Boer Republics stronger

There were sth like 10-15 thousand Voortrekkers in the 1830-1850s and even if late 19th century Boer precentages in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State were much higher than today the actual numbers still did not exceed several tens of thousand. Wiki gives a total of around 450 thousand whites for the two republics combined in 1904 but by this time the Uitlanders made up at the very least half of the population. I couldn't find a reliable linguistic break-down, but most sources suggest a clear demographic dominance of the British, even 2:1 ratios or more.

So imagine a more numerous Boer community. A POD could be somewhere at the beginnings of Dutch settlement in South Africa; add several thosand more immigrants for whatever reason and in three hundred years time you might have a Boer community twice as large.

Would a demographically more secure Transvaal have fared better in its dealings with the British? An undisputed Boer dominance might have made the enfranchisement of the English-speaking immigrants less of a perceived threat, avoiding a major cause of the Boer War. Without such a pretext I think it's unlikely the British would have gone ahead with a brutal agression; with a little more diplomacy on both sides maybe the Boer War could have been avoided altogether.

Would then the Boer Republics peacfully join a negotiated South African Union eventually? I don't see that happenig too easily, but than the existence of the highly unstable Republics as independent in the long run seems equally unlikely. Still, if they would survive until 1914 the post-war situation might be more beneficial for their eventual consolidation. Or not. I can't decide.

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, do you see any way in which additional Boer Republics could have been established in what is now Zimbabwe? When the region was conquered by the British South Africa Company around the end of the 19th century it was completely subdued in sth like a decade and with relative ease, despite the Matabele Wars. With more Boers several decades earlier maybe what became Rhodesia could have been closed down for the British by Boer statal formations for a while. Some vague notes in certain dubious sources hint towards some actual Boer activity beyond the Limpopo; according to Conan Doyle there is supposed to have been a planned trek northwards sometime in the 1850-1860s, which came to nothing though. So what if there had been a trek north?
 
There were sth like 10-15 thousand Voortrekkers in the 1830-1850s and even if late 19th century Boer precentages in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State were much higher than today the actual numbers still did not exceed several tens of thousand. Wiki gives a total of around 450 thousand whites for the two republics combined in 1904 but by this time the Uitlanders made up at the very least half of the population. I couldn't find a reliable linguistic break-down, but most sources suggest a clear demographic dominance of the British, even 2:1 ratios or more.

So imagine a more numerous Boer community. A POD could be somewhere at the beginnings of Dutch settlement in South Africa; add several thosand more immigrants for whatever reason and in three hundred years time you might have a Boer community twice as large.
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If the Boers were more numerous then they wouldn't have gone on a trek to the Transvaal. I thought they trekked to escape British immigrants and because they wanted to keep their slaves.

If you have a larger Dutch/Boer community then you would have a Quebec style compromise. The British thought that they would swamp the Boers in the future so they didn't see the need to establish a closer patnership.
 
I would think it quite possible with minor PODs to get more Afrikaner republics here and there, in modern day Zimbabwe for one. However they would still face the issue that some of the others had, that being economic and administrative viability. Prior to gold being discovered in the SAR, both the Afrikaner states did, like many other small colonial era settler groups, have big financial and administrative issues.
 
Wasn't another reason for the Treks, besides those mentioned by Devolved, that the Boers (or many of them, for that matter) undertook very extensive agriculture and thus needed large tracks of land that were often overused? That implies that they constantly need new land to live from. And in turn it implies that they cannot feed a much larger population without changing their way of living, right?
 
I've looked over some other threads about the Boer war and the consensus seems to be that the Boers could not have won by military force. There might have been a vague possibility that they go on with their guerilla campaign long enough for Britain to get fed up with the whole thing and leave, pressured by negative public opinion, Vietnam-style. Still, holding on indefinately would have been impossible and once involved Britain would probably not have pulled out...

In spite of all this... do you see a way in which the Boer Republics DO remain independent, with or without war, BUT unite voluntarily with the Cape and Natal to form South Africa later?
 
