Talk:Transvaal Colony

message: Dodger67 - Nice edit :) Resolved the factual problems in one go :)  Zarpboer (talk) 12:59, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Article opening paragraph

message: *Wait Troy, I'm confused... how is it independent and a province?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tarquin (talk • contribs) 11:31, 18 January 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Old comments 

message: Hi. A simple phrase like "Dutch settlers, known as Boers ..." was replaced by someone by an amazingly verbose, convolute and impossible to understand string of nationalities:
In the 1830s and the 1840s, descendents of Dutch settlers / French Huguenot refugees / German Prostestants / & smaller numbers of Belgians / Scandinavians / Scots / including an admixture of Indian, Khoi-Khoi & Malay, known as Boers (farmers) or Voortrekkers (pioneers), exited the British Cape Colony, in what was to be called the Great Trek.
I don't think that this can stay. How about saying "decscendents of Dutch and other settlers, known as Boers..."? This long detailed list should be listed in Boers, and whoever wants to see it can go there. Alternatively, you can write an entire paragraph about the ethnic composition of the Boers. But it simply cannot be one big slash-separated adjective - that looks horrible.
Nyh 14:44, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the settlers' ethnicity 

message: There is also a 'wijk' in The Hague called Transvaal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.68.130.200 (talk • contribs) 14:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is interesting. I'm presuming that 'wijk' is the same as Afrikaans 'wyk' meaning something like 'district'. Booshank 20:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I added a mention at the top of the article. - Regards, Ev 01:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transvaal (The Hague) 

message: Anonymous user 81.153.180.50 has changed the infobox beyond recognition and fiddled with dates etc. This is either vandalism or a completely misguided change. I undid the change. Michel Doortmont (talk) 20:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism or misguided additions - removed 

message: Some clarification/agreement is needed as to what this article is about. Someone has added 1994 as the disestablishment again (e.g. the dissolution of Transvaal Province); the result is that this article now states two years as disestablishment (see categories). That is at best confusing and at worst doesn't make sense. Either we need to clarify that this article is about both the Colony and the Province, or we need to spin out an article Transvaal (Province). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 18:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is (or should be) about both.  The problem is that we have never said about the 1910-1994 province apart from "In 1910, the Boer republics joined with the Cape Colony to form the Union of South Africa. Half a century later, in 1961, the union ceased to be part of the Commonwealth of Nations and became the Republic of South Africa. The PWV (Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging) area in the Transvaal became South Africa's economic powerhouse, a position it still holds today."  What is needed is something more about these 84 years. Only then is it worth discussing where such information should be put.--Rumping (talk) 10:39, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  colony vs. province 

message: In the hatnote this article is described as covering the 1902-1910 British Colony but most of the actual content of the article lies outside of that period. There is no other article covering the 1910 - 1994 province. 
If this article really should be restricted to the Colony only then its name should not be the single word "Transvaal", it should rather be "Transvaal Colony" or "Colony of Transvaal" (use the official form, whatever it was). 
The single word title would be understood by most readers who have any knowlege of the place (such as basically all South Africans older than 20) to refer to the 1910 - 1994 Province. 
It is simply "unbalanced" that the article about the least significant period (a mere 8 years) of the territory's entire history should appropriate the single word name "Transvaal" that in fact was the official name of the province. 
The pre-1902 Republic's name was "Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek" in Dutch or "South African Republic" in English. Not to be confused with the 1961 - present "Republic of South Africa". 
I feel very strongly that all four 1910 - 1994 provinces should each have a proper separate article without confusing the issue with other periods. 
Therefor I Propose that this article be split into two separate articles: Transvaal Colony for the period 1902 - 1910 and Transvaal for the 1910 - 1994 province. Roger (talk) 12:33, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There really is not enough for 1902-1910 or 1910-1994 to be worth splitting.--Rumping (talk) 23:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If the split is done the individual articles could easily be expanded. There is a truly massive ammount of material avalailable on the Province but I for one am not willing to add it to this mess of an article as it is now precisely because its scope is poorly defined and confused. A further consideration is that there is no article about the province on en.WP at all while the other 3 1910-1994 provinces do have substantial articles. Roger (talk) 11:25, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

