The Creation of the Boer Identity: The Truth about the Boer Heritge

by Wiets Buys

As Protestants, the Dutch were seeking to protect their rights, freedoms, and religious beliefs.

The States-General, the government of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, granted the VOC political and military powers in their mandate on 20 March 1602. The private company now had the powers of a state. It could establish colonies, appoint soldiers, and wage wars in the name of the government.[4]

vitamin C due to a lack of fresh vegetables and meat, claimed the lives of about a third of the crew per ship, with another third falling ill.[9]

To address the issue of scurvy during long sea voyages, the VOC decided to establish a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.

The VOC chose Jan van Riebeeck to establish the refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.

In 1652, the indigenous people of the land that is now South Africa, an estimated 100,000 Khoi-Khoi and 10,000 San lived throughout the land. To ensure a supply of fresh meat for passing fleets, the VOC decided not to raise cattle but instead to trade with the pastoral Khoi-Khoi. Van Riebeeck emphasised the importance of maintaining good relations with the Khoi-Khoi to secure the cattle trade.

Between 1652 and 1699, the Dutch exchanged 36,000 sheep and 16,000 cattle from the Khoi-Khoi for items such as beads, copper, tobacco, and alcohol.[16] These exchanges were highly unequal which devastated the Khoi-Khoi people. The cattle they bartered away were the core of their socioeconomic systems, and without them, their clan autonomy was destroyed.[17]

The Khoi-Khoi were unable to replenish their stocks of cattle and sheep, destroying their economy.

in 1779, the VOC decided to begin breeding cattle. Even still in March 1699, in a letter to Amsterdam, the Cape lamented the ongoing mutual wars and thefts that continued to impact the VOC's supplies.[19]

Van Riebeeck realized that the current production was inadequate to support the outpost and provide supplies for the fleet. They needed a significant increase in the production of grains and wheat.[21] He was also under pressure from his superiors at the VOC to reduce costs. To address this, he developed a strategy to increase production and cut costs by introducing a “Vryburger“(free citizen farmer) population in the Cape.

In February 1657, nine VOC employees were given “vrybriewe” (letters releasing them from the VOC's service and allowing them to start working as Vryburgers) and granted small plots of land in Rondebosch.[23]

The VOC transformed from the employer to, not only the government but also the only market. The Vryburgers had no political rights, and they were firmly under VOC jurisdiction. The Vryburgers would be caught in a mercantile system where the VOC utilised monopolies and manipulation to exert complete control over its subjects' lives.

During most of the eighteenth century, the Cape was a society that relied heavily on slave labour. The first slaves arrived in the Cape in 1658 from a captured Portuguese slave ship that was on its way from Angola to Brazil.[34] However, it was only at the beginning of the eighteenth century that slave imports became preferred over European immigrants. European servants called Knechts were employed, but the VOC soon preferred to import slaves to keep input costs low so they could get the produce at low prices from the farmers. The slaves came primarily from four main destinations: the Indonesian archipelago, India (and Ceylon), Madagascar (and Mauritius), and Mozambique through the Dutch network in the East Indies.[35] The indigenous inhabitants were never to be enslaved.

In 1706, the Heeren XVII revoked a decision made in 1700 to encourage European immigration to the Cape in favour of importing slaves.

The Vryburgers started to consider manual labour beneath them, leading to the widespread use of slave labour for both skilled and unskilled tasks. This reliance on slaves stunted the development of the Vryburgers.[40] Because of the high fertility of the Vryburgers, each generation more than replacing themselves, many as soon as they became adults had to get their own farms and raise cattle to sustain themselves. Many turned to subsistence cattle farming.[41]

Within the first fifty years of the existence of the refreshment outpost, a complex mixture of European, Asian, and African population groups was assembled in the Cape, and the consequence was the emergence of a new ethnicity.

