Jan Christian Smuts ( Jan Christiaan Smuts), OM, CH, ED, KC, FRS (24 May 1870–11 September 1950) was a prominent South African and Commonwealth statesman, military leader, and philosopher. He served as a Boer General during the Boer War, a British General during the First World War and was appointed Field Marshal by King George VI during the Second World War. In addition to various cabinet appointments, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948. From 1917 to 1919 he was one of five members of the British War Cabinet, helping to create the Royal Air Force. He played a leading part in the post-war settlements at the end of both world wars, making significant contributions towards the creation of the League of Nations and the United Nations. He did much to redefine the relationship between Britain and the Dominions and Colonies, leading to the formation of the British Commonwealth.
Jan Smuts was born in 1870, the second son of a traditional Boer farming family. By rural tradition, the eldest son would be the only child to receive a full formal education; however, on the death of his elder brother in 1882, 12-year-old Jan was sent to school for the first time. After four years of education he had made exceptional progress, gaining admission to study at Victoria College in Stellenbosch. He graduated in 1891 with first-class honours in Literature and Science. With this strong academic background, he applied for, and won, the Ebden scholarship for overseas study, electing to read law at Christ's College, Cambridge. After further academic success, and the recipient of many prestigious academic awards, he graduated in 1894 with double First-class honours. After graduating, Smuts passed the examinations for the Inns of Court, entering the Middle Temple. In 1895, despite the prospect of a bright future in the United Kingdom, the homesick Smuts returned to South Africa.
In South Africa
Childhood
On 24 May 1870, at the Smuts family farm, Bovenplaats, in the district of Malmesbury, Cape Colony, a child was born to Jacobus Smuts and his wife Catharina.Jacobus Smuts (1845-1914), Catharina Smuts (1847-1901). cf. Selections from the Smuts Papers, vol 4, p383 This child, their second son in what was to become a family of four sons and two daughters, was christened Jan ChristiaanFrom early adulthood Smuts was to anglicise his second name to 'Christian'. after his maternal grandfather, Jan Christiaan de Vries.Smuts, JC - Jan Christian Smuts, p6 In addition to Dutch and French Huguenot ancestors, the Smutses claimed descent from the Khoi interpreter Krotoa.
The Smuts family were prosperous yeoman farmers, long-established in the area. For four generations, since 1786,Cameron, T - Jan Smuts:An Illustrated Biography, p9 they had farmed in the Malmesbury district, settling on the farm Ongegund, of which Bovenplaats was a part, in 1818. This area was part of the so-called Swartland, the chief wheat-growing area of the Cape Colony.
1870 found Bovenplaats under the care of Jacobus Abraham Smuts and his wife Catharina Petronella. Jacobus Smuts lived in much the same manner as his forefathers — a hard-working farmer, a pillar of the Church, and one who took a leading part in the social and political affairs of the neighbourhood. Such was the regard in which he was held that he was later to be elected as the Member for Malmesbury in the Cape Parliament.In 1898 - Hancock, WK - Smuts: 1. The Sanguine Years, 1870–1919, p5 Smuts's mother, born Catharina Petronella de Vries, was the sister of Boudewijn Homburg de Vries, the predikantMinister of religion of the Dutch Reformed Church, the dominant Christian denomination in South Africa. of the nearby town of Riebeek West, some from Bovenplaats. The de Vries family originated from the area around Worcester, Cape Colony. Catharina accompanied her brother as his housekeeper when he took up his appointment at Riebeek West, eventually meeting and marrying her husband in 1866. She was a woman of considerable education and culture, at least according to the standards of the area, having studied music and French in Cape Town.
When Jan was six years of age the family moved from Bovenplaats to a new farm some away.Smuts, JC - Jan Christiaan Smuts, p15 This farm, Klipfontein, was a bequest to Jacobus Smuts, who, keen to have a farm of his own rather than one under the supervision of his father, moved his family there in 1876.Hancock, WK - Smuts: 1. The Sanguine Years, 1870–1919, p7
Family life
The Smuts family were traditional Afrikaner farmers. As such, questions of property and family affairs were extensively governed by custom. Custom dictated that it was upon the first son that family expectations fell; the family would strive, so far as their means allowed, to provide him with the best possible education with the goal of paving the way for his entry into one of the professions. As for the others, they would be put to work on the farm, while at the same time receiving a rudimentary home education.Hancock, WK - Smuts: 1. The Sanguine Years, 1870–1919, p8 As the second son this was to be Jan's role. While he remained at the farm, his elder brother, Michiel, was sent to begin his schooling in Riebeek West, destined, like his uncle Boudewyn, for a future as a predikant in the Dutch Reformed Church.
