White Immigration Into Rhodesia

From Cecil Rhodes' articulation of his white-dream, and British emigration and settlement, the actions and attitudes of white Rhodesians and British officialdom have always been contentious, and relations between Zimbabwe and Britain of great public interest. This study of the history of white immigration into Zimbabwe, draws on quotations from government and other sources, now housed in British and Zimbabwean national archives. The author traces immigration into Southern Rhodesia from British occupation in 1890, to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. He considers emigration in the wider context of the changing nature of Britain and the Empire, and discusses the social engineering carried out by the Rhodesians and the British: on the one hand to try and ensure a dominant and economically and industrially successful white class in Rhodesia, and the maintenance of gender balance in the settler society; and on the other, to discourage immigration of other white nationals into Rhodesia. He goes on to show however, how these racially motivated policies and other historical developments meant that the Rhodesian dream was never realised.