South Africa

33.4: South Africa

33.4.1: Imperialism in South Africa

Much of South Africa’s history, particularly of the colonial and post-colonial eras, is characterized by clashes of culture, violent territorial disputes between European settlers and indigenous people, dispossession and repression, and other racial and political tensions.

Learning Objective

Analyze the social consequences of imperialism in South Africa

Key Points

  • In 1652, a century and a half after the discovery of the Cape sea route, Jan van Riebeeck established a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope at what would become Cape Town, on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.
  • The Dutch transported slaves from Indonesia, Madagascar, and India as labor for the colonists in Cape Town.
  • The British annexed the Cape Colony in 1806 and continued the frontier wars.
  • Conflicts arose among the Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, and Boer groups who competed to expand their territories.
  • The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom, ending in a Zulu defeat.
  • After winning the First Boer War, the Boers were ultimately defeated in the Second Boer War by 1902.
  • Within the country, anti-British policies among white South Africans focused on independence.

Key Terms

Afrikaans
A West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia, and to a lesser extent, Botswana and Zimbabwe. It evolved from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland (Hollandic dialect) spoken by the mainly Dutch settlers of what is now South Africa, where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the course of the 18th century.
Dutch East India Company
A chartered company primarily in the spice trade founded in 1602. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock. The largest and most valuable corporation in history, it possessed quasi-governmental powers including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies.
Khoikhoi
A group of people native to southwestern Africa. Unlike the neighboring hunter-gatherer San people, they traditionally practiced nomadic pastoral agriculture.
Boers
The Dutch and Afrikaans word for “farmer.” As used in South Africa, it was used to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century.

Dutch Settlement in South Africa

Portuguese mariner Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to explore the coastline of South Africa in 1488 while attempting to discover a trade route to the Far East via the southernmost cape of South Africa, which he named Cabo das Tormentas, meaning Cape of Storms.

In 1647, a Dutch vessel, the Haarlem, was wrecked in the present-day Table Bay. After being rescued, the marooned crew recommended that a permanent station be established in the bay. The Dutch East India Company (in the Dutch of the day: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC), one of the major European trading houses sailing the spice route to the East, had no intention of colonizing the area, wanting only to establish a secure base camp where passing ships could shelter and here hungry sailors could stock up on fresh supplies of meat, fruit, and vegetables.

While the new settlement traded out of necessity with the neighboring Khoikhoi, one could hardly describe the relationship as friendly, and the authorities made deliberate attempts to restrict contact. Partly as a consequence, VOC employees found themselves faced with a labor shortage. To remedy this, they released a small number of Dutch from their contracts and permitted them to establish farms, with which they would supply the great VOC settlement from their harvests. This arrangement proved highly successful, producing abundant supplies of fruit, vegetables, wheat, and wine; they later raised livestock. The small initial group of free burghers, as these farmers were known, steadily increased and began to expand their farms further north and east into the territory of the Khoikhoi.

In addition to establishing the free burgher system, van Riebeeck and the VOC made indentured servants out of the Khoikhoi and the San and began to import large numbers of slaves, primarily from Madagascar and Indonesia. These slaves often married Dutch settlers, and their descendants became known as the Cape Coloureds and the Cape Malays. A significant number of the offspring from the white and slave unions were absorbed into the local proto-Afrikaans speaking white population. The racially mixed genealogical origins of many so-called “white” South Africans have been traced to interracial unions at the Cape between the European-occupying population and imported Asian and African slaves, the indigenous Khoi and San, and their offspring.

With this additional labor, the areas occupied by the VOC expanded further to the north and east, with inevitable clashes with the Khoikhoi. The newcomers drove the beleaguered Khoikhoi from their traditional lands and destroyed them with superior weapons when they fought back, which they did in a number of major wars and with guerrilla resistance movements that continued into the 19th century. Europeans also brought diseases that had devastating effects against people whose immune system was not adapted to them. Most survivors were left with no option but to work for the Europeans in an exploitative arrangement that differed little from slavery.

As the burghers, too, continued to expand into the rugged hinterlands of the north and east, many began a semi-nomadic pastoralist lifestyle, in some ways not far removed from that of the Khoikhoi they displaced. In addition to its herds, a family might have a wagon, a tent, a Bible, and a few guns. As they became more settled, they would build a mud-walled cottage, frequently located by choice days of travel from the nearest European. These were the first of the Trekboere (Wandering Farmers, later shortened to Boers), completely independent of official controls, extraordinarily self-sufficient, and isolated. Their harsh lifestyle produced individualists who were well-acquainted with the land. Like many pioneers with Christian backgrounds, the burghers attempted to live their lives based on teachings from the Bible.

Painting of several Dutch explorers carrying the Dutch flag approaching native Africans. A large mountain looms in the background.

Dutch Settlement in South Africa: Painting of an account of the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck, by Charles Bell.

English Annexation

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Cape Colony was annexed by the British and officially became their colony in 1815. Britain encouraged settlers to the Cape, and in particular, sponsored the 1820 settlers to farm in the disputed area between the colony and the Xhosa in what is now the Eastern Cape. The changing image of the Cape from Dutch to British excluded the Dutch farmers in the area, the Boers who in the 1820s started their Great Trek to the northern areas of modern South Africa. This period also marked the rise in power of the Zulu under their king Shaka Zulu. Subsequently several conflicts arose between the British, Boers, and Zulus.

The discoveries of diamonds and gold in the 19th century had a profound effect on the fortunes of the region, propelling it onto the world stage and introducing a shift away from an exclusively agrarian-based economy towards industrialization and the development of urban infrastructure.

The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Following Lord Carnarvon’s successful introduction of federation in Canada, it was thought that similar political effort coupled with military campaigns might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas, and Boer republics in South Africa. In 1874, Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to bring such plans into being. Among the obstacles were the presence of the independent states of the South African Republic and the Kingdom of Zululand and its army. The Zulu nation spectacularly defeated the British at the Battle of Isandlwana. Eventually, though, the war was lost, resulting in the end of the Zulu nation’s independence.

The Boer Republics successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880–1881) using guerrilla warfare tactics that were well-suited to local conditions. The British returned with greater numbers, more experience, and new strategy in the Second Boer War (1899–1902) but suffered heavy casualties through attrition. By 1902, 26,000 Boers (mainly women and children) had died of disease, hunger, and neglect in concentration camps. On May 31, 1902, a superficial peace came with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging. Under its terms, the Boer republics acknowledged British sovereignty, while the British committed themselves to reconstruction of the areas under their control.

Within the country, anti-British policies among white South Africans focused on independence. During the Dutch and British colonial years, racial segregation was mostly informal, though some legislation was enacted to control the settlement and movement of native people, including the Native Location Act of 1879 and the system of pass laws. Power was held by the ethnic European colonists.

Photo of a few dozen Boer women and children in a concentration camp.

Boer Wars: Boer women and children in a concentration camp. The discoveries of diamonds and gold led to new conflicts culminating in open warfare between the Boer settlers and imperial Britain, who fought essentially for control over the nascent South African mining industry.

 

Attributions