Sub-imperialism, primitive acculumation, and state formation: The making of a Boer Republic

Abstract

This paper focuses on colonial economy and society in the crucial but recently neglected middle years of the Nineteenth century, on the assumption that only by understanding the dynamic processes of accumulation and dispossession in pre-industrial South Africa can the complex origins of the contemporary racial order be fully understood. Its specific concern is the Transorangian interior in a particularly revealing period of social, economic arid political transition. In attempting to explain the origins and significance of the Boer republic founded in 1854, the paper explores the relationship between imperial expansionism and colonial capitalism; and it examines the emergence of ruling elites, the forms of accumulation they employed and the nascent state structures they relied on to support and legitimate their activities. A skeletal narrative section will follow, and then the issues that are raised there will be discussed and analysed in a concluding section.