Our countries nowadays are called republics; there are many other terms and concepts that are tied to that, but today, let us look into republics.

At its root, the word “republic” comes from the Latin res publica — meaning “the public thing” or “the common affair.”

Core Idea

A republic is a form of government where:

• Sovereignty belongs to the people (the citizens).
• The affairs of the state are considered a public matter (not the private property of a ruler, family, or religious leader).
• Leaders (presidents, parliament, etc.) govern on behalf of the people, under laws and a constitution, not on the basis of divine right or hereditary monarchy.

How it is supposed to be different from other concepts;

• Monarchy: Power is inherited (king, queen, emperor). The land and people are, symbolically, the property of the crown.
• Theocracy: Power rests with religious leaders or institutions (like the papacy’s claim in Unam Sanctam).
• Republic: Power comes from the people, expressed through elections, representation, and the rule of law.

Although this may end up just being a back and forth, as some of these definitions are getting similarly close to what is called the Common Law of the land, which in its essence ranks higher than any law…simply because it deals with the land where we are all born into and live on(in simple terms.)

You’d be interested to know the background of republics by looking at South Africa as an example;

South African Context

South Africa is called the Republic of South Africa because:

• The Constitution is the supreme law (not a king, not a pope, not a corporation).
• The government is accountable to the people, through democratic elections.
• Everyone is a citizen with rights under the Constitution, not a subject under a monarch or external religious authority.

So why should you care? What does all this mean?

Why It Matters in Daily Life

For citizens, living in a republic means:

• Your rights are guaranteed by law (The Bill of Rights in South Africa’s Constitution 1996).
• Leaders are accountable to the people and can be removed through elections or legal processes.
• The state exists for the common good — not as private property of rulers, corporations, or religious institutions.

Here is an overview to guide you in your further personal investigation;

How South Africa Became a Republic

1. The Union of South Africa (1910)

• In 1910, the British Parliament passed the South Africa Act, uniting four colonies — the Cape, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange Free State — into the Union of South Africa.
• This was not an independent state — it was a self-governing dominion under the British Crown.
• Britain controlled foreign policy, and ultimate authority remained with the King/Queen of England.

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2. Dominion Status within the British Empire (1931)

• In 1931, the Statute of Westminster gave dominions (including South Africa) full sovereignty in lawmaking.
• This meant South Africa could make its own laws without needing British approval.
• However, it was still a constitutional monarchy — the British monarch was the head of state, represented locally by a Governor-General.

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3. The Rise of Republicanism

• Many Afrikaners (especially after WWII) wanted complete independence from Britain, not just dominion status.
• The National Party (NP), led by Dr. D.F. Malan and later H.F. Verwoerd, pushed strongly for a republic, rooted in Afrikaner nationalism.
• To them, a republic symbolized breaking away from British cultural and political dominance.

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4. The 1960 Referendum

• On 5 October 1960, a whites-only referendum was held.
• The question: Should South Africa become a republic?
• The result: Yes – 52% voted in favour (a narrow majority).
• Black South Africans, Coloureds, and Indians were not allowed to vote.

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5. Declaration of the Republic (1961)

• On 31 May 1961 (chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the Union in 1910), South Africa officially became the Republic of South Africa.
• The British monarch was replaced by a State President as head of state.
• South Africa also left the British Commonwealth (after criticism of apartheid from member states).

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6. The 1994 Transformation

• While 1961 made South Africa a “republic,” it was only for the benefit of the white minority, with apartheid locking out the majority.
• In 1994, with Nelson Mandela’s election and the adoption of the new Constitution (1996), South Africa became a true constitutional democracy — a republic for all its people.

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So, in simple terms

• 1910 → Union of South Africa (British dominion).
• 1931 → Full legal sovereignty (but still monarchy).
• 1960 → Whites-only referendum approves a republic.
• 1961 → Republic of South Africa declared, monarchy abolished.
• 1994 → Democratic republic established for all citizens.

This is the information placed in the publication domain for us to study and let the spirit guide us to uncover our hidden truth and remember who we are.

Let us look at another aspect of this reality. There is a question of color of law here.

The concept of “color of law” operated in South Africa in a powerful and systematic way from the 1800s until the end of apartheid. While the term comes from American civil rights law, the principle of using the appearance of legitimate authority and the full machinery of the state to enforce an unjust system was the very foundation of colonial and apartheid rule.

Here’s a breakdown of the process, using the legal framework mentioned above

The Principal and Agent: Establishing Authority

The entire system was built on a delegation of power, exactly like a principal giving authority to an agent to act on their behalf.

