LANDSCAPE, SOCIAL DARWINISM AND THE C U L m
ROOTS OF SOUTH AFRICAN RACIAL IDEOLOGY
Paul Rich
I n t h i s essay I s h a l l be seeking t o examine the development of white r a c i a l
ideology i n South Africa i n the context of changing imagery of landscape and
Social D a r w i n i s t notions of race fitness. The main period covered w i l l be from
the 1870s up t o the attainment of Union i n 1910, though other periods w i l l be
referred to. The discussion i s p a r t of a wider piece of research i n which I sin
working and the conclusions a r e necessarily tentative. (1)
The significance of "landscape" i n South African history has tended t o
be overlooked by most historians, unlike t h e i r American counterpmts, though i t
can be argued t h a t the symbolic associations derived from images of different s o r t s
of landscape on the South African t e r r a i n a r e a crucial component of the more
systematized s e t of r a c i a l ideologies developed i n the twentieth century accompanying
urbanization, industrialization and the r i s e of p o l i t i c a l nationalisms. Within the
more orthodox framework of "liberal" historiography, landscape tended t o be subsumed
within a wider, if somewhat s t a t i c notion of the "frontier". Thus, within this
view, landscape was a mere backdrop t o the more epic "racial" encounters between
African tribes, Boer trekkers and B r i t i s h colonial s e t t l e r s from which the raciaf.'
ideas i n South African history were seen t o accrue. I f landscape did have a role,
i t was more i n terms of i t s h i s t o r i c a l associations with this f r o n t i e r period
rather than a s a continuing and active cultural symbol during a period of
industrialization. I n essence, l i b e r a l historians drew a sharp distinction between
c i t y and countryside, with the l a t t e r being seen a s the t e r r a i n i n which r a c i a l
ideology was generated and a s the source f o r what w a s seen a s an anachronistic
pre-industrial hangover i n an otherwise modernizing society. This view reached i t s
apogee i n The Oxford History of South Africa and w a s sharply attacked by the neoM a r x i s t revisionist school f o r overlooking the structural determinants within the
urbanizing and i n d u s t r i a l context f o r the reformulation of r a c i a l ideology,
especially i n so f m as this could both sustain and reproduce c a p i t a l i s t relations
of production.
While the revisionist school, on the other hand, has been the source f o r
mch valuable social and urban history i n South Africa over the past decade, i t
too has overlooked the r o l e of landscape. I n contrast t o the l i b e r a l emphasis on
the f r o n t i e r , the revisionists i n many respects went t o the opposite extreme i n
emphasising the c e n t r a l i t y of both c a p i t a l i s t industrialization and urbanization.
As the physical landscape s t a r t e d t o be be remade on the basis of mine dumps,
compounds, shebeens, weal thy white suburbs and segregated townships, so, i t appeared,
did the actual s e t of ideological concepts forming the mental landscape of the
society. The revisionist work on the formulation of segregationist ideology i n the
l a t e nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, f o r instance, emphasized the
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conscious process of ideological reformulation taking place. Using the Gramscian
notion of ideological entrepreneurship, particular emphasis w a s placed on the
writings of the Milner kindergarten i n the Transvaal a f t e r the Anglo-Boer W a r and
such figures as Howaxd Pim, Lionel h t i s and F. W. Bell. (2) Much of this work
s t a r t e d out from the seminal paper of Harold Wolpe emphasizing the close interrelationship between the need by South African mining c a p i t a l f o r the
super-exploitation of African labour power, the subsistence base of the African
reserve economies which could permit t h i s on the basis of the migrant labour system,
and the ideology of segregation which underpinned the operation of the whole
~~
drove
system. (3) It was thus the ideological construction of " ~ e g r e g a t i o nwhich
the system onwards during the f i r s t half of the twentieth century, though, as the
subsistence base of the reserves declined, the need f o r increasing s t a t e
authoritarianism i n a s i t u a t i o n of growing class struggle necessitated the
reformulation i n t o the ideology of apartheid. The methodology of this approach
