Rhodesia (region) Rhodesia (region) Rhodesia is a historical region in southern Africa whose formal boundaries evolved between the 1890s and 1980. Demarcated and named by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), which governed it until the 1920s, it thereafter saw administration by various authorities. It was bisected by a natural border, the Zambezi. The territory to the north of the Zambezi was officially designated Northern Rhodesia by the Company, and has been Zambia since 1964; that to the south, which the Company dubbed Southern Rhodesia, became Zimbabwe in 1980. Northern and Southern Rhodesia were sometimes informally called "the Rhodesias". The term "Rhodesia"
Northern Rhodesia the authorities considered seditious. They were not generally politically active, but the Watchtower movement was supposedly involved in the 1935 Copperbelt riots, probably incorrectly. Secondly, Africans educated by missions or abroad sought social, economic and political advancement through voluntary associations, often called "Welfare Associations". Their protests were muted until the early 1930s, and concentrated on improving African education and agriculture, with political representation a distant aspiration. However, several of the Welfare Associations on the Copperbelt were involved in the 1935 disturbances. Hut tax was gradually introduced to different areas of Northern Rhodesia between 1901 and 1913. Its introduction generally caused