The British had a goal of a British sphere in Africa from Cape Town to Cairo. Opponents to this were not just found among African natives or rival European colonial powers. South Africa had many Afrikaner settlers of Dutch heritage, many who had already trekked north to give the British their space. At the turn of the 20th century, they turned and fought to keep what they built. To meet this challenge, the British administration turned to self proclaimed British Race Patriot Alfred Milner who dreamed of uniting British people who had gone far and wide, as England was weak without their congress. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The Orange River Colony stamps do not resemble the earlier issues of the Orange Free State. For a while the old issues of the Boer free state were overprinted VRI for Victoria Regina Imperatrix to signify areas of British occupation. It was only in 1903 that the stamp printers were caught up enough to reflect the current situation and honour Edward VII.
Todays stamp is issue A8, a one penny issue of the British Orange River Colony in 1903. It was a 9 stamp issue in various denominations and the only definitive stamp issue of the Orange River Colony that lasted 10 years. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
The previous independent Orange Free State was founded in 1854 by Afrikaner Boers of Dutch heritage whose main activity was farming. The area was about 60% black but those folks had no say in government though actual slavery was banned. The British vision of a south to north British sphere was put forth prominently by Alfred Milner, later Governor of the Orange River Colony. His credo is reprinted below not out of approval but to open a window into period thinking.
“I am a Nationalist and not a cosmopolitan …. I am a British (indeed primarily an English) Nationalist. If I am also an Imperialist, it is because the destiny of the English race, owing to its insular position and long supremacy at sea, has been to strike roots in different parts of the world. I am an Imperialist and not a Little Englander because I am a British Race Patriot … The British State must follow the race, must comprehend it, wherever it settles in appreciable numbers as an independent community. If the swarms constantly being thrown off by the parent hive are lost to the State, the State is irreparably weakened. We cannot afford to part with so much of our best blood. We have already parted with much of it, to form the millions of another separate but fortunately friendly State. We cannot suffer a repetition of the process.” Milner was left leaning and a member of the Labour Party.
The Boers sensing the threat formed the Afrikaner Bond to defend themselves from this British threat and fought and eventually lost a string of Boer Wars that ended with the Orange River Colony. It came with attempts to make the place more British. The British military effort in the area was helped along by the discovery of gold in 1886. The resulting gold rush brought many new inland residents who were mostly British and referred to by the Boers as Uitlanders.
After the Boer war, many Boers pledged allegiance to the British Crown and in return were allowed to play a part in post war politics. By 1910, when the British colonies in South Africa formed a British Dominion as the Union of South Africa, many members of the Afrikaner Bond were playing a part and looking out for Boer interest, a process that Alfred Milner would have found suboptimum. Times change and then keep changing.
Well my drink is empty and I find myself reading and rereading that man’s credo. Saying things frankly in that way is so alien. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.
