Cecil Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) was an English-born South African who was a co-founder of the De Beers diamond company as well as the honored namesake of the southern African country of Rhodesia (today’s Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia). Notably, upon his death he bequeathed funding to establish the Rhodes Scholarship program, which to this day is endowed by his estate. During his short life he was active as a businessman, politician and philanthropist who lived and dreamed on a grand scale.

Rhodes moved from England to South Africa while still a teenager in hopes that a better climate would ease his asthma. He was frail and also suffered heart problems. His brother Herbert lived there, having made a failed attempt at farming cotton. Moving on, with outside partners they bought up southern African diamond and gold deposits and formed the De Beers company in 1888. Rhodes was named chairman of the new enterprise.

Cecil was a British Imperialist who thought the United States would eventually rejoin Britain (!). He believed that in the near future the United Kingdom (including Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and Cape Colony), the USA, and Germany together would dominate the world and ensure peace. He wrote of the British, “I contend that we are the finest race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race...to be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life.”

He was a friend of Jan Hofmeyr, leader of the Afrikaner Bond, and it was largely because of Afrikaner support that Rhodes became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (1890-1896), a British controlled area of southern Africa. Rhodes was also president of the British South Africa Company. Politically, Rhodes advocated greater self-government for the Cape Colony, in line with his preference for the empire to be controlled by local settlers and politicians rather than by London. Rhodes was also a racist, an early architect of apartheid, the separation of blacks and whites.

As for his private life, Rhodes employed a number of robust young male companions, ostensibly as bodyguards and secretaries.  He did not have relationships with any member of the opposite sex, platonic or otherwise. Neville Pickering, the first secretary of the De Beers company, has been singled out as Rhodes's first significant male lover. When Pickering – young, fit and extraordinarily handsome – turned 25, Rhodes returned from serious business negotiations for Pickering's birthday in 1882. On that occasion, Rhodes drew up a new will leaving his estate to Pickering; the new will read simply: “I, C.J. Rhodes, being of sound mind, leave my worldly wealth to N.E. Pickering.”  When Pickering later suffered a riding accident, Rhodes nursed him faithfully for six weeks, refusing even to answer telegrams concerning his business interests. Pickering died in Rhodes's arms, and at his funeral, Rhodes was said to have wept “with fervor”. Rhodes had passed up a deal worth millions to be at his companion’s bedside during his final days.

Pickering was replaced by Henry Latham Currey, who had become Rhodes's private secretary in 1884. When Currey became engaged to be married in 1894, Rhodes was mortified, outraged and immediately ended their relationship. Over the years Rhodes accumulated a shifting entourage of fit young men, known as “Rhodes’s lambs,” almost always blonde haired and blue-eyed athletic types.

Rhodes later maintained a significant relationship with Scotsman Sir Leander Starr Jameson (a Baronet known as “Dr. Jim”), British administrator of the lands constituting present-day Zimbabwe, who ended up nursing Cecil Rhodes during his final illness. Jameson was a trustee of his estate and residuary beneficiary of his will, which allowed him to continue living in Rhodes's mansion after his death. Although Jameson died in England in 1917, after the conclusion if WW I his body was transferred to a mountaintop grave in 1920 beside that of Rhodes in Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe). Tellingly, Cecil Square is today one of the main gay cruising areas of Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe.

Rhodes had died from heart failure in Cape Town at age 48. Upon his death he was one of the wealthiest men in the world, and his will established the Rhodes Scholarship, the world’s first international study scholarship, enabling male students to study at Oxford University. Rhodes's aims were to promote leadership marked by public spirit and good character, and to "render war impossible" by promoting friendship between the great powers. According to Rhodes’s will, applicants were restricted to men only – it was not until 1976 that women were allowed to apply, which went against Rhodes’s wishes. According to Rhodes’s guidelines for scholarship selection, “candidates must display a fondness for success in manly outdoor sports, such as football and cricket.” Of course.

Sources: 

(update) Robert Calderisi - Cecil Rhodes and Other Statues: Dealing Plainly with the Past (2021)

Dean McCleland – The Casual Observer (2015)
Keith Stern – Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals (2009)
Wayne Dynes – Encyclopedia of Homosexuality (1990)

Baron von Steuben

I’ve written about gay king Frederick the Great of Prussia. However, I just learned that a former aide of his had to flee Prussia amid allegations of taking familiarities with young boys. Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, an experienced military officer, made his way to America with the aid of Benjamin Franklin, who was based in Paris at the time, trying to convince the French to come to our aid in fighting the British. George Washington asked for the Baron’s assistance in bringing order to the tattered Continental troops serving in the Revolutionary War. General Washington sent him to Valley Forge in February, 1778.

The soldiers were unaccustomed to the Baron’s – well, let’s call it "style". Von Steuben showed up in a grandiose sleigh (sporting 24 jingling bells) pulled by black Percheron draft horses. The Baron was wearing a robe of silk trimmed with fur, all the while petting his miniature greyhound, Azor, who was curled up on his lap. Behind him were his retinue of African servants, a French chef, his French aide-de-camp Louis de Pontière and the Baron’s 17-year-old lover/secretary Pierre-Étienne du Ponceau.

