Sir Benjamin D’Urban

Sir Benjamin D’Urban (born 1777, Halesworth, near Norwich, Norfolk, Eng.—died May 25, 1849, Montreal, Quebec, Can.) was a British general and colonial administrator chiefly remembered for his frontier policy as governor in the Cape Colony (now in South Africa).

D’Urban began his service as a soldier in 1793 and later fought in the Napoleonic Wars, where he won distinction in the Peninsular War as a quartermaster general. In 1820 D’Urban was sent to the West Indies as governor of Antigua, and in 1831he went to the newly created colony of British Guiana (now Guyana).

D’Urban was appointed governor and commander in chief of the Cape Colony. He arrived in January 1834 with instructions to maintain peace on the eastern frontier and confine white settlers to the Cape Colony west of the Fish River. In 1834–35 his orders were complicated by Boer farmers who crossed the Orange River to the north and began the invasion of African territory to the north and east known as the Great Trek. D’Urban opposed this action and tried to counter it by establishing the principle that the Boers still fell under British legal control north of the Orange River. This led to the Cape of Good Hope Punishment Act of 1836, although the act was largely unenforceable.

Also during 1834, British military provocations and land expansion east of the Fish River led to Xhosa counterattacks to regain lost territory; this and further escalations in the Cape Frontier Wars led to a massive British attack on the Xhosa in early 1835. D’Urban then annexed a large region between the Keiskama (near the Fish River) and the Kei rivers and established a new colony called Queen Adelaide Province. This is noted as being the first time that the British had decided to attempt direct rule of Africans in Africa.

Although the gift of so much new land made D’Urban very popular with the expansionist settlers, it did not endear him to the British colonial authorities. The unauthorized annexation defied his original instructions and was fiercely opposed by local missionaries, who lodged complaints against him. On Dec. 26, 1835, British Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg issued a dispatch instructing D’Urban to “retrocede” Queen Adelaide Province to the Xhosa chiefs, and in a dispatch dated May 1, 1837, Glenelg revoked D’Urban’s governorship. D’Urban continued in the post until his replacement arrived and then remained in Southern Africa in his military capacity. In 1846 he was ordered to Quebec to serve as the commander in chief of British forces in North America. He began serving in early 1847 and remained in that position until his death in 1849.

D’Urban was revered (and Glenelg execrated) by much of the settler population during the time of his governorship and by later generations. The town of Port Natal was renamed Durban in 1835, and the territory in his controversial Queen Adelaide Province was reannexed—this time permanently—in 1847 as British Kaffraria.