were found, they were quickly loaded into their wagons and closely guarded on their way to Bulawayo. Within the first week of fighting, 20 men of the Bulawayo Field Force were killed and another 50 were wounded. In the First Matabele War, the Matabele had experienced the effectiveness of the settlers' Maxim guns, so they never mounted a significant attack against Bulawayo even though over 10,000 Matabele warriors could be seen near the town. Conditions inside Bulawayo, however, quickly became unbearable. During the day, settlers could go to homes and buildings within the town, but at night they were forced to seek shelter in the much smaller laager. Nearly 1,000 women and children were crowded into the city, and false alarms of attacks were common. Although they kept up their siege, the Matabele made one critical error: they neglected to cut the telegraph lines connecting Bulawayo to Mafeking. This gave both the relief forces and the besieged Bulawayo Field Force far more information than they would otherwise have had.

Several relief columns were organised to break the siege, but the long trek through hostile countryside took several months. Late in May, the first two relief columns appeared near Bulawayo on almost the same day but from opposite directions – Cecil Rhodes and Col. Beal arriving from Salisbury and Fort Victoria in Mashonaland 300 miles to the north; and Lord Grey and Col. Plumer (of the York and Lancaster Regiment) from Kimberley and Mafeking, 600 miles to the south. The southern relief forces were nearly ambushed on their approach to Bulawayo, but Selous discovered the whereabouts of the Matabele and the Maxim guns of the relief forces drove back the attackers. Not long after relief forces began arriving in Bulawayo, General Frederick Carrington arrived to take overall command along with his Chief of Staff, Colonel Baden-Powell.

With the siege broken, an estimated 50,000 Matabele retreated into their stronghold of the Matobo Hills near Bulawayo. This region became the scene of the fiercest fighting between the settler patrols and the Matabele. By June, the Shona kept their promise and joined the fighting on the side of the Matabele. But lacking a clear leader similar to Mlimo, the Shonas mostly stayed behind their fortifications and conducted few raids.

Assassination of Mlimo
Military intelligence at the time thought that capturing the Mlimo would be the speediest way to end the war. The location of the Mlimo's cave had been disclosed to the native commissioner at Mangwe, Bonar Armstrong, by an unnamed Zulu informant. Armstrong immediately brought this information to the Chief of Scouts, Burnham, and the two men presented it to the Administrator of Southern Rhodesia, Earl Grey. The Administrator instructed them to present this information to the military commander, General Carrington, who called in his Chief of Staff, Baden-Powell. Carrington instructed Burnham, Armstrong, and Baden-Powell to leave that very night to "Capture the Mlimo if you can. Kill him if you must. Do not let him escape.". Intervening news of enemy movements near Bembezi forced Baden-Powell to go there instead, so Burnham and Armstrong proceeded on their own to the Matopos.

Burnham and Armstrong travelled by night through the Matobo Hills and approached the sacred cave. Not far from the cave was a village of about 100 huts filled with many warriors. The two scouts tethered their horses to a thicket and crawled on their bellies, screening their slow and cautious movements with branches held before them. Once inside the cave, they waited until Mlimo entered. Once Mlimo started his dance of immunity, Burnham shot him just below the heart, killing him. The two men then leapt over the dead Mlimo and ran down a trail towards their horses. Hundreds of warriors, encamped nearby, picked up their arms and started in pursuit. Burnham set fire to the village as a distraction. The two men hurried back to Bulawayo, with warriors in pursuit

