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Title: The Africanders : A century of Dutch-English feud in South Africa
Author: Hooker, le Roy
Language: English
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THE AFRICANDERS
A CENTURY OF
DUTCH-ENGLISH FEUD
IN SOUTH AFRICA
BY
LE ROY HOOKER,
AUTHOR OF
“Enoch, the Philistine,” “Baldoon,” etc.
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
RAND, McNALLY & CO., PUBLISHERS.
MDCCCC.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE.
I The Dutch at the Cape (1652–1795), 11
II First Contact of Africander and Briton in Diplomacy (1795), 26
III First Contact of Africander and Briton in War (1795), 46
IV The Africanders’ First Trek to the North (1806–1838), 68
V Second Contact of Africander and Briton—In Natal, 87
VI Second Contact of Africander and Briton—North of the
VII The Africanders’ Second Trek to the North, 114
VIII The Independent Africander and Slavery, 123
IX Third Contact of Africander and Briton—In the Orange
Free State, 135
X Third Contact of Africander and Briton—In the Transvaal, 148
XI The Africanders’ First War of Independence, 165
XII The Africander Republics and British Policy, 178
XIII Causes of the Africanders’ Second War of Independence, 188
XIV Causes of the Africanders’ Second War of Independence—
Continued, 207
XV Causes of the Africanders’ Second War of Independence—
Continued, 221
XVI Causes of the Africanders’ Second War of Independence—
Concluded, 241
XVII The Country of the Africanders, 261
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Cape Town, Cape of Good Hope, Frontispiece
President Kruger, Facing page 48
Lighthouse, Durban, 72
President Steyn, Orange Free State, 88
The Vaal River, 96
Doctor Jameson, 112
Majuba Hill, 120
General Joubert, 136
Pietermaritzburg, 152
Cecil J. Rhodes, 168
Government Building, Pretoria, 176
Joseph Chamberlain, 192
Bloemfontein, 208
General Cronje, 224
Pritchard Street, Johannesburg, 240
Cattle on the Vaal River, 264
FOREWORD.
This is the history, briefly told, of the great Dutch-English feud in
South Africa, up to the beginning of the Africanders’ second war of
independence with Great Britain, which opened on the 11th of October,
1899.
In writing these pages I have not felt conscious of being in
controversy with any one. If I had been susceptible to influences that
create prejudice, nearly three centuries of American descent from
purely Anglo-Saxon progenitors with no admixture of any other blood
would have predisposed me to magnify everything in this long feud that
exemplified the prowess and the honor of that race, and to minify in
the telling whatever faults it had committed. It will be for such
readers of my work as are conversant with the ultimate authorities on
the subject treated of to judge how far I have succeeded or failed in
presenting a “plain, unvarnished” tale.
I acknowledge, with much gratitude, indebtedness for data to the
following distinguished writers:
Canon W. J. Little, M.A., author of “South Africa”; George McCall
Theal, M.A., Official Historiographer and sometime Keeper of the
Archives at Cape Town; Professor James Bryce, author of “Impressions of
South Africa,” “The American Commonwealth,” etc.; F. Reginald Statham,
author of “South Africa as It Is”; Olive Schreiner, author of “The
South African Question”; the British Blue Books and other sources of
reliable information.
THE AUTHOR.
THE AFRICANDERS.
CHAPTER I.
THE DUTCH AT THE CAPE.
(1652–1795.)
This is the story, briefly told, of the Dutch Boers in South Africa.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit the shores of South
and Southeastern Africa, but they made no attempt to settle the country
south of Delagoa Bay. They were traders. The Hottentots had little to
sell that they cared to purchase. The route for Portuguese commerce
with the East was west of Madagascar, consequently they found it
unnecessary to put into Table Bay; the voyage from St. Helena to
Mozambique could be made comfortably without seeking a port of supply.
But when the Dutch wrested the eastern trade from the Portuguese, the
southeastern portion of Africa assumed an importance to them that it
had never before possessed in the esteem of any other nation. Their sea
route to the East was south of Madagascar, and it was all but
imperative that they should have a port of supply at the turning point
of the long voyage between Holland and Batavia. It soon became their
practice to call at Table Bay for the purpose of obtaining news, taking
in fresh water, catching fish, and bartering with the natives for
cattle—in which they were seldom successful.
In 1650 the Dutch East India Company, acting upon the reports and
suggestions of influential men who had visited Table Bay and resided in
Table Valley several months, determined to establish at Table Bay such
a victualing station as had been recommended. In accordance therewith
the ships Reiger and Dromedaris and the yacht Goede Hoop—all then lying
in the harbor of Amsterdam—were put in commission to carry the party of
occupation to Table Bay, under the general command of Jan Van Riebeek.
On Sunday, 24th of December, 1651, the expedition sailed, accompanied
by a large fleet of merchant vessels. On the morning of Sunday, the 7th
of April, 1652, after a voyage of one hundred and four days, the site
of their future home greeted the eyes of the sea-worn emigrants,—Table
Mountain, 3,816 feet high, being the central and impressive feature of
the landscape. In due time preparations were made to land and begin the
necessary operations in establishing themselves in the new and entirely
uncivilized country.
The organization of the Dutch East India Company was on a thoroughly
military system. It graduated downward from the home Assembly of
Seventeen—who were supreme—to a governor-general of India and his
council resident in Batavia, and, ranking next below him in their
order, to a vast number of admirals, governors and commanders—each
having his own council, and acting under the strict rule that whenever
these came in contact the lower in rank must give place and render
obedience to the higher. It is important to bear this in mind, as it
gives a clear insight into the mode of government under which the
occupation took place, and which prevailed with little variation for
more than a hundred years. The ranking officer of the expedition was
Jan Van Riebeek, and next to him in authority were the three commanders
as his council in founding the settlement.
Van Riebeek and the three skippers, having inspected Table Valley,
selected a site for the fort a little in rear of the ground on which
the general postoffice of Cape Town now stands. On that spot a great
stronghold was built in the form of a square strengthened by bastions
at its angles. Each face of the fort measured 252 Rhynland feet—about
260 feet English measure. The walls were built of earth, twelve feet
high, twenty feet in thickness at the base, tapering to sixteen feet at
the top, and were surmounted by a parapet. Surrounding the whole
structure was a moat, into which the water of Fresh River could be
turned. Within the walls were dwellings, barracks, storehouses and
other conveniences that might be required in a state of siege. Around
the fort were clustered a walled kraal for cattle, a separate inclosure
for workshops, and the tents in which the settlers began their life in
Africa.
On the 28th of January, 1653, the last of the ships, the Dromedaris,
sailed away and left the colonists to their own resources.
The history in detail of this first European settlement in South Africa
is of surpassing interest; but, here, it must be sketched in the
briefest outline possible, up to the first contact of Boer with Briton.
For the first twenty-five years the aim of the colonists was to keep
within easy reach of the fort at the Cape. Up to 1680 the most distant
agricultural settlement was at Stellenbosch, about twenty-five miles
from the Cape. Not till the end of the century did they push pioneering
enterprises beyond the first range of mountains.
There was a steady though not very rapid increase of population. As
early as 1658 the disastrous step was taken of introducing slave labor,
performed at first by West African negroes—a step which encouraged in
the whites an indisposition to work, and doomed that part of Africa to
be dependent on the toil of slaves. To their African slaves the Dutch
East India Company added numbers of Malay convicts from Java and other
parts of its East Indian territories. These Malays took wives from the
female convicts of their own race, and to some extent intermarried with
the native African slave-women. From such marriages there arose a
mongrel, dark people of the servile order, which became a considerable
element in the population of Cape Town and its neighboring regions.
In 1689 some three hundred French Huguenots came from Holland in a body
and joined the colonists at the Cape. These were a valuable acquisition
as an offset to the rapidly increasing servile element. They were
mostly persons of refinement, and brought with them habits of industry,
strong attachment to the Protestant faith, and a supreme love of
liberty. Many of the more respectable colonial families are descended
from that stock.
The somewhat intolerant government of the Company hastened the blending
of the various classes of the population in one. The Huguenots loved
their language and their peculiar faith, and greatly desired to found a
separate religious community. But the Company forbade the use of French
in official documents and in religious services. As a result of this
narrow but far-seeing policy, by the middle of the eighteenth century
the Huguenots had amalgamated with their Dutch fellow-colonists in
language, religion and politics. It was not until 1780 that the
Company’s government permitted the opening of a Lutheran church,
although many Germans of that persuasion had emigrated to the Cape.
The distinctive Africander type of character began to appear at the
time when the settlers began to move from the coast into the interior
of the country. There was everything to favor the rapid development of
a new type of humanity. For the most part the Dutch and the Germans
belonged to the humbler classes; the situation was isolated; the home
ties were few; the voyage to Europe was so long that communication was
difficult and expensive; and so they maintained little connection
with—and soon lost all feeling for—the fatherlands. As for the
Huguenots, they had no home country to look to. France had banished
them, and they were not of Holland—neither in blood nor in speech. Thus
it came to pass that the whites of South Africa who went into the
interior as pioneers went consenting to the feeling that every bond
between Europe and themselves was severed—that they were a new people
whose true home and destiny, to the latest generations, were to be in
Africa.
Many of them became stockmen, roaming with their flocks and herds over
vast tracts of grazing lands, for which they paid a nominal rent to the
Company. Some of them became mighty hunters of big game—like Nimrod;
and even those who herded cattle and sheep were forced to protect
themselves and their live stock against lions and leopards and the
savage Bushmen who waged a constant warfare in which quarter was
neither given nor expected. In such circumstances it is not wonderful
that the people who had in their veins the blended blood of Holland and
Navarre developed to an almost unparalleled degree courage,
self-reliance and love of independence, coupled with a passion for
solitude and isolation.
As inevitable results of the life they led—so isolated and wild—the
children grew up untaught; the women, being served by slaves, lost both
the Dutch and French habits of thrift and cleanliness; and the men
became indifferent to the elegancies of life, and grew more and more
stern and narrow-minded on all questions of public policy and religion.
But there was no declension of religious fervor. In all their
wanderings the Bible went with them as an oracle to be consulted on all
subjects, and the altar of family worship never lacked its morning and
evening sacrifice. And they retained a passionate love of personal
freedom which no effort of the Company’s government could bring under
perfect discipline.
Magistrates and assessors were appointed in some of the distant
stations, but they failed to control the wandering stockmen, who were
called Trek Boers because they “trekked” from place to place. Being
good marksmen and inured to conflict with wild beasts and wilder men,
they formed among themselves companies of fighting men whose duty it
was to disperse or destroy the savage Bushmen. These independent
military organizations the government recognized and approved by
appointing over them a field commander for each district and a
subordinate called a field cornet for each subdivision of a district.
These officers and their respective commands became permanent features
of the system of local government, and the war bands—called
commandos—have always been recognized in the records of military
operations by the Boers.
The administration, through a governor and council appointed by the
Dutch East India Company in Holland, was never popular with the
colonists. The governor was in no sense responsible to the people he
governed. This was one of the causes which prompted the Boers to go out
into the wilderness, where distance from the center of authority
secured to them greater freedom.
In 1779 the disaffected colonists sent commissioners to Holland to
demand of the States-General redress of the grievances suffered under
the rule of the Dutch East India Company and a share in the government
of the colony. This action was due, in part, to actual wrongs inflicted
on a liberty-loving people, and, in part, to the spirit of independence
which characterized the temper of the age and had led the British
colonists in North America to throw off the control of their mother
country.
After prolonged negotiations the States-General sent out two
commissioners to investigate the state of affairs in the Cape colony
and to recommend measures of reform. The degree of relief proposed was
considered inadequate—especially by those who dwelt in the more distant
settlements. Therefore, in 1795, the people of the interior rose up in
revolt against the Company’s government—professing, however, unabated
loyalty to the mother country. The magistrates appointed by the company
were deposed, and little republics were set up, each with a
representative assembly. It would have been an easy matter for the
government at the Cape to have suppressed these uprisings by cutting
off their food supplies. But just then other events claimed the
attention of both the governor and the governed—events which drew South
Africa into the tumultuous tide of European politics and led to the
immediate contact of Boer and Briton, and initiated a struggle between
the two which has been renewed at intervals, with varying fortunes, for
more than a hundred years.
Before going forward to the event of 1795—the first contact of Boer and
Briton—it will be well to note some of the more important features of
the condition in which that contact found the Boer.
The total Boer population of South Africa in 1795 was about seventeen
thousand, with a rapid rate of increase. In the mixed blood of the
people the proportions of national elements were: Dutch, a little less
than two-thirds; French, one-sixth; the remainder was principally
German, with a sprinkling of other nationalities.
The popular language differed largely from that of Holland at the close
of the eighteenth century. The amalgamation with a large body of
foreigners, the scant instruction in book learning, and above all the
necessity of speaking to the slaves and Hottentots in the simplest
manner possible had all tended to the destruction of grammatical forms.
The language in common use by the Boer had become a mere dialect,
having a very limited vocabulary. But the Dutch Bible—a book that every
one read—greatly increased the number of words with which he was
familiar. With this addition, however, most of the uneducated South
African colonists were unable to understand fully the contents of a
newspaper of the time printed in Holland, or a book treating of a
subject unfamiliar to them. Naturally this dialect of the Dutch was
greatly beloved by the people using it—it was the language of mother,
of lover, of friend to friend in parting to meet no more.
