Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0319/03195.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 34KB | 549 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03195}
$Pretitle{293}
$Title{South Africa
Chapter 1C.   The Coming of the Asians}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{James L. McLaughlin}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{british
cape
south
government
boer
transvaal
africa
black
blacks
new}
$Date{1980}
$Log{}
Country:     South Africa
Book:        South Africa, A Country Study
Author:      James L. McLaughlin
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1980

Chapter 1C.   The Coming of the Asians

     The first Asians to enter South Africa, other than scattered cast-aways
from ships on the India-Europe run, were Indian slaves brought to Cape Town by
the Dutch East India Company to work the Cape farms. The traffic in Indian
slaves continued from 1658 to 1767, but they did not survive long as a
separate ethnic group. All were largely absorbed into the Cape Coloured
community.

     The Indians in present-day South Africa are mostly the descendants of
indentured laborers brought to the area beginning in 1860 to work in the newly
established sugarcane fields of Natal. The labor of the Indians, who were
already at work in the canefields of Mauritius, was preferable to the more
accessible but less malleable Zulus of Natal. At the request of the colony's
government, the British government prevailed upon the Indian states to allow
the flow of indentured workers to Natal. From the outset the imperial
government sought to assure that Indian subjects worked under fair conditions,
setting a minimum salary and a maximum indenture period of five years. At the
end of the fifth year the laborers were guaranteed either return passage to
their homes or crown land in Natal of equal value and freedom to work and live
there.

     Between 1860 and 1864 some 6,500 Indians had entered Natal, but the
British government halted the traffic in 1865 because of reports of
unsatisfactory working conditions. The prohibition remained in effect until
1874. Despite this halt, the demand for labor on the tea, coffee, cotton, and
sugarcane plantations continued to grow. Few of the Indians returned to their
native land at the end of their periods of service. By 1890 there were more
than 33,000 Indians in Natal; over 20,000 of these were free residents who
worked as skilled agricultural laborers or who held menial jobs in urban
areas. Most had already begun to enter the lower levels of trade, which they
were eventually to dominate.

     The Natal government sought ways to inhibit population growth by
cancelling the provision for granting land to the Indians at the end of their
indentured service and encouraging their return to India. Nevertheless as many
as 100,000 Indians entered Natal between 1891 and 1911, and this migration was
not ended until 1913. The Indians remained largely concentrated in Natal
because of the exclusionary legislation of the Boer governments in the
Transvaal and Orange Free State and the competition of the Coloured community
in Cape Colony. In addition to the indentured workers (largely Hindu), others
(called passenger Indians) came as traders in the late 1870s. These people,
many of them Muslims, offered considerable competition to White traders.

Growth of the Boer Republics

     After the Sand River Convention of 1852, Boer leaders in the Transvaal,
who were assured freedom from British interference, assembled at Potchefstroom
in 1856. They adopted a unified constitution that provided for a president, an
executive council, a legislature (Volksraad), and a high court to rule the new
republic from a capital at Pretoria. But the constitution failed to satisfy
many of the leaders. Short-lived separatist republics were organized by the
settlers in the Soutpansberg Mountains and at Lydenburg.

     Pretorius, who was elected president, was unable to effect unity even
in the Transvaal. In the hope of reconciling all the Boer leaders, he accepted
an invitation from the Orange Free State in 1859 to become joint president
of the Orange Free State  as well as the Transvaal. His Transvaal supporters
were not pleased, however, and he was forced to resign his earlier post. He
remained president of the Orange Free State until 1868. In 1869 Pretorius was
again elected president of the Transvaal. Despite his popularity, the republic
remained badly divided, having neither the administrative nor the financial
resources for viability.

     In 1872 Pretorius was replaced by T. F. Burgers, a Dutch Reformed
minister. Burgers was known as a religious liberal, and existing dissension
within the republic was exacerbated by a new division between conservative
church members (who saw him as a heretic) and his liberal supporters. In
order to improve the financial position of the government, Burgers took a
number of largely unsuccessful steps to improve the country's economy.

     In 1872 gold was discovered in the Transvaal at Lydenburg. The British
government, alarmed at the continued signs of instability in the Boer
republic and influenced by mining interests eager to exploit the new gold
discovery, decided on a plan to annex the Transvaal. A British official,
Theophilus Shepstone, was sent to deal with the Boers, and he received the
immediate support of President Burgers, who saw annexation by the British
as the only possible solution to the republic's continuing financial
difficulties.

     The majority of the Boer leaders, led by Paul Kruger, preferred political
independence to economic viability, and Shepstone was forced to issue a
proclamation annexing the republic in 1877 without the hoped-for support of
the Transvaal Volksraad. The British took steps to improve the territory's
financial position. In 1880, however, the Boers under Kruger, taking
advantage of the fact that the British forces were occupied by wars against
three Black groups, rose in revolt in what was to become known as the first
Anglo-Boer War (1880-81). The British forces were defeated at the Battle of
Majuba Hill. Unable to provide more troops, Britain accepted an armistice,
granting complete self-government to the Transvaal but retaining ultimate
control over relations with foreign states and Black African tribes.

     In 1884 the Transvaal laid claim to a substantial section of Zululand.
The Boers based their claim on a treaty with the Zulu king in which he
apparently granted them nearly half of Zululand, including an access route to
the sea, in return for Boer help in defeating a rival claimant to the throne.
Control of Zulu territory had remained uncertain even after the British had
vanquished the Zulu warriors in 1879. The Boer claim prompted the imperial
government to establish control in 1884. The British seized the entire coast
and the portions of Zululand that the Boers had not yet occupied. In
northwestern Zululand the Boers established a separate state called the New
Republic, which was absorbed into the Transvaal in 1888. It was in this
period of the republics that the term Afrikaner (first used in the eighteenth
century) became more widespread and became identified with the use of the
Afrikaans language and adherence to a Dutch Reformed church.

Discovery of Diamonds and Gold

     In 1867, five years before the discovery of gold at Lydenburg, diamonds
were found along the Vaal River above its confluence with the Orange. The
most important discoveries lay within a triangle of territory between the two
rivers, and mines were quickly opened in the area, the most important at
Kimberley. Ownership of the land had already been claimed by Cape Colony,
Orange Free State, the Transvaal, and Griqualand West, still recognized by the
British as an independent state. No control had been exercised by any of the
claimants, however, as the area had little value until the discovery of
diamonds.

     In 1872 an official of the Natal government was asked to arbitrate the
claims to the contested area. He awarded it to the Griquas, whose claim
predated the others. As soon as the award was made, Griqualand West was
annexed by Cape Colony on the basis of a previous request from the