The very first history of the British colonisation of the land which later became famous as Rhodesia, and is now called Zimbabwe. This book, first published in 1900, was specifically commissioned by famous British Imperialist Cecil John Rhodes and his British South Africa Company (BSAC) with the intention of countering some of the negative publicity which the BSAC had encountered since their venture into the interior had created the first European settlements north of the Boer Republics. Using firsthand accounts gathered directly from the official BSAC archives, this book provides a gripping insight into the struggles of those early European pioneers-and of the intense and long-lasting resistance they encountered from the African inhabitants. Revealed along the way of this war-filled narrative are interesting facts such as the total population of the region in 1900; the personal intervention of Rhodes in a meeting with the Matabele chiefs to try and stop the ongoing wars; and many other incidents and facts vital for anyone seeking to gain an understanding of the origin of the later conflict in that land. The work also contains two interesting chapters dealing with the Rhodesian colonists' participation in the Second Anglo-Boer War, which was still raging at the time this book first appeared. Now with 14 new and rare illustrations. Fully indexed.