When he was 27, he entered parliament, in 1881. He became Prime Minister of Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He was supported by the Afrikaner Bond in the Cape Colony until he betrayed them by supporting a rebellion against their relatives, the Boers of the South African Republic. He set up the Jameson Raid, led by his close friend Leander Starr Jameson in 1895. The raid was an unauthorised attack on Paul Kruger's South African Republic (or Transvaal). After that the Bond forced him to resign. His heart was weak, and after years of ill health he died in 1902. He was buried in what is now Zimbabwe; his grave has been a controversial site. 