Introduction^[1]

Recent studies by Welsh, Giliomee, and O'Meara have investigated the political economy of Afrikaner ethnic nationalism and political mobilization in its 'secondary' phase of growth, starting in the 1930s and leading to the establishment of apartheid after the victory of the Nationalist Party in the election of 1948.^[2] Yet far less is known of the economic and social bases of the political mobilization of Afrikaner ethnicity during the second half of the nineteenth century. Analyses of Afrikaner ethnic consciousness in this earlier period have generally been concerned with identifying its 'awakening' or its 'origin'. Particularly influential has been F.A. van Jaarsveld's study, The Awakening of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1868–1881, which concludes that it was British imperialist interventions, particularly the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 and the subsequent revolt of 1880–1881, which triggered a nationalist response amongst Afrikaners all over South Africa.^[3] Van Jaarsveld also argues that without this awakening, the Afrikaners in the Cape Colony would have been absorbed in the English stream and Dutch/Afrikaans would have disappeared as a local language.

This study will avoid both the 'awakening' and the 'origin' approaches in explaining the growth of Afrikaner nationalism up to 1915. As Ernest Gellner points out, the use of a concept such as 'awakening' comes close to accepting 'the nationalist ideologue's most misguided claim, namely that the "nations" are there, in the very nature of things, only waiting to be "awakened" (a favourite nationalist expression and image) from their regrettable slumber by the nationalist "awakener"'.^[4] There is also a problem with the concept of 'origin'. In a different context, Marc Bloch remarked that in popular usage an origin tends to be regarded as a complete explanation.^[5] In fact, there can never be a complete explanation as to why Afrikaner ethnic consciousness originated. At best, we can only begin to give a broad explanation of its slow and tortuous beginnings.

Both Van Jaarsveld and Rodney Davenport have stressed the cultural and political aspects of early manifestations of Afrikaner ethnic consciousness.^[6] This essay will attempt to further the analysis, situating the development of nineteenth century Afrikaner ethnic consciousness within a socio-economic context as well as within a political and cultural framework. It should be emphasized, however, that this discussion of the development of Afrikaner ethnic consciousness does not assume that it was the organic antecedent of the 'secondary' phase of

full-blown Afrikaner ethnic consciousness that was formed in the twentieth century.