Could the Boer Republics survive through Dutch immigration?

I'm not the best at untangling South African history, and Wikipedia is faaaar from being a sound source, but it's mentioned there that president Paul Kruger of the Transvaal met with the Dutch royal family in 1884 while on a European tour. He even brought back Dutch officials back to his south african state to, as Wikipedia puts it "...a means to strengthen the Boer identity and keep the Transvaal "Dutch"." So as far as uitlanders are seen, it seems that some of the Afrikaners considered the Dutch as less of a cultural danger.

So let's butterfly Cecil Rhodes and his cohorts' ambitions for the moment and ask: can the Boer republics survive through encouraging Dutch immigration to bolster their nations? Could that be done? Could the Afrikaners accept the Dutch as a part of their cultural fabric, or are the two just too distant to click together?
 
Its been a while since I worked on the Boer Republics, so I'm willing to be corrected, but from memory the biggest problem facing them in terms of population is not so much numbers as skilled professionals. Mining concessions, railway lines, telegraphs etc, all these tended to be staffed by uitlanders because the Boer population lacked a substantial body of skilled, trained, men. Likewise with capital and equipment for developments such as these - even if you can tempt skilled migrants (which was hard but not impossible in the period) from Holland, you'd need to address the issue that so much of Boer industrial capacity for developing their country had to come from European markets and particularly British ones.

Hence why you can't just butterfly Rhodes and British interest in this scenario - the questions are interrelated. The question of attracting more migrants needs to be related to a question of what you are hoping these migrants will accomplish in the Republics...
 
The clue is in the name, the Boers were pastoralists and farmers not mining engineers so exploiting the minerals was inevitably going to be dominated by Uitlanders and most of the mining engineers used to colonial conditions were British (or Australian which was a subsect of British at the time)
 
Mining concessions, railway lines, telegraphs etc, all these tended to be staffed by uitlanders because the Boer population lacked a substantial body of skilled, trained, men. Likewise with capital and equipment for developments such as these - even if you can tempt skilled migrants (which was hard but not impossible in the period) from Holland, you'd need to address the issue that so much of Boer industrial capacity for developing their country had to come from European markets and particularly British ones.

Hence why you can't just butterfly Rhodes and British interest in this scenario - the questions are interrelated. The question of attracting more migrants needs to be related to a question of what you are hoping these migrants will accomplish in the Republics...

Hmm... well, there was the Netherlands-South African Railway Company which built some of the important rail lines in the SAR, so there was some traction between the Dutch and the Boers IOTL. Perhaps Kruger or one of his cohorts build on this and encourage Dutch enterprises and skilled Dutch labour to migrate from Europe or the East Indies to counterbalance British investment. After building up the infrastructure for the mines and transporting them to port, the skilled laborers have the option of becoming SAR citizens through residency lengths and a Dutch language test (which would be aced). Though this still means they are still beholden to foreign interests, the Boers won't consider themselves isolated as OTL. Unless...

The clue is in the name, the Boers were pastoralists and farmers not mining engineers so exploiting the minerals was inevitably going to be dominated by Uitlanders and most of the mining engineers used to colonial conditions were British (or Australian which was a subsect of British at the time)

Which is why I wonder if there's a way to entice the right kind of uitlanders to the Boer republics. The Dutch may be foreign, but they have a commonality with the Boers that the British don't have. The language of government in the SAR was High Dutch, and most of the people could speak in some variant of the language. The only major stumbling block is whether or not the Boers could accept Dutch workers as, if not their own, then at least as a group that they are comfortable living with.
 
How many Dutch mining engineers were there to be lured to South Africa never mind ones experienced with colonial conditions? The Netherlands, unlike Britain, did not have a large domestic sector to draw experienced staff from and while there was mining in the East Indies they weren't very big and seem to be at least partially dependent on foreign labour from what I can tell.
 
There are enough people in SA - myself included - who are of German descent that came out during Kruger's tenure. So, Kruger attracts the Dutch, but the Dutch can't meet the demand, so we see a bunch of Germans making up the difference. While the Germans are still "foreign" they're seen as less so by the Afrikaners than 'n Engelsman/rooinek/soutie. Maybe
 
Wasn't most of the German mining industry concentrated in the Catholic Rhineland? I think that would be an issue for heavily Calvinist Boers.
 
Wasn't most of the German mining industry concentrated in the Catholic Rhineland? I think that would be an issue for heavily Calvinist Boers.