In no other country were women more completely on an equality with men
than in South Africa. Property belonging to a woman while she was
single, or acquired by her after marriage, was secured to her in
perpetuity so that her husband could neither squander it nor dispose of
it in any way without her consent. Neither was it subject to seizure
for debts contracted by him, but was as absolutely hers as if no
marriage existed.
The rights of children to be provided for were sacredly guarded. An
individual having five or more children could only dispose by will of
half the estate; the remainder belonged to the children, and upon the
death of the parent it was equally divided among them; if any were
minors their share was taken in trust for them by guardians provided by
law. If there were not more than four children the parent could dispose
by will of two-thirds of the estate.
The industrial pursuits of the people outside of Cape Town were almost
entirely agricultural and pastoral. There were no mining interests.
There was abundance of fish, but the taking of them was discouraged by
government prohibitions of fishing in any waters but Table Bay in
summer and False Bay in winter. This measure was taken to save the
Company the expense of providing military protection for fishermen at a
distance from the fort. In 1718 it was permitted to fish in Saldanha
Bay, also, but as one-fifth of the product was exacted as a tax the
license was not accepted.
The making of wagons and carts of the peculiar kind needed in Africa at
that time was carried to great perfection. This, however, was the only
important manufacturing industry in the country. For the most part
families supplied themselves with homemade articles of use, such as
soap, candles, furniture, leather, cloth, harness and farming
implements. Everything thus produced was crude and clumsy, but the
articles were durable and served the purpose fairly well.
All in all, they were a worthy and a very peculiar people—these Boers.
They differed largely from all others in habits, language and ideals;
but they were loyal to their ideals, and acted with rare good sense and
manly energy in carrying them into effect. They were so far free from
the prevailing spirit of religious bigotry that in 1795, besides the
Dutch Reformed Church—in a sense the national church—the Lutheran and
the Moravian denominations were tolerated.
The territory in South Africa that had been explored, up to 1795,
included the Cape colony, the western coast as far north as Walfish
Bay, the eastern coast to the Zambesi River and the Zambesi Valley to a
point above Tete, and a few localities in the region now known as
Rhodesia. Possibly some roving elephant hunters had crossed the Orange
River, but, if so, they were silent as to any discoveries made.
The Bushmen had retired from the populous parts of the Colony, and were
numerous only along the mountain range in the interior. The Hottentots
had dwindled away to a few thousand. The thinning out of these native
races was due not so much to mortal conflict with the whites as to the
ravages of smallpox and strong drink. Like all savage people they
seemed to melt away before these scourges as stubble before flames.
And here we close this chapter of the history of the Boers. We leave
them, for the moment, divided as to the government of the Dutch East
India Company, but a homogeneous people seventeen thousand strong, and
having developed out of the elements mixed in their blood and the
peculiar environment and experiences in which they lived a new race of
civilized men to be known in the history of commerce, diplomacy and war
as Africanders.
CHAPTER II.
FIRST CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON IN DIPLOMACY.
(1795.)
Colonel Robert Jacob Gordon was in chief command of all the regular
military forces maintained in the Cape colony. These consisted of a
regiment of infantry numbering twenty-five officers and five hundred
and forty-six rank and file, an artillery corps mustering twenty-seven
officers and four hundred and three rank and file, fifty-seven men
stationed at the regimental depots Meuron and Württemberg and a corps
of mountaineer soldiers, called pandours, numbering two hundred and
ten.
It is important to remember that at this time the colonists were
divided in sentiment as to the government of the Dutch East India
Company, but united in loyalty to the States-General and the
Stadtholder of Holland. In the interior the people had risen up in a
mild revolt, had dismissed the local magistrates who were the
appointees of the Company, and had instituted incipient republics under
the government of representative assemblies. Even in Stellenbosch and
Cape Town the majority sympathized with these movements, and only
waited a favorable opportunity to declare against the Company’s rule.
It is equally important to know that the military, also, were divided
in sentiment on this subject. Of the infantry, the officers were loyal
to the Orange party, but the rank and file were mercenaries from nearly
every country in the north of Europe, and were zealous for that party
or nation from whom they could draw the highest pay. The artillery
corps, on the contrary, was composed almost entirely of Netherlanders,
with a few French and Germans. These men were attached to the mother
country. A large majority of them, however, sympathized with the
republican movement in Europe, and would have preferred alliance with
the French rather than with the English, for, at that time, the lead of
France was toward republicanism.
Thus weakened by internal divisions, the Colony presented an open door
to invasion by any power that might covet a point of so great strategic
importance on the ocean thoroughfare between Europe and the Orient.
The English government, when about to enter into hostilities with
France, became apprehensive that the French would perceive the value of
the Cape colony and instantly take forcible possession of it. This they
determined to prevent at any cost; for the military occupancy of the
Cape by the French would bring England’s highway to India under the
control of her hereditary foe.
As early as the 2d of February, 1793, negotiations were opened between
the British government and the Dutch home and colonial authorities
concerning a strengthening of the garrison at the Cape by a contingent
of British troops from St. Helena. The States-General and the Dutch
East India Company, in response to this proposal, signified their
desire for aid in the form of warships to guard the coast of the Cape
peninsula, and that in case such assistance could not be given they
would accept the offered troops.
While this correspondence was going on events were transpiring that
occasioned ill-feeling between the Dutch and the English, although they
were in alliance against the French. Being paralyzed by dissensions
among their own people, the States-General made urgent appeals to the
British government for more efficient aid in both men and money. To
these appeals the answer of the English authorities was a bitter
complaint that their troops were already bearing the brunt of the war
in defense of the Netherlands, and that the Stadtholder and his
government were not making proper exertions to raise men and money at
home.
In making such answer, the British ministers seemed to be willfully
blind to the prostrate condition of the Dutch government. The French
had put the army of invasion under the command of Pichegru, one of the
ablest generals of his time. One after another the Dutch strongholds
were falling before him. The province of Friesland was threatening to
make a separate peace with France if the States-General did not hasten
to act in that direction for all Holland. The patriot party felt such
antipathy to their English allies that it was difficult to get hospital
accommodation in Dutch towns for the wounded British soldiers. And
notwithstanding all these circumstances the English authorities
asserted that the Stadtholder’s failure to put in the field a large and
well-equipped force was due to apathy in his own cause rather than to
weakness. The one measure of additional help offered was that if the
Dutch government would furnish five hundred to a thousand troops for
the better defense of Cape Colony the English East India Company would
transport them thither free of charge. It being impossible for the
Dutch to furnish the men, the negotiations came to an end.
Meanwhile, as was signified in the attitude of Friesland, the Dutch
people were considering the question of changing sides in the war. That
fact—without the knowledge of the Stadtholder—was informally
communicated to the governor of Cape Colony in a letter written by the
chief advocate of the Dutch East India Company, with the approbation of
the directors. The letter reached the Cape on the 7th of February,
1795, informing the colonists that in all probability Holland might
soon dissolve the alliance with the English and make common cause with
France. The letter stated that matters at home were in an uncertain
condition; that the French armies were advancing and already had
occupied a part of the country, and that it would be necessary to be
vigilant so as not to be surprised by any European power. The warning,
though not specific as to what power, evidently referred to England.
Later reports informed the colonists that a French army under Pichegru
was besieging Breda and threatening the region across the Maas. But
these reports were not in the nature of official dispatches. They were
communicated verbally by Captain Dekker of the frigate Medemblik, which
arrived at the Cape on the 12th of April, 1795.
The next intelligence from Europe was calculated to perplex and alarm
the colonists to a high degree. On the 11th of June, 1795, successive
reports came by messengers from Simonstown to the castle to the effect
that several ships of unknown nationality were beating into False Bay;
later that the ships had cast anchor, and at ten in the evening that
Captain Dekker had sent a boat to one of the stranger ships to
ascertain particulars, directing the lieutenant in charge to wave a
flag if he found them friendly, and that no such signal had been made,
nor had the boat returned.
The situation so suddenly developed was, to say the least, disturbing.
The governor called his council together to consider it. After
conference the signals of danger were made summoning the Burghers of
the country districts to Cape Town. Lieutenant-Colonel De Lille was
ordered to proceed at once to Simonstown with two hundred infantry and
a hundred gunners to strengthen the garrison there. The troops left the
castle within an hour and reached Simonstown before noon of the next
day.
The council continued in session until past midnight, and after
adjournment remained at the castle in readiness to deal with any
emergency that might arise. At half-past two in the morning of the 12th
they were called together again to consider a letter just received from
Simonstown. The communication was from Mr. Brand, the official resident
at Simonstown, and contained interesting news. Captain Dekker’s boat
had returned from its long visit to the strange fleet. With it had come
a Mr. Ross, bearing letters for the head of the Cape government from
the English admiral, Sir George Keith Elphinstone and Major-General
James Henry Craig.
Mr. Ross, having been supplied with a horse and a guide, reached the
castle and delivered the letters in due time. They proved to be three
complimentary notes from directors of the English East India Company to
Commissioner Sluysken, governor of the colony. Mr. Ross also presented
an invitation from Admiral Elphinstone to the Commissioner and Colonel
Gordon to visit his ship, intimating that there they would receive
important information and a missive from the Stadtholder of the
Netherlands. It was noted that in the conversation Mr. Ross was careful
to evade all questions concerning the state of affairs in Europe and
the destination and business of the fleet.
While the council pondered these things, Lieutenant Van Vegezak, who
had visited the English admiral’s ship, arrived at the castle. He had
little information to impart. There were in the fleet three
seventy-four gun ships, three of sixty-four guns each, a frigate of
twenty-four guns, two sloops of war carrying the one eighteen and the
other sixteen guns; and there were troops on board under the command of
Major-General James Henry Craig, but how many he had not been able to
learn.
Now, the facts which accounted for the presence at the Cape of this
British naval and military force were unknown to the colonists. The
Stadtholder’s government had been overthrown. The democratic party in
Holland had received the French with open arms. The national government
had been remodeled. The States-General had abolished the
Stadtholderate. And the British ministers, alarmed for their vast
possessions in India, and realizing that they must now depend upon
their own exertions to keep the French from seizing the port which
practically commanded the sea route thither, had fitted out and
dispatched with all haste this expedition, with orders to
occupy—peacefully if they could, but forcibly if they must—the castle
and harbor of Cape Town. The fleet had made a rapid passage. One
division sailed on the 13th of March, the other on the 3d of April. The
two squadrons met off the Cape on the 10th of June and on the 11th cast
anchor in False Bay.
The colonial officers acted with marvelous caution, considering the
fact that they were in ignorance of the late events which had led to
the appearing of this formidable expedition in South African waters.
To the note inviting the commissioner and Colonel Gordon to visit the
English admiral on his ship, they courteously replied that it was
impossible for these officers to leave Cape Town, and begged the
admiral to send ashore a responsible representative with the promised
information and dispatch. They also instructed the resident at
Simonstown to permit the English to provision their ships, but to allow
no armed men to land. A force of eighty-four Burghers and thirty
gunners, with three field pieces, was posted at Muizenburg in a
position to command the road to Simonstown. On the 13th of June the
defensive works of Simonstown Bay were strengthened by additional
troops, and three hundred and forty infantry and artillerymen were sent
to further strengthen the post at Muizenburg.
On the 14th of June there came to the castle a deputation from the
Admiral, consisting of Lieutenant-Colonel McKenzie, Captain Hardy of
the sloop Echo and Mr. Ross, secretary to General Craig.
Mr. Ross handed to Commissioner Sluysken a communication from the
prince of Orange—late the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, and supposed
to be so still by the colonists. The prince’s mandate, dated at Kew on
the 7th of February, 1795, ordered the Commissioner to admit the troops
of the King of England into the colony and the forts thereof and to
admit the British ships of war into the ports, and to treat the British
troops and ships of war as the forces of a power friendly to Holland
and sent to protect the colony against the French.
The deputation from the admiral also delivered to the Commissioner a
joint letter from Admiral Elphinstone and General Craig, in which was
written their account of the then condition of affairs in the
Netherlands. They informed him that the winter in Europe had been
exceptionally severe; that toward the close of January the rivers had
been frozen so hard as to make them passable for armies; that the
French had crossed on the ice into Utrecht and Gelderland and had
driven the English troops into Germany and compelled the Dutch forces
to surrender. They represented that it was a matter of only a few days
for the whole of the country to fall into the possession of the French
by forced capitulation, without any previous terms of surrender, and
that the Stadtholder only escaped capture by taking passage in a
fishing boat, which carried him from Scheveningen to England. They
further intimated to the Commissioner that this gloomy state of things
was only temporary; that Britain and her allies were preparing to enter
the field with overwhelming force, and were confident of being able to
drive the French out of Holland in the next campaign.
The letter stopped short of full particulars, leaving the colonial
authorities in ignorance of the cordial welcome given to the French by
the democratic party in Holland, and of the remodeling of the national
government and the abolition of the Stadtholderate. The impression the
British officers sought to make was that Holland had been overrun and
conquered, and was being treated with the utmost rigor by the French.
They carefully withheld the facts that the remodeled government of the
Netherlands was still in existence and that the French were regarded as
friends by a majority of the people. They wished the colonists to
believe that the Prince of Orange was still the Stadtholder of the
Netherlands, though temporarily a fugitive in England; that he would be
reinstated by the help of his faithful allies in the next campaign, and
that loyalty to his prince required the Commissioner of the Cape Colony
to throw open the ports and the forts of the colony to the friendly
occupation of the British forces.
