Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T09:42:12.600Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Herrenvolk’ Democracy and Egalitarianism in South Africa and the U.S. South

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Kenneth P. Vickery
Kenneth P. Vickery
Affiliation:
Yale University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Even a casual survey of recent history reveals that a society's devotion to democratic or egalitarian principles hardly rules out blatant racial oppression. Indeed, the two positions have often been deemed compatible. The democratic ideology professed by Europeans (or those of European descent settled elsewhere) has been drawn from the egalitarian thought of the Enlightenment. As Louis Hartz has indicated, Enlightenment thought on this matter can be interpreted either inclusively or exclusively—equality can be granted to all men, or only to certain categories of men. The seeming paradox of egalitarian rhetoric combined with obvious inequities is often resolved through defining members of some groups as outsiders—not a part of the ‘Herrenvolk’ or the ‘people’—or even as subhuman.

Type
Racism in Two Political Cultures
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , June 1974 , pp. 309 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1974

References

1 Hartz, Louis, ‘A Theory of the Development of the New Societies’, in Hartz, , ed., The Founding of New Societies (New York, 1964), Chap. 1.Google Scholar

2 Berghe, Pierre Van den, Race and Racism (New York, 1967), p. 18Google Scholar, and Hoernlé, R. F. A., South African Native Policy and the Liberal Spirit (Capetown, 1939), pp. 44, 127.Google Scholar

3 Berghe, Van den, Race and Racism, p. 29.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 19.

5 Some examples: Bryce, James, Impressions of South Africa (New York, 1900), pp. 359–60;Google ScholarEvans, Maurice, Black and White in the Southern States: A Study of the Race Problem in the United States from a South African Point of View (London, 1915), p. 3;Google ScholarVilliers, Ren´ de, ‘Afrikaner Nationalism’, in Wilson, Monica and Thompson, Leonard M., eds., The Oxford History of South Africa, v. II (New York and Oxford, 1971), p. 376;Google ScholarHoernle, , p. 2;Google ScholarMason, Phillip, Patterns of Dominance (Oxford, 1970), p. 326;Google ScholarMacMillan, W. M., Bantu, Boer, and Briton (Oxford, 1963), p. x.Google Scholar

6 Davis, David Brion, ‘The Comparative Approach to American History: Slavery’, in Laura, Foner and Eugene, Genovese, eds., Slavery in the New World (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1969), p. 66.Google Scholar The article first appeared in Woodward, C. Vann, ed., The Comparative Approach to American History (New York, 1968).Google Scholar Woodward, who pioneered in the dynamics of Herrenvolk democracy, makes similar statements about the South in Origins of the New South 1877–1913 (Baton Rouge, 1951), p. 211.Google Scholar

7 Sydnor, Charles, The Development of Southern Sectionalism 1819–1848 (Baton Rouge, 1948), p. 38.Google Scholar

8 Sydnor, , pp. 52–3.Google Scholar For an excellent discussion of the ‘location of power’ in the South at this time, see Sydnor, , pp. 33–53.Google Scholar

9 Eaton, Clement, The Freedom of Thought Struggle in the Old South (Durham, 1940), p. 5.Google Scholar

10 Sydnor, , p. 170.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., Chap. 5.

12 Ibid., p. 170.

13 Ibid., pp. 275–88. See also, for democratic developments around the South in this era, Green, Fletcher, ‘Democracy in the Old South’, in The Journal of Southern History, XII, 1946, pp. 3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Green, , p. 16.Google Scholar

15 Woodward, C. Vann, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (Oxford, 1955), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

16 Stampp, Kenneth M., The Peculiar Institution (New York, 1956), pp. 207, 232–5,Google Scholar

17 Eaton, passim, and Stampp, pp. 211–2.

18 Stampp, p. 28.

19 Woodward, C. Vann, ‘Our Own Herrenvolk’, in New York Review of Books, XVII, 2, 08 12, 1971, p. 11.Google Scholar

20 Fredrickson, George M., The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914 (New York, 1971), p. 70.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., pp. 82–96.

