The Ethnic Struggle for Political Supremacy in South Africa 1850-1994

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THE ETHNIC STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL SUPREMACY IN SOUTH AFRICA 1850-1994

(With special reference to the democratic causes of the struggle)

By David J.P. Haasbroek M.A. D.Phil

Table of Contents

1 Preface

2 Introduction

3 British Settler Struggle for Political Dominance

3.1 The 1848 Cape Draft Constitution

3.2 The Constitutional Struggle in the Cape Colony 1848 -1854

3.3 Distrust of Coloured Voters

3.4 The Conservative British Settlers

3.5 The Cape Liberals

4 The Struggle for Supremacy in the Voortrekker Republics

4.1 A Law for Hottentot Vagrancy

4.2 The Race Policy of the Dutch Reformed Church

4.3 The Second Struggle for a Vagrant Law

4.4 The Causes of the Great Trek

4.5 Voortrekker Constitutions

4.5.1 Republic of Natalia

4.5.2 The Potchefstroom - Winburg Area

4.5.3 The Free State Constitution of 1854

4.5.4 The Cape Constitutional Struggle

4.5.5 The Transvaal Constitutional Struggle

5 Natal's Constitutional Struggle

5.1 Political Rights for Zulus

5.2 Constitutional Safeguards

5.3 Separate Representation for Zulus

5.4 The Asiatics of Natal

6 The Struggle for Separation or Federation

6.1 The Eastern Province Separation League

7 Philip Wodehouse and the Struggle for Supremacy

8 The Struggle for Responsible Government

8.1 Responsible Government and the Revival of the Separation Movement

8.2 The Seven Circles Bill

9 Carnarvon's Federation Scheme

10 We English Depend on the Native Vote

11 Cecil John Rhodes' Federation Scheme

11.1 British Supremacy and the Election of 1898

12 The Struggle For Supremacy after the War

12.1 The National Convention 1908-09

12.2 The Balfour Declaration, the Flag and the Statute of Westminster

13 Separate Representation For South African Blacks 1936

13.1 Separate Representation for S.A. Indians 1946

14 Devolution of Political Power by means of Ethnic Differentiation

14.1 Native Administration

14.2 Christianity, Black Cultures and Languages

15 The Afrikaner Election Victory of 1948

15.1 Opposition to White Supremacy: Separate Representation for Coloureds

15.2 The Liberal Party

15.3 The Union Federal Party

15.4 The Black Sash

15.5 The Christian Council of South Africa

15.6 The Institute of Race Relations

15.7 The Weakening of the United Party

16 The Republican Issue and the Referendum of 1960

17 The Bantu Struggle for Supremacy, 1912-1994 and the interference of the USA

18 Bibliography

18.1 Records Concerning the Cape Colony

18.1.11. Government Archives: Cape Town

18.1.2 S.A. Public Library: Cape Town Newspapers

18.1.3 General

18.2 Records Concerning the History of Natal

18.3 Records Concerning the History of the Voortrekker Republics

19 Author

Preface

This publication is a summary of articles published in Humanitas and Countre of the Human Sciences Research Council, Historia of the Historical Society, The International Reformed Bulletin of 1978, American Review, last quarter 1989, of the Rand Afrikaans University, and article on the origins of education policies published by the University of Zululand in 1971. The University acquired autonomy in 1970. This publication is also an outflow of a D.Phil. Thesis about the origins of the Coloured vote which was completed at the University of Stellenbosch in 1958.

There are so many misapprehensions about the origins of the policy of ethnic differentiation (apartheid) that this summary has become necessary. In a TV programme, e.g. the Secretary-General of the SA Council Churches still thought that apartheid was a policy which was based on racial superiority. Misunderstanding of the motives of politicians and misconception of state policies create unnecessary racial tensions, and they prevent reconciliation about past events. These misconceptions have been deliberately propagated after 1948 to generate opposition to the referendum for a South African republic. That happened at a time when numerous rebellions were waged against British colonisation in several parts of the world. The matter has also been confused and aggravated by imperialistic church policies. Yet few people realise that Christianity, Western civilisation and racial superiority were propagated to promote the imperialistic policies of colonising powers such as Britain, America, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and Spain.