The council decided that no immediate action should be taken on the
prince’s mandatory letter. It was the command of a fugitive in a
foreign land and lacked the indorsement of the States-General, and,
therefore, had no official force. They were loyal to the House of
Orange, but they felt that any present action would be taken in
ignorance of the true state of affairs. There was nothing to guide them
but this letter of their fugitive prince and the word of these armed
and interested visitors who sought to occupy their harbors and
strongholds at once. They decided to temporize as far as they could
without giving the strangers peaceable possession, hoping that more
complete and reliable intelligence from the Netherlands would reach
them.
The council’s answer to Admiral Elphinstone is an example of rare
diplomatic acumen. It assured him that the fleet would be permitted to
take in all necessary provisions, but requested that in doing so only
small bodies of unarmed men be sent ashore. It also expressed gratitude
to the British government for its evident goodwill, and intimated that,
while confident of their ability to resist any attack that might be
made, they would ask the British for assistance in case the French
should attempt to seize the colony. It further requested the admiral to
inform the council what number of troops he could furnish, if any were
needed. The admiral replied that General Craig would visit the
Commissioner in Cape Town and impart fuller information. Meanwhile the
arrival of Burgher forces from Stellenbosch enabled the council to add
two hundred horsemen to the post at Muizenburg.
On the 18th of June General Craig met the Commissioner at Cape Town.
The next day the general was introduced to the council, and laid before
the members the mission upon which he had been sent and his
instructions as to the manner of accomplishing it. He stated that the
fleet and the troops had been sent by his Britannic Majesty to defend
the colony against seizure by the French, or any other power, and that
the British occupancy was intended to last only until the government in
the Netherlands could be restored to its ancient form, when it was his
Majesty’s purpose to give up the colony to its proper rulers—the
Stadtholder and the States-General of Holland. He assured them that no
changes would be made in the laws and customs of the country, nor would
any additional taxes be levied without the expressed desire of the
people. The colonists would be required to bear no cost but that of
their own government as it then existed, and they would be at liberty
to profit largely by trade with England’s possessions in India. The
colonial troops would be paid by England, on condition that they take
an oath of allegiance to his Britannic Majesty—the obligation thereof
to last only as long as the British occupancy of the colony. The civil
service would remain as it was, and the present incumbents retain their
offices until his Majesty’s pleasure should be made known.
To this proposal the council made answer in writing, declining it, and
notifying the general that they would protect the colony with their own
forces against all comers.
Admiral Elphinstone and General Craig responded to this act of the
council by a general proclamation to the government and inhabitants of
the country, inviting and requiring them to accept his Britannic
Majesty’s protection in view of the certainty that the French would
endeavor to seize the colonial dependencies of the Netherlands.
Three days later the same officers published an address to the
inhabitants, in Dutch and German, renewing the offer of protection
under the conditions laid before the council by General Craig, and
inviting them to send a committee of their own selection to Simonstown
to confer with the heads of the British expedition. The address
emphasized the alternative before the people—a French or an English
occupation. The former, it affirmed, would introduce a government on
Jacobin principles, and would result in anarchy, the guillotine, an
insurrection of the slaves with all the horrors that had been enacted
at St. Domingo and Guadeloupe, isolation from Europe, the destruction
of commerce and a dearth of money and of the necessaries of life. But
the English occupation, it went on to say, would give them safety under
the wing of the only power in Europe that was able to assure protection
of person and property under the existing laws, or any others the
colonists might choose to enact; it would secure a free market for all
their products at the best prices; it would release their trade from
the heavy imposts of the Dutch East India Company; it would open and
promote commerce by sea and land between all parts of the colony, and
it would secure better pay for such of the colonial troops as might
choose to enter the British military service.
This appeal directly to the people over the heads of their chief
officials, and to the cupidity of their mercenary soldiers, was
resented by the council, who notified the British representatives
forthwith that further communication on the subject of British
occupancy was not desired.
Nevertheless, on the 26th of June, the admiral and the general sent the
colonial authorities another long letter, reiterating therein their
former statements to the effect that the Netherlands had been absorbed
by France; that if left to itself the Cape colony would be absorbed in
like manner, and adding the significant intimation that his Britannic
Majesty could not allow it to fall into the hands of his enemies.
The council responded to this letter by prohibiting any further supply
of provisions to the British force, and strengthening the post at
Muizenburg with Burgher horsemen, pandours and the entire garrison from
Boetselaar except one man; he was left to spike the guns in case the
English should land. The council also wrote the British commanders that
they noted the difference between proffered assistance against an
invader and a demand to surrender the colony to the British government.
When the real design of the English was revealed, the disaffected
Burghers of the Cape and of Stellenbosch ceased all opposition to the
government, and offered to do their utmost in defense of the colony.
When the Commissioner announced that the country would not be
surrendered to the English, the people cheered him rapturously in the
streets, and saluted him as Father Sluysken.
But notwithstanding these outward signs of unity the high officials and
the people were not quite of one mind. A majority of the Burghers had
adopted republican ideas, and, if they were to be left to themselves,
were ready to welcome the French. Such English visitors as had come to
the Cape had exasperated the colonists by boastfully predicting the
ultimate subjection of the colony to Great Britain. The Burghers
believed that they had now come in the guise of friendship to make good
the insulting prediction. On the other hand, the official heads of the
colony were lukewarm in doing what they knew and admitted to be their
duty for the defense of the colony. Colonel Gordon openly expressed his
readiness to admit the English troops whenever the French should
threaten an attack. He went so far as to say that even in existing
circumstances he would admit them if they would covenant to hold the
country for the Prince of Orange, but if their purpose was to take
possession of it for Great Britain he would resist them to the utmost
of his power. The colonel was a disappointment to the English, for they
had counted upon the Scotch strain in his blood and his well-known
Orange partisanship to bring him over to their designs at the first.
Thus three lines of cleavage militated against the perfect solidarity
of the colonists. A majority of the Burghers were prepared to resist
the British because they preferred the French, if there must be a
change of masters. Most of the lower officials and some of the town
Burghers were ready to accept the British occupancy, and went about
singing Orange party songs because they believed the English were
sincere in professing that it was their sole purpose to hold the colony
in trust for the Prince of Orange. As for Commissioner Sluysken and
Colonel Gordon, while it was their duty to defend the Cape interests
against any power that sought to subvert the rule of the Stadtholder
and the States-General of Holland, they were not quite sure of the
course they ought to pursue with reference to the English, who had come
to them professing loyal friendship to the fugitive prince and
accredited to them by his mandatory letter. There was possible treason
in either admitting or resisting them. These circumstances account for
some lack of energy on the part of the civil and the military heads of
the colony in defending it against the British attack that was soon to
follow.
CHAPTER III.
FIRST CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON IN WAR.
(1795.)
Toward the end of June, 1795, it became evident that the British
commanders, having failed to obtain peaceable possession of the Cape
colony, meant to use all the force necessary to carry out their
purpose.
On the 24th of June, three Dutch merchant ships lying in Simon’s Bay
received instruction from Commissioner Sluysken to proceed to Table
Bay, but Admiral Elphinstone forbade them to sail. On the 28th of June,
two small vessels sailing under American colors anchored in Simon’s
Bay. One of these—the Columbia—carried Dutch dispatches from Amsterdam
to the Cape and Batavia. The English admiral promptly placed the
Columbia under guard and seized her mails. Such letters and dispatches
as related to public affairs were either suppressed or mutilated, and
measures were taken to prevent newspapers from reaching the shore. A
single paper, however, was smuggled into the hands of a Burgher, and
was the means of conveying astonishing news to the colonists. The most
startling of its contents was an official notice by the States-General
of Holland, under date of the 4th of March, 1795, absolving from their
oaths of allegiance to the Prince of Orange all his former subjects,
both in the Netherlands and in the Dutch colonies.
From this notice and from hints left in mutilated letters to private
individuals it was learned that so far from being a conquered country
under the heel of a rigorous French military administration, Holland
was a free and independent republic; that the Stadtholderate had been
abolished by the free-will action of the nation, and that France was in
friendly diplomatic relations with the Dutch Republic.
Thereupon, the Commissioner and his council determined that it was
their duty to hold out against the English. They reasoned that, should
the colonial forces be overpowered in the end, the Netherlands would
have a better claim to the restoration of the country when peace should
be made than would exist if the protection of Great Britain had been
accepted without a struggle. They saw a bare possibility that the
British force might be starved into departure by refusing to furnish
them with provisions. Moreover, aid from Europe might then be on the
way and might reach them in time to save the colony to Holland. In any
case, they judged, there was nothing to lose in opposing the British
but the control of the colony, whereas, they might lose their heads as
traitors should a combined Dutch and French fleet arrive and they be
found to have surrendered to the British without a show of resistance.
They decided that both duty and personal interest required them to make
what preparation they could for defense.
By order of the council, on the night of the 29th of June, Simonstown
was abandoned as untenable. All the provisions there were destroyed,
the guns were spiked, such ammunition as could not be carried away was
thrown into the sea and the troops joined the force at Muizenburg. Not
being able to evade the ships blockading Table Bay, the council
chartered a cutter then lying at anchor in Saldanha Bay and sent her
with dispatches to Batavia informing the Dutch colonists there of the
state of things both at the Cape and in Holland.
When the call to assemble at the Cape was signaled to the country
Burghers, only seventy men from the Swellendam district responded. The
nationals, who had been in revolt against the Dutch East India
Company’s government, declined to obey. Further appeals by letter
failed to bring any more of them in. At last, on the 7th of July, in a
written communication, it was proposed by the nationals that they would
rally to the defense of the country if the government would grant them
amnesty for the past and pledge a reasonable redress of their
grievances as soon as possible. Among the principal stipulations were
these: The nationalists were to be exempted from direct taxation and to
have free trade; the cartoon money—a depreciated currency—was to be
withdrawn from circulation, and they were to be granted permission to
hold in perpetual slavery all Bushmen captured by commandos or
individuals.
The nationals had no sooner dispatched the letter containing their
overture than it occurred to some of them that their claims would
surely be ignored if the British obtained control of the colony.
Therefore, without waiting for a response from the government, they
resolved to aid in the defense of the country, and at the same time
continue to assert their right to self-government. In accordance
therewith a company of one hundred and sixty-eight mounted men was
organized under Commandant Delpont and at once set out for Cape Town.
The rally from the country districts of Swellendam, Stellenbosch and
Drakenstein brought together a force of eleven hundred and forty
horsemen. Two hundred of these were added to the post at Muizenburg.
The rest were stationed at Cape Town and along the road to the camp as
pickets.
Hostile operations came on very slowly. Admiral Elphinstone seized
three more Dutch merchant ships that were lying in Simon’s Bay on the
9th of July. On the 14th he landed four hundred and fifty soldiers, who
occupied Simonstown, and strengthened the post a week later by adding
four hundred marines.
Strangely enough, neither the English commanders nor Commissioner
Sluysken chose to regard these movements as acts of war. The
Commissioner had been careful to order that no attack should be made on
the English, and that nothing whatever should be done that would
provoke retaliation or furnish grounds for them to throw the blame of
opening hostilities on the Dutch. It was not until the 3d of August
that any act was committed which was by either party construed into an
act of war. On that day a Burgher officer fired at an English picket
and wounded one of the men. For this he was reprimanded by the
Commissioner. General Craig reported it in his dispatches as the
beginning of hostilities.
The time soon came when the British officers thought an advance might
be made. The Dutch had been remiss in not strengthening their earthwork
defenses toward the sea. They had permitted English boats to take
soundings off Muizenburg unmolested. And the English commanders had
been encouraged to hope that the nationals in the colonial force did
not intend to seriously oppose the British advance—that in all
probability they would come over in a body to the British side as soon
as the first engagement opened. On the other hand, the invading army
was utterly without field guns and could not muster more than sixteen
hundred men. Re-enforcements were on the way, but no one could foretell
the time of their arrival. To advance any part of their military force
beyond the range of the guns on the ships would expose the whole
expedition to destruction in the event of a French squadron appearing
in Table Bay to co-operate with the Dutch colonists. In view of all the
circumstances the British commanders determined to capture Muizenburg,
to reopen negotiations with the Cape government from that position and
to attempt no further aggressive movement until the arrival of the
expected re-enforcements.
On the morning of the 7th of August it became evident to the Dutch
officers at Muizenburg that the British were about to attack. A column
of sixteen hundred infantry and marines was advancing from Simonstown.
Two small gunboats, and the ships’ launches, carrying lighter guns,
moved close in shore about five hundred yards in advance of the column,
to keep the road open. The war vessels America, Stately, Echo and
Rattlesnake were heading for Muizen Beach.
The Dutch camp was at the foot of the mountain facing False Bay on the
west, the camp looking south and east, for it was at the northwest
angle of the bay. They had planted eleven pieces of artillery so as to
command the road from Simonstown, which ran along the west coast of
False Bay. From Kalk Bay to Muizenburg the roadway was narrow, having
the water on one side and the steep mountain, only a few paces away, on
the other. The mountain terminates abruptly at Muizenburg, where begin
the Cape Flats, a sandy plain stretching across from False Bay to Table
Bay. Near the north end of the mountain is a considerable sheet of
shallow water called the Sandvlei, fed in the rainy season by an
intermittent brook called Keyser’s River, emptying into the north side
of the vlei.
