¹ This paper forms part of a broader investigation into the ‘idea of race’ in twentieth-century South Africa. I have benefited from the comments of André du Toit, Johan Kinghorn, Hermann Giliomee and John Lazar, as well as those of the anonymous readers of the Journal. Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at seminars at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, and the 1990 African Studies Association conference in Baltimore. Translations from Afrikaans are my own.

² This argument ties in with the broad, inclusive definition of racist ideology which I have adopted. This embraces both the idea of biologically determined superiority and inferiority, as well as the notion that culture is in some sense an expression of genetic constitution.

³ Fredrickson, G. M., The Arrogance of Race: Historical Perspectives on Slavery, Racism and Social Inequality (New Haven and London, 1988), 189.Google Scholar

⁴ Rhoodie, N. J. and Venter, H. J., Apartheid: A Socio-Historical Exposition of the Origin and Development of the Apartheid Idea (Cape Town, 1960), 113.Google Scholar

⁵ Ibid. 145.

⁶ du Plessis, L. J., ‘Rasverhoudinge’, Koers (October 1933)Google Scholar; du Plessis, H., ‘Assimilasie of algehele segregasie’, Koers (June 1935).Google Scholar The latter article made a strong case for total separation (though without using the term ‘apartheid’), as opposed to the ‘neoliberalism’ of Brookes, Rheinallt Jones and Macmillan which was inevitably assimilationist. It also purported to show that racial diversity was biologically and historically determined by God.

⁷ Rhoodie, and Venter, , Apartheid, 170.Google Scholar The Bond lasted for a brief time only. Its first chair was Mrs E. G. Jansen, wife of the Minister of Native Affairs from 1929 to 1933 and 1948 to 1950. The secretary was M. D. C. de Wet Nel who served as Minister of Bantu Administration from 1958 to 1961.

⁸ Rhoodie, and Venter, , Apartheid, 171–2.Google Scholar Hexham documents an even earlier use of ‘apartheid’ in the context of a lecture on Calvinism at Potchefstroom in 1914. See Hexham, I., The Irony of Apartheid (New York and Toronto, 1981), 188.Google Scholar

⁹ Pelzer, A. N., Die Afrikaner-Broederbond: Eerste 50 Jaar (Cape Town, 1979), 163–4.Google Scholar Given the close links between the Broederbond and the Bond vir Rassestudie it is quite possible that the Bond's pronouncement of ‘apartheid’ after 1935 stemmed from the Broederbond's 1933 document. This may also account for the ‘definite lead’ taken by the Cape nationalist organ, Die Burger, from 1933 in rethinking Hertzogite segregation. See Rhoodie, and Venter, , Apartheid, 145.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Kinghorn, J.. ‘The theology of separate equality: a critical outline of the DRC's position on apartheid’, in Prozesky, M. (ed.), Christianity Amidst Apartheid: Selected Perspectives on the Church in South Africa (London, 1990), 58–9.Google Scholar

¹¹ du Plessis, J., ‘Colonial progress and countryside conservatism: an essay on the legacy of van der Lingen of Paarl, 1831–1875’ (MA thesis, University of Stellenbosch, 1988)Google Scholar; du Toit, A., ‘The Cape Afrikaner's failed liberal moment, 1850–1870’, in Butler, J. et al. (eds.), Democratic Liberalism in South Africa (Middletown, Connecticut and Cape Town, 1987).Google Scholar

¹² du Plessis, J. (convenor), The Dutch Reformed Church and the Native Problem (Stellenbosch, 1921).Google Scholar

¹³ Borchardt, C., ‘Die “swakheid van sommige” en die sending’, in Kinghorn, J. (ed.), Die NG Kerk en Apartheid (Johannesburg, 1986), 80.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Du Plessis, , The Dutch Reformed Church, 20, 12.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Ibid. 11.

¹⁶ The mechanics and ideology of segregation are explored at length in my book Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919–36 (London, 1989).Google Scholar

¹⁷ The Dutch Reformed Church Federal Council hosted the conferences of 1923 and 1927. Subsequent conferences were organized by the South African Institute of Race Relations.

¹⁸ Karis, T. and Carter, G. M., From Protest to Challenge (4 vols.) (Stanford, 1972–1977), i, 232.Google Scholar This resolution was proposed by Edgar Brookes. It is not clear whether it was formally adopted by the conference.

