# British South Africa Company **Entity class:** Chartered colonial company ## Definition The **British South Africa Company (BSAC)** was founded by [[wiki/Cecil Rhodes|Cecil Rhodes]] and used royal-charter authority, concessions, armed force, administration, settlement, and resource extraction in the colonization of territories in southern Africa. It represents the coercive corporate-territorial side of Rhodes’s project, distinct from but genealogically adjacent to the scholarship system funded by his estate. ## Relationships - **founder:** [[wiki/Cecil Rhodes|Cecil Rhodes]]. - **historical function:** colonization, extraction, administration, and territorial control. - **soft-power contrast:** [[wiki/Rhodes Scholarship|Rhodes Scholarship]]. - **collection route:** [[collections/War With Empire|War With Empire]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [Rhodes Trust — Who Was Rhodes?](https://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/impact-legacy/legacy-equity-inclusion/who-was-rhodes/)