C.W. de Kiewiet, the Imperial Factor, and South African 'Native Policy'

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Periodical article

Title:	C.W. de Kiewiet, the Imperial Factor, and South African 'Native Policy'
Author:	Cope, R.L.
Year:	1989
Periodical:	Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:	15
Issue:	3
Period:	April
Pages:	486-505
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa Great Britain
Subjects:	colonialism colonial policy indigenous peoples history 1870-1879 History and Exploration Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636408
Abstract:	This paper examines De Kiewiet's book of 1937 on the imperial factor in South Africa in the 1870s, the period in which Carnarvon, Secretary of State for the Colonies, tried to apply his 'uniform native policy'. De Kiewiet, following MacMillan, saw the imperial factor as a counterweight to settler rapacity and hence represented Carnarvon's native policy as a wish to protect Africans from proletarianization. An examination of Carnarvon's statements, however, makes clear that the purpose of his 'uniform native policy' was essentially to strengthen white supremacy and secure an adequate supply of free wage labour. De Kiewiet's liberalism led him to see social conflict as the product of misunderstanding and prejudice rather than as a real conflict of interest between classes and races. While he liberated himself from the prevalent racism of the society in which he grew up, he was less critical of some of its economic consequences. Ref.