THE UNIFICATION OF SOUTH AFRICA: A STUDT IN 
BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY 
Paul Knaplund 
By a treaty with the Netherlands of August 13, 1814, Britain ob¬ 
tained permanent possession of the Cape of Good Hoped At this 
time the white population of the new dependency consisted almost 
exclusively of descendants of the Dutch and of Huguenots brought 
there during the latter half of the seventeenth century by the 
Dutch East India Company. The settlements were small and cen¬ 
tered largely around Table Bay. Little effort had been made to 
trace the northern boundary of the colony. Few realized then the 
agricultural possibilities of the great veld of the interior and none 
suspected the existence there of fabulous treasures in gold and 
precious stones. The Cape was valued as a convenient half-way 
station on the road to India. Isolated, the colony enjoyed almost 
complete immunity from foreign attacks. No European power had 
possessions within a wide radius from it; and the nearest, the neg¬ 
lected Portuguese colony of Mozambique, belonged to a friendly 
and allied state. Britain had no rival on the sub-continent. 
During the last years of the Dutch occupation the Boers had 
been restive. Lessons of the American and of the French revolu¬ 
tions were not lost on a frontier community kept under the pater¬ 
nalistic management of a trading company. When Britain secured 
control, the political situation changed for the worse. The burgh¬ 
ers lost whatever share they formerly had possessed in their own 
administration, and for more than a decade the English governor 
ruled with all the power of an autocrat.^ Discontent with this 
regime soon manifested itself, and it grew in strength with the 
arrival of about 2,000 English settlers in the eastern provinces of 
the colony. The newcomers clamored for their rights as English¬ 
men and soon the imperial government, somewhat grudgingly, 
* For the text of this treaty see G. W. Eybers, Select Constitutional Documents Illus¬ 
trating South African History 1795—1910 (London, 1918), pp, 19—23., 
2 G. E. Cory, The Rise of South Africa (4 Vols., London, 1910- .... ), I, pp. '62, 63; 
II, pp. 240; 241. 
