Portrait of Lobengula

People/politician

Lobengula

Lobengula (1845–1894), politician, from Zimbabwe. Linked to gold.

The downfall

After the 1893 Matabele war he fled towards the Zambezi and died in January 1894, from fever or a wound. The 1911 Britannica says accounts differ.1,2,3,4

Legacy

Signed the Rudd Concession on 30 October 1888 after Dr Jameson arrived at Bulawayo. He had earlier granted mineral cessions to Baines (1871) and Swinburne (1872). The 1911 source is an imperial-era account.1,2,3,4

Story cards

Where next

People

Rival ofCecil RhodesThe king whose mark on a paper opened Rhodesia to Rhodes.2Partner ofCharles RuddHe got a king to sign away every mineral in Matabeleland.2

Sources

  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed.: Rhodesia (also Lobengula) Wikisource (public domain source text)
  2. The Rudd Concession (1888) Wikisource (public domain source text)
  3. Wikidata item Q1390927
  4. File pages and licence metadata for portraits (via the Commons imageinfo/extmetadata API) Wikimedia Commons

Pictures on this page: Lobengula-image.jpg, The original uploader was Humansdorpie at English Wikipedia. (Public domain); Charles Rudd.jpeg, Unknown (according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0.