Afrikanerbond (party)
The Afrikanerbond ( Afrikaans , AB for short; Dutch Afrikanderbond ; German for example: "Afrikaanerbund") was a party founded in 1880 in the Cape Colony , the Orange Free State and in the Transvaal . She represented the Boers and formed a coalition in the Cape Colony with groups of English speakers. After the founding of the South African Union , she joined the South African Party in 1911 .
history
For a long time the Boers of the British Cape Colony remained without political representation. In 1875, Stephanus Jacobus du Toit founded the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (GRA, German: "Genossenchaft derreal Afrikaaner"), which turned against the British rule. In 1878 the Zuidafrikaanse Boeren Beschermings Vereeniging (ZBB, for example: "South African Association for the Protection of Farmers") was created, which was led by Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr and had a moderate program. In 1879 du Toit campaigned for an African bond for the first time in his newspaper Die Patriot . In 1880, after a partial renaming of the GRA, the first local branches of the AB in Hopetown and Petrusville . A period of competition between the two groups began, which also played a role in the later AB. The aim of the then AB was to unite Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal and Natal outside the British sphere of influence. While the former AB wanted to establish Afrikaans alongside English in schools, churches, parliament and authorities, the ZBB preferred the Dutch language . Unlike du Toit, Hofmeyr was also not averse to working with the British. The refusal of the British to return the annexed Transvaal to the Boers accelerated the merger of the two groups. Winning the First Boer War in 1881 also helped strengthen the party. In the Orange Free State, Carl Borckenhagen, who emigrated from Germany, was in charge of building the AB, together with the later President of the Orange Free State, Francis William Reitz . At first all supporters of the "Afrikander" - so called in Dutch - were accepted, for example Germans, but not British.
The unification of AB and ZBB, decided in 1881, dragged on for a long time because differences of opinion could not be resolved and the infrastructure was little developed. In March 1882 Hofmeyr in Graaff-Reinet was elected the future chairman in absentia. In September 1882 the program was discussed in Cradock . In October 1882 Hofmeyr first attended the Afrikanerbond Congress in Richmond . The statutes - in which the British were not mentioned as enemies - were passed in February 1883, and the unification congress began on May 24, 1883.
Before that, Hofmeyr had been a minister in the cabinet of Sir Thomas Charles Scanlen for a few months in 1881 , but was unable to enforce his wish to introduce the Dutch language. It was only after his resignation in 1882 that Dutch was recognized as the public language of the Cape Colony.
The now united Africans Bond won 1883/1884 12 of the 22 seats in the parliamentary elections in the Cape Colony Council and half of the seats in the Assembly . In 1886 the only supranational meeting of the AB took place in Bloemfontein, which, however , showed insurmountable contradictions between the Hofmeyr line and the representatives of the Boer republics .
In the Cape Colony the African bond appeared moderately and formed coalitions with groups close to the British Empire; for example, they supported the government of Cecil Rhodes . At times the AB had the majority in the parliament of the Cape Colony.
The AB remained in the role of "kingmaker", but was active in numerous political fields. In this way he achieved that the right to vote of non-whites was tied to higher hurdles than before. In Hofmeyr's opinion, blacks should be held powerless for good economic development. On the initiative of the AB, the Glen Gray Act was passed in 1894 , whereby the AB had tried unsuccessfully to gain further areas for Boer settlers. The AB turned against the expansionist efforts of the British Empire to protect the interests of Boer settlers. After the Jameson Raid in 1895, Hofmeyr resigned as party chairman and member of parliament in protest, but soon resumed the chairmanship and was also given back his parliamentary seat. During the Second Boer War , Hofmeyr was in Europe because of an illness. After his death in 1909 during negotiations in London, François Stephanus Malan took over the party leadership.
In 1911 - after the formation of the South African Union in the previous year - the AB merged with the South African Party of the former Cape Colony, Het Volk from Transvaal and Orangia Unie from the Orange Free State to form the South African Party , which provided the government until 1924, from 1918 to 1919 with Malan as acting prime minister.
Chairperson
- 1880–1882: Stephanus Jacobus du Toit
- 1882–1883:?
- 1883–1909: Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr
- 1909–1911: François Stephanus Malan
See also
- Afrikanerbond (cultural organization) , founded in 1994, without any organizational connection to the Afrikanerbond party
literature
- TRH Davenport: The Afrikaner Bond: the history of a South African political party, 1880-1911. Oxford University Press, New York City 1966.
Web links
- Portrait at sahistory.org.za (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h portrait at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on October 8, 2018
- ↑ William Basil Worsfold: Lord Milner's work in South Africa from its commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeiniging in 1902. Library of Alexandria, London 1906, reprint: ISBN 9781465557728 . Excerpts from books.google.de