1. The Principal (The Source of Authority): Initially, the British Crown was the Principal. Through conquest, annexation, and treaties, Britain claimed ultimate sovereignty and ownership over the land of South Africa. This act of claiming the territory, undermining, betraying and displacing the authority of the existing abantu nations, was the foundational step.
2. The Agent (The Administrator on the Ground): The Crown then delegated its authority to an Agent—the colonial governments (the Boers) in the Cape and Natal, and later, the government of the Union of South Africa after 1910. This Agent was empowered to create laws, administer the territory, and control its inhabitants, especially the native abantu. The apartheid government, an evolved agent that came to power in 1948 was a successor to this agency, inheriting and perfecting the tools of control.

The government and all its officials—from the prime minister down to the local magistrate and policeman—acted as agents of this authority. When they enforced laws, they were doing so “under the color of law,” using the legitimacy granted to them by the Principal.

Revoking the Privileges of Common Law

A key part of the process was the selective application of the law. South Africa’s legal system is a hybrid of Roman-Dutch and English Common Law. For the white minority, this system provided the full range of privileges: the right to own property, to contract freely, to move without restriction, and to have standing in court.

For the abantu majority, these same privileges were systematically revoked through the legal process itself. Their common law completely changed in the minds of the people.

• Customary law, especially regarding communal land ownership, was not recognised as “real” ownership by the colonial legal system.
• New laws were created that explicitly denied abantu people the rights that were automatically granted to whites.
• This wasn’t lawlessness; it was the meticulous use of the law to create a state of rightlessness for the native population. They became subjects of the law, not its beneficiaries.

The Tools of Control: The Land Acts

This control over the land—the primary asset of the “Principal”—was cemented through specific, powerful acts of law. The players (the “Agent’s” government) used the legislative process as their primary weapon.

1. The Natives Land Act of 1913

This was the cornerstone of dispossession. It wasn’t just a rule; it was a fundamental redrawing of the national map.

• The Process: The government (the Agent) passed this law through its whites-only parliament. It was presented as a legitimate act of state.
• The Mechanism: The Act divided the entire country. It scheduled about 7% of South Africa’s land as “native reserves” for the abantu population (who made up over two-thirds of the total population at the time).
• The Impact: It made it illegal for a native of the land to buy, rent, or even sharecrop on land outside of these designated reserves from a “non-African.” It effectively extinguished the natives’ property rights across 93% of the country overnight. This single act, done under the “color of law,” legally transformed the majority of the population into a class of landless labourers, forced to work for white landowners and industries.

2. The Group Areas Act of 1950

This Act took the principle of the Land Act and applied it with ruthless precision to cities and towns.

• The Process: The apartheid government used its parliamentary majority to pass this law to enforce total urban segregation.
• The Mechanism: It gave the state the power to declare any part of a town or city as a “group area” reserved for a single racial group (White, Coloured, or Indian).
• The Impact: Once an area was declared, say, a “White Area,” all native groups were legally required to sell their property (often at huge losses) and move out. This led to the destruction of vibrant communities like District Six in Cape Town and Sophiatown in Johannesburg. Again, every eviction notice, every bulldozer, and every police action was carried out with the full, apparent authority of the law.

In its core, the entire system was a masterclass in using the process of law to achieve an illegal and immoral outcome. Authority was claimed by a Principal, delegated to an Agent, who then used legislative tools to revoke legal privileges for the majority and seize total control of the land.

Through the public domain, we can also find the cast of these events.

Let’s pinpoint the exact cast of characters on the stage during a pivotal moment, around 1890. These “players” were the specific agents who wielded the authority of the “principal” (be it the British Crown or the Boer Republics’ own sovereignty) to shape the current state of South Africa.

This period was the crucible. The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand a few years earlier had supercharged the colonial project. Now, the game was about consolidating control over land, labour, and resources.

Here’s how these players and their actions fit into the legal process we’ve been discussing.

The Imperial Agents: Representing the Principal

Henry Loch (Cape) and Charles Mitchell (Natal) were the direct representatives of the Principal—the British Crown. Their job was to secure British imperial interests. They wielded the highest authority in their colonies, signing legislation into law and commanding military forces. They oversaw the expansion of British control and the implementation of policies designed to manage the native populations, always with the goal of ensuring stability and economic profit for the Empire.

The Boer Presidents: Rival Agents

Paul Kruger (Transvaal/South African Republic) and Francis William Reitz (Orange Free State) were the leaders of independent Boer republics. They represented a different source of authority—one forged in the Great Trek and a desire to be free from British rule.

