C. W. de Kiewiet, the Imperial Factor, and South African 'Native Policy'

Literature › Works

R. L. Cope (1989). C. W. de Kiewiet, the Imperial Factor, and South African 'Native Policy'. Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3. Taylor & Francis.

Type	journal article
Scope	Wider apartheid literature
Method	archival narrative
Period studied	1870–1879
Regions	Natal, Cape Colony, Transvaal and Orange Free State, Jamaica (comparative)
Themes	origins segregation, labour markets wages, agriculture land, politics ideology elections, comparative theory
Citation key	cope1989

Argument

Cope criticises de Kiewiet's Imperial Factor (1937) and Macmillan's liberal view of the imperial factor as a philanthropic counterweight to settler rapacity. He argues that Carnarvon's confederation scheme and 'uniform native policy' of the 1870s aimed to strengthen white supremacy and secure free wage labour. Proletarianisation was inseparable from the 'civilised', capitalist dominion that British policymakers wanted. Cope supports this with the Jamaican post-emancipation experience and the hardening of racial attitudes, and with the private statements of Carnarvon, Froude, Wolseley and Fairfield. He concludes that the forces that created South Africa's black proletariat were as much imperial as local.

Evidence and method

Colonial Office files and confidential memoranda (CO 879 series, Fairfield memoranda), Carnarvon Papers (PRO 30/6 and British Library), correspondence of Froude and Wolseley, British Parliamentary Papers, Hansard debates, and secondary literature on Natal, Jamaica and Victorian racial attitudes. He also re-reads de Kiewiet's text itself against these sources.

Place in the debates

• Liberal (Macmillan/de Kiewiet) vs revisionist views of the imperial factor and native policy (see Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War). Sides with revisionists (Atmore and Marks, Etherington, Goodfellow). The imperial factor in the 1870s facilitated rather than restrained proletarianisation and white supremacy, although the earlier Glenelg-era liberal reading was valid for its own period.
• Strategic vs socio-economic (labour supply) explanations of Carnarvon's confederation policy (see Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War). Emphasises economic development, white security and labour supply as the fundamental purposes, and treats philanthropic statements as mollifying rhetoric.
• Relationship between 'civilisation', economic development and proletarianisation (see Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War). Holds that nineteenth-century development meant capitalist development and hence proletarianisation. De Kiewiet's regret at it while favouring development is called evasive.

Findings

• Central thesis: the proposed uniform native policy aimed at white supremacy and a supply of free wage labour, not African protection. (p. 2)

  Their words make it clear that the purpose of the proposed 'uniform native policy' was essentially to strengthen white supremacy and secure an adequate supply of free wage labour.

• De Kiewiet's wish for development without proletarianisation is incoherent. (p. 5)

  Economic development in the nineteenth century could only mean capitalist development, which necessarily implies proletarianisation.

• Settler and official talk of 'unoccupied' land meant land unoccupied by whites; black tenants were seen as a labour resource. (p. 5)

  When settlers and colonial officials attacked absentee landlords and the Shepstone system one knows exactly what they meant. By 'unoccupied' they meant unoccupied by whites.

• Cope sets out the logical chain linking Victorian 'civilisation' to free wage labour. (p. 7)

  The 'civilisation' of South Africa therefore required economic growth, which required capital accumulation, which required appropriation of surplus value, which, in an age when direct coercion was outlawed, required free labour, which in turn required proletarianisation.

• Carnarvon was driven by fear that the supply of labour was drying up, not by a desire to shield Africans from proletarianisation. (p. 8)

  far from wishing to 'stem the torrent that was rushing the native population into political helplessness and economic hopelessness', Carnarvon, as we shall see, was principally motivated by the fear that this 'torrent' was drying up.

• Jamaica's post-emancipation labour shortage and plantation decline is a parallel for Natal and shaped official attitudes. (p. 11)

  The white-controlled economy in Natal was stagnant and in danger of decline as a result of the kind of irregular and uncertain supply of labour that had crippled the Jamaican sugar plantations.

