Cape Colony

This article is about the British colony. For the original Dutch colony, see Dutch Cape Colony.

The Cape Colony (Dutch: Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, then became the Cape Province, which existed even after 1961, when South Africa had become a republic, albeit, temporarily outside the Commonwealth of Nations (1961–94).

Cape Colony Kaapkolonie (Dutch)
1806–1910
Flag (1876–1910) Coat of arms
Anthem: God Save the King (1795–1837; 1901–1910) God Save the Queen (1837–1901)
The Cape Colony in 1885 shown in red.
Status	Crown colony of the British Empire
Capital	Cape Town
Official languages	English Dutch
Common languages	Afrikaans, Khoekhoe, Xhosa also spoken
Ethnic groups (1904)	59.12% Black 24.05% White 16.39% Coloured 0.42% Asian
Religion	Dutch Reformed Church, Anglican, San religion
Government	Self-governing colony under Constitutional monarchy
King/Queen
• 1795–1820	George III
• 1820–1830	George IV
• 1830–1837	William IV
• 1837–1901	Victoria
• 1901–1910	Edward VII
Governor
• 1797–1798	George Macartney
• 1901–1910	Walter Hely-Hutchinson
Prime Minister
• 1872–1878	John Charles Molteno
• 1908–1910	John X. Merriman
Historical era	Imperialism
• Dutch colony	1803–1806
• Occupied	8 January 1806
• Anglo-Dutch treaty	1814
• Administration of Natal	1844
• Basutoland incorporated into the Cape Colony	3 November 1871
• Basutoland separated to form its own colony	2 February 1884
• Merged into Union of South Africa	31 May 1910
Area
1822	331,907 km2 (128,150 sq mi)
Population
• 1822	110,380
• 1865 census	496,381
• 1875 census	720,984
• 1891 census	1,527,224
• 1904 census	2,409,804
Currency	Pound sterling
Preceded by Succeeded by Dutch Cape Colony British Bechuanaland Republic of Swellendam Republic of Graaff-Reinet Islands of Refreshment Union of South Africa Basutoland Tristan da Cunha
Today part of	Namibia South Africa Lesotho

Map of the Cape of Good Hope in 1885 (blue). The areas of Griqualand West and Griqualand East were annexed to the Cape Colony around 1880.

The British colony was preceded by an earlier corporate colony that became an original Dutch colony of the same name, which was established in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The Cape was under VOC rule from 1652 to 1795 and under rule of the Napoleonic Batavia Republic from 1803 to 1806. The VOC lost the colony to Great Britain following the 1795 Battle of Muizenberg, but it was ceded to the Batavia Republic following the 1802 Treaty of Amiens. It was re-occupied by the British following the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806, and British possession affirmed with the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. The Cape of Good Hope then remained in the British Empire, becoming self-governing in 1872.

The colony was coextensive with the later Cape Province, stretching from the Atlantic coast inland and eastward along the southern coast, constituting about half of modern South Africa: the final eastern boundary, after several wars against the Xhosa, stood at the Fish River. In the north, the Orange River, natively known as the ǂNūǃarib (Black River) and subsequently called the Gariep River, served as the boundary for some time, although some land between the river and the southern boundary of Botswana was later added to it. From 1878, the colony also included the enclave of Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands, both in what is now Namibia.

It united with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa in 1910, and was accordingly renamed the Province of the Cape of Good Hope. South Africa became a sovereign state in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster. In 1961, it became the Republic of South Africa. Following the 1994 creation of the present-day South African provinces, the Cape Province was partitioned into the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, and Western Cape, with smaller parts in North West province.

History

VOC settlement

Main article: Dutch Cape Colony

An expedition of the VOC led by Jan van Riebeeck established a trading post and naval victualing station at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Van Riebeeck's objective was to secure a harbour of refuge for VOC ships during the long voyages between Europe and Asia. Within about three decades, the Cape had become home to a large community of vrijlieden, also known as vrijburgers ('free citizens'), former VOC employees who settled in the colonies overseas after completing their service contracts. Vrijburgers were mostly married citizens who undertook to spend at least twenty years farming the land within the fledgling colony's borders; in exchange they received tax exempt status and were loaned tools and seeds. Reflecting the multi-national nature of the early trading companies, the VOC granted vrijburger status to Dutch, Swiss, Scandinavian and German employees, among others. In 1688 they also sponsored the immigration of nearly two hundred French Huguenot refugees who had fled to the Netherlands upon the Edict of Fontainebleau. This so-called "Huguenot experiment" was deemed a failure by the colonial authorities a decade later, as many of the Huguenot arrivals had little experience with agriculture and had become a net burden on the colonial government. There was a degree of cultural assimilation due to Dutch cultural hegemony that included the almost universal adoption of the Dutch language.

