African Continent remained the hunting ground of the colonial powers to scramble for resources, a reality that was made possible by some part of the present day South Africa becoming the threshold for interface between the acquisitive West and the resource rich Africa. The irony of history, however, lies in the shift in the colonial priority thrust on the very land mass, which was elevated from a mere naval base on sea route to place of ultimate destiny during the course of empire building exercise. Martin Meredith gives a thrilling account of such an eventful process in his classic Diamonds, Gold and War.
The region was once regarded as a "worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer republics and African chiefdoms," and as a "troublesome" zone evoking little interest from the outside world. To the surprise of a II, that part of the world suddenly became a "glittering prize". What ensued was a prolonged battle fought by the "British to acquire supremacy throughout southern Africa and by the Boers to retain the independence of their republics". The result was the costliest, bloodiest and most humiliating fight that Britain had indulged in a century. In this excellently vivid and engrossing history of state formation in South Africa, Martin portrays the "great wealth and raw power, the deceit and corruption" that lay behind the empire-building exercise of Britain.
The British laid the foundation of their empire in the southern Africa with the possession of Cape Town in 1806 during the course of the Napoleonic Wars, a time when the Cape was a "slave-owning outpost, three months sailing distance from London, previously run as a Dutch commercial enterprise" that had undergone years long bankruptcy. The possession of the Cape was, thus, necessitated by its use as a naval stop. over at the foot of Africa halfway along the vital trade -route between Europe and Asia. What made the possession more compelling for the British was their determination to keep this stepping stone out of the hands of the colonial rival the French.
Prior to the British arrival, the white colonial population, descendants of Dutch, German and French Huguenot settlers, used to undertake farming in Cape Town and its peripheral land by using the lob our of foreign slaves imported from other enclaves in Africa and from Asia. The indigenous Khoikhoi community was, meanwhile, dispossessed of most of their land during 150 years of white occupation and was reduced to a labouring class treated no better than the slave population. The Dutch stock farmer’s alias trekboers also moved beyond the peninsular region in the north and east, and clashed with indigenous pastoralists and hunters, especially Bantu speaking Xhosa chiefdoms in the eastern frontier in Zuurveld. As the Cape's new rulers, the British supplemented the trekboers' effort in subduing the Bantu speaking population who had time and again rebelled, though with little success, against the dispossession of their land.
Determined to ensure greater security in the eastern frontier, the British government populated the area with immigrant settlers from Britain. The decision for, immigrant settlement was also pulled by the domestic requirement to "reduce unemployment and alleviate social unrest prevalent afttr the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The majority of them was, however, urban artis-aIislacking farming experience, and was denied prior knowledge of the fierce dispute concerning the ownership of the land allocated to them. Discovering the sour-grass farms of the Zuurveld unsuitable for cultivation, more than half of the new settlers abandoned the land in a few yeats. Still worse, the protection of the remaining British settlers, by waging continued frontier wars with the Xhosa, became an increasingly costly exercise for the colonial government. Given the limited naval utility of the Cape, the British government was accused of overspending on the commercially insignificant interior region.T he pressure to minimise colonial expenditure, however, failed to deter the british government from introducing a series of administrative reforms to take greater account of the indigenous population. At the same time, the British missionaries arrived at the Cape, and started campaigning vociferously for civil rights of the Khoikhoi; citing examples of their "ill-treatment at the hands of the Dutch speaking trekboers." The indigenouous and coloured community were consequently equated with white population, and the legal restrictions on their free movements were removed by promulgation of ordinance. In 1834, slavery in the Cape was abolished, ,in common with the rest of the empire, though in a formal form. A new court system was set up in which Dutch was replaced by English as the only official language, with the larger objective of converting the Cape into an English speaking colony.
These changes evoked deep resentment among the colonists, notably among the Boer population in the frontier region, because of the challenge to their status quo as well as the related inconveniences in terms of labour shortage, pilferage and theft. Instead of co-opting the Boer opposition, the British countermanded a new legislation that they introduced to counter the vagrancy, resulting in their stronger outrage. The Boers became more antagonised, when the government in London, under the influence of missionaries, repudiated the retaliatory annexation of Xhosa land by the British governor, and blamed white encroachment as the cause of conflict in the eastern frontier.
In an attempt to cast off the British authority, Boer leaders organised the mass exodus of white families towards north eastern frontier. The emigrants moved mostly from the eastern peripheral districts, despite opposition from the Dutch church and the British authorities. They clashed with Mzilikazis Ndebele kingdom and Dingane's Zulu kingdom. When the Boers captured the trading post in Durban and moved beyond, the British annexed Natal and made it the their second colony, though with considerable reluctance, yet having a limited objective of preventing the port of Durban from falling into the hands of a rival European power.
The British intervened further, when the trekker communities during the course of establishing their own states repeatedly fought with African adv.ersaries-the Basotho, the Griqua, the Tswana and the Ndebele. Britain signed treaties with the Basotho and the Griqua bearing responsibility for the protection of native tribes beyond colonial border. Overburdened with the cost accruing to its Qwn frontier problems with the Xhosa, Britain later abandoned the idea of intervention. It subsequently recognised the independence of Tran Val and the Orange Free State in the north, to be ruled by the trekker communities. The dependence on subsistence farming, weak administration, practice of disguised slavery and intra-Boer quarrel made these two states perennially vulnerable to the attack of African adversaries. Two southern African colonies - Cape and Natal - were also equally troublesome, for the British, who found those territory to be the most "expensive and unprofitable possession" of their empire. With the recovery of diamond at Griqualand in the Orange Free State in 1871 and, fifteen years later, the gold strike at Witwaterstrand in Transval, the whole of southern Africa became prime possession for the imperialist powers. What ensued was a prolonged battle fought by the British to acquire supremacy through out the region and by the Boers to retain the independence of their republics. Contrary to its anticipation of a short lived war, Britain had to engage in a two and a half years long grueling campaign, involving half a million imperial troops and leaving the two Boer republics completely devastated. The guerrilla warfare made the British army indulge in the massive destruction of civilian properties and large scale killing through concentration camps, resulting in a legacy of hatred and bitterness amongst Afrikaners that endured for generations. The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 was personified by two men: a ruthless British entrepreneur, Cecil Rhodes, and the landowning Boer leader, Paul Kruger. Meanwhile, the main architect of the war was; Alfred Milner, who happened to be Britain's high commissioner in southern Africa. The overcoming of Boer resistance became costly for the British who had to lose lives of 22, 000 men from Britain. Therefore, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State were left as self-governing colonies under the control of defeated Boer generals. The four colonies were later amalgamated into a Union of South Africa in 1910.
The modern state of South Africa was, thus, formed out of sheer colonial convenience without taking care of the interests of the indigenous population, who were again denied their political rights for the next eighty years. The British were accused by the African community of betraying their interests, with little response from the "humane" emperor. They were consequently left with no option other than fighting for the rest of the century against the South African state, which was run on the line of an exclusivist, virulent and racist form of Afrikaner nationalism.
The incisive classic Diamonds, Gold and War is a wonderful exposition of the colonial intrigue and deceit that lay behind state formation in South Africa. Though Martin Meredith could have informed readers about the position of the missionaries on the humanitarian issues concerning the indigenous community in the post recovery era; nevertheless, the author deserves credit for his consistent and comprehensive investigation of a theme leading to the torturous subjugation of South Africans, yet failing to prevent them from establishing for themselves a substantive democracy with a robust constitution.
Sandipani Dash
Africa Division
School of international Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University. |
