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Hey, Robert here. It's been like two months since I had LASIK and I'm still seeing 2020. All I had to do was go in for a consultation, then go in for a maybe 10 minute procedure and then my eyes have been great ever since. You know, I healed up wonderfully. It was very simple, couldn't have been a better experience. So if you want to explore LASIK plus I can't recommend it enough. They have over 20 years experience in the industry and they performed more than two million treatments right now if you want to try getting LASIK plus you can get $1000 off of your surgery when you're treated in September, that's $500. Of per eye, just visitmylasikoffer.com to schedule your free consultation. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried true crime. And if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's breaker handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. In the 1980s and 90s, a psychopath terrorized the country of Belgium. A serial killer and kidnapper was abducting children in the bright light of day. From Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio, this is La Monstra, a story of abomination and conspiracy. The story about the man who simply become known as. Lamaster. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's in conquering my dominating my colonial colony? Jesus, I don't know that we're talking this Robert Evans behind the ******** a badly introduced podcast about even worse people. Today we're doing another ************* episode about white English dudes in Africa in the 1800s. So strap the **** in, everybody. My guest today also does a say you don't know how to do it. Answer to a podcast ever again. That was phenomenal. Continue. Thank you. Thank you, my guest today. Jason Petty, AKA Primewest W I'm coming in blind. So I had no idea we were doing another white colonial in Africa. This is going yeah, we're not we're not doing another white colonial in Africa. Actually, we're doing the white colonial in Africa. We are talking about the guy we're talking about today. Problem might be the whitest man who ever lived. We are talking about Cecil ************* roads. That boys name is Cecil. Cecil, let's go. Cecil. And he's the namesake of Rhodesia. Oh my God. Yeah. No tell me it's not. Rhodes is named after him. Yeah, Rhodesia was his personal property. So the Cecil Rhodes is not just like an influential imperialist, he's one of like. He's Hitler, Stalin, Mao, level of influential in the world. He is. In addition to owning Rhodesia and another nation as his private property, he governed a third country. He controlled 90 to 95% of the world's diamond supply. Oh, and by the way, he helped invent apartheid. So, like that, this is the. Yeah, that's where I know him from. Part time. Yes. Like, here we go. That's why I didn't know you didn't think about the Rhodesian thing. I just know him from the apartheid stuff. But yeah, here we go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like. These ******* with a capital B, bold underline, 3 exclamation points. Yeah, he's one of the big ones. Yeah, he's one of the big ones. And he he is like the arc. Like when you see the when you see like the ******* like the fashy proud boy types out in the street. He's what every every one of them wants to be like. Cecil Rhodes lived the dream life of an imperialist. Yeah, yeah, it's cool stuff, prop. It's cool stuff. This is one of OK, wait, dude. This is one of those episodes where I included a bunch of quotes from him and then I had to go through the quotes and edit out the N word repeatedly because he says it a lot. Yeah, yeah. Yo. OK, so, like, this is what. This is why I'm smiling so much. I remember early on in my career there was this, like. Venture capitalist guy that just really took a liking to me because he's super wealthy, super white, but he loved hip hop so. He was a essentially trying to help mentor me in my business thoughts, but he would say things like I bought that company because who says you can't? And then he would be like, and his whole thing was like, dude, that's he's like, that's the model gotta live by. Who says you can't, you know, you just go pursue your dreams. Who says you can't do it? And I just thought, OK. You're just where do I start, man? Like, you know, saying I'm like, you're you're trying to motivate me. But you turned me the **** *** because I'm like, yeah, what do you mean? Who says you can't? I mean, actually, I know what you mean. Yeah, and I'm like, Nah, I don't. I don't know, man. I don't know if I'm gonna. I don't know if I'm gonna go down this road, but yeah. So that's why I giggled, because I was like, yo, he was telling me this is like a good thing. Like, hey, man, who says you can't? Yeah, I think it's you got one of those. You got one of those reminders that we all get from time to time that there are within this planet, there are multiple planets, and that guy lives on a different planet. It's on a different one. Just that's not ours. He's on The Who says you can't plan it. He's on the. Yeah. And I'm just like, I just. I. God. OK, I guess. Yeah, because for me, I have the. I do have. Who says you can't feelings. But it's when I'm looking at like, like, like a like a really fancy bag of coffee. Like it's $25 for this bag of coffee. Yeah. He says I can't like, yeah, I'll get. I'll get the nice coffee. I like how you translated that into, like, prop speech. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I love it. Yeah. You know, just a little. Whereas with him, it's like the the company that makes the coffee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, this is his family. It's, you know, it's it's there. Yeah, it's their granddad's plantation. In Colombia, you know, I'm saying. And he's like. I want a coffee company. You know, who says you can't? I'll just buy it from them. I'll give him a good price, you know, and that's is very appropriate because Cecil Rhodes is that guy, but he's he's a step above that guy. So that guy's a step above you and I we we we say that when we think about buying a nice product. He thinks about that when Cecil Rhodes was that for nations. Yeah. This is I can. You know what? I'm going to take it. Like, I'm just going to take this. Yeah. OK, so this is the guy we're getting into and I'm gonna, I'm just gonna start. Cecil John Rhodes was born on July 5th, 1853 in the hilariously named town of. Are you ready for this prop? Here we go. Bishop Stortford in Hertfordshire, England. Probably pronounced wrong. Who cares? It's the English bishops. Stortford not a town name, but it is a town name. But that's not what you should name a town. I wish I understood that. I wish I understood more like language and homology of yeah, like British things like Thornberry and yeah, worchestire, like, why yeah, Worcestershire. Worcester, I think, is how you're supposed to say it. Like, yeah, like, what's the war like going on with you people? Why? Why do that? Obviously must be 2020 safe word and nobody can figure out how to pronounce it. And that's why everything so ****** **. That's a good guess. That's a good yeah. I yeah. I feel like, I feel like we just all kind of left the English alone on their island for too long. And that's was a bad call. Yeah. Because that little, that little Teeny island conquered the planet. Yeah. And they came up with some weird things to waste, to pronounce words in weird ways. To pronounce things. Yes and very. But the genocides were worse. Yeah. Just why can't y'all have no salt? Just add salt stuff. Anyway, if you're English, this might be a hard episode to listen to because. We're we're gonna be going off. But yeah. Anyway, so Cecil was the fifth son of Reverend Francis William Rhodes and Louisa Peacock, his best biographer, probably Robert Rotberg, calls the Rhodes family circumstances modest, but hardly deprived. And OK, this is something I'll probably quibble with him on a bit, because modest is not how I would describe the roads relative both sides of his family owned a significant amount of property. As late as 1901, the road siblings were receiving rent payments from 1600 properties in Bishop. That's not modest. That's not modest. That's not modest. Yeah. It would be fair to say that Cecil never worried about money in his entire life. The roads were of modest means, though, within the world of the British upper crust. So within the the social environment they existed in, they were middle class, but they existed in the upper like 5% of of the British nation, you know? There's there's the new money. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got they got the C Class. Yeah, exactly. OK. Got it. Yeah. They they're like today. They're the kind of family that rinse yats a couple of times a year but doesn't own one because they just can't handle those slip fees. Yeah. Got it. Got it. So Cecil's mother and father spawned copiously. They produce nine children in very quick succession. Seven of those kids survived to adulthood, which means they were pretty good at being parents by the standards of the time you get 7. 9 to adulthood, you're doing alright in 1850s, that's a pretty good percentage because that polio boy, yeah, it's a yeah game like. Kids? Nah. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. It should have been more like 5. Yeah. Really? Cecil was child #4, the middle kid. And he was most definitely his mama's boy. Rickett, the family servant. And I should say that boys name is Rickett. Yeah. Yeah. They had a family servant named Rickett. His name Rickett. What? That's like what you put into a show. If you're making fun of the British apple upper crust, if you give them a servant named Rickett, you give them a servant named after a disease. Yeah. English understand what's wrong with y'all putting use in words randomly. Very funny. So yeah, the family servant, Ricket later recalled. He was his mother's boy, her favorite. I mainly included that quote. Yeah, just because I wanted to laugh at the fact that they had a servant named Ricket. So Cecil was the only one of his siblings whose mother called him my darling. And by all accounts, she was a very nurturing mother. While her children were young, she acted as their teacher, helping them learn to read and write. Cecil's father was a very different sort of parent. The couple had married when she was 28 and he was 36, which was unusual because that's very old for a woman to get married in this period of time like she's a spinster at 28. So you you would say that like he he actually I was like sorry Sophie is that's just the way they talked in the in the back then I'm being ridiculous, agent Sophie. It's awful. I mean, low key. All of the rich people back then were into teenagers? Yes. Like that's the way it worked in those days. Yes. And it was messed up. Yeah, so you gotta give Cecil's dad credit for, you know, marrying someone who's an actual adult. That's good. So, yeah, but this did mean that he was in his 50s by the time Cecil came into the picture. He was not a super fun dad, was a very strict disciplinarian, and the children often ran to their mother for comfort. Robert Rotberg, Cecil's biographer or Cecil's biographer writes quote Miss Rhodes was unusually skilled in establishing supportive relations well liked by contemporaries and servants she provided. Ample measure of love for her children, especially Cecil. It was that special love which was the foundation of his invincible self-confidence. An affirmative sense of self which was both a spur to accomplishment and a resilient buffer against the ravages of failure. To his credit, and discredit roads throughout his lifetime was remarkably free of both guilt and shame. So his mom is very supportive, and maybe she should have been a little less supportive, let me tell you. Let me tell you the the parent that actually cares about their kids. Biggest fear. Is that you were you actually showed your favorites and, like, cared for one more than the other. And then one of them is like, well adjusted and wonderful. And then the other ones like, you know, in and out of rehab and you're like, not to shame anybody for that, but you're just like, or the one. And then, like, in this scenario, the one you actually unfairly favored turns out to be the piece of crap. Yeah, you was. Trying to