Episode 290 - Africanders, Afrikaners and the Sprigg/Hofmeyr/Rhodes Voter Disenfranchisement of 1887-1892

In 1883 Joseph Moss, regarded as the wealthiest black man in Kimberley, stood before the newly formed Africander League in the diamond mining city. Africander spelled A F R I C A N D E R. It which was not what you’d imagine, the Africander League was made up of black and coloured men before whom Moss pronounced

“We are Africans — we are not like Englishmen, who return to their own land. You are not here for a certain period to make money alone and then return to England to make yourselves great men…”

Moss looked around the room at the faces of black and brown

“…You are born here, your interest is here…”

Because South Africa was not their place of birth, most Englishmen in Kimberley did not view it as their homeland. Within a generation, however, their descendants born on South African soil would be confronted with a historic question of identity: were they British, or were they South African?

As Moss spoke he would have been aware of a similar sentiment amongst Dutch speaking South Africans, a rising Afrikaner nationalism. There were only two main differences between the Africanders and the Afrikaners

One was a matter of spelling - the black League was spelled Africander and the Dutch Bond was spelt Afrikaner.

Secondly, the black Africanders of Kimberley spoke English, while the white spoke Dutch as well the new taal of South Africa, Afrikaans.

It is one of the overriding historical facts of the last 150 years that so much resonated between these people and yet, so much was going to end up segregating them. Both of these Afrikaners regarded Africa as their homeland, yet were feited to spend their days separated because of the perceived differences based on skin colour.

IT was a surface difference and by the late 1880s, that difference was being reinforced by English politicians and millionaires in South Africa like Cecil John Rhodes.

As the diamond and gold mines developed and the ownership crystalised around a handful of men, vast changes were taking place across southern Africa, the future was swiveling about on the fulcrum of politics. Farming interests dominated local settler politics, and in the Cape more scientific farming practices advanced rapidly with the establishment of the Department of Agriculture.

There was another struggle on the go in the colony - between a progressive largely English-speaking modernising elite, and poorer, more conservative sheep farmers. From the mid-1880s onwards, Cape legislation was introduced making it compulsory to dip sheep in order to curb infection.

This gave rise to the most wide-spread popular agitation among Dutch speaking Afrikaners — agitation which threatened to split the party representing their interests, the Afrikaner Bond. It further reinforced the ethnic solidarity between Afrikaners on isolated sheep farms of the northern Cape in particular. And living next door to these farmers were the mine owners of Kimberley, led by Cecil John Rhodes.

Throughout the late 1880s, Cecil John Rhodes had maintained links with his British-based network of mine owners and financiers by sending storms of telegrams and letters, and maintained an excellent engagement with Cape politicians. By the time of gold discoveries, he had built a much closer working relationship with Afrikaners too, much to the surprise of most considering that he was an imperialist who loved Latin and Greek, and Afrikaans was not Greek to him.

In February 1887 Cecil formed Goldfields of South Africa with Charles Rudd who is another to loom large in South African history. At first Goldfields spluttered along, with most of it’s slim profits being invested into De Beers, and his new venture, the British South Africa Company.

Rhodes began to schmooze Transvaal politicians which was quite difficult seeing that he couldn’t speak Afrikaans, or Dutch, or in fact, any South African language.