thus hinged considerably upon the c e n t r a l i t y of periods of rapid change and
p o l i t i c a l hiatus r a t h e r than the continuity of ideological images and symbols. A s
a sociological theory centred around notions of modes of production and t h e i r
respective articulation, i t w a s not i n essence an h i s t o r i c a l theory, and the
h i s t o r i c a l evidence has tended t o be used ex post facto t o rationalize the preexisting theoretical construct. Thus, i n grasping the notion of ideological change
and reformulation, the revisionists tended t o be drawn t o those ideological
entrepreneurs whose thought processes were most i n tune with the pace of change of
an economic system geared t o the i n t e r e s t s of mining capital. Belinda Bozzoli,
f o r example, i n a full-length study of the ideology of the South African r u l i n g
c l a s s between 1890 and 1933, looked i n particular at "mining ideologists" such as
compound managers,whom she s a w as successfully reformulating the pre-industrial
f r o n t i e r ideology t o suit t h e i r own p o l i t i c a l and economic purposes. Thus the
f r o n t i e r tended t o become reduced t o t h a t of a periphery which had no characteristics
except i n r e l a t i o n t o mining i n t e r e s t s .
...
i n discussions surrounding the problems of
proletarianisation, ideologists depicted the
periphery as a wholly and uniformly i n f e r i o r social
region. A t worst, i t was unalleviated savagery and
barbarism; at best, "primitive" laziness and peasant
stupidity. (4)
While there i s much t h a t i s important i n this analysis of mining ideology
during a c r i t i c a l phase of South African history, the approach i s marked by a
r i g i d instrumentalism. The Gramscian methodology of ideological entrepreneurship
overlooks the longevity that ideological symbols can have within a culture, while
the focus upon systematized i n t e l l e c t u a l constructs bypasses the point t h a t
history i s not a s e r i e s of fresh departures and i s not always being made anew. In
this case, the survival of the f r o n t i e r imagery i s not simply surviving i n the
depictions of mining ideologists simply through pragmatic convenience but because
i t provided a s e t of symbolic associations within the white s e t t l e r society which
were already s u f f i c i e n t l y embedded t o represent a key anchoring point i n any
discussion of "racesf1 o r "race differencesn. Indeed, t o t h i s extent the
significance of the f r o n t i e r concep-1; w a s i t s continuity with the pre-industrial
e r a rather than i t s transmogrification i n t o some new ideology. The search f o r a
"total" history of South African society therefore may well need t o depart from a
simple insistence on continuous ideological change,for, a s Fernand Braudel has
reminded us, "mental pameworks" can sometimes form "prisons" of what he has
termed the l o w e duree. (5) The important point about such an approach i s t h a t
i t starts from a f a r more i n t r i n s i c a l l y h i s t o r i c a l concept of the operation of
ideology: i n contrast t o an a p r i o r i theory of Gramscian ideological
entrepreneurship, there i s the recognition t h a t every society can be understood
from a number of different time scales. Time, a f t e r all, i s the essential
concept of h i s t o r i c a l investigation and i s frequently ill understood from a
sociological standpoint, where a particular period i s simply chosen to t r y and t e s t
some preconceived h i s t o r i c a l theory. I n South African society, therefore, the
mental landscape of the society can be understood h i s t o r i c a l l y a s the product of
a number of different time-spans, with t h e i r ultimate roots , as f a r a s the imagery
of race i s concerned, lying i n European views of race differences, though these
were continually fed and reinforced by the operation of the colonial. connection.
More particularly, these r a c i a l images were embedded i n a s e t of ideological
conceptions of landscape which contained t h e i r own independent source f o r
It was thus the sinking of
modernization, within a wider s e t t l e r self-image.
r a c i a l imagery within this wider nexus of landscape images t h a t accounted f o r the
c e n t r a l i t y of Itfrontier" concepts by the l a t e nineteenth century. I n many respects
they can be seen as shaping the formulation of mining ideology r a t h e r than the
other way round.
