Home History 322 lecture list Wallace G. Mills Hist. 322 11 Afrikaner Nationalism

Origins of Afrikaner Nationalism

- although many Afrikaner historians have contended that Afrikaner nationalism began much earlier and was an important factor in the Great Trek, this idea was shot down by F van Jaarsveld in The Awakening of Afrikaner Nationalism. The trekboers certainly had important feelings of group identity: a belief that they were not only different but also superior to the indigenous peoples, a sense of difference from the British, and an abhorrence of the so-called ‘liberal’ policies in the Cape Colony. However, there was no dominant sense of national identity. Factionalism was very strong among the Voortrekkers, especially those who crossed the Vaal River. There, personal loyalties to individual leaders often took precedence over group identity, and Orange Free Staters at times feuded with Transvaalers. However, they always united against the Africans, and in their skirmishes with each other, they avoided shooting each other.

- moreover, Afrikaners in the Cape, especially in the western province areas and Cape Town, while recognising a degree of kinship with the trekboers and Voortrekkers, regarded them as rather uncouth and wild. There was no sense of national identity to bridge the social gap.

- the most important event to change this and to stimulate the growth of Afrikaner nationalism was the British annexation of the South African Republic (Transvaal) in 1877 by Theophilus Shepstone. The deepest effects of this event were on Afrikaners in the Transvaal, but there were effects on Afrikaners elsewhere as well.

The Annexation of the SAR and the Reaction
 - the political situation in the South African Republic (SAR) was very confused and demoralised; there was a political crisis. This probably helps to explain why there were hardly any reactions initially to Shepstone’s action. Protests were few and rather perfunctory.
- thus, initially, it seemed that the annexation might be successful. It helped when Shepstone used the substantial grant from the British government to pay the back salaries of civil servants and other creditors of the government.

- over the next years, the situation began to change:
- while Shepstone had quickly pursued a ‘hawkish’ native policy in crushing the Pedi and the Zulu, some historians have argued that in fact this was really counterproductive. The elimination of these two serious concerns probably lessened the feeling that the Boers needed to be linked up with Britain for assistance. It’s not clear that the Boers had felt that threatened. In any case, the war against the Pedi ended that problem and at the same time greatly worsened the fiscal position of the colonial Transvaal administration.

- a key element though was a series of 3 national meetings held by the Boers 1879-80. All factions came together and feelings of identity, unity and trust developed very dramatically. Leaders such as Kruger and Joubert gained new prestige, and the Boers were mobilised into demanding a return of their republican independence. Initially, their response was to send delegations to the British government (they were encouraged because Gladstone’s Liberals, who had strongly criticised the Disraeli government’s South African policies—the Zulu war and the annexation—had just come to power).

- while not happy with the annexation, the Gladstone government was not prepared to reverse it. The stalemate that resulted was broken by the incident of Bezuitenhoud’s wagon. Attacks on detachments of British troops erupted in many areas. As a result, British troops had to withdraw from the Transvaal. When a force of British troops attempted to reenter the Transvaal, they were decisively defeated at the battle of Majuba Hill.

- as a result of these events, a feeling of national identity emerged and developed enormously. In addition, the idea of being a ‘chosen people’ receiving special attention from God were revived and given a great boost. The victories over British forces were interpreted as evidence of divine intervention.

- moreover, the Gladstone government decided to withdraw as soon as resistance emerged and before Majuba Hill. In spite of outrage in both Britain and among English settlers in South Africa, it proceeded to grant autonomy and limited independence to the Boers of the Transvaal. This restoration of their South African Republic cemented the belief in divine protection and destiny. When war was determined in 1899, many looked back to this as proof that they could again proceed with confidence. After all, even though they were very small in comparison with the British Empire, they had God on their side and God had given them victory in the ‘First war of independence’.

- another significant result of the entire incident of the annexation was that it helped to build a sense of persecution. A sense of persecution feeds nationalism:
- the 1877 annexation added an entire new chapter to the sense of grievance—they still nursed all the grievances of the Voortrekkers. In the years that followed, new grievances kept the sense of persecution growing— attempts by Britain to reassert ‘suzerainty’ in spite of the Treaty of London 1884, the Jameson Raid, and then the war 1899-1902. In the latter, the women and children who died in the concentration camps added many thousands of ‘martyrs’.
Orange Free State
 - Boers in the Free State were of course sympathetic to what had happened to the Boers in the Transvaal. However, there had been more than one bout of hostility between the 2 Boer republics in the decades up to this point. On many aspects there were differences in outlook and opinion. Many Free Staters seem to have been willing to accept the annexation carried out by Sir Harry Smith at mid-century. Relations with the Cape Colony had been much closer and on-going.