As soon as they came within range of the post at Kalk Bay the British
ships opened fire and the picket stationed there retired over the
mountain. On coming abreast of Muizenburg the fleet came to anchor and
delivered their broadsides at easy range upon the Dutch camp. The
thunders of the first fire had hardly ceased when the national
battalion of infantry, and a little later the main body thereof, led by
Colonel De Lille, fled from the post through the Sandvlei. One company
under Captain Warneke retired more slowly and in a little better order.
Many of the artillerymen followed, leaving only a single company under
Lieutenant Marnitz to work the two twenty-four pounders. These, being
planted on loose soil, were thrown out of position by the recoil of
every discharge and could not be fired again until they had been
handled back into place. The firing was, therefore, slow and with
uncertain aim. Two men were killed, four wounded and one gun disabled
on the America, and one man was wounded on the Stately, by Lieutenant
Marnitz’s fire. Whether it was through bad marksmanship or by design
one can hardly decide, but the English guns were aimed so high that the
shot passed over the camp and lodged in the mountain behind it. Marnitz
soon perceived that the post could not be held, and, first spiking the
cannon, retired before the charge of the British column. Nothing was
saved from the camp but five small field pieces.
The English followed the retreating burghers with a cheer. As soon as
they were out of range of the British ships the Dutch endeavored to
make a stand, but were quickly driven from it by a bayonet charge.
After gaining the shelter of the mountain the Dutch again faced their
pursuers, this time with the support of guns brought to bear on the
English from the opposite side of the Sandvlei, and with such effect
that they fell back to Muizenburg. In this second collision one English
officer, one burgher and two Dutch artillerymen were killed and one
pandour was wounded.
Instead of rallying his men and making a stand behind the Sandvlei, as
he might have done with a well-protected front, De Lille continued his
flight to Diep River, where he arrived with a fragment of his command,
not knowing what had become of his artillerymen and burghers.
As soon as news came that the English were advancing, a detachment of
five hundred burgher horsemen was hastened forward from Cape Town to
Muizenburg. On the way they learned from the fugitives that Muizenburg,
the camp and everything in it had been taken by the British. Then they
halted and encamped on the plain in small parties.
Next morning, the 8th of August, De Lille made some show of rallying
and returned to the head of the Sandvlei leading a part of the infantry
that had been discomfited the day before. The 8th became a day of
general panic. The English advanced in column to attack De Lille at the
head of the vlei—wading through water that, in places, came above their
waists. Notwithstanding the advantage this gave him, De Lille and all
his command fled precipitately on their approach. As the British issued
from the water and pursued them across the plain they observed a party
of burghers coming from behind some sandhills on their flank—the
detachment that had come from Cape Town and camped on the plain during
the night. Assuming that the flight of De Lille and the movement of
this body were in the carrying out of an ambuscade, the British fled,
in their turn, and were pursued by the Dutch until they came under the
fire of their own cannon, spiked and abandoned by Lieutenant Marnitz,
but drilled and placed in service by General Craig. While the English
were being driven in by the Cape Town detachment, De Lille and his
command fled all day in the opposite direction, and in the evening
camped within a mile of the camping ground of the night before, near
Diep River.
De Lille’s conduct in the field caused widespread indignation. In a
formal document drawn up by a number of burgher officers and forwarded
to the Commissioner, he was charged with treason. The fiscal who
investigated the case acquitted De Lille of treason, there being no
proof that he had conspired with the British to betray his trust. And
yet he was neither a coward nor an imbecile. His conduct can be
explained in no other way than to say that he was a devoted partisan of
the House of Orange, that he regarded the nationals as traitors to
their legitimate ruler and that he believed the English were the loyal
friends of the rightful sovereign and the ancient government of the
Netherlands. For these reasons he would not fight against the British.
He held that success in repelling them would result in handing the
country over to the colonial national party and to republicanism, which
would be an offense against the divine rights of the Prince of Orange.
Later he took service with the British and was made barrack master in
Cape Town. Thereafter he wore the Orange colors, and openly vented his
abhorrence of all Jacobins—whether French, Dutch or South African.
On the 9th of August the expected British re-enforcements began to
arrive. On the 12th Admiral Elphinstone and General Craig wrote the
Commissioner and his council announcing that already they had received
an accession of strength, and that they expected the immediate arrival
of three thousand more soldiers. They also repeated the offer to take
the Cape colony under British protection on the same terms as were
proffered at first, and added, as a threat, that their men were
becoming exasperated at the resistance offered and it might become
impossible to restrain their fury.
The letter of the British commanders was laid before the Commissioner’s
council, the councillors representing the country burghers and the
burgher militia; and these were all requested to express their judgment
and their wishes freely. With a single exception they were unanimous in
adopting a resolution declaring that the colony ought to be and would
be defended to the last. In accordance therewith the Commissioner
transmitted to the British officers the decision of the people,
notifying them that the colony would still be defended.
Notwithstanding the brave front thus presented to the invaders,
influences were at work which tended toward the rapid disintegration of
the burgher forces. It was being rumored among them that the Bushmen
were threatening the interior, and that the Hottentots in Swellendam,
and the slaves in Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, were about to rise in
revolt. True or false, these alarming rumors caused many burghers to
forsake the ranks and go to the protection of their homes and their
families. In July the burgher cavalry numbered eleven hundred and
forty; by the first of September it was reduced to nine hundred.
Efforts to keep up the original strength by the enlistment of foreign
pandours, native half-breeds and Hottentots were unsuccessful. Only the
burgher infantry, numbering three hundred and fifty, remained
intact—being composed of residents of the town.
The colonists were further dispirited by an abortive attempt to capture
certain English outposts on the Steenberg. The attack was gallantly
made by the burgher militia and pandours, but being unsupported by
regular troops and field artillery they were repulsed. On the same day
the pandours mutinied. One hundred and seventy of them marched in a
body to the castle and made complaint that their families had been
ill-treated by the colonists, that their pay was inadequate, that they
were insulted by abusive remarks, that a bounty of £40 promised them
for good conduct had not been paid, and that their rations of spirits
were too small. Commissioner Sluysken so far pacified them with
promises of redress that they returned to the ranks, but from that time
they were disaffected and sullen, and their service was of little
value.
The Dutch officers had planned a night attack in force on the British
camp at Muizenburg. When they were about to attempt it, there arrived,
on the 4th of September, a fleet of East Indiamen bringing the main
body of the British re-enforcements. These consisted of infantry of the
line, engineers and artillerymen, numbering, in all, three thousand
troops under the command of General Alured Clarke. This had the effect
of so completely discouraging the burgher cavalry that many of them
gave up hope and returned to their homes. By the 14th of September only
five hundred and twenty-one of this branch of the colonial force
remained in the ranks.
Once more, on the 9th of September, the British commanders issued an
address to the colonists calling upon them to give peaceable admission
to the overwhelming force now at their gates, and warning them that,
otherwise, they would take forcible possession. Commissioner Sluysken
replied, as before, that he would hold and defend the colony for its
rightful owners, for so he was bound to do by his oath of office.
The English army in two columns, between four and five thousand strong,
marched from Muizenburg to attack Cape Town, at 9 o’clock in the
morning of the 14th of September. This movement was signaled to the
colonial officers at the Cape, who ordered all the burgher cavalry,
with the exception of one company, to the support of the regular troops
at Cape Town. A part of the burgher force was sent out to strengthen
the Dutch camp at Wynberg, about half way from Muizenburg to Cape Town
on the route of the British. Some attempt was made to harass the
columns on the march, but with so little effect that only one was
killed and seventeen were wounded.
Major Van Baalen, then in command of the regular troops at Wynberg,
arranged a line of battle that was faulty in the extreme, and planted
his cannon in such position that they were practically useless as
weapons of offense against the advancing army. Certain officers of the
artillery and of the burgher militia contingent remonstrated against
his plan of battle, but it was in vain, and when the English came
within gunfire he retreated with the greater part of the regulars. Then
followed a scene of confusion. The burghers protested, and cried out
that they were being betrayed in every battle. One company of infantry
and most of the artillery made a brief stand and then retreated toward
Cape Town, leaving the camp and all its belongings to the British.
It had now become clear to the burgher cavalry that Commissioner
Sluysken, Colonel Gordon, and most of the officers of the regular force
intentionally fought to lose—that so far as the republican government
then prevailing in Holland was concerned they were traitors at heart,
and that they were willing—after a mere show of resistance—to let the
colony fall into the hands of the British in order to have it held in
trust by them for the fugitive prince of Orange. The burghers,
therefor, not being willing to risk capture or death in battles that
were not meant to win by those who directed them, dispersed and
returned to their homes. Meantime a British squadron was threatening
Cape Town, but keeping out of range of the castle guns.
The commissioner’s council was convened at six o’clock in the evening
of the 14th of September to consider a very serious situation. A
British force of over four thousand men, thoroughly disciplined and
equipped, was then in bivouac at Newlands, less than ten miles from
Cape Town. The colonial force was only about seventeen hundred strong
and nearly half of these had that day retreated before the enemy
without giving battle; the remainder were distributed among the
fortified posts at Hout Bay, Camp’s Bay and Table Valley. If these were
all loyal and united in a determination to fight to the last they would
certainly be overpowered in the end. But they were not at one in their
loyalty. Some were for the deposed and banished prince of Orange, and
therefore favorable to the English who professed to be his friends.
Others were strong in their preference for the new republican
government in the Netherlands. While thus divided in political
sentiments they were without leaders in whom they could place
confidence. Further effort at defense seemed unjustifiable in view of
certain defeat, and of the useless destruction of property and life it
would cause.
One member of the council, Mr. Van Reede von Oudtshoorn, stood out
against capitulation, offering to take, with the corps of pennists he
commanded, the brunt of a final battle with the English. The other
members were unanimous in deciding to send a flag of truce to the
British at Newlands, asking for a suspension of hostilities during the
next forty-eight hours in order to arrange terms of surrender. General
Clarke consented to an armistice of twenty-four hours only, beginning
at midnight on the 14th of September.
As a result of conference between the representatives of the Cape
government and the British commanders the following terms of
capitulation were agreed to: The Dutch troops were to surrender as
prisoners of war, but their officers might remain free in Cape Town or
return to Europe on their parole of honor not to serve against Great
Britain during the continuance of hostilities. No new taxes were to be
levied, and the old imposts were to be reduced as much as possible in
order to revive the decaying trade of the colony. All the belongings of
the Dutch East India Company were to be handed over to the English, but
private rights of property were to be respected. The lands and other
properties of the Dutch East India Company were to be held in trust by
the new authorities for the redemption of that portion of the company’s
paper currency which was not secured by mortgage.
Early in the morning of the 16th of July these terms of surrender were
officially completed by the signing of the document in which they were
written by General Clarke and Admiral Elphinstone. At eleven o’clock on
that day the council ordered the publication of the articles, and that
official notice of what had been done be sent to the heads of
departments and other officers in the country districts. Then the
council formally closed its last session and its existence.
The ceremonial in connection with the capitulation took place at three
o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 16th of September, 1795.
Twelve hundred British infantry and two hundred artillerymen under
command of General Craig drew up on the open grounds in front of the
castle. The Dutch troops marched out of their late stronghold with
colors flying and drums beating, passed by the British line, laid down
their arms and surrendered as prisoners of war. Some of them did so in
great bitterness of soul, muttering and calling down curses upon
Commissioner Sluysken and Colonel Gordon for having betrayed and
disgraced them. Lieutenant Marnitz, in writing of these events,
emphasized the fact that the only occasion on which the head of the
colonial military establishment, Colonel Gordon, drew his sword in the
conflict with the English was when he gave the order for the troops he
had commanded to lay down their arms.
Thus it was, after an almost bloodless war, that Cape Colony, founded
by the Dutch and governed continuously by the Netherlands for one
hundred and forty-three years, passed into the possession of Great
Britain and became a crown colony thereof. The charges made by some
that Commissioner Sluysken and Colonel Gordon were either imbeciles or
traitors may not be quite in accordance with the facts. Certainly there
is a wide disparity between the always strong and defiant words in
which they announced, to the last moment, their determination to defend
the colony, and the puerile efforts they made to do so. The only
rational explanation of their conduct is that they preferred yielding
to the British, after making a show of resistance, to accepting in the
colony the new regime of republicanism that prevailed in the mother
country. In all probability their secret thought was that by prolonging
a nominal resistance they might gain time enough for something to occur
in Europe—where events were moving with bewildering rapidity—something
that would reinstate the Prince of Orange as Stadtholder of the
Netherlands, and so leave the British no pretext for seizing the colony
in his interest.
This chapter may fittingly close with a few brief records of events
that lead up to the first trek northwards of the Africanders.
The Cape colony was restored to the Dutch on the conclusion of the
peace of Amiens, in 1802. When war broke out afresh in Europe, in 1806,
the English again seized the Cape to prevent Napoleon from occupying so
important a naval station and half-way house to the British possessions
in India. The second seizure was accomplished after a single engagement
with the Dutch. In 1814 the colony was formally ceded to the British
crown together with certain Dutch possessions in South America, by the
reinstated Stadtholder of the Netherlands, who received in return
therefor a money consideration of thirty million dollars.
CHAPTER IV.
THE AFRICANDERS’ FIRST TREK TO THE NORTH.
1806–1838.
When the British took forcible possession of the Cape colony a second
time, in 1806, they found a total population of 74,000. Of these 17,000
were native Hottentots, 30,000 were slaves of African, Asiatic and
mixed blood, and 27,000 were of European descent—mostly Dutch, with a
sprinkling of German and French. Nearly all spoke the dialect of
Holland Dutch, into which the speech of a people so mixed and so
isolated had degenerated.
