0:00:02 > 0:00:10This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find disturbing
0:00:19 > 0:00:21It's the early 19th century.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27In India's north-eastern states, more than 400 woman a year
0:00:27 > 0:00:32are burned alive on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37This Hindu ritual is known as Sati
0:00:37 > 0:00:41and for years it's been tolerated by the country's British rulers.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43But no longer.
0:00:45 > 0:00:50In 1829, the British decide it has to stop.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53When some Hindus protest to a British general,
0:00:53 > 0:00:58he says to them, "You say it is your custom to burn widows."
0:00:58 > 0:01:05"Very well. We also have a custom, that when a man burns a woman alive,
0:01:05 > 0:01:09"we tie a rope around his neck and hang him."
0:01:09 > 0:01:13"You follow your custom and then we shall follow ours."
0:01:16 > 0:01:22For many British people, the Empire was all about doing good -
0:01:22 > 0:01:24by force, if necessary.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32Some believed they had a duty to bring light into the world.
0:01:35 > 0:01:37Others that they had a right to rule it.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42We really did know best.
0:01:43 > 0:01:48Both beliefs fundamentally changed the nature of the modern world
0:01:48 > 0:01:53and they changed our sense of Britain's place in it.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34In the second half of the 19th century, the British Empire
0:02:34 > 0:02:38reached from Canada in the west to Australia in the east.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44The last phase of expansion was about to begin and many
0:02:44 > 0:02:49of these Empire builders believed their work was ordained by God.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28In the summer of 1861, a small party of white men found themselves
0:03:28 > 0:03:31travelling up the River Shire in what is now Malawi.
0:03:42 > 0:03:48To Europeans at that time, Africa was simply "The Dark Continent",
0:03:48 > 0:03:50a place of ignorance and superstition.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54They had come here to change that.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00The men sang hymns as they travelled -
0:04:00 > 0:04:04Lead Kindly Light was a particular favourite.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07Their leader was already a legend in Britain.
0:04:07 > 0:04:12A man who had come to embody the Victorian purpose in Africa.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17His name was David Livingstone.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21A dour, fanatically determined, lowland Scot.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26He was the first white man to have crossed the continent of Africa.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31He'd come here as a missionary to save African souls for Christ,
0:04:31 > 0:04:35but what he found appalled him.
0:04:38 > 0:04:43Britain had abolished slavery in the Empire decades before,
0:04:43 > 0:04:48but Livingstone found Africans still being captured and sold
0:04:48 > 0:04:52to Arab and Portuguese slavers all over East Africa.
0:05:01 > 0:05:03Now he and his companions
0:05:03 > 0:05:06dreamed of sowing the seeds of a new world here.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13One based not on African superstition and slavery,
0:05:13 > 0:05:19but on two Victorian obsessions - Christianity and free trade.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31This river would become God's highway into the heart of Africa.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35Down it would come African cotton and wheat and ivory
0:05:35 > 0:05:40and ostrich feathers, and up it, in exchange, would go clothes
0:05:40 > 0:05:44and tools and machinery, made in Glasgow or Manchester.
0:05:49 > 0:05:55Livingstone had a slogan for it - Christianity and Commerce.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10This would be the Empire's new civilising mission.
0:06:20 > 0:06:25Bible in hand, he was going to unlock the Dark Continent.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30Such was the dream.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33The reality was different.
0:06:35 > 0:06:38The place chosen by Livingstone to build his mission,
0:06:38 > 0:06:41turned out to be hostile and dangerous -
0:06:41 > 0:06:43a malarial death trap.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50- Perfect, thank you very much. - You're welcome.- Thank you.
0:06:54 > 0:06:56One by one,
0:06:56 > 0:07:00Livingstone's followers succumbed to hunger and disease.
0:07:17 > 0:07:19And this is all that remains.
0:07:19 > 0:07:24It's the grave of one of the missionaries, Henry de Wint Burrup.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27His name's even misspelt on his tombstone, poor chap.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31He died of exhaustion and diarrhoea in February 1862.
0:07:31 > 0:07:36An eyewitness said that he had shrunk to half his normal size
0:07:36 > 0:07:40and had turned a horrible shade of yellow.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43One of his last acts had been to write a letter to the rowing clubs
0:07:43 > 0:07:48of Oxford and Cambridge, asking them to raise money to buy a steamer
0:07:48 > 0:07:51to go up the Shire River to stop slavery.
0:08:08 > 0:08:13Then, in 1865, after years of exploring the interior,
0:08:13 > 0:08:17the most famous missionary in the world vanished.
0:08:20 > 0:08:25Nothing was heard from him for an entire three years.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29It was a world-wide mystery.
0:08:30 > 0:08:32The New York Herald sent a journalist,
0:08:32 > 0:08:34Henry Morton Stanley, to Africa.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38"Find Livingstone", were his orders,
0:08:38 > 0:08:40"by any means necessary."
0:08:50 > 0:08:54Very strong man, eh? Very strong!
