If the Boers won the 2nd Boer War?

Is there some reason for you specifically excluding the Rhodes Administration from your argument?
In that section I wasn’t making an argument- I was pointing out that there was a rather large gap in your treatment of the history of South Africa, which skipped over a period of 81 years for the largest colony. Was there some reason for you specifically excluding those, and including Rhodes?

what initially amounted to very reasonable property qualifications WORLD WIDE were over time amended
Indeed. However, harsh as they were, they never distinguished between coloured and white voters specifically on the basis of their skin (as you yourself admit) which Apartheid did.

You are inviting me to accept your premise that I claim apartheid was ubiquitous, British & Imperial.
The word Apartheid is merely a clumsy translation into Dutch (not Afrikaans) of an established British Colonial economic & social system, otherwise in English known throughout the colonies as the 'Class System' & the 'Colour Bar'

it was British policy. Saving the "honourable exceptions" - & I concur - you make my point. Thanks.
I do not make your point. Your point was that an apartheid-like policy was inevitable in British South Africa if the Boers won the Second Boer War. I’ve shown that the largest colony in British South Africa not only admitted black voters on the same basis as whites, restrictive though that was, but sent a delegation urging a multi-racial franchise to negotiations with two countries who had black inequality written into their constitutions:
Article 9.—The people will not allow any equalization of the coloured inhabitants with the white. (Constitution of the South African Republic [1889], Article 9)
1. Burghers of the Orange Free State are:
(a) White persons born from inhabitants of the State both before and after 23 February, 1854.
(b) White persons who have obtained burgher-right under the regulations of the Constitution of 1854 or the altered Constitution of 1866.
(c) White persons who have lived a year in the State and have fixed property registered under their own names to at least the value of £150.
(d) White persons who have lived three successive years in the State and have made a written promise of allegiance to the State and obedience to the laws, whereupon a certificate of citizenship (burghership) shall be granted by the Landrost of the district where they have settled.
(e) Civil and judicial officials who, before accepting their offices, have taken an oath of allegiance to the State and its laws.
(Constitution of the Orange Free State [1868], Chapter 1, Section 1)

you can indeed enact legislation to supervene social strictures, even as you may to monetary, or cultural, or even circumstantial.
Yes, you can. But you would enact legislation to supervene those strictures, not to codify them. Putting it as clearly as I can state it: Apartheid means “Separation”. Having coloured voters on the same list as white voters, voting for the same MPs, is not apartheid. Having coloured voters on a different list, voting for different MPs, is apartheid. Notice that in New Zealand, where the British introduced separate MPs for the Maori, the individual could choose whether they voted for these MPs or territorial MPs.
 
In that section I wasn’t making an argument- I was pointing out that there was a rather large gap in your treatment of the history of South Africa, which skipped over a period of 81 years for the largest colony. Was there some reason for you specifically excluding those, and including Rhodes?


Indeed. However, harsh as they were, they never distinguished between coloured and white voters specifically on the basis of their skin (as you yourself admit) which Apartheid did.





I do not make your point. Your point was that an apartheid-like policy was inevitable in British South Africa if the Boers won the Second Boer War. I’ve shown that the largest colony in British South Africa not only admitted black voters on the same basis as whites, restrictive though that was, but sent a delegation urging a multi-racial franchise to negotiations with two countries who had black inequality written into their constitutions:
Article 9.—The people will not allow any equalization of the coloured inhabitants with the white. (Constitution of the South African Republic [1889], Article 9)
1. Burghers of the Orange Free State are:
(a) White persons born from inhabitants of the State both before and after 23 February, 1854.
(b) White persons who have obtained burgher-right under the regulations of the Constitution of 1854 or the altered Constitution of 1866.
(c) White persons who have lived a year in the State and have fixed property registered under their own names to at least the value of £150.
(d) White persons who have lived three successive years in the State and have made a written promise of allegiance to the State and obedience to the laws, whereupon a certificate of citizenship (burghership) shall be granted by the Landrost of the district where they have settled.
(e) Civil and judicial officials who, before accepting their offices, have taken an oath of allegiance to the State and its laws.
(Constitution of the Orange Free State [1868], Chapter 1, Section 1)


Yes, you can. But you would enact legislation to supervene those strictures, not to codify them. Putting it as clearly as I can state it: Apartheid means “Separation”. Having coloured voters on the same list as white voters, voting for the same MPs, is not apartheid. Having coloured voters on a different list, voting for different MPs, is apartheid. Notice that in New Zealand, where the British introduced separate MPs for the Maori, the individual could choose whether they voted for these MPs or territorial MPs.