text: I strongly concur that there are several potential articles, a good structure may be a page for Colony of Transvaal; which would cover all three incarnations of pre-union British rule in separate sections. Then a Transvaal Province article which covers the 1910-1994 province, and a Transvaal article which covers the geographic region. Aricci526 17:00, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to split 

message: The links to other languages are almost all incorrect. They link to articles about the Transvaal in the generic territorial or provincial sense and not to pages specifically about the Colony. I don't know if there is a specific procedure for fixing this problem. Roger (talk) 12:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: this is often done when the precise article does not exist; people pick "the next best thing". If any of the other wikipedias has an article specifically about the British colony (I suspect there won't be too many, then just link to there. Meanwhile, I'll just remove them all; it's seems they all link back the generic one in most cases. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 12:38, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like only Polish is a match. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 12:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interwikis 

message: I have just (quite ruthlessly) stripped out content that was irrelevant to the period covered by this article. If it didn't happen or exist between the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging on 31 May 1902 and the establishment of the Union of South Africa exactly eight years later on 31 May 1910, it does not belong here. Roger (talk) 14:11, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Zarpboer - I have edited the lead section to properly comply with the Manual of style. Explaining the meaning of the word "Transvaal" does not belong in the lead - if it even belongs in this article at all it should be somewhere in the main body, not the lead. There is a disambiguation page at Transvaal which briefly mentions the etymology - perhaps the information you had here should go there. The current History section is a mess - it contains a load of stuff relevant to the ZAR, which is properly covered in a separate article South African Republic. The section needs to be stripped down to cover only the 1902-1910 period. BTW, welcome to Wikipedia - sorry your initial contact seems to have been a bit rough.  Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:02, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

text: Thanks Roger (Dodger67) :) Zarpboer (talk) 13:42, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anachronistic content 

message: The "History" section seems to be quite unsatisfactory.
The "Transvaal Colony"  supposedly existed between 1902 and 1910.    And yet, there is not one single word about anything that happened during that time.  The political process of transitioning from a state of war to a quasi-independent dominion in just 8 years must have been quite interesting,  but there is not a word about it.   Perhaps needs some attention from a knowledgeable person.Lathamibird (talk) 13:04, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, the eight years (1902-1910) could probably be characterized as a period of military occupation, I don't think much actual colonisation occurred in this period. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:12, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

text: seconded :) Lathamibird and Roger (Dodger67) when these pages were created there was a lot of disinformation as history has been re-written. fortunately there are many books from the period that remained preserved, as well as original documents. - i think it is important that we add enough citations and references for some of these pages as there are many people that become confused with the facts and the true history. the good and the bad, it is what it is... i grew up listening to stories of my country - my great grandfather was a zarp (cop in zar) :) Zarpboer (talk) 13:19, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: There is actually nothing at all in the current History section that is worth keeping so I'm deleting it all and replacing it with a brief explanation. I'd like to suggest that we work together on a Draft History section here on the Talk page - wich we can move into the article once it has some decent relevant content. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:31, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've put down a few key points as a skeleton to build on. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:50, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

text: Dude, in this edit you rock! Roger (Dodger67) - all factual and all correct sofar imho , and so cool that we build a draft history section in talk Zarpboer (talk) 13:53, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

text: What do we know about the economy, was there an organised post-war reconstruction effort? The agricultural sector was severely affected by the war as were the rural towns outside the Pretoria/Witwatersrand area. I have no idea how much gold mining was affected by the war - keeping up production would obviously have been a priority for the ZAR government but the sector's dependence on uitlanders would surely have been a problem during the war. What about transport infrastructure such as bridges and railways? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:01, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

text: Louis Botha#Role after the Boer War has some useful material (with sources) that we can use. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:16, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

text: Roger (Dodger67) looks good... what we have now is factual and correct and you should publish it? - it is a lot better than what was there :)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zarpboer (talk • contribs) 14:20, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Not yet, it needs a little more meat on the bones before we move it. I have no actual sources to reference, the bits and pieces I put down below so far are just what I gleaned from the article's infobox and a quick look at the Louis Botha article. Please take a look at the questions I pose above - do your sources offer some answers? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:35, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

text: There's some more useful material at Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner#The peace and William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne#1882 - 1910 that we can use to fill out the draft a bit more. The Milner article shows there was indeed an organised economic reconstruction effort. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: Any objections if I add Sotho to the languages? bias is as bias does (talk) 08:39, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Ping User:htonl - Is there any census data available for the 1902-1910 period that we can use when writing about the territory's demographics? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:46, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

