Madeleine Birchfield
Banned
Suppose that it was the British who set up in the Cape of Good Hope in 1647 instead of the Dutch. How would said colony evolve and what would be its relations with the various Khosian and Bantu peoples?
Consequences of an entirely British Cape Colony
- Thread starter Madeleine Birchfield
- Start date
Rankin Inlet
Banned
Probably a solidly white majority, since the whites would be British, and thus wouldn't trek away from British rule. You'd probably then see a "Dominion of the Cape" akin to Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, and the rest of South Africa would be another 95+ percent black African country, instead of a South Africa that is only 75% or so black with large white, Coloured, and south Asian minorities.
For what its worth, I also doubt that the Cape Coloured community would have formed. British men had fewer biracial children than other Europeans, and the biracial children of British men generally joined their mother's community, instead of creating a new community.
For example:
African-Americans are ~20% British genetically
New Zealand Maori are ~30% British genetically
Australian Aboriginals are ~35% British genetically
But they don't identify as biracial, "Anglo-African"/"Anglo-Maori"/"Anglo-Aboriginal", etc, even though they mostly speak English and are Protestant. Compare this to Latin America and Brazil, where part-Iberian people who speak Spanish or Portuguese and are Catholic mostly identify as "mestizo" or "pardo".
Yes, but all of those developments in racial categorization/identity post-date 1647 by several decades; hell, Great Britain wasn't a 'thing' until the Acts of Union in 1706-07. As it is, it's not like English/British colonies don't have groups that identify as multiracial in OTL (Exhibits A, B, C, D, E). Furthermore, if we look at the Dutch colonization of Indonesia, we see a similar per capita rate of intermarriage/child-production between Europeans and indigenous peoples as in English colonies while also developing a mixed-race population in South Africa.
Why would the English be any different, given their similar developments in raising an overseas colonial empire? There's nothing culturally inherent to the Dutch to swing towards or against interracialism any more than England, after all (and I'd argue the same for/against the Iberians, but that's another story...TLDR, culture matters less than logistics and pragmatism in settling colonies in the 16th-17th century, compared to the 18th-19th century, regardless of the country).
Well a better comparison would be with the 13 Atlantic seaboard colonies, not the later white dominions. In 1647-ish, the land grantees and settler populations of an English Cape could very well be people who settled one or more of the 13 colonies. We couldn't rule out a land grant to Scots either. So the Cape could be a Lord Baltimore colony, a Nova Scotia south, a Puritan colony, a New York, New Jersey, New Guernsey or Pennsylvania, or Carolina on the southern Cape of Africa.
Maybe English colonists who get ensconced in the Cape from the mid-1600s, comparable to so many of the American colonists, will be inclined toward independence by the end of the 18th century, or early 19th century?
The Dutch East India Company would need a new African colony to give up on the Cape. If they are able to successfully capture Angola or Mozambique in their war with the Portuguese, it would serve to lower their interest in Cape Colony.
This independent Anglo-South Africa would be a competitor with England for the trade of the east.
Unlike Australia or Canada, South Africa is between Britain and the Indian Ocean geographically.
Would SA's social position be better ttl? Like obviously all the dominions were kinda shitty on that front no matter how english they were, but weren't the territories with dutch influence (SA and AUS) worse than the american south for a while there?
Canada's also a lot closer to Britain than South Africa (although your Australia point still stands).
Personally I would imagine an entirely British Cape to extend into Orange Free State and Transvaal, by extension Botswana and Namibia as well. The Boers found the area empty after the Mfecane, so with more British hunger for land, the area is likely to be fully English speaking, leaving the native Bantu population in reservations.
Kimberley and Joburg are most likely to become major cities, Bloemfontein not so much, rather Welkom could be a metropolis in the Orange Free State
Kimberley and Joburg are most likely to become major cities, Bloemfontein not so much, rather Welkom could be a metropolis in the Orange Free State
The point was why an independent Anglo-state in the Cape would be competitor for the Indian Ocean and Far East trades more than one in Canada or Australia. That's because the Cape is between Western Europe on the one hand, and the Persian Gulf, India, and China on the other. An independent Anglo-state on the Cape can trade with the east, but also trade with multiple Atlantic European states to the west, not just Britain.
Canada is Atlantic like Britain, but a smaller market, more rural, less economically diverse, and further from other European trading partners. Australia is closer to the East Indies and Chinese trading partners but much, much further from other European trading partners, while also being a smaller market, more rural and less economically diverse than Britain.