Mark:

Well I did ask you not to make me... Rob, I was listing 'architects of apartheid' not making a chronicle of years. I know there were men who pulled against the current, not only in the time-span YOU have so sedulously deliniated. Is no other Period of our Colonial Cape relevant? I was not excluding a time-span, I was SELECTING 'architects of Apartheid'. To your credit you noted that in the period in question the current of opinion in the electorate, with growing doubt, was in the opposite direction. Rhodes was an architect of Apartheid.

You are right there, now let me tell you something of Natal. I well remember how someone in my father's generation observed, in my hearing (A woman hailed for her outspoken Liberal stance, I might add), "We don't need Apartheid. The Blacks can't AFFORD to live here." I, as a child, heard with wonder the chorus of hearty agreement from the company, English Liberals all. You see, you do not need to directly indicate race in order to discrimminate against race, as long as you target other properties of that community. Rhodes, for example, did it. & he did it deliberately. It is on record.

No do not misunderstand me. Apartheid was an established institution in British South Africa before the Second Boer War, & would remain so whether there had been a war or not, whether the Boers won or not: Not the least in the case of your Fairest Cape of All, for all the mealy-mouthed terminology of the Cape Qualified Franchise, coded to exclude Blacks (& others) without the embarrassment of actually naming them. I notice you are avoiding mention of the Colony of Natal? The Boers of the Transvaal & the Orange Free State were not, notwithstanding their latter-day misrepute, exclusively the practitioners or inventors of the policy.

I am familiar with that. Are you aware, however, that the Orange Free State was not notable for having a Black population? Blacks were visitors or intruders. For a start, when the Voortrekkers reached it, it was a white bone-bleached desolation following from the Mfecane, & the dread march of Mantatees right up to the border of the Cape, where the Griquas defeated them at the battle of Bleskop. I concede isolated exceptions of Blacks on the border-lands. I concede Cape Coloureds in small numbers within the borders (Bloemfontein is named after Bloem, a Koranna Brigand that watered his livestock at the perennial spring there).They were the other non-white race of significance. Excluding strangers on account of some easily identifiable feature, like pigmentation, does not offend me as the same does dispossessing the native-born by the same.

Re codifying social apartheid by legislation: Whatever you might do or I might do, Dr Verwoerd did, & he was open about it. I might add that in respect of the social institution, it worked. Ask me. I lived here.
Yrs,
Mark
 
I was not excluding a time-span, I was SELECTING 'architects of Apartheid'.
Indeed, and selecting only cases which support your argument and overlooking those which contradict it might well be seen as poor history.

You see, you do not need to directly indicate race in order to discrimminate against race, as long as you target other properties of that community
That’s racial discrimination, and nowhere have I claimed that South Africa under the British was a paragon of racial harmony. However, it’s not apartheid, where you directly indicate races and then separate them forcibly. The existence of coloured voters and coloured representatives in the Cape Colony shows that as racist as the establishment may have been at that time, it was not one of apartheid, and there is no arguing around this fact.

It's not as if it's even just the franchise. Racial segregation is legally enforceable on Transvaal and Orange Free State trains. In the Cape and Natal Government railways, there's no such legislation. It's only introduced in the British provinces as a move to standardisation after the creation of the Union. Even so, the Cape Town suburban services (representing half the total annual number of South African Railways passengers) lobby for and receive an exemption from these segregation requirements.

Not the least in the case of your Fairest Cape of All, for all the mealy-mouthed terminology of the Cape Qualified Franchise, coded to exclude Blacks (& others) without the embarrassment of actually naming them.
Your view, but not everybody’s:
(a) In the year 1852 the Constitution Ordinance was enacted in the Cape Colony, and confirmed and enacted by an Order in Council of Her Most Gracious Majesty the late Queen Victoria. In a despatch from the then Colonial Secretary, the Duke of Newcastle, to the Governor of the Cape, occur these memorable words: - "It is the earnest desire of Her Majesty's Government that all her subjects at the Cape, without distinction of class or colour, should be united by one bond of loyalty and a common interest, and we believe that the exercise of political rights enjoyed by all alike will prove one of the best methods of attaining this object".
(b) In 1872, Responsible Government was introduced into the Cape Colony and no distinction was made as regards colour.
(c) In 1892 the Franchise and Ballot Act was passed in the Cape Colony, which again drew no distinction whatsoever as regards colour between electors as members of Parliament.
(Abdullah Abdurahman, A letter to the Coloured People of South Africa, 31st May 1910)

Are you aware, however, that the Orange Free State was not notable for having a Black population?
And the Transvaal?

