Episode 214 - Booming Port Elizabeth, Cunning Cape Town, Indentured Indians and Quarrelling Republics

This is episode 214 and we’re going to probe the fascinating and these days, hidden history of Port Elizabeth or Gqeberha, a bit about indentured Indians arriving in South Africa, and a spot of Boer Republic rebellion.
It’s hardly ever a quiet day in sunny South Africa.
In the eyes of most folks of the south, the Windy City features as a minor point on the urban map and in popular consciousness. The people of the city however are fiercly patriotic, and fiercely independent.

Always smaller than Cape Town in terms of population size, never the seat of government, it’s enormous importance as a premier centre of trade and finance in southern Africa has been readily overlooked.

Yet from the 1850s all the way through to the 1880s, Port Elizabeth was called “The Liverpool of the Cape” and for some years in that period, was the centre of the Cape’s economy. Coming soon, however, was the discovery of Diamonds that would shift power to Kimberley, then later in the 1880s, to gold and power would shift again to Johannesburg.

The period of the mid-19th Century, saw the financial heart shift from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth although the elites of Table Bay continued to hold sway. A commercial elite of merchants, accountants, lawyers and other professions controlled the economies of Cape Colonial towns. Cape Town was the seat of government, it’s population had grown to 25 000 people and was easily the largest urban centre in southern Africa.

There were only 17 joint stock companies in 1859. Only five towns outside Cape Town, Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth had local banks. There was a cozy and close link between the merchants of Cape Town and the government. Similar links existed between local government officials and merchants in the smaller towns which enhanced the ability of local commercial heavyweights to control trade through their districts.

There was a constant tussle between the local merchants and the businesses that controlled the ports. Port Merchants were closer to the maritime traffic, closer to the heart of the empire, London, and acted like a commercial filter between the periphery and the centre.
In 1857 Merchant John Paterson gathered a few like-minded entrepreneurs around him and floated the Standard Bank of Port Elizabeth. It sank almost immediately, funds were hard to come by. These merchants however had direct links with London, they bypassed the Cape Towners — and by this time half the ships sailing between South Africa and Britain were leaving from Port Elizabeth.

Paterson gathered his entrepreneur pals together again in March 1859 and sailed to England where he launched his prospectus the the Standard Bank of British South Africa in April 1860.
A Group of Cape Town merchants were not to be outdone by this eastern Cape upstart and in July the London and South Africa Bank .. henceforth to be known as the L and SA Bank, came into being.

Governor Sir George Grey was very interested in all of these moves, and is believed to have intervened to help the Cape Town group as they negotiated for a charter and necessary capital.
Port Elizabeth traders regarded the L and SA bank in a negative light. Despite their reservations, they could not deny the power of the bankers of Cape Town — a branch of the L and SA bank was opened in Port Elizabeth in 1861, and eventually, The Standard Bank’s progenitor, Paterson, managed to scrounge together the funds and opened in 1862.
South Africa was changing fast by 1860. In Natal, Grey believed the answer to the chronic labour shortage was the introduction of indentured Indians. These were to make their way to Natal over the next few decades, but Grey’s initial request was rejected by the Indian Government.

Speaking of success, that is a not a word you’d probably have used to describe the Boer Republics of 1860. They were sinking deeper and deeper into confusion and outright impotence.