Carl (Karl) Ludwig Ferdinand Borckenhagen (21 February 1852 – 5 February 1898) was an influential journalist and political leader of the Orange Free State, and a founder of the Afrikaner Bond.
He was for a period one of the most powerful men in southern Africa, however the Dictionary of National Biography adds: "It is almost impossible to define the precise extent of his influence and political significance since, while seeing to it that others, in public posts, carried out his ideas, he himself kept in the background."
Early life
Borckenhagen was born on 21 February 1852 in the Rodenbeck subdistrict of Minden, Westphalia, Germany, the son of Johann Ludwig Friedrich Borckenhagen (1818-1870), a Prussian officer who originally came from Königsberg and fell as a Oberstleutnant in the Franco-Prussian War at the Battle of Amiens, and his wife Julie Emilie Helene Seydel (1820-1888), from Minden. His older brother was Ludwig Borckenhagen of naval fame. His younger brothers, Albert Ludwig Emil Hans Borckenhagen (1855-1900) and Friedrich Borckenhagen (1857-1921) also joined the military, the latter becoming a General in the Prussian Artillery.
Carl Borckenhagen was schooled in the nearby town of Koblenz, where his health began to deteriorate from severe exposure to nighttime mid-winter temperatures, when he spent a period there without shelter. Soon after completing his studies, he met a British lady from the Channel Islands, named May Dorothy Blackmore (1853-1923), who at the time was on holiday in Germany, and they got engaged. She had grown up in Cape Town (her father had been a naval officer at the castle there) so, because of Borckenhagen's poor health, they decided to emigrate there.
Borckenhagen arrived in the Cape Colony in 1873. The country was undergoing a vast economic boom, but as Borckenhagen's health continued to deteriorate, he swiftly decided to leave the humid Cape, and head inland to the dryer Orange Free State - a long and laborious journey by ox-wagon. As his health immediately recovered, Borckenhagen began work at the business of Emanuel Fichardt at the Berlin Mission near Edenburg. The couple married in Bloemfontein on 10 February 1875, and had eight children - four daughters and four sons (two of whom died in childhood).
Journalism
They moved to Bloemfontein in 1875, where Borckenhagen began work as a bookkeeper, then as an ambitious young journalist, and swiftly rose to a position of extreme influence in the republic. After working for a while on a publication, De Boerenvriend Huisalmanak, he became the founder and editor of its successor, the Free State Express ("De Express") newspaper, in 1877. He also acquired the printing press of Frederick Schermbrucker (an incendiary and deeply unpopular politician who was burned in effigy as he left) and built the business into the biggest media source in the republic.
As an aside to his increasing political work, he continued to run that powerful publication for the remainder of his life. De Express reached such a vast circulation, that Borckenhagen was able to formulate and influence the moods, desires and direction of the country's overall population. In fact, his leading articles correlate strongly with national laws passed; in each case with the statute closely following Borckenhagen's article. These led to the implementation of Borckenhagen's suggestions for compulsory education, scientific farming techniques, farming colleges and infrastructure such as roads, railways, bridges, mail and telegraph services.
The motto of De Express was "You have obtained your independence; maintain it, and make yourself worthy of it".
Political career
Ideology and influence
Borckenhagen propounded strong anti-imperialist views, and as a republican, consistently fought for a united and independent South Africa. He was outraged by the extravagant imperial conquests of Governor Sir Henry Bartle Frere, which involved the annexation of the Transvaal. During the First Anglo-Boer war, he used his influence and resources to ensure that the Transvaal Republic remained connected to the outside world in spite of British attempts to cut off lines of communication.