| Boer Republic of the Cape Boererepubliek van die Kaap (Afrikaans Dutch) Timeline: Differently | ||||||
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| Motto: "Ex Unitate Vires" (Latin) "From Unity, Strength" |
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| Anthem: De stem van Kaap |
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 Location of the Boer Republic (green)
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| Capital (and largest city) | Cape Town | |||||
| Official languages | Afrikaans Dutch | |||||
| Other languages | English | |||||
| Religion | Protestantism | |||||
| Demonym(s) | Boer | |||||
| Government | Military junta | |||||
| - | Military Commander | Pieter Groenewald | ||||
| Establishment | ||||||
| - | Self-Governing Dominion | 25 July 1925 | ||||
| - | Republic | 3 February 1961 | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 502,351 km2 193,959 sq mi |
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| Population | ||||||
| - | Estimate | 30,168,595 (49th) | ||||
| Currency | Boer rand | |||||
| Drives on the | left | |||||
The Boer Republic (Afrikaans Dutch: Boere Republiek), officially the Boer Republic of the Cape (Afrikaans Dutch: Boererepubliek van die Kaap), is a country in southwestern Africa. It is bounded by the South Atlantic Ocean on the west and south and shares borders with Namibia and Botswana to the north and Mutapa to the east. The capital and largest city is Cape Town. Most Boers speak a native dialect of Dutch called Afrikaans Dutch, or simply Afrikaans. Its surface area of 502,351 square kilometers makes the country the 21st-largest country in Africa and the 55th-largest in the world. With a population of over 30.1 million inhabitants, it is the 14th-most populous country in Africa and the 49th in the world.
History[]
Pre-Colonial Settlement[]
About 130,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens reached the land that would become the Western Cape, although some claim they arrived 260,000 years ago. The Boer Republic's prehistory is often divided among the two periods of technology. Firstly was the stone age when stone tools were first implemented and then the Iron Age where farming tools which used iron were first implemented and the first urban centers were created. Trading began not too long after, mainly with the Arab traders who had set up posts in what is now Mozambique and Tanzania.
Dutch Arrival and Colonization[]
Ships of the Dutch East India Company depicted c. 1685
Castle of Good Hope where Cape Town was initially founded
The first Europeans to reach South Africa were the Portuguese, reaching the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. The Portuguese however rarely interacted with the Africans directly. Eventually both the British created a settlement and the Dutch a garrison in the cape in a bid to challenge Portugal's control of the cape sea route. The Dutch presence grew in the Cape grew as more settlers began to arrive and enslave the local populace. The British settlement proved to be short lived. The Khoekhoe people regularly traded livestock with the Dutch in exchange for tobacco, trinkets, and alcohol. Both the Khoekhoe people and the Dutch were in conflict regularly. Eventually a very large portion of the Khoekhoe were decimated by smallpox.
Dutch settlers, who garnered the name "Boers", began moving inland to settle. As this occurred, the San people were pushed back from their lands and many enslaved. More Boer settlers began to spread north and across the northeast. As the 18th century concluded, colonial settlements had come to dominate the western cape. Along with it Cape Town grew to become a major urban center.
1809 map of the Cape Colony
The Napoleonic Wars had caused some turmoil for the Netherlands and therefore the Cape Colony. The Netherlands had been integrated into France up to Napoleon's defeat. Britain occupied the Cape Colony in that time span. Following Napoleon's final defeat, the Netherlands was reformed into the United Kingdoms of the Netherlands. The United Kingdom ceded the Cape Colony back to the Netherlands.
During this period, Boers began to migrate north and eastward due to overcrowding. This brought the colony into increasing conflict, especially with the Xhosa. The Xhosa Wars lasted until the late 19th century, ending in the pacification of the Xhosa peoples.
Battle of Grahamstown during the Sixth Xhosa War (1850-1854)
In 1863, the Dutch Empire abolished slavery. During the latter half of the 19th century and into the 20th century the colony began to see an increase in migration particularly from the Dutch, but also protestants. Numerous Germans and Scandinavians also began to migrate to the nation, making the Cape Colony a major place of migration of European immigrants alongside the United States. The Netherlands encouraged also rebelling Walloons and poor European farmers to migrate.
Around the 1870s Britain had established a foothold alongside the Netherlands in Southern Africa. It was moving to colonize the Natal and later moved into the interior to capture the mineral zeitgeist in the region. The Cape Colony on the other hand had ceased to expand to any serious extent, partly due to the Netherlands' limited size and capabilities. By the end of the century, Great Britain had colonized around it in into modern day Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. The Netherlands, in a bid to hinder Britain's expansion, sold the Cape Colony's post in Walvis Bay to Germany, which enabled the German colony of Southwest Africa to be established.
Apartheid and Independence[]
Jan Smuts (24 May 1870- 11 September 1950), one of the last presidents before the establishment of Apartheid
In 1925, the Cape Colony was given a dominion-like status similar to New Holland had been. It became a fully sovereign state in 1945. Jan Smuts was elected prime minister in 1948, stemming the growing tide of the National Party. The National Party was a newly established party which sought to protect the place of the Boer people. To strengthen the position demographically of whites in the colony, Smuts began to push further migration, establishing a commercial fleet to transport immigrants to the country. He encouraged immigration not just from mainly northern Europe. This received criticism by the National Party who believed these immigrants would not conform with the Boer culture.
Townships in the Boer Republic. Established exclusively for Africans, coloreds, and Indians, they remained underdeveloped.
