HOFMEYR, JAN HENDRIK (1845-19o9), South Afri can politician, was born at Cape Town on July 4, 1845. He was educated at the South African college. He was editor of the Zuid A f rikaan till its incorporation with Ons Land, and of the Zuid A f rikaansche Tid jschri f t. By birth, education and sympathies a typical Dutch Afrikander, he set himself to organize the political power of his fellow-countrymen, and, when in 1879, he entered the Cape parliament as member for Stellenbosch, he became the real leader of the Dutch party. He held office for six months— as minister without portfolio in the Scanlen ministry from May to Nov. 1881. He held no subsequent official post in the colony, though, with Sir Thomas Upington and Sir Charles Mills, he rep resented the Cape at the intercolonial conference of 1887. Here he supported the proposal for entrusting the defence of Simon's Town to Cape Colony, leaving only the armament to be provided by the imperial government, opposed trans-oceanic penny postage and favoured an imperial customs union. At the colonial confer ence of 1894 at Ottawa he was again a Cape representative. In and in 1889 he was a member of the South African customs conference.
His power was based on his influence over the Dutch in Cape Colony, and his control of the Afrikander Bond. In 1878 he founded the "Farmers' Association," and, as the Cape farmers were almost entirely Dutch, the Association became a centre of Dutch influence. When the Bond was formed in 1882, with purely political aims, Hofmeyr obtained control of it, and in 1883 amal gamated the Farmers' Association with it. Under his direction the constitution of the Bond was modified by the elimination of provisions inconsistent with loyalty to the British Crown. But it remained an organization for obtaining the political supremacy of the Cape Dutch. (See CAPE COLONY : History.) His control over the Bond enabled him to make and unmake ministers and earned for him the name of "cabinet-maker of South Africa." Although officially the term "Afrikander" was explained by Hof meyr to include white men of whatever race, in practice the in A.,o,,..o ,.f +1,a %Intl wac PyPrtpri in favrnir of the Mitch and its power was drawn from the Dutch districts of Cape Colony. The sympathies of the Bond were thus always strongly with the Transvaal, as the chief centre of Dutch influence in South Africa. But Hofmeyr resented the reckless disregard of Cape interests involved in Kruger's fiscal policy; he feared that the Transvaal, after the gold discoveries of might over shadow all other Dutch influences in South Africa; above all he was convinced that the protection of the British navy was indis pensable and he opposed Kruger's intention of acquiring an outlet to the sea in order to get into touch with foreign powers.
In 1890 Hofmeyr joined forces with Cecil Rhodes, who became premier of Cape Colony with the support of the Bond. But ele ments in the Bond grew alarmed at Rhodes's imperialism, and in 1895 Hofmeyr resigned his seat in parliament and the presidency of the Bond. Then came the Jameson raid. Once more Hofmeyr became president of the Bond. By an alteration of the provincial constitution, all power in the Cape branch of the Bond was vested in a vigilance committee of three, of whom Hofmeyr and his brother were two. As leader of the Cape Dutch, he protested against such abuses as the dynamite monopoly in the Transvaal, and urged Kruger to grant reasonable concessions rather than plunge into war. In July 1899 he went to Pretoria, and vainly supported the proposal of a satisfactory franchise law, combined with a limited representation of the Uitlanders in the volksraad, and in September urged the Transvaal to accede to the proposed joint enquiry. During the negotiations of 2899, and after the out break of war, the official organ of the Bond, Ons Land, was con spicuous for its anti-British attitude, and Lord Roberts suppressed it in the Cape Colony district under martial law. Hofmeyr never associated himself publicly with the opinions expressed by Ons Land, but neither did he repudiate them. His position was diffi cult, and shortly after the outbreak of war he withdrew to Europe. He refused to act on the "conciliation committee" which came to England in 1901 in the interests of the Boer republics.
Towards the close of the war Hofmeyr returned to South Africa and organized the Bond forces for the general election in Cape Colony in 1904, which resulted in the defeat of the Bond party. Hofmeyr retained his ascendancy over the Cape Dutch, but he was out of sympathy with the larger outlook on South African affairs taken by the younger Boer leaders in the Transvaal. In 1906 he offended the extreme section of the Bond by criticisms of the taal and his use of English in speeches. At the general election in 1908 the Bond, still largely under his direc tion, gained a victory at the polls, but Hofmeyr himself was not a candidate. In the renewed movement for the closer union of the South African colonies he advocated federation as opposed to unification. When, however, the unification proposals were ratified by the Cape parliament, Hofmeyr went to England as one of the Cape delegates in 1909 to submit the draft act of union to the imperial government. He died in London on Oct. 16, 1909.