- 1914 . Central Archives Depot, Pretoria (hereafter CAD), Patrick Duncan Collection, S.63, D5.8.47, Patrick Duncan to Lady Selbome, 9 Dec., quoted in A. Grundlingh, ‘Die Rebellie van 1914: ‘n Historiografiese Verkenning’, Kleio, 11, 1 & 2 (1979), 29
- The nomenclature of war is beset by political and ideological partisanship. The 1899–1902 war has been called Die Tweede Vryheids Oorlog (the Second Freedom War);Die Engelse Oorlog;the Boer War;the Anglo-Boer War and the ‘South African War’. The term ‘South African War’, while good in not explicitly denying the war-time involvement of blacks and Indians, still has obvious problems. It is a term imposed from the metropole. To the British It was ‘die war in South Africa'to the indigenous populations it was simply “The War’, and its names were legion
- Bottomley , J. 1991 . Public Policy and White Rural Poverty in South Africa, 1881–1924 Kingston The exception is (Tim Keegan also notes how Poor Whitism contributed to the state but never made the identity of rebels clear or examined whether or not it was a spontaneous or directed uprising: T. Keegan, ‘The Restructuring of Agrarian Class Relations in a Colonial Economy: The Orange River Colony, 1902–1910’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 5, 2 (1979)
- Wickens , P. L. 1913 . has pointed out the portmanteau nature of the Land Act, that it was a mixture of different ideas: PL. Wickens, “The Natives Land Act of: A Cautionary Essay on Simple Explanations of Complex Change’, South African Journal of Economics, 49, 2 (1981)
- 1914 . This is examined in S. Swart, “The Rebels of: Masculinity, Republicanism and the Social Forces that Shaped the Boer Rebellion' (MA thesis, University of Natal, Durban, 1997), esp. ch. 6, ‘Black Peril, White Rebel: The Rebellion and the Platteland Peril'see also T. Keegan, Rural Transformations in Industrialising South Africa: The Southern Highveld to 1914 (Braamfontein, 1986), 182
- Creswell was the leader of the Labour Party who espoused radical measures to reform the white unemployment problem
- 1915 . Hansard (col. 50
- Swart , See . 1914 . ‘The Rebels of’, ch. 1, ‘Regarding the Rebellion’
- Davenport , T. R.H. 1963 . “The South African Rebellion’ . English Historical Review , 78 (fn. 2
- Meintjes , J. 1969 . President Steyn: A Biography 248 Cape Town ‘It is not usually mentioned that a large number of the poor white element was drawn into the Rebellion, the misfits, the rolling stones, the defeated—as well as the idealists and conscientious objectors’:
- These are, however, penetrating and thorough analyses
- Hegel , G. 1942 . The Philosophy of Right “The State”, Add. 149, (1821)
- Morrell , R. 1991 . White But Poor Pretoria Robert Morrell has shown that the term ‘poor white’ is elusive through the varieties of poor white experience:
- Saunders , C. 1993 . ‘Putting the History of White Poverty in South Africa on the Agenda’ . South African HistoricalJournal , 28
- van der Horst , S. 1939 . Native Labour in South Africa London (C.W. de Kiewiet, A History of South Africa: Social and Economic (Oxford, 1941);G. V. Doxey, The Industrial Colour Bar in South Africa (London, 1961);CM. Tatz, Shadow and Substance: A Study in Land and Franchise Policies Affecting Africans, 1910–1960 (Pietermaritzburg, 1962);R. Horwitz, The Political Economy of South Africa (London, 1967). See also R. Davies, D. Kaplan, M. Morris and D. O'Meara, ‘Class Struggle and the Periodisation of the State’, RAPE, 7 (1976)
- Keegan . for example, although noting the poor white predicament in Rural Transformations, did not make the connection between their identity and a motive for rebellion
- 1921 . See The Friend, 2 Apr.