Not sure. My people came out of Saxony, Swabia and Ducal Prussia.

As to the whole NGK (Nederduitse Gereformeerde Ketk) vs NHK (Nederduits Hervormde Kerk) vs Catholic Church scenario, considering that in 2018 they're still not seeing eye to eye, I wouldn't put money on it happening in the 1880s. But, bear in mind, there are Catholic Dutch as well (minority). So its not so much an either or. The Catholics in our family are on my maternal grandmother (Irish Catholic)'s side.
 
How many Dutch mining engineers were there to be lured to South Africa never mind ones experienced with colonial conditions? The Netherlands, unlike Britain, did not have a large domestic sector to draw experienced staff from and while there was mining in the East Indies they weren't very big and seem to be at least partially dependent on foreign labour from what I can tell.
Then you haven't heard of the Billiton Maatschappij. Large-scale Pewter-mining in colonial condition from 1852 onwards.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
The Netherlands had some coal mines, so there would be mining engineers. Maybe not large but if the money was good there still would be takers. However, the mines were in the Catholic south, IIRC, so the Boers would have to be vigilant and weed out the Papists.
My back of envelope calculations have Dutch emigration at 10-15K a year in this period. So, deducting Catholics, taking the lower end of the guestimate, accounting for the pull of the USA, the Vriystat and ZA could draw 3K people a year.
The Rheinland initially might had been Catholic, but Westfalia was mixed from the start, I believe. So no lack of German and Protestant skilled people. If you are really picky you can focus on recruitment in Hannover, as the German spoken there is closer to Dutch than other varieties.
 
Could the Afrikaners accept the Dutch as a part of their cultural fabric, or are the two just too distant to click together?
From a linguistic point Yes. The languages aren't that different.
From a cultural point i would also say yes, albeit the Dutch emigrees would at first be a tad bit less puritan calvinistic (assuming well-educated engineers) It must also be noted that the really strict calvinists in the Netherlands at that point in time were setting up an own University. De vrije universiteit Amsterdam. An ideal recruiting-ground.
 
The Netherlands had some coal mines, so there would be mining engineers. Maybe not large but if the money was good there still would be takers. However, the mines were in the Catholic south, IIRC, so the Boers would have to be vigilant and weed out the Papists.
My back of envelope calculations have Dutch emigration at 10-15K a year in this period. So, deducting Catholics, taking the lower end of the guestimate, accounting for the pull of the USA, the Vriystat and ZA could draw 3K people a year.
The Rheinland initially might had been Catholic, but Westfalia was mixed from the start, I believe. So no lack of German and Protestant skilled people. If you are really picky you can focus on recruitment in Hannover, as the German spoken there is closer to Dutch than other varieties.
Uneducated miners aren't the issue. Plenty of those in the republics themself. Why waste money on that? It's the trained engineers you need.
 
Uneducated miners aren't the issue. Plenty of those in the republics themself. Why waste money on that? It's the trained engineers you need.

This was pretty much what I was trying to say above. Agree 100% its about skilled and trained migrants.

Also, what are the practicalities of Dutch emigration to southern Africa and the Boer Republics? I assume they'd have to go via Cape Town (so how do you ensure they don't stay in the Cape - plenty of Afrikaans did). How expensive is the ticket? Do they have to go via London? One of the reasons emigration to America took on such vast proportions was that shipping companies made it relatively cheap and easy to do so. If you are a poor Dutch migrant with a wife and three kids, say, and the ticket to the Orange Free State is four times the cost of a ticket to the USA, it becomes quite an easy decision to make...

Also, what is the reputation of the Boer Republics as places to live at this time? My understanding was that it was not the easiest of lives on the veldt - in contrast to the USA which really did have the reputation as being a land of easy fortune and bountiful farmsteads waiting to be claimed?
 
Wasn't most of the German mining industry concentrated in the Catholic Rhineland? I think that would be an issue for heavily Calvinist Boers.

Catholics are the largest group in the Rhineland but there are also a lot of Protestants. According to Wikipedia the region was 42 % Catholic and 28 % Protestant in the most recent survey. I assume it was not too different in the 1880s?
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Also, what are the practicalities of Dutch emigration to southern Africa and the Boer Republics? I assume they'd have to go via Cape Town
No. They can go though Lourenco Marques (Maputo).
And I disagaree with plentiful miners - the Boers were busy (and happy) farmers and the Blacks were not so numerous either. And were illiterate and did not speak Dutch. Miners had to be imported - post War there was tension over Chinese miners.
 
