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The British in South Africa
For generations, South Africa witnessed conflict between Europeans and white settlers, both of whom wanted political and economic control of the region. Of note was the conflict between Britain and Boers, mostly Dutch descendants of white settlers who had emigrated to South Africa throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Britain wanted total dominion over the region of South Africa, but the Boers constituted a significant roadblock. In the 1830s, Britain began to assert control, and, from 1837 to 1844, forced the Boer population to resettle in what was called the Great Trek, moving them from the coastal colonial settlement to the interior lands of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
Tensions between the British, the Boers, and the African tribes would remain uneasy, but the remoteness of the region meant that South African—especially its interior—was not a strong source of interests for the British, whose key concern had always been to maintain the Cape of Good Hope to support its world-wide shipping interests. This changed after discovery of diamonds in the South African interior in 1867, leading to the British annexation areas, including the Transvaal in 1877, much to the chagrin of the Boers.
The “First Boer War”
These disputes led to the outbreak of a 10-week conflict between December 1880 and March 1881 that has been called the “First Boer War” in which the unprepared British were soundly defeated. British Prime Minister William Gladstone, who had inherited the untenable situation when his Liberal Party took control in April 1880, and who had been expected to reverse the previous government’s annexation of Transvaal but had not, called for an immediate truce when he realized that what the costs of a full war would be. In an outcome that has been compared to the British capitulation of United States almost 100 years earlier, Gladstone agreed to mostly Boer self-government in Transvaal, although the Boers did allow the British a few face-saving concessions including recognizing Queen Victoria as their sovereign. Peace, however, would not last.
Events Leading to the Second Boer War
In 1886, the natural riches of Transvaal (and avarice that they inspired) would once again lead to conflict between the British and the Boers. This time, however, it was huge gold deposits that would be the spur, and this time it would lead to a full-scale war with enormous loss of life on all sides.
Faced with the prospect of immense economic gain and worried about German intervention from neighboring Namibia, the British, under capitalist entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes, acted. The British very quickly concluded that their interests were not fully served by the Boer government in the Transvaal and its policies on tariffs and trade. In 1895, Rhodes and his chief lieutenant, Dr. L. S. Jameson, took advantage of the unrest of British settlers in the Transvaal region to launch an unauthorized coup, with Jameson himself leading a contingent of British South African police into Transvaal, but the invasion proved to be premature and a complete failure. Both were punished, with Jameson being imprisoned by the British for his unauthorized attack and Rhodes being forced to resign.
New British leadership did nothing to ease tensions. In 1899, angered over what they perceived as the harsh treatment of British settlers in the Transvaal and still motivated by the prospect of gold, Britain began a massive build-up of British forces in the area. In October 1899, the Boer President Paul Kruger demanded the withdrawal of these troops, threatening war if his demands went unmet. The British did not comply, and on October 12, the Transvaal and Orange Free State declared war.
British and Boers at War (1899-1902)
The war progressed rather poorly for the better-equipped, better-trained, and larger British army. Hampered by inept leadership and harassed by effective Boer guerrilla tactics, the British were forced to fight the war for three years. By the time the war ended, over 60,000 people had died. The British lost almost 30,000 fighting men, while Boer forces lost some 5,000. In addition, more than 20,000 Boer civilians died in the concentration camps—with this being the first war in which concentration camps were used as a means of controlling captured populations. The number of deaths of native Black Africans placed in the camps went uncounted, though they certainly reached into the thousands.
When discussing the Boer War, one cannot skip over the brutality the British used against its white enemies in South Africa. Concentration camps were havens for disease, malnutrition, and persecution. Individual rights did not exist in these territories, and women and children were raped, abused, and forced into labor for the British government. No one knows the extent of the abuse, though it is clear they did not compare to the violence perpetrated by Hitler or Stalin in scope or atrocity. It is important to note that concentration camps developed under British auspices and were used against fellow whites, fellow Europeans, and fellow imperialists.
The End of the Boer War
In 1902, after massive effort and expense, the British exhausted the Boers into submission thanks to their brutal tactics. On May 31, the two sides signed the Treaty of Vereeniging, under which the British accepted the conditional surrender of the Boers. The Transvaal and Orange Free State were promised limited future autonomy as British colonies, and the British in turn promised to pay three million pounds. They also promised the Boers that no decision to include the Black majority in government would be made before rule was returned to the Boers. This decision in particular made 20th-century apartheid an eventuality.