Racism and the Development of South African Landscape Imagery
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Despite the comparative virulence of much r a c i s t ideology i n South African history,
the actual operation of i t has t o be seen i n relationship to other ideological
forms. "Racism" p e r se i s an ideology rooted i n a view of society divided i n t o
separate r a c i a l castes and, a s a p o l i t i c a l tool f o r group mobilization, i s
comparatively weak i n comparison t o nationalism: it lacks, i n particular, the same
capacity to appeal t o h i s t o r i c a l tradition, and a s a "myth of the blood" i s thus
frequently combined with some variant of nationalism i n t o a "racial nationalism".
Only i n particular h i s t o r i c a l situations, such a s the Jim Crow South and Na5i
Germany, has llracismltp e r se been camied ideologically t o an almost pure form,
and even then i t has been linked t o myths of national regeneration. ( 6 )
Racist ideology i n pre-indus t r i a l South Africa, therefore, w a s frequently
linked with other forms of s e t t l e r self-imagery i n the absence of any significant
nationalist group appeal. I n the case of English s e t t l e r intrusion from t h e early
nineteenth century i t was thus common t o find images of race difference being
As i n the case of American s e t t l e r s on the
linked t o images of landscape.
f r o n t i e r i n the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the depiction of landscape
became a central anchoring point i n the re-establishment of a gmup i d e n t i t y a f t e r
the cultural shock of leaving t h e i r native land t o seek some new abode i n a foreign
place. Much of the imagery of the landscape i n t h i s s t a t e of cultural disorientation
reinforced many existing conceptions of "wilderness" which had held an important
place i n western thought since medieval times. Given the deep-rooted JudaeoChristian conception of "wilderness" as the embodiment of e v i l and as a form of
h e l l (7), the conception of i t helped t o emphasize the Protestant and self-defining
element within the English ( o r frequently ~ c o t t i s h )colonial enterprise, as i n the
Eastern Cape. Just a s the American s e t t l e r s drew on strong b i b l i c a l j u s t i f i c a t i o n
f o r s e t t l i n g the "wilderness" and establishing gardens and tending ground a s agents
of "civilization" ( 8 ) , so the English s e t t l e r s and missionaries sought a similar
Christian parallel. John Campbell, f o r example, on his t r a v e l s i n the Cape saw
that i t was "an a c t of highest philanthropy, and a most exalted display of the
power of Christian principles, f o r a missionary, from love of Jesus C h r i s t and the
souls of men, to leave European society,and r e t i r e t o t h i s gloomy wilderness,
merely t o do good t o i t s scattered and miserable inhabitants". (9) This exalted
conception of the s e l f , which perhaps might be taken as an example of "the imperial
self" (10), reinforced models of individualism derived from Robinson Crusoe and
the Protestant tradition within English l i t e r a t u r e , stemming from John Bunyan, of
counterpoising the individual with society.(ll) A t the same time, t h i s individual
model i s linked t o the idea of s e t t l i n g some p a r t s of the African "wilderness" which
most closely resemble the English pastoral ideal. On leaving Sondag Place on the
journey t o Bethelsdorp, f o r instance, Campbell notes t h a t "a chain of h i l l s runs on
each side of this long valley, which by planting trees, o r by cultivation, might be
made one of the most beautiful spots i n Africa: a t present i t i s a lonely
wilderness, having nothing t o relieve the wearied eye except the variously shaped
mountains". (12) Indeed, Campbell i s particularly impressed by those p a r t s of the
countryside t h a t most resemble "a nobleman's park i n Englandf', which he considered