Sign during the early Apartheid era
The National Party was also raising fears over a perceived "black threat" in the nation. Smuts had begun to oversee a stripping back of some racial restrictions. His efforts were halted with his death in 1950. The National Party won the 1953 election and all subsequent, becoming the predominant political force in the nation. Ethnic relations began to transform with the establishment of apartheid in 1949. This was a system which meant restriction and separation along ethnic lines between white and black. For a brief period in 1961, South Africa became a parliamentary republic. Charles Robberts Swart would serve as the ceremonial President from the 31st of May 1961 to the 7th of November 1961. He would use close allies in the National Party to pass a new Constitution which abolished the position of Prime Minister and lent greater power to the Presidency.
Rise of Swartism[]
The President was initially elected by the Parliament with set 5-year-terms and a maximum limit of 2 terms. But Swart would use allies in Parliament to pass constitutional amendments that abolished term limits in 1966. After years of consolidating power and purging elements of opposition with the National Party, a 1970 amendment would be passed that established that the State President would serve for life. This system of authoritarianism would come to be referred to as "Swartism".
In 1975, international sanctions were levied against the Boer Republic. Its membership in the League of Nations was also suspended that same year. This was the same year of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Boer Republic's anti-communist position had made western governments mainly turn a blind eye to its racial policies and increasing authoritarianism. Now the Boer Republic was extremely isolated. Swart later created in 1980 the Swartist Brotherhood to bond together the fascist states of southern Africa: Avizia, Warrenia, and the Boer Republic, in the face of almost complete international isolation. The brotherhood ultimately allowed them to survive the onslaught of embargoes and sanctions beset upon them. Though, this isolation came to have its own long term negative effects upon these nations, whose economies and white populations stagnated over the decades. The Boer Republic was no exception.
Modern Day[]
First Supreme Guide of Boer Republic P.W Botha (12 January 1916-31 October 2006)
After Swart's passing in office in 1982, P.W Botha succeeded him. He abolished the position of president in 1987. In its place would emerge the executive position of "Supreme Guide of the Nation". The country had now consolidated completely as an authoritarian state. Botha and successive leaders continued to remain staunch in maintaining apartheid. Botha became ever focused on providing security for the regime and keeping down unrest and political violence. While beforehand South Africa had become a heavily oppressive police state, Botha escalated matters by authorizing thousands of arrests and bans. Punishments for treason became as severe as hanging.
The bordering nation of Mutapa supported the main resistance movement uMkhonto we Sizwe to sabotage the Boer regime. As the Boer Republic consisted of less than 50% Africans, and the uMkhonto we Sizwe was a predominantly African movement, it struggled to gain any significant traction, even when the white population began to plateau in the 1980s and 1990s, then decline in the 2000s. Mutapa's support of the uMkhonto we Sizwe did further atrophy already sour relations.
By the 2010s, the Boer Republic was facing unprecedented levels of unrest alongside the rest of the Swartist nations. Though not to the same extent, some significant events of political violence occurred. The Blomkamp Massacre was among the most significant, when Boer police fired upon black student demonstrators, killing around 30.
Great African War and Civil War[]
The Boer Republic joined the rest of the Swartist Brotherhood against the Congolese Coalition in the Great African War in late 2022. After the collapse of the rest of the Boer Republic's allies, a reformist named James Steenhuisen peacefully deposed the ruling Supreme Guide of the Nation. Steenhuisen surrendered to the Congolese coalition in January 2023 under the guarantee of reform. This process went less than smoothly for the nation. The February Crisis precipitated by economic collapse led to a military junta of Boer hardliners installing themselves in power. The military government of the Boer Republic was met by resistance inside the nation and outside. The Congo, Mutapa, Botswana, and Namibia had gathered once more to join war in unison on the Boer Republic. The Boer Civil War has been ongoing since March 2, 2023.
Government[]
Since March 2, 2023, the Boer Republic has been governed under a military junta. This occurred after a violent overthrow of the recently established presidential republic. The 2023 constitution established under that republic was overturned by the military junta. The Boer Republic still operates as a de-jure republic. The 1961 constitution was reinstated by the junta. A parliamentary system still operates, though all opposition members have been arrested.
Demographics[]
The Boer Republic is a nation of around 30 million as of 2023. The last census to be held in 2011 indicated the White population to be 35.2%, Black African at 52.9%, Coloured at 9.5%, and others or unspecified at 1.3%. The largest racial group outside of the main three are Indians. The 1911 census in the Boer Republic indicated Whites to be 22.5% of the population, which had risen to 55.5% by 1980, a figure which has since declined to present levels.
Economy[]
Port of Cape Town
Since international sanctions against it, the Boer Republic's economic growth and technological progress stalled. Its economy from then remained extremely closed. Trade with the rest of the world was almost entirely limited to partners in the Swartist Brotherhood. The flow of investments too and out of the country was also limited. Insufficient investment in human capital occurred during this time, resulting in a present wide disparity between the white population which has become developed and the African population that has still remained economically stunted. As the white population began to age, and available skilled labor began to decline, economic opportunities had to be opened to Colored peoples in the 2010s. A further opening of the nation began to occur after the Great African War, though this was halted by the military takeover and subsequent civil war.
The oldest wine estate in the Boer Republic which was founded in 1685
The Boer Republic's economy is mainly dominated by the major hub Cape Town, which accounts for over 70% of the nation's economy. Much of the country's products are wine and agriculture based. Both the north and south of the country are home to significant vineyards. Cape Town and the southern area of the country is home to call centers, electronic production, and fashion design. The north is the location most famously for the Blomkamp diamond minds. It also has multiple sights for iron and titanium. The north of the nation is not just the sparsest area, but the poorest in the Boer Republic. It has the highest concentration of Africans in the nation, many of whom lack basic conditions like housing or toilets.
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