22 Ibid., p.68. Woodward has concurred with this view (see Woodward, , ‘Our own Herren-volk’, p. 14Google Scholar) and Hartz earlier presented a somewhat similar argument. He calls the southern reactionary enlightenment a ‘fraud’, and says ‘there was no avoiding the fact that one of the crucial factors in the solidarity of the South was a democratic spirit enhanced by the slavery on which it rested’. Hartz, , The Liberal Tradition in America (New York, 1955), p. 168.Google Scholar

23 McKitrick, Eric, Slavery Defended(Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963), p. 3.Google Scholar

24 Fredrickson, , pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

25 Eaton, , p. 29.Google Scholar

26 Sydnor, , p. 290.Google Scholar

27 This description of the western Cape is drawn from Katzen, M. F., ‘White Settlers and the Origin of a New Society’, in Wilson, and Thompson, , eds., The Oxford History of South Africa, v. I (New York and Oxford, 1969).Google Scholar

28 Davenport, T. R. H., ‘The Consolidation of a New Society: The Cape Colony’, in The Oxford History, v. I, p. 311.Google Scholar

29 Katzen, , p. 232.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 214.

31 Katzen notes ‘a visible list towards anarchy and contempt for the law in the platteland’, p. 214. See also p. 233.

32 MacCrone, I. D., Race Attitudes in South Africa (Oxford, 1937), p. 119.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., pp. 127–8.

34 Thompson, Leonard M., ‘Co-operation and Conflict: The High Veld', in The Oxford History, v. I, p. 406.Google Scholar

35 MacMillan, , Bantu, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

36 Davenport, , ‘Consolidation’, pp. 304–9.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., p. 292.

38 DeKiewiet, C. W., A History of South Africa, Social and Economic (London, 1941), p. 55.Google Scholar The racial causes of the Trek are also seen in this quote from the sister of one of the leaders: it was ‘not their freedom that drove us to such lengths, so much as their being placed on an equal footing with Christians, contrary to the laws of God and the natural distinctions of race and religion’. Mason, , Patterns, p. 201.Google Scholar

39 Thompson, Leonard M., ‘Co-operation and Conflict: The Zulu Kingdom and Natal’, in The Oxford History, v. I, pp. 372–7.Google Scholar

40 DeKiewiet, , p. 181;Google ScholarMacMlllan, , Bantu, p. 20;Google Scholar and Thompson, , ‘High Veld’, p. 408.Google Scholar

41 Thompson, , ‘High Veld’, p. 430.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., pp. 435–6, and Thompson, , ‘Zulu Kingdom’, p. 367.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., p. 437.

44 Marquard, Leo, The Peoples and Policies of South Africa (London, 1969), pp. 11–12Google Scholar, and Thompson, , ‘High Veld’, pp. 427–35.Google Scholar

45 DeKiewiet, , p. 185.Google Scholar

46 Marquard, , p. 11Google Scholar, and Thompson, , ‘High Veld’, p. 426.Google Scholar

47 DeKiewiet, , p. 181.Google Scholar

48 Katzen, , p. 228.Google Scholar

49 Davenport, , ‘Consolidation’, pp. 313–24.Google Scholar

50 Katzen, , p. 228.Google Scholar

51 Marais, J. S., The Cape Coloured People, 1652–1937 (London, 1937), p. 209.Google Scholar

52 Davenport, , ‘Consolidation’, p. 317.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., p. 319.

54 Ibid., p. 319.

55 MacMillan, , The Cape Colour Question (London, 1928), pp. 269–70.Google Scholar

56 H. J., and Simons, R. E., Class and Colour in South Africa 1850–1950 (Harmondsworth, 1969), p. 31.Google Scholar

57 Marais, , pp. 158, 204.Google Scholar

58 Woodward, Origins, Chap. 1.

59 Fredrickson, , p. 203.Google Scholar

60 Woodward, , Origins, p. 209, and Strange Career, pp. 47–59.Google Scholar

61 Fredrickson, , pp. 266–7.Google Scholar

62 Woodward, , Origins, p. 211.Google Scholar

63 Ibid., Chap. 7.

64 Ibid., Chap. 9.

65 Woodward, , Strange Career, p. 61.Google Scholar

66 Ibid., p. 63.

67 Ibid., pp. 78–80.

68 Woodward, , Origins, p. 371.Google Scholar

69 Woodward, , Strange Career, p. 90.Google Scholar

70 Ibid., p. 83.

71 Woodward, , Origins, Chap. 12.Google Scholar

72 Woodward, , Strange Career, p. 84.Google Scholar

73 Kirwan, A. D., Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics 1876–1925 (New York, 1951), p. 135.Google Scholar