However, they used their authority to implement a near-identical system of control over the land and its original inhabitants. Their laws, based on their interpretation of Roman-Dutch law, were explicitly designed to disenfranchise Black Africans and restrict their land ownership. They were in a constant struggle against the British agents, but they were running a parallel program of dispossession within their own borders.

The Cape Prime Minister: The Agent-in-Chief

The most significant player you listed is Cecil John Rhodes. His rise to Prime Minister of the Cape in July 1890 marks a crucial turning point. Rhodes was the ultimate agent because he fused corporate power (his De Beers and Gold Fields companies) with political power.

He wasn’t just governing; he was executing a business plan for the entire subcontinent. His actions perfectly illustrate the process of using the “color of law” to control the land.

The signature policy that emerged from his leadership was the Glen Grey Act of 1894. This act was the blueprint, a trial run for the nationwide 1913 Natives Land Act.

Here’s the process he used:

1. The Goal: To solve the “native problem” by breaking the economic independence of Abantu/Black farmers and forcing them to work as cheap labour in the mines and on now white-owned farms.
2. The Legal Tool: The Glen Grey Act 📜.
3. The Mechanism:
   • It replaced traditional, communal land ownership with a system of one-man-one-lot. Each family was granted a small, surveyed plot.
   • It prohibited anyone from owning more than one plot, preventing the emergence of a prosperous abantu farming class.
   • Crucially, it introduced a labour tax on any man who could not prove he had been employed away from home for at least three months of the year.

This act, passed by Rhodes’s government, used the full authority of the state to legally engineer the outcome he wanted. It destroyed the old land system and used taxation to turn men into migrant labourers. This was the model that the “agents” who followed him would apply to the entire country.

Let’s pull back the curtain on the legal machinery of that era. The Glen Grey Act of 1894 was a masterstroke of social engineering disguised as a law. It served as a prototype for much of the segregationist legislation that followed.

Here are the details of that Act and three other pieces of legislation from that period that worked in tandem to control the land and its people.

1. The Glen Grey Act (1894) 📜

This was Cecil John Rhodes’s signature policy, first applied in the Glen Grey district of the Cape. He openly called it “a bill for Africa,” intending it as a model for controlling the so-called Black population across the continent.

• Whose Authority: Enacted by the Parliament of the Cape Colony, under the authority of the British Crown, but driven by Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes.
• The Process: The Act systematically dismantled the traditional, communal system of land ownership, which was the basis of abantu social and economic life. It replaced it with a system of individual plots held under title from the government.
• The Mechanism of Control:
  • One-Man, One-Plot: It limited each family to a single, small plot of land, preventing the accumulation of wealth and the emergence of a prosperous, independent Black farming class.
  • Primogeniture: The land could only be inherited by the eldest son, forcing all other sons off the land. Or turning the eldest son into a target.
  • Labour Tax: The most cynical provision was a “labour tax” levied on any man who could not prove he had been employed outside the district for a set period each year.
• The Impact: This law was designed to create a landless, dependent population with no choice but to sell their labour cheaply to the mines (like Rhodes’s) and white-owned farms. It was the legal mechanism to force people into the wage economy.

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2. The Franchise and Ballot Act (1892) 🗳️

This Cape Colony law was a direct assault on the political power of the Black and Coloured population.

• Whose Authority: The Cape Parliament, again under pressure from settler politicians like Rhodes and the Afrikaner Bond (distinct from the later Afrikaner Broederbond) who feared the growing influence of the non-white vote.
• The Process: The law didn’t explicitly ban anyone from voting based on race. Instead, it used the “color of law” to achieve the same result by changing the rules of qualification.
• The Mechanism of Control:
  • It raised the property ownership qualification for voting from £25 to £75—a sum that very few Black or Coloured people could meet.
  • It added a literacy test, requiring that a voter be able to write their name, address, and occupation.
• The Impact: This single act disenfranchised thousands of abantu voters, effectively ensuring that political power remained firmly in white hands. It was a legal tool to achieve political exclusion.

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3. Transvaal Pass Laws (1896) 🚶‍♂️

While the Cape used economic and political tools, the South African Republic (Transvaal) under Paul Kruger used laws to control the physical movement of African people.

• Whose Authority: The Volksraad (Parliament) of the independent South African Republic.
• The Process: A series of regulations were passed that required African men to carry a pass at all times within the republic’s borders.
• The Mechanism of Control:
  • The pass (dompass), indicated who a person was and who their employer was.
  • Failure to produce this pass on demand to any white person, particularly a police officer, resulted in immediate arrest and punishment, such as fines or flogging.
• The Impact: This system turned the majority of the population into potential criminals at all times. It was a powerful tool of daily intimidation and labour control, restricting freedom of movement and tying workers to their employers.

