The actual partition of South Africa and the rise of new imperialism 1795-1886

The actual partition of South Africa and the rise of new imperialism 1795-1886


South Africa was partitioned by the British and the Boers or the Dutch fanners. Of the two, the Dutch were the earlier arrivals, but in 1795 the British took over the Dutch colony at the Cape being of such strategic importance would be too big a risk to expose the occupation by a hostile power or else the control of the Indian Ocean might slip through British fingers.
Soon after this takeover, small groups of Dutch settlers began to move further into the hinterland in search of new pastures for their animals and new lands to settle.
The greatest exodus of the Boers, (the Great Trek), occurred is 1836, for different reasons to avoid British control. But the Boers had become British subjects since the latter takeover at the Cape, and the exodus put the British in a dilemma, since the government felt it had the obligation to extend its authority to all areas occupied by them.
There was also the fear that was left to their own devices; the Boers might cause a racial war in which the British might find themselves involved. Besides the Boers might seize an Indian Ocean port further north, thus undermining the British for colonizing the Cape.
Therefore powerful reasons existed for following the Boers northwards, but an equally powerful reason militated against over enthusiasm in pursuing an enlargement of colonial policy - the heavy expenses involved.
That was the basic reason for the adoption on the part of Britain of a policy that seemed to move backwards and forward with regard to annexation or no annexation of Boer states - Transvaal and Orange Free State, recognized by the British in 1852 and 1854 respectively.
In 1843, the British occupied Natal. This area had earlier in the 1830's been declared the Republic of Natalia (1838) by the Trek Boers. This later occupation was aimed at ctaimiog the Boer threat to the Port of Durban.
Once in control in Natal, the supposed policy of liberalism in the Cape was not militated - the British adopted a policy of rigid racial segregation, which the Boers had followed with regard to Africans.
This was prompted by the fear of Zulu power. The apartheid (separate development), policy was given shape by Theophilus Shepstone, the Natal secretary for Native Affairs from 1853-1875.
In 1840's mercantile-imperialism was replaced with imperialism of Free trade' which by 1880's led to capitalist - imperialism that revived colonial expansion.
Britain as the world's only mature industrial power since 1740's was beginning to export surplus capital to invest overseas. Other European nations and the USA were in the middle of their markets for their own industrial revolutions and were looking abroad for markets for their manufactured goods.
Capitalist countries challenged British dominance of Free trade, first by protecting themselves from cheaper British goods by high custom duties and secondly by expanding their protected national markets through conquering their neighbours or seizing overseas colonies.
Britain responded with its own aggressive nationalism during the Conservative Party Government of 1874-80. The very word imperialism entered the English language at that time.
Surplus capital - the profits from Britain's industrialization - was invested in overseas development projects such as railways and mining. These would expand the market for British consumption.
British capitalists began investing money in the Cape colony banks in the early 1960s speculating in the hope that local companies would follow it at high interest rates to expand wool production and interior trade.
So much money came in and moved from bank to bank in such of greater profit, without sufficient development projects to use it, that 28 of the 31 banks collapsed in bankruptcy during the Cape bank crisis 1863-65 when investor suddenly withdrew their deposits. Only the two London - based imperial banks and one Cape-based local bank survived.
There had been a depression in British world trade during the 1870's after the collapse of a boom in American railroad construction. But British capitalists noted that trade and profits did not decline in other colonies unlike the USA and some capitalists therefore began to think of colonizing Africa, which would remain profitable even during world trade depressions.
The discovery of gold and diamond made Southern Africa, the most attractive part of the continent for British investment. Gold and other precious metals were needed in increasing quantity for currency as world trade expanded, while diamonds were valued as indestructible reservoirs of wealth by individuals recently grown rich in Europe and America.
By 1880's Britain and Portugal were already established colonial powers by also claimed enormous hinterlands from their coastal colonies. The continent was then carved up between the European powers in what was called 'the scramble for Africa. '
In Southern Africa, settler capitalists and politicians pressed for the annexation of new colonies in the interior, while the colonial office in London favored the cheaper alternative of Treaty- States (or 'protectorates ').