The Rudd Concession and Rhodes.

The Rudd Concession, a written concession for exclusive mining rights in Matabeleland, Mashonaland and other adjoining territories in what is today Zimbabwe, was granted by King Lobengula of Matabeleland to Charles Rudd, James Rochfort Maguire and Francis Thompson, three agents acting on behalf of the South African-based politician and businessman Cecil Rhodes, on 30 October 1888. Despite Lobengula’s retrospective attempts to disavow it, it proved the foundation for the royal charter granted by the United Kingdom to Rhodes’s 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 that eventually became Rhodesia, named after Rhodes, in 1895.

 

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.

The Rudd’s Concession would furnish king Lobengula 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.

 

In 1890 the Pioneer Column entered Matabeleland but skirted through to Mashonaland setting up settlements at Fort Charter, Fort Victoria and Fort Salisbury. During the advance of the Pioneer Column it was found that whole areas of Mashonaland had been cleared of the Mashona by the Matabele in their continuous brutal raids. In one area of Mashonaland an entire tribe had been massacred only three years previous, in 1887. The young Impis would attack the various tribes in turn exacting tribute, killing the men, capturing the young men for the regiment, and especially the women and children, who were taken as slaves. The acquiring of cattle, goats, sheep and grain was another primary goal of the Impi’s

The Matabele War of 1893 occurred because of continuous attacks by the Matabele Impis on the local Mashona tribesmen. These attacks were also disrupting the settlers in their mining concessions and farming enterprises and the fear was that it would spill over into attacks on the settlers. Jameson contrary to academic opinion tried his best to negotiate a peace settlement and stop the raiding.

In 1893 a column was formed from Fort Salisbury and Fort Victoria which advanced from Mashonaland in the east, on to Bulawayo in Matabeleland, A second column was formed in the west in Bechuanaland, of the BSA Company Police, Bechuanaland Police and two thousand of King Khama’s Bamangwato troops. King Khama was tired of the continuous Matabele attacks on his people.

It is interesting to note when the Matabele War of 1893 started, King Lobengula recalled one of his Impi’s which was raiding north of the Zambezi against the Barotse tribes in Barotseland. The Impi’s mission was to attack the various tribes in turn exacting tribute, kill the men, capture the young men for the regiment, and the women and children, who were taken as slaves. The acquiring of cattle, goats, sheep and grain was the other primary goal of the Impi. (An Impi was a regiment of warriors in the Matabele army).

Another reason for these raids was the right of passage for young warriors, which was called ‘The washing of the spears’. These warriors were then allowed to marry. This was a brutal tradition up held in the Zulu nation and Matabele nation.

After the Matabele Rebellion of 1896 the treaty agreed by Rhodes with the tribes lead to 70 years of relative peace and prosperity.

In consequence it was Rhodes that brought to an end the practice of slavery in Matabeleland and Mashonaland. Rhodes also paid for the war against the Arab and African slavers in British Central Africa (Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland today Zambia and Malawi). The war to defeat the slavers took ten years and ended in 1898.

Another interesting note is that when Rhodes was buried at ‘Worlds View’ in the Matopos, the gathered Matabele chiefs and tribesmen gave him the Matabele salute for a king, “Bayete Inkosi”.

None of these facts are taught today in our schools because left wing academics chose not to.

 

The silence about black slavery in the Arab world

In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in the US about a demand by certain black organizations (like Black Lives Matter) for a financial compensation by the “white” people for slavery.

This demand raises many legitimate questions.

What if someone came to the US two or three generations ago and his ancestors did not own slaves?

What if the ancestor of a black man was a freeman who himself owned slaves (as we know that certain blacks did)?

In this case, does he has to pay reparations to himself?

Is holding accountable the descendants 150 years later the best way to go on?

I’m not saying to forget things like slavery, the lynch mobs and the Jim Crow laws (passed by Democrats) ever happened, I’m just asking do the American white people need to be punished for slavery Ad Infinitum?

If they had never acknowledged it that would be one thing, but they did a civil war that killed half a million people over it.

So yeah, they accepted the responsibility for what can justly be called a horrible crime.

What I find the most troubling in the current climate, is the definition of white.

Aren’t Latinos “white”?

What about all the black slaves brought in South America and the Caribbean by the Spaniards and Portuguese?

How come no one dares talk about “Latino” guilt and reparations?