Farmwork combined with lessons from his mother — such was the order of Jan's life for the next few years. During his early childhood, still too young to be given formal responsibilities on the farm, Jan accompanied the Coloured farm labourersIn the late nineteenth century, comparatively few of the non-white population of the western Cape were Black — those of Coloured ethnicity formed the overwhelming majority. Ingham, K - Jan Christian Smuts: Conscience of a South African, p8 as they went about their daily work. At this time the relations between master and servant, between black and white, were certainly not based on social equality; nevertheless, on these Swartland farms there was little of the rigid segregation which was already emerging elsewhere in South Africa and which was later to have such profound consequences. Since 1828 the Cape had enshrined in law the principle of strict legal equality between the races.Ordinance 50 of 1828. cf Eybers, GW - Select Constitutional Documents Illustrating South African History, 1795-1910, (1909), p26 Unlike the rest of South Africa, all adult males, were entitled to vote and to stand for election to the Colonial legislature, subject only to a property qualification.Occupation of fixed immovable property valued at £25 or, as an alternative, receipt of wages of £50 per year. cf McCracken, JL - The Cape Parliament:1854-1910, (1967), p68 In these country districts therefore, there existed a certain intimacy between the farm owners and their labourers. At harvest times it was common to find both working together to gather in the crops and it was also commonplace to find the farm's children playing with one another, irrespective of race.Hancock, WK - Smuts: 1. The Sanguine Years, 1870–1919, p9
In this relatively liberal environment Jan accompanied the servants in their work, listening to their stories, learning the ways of the countryside, and trying to help as best he could. As his knowledge and confidence increased Jan began to go out into the countryside by himself, exploring the hills and valleys which surrounded him. Later, as an older boy, his chief responsibility was as a herd — first of the pigs and poultry in the farmyard, and later of the cattle out on the veld. The same laws of custom which had preordained Jan's role as a farmer also had their beneficial aspect; Boer farmers customarily allotted their sons a share of the natural increase of the beasts under their care. As time passed Jan gradually built up a respectable holding of livestock.
At home, away from the work of the farm, his education was not neglected. Although restricted to rudimentary home schooling, his mother's own notable education placed him and his siblings at an advantage compared with other children in similar circumstances.
Outside influence The Smuts family lived in an almost exclusively Afrikaner world. Nevertheless, this cultural identity, unlike that of the Boer republics to the north, did not define itself on opposition to Britain or the British.Smuts JC - Jan Christian Smuts, p8 Swartland farmers had been largely insulated from the causes of discontent of earlier years, discontent which eventually culminated in the mass Boer migrations of the Great Trek. As a result, Jacobus Smuts largely unmoved by the Afrikaner nationalism preached by such organisations as the Afrikaner Bond, founded by Rev. SJ du Toit in 1877.Ingham, K - Jan Christian Smuts: The Conscience of a South African, p3 After 1884, having come under the leadership of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, the Bond became more to the Smuts' taste. Hofmeyr changed the fundamental basis of the organisation, from one preaching Afrikaner separatism to one which combined a pragmatic policy of economic protectionism for Cape farmers and their produce with a call for unity between the English and Dutch-speaking populations and cooperation with the Colonial authorities. As a member of the Cape legislature Jacobus Smuts pledged his support to Hofmeyr and the reformed Bond.
Unlike many parts of South Africa, conflict was an element largely absent from Jan Smuts's early life. Whether conflict between Briton and Boer, or conflict between Black and White — it had been many years since the farmers of the Swartland had had to deal with turmoil on their doorsteps. The absence of conflict, along with its inevitable counterpart, development of prejudice, had its effect upon Smuts.
In later years Smuts was to look upon this time with the uttermost fondness. Of all his childhood experiences it was the time spent out on the veld, whether tending the cattle or out on excursions of his own, which seemed to have the most marked effects on him, developing an attachment which was almost spiritual in nature. As he wrote in 1902, aged 32:
In ordinary circumstances Jan Smuts would have, in time, taken over the running of the family farm, spending his life as a farmer as his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had before him. However, this was not to be; events were to conspire to change this predetermined fate.
Schooldays In 1882 tragedy struck the Smuts family. Their eldest son, Michiel, suddenly succumbed to typhoid while attending school at Riebeek West. This time of family grief and upheaval had a direct effect upon Jan; now, as the eldest son, the weight of family expectation fell squarely upon his shoulders.