• Carnarvon sought a means of pressure on Africans short of overt servitude. (p. 17)

  clear of the reproach of a system of servitude, and yet shall put that moral screw on the native which is desirable for the safety and interest of all parties.

• Fairfield's confidential memorandum framed confederation primarily as self-protection of whites against native danger. (p. 18)

  with a view to lay the foundation of a sound system of self-protection against native danger, and to shift the burden of that protection on the right shoulders

• Fairfield praised Boer compulsion of labour as a model, differing only on whether the labour should be free wage labour. (p. 19)

  The Dutch make the Kafirs work; they do not allow them to squat and multiply in savage sloth. Undoubtedly a Kafir should be compelled, as the Dutch compel him, to work.

• The Carnarvon constitution gave Africans no central representation and was less liberal than the 1909 Union settlement. (p. 20)

  it is a remarkable fact that the constitution drawn up by white South Africans in 1909 was more liberal as regards the franchise than that drawn up by the Colonial Office under Carnarvon

• Conclusion: confederation was meant to back whites against blacks. (p. 21)

  Carnarvon's confederation policy was intended to support the whites against the blacks rather than to protect the blacks against the whites.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source	Kind	Period	How used
Colonial Office files, Public Record Office: CO 879 confidential print series (African/Natal nos 84, 86, 102, 108, 121, 168, 174 etc.) incl. Fairfield confidential memoranda (CO 879/9 nos 84, 86) and Conference on South African Affairs 1876 (CO 879/10 no 102)	state archives	1875-1879	Supplies Fairfield's memoranda, conference minutes and despatches to show the Colonial Office aimed at white supremacy and a labour supply.
Carnarvon Papers, Public Record Office (PRO 30/6) including Carnarvon-Wolseley, Carnarvon-Barkly, Carnarvon-Froude, Wolseley to Carnarvon letters	state archives	1874-1876	Private letters reveal Carnarvon's and Wolseley's real views on native policy, Natal insecurity and 'masters or servants'.
Carnarvon Papers, British Library, Add. Mss. 60798 (Froude to Carnarvon letters, 1874)	state archives	1874	Froude's private reports advocating direct rule, vagrancy laws, apprenticeship and praising Boer labour control.
Colonial Office file CO 179 (Natal) - CO 179/116 and CO 179/122 including Carnarvon's reply to Natal Land & Colonisation Company in The Standard cutting	state archives	1874-1876	Shows Colonial Office turning to Jamaican precedents and Carnarvon's statement on 'a black colony'.
CO 48/478 marginal comment on Cape Ministerial minute, 14 March 1876	state archives	1876	Shows Colonial Office puzzlement at Molteno ministry's suspicion of Froude's ideas.
British Parliamentary Papers (C. 1025, C. 1121, C. 1401-1, C. 1631, C. 459; 425 of 1837; 339 of 1836)	commission or official report	1836-1876	Official despatches and select committee report documenting Carnarvon's Natal instructions, Cape ministry's views and earlier philanthropic attitudes.
British Hansard, 3rd series (speeches of Carnarvon, 1875-1879; debates on South Africa)	parliamentary debates	1875-1879	Carnarvon's public statements on Natal control and confederation, and evidence of widespread comment that Africans were not dying out.
Select Documents on British Colonial Policy (Bell & Morrell eds.): Carnarvon minute of 7 Jan. 1859	secondary literature compilation	1859	Shows Carnarvon in 1859 rejecting Grey's argument that union would benefit natives.
Secondary works on Jamaica and the British West Indies (Burn, Hall, Eisner, Semmel, Curtin, Green incl. table p. 246)	secondary literature compilation	1830-1870	Source for the account of Jamaican post-emancipation decline and Morant Bay used as parallel to Natal.
C. W. de Kiewiet, The Imperial Factor in South Africa (London, 1937)	secondary literature compilation	1937 (covering 1870s)	Principal text under critique; its statements on Natal land, Shepstone and Carnarvon are quoted and assessed.
Contemporary periodicals and writings (Trollope in Fortnightly Review 1878; Robinson in Westminster Review 1870; Carlyle; Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute; The Standard)	newspapers periodicals	1849-1878	Quoted to show Victorians equated civilisation with wage labour and racial attitudes hardened.
Welsh, Roots of Segregation (Natal Legislative Council select committee speech, 1873)	secondary literature compilation	1873	Quoted settler statement that civilisation and Christianity are means to get labour.
Goodfellow, Great Britain and South African Confederation 1870-1881	secondary literature compilation	1870-1881	Used for evidence on Carnarvon's non-philanthropic aims and the 1876 conference resolution.