After the assassination, overseas press hailed Burnham and Armstrong as "heroes of the British Empire." But in Rhodesia, sections of the press were sceptical about the assassination of the Mlimo. It had been a mistake on the part of British military intelligence to think of the Mlimo and the high priest, or prophet, in the Matopos as one and the same. Based on British Army reports, Carrington believed that the Mlimo was a central authority and that "his orders fly about from one end of the country to another with great rapidity". Historian Terence Ranger writes that "Carrington was almost certainly over-estimating the centralization (of the Mlimo)", and that "Baden-Powell and other reporters tended to run the various shrines in the Matopos into one". Frederick Selous believed that the head priest of the Mlimo lived in the Matopos, but that "there are other priests, or so-called Umlimos, in other parts of the country through whom they believe that the commands of the Almighty can be conveyed to them." Burnham had carried out his instructions from Carrington and, like Carrington, he relied heavily on Armstrong and military intelligence for his information. Armstrong, the instigator and active participant in the operation, "was an authority on the Native, his language, customs and mentality", according to fellow native commissioner E.C. Harley. Armstrong was also a Major in the Mangwe Field Force, and Selous describes him as young, but "shrewd and capable". Selous and Harley say that Armstrong was in command at the Mangwe laager, although Baden-Powell and other sources name van Rooyen and Lee as the commanders. Some writers also describe Armstrong as young and moody and claim that he too expressed doubts about the identity of the man killed, but only after the assassination.

Initially the Company declined to review the matter and Burnham left Rhodesia on 11 July 1896, a week after the Bulawayo Field Force disbanded, to return to the United States and later joined the Klondike Gold Rush. However, at Armstrong's insistence a court of inquiry was later appointed to investigate the assassination. Although several writers have commented on the outcome, the official report itself has been lost. Referring to the court's report, Harley writes, "The finding of the Judge (Watermeyer) was that the native killed was the Chief Priest of the M'limo. Whether there was another occult personage associated with the M'limo deception is problematical, for with the death of the Chief Priest, the M'limo deception also died." But historian Hugh Marshall Hole writes, "On their return they were greatly applauded for having achieved their dangerous errand, but some time later, when it was found that Mlimo was still at work, an official inquiry was held, with the result that the whole affair was exposed as an elaborate hoax." In contrast to Hole, historians Mary and Richard Bradford, Mary Clarke, Peter Emmerson, and Jack Lott all agree with Harley that the court of inquiry favoured Armstrong. Emmerson cites an 1899 report from chief native commissioner H.J. Taylor as evidence that Watermeyer ruled in favour of Armstrong. Mary and Richard Bradford studied Taylor's 1899 report, and Hole's correspondence, and they suggest specific errors made by Hole in his interpretation of Taylor's report. Clarke and Lott both point out that Armstrong was given a gold watch and a letter of appreciation from the Board of the British South Africa Company after the verdict was rendered.

As to the identity of the man assassinated and his role, there is much confusion. In June 1896, Father Prestage, captain van Rooyen, Hans Lee, and Armstrong met at Mangwe with "Several hundred natives assembled to hear the statement made by witnesses that Gotani the man shot by Burnham was the M'limo of the Matabele." Harley states that "At (the Watermeyer) enquiry, Father Prestage from his knowledge of the Umlimo and the power he exercised was able to supply authoritative information which greatly assisted the enquiry." But chief native commissioner Taylor's 1899 report, written three years after the event and after Armstrong resigned from the Company over unrelated grievances, says that "Armstrong by threats and bribes caused certain natives to perjure themselves and to swear to what was not true". Taylor includes in his report an affidavit by "one Jonas, head messenger at the A.N.C's office at Mangwe," who says, "I swore on oath that Jobane was the M'limo, I knew I was lying at the time, I have never received any cattle from Mr. Armstrong but he paid me the five shillings." Taylor also states in his report that "Dshobane, (was) the supposed Mlimo" assassinated, however, he does not make it clear if "Jobane" and "Dshobane" are different spellings for the same person.