- Swart , See . 1914 . ‘The Rebels of’, ch. 6, for a closer look at this rhetoric and its ramifications
- Trapido , Marks , S. and Atmore , A. 1987 . Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa 359 London eds
- Bottomley . Public Policy 92
- Transvaal Archives Depot (hereafter TAD), KG 119, File CR 2404/1895
- 1914 . A contradiction explored in S. Swart, ‘“A Boer and his Gun and his Wife are Three Things Always Together”: Republican Masculinity and the Rebellion’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24, 4 (Dec. 1998)
- Bywoners could earn more money than their absentee landlords. It was only following the mineral revolutions and the increased need for arable produce that regular rent in the form of a share of the bywoner's crop and possibly his labour and that of his family: Keegan, Rural Transformations, 21. There is a distinction to be made between bewoners bywoners: the former were usually relatives of the landowner: Keegan, Rural Transformations, 227
- 1932 . This process was lent impetus by the war deaths of landowners: J.F.W. Grosskopf, Rural Impoverishment and Rural Exodus, Report of the Carnegie Commission, vol. 1 (Stellenbosch
- Swart , See . 1914 . ‘The Rebels of’, ch. 6, for a discussion of this development and its psychological and economic effects
- Trapido , S. 1978 . Landlord and Tenant in a Colonial Economy: The Transvaal 1880–1910 . Journal of Southern African Studies , 5 ( 1 ) See, (and Keegan, ‘The Restructuring of Agrarian Class Relations inaColonial Economy: The Orange River Colony, 1902–1910’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 5, 2 (1979)
- Morrell . White But Poor 33
- 1986 . Select Committee on the Rebellion 236 – 7 . Hertzog noted that rebellion was limited to ‘those six or seven districts in the north [of the Free State]’, SC 1–1915, 247. Bottomley has explained this phenomenon in economic terms in a thorough analysis, that nevertheless concentrates on economics to the neglect of other factors, like the same distribution for republican bittereinder positions at the end of the South African War, highlighted in ch. 3 of my thesis, ‘Republican Masculinity and the Modernising State’. This chapter draws heavily on Bottomley's analysis. The traditional view was recently reiterated in S.B. Spies, ‘Unity and Disunity, 1910–1924’, in T. Cameron and S.B. Spies, eds, An Illustrated History of South Africa (Johannesburg, Spies does not attempt to explain why the rebellion in the Free State was a northern phenomenon, although stating that it was so
- Eloff , C. C. 1981 . Oos-Vrystaatse Grensgordel: ‘n Streekshistoriese Voorstudie en Bronneverkenning Pretoria
- Grosskopf . Rural Impoverishment 66, quoted in Bottomley, Public Policy, 301
- This phenomenon has been hushed up both by Afrikaans writings which insist on the egalitarian nature of their society and English writers who saw boers as a homogeneous bloc.
- Only the larger, wealthy farmer had the resources with which to expand to the Witwatersrand and Kimberley markets
- 1911 . Between and 1921 each of the southern districts recorded a decrease of more than 10 per cent of their white population: Grosskopf, Rural Impoverishment, 65–7
- Grosskopf . Rural Impoverishment 66
- Union Government Report, UG 42–1916, p. 201, cited in Morrell, White But Poor, 36
- They were also perhaps more committed to Republican notions, with far fewer ‘protected burghers’ during the war. Vredefort, for example, had the smallest number in the Republic, only 9 per cent: Morrell, White But Poor, 37
- UG42–1916, p. 313
- UG 42–1916, p. 298
- UG 42–1916, p. 127
- Leipoldt , C. L. 1937 . Bushveld Doctor, 1880–1947 103 Braamfontein An ecological approach was advocated by Leipoldt in: ‘For no historian of the Transvaal can afford to neglect the influence of disease and climate upon the men who played a conspicuous part in shaping that history’: (1987
- 1914 . Land and Agricultural Bank Report, UG 20–1915, p. 177, cited in Morrell, White But Poor, 39
- 1914 . Leipoldt, a medical doctor who toured impoverished bushveld schools in, is a remarkable source on social and medical problems of the area at that exact time. Leipoldt found a similar thing when he presented his findings. He was accused of political bias: ‘As if one needed to be a Botha-man or a Nationalist… to detect malnutrition so glaringly apparent, feeble-mindedness so obvious, and physical deterioration so evident’ Leipoldt, Bushveld Doctor, 14
- Ibid, 94
- Ibid., 39
- Katzenellenbogen , E. and Foot , D. , eds. 1973 . War and Society London The advent of the First World War accelerated several nationalisms, particularly in southern Africa. In Nyasaland, for example, a Baptist minister led a rebellion. The ‘rising’ was a short-lived attempt by John Chilembwe to publicise black feelings—it later became a focal point of nationalism in central Africa. See, ed.