My opinion on the why of it is: there is a deliberate targeting of white, Christian, western European people as the “white devil” while other sorts of Caucasians (like romans or semites) are dubbed “brown” (not a race) and the reason for it is to make easier what we call “identity politics” and have the “brown people” clearly marked as helpless victims of the evil white imperialism so the same brown people would vote for their defenders, aka the left.

In the ever-expanding list of oppressed people, there is a group that is anything but, the Muslims. And oh boy did they ever do a long list of things that everyone blames only the “whites” for: Invading other countries, cultural appropriation, genocides and of course, slavery.

I became interested on the subject while watching Tidiane N’Diaye, a French-Senegalese Anthropologist, talk on French TV about his latest book titled: The veiled genocide (French: Le génocide voilé, 2008).

Until then I had no idea that systematic black slavery in the Arab world ever existed, let alone lasted for more than 1400 years and did millions of dead.

How is it possible that such a monstrous event happened (and still happens in some parts of Africa) and yet unlike the trans-Atlantic slave trade which has been dissected under every angle possible, it was and largely still is, unknown by the public?

Two main routes were used for the Arab slave trade.

The first one was the Trans-Sahara route where sub-Saharan blacks where rounded up in razzias, a word that comes from an Algerian Arabic pronunciation of the classical Arabic word ghawz meaning a military expedition or a raid.

These razzias would capture able bodied young men who were to traverse the Sahara on foot (in harsh conditions) and once in North Africa they would be used as servants or warriors of various caliphs in a number of sultanates, mainly in Egypt and later on when the Ottoman Empire came into being, in Turkey.

Women were also captured to serve as sex slaves.

The second one was from the port on the island of Zanzibar just off the coast of what is today Tanzania.

The razzias in East Africa would center around the Blue Nile region (Sudan and Ethiopia), the Great Lakes (Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania) and the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti).

From the port of Zanzibar the black slaves would be shipped to the Arabic peninsula or to the Persian Gulf to serve as slaves or soldiers in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iran or Iraq.

These ships would go as far as India to bring black slaves to the Muslim rulers in what is today the Punjab region of India and Pakistan.

Women were also captured to serve as sex slaves.

From 869 to 883 in the area of the city of Basra in the south of what is today modern Iraq, there was a Bantu-speaking black slave rebellion against their Arab slave masters led by Ali ibn Muhammad, himself a slave who had been kidnapped from his hometown in East Africa.
The event is known as the Zanj Rebellion and the slaves succeeded in killing tens of thousands of Arab Muslim oppressors before the rebellion was finally put down.

In most Muslim countries where there was a high number of black slaves (like Egypt, Turkey, Iran, India), there are virtually no significant black minorities today.

They make in no way even close to 10 or 15 percent of the population like they do in the US or Brazil. Where have they all gone?

There are many reasons for this lack of descendants and organized black communities in the Arab world.

The terrible conditions of travel, both by the Sahara route and the Indian Ocean one.

It is estimated that at least 50%, if not more, of the captured slaves died during travel.

Many others died in work and due to mistreatment.

Most of the male slaves were castrated (and died of the result of this barbaric operation) due to the fear that they would impregnate Muslim women.

Black women captured were used as sex slaves and their offspring form today the Arabized black elite ruling in Sudan, Mauritania and Somalia.

It is estimated by serious studies that close to 15 million blacks were taken as slaves in the Arabo-Muslim slave trade when as many as two thirds died or during travel or not long after arrival.

Most of the black Muslims today reside in Africa where they are either slaves who earned their freedom (especially those who were soldiers) blacks who were promised to be freed if they accepted Islam, or descendants of the mix between Arab masters and black sex slave females.

Black communities in Arab speaking countries outside of Africa are virtually inexistent due to the fact that most died in barbaric conditions.

When the white European started the slave trade from Africa in the early 16^th century after the discovery of the American continent, they had slave routes already existing, thanks to the hundreds of years of black slave experience of the Arab traders who started the enslavement of Africa as early as the 8th century.

Slavery was abolished in Europe several hundred years ago and was officially abolished in the US in 1865.

Very few countries in the Muslim world have officially abolished slavery and those who did, did it in the late 20^th century.

In Mauritania, slavery was officially criminalized as late as 2007.

I am in no way trying to undermine the horrible crime that was the Trans-Atlantic black slave trade.

All I am trying to understand, is why the Arabo-Muslim black slave trade, which lasted much longer, had a much wider scope and killed millions of blacks more than its American counterpart is a taboo and is not taught in the West, be it in America or Europe.