0:08:58 > 0:09:01And find him he did, in what would become
0:09:01 > 0:09:04one of the most celebrated encounters of the Victorian age.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10Stanley was a chancer,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13so we must take his account of the meeting with a pinch of salt,
0:09:13 > 0:09:15but here's what he said happened.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19"As I approached I noticed, he was pale.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21"He looked weary.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25"I would have embraced him, but he being an Englishman,
0:09:25 > 0:09:27"I wasn't sure how he would receive me.
0:09:27 > 0:09:33"So I walked up to him deliberately, took off my hat and said,
0:09:33 > 0:09:36"Dr Livingstone, I presume."
0:09:42 > 0:09:47But Livingstone was still in the grip of a passion to explore.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50For almost two years he drove himself on,
0:09:50 > 0:09:53sick with cholera and dysentery.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55He even extracted his own teeth.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02He died in Africa.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06He was alone, thousands of miles from home.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10They found him in his hut, kneeling, it was said,
0:10:10 > 0:10:11in prayer.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19Two faithful servants -
0:10:19 > 0:10:24one of them a former slave freed by Livingstone -
0:10:24 > 0:10:28gathered up his body and carried it all the way to the coast.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34There, they loaded it onto a ship bound for London.
0:10:34 > 0:10:37His heart, though, was buried in Africa.
0:10:57 > 0:10:59On 18th February, 1874,
0:10:59 > 0:11:02a great outpouring of grief gripped London.
0:11:05 > 0:11:09The mourners stood on the street, thousands strong,
0:11:09 > 0:11:13many of them weeping, to watch the body of David Livingstone pass by.
0:11:16 > 0:11:21His funeral would be held at the resting place of Britain's elect,
0:11:21 > 0:11:22Westminster Abbey.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27This was no ordinary mortal they were burying.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42David Livingstone had become more than an explorer,
0:11:42 > 0:11:46more than a missionary, he had become a myth.
0:11:46 > 0:11:52His brave life and lonely death reassured a people busy conquering
0:11:52 > 0:11:57the world that the Empire was about more than greed and domination.
0:11:57 > 0:12:03It was about sacrifice and justice and doing good.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11All around the Abbey
0:12:11 > 0:12:14were elaborate monuments to the great conquerors of Empire.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25Livingstone's memorial was a more modest affair.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55It's a simple slab of stone, but it lies right of the heart
0:12:55 > 0:13:01of Westminster Abbey, because to many British people what Livingstone was trying to do
0:13:01 > 0:13:04lay at the heart of the British Empire.
0:13:14 > 0:13:16The tears of the nation had hardly dried
0:13:16 > 0:13:18when Livingstone's diaries were published...
0:13:20 > 0:13:24..heavily edited to remove evidence of his frequent failures.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30In his entire life, he's said to have made only a single convert.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34But the diaries would help him become
0:13:34 > 0:13:36almost a patron saint of Empire.
0:13:49 > 0:13:54Where Livingstone blazed a trail, other missionaries followed,
0:13:54 > 0:13:56though in slightly more comfort.
0:13:58 > 0:13:59Well into the 20th century,
0:13:59 > 0:14:05thousands of them set out across the Empire to bring Christianity to the heathen.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09They often brought with them education and modern medicine.
0:14:13 > 0:14:18When Africans came to demand freedom from their colonial masters,
0:14:18 > 0:14:22they dismissed much of this foreign do-gooding
0:14:22 > 0:14:23as destroying native culture.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44Yet, more than 100 years after Livingstone,
0:14:44 > 0:14:47much of the missionary legacy is alive and well.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49Very good. Class say "management".
0:14:49 > 0:14:53- Management.- Again! - Management.- Again!
0:14:53 > 0:14:57- Management.- As I am here, I'm managing this class.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00Everybody is fine because I am here.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02I am managing this class.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06Today, the work started by Church of Scotland missionaries
0:15:06 > 0:15:11has, as all over Africa, become a local African activity.
0:15:12 > 0:15:15More? Another, yeah?
0:15:28 > 0:15:31The Nkolokoti Primary School was founded in 1935
0:15:31 > 0:15:35in what was then the British colony of Nyasaland.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43CHILDREN SING
0:15:43 > 0:15:47The school now has almost 8,000 pupils.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53Some walk for hours to get here.
0:15:53 > 0:15:57Such is the demand, they have to be taught in shifts.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08Missionaries have come in for a lot of stick for providing an excuse
0:16:08 > 0:16:12for flag-planting and land-grabbing, but the fact of the matter is,
0:16:12 > 0:16:16that without missionaries, this school wouldn't exist,
0:16:16 > 0:16:20and so 8,000 children would get no education and, come to that,
0:16:20 > 0:16:22no breakfast either.
0:16:32 > 0:16:34Mine's thicker than yours!
0:16:38 > 0:16:41Today, the school is funded by the Malawi Government,
0:16:41 > 0:16:45although the porridge comes courtesy of a Scottish charity.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00You know we start very early in the morning.
0:17:00 > 0:17:03Some leave very early without eating.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07When they come, they find porridge.
0:17:07 > 0:17:11They fill their stomachs.
0:17:11 > 0:17:12Now, what do you feel
0:17:12 > 0:17:14about the missionaries who started this school?
