Paper short abstract:

Banking, finance, Rhodesia, decolonisation

Paper long abstract:

The Rhodesia Front (RF) government, elected to power in December 1962, made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965. Its rebellion against imperial Britain occurred in a period of decolonization characterized by the attainment of majority rule in African countries. Having enjoyed settler colonial status accompanied by much political and economic room to maneuver since 1923, the white minority Rhodesian electorate voted the RF into in 1962 to protect their interests. Although literature has focused variously on the British-Rhodesian impasse, UDI and the liberation struggle, it has neglected historical financial developments, without which the UDI would never have been declared and sustained for fifteen years thereafter. This article provides a first in-depth perspective on how financial reconstitution was just as important as political, social and military considerations in the period between the RF's rise to power and its rebellion. Central to its analysis is changing imperial and colonial economic relations. Although Rhodesia's financial system was fully integrated into London's sterling area between 1890 and the 1960s, this link was severed following the 1965 Rhodesia rebellion and a post-sterling Rhodesian financial system emerged. As London had ruled out military invasion to stop Salisbury's rebellion, its only alternative was economic sanctions on the basis of its historical control of the colony's financial system in circumstances where the colony was keen on using financial instruments to survive punitive exchange control measures and sustain minority rule. The paper examines the financial makings of this imperial-colonial conflict and the considerations and activities on the eve of Rhodesia's UDI.