The Orange River Sovereignty (1848–1854) was a short-lived political entity between the
Orange
Orange most often refers to:
*Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis''
** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower
*Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum
* ...
and
Vaal
The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Ocean. I ...
rivers in Southern Africa, a region known informally as Transorangia. In 1854, it became the
Orange Free State
The Orange Free State ( nl, Oranje Vrijstaat; af, Oranje-Vrystaat;) was an independent Boer sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeat ...
, and is now the
Free State province of South Africa.
History
On 8 December 1845 Captain William Sutton was appointed "
British Resident
A resident minister, or resident for short, is a government official required to take up permanent residence in another country. A representative of his government, he officially has diplomatic functions which are often seen as a form of indir ...
among the tribes living beyond the Frontier to the North-East" (relative to
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...
).
Sutton was succeeded as Resident on 16 January 1846 by Captain
Henry Douglas Warden, who bought the farm
Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein, ( ; , "fountain of flowers") also known as Bloem, is one of South Africa's three capital cities and the capital of the Free State (province), Free State province. It serves as the country's judicial capital, along with legisla ...
from a Griqua farmer to establish the capital. Warden was soon promoted to Major, and in March 1849 he was succeeded at Bloemfontein as civil commissioner by Mr C U Stuart, but he remained British resident until July 1852.
Sir Harry Smith
Lieutenant-General Sir Henry George Wakelyn Smith, 1st Baronet, GCB (28 June 1787 – 12 October 1860) was a notable English soldier and military commander in the British Army of the early 19th century. A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, he is a ...
proclaimed British sovereignty over Transorangia on 3 February 1848. A nominated legislative council was created, a high court established and other steps taken for the orderly government of the country, which was officially styled the Orange River Sovereignty. In October 1849 King
Moshoeshoe I
Moshoeshoe I () ( – 11 March 1870) was the first king of Lesotho. He was the first son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bamokoteli lineage, a branch of the Koena (crocodile) clan. In his youth, he helped his father gain power over som ...
was induced to sign a new arrangement considerably curtailing the boundaries of the
Basuto
The Sotho () people, also known as the Basuto or Basotho (), are a Bantu nation native to southern Africa. They split into different ethnic groups over time, due to regional conflicts and colonialism, which resulted in the modern Basotho, who ...
reserve. The frontier towards the Sovereignty was thereafter known as the Warden line. A little later the reserves of other chieftains were precisely defined.
[Chisholm 1911, p. 155.]
The British Resident had, however, no force sufficient to maintain his authority, and Moshoeshoe and all the neighbouring clans became involved in hostilities with one another and with the Europeans. In 1851 Moshoeshoe joined the republican party in the Sovereignty in an invitation to
Andries Pretorius
Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius (27 November 179823 July 1853) was a leader of the Boers who was instrumental in the creation of the South African Republic, as well as the earlier but short-lived Natalia Republic, in present-day South Africa ...
to recross the Vaal. The intervention of Pretorius resulted in the
Sand River Convention
The Sand River Convention ( af, Sandrivierkonvensie) of 17 January 1852 was a convention whereby the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland formally recognised the independence of the Boers north of the Vaal River.
Background
The conven ...
of 1852, which acknowledged the independence of the
Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal.
* South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...
but left the status of the Sovereignty untouched.
The British government (under
the first Russell administration), which had reluctantly agreed to the annexation of the country, had, however, already repented its decision and had resolved to abandon the Sovereignty.
Earl Grey
Earl Grey is a title in the peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1806 for General Charles Grey, 1st Baron Grey. In 1801, he was given the title Baron Grey of Howick in the County of Northumberland, and in 1806 he was created Viscou ...
,
Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
The Secretary of State for War and the Colonies was a British cabinet-level position responsible for the army and the British colonies (other than India).
The Secretary was supported by an Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.
Hist ...
, in a dispatch to Sir Harry Smith dated 21 October 1851, declared: “The ultimate abandonment of the Orange Sovereignty should be a settled point in our policy.” A meeting of representatives of all European inhabitants of the Sovereignty, elected on manhood suffrage, held at Bloemfontein in June 1852, nevertheless declared in favour of the retention of British rule.