As a historian, I therefore often wonder if it would not be helpful for politicians to look carefully at a country's history before deciding what alternatives are still open for reform. If politicians overlook the forces which have shaped the institutions of such a country, they may cause further disruption and create situations similar to those found in Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Spain, Punjab, Sri Lanka or the Congo. The forces which have had a significant influence in South Africa have many European antecedents and were not only caused by the struggles of the British ethnic minority in multi-ethnic South-Africa for political supremacy. That struggle showed that democracy, which has developed in homogeneous European countries, was unable to overcome multi-ethnic conflicts in multi-ethnic communities such as has happened recently in Yugoslavia, Croatia, Slovenia and Albania. It can be categorically stated that the South African political history and experience are very important guides if one wishes to find solutions for ethnic conflicts. The kind of democracy that one finds in multi-ethnic states or colonies was and is an imperialistic tool to ensure British supremacy by means of constitutional safeguards. Those safeguards created minorities out of non-British ethnic majorities in self-governing states.

Unfortunately much misapprehension exists in South Africa and elsewhere about the origins of South African policies since British historians who are pioneers of South African historiography, have virtually hushed up the impact of South African constitutions on ethnic relations. They have created the impression that White Afrikaners, due to the Transvaal Constitution of 1855-59, which excluded Coloureds and Blacks from political rights in the church and the state, have implemented oppressive race policies. But according to them British colonists, commonly known as Settlers, have followed liberal policies with regard to political rights for Black and Coloured communities. This view is completely wrong. The British Settlers, a small minority group, have ever since their arrival in 1820 in the Cape Colony tried to avoid being ruled by an Afrikaner or Coloured community. A White British Settler minority also settled in Natal after the annexation of that territory in 1842/43. So in both the Cape and Natal the Settlers, two minority groups, refused to be governed democratically by another ethnic. They demanded self-determination and political supremacy from the start. But few people know about this.

An effort will therefore be made to reinvestigate the historical past in order to show how South African policies evolved from the British constitution and its safeguards on which the Settlers in South Africa depended. Since those Settlers had to justify their demands for dominance or the annexation of more territory, they frequently demonised or criminalised the non-British ethnics by stating that they were barbaric, dishonest, or disloyal to the British cause. This strategy was so often used during the Cape constitutional struggle that no one should be surprised that the name of Cape Town's main street was changed from Heerengracht to Adderley Street because of that. The Dutch colonists changed the name of the main street to show their gratitude to Adderley, a British politician who had assisted them against the calumniation of John Montagu, the Colonial Secretary at the Cape. He and his Settler supporters who opposed the 1850 Cape constitution, tried to get more safeguards against non-British ethnics such as the Afrikaner and the Coloured majorities. But to achieve their goal, they demonised their opponents so that Britain would grant their demands. This matter will be explained in this research. Without a clear understanding of the ethnic and constitutional quarrel, one cannot hope to understand South Africa's history.

I would like to extend a word of thanks to the SA Libraries in Cape Town, Durban, Bloemfontein and Pretoria, and to the Archives in Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg and Pretoria. A very special word of thanks to my daughter Erica, who has printed many pages during this research.