0:17:14 > 0:17:18They did a great job and they assisted this area very much.
0:17:18 > 0:17:22Just imagine, it was established in 1935.
0:17:22 > 0:17:24Up to now we are still benefiting.
0:17:24 > 0:17:26Is it a religious school?
0:17:26 > 0:17:28It is a religious school.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32- So you teach them about Christianity?- Yeah.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35We help our subject by our knowledge, yeah.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38What do you hope they will learn in your school?
0:17:39 > 0:17:45They learn to be good citizens. We teach them to love each other,
0:17:45 > 0:17:50respect each other, respect elders,
0:17:50 > 0:17:52that's what we teach them.
0:17:52 > 0:17:54CHILDREN SING HYMN
0:18:25 > 0:18:29David Livingstone's vision of Christianity and Commerce
0:18:29 > 0:18:31was, in a sense, fulfilled.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37Where the missionaries led, the traders followed.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47They came to grow coffee or tobacco or cotton.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56Their African workers, so went the plan,
0:18:56 > 0:19:00would be influenced towards Christianity.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16This was the headquarters of the African Lakes Company,
0:19:16 > 0:19:20set up in 1882 to trade in ivory and cotton.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32To many Victorians, it seemed a marriage made in heaven.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36But too often, commerce and Christianity turned out
0:19:36 > 0:19:39to make extremely unhappy bedfellows.
0:19:43 > 0:19:49In 1893, a Scotsman came out to manage a huge cotton estate
0:19:49 > 0:19:51outside Blantyre, Malawi,
0:19:51 > 0:19:55named, incidentally, after David Livingstone's birthplace.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58The manager, William Jervis Livingstone,
0:19:58 > 0:20:00was a distant relative of the missionary,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04but this Livingstone had rather different ambitions.
0:20:04 > 0:20:06HE was here to make money.
0:20:08 > 0:20:10Like other settlers,
0:20:10 > 0:20:14William Jervis Livingstone ran a harsh regime on the plantation.
0:20:14 > 0:20:18Floggings were said to be common. Resentment ran high.
0:20:26 > 0:20:30But then one man decided he wasn't going to take it any more,
0:20:30 > 0:20:35and here he is on the Malawian 100-kwacha banknote.
0:20:35 > 0:20:40He's also on the 500-kwacha, in fact he's on every Malawian banknote,
0:20:40 > 0:20:44because the Reverend John Chilembwe is a national hero.
0:20:44 > 0:20:45He wasn't then, of course.
0:20:45 > 0:20:50To the colonial authorities, he was nothing but a dangerous nuisance.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58John Chilembwe had been educated in a Christian mission.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02He'd even been ordained a Baptist Minister
0:21:02 > 0:21:07and he liked to dress like a European gentleman.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11But John Chilembwe's upbringing had given him radical,
0:21:11 > 0:21:13even subversive ideas.
0:21:15 > 0:21:20The notion, for example, that all humanity was equal before God.
0:21:20 > 0:21:24His mission church, next to Livingstone's estate,
0:21:24 > 0:21:27became the centre for a movement which took as its motto
0:21:27 > 0:21:29"Africa for the Africans".
0:21:31 > 0:21:39On the afternoon of Friday 22nd January 1915, John Chilembwe announced,
0:21:39 > 0:21:43"The time has come at last to fight back against our oppressors.
0:21:43 > 0:21:49"You go out to fight as African patriots for the whole black race.
0:21:49 > 0:21:56"Freedom is the cry of Africa. Our blood will mean something at last."
0:22:02 > 0:22:06Chilembwe hoped to unleash a new kind of race war -
0:22:06 > 0:22:12black Christians against white settlers.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16One of his chosen victims was his neighbour,
0:22:16 > 0:22:18William Jervis Livingstone.
0:22:18 > 0:22:24- What was your grandfather growing here?- He was growing, er, tobacco, coffee, cotton, rubber, erm...
0:22:24 > 0:22:27'Deirdre Livingstone is the granddaughter
0:22:27 > 0:22:29'of William Jervis Livingstone.'
0:22:30 > 0:22:36- What was this room?- This was my grandparents' bedroom and this was,
0:22:36 > 0:22:37er, where they slept.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41The bed was just about there, and they would go out on the veranda
0:22:41 > 0:22:43and have all their parties next door in the dining room.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54Tell me what happened that night.
0:22:54 > 0:22:56The 23rd of January 1915.
0:22:57 > 0:23:02That was the night when Chilembwe's men decided to rise up against the white men
0:23:02 > 0:23:05and my father was a tiny little baby
0:23:05 > 0:23:08of six months old, being bounced on the bed,
0:23:08 > 0:23:11and my grandmother was actually in the bath having her evening bath.
0:23:11 > 0:23:17It was about nine o'clock, so it was a completely normal family scene, you know, at night,
0:23:17 > 0:23:22and then suddenly armed men with spears, the natives, came in and rushed into this room.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32They went to attack my grandfather and speared him.