- 1914 . Annual Report of the Department of Justice 9 Pretoria See Union of South Africa, (UG 28–1915
- Snyman , A. 1995 . Siener van Rensburg: Boodskapper van God Mossel Bay The Siener had a powerful record of inspired guesses. It was maintained that he had foretold the capture of Methuen during the South African War, and foreseen the coming of the First World War. He believed strongly in a return to Republican rule, and his visions were interpreted as such a prophecy. The history and historiography of the Siener is a study in itself. Snyman attempts to give Van Rensburg a new relevancy, but errs on the side of exaggeration: (Grundlingh offers a medical explanation, epilepsy, and possible psychological factors for his condition and places his visions in their socioeconomic milieu: A. Grundlingh, ‘Probing the Prophet: The Psychology and Politics of the Siener van Rensburg Phenomenon’, South African Historical Journal, 34 (1996)
- Snyman . Siener 101
- Albert Grundlingh, personal communication
- Snyman . Siener 106. U.G. Report on the outbreak of the Rebellion. ‘Hy skyn ‘n onbegrensde invloed onder die boere in die distrik te he’. Rapport van Rechterlike Kommissie van Onderzoek, testimony of A.P. Visser, pp. 184–5. Magistrate Juta, of Lichtenburg, found his influence especially powerful among the ill-educated sector. UG 42–16, Juta, pp. 118–19. It is worth noting that the State clearly feared his influence. Van Rensburg was sentenced to 18 months and £50—although no witness could be found to testify whether he carried a gun. Clearly, the government feared his influence following the Rebellion, as Smuts placed him under farm arrest. Snyman records that for the following eight years, Van Rensburg could not even attend a church service without permission from a magistrate: Snyman, Siener, 102
- ‘Everyone must obey the State, because no government can exist without God's permission, and the existing authorities have been put there by God.’
- And who killed Jesus? The government.'
- 1915 . ‘[T]housands of Dutch South Africans living under constitutions of their own making were prepared to take up arms against a government composed almost exclusively of men of their own blood, leaders of their own party, placed in power by their own people.’ Dube all but paraphrases the Government Blue Book report on the Rebellion, Fouche's report: Blue Izwe la Kiti, 10 Mar. (Letter from ‘Anti-Rebellion’). See Hansard (1915), col. 41. Book, Dube
- Bottomley has completed a very thorough analysis of state policy towards poor whites: Bottomley, Public Policy and White Rural Poverty, 256
- 1907 . Ibid., 266. Some steps were taken, however, like the introduction of free, compulsory schooling for all white children in
- Jeeves , A. 1985 . Migrant Labour in South Africas Mining Economy 72 Johannesburg
- 1914 . Debates of the House of Assembly, 31 Mar., col. 1668
- Quoted in Bottomley, Public Policy and White Rural Poverty, 305
- 1925 . UG 14–1926, Economic and Wage Commission
- Keegan . Rural Transformations 28
- 1909 . Cape Archives Depot, Department of Lands, LDE 321/3650, ‘List of Applications for Indigent People’, Lichtenburg
- Willcocks , R. W. 1932 . The Poor White 107 Report of the Carnegie Commission, vol. 2
- Keegan . Rural Transformations 35
- Ross , E. 1993 . Love and Toil: Motherhood in Outcast London, 1870–1918 New York An illustrative parallel may be made with late nineteenth-century England, when the industrialization of traditional work-shop trades not only made earnings precarious, it also destroyed the father's ability to endow his son with a craft or a job and was resented because of it: see
- Leipoldt . Bushveld Doctor 17
- Volkseenheid was a teleological imposition, bom out of the need for political unity at specific times. Quite the opposite of this mystical unity existed: the group was historically prone to factionalism, divided on lines of class, region, province, ideology, and personal ambition
- Keegan . Rural Transformations 20
- Trapido . ‘Reflections on Land, Office and Wealth’, 359
- Trapido , Quoted in . ‘Reflections on Land, Office and Wealth’, 359
- Bottomley . Public Policy and White Rural Poverty 248
- Bottomley makes this point well in his analysis of public policy: ibid, 250
- Ibid., 250; L. Salomon, ‘Socio-Economic Aspects of South African History, 1870–1962’ (PhD thesis, Boston University, 1962), 107. The stereotypes persist today in jokes about ignorant, naive ‘Van der Merwe’
- 1908 . The Orange River Colony Minister of Public Works told the legislature in: “There is unfortunately a foolish pride to be met with which prevents parents from allowing their children to work”. See Keegan, Rural Transformations, 32
