page_title: Griqualand West
section_title: Further territorial disputes
hierarchical_section_title: Griqualand West / Direct British rule (1871-1880) / Further territorial disputes
caption_attribution_description: David Arnot. Gifted and successful diplomat and agent of the Griqua leader Nicolaas Waterboer. A photograph from the 1800s now preserved in the Cape Archives.
context_page_description: Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km² that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people - a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, who established several states outside the expanding frontier of the Cape Colony. It was also inhabited by the pre-existing Tswana and Khoisan peoples.
  In 1873 it was proclaimed as a British colony, with its capital at Kimberley, and in 1880 it was annexed by the Cape Colony. When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, Griqualand West was part of the Cape Province but continued to have its own "provincial" sports teams.
context_section_description: Territorial disputes continued, even after the British annexation. When the annexation had taken place, a party in the Orange Free State volksraad had wished to go to war with Britain but the wiser counsels of its President prevailed. The Orange Free State did not abandon its claims, believing that the diamond fields were the means of restoring the credit and prosperity of the Free State. Griqualand West was not financially viable, and carried with it enormous public debt. The matter continued for a considerable time and caused immense tension in southern Africa.
  In the face of claims from the Orange Free State and the Griqua authorities, the Griqualand West Land Court was established in 1875, under Justice Andries Stockenström.
  Waterboer's claims to the diamond fields, strongly presented by his agent David Arnot, were based on the treaty concluded by his father with the British in 1834 and on various arrangements with the Kok chiefs; the Orange Free State based its claim on its purchase of Adam Kok's sovereign rights and on long occupation. The difference between proprietorship and sovereignty was confused or ignored. That Waterboer exercised no authority in the disputed district was admitted.
  In a crucial finding Stockenström ruled that, as the Griqua people were nomadic, the Griqua chiefs (or "captains") were rulers over a people, but not over a fixed territory. The Griqua people had also only arrived in this part of southern Africa a little over 50 years before, in the early nineteenth century. The Griqua captains therefore did not automatically get the right to own & develop all of the land through which they moved, but only those areas in which they would settle. Other areas they could continue to move through, but were not given automatic title to own and develop. This resulted in the denial of many of the titles issued by the powerful Griqua Captain Nicolaas Waterboer, outside of his core areas around Griquatown and Albania, were also denied. It also effectively ruled in favour of the Orange Free State.
  A furore resulted, as accusations were leveled that Stockenström was bias, and sympathetic towards the Orange Free State President Johannes Brand.
  A form of resolution eventually came about in July 1876, when Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, at that time secretary of state for the colonies, granted the Free State payment "in full satisfaction of all claims which it considers it may possess to Griqualand West."
  In the opinion of Dr Theal, who has written the history of the Boer Republics and has been a consistent supporter of the Boers, the annexation of Griqualand West was probably in the best interests of the Orange Free State. "There was," he states, "no alternative from British sovereignty other than an independent diamond field republic." At this time, largely owing to the exhausting struggle with the Basutos, the Free State Boers, like their Transvaal Republic neighbours, had drifted into financial straits. A paper currency had been instituted, and the notes, known as "bluebacks", soon dropped to less than half their nominal value. Commerce was largely carried on by barter, and many cases of bankruptcy occurred in the state. But as British annexation in 1877 saved the Transvaal from bankruptcy, so did the influx of British and other immigrants to the diamond fields, in the early 1870s, restore public credit and individual prosperity to the Boers of the Free State. The diamond fields offered a ready market for stock and other agricultural produce. Money flowed into the pockets of the farmers. Public credit was restored. " Bluebacks " recovered par value, and were called in and redeemed by the government. Valuable diamond mines were also discovered within the Orange Free State, of which the one at Jagersfontein is the richest. Capital from Kimberley and London was soon provided with which to work them.
caption: David Arnot, Griqua lawyer and diplomat
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