avoid, you're saying. Yeah, that's kind of where we're where this story is elite and unfortunately. So yeah, he grows up yeah it very, very, very much coddled by his Mama. This and he grew up very entitled as a result of this. And this is particularly illustrated by an anecdote from his nurse. When he was five or six years old, she just made jam and had set it up high to cool. She left the room for a few minutes and she came back, the jam was gone and Cecil had clearly eaten it. So I'm going to quote her relating the rest of this. Sorry, Cecil, did you eat that gem? Yes, he replied. I am sorry. It's gone. It was very good. Make some more. I I can't take any of this seriously. Yeah, yeah, that was that was a that. This is first of all, spot on. Great accent. And. This boys 5 and he's giving orders to adults. Yeah, just hey, make more. I just. I wish Cecil was Caesar so our our Cecil so when the nurse comes in and says. Did you eat that jam? And he goes, hell yeah. Make some more amazing. Yeah, if you were seasonal. Yeah. She described his attitude as superior, and he just told her to make more jam and walked away whistling. The nurse went up to his mom and asked what should be done with a boy like that. And his mom said let him alone as long as he speaks the truth, which is like, God, look at that point, nurse, take your apron off and just be like, look, it's a lot of rich people in this city. I'm gonna go work somewhere else. I don't need this. Yeah. That that point I'm not. I would, I would not be, but I'm already bossed by you. I would not be bossed by a 5 year old. It it seems like the thing that he needs is the thing that's done in some households when you talk back to your mom or your auntie and they chunk their their sandals at you. Yeah, like that's the kind of, yeah, nothing that hurts but a sandal thrown at him. Real quick. Yeah. Chocolate. Exactly. Yeah. Just, you know, just let me remind you which one of us is the adult. That's the way my parents used to say. I'm just gonna remind you which one of us is the adult. Yeah. So that should give you some idea as to the way the kid grew up seeing himself and other people we don't know very much about, like his dad personally. There are a few details that I kind of find tantalizing, one of which is that as a preacher, he was eventually a a vicar. He was famous for never delivering a sermon longer than 10 minutes. Wow, that's great. Actually, I'm not gonna lie. Like, you know, so my grew up, grew up in a in a Baptist, you know, a Black Baptist Church. You talk about 10 minutes. Sounds great. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that part sounds cool. And the other thing, Cecil's biographer just drops this in the biography with no added context, probably because we don't have it, is that Cecil's father despised the law and raised his children to not respect the law and to abide by their own more. He just hated. He hated the idea of going to lawyers. He hated judges, he hated cops and we don't know anything about why, but that was just hoping they were raised with little conflicted about Cecil's Daddy now, you know, saying like, wait, OK, hold up, you know, I'm saying like go money, you know, was able to keep his kids alive. Like, the speech is short, hates the Kevin Speech is short, and he hates the cops. I'm like, wait, and he married a full grown adult, you know? Yeah. Like, he he wasn't married. He wasn't he wasn't at the middle school picking girls, you know? Yeah, it wasn't getting married to a 15 year old at age 36, which a lot of dudes did. Yes. Yeah. So Cecil's first school was was a private school rather than a public school. And that means a different thing, actually. That means he didn't go to, he didn't go to like Eaton or one of the fancy schools. It means a different thing. I guess in England in this. So he was always kind of insecure about the fact that he went to a private school and didn't get to go to one of the big fancy like he's. He didn't get to be an Etonian. You know, we talked about that in our our episodes on the Wonga coup like that, that he didn't get to to get that early introduction into like the fancy pots of the of the of the White British boys education so that maybe that's why he thinks he's like he's of modest. Maybe, yeah. They his parents, I think, kept him out because his health wasn't great, although that's even debated. There's a lot of, like, argument over whether or not he was a sickly kid, which I just don't care to get into because it's boring. True? Yeah, he was studious and intelligent, and he's overwhelmingly described as having been very Moody. His nurse claimed that he was never, like, a normal child one, although the evidence she gives for this is also baffling, because the thing that she she cites is that he only laughed. When he liked, which is like, what else do you laugh? Well, I mean that's wait. Yeah, yeah. I don't understand what she was going. It's just you get reminders reading through this like, Oh yeah, this is like a again a different world. Like, I don't understand what the **** these people are talking about at the time. They didn't laugh at her job. Yeah. Was he like, to me, it was like, maybe you just not funny because, like, your first story. Yeah, that's a warning sign for my kid. But, like, the fact that he doesn't laugh when he doesn't wanna laugh. You can't really. Like. Yeah, you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, who does laugh when they don't want to laugh? Are you laughing? People light. You don't learn that until you're an adult. So, yeah, of course you didn't laugh. I guess English kids are supposed to learn that early. I don't know. But for a little bit more context on Cecil as a boy, I'm going to read a quote from the founder. Which is a biography about him. When vexed, he would hide in a dark corner under the staircase. Not speaking for hours, he sometimes fled to the family summer home with a book pouring over it by the hour together, resenting imperiously any attempted intrusion. He was prone to strange fits of moodiness, some vague uneasiness of spirit who saucy was never able to properly communicate, unaware himself of whether it was melancholy or horror that seized him. Occasionally the young roads rocked himself to and fro and kept up a low crooning. Which was almost a moan, a crooning that never shaped itself into articulate words. At such times, Miss Rhodes would go to her special son, and with her arms about him she would beg him to explain the reason of his disquiet. But he never told her, locking himself. Then, as later in a private, possibly solipsistic world, there were similar moments when he curled up under the dining room table, remaining there invisible behind an overflowing tablecloth. Despite the frantic searching of servants, he sat underneath dinner lists, through many a meal of his young years, hugging his knees. Yo, he's. Sounds autistic. Anything like I used to, yeah. I used to teach special Ed and, like, that is like, and I've heard a number of theories as to like, why it's a thing. But like, yeah, I I don't know. Like, you can't diagnose a guy who died decades before. Like, yeah, obviously, yeah. But it it does sound like he was. He was, I don't know, like, I don't even like the term neurotypical a lot. It sounds like he was. He definitely had some. There's something going on there that maybe I don't have a great understanding of. Yeah, they didn't have a name for whatever that was. Well, yeah. And it and it's that's a benefit for like being seeing the world differently can allow you to see options others don't. And I think kind of what you're with this paragraph is getting at and what I've experienced with the number of a number of the autistic folks that I worked with who would do, who would have kind of behavior coping behaviors like that. The moaning is they're taking in like too much of the world. Like, yeah yeah like they're they're kind of overwhelmed by all of the sensory stimuli because their brain for whatever, whatever ours like other people's their brain may be. Filters out more or something and maybe that's part of why Cecil was able to see some of the options he was able to see, I don't know like let's yeah, I don't want to cycle analyze. It became like a dude. But that. Yeah, there is something to being able to have a coping mechanism that maybe the rest of us think are weird, but we don't. But we ain't got one. I bet you we had some coping mechanisms would probably be a less some less anger in US, you know? I'm saying yeah, that's so yeah anyway but yeah able to like navigate a world because his brain works a certain way, which we don't know obviously is all speculation. It it just, it does sound like what we can say from that paragraph is that he he was he he felt overwhelmed a lot by reality as a little kid. To an extent that was, was, was unusual. Yeah. So yeah. Now the author of that biography, Robert Rotberg, is very interested in developmental psychology, and he and he analyzes Cecil repeatedly through that lens. And I think the book was written in 88, so there's not a lot of he doesn't. I think if it was written more recently, he probably he might have speculated more on some of the stuff that we've been talking about. Yeah. But he's he's real into like some Freudian ****. And he notes that first and only children tend to get the most attention, while middle children learn better interpersonal skills. And Rotberg basically writes that Cecil had elements of both of these things and his own upbringing. He was the middle kid, but he was also his mother's favorite, and so he got special attention. And he he he theorizes that this kind of might explain how he grew up into the political animal he became, because he was both kind of surrounded by a very competitive family, and he learned how to do diplomacy as a result of that. But he also grew up with this. Kind of limitless self-confidence that comes from being, you know, the the most favored child. So another major influence on the growing Cecil was the fact that his father was kind of * ****. And as Cecil later confided to a friend quote my father frequently and I am now sure wisely demolished many of my dreams as fantastical. But when I had rebuilt them on more practical lines, he was ready to listen again. He never failed to put his finger on the weak spots and his criticism soon taught me to consider a question from every possible point of view. I don't know. Sounds a little bit dickish to me to, like, be tearing apart of kids dreams all the time, but Cecil clearly was grateful for it. So yeah, yeah, he somehow like, read, like, read like little history revisionism here. Like looking back, going. I guess it was kind of cool that my dad was emotionally abusive and didn't let me imagine. Also, yeah, you just decided to stop doing the accent. Well, yeah. I'm not gonna do it all the time, Sophie. I like to think that that your cat looks at you when you do those accents. Like, who is this man? I do enjoy a nice British accent. You're very good at it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I have a real racist Italian accent, too. OK, don't do it. Do it. Don't do it. OK, I only I only do it when I'm cooking pizza. Good. Which is fine. I'm Italian. Yeah, but. So, yeah, from an early age, Cecil's talents as a leader were evident. He loved to play soldiers, but he insisted on playing general. He was temperamental, and I find it noteworthy that the main people who reported on this later were not his actual family members, but the help, all of whom seemed to have stories about the fact that he was very easily angered. So all of like the service workers who know this kid say like he's, he's ******* ****. Oh my God, this kid. That's because they're this dude now. Now I get a better picture. It's like the servants are action figures. They're just, they're living action figures to him. Yeah, yeah. And that's. And again, one of the people, a lot of people who come up later and we'll talk about this when we talk about all of the racism because he gets defended a lot by people today by saying like, well, we can't deny that he believes things that were racist, but it wasn't out of step. With the attitudes of the time, which, number one, I hate it when people bring that up because there were actually a bunch of dudes and ladies at the time who were like, hey, our society is racist, this is ****** **. It's like with slavery, there were a lot of abolitionists. Like, no, that was never a thing. That was just, like all taken for granted as as right like, it it doesn't make it OK. But also like, yeah, the, the treating the help ******. That was very common among the British upper crust. Also doesn't mean he's not * ****. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. When Cecil turned 16, he was more or less a man because, again, people didn't live all that long back then. Yeah. So it was time for him to head to grammar school, which is a term for secondary school, but I think was kind of more like it was basically like he the normal thing to have done for a boy and his, his, his, his situation would have been to get on the track to start going to university, right. And and to have done that and go to someplace like he wanted to go to Oxford. That was always his dream, and he wanted to become a lawyer. But yeah, he he didn't like he. It was kind of like a situation where he wasn't 100% certain about what he wanted to do. And he wound up picking another option, which was that his brother Herbert had moved to South Africa and started a cotton farm. And his family kind of thought that he wasn't really ready for college and he couldn't wasn't mature enough to go to join the military or anything like that. Yeah, they wanted to harden him up. That's what you did if you were an upper class. British family and you had a kid that you wanted to toughen up, you would send them to Africa. Gosh. Yeah. It was like a yeah. My God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just knowing it's South Africa just even adds. Yes. Yeah. All right. And at this point, South Africa is not a political entity. It's the Cape. The Cape colony. And we'll talk a little in a little more detail soon about like, what the power is kind of in southern Africa are at that point. Yeah. But yeah, Africa in this point for the British was seen as a place, not where, not just as a place where a white man could get rich because it was obviously that. But wear a white boy could become a white man. Yeah, by ordering, you know, black African people to work for him. Yeah, yeah, and surviving malaria. So the primary motivating factor was probably Cecil's father, who saw his son as soft and an underachiever in school. As Rotberg writes, despite the school prizes that Cecil had won, the vicar may have also had qualms about the thoroughness of his preparation in Greek and Latin. Furthermore, his father recognized that he was unfitted. For a routine life in England, sons of the Sturdy Victorian middle class went overseas. They went to America and India. They were beginning to go out to Africa. So again, dirty, sturdy middle class. Dirty middle class. That's what a great Turner that's who builds the British Empire. You know, it's not the, it's not the wealthy people, not like they have. They fund a lot of it. But if you're looking at like, the people who actually conquer most of land, it is these like these folks in cecils, these kind of the upper classes middle class is who actually goes out to prove themselves. In these places, yeah. Did you just? I just wonder what it would like. Honestly feel like to really believe that, like, the world is your playground. Yeah. And no matter where I go, I'm at home because these are our colonies. So when you land in the Southern Cape, you're like, well, this is England. Yeah. You landed in India. You're like England. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to imagine. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's there's there was a not anymore, but there wasn't one. Time when I was traveling the most, I, I, I, I I felt kind of similar to that, having a US passport. Ohhh yeah, because you could go anywhere and everybody like I can. I remember times in like Central America where they were. I'd be in towns where there was a whole police force just to keep just for the tourists. Like, cops would like, stop and give you rides and stuff to go get to go to the next bar. Because it's like our job is to make sure that the white Americans who visit have the best possible time because that's an important part of our like. It's. Yeah, yeah. I I feel that to a small extent, you know, it's not the same, but it's. Yeah, it it just both scenarios seem amazing. Yeah. You know, I'm saying just. Yeah, blissfully unfair, but probably incredible. Yeah. Yeah, very, definitely unfair. Yeah. So, yeah, there's pretty persistent rumors that Cecil's family sent him to Africa because he was sick and that wandering around Africa was like a medical treatment at the time, like, and you get that a lot. Assassin's life he'll get ill and they'll be like, go to Africa and then he'll get another kind of ill almost say, oh, you need to head back to England. That was a lot of medicine. Was like, go where it's hot, go where it's cold. Wow. Wow. Rotberg, who I I think is probably the most rigorous biographer of Cecil, thinks that this is untrue, that like looking at letters between him and his family. There's no evidence that he was sick and that he probably his family mostly wanted him to go get hardened up and go make the family wealthier by taking other people's stuff. And his his his family invested a lot of money in him. His aunt gave him £2000, which was like, that's a that's a years worth of living comfortably at that point in time. Which he could use to like, fund whatever adventure venture struck his fancy. So he again, he's he's his family. He's never worried about money. He always knows when he when he strikes out to Africa's number one, I have a giant pile of cash, and no matter what I do, my family will send more. Yeah, this is an understanding he has. Yeah. So he lands in Africa in 1870, and at the time, Southern Africa was divided between several white colonies were like the major powers in the area. There was the British controlled Cape Colony, which was roughly the size of Texas. We call this a colony. Most modern nations are smaller than the Cape Colony. Like, again, ******* Texas. It's the size. It's almost it's like you're ginormous. It's the size of Europe, basically. Yeah, there's the orange Free State, which was a bunch of Dutch weirdos who really hated the Brits. Uh, these are like the Bowers or the Afrikaners. And there's the Transvaal, which is also, which is run by even weirder Dutchman. And it was essentially a theocracy at this point. And these are also Bowers. Yeah, exactly. So between these white people controlled lands, a lot of southern Africa was still independent and controlled by people like the Sotho, the Nama, the Herrero. I think the Masuda was one of them, the Dikembe. Yeah. Or in the cake something. Yeah. We'll get to them later. I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And these there's there's still there are still some very like the the Matabele I think is one of them are are very have a lot of power and still control a sizable chunk of land. Yeah. I was like I know. I know a little bit just because of my Black Panther father and then being I like I I perform in South Africa at least once a year except for this year but like, yeah. So like the Zulu region down South, you know, they're obviously very still. Very tribal. But like the the power that they wielded among even surrounding tribes was like, yeah, it was undeniable. Yeah. And their interaction with the with the colonizers was like Super crazy. Like, you know, the whole Shaka Zulu story. Yeah. Yeah. The the Zulu Wars and stuff. Yeah. Which is which is happening in this. Like, this is this is exactly the period where also the Zulu wars are happening, which are, you know, there's, there's a there's a phrase that sums up all of the wars. Between the English and and the Boers and and the the African tribes at this point, and it's it's a phrase that was come up with by a British poet and I believe the poem was kind of critical of of imperialism. But the phrase is whatever happens, we have got the maxim gun and they have not, which is like the maxim guns, the first heavy machine gun. Yeah. Yeah. That's all the wars is at the end of the day. Yeah, a few 100 white troops, thousands of African troops, but the white people. Have heavy machine guns. Yeah. The shield is still stretched like leopard skin. That's still there. Yeah, no matter how strange you are. Yeah. And a lot of these African tribes, they're fighting with rifles still, but it's one. They have antique rifles and the white people have machine guns, so it doesn't, you know, it doesn't ******* matter. Yeah. Robert, Robert, you know what does matter. You know who else has machine guns? No, no, that's not that's not what I mean. Probably, right? Yeah. Somewhere in their room. Yeah. Pretty sure that was trash. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for none of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family and at Mint. Family start at 2 lines. 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A therapist can help you become a better problem solver, which can make it easier to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small they happen to be. So if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, better help is a great. Option it's convenient, accessible, affordable, and it is entirely online. You can get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey, and if the therapist that you get matched with doesn't wind up working out, you can switch therapists at any time. When you want to be a better problem solver, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's better helpp.com/behind betterhelp.com/behind. So by now we imagine that you've seen the theories on tick tock. You maybe even heard the rumors, your friends and loved ones. But are any of the stories about government conspiracies and cover ups actually true? The answer is surprisingly or unsurprisingly, yes. For more than a decade, we here at stuff they don't want you to know have been seeking answers to these questions, sometimes their answers that people would rather us not explore. Now we're sharing this research with you for the first time ever in a book format, you can pre-order stuff they don't want you to know now. It's the new book from us, the creators of the podcast and video series. You can turn back now or read the stuff they don't want you to know. Available for pre-order now, it's stuff you should read books.com or wherever you find your favorite books. Alright, we're back. So Cecil has just landed in Africa, Southern Africa and the Cape Colony, and the first thing he learns after setting foot on the continent is that the cotton he'd he'd gone there to grow cotton because his brother has this cotton farm. And this is a period where Cotton's price has temporarily skyrocketed because the US has a civil war and Sherman burns all of the cotton fields and stuff. So there's a period. It was, it was, for the longest time, not profitable for anyone but people who lived in the South of the United States to grow cotton because it's just the best region to grow it in. And they were producing so much of it that there was no point in anyone else growing it. There's this brief cotton boom in this. And like the 1870s, and it doesn't last long, but it's kind of at its height when he lands in Africa. But as soon as he gets to Africa, he starts talking with people and he learns that cotton he hears about essentially a a boom product that he finds a lot more exciting than. Button diamonds. Yeah. So yes, diamonds. And he, he starts talking, like, as soon as he lands, he meets a guy who just discovered a massive diamond mine in southern Africa. And yeah, and his brother actually doesn't show up to meet him. He leaves him a note because he was scoping out diamond fields when Cecil landed and had also like kind of moved on from the cotton. These are all, these are all speculators, right? Like they're they're they're boom chasers. It's the same basic thing going on in Africa in this. In southern Africa, in this. As was going on in in California. You know, yeah. With the gold rush. Gold, yeah. Yeah. So Cecil fell in love with the geography of Africa at once. And when I say he fell in love with it, I I want to be really like, he didn't fall in love with Africa. He fell in love with the land in Africa. It was a possessive love and it did not include its the people there. And that's a long term sort of thing with Cecil. Yeah. Having spent a decent amount of time in Africa. There is. And I I say this in all honesty. There is something magical there. And then just and also the idea that, like inside of the ground, somewhere in Africa, I mean, the the land just produces everything. Yeah, it just gets all of it. Is there? It's it's pretty crazy. It's massive. It holds so much. It's so much bigger. Like our maps do us A disservice. Do it a disservice. Yeah. Because again, like one of the colonies in southern Africa is the size of Texas and there's a bunch of other **** there. No. Yeah. You can fit so many other land. Yeah. The world in Africa. Yeah. It's huge. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm gonna read a paragraph that is something that that Cecil wrote about kind of the native peoples in Africa after he first arrived there. So this is one of his first impressions and the the term he uses here. I don't know. I I didn't decide. Like, I don't. I don't. I I don't normally. I don't read out. Like slurs, if I can avoid it. I also don't wanna say the K word, but it's it's the. It's that. It's that word in South. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. South Africa's version of the N word. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and at this point, I should state they use both that word and the N word interchangeably. And they are they are slurs, but they're not using them as slurs because to them, this is just what you call these people. Like it's not. It's not. Yeah. So which is a time and language is crazy in your life. Yeah. Yeah. So the the people here shock your modesty. Many of them have nothing on excepting a band around the middle. They are fine looking men and carry themselves very erect. They all take snuff and carry their snuff boxes in a hole board through their ears. They also pay great attention to their hair and carry porcupine quills in it with which they dress it. You often see them sitting down in groups, dressing each other's hair and picking the fleas out. And then he talks about how he doesn't think they smell very good and he's very judgmental. Just a real judgmental dude. So yeah, that's that Cecil's first impression of these people, and he eventually receives a letter that his brother has sent him that included $20 in accrued MOT map to the Cotton farm. So he heads to the cotton farm and you know pretty soon after he arrives there, the price of cotton falls. But he he spends some time as a cotton farmer and he's not really interested in cotton. He really wants to get into diamonds, but his family keeps writing him letters, basically saying don't like. Stay, stay on the cotton path. This is safe. Like, this is a good investment. Diamonds are risky and that's kind of, you know, his first year or so in in Africa is him constantly getting this, like this flood of information about all the diamonds people are finding in different parts of southern Africa. And it makes, as he writes, that it makes his mouth water. This might be a dumb question, but why? Why is his family so involved? But this is like, that's what they do. This is what I think that's pretty standard for an upper crust family at the time like this. The like a child is also an investment and he reflects on the family and you, you're, you're putting a lot of money into him to send him there. You want him to do things that will will provide a return. I guess it seems like you're still building. Yeah. You're building the empire, remember? They're like, yeah. Middle rich. Yeah. So you gotta build the empire. Yeah. Yeah. And empires are built by people who are building private empires for themselves, right? Like, that's what makes it doable. You know? It's the Eric Prince sort of thing. So, yeah, they warn him away from this path, but he keeps he keeps, like, hearing all these stories. Like, there's he he he reads the story about how an African man found a diamond and. Traded it for a roll of tobacco to a white man and the white guy sold it for £800. His brother finds a couple of diamonds because he's always going off to go Diamond. Finding some roads just keeps getting his like he's got this hunger. He does describe it as like a physical hunger to go out and find diamonds. Now the first diamond had been discovered in South Africa three years earlier in 1869. A black farm employee had found an enormous 88 carat diamond, the star of Africa. And I think this is neat. So the diamonds. Were first found is as far as we can tell in human history by people in southern India. And carrots are what you you kind of measure diamonds by because those people back in like 700 BC would weigh a diamond next to carob seeds and that's why it's called. Carrots is like the the the number of carob seeds that it takes to like weigh a diamond, like that's where that word came from. We don't use carob seeds anymore, but like anyway, I just thought that was neat. And it's. Yeah. And it's not carrots like every kid thinks. No, no, no. It's like carob seeds. So he was paid the. The black man who finds the star of Africa, this massive diamond. Yeah. He was paid 500 sheep, tin oxen and a horse for it. Which actually, like, if you're looking at kind of like Africans who find diamonds and sell them to white people, that's not a bad price. That's a lot of ****. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now he came up. He came as found in the ground. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. The star, though, did eventually sell for 25. £1000, which is like you're very wealthy. If you get access to that kind of money in in in this period of time, it's about the equivalent of four million modern dollars. Some, yeah. Some money, yeah. Yeah. So this does bring me to an interesting the fact that this guy, this farm worker who sold, that I got paid reasonably nothing like close to what it finally sold for, but got paid pretty good, does bring me to a point about Southern Africa in this. That is important to state. It was less racist than it became. This is actually, it actually started out as a much less racist as a colony. Then it turned into, and the guy we're talking about today is part of why. That made that turn. So obviously the British were outrageous bigots, of course, and everybody in this. Every English person in this. In the colony, is tossing around the N word like it's going out of style. But the Cape Town colony was run under British law, and the British had a whole be in their bonnet in this. About the rights of men. And British law held, in theory at least, that all men, even black men, were equal. And this was this was something that was enshrined in there, in their legal codes in a way that it was not in the United States. This was a principle. It was not like a civil right in the way that we conceive of it, but it was a principle that was abided by. And so while while black men were very much second class citizens in the eyes of the white people who lived there, they still theoretically enjoyed full rights. If they own property, they could vote. Segregation was not a matter of law. And that this is within kind of the core of the Cape Colony. And one of the things you'll see is that, like within the core of the colony, they hold pretty strictly to these these things that they consider proud traditions of the British. Empire. And the further out you get from it in the areas where they're actually extracting resources, the less and less those legal niceties apply, right? But within the center of the colony, they make at least an effort at that. And there are, you know, to their credit, you will find lawmakers who, when there are other people who are talking about like restricting the rights of of black Africans, there are lawmakers in the colonies who get very angry about that, white lawmakers. So there is, this is part of why you can condemn people like Cecil is there are white men at this time. We're like, that's not right. Like the all men should be equal and they have to be treated that way under the law. And like you are, you are developing a separate legal code for them. Which is just worth noting that this is not. When we talk about the racism of colonialism, I do think we often, we often make it out to be something that everyone just thought was fine and they didn't. A lot of people pushed back, a lot of white people pushed back against. Yeah. It's part of why you can condemn the ones who didn't. Yeah. Yeah. I'm. I would even argue that like, that's. Like? Yeah, things don't things don't start at the end, you know. Yeah and that I mean the same happened in America like there couldn't without the without the work of. Did you know non racist white people? Yeah, we probably couldn't have gotten where we've gotten so far anyway. Yeah, and I think for this it's because they don't stop anything from happening in the Cape Colony, right? Like it it the the the racism is is enshrined into law despite their objections. But the fact that people objected is important, I think for for sure. Condemning the ones who were who pushed for the racism, including Cecil, for sure. At this point in our story though, Cecil's just a 17 year old. Learning how to become a cotton farmer. Or rather, he was learning how to command the Zulu laborers who actually did the work on his farm. Yeah, learn how to run a farm. Yeah, not how to farm. Yeah. Now, it seems fair to say from the context that Cecil was not an excessively hateful racist in his personal interactions with the natives. But he was in his bones a capitalist, and he was very frustrated by the fact that these people were not their way of life. Did not gel well with capitalism, he wrote. For though there are any amount of he uses that K word out here they are such independent fellows that the greater part of them won't work. Their daily food is mealie maize porridge. They grow their own mealies, and the only thing they have must have is money for their Hut tax, which is very light. And he considers this a problem, that all they they're like, oh, I grow my own. Food. I don't really need money, so I'm not gonna work that much because I don't. I don't want much. I'm happy just growing my own food and living. I I don't want to like labor for someone else all the time. And he's like, this is a problem. Yeah. Sounds kind of good. You have said. Yeah, that that actually sounds like an ideal life. That sounds pretty great. I have what I need. Yeah. Yeah. He's. Yeah. He's recognizing these people are not going to be ideal citizens of of of global capitalism, which isn't a thing at this point, but is is being born. And Cecil is one of the people who first kind of sees what's going to be born and he wants to build. He he becomes enthralled with the idea of building a massive network of trade. Wrote Africa and the rest of the world so that products can move and go because he loves he he in his bones. He loves capitalism. That's. And yeah. So yeah, he was unique among the white men in his area for being willing to lend his black workers money. He and his brother both believed strongly that Africans were almost incapable of lying and that so, like, you could trust them with money. He actually said that he he would prefer to loan them money than to like, have money in the Bank of England because the Bank of England. The less trustworthy institution. So, like, that's something. Yeah, that's that's yeah. That's the off balance racism where you like. Dang, I don't. Yeah. Feel so weird. Yeah, I I've heard some descriptions that his workers were basically slaves. And it does seem like later on, as the story develops, it became that way. Yeah, that does happen to the people who work for him. But that doesn't appear to have been the case in this. In fact, in this. Cecil probably could be described as one of the better white men in the Cape Colony to. The, the, the black people who worked for him, he was also one of the better insult to me. Yeah. I mean, it's not it's not a compliment. It's. I'm just trying to make sure there's proper context of this guy's journey. He was also one of the Better cotton farm managers, but he didn't really. He never really liked farming cotton. He couldn't stop thinking about diamonds. And in 1871, a huge field of diamonds, the