Over the years, historians have postulated several more names for the man assassinated and his role. In 1966, Ranger hypothesized that the man assassinated was not from the Matopos at all, but rather a "loyal" priest of the Kalanga tribe from the Southwest of Matabeleland, and Ranger quotes an 1879 report from a missionary, Joseph Cockin, that states that the priest from the Southwest was named Umkombo. But in 1967, Ranger states that Jobani (or Tshobani) had been the high priest in the Southwest and that "They obtained from the indunas of the Mangwe area affidavits that the dead man, Jobani or Habangana, had been the High Priest of the Mwari and the chief instigator of the rebellion." In 1976, Lott said that Ranger relied on "the American scholar Richard Werbner" for his assessments, and that "recent research has confirmed that Burnham killed the rainmaker (Iwosana) of the tribe (Makalanga) who was Hobani or Tshobani (Sindebele), fourth son of Banko's family." In 1994, Mary and Richard Bradford state that "Burnham may have shot an innocent man, but if so, there was no premeditated plan. He was acting under orders." The Bradfords further remark, "If Jobani was innocent, he was a victim not of Burnham but of white misconception of the M'limo cult and of the difficulty in distinguishing friend from foe that marks irregular warfare."

While there appears to be no clear consensus about either the identity of man assassinated in the Matopos or his role, historian Howard Hensman states "With the downfall of Wedza and shooting of the M'Limo in a cave in the Matoppos by the American scout, Burnham, the Matabele rebellion may be said to have come to an end." Upon learning of the death of Mlimo, Cecil Rhodes walked unarmed into the Matabele stronghold and persuaded the Matabele warriors to lay down their arms. With the war in Matabeland effectively over, the Bulawayo Field Force disbanded on 4 July 1896. With regard to the regular forces under Carrington, Hensman writes "As the rainy season approached and peace was arranged in Matabeleland, the forces, or a considerable portion of them, were moved up into Mashonaland".

Second Matabele War in Mashonland
War broke out on 17 June 1896 at Mazowe with an attack by the Hwata dynasty on Alice Mine. This was followed by the medium Nehanda Nyakasikana capturing and executing Mazowe Native Commissioner Pollard.

Other religious figures who led the rebellion included Kaguvi Gumboreshumba, who was active in the Goromonzi area and Mukwati, a priest of the Mwari shrine who was active throughout Mashonaland.

In addition to the mediums, traditional leaders played a major role in the rebellion, notably Chief Mashayamombe, who led resistance in his chieftaincy in Mhondoro, south of the colonial settlement of Salisbury barracks (now Harare). He was amongst the first chiefs to rebel and the last to be defeated. He was supplied by many of the surrounding districts, such as Chikomba (then Charter). Other chiefs who played an important role included Gwabayana, Makoni, Mapondera, Mangwende and Seke.

With the war in Matabeleland ending, Gen. Carrington was able to concentrate his forces on Mashonaland and the rebels retreated into granite kopjes. With no central command to oppose him, Carrington was able to bring Maxim guns against each stronghold in turn, until resistance ended. Nehanda Nyakasikana and Kaguvi Gumboreshumba were captured and executed in 1898, but Mukwati was never captured and died in Mutoko.

Legacy of the Second Matabele War
The rebellion failed completely and did not result in any major changes in BSAC policy. For example, the hut tax which remained in place. The territories of Matabeleland and Mashonaland had become known as South Zambesia, and both the Matabele and Shona became subjects of the Rhodes administration. It was only 25 years later in 1924 that the entire region became officially named a British Crown Colony. Until 1924, the region was owned by a private company which had purchased it from various chieftains and Lobengula; facts often neglected in 21st century history lessons.

title: The Story of Rhodesia/Matabele Wars


text:
History of video games/Platforms/Atari 8 bit family

History
The Atari 800 and 400 were released in 1979 with the 400 costing $550 and the 800 costing $1000.

Compute
The Atari 400 and the Atari 800 are powered by an 8-bit 6502 processor clocked at 1.79 megahertz.

The Atari 400 has eight kilobytes of RAM in early models and 16 kilobytes of RAM in later models. The Atari 800 has 16 kilobytes of RAM in early models and 48 kilobytes of RAM in later models.


text:
The Linux Kernel/Human interfaces

Welcome to the first article of the book. The article is named after and Linux facility  (HID). HID facility in Linux supports keyboard, mouse and other. Console, multimedia (or just media), sound (audio), video, graphics also are in the focus of this article. Additionally, this chapter covers security and debugging topics as they are closely linked to user and human interactions.

