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During theNapoleonic Wars, theCape Colony was annexed[citation needed] by theBritish and officially became their colony in 1815. Britain encouraged[citation needed] settlers to the Cape, and in particular, sponsored the1820 Settlers to farm in the disputed area between the colony and theXhosa in what is now theEastern Cape. The changing image of the Cape from Dutch to British excluded the Dutch farmers in the area, theBoers who in the 1820s started theirGreat Trek to the northern areas of modern South Africa. This period also marked the rise in power of theZulu under their kingShaka. Subsequently, several conflicts arose between the British, Boers and Zulus, which led to the Zulu defeat and the ultimate Boer defeat in theSecond Anglo-Boer War. However, theTreaty of Vereeniging established the framework of South African limited independence as theUnion of South Africa.
At the tip of the continent, the British found an established colony with 25,000 slaves, 20,000 white colonists, 15,000 Khoisan, and 1,000 freed black slaves. Power resided solely with a white élite in Cape Town, and differentiation on the basis ofrace was deeply entrenched. Outside Cape Town and the immediate hinterland, isolated black and white pastoralists populated the country.
Like the Dutch before them, the British initially had little interest in the Cape Colony, other than as a strategically located port. As one of their first tasks they tried to resolve a troublesome border dispute between the Boers and the Xhosa on the colony's eastern frontier. In 1820 the British authorities persuaded about 5,000 middle-class British immigrants (most of them "in trade") to leave England behind and settle on tracts of land between the feuding groups with the idea of providing a buffer zone. The plan was singularly unsuccessful. Within three years, almost half of these1820 Settlers had retreated to the towns, notablyGrahamstown andPort Elizabeth, to pursue the jobs they had held in Britain.
While doing nothing to resolve the border dispute, this influx of settlers solidified the British presence in the area, thus fracturing the relative unity of white South Africa. Where the Boers and their ideas had before gone largely unchallenged, European Southern Africa now had two language groups and two cultures. A pattern soon emerged whereby English-speakers became highly urbanised, and dominated politics, trade, finance, mining, and manufacturing, while the largely uneducated Boers remained on their farms.
The gap between the British settlers and the Boers further widened with the abolition of slavery in 1833, not because the slaves were freed, but the way in which they were freed (compensation for freed slaves, for example, had to be fetched personally in London). Yet the British settlers' conservatism and sense of racial superiority stopped any radical social reforms, and in 1841 the authorities passed a Masters and Servants Ordinance, which perpetuated white control. Meanwhile, British numbers increased rapidly in Cape Town, in the area east of the Cape Colony (present-dayEastern Cape Province), inNatal and, after the discovery of gold and diamonds, in parts of theTransvaal, mainly around present-dayGauteng.
The early 19th century saw a time of immense upheaval relating to the military expansion of the Zulu kingdom.Sotho-speakers know this period as thedifaqane ("forced migration"); whileZulu-speakers call it themfecane ("crushing").
The full causes of thedifaqane remain in dispute, although certain factors stand out. The rise of a unified Zulu kingdom had particular significance. In the early 19th century,Nguni tribes in KwaZulu-Natal began to shift from a loosely organised collection of kingdoms into a centralised, militaristic state.Shaka Zulu, son of the chief of the small Zulu clan, became the driving force behind this shift. At first something of an outcast, Shaka proved himself in battle and gradually succeeded in consolidating power in his own hands. He built large armies, breaking from clan tradition by placing the armies under the control of his own officers rather than of the hereditary chiefs. Shaka then set out on a massive programme of expansion, killing or enslaving those who resisted in the territories he conquered. Hisimpis (warrior regiments) were rigorously disciplined: failure in battle meant death.
Peoples in the path of Shaka's armies moved out of his way, becoming in their turn aggressors against their neighbours. This wave of displacement spread throughout Southern Africa and beyond. It also accelerated the formation of several states, notably those of the Sotho (present-dayLesotho) and of theSwazi (nowSwaziland).
In 1828 Shaka was killed by his half-brothersDingaan andUmthlangana. The weaker and less-skilled Dingaan became king, relaxing military discipline while continuing the despotism. Dingaan also attempted to establish relations with the British traders on the Natal coast, but events had started to unfold that would see the demise of Zulu independence.