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4. The Zululand Annexation Act (1897) 🗺️

This was a straightforward act of colonial consolidation by the British, but it had profound legal implications for the land.

• Whose Authority: The British Government, executed by the colonial administration in Natal.
• The Process: After defeating the Zulu Kingdom in 1879 and breaking it apart, this act formally annexed the remaining independent Zulu territory into the Colony of Natal.
• The Mechanism of Control:
  • It extinguished the final vestiges of Zulu sovereignty.
  • It brought all Zulu land under the direct control of the Natal colonial government.
  • This allowed the government to demarcate the territory, creating “native reserves” (the future “homeland”) and opening up the most fertile land for white settlement and sugar plantations.
• The Impact: This act completed the process of dispossession for the Zulu nation. What was once a sovereign kingdom became an administrative district, with its people’s access to their own ancestral land now controlled and limited by the colonial “agent.”

It is very important for the abantu seeker to innerstand this following point after learning the above realities;

While the colonial agents were creating these laws, they were met with constant and strategic opposition. The abantu were not passive subjects; they were active political players who resisted in a variety of ways.

Here is a short list of some of the key abantu monarchs, matriarchs, and chiefs who were actively opposing these actions during that time.

The Monarch in Defiance: King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo (of the Zulu)

King Dinuzulu was the son of Cetshwayo, the last king of a fully independent Zulu Kingdom. His entire life was a struggle against the dismantling of his nation.

• Who He Was: The King of the Zulu people during the final stages of their annexation.
• Actions of Opposition: After the British defeated the Zulu army in 1879, they broke the kingdom into 13 smaller chiefdoms. Dinuzulu actively resisted this fragmentation. In 1888, he led a rebellion against the British and their local allies who were encroaching on Zulu lands. He was eventually defeated, arrested, and exiled to the island of St. Helena. His resistance was a direct, military, and political fight against the process that culminated in the Zululand Annexation Act of 1897. Even after his defeat, he remained a powerful symbol of defiance against colonial rule.

The Matriarch and Diplomat: Queen Labotsibeni Mdluli (of Swaziland)

Queen Labotsibeni was one of the most astute political minds of her time, proving that resistance was not always about armed conflict.

• Who She Was: The Queen Regent of Swaziland (eSwatini) from 1890. She held the nation together during the height of the “Scramble for Africa.”
• Actions of Opposition: Swaziland was being squeezed by Paul Kruger’s Transvaal from the west and the British from the east. European concession-hunters had tricked the previous king into signing away vast land and mineral rights. Instead of launching a war she knew she couldn’t win, Queen Labotsibeni played a brilliant diplomatic game. She raised national funds to:
  • Send delegations directly to London to argue their case before the British government (the “Principal”).
  • Hire lawyers in South Africa and Britain to legally challenge the validity of the concessions.
  • Buy back land from European owners whenever possible.

She was a matriarch who used the colonizer’s own legal and political systems against them to protect her people’s sovereignty and land.

The Intellectual and Publisher: John Tengo Jabavu (of the Xhosa)

John Tengo Jabavu represents the new form of resistance that emerged from the educated African elite in the Cape Colony.

• Who He Was: A highly educated Xhosa teacher, editor, and political organizer.
• Actions of Opposition: His weapons were the printing press and political organization. In 1884, he founded the first major African-owned newspaper, Imvo Zabantsundu (“Native Opinion”). He used his newspaper to fiercely oppose laws like the Franchise and Ballot Act of 1892 (which took away the vote) and the Glen Grey Act. He exposed their discriminatory intent, organized petitions, and rallied both Black and sympathetic white voters to oppose politicians like Cecil Rhodes. He was a pioneer in using modern media to fight for civil rights.

The Early Political Organisers: The African National Native Congresses (ANNC)

This era saw the birth of organised, pan-tribal political resistance. Abantu across the country and neighbouring borders were part of a movement to unite different African nations to fight as one.

• Who They Were: A collection of chiefs, matriarchs, ministers, lawyers, teachers, and traditional root workers.
• Actions of Opposition: They formed regional political bodies like the South African Native Congress in the Cape. Their method was to formally petition the government, send delegations to political leaders, and provide evidence at commissions of inquiry. They argued against the Pass Laws, the Land Acts, and the loss of voting rights by using the language of the British Common Law, demanding the same rights and privileges afforded to white British subjects.