¹⁹ Kinghorn, , Die NG Kerk, 90.Google Scholar

²⁰ Cape Times, 3 Feb. 1927.

²¹ Union Government, SC 10–'27, Report of the Select Committee on the Subject of the Union Native Council Bill, Coloured Persons Rights Bill, Representation of Natives in Parliament Bill, and Natives Land (Amendment) Bill (1927), 359. See also 347ff.

²² Borchardt, , ‘Die “swakheid van sommige”’, 82.Google Scholar

²³ Loubser, J. A., The Apartheid Bible (Cape Town, 1987), 27–8Google Scholar; Moodie, T. D., The Rise of Afrikanerdom (Berkeley and London, 1975), 62.Google Scholar

²⁴ Kinghorn, , Die NG Kerk, 87–90Google Scholar; Loubser, , The Apartheid Bible, 29–31.Google Scholar

²⁵ Kinghorn, , Die NG Kerk, 90.Google Scholar

²⁶ Moodie, , The Rise of Afrikanerdom, 154.Google Scholar W. A. de Klerk comments on the basis of his personal experience: ‘Of these Diederichs spoke in words of passionate oratory, Meyer in blunter, but equally effective, rhetoric. Cronjé, in a dry-as-dust style, expounded the most thorough-going analysis of the new political sociology with deep theological overtones.’ See his The Puritans in Africa (London, 1975), 203.Google Scholar

²⁷ Bloomberg, C., Christian-Nationalism and the Rise of the Afrikaner Broederbond in South Africa 1918–48 (London, 1990), 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁸ Inspan (Oct. 1944), 21.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ See Bloomberg, , Christian-Nationalism, 105–7Google Scholar; Loubser, , The Apartheid Bible, 35–8.Google Scholar

³¹ Loubser, , The Apartheid Bible, 53–4.Google Scholar

³² The full address is published in Inspan (Dec. 1944).

³³ The term is Loubser's.

³⁴ Inspan (Dec. 1944), 7–11.

³⁵ Ibid. 13.

³⁶ Badenhorst, F. G., Die Rassevraagstuk veral Betreffende Suid-Afrika in die Lig van die Gereformeerde Etiek (Amsterdam, 1939).Google Scholar Discussion here is largely focused on the different European races.

³⁷ Kuyper's ideas were first brought to South Africa by Totius' father, S. J. du Toit, who was chiefly responsible for creating the first Afrikaans Language Movement of the 1870s and 80s.

³⁸ This discussion of Kuyper has been drawn from Kinghorn, Die NG Kerk; Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom; Loubser, The Apartheid Bible; Hexham, The Irony of Apartheid.

³⁹ See Kinghorn, , Die NG Kerk, 62Google Scholar; Schutte, G. J., ‘The Netherlands, cradle of apartheid?’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, X (1987)Google Scholar; Giliomee, H. and Schlemmer, L., From Apartheid to Nation-Building (Oxford, 1989), 43–4.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Bloomberg, , Christian-Nationalism, 9.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Kuyper, A., Calvinism. Six Stone Lectures (1898), 37–8Google Scholar; Kuyper, A., The South African Crisis (London, 1898), 24.Google Scholar

⁴² Bloomberg, , Christian-Nationalism, 8.Google Scholar

⁴³ Moodie, , The Rise of Afrikanerdom, 154Google Scholar; Schutte, , ‘The Netherlands’, 412, n. 22.Google Scholar The philosopher J. G. Herder (1744–1803) is widely regarded as the first European thinker to articulate a comprehensive philosophy of nationalism. He was responsible for developing the idea of nationality in terms of a cultural organism sharing common features—principally language. Herder's conception of culture was relativistic and was not defined in terms of race. J. G. Fichte (1762–1814) gave Herder's essentially humanistic and pluralist view a more exclusivist and narrow political emphasis by concentrating on the historical mission of the German people. He has also been seen as an early progenitor of the Fuehrer concept.

⁴⁴ Kinghorn, , Die NG Kerk, 66–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Proctor, R., Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), ch. 8.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ The organic metaphor of society was also stressed by the evolutionist tradition of thought which, in the guise of Social Darwinism, was used to endorse the survival of the fittest (whether constituted as individuals or aggregates of individuals).