0:23:32 > 0:23:35- Where in his body was he speared? - He was speared here,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38so she went over to try and get some port wine, or brandy,
0:23:38 > 0:23:42the usual things they resuscitated people with in those days,
0:23:42 > 0:23:44and then suddenly the other natives came in
0:23:44 > 0:23:48and the whole bunch of them literally came in and cut off his head in front of her.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50- They cut his head off?- Yes.
0:23:50 > 0:23:55What was absolutely desperate was my father at six months old was just lying on the bed
0:23:55 > 0:23:59and then my aunt Nyasa, who was five years old, was seeing the whole scene
0:23:59 > 0:24:04because she was actually sprayed with the blood from the severed head of my grandfather.
0:24:04 > 0:24:06It was an absolutely desperate scene.
0:24:15 > 0:24:20On the Sunday morning, John Chilembwe preached a sermon in his church.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24He told a packed congregation that better times were ahead.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27"The Kingdom of God is at hand," he said.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30"You will hear the bugles sounding."
0:24:30 > 0:24:34Beside him in the pulpit as proof
0:24:34 > 0:24:38was the head of William Jervis Livingstone.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44The revenge of the British authorities was, as so often,
0:24:44 > 0:24:46swift and merciless.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55Chilembwe's church was dynamited.
0:24:58 > 0:25:03As for Chilembwe himself, he was hunted down, shot
0:25:03 > 0:25:07and buried in an unmarked grave
0:25:18 > 0:25:23Today, his home town is a shrine to the struggle against the British.
0:25:28 > 0:25:33But his missionary message still rings out from his rebuilt church.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36CONGREGATION SINGS IN MALAWIAN LANGUAGE
0:25:58 > 0:26:00Like many Malawians,
0:26:00 > 0:26:03the congregation of the church he founded
0:26:03 > 0:26:06look on John Chilembwe as a hero.
0:26:10 > 0:26:17John Chilembwe wanted to establish a church with African origin,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20but yet with a Western education.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23But to kill someone, to cut their head off,
0:26:23 > 0:26:27- is not the behaviour you expect from a religious minister, is it? - It is a terrible thing.
0:26:27 > 0:26:33But when you look at the killing side, we also look at the other side - what did they do for him to kill?
0:26:33 > 0:26:36Because there is a cause to everything.
0:26:36 > 0:26:40You can kill too, when you reach at a certain stage...
0:26:40 > 0:26:44Say I want to take your family, kill your family, you can kill too,
0:26:44 > 0:26:47so we don't know what happened. It's just a...a mystery.
0:26:47 > 0:26:51- And you admire him? - Yes, we do admire him in Malawi,
0:26:51 > 0:26:57but we admire him because of his, er, teaching when he established the church,
0:26:57 > 0:27:03because he wanted people to be self-sustaining, work hard.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06He brought that idea.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09CONGREGATION APPLAUDS
0:27:17 > 0:27:21The march of the white race, led by Britain, across the globe
0:27:21 > 0:27:26in the late 19th century was astonishing to behold.
0:27:26 > 0:27:30So astonishing that people began to search for explanations.
0:27:30 > 0:27:34An idea took hold among some people that this must be
0:27:34 > 0:27:37a scientifically pre-determined destiny.
0:27:48 > 0:27:53In 1863, the members of the Anthropological Society of London
0:27:53 > 0:27:58gathered to hear what was billed as a scientific lecture.
0:28:00 > 0:28:05It was a momentous and, as it turned out, hugely controversial occasion.
0:28:09 > 0:28:13The speaker was the president and founder of the association, Doctor James Hunt.
0:28:13 > 0:28:18The title of his paper was "The Negro's Place in Nature".
0:28:22 > 0:28:27"I propose to discuss the physical and mental characteristics of the Negro,
0:28:27 > 0:28:32"with a view to determining not only his position in nature,
0:28:32 > 0:28:35"but also the station he should occupy.
0:28:37 > 0:28:41"I shall also dwell on the analogies between the Negro
0:28:41 > 0:28:43"and the Anthropoid apes."
0:28:44 > 0:28:49What followed was over an hour of racist nonsense
0:28:49 > 0:28:54dressed up in the pseudo-technological language of scientific observation.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58"The skull is very hard and unusually thick,
0:28:58 > 0:29:04"enabling Negros to fight or carry heavy weights on their heads with pleasure."
0:29:05 > 0:29:08There were hisses and boos from the audience.
0:29:08 > 0:29:12Some considered he was justifying slavery,
0:29:12 > 0:29:16which the British were proud of having abolished,
0:29:16 > 0:29:21but his ideas struck a chord among more fanatical empire builders.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29Because the Empire had been such a huge success story,
0:29:29 > 0:29:37they began to talk about how they had - and this phrase was pretty widely used - a genius for empire.
0:29:37 > 0:29:39But what was this genius?
0:29:42 > 0:29:46It got muddled up with Charles Darwin's ideas about evolution.
0:29:46 > 0:29:48The champions of empire
0:29:48 > 0:29:54argued that the British had evolved naturally to rule over others,
0:29:54 > 0:29:58so that they were now in fact a superior race.