In the beginning of the second English regime there was a fair promise
of peace and of the gradual fusion of the Africander and the English
elements in a homogeneous people. The Dutch, from whom the Africanders
were principally descended, and the English were cognate nations.
Though separated as to national life and history by fourteen centuries,
they possessed the same fundamental principles that give tone to
character—the two languages were so far alike that the one people found
it easy to learn the speech of the other; they both loved liberty, and
they both held the Protestant faith. On the surface of things there was
every reason to expect that the common features in blood, language,
political ideals and religion would lead to kindly intercourse,
intermarriages, and a thorough blending of the two races in one.
The first few years of experience seemed to strengthen this promise of
good into certainty. Two successive British governors were men of
righteousness and wisdom. The restrictions upon trade imposed by the
Dutch East India Company were removed. Schools were founded. Measures
were taken to improve the breed of horses and cattle. The trade in
slaves was forbidden, and missionaries were sent among the natives. The
administration of this period was careful to leave untouched as far as
possible the local institutions, the official use of the Dutch
language, and the Dutch-Roman law, which had become the common law of
all civilized South Africa, both Dutch and English.
Under these favoring influences the two peoples became friendly and
began to intermarry. In 1820 the British government promoted emigration
from England and Scotland to South Africa, to the extent of about five
thousand. From that time there was a steady increase of the population
from Great Britain, and to a much smaller extent from Germany, France
and other European nations. The newcomers from continental Europe soon
lost their nationality and learned to speak either English or the local
Dutch dialect.
The promise of peace, and of the complete fusion of all the elements in
one people loyal to the British crown, was not fulfilled. The causes of
the failure—then insidious, but now easy to detect and analyze—must be
considered at this point, for only in their light can we understand the
Africander people and form a just judgment of their subsequent course.
Doubtless the colonists were influenced, to a greater degree than they
realized, by the natural dislike of any civilized people to be
transferred to the rule of a foreign nation. They were not the kind of
people to make much of the fact that the Dutch and the English sprang
from a common origin more than fourteen hundred years before—if they
had any knowledge of it. To them the British were a different race, and
the British government was a kind of unloved step-father who had first
conquered dominion over them by the strong hand and then bought them
with money, as perpetual chattels, from their degenerate mother
country.
Another cause of the failure to amalgamate was in the now fixed
character of the South African Dutch. Few of them dwelt or cared to
dwell in village communities. Some were farmers, it is true, living in
touch with the towns; but most of them were stockmen roaming in a
pastoral life over large tracts of the country—almost without local
habitation. At long intervals they saw something of their always
distant next neighbor ranchmen, but they saw nothing of the life in the
few colonial towns. The intercourse between these pastoral Africanders
and the British was so infrequent, and so limited as to scope, that the
two races knew but little of one another. As a result, the process of
social amalgamation, going on at Cape Town and in some other places
where the population lived in communities, made little progress in the
country districts where the great majority of the Africanders dwelt.
A single incident, of no great proportions in itself, must be given a
separate mention among the causes of estrangement between the two
civilized races in South Africa. It was not so much the cause of a new
line of cleavage as it was the wedge driven to the head into one of the
existing lines. In 1815 a Boer was accused of seriously injuring a
native servant. When the authorities sent out a small force to arrest
the accused his neighbors rallied to his defense, and a brief
resistance was offered to the serving of the warrant. The uprising—a
mere neighborhood affair—was easily suppressed. Several prisoners were
taken, six of whom were condemned to death. Five of the condemned were
hanged, and their women—who had fought beside them—were compelled to
stand by and witness the execution. Some promise of reprieve had been
made by the governor, Lord Charles Somerset. The crowd of Africanders
stood about the gallows on the fatal day, hoping to the last moment
that their friends would be spared, but no reprieve came. The tragedy
was completed, and the story of it went into the Africander folklore,
becoming, and remaining to this day, a part of the nursery education of
every Africander child. They named the ridge on which the execution
took place, “Schlachter’s Nek,” which, being interpreted, is “Butcher’s
Ridge.” Canon Knox Little, in his late work on South Africa, is
authority for the statements that Lord Somerset actually reprieved the
condemned men, that the reprieve reached the Field-Cornet appointed to
carry out the execution in good time to save the victims, and that the
Field-Cornet executed the death warrant having the governor’s reprieve
in his pocket, being actuated to the murderous deed by private spite.
The Canon adds that the Field-Cornet was so sure that he, himself,
would be punished for his iniquity that he committed suicide. It is to
be devoutly hoped that the learned Canon is well informed both as to
the governor’s purpose of mercy and the Cornet’s motive for suicide.
Whatever the interior facts may have been, they were unknown to the
Africanders. The cruel act—justified by the doers as a piece of
necessary firmness—caused bitter and widespread resentment at the time,
and continues to foster anti-British feeling among all the Dutch of
South Africa.
Another cause that made for disruption was an unwarrantable and most
unwise interference of the British authorities with two cherished and
guaranteed rights of the colonists—the old system of local government,
and the use of the Dutch language in official documents and legal
proceedings. In the forms of government changes were made which greatly
reduced the share formerly enjoyed by the people in the control of
their local affairs. The substituting of English for Dutch in official
and legal documents was a still more serious grievance to a people of
whom not more than one-sixth understood English.
Still another cause of disaffection grew out of wars with the Kaffirs
on the eastern border. Between 1779 and 1834 four struggles to the
death occurred between the whites and the tribes living beyond Fish
river. By dint of hard fighting the Kaffirs were finally subdued and
driven forth into the Keiskama river region. But for some reason the
home government assumed that the colonists had ill-treated the natives
and provoked them to war. The dear bought victories of the whites were
rendered sterile by strict orders from the British Colonial Office that
the Kaffirs be allowed to return to their old haunts, where they once
more became a source of constant apprehension to the border farmers.
This action on the part of the home authorities was taken as an
evidence of either weakness or hostility to the Africander population,
and led them to think of the British Colonial Office as their enemy.
The final, probably the principal, cause, the one that fanned the
slumbering resentment of many things into active flame, arose out of
the slave question. To the great detriment of their manhood and
womanhood the early Dutch colonists resorted to slave labor. From 1658
onward slavery had been practiced throughout the colony, as, indeed, it
had prevailed in most of the world. Trouble began to grow out of it as
early as 1737. In that year the first European mission to the
Hottentots was undertaken by the Moravian church. Their work was much
obstructed by the colonists, who even compelled one pastor to return to
Europe because he had administered Christian baptism to some native
converts. In later years most of the missionaries came from England,
where the anti-slavery sentiment was fast becoming dominant, and from
1810 the English missionaries were cordially disliked by the colonists
because they openly espoused the cause of the slaves and reported every
case of cruelty to them that came to their knowledge. Possibly they
sometimes exaggerated, as it has been asserted of them, but this may be
excused in the only friends the oppressed blacks had. Besides this
conflict between the slave-owners and the missionaries, there was a
steady increase of disaffection from a cognate cause—the temper and
action of the government towards the servile classes. In 1828, to the
great disgust of the colonists, a civil ordinance placed all Hottentots
and other free colored people of South Africa on the same footing with
the whites as to private civil rights. This was followed by enactments
restricting the authority of masters over their slaves, the purpose
being to mitigate the sufferings of the enslaved. Then came the
abolition of slavery in all British dominions, in 1834. To provide
compensation to slave-owners parliament set apart the sum of
£20,000,000, to be distributed to the several colonies where slavery
had existed. The share of this amount appropriated to the Cape Colony
slave-holders was a little over £3,000,000—a sum considerably below the
equitable claim for the 39,000 slaves to be set free. Additional
irritation was felt when it was found that the certificates for
compensation were made payable in London only, so that most of the Cape
slave-holders were forced to sell them to speculators at a heavy
discount. Many farmers were impoverished by the change, and labor
became so scarce and dear that it was impossible to carry on
agriculture to profit.
Serious enough was the summing up of the causes that made for the
disruption of the Dutch and the English classes in Cape Colony.
Hitherto the Africanders had been able to indulge their love of
independence by living apart from the centers of organized government.
But now they had come under the conquering hand of an alien and
masterful people; they had been sold for money by their mother country;
they had been treated with undue sharpness and cruelty—as witness the
atrocity of Schlachter’s Nek; they had been spied upon and denounced by
the missionaries; they had been forced to transact all their official
and legal business in a foreign language which few of them understood;
the savage native blacks had been put on a level with them; their
victory over the Kaffirs at the cost of much blood had been rendered
fruitless by the interference of the home government; and now their
slave property, which they had acquired under law, had been taken away
without adequate compensation, and the further practice of slavery had
been interdicted.
Rebellion against the power of Great Britain was hopeless and not to be
thought of. But they could go out into the wilderness and begin life
anew where they could follow the independent pastoral pursuits they
preferred, enjoy the isolation and solitude they loved, preserve all
their ancient customs, and deal with whatever native people they might
find there in their own way, untrammeled by the English who had
undertaken to govern them on principles which they could neither
understand nor approve.
Then began the “Great Trek” of 1836—the Africander secession and
exodus, leaving their former country to the possession of the English,
and seeking towards the north for a country wherein they would be free
according to their own ideals of liberty.
To the north and east of the utmost limit of European settlement in
1836 was a region now divided into the Orange Free State, The Transvaal
or South African Republic, and the British colony of Natal. A few
hunters had penetrated a little way into it, and some enterprising
border farmers had occasionally driven their flocks and herds into the
southern fringe of it in search of better pasture. It had been
described by the few who had explored it as having districts that were
well watered and fertile—a country of arable and pasture lands. Within
it, and bordering close to it on the northwest, were the fierce Zulus;
and it abounded with big game and enormous beasts of prey. But the
Africanders knew what it was to battle for place and for life with wild
beasts and savage men. They had less dread of these than of the
experiences they foresaw for themselves under the new government set up
in Cape Colony. They made choice of the wilderness with all its
hardships and perils, and set forth.
One may not be able to laud all their motives for taking this course,
as we judge such matters now, after more than half a century during
which there has been a constant brightening of the light of moral
truth. It must be admitted that their action was taken, in part,
because of attachment to slavery. But condemnation of that part of
their complex motives should be modified by the thought that the best
peoples of the world were just then coming to see with John Wesley that
human slavery is “the sum of all villainies.” And it should be
remembered that nearly thirty years later than the Africander secession
and exodus partly in the interest of slavery, fully one-third of the
free population of the United States seceded from the Union wholly in
the interest of the same “peculiar institution,” claiming to hold their
lands as well as their slave property, and that it cost the nation a
million lives and a thousand million dollars to transmute into American
practice the lofty sentiment embodied in the American Declaration of
Independence that, being created equal, all men have sacred rights to
“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
After discounting fairly the nobility of their motives in making the
“Great Trek,” it will be allowed by every unprejudiced mind that with
the less laudable were mingled the love of manly independence and a
reasonable resentment at injustices done them in several matters, and
that they were supported in the hazardous undertaking by a courage
equal to that of the Pilgrim Fathers in venturing into the New England
wilderness.
Not inaptly they compared themselves to Israel forsaking Egypt and
beginning the long wilderness journey to a land of promise, thinking it
not unlikely that the British governor, like Pharaoh, would pursue
after them and try to turn them back. But their Pharaoh, after
consulting his legal adviser, decided to let them go. It was serious,
indeed, to lose so many stalwart and useful citizens, but there was no
legal way of stopping them; and it would not do to use the strong hand,
for Great Britain had just abolished slavery.
Slowly and in small parties the exodus began, for there must not be
cattle enough in one train to exhaust the pasture along the route they
were to follow. Places of rendezvous were appointed beforehand, where,
at necessary intervals of time, all might come together for mutual
encouragement and counsel. The men carried arms for defense and for the
killing of game for food. Long experience in shooting, not for sport
but for life itself, had made them almost infallible marksmen—an
accomplishment that proved their only salvation in the fierce and long
continued struggle that was before them.
Between 1836 and 1838 nearly 10,000 Africanders set forth, traveling in
large covered wagons drawn by strings of oxen numbering in some cases
ten and even twelve yoke. It is interesting to know that among the few
survivors of that historic pilgrimage is Paul Kruger, who, as a boy of
ten years, helped to drive his father’s cattle across velt and mountain
range.
The story of the wanderings of these emigrant Africanders, and of their
conflicts with the warlike aborigines, is romantic to the highest
degree, recalling in some of its features the adventures of the
eleventh century crusaders and of the Spaniards in Mexico in the
sixteenth century.
The first division that trekked, consisting of ninety-eight persons
traveling in thirty wagons, suffered defeat and almost ruinous
disaster. They had penetrated into the far northeast beyond the Vaal
river—the territory of the present South African Republic—where many of
their number fell in battle with the natives. The remainder was rapidly
thinned out by deaths from fever and from privation caused by the
wholesale destruction of their cattle by the tsetse-fly. After
incredible sufferings a mere handful escaped eastward to Delagoa Bay.
Another and larger division was formed by the union of several smaller
parties at a rocky peak called Thaba ’Ntshu, situated near the eastern
border of what is now the Orange Free State, and visible from
Bloemfontein. This division soon became involved in hostilities with a
branch of the fierce Zulu race, known in later history as the Matabele.
The chief of this tribe, Moselekatse, was a general of much talent and
energy as well as a brave warrior. The Matabele, regarding the
Africanders as trespassers upon their territory, immediately provoked
war by attacking and massacring a small detached body of emigrants.
