Pioneer Column, noun phrase

In historical contexts. A force of settlers and police sent from South Africa in 1890 by Cecil Rhodes to occupy Mashonaland under the concession granted by Lobengula.
[1923 B. Ronan Forty S. Afr. Yrs 202When the British South African Company received its charter in 1889 steps were promptly taken to back up its authority by armed forces. The first instalment of these was the Pioneer Force, which occupied Mashonaland in 1890.]
1924 E.T. Jollie Real Rhodesia (1971) 14The country had an almost fabulous reputation for mineral wealth before the pioneer column entered it owing to reports from the hunters and traders.
1947 C.R. Prance Antic Mem. 949A man whose career reads like a fairy-tale. One of the pioneer column in the annexation of Rhodesia, he shared with youthful glee in that unprincipled raid on Portuguese Macequece, of which the curious may read the inside history in Kipling’s story ‘Judson and the Empire.’
1971 H. Zeederberg Veld Express 137Selous..owed a great deal of his reputation to the fact that he had been chosen to guide the Pioneer Column.
1974 P. Gibbs Hist. of BSAP I.Land promised by Rhodes to the Fingoes who had gone up to Rhodesia with the pioneer column — the origin of the present Fingoe Location near Bulawayo today.
1976 E. Prov. Herald 4 Sept. 3The Rhodesian Prime Minister, Mr Ian Smith, laid the first wreath at a ceremony in Salisbury’s Cecil Square yesterday to mark the 86th anniversary of the founding of White settlement in Rhodesia with the arrival of the Pioneer Column on September 12, 1890.
1985 S. Afr. Panorama June 40A Monument marking the departure point of the Pioneer Column which opened up Rhodesia.
1990 D. Capel in Personality 27 Aug. 12RASA’s Peninsula branch will commemorate the arrival of the Pioneer Column at its destination in 1890 with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Rhodes Memorial on 12 September.
A force of settlers and police sent from South Africa in 1890 by Cecil Rhodes to occupy Mashonaland under the concession granted by Lobengula.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

19231990

Browse Related Words

By Category

Colonial
Ranks and Roles

By Usage

historical
pioneer, nounn.pip, nounn.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English