At the time of the beginning of the diamond industry, the whole of South Africa was in poor economic conditions. Ostrich farming was still in its infancy and agriculture was underdeveloped. The Boers, with the exception of those in the immediate vicinity of the Cape, lived in poor conditions. They traded only marginally with the colony for durable goods. Even the British settlers were anything but rich. The diamond industry was therefore very attractive, especially for settlers of British origin. It was also a way to show that South Africa, which seemed barren and poor on the surface, was rich underground. It takes 10 acres (40,000 m2) of Karoo to feed a sheep, but it was now possible that a few square meters of diamond-blue soil could feed a dozen families. By the end of 1871 a large population had gathered in the diamond fields and immigration increased considerably, attracting many newcomers. Among the first to seek fortune in the diamond fields was Cecil Rhodes. When the war began, some Australians, like some British, were against it.
As the war dragged on, some Australians were disappointed, in part because of the suffering of Boer civilians reported in the press. In an interesting twist (for Australians), when the British failed to capture President Paul Kruger when he escaped from Pretoria when he fell in June 1900, a Melbourne Punch, on June 21, 1900, drew how the war with the Kelly gang could be won. [130] Finally, a total of 45 tent camps were built for Boer internees and 64 for black Africans. Of the 28,000 Boers captured as prisoners of war, 25,630 were sent overseas to prisoner-of-war camps throughout the British Empire. The vast majority of Boers who remained in the local camps were women and children. About 26,370 Boer women and children perished in these concentration camps. [106] Of the more than 120,000 black (and colored) imprisoned, about 20,000 died. [107] [104] [108] Many settlers who settled directly on the border became increasingly independent and localized in their loyalty. Known as the Boers, they migrated westward beyond the original borders of the Cape Colony and quickly advanced nearly a thousand miles inland.[12] [13] Some Boers even adopted a permanent nomadic lifestyle and were called Trekboers. [14] The VOC`s colonial period saw a series of bitter and genocidal conflicts between settlers and Khoe-speaking indigenous peoples,[15] followed by the Xhosa, both of whom they saw as undesirable competitors for prime farmland. [14] A chance discovery in 1867 had attracted several thousand fortune seekers to alluvial diamond excavations along the Orange, Vaal and Harts rivers. Richer discoveries during “dry excavations” in 1870 led to a great rush.
By the end of 1871, nearly 50,000 people were living in a sprawling polyglot mining camp later called Kimberley. The catastrophic end of the First Boer War of 1881 had repercussions that spread throughout South Africa. One of the most important results was the first Afrikander Bond congress, held in Graaff-Reinet in 1882. The Bond evolved to include both the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony. Each country had a provincial committee with district committees, and branches were spread throughout South Africa. Later, the Bond moved away from its Republican branches in the Cape Colony. The politics of the Bond are best summed up by an excerpt from De Patriot, a newspaper published in the colony and an avowed supporter of the Bond. The blockhouse system required a huge number of troops at the garrison.
More than 50,000 British soldiers or 50 battalions were involved in the service of the blockhouses, more than the approximately 30,000 Boers on the ground during the guerrilla phase. In addition, up to 16,000 Africans were deployed both as armed guards and to patrol the line at night. [92] The army connected the blockhouses with barbed wire fences to divide the vast steppe into smaller areas. “New Model” drives were mounted, under which a continuous line of troops could sweep an area of Veld bounded by blockhouse lines, as opposed to the ineffective combing of the landscape by scattered columns. Apart from weapons, Boer tactics were important. As one modern source puts it: “Boer soldiers. were guerrilla fighters – something the British found difficult to counter. [56] After the war, an imperial administration, exempt from accountability to an Indigenous electorate, set out to rebuild an economy that was clearly based on gold at the time. At the same time, British officials, local officials and their cultural appendages worked hard in the heart of the former Boer republics, helping to forge new identities – first as “British South Africans” and later as “white South Africans”. Thank you for your comment.
