STUDENT NAME St Lawrence University May 2 2011 A White Divide What was the AngloBoer War Fought from 18991902 the AngloBoer War was a conflict between Afrikaner Boer independence and British imperialism in the two Boer Republicsthe Transvaal and the Orange Free State ID: 721634
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A White Divide in a Black State: An Analysis of the Growing Afrikaner Nationalist Sentiment in Post Anglo-Boer War South Africa
STUDENT NAMESt. Lawrence UniversityMay 2, 2011
A White Divide?
What was the Anglo-Boer War?
Fought from 1899-1902, the Anglo-Boer War was a conflict between Afrikaner (Boer) independence and British imperialism in the two Boer Republics—the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
Postwar Afrikaner Nationalist Sentiment
Afrikaners (Boers)
British South Africans
Speak AfrikaansPredominantly rural Attachment to South Africa
Speak EnglishPredominantly urban Attachment to Britain
British War Tactics
Scorched Earth Policy
Concentration Camps
Due to the destruction of Afrikaner farms and homes from the scorched earth policy, the British put displaced women and children in concentration camps
The camps were characterized by starvation, disease and death
More than 26,000 Afrikaner women and children died in the camps—approximately 10% of the Afrikaner population
Note: Deaths were not because of a genocide carried out by the British, but rather from the poor conditions and neglect in the camps
The scorched earth policy involved the forced removal of Boer people from their farms or homes, which were then burned
Aimed to hinder Boer troops from getting food and information
Flag of the Transvaal
Flag of the Orange Free State
The postwar homelessness, immense death toll, and the horrific conditions in the camps created a collective personal and emotional injustice among Afrikaners towards the British
Literature about the war commemorated the dedicated Afrikaner fight against British war tactics, which helped spread Afrikaner nationalist sentiment
How is the Anglo-Boer War
Remembered Today?
Bok Van Blerk “De la Rey” Lyrics:
On a mountain in the night
we lie in the darkness and waitIn the mud and blood I lie cold, grain bag and rain cling to meAnd my house and my farmburned to ashes,so that they could catch usBut those flames and that fireburn now deep, deep within meChorus: De la Rey, De la ReyWill you come to lead the Boers?De la Rey, De la ReyGeneral, General, as one man we’ll fall in around youGeneral De la ReyAnd the Khakis that laugh, a handful of us against their whole great might,with the cliffs to our backs, they think it’s all overBut the heart of the Boer lies deeper and wider,that they’ll still discoverAt a gallop he comes, the Lion of the West TransvaalBecause my wife and my child are perishing in a concentration camp and the Khakis’ reprisal is poured over a nation that will rise up again/General De la ReyDe la Rey, De la ReyWill you come for the Boers?We are ready
South African history is dominated by racial struggles between black and white. However, the Anglo-Boer War reveals that there have also been major conflicts between the two distinct white populations in the country—the Afrikaners and the British South Africans. The war enhanced the notion of separate identities between the two communities. Despite a shared ‘whiteness’, Afrikaners and British South Africans clashed in language, culture and the respective levels of attachment to their native countries or South Africa. Furthermore, the brutal British tactics used during the South African War towards Afrikaners propelled Afrikaner identity into a nationalist sentiment.
In post-apartheid South Africa, the Anglo-Boer war is remembered and draw upon as a proud period in Afrikaner history. Similarly to postwar literature, music about the war has helped to generate a new sense of Afrikaner nationalism. In 2007, South African artist Bok Van Blerk produced a song about Afrikaner struggles in the war, proving the sustained significance the conflict has for the Afrikaner identity.
http://www.angloboers.co.uk/images/boerwar_map-755.gif
http://southafrica-for-dummies.com/image-files/apartheid_in_south_africa_concentration_camp.jpg
http://old-print.net/7871901/78719011370.jpg
http://streamsandforests.files.wordpress.com/de_boers_1899.jpg
Works Cited
Giliomee, Hermann.
The Afrikaners: Biography of a People.
Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press, 2003.
Groenewald, Yolandi. “The De la Rey Uprising.”
Mail & Guardian
, February 16, 2007.
http://mg.co.za/article/2007-02-16-the-de-la-rey-uprising (accessed April 15, 2011)
Grundlingh, Albert. “The Bitter Legacy of the Boer War.”
History Today
49, no. 11 (1999).
http://rpstlaw.stlawu.edu/ebsco-web/ehost/search (accessed February 25, 2011).
Lambert, John. “'An Unknown People': Reconstructing British South African Identity.”
Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History
37, no. 4. (2009). http://www.jstor.org/
(accessed February 18, 2011).
Stanley, Liz.
Mourning becomes… Post/memory, commemoration and the concentration
camps of the South African War.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006.
Flag images: http://en.wikipedia.org