D.J.P. Haasbroek

Lyttelton in Centurion, Pretoria. October 2000

Introduction

The British element in the whole of South Africa had to contend with several non-British ethnic groups, and it was due to Settler agitations that restrictions were placed on non-British subjects. This, in turn, highlighted the ethnic nature of the constitutional struggle in South Africa. The main ethnics were the White Dutch colonists (later known as Afrikaners), and the Hottentots, (Khoi-san) who like the ex-slaves were also referred to as Coloureds. They adopted the Dutch language. This non-British majority became very important when representative government was mooted in 1848 to relieve Britain of her responsibilities with regard to the maintenance of peace and order in a troubled land. The Cape of Good Hope with its heterogeneous population was annexed in 1806. The Xhosas of Ciskei and Transkei of the Eastern Cape Colony became part of the colonial community in 1865 and 1894 respectively. In Natal there were the Zulus which came under British rule in 1843 and 1879 respectively; the Indian immigrant labourers in 1860, and the Afrikaners who had become British subjects after the annexation of the Voortrekker republic of Natalia 1843, and the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. Afrikaners of the Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek) became of particular importance after the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. The British had to devise new safeguards, check and balances in the South African constitution of 1909. But at that stage, the preceding constitutional safeguards were of vital importance for the new constitution. Without them, one cannot evaluate the new constitution and its safeguards or the subsequent apartheid (ethnic) policy of the National Party in 1948, and the referendum for a republic in 1960. At that stage, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Burma, Israel, Ireland etc. had already become independent from Britain since 1947 when the British Empire started breaking up. But throughout the preceding 150 years, the British had gained experience of the kind of troubles which would be encountered in multi-ethnic colonies such as the Indian subcontinent, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and the Rhodesias, (now known as Zimbabwe and Zambia.) At the same time, ethnic relations would be constantly influenced by internal and external factors.

To understand the constitutional struggle in those colonies, one must have a clear understanding of the causes of the battle, and the manner in which the democratic constitutions were introduced. Unfortunately, historians in South Africa have mistaken views of the contending ethnic parties. The things which some historians keep on repeating about race relations are the following:

1. Afrikaners have been opposed to equality of Black and White owing to individual Calvinistic race attitudes which had developed in the 18th century before the British annexed the Cape Colony in the 19th century.

2. The British colonisers have strong liberal ideas about racial equality.

The historical document which set historians thinking on these lines is clause 9 of the Transvaal Voortrekker constitution of 1858. Consequently, Afrikaners and British Settlers have been separated into two neatly defined categories. But historians have been confronted by a dilemma. There is an apparent similarity of the provisions of the Afrikaner republican constitutions of 1854 and 1858 and that of British Natal, and an evident similarity of the views of Cape Afrikaners and the requirements of the Cape constitution of 1853. To overcome this dilemma, the following two generalisations are found in history books written by Afrikaners:

1. Natal Settlers inherited from the Voortrekkers much of their attitude towards subjects who were not White.

2. Cape Afrikaners came to accept the concepts of British liberalism.

The interpretation of race attitudes by British historians is more or less the same, and their conclusions are often verbally repeated by other historians, even Americans. That is why people say that history does not repeat itself; historians repeat one another.

In a publication by Brian Rose: Education in South Africa, one reads the following: The story is that the trekboere (Afrikaners) with their strongly Calvinistic religious beliefs, developed certain race attitudes towards the coloured population: To the Dutch Calvinist the coloured races were of the 'perishing progeny of Ham,' and the Old Testament religion of those days sanctioned a complete denial of human rights of any races outside the pale of divine election. In contrast to this Calvinistic inspired racialism which was based on the Jewish religion (Old Testament), Brian Rose found that the British had brought with them strong liberal ideas about racial equality and freeing slaves, ideas incomprehensible to the vast majority of the Boers. (Bear in mind that the main reason for the emancipation of slaves was economical, and not philanthropic. While some British were propagating freedom, many others, on the other hand, had numerous exhibitions of freak human beings such as Sarah Baartman of Cape Town to satisfy their curiosity about creatures which they thought were not quite human. These British were .also supposed to be Christians. Brian Rose did not say what kind of Christians, and why Anglo-Saxon Christians in the USA did not emancipate slaves until after a civil war.)