- however, in the 1880s as British imperial fervour began to mount and became a more recognised threat, the Free State and the SAR began to draw closer together. This became so close that as tensions rose during the 1890s (and the conflicts were almost exclusively with the government of the SAR, not the Free State), the Free State was willing to go to war to support their brothers in the SAR.
Developments in the Cape Colony
 - the 1870s saw the emergence in the Cape of a proto-nationalist movement; it had started before the annexation of the SAR in 1877, but the annexation stimulated a good deal of outrage among Afrikaners and thus contributed to the movement.
The Taal movement—Afrikaans
- Afrikaans (at the time almost always referred to as ‘die Taal’—the Language) was a spoken, not a written language. It was a simplified version of Dutch which probably had originated among the slaves and/or Khoikhoi servants. Because young children were raised mostly by nannies, this was the language most whites learned first. Over many generations, the Taal was usually the first language of young children. Dutch remained the official language of government and the Dutch Reformed Church and thus it had to be learned later. Dutch was the written language.

- the Taal movement was dedicated to making Afrikaans a written and respectable language. It began with the founding of ‘Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners’ (Society of True Afrikaners) in 1875 ‘to stand for our language, our nation and our land’. The two most prominent leaders in this movement were the Du Toit brothers (Rev. S. J and Daniel) in Paarl. The argument was that it was humiliating and demeaning that their mother tongue had no status and was not respectable. Moreover, it meant that Afrikaners could never express themselves in a written form in the language that was most basic and most natural to them.

- thus, the du Toit brothers wanted to make Afrikaans a written language and to provide a literature in Afrikaans. Of course, the most important piece of literature was the Bible and translating the Bible into Afrikaans was one of the first projects. They also established a newspaper in Afrikaans, Die Afrikaanse Patriot, and began publishing books and pamphlets. One of the early books was Die Geskiedenis van ons Land in die Taal van ons Volk (The History of our Country in the Language of our People).

- there was a great deal of opposition among Afrikaners to this movement. Jan Hofmeyr always was opposed to substituting Afrikaans for high Dutch. Others thought it was sacrilege to render the Bible into what they regarded as a patois. Nevertheless, over time in the 20th C, this elevation of Afrikaans became one of the most unifying elements for Afrikaners and the most fundamental aspect of common identity.
Political Action
 - there was also a trend on the part of Afrikaners in the Cape to assert themselves in political affairs. Up to the 1870s, politics had been almost entirely left to English whites and to those Afrikaners who were educated and fluent in English. The official language was English and that was the language of debate.

- Jan Hofmeyr and some associates had been trying to get Afrikaners more interested in political matters for over 10 years. They were associated with a Dutch language newspaper, Zuid Afrikaan. In 1878, Hofmeyr and some associates organised the Zuid Afrikaansche Boeren Beschermings Vereeniging (South African Farmers’ Protection Association). The basis for its founding was to protect the interests of the wine farmers. In order to pay the costs of the last Xhosa War in 1877-78 and then the Gun War with the Basotho, the Cape government levied an excise tax on brandy. Opposition to this tax was a great mobiliser of the wine farmers and they quickly emerged as a very significant force in Cape politics.

- the Rev. S. J. du Toit also wanted to achieve greater political influence for his movement, and in 1880 he founded the Afrikaner Bond.
- du Toit and the Taal movement tended to be very critical of the British and urged the elimination of what later came to be called the ‘Imperial Factor’ in South Africa—i.e., get rid of any influence or interference from London;

- in addition to concerns about the threats of assimilation to language and culture, du Toit was concerned about the theological matters. He rejected ideas of more personal religion and conversion (which he termed ‘Methodism’) being put forward by Andrew Murray. [When the British took over the Cape early in the 19th C, there was a shortage of clergy in the Dutch Reformed Church. To remedy this, the government recruited several Scottish Presbyterian clergy, sent them to the Netherlands to learn Dutch, and appointed them to churches in the Cape. The DRC is a presbyterian system also. Andrew Murray's father had been one of these. Murray followed in his father's footsteps and also became a DRC minister. Murray was in touch with the 'holiness' movement in Britain and North America where his devotional books were widely distributed and read; in fact, his books are still highly regarded and read in certain Christian circles (see the internet, for example).]

