South African History [The British Colonial Era] - Part 2
In 1795 the British occupied the Cape as a strategic base against the French, controlling the sea route to the East. After a brief reversion to the Dutch in the course of the Napoleonic wars, it was retaken in 1806 and kept by Britain in the post-war settlement of territorial claims. The closed and regulated economic system of the Dutch period was swept away as the Cape Colony was integrated into the dynamic international trading empire of industrializing Britain. A crucial new element was evangelicalism, brought to the Cape by Protestant missionaries. The evangelicals believed in the liberating effect of 'free' labor and in the 'civilizing mission' of British imperialism. They were convinced that indigenous peoples could be fully assimilated into European Christian culture, once the shackles of oppression had been removed. The most important representative of the mission movement in South Africa was Dr. John Philip, who arrived as superintendent of the London Missionary Society in 1819. His campaign on behalf of the oppressed Khoisan coincided with a high point in official sympathy for philanthropic concerns. One result was Ordinance 50 of 1828, which guaranteed equal civil rights for 'people of co lour' within the colony and freed them from legal discrimination. At the same time, a powerful anti-slavery movement in Britain promoted a series of ameliorative measures, imposed on the colonies in the 1820s, and the proclamation of emancipation, which came into force in 1834. The slaves were subjected to a four-year period of 'apprenticeship' with their former owners on the grounds that they must be prepared for freedom, which came on 1 December 1838. Although slavery had become less profitable because of a depression in the wine industry, Cape slave-owners rallied to oppose emancipation. The compensation money, which the British treasury paid out to sweeten the pill, injected unprecedented liquidity into the stagnant local economy. This brought a spurt of company formation, such as banks and insurance companies, as well as a surge of investment in land and wool sheep in the drier regions of the colony in the late 1830s. Wool became a staple export on which the Cape economy depended for its further development in the middle decades of the century. For the ex-slaves, as for the Khoisan servants, the reality of freedom was very different from the promise. As the wage-based economy developed, they remained a dispossessed and exploited element in the population, with little opportunity to escape their servile lot. Increasingly, they were lumped together as the coloured people, a group which included the descendants of unions between indigenous and European peoples, and a substantial Muslim minority who became known as the 'Cape Malays' (misleadingly, as they mostly came from the Indonesian archipelago). The coloured people were discriminated against on account of their working-class status as well as their racial identity. Among the poor, especially in and around Cape Town, there continued to be a great deal of racial mixing and intermarriage throughout the 1800s. In 1820, several thousand British settlers, who were swept up by a scheme to relieve Britain of its unemployed, were placed in the eastern Cape frontier zone as a buffer against the Xhosa chiefdoms. The vision of a dense settlement of small farmers was, however, ill-conceived and many of the settlers became artisans and traders. The more successful became an entrepreneurial class of merchants, large-scale sheep farmers and speculators with an insatiable demand for land. Some became fierce warmongers, who pressed for the military dispossession of the chiefdoms. They coveted Xhosa land and welcomed the prospect of war involving large-scale military expenditure by the imperial authorities. The Xhosa engaged in raiding as a means of asserting their prior claims to the land. Racial paranoia became integral to white frontier politics. The result was that frontier warfare became endemic through much of the 19th century, during which Xhosa war leaders such as Chief Maqoma became heroic figures to their people. By the mid-1800s, British settlers of similar persuasion were to be found in Natal. They too called for imperial expansion in support of their land claims and trading enterprises. Meanwhile large numbers of the original colonists, the Boers, were greatly extending white settlement beyond the Cape's borders to the north in the movement that became known as the Great Trek in the mid-1830s. Alienated by British liberalism, and with their economic enterprise usurped by British settlers, several thousand Boers from the interior districts, accompanied by a number of Khoisan servants, began a series of migrations northwards. They moved to the Highveld and Natal, skirting the great concentrations of black farmers on the way by taking advantage of the areas disrupted during the mfecane. When the British, who were concerned about controlling the traffic through Port Natal (Durban), annexed the territory of Natal in 1843, those emigrant Boers who had hoped to settle there returned inland. The Voortrekkers (as they were later called) coalesced in two land-locked republics, the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State. There, the principles of racially exclusive citizenship were absolute, despite the trekkers' reliance on black labor. With limited coercive power, the Boer communities had to establish relations and develop alliances with some black chiefdoms, neutralizing those who obstructed their intrusion or who posed a threat