Seminar: Financial Imperialism and Settler Colonialism: Britain and Rhodesia, 1945-1962

This paper examines the trajectory of independence negotiations between Britain and Southern Rhodesia. Their failure resulted in the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) by Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front (RF) government on 11 November 1965. Informing these pre-1965 negotiations were opposed political positions, crucially depicted through financial power relations. Britain wanted to grant independence on the basis of majority rule, whereas the RF wanted minority rule. While both parties wanted to avoid conflict, suspicions and background activities resulted in the failure to reach a settlement. The negotiations during the period 1962 to 1965 became a site of confrontation informed by changing global financial arrangements, which had a direct impact on imperial and colonial power relations.