Interest in the African lands north of Cape Colony and the Boer states was stirred by hopes of discovering further deposits of gold and precious stones at the end of the nineteenth century. The businessman and politician Cecil Rhodes led moves to bring the region into the ambit of the British empire and there were also calls by missionaries and planters to protect some areas from Boer incursions and Arab slave traders. British colonists in Southern Rhodesia established a strong agricultural economy in the twentieth century and resisted attempts to transfer government to African majority rule.
