Episode 220 - The Transvaal Civil War of 1862-1864 and Paul Kruger’s Dopping Doppers
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Show notes
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Episode 220 deals with the start of the Transvaal Civil War, and quite a bit about Paul Kruger’s early life.
The American civil war was raging in 1862, and there’s nothing like a war to trigger innovation — if you excuse the pun. Richard Jordan Gatling patented his terrifying Gatling gun featuring multiple rotating barrels driven by a hand crank, allowing operators to unleash a relentless hailstorm of bullets—up to several hundred rounds per minute.
Its distinctive mechanical whirr echoed across battlefields, marking a chilling shift toward modern, industrialized warfare. While undoubtedly efficient, the Gatling gun also embodied a grim reality: the age when technology would reshape combat forever had arrived.
Just in time to cause more chaos in the already bloody American Civil War.
What is less known these days is that there was another Civil War involving descendants of Europeans, and this was going on in South Africa. The AmaZulu had just wrapped up their own recent Civil War as you’ve heard. All manner of brutal and uncivil conduct marked this period in South African history, as neighbour turned against neighbour and the bonds of society frayed.
The Boer Republics had been riven by conflict since the days of the Voortrekkers, but in 1862 perhaps inspired in part by the American civil War, the Boer Republics went from squabbling to skirmishing. There’s no proof that the carnage of the United States directly influenced South Africa, but there is proof that the Boers knew about it.
Later, during the apartheid period of National Party Rule, this Transvaal Civil War was deposited in historical file 13, almost expunged, because it contradicted the prevailing political ideology where it was all the whites against all the blacks. Anything that detracted from this nationalist agenda was taboo.
The modern architects of African nationalism, too, often reshape the past to suit their narratives, discarding inconvenient histories into their own version of "file 13."Compared to the carnage in America, where an estimated 750 000 people died, the South African version was far less bloody. A few dozen dead and wounded. A handful of skirmishes was the real effect, which took place in what is now Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the North West Province - but at the same time as the American Civil War which ran from 1861 to 1865. The Transvaal Civil War started in 1862 and ended in 1864.
While less gory, it was emblematic of the frontier streak embedded in the first generation descendants of the Voortrekkers.
According to the constitution of the Republic, the Hervormde Church was the state church. Its members alone were entitled to exercise any influence in public affairs. Whoever was not a member of the Hervormde Church was not a fully-qualified burgher.
Paul Kruger belonged to the Christelljk-Gereformeerde Kerk founded recently, in 1859, by Dr. Postma, at Rustenburg. This church became known in South Africa as the Dopper, or partly Canting Church. The derivation of the word Dopper is not completely clear, but it was believed to have come from the word dop, a damper or extinguisher for putting out
Candles.