0:30:03 > 0:30:08"Everywhere we see the European as the conqueror and the dominant race
0:30:08 > 0:30:15"and no amount of education will ever alter the decrees of nature's laws."
0:30:18 > 0:30:22David Livingstone had preached that colonisers had a duty
0:30:22 > 0:30:24to help the unfortunate.
0:30:25 > 0:30:30But what was the difference between unfortunate and inferior?
0:30:33 > 0:30:37A conviction took hold that helping meant ruling.
0:30:53 > 0:30:58One man who felt this new aggressive sense of mission more keenly than any other
0:30:58 > 0:31:02came to Southern Africa in 1871.
0:31:06 > 0:31:11His name was Cecil Rhodes and you'd need a fistful of adjectives to describe him.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15He was bold, he was buccaneering, he was brilliant,
0:31:15 > 0:31:20but he was also brash, brutal and bigoted.
0:31:20 > 0:31:24He added great tracts of Africa to the Empire, on the principal that,
0:31:24 > 0:31:28as he put it, "We are the first race in the world
0:31:28 > 0:31:34"and the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race."
0:31:38 > 0:31:42The Empire was built or stolen from others by mavericks
0:31:42 > 0:31:45and Rhodes was the maverick's maverick.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48He did as he pleased
0:31:48 > 0:31:52and only told the politicians in London afterwards.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55He made war. He created colonies off his own bat.
0:31:58 > 0:32:04Rhodes called the English "God's chosen instrument in carrying out the divine idea."
0:32:04 > 0:32:08It could almost have been David Livingstone talking.
0:32:12 > 0:32:16But, where Livingstone saw his duty as being to serve,
0:32:16 > 0:32:18Rhodes had other ideas.
0:32:18 > 0:32:23"Africa lies ready for us," he told his supporters.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25"It is our duty to take it."
0:32:30 > 0:32:32Livingstone's treasure was in heaven.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35Rhodes' was on earth - or under it.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49He made his fortune in a diamond town.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59Today, it's been recreated to give a flavour of what it was like in the 1880s.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04A place of high hopes and low living,
0:33:04 > 0:33:09where desperate men came to get rich or die trying.
0:33:11 > 0:33:15Then, it was known simply as New Rush.
0:33:26 > 0:33:33The Colonial Secretary, Lord Kimberley, thought the name New Rush was altogether far too vulgar
0:33:33 > 0:33:39and, as for the Dutch name, Vooruitzicht, well, frankly it was just about unpronounceable,
0:33:39 > 0:33:44so a grovelling official said, "Would the name Kimberley be acceptable?"
0:33:44 > 0:33:46"Most acceptable," said His Lordship.
0:33:51 > 0:33:58Rhodes' power-base was the Kimberley Club, where Southern Africa's business elite gathered.
0:34:05 > 0:34:10They said you could find the five richest men in Africa at this bar,
0:34:10 > 0:34:15but Rhodes was actually less interested in money than he was in power,
0:34:15 > 0:34:20and specifically in realising what he called "my idea".
0:34:24 > 0:34:32That idea, he said, was "the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule,"
0:34:32 > 0:34:35and he knew his own part in it.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42Rhodes sketched out his dream on this very map.
0:34:42 > 0:34:47It is of British territory running right down the spine of Africa.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50In pencil, he drew the proposed course of a railway line
0:34:50 > 0:34:53that began at the Cape, at the tip of Southern Africa,
0:34:53 > 0:34:59up through South Africa, through what is now Zambia,
0:34:59 > 0:35:07on into Uganda, into Sudan and then to Cairo on the Mediterranean.
0:35:07 > 0:35:12He believed that this would create a territory fit for white men,
0:35:12 > 0:35:16that would be bigger and more populous than the United States.
0:35:24 > 0:35:26Here in the Kimberley Club,
0:35:26 > 0:35:31Rhodes planned the next stage of the conquest of southern Africa
0:35:31 > 0:35:36and he would be its leader, not as a soldier, but as a businessman.
0:35:40 > 0:35:44His irregular army of so-called pioneers were sent north
0:35:44 > 0:35:46in search of new territory.
0:35:48 > 0:35:53"Take what you can," said the British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, "and ask me later."
0:36:03 > 0:36:08Rhodes' aim was, as he put it, "to set up mining companies,
0:36:08 > 0:36:11"cultivate the land, and preserve peace and order".
0:36:12 > 0:36:15In other words - to invade.
0:36:17 > 0:36:21Through a combination of treaties which later turned out to mean
0:36:21 > 0:36:24not quite what they seemed to mean at the time,
0:36:24 > 0:36:31bribery and liberal use of the machine gun, they carved out a huge swathe of Africa,
0:36:31 > 0:36:36now known as Zimbabwe, but then named Rhodesia, after their leader.
0:36:44 > 0:36:50If ever there was a country founded on blood and greed, Rhodesia was it.
0:37:01 > 0:37:05Rhodes would become Prime Minister of the Cape Colony -
0:37:05 > 0:37:10later South Africa - the nation that gave the world Apartheid.
0:37:11 > 0:37:14"These are my politics," he announced.