Many of the colonists who settled directly on the frontier became increasingly independent and localised in their loyalties. Known as Boers, they migrated beyond the Cape Colony's initial borders and had soon penetrated almost a thousand kilometres inland. Some Boers even adopted a nomadic lifestyle permanently and were denoted as trekboers. The VOC colonial period had a number of bitter, genocidal conflicts between the colonists and the Khoe-speaking indigenes, followed by the Xhosa, both of which they perceived as unwanted competitors for prime farmland.

VOC traders imported thousands of slaves to the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch East Indies and other parts of Africa. By the end of the eighteenth century the Cape's population swelled to about 26,000 people of European descent and 30,000 slaves.

British conquest

Main article: Invasion of the Cape Colony (1795)

In 1795, France occupied the Seven Provinces of the Dutch Republic, the mother country of the Dutch United East India Company. This prompted Great Britain to occupy the Cape Colony in 1795 as a way to better control the seas in order to stop any potential French attempt to reach India. The British sent a fleet of nine warships which anchored at Simon's Town and, following the defeat of the VOC militia at the Battle of Muizenberg, took control of the territory. The United East India Company transferred its territories and claims to the Batavian Republic (the Revolutionary period Dutch state) in 1798, and went bankrupt in 1799. Improving relations between Britain and Napoleonic France, and its vassal state the Batavian Republic, led the British to hand the Cape of Good Hope over to the Batavian Republic in 1803, under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens.

In 1806, the Cape, now nominally controlled by the Batavian Republic, was occupied again by the British after their victory in the Battle of Blaauwberg. The temporary peace between the UK and Napoleonic France had crumbled into open hostilities, whilst Napoleon had been strengthening his influence on the Batavian Republic (which Napoleon would subsequently abolish and directly administer later the same year). The British, who set up a colony on 8 January 1806, hoped to keep Napoleon out of the Cape, and to control the Far East trade routes.

The Cape Colony at the time of British occupation was three months' sailing distance from London. The White colonial population was small, no more than 25,000 in all, scattered across a territory of 100,000 square miles. Most lived in Cape Town and the surrounding farming districts of the Boland, an area favoured with rich soils, a Mediterranean Climate and reliable rainfall. Cape Town had a population of 16,000 people. In 1814 the Dutch government formally ceded sovereignty over the Cape to the British, under the terms of the Convention of London.

British colonisation

The British started to settle the eastern border of the Cape Colony, with the arrival in Port Elizabeth of the 1820 Settlers. They also began to introduce the first rudimentary rights for the Cape's Black African population and, in 1834, abolished slavery; however, the government proved unable to rein in settler violence against the San, which continued largely unabated as it had during the Dutch period. The resentment that the Boers felt against this social change, as well as the imposition of English language and culture, caused them to trek inland en masse. This was known as the Great Trek, and the migrating Boers settled inland, eventually forming the Boer Republics.

Skirmish during the Xhosa Wars

British Immigration continued in the Cape, even as many of the Boers continued to trek inland, and the ending of the British East India Company's monopoly on trade led to economic growth.

At the same time, the long series of Xhosa Wars fought between the Xhosa people in the east and the government of the Cape Colony as well as Boer settlers finally died down when the Xhosa took part in a mass destruction of their own crops and cattle, in the belief that this would cause their ancestors to wake from the dead. The resulting famine crippled Xhosa country and ushered in a long period of stability on the border.

Peace and prosperity, in addition to the Convict crisis of 1849, led to a desire for political independence. In 1853, the Cape Colony became a British Crown colony with representative government. In 1854, the Cape of Good Hope elected its first parliament, on the basis of the multi-racial Cape Qualified Franchise. Cape residents qualified as voters based on a universal minimum level of property ownership, regardless of race.

Mossel Bay on the Indian Ocean, 1818

Table Bay, Cape Town, circa 1832

Executive power remaining completely in the authority of the British governor did not relieve tensions in the colony between its eastern and western sections.