to their security. Only after the mineral discoveries of the late 1800s did the balance of power swing decisively towards the colonists. The Boer republics then took on the trappings of real statehood and imposed their authority within the territorial borders that they had notionally claimed for themselves. The Colony of Natal, situated to the south of the mighty Zulu State, developed along very different lines from the original colony of settlement, the Cape. The size of the black population left no room for the assimilationist vision of race domination embraced in the Cape. Chiefdoms consisting mainly of refugee groups in the aftermath of the mfecane were persuaded to accept colonial protection in return for reserved land and the freedom to govern themselves in accordance with their own customs. These chiefdoms were established in the heart of an expanding colonial territory. Natal developed a system of political and legal dualism, whereby chiefly rule was entrenched and customary law was codified. Although exemptions from customary law could be granted to the educated products of the missions, in practice they were rare. Urban residence was strictly controlled and political rights outside the reserves were effectively limited to whites. Natal's system is widely regarded as having provided a model for the segregationism of the 20th century. Natal's economy was boosted by the development of sugar plantations in the subtropical coastal lowlands. Indian-indentured laborers were imported from 1860 to work the plantations, and many Indian traders and market gardeners followed. These Indians, who were segregated and discriminated against from the start, became a further important element in South Africa's population. It was in South Africa that Mohandas Gandhi refined from the mid-1890s the techniques of passive resistance, which he later effectively practised in India. Although Indians gradually moved into the Transvaal and elsewhere, they remain concentrated mainly in Natal. In 1853, the Cape Colony was granted a representative legislature in keeping with British policy, followed in 1872 by self-government. The franchise was formally non-racial but also based on income and property qualifications. The result was that Africans and coloured people formed a minority although in certain places a substantial one of voters. What became known as the 'liberal tradition' at the Cape depended on the fact that the great mass of Bantu-speaking farmers remained outside its colonial borders until late in the 19th century. Non-racialism could thus be embraced without posing a threat to white supremacy. Numbers of Africans within the Cape colony had had sufficient formal education or owned enough property to qualify for the franchise. Political alliances across racial lines were common in the eastern Cape constituencies. It is therefore not surprising that the eastern Cape became a seedbed of African nationalism, once the ideal and promise of inclusion in the common society was so starkly violated by later racial policies.
Other Trading System Articles
FOREX Trading Systems - Trading the Longer Term Trends for Bigger Profits How to Make BIG Profits with Currency Trading SystemsFOREX markets turn over trillions of dollars per day and are the world’s biggest investment medium.In recent years, FOREX trading systems using technical analysis to predict trend changes have become increasingly popular as a way of catching the big profitable trends.Catch ...The Evolution Of MP3 Players In today’s world MP3 players are the fastest and easiest way to listen to music, they are very light and are easy to carry around especially those who are on the go. However, MP3 players are substantially cheaper than CD players with advanced error-correction and anti-shock features. With so many options, it can be tough to know what MP3 players ...Online Stock Trading Among the many revolutionary changes brought about by the advent of the Internet is online stock trading. Once the exclusive preserve of the rich and the wealthy, the stock market has now become a place where even the common man can play a part. Investors today can use Internet client-server technology to trade stocks anywhere, anytime they lik ...Executing a Trade There are two basic ways to execute a trade, on the exchange floor or electronically. With the ever changing technological advancements in this day and age, there is a drive to move more trading to the networks and off the trading floors, however this is meeting with some resistance. Most markets trade stocks electronically.The New York ...Horse Racing Betting System - Designing a Simple System Putting together a system is not as difficult as it may sound, even for a beginner. The important thing, and with any betting, is that you write down every rule and follow it for at least 100 bets. You do not need to trade real money, paper trading is best at first. If after 100 bets it is in profit, you can then give it a betting bank and start ...Dubai Lifestyle - The History of the City and Day to Day Life in Dubai Background Information to the United Arab Emirates and Dubai: -Dubai is one of the seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE); it is located in the Middle East. The UAE borders the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf and is situated between Oman and Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates was formed in 1971 by the then ‘Truci ...The MLM Dilemma Does this sound familiar...?You have taken ALL of the company training, listened to the tapes, recorded phone calls and live conference calls, read all the company materials and tried the products. You bought some inventory, made business cards, set up the web site that the company provided for you.You have purchased leads, set up ...E-currency Trading - An Alternative to Futures & Forex Trading I find it amazing that nearly everyday I receive something online or offline that is the greatest break-through in Trading. You know the stuff. This ‘system´ or that ‘method´ has been thoroughly tested and back-tested in every conceivable fashion and is wildly successful. Some work for a period of time but most do not. The decades old statistica ...How To Construct A Professional Proposal A professionally prepared proposal is an essential part of the overall sales cycle and is often the only way some members of the customer’s decision making unit (DMU), find out about you, your company and your proposed solution. If you fail to adequately represent what you have to offer, all of that time invested in first locating the opportunit ...Discover The Hidden Online Trading Costs That No One Tells You About One of the most commonly asked questions that I receive is this, How much do I need to actually start my online trading business and make a full-time income from it?This is a good question, but there are more costs to starting trading than simply setting your online trading float. (By an online trading float, I mean the amount of capital ...Industrial Labor Versus Domestic Labor IntroductionWhen an economic treatise is composed, there is almost no doubt that it is one based on a system of free, or somewhat limited, trade. The reason for that is quite easy to understand. Economics is a siocological study: it seeks to grasp and understand the fluctuation and mechanics of the interaction between people of the same ...'Carbon Neutral' What Do You Mean? This new term which has lately been doing the rounds in environmental circles and also in the more general media, refers to carbon dioxide and how we can find ways to reduce or offset the amount of this global warming gas which we pump into our atmosphere.We are attempting to neutralize part of the carbon dioxide emission by increasing ca ...Day Trading the Emini - Training Ground For Big Contracts In 1997 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange created a new financial instrument known as the emini futures contract. It started off small but now is a fully mature market with excellent liquidity.Now in 2005, the emini futures contract is an investment vehicle of choice, for beginning and experienced futures traders the world ...E Currency Exchange: If Forest Gump was Here, This is What He Would be Doing So you want to learn currency exchange huh?You heard about it and now you decided you want to become the Donald Trump of investing, somehow you know you can pull this off and become the next big thing.Well it's quite possible to earn a very good living doing exchanges, but you have to know how the system works before you start seei ...E-currency Trading Program How to Make Money? You just heard about the E-currency Exchange Program. You hear about people making money with it. You wonder if you can make money with it. Is it too complex? Is it a scam? Could you double your income with it? Read on to find the answers.How soon before I can double my investment? Will I be able to get my money out? Can you really make m ...Finding The Best Forex Traders The forex trading market has become the biggest financial market in the world today and online currency trading is now one of the fastest growing investments. There are many ways to find information on forex trading and online currency trading but finding the best forex traders can be difficult if you don’t know where to look.With the gr ...Afraid of Pulling the Day Trading Trigger? Fear...implies anxiety and usually the loss of courage. This definition of fear is useful in helping define the issues that traders face when coping with fear.All traders have fear, but winning traders manage their fear while losers are controlled by it.Winners take positive action in spite of their fears.Fear of loss tends ...E-gold Invest: Make Money With Currency Trading Many people are already starting to pay attention to the newest online trend: E-gold investing.E-gold investing is a all about a system that allows you to profit from the money that is being traded everyday on the internet. What you're doing when you are trading e-gold (or e-currencies) is that you are providing the backup for internet mo ...Swing Trading Systems Swing trading systems capitalize on the oscillations experienced in the stock prices. In this style of trading, the returns on a stock can be gained in few days or within a week or two. Traders employing this style can leverage on the short term stock movements without fearing any stiff competition from the big players in the market. Swing tradi ...Horse Racing Betting, The Risk Free Way You may or may not of heard of all this talk about been a change to horse racing betting where you can bet on horse races risk free.Yes that’s right, Risk Free!Now this isn’t some bogus system that gives you one horse that is guaranteed to win, it isn’t even like normal gambling. It’s more like trading as you are betting on more th ...Why Choose Forex Trading Over Stocks Trading Forex trading holds significant differences to stocks trading. Understanding these differences will aid a trader in deciding the right market to enter. Forex trading itself has several advantages over stocks trading and is ideal for the beginner and individual small investors.1. Low Transaction Costs for Forex Trading. There are no h ...
| 