0:37:14 > 0:37:18"The native is to be denied the vote and treated as a child."
0:37:20 > 0:37:23This is what Rhodes' great dream,
0:37:23 > 0:37:28the duty of the white race to civilise the earth, came down to.
0:37:46 > 0:37:50Rhodes' triumphalist vision of Empire was partially fulfilled.
0:37:52 > 0:37:54By the end of the 19th century,
0:37:54 > 0:37:58the lion's share of Africa belonged to Britain.
0:38:06 > 0:38:10But the business of actually running the world's untidiest empire
0:38:10 > 0:38:14was a rather more humdrum affair.
0:38:19 > 0:38:24Well into the 20th century, huge areas were governed by handfuls of white men,
0:38:24 > 0:38:29thrown in at the deep end and told to get on with it.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32- NEWSREEL:- A British district officer. For much of the year he's on tour,
0:38:32 > 0:38:35visiting the remote villages of his district.
0:38:35 > 0:38:37His arrival at a village is a great occasion.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41Elders and councillors come down to the water's edge to meet him.
0:38:41 > 0:38:48For Mr Todd, although only 24, rules over some 20,000 people
0:38:48 > 0:38:52with far greater authority than that wielded by any civil servant here at home.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58They were called District Officers
0:38:58 > 0:39:01but they usually had dozens of jobs - magistrate,
0:39:01 > 0:39:07tax collector, coroner, chief of police.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23In the 1930s, the population of British Africa
0:39:23 > 0:39:26was reckoned at about 43 million.
0:39:26 > 0:39:31It was administered by a mere 1,200 officials.
0:39:31 > 0:39:37One of those officials, looking around and seeing how one young man with perhaps six native soldiers
0:39:37 > 0:39:40might be in charge of 100,000 people,
0:39:40 > 0:39:45remarked, "Britain's entire position rests upon bluff."
0:39:50 > 0:39:53One of the ways this enormous bluff worked
0:39:53 > 0:39:57was through a rather British invention called indirect rule.
0:39:57 > 0:40:03All over the Empire local rulers were persuaded, bribed or threatened
0:40:03 > 0:40:06into throwing in their lot with the British.
0:40:06 > 0:40:10The British pulled the strings from behind the scenes
0:40:10 > 0:40:15and, if there wasn't a ruler, they just invented one.
0:40:26 > 0:40:32District Officers in Africa were there for supposedly ruling alongside the local chief.
0:40:37 > 0:40:39It could be a lonely job
0:40:39 > 0:40:43but, then, you weren't supposed to hang around at home very much.
0:40:43 > 0:40:47You had to be out and about in the hills and farms and villages,
0:40:47 > 0:40:53sorting out trouble with a handful of locally recruited police officers.
0:40:53 > 0:40:56HE SPEAKS AFRICAN LANGUAGE
0:41:33 > 0:41:38As for preparation, well, if you could survive a British public school you could survive anything.
0:41:38 > 0:41:43"I was head of my house," recalled one young District Officer. "I was deputy head of school.
0:41:43 > 0:41:48"I was captain of rugger. I was Sergeant Major in the Officer Training Corp.
0:41:48 > 0:41:51"So, when, eventually, I found myself alone in the bush,
0:41:51 > 0:41:54"I wasn't afraid in the slightest."
0:41:58 > 0:42:01Quite often, it worked pretty well.
0:42:01 > 0:42:06One European writer travelling through British Africa was certainly impressed.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09"Never since the days of Ancient Greece," he said,
0:42:09 > 0:42:16"has the world been ruled by such sweet, just, boyish masters."
0:42:16 > 0:42:21Thank you. Would you ask the defendant what he has to say about it, please?
0:42:30 > 0:42:33'One of them still lives just outside Nairobi in Kenya,
0:42:33 > 0:42:36'though inevitably no longer quite so boyish.'
0:42:36 > 0:42:40- Jeremy.- How do you do? Very good to see you.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44- Thank you for having us. - You're more than welcome.- Thank you.
0:42:44 > 0:42:50There were such small numbers of people making the Empire work. How did they get away with it?
0:42:50 > 0:42:53I think it's fair to say they trusted us.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56And we trusted them. It was mutual.
0:42:56 > 0:43:01Mutual respect, mutual trust, and they did what was required of them.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04We did what was required of the Government.
0:43:04 > 0:43:09You say you would do what was required of you and they would do what was required of them,
0:43:09 > 0:43:12but what right did you have to require them to do anything?
0:43:15 > 0:43:20They were...the heads of their tribes. The Government needed to exist.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25I think we all agree governments - good or bad - are necessary.
0:43:25 > 0:43:33Erm, and...they...found it probably as satisfying as we did.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37Did you ever wonder what you were doing? "What am I doing here?"
0:43:37 > 0:43:43Well, er, our basic raison d'etre, if you like, was to maintain law and order.
0:43:43 > 0:43:45But of course, in the face of lots of armed...
0:43:45 > 0:43:50well-armed and large gangs, it wasn't so easy.
0:43:50 > 0:43:53Did you ever question what the Empire was for?
0:43:53 > 0:43:56No, it was there and, er, one accepted it.
