DIAMONDS.GOLD.AND BRITISHIMPERIALISM
an attempted coup known as the Jameson Raid-a
classic piece of naive
adventurism-that
the British government assumed direct responsibility
for preventing the Transvaal from slipping out of the imperial network.
British pressures culminated in the South African War, 1899- I 902, Brit-
ain's greatest war since the Napoleonic Wars.
Britain eventually conquered the republics and annexed them as British
colonies but did not use its victory to modify the racial structure of South-
ern African society. On the contrary, the war ended in a treaty that guaran-
teed that black people would not participate in parliamentary elections in
the new colonies whenthey were given representative institutions. In 1907,
the British honored that agreement, and three years later the Cape Colony,
Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange FreeState joined to form the Union of
South Africa, which, from the day of its birth, was dominated by its white
inhabitants."
Diamonds, Gold, and the Mining Cities
Africans had worked outcrops of copper, iron, and gold in various parts
of Southern Africa for over a millennium. By the 1860s, Whites, too, had
been extracting small outcrops of copper in the northwestern Cape Colony