The silence on this horrific historical event is downright criminal.

I well understand that there is the fear of confronting the Muslim world, knowing that the “religion of peace” is usually very violent in its responses, but I do believe that the victims and their descendants need some closure.

Like in the case for America I do not believe at this point, financial reparations are the way to go but at the very least the Muslim world should accept its responsibility in this horrific black genocide.

As for Black Lives Matter and those supporting their demands, when will come the time you start addressing the “Muslim guilt”?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I was born in France and grew up in Montreal, Canada. I made Aliyah at age 21, out of Zionism and the deep religious feeling that my place is here, in Eretz Yisrael.

 

4. THE ARAB SLAVE TRADE IN AFRICA.

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I find it strange that people try to divorce the Arabs and Natives of Africa from the Atlantic slave trade as they were the ones in the interior gathering the slaves and taking them to the coast in huge caravans. One must also remember that there was a very old slave trade in Sub Saharan Africa running north into the Middle East etc etc.

In east Africa some say it only ran for a couple of centuries but is that the case? What I am finding is that the Arabs and natives were involved way back into the medieval period.

We must not forget that the Muslims took parts of the lower half of Europe from 732 onwards and in that time countless Europeans were taken into slavery. The Ottoman Empire was not the benign entity that many intellectuals try to make it out to be. Over a million Europeans were taken into slavery just in the 1700s. This period destroyed the trading links in the Mediterranean.

Also many of the Arab nations (Muslims) did not ban slavery until very recently in the last 30 years, but it is still going on.

In British Central Africa the missionaries could see this trade in its true colours.

Low Monteith Fotheringham writes in 1884 in his book Adventures in Nyasaland.

(AINp14) From Mwiniwanda to Fwambo the way was studded with stockade villages every ten or fifteen miles, so that Fotheringham had no difficulty in getting relays of carriers on the road. Passing Fwambo, however, we entered upon a change of scene. For fifty miles we came across no tokens of native prosperity, though there were abundant signs of Arab cruelty and carnage. The blackened ruins of the villages, and the bleached bones of human beings on the grass, told their own tale. “ Who has been there?” Fotheringham inquired of his carriers. “ Kabunda,” said they, and they pronounced the name with evident terror.

Kabunda was a wealthy Arab, who had settled in the valley of the Lofu some ten years before. Fotheringham states ‘It is the way of the Arabs to establish himself in a prosperous community, and live in peace with the natives behave indeed, as their friend until such time as he may think it fit to rig out his caravan for the coast. Then come the treacherous and bloody attacks on the innocent and unsuspecting natives, the wholesale butchery of the males, and the capture of the women and children’.

The story of how S.S. Ilala got to Lake Nyasa 1875.

It was instrumental in defeating the Arab and African slavers in Nyasaland.

The missionaries entering the region of Lake Nyasa were the first to see the depredations of the Arab slavers and the waring native tribes. The stronger African tribes such as the Yao, Angoni and the Wbemba.

(LP p30) 21^st May 1875 the Livingstonia Mission party left London taking with them the pieces of the small steamer Ilala and reached the Zambesi mouth. After crossing its Kongoni bar they set to work  to put together their steamer. After a slow and difficult voyage along the Zambezi river they got to the Murchison Cataracts where it became necessary to take the vessel to pieces again. With the help of 1000 African carriers the heavy machinery was transported for about thirty-five miles to the upper Shire river and reassembled. After a further 100 miles of difficult ascent up the river it reached Lake Nyasa on 12^th October, and that evening the missionaries camped at Cape Maclear on the western side of the lake thirty miles from its southern end. A bay on the north west shore of Cape Maclear was chosen as it afforded a good shelter for the Ilala.

The Arab and African slave trade in Nyasaland 1875

1873 Sir Bartle Frere’s mission to Zanzibar successful in breaking the trade. 12,000 slaves a year from Zanzibar.

Yet it continued!

The missionaries entering the region of Lake Nyasa were the first to see the depredations of the Arab slavers and the waring native tribes.

