of all the
territories in Southern Africa into a federal state within the British Empire.
In 1889,
it empowered
a commercial
company
dominated
by Cecil
Rhodes-prime
minister of the Cape Colony and the most powerful man
in the diamond-
and gold-mining industries-to
annex and administer
territories north of the Limpopo. It was not until the strategy of delegation
of imperial
responsibilities
backfired
with the ignominious
failure of
Rhodes's attempt to supplant the government of the Transvaal republic in
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