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1-191 Majuba Hill: Scene of Imperial Failure - III
Vol. 1- No. 191
1995
Lead: In 1881 Dutch-speaking white farmers won virtual independence from Britain for their small African republics by conducting a deadly guerrilla war. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: In 1877 Britain annexed the South African Republic. For two years, because of divisions within their ranks the Afrikaners, colonists of Dutch ancestry had been unable to re-assert their independence. In late 1880 under Paul Kruger they reestablished the South African Republic and called Afrikaners to war. Commandos quickly surrounded and cut off British army garrisons all over the country, which was also known as the Transvaal. The British placed in charge of their campaign General Sir George Colley. A brilliant eccentric, he composed poetry, played the flute, and was a splendid student of military science. His career would undoubtedly have ended with great honor except in this series of battles he proved himself totally inept and in the end died. At Laing's Neck, the pass leading into the Transvaal from the coastline, he sent his men across open ground straight into the deadly fire of dug-in Afrikaners and lost a third of his troops. At a ford over the Ingogo River his men were caught in the open by crossfire. Finally, in an attempt to get over the mountains on the night of February 26, 1881, he occupied Majuba Hill, which overlooked the Afrikaner positions, but then failed to secure his lines. The next morning the Dutch surprised the British, walked right to their lines, and nearly killed them all, including the general. The Battle of Majuba Hill was not one of history's greatest engagements but its result convinced the British government that further attempts to suppress Afrikaner independence would be very expensive in time, money, and lives. Later that year at the Convention of Pretoria the Afrikaners were given virtual independence save in matters of foreign policy. It would be two decades before Britain finally crushed Afrikaner independence in the long, bloody and costly Boer War. Ironically, neither the British nor the Dutch colonists cared much for aspirations of the native Africans who were the vast majority of the population. After independence came to a unified South Africa, Afrikaners dominated affairs and instituted the brutal and ugly policy of apartheid with which they suppressed the rights of black South Africans. Not until the 1990s did the majority achieve the rights the Afrikaners won for themselves at Majuba Hill. The producer of A Moment In Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources Fisher, John. Paul Kruger: His Life and Times. London: Secker and Warburg, 1974. Galbraith, John S. Reluctant Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963. Omer-Cooper, J.D. History of Southern Africa London: J. Currey Publishing House, 1987. Thompson, Leonard Monteath. A History of South Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Wilson, Monica Hunter. The Oxford History of South Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969-1971. Copyright 2006 by Broadcast Partners, LLC LAC020206
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