the Post-war reconstruction- the period after the Second Anglo-Boer war 1902-1910

The Post-war reconstruction- the period after the Second Anglo-Boer war 1902-1910

The reconstruction of Transvaal after the South African war began immediately in 1902.

Many departments were organized well like finance, mines as a Commission of Inquiry was set up to scrutinize mining concessions granted to companies by former President Paul Kruger.

A Supreme Court with a full Chief Justice was also set up.

Johannesburg became a Town Council, as mining continued, although the Utilanders had returned in Transvaal to resume the mining; they had the problem of labour shortages.

Attempts at Union of the two white states were revived. This was enforced in the scheme of land reform and attempts to introduce extensive commercial agriculture with irrigation farming under sir William Willcocks. By the signing of the peace treaty at Vereeniging, the Transvaal Republic economy was not so much in hooks and was competing with that in the British colonies in South Africa.

In June 1902, Sir. Alfred Milner became the Governor of the Transvaal.

He made a number of reforms like the governance of the state as a Crown Colony under the British with an elected executive council, set up schools with over 32.000 Boer children going to school.

In January 1903, Joseph Chamberlain visited South Africa and promised loans, aids and other concessions to the mining companies by the British government in London.

More loans were also given out different ~th want had been promised in the 1902 Vereeniging treaty for the reconstruction of Transvaal and Orange Free State.

Milner also tried to solve the problem of lack of laborers on the Rand Gold mines by importing foreigners to do the same. In 1905, the Boer states were prepared for self rule by the Lyttelton Commission. In away it also ended the work of Sir. Alfred Milner.

By April 1905 Lord Selboume replaced Sir. Alfred Milner as the British High Commissioner and Governor of the two Boer states-Transvaal and Orange Free State.

By December 1906, the Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Sir. Henry Campbell-Bannerman replaced proposals by the Lyttlelton Commission.

The liberals were in favor of freedom, independence and opportunities to all British controlled Afrikaaners.

The liberals granted self- government under British control in Transvaal. This led to the election of the Her Yolk Party under hard line Boers in the House of Assembly.

The Boer former war Generals Louis Bortha and Jan Christian Smuts became the first Prime Minister and colonial secretary respectively.

By November 1907, the Orangie Unie Party in the Orange Free State (Orange River Colony) won elections forming a House of Assembly.

The former Boer war Generals of the South Africa war 1899-1902. Mr. Abraham Fischer. Generals Hertzog and Christian De wets become leaders of the government.

Self government in the Boer states was a step to finalize the Unification of the white colonies in South Africa under one government.

The Utilanders in the Transvaal. though a majority of the voters. had been spit along class lines of labor versus capital. hile the Afrikaner vote had been united along national lines and therefore took the balance of power.

The Afrikaner parliamentary triumph was completed in 1908 when James was forced to resign as Premier of the cape colony. He was replaced by John X. Merriman with the support of the Capes' Afrikaaner Bond.

The only Colony south of the Limpopo River remaining under English white settler control Natal was discredited by its handling of the Bambatta Zulu rising of 1906.

Significance of the Africans in the Anglo-Boer wars

As noted earlier, the British claimed that they were fighting the Boars who were oppressing and exploiting the Africans. Therefore they claimed that they were protecting the rights of the Africans in Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

These wars have been described as purely a White man's affair. The fighters were purely whites though in Africa. The Africans did not participate directly but indirectly. Those Africans who had acquired arms and wanted to join were not allowed.

The role of the Africans in these wars was that the British used over 50,000 Africans as Wagoner's, cattlemen, scouts, messengers, guards, personal servants and general laborers and the Boer armies used them in similar roles.

African peasants produced most or the food eaten by the white armies. African lands in battle zones were laid waste. But those areas outside the battle zones, when not crowded with refugees, even prospered from high crop prices and labour wages during the war.

Africans were truck drivers, cooks, drug distributors, -acting as guide s and as servants and or weapon bearer.

In the 1899-1902 Second Anglo-Boer war, African allies to the British were used at the battle of Deer -deport, on the Bechuanaland - Transvaal border in November 1899.

In reality, Africans were not allowed into active fighting for fear that they could turn around and fight the exhausted Boers and the British. In fact the Xhosa, Zulu and the Tswana had offered to join the war but were turned down.

Africans never took part in actual fighting. In fact both the Boers and the British avoided African participation in these wars lest they acquired arms to dislodge their stay in the area.

After the wars, Africans were disarmed.

After the wars, Africans were never compensated instead their land war alienated.

The primary cause of the wars was Boer-British imperialism as the Boers fought the war to safeguard their hard von independence which increased enmity.

After the wars, African land was alienated and were pushed to reserve camps.

After the wars, Africans were to provide free and cheap labor on the Anglo-Boer enterprises such as farms, mines, roads and railway construction, among others.

Thus largely, Africans were not significant in the Anglo-Boer wars. Judging from the causes, course and effects of these was, they were primarily a white man's affair and not African