Doubtless the whites were intruders; but they knew that the Matabele
had lately slaughtered or driven out of that region the weaker Kaffir
tribes, and therefore had no conscientious scruples about meting to
them the same treatment they had measured to others. Indeed, the
Africanders seem to have regarded their relation to all the natives as
being similar to that of the Israelites under Joshua to the tribes of
Canaan—they were there to possess the land, and to reduce the heathen
inhabitants to submission and servitude by whatever means it might be
necessary to use. They now had an unprovoked and murderous attack to
avenge, which they proceeded to do with great promptitude and courage.
Hurling their whole strength against Moselekatse with the utmost fury,
they routed his greatly superior force with terrific slaughter, so that
he fled before them, far and fast, toward the northwest, not halting in
his flight until he had crossed the Limpopo River. There he, in turn,
made havoc of the natives dwelling between that stream and the Zambesi
River, and established in that region the Matabele kingdom in such
strength that it continued a scourge to all neighboring peoples until
its overthrow in 1893. By the defeat and expulsion of the Matabele the
Africanders obtained possession of the immense territories lying
between the Orange River on the south and the Limpopo on the north. The
small communities with which they were able to people the country at
first grew in numbers until they became in course of time, the
population of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic.
Meantime, the largest and best organized of the three pioneering
expeditions, under the capable leadership of Pieter Retief—a man much
respected by all Africanders to this day—trekked eastward and then
southward into the warmer and more fruitful country lying between the
Quathlamba range of mountains and the Indian Ocean. Here they found a
region practically emptied of native inhabitants, save a not very
numerous tribe of Zulus. Native wars had nearly depopulated the country
in 1820. They also found a small English settlement at Fort Natal,
where the flourishing town of Durban is now situated. These few
Englishmen had obtained a cession of the narrow maritime strip they
occupied from King Tshaka, and were maintaining a little republic as a
temporary form of government until they could obtain the status of a
British colony. They had applied for that standing in 1835, with the
request that a legislature be granted them. The British government was
still considering their request, and was in doubt as to whether it
should occupy the fort and establish a colony there, when the
Africanders arrived. The settlement was so insignificant, and the
prospective action of the British authorities so uncertain that the
emigrants paid little attention to it.
Desiring to live on terms of peace with the Zulus the Africanders
applied to their king, Dingaan, for a cession of territory, rashly
visiting his kraal for that purpose. The king made the grant readily
enough, but the next day when they were about to depart after drinking
a farewell cup of native beer, he treacherously ordered his warriors to
slay his guests, alleging that they were wizards. Pieter Retief, with
all who had accompanied him on the embassy perished that day, and the
deed was followed up with an attack on a small body of emigrants camped
near by. The surprise was complete, and every soul was massacred
without mercy.
These atrocities roused the whole body of emigrants to execute
vengeance, and they did it so effectually that anniversaries of that
day, December 16th, 1838, are still observed by the people of the
Transvaal. A mere handful of the Africanders decimated and put to rout
King Dingaan’s great host. They owed their victory to expert
markmanship and horsemanship as well as to their lion-like bravery and
prowess. Riding swiftly into easy range they fired a volley with deadly
precision and then wheeled and as swiftly rode out of reach of the Zulu
assagais without suffering harm. Several repetitions of this maneuver
so reduced the fighting force and the courage of the Zulus that they
turned and fled precipitately. Two years later, 1840, the king’s
brother, Panda, then in rebellion against Dingaan, made common cause
with the Africanders, and together they drove the warlike king out of
Zululand. Panda was then made king in his brother’s stead, accepting
the relation of vassal to the government of the Natalia Republic
established by the Africanders. They began about this time to survey
and apportion the land, and founded a city about sixty-five miles
inland from Port Natal, known ever since as Pietermaritzburg.
This action, with some others of a like nature, brought about the
second contact of Boer and Briton, the subject to be treated in the
next chapter.
CHAPTER V.
SECOND CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON—IN NATAL.
The British authorities at Cape Colony suffered the Africanders to go
forth in peace on their Great Trek in search of isolation and
independence. But the light of succeeding events shows that, without
formally announcing it at first, the government held that the
Africanders, go where they might, were to be considered British
subjects, and that any territory they might occupy would become British
territory by virtue of such occupancy.
About the time when the Republic of Natalia was being organized by the
Africanders a small detachment of British troops which had been landed
at Port Natal was withdrawn. This was construed by the emigrants as an
abandonment by the British government of all claim to the country.
It soon became evident, however, that the proceedings of the new
settlers in Natal were narrowly watched by the authorities at the Cape,
and that some of the measures taken were looked upon with serious
displeasure. The expulsion of the Kaffirs, and an attempt to force them
into a territory already occupied by another tribe, were condemned as
being likely to provoke further disorder and conflict. And then, the
Cape government, since the Great Trek, had asserted over and over again
its right to control the Africanders in any region they might occupy,
as subjects of the British crown. Their action in establishing a new
and independent white state on the coast was viewed with alarm; for it
would certainly affect trade with the interior tribes, and it might
create a local rival to Britain’s maritime supremacy within what had
been considered her own borders. Besides, the colonial government held
that it was the natural guardian and protector of the natives, and the
attack of the Africanders on the Kaffirs living in near neighborhood to
the eastern borders of the Cape settlements was regarded as an insolent
aggression which ought to be resented and checked.
The Africanders, on the other hand, denied that the Cape government had
any authority over them. The British government, they averred, was
territorial and had no authority outside the region hitherto formally
claimed by the British crown. And they had trekked out of the territory
to which Great Britain had laid claim purposely to be a separate, free
and independent people. England’s thirty million dollars had purchased
such territorial rights and public improvements in South Africa as were
formerly possessed by the Netherlands, but her money had not bought
people.
At this time the British government was unwilling to add to its already
too extensive colonial possessions and the heavy responsibilities
connected with them. Nevertheless, after careful consideration of all
that would be involved in not checking the Africander aspirations and
movements towards independence, it was determined to establish British
dominion over Port Natal and the territory west of it as far as the
crest of the Quathlamba chain of mountains and the extension of them to
the north. Pursuant to this policy a small military force under Captain
Smith was sent to take possession of Port Natal in 1842.
Smith’s command was selected from the post garrison at Umgazi River,
and consisted of only two hundred men and two field pieces. The route
was over nearly three hundred miles of sea coast in a wilderness state,
across numerous rivers, and through the habitat of elephants and lions
whose fresh spoor the men saw frequently. After an arduous march of
thirty-five days, from the 31st of March to the 4th of May, they
reached Port Natal and camped on a hill about six miles from the town.
The resident English, while rejoiced to see the soldiers, were both
amused and alarmed when they saw how small a force had been sent to
deal with a people who could muster 1,500 well-armed men. Nothing
daunted, however, Captain Smith took a few of the artillery and marched
into the town on the 5th day of May, hauled down the flag of the
Natalia Republic, hoisted in its place the British Union Jack, and
spiked the one Africander gun found beside the flagstaff.
For the next few days there was much diplomatic correspondence between
the Africander leader, A. W. Pretorius, and the English
commander—without coming to any terms of agreement. In the meantime the
English moved their encampment to a piece of level ground in front of
the town, and the Africanders began to gather a force at the old Dutch
camping ground on the Congella, about three miles from the British
force. Captain Smith had written instructions to give the “emigrant
farmers” fifteen days to come to a decision, which time the farmers
used in strengthening their ranks and intrenching their camp.
It will throw light on the policy pursued at this time by the
Africanders to take into view the action of a certain Dutch ship-master
who put into Port Natal one day before the arrival of the British. This
man, Captain Reus, speaking as one having authority, gave the
Africanders to understand that the Dutch government would espouse their
cause and interest other European powers therein. He also advised them
to pursue an evasive policy, to avoid collision, and to keep the
English in play till their friends in Europe could act. In accordance
with this advice the Africanders drew up a declaration of allegiance to
the Dutch government, coupled with a protest against the occupation of
the country by the English. With the exception of the occasional
lifting of cattle, they refrained from acts of hostility.
Matters continued in this state until the 23d of May—three days in
excess of the fifteen allowed the Africanders for consideration—when a
night attack was made on their camp by the British. Captain Smith found
his enemy on the alert, and after a sharp engagement in which the
British lost 103 men in killed, wounded and missing, and both the field
guns, he retired to the fortified camp near Port Natal.
The Africanders immediately laid siege to the British garrison and,
doubtless, would have compelled it to surrender in the end had it not
been for the bravery and endurance of a young Englishman named Richard
King. It was six hundred miles, across the breadth of Kaffraria, from
Port Natal to Grahamstown, the nearest point at which help for the
beleaguered garrison could be found. Young King made the distance,
crossing two hundred rivers on the way, in ten days—really in eight,
for he was compelled by fever to rest two days out of the ten.
Immediately on receipt of the news at Grahamstown, a force under
Lieutenant-Colonel Cloete was dispatched by sea, and reached the
famished garrison after it had endured a close siege of thirty-one
days. The approach of the re-enforcements was resisted in an action in
which the British succeeded in landing, drove the Africanders from
their positions, and effected a junction with the garrison in Port
Natal. The loss of life in this engagement was not severe, but the
siege was raised, and no fresh hostilities were undertaken at that
time. The Africanders withdrew to a camp about twelve miles from Port
Natal, where they awaited developments—expecting to be attacked. But
the British commander was not in a position for immediate aggression.
His provisions and ammunition were to be landed, and there were safe
magazines to be provided and strategic posts to be established.
On the 30th of June, 1842, A. W. Pretorius, commandant of the
Africander force—now four hundred strong—sent a communication to
Lieutenant-Colonel Cloete, asking if he wished to confer with them. The
reply was to the effect that no negotiations would be entered into
without a previous declaration by the Africanders of their submission
to the British government.
On the 3rd of July Mr. Pretorius again wrote the British commander,
complaining that the Kaffirs were committing serious outrages upon his
people and plundering them of their cattle, which were being sold to
the English. He also informed the commander that, anxious as they were
to put an end to the war and so prevent all future bloodshed, the
Africanders found it impossible to accede to the condition imposed as a
necessary preliminary to negotiations for peace, viz.: that the
Africanders should declare their submission to the British crown. Mr.
Pretorius added, as a reason for this, that they had already made over
the country to the king of the Netherlands, and had invoked his
protection.
Lieutenant-Colonel Cloete replied on the same date, deploring the
melancholy prospect of continued war, which would doubtless be
complicated with such barbarities as the native savages might be
expected to perpetrate. But he maintained that the Africanders were
themselves responsible for that prospect, because of their determined
acts of hostility to the British government. He intimated that, if they
were sincere in the professed desire to avert the coming bloodshed,
there would be nothing degrading in giving in their submission to her
Britannic Majesty’s government, and assured them that there was every
disposition on the part of the British authorities to make the final
adjustment of affairs both just and generous toward the emigrant
farmers. He also expressed much regret that they had allowed themselves
to be deceived with regard to the intentions of the King of Holland by
a person possessed of no authority to act in the matter. He should be
happy, he added in closing, to use his best efforts to prevent acts of
violence by the Zulus and Kaffirs, but felt his inability to do much in
that respect as long as the Africanders continued in arms against her
Majesty’s authority, and thus gave these tribes reason to think that
whatever injury done to her rebellious subjects must be pleasing to her
government.
The diplomatic correspondence was prolonged into 1843, when a meeting
between Mr. Pretorius and other Africander leaders and
Lieutenant-Colonel Cloete attended by three or four advisers took a
place at Pietermaritzburg. The outcome of the conference was a treaty
by which Natal was declared a British colony, but it was remarkably
indefinite as to other particulars. The Africanders were to acknowledge
themselves British subjects, but were not required to take the oath of
allegiance to the queen. The guns they had captured, as well as all
their own ordnance, were to be given up. All public and private
property was to be restored to the rightful owners or custodians. All
prisoners were to be released, and a general amnesty was to be
proclaimed to all persons who had been engaged in hostilities against
her Majesty’s troops and authority, with the exception of four persons,
among whom was Mr. Pretorius. By a subsequent article in the treaty the
lieutenant-colonel included Mr. Pretorius in the amnesty in
consideration of his valuable services and co-operation in arranging
the final adjustment of the terms of surrender.
The Volksraad of the little Africander republic submitted to the terms
of the treaty, and to the British administration, in much bitterness
and wrath, protesting vehemently but without effect against a certain
leveling up process, introduced soon after the transfer of authority,
by which the savage blacks were given equal civil rights with the
whites.
How the Africanders of Natal in general received the new regime, and
how they acted under it, will be the subject of another chapter.
The annexation of the young republic by the English defeated the first
attempt of the Africanders to secure access to the sea. It seemed to be
a turning point in the history of South Africa, for by it Great Britain
obtained command of the east coast, and established a new center of
British influence in a part of the country which has come to be called
the garden of Africa. Moreover, it opened the way for the acquisition
of large contiguous territories in Zululand and in Tongaland.
It has been said that if the little Dutch republic had been left to
itself the natives would have suffered under a more rigorous treatment
than they have experienced at the hands of the British government, and
that the internal dissensions which became quite serious during its
brief history would have necessitated British interference in the
general interest of European South Africa. But one cannot feel perfect
confidence in uninspired prophecy. And one cannot repress the feeling
that the people who had trekked into an unclaimed and unoccupied
country for the sake of being isolated from the British, who had
subdued the savage Zulu tribes and set up a civilized government of
their own, were seized of sacred rights to peaceful possession and
independence.
