Johannesburg Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Rapid growth, Jameson Raid and the Second Boer War === [[File:SA1899 pg038 Johannesburg in 1889.jpg|thumb|Johannesburg in 1889]] [[File:SA1899_pg268_Commissioner_Street,_Johannesburg.jpg|thumb|[[Commissioner Street (Johannesburg)|Commissioner Street]] in 1895]] Like many late 19th-century mining towns, Johannesburg was a rough and disorganised place, populated by white miners from all continents, African tribesmen were recruited to perform unskilled mine work, African women beer brewers cooked for and sold beer to the black migrant workers, a very large number of European prostitutes, gangsters, impoverished Afrikaners, tradesmen, and the "[[Laundry#South Africa|AmaWasha]]", Zulu men who surprisingly dominated laundry work.<ref>{{cite book |first=Charles |last=van Onselen |title=New Nineveh and New Babylon}}</ref> As the value of control of the land increased, tensions developed between the [[Boer]]–dominated Transvaal government in Pretoria and the British, culminating in the [[Jameson Raid]] that ended in fiasco at [[Doornkop]] in January 1896. The [[Second Boer War]] (1899–1902) saw British forces under Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, occupy the city on 30 May 1900 after a series of battles to the south-west of its then-limits, near present-day Krugersdorp.{{citation needed|date=August 2015}} Fighting took place at the Gatsrand Pass (near Zakariyya Park) on 27 May, north of Vanwyksrust—today's Nancefield, [[Eldorado Park, Gauteng|Eldorado Park]] and Naturena—the next day, culminating in a mass infantry attack on what is now the waterworks ridge in Chiawelo and Senaoane on 29 May.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=401&func=select&id=5 |title=Battle for Johannesburg |access-date=17 April 2015 |archive-date=23 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923231101/http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=401&func=select&id=5 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.defenceweb.co.za/ebooks/0%202009may27%20Two%20Battles%20for%20Johannesburg%20_final%20draft_.pdf |title=Hidden in Plain Sight: Johannesburg's Battlefields |author=Engelbrecht, Leon |date=27 May 2009 |access-date=17 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150417133321/http://www.defenceweb.co.za/ebooks/0%202009may27%20Two%20Battles%20for%20Johannesburg%20_final%20draft_.pdf |archive-date=17 April 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref> During the Boer war, many African mineworkers left Johannesburg creating a labour shortage, which the mines ameliorated by bringing in labourers from China, especially southern China. After the war, they were replaced by black workers, but many Chinese stayed on, creating Johannesburg's Chinese community, which during the apartheid era, was not legally classified as "Asian", but as "Coloured". The population in 1904 was 155,642, of whom 83,363 were [[White people|whites]].<ref name="EB1911">{{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Johannesburg |volume=19 |page=432}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page