Major Wilson's Last Stand | |
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Directed by | Joseph Rosenthal |
Screenplay by | Frank E. Fillis |
Based on | Historical events of the Shangani Patrol (1893) |
Produced by | Warwick Trading Co. Ltd |
Starring | Texas Jack Peter Lobengula Frank E. Fillis |
Production companies | Levi, Jones & Company |
Release date |
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Running time | 125 ft [1] |
Country | Great Britain |
Languages | Silent English intertitles |
Major Wilson's Last Stand is an 1899 British short silent war film based upon the historical accounts of the Shangani Patrol. The film was adapted from Savage South Africa, a stage show depicting scenes from both the First Matabele War and the Second Matabele War which opened at the Empress Theatre, Earls Court, on 8 May 1899. [2] It was shot by Joseph Rosenthal for Warwick Trading Co. Ltd. [3]
Copies of the film originally sold for £3. It was shown to audiences at the Olympic Theatre in London and at the Refined Concert Company in New Zealand. [4]
The studio's original description is as follows: [5]
Major Wilson and his brave men are seen in laager in order to snatch a brief rest after a long, forced march. They are suddenly awakened by the shouts of the savages, who surround them on all sides. The expected reinforcements arrived too late. The Major calls upon his men to show the enemy how a handful of British soldiers can play a losing game as well as a winning one. He bids them to stand shoulder to shoulder and fight and die for their queen. The horses are seen to fall, and from the rampart of dead horses, the heroic band fights to the last round of revolver ammunition. The Major, who is the last to fall, crawls to the top of the heads of dead men, savages, and horses and makes every one of the few remaining cartridges find its mark until his life is cut short by the thrust of an assegai in the hands of a savage, who attacks him from behind. Before he falls, however, he fires his last bullet into the fleeing carcass of the savage, who drops dead. The Major also expires, and death-like silence prevails. The most awe-inspiring cinematograph picture ever produced.
Lobengula Khumalo was the second and last official king of the Northern Ndebele people. Both names in the Ndebele language mean "the men of the long shields", a reference to the Ndebele warriors' use of the Nguni shield.
Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers and are further separated from Midlands by the Shangani River in central Zimbabwe. The region is named after its inhabitants, the Ndebele people who were called "Amatabele"(people with long spears – Mzilikazi 's group of people who were escaping the Mfecani wars). Other ethnic groups who inhabit parts of Matabeleland include the Tonga, Bakalanga, Venda, Nambya, Khoisan, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and Tsonga.
The Pioneer Column was a force raised by Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company in 1890 and used in his efforts to annex the territory of Mashonaland, later part of Zimbabwe.
The Northern Ndebele people are a Nguni ethnic group native to Southern Africa. Significant populations of native speakers of the Northern Ndebele language (siNdebele) are found in Zimbabwe and in South Africa.
Frederick Russell Burnham DSO was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the British South Africa Company and to the British Army in colonial Africa, and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell in Rhodesia. Burnham helped inspire the founding of the international Scouting Movement.
Alan, Allan, or Allen Wilson may refer to:
The First Matabele War was fought between 1893 and 1894 in modern-day Zimbabwe. It pitted the British South Africa Company against the Ndebele (Matabele) Kingdom. Lobengula, king of the Ndebele, had tried to avoid outright war with the company's pioneers because he and his advisors were mindful of the destructive power of European-produced weapons on traditional Matabele impis attacking in massed ranks. Lobengula reportedly could muster 80,000 spearmen and 20,000 riflemen, armed with Martini-Henry rifles, which were modern arms at that time. However, poor training may have resulted in the weapons not being used effectively.
The Second Matabele War, also known as the First Chimurenga, was fought in 1896 and '97 in the region later known as Southern Rhodesia, now modern-day Zimbabwe. It pitted the British South Africa Company against the Matabele people, which led to conflict with the Shona people in the rest of Southern Rhodesia.
The Rudd Concession, a written concession for exclusive mining rights in Matabeleland, Mashonaland and other adjoining territories in what is today Zimbabwe, was granted by King Lobengula of Matabeleland to Charles Rudd, James Rochfort Maguire and Francis Thompson, three agents acting on behalf of the South African-based politician and businessman Cecil Rhodes, on 30 October 1888. Despite Lobengula's retrospective attempts to disavow it, it proved the foundation for the royal charter granted by the United Kingdom to Rhodes's British South Africa Company in October 1889, and thereafter for the Pioneer Column's occupation of Mashonaland in 1890, which marked the beginning of white settlement, administration and development in the country that eventually became Rhodesia, named after Rhodes, in 1895.
The military history of Zimbabwe chronicles a vast time period and complex events from the dawn of history until the present time. It covers invasions of native peoples of Africa, encroachment by Europeans, and civil conflict.
Allan Wilson was an officer in the Victoria Volunteers. He is best known for his leadership of the Shangani Patrol in the First Matabele War. His death fighting overwhelming odds made him a national hero in Britain and Rhodesia.
Major Patrick William Forbes was a British South Africa Police officer who commanded a British South Africa Company force which invaded Matabeland during the First Matabele War.
Europeans first came to the region in southern Africa today called Zimbabwe in the sixteenth century, when Portuguese colonials ventured inland from Mozambique and attacked the Kingdom of Mutapa, which then controlled an area roughly equivalent to eastern Zimbabwe and western Mozambique. Portuguese influence over Mutapa endured for about two centuries before fading away during the 1690s and early-1700s (decade). During the year of 1685, French Huguenots emigrated to present-day South Africa and whilst some settled there, others moved further north into the continent. Those who did, settled within modern-day Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana, and co-existed with the indigenous people; most of whom, in Zimbabwe, were the Naletale people.
Shangani Patrol is a war film based upon the non-fiction book A Time to Die by Robert Cary (1968), and the historical accounts of the Shangani Patrol, with Brian O'Shaughnessy as Major Allan Wilson and Will Hutchins as the lead Scout Frederick Russell Burnham. Also includes the song "Shangani Patrol" by Nick Taylor.
Allan Wilson High School is a boys' high school in Harare, Zimbabwe, named after British Army officer Allan Wilson. Wilson led the Shangani Patrol in the First Chimurenga (war) against the people of Matabeleland. He died in that war near Shangani River, defending Rhodesians who were fighting to colonise Zimbabwe.
Texas Jack Jr., who adopted the name of his rescuer and childhood protector, Texas Jack Omohundro, ran an international traveling Wild West Show and Circus.
Allan Stewart (1865–1951) was a Scottish painter who built his reputation on romantic, historical and particularly military paintings as well as landscapes and portraits.
The Shangani Patrol was a 34-soldier unit of the British South Africa Company that in 1893 was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors in pre-Southern Rhodesia, during the First Matabele War. Headed by Major Allan Wilson, the patrol was attacked just north of the Shangani River in Matabeleland, Rhodesia. Its dramatic last stand, sometimes called "Wilson's Last Stand", achieved a prominent place in the British public imagination and, subsequently, in Rhodesian history, similarly to events such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Battle of the Alamo in the United States.
Peter Lobengula was a South African actor and circus performer who gained considerable attention in Britain during the early 20th-century, claiming to be a prince and the son of Lobengula, the last King of the Matabele. He portrayed his father in the film Major Wilson's Last Stand. His engagement to Kitty Jewell, a white British woman, ignited public scandal and was widely sensationalized by the press, marking an early instance of tabloid journalism's influential role in shaping and echoing British imperialistic attitudes.