DIAMONDS,GOLD,AND BRITISHIMPERIALISM
series of defeats on ineptly led British forces. The brief war culminated in
February 1881, when a commando stormed Majuba Mountain in broad
daylight and virtually annihilated the 280 British soldiers on the summit.
Williarn Gladstone's Liberal ministry, which had succeeded the Conser-
vatives the:previous year, resisted the popular clamor for revenge, and in
August 1881 British commissioners signed a convention giving the Trans-
vaal "complete self-government, subject to the Suzerainty of Her Majes-
ty" -a
reservation with no precise meaning. That ended the forward move-
ment that Carnarvon had initiated.
During the ensuing years, Afrikaners adapted in different ways to their
changing environments. In the Cape Colony, where most Afrikaners still
lived, they were exposed to two distinct paradigms, idealistic and pragmat-
ic. The idealistic paradigm was set out by S. J. du Toit, a rural predikant
(Dutch Reformed minister), who created the nucleus of an exclusiveethnic
mythology for Afrikaners in a newspaper, Die Afrikaanse patriot, and a
book Diegeskiendenisvanons landindietaalvanons volk (The history of
our country in the language of our people). Afrikaners, according to du