⁴⁷ Moodie, , The Rise of Afrikanerdom, 159–60Google Scholar; Schutte, , ‘The Netherlands’, 411.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Diederichs, N. J., Nasionalisme as Lewensbeskouing en sy Verhouding tot Internasionalisme (Bloemfontein, 1936)Google Scholar; De Klerk, , Puritans in Africa, 204.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Diederichs, , Nasionalisme as Lewensbeskouing, 24, 17.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Ibid. 22–3.

⁵¹ Ibid. 37.

⁵² Ibid. 31.

⁵³ Vorster, J. D., ‘Die Kleurverskil en Kleureerbiediging’, Koers (Feb., 1939), 11, 15, 17.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Vorster, J. D., ‘Etniese verskeidenheid, kerklike pluriformiteit en die ekumene’, in Grense (Stellenbosch, 1961), 65–9.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ du Preez, A. B., Inside the South African Crucible (Cape Town and Pretoria, 1959), 41.Google Scholar (Simultaneously published in Afrikaans as Eiesoortige Ontwikkeling tot Volksdiens). For du Preez's biblical justifications for apartheid see his Die Skriftuurlike Grondslag vir Rasseverhoudinge (Cape Town, 1955).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ The complex process according to which theological justifications for apartheid were formulated and endorsed by the DRC is discussed in detail by Loubser, The Apartheid Bible, and Kinghorn, Die NG Kerk.

⁵⁷ I owe this point to André du Toit.

⁵⁸ In 1956 the Federal Council of the DRC decided: ‘The Dutch Reformed Church accepts the unity of the human race, which is not annulled by its diversity. At the same time the Dutch Reformed Church accepts the natural diversity of the human race, which is not annulled by its unity.’ See DRC, The Dutch Reformed Churches in South Africa and the Problem of Race Relations (n.d. [1956]), 13. The apartheid bible finally emerged in its most sophisticated and definitive form as Human Relations and the South African Scene in the Light of Scripture, and was presented to the DRC General Synod in 1974. This landmark document demonstrates a sensitivity to criticisms of apartheid by declaring itself opposed to racial injustice and discrimination. The concept of race itself is avoided through the use of its surrogate term—nation. Nevertheless, the concept of separate development is endorsed in terms of the ethnic diversity willed by God in His creation ordinances.

⁵⁹ Loubser, , The Apartheid Bible, 53, 71–3.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Marais, B. J., Colour: Unsolved Problem of the West (Cape Town, 1952), 24, n. 18.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Ibid. 295.

⁶² Ibid. 295.

⁶³ Ibid. 298 [emphasis in original].

⁶⁴ Cited in Loubser, , The Apartheid Bible, 74.Google Scholar See also Keet, B. B., Suid-Afrika—Waarheen? (Stellenbosch, 1955).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Ibid. 75. For an illuminating discussion of the interventions by Marais and Keet in the context of Afrikaner church policy, see Lazar, J., ‘Conformity and conflict: Afrikaner nationalist politics in South Africa, 1948–1961’ (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1987), ch. 6.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ du Preez, A. B., Die Skriftuurlike Grondslag, 26.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ This point is developed by Kinghorn, , Die NG Kerk, 8–9.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ For example, Thompson, L., The Political Mythology of Apartheid (New Haven, 1985).Google Scholar

⁶⁹ du Toit, A., ‘No chosen people: the myth of the Calvinist origin of Afrikaner nationalism and racial ideology’, Amer. Hist. Rev., LXXXVIII (1983), 920–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁰ On Preller, see Isabel Hofmeyr's outstanding article, ‘Popularizing history: the case of Gustav Preller’, J. Afr. Hist., XXIX (1988), 521–37.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Preller, G. S., Day-Dawn in South Africa (Pretoria, 1938), 149–51Google Scholar [my emphasis]; also published in Afrikaans as Daglemier in Suid-Afrika. Similar ideas occur in Preller's history of the trekker leader, Andries Pretorius (Johannesburg, 1937), 157ff.Google Scholar

⁷² See their articles in the first [c. 1940] issue of the journal Rassebakens.

