Jameson Raid: The Failed British Coup in Transvaal
The Jameson Raid was an unofficial and failed attempt by the British to take over the Boer Republic of Transvaal in Southern Africa in December 1895. Masterminded by the millionaire imperialist Cecil Rhodes, the raid failed to gain support from the immigrant community within Transvaal and was easily quashed. Rhodes was discredited over the fiasco, and the heightened mutual suspicion between the British and Boers eventually led to the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).
Control of Southern Africa
Great Britain had established a colony in Southern Africa in 1806, the Cape Colony, which included the Cape of Good Hope, an important stopping point for ships sailing to and from Britain and its possessions in Asia, particularly British India. Another British colony was founded in 1843, Natal. The British had competition, not only from indigenous Africans but also from the Boers. The Boers were White settlers in Southern Africa who had Dutch or French ancestry. The name Boer means "farmer." They were also known as Afrikaners because they spoke Afrikaans. Through the 1830s, as the British outlawed slavery and population growth applied too much pressure to land and resources around the Cape, over 14,000 Boers migrated to find land elsewhere. From these new territories, two Boer republics were formed: Transvaal (founded in 1852) and the Orange Free State (founded in 1854).
Largely rural and with only a modest trade related to agriculture, Southern Africa's fortunes were transformed following the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley in Griqualand in 1867 and then by the remarkable discovery of massive gold deposits at Witwatersrand in Transvaal in 1886. In between these two discoveries, the British had been steadily expanding their control of the region. Griqualand, renamed West Griqualand by the British, was made a crown colony in 1871. A British army defeated the Zulu Kingdom in 1879, and Zululand became a crown colony in 1887. The British also acquired the Basutoland Protectorate (modern Lesotho) in 1884 and the Bechuanaland Protectorate (modern Botswana) in 1885. Swaziland and Pondoland were added to Britain's motley collection of Southern African states in 1893 and 1894, respectively.
The dream of British colonialists was to unite the various colonies into a single state of South Africa. The Boers, naturally, valued their independence and saw no reason to become another part of the British Empire. Indeed, they had already had a warning of this ambition between 1877 and 1881 when the British, on the excuse of attacks by African tribes, had temporarily taken over Transvaal. The rivalry for land and resources exploded into conflict again in the First Anglo-Boer War (1880-1). The Boers won this rather small-scale encounter, but a bigger and more decisive conflict now seemed only a matter of time. The men who sought to bring on this crisis sooner rather than later were the millionaire gold magnates.
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⇒ Jameson Raid: The Failed British Coup in Transvaal