a f i t place f o r a missionary settlement ( l ? ) , whilst a l l the time keeping a t the
back of h i s mind the wider concept of white settlement i n the country:
It f i l l s the mind with regret t o see so large and
beautiful a portion of God's earth so d e s t i t u t e of
population, and t o think of i t s producing, year
a f t e r year, provender sufficient t o support millions
of c a t t l e , w h i l s t only a few wild beasts roam over
it. (14)
of the country, f o r a form of
This, however, only applies t o
t e r r i t o r i a l separation has entered i n t o Campbell's imagery of the landscape. I n
"Caffreland", by contrast, "wildernessn i s seen a s holding sway: "Caffres" are seen
a s frequently "lurking among bushes", while they axe associated with t e r r a i n where
"elephants and other wild beasts abound". (15) T h i s pastoralized view of Africans
came to hold a dominant sww over the western imperial imagination toward Africa by
the middle of the nineteenth century. (16)
While the "wilderness" f o r Campbell reinforced a more traditional
conception of both f e a r and loathing, there were signs of the Romantic love of
wildness linked t o concepts of the "picturesque". (17) I n a harsh and d i f f i c u l t
terrain, though, t h i s more favourable view of wilderness would, as i n the American
case, be overridden by a more basic s e t t l e r concern t o eke out a l i v i n g i n a strange
and unfamiliar environment. (18) Thomas Pringle, f o r example, was influenced by the
Romantic upsurge i n early nineteenth-century England and was a friend of Walter Scott,
who helped m a n g e h i s passage with the s e t t l e r s to the Eastern Cape i n 1820.
Pringle, too, while being impressed by the "grandeur and the grace of nature" i n the
Knysna Lagoon, was also strongly aware of the "air of lonesomeness and dreary
wildness" of the place. (19) The harshness and "savage" nature of the t e r r a i n also
l e d Pringle t o liken the s e t t l e r s t o "Bunyanfs pilgrims" out of the Pilmimls Promess,
though the description of the "promised land" i n the Glen Lyndon location took on
some of the trappings of an Arcadia:
...
We found the valley s p i l l e d over
except a t the
extremities of i t s subsiding cleughs, with beautiful
clumps and groves of mimosa trees, interspersed
with open grassy pastures; while the r i v e r , a
gurgling mountain brook, meandered placidly through
the f e r t i l e meadows. Ever and anon, as we advanced
up the trackless vale, some of the wild a n i m a l s which
were then i t s only inhabitants came i n t o view, giving
animation t o the sequestered landscape. (20)
For the most part, though, travel accounts and missionary journals eschewed
the portrayal of the landscape i n South Africa i n the i d y l l i c terms of the Romantic
eulogisers of the American wilderness. There w a s also no l i t e r a r y equivalent of the
Emerson, Thoreau and Melville pursuit of the wild a s a means of withdrawal from an
urbanizing society, and it was not u n t i l the time of Olive Schreiner that there w a s
any serious depiction of landscape imagery a s a means of developing a national
identity. (21) However, the avoidance of the i d y l l i c did not necessarily imply t h a t
there w a s no development of the landscape image i n alliance with s e t t l e r economic
development, though this appears t o have undergone a c r i s i s i n the middle years of
the century. The original missionary and Protestant view exemplified by Campbell and
Pringle became progressively secularized by the 1840s with the growth of the woollen
industry i n the Cape and the expansion of white settlement. The s e r i e s of military
conflicts on the Eastern Cape border and the eventual expropriation of the Kat River
Settlement a f t e r the Coloured Rebellion of 1851 appear t o have led, f o r a period a t
l e a s t , t o a weakening of the pastoral underpinnings of the colonial r a c i a l ideology.