⁷³ Cronjé, G., ʻn Tuiste vir die Nageslag (Stellenbosch, 1945), 9, 22.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Gerdener, G. B. A., ‘Die buiteland en die naturellevraagstuk in Suid Afrika’, Journal of Racial Affairs, III (1952), 6.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Eloff began his research at the University of the Witwatersrand and ultimately became head of the Department of Genetics and Breeding Studies (Telingsleer) at the University of the Orange Free State. A leading member of the Ossewabrandwag, he was interned at Koffiefontein during the war, where he proclaimed his ideas on eugenics to fellow inmates, including the future prime minister B. J. Vorster. I am grateful to Professor Bruce Murray and Christo Marx for this biographical information.

⁷⁶ Eloff, G., ‘Rasverbetering deur uitskakeling van minderwaardige indiwidue’, Koers (Dec. 1933).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Eloff, G., ‘Drie gedagtes oor rasbiologie veral met betrekking tot Suid-Afrika’, Koers (April, 1938).Google Scholar

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⁷⁹ Ibid. foreword and 104.

⁸⁰ Ibid. 51–6.

⁸¹ Ibid. 61.

⁸² Ibid. 26.

⁸³ Ibid. 75–6.

⁸⁴ Ibid. 76ff. For a discussion of Fischer in the context of the German race hygiene movement, see Proctor, Racial Hygiene, 40ff. See also Fischer, E., Die Rehebother Bastards und das Bastardierungs Probleem bein Menschen (Jena, 1913).Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Eloff, , Rasse en Rassevermenging, 87.Google Scholar

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⁸⁷ Theal, G. M., History of the Boers in South Africa (London, 1887), 59–60Google Scholar; Pratt, A., The Real South Africa (London, 1913), 82, 89Google Scholar; Burton, J. T., Who are the Afrikaners? (Cape Town, 1927).Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Keane, A. H., The Boer States: Land and People (London, 1900).Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Ibid. 145, 161–2, 189–90.

⁹⁰ du Plessis, L. J., Problems of Nationality and Race in Southern Africa (London, 1949), 6.Google Scholar

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⁹² Cronjé, , ʼn Tuiste vir die Nageslag, 12–19.Google Scholar I have discussed the topic of intelligence testing in greater detail elsewhere.

⁹³ Cronjé, , Regverdige Rasse-Apartheid, 75–8.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ du Toit, A., ‘Political control and personal morality’, in Schrire, R. (ed.), South Africa: Public Policy Perspectives (Cape Town, 1982), 63.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Cronjé, , ʼn Tuiste vir die Nageslag, 74.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Ibid. 31.

⁹⁷ The term ‘visionary’ was coined by John Lazar. My analysis of SABRA is influenced by the discussion of this organization in his thesis, ‘Conformity and conflict’.

⁹⁸ Gerdener, G. B. A., ‘Die buiteland en die naturellevraagstuk in Suid Afrika’, Journal of Racial Affairs, III (1952), 5–6.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Ibid. 6.

¹⁰⁰ Bruwer, J. P., ‘Prof. Dr. G. B. A. Gerdener: Ons huldig sy leierskap en sy lewe’, Journal of Racial Affairs, VII (1956), 51.Google Scholar

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¹⁰⁴ Eiselen, W. M. M., ‘Is separation practicable?’, Journal of Racial Affairs, 1 (1950), 18.Google Scholar

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¹⁰⁶ Union Government, (UG 61–1955), Summary of the Report of the Commission for the Socio-Economic Development of the Bantu Areas within the Union of South Africa (1955–6), 2, para. 12. In the full seventeen-volume Tomlinson Report, which is untranslated and available only in mimeograph form, the race paradigm is even more strongly evident. So is the academic basis from which the distilled conclusions of the published version are drawn.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid. 9, para. 71.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid. 20, para. 20.

¹⁰⁹ Coetzee, J. Albert, Nasie-Wording in Suid Afrika: ʼn Sleutel vir die Politieke Probleem van Suid Afrika (Potchefstroom, 1931).Google Scholar

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¹¹² Eloff, , Rasse en Rassevermenging, 26, 27.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Kinghorn, , ‘The theology of separate equality’, 67.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ For example, the assumption that language and culture were expressions of race was an essential element in post-Enlightenment anthropological thought. Similarly, the notion that non-physical characteristics (e.g. culture) are capable of absorption and transmission from one generation to the next derives in large part from Lamarck's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

¹¹⁵ O'Meara, D., Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934–48 (Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar