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The Modernization of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek: F. E. T. Krause, J. C. Smuts, and the Struggle for the Johannesburg Public Prosecutor's Office, 1898–1899
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2011
Extract
The southern part of the African continent has, for nearly a hundred and fifty years, been witness to a set of epic struggles to create within it a single unified state and, within that, forms of citizenship that are both identifiably “South African” and more or less collectively owned. The never-ending nature of these twinned tasks has echoes in contemporary mantras about the healthiness of “nation-building,” just as surely as the underlying anemia remains manifest in the name of a place and a people that are, arguably, still more of an expression of geography than a reflection of a collectively lived experience. Perhaps it is significant that it was only a decade after the discovery of diamonds, in the late 1860s, that these struggles first took on recognizably modern political forms. An early attempt to promote federation among the dominant white settlers was, however, thwarted by the still largely separate identities of the two British coastal colonies (the Cape and Natal) and two inland Afrikaner-Dutch or “Boer” republics (the Orange Free State and the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek) that sprawled over southern Africa—enveloping, albeit imperfectly, their distinctive and very different indigenous African, imported Asian, and Colored (people of mixed descent) laboring populations.
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References
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41. van Onselen, New Babylon, New Nineveh, 90 and 137.
42. Ibid., 138.
43. Ibid., 132.
44. See “The Ontucht Law,” Standard & Diggers' News, 24 Nov. 1898; and van Onselen, New Babylon, New Nineveh, 136.
45. SANA, Pretoria, Z.A.R. Collection, Staatsprokureur, “Geheime Notulen,” vol. 193, File 1197/98, Affidavit by F. E. T. Krause, 5 Nov. 1898.
46. See Cleaver, A Young South African, 20.
47. See especially, “A Pimpsverein,” Standard & Diggers' News, 7 Dec. 1898.
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49. Ibid., 22
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53. SANA, Z.A.R. Collection, Johannesburg Archive, Kriminele Landdrost, Inkomende Stukke, 1899–1900, vol. 1720, J. Silver and S. Stein to the Honourable Mr. Dietzsch, Landdrost, Third Criminal Court, 2 Feb. 1899. See also van Onselen, New Babylon, New Nineveh, 142–43.
54. Note, for example, the extremely sharp tone in two telegrams from Smuts to Krause dated 11 and 12 January 1899 as reproduced in Hancock, W. K. and Poel, Jean van der, eds., Selections from the Smuts Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 1: 196.Google Scholar
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57. As quoted in Cleaver, A Young South African, 4.
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60. Joseph Silver is the subject of a biography currently being researched and written by the author.
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62. See SANA, Collection A 296, National Council of Women of South Africa, “A short life sketch of Annette Krause” (no author, dated 6 Aug. 1957—but probably by F. E. T. Krause). (I am indebted to Dr. Louise Vincent for drawing this and other items in this collection relating to the Krause family history to my attention.) Toward the end of his life, Krause seems to have changed his mind about the position that Reitz and Smuts took in the debate about the destruction of the mines. See, for example, the version that he offered V. G. Hiemstra in “Die Regter wat oor Politiek Tronk toe is,” Die Huisgenoot, 7 Aug. 1959. On Judge Antonie Kock see Kahn, Law, Life, and Laughter, 111–15.
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69. For Krause's postwar views on prostitution, see Transvaal Legislative Assembly Debates 1908, 1423–25. On the Epstein case and its context, and for the context of Krause's political work in Vrededorp, see van Onselen, New Babylon, New Nineveh, 156–57, and 311–67, and various indexed references to be found in E. L. P. Stals, Afrikaners in die Goudstad, vol. 1.
70. V. G. Hiemstra, “N Groot Afrikanerheld word Gevonnis,” Die Huisgenoot, 21 Aug. 1959; also Potgieter et al., eds., Standard Encyclopedia of Southern Africa, 6: 457. His reinstatement at the Middle Temple is recorded in SANA, Dr. W. J. Leyds Archive, L.A. 261, “A Short Account of the events preceding and connected with the trial of F. E. T. Krause,” 25.
71. See Kruger, ed., Suid-Afrikaanse Biografiese Woordeboek, 3: 162–63; and Cleaver, A Young South African, 187–200.
72. See, for example, Ingham, Jan Christian Smuts, 51.
73. See Sunday Times, 23 June 1957; and SANA, Collection A 296, National Council of Women of South Africa, F. E. T. Krause to Mrs. W. Eybers, President, N.C.W.S.A., undated 1955.
74. See van Onselen, New Babylon, New Nineveh, 156–58.
75. See Simons and Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 90–91 and 301.
76. Ibid.; see also “The Hon. Mr. Justice Krause,” 388. Also, Chanock, The Making of South African Legal Culture, 7–11.
77. Simons and Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 301.
78. “The Hon. Mr. Justice Krause,” 388.
79. Beinart, William, Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1994), 62.Google Scholar
80. In this context it is perhaps interesting to note how the older images of Kruger and his administration lingered on in the literature for some twenty years after they were first criticized by Gordon and the Simonses (see notes 3 and 4 above). See, for example, Saunders, C., consultant ed., and Bundy, C. J., historical advisor, Illustrated History of South Africa: The Real Story (Cape Town: Readers Digest Association, 1988), 238Google Scholar, where the views of a contemporary observer, the Californian engineer, W. Hall, are cited if not with approval, then at very least uncritically. Hall believed that Kruger was “corrupt,” “venal” and “inefficient.” There was, argued Hall, “a general inability of the Boers to understand capitalism, industrialisation and progress.”
81. T. R. H. Davenport, South Africa; A Modern History, 95.
82. See, for example, Trapido, Stanley, “Percy FitzPatrick, British Afrikanders, Capitalist Interests and the Origins of the South African War,” paper presented to the Southern African History and Politics Seminar, Oxford, June 2001.Google Scholar
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84. See, for example, I. R. Phimister, “Empire, Imperialism and the Partition of Africa,” unpublished seminar paper, University of Sheffield, July 2001.
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