AHC: Preserve Cape Colony's multiracial franchise

How can we preserve the Cape's multiracial franchise, and even extend it to South Africa and the rest of British Africa in time?
 
How can we preserve the Cape's multiracial franchise, and even extend it to South Africa and the rest of British Africa in time?

It's not that hard, really. While blacks, e.g., had the right to vote - it was only if they owned land or capital, which few did.

You do need to keep the Afrikaaner movement out of power for longer, but a general extension, together with a ratcheting up of requirements (e.g. a literacy test in 'either of the national languages' (English or Afrikaans)) should be possible to sell. I don't know enough of the history to know what pragmatic (read slimy) politician could sell that, and it's not terribly likely, but I think it ought to be possible.
 

Czar Kaizer

Banned
Simple, get rid of Rhodes, he was the one who started weakening the black franchise by increasing their threshold and changing property laws so that blacks could no longer claim communal property as a means to vote.
To be honest get rid of Rhodes and you change a lot of South African history.
But another issue though is that the Cape franchise was never meant to allow non whites to over take whites. The change to the franchise vote came from the fact that their were a few countitunvies in the eastern cape that had gained a majority black electorate, this pissed of both Rhodeses supporters who were mainly white eastern Cape farmers who saw blacks as not only infererior but also economic competetion(black peasant farmers out produced white commercial farmers) and Afrikaaners who genrally had more conservative views on race.
 

Czar Kaizer

Banned
It's not that hard, really. While blacks, e.g., had the right to vote - it was only if they owned land or capital, which few did.

You do need to keep the Afrikaaner movement out of power for longer, but a general extension, together with a ratcheting up of requirements (e.g. a literacy test in 'either of the national languages' (English or Afrikaans)) should be possible to sell. I don't know enough of the history to know what pragmatic (read slimy) politician could sell that, and it's not terribly likely, but I think it ought to be possible.
Actaully many Africans did own property, the Cape Colony legally recognized communal tenure which allowed many Africans to vote in the eastern cape. Once more coutituncies started becoming more black Rhodes and his ilk changed property laws so that communal tenure was no longer recognized and as a result the majority of Africans in the eastern cspe lost their right to land and the right to vote.
 
Whilst Rhodes may have lead some of the initial restrictions, it was a pretty steady process up till Apartheid occurred post WW2. Long after Rhodes became a statue.

One of the issues is that White settler communities, across the British Empire (and I think in the US too) were mobilised against non white political and economic power from the 1870s onwards. You could pick any area and likely find a politician or movement that built on or encouraged restriction of the rights of non white residents to vote, live, practice customs or business. A historian I'm reading presently feels that this trend was a reflection of the settler governments and communities asserting themselves against London.

In NZ at the time the Maori electoral roll was equal parts enlightened liberalism and restriction of Maori demographic and political power (4 Maori MPs for a country the size of NZ when their population was close to the British population).
 
Simple, get rid of Rhodes, he was the one who started weakening the black franchise by increasing their threshold and changing property laws so that blacks could no longer claim communal property as a means to vote.
To be honest get rid of Rhodes and you change a lot of South African history.
But another issue though is that the Cape franchise was never meant to allow non whites to over take whites. The change to the franchise vote came from the fact that their were a few countitunvies in the eastern cape that had gained a majority black electorate, this pissed of both Rhodeses supporters who were mainly white eastern Cape farmers who saw blacks as not only infererior but also economic competetion(black peasant farmers out produced white commercial farmers) and Afrikaaners who genrally had more conservative views on race.

Is there a way to reduce the racial paranoia? On a logical basis I don't know why farm X being owned by a black guy is any more competition than being owned by a white guy.
 
Is there a way to reduce the racial paranoia? On a logical basis I don't know why farm X being owned by a black guy is any more competition than being owned by a white guy.

Well surely it depends on who that black guy is. If he is some random person who has purchased a farm like you, Mr White, speaks your language, grew up near you, worships like you, then there is no real difference. But if he is someone from a powerful local tribe whom your people are in the midst of displacing, or with which you have fought several wars with then maybe not.
 
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