Settler Soul-Searching and Sovereign Independence: The Monarchy in Rhodesia, 1965–1970

Abstract

In the aftermath of Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965, Queen Elizabeth II became a contested icon in a struggle to define Rhodesian nationhood and identity. After UDI, rebel Rhodesians were forced to reconcile an act of treason against the Crown with a monarchism that permeated white settler society. This article moves beyond existing studies that focus upon the Queen as a diplomatic bargaining chip in the negotiations between the British and Rhodesian governments to consider her symbolic position within white settler society in the years after UDI. It argues that debates about the Monarchy were an important aspect of white Rhodesian attempts to define themselves and their nation in a decolonising world. The article also shows how the Rhodesian Front’s changing position on the Monarchy reveals its nationalist project to be essentially reactionary in character, and how the shift over time from settler colonial discourses of ‘loyal rebellion’ to discourses of independent nationhood demonstrates the wider comparative potential of the Rhodesian case study resulting from its peculiar post-UDI position between settler and non-settler colonies.