Text interfaces
In the world of Linux, a text s and s are essential components of the operating system that allow users to interact with applications trough kernel. A text terminal is a device that provides a text-based interface for communicating with the kernel, while the console is the physical device that houses the terminal and displays the output of the kernel.

The Linux kernel includes a built-in console driver that provides a basic interface for communicating with the console and controlling the terminal. The console driver also supports various input and output devices, such as keyboards and displays, to enable users to interact with the system through a terminal.

The use of text and s in Linux can be traced back to the early days of computing, when  were not yet widely available. Despite the widespread adoption of graphical user interfaces, and consoles remain popular among Linux users and developers for their simplicity, efficiency, and flexibility. Overall, the text terminal and console play a crucial role in the Linux kernel, providing users with a powerful interface for managing and interacting with the operating system.

Char devices
– "character device" is a type of device driver that provides an implementation for character in the /dev directory. The word "device" here means abstract interface, to a usually peripheral physical device. A character device is a type of device that can be accessed as a stream of bytes, rather than as a block of data like a block device. Cdev drivers are commonly used for devices that provide a of data, such as keyboards, mouses, terminals, serial ports, and printers. They are also used for devices that provide access to memory-mapped I/O regions, such as frame buffers and network devices. A cdev driver typically consists of a set of functions that implement the low-level I/O operations for the device, such as open, read and write. These functions are called by the kernel when a user space program accesses the character device file. To create a cdev driver, a kernel developer must first initialize a cdev structure using or. The cdev structure contains information about the device, such as its major and minor numbers and the set of I/O functions that the driver implements. Once the cdev structure has been initialized, it can be registered with the kernel using the function. This function creates the character device file in the /dev directory and associates it with the cdev driver.

You can find a list of registered char devices on the beginning the listing of /proc/devices. Input devices keyboard and mouse are examples of char devices.

Tip: Browse the cross-referencing site to explore nearby API and use cases

💾 ''Historical: It is one of the most simple, fundamental and oldest concepts derived from UNIX. ''

⚲ API
 * - device id consists of and  numbers
 * - core char device struct
 * or
 * - helper function, uses
 * - common key function to add a char device to the system.
 * - obviously registers char device by major number, name and file operations
 * - static definitions of many major numbers, including obsolete.
 * - static definitions of many major numbers, including obsolete.
 * - static definitions of many major numbers, including obsolete.
 * - static definitions of many major numbers, including obsolete.
 * - static definitions of many major numbers, including obsolete.

⚙ Internals

📖 References
 * Character device drivers, linux-kernel-labs
 * Character device files, on opensourceforu
 * Character device files, on opensourceforu

💾 Historical
 * LDD3:Char Drivers
 * LDD3:Advanced Char Driver Operations
 * LDD1:#3
 * LDD1:#5

Text terminals and console
🗝 Acronyms
 * - 💾 historically TeleTYpewriter, means just terminal
 * - pseudoterminal
 * pts - pseudoterminal slave
 * ptmx - pseudoterminal master

⚲ API
 * To find out current terminal:
 * readlink /proc/self/fd/0
 * -m
 * obviously registers
 * 👁 example
 * obviously registers
 * 👁 example

⚙ Internals

📖 References
 * – controlling terminal
 * and pts – pseudoterminal master and slave
 * – pseudoterminal interfaces

💾 Historical
 * LDD3:TTY Drivers

Security
The goal of security is to restrict access through interfaces. From access control and authentication mechanisms to secure boot and memory protection, the Linux kernel employs a variety of techniques to safeguard the system and its users. Basic Linux security is quite simple. It consists of tree ownership classes and tree access modes. One of the most frequently executed functions is. It rejects access of unauthorized users to open a file.

See article ../Security/ for new features.

Authorization
is the function of specifying rights/s to system resources. The main goal of authorization is prevention of under any circumstances.

🔧 TODO. Keywords: permission, capabilities, ownership,.

⚲ API

Basic classic UNIX authorization is based on ownership and tree access modes: reading, writing and execution.