I enjoy hearing informed readers and learning new things. In response to your statement on terminology, I note that my blog post collectively refers to the conflict as the Boer Wars – “The Boer Wars were fought from 1880 to 1881 and from 1899 to 1902.” In 1872, after a long political struggle, the Cape of Good Hope obtained a responsible government under its first Prime Minister, John Molteno. From now on, an elected prime minister and his cabinet assume full responsibility for the affairs of the country. A period of strong economic growth and social development followed, and the East-West divide was largely resolved. The multiracial suffrage system has also begun a slow and fragile growth in political inclusiveness, and ethnic tensions have eased. In 1877, the state expanded by annexing West Griqualand and East Griqualand – the Mount Currie District (Kokstad).[23] The emergence of two Boer mini-republics along the mission route led to the Warren Expedition in 1885, which was sent to annex the republics of Stellaland and Goshen (lands annexed by British Bechuanaland). Major General Charles Warren annexed the lands south of the Molopo River as a colony of British Bechuanaland and proclaimed protectorate over the lands north of the river. Vryburg, the capital of Stellaland, became the capital of British Bechuanaland, while Mafeking (now Mahikeng), although located south of the protectorate border, became the administrative center of the protectorate.
The border between the protectorate and the colony ran along the Molopo and Nossob rivers. In 1895, British Bechuanaland became part of the Cape Colony. In Britain, supporters of the war effort sought to raise funds for British reservists who were on active duty and had little means to support their families on a salary of “shillings a day.” The Daily Mail newspaper created a successful charity campaign with the then popular song “The Absent-Minded Beggar” with lyrics by Rudyard Kipling and music by Arthur Sullivan by Gilbert and Sullivan. A surviving piece of this campaign is this cloth card, stuffed with lyrics and scores. Cecil Rhodes acknowledged the difficulties of his position and showed a desire to reconcile Dutch feelings through caring treatment from the beginning of his political career. Rhodes was first elected in a loyal constituency in 1880 as the member for Barkly West in the House of Assembly. In 1882 he supported legislation authorizing the use of Dutch in the House of Assembly, and early in 1884 he was appointed his first ministerial post as treasurer general under Sir Thomas Scanlen. Rhodes held this post for only six weeks when Sir Thomas Scanlen resigned. Sir Hercules Robinson sent him to British Bechuanaland as deputy commissioner in August 1884, succeeding the Reverend John Mackenzie, representative of the London Missionary Society in Kuruman, who proclaimed Queen Victoria`s authority over the district in May 1883. Rhodes` efforts to reconcile the Boers failed, hence the need for the Warren mission. In 1885, the territories of the Cape Colony were enlarged and Tembuland, Bomvanaland and Galekaland were officially added to the colony. Sir Gordon Sprigg became Prime Minister in 1886.
In Gauteng province, in present-day South Africa, a 56-kilometre-long ridge reaches heights of up to 1,700 metres. The abundance of ridge waterfalls gave the escarpment its name, Witwatersrand, which means “ridge with white water”. The Witwatersrand basin stretches in an arc for 350 kilometers between Johannesburg and Welkom and covers an area the size of West Virginia. However, it is more than just a picturesque geological formation – the Witwatersrand is home to the largest gold deposit in the world. Australia`s climate and geography were much closer to those of South Africa than most other parts of the empire, so Australians quickly adapted to the environment, with troops serving mainly under the army`s “mounted rifles”. Conscription into all Australian official contingents was 16,463. [128] Another five to seven thousand Australians served in “irregular” regiments raised in South Africa. Perhaps five hundred Australian irregulars were killed. In total, 20,000 or more Australians served and about 1,000 were killed.
A total of 267 died of disease, 251 were killed in action or died from wounds sustained in action. Another 43 men were reported missing. [129] The second part of the war (February-April 1900) was the opposite of the first. After the British reorganized and strengthened under new leadership, they began to experience successes against Boer soldiers.