While this period needs considerable further h i s t o r i c a l analysis, the ideas and works
of the amateur geologist and poet George W i l l i a m Stow can be seen as r e f l e c t i n g a
lurch towards a much more formalized "scientific" racism i n the l a t e 1840s and the
1850s. A s Tony Voss has shown i n a recent study, Stow, a s a one-time farmer, merchant
and teacher i n the Cape Colony, can be located as a key opinion r e f l e c t o r i n the
Colony at the time. His pre-Daminian use of geology t o locate the African "race"
within a hierarchical "great chain of being" led h i m t o view race differences a s
a fashionable
anchored i n a polygenesis concept of separate r a c i a l origins
phenomenon i n mid-nineteenth century Europe. (22) Thus, while some of Stow' S poetry
portrayed an idealized rural l i f e , there w a s no specific South African location t o
this and h i s view of race differences i s f a r more noteworthy f o r h i s employment of
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ttscientifictfmetaphors derived from geology. I n a defence of the English s e t t l e r s
during the 8th Frontier W a r of 1850-53, this leads t o a virulent attack on the
ttamak6aa chiefst1:
...
Treacherous and f i e r c e
Ye love t o dabble i n the white man's blood
Because he checked your course; and stayed your mad career
Can Day and Night agree - the t i g e r and the doe?
Can seas and subterranean f i r e s conjoin
W i l l not volcanoes spout; and earthquakes shake the world?
And can the savage with the man, enlightened, dwell? (23)
-
The periodization of this t l c r i s i s l t i n mid-century Cape r a c i a l ideology i s
of special significance, given that i t has usually been seen as the time of the
entrenchment of the ttliberal" constitution of 1853. Stow's racism, though,possibly
reflected a more fundamental s e t t l e r ideological response t o mi1itaz-y and p o l i t i c a l
conflict, with both African c o d t i e s on the border and the Coloured population
within the colony. Exactly how this ideology developed by the l a s t quaster of the
century remains an intriguing question, but a number of general themes can at this
stage be pinpointed, suggesting a process of r e ~ a s t o r a l i z a t i o ni n t o an ideology of
race closely anchored i n a modernizationist view of landscape t h a t Leo Ikcx, i n a
seminal study of American landscape thought, has termed a "middle landscapeft.
Social D a m i n i s m and the Middle Landscape
Despite the c r i s i s i n Cape r a c i a l ideology i n the 1840s and 1850s, over the following
two decades a profound transformation occurred, accompanying a wider phase of western
technological intrusion i n t o the African continent. (24) The opening up of diamond
mining at Kimberley and gold mining i n the Eastern Transvaal i n the 1870s especially
l e d t o a new phase of linking machine imagery i n t o the wilderness landscape; at the
same time, the onset of Darwinian ideas enhanced the secularization of much of the
colonial conception of penetration i n t o the African t e r r a i n , t o the extent that it
was eventually t o r e a c t upon missionary ideas by the end of the century.
Thomas Baines, f o r example, as both explorer and artist of the South Africa
landscape, reflected the new technological intrusion i n the 1870s i n his report on
potential gold f i e l d s i n the Transvaal. I n the case of the Drakensberg, a romantic
and ethereal image of the t e r r a i n i s combined with a f i e r c e l y practical search f o r
suitable s i t e s f o r railway links:
The ridges of the Drakesberg, a l i v e and d i s t i n c t during
the morning, have been gradually changing from a misty
a e r i a l blue t o a deeper and deeper grey, and, as the sun
declined, shewed warmed l o c a l t i n t s , revealing the grassy
Right i n our path rose the rugged masses of
slopes
the Wakkerstroom hills, and i t seemed evident t h a t i f the
long
highlands we had traversed were ever t o be
u t i l i s e d as the continuation of the future colonial
railways, we had now reached, o r probably passed by a
few miles, the o i n t where the l i n e must diverge t o the
south-west. (257
...
...
