Uitlander

Uitlander, (Afrikaans: “foreigner”), any British or other non-Afrikaner immigrant in the Transvaal region in the 1880s and ’90s. After 1886 the prospect of gold lured large numbers of newcomers to Johannesburg, where they became a majority of the citizenry and were led by an aristocracy of wealthy mine owners. The Transvaal’s long-established rural population of Boers (Afrikaners), afraid of being overwhelmed, passed laws to restrict the Uitlanders’ influence. A law of 1888 declared that only the Dutch language could be used in legal proceedings and official documents.

Naturalization and the right to vote, under a law passed in 1890, involved not only a naturalization fee but also a minimum of 14 years’ residence. These restrictions on the franchise became a focus of Uitlander protest. In 1892 the lawyer Charles Leonard organized the National Union, which held meetings and circulated petitions demanding that Uitlanders be given the right to vote. From that time on, tensions mounted steadily, aggravated by the Jameson Raid of 1895 and by open British support for the Uitlanders. War finally erupted in 1899 (see South African War), in part due to the offer made by Transvaal president Paul Kruger to reduce the Uitlander residency requirement for political rights from 14 to 7 years; the British rejected this offer as insufficient.