Brian Rose found his ideas in a book of Victor A. Murray: The School in the Bush: A critical study of the theory and practice of Native education in Africa. This book was published in 1938. It is perhaps needless to add that Murray could not have studied the educational policies in any of the four provinces of South Africa, or any of the reports of commissions which were appointed from time to time in connection with Native education.

It is remarkable that these books were written during a time when Afrikaners wanted their flag, national anthem, and a republic. It appears that these historians had a political motive in mind and that demonising of Afrikaners would have warned British members of the South African parliament to guard against any change in the voting rights of South African Blacks.

Apart from Brian Rose, there is an article in the American Church History of September 1968 by Professor J. Alton Templin: God in the South African Wilderness. In it, he gives such a cynical explanation of the Afrikaner's Calvinistic religion and race attitudes that it looks like a piece of cheap propaganda. Yet he bases his conclusions mainly on the book of Professor I.D. McCrone: Race Attitudes in South Africa, and books of Professor F.A. van Jaarsveld.

There are not any similar views about race attitudes in the histories of G.M. Theal and C.E. Cory. They have deliberately hushed up the true nature of the constitutional struggle of 1850-54 in the Cape Colony. The interpretation of race attitudes will, therefore, be traced to the books of MacCrone and Van Jaarsveld, and then be compared with those of other historians. It must be mentioned at this stage that MacCrone is not a historian but a psychologist and that his historical bias and that of Brian Rose, A.J. Grant and Victor A. Murray is due to erroneous conclusions based on flawed research, and on an apparent desire to demonise Afrikaners during the constitutional struggle of 1926-36. In MacCrone's Historical. Experimental and Psychological Studies published in 1937 but written during 1936, the year when separate representation for Natives was discussed in parliament, he tried to trace the historical origins of the racial attitudes of Afrikaner students. He did this because he had tested them in 1934 and had found them more anti-Black than the English students. The latter were not pro-Black but simply less anti-Black than Afrikaner students.

Instead of analysing the events of the years during which those students grew up, he turned to the 18th-century. His reasons are unknown, but before examining his book, it must be mentioned that during the years preceding the test and the two years after the trial, much attention was given to race relations because of the poor-White problem which had been aggravated by the Anglo-Boer War, the strike of 1922 for a colour bar in industry, segregation of the Natives, separate representation of the latter, the opposition of certain British newspapers to separate presentation for fear of its influence on party politics, the so-called Black peril election of 1929, the flag question, the South African anthem, the republican issue, and the agitation that accompanied the new party political alignment in 1933-5. In 1925 the Natal Provincial Council took Indian voters off the municipal voters' roll. In 1930 and 1936 Waiter Madeley of the SA Labour Party, an English party, proposed total territorial, political, social, and economic segregation of the Natives, but these motions were rejected by parliament as an impossible solution of the problem. That happened despite the depression which had started in 1929, and the poor-White problem, which had primarily been caused by the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. In 1932 Dr D.F. Malan, leader of the Cape National Party, did a complete political somersault at the Party Congress in Stellenbosch when he proposed separate representation for the Coloureds, a group of people whom Afrikaners had supported ever since 1850. J.B.M. Hertzog, the Prime Minister, was furious because this was contrary to his party's policy. In 1936 Malan proposed separate representation of Coloureds but it was rejected during a joint session of Parliament by 132 votes against 22. In 1935 the British Dominion Party under the leadership of the very conservative Colonel Stallard, chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Johannesburg, wanted the status quo to be maintained with regard to Native voters for fear that separate representation would mean loss of support for his party. In April 1936 the joint session of Parliament approved different representation for the Natives by a majority of 169 to 11 during the second reading of the Bill. Of the latter, there were three ex-Afrikaner Bond members, one Socialist, two Cape Liberals, and five Natal conservative members of the British Dominion Party. Some of the latter supported separate representation for Indians in 1946 when the United Party of Jan Smuts was in power. Others were totally opposed to any form of representation whatsoever for Asiatic.