I notice you are avoiding mention of the Colony of Natal?
It’s not irrelevant to the discussion, but it isn't the main area of concern. Even if we leave aside your initial assertion that Apartheid was
an established British Colonial economic & social system
and take your new assertion that
Apartheid was an established institution in British South Africa before the Second Boer War
it would be sufficient to prove your views wrong by demonstrating that an apartheid system did not hold sway in a single colony- even if that was the smallest colony, rather than the largest. I feel I've demonstrated that sufficiently, and so without some cogent new evidence- and in light of some of your more apologist comments- I feel happier stepping back from this discussion and allowing others to continue it if they so choose.
 
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Indeed, and selecting only cases which support your argument and overlooking those which contradict it might well be seen as poor history.


That’s racial discrimination, and nowhere have I claimed that South Africa under the British was a paragon of racial harmony. However, it’s not apartheid, where you directly indicate races and then separate them forcibly. The existence of coloured voters and coloured representatives in the Cape Colony shows that as racist as the establishment may have been at that time, it was not one of apartheid, and there is no arguing around this fact.

It's not as if it's even just the franchise. Racial segregation is legally enforceable on Transvaal and Orange Free State trains. In the Cape and Natal Government railways, there's no such legislation. It's only introduced in the British provinces as a move to standardisation after the creation of the Union. Even so, the Cape Town suburban services (representing half the total annual number of South African Railways passengers) lobby for and receive an exemption from these segregation requirements.


Your view, but not everybody’s:
(a) In the year 1852 the Constitution Ordinance was enacted in the Cape Colony, and confirmed and enacted by an Order in Council of Her Most Gracious Majesty the late Queen Victoria. In a despatch from the then Colonial Secretary, the Duke of Newcastle, to the Governor of the Cape, occur these memorable words: - "It is the earnest desire of Her Majesty's Government that all her subjects at the Cape, without distinction of class or colour, should be united by one bond of loyalty and a common interest, and we believe that the exercise of political rights enjoyed by all alike will prove one of the best methods of attaining this object".
(b) In 1872, Responsible Government was introduced into the Cape Colony and no distinction was made as regards colour.
(c) In 1892 the Franchise and Ballot Act was passed in the Cape Colony, which again drew no distinction whatsoever as regards colour between electors as members of Parliament.
(Abdullah Abdurahman, A letter to the Coloured People of South Africa, 31st May 1910)


And the Transvaal?


It’s not irrelevant to the discussion, but it isn't the main area of concern. Even if we leave aside your initial assertion that Apartheid was

and take your new assertion that

it would be sufficient to prove your views wrong by demonstrating that an apartheid system did not hold sway in a single colony- even if that was the smallest colony, rather than the largest. I feel I've demonstrated that sufficiently, and so without some cogent new evidence- and in light of some of your more apologist comments- I feel happier stepping back from this discussion and allowing others to continue it if they so choose.

Mark here:

Not so; when I discuss the building of a house, naming the builders, it serves no purpose to the history to list also those who did not contribute their labour. So also for Apartheid. I might add that one notable aspect of the popular understanding of racism in South Africa blankly overlooks the English Community's & the British Administration's signal part in it. This is indeed bad history: & deliberate, on the part of all too many who pretend a concern in the matter.

I, for my part, willingly salute those who opposed racism, & they were indeed a vigorous if largely ineffectual minority in the Cape Colony. It bears note that the Society of Friends, the Quakers, had a respectable part in their works, & they all did well, & as well as they could.

Now bear with me. It is an outsider's perspective that Apartheid only concerns race - as applied to Whites on the one hand & all Persons of whichever Colour on the other. The ultimate feature of Apartheid (& the consideration embraced therein was manifest from the first - Apartheid was a Liberal invention) is that it identified & - well - sorted ethnic groups. That is why the Glen Grey Act & the Transkei that it became was for Xhosas & not, for example, Bhakas or Fingos. Kwazulu was redesignated a home for the Zulu nation only, & Quandebele for the Ndebele, Bophutatswana for the BaTswana & so on. In the time of the Cape Colony, just such mechinations shifted about Adam Kok's Griquas (along with a cynical secret agreement between the Orange Free State & the Cape Colony to which the Griquas themselves were deliberately not made party). I agree with you, that acknowledging such exceptions as I have just noted, The Cape Colony was not practicing the ultimate form of Apartheid. sadly, & increasingly towards the end, it was plain common us British versus them, 'the lesser breeds without the Law' (To quote Kipling), indiscrimminately. The noblest exponents of Apartheid, & Dr Verwoerd was one of them, saw as their ideal every ethnic group, every 'Nation' co-existing in a state of perfect parity & equality side by side. Dreams, dreams.

