ABSTRACT
Over the past century the wine and wheat farmers of the Western Cape have arguably been the firmest pillar of support for the Afrikaner nationalist movement which today rules South Africa. This chapter discusses aspects of the social base of the Afrikaner nationalist movement in the Western Cape and in particular the mobilisation of farming capital. It shows how the Afrikaans-speaking farming community came to give a more explicit political content to their cultural identity. Between 1869 and 1871 a 'Farmers' Protection Movement' tried to organise wheat farmers with a view to effective tariff protection. While this movement disintegrated after 1871, mainly because wheat prices rose temporarily, it foreshadowed similar initiatives among wine farmers a few years later and in general suggested the brand of politics that would become such a distinctive feature of the Afrikaner Bond. The chapter provides short studies of the competition between the Standard Bank and local financial institutions in the towns of Paarl and Stellenbosch.