Before 1800, nearly 15,000 men and women from German-speaking parts of Europe made their way to the Cape.[48] In total, three times more “vrybriewe” would be issued to Germans than to Dutch people.[49]

Vryburger population in the Cape in the late 1600s show remarkably similar results. The genetic analysis of the descendants of this new ethnicity, today referred to as Afrikaners, shows that 95.3% of its ancestry came from European populations, mostly coming from Dutch and German (61–and 71%), French (13–26%), with smaller fractions from other European groups.[58] Noticeable levels were shown from South Asians (1.7%), Khoe-San (1.3%), East Asians (0.9%), West/East Africans (0.8%), and Native Americans (0.1%).[59]

Despite being a British colony since 1806, genetic analysis supports genealogical records confirming that British individuals did not significantly contribute to the Boer or the Afrikaner population.[64]

The VOC's aggressive policy of assimilation succeeded because despite their best efforts to preserve their French identity and language, by 1780 the Huguenots were already fully assimilated into the Dutch-oriented community.[69]

When the French Huguenots arrived at the Cape, some of them came from wine-making regions in France and had expertise in both vine cultivation and the production of brandy and vinegar. Their knowledge and skills in winemaking brought changes to production methods which significantly increased production and led to economies of scale. Some wheat farms also applied these changes

In the eighteenth century, the Cape was one of the most prosperous regions in the world.[74]

Sumptuary laws were issued in 1755 to limit the number of possessions that an individual could own due to the excessive display of wealth by some inhabitants.[76]

Despite their Dutch influence, the Cape Dutch was therefore an African ethnicity and not European.

For the "surplus" Vryburgers – the young people, the poor, and the landless[88] – there were no other opportunities available. Many had to turn to subsistence cattle farming, pastoral farming, and hunting as their primary sources of income.[89] That, however, could not be done within the borders of the territory the VOC occupied at the time.

To survive, they had to take control of their own destiny instead of relying on the VOC. They could not survive within the confines of the VOC's territory and had to transform into true frontiersmen and make Africa their own. The shift to livestock farming was now irreversible. With their wagons, they trekked into the arid and dangerous interior with the sole purpose of surviving. They bartered cattle with the Khoi-Khoi, grazed their cattle and they hunted. This marked the beginning of the Trekboer era, laying the foundation for the Boer cultural identity. As De Kiewiet put it: "In the long quietude of the eighteenth century, the Boer race was formed."[90]

The early Boers, the Trekboers of the 1700s, were nomadic...

Boers practised individual ownership rather than communal ownership of resources.

family of up to three generations.[91] The family was of utmost importance. The condition of a man's family and family size was closely related to the number and condition of cattle or sheep he could own and control because the family was largely the labour force that had to manage and maintain the livestock. Pastoral people used kinship and alliances to ensure reproduction at the household level.

The Boers developed their own military organisation, the commando, which was strongly based on kinship structures inherited from household groups. The commando was the most important institution in the frontier region.[93]

Over time, the Trekboers began to see the loan farm system as a fundamental right and young Boers would leave their parents' homes to claim their own farms. The high birth rates among the Boers drastically expanded the boundaries of the Cape thanks to the loan farm system. As the Boers moved deeper into the interior, they increasingly identified themselves as independent people who belonged in Africa.[104]

The life of the Trekboers, who led a nomadic lifestyle in the interior, was very difficult.[106] The Trekboers moved as grazing became depleted, which limited the accumulation of capital to goods that could be transported by ox-wagon. When the Boers obtained suitable loan farms, however, they often inhabited them for the rest of their lives and formed stable communities.[107]

The Boer pioneers hunted every day for relaxation and for their food. Even the wealthy Boers hunted for their food to save their livestock for breeding. The Boers ate meat – mostly only meat - and drank water. They would treat themselves to milk on Sundays, which they exchanged with the Khoi-Khoi. The meat-based diet was very good for them, as they rarely fell ill.[113]

The San posed a serious threat to the Boers. The San's attacks were so intense that the Boers were almost forced to retreat to the Cape. North and eastward expansion was almost halted by the San's attacks. In the northwestern region, the trekboers encountered a series of conflicts with the San due to incidents of cattle theft by the San. After a few years, peace was eventually restored between the two groups, and the San behaved peacefully for a few years thereafter.[118]

Further expansion to the east was halted when they met up with the Xhosas who were engaged in their own migration to the south as well as by the VOC's desperate attempts to maintain peace.[128]

Over almost a century, due to the large distances and extremely different circumstances and experiences, the Boers in the eastern districts drifted away culturally from the Cape Afrikaners in the western Cape.

the two groups could not form a "spiritual bond" because they did not have contact, and the significant difference in development level that had arisen between the two groups worked against a sense of unity and the development of a common consciousness.[130]

the Cape Afrikaners, although they were twice as numerous, would never rise for their political freedom, while the Boers would, through extreme struggles and hardship, create their freedom in several Boer Republics in Natalia and the interior.