Meanwhile, the Boers had started to grow increasingly dissatisfied with British rule in the Cape Colony. Various factors contributed to the migration, summarised in the Voortrekker leader, Piet Retief's manifesto.[1] Beginning in 1835, several groups of Boers, together with large numbers of Khoikhoi and black servants, decided to trek off into the interior in search of greater independence. North and east of theOrange River (which formed the Cape Colony's frontier) these Boers orVoortrekkers ("Pioneers") found vast tracts of apparently uninhabited grazing lands. They had, it seemed, entered their promised land, with space enough for their cattle to graze and their culture of anti-urban independence to flourish. Little did they know that what they found – deserted pasture lands, disorganised bands ofrefugees, and tales of brutality – resulted from thedifaqane, rather than representing the normal state of affairs.
With the exception of the more powerfulNdebele, the Voortrekkers encountered little resistance among the scattered peoples of theplains. Thedifaqane had dispersed them, and the remnants lacked horses andfirearms. Their weakened condition also solidified the Boers' belief that European occupation meant the coming of civilization to a savage land. However, the mountains whereKing Moshoeshoe I had started to forge the Basotho nation that would later become Lesotho and the wooded valleys ofZululand proved a more difficult proposition. Here the Boers met strong resistance, and their incursions set off a series of skirmishes, squabbles, and flimsy treaties that would litter the next 50 years of increasing white domination.
TheGreat Trek first halted atThaba Nchu, near present-dayBloemfontein, where the trekkers established a republic. Following disagreements among theirleadership, the various Voortrekker groups split apart. While some headed north, most crossed theDrakensberg into Natal with the idea of establishing a republic there. Since the Zulus controlled this territory, the Voortrekker leaderPiet Retief paid a visit to KingDingaan, negotiating a contract by which certain regions of land would be awarded to the Voortrekkers in exchange for the reclaim of cattle that was allegedly stolen from the Zulu by the Tlokwa of Chief Sekonyela who lived west of the Drakensberg. However, once the cattle was retrieved and brought to Dingaan, heordered the killing of all present (and unarmed) Voortrekkers under the guise of a farewell party. This killing triggered other attacks by Zulus on the Boer population, and a revenge attack by the Boers. The culmination came on 16 December 1838, in theBattle of Blood River, fought at theNcome River in Natal. Though several Boers suffered injuries, they managed to overcome the Zulu attack, in which they were vastly outnumbered (464 Boere to an estimated 30 000 Zulus), without suffering a single death.
Following this victory, however, the Boers' hopes for establishing a Natal republic was short lived. The British annexed the area in 1843, and founded their new Natal colony at present-day Durban. The British set about establishing large sugar plantations in Natal, but found few inhabitants of the neighbouring Zulu areas willing to provide labour. The British confronted stiff resistance to their encroachments from theZulus, a nation with well-established traditions of waging war, who inflicted one of the most humiliating defeats on the British army at theBattle of Isandlwana in 1879, where over 1400 British soldiers were killed. During the ongoingAnglo-Zulu Wars, the British eventually established their control over what was then namedZululand, and is today known asKwaZulu-Natal.
The British turned toIndia to resolve their labour shortage, as Zulu men refused to adopt the servile position of labourers and in 1860 theSSTruro arrived in Durban harbour with over 300 people on board. Over the next 50 years, 150,000 moreindentured Indians arrived, as well as numerous free "passenger Indians", building the base for what would become the largest Indian community outside of India. As early as 1893, whenMahatma Gandhi arrived in Durban, Indians outnumbered whites in Natal. (SeeIndian South Africans.)
The Boers meanwhile persevered with their search for land and freedom, ultimately establishing themselves in variousBoer Republics, e.g. theTransvaal or South African Republic and theOrange Free State. For a while it seemed that these republics would develop into stable states, despite having thinly spread populations of fiercely independent Boers, no industry, and minimal agriculture. The discovery of diamonds nearKimberley turned the Boers' world on its head (1869). The first diamonds came from land belonging to the Griqua, but to which both the Transvaal and Orange Free State laid claim. Britain quickly stepped in and annexed the area for itself.
The discovery of the Kimberley diamond-mines unleashed a flood of European and black labourers into the area. Towns sprang up in which the inhabitants ignored the "proper" separation of whites and blacks, and the Boers expressed anger that their impoverished republics had missed out on the economic benefits of the mines.
