A Turtledove Story of South African History (possible Land Use Solution added on p.4)

TLDNR: This post will summarize South African history by analogy to an alternate history of the southern United States.

The history of South Africa is not particularly well known to most Americans, but it can become easier to understand, if we draw a few analogies to American history. This post will be somewhat long, but I think it will be worth your time if you know little South African history and want to understand it better. Yes, I expect lots of TLDNR comments.

These analogies take the form of an alternate history of North America, in which the territory now comprising the Old Deep,South of the US will serve as an analogue for the Cape colony in southern Africa (the original core of modern South Africa).

Imagine for a moment that the American revolution had gone somewhat differently. In particular, imagine that the settled areas of eastern Canada (primarily southern Ontario and southern Quebec) had joined the Revolution and that the French Revolution had taken place a bit earlier, necessitating French withdrawal from any involvement in the American Revolution.

Now imagine that the southern colonies and the northern colonies (including Canada’s Maritime Provinces) each negotiated peace with Britain on two different terms. The North achieves complete independence from Great Britain (the Yankee States of America). The South achieves significant self-rule, but not full independence (the Confederated Southern Colony). Because the French are weakened by their own Revolution, Great Britain forces renunciation of any claim to greater Louisiana (the Louisiana purchase). The boundaries of the CSC are established as everything south of the Mason Dixon line and east of the Sabine River. The northern Louisiana Purchase goes to the Yankees, and the desert southwest (including Texas) remains part of New Spain.

From this point forward, Great Britain will play the role of the Dutch in our history, while the Yankees will play the role of England in our history.

For various reasons, the British wish to regain Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, while the Yankees wish to obtain control of the CSC coastlines to aid in trade with the Caribbean and New Spain. Therefore, Great Britain and the Yankees enter a treaty in the early 1800s exchanging those territories. The Deep South becomes a Yankee territory (without statehood), called the Confederated Southern Territory (the British Cape Colony)

The Yankees’ first action is to abolish slavery in the CST. Southern Whites (Dixievolk) do not like this new situation, especially the Southern White farmers and planters (the Dixieboers). The bulk of the Dixieboers promptly hitch their oxen and mules to their wagons, load their stuff and their slaves, and begin a mass migration/track westward, across the Sabine River ... thus out of CST territory and into sparsely-held territory of New Spain. Many other Dixievolk remain in the CST and accept Yankee rule. The vast majority (99%) of mixed-race residents (the Free Coloureds, who outnumber the Dixievolk) remain as well.

The Yankees send colonists to the CST, who settle alongside the remaining Dixievolk. The Dixievolk and the White Yankee colonists are still outnumbered by the mixed-race Free Coloureds.

The Dixieboers fight a series of conflicts against forces,of New Spain (analogue for the Bantu nations in southeastern Africa) for control of the lands now comprising Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of northern Mexico. They win, and eventually establish the Texican Free State (Orange Free State) between the Sabine and the Pecos and the Transpecos (Transvaal) west of the Pecos, both as independent nations with full diplomatic recognition by the 1830s or so. In these new nations, the Dixieboers still own slaves, and free Latinos have few rights.

The Dixieboers discover vast reserves of petroleum in the Texican Free State and vast deposits of gold and diamonds in the Transpecos. The Yankees want to control these resources, so they invade and conquer both the Texican Free State and the Transpecos. The Yankees eventually combine these territories with the CST in the early 1900s to form the Union of Southern Territories (the UST, still without statehood) (Union of South Africa).

As successor to New Spain, Mexico (here, still equated to the Bantu nations) wants to regain the Transpecos and the Texican Free State, and the Yankees and the UST fight a series of wars with Mexico in the late 1800s to retain the Free State and especially the Transpecos. The Yankees and UST win these wars.

Since the arrival of the Dixieboers, Latinos have been filtering into the Transpecos and the Texican Free State from Mexico to serve as a labor pool. They eventually become the majority, but have few rights. Few migrate as far as the Deep South, where Free Coloreds remain the plurality.

UST troops help the Yankees fight in WW1, and a Southern Independence movement (led by Dixievolk) develops in the UST thereafter. Whites (dominated by the Dixievolk) pass laws that non-Whites cannot own land in 95% of the UST and impose a patchwork of Jaime Cuervo (Jim Crow) laws limiting other rights of all non-White races.

WW2 rolls around, and UST troops again assist the Yankees, but many Dixieboers secretly sympathize with Germany. After WW2: the Yankees grant independence to the UST, which renames itself the Republic of Southern America (the RSA, equivalent to the Republic of South Africa).

At this point, Southern Whites (Dixievolk and White Yankee colonist families) control the country despite being a small minority. The largest Dixievolk political party (the National Party) includes many of the volk who sympathized with the Germans in WW2. The National Party implements a codified set of formal laws and policies for the separation of Whites and non-Whites, which they call “Apartness”(apartheid). Among other things, the franchise is withheld from Amerinds, Blacks and Latinos (Khoisan, South asians and Bantu in South Africa). Mixed race Coloureds initially retain the franchise in the Old Deep South, but it is eventually (by the 1950s) taken from them as well.

In 1994, international pressure forces Whites in the RSA to grant the franchise and full citizenship to Blacks, Amerinds, Latinos and mixed race Coloureds. Whites are promptly voted out of power.