The story of the Trekboers is a success story. From an economic situation of depression and corrupt oppression by the VOC, they achieved much more than just survival in extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances. De Kiewiet compared the Trekboers' migration to the biblical Exodus, but with the difference that the migration of the Boers covered a much more extensive area and lasted much longer than 40 years.[138] The more the VOC government tried to prevent them from moving further, the more their numbers grew. While there was a net loss of people due to migration that was greater than immigration in that period,[139] their population, thanks to their high natural birthrate, rose from 1308 in the year 1700 to 14952 in 1795.[140] They expanded the territory of the Cape to 110 000 square miles to the Great Fish River in the Eastern Cape.[141] They overcame droughts, wild animals, hostility by the San, natural obstacles, great distances, and isolation with determination and resourcefulness. Most of all, this migration of almost a century had such a significant impact on the Trekboers that they developed a unique communal character known as the Boer cultural identity.

The Boers were left with two choices: abandon the fertile land of the Zuurveld or force the Xhosa back to “their country” by force. In early 1780, a strong, well-armed commando comprising 92 Boers and 40 Khoi-Khoi,[150] led by Adriaan van Jaarsveld, drove several Xhosa captains and their people across the government-proclaimed border and confiscated around 5,000 heads of livestock.[151] This event marked the end of the First Border War (1779-1781). The frontier would remain relatively peaceful for almost the next decade.

In the final year of the 143 years of VOC rule, the Boers revolted against the VOC to fight for their freedom and right to self-government.[170]

the British occupied the Cape in September 1795.[181]

The French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) was a series of wars fought between France and a coalition of European powers.[182] The British were initially neutral in this war, but they became involved in 1793 after France declared war on Britain. On 16 May 1795, the Netherlands surrendered and became a vassal state of France, with the name Batavian Republic. The British feared that France could seize the strategically important Cape, and to prevent that from happening, they occupied the Cape in 1795.[183] The Treaty of Amiens was a peace treaty signed in 1802 between France and Britain. The treaty ended the French Revolutionary Wars and restored the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch.

the Napoleonic Wars started on 18 May 1803. When Napoleon achieved significant successes in the war, in 1806, the British again became concerned that the French might occupy the Cape and use it as a base to attack British shipping in the Indian Ocean and again occupied the Cape. The Treaty of Paris was a peace treaty signed in 1814 between France and Britain.[185] The treaty ended the Napoleonic Wars and permanently ceded the Cape of Good Hope to the British.

The peace concluded in 1799 was merely a temporary cessation of hostilities in the conflict between the various population groups on the eastern frontier. It essentially resulted in the surrender of the Zuurveld, which was initially inhabited by Boers, to the Xhosa people.[237]

According to De Mist, the provision of more churches and better schools for the Boers was necessary to gradually develop the "savage Boers" who treated the "natives so inhumanly cruel" into well-disposed, civilized individuals.[249] To his credit, De Mist, as well as Janssens, made a tour through the eastern frontier regions to gain a better understanding of the Boers and the situation there. They found the region devastated. Hundreds of farms and homesteads were burnt down, and large numbers of livestock were plundered by the Xhosas. The Xhosas moved uncontrollably through large parts of the district.[250]

After initially being convinced of the Boers' cruel treatment of the indigenous people, both Janssens and De Mist now, after their border visits, stopped taking the accusations against the Boers seriously.[258] When De Mist later visited the Mission Station of the London Missionary Society at Bethelsdorp, he found the place "disordered" and "impoverished". All the trees have been cut down for firewood, and there is no shade on the bare ground. There is no sign that anyone is working, and the people are emaciated, covered with old rags or completely naked.

During the time of the second British occupation of the Cape in 1806, the Boers had already developed into an independent and self-sustaining cultural group. In their first century of development, they had learned how to protect and govern themselves. All they desired from a government was to be left in peace.[268]

The British wanted to anglicise the Boer population to establish political control and culturally assimilate them to promote social cohesion within the British Empire. The British government not only wanted to teach the Boers to speak English but also to make them better people, according to the British Colonial Office: "gradually superseding the Dutch Schoolmasters by Englishmen of a superior class, as affording both the best means of making the English language more general in the Colony & improving the manners & morals of the people."[269]

Governor Cradock declared the official end of the fourth Xhosa war on 7 March 1812. In just two months, Graham successfully led the removal of approximately 20,000 Xhosa intruders from the Zuurveld region. Colonel Graham’s exceptional military and organisational skills played a significant role in this achievement.[302]