Henry Green
Henry Green was the pen name of Henry Vincent Yorke (29 October 1905 – 13 December 1973), an English writer best remembered for the novels ''Party Going'', ''Living'' and '' Loving''. He published a total of nine novels between 1926 and 1952 ...
was appointed British Resident on 3 July 1852 in place of Warden, who had been dismissed. At the close of that year a settlement was at length concluded with Moshoeshoe, which perhaps left that chief in a stronger position than he had hitherto been. There had been ministerial changes in England and the
Aberdeen ministry
After the collapse of Lord Derby's minority government, the Whigs and Peelites formed a coalition under the Peelite leader Lord Aberdeen. The government resigned in early 1855 after a large parliamentary majority voted for a select committee ...
, then in power, adhered to the determination to withdraw from the Sovereignty. Sir
George Russell Clerk
Sir George Russell Clerk (pronounced ''Clark''; – 25 July 1889) was a British civil servant in British India.
Life
Clerk was born at Worting House in Mortimer West End, Hampshire,''1851 England Census'' the son of John Clerk of Glouces ...
was sent out in 1853 as special commissioner "for the settling and adjusting of the affairs" of the Sovereignty, and in August of that year he summoned a meeting of delegates to determine upon a form of self-government.
At that time there were some 15,000 Europeans in the country, many of them recent immigrants from Cape Colony. There were among them numbers of farmers and tradesmen of British descent. The majority of the whites still wished for the continuance of British rule provided that it was effective and the country guarded against its enemies. The representations of their delegates, who drew up a proposed constitution retaining British control, were unavailing. Sir George Clerk announced that, as the elected delegates were unwilling to take steps to form an independent government, he would enter into negotiations with other persons. "And then," wrote
George McCall Theal
George McCall Theal (11 April 1837, Saint John, New Brunswick – 17 April 1919, Wynberg, Cape Town), was the most prolific and influential South African historian, archivist and genealogist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
...
, "was seen the strange spectacle of an English commissioner of high rank and courteous demeanour addressing men who wished to be free of British control as the friendly and well-disposed inhabitants, while for those who desired to remain British subjects and who claimed that protection to which they believed themselves entitled, he had no sympathising word."
[Theal 1893, pp. 531–532.] While the elected delegates sent two members to England to try to induce the government to alter their decision, Sir George Clerk speedily came to terms with a committee formed by the republican party and presided over by Mr J H Hoffman. Even before this committee met, a royal proclamation had been signed (30 January 1854) "abandoning and renouncing all dominion" in the Sovereignty.
The
Orange River Convention
The Orange River Convention (sometimes also called the Bloemfontein Convention) was a convention whereby the British formally recognised the independence of the Boers in the area between the Orange and Vaal rivers, which had previously been know ...
, recognising the independence of the country, was signed at Bloemfontein on 23 February 1854 by Sir George Clerk and the republican committee, and in March the Boer government assumed office. Five days later the representatives of the elected delegates had an interview in London with the colonial secretary, the
Duke of Newcastle
Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne was a title that was created three times, once in the Peerage of England and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first grant of the title was made in 1665 to William Cavendish, 1st Marquess of Newcastle u ...
, who informed them that it was now too late to discuss the question of the retention of British rule. The colonial secretary added that it was impossible for England to supply troops to constantly advancing outposts, "especially as
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
and the port of
Table Bay
Table Bay (Afrikaans: ''Tafelbaai'') is a natural bay on the Atlantic Ocean overlooked by Cape Town (founded 1652 by Van Riebeeck) and is at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula, which stretches south to the Cape of Good Hope. It was named ...
were all she really required in South Africa". In withdrawing from the Sovereignty the British government declared that it had "no alliance with any native chief or tribes to the northward of the Orange River with the exception of the Griqua chief Captain
Adam Kok
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
II. Kok was not formidable in a military sense, nor could he prevent individual Griquas from alienating their lands. Eventually, in 1861, he sold his sovereign rights to the Free State for £4,000 and moved with his followers to the northern part of the
Mpondo
The Mpondo People or simply AmaMpondo, is one of the kingdoms in what is now the Eastern Cape.[Mpondo people]
king Faku's No Man's Land, later called
Griqualand East
Griqualand East (Afrikaans: ''Griekwaland-Oos''), officially known as New Griqualand ( Dutch: ''Nieuw Griqualand''), was one of four short-lived Griqua states in Southern Africa from the early 1860s until the late 1870s and was located between ...
.
Notes
References
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*
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{{coord missing, South Africa
Former countries in Africa
States and territories disestablished in 1854
History of the Free State (province)
States and territories established in 1848
1848 establishments in the British Empire
1854 disestablishments in Africa
Former British colonies and protectorates in Africa