- instead, du Toit adopted the neo-conservative position of Dr. Abraham Kuyper of the Netherlands (there are many websites relating to him). The latter rejected all new ‘liberal’ and enlightenment ideas in theology at most Dutch universities in favour of his own interpretation of early statements of dogma at the beginning of the 17th C.

- Kuyper also advocated a nationalism of separate, unique national identities as created by God. This was the same idea of nationalism being widely accepted in Germany. This exclusive nationalism with its emphasis on maintaining cultural and linguistic purity of the divinely created and mandated ‘nation’ (the idea of ‘race’ and racial ‘purity’ was easily added as racism flourished late in the 19th C) strongly influenced Afrikaner theology and nationalism in the 20th C. Du Toit does not seem to have adopted this extreme form of nationalism. He called for a united South Africa with its own flag, but still part of the defence system with the British Empire—kind of like the post-World War 1 dominion status. However, as most young men going to the Netherlands to study for the ministry attended the university founded by Kuyper and his supporters, many returned early in the 20th C thoroughly imbued with this more extreme, exclusive nationalism.
 - Hofmeyr did not agree with many aims of du Toit. Hofmeyr was adamantly opposed to promoting Afrikaans; he thought Dutch much better. While he wanted more local autonomy and less interference by the Imperial government, he was more content to stay within the British Empire. In fact, in later years, he played a prominent role at a couple of colonial conferences. At the Ottawa Conference in 1892, he put forward a proposal to establish a system of preference tariffs for the British Empire as this would provide new markets for Cape farmers. Imperial preferences became a favourite proposal of imperial federationists as a means to draw the British Empire together and halt the drift towards independence of the dominions.
Afrikaner Bond
 - for a time, the 2 organisations were in competition. Then, in 1883, Hofmeyr was instrumental in merging his organisation into the Afrikaner Bond, but it was really a reverse takeover. Hofmeyr was a much better politician than du Toit; increasingly, Hofmeyr’s leadership prevailed and du Toit was for all significant purposes set aside. The Afrikaner Bond became Hofmeyr’s organisation; as a result, the Bond promoted the more moderate nationalism of Hofmeyr.

- however, the language movement continued. S. J. du Toit was persuaded to go to the SAR and become director of education. However, his more radical ideas on preserving the Afrikaans language and customs by using the schools as well as some of his other ideas got him into conflict with Kruger’s government; he subsequently resigned and returned to the Cape. However, his brother continued publishing and establishing Afrikaans. It was only in the 20th C that Afrikaans took precedence over Dutch; Afrikaans did not replace Dutch as the second official language (besides English) in the Union until about 1920.
- in a curious footnote, it should be noted that S. J. du Toit later became a supporter of Rhodes! Moreover, as editor of the Die Afrikaanse Patriot before and during the South African War, he supported the British against the Boer republics. His experience in the SAR seems to have made him very critical of Kruger and the SAR.
 - the Bond became the 1st true political party in the Cape. The Bond never had an absolute majority in the Cape parliament but very close. The rest of MPs were divided into a number of regional and other factions, including the so-called ‘friends of the natives’. As a result, by the early 1880s, it was clear that no government could be formed or remain in power without the support of the Bond. However, Hofmeyr would never agree to form a Bond government; he feared that his members did not have the experience, but also that power would bring out conflicts and competition within the Bond. Instead, he was content to make alliances with one faction or other among the English speaking politicians who would then form the government; in return Hofmeyr got concessions on legislation and policies. Thus, Hofmeyr was said to be the king-maker, but always refused to be king!

- as a politician, Cecil Rhodes too had to adapt to this fact of life. He courted Hofmeyr and the Bond; they provided him with the support necessary to become prime minister and supported his two governments until the Jameson Raid in Dec. 1895.
- this is not too surprising as Rhodes’ idea of eliminating the imperial factor accorded with Hofmeyr’s idea of local autonomy. Moreover, Hofmeyr’s nationalism was moderate and more inclusive; he wanted to see unity between the English and Afrikaner settlers (which Rhodes promoted also) and Hofmeyr was comfortable with the Cape remaining within the British Empire and the protection which it provided.
 - moreover, in the period before the Jameson Raid, Hofmeyr and the Afrikaner Bond supported Rhodes’ government in disputes with the SAR government. When some Boers were beginning to talk of solving their problems of inadequate land by trekking farther into central Africa, this clashed with Rhodes’ plans for expansion of British colonization into the area; great pressure was applied to Kruger’s government to halt this. Instead, Rhodes vigourously recruited Afrikaners from the Cape to join his Pioneer Column of settlers which invaded part of modern Zimbabwe to establish Rhodesia in 1891. In fact about a third of the settlers were Afrikaners from the Cape.