Long-standing Boer resentment turned into full-blown rebellion in the Transvaal (under British control from 1877), and the firstAnglo-Boer War, known toAfrikaners as the "War of Independence", broke out in 1880. The conflict ended almost as soon as it began with a crushing Boer victory atBattle of Majuba Hill (27 February 1881). The republic regained its independence as theZuid-Afrikaansche Republiek ("South African Republic"), or ZAR.Paul Kruger, one of the leaders of the uprising, became President of the ZAR in 1883. Meanwhile, the British, who viewed their defeat at Majuba as an aberration, forged ahead with their desire tofederate the Southern African colonies and republics. They saw this as the best way to come to terms with the fact of a white Afrikaner majority, as well as to promote their larger strategic interests in the area.
In 1879, Zululand came under British control. Then in 1886, an Australian prospectordiscovered gold in theWitwatersrand, accelerating the federation process and dealing the Boers yet another blow.Johannesburg's population exploded to about 100,000 by the mid-1890s, and the ZAR suddenly found itself hosting thousands ofuitlanders, both black and white, with the Boers squeezed to the sidelines. The influx of English labour in particular worried the Boers, many of whom resented the English miners.
The enormous wealth of the mines, soon became irresistible for Britishimperialists. In 1895, a group of renegades led by CaptainLeander Starr Jameson entered the ZAR with the intention of sparking an uprising on the Witwatersrand and installing a British administration. This incursion became known as theJameson Raid. The scheme ended in fiasco, but it seemed obvious to Kruger that it had at least the tacit approval of the Cape Colony government, and that his republic faced danger. He reacted by forming an alliance with Orange Free State.
The situation peaked in 1899 with theSecond Anglo-Boer War. Unable to defeat the Boers with traditional war tactics, the British employed the controversialscorched earth tactics, which included the capturing of hundreds of thousands of Boer women and children, and uncounted natives, inconcentration camps. By 1902, 26,000 Boers (mainly women and children) had died of disease, hunger and neglect in the camps, the brutal conditions documented by the British humanitarianEmily Hobhouse. On 31 May 1902 a superficial peace came with the signing of theTreaty of Vereeniging. Under its terms, the Boer republics acknowledged British sovereignty, while the British in turn committed themselves to reconstruction of the areas under their control.
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During the immediate post-war years the British focussed their attention on rebuilding the country, in particular the mining industry. By 1907 the mines of the Witwatersrand produced almost one-third of the world's annual gold production. But the peace brought by the treaty remained fragile and challenged on all sides. The Afrikaners found themselves in the position of poor farmers in a country where big mining ventures and foreigncapital rendered them irrelevant. Britain's unsuccessful attempts to anglicise them, and to impose English as the official language in schools and theworkplace particularly incensed them. Partly as a backlash to this, the Boers came to seeAfrikaans as thevolkstaal ("people's language") and as a symbol of Afrikaner nationhood. Several nationalist organisations sprang up.
Blacks and Coloureds remained marginalised in society. After much negotiation with the Boers a form of "segregation" was introduced. The authorities imposed unpopular taxes, while the British caretaker administrator encouraged the immigration of thousands of Chinese that undercut wages. Resentment exploded in theBambatha Rebellion of 1906, in which 4,000 Zulus lost their lives after rebelling due to onerous tax legislation.
The British meanwhile moved ahead with their plans for union. After several years of negotiations, theSouth Africa Act 1909 brought the colonies and republics – Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange Free State – together as theUnion of South Africa. Under the provisions of the act, the Union remained British territory, but withhome-rule for Afrikaners. TheBritish High Commission territories ofBasutoland (nowLesotho),Bechuanaland (nowBotswana),Swaziland, andRhodesia (nowZambia andZimbabwe) continued under direct rule from Britain.
English and Dutch became the official languages. Afrikaans did not gain recognition as an official language until 1925. Despite a major campaign by Blacks and Coloureds, the voter franchise remained as in the pre-Union republics and colonies, and only whites could gain election toParliament.
In 1910 theUnion of South Africa was created by the unification of four areas, by joining the two former independent Boer republics of theSouth African Republic (Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek) and theOrange Free State (Oranje Vrystaat)with the British dominatedCape Province andNatal. Most significantly, the new self-governing Union of South Africa gained international respect with BritishDominion status putting it on par with three other important British dominions and allies: Canada, Australia, andNew Zealand.[2]