Responsible government

In 1872, after a long political battle, the Cape of Good Hope achieved responsible government under its first Prime Minister, John Molteno. Henceforth, an elected Prime Minister and his cabinet had total responsibility for the affairs of the country. A period of strong economic growth and social development ensued, and the eastern-western division was largely laid to rest. The system of multi-racial franchise also began a slow and fragile growth in political inclusiveness, and ethnic tensions subsided. In 1877, the state expanded by annexing Griqualand West and Griqualand East – that is, the Mount Currie district (Kokstad). The emergence of two Boer mini-republics along the Missionary Road resulted in 1885 in the Warren Expedition, sent to annex the republics of Stellaland and Goshen (lands annexed to British Bechuanaland). Major-General Charles Warren annexed the land south of the Molopo River as the colony of British Bechuanaland and proclaimed a protectorate over the land lying to the North of the river. Vryburg, the capital of Stellaland, became capital of British Bechuanaland, while Mafeking (now Mahikeng), although situated south of the protectorate border, became the protectorate's administrative centre. The border between the protectorate and the colony ran along the Molopo and Nossob rivers. In 1895, British Bechuanaland became part of the Cape Colony.

However, the discovery of diamonds around Kimberley and gold in the Transvaal led to a return to instability, particularly because they fuelled the rise to power of the ambitious imperialist Cecil Rhodes. On becoming the Cape's Prime Minister in 1890, he instigated a rapid expansion of British influence into the hinterland. In particular, he sought to engineer the conquest of the Transvaal, and although his ill-fated Jameson Raid failed and brought down his government, it led to the Second Boer War and British conquest at the turn of the century. The politics of the colony consequently came to be increasingly dominated by tensions between the British colonists and the Boers. Rhodes also brought in the first formal restrictions on the political rights of the Cape of Good Hope's black African citizens.

The Cape of Good Hope remained nominally under British rule until the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, when it became the province of the Cape of Good Hope, better known as the Cape Province.

Governors

Main article: List of governors of British South African colonies § Cape Colony

Districts

Tallis Map of the Cape Colony, 1850.

The districts of the colony in 1850 were:

• Clanwilliam
• The Cape
• Stellenbosch
• Zwellendam
• Tulbagh/Worcester
• Beaufort
• George
• Uitenhague
• Albany
• Victoria
• Somerset
• Graaf Reynet
• Colesberg

Demographics

Population figures for the 1865, 1875, 1891 and 1904 censuses. Groups marked "nd" are Not Distinguished in the censuses for those years.

Population of the Cape Colony exclusive of military.

Year	Christian Males*	Christian Females*	Free Blacks Males	Free Blacks Females	Khoekhoe Males	Khoekhoe Females	Slaves Males	Slaves Females	Total
1807	13,624	11,990	529	605	8,496	8,935	18,990	10,313	73,482
1817	20,750	18,884	918	958	11,640	11,796	19,481	12,565	77,335
1823	25,487	23,212	891	1,098	15,336	15,213	19,786	13,412	116,205
1833	50,881	45,210	nd	nd	nd	nd	19,378	14,244	129,713

* Includes both free Coloured people and Whites

Settlement populations in 1833.

District areas	Free Males	Free Females	Male Slaves	Female Slaves	Total population
Cape Town	6,656	7,016	2,864	2,691	19,227
Cape District	4,193	3,489	2,735	1,523	11,940
Stellenbosch	3,929	3,653	5,492	3,063	16,137
Swellendam	6,125	5,717	1,596	1,428	14,866
George	2,976	2,669	1,130	1,100	7,875
Uitenhage	4,595	3,199	672	626	9,092
Albany	4,850	4,525	75	69	9,519
Somerset	5,340	4,649	76	680	10,745
Graaff-Reinet	6,397	4,613	1,505	944	13,459
Total	45,061	39,530	16,145	12,124	112,860

Census data: 1865-1904

Population group	1865 Census		1875 Census		1891 Census		1904 Census
	Number	Per cent (%)	Number	Per cent (%)	Number	Per cent (%)	Number	Per cent (%)
Black	nd	*	287,639	39.89	838,136	54.87	1,424,787	59.12
White	181,592	36.58	236,783	32.84	376,987	24.68	579,741	24.05
Coloured	nd	*	196,562	27.26	310,401	20.32	395,034	16.39
Asian	nd	*	nd	*	1,700	0.11	10,242	0.42
Total	496,381	100.00	720,984	100.00	1,527,224	100.00	2,409,804	100.00

See also

• Cape Colonial Forces
• Cape Government Railways
• Cape Qualified Franchise
• Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope

