Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of abbreviations
- List of sources
- Terminology
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART ONE The incorporation of the Khoesan into the colonial body politic
- PART TWO Colonial crisis and the establishment of a new order, 1848–1853
- Chapter 12 Convicts and the franchise
- Chapter 13 Rebellion in the Kat River valley
- Chapter 14 The rebellion spreads
- Chapter 15 The franchise
- Chapter 16 Uithaalder's vision of the rules of war
- PART THREE Post-rebellion politics
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 15 - The franchise
from PART TWO - Colonial crisis and the establishment of a new order, 1848–1853
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2018
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of abbreviations
- List of sources
- Terminology
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART ONE The incorporation of the Khoesan into the colonial body politic
- PART TWO Colonial crisis and the establishment of a new order, 1848–1853
- Chapter 12 Convicts and the franchise
- Chapter 13 Rebellion in the Kat River valley
- Chapter 14 The rebellion spreads
- Chapter 15 The franchise
- Chapter 16 Uithaalder's vision of the rules of war
- PART THREE Post-rebellion politics
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Document 74: Meeting at Zuurbraak to discuss the new constitution
This petition was drawn up subsequent to a public meeting in which the inhabitants of Zuurbraak were addressed by F.W. Reitz, a local landowner and politician, who had been elected to the Cape's Legislative Council but had resigned following the breakdown of discussions to achieve a constitution for the Cape that would include as wide a class of voters as possible. Even though they were (with the poorer Afrikaners) precisely the class that Reitz and men of similar mind wished to see enfranchised, the mission residents at Zuurbraak and elsewhere were wary of the devolution of power in the colony from the British government to its inhabitants, since they feared domination by the landowning whites and the end of the potential restraint that direct rule, overseen by London, imposed on the white colonists.
To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty
The humble petition of the ‘Zuurbraak’ Missionary Institution, Swellendam, Cape of Good Hope
Humbly sheweth
That your Majesty's Petitioners desire to approach your Majesty's throne with a sincere and fervent assurance of their continued loyalty and devotion, and with feelings of the deepest gratitude for the many favours under your Majesty's reign.
That your Majesty's petitioners have learnt with feelings of profound sorrow that reports, founded upon the wicked rebellion of the Kat River settlement, are in circulation to their disadvantage as a class. That such reports are doubly painful, as your Majesty's petitioners disavow in the most solemn manner any sympathy with rebels, whose wicked acts your petitioners cannot too strongly condemn.
That your Majesty's petitioners have learnt that a representative form of Government has been conceded to this colony, and your Majesty's petitioners most humbly pray that they, as loyal, peaceable and well conducted subjects, may not be excluded from the rights and privileges granted by the constitution. Wherefore they humbly pray that the Twenty-five Pounds qualification so justly termed by your Majesty's Attorney-General ‘The heart of the constitution’, may not upon any account be altered by the present Legislative Council of this colony.
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- These Oppressions Won't CeaseAn Anthology of the Political Thought of the Cape Khoesan, 1777–1879, pp. 150 - 151Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2017