biggest diamond find in in the world, was found near a town now called. Kimberly and at the time, Kimberly was part of what was called Greeka Land it, which is an independent territory founded by a mix of some members of different African tribes, a lot of former slaves, but also groups of kind of disaffected white men. Like it's actually a very multicultural group of people who all kind of reject what's going on in the the colonies of Africa and move to this place in the middle of nowhere, dusty unfertile land together so that they could be kind of free of. Almost like an autonomous zone. Yeah, I mean it it was still like they had. I think they had kind of like there was like a like a yeah, their leadership structure was was was, was, you know, somewhat horizontal. But like, yeah, it was a lot of people who were kind of rejecting what was being done elsewhere in Africa at the time and wanted to get away from it. And so, yeah, that's the greatest. And it's a very I'm not going to do that whole story justice. It's worth noting as we tell the rest of the story you from what I've read, you will not find this story in South African history books. Greek a Land's been pretty much written out of the OK written out of the story. Yeah. So I'm going to quote next from an article in the History news network. Then in June 1871, a white prospector announced the discovery of an 83.5 carat diamond at the place now known as Kimberly, so named after Earl Kimberly, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies. This site of the discovery just happened to be within Greek a territory, but fortune hunters never did bother to raise any questions with the Greek as as to the ownership of the mining rights. Just a few days earlier, the British colonial secretary and a dispatch dated May 18th, 1871 had already authorized the British High Commissioner in Cape Town. To extend the British Territory Territory in South Africa by annexing greeka land. It seems unlikely that the close timing of these two events was purely coincidental, of course. Yeah. So, oh, there's diamonds. I guess this is ours now. Yeah. Yeah. And the Kimberly Discovery came at a fateful time. Diamonds in South Africa then were like gold in California again. So thousands of prospectors would just swarm any chunk of land that seems like it might hold wealth. And just before the discovery had come, there had been a number of false fines. Generally, people would, like, find a couple of diamonds and like. Alluvial plane, which is like, uh, land around a river and people would swarm there, but there wouldn't actually be nearly as many diamonds as they'd anticipated. So that had happened a few times. So a lot of these guys were very desperate. So once diamonds are found in Kimberly and it's clear that this is a real find, 10s of thousands of desperate miners start swarming in to tear the whole this big mountain that is the find apart. We're not mountain like a hill, but the large hill. And yeah, greeka land was brushed out of existence so that these guys could get rich. A quote from the History news network Greeka leader Nicholas Waterberg Boer through a legal advocate head during all this time been importuning the British colonial authorities at the Cape to respect Greco land sovereign independence and its ownership of the land upon which the diamond field was situated to no avail. Finally, in May 1878 an armed rebellion broke out. The lightly armed Greeks were no match for colonial troops armed with cannon and breech loading rifles. A massacre ensued with the colonial forces suffering only 9 fatalities. It signaled the beginning of the end for the Greek. Nation. Most of the survivors migrated several 100 miles to the northwest, settling ultimately in Southwest Africa now Namibia. So Greek is, you know, not a great story for them. So yeah, the min there's, yeah, there's just like an entire. It's an entire like. Like there's yeah, there's. They're just not in history books now. Like, that's no, what would they be? They didn't win. Yeah, yeah. It's so crazy that, like, yeah, I guess they didn't exist. But no, they totally existed. But now they're no, no, not no more. Not no more. So yeah, the men who would come to work the Kimberley find were also Africans, but they they were not people who had lived in the Greek a territory previously. There were different group of Africans who had been dispossessed by the colonial greed of the Boers. Most of them were refugees from areas around the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. They've been pastoral nomads who'd had their land seized by military force. They were destitute, starving and homeless. And so a lot of these guys had no choice but to work the diamond. Because otherwise they were going to starve to death. Quote fortune hunters from all over southern Africa and from Europe, America and Australia fought over claims well at the same time remaining united in the common purpose of being the Masters of black labor. 700 individual claims or plots of ground containing a little more than 893 square feet were marked off and taken possession of. 30,000 black laborers toiled away in that confined space, but were themselves prohibited from owning claims or dealing in diamonds. They were subjected to constant body searches and restricted to their Hut sentence by a nighttime curfew. Any dark skinned. A person in the vicinity who could not prove he was employed as a servant or laborer was declared a vagrant and subject to flogging. So, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not a news story, not a new story. Yeah, yeah. Just, you know, there are places in Central and South America and bring it back to coffee again, that shake. The locals that the farms that grow it and the people that like harvest the coffee. They're legally not allowed to drink that. Like, the the beans are only for export, you know, I'm saying. And like, yeah, just it's like tale as old as time dog, like this day land. Yep. I I can definitely say that. One radicalizing moment for me was during the time I spent in Guatemala, hanging out with, like, some native Guatemalans in their homes and being given instant coffee. Yeah. In an area surrounded by and being like. Wait, is this we're on a coffee? Yeah, farm. Like, there's there's all of the world's coffee comes from here. Right here. What is happening? Yeah. Why are we drinking Nescafe? Why do we does not compute? Yeah, it's because my country has all that. You guys. Yeah. You walk into their village like, hey guys, I got this single origin Guatemalan. You guys wanna try it? You know? Yeah. Ohh yeah, we grew that right here. Yeah, it comes from here. We don't get that. We can't drink it, though. Yeah. And Speaking of capitalism, Robert. You know what will? Let no. OK, well, you know what's going to add. Yeah, I'm no help. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. 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So by now we imagine that you've seen the theories on tick tock. You maybe even heard the rumors from your friends and loved ones. But are any of the stories about government conspiracies and cover ups actually true? The answer is surprisingly or unsurprisingly, yes. For more than a decade, we here at stuff they don't want you to know have been seeking answers to these questions, sometimes their answers that people would rather us not explore. Now we're sharing this research with you for the first time ever in a book format, you can pre-order stuff they don't want you to know now. It's the new book from us, the creators of the podcast and video series. You can turn back now or read the stuff they don't want you to know. Available for pre-order now, it's stuff you should read books.com or wherever you find your favorite books. Ah, ah, those are some good ads. Let me tell you something I'm about to use. All those promo codes. I love promo codes because I love promotions and it will put food on y'all's table. I love food on my table. Yep. So while the Greek territory had been annexed by the Cape Colony, it did not benefit from the same enlightened legal system as the rest of the colony because, again, it's on the periphery. And while it's important for us in the cities to abide by these, these laws that we all think are very, very nice, once we get out to where the money is made, people stop talking about the rights of man. You know, yeah, because there's money to be made. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same thing as how the United States, our whole lives, talks a good game about the rights of man, but also fundamentally could not exist in the same fashion. If a large number of its critical products were not made in areas without any sort of Labor laws. Yeah, it's only it wouldn't work. Just we've we've diffused the responsibility by making those be an independent countries now. Yes. So Cecil Rhodes was one of the very first white men to rush toward. Like, he just kind of abandons the cotton farm and he goes to what would turn out to be one of the world's largest diamond mines, the Kimberly find and at the time the hill where the mine was centered had a Dutch name, which I'm not going to try to pronounce like I I don't even know how to begin pronouncing wrong is how is just. Yeah. I don't even know how to say this wrong. All right. Yes, yeah. He was 19 when he traveled there to help his older brother, who bought a couple of claims. And Rhodes immediately brought his considerable gifts to bear because he's a great organizer. He's great at maximizing productivity. He's one of these people who can, who can just, like, look at a bunch of people working at a task and see ways in which to make it more efficient. He's got that Henry Ford thing going on. I was going to say, man, you know is the worst thing in the world is to be like in some sort of. Relationship with a person that's good at those things. Yeah, because that's some like, it's just like, man, can you just, can you just let me put my shoes where they go? Yeah, I can. I mean, you're probably right, but like, damn, man, I don't want to think about it. Like, Oh my God. But we were. I first got married. I remember I come back from a show like I'd be gone two days, all of a sudden, the drawer that used to have the knives and forks, now it's towels in, and I'm like, what am I crazy? Because she didn't figure out a better way for our kitchen to function and just, man, can you just. OK, I I don't have an argument as to why this is not a it's actually a better idea, but God. You married us. Really annoying. Nice job I did. I mean, I mean, I really did. It's she's much more efficient. But sometimes like you getting all, you know, Rhodesia on me, you know, I'm saying yeah, I just think of all the times Robert can't find things and then we start things late because he can't find things. I have started the rebellion against capitalism early in my own life by refusing to ever know what I'm doing or have a plan. And you know what? It works out fine. This is 1 thank you successful podcast. Thank you, world. Thank you, Sophie. Thank you. See, you don't need capitalism. Yeah. As long as you have products and services. Yes. So, yeah, he was. Yeah. He's a born entrepreneur. He creates a bunch of side hustles in order to basically make additional cash to fund the expansion of their mind to buy other claims. The probably most successful of these was he bought an ice machine so he could sell ice cream during the vicious summer months. And southern. Oh my God, this is brilliant. This dude so much. But yeah, that's brilliant. No, you grew up in like the the ******* middle of like this. The dead middle of, like, southern Africa, like people working in the summer on a mine. And you're like, you know, it'll do. Well, here is a ******* ice machine, yo. Do you remember, you remember early, like 2000, you know? 1011, earlier this decade, like when the one to one model was like all like the Toms model, right? Was all the yeah, all the all the rage. I saw this video was going around. I did this. Hilarious. I think those dudes make commercials now. But like they were totally dressed like the guy that started Tom's and they were supposed to be in Africa doing this one to one thing and he says, you know, I never forget it, man. I had, I had this idea where I was out in Africa. We were on a missions