0:43:56 > 0:44:02Some people say the Empire was an unjustifiable mistake, an imposition on the rest of the world.
0:44:02 > 0:44:03What would you say?
0:44:03 > 0:44:10In order to, erm, maintain, er, safety for trade,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13it needed the government.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18So the one followed the other. It had to.
0:44:18 > 0:44:21- Did you think you were doing good? - Yes.
0:44:21 > 0:44:26There was a great deal of satisfaction in...in getting... advancement,
0:44:26 > 0:44:34you know, erm, schooling and... public health, health centres.
0:44:34 > 0:44:36They may not have liked us.
0:44:36 > 0:44:42Er, I'm... I still, to this day, when I go down to Kilifi, where I have a little house on the beach,
0:44:42 > 0:44:48they'll sometimes see me in the town and greet me very warmly, so, erm...
0:44:49 > 0:44:54..it can't all have been bad. HE LAUGHS
0:44:58 > 0:45:02But, good or bad, by the middle of the 20th century
0:45:02 > 0:45:04there was a new force abroad.
0:45:08 > 0:45:13The world had turned against the very idea of imperialism.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19Nowhere would the struggle for freedom be more bitter
0:45:19 > 0:45:21than in Kenya.
0:45:21 > 0:45:26It sparked a conflict that would shatter the Empire's claims to moral authority.
0:45:32 > 0:45:38White settlers in Kenya had done well for themselves, farming the fertile highlands.
0:45:38 > 0:45:42They developed the country. They felt they had a claim to it.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49Many native Kenyans, especially those Kikuyu who'd been displaced,
0:45:49 > 0:45:51felt otherwise.
0:45:59 > 0:46:01The issue was land.
0:46:01 > 0:46:05As one Kikuyu explained to a visiting British politician,
0:46:05 > 0:46:10when someone steals your ox, it's killed and roasted and eaten, you can forget,
0:46:10 > 0:46:14but when someone steals your land, you can never forget.
0:46:14 > 0:46:21It's always there. It's lakes, it's streams, it's a bitter presence.
0:46:25 > 0:46:29The division of the spoils in Kenya was not exactly equal.
0:46:29 > 0:46:37A mere 3,000 white farmers occupied 12,000 square miles of prime land.
0:46:39 > 0:46:46By contrast, over a million Kikuyu lived on just 2,000 square miles.
0:46:52 > 0:46:57But the settlers were tough characters and they were in no mood to compromise.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01Are you afraid of what might happen to the settlers' position
0:47:01 > 0:47:04if the Africans move more towards self-government?
0:47:04 > 0:47:07No. We've always stood on our feet before, I think we can do it again.
0:47:07 > 0:47:11Do you think your property is likely to go, do you think you will be in a difficult position?
0:47:11 > 0:47:17- Not without being fought for. - Would you fight?- Definitely. I've done it all my life.
0:47:23 > 0:47:29Soon came rumours of a secret Kikuyu resistance movement called Mau Mau.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35Their goal was freedom from British rule
0:47:35 > 0:47:38and they were prepared to use terror to achieve it.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49Mystery and fear were part of what the Mau Mau were about.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52Deep in the forest of the Aberdare mountains
0:47:52 > 0:47:56they conducted initiation ceremonies in which naked young people
0:47:56 > 0:48:00drank goat's blood and swore to drive out the white invader.
0:48:00 > 0:48:04In European circles, these became known as orgies
0:48:04 > 0:48:08in which babies were torn from their mother's womb and eaten alive.
0:48:08 > 0:48:14One colonial official even claimed to detect the horn shadow of the devil himself.
0:48:17 > 0:48:21This, er, Mau Mau is a lawless and savage, er, organisation.
0:48:21 > 0:48:25Of course, the situation in Kenya is still full of danger.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33The stage was set for a violent showdown.
0:48:36 > 0:48:41Native Kenyan troops working for the British were drafted in
0:48:41 > 0:48:44to confront their own people.
0:48:46 > 0:48:50Some settlers decided to get out while they could.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02But, while the whites FELT under threat,
0:49:02 > 0:49:05the people who really suffered were other Kikuyu.
0:49:05 > 0:49:09Those who chose to stay loyal to the British.
0:49:12 > 0:49:16On the night of March 26th 1953, the area of Lari,
0:49:16 > 0:49:20here on the edge of the Great Rift Valley, was attacked by the Mau Mau.
0:49:20 > 0:49:24The people here were largely loyal to the colonial government.
0:49:24 > 0:49:28It was the middle of the night so most of the villagers were asleep.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31The Mau Mau came to their huts, blocked the entrances,
0:49:31 > 0:49:37set fire to them and then went to work with axes and machetes.
0:49:41 > 0:49:44- NEWSREEL:- These pictures arrive from Kenya.
0:49:44 > 0:49:46They show the charred remains of the village of Lari,
0:49:46 > 0:49:51only 30 miles from Nairobi, where over 120 loyal Kikuyu
0:49:51 > 0:49:53were massacred by Mau Mau terrorists.
0:49:53 > 0:49:59Men, woman and children perished in a night of savagery almost beyond description.
