Abstract
Orania is not far from Philippolis, on the Cape side of the Orange River. Today Afrikaners occupy the town of Orania and its surroundings, but it hasn’t always been this way. Indeed, several claims to this area have developed over the course of South African history, from colonial annexation to the present-day period of Afrikaner ownership.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People (London: C. Hurst, 2003).
F. C. De Beer, ‘Exercise in Futility or Dawn of Afrikaner Self-Determination: An Exploratory Ethno-Historical Investigation of Orania’, Anthropology Southern Africa 29, 3–4 (2006), pp. 108–9;
Terisa Pienaar, ‘Die Aanloop tot en Stigting van Orania as Groeipunt vir’n Afrikaner-Volkstaat’, MA Thesis (University of Stellenbosch, 2007), pp. 32–49.
See also Brian M. du Toit, ‘The Far-Right in Current South African Politics’, Journal of Modern African Studies 29, 4 (1991), pp. 627–7.
Lindi Renier Todd, ‘What’s in a Name? The Politics of the Past within Afrikaner ldentifications in Post-Apartheid South Africa’, PhD Thesis (University of London, 2007), pp. 47–86;
Maano Freddy Ramutsindela, ‘Afrikaner Nationalism, Electioneering and the Politics of a Volkstaat’, Politics 18, 3 (1998), pp. 179–88;
Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa: A Contested Legal Framework for Empowerment of ‘Marginalized’ Communities (The Hague: T. M. C. Asser Press, 2011).
It is significant that British activist Arthur Kemp, proponent of the rights of Britain’s white ‘indigenous’ people, provides an in-depth discussion of AWB’s volkstaat in Victory or Violence: The Story of the AWB (Burlington, IA: Ostara Publications, 2008), pp. 75–80. See also the website ‘Volkstaat’, http://www.volkstaat.net/, date accessed 20 October 2012).
Evidence of stone-age occupation can be traced back tens of thousands of years, but a few rock paintings in Orania, depicting game animals in a style concurrent with other Bushman engravings across southern Africa, provide the most solid evidence of a specifically ‘San’ occupation of this region. These are dated at approximately 4,000–6,000 years old. Undoubtedly, there were San living in the area before then. For a survey of archaeological scholarship on the Orange River (if a little biased towards data from the lower river), see Andrew B. Smith (ed.), Einiqualand: Studies of the Orange River Frontier (Rondebosch: UCT Press, 1995).
P. J. van der Merwe, Die Noordwaartse Beweging van die Boere voor die Groot Trek, 1770–1842 (Den Haag: W.P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1937), pp. 131–3.
GR, pp. 32, 107–10, for reproductions of the Punishment Act and Smith’s Annexation. For the politics of annexation and colonial borders in South Africa, see John Galbraith, Reluctant Empire: British Policy on the South African Frontier, 1834–1854 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963), pp. 31–4, 176–241.
For the role of white capital during the Kimberley diamond rush, Robert V. Turrell, Capital and Labour on the Kimberley Diamond Fields, 1871–1890 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). For detailed discussions on the emergence of settler-dominated capitalism in South Africa and elsewhere,
see Donald Denoon, Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983);
James Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld, 1783–1939 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
For a concise analysis of the Orange River canalisation scheme, see Nico Jooste, ‘Die Eerste Fase van die Oranjerivierontwikkelingsprojek, 1962–1976: ‘n Histories Analise’, PhD Thesis (University of the Orange Free State, 1999). For an idea of the kinds of propaganda used by the DWA, see their pamphlet, The Orange River Development Project and Progress (Johannesburg: Voortrekkerpers, 1965).
ODA. Dr Johan de Beer (Director General, Dept. Health and Welfare, Free State) to Mr J. F. Otto (Director General, Environment, Pretoria) (17 August 1982), esp. p. 5. See also CRLR, Report of the Research into the Land Claim by the Orania Community (February/March 2005), pp. 13–8 (Hereafter: Report on Orania); ODA. T. L. Langenhoven (former overseer of Orania project) to H. Opperman (Orania dorpsraad) (27 September 2005).
ODA. Brown, ‘Proposal in Relation to the Enquiry into the Vanderkloof Canals’ (3 April 1985), p. 4.
Mariechen Waldner, ‘Ons wil nie Weg nie! Waar moet ons Heen?’, Rapport (17 February 1991), p. 10.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2013 Edward Cavanagh
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cavanagh, E. (2013). The Erasure of Past Interests in Land at Orania. In: Settler Colonialism and Land Rights in South Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137305770_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137305770_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45490-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-30577-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Economics & Finance CollectionEconomics and Finance (R0)