Pressure in the Cape Colony parliament for disfranchising policies was primarily instigated by the Afrikaner Bond. The Bond’s initiatives were based on prejudice against Africans and amounted to an attempt at weakening the influence of English-speaking politicians with the belief that many of them were in parliament because Africans voted for them. An attempt was made through the Parliamentary Voters’ Registration Act of 1887, which implicitly imposed a racial qualification based on the premise that most Africans occupied land communally, and therefore communal tenure was excluded as a qualification for the franchise. This article illustrates the fact that, although Africans did not initially take up the opportunity to participate in the franchise en masse, political participation by the 1880 s was deeply valued by the growing number of Africans who actively participated in the franchise. This is demonstrated by the different attempts made by literate and better-off Africans to remain on the voter registration lists. Through the examination of articles and reports on the experiences and opinions of Africans that were published in the press, African resistance to the passage and implementation of the 1887 Parliamentary Voters’ Registration Act is illuminated through examples of their efforts to register as voters, to mobilise in defence of African interests and to participate in Cape Colony politics through the vote.

开普殖民地议会要求取消选举权政策的压力主要是由南非荷兰语债券煽动的。邦德的倡议基于对非洲人的偏见，相当于试图削弱说英语的政治家的影响力，认为他们中的许多人进入议会是因为非洲人投票支持他们。通过 1887 年议会选民登记法进行了一次尝试，该法基于大多数非洲人共同占有土地的前提，隐含地强加了种族资格，因此，共同保有权被排除在选举权的资格之外。这篇文章说明了一个事实，尽管非洲人最初并没有抓住机会集体参与特许经营权，1880 年代的政治参与受到越来越多积极参与特许经营的非洲人的深深重视。识字和富裕的非洲人为留在选民登记名单上所做的不同尝试证明了这一点。通过审查新闻界发表的关于非洲人的经历和意见的文章和报告，非洲人对 1887 年议会选民登记法的通过和实施的抵制通过他们努力登记为选民、动员捍卫非洲利益并通过投票参与开普殖民地政治。