(LP p30) 21^st May 1875 the Livingstonia Mission party left London taking with them the pieces of the small steamer Ilala and reached the Zambesi mouth. After crossing its Kongoni bar they set to work  to put together their steamer. After a slow and difficult voyage along the Zambesi river they got to the Murchison Cataracts where it became necessary to take the vessel to pieces again. With the help of 1000 African carriers the heavy machinery was transported for about thirty-five miles to the upper Shire river and reassembled. After a further 100 miles of difficult ascent up the river it reached Lake Nyasa on 12^th October, and that evening the missionaries camped at Cape Maclear on the western side of the lake thirty miles from its southern end. A bay on the north west shore of Cape Maclear was chosen as it afforded a good shelter for the Ilala.

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October 1875

The  S.S. Ilala can be considered the first measure introduced against the Arab slave dhows which plied the lake with the human cargos on their way to the coast. It was a small but important beginning. (LPp30).

Taken from a travel log ( The original SS Ilala began passenger services in October 1875 and was the first steamer to sail on the lake. She was also built by Yarrow & Co of Glasgow but was a far smaller ship than the current Ilala measuring only 55′ in length and weighing 21 tons. She was operated by the Livingstonia Mission until 1882 when the mission was renamed the African Lakes Corporation. In 1903 she was sold to the African International Flotilla Company who continued to operate the ship until 1922 when she reportedly sunk. I found it difficult to ascertain exactly what happened to the ship, from the various sources I checked I kept getting the answer that at sometime during 1922 she disappeared, presumed sunk).

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1875 Free Church of Scotland set up.

1876 missions set up by the Established  Church of Scotland.

(LPp31) (Lakeland Pioneers).

This party was an important one as amongst the Europeans were a few missionaries sent out from Scotland by the Established Church of Scotland who were to settle at the site selected by Henry Henderson and were being met by him. Their leader was Dr. Macklin. The engineer for Stewart’s mission was Mr. Cotterill, son of the Bishop of Edinburgh, who brought with him a barge called the Herga, which could be taken to pieces and so carried past the cataracts to the upper Shire river………………………………………………………………..

Then the re-entry of the Universities Mission via the Rovuma River valley to the lake.

1881

1883 Captain Foot was appointed Her Majesties consul in territories adjacent to Lake Nyasa to suppress the slave trade and develop the country.

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Modelling Arab Slavers  april 19

I  made up a batch of Arab slavers and their Ruga Ruga from Wagames Foundry. I also bought some Boers from North Star to make up some Missionaries in British Central Africa with their Atonga fighting the slavers and slaver tribes.

Empress Miniatures also do some interesting figures for this period, as well as North Star  Miniatures (North Star Africa) which provide a lot of figures for the Dark Continent.

SLAVER CARAVAN.

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The S.S. Ilala comes close into shore looking for wood and finds an Arab slaver caravan moving down the shore of Lake Nyasa with 1200 slaves. The stronger local native tribes in Nyasaland and north eastern Rhodesia would prey on the weaker tribes and capture men women and children to trade with the Arab slavers from the East coast of Africa.

In this day and age most people forget there would not have been a slave trade if it had not been for the Arabs and native tribes operating in the heart of darkest Africa.

The Scottish Missionaries along Lake Nyasa wanted nothing more than to stop this deplorable trade in human flesh and bring peace and civilization to Nyasaland.

It would have been Livingstone’s wish!

S.S. ILALA STEAM BOAT ON LAKE NYASA.

Arab Slave War in British Central Africa

It was quite news to me to find out that the missionaries introduced steam boats to the Lake, first of all to support their missions and then to to deal with the Arabs and African tribes slave trading

in this region.

Sarissa Precision Ltd produce this lovely MDF 28mm Colonial Steam Launch for £10. Easy to put together and you have S.S. Ilala.

(LP p30) 21^st May 1875 the party left London taking with them the pieces of the small steamer Ilala and reached the Zambesi mouth. After crossing its Kongoni bar they set to work  to put together their steamer. After a slow and difficult voyage along the Zambesi river and then up the Shire River, they got to the Murchison Cataracts where it became necessary to take the vessel to pieces again. With the help of 1000 African carriers the heavy machinery was transported for about thirty-five miles to the upper Shire river and reassembled. After a further 100 miles of difficult ascent up the river it reached Lake Nyasa on 12^th October, and that evening the missionaries camped at Cape Maclear on the western side of the lake thirty miles from its southern end. A bay on the north west shore of Cape Maclear was chosen as it afforded a good shelter for the Ilala.

………………………………………….

October 1875

The  S.S. Ilala can be considered the first measure introduced against the slave dhows which plied the lake with the human cargos on their way to the coast. It was a small but important beginning. (LPp30).