THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

Whites which ultimately led to severe dissatisfaction with England, and finally the AmericanDeclaration of Independence. So too in South Africa, from about 1710 onward we begin to find(some sixty years after the establishment of the White colony) the emergence of a South AfricanWhite consciousness.These "Afrikaners" objected to the perceived authoritarianism of Holland. They intensely dislikedthe autocracy of the foreign Dutch government -- and many of the Dutch noblemen and wealthypeople who were sent to South Africa from Holland to govern her. This clashed with the frontiertypespirit, where every man was regarded as formally the equal of every other civilized man.Some of these governors that were sent to South Africa were not even real Dutchmen. One suchwas a very objectionable individual called Willem Adriaan van der Stel. He was born in Indonesia.His father was a Dutchman, but his mother a Malay. He was really autocratic, and quite a tyrant. Hemuch upset the people, who were not large in number.In North America, the White population rapidly expanded not so much at the cradle but particularlythrough continuing immigration. The White colonisation of South Africa however -- after its initialestablishment in 1652 and the arrival of the French Huguenots in 1688 -- hardly got any newincrease whatsoever from Europe.What preserved a great deal of openness in White Americans toward White Europeans, is the factthat there has -- at any rate until just a few decades ago -- been a constant flow of more and moreEuropeans to the United States. That has not been the case in South Africa. The South AfricanWhites, once they got rooted, were remote and aloof from Europe. Until about 1820, almost theonly new arrivals were autocratic European rulers and Governors. They came there for a five- orten-year term, not understanding the people. Then they had to be replaced by yet other autocraticand unsympathetic rulers.So the White population in South Africa expanded chiefly at the cradle. Through immigration from1700 onward, it increased at a very tiny trickling pace -- compared to the flood of immigrantswhich then kept on arriving in North America. In fact, by 1700 there were only 1800 Whites in thewhole of South Africa -- together with 1100 slaves. None of those slaves were from Africa. All ofthem had been transported there by Dutch slavers from Indonesia.Yet we find the White-born people in the Cape becoming increasingly more dissatisfied with theDutch colonial pressures from Holland. Indeed, it was especially the Huguenots -- the people ofFrench Calvinist descent -- who were the most dissatisfied of all.Huguenots like Adam Tas became more and more involved in moving for increasing measures ofSouth African self-government. They disliked the Dutch control of the Cape. These were peoplewho were sturdy, who had been grounded in Calvin's GaIlic Confession -- which required thegovernment to be godly in terms of the Ten Commandments. They perceived that the far-awayDutch government no longer seemed to be very godly -- at least, not in its dealings with the SouthAfricans. So they began to say so, more and more.It is interesting that the man who wrote the music for the South African national anthem, Rev. M.L.de Villiers, is of French Huguenot descent. Indeed, the Huguenots were a people that lovedfreedom.So, Huguenots like Adam Tas with their strong law-orientation would appeal to Calvin and hisGalIic Confession. They objected against the tyranny of wayward Dutch governors and officials atthe Cape -- and they resisted it. Throughout the eighteenth century, you had this. In 1740, 1750 and