The
British South Africa Company's administration of what became
Rhodesia was
chartered in 1889 by
Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, and began with the
Pioneer Column's march north-east to
Mashonaland in 1890. Empowered by its charter to acquire, govern and develop the area north of the
Transvaal in southern Africa, the Company, headed by
Cecil Rhodes, raised its own armed forces and carved out a huge bloc of territory through treaties, concessions and occasional military action, most prominently overcoming the
Matabele army in the
First and
Second Matabele Wars of the 1890s. By the turn of the century, Rhodes's Company held a vast, land-locked country, bisected by the
Zambezi river. It officially named this land Rhodesia in 1895, and ran it until the early 1920s.