A t the same time, this middle landscape image of linking wild t e r r a i n with
the technology of colonialism i s buttressed by a concern f o r the fostering of white
land settlement on climatically suitable upland areas, such as the watershed between
the Waterbbg and Zoutpansberg, where "the country can produce the f i n e s t quality of
corn i n abundance". (26)
i
The exact mode of white settlement on t h i s landscape remained a matter of
some controversy i n colonial thought throughout the 1880s and 1890s, following the
defeat of the B r i t i s h intrusion i n t o the Transvaal i n 1881. Baines had scorned the
BoersI "primitive attempts at the cultivation of the soilp1and t h e i r subsistence i n
"primeval and patriarchal plenty" (27), and this idea of Boer seventeenth century
backwardness long defined much English thought. Rider Haggard1S novel Jess, f o r
example, i s centred around the idea of attempting t o establish an e f f i c i e n t c l a s s of
English gentry i n the Transvaal and the ultimate f a i l u r e of t h i s a f t e r the B r i t i s h
defeat i n the f i r s t Boer w a r . Not all B r i t i s h t r a v e l l e r s shared this view, though,
and f o r 3. A. fioude, f o r example, the Boers represented a strong p a r a l l e l t o hardworking Scotch farmers of two hundred years ago and, despite t h e i r "hatred of the
English", were " c i v i l and hospitable t o Ehglish traditions and sportsmen". (28)
With the a d ~ e n tof goldmining on the Witwatersrand, however, newer forces favouring
commercialized agriculture came i n t o play and, a s Stanley Trapido has recently shown
i n the case of Lewist and Mark&?Vereeniging Estates, land companies could sustain
the r i s e of a new corporate gentry with shooting ri&ts given t o those i n the
companyIs favour. The culmination of this ideology of land settlement w a s the
Milnerite definition i n the wake of the Anglo-Boer W a r and the gentrified depiction
of the Transvaal veld given by the would-be South African l a i r d , John Buchan. Once
again, the conception of wilderness derived from Bunyan i s applied t o the landscape,
i n this case the "great pastoral uplands of Rustenburg" and the vista t o the f a r
north-west, which i s "not
a childvs conception of the landscape of Bunyan, a
road running s t r a i g h t through a mystical green country, with the h i l l t o p s of the
Delectable Mountains t o cheer the pilgrimt1. (30)
The significance of BuchanIs view of the Transvaal landscape, however, l a y
i n i t s strong particularization between the high veld areas which were seen a s
suitable f o r white land settlement and the low veld areas which he s a w as having a
'kurious savageryM. (31) I n his novel Prester John (l9l0), an African insurrection
i s seen as a w a r between the white "plateau" and the African "plainsr1, introducing a
strong s e t of symbolic associations t o underpin the emerging ideology of t e r r i t o r i a l
segregation i n the post-Union white s e t t l e r s t a t e i n South Africa. There w a s , though,
a probable imperial conception t o this, given the growing B r i t i s h f e a r of proletarian
upsurge i n the colonial empire which, i n the case of Australia, had seen a r i s i n g
colonial nationalism i n the 1890s, identifying strongly with images from the bush
i n t e r i o r . (32) Such proletarian nationalism was the f i r s t major challenge t o
B r i t i s h establishment hegemony, preceding by several decades the indigenous upsurge
i n Britain post-1945.
Thus, there were additional reasons f o r Buchan t o pour scorn
on the idea of eulogizing the bush veld i n the manner of the Australian poet, who
"sings of the bush i n the rococo accents of m e e t Street" (33), and t o seek t o
develop a gentry ideology a s a unifying force behind white s e t t l e r ideology i n South
Africa. A s Percy Fitzpatrickts story, Jock of the Bushveld, written a f t e r BuchanIs
departure from South Africa, indicates, this image did not t o t a l l y capture s e t t l e r
imagery i n South Africa, though the bushveld here i s seen strongly i n terms of a
romantic playground, w i t h games being played on the i t i n e r a n t Africans crossing from
Mozambique on t h e i r way t o the gold mines. (34)
The gentrified view of the South African landscape, however, can be seen
a s strongly shaping the white South African landscape image i n the years a f t e r Union.