- even greater clashes of interest arose. The new wealth of the gold mining had enabled the SAR to finally realize the dream of access to a port free of British control by building a railroad to Lourenço Marques in the 1890s. However, the rapid development of Johannesburg and the Rand made it a huge and growing market both for overseas goods and for local produce. Both British colonies of Natal and the Cape Colony were building railroads into the interior as access would enable the collection of customs duties on imports, provide revenue for the railroads which were government owned and provide markets for agricultural products of their farmers. The Orange Free State had also worked out a deal with the Cape Colony to allow the Cape railroads to be extended through the Free State to the Vaal River boundary with the SAR.

- Kruger’s government, however, was trying to protect the railway to Lourenço Marques and was trying to eliminate dependency on British controlled ports. It was also trying to use the concessions policy to build up some industries in the SAR.
The Concessions Policy - this system of granting monopolies by the Kruger government became one of the most complained of issues among the uitlanders; each ‘concession’ gave exclusive, monopoly rights to market specific products or services—dynamite, distilling of alcoholic beverages, jam, street cars in Johannesburg, water works for Johannesburg, etc. There were 2 main objectives:
- most attention has focused on the dynamite monopoly because that was the one that mining companies disliked the most because the massive use of explosives made dynamite an important factor in mining costs. The monopolies allowed the holders to raise prices to high levels and thus they became a major source of complaint. However, to protect the liquor concesssion, high tariffs and other restrictions were put on brandy from the Cape which affected the vintners from the Cape, most of whom were Afrikaners and supporters of the Afrikaner Bond.

- the policy achieved much less than the government hoped:
- we’ll discuss this later because it was also among the ‘uitlander grievances’ which figured prominently in the ostensible reasons for Milner’s actions in provoking the war in 1899.


- as a result, the SAR government was reluctant to allow colonial railways in; under a good deal of pressure it finally agreed to allow both colonies to extend their railways to the borders but from there to Johannesburg, the Netherlands Railway (the company which built the railway to Lourenço Marques) would make the connection. However, the rates for this short distance were made extremely high and made goods from the Cape ports uncompetitive.
The Drifts Crisis
 - the Cape Colony attempted to get around this by unloading goods at the border and hauling them by wagon the 50 miles or so to Johannesburg. There was no road bridge over the Vaal River which was the border; wagons had to make their way across by fords, which in South Africa are called ‘drifts’. The SAR responded by closing the drifts to all goods traffic. This created what became known as the Drifts Crisis in October 1895.

- there was a great deal of anger, not only in the Cape but also in the Orange Free State among Afrikaners, at this protectionism and exclusion. The Afrikaner Bond supported the strong stand by the Rhodes government urging action, even war, if the drifts were not reopened. Eventually, the SAR did relent, and the crisis passed. However, there were lingering clashes of interests. Afrikaners outside the SAR wanted access to the markets of the Rand and to share in the wealth being generated by the gold mining; the SAR government wanted to preserve markets for its own farmers, build up manufacturing to help employ its landless white burghers, and make itself as free as possible from influence by the British.

- the point is that a common Afrikaner nationalism and identity that united most Afrikaners in South Africa had not developed yet. Both pathways of Afrikaner nationalism (i.e., the Taal movement and the national identity forged in the SAR) had their origins in the 1870s, but it was only with later events that this Afrikaner nationalism was fully established and increasingly encompassed Afrikaners everywhere in South Africa. The Jameson Raid, launched late in December 1895, initiated what might be called a tectonic shift and massive polarization between Afrikaners and British settlers in South Africa. This continued in the period that followed up to and during the war 1899-1902. It was out of this polarization and conflict that Afrikaner nationalism emerged.
Nationalism
 - in this course, we are frequently referring to various kinds of nationalism—Afrikaner nationalism and African nationalism especially. However, we need to develop an analytical approach because ‘nationalism’ is a term which is used to label a wide variety of movements and phenomena (indeed, to cover a multitude of sins.). Afrikaner nationalism and African nationalism involve very different characteristics and are even polar opposites. But there are internal differences in each. For example, there are important differences between the Afrikaner nationalism of Gen. Hertzog and that of D.F. Malan and Dr. Verwoerd. Moreover, African nationalism involves different manifestations between the mainstream ANC approach and the Pan Africanist approach.