As i understand the situation correctly and we're talking about the mines around Pretoria (not Kimberley), the main goal is to keep the british workers out, who were attracted by the gold and diamond rushes of the 1890's. A really tightly executed immigration policy would be necessary. The state also would have to organize the exploitation from the beginning. Either by creating own companies or giving concessions to dutch entrepreneurs. Both of these options go directly against the "laisez faire" thought. And that would be unusual. The state also would have to takes measures against smugling. In OTL De Beers did that for their own mines by checking every ship that left the Cape Colony (Cecil Rhodes owned the cape government) All these measures will be a burden on the profits of the mines.

And I disagree with plentiful miners - the Boers were busy (and happy) farmers and the Blacks were not so numerous either. And were illiterate and did not speak Dutch. Miners had to be imported - post War there was tension over Chinese miners.
Not all miners have to speak the language to do their work properly. The first 10.000 miners that came to Kimberley were adventurers from all over the world. A majority english, but also many others like germans. If you really need workers that badly, there's also the possibility of hire cheap Javans from the Dutch-Indies. It was the intention that the Chinese miners would go back to their country after their contracts ended. But they weren't given an opportunity to earn enough money for the trip back. Same happened in other places, like the Dutch Indies.
 
Problem is that the main ports during the 1880's in what's now South Africa were controlled by the British because they were within the Cape Colony by that time and Great Britain's navy ruled the seas. Even if Willem III had greenlighted massive Dutch migration to the Boer Republics, no way would the British Government just sat twiddling their thumbs while large numbers of folks emigrated to their nation's former territorial area for the express purpose of at least putting a stop to British expansion if not retaking the land from the British!
 
Alo, what are the practicalities of Dutch emigration to southern Africa and the Boer Republics? I assume they'd have to go via Cape Town

No. They can go though Lourenco Marques (Maputo).

Only when the NZASM rail lines are finished. Before then, most overseas miners came to the veld through Durban in the Natal Colony, and most of them didn't stay in Natal for long.

Interesting suggestions, everyone. I dunno if the Boers thought of the Germans as close cousins, but the idea does open up the immigration pool for skilled labor in the republics. I can't see them getting comfortable with catholics though, given their staunch Calvinism. And thanks for mentioning the Billiton Maatschappij!

As for travel cost, I reckon a ticket to Durban or Lourenco Marques would be more expensive than a trip to the States, but that didn't stop miners from coming to the republics for the gold rush. Still, I can see this being a factor in limiting Dutch labor to south africa, and sponsorship from either the government or a company would sound odd for the times. Then again, the Boer republics are known for being eccentric, so could such a policy be made anyways?

As for the British, I don't doubt they'd be concerned, but they could outflank the Boers by creating new protectorates and colonies in Bechuanaland and Matabeleland for the express purpose of constraining them. Settlers would be enticed to settle northwards of the republics, though this would piss off the Boers immensely.
 
I know about Lourenço Marques, there was a working railway between there and Pretoria (since Kruger used it to leave the ZAR), but would Walvis Bay in Namibia also be a reasonable stop off point?

As to the British twiddling their thumbs, IIRC they didn't do a whole lot to stop the influx of settlers OTL. All they badgered the Transvaal govt for (although this was in the buildup to the war) was that the British uitlanders in the republics have the same rights as the citizens. Of course, Kruger declined this because he was kept in power by playing on the Afrikaaner xenophobia; his rival in the final ZAR presidential elections, Schmidt (I think) OTOH is what after the war was called a "draadsitter" (fence sitter) who was willing to grant the British more favourable terms than Kruger. However, AFAIR, Schmidt's things about the British were probably election promises and I haven't read whether he ACTUALLY would've done any different than his rival. Had Kruger not blocked Schmidt's election by suspending the deputies who were in favour of this, it could've made a difference to the whole war, Union of South Africa, Jan Smuts etc.
 
I know about Lourenço Marques, there was a working railway between there and Pretoria (since Kruger used it to leave the ZAR), but would Walvis Bay in Namibia also be a reasonable stop off point?
Considering that it was in British hands and it was both farther and had much worse (read: non-existient) connection to SAR than Cape Town, then definitely no.
 
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