More particularly, i t acted a s a crucial cultural symbol i n widening and popularizing
Social D a z w i n i s t ideas on varying capacities f o r race f i t n e s s , with different
t e r r i t o r i a l areas allocated f o r different r a c i a l groups according t o t h e i r perceived
relationship t o landscape and agriculture. Social D a r w i n i s m thus secularized the
e a r l i e r missionaxy view of the white Christian duty t o open up the wilderness. I n
the case of Dudley KiddI S The Essential Kaffir, Africans-were- suitably placed i n t h e i r
"natural1' condition i n t h e i r respective reserve areas, f o r , "as highly evolved
animals", t h e i r "nature i s well rooted i n red earth". (35) This s t a t i c conception
of Africans* pastoral l i f e , and t h e i r evolutionary unfitness f o r the w a y s of the c i t y ,
acted as a powerful ideological f i l l i p f o r urban segregationism and the S t a l l a r d i s t
precept, embodied i n the 1923 Natives (urban Areas) Act, t h a t Africans should be i n
c i t i e s only to minister t o white labour needs. Furthermore, from the early twentieth
century i t contributed t o some segregation by missionaries, whose own c i v i l i z i n g
impetus, from the nineteenth century, seemed increasingly attenuated i n the face of
industrialization and urbanization. ( 36)
Finally, the gentrified and particularistic view of landscape contributed
to the white segregationist attack on the liberal tradition of racial identity from
the nineteenth century. Olive Schreiner9s ThoupJnts on South Africa represented a
last, desperate plea for a unified view of South African landscape as a nationalistic
reaction to the perceived imperial rape of the land. Furthermore, Schreiner9santiDarwinism and feminism led her to genderize the landscape as a female cultural
resource opposed to a male-defined imperialism that oppressed both blacks and women.
SchreinerlS image of South Africa1S "certain colossal plenitude, a certain large
freedom in all its natural proportions" (37), represented a view of South African
landscape that became markedly eclipsed in the years after the first world war.
While in South Africa territorial segregation began to be institutionalized, on the
international plane feminism suffered a marked defeat with the onset of
Freudianism. (38) The new genre in literature was set by the pursuit of rural
gentility, as in Sarah Gertrude MillinfsMary Glenn, and it was not for several
decades and with the upsurge of newer writing in the wake of Nadine Gordimerfs
Conservationist (1974) that a reassessment of South African landscape began to take'
place.
Notes
The title of this is "Landscape, Literature and Racial Imagery in South Africat1.
See in particular the unpublished paper by Martin Legassick "The Making of
South African 'Native Policy1, 1903-1923: the origins of segregation1',
London, ICS (mimeo) , 1972.
Hmold Wolpe, "Capitalism and Cheap Labour Power in South Africa: from
Economy and Societg, XN, November 1972, pp 425-56.
segregation to apartheidvt,
Belinda Bozzoil, The Political Nature of a Ruling Class: capital and ideolow
in South Africa, 1890-1933 (London, 1981), p 54.
Fernand Braudel, On Hist o m ondo don, 1980), p 31.
For an important discussion on the rise of racism and nationalism in the first
half of the nineteenth century, see Michael D Biddiss, tlMythsof the Blood:
Ehropean racist ideology, 1850-194511,Patterns of Pre.fudice, VII, ~eptember/
October 1975, pp 11-19. See also Anthony D Smith, Nationalism in the Twentieth
Century (oxford, 1979), especially pp 87-103. For the view that Nazi racism
was an historical instance of a pure racist ideology carried to an unchecked
extreme through the control of the state apparatus by a group of "unchecked
desperadoes1',see Heinrich August Winkler, "German Society, Hitler and the
Illusion of Restoration, 1930-33" in George C Mosse (ed), International
Fascism: new theories and new approaches ondo don and Beverly Hills, 1979).
Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind ( ~ e wHaven and London, 1967),
PP 8-90
Ibid., pp 13-25; Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: the American West as symbol
and myth (cambridge, 1950); Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: technology
and the pastoral ideal in America ond don, 1964).
John Campbell, Travels in South Africa (cape Town, 1974) (I ed 1815), p 31.