trip and I just thought to myself. Where can I get a smoothie? And he goes, he's like, I never forget it, the, the, the, the, the tribe said. What's a smoothie? And he was like, and that's when I knew we wanna do one to one smoothie machines. So their whole business model was if you buy a smoothie machine, they will provide one for a tribe in Africa. I mean, I, I kind of love the idea of like hunter gatherers, but with a smoothie machine cause like, everybody enjoys a smoothie because who would you know? Yeah, they're all you need is like, yeah, ice milk and running water. I'm sure they can get that right. Yeah, they're good, right? Just selling smoothie machines. And they did totally shot it. Like one of those verses were like, you know, you got this white lady, it's really nice white person handing the smoothie to, like, the smiling African and then the machine the guy little African boy is holding, they're like, what do I is 1 kid just dragging it by the power cord, right? Just through the thing. They're putting rocks on the inside. Like, what do I do with this, right? That's what everybody up but anyway, hey, this fool's brilliant. So, ice cream. Sell ice cream. Yeah, yeah, sell ice cream. Smart, smart guy. So, yeah. Now, when he first arrived at Kimberly, he described the sight of this this hill that's the cut, like, is the center of the mining claim as looking like a giant anthill covered in thousands of scurrying black shapes. And he predicted, in this turned out to be very accurate, that one day the hill would be completely dug away and replaced by a giant hole in the Earth itself. And he was. Completely right about this. Yeah. If you go to Kimberly today, you can go visit the big hole, which many suggests. It's not confirmed, but many suggest is the largest pit ever dug by human hands. And if you look up the photos of this, it's astonishing. It is. It is a really big hole. That's crazy. I didn't know you could still go, man. OK yeah, it's right. Yeah. Because they just dug. They dug so deep into the ground to get all the diamonds. And then they there's this giant hole. Nobody's going to fill it up. What are you going to do? Right? Yeah. What you going to do after? Yeah. Now we have a hole in our town. Yeah. Hey, guys. Hey now. Hey, look, capitalism. Hey, come see the hole comes. We've dug a hole. We've dug a big hole. I'm trying to dig a hole. Let's monetize it. Yeah, you're you're trying to do your sometime. Your old timey like newspaper guy's voice. Come see the hole. I can't do it, dude. The natives could never have digging a hole this big. Like, look at this hole. Only white men could make a hole this big. That's it. There it is. So this the year after Cecil arrived, the population of diggers and in Kimberly swelled to as many as about 50,000. And at first, most of them operated independent claims, finding diamonds because it required nothing more than hand tools, right? You were just kind of digging and, like running water through it with oil. And I don't know, it's a it's a process, but it's pretty simple and it didn't require heavy equipment. But as these claims were found more profitable and as the digging got deeper, eventually, like, you started turning it into a big hole, and that becomes too much of a process. Or small independent diggers to be a part of. So things start getting consolidated and people start abandoning it too. Because there's a period when you're mining diamonds where you strip away like the surface level and it looks like you're done. And Cecil and a number of other like smarter, well, I guess like just more intuitive guys understood that no, there's going to be more diamonds underneath that, but we need to be, we need to build larger companies to buy larger equipment to go deeper and extract those. So he starts investing his money into buying up individual minds and adding them to he and Herbert's claims and the process. Started slowly. It took years and years and years, and it was a time that Cecil would remember fondly. This like 1617 year. Where he's kind of building the foundation of what would become his empire in 1872. When he's about a year into this process, he's a very happy guy. His only frustration came from the fact that he wasn't able to go back to Oxford. As Rotberg writes quote, Rhodes may have continued dreaming of a university education and of life as a professional, probably a barrister, but these would have been dreams with utilitarian motives. For the moment he was content to have land of your own, horses of your own and shooting when you like and a lot of black inwards to do what you like with, apart from the fact of making money. So that's his attitude, yeah, there it is. Yeah, it's it's yeah. And again, the, the, the, the ease with which he could kind of talk about how happy he was. Probably something to do with the fact that his parents were backing him and would continue to do it so he never had to like he. He had this. He had a cushion, you know, that's. Yeah. Yeah. He had a cushion form where it's like, it's really not a risk because if all else fails, you could just go back to you just go back to England, you know? I'm saying and and metaphorically and quite literally just leave a hole in Africa and just and just you just go back home like, well, it was fun. I guess it didn't, you know, whatever, you know? Yeah. And and that like, knowing that it's like, it makes the. The It's it's you gamify. Like, it's a video game now, so it's like, this is fun building an empire, building an industry. It's fun because yeah, if it if it fails, it's just like, oh, it's like a video game. Just hit the reset button and start over. Don't save it, you know? I mean, and just start over. Yeah. Like the thing that you like I enjoy. I don't know, maybe, I don't know if this impulse is is coded in white dudes socially or if or if there's there's something deeper to it, but like the only video games. I play our games where you you build an empire. You you, like, build, like cities or countries and you like, you know it. It's all about expansion and all of that stuff. And I, you know, I, I I feel that impulse and I get to play video games about it. I suspect if I'd been raised in Cecil's time in the culture he did, I probably would have done some some ******* imperialism probably, man. Yeah, I mean, and it's like, who could blame you, you know? Because you could. But I do think. I find, and I mean, you've joked about it a few times about like, starting a cult, you know, and the first time I heard you quote it, thought talk about it. I thought to myself, I have imagined often building a culture from scratch. And I'm like, well, I mean, that's what it is. And I'm like, I guess essentially a cult is just a small culture. And in my head I'm like imagining the thing and making it up would be so much more fun than running it, you know? So when I see dudes like, like this, that's like, yo. Ohh, let's figure out how to do this consolidate the thing do the thing and it's like I start OK we did it but now you gotta maintain it. Then you're like, damn, that's a drag you know well let me go start another one you know and then you start another business and then you go because because the building the things fun. So I just think about that like even if I was gonna you know I I would love to just like. You know, from everybody on Tuesday nights, we sit in a circle and you have to drink, uh, you know, green tea specifically, only with your left hand at 5:42 PM that's the rule in our cult. And I just think that, like, making up stuff like that just seems fun, you know? So in him, yeah, figuring out the best way to make this thing work and then shoot, shoot, shoot messages back to his brothers and his family, like, suck it. I'm living out here. Y'all. Send me out here, could you? Thought I couldn't do it. Check this out. I'm winning, you know, I could see the psychology developing again. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. I get, you know, this is kind of one of where I land on, like thank God for video games and all, but also like, I don't know, like, this is something I wrestle with. Like if I could be completely honest with you, like part of why I moved out to the West is I want to own land. I want to buy. I want to buy a chunk of land that that feels wild to me and get to live on it in roam around. And there's certainly conversations to be had about how ethical that is. It's a powerful desire, and it's coded in me as is, as is finding romance and things that I know are not romantic, like the like, like, like the cowboy, or like the age of exploration. Which is like, I was reading those books when I was like 5 years old and you know, I I've gone out of my way to educate myself about the reality. But yeah, you never quite fully break that spell. Nah. Yeah you can't help but be a like and products. Not the right word, but but yeah, like you are influenced by the. Era, you're in and you can't not be what you are. So, yeah, now I feel you. I think about that when we talk about reparations with black people, you know, hey, where's our 40 acres and a mule? And you turn right over to your indigenous friend. That goes like, wait, they're going to give you land that's not theirs. Like yo saying so you like. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Dang. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. And there's a, I don't know, there's a good conversation to be had in condemning things that are bad, like imperialism, and also understanding the the extent to which we're all products of this system so that we can have forgiveness for each other when people realize they've been wrong. Yeah dude, collect offering. That's that was that was the sermon right there? Yeah, trying to collect offering. That was good. Alright, so in 1873 he returned to Britain or England or whatever. People always yell at me for calling it one of the other. His purpose here was twofold. To take care of his ailing mother who died the next year. He was very sad. And to return to his education he applied to Oxford because it agreed at Oxford would mark him out as an English man of distinction. But he failed the entrance exam and so we had to ask a family friend who was a graduate to use. Influence with the school to get Cecil admission again always has help earning the things that he gets. Plan B, baby. Who says you can't Plan B? I'm white. Yeah, so for most of the next decade Cecil would switch between summer semesters at Oxford, and he takes some years off in between. It's not every year and winters in Africa. Seeing to the expansion of what was becoming a mining empire, he initially funded his education by the money his dad had set aside for it. But as he and Herbert's business expanded, he was able to pay his own way through Oxford, and he was very proud of this. It was not a good student, and he was regularly in trouble for failing to attend lectures and not doing the reading that he was ordered to do. It seems like most of his time at school was spent at fancy parties making connections. He was always careful to make sure everyone knew how wealthy he had become, generally by carrying a box of diamonds with him wherever he went. Oh my God, you imagine pulling up to the frat party with a box of diamonds? Yeah, I was thinking, this guy is so stereotypical. White male privilege. But then you were like. Oh no, no, no, but all. No, no, no, no, let me, let me dial this up a bit. Yeah, there's like, yo, there are things that just like I. And like we just said, being gracious with each other and understanding that we're all products of the same gullage, there are parts of me that like, deeply admires what he just explained right now that like, what's the 2020 equivalent, though, of Sean frat party with a box of diamonds like I'm you did. That's the biggest flat at the flex. Yeah, that is the greatest flex I've ever, dude. The fact that you walking around diamonds. Yeah, I got walk. I play play with diamonds. Keep pocket diamonds. Like pick up. Makes diamonds. I don't even need these diamonds. I don't even need these. I got a whole field of them in Africa for which I spend my winters. Because London, it's it's cold out here. Yeah, you diamonds like, it's diamonds. There's a part of me that, like, and that you ain't gotta really. I'm going to Oxford literally for the flex