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Though painted today as a dastardly coup attempt, aimed at toppling a legitimate government, had the Jameson Raid succeeded it would surely have been remembered very differently. During his trail following the failed Raid, Jameson himself said:

'I know perfectly well that as I have not succeeded, the natural thing has happened; but I also know that if I had succeeded, I should have been forgiven'.

In this, he was undoubtedly correct: had the Raiders managed to make it through to Johannesburg (which they very nearly did) it is not unreasonable to suggest that Jameson's magnetic personality would have galvanised the English-speaking community of that town - which was already in open insurrection. There was also a sizable minority of Afrikaners who wanted rid of Kruger's corrupt kleptocracy, and who would have welcomed the sort of free and fair elections which the Raiders were advocating.

So assuming the Raid had succeeded, Kruger had fled the country (with as much money as he could manage) and elections held shortly thereafter, what difference would it have made? Given that the disenfranchised English-speakers were considered by most to represent a majority of the white community in the Transvaal, it is not unreasonable to say that a more 'English' / pro-British government would have been elected and that union with the British colonies of Southern Africa would have been on the cards.

Perhaps the British Government would have insisted on the extension of the 'Cape Qualified Franchise' (or a form thereof) to the Transvaal, thereby starting the process of extending the vote to the non-white community - something utterly unheard of under Kruger's rule.

Would the more extreme Boers have put up with this? in reality, most did in the wake of the Boer War so it is not unreasonable to suggest that many would have made the best of it. Others might have in-spanned their wagons and trekked off into Portuguese or German territory, or headed south to the OFS.

Either way, it would seem fair to propose that had the Jameson Raid succeeded - and thus Kruger been toppled and a more inclusive form of democracy introduced to the Transvaal in the late 1890s - there would have been no Second Boer War. And with no Boer War, there would have been no reason for the British government to turn a conveniently Nelsonic Eye to the Afrikaner hard-liners refusal to entertain the rights of non-whites at the peace talks... meaning that numbers of non-whites would have enjoyed the franchise in the British-dominated Transvaal (just as they did in the Cape Colony) and making it unlikely that Apartheid could ever have come to pass.
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