ABSTRACT
Before 1970 most writers, across the ideological spectrum, had assumed that the South African racial order was taking shape by the late eighteenth century. The pioneering liberal historian, W.M. Macmillan, put forward the view that white racism developed in the eighteenth century, but without really substantiating his position.3 Similarly, De Kiewiet asserted in his general history that 'South Africa took the policy of racial segregation seriously from the very start'.4 One finds a similar assertion, made at about the same time, the late 1940s, in Time Longer Than Rope, the famous work of Edward Roux, the former Communist Party activist. For him, too, white racist attitudes originated in the eighteenth century. Among earlier writers I.D. MacCrone was exceptional in paying close attention to the origins of racism in South Africa.5