because I don't have to care. It's just to brag about it. And I don't even do the work I want to work. I hate him. Like, yeah, he he stands for. Everything that I hate, but also that's the that's death. Stop. You did it this style. Flag is just my first year of teaching. I never forget my first year of teaching. There was little. I taught 11th graders, which was crazy because I was like, maybe four years older than him, but like, I, this kid, this was like. EBay time, right. So this kid was selling these, like, paint guns on eBay, you know, and I remember being like, first of all, how do you know how to do this? Number one? And #2, where do you keep him? He was like, oh, they. I never get them. They don't. I don't have them. I just they don't come to me. I buy them and then sell them. And then this little dude would show up late because he was working the German stock market 11th grader. And I was like, if this will never turns in an assignment, I don't blame him. I don't blame you for not taking high school serious. Yeah, yeah, **** it. Yeah, exactly. Like, he knows he he has this thing that you have to have to be truly successful within a society which is knowing that all of the conventions of your society are ********. And Cecil Rhodes knows that. Cecil Rhodes understands that. It's all, it's all a dumb, bullshitty grift. And like he will, he will refuse to do work. And then his, like, his friends at school will be like, the the Dean's going to kick, like you're going to get kicked out of school. And he has a number of meetings with them, and they they never do. And he knows they're not going to. Yeah. Because they know that he's going to be extremely wealthy and powerful, and they want to be able to brag that he's an alumni. Yes. So when he sits. Exactly. So when I sit down in this meeting about you about to expel me, I'm just going to put my backpack down and just let a diamond roll. Oh, you don't want a guy was a diamond mine. Yeah. I didn't let you tell me. So tell me. So tell me how. Tell me how this goes. I just trust me. Let me get my diamond pick up lines. Like what? Like. How like? Well, we'll talk about his romantic life a little bit in a moment, Sophie. Ohh, does he treat women really well? Is he just an outstanding guy? Is that what I should be expecting? No, he doesn't. He doesn't. He doesn't even think about women. He's he's again. He's he's he's he's gay. Well, we talking about this in a little bit, but yeah, he's not. He has no interest in women. So there's a slight turn of events, alright. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that in a bit because there's some things to say about it. I don't want to like a lot of people talk about it too much because I don't think it's that big of a of an of a thing, but there there's some areas in which it impacts kind of other things that he does. I still want to know what his pickup lines were. We'll talk about that too briefly. I mean, even if it's gay or straight, you walk into a party with some diamonds, guys that you just playing around with, shaking them like dice, fool, you know what I'm saying? So, uh, once a classmate, and this is back to the story about his diamond box. A classmate reported quote when he condescended to attend a lecture with which proved uninteresting to him, he pulled out his box and showed the gyms to his friends. And then it was upset and diamonds were scattered on the floor and the lecturer looked up asking what was the cause of the disturbance and received the reply. It is only roads and his diamonds. Oh God, I hate this guy. He's bad at being the professor. Just looking at this like, yeah, ah, this little prick. You little prick. Yeah. Damn. One of those rocks is my year salary. Yeah, he's probably like that guy. That guy that was viral on social media. The the guy who salts the meat. Do you remember that? Ohh. Salt Bay. Yeah, salt Bay. He was probably dying. Yeah, just up like that. Yeah, that guy. That's who I yeah. Yes. So let's talk a little bit about what it took for Cecil to get those diamonds. So, right before leaving Cruise, first term at Oxford. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, none of it is ever so right before he left for Oxford. Cecil and hurt his brother, Herbert moved most of their operations to a new set of claims that a mine named Debeers. Yeah, that's where the story is going. So if you want an exhaustive account of every blow and play, you can read Rotberg's biography, the founder. The short of it is that Cecil came to own the entire mine, and he didn't buy it all. In fact, he he convinced a number of investors, many of whom were like men in and around his age group, ambitious younger guys, to invest. And he had his noted as having this superhuman ability to convince primarily other white dudes to work towards his vision. He's able to get people to buy into a vision. And give him full control of achieving it. That is his gift. That's his, his real talent. Because he's not using all of his own money for this. He's convincing other people to pay and let him run things. Freaking brilliant, dude. Yeah, and he's very good at that. Starting in the mid 1870s, he began collecting a group of mostly young men around him. And to these most trusted acolytes he would reveal what had become his true goal, the creation of a secret society aimed at furthering the spread of the British Empire over the entire world. The first people he collected for this grand endeavor were Co investors in his mining operation, men with money and influence that he welded with the power of his dreams into what essentially functioned as a fanatically loyal board of directors for his business. They were so devoted to roads and his goals that many in the Cape Colony began referring to these men as the apostles. Wow, yeah. In 1877, after just six years in business, Rhodes had accrued in a state worth about £10,000, which did not make him super rich. But he was very comfortable, and it was enough that he wrote his first will, which listed his wish that all his possessions go quote two, and for the establishment, promotion and development of a secret society, the true aim and object whereof would be for the extension of British rule throughout the world's roads went on went so far as to specify that he wanted the society to ensure the spread of British rule 2 quote the entire continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus, and Candia the whole of South America. The islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the the seaboard of China and Japan, and the ultimate recovery of the United States is an integral part of the British Empire. Oh yeah. I am so glad he added that last part. Yeah, that's gotta be a that's gotta be a freaking thorn in your flesh. Yeah, you just hates that the US left the empire. Yeah. I believe we lost this. Yeah. Yeah, he's very frustrated by that. So the very next year, in 1877, while he's at Oxford, Rhodes published what he called his confession of faith. Now, he picked that title because by this point, years of ruling over black African servants and workers and extracting the wealth of their homeland. For his own benefit, felt so right to him that he considered imperialism to be his religion. When he's saying confession of faith, he's literally saying this is this is my God, this goal is my God. So he opened the statement by noting that he did not care about marriage, he didn't care about having a family, and he didn't even care about attaining personal wealth. The sole aim that interested him was the furtherance of the Anglo-Saxon race quote. I contend that we are the finest race in the world. And that the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts of the world that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings. What an alteration there would be if they were brought under the Anglo-Saxon influence. Look again at the extra employment of a new country added to our Dominion. Gives, I contend, that every acre added to our territory means in the future birth of some more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. He's a white supremacist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people. Or or you can sit talk about like there there's again I I don't wanna like get too into the birth of the invention of the white race because that is a story I wanna I I do wanna tell at some point. Yeah. But that's one thing. Yeah. But he is he might be the first modern white supremacist, the first proud boy style white supremacist where that that would be. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say that there's this and it's crazy like how, you know this is that intermingling. I would say like you don't see a lot of this stuff. In Christian literature until about now, where like this like intermingling of. Yeah, this is our mandate on the planet from our maker. Like we are. We're helping. This is what God wants for us. You know, I'm saying, yeah, Cecil's modern defenders will often bring up, like, things he said about believing that, you know, black people are, are, are inherently the same as white people. It's a cultural problem. And as as soon as they fully embrace Anglo-Saxon culture culture, then I think they deserve to be treated equally. Like, no, he wasn't racist. He had beliefs about like, he thought that he wanted to. It was just a cultural thing for him. And and that is, that's why I say I think he might be the first that I've come across really truly modern white supremacist because he's a white supremacist in the way that the proud boys are. We're like, they've got black members, they've got got Pacific Islanders, they have have Latino members. But their whole thing is their western chauvinist they yeah exactly. They believe that the West is best and that as long as you buy into that, it doesn't matter what color you are. And that Cecil, that Cecil Rhodes. And he's writing this **** out in 1877. Yeah. And it's no when most racists are much cruder. Yeah. And yeah. And we're still, like, suffering from those writings to this day anyway. Yes. Now, like all arch imperialist Cecil and tempted to justify his mad ambition on humanitarian grounds, lamenting that if the empire had not lost the United States, it would have been able to stop the Crimean War by denying both sides money and arms. Now cry me a river. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was. That was good. This game, I appreciate that. Yeah, what? It really was. Yeah, again, naked white supremacy roads lamented that secret societies of the day, like the Masons didn't direct their wealth and power towards a clear aim quote. Why should we not form a secret society with but one object, the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule for the recovery of the United States and for the making of the Anglo-Saxon race but one empire? What a dream. But yet it is probable. It is possible. I once heard it argued by a fellow in my own college. I am sorry to own it. By an Englishman that it was a good thing for us to have lost the United States. There are some subjects on which there can be no arguments, and to an Englishman this is one of them. But even from an American point of view, just picture what they have lost. Look at their government or not, the frauds that nearly come before the public view would disgrace to any country, but especially theirs, which is the finest in the world. Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong. All of our politicians have always been frauds. You get that correctly. But you had a king. Like, like, come on, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not wrong, but you can't say that. Yeah, yeah, not wrong, but you're wrong. You're not wrong, but you're not better either, like. So go **** yourself. Yeah, it takes 1 to know one, yeah? You know, he went on to express a desire to see the entire continent of Africa, not just under British rule, but filled with English settlers. Quote Africa is still lying ready for us and it is our duty to take it. It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory, and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes. But more territory means simply more of the Anglo-Saxon race, more of the best, the most human, most honorable race the world possesses. The most human. The thing that I still can't get my wrap my brain around, especially from writings like this. I'm like, y'all ain't invented sewage. Yeah. You in there? Yeah. Y'all still you still throwing human **** in the street and don't know why. You sick? Like, you know I'm saying like this how you feeling? Tell me, y'all, so you carry smell things because you don't bathe? I'm like, why are you telling why do you think I'll give this? In Cecil's defense? He was known and it was. Lot in this. That he bathed every day, even when he was on campaign in the woods, he had like a bath taken around with him that his black servants filled up for him and stuff because he had the wealth to bathe every day. Yeah, the wealth debate. I'm like, have you seen? Yep. Have you seen everyone? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know the rest of y'all, like, yeah. Yeah. So the secret society Rhodes proposed sounds almost more like a precursor to the CI AA hand-picked group of ambitious and talented young men who would dedicate their whole lives to this cause. When he actually started inducting more men into this society, he tended to restrict his members from marrying and starting families so they would have no priorities before the empire. And this is where we talk about roads of sexuality because he himself never married. He expressed. Immediately that he was too busy to do so, and everyone pretty much agrees that he was gay. Now, this was illegal at the time. You can just ask Oscar Wilde that. But men of means and stature, it was impossible to be poor and gay pretty much because, you know, you'd probably be killed by a lot of, like, your wow, poor people, right? Like, because it's very bigoted at the time, or you'd have to keep it completely secret. And yeah, if you were rich, you could be gay and most people would know it. Like, Rhodes is gay. It's illegal to be gay. Everyone in British society knows that he's gay. He brings these S, these white South African boys back to England with him, these younger men, and he takes them to parties with him is my is my assistant. Yeah, well, and there's like, he's, he's he's even more blatant than that. There's one story I heard about him where essentially, like, he's he's at a party with this young, rude South African boy and like the guy hosting the fancy British person hosting the party, says Rhodes. I can't invite you to parties anymore if you're gonna bring boys like this around. Like, he almost broke my hand with his handshake and Rhodes. Something along the side the lines of you should see how hard he bucks. It's like a mule like so he's he's not super coy, right? Not playing around but I like I got pocket diamonds. So what you gonna say? Yeah. And it it's worth noting that a pretty high and oddly high number of British Imperial icons of specifically this. Were gay or some of them were were they're called gay a lot. But I think it might be more accurate to say they were kind of romantic asexuals where they had these very strong. Very clearly romantic relationships with men that they probably never had sex with, but they would be inseparable. And it was just like a thing in imperialism. I just feel like, statistically speaking, it's impossible that there's any less amount of gay people there. No, now, you know, I'm saying. But yeah, there's a reason why. There are some reasons why they're probably overrepresented within sort of the subset of the English population that's doing the imperialist ****. Some of it is that, like we talked about earlier, if you're gay. In a majority straight in a society where it's legal to be gay, you fundamentally see the world differently, and that confers certain advantages. You are able to, perhaps especially since a lot of the other men doing this might be gay, build stronger and more emotional relationships with them, which leads to more loyalty. Which means you have this this loyal band of like people who you can work with to accomplish these goals. It also means that, like, you probably find the culture back home stifling, and you want to get out to a place where there are fewer rules. And where you can, you can get away with living being the kind of person that you are. There was a quote from Rudyard Kipling's poem one of his poems about imperialism that I think was about. I'm forgetting the name of it now, but the lion is send, we send me somewhere east of Suez. We're the best is like the worst, where there ain't No 10 commandments and a man can raise a thirst, right? So that there's you come across this a lot, and I think it's just because I think there's probably a number of reasons for it. But yeah, this is a thing about Cecil, and I'm not going to talk a whole lot more about it because I don't think it has all that much of a bearing other than to the extent that it kind of forms him into the man that he is. Yeah. One of the men he brought into his scheme was a physician named Leander Jameson, and he recalled that as early as 1878, Rhodes had formed the idea of doing great work for the overcrowded British public at home by opening up fresh markets for their manufacturers. As his business had expanded, so too had British colonial possessions in Africa, and Cecil noticed that when the empire grew, unemployment back home went down, an average income went up. Things got better for the average people in his country because they were getting worse for the average people. Other parts of the world. Yeah, so he recognizes this and he sees this as like a fundamentally positive thing. And other these other white people that he's gathering him to to himself at the time, they're deeply impressed and moved by his belief in the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race, and that's what he's able to get them to buy into. That's why they put so much trust in so much their of their wealth in roads. And it's it's his biographer Rotberg kind of compares a lot of what Cecil's talking about in this time to to Hitler's concept of lemons. Now, living space, right. And it is very similar. You can trace the birth of these ideas or at least the the birth of these ideas as a written down conception because they've certainly been pursued earlier to settle, you know, and and he has. British imperialism had a massive impact on Hitler and in fact he would he would constantly talk about both the United States and the British Empire and the land that they had to for their people to move in as part of why he wanted Eastern Europe, why he wanted Russia and Ukraine and Poland. Because he wanted the same thing for the Germans that he saw these other empires getting. Umm so yeah, it is worth like he he definitely. Rhodes is is talking early about what will become these concepts that we recognize as key to to to fascism. Yeah, now I I think, yeah, it's it's it's it's interesting. And Rhodes is also, while he's kind of laying some of the intellectual foundations for the what will become fascism, he's also laying a lot of the intellectual foundations for the system of global capitalism that we live under today. This, this idea that you can have a whole world united in mass resource extraction and trade in 1888, after 16 years of building up his business holdings and a network of loyal toadies, Rhodes amalgamated. All of these mines that he had and that his friends had accrued and he formed them into a single corporation, Debeers amalgamated mines. So this is the Debeers Corporation is birthed now. He's the first head of it. He's the chairman of Debeers. Now, in short order, Debeers swallowed up almost the entire diamond trade in southern Africa. And as they gobbled up more and more mines, roads streamlined the mining process, killing off the old way of diggers and diamond booms and refashioning the whole industry into a precise engine that ran on human misery. And I found a paper from an economics student at the University of Boulder that I think sums up what happens very well, and I'm going to quote from that now. Rhodes is colored workers were oppressed by his white managers and impaired by the atrocious living conditions. Once Rhodes had his miners, he and his British colonial authorities proclaimed a pass law in Kimberley. Black workers had to possess a document that stated their right to employment, and at the end of shifts, white policeman stripped the colored miners nude and probed their orifices for stolen diamonds. This indignity, however, was not forced upon the white laborers to distinguish the manager's fear of theft. The blacks also had to live in prison like compounds on site for the length of their contract. De Beers paid its colored workers an average of 9750 per month, while the whites were paid an average of $480. And to break even, the laborers needed to make it at least $120.00 monthly. So he comes up with this idea of amalgamating, streamlining, and then getting this workforce that you have total control of, in the same way that like those those a lot of those factory workers in Shenzhen, China making our iPhones are, and you keep them locked into a cycle of near poverty, forcing them to live in these compounds that he could control. He basically succeeded. As Debeers takes off and re enslaving a chunk of the black African populace for the benefit of the British Empire. And this plan worked marvelously. In a few years De Beers controlled between 90 and 95% of the planets diamond supply. Wow. Yeah, and then they cracked open a bunch of De Beers. Yeah, I'm sorry, that's too good. Priorities where he was just like at frat parties. Yeah, diamond. Yeah, diamond. Yeah. He's like, I got diamonds popping a top with his diamonds. Alright, yeah, well, prop. That's the end of part 10. There's so much more of this guy to go, but that's what we've got time for now. Boy, this has gone on a bit. You you wanna plug your puggles, man? Yeah, I do. And I also want to just. Diamonds are forever. Diamonds are forever. That's the entire time. Yeah. And that, I mean, that's that's that's after his time, but he sets up a lot of the things that make the diamond trade what it is. Like, yeah, we'll talk about this more at the end, but, like, blood diamonds are a thing because of Cecil Rhodes. Yeah. That's what I was gonna say, man. That's what I was like, that's where I would like when you started the thing. That's why I was preparing myself for like, we're going to get to blood diamonds pretty soon. Let's talk about the end. We're not going to talk about it enough because there's so much of roads to talk about. And, yeah, he's not the only. He starts the process that leads to the creation of blood. There are a number of other men over decades who are, like, responsible for bringing us all down that path, but we will talk some about that at the end. Yeah, well, prop hiphop.com and prop hip hop's all my. Handles my social media I just announced a not a blood coffee a but a real coffee collaboration was company called Onyx where I kind of special single Origin Ethiopian blend mcguirl nerdy with y'all will not blend a single origin Ethiopian. It kind of tastes like dried pineapple. It's pretty bomb and in the in in. In the spirit of what we're talking about right now. Like. It's three brothers that own the farm. They're born and raised in Ethiopia, one of them lives in LA, and the Fair trade price for the Bean is $1.50 per pound. But me and Onyx paid 9 bucks a pound because we believe in supporting real folks. So that's the biggest thing I'd plug right now is I got a coffee. And if you're into, like, drinking good coffee, please order. Hell yeah. So yeah. And it's ethically sourced and we paid the people. Well, we are not. No, Cecil Rhodes. Yeah, uh, don't be Cecil Rhodes in your own life. No, and don't come after me for calling him Cecil and Cecil interchangeably. I know it's Cecil. Whatever. That's my fault, Cecil. Yeah. Yeah. No, **** him. Like, basically, I don't have to respect this man enough to pronounce his name right? No, no, he he got enough respect while he was alive and ******* up the world. To hell with him, right? And to hell with all of you, my beloved listeners. No, I I thank you for listening. Come back for Part 2, where we'll talk about how he conquered two countries just for fun and did some other messed up stuff like wait, well no, it's true. We love about 40% of you. Statistically, yeah. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. 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