Ownership is encoded by owning user id and owning group id.

- just typedef used for encoding access mode. - minimal "read only by user/owner" access mode. - full access mode. Please read the source for details for other modes.

Binary of access modes:

 * ↪ changes ownership for file or directory
 * ↪ changes access mode for file or directory
 * , ↪  checks access rights

Common authorization errors
 * – "Operation not permitted"
 * – "Permission denied"

🚀 Advanced features
 * and capget – set/get capabilities of thread(s)
 * – run a program with different privilege settings
 * and capget – set/get capabilities of thread(s)
 * – run a program with different privilege settings
 * – run a program with different privilege settings

⚙ Internals
 * rejects unauthorized file opening
 * checks for access rights to a given inode

📖 References

Credentials
🔧 TODO. Keywords:, user IDs, group IDs, Process group ID, session ID.

⚲ API
 * struct - the security context of a task
 * struct - the security context of a task
 * struct - the security context of a task
 * struct - the security context of a task

 * , - shell utilities
 * is used by utility
 * Real, effective, and saved user/group IDs:
 * , getresgid
 * , setregid
 * - set user identity used for filesystem checks
 * - sets file mode creation mask
 * - set user identity used for filesystem checks
 * - sets file mode creation mask

⚙ Internals
 * etc
 * etc
 * etc

📖 References
 * https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/real-effective-and-saved-userid-in-linux/
 * https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/real-effective-and-saved-userid-in-linux/
 * https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/real-effective-and-saved-userid-in-linux/

Cryptography
🔧 TODO

🗝 Acronyms
 * AES -

⚲ API
 * - Scatterlist Cryptographic API.
 * - Scatterlist Cryptographic API.

⚙ Internals
 * - per-file encryption
 * eCrypt FS - Encrypted filesystem that operates on the VFS layer.
 * - per-file encryption
 * eCrypt FS - Encrypted filesystem that operates on the VFS layer.
 * - per-file encryption
 * eCrypt FS - Encrypted filesystem that operates on the VFS layer.

📖 References
 * devicetree/bindings/crypto
 * devicetree/bindings/crypto
 * devicetree/bindings/crypto

Audit

📖 References
 * https://capsule8.com/blog/auditd-what-is-the-linux-auditing-system/
 * https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Audit_framework

See also eBPF and BPF

Appendix for Security:

🔧 TODO

📖 References
 * Perf events and tool security
 * http://kernsec.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 * http://selinuxproject.org/
 * http://kernsec.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 * http://selinuxproject.org/
 * http://kernsec.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 * http://selinuxproject.org/
 * http://kernsec.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 * http://selinuxproject.org/
 * http://kernsec.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 * http://selinuxproject.org/
 * http://selinuxproject.org/

Debugging
See Debugging Linux kernel

Graphics
Old graphics (not to be confused with v4l):

⚲ API

⚙ Internals

(DRM)
DRM is responsible for interfacing with GPUs of modern video cards. DRM exposes an API that user-space programs can use to send commands and data to the GPU and perform operations such as configuring the mode setting of the display. User-space programs can use the DRM API to command the GPU to do hardware-accelerated 3D rendering and video decoding, as well as computing.

⚲ API
 * /sys/class/drm/

⚙ Internals
 * – Graphics Execution Manager Driver Interfaces
 * registers
 * registers

(ALSA)
ALSA is a software framework and part of the Linux kernel that provides an API for sound card device drivers. Some of the goals of the ALSA project at its inception were automatic configuration of sound-card hardware and graceful handling of multiple sound devices in a system.

The sound servers PulseAudio, JACK (low-latency professional-grade audio editing and mixing) and PipeWire, the higher-level abstraction APIs OpenAL, SDL audio, etc. work on top of ALSA and implemented sound card device drivers. On Linux systems, ALSA succeeded the older (OSS).