CHAPTER VI.
SECOND CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON—NORTH OF THE ORANGE RIVER.
The Africanders who had trekked into the spreading uplands lying
between the Orange River and the Limpopo, west of Natal, were not
exempt from the tribulations experienced by their brethren who had
turned eastward to the coast. Like them they were forced to wage
incessant war with the natives; but the enemies they had to encounter
were less formidable than the Zulus. One tribe, however, and their
historic chief, Moshesh, were foemen worthy of their steel. In the
nineteenth century there were three men of the Kaffir race who were
vastly superior to any of their own people, and measured up evenly with
the ablest white opponents they met in diplomacy and war. These men
were Tshaka the Zulu, Khama of the Bechuanos, and Moshesh the Basuto.
It was the fortune of the Orange River emigrants to meet this Moshesh
and the Basutos in many a hard-fought battle for the possession of the
country. Moshesh differed from other Kaffir leaders in that he was
merciful to his wounded and captive enemies and ruled his own people
with mildness and equity. As early as 1832 he opened the way for, and
even invited, missionaries to teach the Basutos a better way of life,
and they exerted a powerful formative influence on the Basuto nation.
The missionaries were all European—some of them were British—which
latter fact was made apparent in the result of their work. When the
unavoidable conflict between the Basutos and the whites came, the
Basutos, guided by their missionaries, were careful to avoid any fatal
breach with the British government. Several times Moshesh engaged in
war with the Orange River emigrants, but only once with the English.
In 1843 the Africanders of this region were widely scattered over a
vast spread of country measuring seven hundred miles in length and
three hundred in width. To the southeast it was bounded by the
Quathlamba mountains, but on the north and west there were no natural
features to delimitate it from the plain which extends to the Zambesi
on the north and to the Atlantic Ocean on the west. Within this
territory the Africander population, in 1843, was not much more than
15,000. This seems a small number in view of the fact that the pioneer
emigrants of 1836 to 1838 had been largely re-enforced from the Cape
colony. But it must be remembered their life was precarious in the
extreme; many had died—some from disease, some in conflict with wild
beasts, and a still greater number in their frequent wars with the
natives. The white population was further recruited between 1843 and
1847 by a second Africander trek from Natal—which will be described in
another chapter.
So small a body of people, of whom not more than 4,000 were adult
males, occupying so vast a territory, experienced serious difficulties
in establishing an efficient government. The difficulties growing out
of that cause were enhanced by the very qualities in the Africanders
which had led to their emigration from the old colony, and which had
made them successful in their wars of conquest in the interior. To an
excessive degree they were possessed by a spirit of individual poise
and independence. They desired isolation—even from one another. They
chafed and grew restive under control of any kind, so much so that they
were indisposed to obey even the authorities created by themselves. For
warlike expeditions, which yielded them a pleasant excitement, enlarged
their territory by conquest, and enriched them with captured cattle and
other spoil, they readily united under their military leaders and
rendered them obedience, but any other form of control they found
irksome. This predilection towards solitary independence was constantly
strengthened by the circumstances in which they lived. The soil, being
dry and parched in most places, did not invite agriculture to any
considerable extent. Most of the people turned to stock-farming, and
the nomadic life it necessitated in seeking change of pasture for the
flocks and herds confirmed the disposition to live separate from other
people.
Out of these causes grew the determination to make their civil
government absolutely popular, and conditioned, entirely, on the will
of the governed. But unity of some kind must be had, for their very
existence depended on acting together against the natives, and against
the repeated claims of the British government to exercise sovereignty
over the region they occupied. The first steps towards instituting
civil government were taken in the organizing of several small
republican communities, the design being that each should manage its
own affairs by a general meeting of all the citizens. It was found,
however, as the population spread over the country, that such
independent neighborhood governments failed to secure the necessary
unity of the whole people in any matter requiring the aggregate
strength of the whole people. To remedy this element of weakness and
danger, the Africanders instituted a kind of federal bond between the
little republican communities, in an elective assembly called the
Volksraad—a Council of the People composed of delegates from all the
sectional governments. This federative tie was of the weakest—its
authority resting upon an unwritten understanding and common consent
rather than upon formal articles of confederation, and its meaning
being always subject to such interpretation as might be suggested by
the error or the passion of the passing moment.
The territory beyond the Vaal River, to the far northeast from Cape
Colony, was left undisturbed by the British government. The Africanders
living there were hundreds of miles from the nearest British outpost.
Their wars with the natives projected no disturbing influence upon the
tribes with whom the colonial government was in touch and for whose
peace and prosperity it felt responsible. Moreover, the British
authorities at the Cape were under instructions from the Colonial
Office of the home government to rather contract than expand the scope
of British influence in South Africa. For these reasons the Cape
government cared nothing for what took place in the outlying regions
beyond the Vaal, unless, indeed, it was some event calculated to
disturb the natives dwelling next the colonial borders.
Altogether different, in the esteem of the Cape authorities and of the
Colonial office, were the affairs of the region extending southwestward
from the Vaal River to the borders of Cape Colony. Within that
territory there had been frequent dissensions between Africander
communities. And there had been a rapid increase of dangerous elements
in the native population. The Basutos had grown powerful. Intermixed
with the whites were the Griquas, a half-breed hunting people, sprung
from Africander fathers and Hottentot mothers, and partially civilized.
The possibility of serious native wars growing out of quarrels between
the white emigrants themselves and between them and the mixed colored
population was a constant distress to both colonial governors and the
home authorities.
At this time the Cape was regarded the least prosperous of all the
British colonies, and there was a growing indisposition to annex any
more territory in South Africa. The soil was mostly arid. The
Africander population was alien. The Kaffir wars threatened to be
endless and very costly in men and in money. This reluctance to enlarge
had been overcome in the case of Natal; but Natal was the garden of
South Africa and the possession of it gave the British command of the
east coast almost to Delagoa Bay. But to the north there seemed to be
nothing sufficiently inviting to justify the taking up of new
responsibility and expense.
The problem of how to safeguard the peace of the old Cape Colony
without undertaking the burdens involved in governing and holding the
whole Africander territory to the northeast, including the region
beyond the Vaal River, was thought to have been solved by Doctor
Philip, an English missionary, who had some influence with the
government. The scheme recommended by Doctor Philip was that the
government should create a line of native states under British control
along the northeast border of Cape Colony. These would act, he claimed,
as a barrier to break the influence of the more turbulent Africanders
in the regions north of that line on those of their blood who were yet
citizens of the old colony, and they would, in like manner, separate
between the native tribes in the colony and those in the interior.
Doctor Philip’s plan was adopted with much enthusiasm. A treaty
suitable to the purpose contemplated had already been made with a
northern Griqua leader named Waterboer. In 1843 two other treaties were
made, one with Moshesh of the Basutos and the other with Adam Kok, a
leader of the Orange River Griquas. It was fondly believed that these
three states, recognized by and in treaty with Great Britain, would
isolate the colony from the disturbing and dangerous people to the
north of them.
Doctor Philip’s promising arrangement disappointed every one. The
Africanders living in the territory of the Griquas refused to be bound
in any sense by a treaty made by the despised half-breeds, and the
former troubles continued. A further effort was made to give effect to
the doctor’s statesmanship by establishing a military post at
Bloemfontein, about half way between the Orange River and the Vaal, for
the purpose of enforcing order and of carrying out the provisions of
the treaty. This step was followed up in 1848 by the formal annexation
to the British dominions in South Africa of the entire country lying
between the Orange and the Vaal, under the name of the Orange River
Sovereignty. The second contact of Boer and Briton, begun in Natal in
1842, was thus extended into the Orange River territory.
The Africanders rose up to assert their independence, encouraged and
re-enforced by their brethren from beyond the Vaal. Under the able and
energetic leadership of Mr. Pretorius, who had opposed the British in
Natal, they attacked Bloemfontein, captured the garrison posted there
and advanced to the south as far as Orange River.
The governor of Cape Colony, Sir Harry Smith, hastily dispatched a
sufficient force, which met and defeated the Africanders at Bloomplats,
about seventy-five miles north of the Orange River, on the 29th of
August, 1848. The sole result of this battle was the restoration of
British authority over the Orange River Sovereignty. The territory was
not incorporated with that of Cape Colony, neither were the Africanders
dwelling north of the Vaal River further interfered with.
The old conditions of unrest continued. Fresh quarrels among the native
tribes seemed to call for British interference, and led them into war
with the Basutos under Moshesh. Out of this conflict and its threatened
complications grew a deliberate change of imperial policy in South
Africa, which the English have never ceased to regret.
The situation, so pregnant with far-reaching results, may be stated
thus, in brief: The British resident at Bloemfontein had no force at
his command that could cope with the Basutos under the masterly
leadership of Moshesh. The Africanders living in the district were
disaffected—even hostile—to the British government. They therefore
refused to support the resident, preferring to fight only their own
battles and to make their own terms with the Basutos. The situation of
the British grew still more critical when Mr. Pretorius—yet a leading
spirit among the Africanders north of the Vaal—threatened to make
common cause with the Basutos. As for the old colony at the Cape, it
was already involved in a fierce conflict with the south coast Kaffirs,
and could not spare a man to aid in quieting the northern disturbances.
At this juncture of circumstances Mr. Pretorius made overtures to the
colonial authorities, intimating that he and the northern Africanders
desired to make some permanent pacific arrangement with Great Britain.
The British authorities, disavowing all right to control the territory
north of the Vaal, but still claiming the allegiance of the Africanders
resident therein, appointed commissioners to negotiate with Mr.
Pretorius and other representatives of the Transvaal group of
emigrants. Subsequently the home authorities of the British government
appointed and sent out Sir George R. Clark, K. C. B., as “Her Majesty’s
Special Commissioner for settling the affairs of the Orange River
Sovereignty.” Having conferred with all who were concerned personally
in the affairs of the Sovereignty, Sir George, in a meeting held at
Sand River in 1852, concluded a convention with the commandant and
delegates of the Africanders living north of the Vaal.
In the provisions of this convention the British government expressly
“guaranteed to the emigrant-farmers beyond the Vaal River the right to
manage their own affairs and to govern themselves according to their
own laws, without any interference on the part of the British
government,” and it permitted the emigrants to purchase ammunition in
the British colonies in South Africa. It also disclaimed “all alliances
with any of the colored nations north of the Vaal River,” and
stipulated that “no slavery is or shall be permitted or practiced by
the farmers north of the Vaal River.”
The Transvaal Republic, called, later, the South African Republic,
dates its independence from this convention, concluded at Sand River in
1852. It also, by the same instrument, severed itself and its interests
from the Africander emigrants living in the Sovereignty south of the
Vaal—an act which their southern brethren deemed little short of a
betrayal.
For a few months after the convention of 1852 the Sovereignty continued
British, and might have done so for many years but for a serious defeat
of the British arms in that territory by the Basutos. General Cathcart,
who had just been installed as governor of the Cape, rashly attacked
the Basutos with a strong force of regulars, was led into an ambush and
suffered so great a disaster that further hostile operations were
impossible without a new and larger army. The politic Moshesh saw in
the situation an opportunity to make peace with the English on
favorable terms, which he at once proceeded to do.
This crushing reverse called out a report to the British ministers
relative to the condition of affairs in the Sovereignty, and a
statement of the policy he favored in reference to that part of her
majesty’s dominions, from Sir George Clark, the special commissioner
appointed to settle the affairs thereof. The closing paragraphs of that
report read as follows:
“The more I consider the position, relative both to the Cape colony and
its (the Sovereignty’s) own internal circumstances, the more I feel
assured of its inutility as an acquisition, and am impressed with a
sense of the vain conceit of continuing to supply it with civil and
military establishments in a manner becoming the character of the
British Government, and advantageous to our resources.
“It is a vast territory, possessing nothing that can sanction its being
permanently added to a frontier already inconveniently extended. It
secures no genuine interests; it is recommended by no prudent or
justifiable motive; it answers no really beneficial purpose; it imparts
no strength to the British Government, no credit to its character, no
lustre to the crown. To remain here, therefore, to superintend or to
countenance this extension of British dominion, or to take part in any
administrative measure for the furtherance of so unessential an object,
would, I conceive, be tantamount to my encouraging a serious evil, and
participating in one of the most signal fallacies which has ever come
under my notice in the course of nearly thirty years devoted to the
public service.”
The British Government, weary of the perpetual native wars, disgusted
at the late defeat of the British regulars by Moshesh and his Basutos,
and influenced by the emphatic and very significant report of their
special commissioner, which report was heartily indorsed by Governor
Cathcart, decided to abandon the Orange River Sovereignty altogether.
An act of parliament in accordance with that decision was passed.
Later, when there were vehement protests against the
abandonment—protests from the missionaries who feared for the welfare
of the natives, and from English settlers in the Sovereignty who
desired to remain subject to the British crown—a motion was made in the
House of Commons begging the Queen to reconsider the renunciation of
her sovereignty over the Orange River territory, but the motion found
no support at all, and had to be withdrawn. Instead, parliament voted
£48,000 to compensate any who might suffer loss in the coming change,
so eager were the authorities to be rid of this large territory with
its constant vexations and its costliness. And thus it was that
independence was literally forced upon the Orange River country.