Why MacCrone turned to the 18th-century remains a mystery, since he must have known that Hertzog's separate representation for the Natives had originated in British Natal and that many prominent Natal politicians supported him. It is hardly possible that he did not know that segregation was the policy of the English SA Labour Party which had the pact with Hertzog. Even the first two Ministers of Labour were members of that Party, viz. Cresswell and Boydell. Whatever his reasons for ignoring the events of his own time, MacCrone turned to the 17th- and 18th-centuries to find causes for the racial attitudes of Afrikaner students; and not to the 19th- century; to explain the racial attitudes of English students. It was a very one-sided investigation which has had far-reaching effects. By terminating his so-called historical analysis at the end of the 18th- century, he hushed up more than 130 years of South African history and became an authority on racial attitudes.

What is even more incredible is the fact that in discussing the Afrikaner's Calvinistic religion, he did not refer to the race policy of the Dutch Reformed Church or the published documents in G.B.A. Gerdener: Boustowwe vir Kerkgeskiedenis (1930) but referred to a book of A.J. Grant: The Huguenots. According to Grant the character of the Dutch religion was strictly Calvinistic, its theology was of an uncompromising and formidable kind since it was based upon the most extreme form of the principle of predestination. MacCrone took this interpretation of Calvinism as his guide instead of the policies of the Dutch Reformed Church, and the Dutch East India Company which allowed no discrimination towards people of colour. MacCrone knew what the policy of the Cape government was because he referred to it. According to the policy of the Company and the Batavian Government, free Blacks and the Hottentots were a free nation and were to be undisturbed in their liberty, never to be enslaved but governed politically and civilly as the white colonists, and to enjoy the same measure of justice. In 1805 the official policy was reaffirmed and provided that the Hottentots should be treated as free people die een wettig verblyf in die Volksplanting hebben, enbehooren gevolglik in hunnen persoonen, eigendommen en bezittingen, even als andere vrye Lieden te worden beschermd."

MacCrone did not even try to show how many colonists rejected this official policy and to what extent others supported it. He simply concluded that if such a religion had any influence at all upon the life of the group, it could only be by way of strengthening its religious basis, of emphasizing its exclusive bias, and of confirming an assured belief in its own superiority. In order to support this line of thought, he quoted not from Cape ministers of religion or decisions of the Synod, but from a Swedish tourist and writer Sparman, who averred that Bastards, as a rule, remained unbaptized and for that reason alone could never hope to enter the charmed circle of the European or Christian community. This is such an erroneous statement when compared with the policy of the Dutch Reformed Church that the only excuse for MacCrone's acceptance of it is a total ignorance of the history of this Church.

MacCrone found two witnesses to substantiate his views with regard to frontier opinion. One was an obscure colonist by the name of Ferreira who had told Lichtenstein, the Secretary of Governor Janssen, that the Hottentots were the accursed descendants of Ham. (This man had most probably read in his Bible about Noah and his wife who had given birth to three races. This was, of course, genetically impossible.) The other witness was Anna Steenkamp. In 1843 she objected to equality of slaves and Christians. By constant repetition, her views have been raised above the decisions of the Cape Synod of 1829 and 1857 which reaffirmed, with the support of the Voortrekkers of the Free State and Natal, its policy of equality of Black and White Christians. In view of Ferreira and Steenkamp's testimony, although they were much the same as British Settler views, MacCrone concluded that although the frontier farmers (Dutch) accepted the 18th-century revolutionary doctrines of liberty, equality, and fraternity for themselves, they thought these were not good for the Blacks.

Having disregarded official policy in favour of the views of a few individuals, MacCrone again returned to the negative aspects of the Calvinist creed, its doctrine of predestination, emphasis upon the community of the elect, and the exclusive twist that could be given to its teachings. (It appears that McCrone had a deep-seated hatred of Calvinism.) Thus he simply selected specific facts which suited the psychological test of 1934 and which according to him explained the difference between Afrikaner and English race attitudes.

