Cecil Rhodes And The Jameson Raid Notes

TOPIC 1: CECIL RHODES AND THE JAMESON RAID

What was the Jameson Raid?

The Jameson Raid was an ineffective attempt to overthrow President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal Republic in December 1895. It was an ill-fated attempt to support an uprising that would topple the Transvaal Government to ensure that foreign immigrations were given full political rights.

Why did the Jameson Raid occur?

1. Tens of thousands of Uitlanders had settled in the Transvaal following the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886. The influx threatened the political independence of the recently formed republic. The government refused to grant the Uitlanders the franchise, and kept upping the period required to qualify for citizenship

2. The Transvaal government was considered to be excessively conservative over economic and industrial policy, and the various non-Afrikaner magnates in the region desired a greater political voice

3. There was a significant level of distrust between the Cape Colony government and that of the Transvaal republic over Kruger’s attempt to claim control of Bechuanaland in contravention of the 1884 London Convention. The region was subsequently declared a British protectorate.

What occurred during and after the plot?

Notes from ‘The Boer War 1899-1902’ – Gregory Fremont-Barnes

• Rhodes plotted with prominent Uitlanders to seize power by force, on the pretext that Uitlanders were discontented on political and economic grounds.

• The Reform Committee was to foment an uprising in Johannesburg, while Dr Leander Starr Jameson (1853-1917), a protégé and friend of Rhodes, was to ride to the Uitlanders’ assistance from Bechuanaland with several hundred mounted paramilitary volunteers and topple the Transvaal Government.

• The conspiracy had the covert backing of Joseph Chamberlain.

• Jameson’s ill-conceived raid in fact came to an ignominious end at Doornkop on 2 January 1896. A strong Boer force led by General Piet Cronje (1836-1911) confronted Jameson, en route to Johannesburg, and forced him to surrender himself and his 500 followers after pathetic resistance. The anticipated rising never materialized.

• However, the incident served to increase Boer suspicions of British skullduggery. Nor were these suspicions entirely misplaced.

• Chamberlain had had knowledge of Jameson’s plan for a coup, and had provided land to Jameson’s company in Bechuanaland – the staging ground from which the raid began.

• Rhodes was obliged to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony

• Jameson, the obvious scapegoat for what amounted to a wider conspiracy stretching from London to Cape Town, was imprisoned in Britain for 15 months. Chamberlain denied any involvement in the fiasco and managed to retain his post.

• But the damage had been done: Kruger and his government knew very well that, had Jameson succeeded, the feat would have been hailed as a triumph in London and measures would have been taken to annex the Transvaal – a reprise of 1877.

• The raid also aggravated already tense relations between Britain and Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941) saw fit to congratulate the Kruger Government in a telegram, thinly disguising his joy at Britain’s humiliation. The communication fueled the jingoists in Britain and bolstered the Boers’ (as it turned out, mistaken) belief that in any future conflict with Britain the republics could rely on foreign assistance.

• The path towards open confrontation grew clearer.

• The future Prime Minister of SA, Jan Smuts (1870-1950) wrote:

“The Jameson Raid was the real declaration of war in the Anglo-Boer conflict…[The] aggressors consolidated their alliance…the defenders on the other hand silently and grimly prepared for the inevitable.”

What were the consequences of the Raid?

• For London, the results of 1896 fiasco were predictably dismal

• Rhodes was disgraced, Britain was condemned internationally for its implication in a murky conspiracy to snatch an independent Christian state, and there was heightened bickering amongst British Liberal Imperialists and Radical Liberals over imperial claims upon political morality

• Jameson’s intervention strengthened Kruger’s diplomatic, psychological and moral position.

• Justifying suspicion of British intentions, it enabled the Transvaal to solidify further its republican alliance with the Orange Free State, boosted Kruger’s previously shaky electoral popularity, and spurred the growth of anti-British, republican and nationalist passions within Boer populations elsewhere in the region.

• More widely, the Boer leader enhanced his international standing.

• Because Chamberlain DOES NOT resign – makes war even more likely as shows that he was intent on destroying the Transvaal.

• Supports the Marxist interpretation of events in South Africa – role of mining capitalists in pushing the course of events on and in concealing the active role of the British officials in the whole event. Makes it look like the mining capitalists are much more powerful than they were

• Most important consequence – massive defeat for the colonial factor and the idea that agents within South Africa are effective.

  • Rhodes destroyed

  • Mining capitalists are seriously compromised

  • Chamberlain has come out relatively unscathed and arguably Jameson Raid sets up imperial factor to come back in again

  • Rhodes has failed and so now it is Chamberlain’s turn – IMPERIAL INTERVENTION IS NOW NECESSARY – there is not going to be another Rhodes – it has to be done from London.

What was the significance of the Jameson Raid?

• Catalyst for the war – makes it almost inevitable

• Inquiry exacerbated tensions and discredited important British colonists

• MASSIVE FAILURE – almost without modern parallel

• Betrayal of trust between the British and the Boers – Transvaal government thought they had independence and sovereignty

• Case that shows us that cabinet ministers secretly are willing to subvert the normal rules of international diplomacy and that they are willing to lie – the whole government is willing to support a Cabinet...

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