References

General and cited references

• Cana, Frank Richardson; Gibson, Walcot; Hillier, Alfred Peter (1911). "Cape Colony" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). pp. 225–248.
• Cape of Good Hope (1866). Census of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope. 1865. Cape Town: Soloman – via HathiTrust Digital Library.
• Malherbe, E.G. (1939). Official Year Book of the Union of South Africa and of Basutoland, Bechuanaland Protectorate, and Swaziland 1939. Vol. 20. Pretoria: Union of South Africa.
• Dugard, John (2006). International Law, A South African Perspective. Cape Town.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Evans, Charlotte (1993). "Italy". The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World: 40,000 B.C. to Present Day. Kingfisher Books. ISBN 978-1-85697-862-0.
• Farlam, Paul (2001). Palmer, Vernon (ed.). Mixed Jurisdictions Worldwide: The Third Legal Family. Cambridge: University Press. ISBN 0-521-78154-X.
• Greaves, Adrian (2013). The Tribe that Washed its Spears: The Zulus at War. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 978-1629145136.<
• Heese, J. A. (1971). Die Herkoms van die Afrikaner 1657 - 1867 [The Origin of the Afrikaaner 1657 - 1867] (in Afrikaans). Cape Town: A. A. Balkema. ISBN 978-1-920429-13-3.
• Hunt, John (2005). Campbell, Heather-Ann (ed.). Dutch South Africa: Early Settlers at the Cape, 1652-1708. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-1904744955.
• Keltie, John Scott; Epstein, M., eds. (1920). "Province of the Cape of Good Hope". The Statesman's Year Book: Statistical and Historical Annual of the States of the World for the Year 1920. London: MacMillan.
• Lambert, David (2009). The Protestant International and the Huguenot Migration to Virginia. New York: Peter Land Publishing, Incorporated. ISBN 978-1433107597.
• Lloyd, Trevor Owen (1997). The British Empire, 1558-1995. Oxford: University Press. ISBN 978-0198731337.
• Lucas, Gavin (2004). An Archaeology of Colonial Identity: Power and Material Culture in the Dwars Valley, South Africa. New York: Springer, Publishers. ISBN 978-0306485381.
• Mbenga, Bernard; Giliomee, Hermann (2007). New History of South Africa. Cape Town: Tafelburg, Publishers. ISBN 978-0624043591.
• Meredith, Martin (2007). Diamonds, Gold and War: The Making of South Africa. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-8614-5.
• Oakes, Dougie, ed. (1992). Illustrated History of South Africa. The Reader’s Digest Association South Africa. ISBN 0-947008-90-X.
• Parsons, Neil (1993). A New History of Southern Africa (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan.
• Parthesius, Robert (2010). Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters: The Development of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Shipping Network in Asia 1595–1660. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-9053565179.
• Hancock, W.K. (1962). Smuts: The sanguine years, 1870-1919. Cambridge: University Press.
• Stapleton, Timothy (2010). A Military History of South Africa: From the Dutch-Khoi Wars to the End of Apartheid. Santa Barbara: Praeger Security International. ISBN 978-0313365898.
• Ward, Kerry (2009). Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-88586-7.
• Wilmot, Alexander; Chase, John Centlivres (1869). History of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope: From Its Discovery to the Year 1819. J. C. Juta.
• Worden, Nigel (2010). Slavery in Dutch South Africa. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521152662.
• Ziegler, Philip (2008). Legacy: Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes Trust and Rhodes Scholarships. Yale: University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11835-3.

Further reading

• Beck, Roger B. (2000). The History of South Africa. Westport, CT: Greenwood. ISBN 0-313-30730-X
• Davenport, T. R. H., and Christopher Saunders (2000). South Africa: A Modern History, 5th ed. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-23376-0.
• Elbourne, Elizabeth (2002). Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2229-8
• Le Cordeur, Basil Alexander (1981). The War of the Axe, 1847: Correspondence between the governor of the Cape Colony, Sir Henry Pottinger, and the commander of the British forces at the Cape, Sire George Berkeley, and others. Brenthurst Press. ISBN 0-909079-14-5
• Mabin, Alan (1983). Recession and its aftermath: The Cape Colony in the eighteen eighties. University of the Witwatersrand, African Studies Institute.
• Ross, Robert, and David Anderson (1999). Status and Respectability in the Cape Colony, 1750–1870 : A Tragedy of Manners. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62122-4.
• Theal, George McCall (1970). History of the Boers in South Africa; Or, the Wanderings and Wars of the Emigrant Farmers from Their Leaving the Cape Colony to the Acknowledgment of Their Independence by Great Britain. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-8371-1661-9.
• Van Der Merwe, P.J., Roger B. Beck (1995). The Migrant Farmer in the History of the Cape Colony. Ohio University Press. ISBN 0-8214-1090-3
• Worden, Nigel; Van Heyningen, E.; Bickford-Smith, Vivian (1998). Cape Town: The Making of a City : an Illustrated Social History. David Philip. ISBN 978-0-86486-435-2.

External links

• Media related to Cape Colony at Wikimedia Commons