Impressive, if not entirely appropriate.

However, von Steuben proved his worth and soon shaped a hundred soldiers into a model company that, in turn, trained others in Prussian military tactics. He was a mere captain, but was so invaluable to Washington, that he was promoted to Major General.  In 1781, he served under the Marquis de Lafayette in Virginia when the British General Charles Cornwallis invaded. He also served at the siege of Yorktown, where he commanded one of the three divisions of Washington's army.

Steuben spoke little English, and he often yelled to his translator, "Hey! Come over here and swear for me!" Steuben punctuated the screaming of his translator with fierce-sounding shouts in German and French. In an effort to codify training, Steuben wrote a Revolutionary War Drill Manual, which became the standard method for training army troops for over thirty years. It addresses the arms and accoutrements of officers and soldiers, formation and exercise of a company, instruction of recruits, formation and marching, inspection, etc., etc.

Steuben became an American citizen by act of the Pennsylvania legislature in March 1784. In 1790, Congress gave him a pension of $2,500 a year, which he received until his death, and an estate near Utica, NY, granted to him for his military service to our nation.

But wait, that’s not all. Steuben legally adopted two handsome soldiers (one of them, William North, became a U.S. Senator). A third young man, John Mulligan, considered himself a member of the stable of Steuben’s “sons.” Before moving in with Steuben, Mulligan had been living with Charles Adams*, the son of then-Vice President John Adams. Adams was concerned about the intense “closeness” between his son and Mulligan, insisting that they split up, so Mulligan wrote to Von Steuben with his tale of despair. Actually, Von Steuben offered to take both men into his arms home. Charles Adams, the handsomest son of one president and brother of another (John Quincy), resided with Von Steuben and Mulligan for a while. The 19-year-old Mulligan received – how shall we say – a very warm welcome. Von Steuben was a 62-year-old bachelor at the time. Hmmm.

Adams left the cozy love nest after a short while, but Mulligan stayed on for several years, serving as Von Steuben’s “secretary” until the Baron’s death. Mulligan inherited von Steuben’s library, maps and $2,500 cash, a considerable amount at the time, especially considering that the Baron was not a wealthy man.

Every year since 1958 the German-American Steuben Parade has been held in New York City. It is one of the city’s largest parades and is traditionally followed by an Oktoberfest celebration in Central Park. Similar events take place in Chicago and Philadelphia. Chicago’s Steuben Day Parade was featured in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. To further honor von Steuben, the Steuben Society was founded in 1919 as an educational, fraternal, and patriotic organization of American citizens of German background. In the difficult post-WW I years the Society helped the German-American community reorganize.

Steubenville, Ohio, is named in the Baron’s honor. As well, numerous submarines, warships and ocean liners were named after him. A statue of the Baron stands in Lafayette Square opposite the White House in Washington, DC*. Even one of the cadet barracks buildings at Valley Forge Military Academy and College is named after Von Steuben. Really.

Steuben was cited by Randy Shilts in his book, Conduct Unbecoming, as an early example of a valuable homosexual in the military.

*I traipsed over to Lafayette Park yesterday afternoon to inspect the statue of Baron von Steuben. It’s a tall bronze life-size statue placed upon a high stone pedestal. The statue shows von Steuben in military dress uniform surveying the troops at Valley Forge. The monument, which stands opposite the White House, was erected in 1911 and sculpted by Albert Jaegers. At the rear of the pedestal is a medallion with the images of von Steuben's adopted aides-de-camp, William North and Benjamin Walker, facing one another.  It says:  "Colonel William North - Major Benjamin Walker - Aides and Friends of von Steuben". On each side of the pedestal are bronze Roman soldiers. Above the carved words “military instruction” on one side is a seated, helmeted Roman soldier “instructing” a naked youth (photo at left). Appropriate, no?

Check it out the next time you come to Washington DC.

*In 1796 Charles Adams was one of a group of men who frequented the theater in New York City and wrote critiques of what they saw for further distribution. Others in the group, called the Friendly Club, were John Wells, Elias Hicks, Samuel Jones, William Cutting and Peter Irving. This is noted in William Dunlap's "History of the American Theatre," published in 1832 (p. 193). Adams, whose father vowed never to see him again after Charles abandoned his wife and two daughters, drank himself to death in 1800, succumbing to alcoholism at the tender age of 30. Some scholars believe this was caused by his inability to deal with his homosexual leanings. Charles Adams, who streaked naked across the campus of Harvard during his student days, had a reputation as a rogue and renegade, and his family's wall of silence after his death may support that theory. Charles certainly spent much time in the company of men who engaged in homosexual activity. In researching this post, I enjoyed a cheap smile over the fact that the law office of young Adams was located on Little Queen Street (since renamed Cedar St. in the financial district).