⚲ API
 * /proc/asound/cards, /sys/class/sound/
 * - central struct
 * creates an ALSA device component
 * creates an ALSA device component
 * creates an ALSA device component
 * creates an ALSA device component

⚙ Internals
 * See ASoC
 * See ASoC
 * See ASoC

📖 References

(V4L2)
V4L is a collection of device drivers and an API for supporting realtime video capture on Linux systems. It supports many USB webcams, TV tuners, and related devices, standardizing their output, so programmers can easily add video support to their applications. MythTV, tvtime and Tvheadend are typical applications that use the V4L framework.

⚲ API
 * registers
 * registers
 * 👁 examples

📖 References
 * Media subsystem kernel internal API
 * Media subsystem kernel internal API
 * Media subsystem kernel internal API
 * Media subsystem kernel internal API

HID
Generic human interface devices. Don't confuse with hiddev.

Input devices
Input device files are kind of char devices with id. Classic input devices are keyboard and mouse.

⚲ API
 * In shell: cat /proc/bus/input/devices

👁 Examples

⌨ Hands onInternals

sudo hexdump /dev/input/mice # dump your mouse movements events from your kernel

⚙ Internals

📖 References

HID devices
🔧 TODO

⚲ API
 * - device report descriptor. Operations:, . 👁 Example

Camera
🔧 TODO

⚲ API

📖 References

HI device drivers
This section is about low level drivers to human interface peripheral devices.

⚲ HID API
 * registers
 * registers

⚙ Internals
 * - 👁 example of user mode HID driver
 * : keyboard & mouse, misc, serio, tablet, touchscreen, gameport, joystick
 * ⌨ Hands on
 * echo "module atkbd +pfl" | sudo tee /sys/kernel/debug/dynamic_debug/control
 * - 👁 example of user mode HID driver
 * : keyboard & mouse, misc, serio, tablet, touchscreen, gameport, joystick
 * ⌨ Hands on
 * echo "module atkbd +pfl" | sudo tee /sys/kernel/debug/dynamic_debug/control
 * echo "module atkbd +pfl" | sudo tee /sys/kernel/debug/dynamic_debug/control

USB HID

⚲ HID API

⚙ Internals

📖 References

Graphics
🔧 TODO

🗝 Acronyms
 * FB -
 * GPU -
 * TFT (LCD) - used for 🤖 embedded devices
 * MIPI - 📱
 * DBI - Display Bus Interface
 * DSI -
 * DCS - The Display Command Set

⚲ API
 * cat /proc/fb
 * ls -l /sys/class/graphics

⚙ Internals

👁 Examples

📖 References
 * LWN: Graphics
 * LWN: Graphics
 * LWN: Graphics
 * LWN: Graphics

Sound SoC - ASoC
ALSA System on Chip (ASoC) layer for or 🤖 embedded systems. ASoC is designed to handle complex audio processing and routing on low-power and resource-constrained systems, making it an ideal solution for embedded devices such as smartphones, tablets, and other IoT devices.

ASoC provides a comprehensive framework for audio drivers, enabling the creation of modular audio drivers that can be easily integrated with the rest of the kernel. It also supports a wide range of audio interfaces, including I2S, PCM, AC97, and SPDIF, making it highly versatile and capable of handling a variety of audio formats.

One of the key features of ASoC is its ability to handle audio routing and processing using Digital Signal Processing (DSP) techniques.

This enables ASoC to support advanced audio features such as noise reduction, echo cancellation, and dynamic range compression, among others.

Overall, ASoC is a powerful and flexible subsystem that enables Linux to support a wide range of audio hardware in embedded devices. It has become an essential component of many embedded Linux distributions and is widely used in the development of modern audio-enabled devices.

⚲ API
 * is registered by ⇾
 * is registered by ⇾
 * is registered by ⇾

👁 Examples
 * uses
 * uses

⚙ Internals

📖 References
 * https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/ASoC
 * https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/DAPM
 * https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/ASoC
 * https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/DAPM

🗝 Acronyms SAI could be
 * STM Serial Audio Interface:
 * Freescale (FSL) Synchronous Audio Interface:

⚙ Internals

title: The Linux Kernel/Human interfaces