I've looked over some other threads about the Boer war and the consensus seems to be that the Boers could not have won by military force. There might have been a vague possibility that they go on with their guerilla campaign long enough for Britain to get fed up with the whole thing and leave, pressured by negative public opinion, Vietnam-style. Still, holding on indefinately would have been impossible and once involved Britain would probably not have pulled out...

In spite of all this... do you see a way in which the Boer Republics DO remain independent, with or without war, BUT unite voluntarily with the Cape and Natal to form South Africa later?

One of the reasons the Boers couldn't continue a guerilla war was that the British had armed some of the black Africans and they were attacking the Boer farms and civilians. Many of the Boers knew that they couldn't go into hiding and fight while their families got slaughtered.
 
I would think it quite possible with minor PODs to get more Afrikaner republics here and there, in modern day Zimbabwe for one. However they would still face the issue that some of the others had, that being economic and administrative viability. Prior to gold being discovered in the SAR, both the Afrikaner states did, like many other small colonial era settler groups, have big financial and administrative issues.

Impossible. There was a specific reason that the Boers avoided the Lowveld, because it was a fairly diseased area and part of the White man's graveyard. Even in the moderate Transvaal they suffered disease problems. Expanding any further would have been suicide.
 
1., Collapse of the Zulu and Swazi 'kingdoms,' which become British, and Boer, clients, respectively
2. South African Republic annexes the Utrecht Republic & Lydenburg Republic
3. Slightly earlier Mineral Revolution
4. Orange Free State annexes Griqualand West, leading to a war with the British, leading to the SAR annexing the OFS (Afrikaner Bond)
5. SAR annexes both Klein Vrystaat & Stellaland in the alt-First Boer War
6. Boers get involved in the First Matabele War and brings Matabeleland under their sphere of influence

Basically instead of going further north trying to evade the Brits the Boers need to stop at some point and begin consolidating their rule. That means not only facing the British and the natives, but also uniting the several smaller Boer polities into one large conglomerate which could actually be a regional power.
 
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Impossible. There was a specific reason that the Boers avoided the Lowveld, because it was a fairly diseased area and part of the White man's graveyard. Even in the moderate Transvaal they suffered disease problems. Expanding any further would have been suicide.

Hmmm... Interesting, I did not consider this side of the problem. Still, Rhodesia was settled eventually by white people; so at what point became better medicine available to make that possible?

Another thing> The South Africa Act of 1909 created the Union of Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the OFS, creating a British dominion just like Canada or Australia. But this time they created a unitary state and not a federation of colonies. That seems curious to me since it looks like the case for a more independent Transvaal is much stronger than that for New South Wales, for instance. Maybe that was the very reason they did it, to promote unity; but what if they went another way?

Suppose a different process of negotiation, influenced maybe by the public disapproval of a protracted Boer War, leads to a looser federation of the South African colonies, mainatining thus many rights the Boers Republics fought for in the first place. Would such a state be viable? I'm not very versed in South African politics- were there any Transvaal or OFS attempts to secede worth considering as a possible ATL starting point?

Also, I've read on an other thread that if Liberals had won the 1900 elections they might have been more open to negotiations with the Boers.

The whole idea I'm trying to get to is finding a likely scenario to revive the Boer Republics as independent states in the 20th century since it seems like keeping them independent altogether is rather unlikely.
 
Impossible. There was a specific reason that the Boers avoided the Lowveld, because it was a fairly diseased area and part of the White man's graveyard. Even in the moderate Transvaal they suffered disease problems. Expanding any further would have been suicide.


Not impossible, as parts of modern day Zimbabwe does have high or middle veldt that was and is rather amenable to settlement by 19th century Afrikaner pastoral settlement.

I would have thought the principle issue would be that the good land was already occupied by a strongish warlike state.
 
Hmmm... Interesting, I did not consider this side of the problem. Still, Rhodesia was settled eventually by white people; so at what point became better medicine available to make that possible?

1880s and later. Railroads were also important for getting past the lowlands quickly.
 
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