Uitlanders
Michael Enright, IB Diploma 2005
The Uitlanders were foreign miners, usually from Britain or the United States who came to South Africa to work mines on the Rand; However, a more general definition of an Uitlander is “a term used to describe foreigners and non-citizen settlers in the Orange Free State in South Africa who accounted for around three quaters of the white population of the Orange Free State but who did not have voting rights and were taxed highly. Their plight was used to justify the Jameson Raid and Second Boer War.”
How the Uitlanders Came to Populate South Africa:
In 1814 Great Britain acquired the Cape of Good Hope, this acquisition was followed subsequent acquisitions and by the late 19th century, Britain held Natal, Basutoland, Swaziland, Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, and other Bantu lands. In 1886, Gold was discovered in the Transvaal and this brought an influx of prospectors who were usually from Britain or the United Sates. These immigrants became known as the uitlanders.
The Problem With The Uitlanders:
As the uitlander population grew, anti-British sentiment grew and the Boers became discontent with what they felt was infringement on their personal space etc. Sentiments grew to such a far reaching extent that voting rights were limited to only those who had lived in the area for at least seven years; however, this was not entirely bad as if the franchise were extended to all, it was very likely that mine operators would gain the ability to manipulate their mine employees for their own gain of political power.
Needless to say, mine operators such as Cecil Rhodes did not like this disentrancement at all, in fact in a very extreme case “In December 1895, Cecil Rhodes took matters a step further by sending 500 armed men, employees of his British South Africa Company, into the South African Republic under the leadership of Dr. Leander Starr Jameson. Rhodes hoped that the uitlanders would rise and join the invaders to help overthrow Kruger's government...”
The Start Of The Boer War (Also Known As The South African War):
Tensions escalated and Rhodes, with the British government continued to protest against Kruger and his government, which still did not allow the uitlanders to vote. Rhodes and his peers claimed that in Kruger’s government, corruption ran rampant, taxes were unreasonably high, and that black labor was far too expensive (supposedly because of favoritism by the government regarding the labor needs of Afrikaner farmers.) The British also argued that because they were not allowed to right to vote, they were being treated as second-class citizens. This was used as justification for British Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, in 1899 to issue an ultimatum to Kruger and his government. The ultimatum demanded that Kruger grant franchise (the right to vote) to all British subjects who resided in South Africa.
By this time, Kruger was certain that the British wanted war so he allied with the Orange Free State and they declared war on Britain in October of 1899. At the same time, Chamberlain had ordered for troops to be sent to South Africa.