Quentin Anderson, The Imperial Self: an essay in American literam and
cultural history (New York, 1971), has defined this term in the context of the
work of Einerson, Whitman and Henry James as one of "profound extrasocial
commitment: their imaginative work ignores, elides, or transforms history,
politics, heterosexuality, the hope for purposive change. They avoid or omit
any acknowledgement that our experience has stubborn and irreducible elements
which we cannot in a lifetime either alter or understand" (p viii)
Campbell, OP. cit , p 31.
.
.
Ibid., p
57.
Ibid., pp 100, 117.
Ibid., p 153.
Ibid., pp 103, 118.
See i n particular H Alan C Cairns, Prelude t o Imperialism:
t o Central African society, 1840-1890 (London, 1965).
B r i t i s h reacttons
Campbell, op. c i t . , p 122. Love of the llpicturesquell i n eighteenth century
England was an amplification of the mood of the Gothic poets and w a s often
ex-pressed i n the erection of sham ruins. See Kenneth Clark, The Gothic Revival
ca on don, 1962), p 67.
Nash, op. c i t
., pp 52-53,
61.
Thomas Pringle, Narrative of a Residence i n South Africa
ca on don, 1834), pp 123-4.
i n African Sketches
Ibid., p 154.
Man, op. c i t . , passim;
Nash, op. c i t . , p 67.
Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race i n Science: Great Britain, 1800-1960 ondo don,
1982) P 36.
Quoted i n A E VOSS, "The Hero of The Native Races: the making of a myth",
paper presented at the Conference on Literature and Society i n Southern Africa,
University of York, September 1981, p 6.
,
Daniel R Headrick, The Tools of Empire: technology and European imperialism
i n the nineteenth century (New York and Oxford, l981), p 205.
Thomas Baines, The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa
ondo don, 1877), p 115.
Ibid., p 91.
Ibid., p 106.
James Anthony Froude , Two Lectures on South Africa
o on don, 1900) , p 52.
Stanley Trapido, "Putting A Plough t o the Ground: a history of tenant
production on the Vereeniging Estates, 1896-1920". See below, pp
John Buchan, The African Colony ondo don, 1 9 0 3 ) ~p 83; see also Tim Couzens,
Old Africa of a Boy's Dream: towards interpreting Prester John", Africa
Perspective, No 13, Spring 1979.
Buchan, op. c i t . , p 88.
An idea suggested by Hugh Tinker i n "The B r i t i s h Diaspora" i n The Diaspora of
the British, Collected Seminar Papers No 31, University of London, I n s t i t u t e
of Commonwealth Studies (1982), p 3.
Buchan, op. c i t . , p 90.
There was also a wilderness c u l t spread i n South Africa by the time of the
f i r s t world w a r by authors l i k e W C Scully, based on desert travel narratives.
See, f o r example, the i n t e r e s t i n g Lodges i n the Wilderness ondo don, 1915).
This image of the desert a s a romantic r e t r e a t from a materialist urban
c i v i l i z a t i o n should be contrasted,though, with the image of the material
haxdship it implied, especially f o r poorer white s e t t l e r s such a s the Boers
seeking t o cross the Kalahari desert t o Namibia a f t e r the Boer War,in H e m
Bosmann's story "The Rooinek". "The particular b i t of Africa we lived i n is
just one waste of sands, sands and sands again", wrote one s e t t l e r , "with the
undiluted sunshine turned on full above them, seventeen hours out of twentyfour." ( ~ r o s b i eGarstin, The Sunshine S e t t l e r s ondo don, 19181. )
Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kaffir
o on don, 1904), p 62.
See, f o r example, Godfrey Callaway, Sketches of Kaffir Life ondo don, 1905),
PP 4, 101.
Olive Schreiner, Thoughts on South Africa ondo don, 1923), pp 49-50.
See the seminal paper by Flavia Alaya, "Victorian Science and the 'Genius1 of
Woman", Journal of the History of Ideas, XXXYIII, No 2, April-June 1977,
especially pp 279-80,
..
f o r this argument.