text: No, but the Dutch language laws of the ZAR were among the laws repealed in the 1902 treaty, English was the only single official language. So, for npov, we should probably remove all the languages and/or have a multi cultural section? But if we do leave the languages for now, there were (and even today in the same area) many Sotho speakers and to remain neutral we should reflect that? Zarpboer (talk) 14:52, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

text: Just for clarity- the voters, tax etc are available (1907) but the records, references, etc, 'estimate' the 'natives', orientals, etc. there are citations for Sotho speakers, i think the question is more whether we have a demographics section and/or what we reflect as 'official' language? It should probably just be English... anyway, not pushing any POV, just giving 2c Zarpboer (talk) 14:58, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: If the 1907 official records are sufficiently detailed that we can compile a decent paragraph or two on demographics we should do so. Even estimates are better than nothing. I have appended "(official)" to English in the infobox. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:38, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: cool, there were also 'coolies' (indians i think?) etc. anyway, I have also linked from the South African Republic to this page, can you have a look if you have 2secs pls? Zarpboer (talk) 07:51, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The "coolies" would be the Chinese mine workers, not Indians. At that time Indians were still limited to the Natal Colony. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:49, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, personally I am learning a lot about this period, if someone else has not added the demographics, then I will do it next week, I also want to add about the gold production, massive amounts of capital invested and employment, growth etc. in the period between 1902 and 1910 - so it will also go here, there are two figures which are not the same however, so am also waiting for the correct figures and citation to add - next week though... Zarpboer (talk) 10:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Languages

message: imho ver good quality additions by @Conlinp, concerned with only the use of 1 Readers Digest Ref, we need to double check for npov, but it really looks great sofar, also will help when i get some time, want to look for good citations for the racial issues, to prevent any later reverts of this good work by conlinp stating pov or something. IsAre there other sections you are still going to add Conlinp ?  Zarpboer (talk) 13:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: While the RD Illustrated History is well regarded as a popular history text, it is obviously not up to professional academic standards - though it's far better than the junk they used to feed us in school in the 1980s and before. It's a good start, but obviously will need verification through other sources. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:51, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Dodger67 but it is a good neutral start, I am only working on two major pages atm (zar & another) and as soon as i am done i will also add additional citations (in the next week or so) Zarpboer (talk) 15:03, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for all your comments. Its a template to expand the article. Only have a bit more to add in the politics section concerning the Milner's attempts at anglicizing the Boer population and its failure and the attempt to stop the introduction of the South Africa Act through the English parliament. But give me a few more days to find the time to do that.Conlinp (talk) 08:30, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

text: @Conlinp - Propose to add to History the Vereeniging peace treaty items:
*To eventually give the ZAR and the Orange Free State self-government again (eventually granted in 1906 and 1907, respectively).
*To avoid discussing the enfranchisement issue until self-government had been given 
*To pay the AfrikanersBoers £3,000,000 in reconstruction aid.
*To imprison only Cape Afrikaners and their leaders
*To allow the use of high or proper Dutch in the schools and law courts.
Any of the additional minor terms we should be adding? Zarpboer (talk) 07:11, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

text: We should have something about Milner's Kindergarten - a group of young people Milner recruited to manage various aspects of post-war reconstruction of the Transvaal and Free State. Many of them later rose to prominence in British and Imperial politics and business. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:35, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: ok, but we must just be careful to remain within the generally accepted academic view of history or supply acceptable academic and historical citations, as this could open the door to WP:FRINGE and the british secret societies - for which there are acceptable academic research citations, i am just commenting that this is difficult territory and the initial wording should be as neutral as possible - maybe simply state the facts and then build on it slowly? Zarpboer (talk) 07:58, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand what you mean by "secret societies", there is no hint of that kind of thing anywhere. Suggest you read Milner's Kindergarten first before further discussion. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:13, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

text: Should modify some of your Vereeniging peace treaty items in line with the original document: - OFS should be Orange River Colony and add black or native in front of the "enfranchisement issue". Not sure about the "To imprison only Cape Afrikaners and their leaders" - I see imprisonment for those Boers guilty of acts contrary to "normal" acts of war ie. war crimes.Conlinp (talk) 10:46, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: History, Politics etc