- in Canada too we are aware of widely different meanings of the term ‘nationalism’ and nation. There is a Canadian nationalism that insists that Canada is a separate entity which has sufficient common characteristics that it should remain united. The Quebec separatists deny this, and claim that the ‘Quebeçois nation’ is distinct and must become independent from Canada. Finally, more and more the native people are describing themselves as ‘nations’. Obviously, there are a variety of very different meanings being attached to these words. Because the term has such different meanings, it threatens to lose all meaning.

- I have found the following Spectrum of Nationalism a useful way to bring some sort of analytical order to understanding the different phenomena labelled as ‘nationalism’.

- in locating specific nationalisms along the spectrum, it is important to pay close attention to how the ‘nation’ is being defined and to how membership is determined.

Inclusive
 - the ‘nation’ is delineated by an existing state which is recognised internationally (e.g., by membership in the United Nations) and which has recognised geographical boundaries. Anyone born within those boundaries has the right to claim citizenship (i.e., membership). This seems obvious because that is how things are arranged legally. But exclusive definitions of ‘nation’ may not require a state or geographical boundaries. Nor do all states accord full membership to people living within their national boundaries. Thus, to be inclusive, there must be no exceptions or less than full rights because of ‘racial’, linguistic, religious, gender, etc. differences.

- moreover, the ‘nation’ in this approach is perceived as being like a club or voluntary association. The members come together on the basis of a number of principles and common values. This is the thread that enables individuals of heterogeneous backgrounds and characteristics to come together and unite. The principles and common values may be expressed explicitly as in the United States in the constitution and its Bill of Rights. In England there was never a written constitution, but they did have a series of legal documents (Magna Carta, Petition of Rights, Bill of Rights, etc.) and a long accumulation of precedents and conventions which embodied common values and principles and thus were more implicit; however, the British have long referred to this as their ‘unwritten constitution’.

- with this conception of voluntary association, the ‘nation’ may be open for individuals to join if they accept and are prepared to abide by the principles upon which the nation is founded. Thus, the nation is open to immigrants who can, in a relatively short time, acquire full membership/citizenship.

- in this conception, the ‘nation’ is defined by its members—who they are and what they believe in. As a result, the nation can change over time. Large numbers of immigrants can change the nation in a superficial physical sense; even more if values and principles change, then laws and way of life can also undergo very significant transformation.

- the US and Canada today stand as examples of the most inclusive ‘nations’. While neither is a perfect example, both are considerably more inclusive than they were in times past; African Americans and African Canadians were for a long time denied many rights and opportunities and thus were accorded less than full membership/citizenship. This was also true of native people. Asian people were not welcome and vigorous efforts were made for a long time to keep them out.

- inclusive nations are heterogeneous. Also, individual rights usually have high priority. In fact, as in the US and increasingly in Canada, we perceive of the nation as a collection of individuals who live and work together primarily to preserve and extend individual rights and freedoms.
Exclusive
 - this approach is restrictive in specifying characteristics and aspects which qualify for membership (language, culture, religion, race, etc.). At the extreme, several characteristics are required.

- the ‘nation’ has a definite mystical quality. It is a kind of supernatural entity. In some ways it is like God because it is both imminent and transcendent. That is, it exists in the members because the members have the national characteristics (by inheritance, by learned experience or both); but the nation also transcends individuals who are rather ephemeral. Thus the nation is more than the sum of its parts and has an existence which is long-lived, almost eternal.

- the nation in this sense does not require a state or boundaries in order to exist. However, acquiring a state with independence and boundaries are usually a primary goal because these give the nation much greater scope for self-defence, self determination and self perpetuation. In Canada, this is what separatists in Quebec claim and what they are striving for.

- in this conception, it is the ‘nation’ which defines the members, not the other way round. It is from the ‘nation’ that individuals get their language, their culture, even their genetic characteristics. Because of this, high priority is placed on the preservation (including avoiding contamination by assimilation and intermarriage) of these characteristics. Thus, individual rights are usually downplayed and even denigrated. It is the rights of the collectivity, the ‘nation’, which are important and which take precedence whenever they collide with individual rights. For example, parental rights to determine language of instruction for their children are usually legislated against; children are the next generation of members and the nation needs them in order to perpetuate itself. Thus, the needs of the nation take precedence over the wants and rights of parents.

- in extreme forms, as in German nationalism under the Nazis, the nation becomes the be-all and end-all. Individuals are significant only in so far as they contribute to the well-being of the ‘nation’. Their lives are unimportant in themselves. For males, their significance is simply to fight and if necessary to die for the defence or expansion of the nation; for females, it may be simply to produce the next generation, especially soldiers.

- because membership is defined by very specific characteristics, the ‘nation’ is very homogeneous.
Applications in South Africa

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