0:49:59 > 0:50:03An entire village was turned into a smouldering funeral pyre.
0:50:14 > 0:50:19Alice Wanjiru Kariuki, or General Alice as she then was,
0:50:19 > 0:50:21led the Mau Mau raid on Lari.
0:50:21 > 0:50:28She's now aged 81 and still lives and farms near the village.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31Good morning.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34- You're Alice. Hello. - Nice to meet you.
0:50:34 > 0:50:36Cor, that's a heck of a handshake!
0:50:36 > 0:50:39Thank you.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58Did you kill anybody?
0:51:26 > 0:51:31Was there no other way to get your freedom, other than killing?
0:51:42 > 0:51:45What do you think about the British now?
0:51:57 > 0:52:04What do you think about the time that the British were here in Kenya as the colonial government?
0:52:12 > 0:52:15Would the country have been better if they hadn't been here?
0:52:26 > 0:52:29'Talk about a mixed verdict.
0:52:30 > 0:52:32'But imperialism's time had passed.'
0:52:40 > 0:52:44The struggle for uhuru - freedom - grew more intense.
0:52:49 > 0:52:54The authorities rounded up Mau Mau suspects, thousands at a time,
0:52:54 > 0:52:57herding them into vast internment camps.
0:52:58 > 0:53:02- NEWSREEL:- Nearly 500 suspects were detained for questioning.
0:53:02 > 0:53:06Over 100 of them were identified by survivors
0:53:06 > 0:53:09as having taken part in the massacre.
0:53:11 > 0:53:16Will you ask her, Inspector, why she pointed this man out?
0:53:16 > 0:53:21HE SPEAKS KENYAN LANGUAGE
0:53:21 > 0:53:23SHE REPLIES IN KENYAN LANGUAGE
0:53:23 > 0:53:26"It's one who killed my mother."
0:53:32 > 0:53:36Imprisonment, torture, massacres.
0:53:36 > 0:53:40Somehow this temperate paradise had become a sort of hell.
0:53:46 > 0:53:48The world looked on and wondered -
0:53:48 > 0:53:53was this the empire that claimed to be doing good in the world?
0:53:55 > 0:54:00Britain was losing the stomach for empire
0:54:00 > 0:54:02and the ability to sustain it.
0:54:10 > 0:54:15Much to the disgust of many farmers in the white highlands,
0:54:15 > 0:54:19Kenyan nationalist leaders were summoned to London for negotiations.
0:54:19 > 0:54:22Uhuru was finally within their grasp.
0:54:26 > 0:54:30- NEWSREEL:- At the Uhuru Stadium the articles of independence
0:54:30 > 0:54:33were handed by the Duke to the country's Prime Minister.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37Joyful citizens of the New State celebrate their independence
0:54:37 > 0:54:40in the most African of all ways - by dancing till they're ready to drop.
0:54:42 > 0:54:47As the 1960s dawned, one colony after another
0:54:47 > 0:54:50demanded - and got - independence
0:54:58 > 0:55:02The sun had most definitely set on the Empire.
0:55:02 > 0:55:05It had taken centuries to accumulate.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09It was gone in a couple of decades.
0:55:13 > 0:55:19The Empire brought blood and tears and dispossession to millions of people,
0:55:19 > 0:55:23but it also brought roads and railways and education.
0:55:31 > 0:55:34There is no simple judgement to be made
0:55:34 > 0:55:37on three turbulent centuries of history.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45Once, the official line was that, apart from the odd blip,
0:55:45 > 0:55:50the Empire was a good thing, not just for Britain but for the world.
0:56:01 > 0:56:04But the British grew ashamed of the Empire
0:56:04 > 0:56:07and tried to wipe it from the national memory.
0:56:08 > 0:56:14The Empire was certainly cruel, unjust and unjustifiable
0:56:14 > 0:56:18if you were a slave on a plantation in the 18th century,
0:56:18 > 0:56:20but it was benign and humane
0:56:20 > 0:56:27if you were rescued from a slave ship by the Royal Navy in the 19th century.
0:56:35 > 0:56:40For good or ill, much of the world is as it is today because of the Empire.
0:56:42 > 0:56:44From the way it looks...
0:56:48 > 0:56:50..to the sports people play.
0:56:55 > 0:56:58From the religion they practise...
0:56:58 > 0:57:01to the language they speak.
0:57:06 > 0:57:10It has changed the very genetic make-up of Britain.
0:57:12 > 0:57:18If only we can look at it clear-eyed, it can tell us a lot about who we are.
0:57:20 > 0:57:24It's a story that belongs to all of us.
0:57:47 > 0:57:51We've been through pride, we've been through shame,
0:57:51 > 0:57:54mostly nowadays we seem to be in denial,
0:57:54 > 0:57:58but if we really want to understand who we are,
0:57:58 > 0:58:03it's time we stopped pretending the Empire was nothing to do with us.
0:58:17 > 0:58:20To order a free Open University poster
0:58:20 > 0:58:23exploring the legacy of Britain's Empire, go to...
0:58:49 > 0:58:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd