ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

British South Africa Company

The British South Africa Company was a company that was made up of a group of people from Britain that formed together to explore and settle in the southern part of Africa.

Think of it like a big adventure where a group of grown-ups decided to go explore a new place far away from home, kind of like you playing explorer in your backyard.

The company was created in 1889 and was given permission by the British government to do things like build infrastructure, set up towns, and take control of the land.

This meant that the company was kind of like a boss of the new land they were exploring, and they could make decisions about laws and rules that the people living there would have to follow.

The company was owned by a big businessman named Cecil Rhodes, who was kind of like the leader.

Rhodes wanted to take over as much land as possible in southern Africa, so the company started taking control of a lot of areas and displacing the people who already lived there.

This wasn't very nice to do, and many people were unhappy about it.

Eventually, after a lot of fighting and arguing, the British government decided that the British South Africa Company should no longer have control over the land.

So overall, the British South Africa Company was a group of people from Britain who went on a big adventure to explore and settle in southern Africa. They were kind of like bosses, and they made a lot of decisions about the land. But some of the things they did were not very nice, and they eventually had to give up their power.