Inference

Quantification: None.

Historiographical critique by close reading of archival and printed statements of Carnarvon, Froude, Wolseley and Fairfield, set against de Kiewiet's text, plus a Jamaican comparison and theoretical argument about civilisation and proletarianisation; interpretation by selection of quotations.

Key claims

Claim	Basis	Strength
De Kiewiet's account of Natal land and the Shepstone system obscured that 'unoccupied' meant unoccupied by whites and that settlers wanted black tenants converted into labour. (p. 489)	De Kiewiet's text compared with CO 879/11 Bulwer despatch and settler/official statements.	Partial data
Carnarvon privately rejected the argument that a strong central government would treat Africans more justly and came to endorse it only later, so philanthropy was not his original motive for confederation. (p. 492)	Carnarvon's 1859 minute and 1874 letter to Barkly (Carnarvon Papers).	Partial data
Colonial Office perceptions of Natal were shaped by the Jamaican experience of post-emancipation labour shortage and plantation decline. (p. 496)	Secondary literature on Jamaica; Froude letters; CO files; Carnarvon's reply of 1876.	Illustrative or anecdotal
Froude and Wolseley, Carnarvon's chosen agents, urged direct control, disarmament, rents on squatters and forced or apprenticed labour on the Boer model to deal with an unproductive, growing black population. (p. 498)	Froude letters (BL Add. Mss. 60798); Wolseley despatch and letter (CO 879/8, PRO 30/6/38).	Partial data
Fairfield's confidential memorandum shows confederation was chiefly meant as self-protection against native danger and to make Africans work, praising Boer methods. (p. 502)	CO 879/9 nos 84 and 86, quoted at length.	Partial data
The imperial purpose of the uniform native policy was to strengthen white supremacy and secure free wage labour, rather than protect Africans; the imperial factor was as much responsible for the black proletariat as local forces. (p. 504)	Synthesis of Carnarvon, Froude, Wolseley, Fairfield statements, Hansard, and the absence of African representation in the draft constitution.	Partial data
By the 1870s Africans in South Africa were growing in numbers and not dying out, which turned colonial concern toward protecting whites and made philanthropy decline. (p. 497)	Wolseley's and Fairfield's population figures, Hansard references, periodicals and secondary works.	Illustrative or anecdotal

The author's caveats

The author concedes that interpretation is a matter of selection, that he cannot show Carnarvon consciously applying Jamaican lessons, and invites readers to judge whether the quoted statements deserve the prominence given. He notes the Jamaica sources are secondary and that the conference minutes do not specify who proposed the resolution.

Gaps in the evidence

The argument rests on a selective set of elite statements and does not test them against Colonial Office decisions, implementation in Natal, or labour-market data. Natal and Cape censuses, magistrates' reports, wage and labour-supply records, and Natal Legislative Council proceedings would show whether labour shortage was real and how policy shaped it. These sources existed then and survive in the archives. A systematic reading of the Carnarvon papers and CO files for counter-evidence of philanthropic motives would help.

Replicability: Data described but not public.