I've recently became interested in studying South African history, but I'm just at the beginning so pls. excuse my less-then-well-informed approach, if you think it's the case.
I was wondering if there was ANY chance of South Africa remaining a Dutch Colony and evolving towards independence as such, instead of being incorporated into the British empire.
The Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1814 returned all Dutch colonial possessions as they were before the Napoleonic wars, except for a very few, among them the Cape Colony. Cape Colony has in fact already been occupied once before by the British(between 1795-1803) and was subsequently returned to the Dutch. So it seems to me it was just a matter of petty political negotiations that this did not happen for the second time as well.
If it had happened, Cape Colony would have likely been left to its own matters, without further attempts at occupation. After all, during the Scramble for Africa, disputes were about not-yet-colonised territories and not about those where a certain colonial power had already been entrenched for centuries. Portugal, for instance, maintained a vast colonial empire, although it was far from anything like a Great Power status, being probably much closer to a British semi-colony. I imagine the Netherlands had a somewhat analogous situation.
I am very uncertain about what would a likely course of events be from this on. Focusing on the Afrikaners, for instance, who would virtually be interchangeable with white South Africans: would there still be an incentive for something like the Great Trek? Would they spread to the rest of present South Africa's regions? I couldn't find demographic data for the 19th century- I wonder if there is any- about the distribution of whites and the impact of British colonists. Today roughly a third of South African whites live in what used to be Cape Province. What was the situation in the 19th century? Did the white communities in Transvaal or the Orange Free State become established solely through a British-evading migration? Or would the agricultural lands and the mineral riches have attracted settlers anyway?
It is unlikely, I think, for the Dutch to expand their colony to the entire South Africa. The British would have probably done something about it. Then again, think of how tiny Belgium received the whole basin of Congo, because the Great Powers couldn't agree with each other. The mineral wealth of South Africa was discovered only in the second half of the 19th century, anyway. What if, by that time Boer Republics had already controlled the areas, under some sort of Dutch blessing/suzerainty? Or if the Dutch had colonised the interior, just like the Portuguese did in neighbouring Angola & Mozambique?
Then South Africa would have been granted independence from the Netherlands instead of the British sometime after World War 2, to become...? An apartheid regime, just like in OTL? The British, as I understood, were more on the progressive side, abolishing slavery, for instance, in 1833, to the anger of many Afrikaners, then voting mostly against the National Party in the 20th century. Without the significant proportion(~40%) of British whites in the South African white community- of course this is a just rough generalisation- the political orientation would have likely been even more inclined towards apartheid. Then again, the number of whites would have been much smaller too.
Finally: suppose the Dutch expand to what was roughly Cape Province, but the British take the rest of the lands plus Botswana, Rhodesia and beyond. With most of the Afrikaners remaining in the west there would be a largely coloured and white Western South Africa, which could become an independent country and then evolve much more smoothly towards a racially equal society.
Here are some numbers, which although not historical(mainly 2010 estimates) and also wiki, still provide a good general image:
Afrikaners: ~3 million, or 60% of white South Africans
Population of Northern, Western and Eastern Cape added together:~13 million, of which 60% Black, 30% Coloured and 10% White
BUT
Considering only Northern and Western Cape, and not the +80% Xhosa Eastern Cape we get 32% Black, 50% Coloured and 17% White, which is far more balanced.
Now, assuming that of the 3 million Afrikaners, say, 2 million instead of well under 1 million live in this area there would be about equal ~28% Blacks and Whites and the rest mostly Coloureds- also an overwhelming majority would speak Afrikaans, as it is the case in real-life, too.
(This is obviously a very approximate and rough count)
So, what do you think?