Yes. These racial exclusions also applied to Indians, & in a true sense these same were not Apartheid, but an effort on the part of the Free State & Transvaal to protect their 'turf' from alien incursion. They really didn't want to be saddled with, for example, Natal's problems. Natal would have preferred, in retrospect, not to have brought in the Indians.

My view? It's irrelevant. The Cape's voters elected Rhodes into power, & his predecessors. Their view is paramount. They extended the mandate to their Administration to marginalise the other, lesser races. I readily concede individual exceptions without that necessary degree of electoral support. I might add I would have been one of them.

Is that stub on the Transvaal? yours or mine. I referred in an earlier letter to Anthony Trollope's writings on his tour through South Africa. Again I quote. "There will be no progress in the Transvaal until the Kaffir is brought in for unskilled labour."

Sorry, Rob. Your demonstration ignores facts. But I will also leave this matter to those more concerned. By the way, you are a well-rounded debator. I should like to hear - read you in other matters too.

Yrs Sincerely,
Mark

P S (an edit)

Mea Culpa! I just have to add this. This morning I read Fred Khumalo's regular column in today's Sunday Times (FEBRUARY 10 2013). In an article titled "The Boer War's Hidden Shame', discussing a book about the Black victims of the Concentration Camps, he dropped an aside, antepenultimate to the closing: I Quote, "Dare I say Apartheid was not created by the Afrikaners? It was dreamt up by the British colonisers. The Afrikaners simply dressed it up in new clothes & gave it a name." (Mind you I differ with him in the matter of the name).

Yrs at last
Mark
 
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I must admit to being absolutely stunned at the erudite postings on the (Revived) thread! If anything, the very well put points from both sides simply highlight the immense complexity of the South African story, a story which has not played out yet - for us, history is not yet over.

However, to return to the original posts - I still believe that the Boers could have won the war, fairly easily. Where that would have taken the country I dont know, but my gut feeling, and this is moving away from my original line of thought, is that no form of Union would have happened. Instead, taking the character of the Boers into consideration, three or four Republics of note, and possibly several micro states.
 
I must admit to being absolutely stunned at the erudite postings on the (Revived) thread! If anything, the very well put points from both sides simply highlight the immense complexity of the South African story, a story which has not played out yet - for us, history is not yet over.

However, to return to the original posts - I still believe that the Boers could have won the war, fairly easily. Where that would have taken the country I dont know, but my gut feeling, and this is moving away from my original line of thought, is that no form of Union would have happened. Instead, taking the character of the Boers into consideration, three or four Republics of note, and possibly several micro states.

Mark Here:

Thanks for that! That Chinese curse comes in two versions, I believe one says 'Interesting Times', & the other says 'Historic Times'. 'Nuff said.

I agree with you in your last chapter, but I would want to put the Temporal divergence further back, to at least the tenure of Sir George Grey, who worked for the unification of all of South Africa under British hegemony (he did that in Australia also).

I would expect a hotch-potch of British colonies, petty Bantu kingdoms & chiefdoms, with Boer & Griqua republics nestled between, in a manner very much like the plains of Germany Before Bismark got it together, or the Balkans until Marshal Tito. They would have had little in common or to share but trade, & a little mutual contention rating as very small wars. Neither Paradise nor Purgatory.

But all that would go for a ball of pawpaw when it is discovered what a wealth of minerals & metals lay underground. Bear in mind the Gold Standard that was, the foundation of World Trade, for which they actually needed gold. I have read that at a critical point there was no more than six months of specie in movement between the refineries & the banks - that is when gold is useful - when it is moving. when it is parked in Fort Knox it no longer moves anything. Some bankers seriously considered promoting Silver to specie, on that account. There was still some of it around. & then the Witwatersrand happened.

Intense Capital input was needed to realise this wealth, however, & the Capitalists needed a politically strong & stable foundation. This is where Pakenham's 'gold-bugs' come into the picture. The Bank of England was already Big Money's satrapy. Britain would still be the biggest dog in the yard, & whether by 'Chartered Companies' manned by gentleman rankers like CJ Rhodes's BSAP, or unsubtle monetaryy pressure on the Government of the UK, I believe the gold-mines would be siezed by Britain or British on behalf of the Merchant Princes. I'd reckon it might be a smaller war, involving only one of a few Boer Republics, as you suggest.

