 First edition | |
| Author | Wilbur Smith |
|---|---|
| Country | South Africa |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Ballantyne Novels |
| Publisher | Heinemann |
Publication date | 1981 |
| Pages | 518 pp. |
| ISBN | 978-0385178341 |
| Preceded by | A Falcon Flies |
| Followed by | The Angels Weep |
Men of Men is a novel by Wilbur Smith, the second in the Ballantyne Novels series. It is set in the 1880s during the colonisation of Rhodesia and the First Matabele War and climaxes with the Shangani Patrol. [1] [2]
Men of Men by Wilbur Smith is a story of greed, exploration, adventure and love. It is a gripping saga at the time of Rhodes's acquisition of what would become Rhodesia following the lives of the Ballantyne men, specifically Zouga Ballantyne and his two sons Ralph and Jordan who have the unrelenting desire to conquer the wilds of the hinterlands of South Africa. Zouga, in his pursuit to make a fortune at the diamond fields, loses his wife and almost loses his sons. He purchases Kimberly mines but gambles them away leaving the family penniless, but in the true spirit of adventure and determination, both sons try on their own to make their mark on the land.
Zouga falls in love with the woman he believes is married to the American Confederate general and former slave trader Mungo St. John, but when he finds out their marriage is a lie, he reveals his feelings. Mungo lives to continue on his path of deceit and treachery, all to advance his own personal coffers, and when he falls in love with Zouga's sister Robyn, he even conspires to free her from her husband Clinton (British sea captain from the first novel) by sending him to his death at the hands of the Matabele.
Ralph becomes successful operating the first and only reliable transport company to what later would become Rhodesia, and Jordan becomes the right-hand man to Rhodes, whose vision will generate fortunes and open up the country for the British Empire. Sadly, both also carry the gene from their father that spurs them to win at all and any costs, without concern for consequences.
In their own ways, each of the Ballantyne men will contribute heavily to the slaughter and dissolution of the local Matabele tribe, chasing them almost into extinction. The Matabele are willing to share most everything they have, but when the greed of the invaders threatens their very lives and livelihoods, they strike back. In the bloody battle that ensues, the Matabele are seriously out gunned, and many die in defense of their king. Their loyalty is commendable and King Lobengula takes their deaths hard. Forced from his land, he flees with remaining members of his tribe, but Rhodes orders him to be caught. His men of the British South Africa Company fail to catch him. Lobengula dies the king that he lived while his brother Gandang takes up the leadership of the tribe until the call to take up arms against the invaders comes again.
Wilbur Addison Smith was a Northern Rhodesian-born British-South African novelist specializing in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries.
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 population of Matabeleland is just over 20% of the Zimbabwe's total.
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 Northen Ndebele language (siNdebele) are found in Zimbabwe. There is another Northern Ndebele group found in the Limpopo province of the republic of South Africa which is not related to those in Zimbabwe but this Northern Ndebele ethnic group is related to the Southern Ndebele ethnic group through being the descendants of same ancestral kings named Musi kaMhlanga and Ndebele KaMabhudu. The Northern Ndebele people of South Africa are concentrated in the towns of Polokwane, Zebediela, Mokopane and Hamanskraal.
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 meant that these were not used effectively.
Stanlake John William Thompson Samkange (1922–1988) was a Zimbabwean historiographer, educationist, journalist, author, and African nationalist. He was a member of an elite Zimbabwean nationalist political dynasty and the most prolific of the first generation of black Zimbabwean creative writers in English.
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.
John Smith Moffat (1835–1918) was a British missionary and imperial agent in southern Africa, the son of missionary Robert Moffat and Mary Moffat. He was the brother-in-law of missionary explorer David Livingstone. He is known for his various publications and essays detailing his journeys and experiences in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean.
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.
The Ballantyne Novels are a series of novels published between 1980 and 1984 by Wilbur Smith. They chronicle the lives of the Ballantyne family, from the 1860s to the 1980s against a background of the history of Rhodesia.
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.
Mthwakazi is the traditional name of the proto-Ndebele people and Ndebele kingdom and is in the area of today's Zimbabwe. Mthwakazi is widely used to refer to inhabitants of Matebeleland Province in Zimbabwe.
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.
A Falcon Flies is a novel by Wilbur Smith. It was the first in a series of books known as The Ballantyne Novels.
The Angels Weep is a 1982 novel, the third in Wilbur Smith's series about the Ballantyne family of Rhodesia. The first part of the book is set immediately before and during the Second Matabele War, then the second part jumps forward to the final days of the Rhodesian Bush War.
The Leopard Hunts in Darkness is a novel by Wilbur Smith set in the early days of Zimbabwe's independence and is the fourth in Wilbur Smith's series about the Ballantyne family of Rhodesia.