1652-1806 History of Southern Africa






The Cape of Good Hope, 1806-1835



Establishment of British Rule During the period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Britain occupied the Cape Colony in 1795, returned it to the Dutch in 1803 and again occupied it in 1806. The Netherlands ceded the Cape Colony formally in 1815.
The British declared it the Cape Colony and the governor took up residence in Cape Town (Kaapstad), the colony's capital. The Cape Colony pursued an active external policy, independent from the British Colonial Office, establishing an outpost in Natal (Port Natal, later renamed Durban) in 1824, annexing the lands west of the Kei river in 1834,

Economic Policy The British deregulated the economy. Boers no longer were bound to sell their products to fixed, artificially low prices, and were free to sell to any customer they wanted to. In 1808 the (official) Discount Bank opened; private banks followed in the 1820es. In 1825 the British silver currency was introduced, while the paper Rijksdaalder currency maintained valid. Cape Wool exports expanded strongly in the 1820es to 1840es.

Relations between Settlers and Natives The Boers were members of the Dutch Reformed Church, Calvinists who believed in predestination. They were convinced that they were God's chosen people, while damnation would await the natives. This prejudice, in the view of many Boers, justified their treatment of the Khoikhoi, coloureds and their slaves. An 1812 ordinance regulated the status of 'apprentices', largely confirming the practice. However, in 1792 Moravian Brethren, in 1799 missionaries from the London Missionary Society arrived, both proselytizing among the Khoikhoi and the Xhosa - and engaging in the campaign to abolish slavery.
Border wars with the Xhosa occurred in 1811-1812, 1817-1819, 1834-1835. Following the war of 1817-1819, the Cape Administration brought British settlers into the country, to settle the frontier area along the Great Fish River, in an attempt to separate Boers and Xhosa. The main settlement, Albany, later was renamed Port Elizabeth.
The Cape Administration undertook measures to improve the status of the natives. It accepted, to the dismay of the Boers, complaints by the Khoikhoi (1815). An 1828 ordinnance granted rights to free Khoikhoi and Coloureds at court equal to those of the whites. The British abolished slavery in 1834 (effective in 1838; affecting 36,000 slaves in the Cape Colony) and undertook measures to Anglicize the colony.

Relations between the British Administration and the Boers The Boers deeply resented the treatment they were given by the British administration. When the British had assumed the administration of the Cape in 1806, the language of administration had been Cape Dutch (Afrikaans). In 1825/1827, English was introduced as language of administration, in addition to Cape Dutch. The gradual introduction of British legal reforms such as the ordinnance of 1828, granting equal status to Khoikhoi and Coloureds, and the 1834 act abolishing slavery (both measures being resernted by the Boers) caused Boer leaders to organize a mass exodus - the Great Trek; from 1835 to 1843, c. 12,000 Boers would leave the colony. Modern historians believe, the lack of new farmland for the taking in the Cape Colony, in a rapidly expanding Boer society, was the main driving force behind the Great Trek. Most of the Boers stayed in the Cape, and almost all of the wealthy Boers affected by the abolition of slavery.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		History of the Cape Colony from 1806 to 1870, from Wikipedia
Cape Province, History of, from Infoplease
A Brief History of Cape Town, from Cape Town 2004
DOCUMENTS Civic Arms, from International Civic Arms
REFERENCE Robert Ross, A Concise History of South Africa, Cambridge Concise Histories, 1999, 219 pp.
Charles H. Feinstein, An Economic History of South Africa, Cambridge : UP 2005
Enter the British, pp.94-101, Terror Tactics pp.102-109, Contrary to the Law of God pp.110-113, The Rocky Road to Reform pp.126-129, in : Readers Digest Illustrated History of South Africa, Pleasantville NY : Readers Digest 1988 [G]
Christopher Saunders and Iain R. Smith, Southern Africa 1795-1910, pp.597-623 in : Andrew Porter (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol.III : The Nineteenth Century, Oxford : UP 1999, KMLA Lib.Sign. 909.0971241 O98o v.3



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on May 19th 2006

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