The Rudd Concession, a written concession for exclusive mining rights in
Matabeleland, Mashonaland and other adjoining territories in southern
Africa, was granted by King Lobengula of Matabeleland to Charles Rudd
(pictured), James Rochfort Maguire and Francis Thompson, three agents
acting on behalf of the politician and businessman Cecil Rhodes, on 30
October 1888. The concession conferred on the grantees the sole rights
to mine throughout Lobengula's country, as well as the power to defend
this exclusivity by force, in return for weapons and a regular monetary
stipend. Despite Lobengula's retrospective attempts to disavow it on the
grounds of alleged deceit by the concessionaires regarding the settled
terms, it proved the foundation for the royal charter granted by the
United Kingdom to Rhodes' British South Africa Company in October 1889,
and thereafter for the Pioneer Column's occupation of Mashonaland in
1890, which marked the beginning of white settlement, administration and
development in the country. The Company officially named the territory
Rhodesia, after Rhodes, in 1895, and governed it until 1923.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudd_Concession>
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(informal) A railway enthusiast.
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The
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