- Shell , R. 1989 . “The Family and Slavery at the Cape, 1680–1808’ ” . In The Angry Divide: Social and Economic History of the Western Cape Edited by: James , W. G. and Simons , M. 29 Cape Town in, eds, (Patriarchal refers to a family structure in which fathers control the lives and labour of family members, children, slaves, servants, and wives: J.E. Mason, ‘The Slaves and their Protectors: Reforming Reseistance in a Slave-Society, the Cape Colony, 1826–1834’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 19, 1 (1991). Robert Ross has shown with an etymological analysis that the terms ‘paternalism’ and ‘patriarchy’ both derive from Latin and Greek words for ‘father’, and are loaded with assumptions inherent to the terms: R. Ross, ‘Paternalism, Patriarchy and Afrikaans’, South African Historical Journal, 32 (1995)
- Crais , C. 1992 . White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre-Industrial South Africa: The Making of the Colonial Order in the Eastern Cape, 1770–1865 Cambridge See, for example, Shell, “The Family and Slavery at the Cape' and
- Cronje , G. and van der Heever , C. H. 1945 . Kultuur-geskiedenis van die Afrikaner 273 Cape Town
- This reverse of the usual pattern of black migrant labour may be explained by the sexual division of labour. Control over black women's labour within black societies by the bridewealth system meant male migrant labour could occur without the household collapsing and rural production carrying on much as before. The Boer traditional household was less flexible in the face of industrialisation. Female heads of families seldom stayed on in the rural areas. Young women would move to the towns on a permanent basis and send back a little money to their families: see Grosskopf, Rural Impoverishment, 214–29
- Salomon, ‘Socio-Economic Aspects’, 116, quoted in Bottomley, Public Policy and White Rural Poverty, 236.
- A ‘where-are?’ formula for lamenting the vanished past
- 1908 . Such a reclamation agenda was adopted by the Free State government: the Land Bank, established in, loaned money to the landless on the security of promissory notes signed by two landowners. As many as 884 loans were granted to poor whites by 1912 when the Union Land Bank was established. The Transvaal Land Bank was leary of cash loans without collateral, but did provide cattle and donkeys to those threatened by dispossession
- O'Connor . 1914 . The Rebellion 12. Many discouraged men must have remembered the old Republican days when they could received a gouvernements geweer on receipt of a certificate of poverty. While on campaign, burghers had been fed and clothed by the state, and their families received support. This nostalgia is discussed in Swart, “The Rebels of’, ch. 3, ‘A Conservative Revolution: Republican Masculinity and the Rebellion’
- Ticktin , D. 1969 . ‘The War Issue and the Collapse of the South African Labour Party 1914–15’ . South African Historical Journal , 1 : 60
- Ibid, 68
- South African Archives Bureau 600, Office of the Governor-General, 9/59/39
- 1915 . After the Rebellion, the Labour Party split. The one camp, under Mr Andrews, wanted to co-operate with Hertzog. ‘Britain Overseas’, The Morning Post, 5 Mar.
- Yudelman and Yudelman , D. 1983 . The Emergence of Modern South Africa: State, Capital, and the Incorporation of Organzed Labour on the South African GoldFields, 1902–1939 83 Westport (Bottomley goes so far as to suggest that one could view the strikes and the Rebellion as being merely ‘the town and countryside dimensions of the discontent caused by occupational insecurity and the growing poor white question’. This powerful but extreme analysis neglects other important factors in the Rebellion, like the alienation of former leaders from the state and the importance of the mythopoeic Republican aspirations. It does, however, serve to emphasise the importance of the politics of poverty. See Bottomley, Public Policy and White Rural Poverty, 296
- 1913 . The low-grade mine made little profit and in attempted to boost productivity by dividing skilled work into semi-skilled work for black men
- Cope , R. K. 1944 . Comrade Bill: The Life and Times of W.H. Andrews, Workers' Leader Cape Town (I.L. Walker and B. Weinbrein, 2000 Casualties: A History of the Trade Unions and the Labour Movement in the Union of South Africa (Johannesburg, 1961);and Yudelman, The Emergence of Modem South Africa, 100
South African Historical Journal
Volume 42, 2000 - Issue 1