74 Woodward, , Origins, p. 373, and Strange Career, pp. 90–91, 97–102.Google Scholar

75 Grantham, Dewey, ‘The Progressive Movement and the Negro’, in South Atlantic Quarterly, LIV, 10. 1955, p. 465.Google Scholar

76 Marshall, F. Ray, Labor in the South (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), p. 11.Google ScholarPubMed

77 Woodward, , Origins, pp. 222, 360.Google Scholar

78 Marshall, , pp. 33–5.Google Scholar

79 Davenport, , ‘Consolidation’, pp. 332–3.Google Scholar

80 Davenport, T. R. H., The Afrikaner Bond: The History of a South African Political Party (Capetown, 1966), pp. 118–23;Google ScholarThompson, Leonard M., ‘Great Britain and the Afrikaner Republics, 1870–1899’, in The Oxford History, v. II, p. 305:Google ScholarThompson, Leonard M., The Cape Coloured Franchise (Johannesburg, 1949), pp. 6–7;Google ScholarMcCracken, J. L., The Cape Parliament 1854–1910 (Oxford, 1967), p. 80;Google ScholarKuper, Leo ‘African Nationalism in South Africa’, in The Oxford History, v. II, p. 427Google Scholar.

81 Villiers, de, ‘Afrikaner Nationalism’, p. 367.Google Scholar

82 Thompson, Leonard M., ‘The Compromise of Union’, in The Oxford History, v. II, pp. 325–64Google Scholar, and Tatz, C. M., Shadow and Substance in South Africa: A Study in Land and Franchise Policies Affecting Africans 1910–1960 (Pietermaritzburg, 1962), p. 15.Google Scholar

83 This description drawn from Wilson, Frances, ‘Farming, 1866–1966’ in The Oxford History, v. II, pp. 114–29;Google ScholarHoughton, Hobart, ‘Economic Development 1865–1965’, in The Oxford History, v. II, pp. 12–25;Google Scholar and Welsh, David, ‘The Growth of Towns’, in The Oxford History, v. II, pp. 172–82.Google Scholar

84 Simons, , p. 615.Google Scholar

85 Ibid., p. 89.

86 Horst, Sheila Van der, Native Labour in South Africa (London, 1942), pp. 179Google Scholar, 241, and Horrell, Muriel, South African Trade Unionism (Johannesburg 1961), p. 3.Google Scholar

87 Houghton, , pp. 26–7.Google Scholar

88 Horst, Van der, p. 182.Google Scholar

89 Simons, , p. 278.Google Scholar

90 Horrell, , p. 7.Google Scholar

91 Welsh, , p. 76.Google Scholar

92 Wilson, F., pp. 137–40.Google Scholar

93 Houghton, , pp. 30–1Google Scholar, and Horst, Van der, p. 183.Google Scholar

94 Horst, Van der, p. 251.Google Scholar

95 Hoernle, , p. 24.Google Scholar

96 Houghton, , pp. 30, 34.Google Scholar

97 Tatz, , pp. 46, 75, and de Villiers, p. 404. Hertzog did not wish to disfranchise the Coloured, and in fact proposed extending the Coloured franchise to other provinces. He was one of those who regarded the Coloured as allies vis-à-vis Africans. The franchise was never extended, however, and as early as 1922 other leading Nationalists favored Coloured disfranchisement. After 1948 this move was made.Google Scholar

98 Kuper, , p. 455.Google Scholar

99 Marais, , p. 280.Google Scholar See Thompson, , Cape Coloured Franchise, p. 56 for figures.Google Scholar

100 Tatz, , pp. 65–6.Google Scholar

101 Kuper, , p. 438.Google Scholar

102 Berghe, Pierre Van den, South Africa: A Study in Conflict (Middletown, Conn., 1965), p. 126.Google Scholar