All yrs,
Mark
 
Mark here:

NWANDA, my response to Falecius's suggestion about popping off Baden-Powell follows, slightly expanded on. It strikes me we are very much in agreement.

"It wouldn't have made a scrap of difference. Mafeking was a sidline in the war, & his own colleagues took it much amiss that they had to go & relieve him. They took it worse when they found he had hung onto stores initially intended elsewhere, & the relievers were eating a lot less well than the relieved. Good propaganda, though."

If any party or parties should be killed or otherwise removed from the equation in order to further a Boer victory in the field, I suggest something happen to Gnls Cronje & Joubert. What if the ceiling fell in on the dining-table (termites) or the upper dining-room in the Victoria Hotel on Station Square (It still stands) on the evening of their last visit to the Old President immediately prior to returning to the Front? It was their Olde Worlde caution & hide-bound tactical insight - single-shot rifles, high trajectory rounds, blackpowder propellant, holding koppies, indifference to trenches, not harrying an enemy in retreat, beseiging towns & consolidating minor gains - that dragged the initial advance to a stop well short of the shore-line.

Another thing I would urge is that the OFS hold out of the conflict, in a state of armed neutrality (The British were apprehensive of that very possibility). Even if the British Forces were later to barge over them, the initial stages of engagement, with British Forces engaged still quite small, would have severely restricted the maneuvering of British Forces.

So what then? Under Botha, De la Rey (los jou ruiters) & De Wet the Republican Forces would brush past Ladysmith, Pietermaritzburg, Kimberly, Hopetown & Mafeking & all the rest & stop in Durban on the one side, De Aar on the Railway Line on the other.

The garrisons in the British dominated towns were small & as helpless amidst a hostile hinterland as they were in the First Boer War. Burning crops & pasture around them, & removing stores & livestock would be enough, just with a strong picket in observation, to keep them out of mischief. They would also be fine bait (as they were) for the later expeditionary forces. & they could be picked off or starved out as an afterthought by second-echelon troops.

Ships were the general mode of transport out of the country, & there were certainly Boers who had sailed abroad & knew what it would take to scuttle a ship or two (at gun-point) on the bar into Durban Harbour. Wreck it. The same or similar could be done at all our few & poor ports along the coast. Any expeditionary forces then landing would have to brave our notorious surf. A rifle platoon in the right place would make hay of a regiment making a beach-landing. & a mounted mobile coastguard would see that they were in place.

As for the Western Front: Push with all speed down the railway line, past Kimberly & Hopetown across the Orange River right to De Aar. Take it & garrison it. The land around is a desert. There would be no way of pressing a force big enough to retake it through a contested hinterland. An expeditionary force strong enough to advance through it without a Railway would need too much in the way of stores - not excluding water - for the draught oxen - to defend & make a fighting advance as well.

Here is where small forces can meet big forces. Just keep bombing & mining the Rails south of De Aar, & wrecking any infrastructure you aren't using yourself. attack & loot - burn what you can't take - from enemy baggage trains. Guard the coasts day & night a la Paul Revere & have mounted units ready to rally at landings & pick off landing troops - perhaps a pom-pom or so for the lighters.

The War would continue significantly longer, & may even last to the next British general election - & hopefully a settlement. The brunt of the conflict would play out in another man's country: No scorched earth policy, no concentration camps: Less bitterness.

I left unpointed the fact that the war, as JC Smuts told Percy FitzPatrick, would be won politically, not militarily, & Republican forces would be best served wrecking any routes into the Republics, & then holding any concentration of forces outward of the same for as long as possible. By & by the 'Party of War' as they then called it was & would be discredited, but the British Parliamentary system allows a term of five years maximum. A Party at war can hope for a landslide vote in a transport of patriotism, but tempers cool soon enough, particularly if the war isn't doing well. A discredited party can hang on like grim death until a change in fortunes makes them popular again, but it is iffy. The British electorate has an (unfair) reputation for turfing out War Aministrations. That is why Smuts said five or six years, I think.

The Republicans couldn't win against a general muster of the Empire, but the reputation of the advocates of war would be ruined, as they were OTL. Unfortunately, as a result of the Scorched Earth Policy & the Concentration Camps, settlement came a few years before electoral change.

On the other hand, I do believe AB II was the first war in the history of the World that a clear victor paid reparations to the losers, to the tune of 3 million pounds in gold for reconstruction, among other titbits.

Yrs,
Mark
 
Why dont have a sort of Sepoy Mutinee occur in India? Which is more important to them? With the Suez Canal, South Africa is not as vital and the Brits are going to divert more troops to India.
 
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