Although he ended his historical analysis at the end of the 18th-century, he was satisfied that he had succeeded in showing that the racial attitudes which the first Europeans had brought with them to the Cape, had undergone a radical alteration, and if our account of the factors which contributed to this result is at all convincing, then the original aim of this historical survey has been accomplished. For we have now reached the familiar ground, since the attitudes themselves, as they existed towards the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, are very similar to those which we find displayed on all sides at the present time, i.e. 1934-1936. And those same attitudes, more particularly in the form in which they were developed on the frontier, were to be one of the main factors in shaping nineteenth-century history in South Africa ... The history of those times is the politics of the present day since the same issues are at stake today which came to the forefront at the time of the Great Trek ... its roots are to be found in the history of race contacts and the development of racial attitudes during the eighteenth century before the Kaffir and the Englishman had appeared upon the boards.

In light of the historical events of the year in which he wrote his book, it is quite impossible that MacCrone could have come to such a conclusion. He simply ignored the preceding political events to explain the attitudes of Afrikaner and English students. In that year separate representation was given to the Natives by a majority of 168 votes to 11 during the third reading. Separate representation was a Natal policy and was discussed from 1874 to 1893 when it was introduced in Natal. But suppose he did not understand the origins of events of his own time but simply wanted to demonise Afrikaners, then an analysis must be made of the histories which were available in 1936. There were the books of Theal, Cory and Walker. In Theal's textbook: South Africa, there was merely a summary of the Cape constitution of 1853, and he said little or nothing of the constitutional struggle, the separation and federation movements, the opposition to the responsible government or the Cape Settlers who demonised Afrikaners with the hope of getting the support of Coloureds, ex-slaves, and the Native voters against Afrikaners. In Theal's History of South Africa since 1795 twenty two pages were devoted to the introduction of a liberal constitution in 1853 but with all that he did not explain why there was an agitation for a nominated upper house, or why the British Settlers were against the twenty-five-pound franchise qualification. Theal did not even use the word English Settler, but colonists and that could have misled MacCrone.

At the same time, MacCrone could not find any clue from G.E. Cory: The Rise of South Africa. This historian discussed the constitutional upheaval of 1850-53, the Eighth Frontier War, and the Kat River Rebellion in three chapters which covered 263 pages. But he did not disclose the nature of the struggle in which British Settlers demanded constitutional safeguards against Afrikaners and Coloureds, or did not explain why they wanted a nominated upper house, or why they opposed the twenty-five-pound voters' qualification. He did not even mention the fact that Afrikaners supported the Coloured franchise and that the British Settlers fought it.

Neither could he find any clue in E.A. Walker: A History of Southern Africa. This history textbook gave less than two pages to the constitutional struggle, and Walker gave no explanation why it had started. Walker's A History of Southern Africa was a textbook which was first published in February 1928, but it again gave less than two pages to the constitutional struggle, and he gave no explanation why it had started. Walker's The Great Trek was not at MacCrone's disposal although it contains many of MacCrones ideas without mentioning the source of his information. Although there is no excuse for ignoring the events during the years that the students of 1934 grew up, it seems probable that this conspiracy of silence could have misled MacCrone in believing the farfetched idea that the 18th- century had determined race attitudes in the 20th- century.

Apart from the constitutional struggle, it appears that he had not correctly read the history of Cory. In it, Cory quoted verbally the views of officials and colonists about Ordinance 50 of 1828 and the commentary of the Landdrost and Heemraden of Graaff-Reinet in connection with the slanderous statements in the report of the Commissioners of Inquiry. The latter recommended the introduction of the Council of Advice, the Charter of Justice, and the abolition of Landdrosts and Heemraden. The latter acknowledged a letter of thanks for their services from the Colonial Government, and then with reference to the Report of the Commissioners said the following: "As we find ourselves in