By the convention of the 23d of February, 1854, signed at Bloemfontein,
the British government “guaranteed the future independence of the
country and its government,” and covenanted that they should be, “to
all intents and purposes, a free and independent people.” It further
provided that the Orange River government was to be free to purchase
ammunition in the British South African colonies, and that liberal
privileges were to be granted it in connection with import duties. As
in the case of the Transvaal, so in this convention it was stipulated,
that no slavery or trade in slaves was to be permitted north of the
Orange River. The name given to the new nation was “The Orange River
Free State.”
It cannot be denied that these conventions of 1852 and 1854 created two
new and independent states. Nor can it be denied that in consenting to
their creation the action of the British government was taken under no
pressure of war, under no powerful foreign interference, but altogether
of its own free will, and with the conviction that in cutting loose
from undesirable and disputed territory it was acting for the good of
the empire.
Canon Knox Little, in his “South Africa,” calls this action of the
British government “a serious blunder.” Be that as it may, the
Africanders acted in perfect consistency with all their former
aspirations and claims, and they made no blunders in the negotiations
that secured to them independent national existence. The British
“blunder”—if blunder it was—was written in a formal official document,
and subscribed by the authorised representatives of the government,
appointed expressly to give effect to imperial legislation, and can no
more be repudiated righteously than can a written contract between
private individuals.
CHAPTER VII.
THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND TREK TO THE NORTH.
The purview intended to be given in these pages requires that we now
look back to Natal, and to the condition and movements of the
Africanders living in that region after it became British territory. As
has been stated in chapter V., the English took forcible possession of
Natal in 1843. Two years later it was made a dependency of the older
colony at the Cape; in 1856 it was constituted a separate colony, and
so remains to this day.
A small minority of the Africanders—about five hundred families—being
greatly attached to the homes they had founded in that most attractive
part of South Africa, reconciled themselves to the British
administration and remained. But the majority, including all the
fiercer and more restless spirits, took their families and goods, their
flocks and herds, and once more trekked in search of independence.
Their course lay northwestward across the mountains to the elevated
plateaus of the Orange River district and the Transvaal.
Very reluctantly the Africanders abandoned sunny and fruitful Natal,
and the one hold they had ever gained of a part of the coast. But a
goodly land and access to the sea, to be of great value in their
esteem, must be associated with freedom to govern themselves and to
deal with the native population as an inferior and servile race not
entitled to civil equality with the whites.
The Africander love of independence, and their reasonable objection to
be civilly on a level with the ignorant and savage blacks, command
respect and admiration; but their treatment of the natives, where
unrestrained by British rule, was anything but creditable. They may be
excused for many wars with Bushmen and Kaffirs, for their very lives
depended on either reducing these to submission or driving them to a
safe distance from the white settlements. But the enslaving of men and
women, and, later, of children under the subterfuge of apprenticeship
for a term of years, cannot be justified; it was monstrously
incompatible with the insistent demand for personal freedom for
themselves so conspicuous in the Africander race. The one extenuating
circumstance is the fact that, leading an isolated life, they were
slower than other civilized peoples in catching the spirit of the age—a
spirit that makes for freedom, and a growing betterment in the
condition of every man.
The exodus of Natal Africanders between 1843 and 1848 encouraged an
immense influx of Kaffirs, who repopulated the country so plentifully
that the proportion of blacks to whites has been as ten to one ever
since.
The emigrants who settled north of the Vaal, both those of the Great
Trek and those from Natal who began to join them in 1843, were rude and
uneducated as compared to their brethren of the Orange River region.
The northern group had less of English blood in their veins, and
because of distance and difficulty of communication they were not at
all affected by intercourse with the more cultured people of Cape
Colony.
Lacking the upward lead that contact with a progressive civilization
would have given, there took place a marked degeneration of character
in these more northern emigrants. Their love of independence was
developed into a spirit of faction and dissension among themselves.
Their lionlike bravery was perverted into a too great readiness to
fight on the smallest provocation, and a disposition to prey upon their
weaker native neighbors. Through a desire to enlarge their grazing
lands they became greedy as to territory, and were almost constantly
engaged in bloody strife with the native occupants of the regions they
insisted on annexing.
The almost patriarchal mode of life they followed had the effect of
segregating them into family groups widely separated from one another,
largely exempted from any control of magistrates and law courts, and
susceptible to family feuds and bitter personal rivalries between
faction leaders. This absence of efficient control was a cause of
further evil in encouraging an influx of unprincipled adventurers from
other parts of South Africa. These went about through the more
unsettled parts and along the border, cheating and often violently
illtreating the natives to the great peril of peace both in the
Transvaal and in the contiguous British provinces. As an example of the
turmoil in which the people lived and participated, the following
account is introduced of an Africander expedition under Acting
Commandant-General Scholtz against Secheli, chief of the Baquaines, a
tribe of Zulus. It also covers the incident of the plundering of Doctor
Livingstone’s house by the force under General Scholtz.
The matter of complaint was that the Baquaines had been constantly
disturbing the country by thefts and threatenings, and that they were
sheltering a turbulent chief named Mosolele. In order to punish and
reduce them to obedience a commando was sent against them. After some
petty encounters with scouts the Africander force drew near to
Secheli’s town, in the direction of the Great Lake, on the 25th of
August, 1852. Two days’ further march brought them so near that the
Africander scouts discovered and reported that Secheli was making every
preparation for defense.
On the 28th Scholtz marched close by the town where Secheli was
fortified, and camped beside the town-water, a little distance from the
intrenchments. It being Saturday Scholtz resolved to do nothing to
provoke a battle before Monday, being desirous of keeping the Lord’s
Day in quiet. He did, however, dispatch a letter to Secheli demanding
the surrender of Mosolele, in the following terms:
“Friend Secheli: As an upright friend, I would advise you not to allow
yourself to be misled by Mosolele, who has fled to you because he has
done wrong. Rather give him back to me, that he may answer for his
offense. I am also prepared to enter into the best arrangements with
you. Come over to me, and we shall arrange everything for the best,
even were it this evening. Your friend,
“P. E. SCHOLTZ, Act. Com.-Gen.”
To this Secheli replied:
“Wait till Monday. I shall not deliver up Mosolele. * * * But I
challenge you on Monday to show which is the strongest man. I am, like
yourself, provided with arms and ammunition, and have more fighting
people than you. I should not have allowed you thus to come in, and
would assuredly have fired upon you; but I have looked in the book,
upon which I reserved my fire. I am myself provided with cannon. Keep
yourself quiet to-morrow, and do not quarrel for water till Monday;
then we shall see who is the strongest man. You are already in my pot;
I shall only have to put the lid on it on Monday.”
On Sunday Secheli sent two men to the camp to borrow some sugar—which
Scholtz regarded as bravado. The messengers also brought word from
Secheli directing Scholtz to take good care that the oxen did not
pasture on the poisonous grass in the neighborhood of his camp, for he
now looked upon them as his own.
On Monday Scholtz sent messengers to Secheli to ascertain his
intentions and to renew the offers of peace. The Zulu chieftain replied
that he required no peace, that he now challenged Scholtz to fight, and
added, “If you have not sufficient ammunition, I will lend you some.”
After some further exchanges of diplomatic courtesies between the
African and the Africander the battle began. By six hours of hard
fighting Scholtz carried all the native intrenchments, killed a large
number of the warriors, and captured many guns and prisoners. The Zulus
still held one fortified ridge of rocks when nightfall put an end to
the battle. In the morning it was found that Secheli had retreated from
his stronghold under cover of night. Scholtz sent out a force in
pursuit, who inflicted further punishment on the fugitives and returned
the next day without loss of a man.
General Scholtz’s official report of this expedition contains the
following remarkable statement regarding the looting of Doctor
Livingstone’s house:
“On the 1st of September I dispatched Commandant P. Schutte with a
patrol to Secheli’s old town; but he found it evacuated, and the
missionary residence broken open by the Kaffirs. The commandant found,
however, two percussion rifles; and the Kaffir prisoners declared that
Livingstone’s house, which was still locked, contained ammunition, and
that shortly before he had exchanged thirteen guns with Secheli, which
I had also learnt two weeks previously, the missionaries Inglis and
Edwards having related it to the burghers, A. Bytel and J. Synman; and
that Livingstone’s house had been broken open by Secheli to get powder
and lead. I therefore resolved to open the house that was still locked,
in which we found several half-finished guns and a gunmaker’s shop with
abundance of tools. We here found more guns and tools than Bibles, so
that the place had more the appearance of a gunmaker’s shop than a
mission-station, and more of a smuggling-shop than a school place.”
Doctor Livingstone’s character is too well known in all the civilized
world to need even a word of vindication. General Scholtz, being taken
as sincere in his statements, fell into an egregious and well-nigh
inexcusable error concerning the tools found in the doctor’s house and
the guns in various stages of completeness. In those parts, so distant
from carpenters, wagon-makers and smiths, it was absolutely necessary
for the explorer to have with him all tools required in making or
repairing wagons, harness, guns, and whatever else belonged to his
outfit. It is impossible to account for General Scholtz’s statements
concerning the altogether blameless Doctor Livingstone in any other way
than to ascribe them to prejudice. It is well known that there was in
the Africander mind a deep-rooted hostility against the missionaries,
of whom David Livingstone was chief, because they denounced the
practice of slavery and reported the cruelties incident to it. Had
General Scholtz been entirely free from the prejudice due to this cause
he would have seen on Doctor Livingstone’s premises not an illicit gun
factory, but an honest repair shop such as any pioneer in those parts
must have.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE INDEPENDENT AFRICANDER AND SLAVERY.
It will be remembered that the conventions of 1852 and 1854, by which
the absolute independence of the Africanders living beyond the Vaal
River and of those resident in the Orange River district was
guaranteed, bound them to renounce the practice of slavery. They did
not find it easy, however, to keep either the letter or the spirit of
that covenant. For generations both the men and the women had been
accustomed to immunity from the more severe and disagreeable work of
life. Twice had they trekked, largely to get away from British power
because it would no longer tolerate slavery on British soil. But now
they had accepted independent national life, and were in honor bound to
carry out the stipulation of the treaties which guaranteed their
independence, by liberating such slaves as they possessed and by
acquiring no more. It is next in order, therefore, to consider the
manner in which these obligations were carried out.
Whatever outward appearances there may have been of ceasing to enforce
servitude from the blacks, there is indubitable evidence that little
more than a change of name for it was effected—the thing went on. A new
system of virtual slavery was invented and prevailed extensively under
the plausible name of “apprenticeship,” and “registration” of prisoners
taken in war with the natives; and it is to be feared that many
predatory expeditions were undertaken chiefly to secure fresh victims
for this new method of enforcing unpaid service—all of which was in
flagrant violation of the treaties by which the republics were
established and guaranteed independence.
The new system was defended by those who devised it and profited by it,
as a benevolent institution, because it took the orphan children of the
Kaffirs—for whom their own people made no provision—and apprenticed
them to Africander masters for a limited period, to terminate in every
case at twenty-one years of age. But when it is understood that in many
cases the Kaffir bond-children had been made orphans by Africander
bullets the benevolence of the institution becomes a vanishing
quantity. And it is to be remembered, in judging of this matter, that
these ignorant Kaffir apprentices had no means of knowing their own
age, nor was there any one to speak and act for them when the proper
time for their release from bondage came. The new system was slavery
under a less repulsive name, and was so regarded by its victims.
It is only fair to the Africanders to trace their conduct in this
matter back to the convictions and principles honestly held by them,
and by which they justified to themselves their practices toward the
natives. Almost without exception they were men of intense
religiousness and devout regard for the Bible. It was a great
misfortune to themselves and to the natives of South Africa that they
found their standard of ethics, not in any of the moral precepts of the
New Testament or the Old, but in their own deductions from scraps of
Old Testament history which were never intended to furnish ideals and
standards of virtue and righteousness for later generations. Thus, they
looked upon the dark races about them as the yet “accursed” sons of
Canaan the son of Ham, doomed by heaven to perpetual servitude to any
people who might care to enslave them, because of the sin of their
forefather, Ham. They seem to have forgotten, too easily, that the
divine entail of evil consequences to follow certain sins was limited
to “the third and fourth generation,” and insisted without warrant of
any kind on bringing it over to and enforcing it upon the one hundred
and thirtieth generation. Holding such views, they considered
themselves as doing service to God when they inflicted the
degradations, hardships and cruelties of slavery upon the offspring of
Ham. It was their custom to meet for prayer before going on one of
their forays, to implore the help and protection of the Almighty in
what they were about to do; then they went forth heartened and
emboldened by the conviction that the coming battle was the Lords, and
to fall therein would be a sure passport to heaven. It would be untrue
to say that all the Africanders were of this belief and practice, but
undoubtedly the majority of them so believed and so acted.
Many of the whites quarreled with their ministers because they
persisted in teaching Christianity to the people held to be accursed—by
their masters. The Dutch term Zendeling, originally signifying
“missionary,” was turned into an epithet of reproach, bearing the new
interpretation of a petty artisan and pedlar, who, under pretense of
instructing the natives, wandered about prosecuting a secular business
for gain—a man to be despised and shunned.
Instances are not wanting in the records of this period to show that
the spirit and practice of some Africanders were as set forth above.
Mr. Holden, in the appendix to his “History of Natal,” quotes from a
friend of the enslaved blacks as follows:
“As to slavery, in spite of the treaty with the Assistant
Commissioner, two Kaffir boys have this very week been sold
here—the one for a hundred rix-dollars to a Boer, and the other for
a hundred and fifty rix-dollars to a dealer at Rustenburg. Last
month, also, two were sold to Messrs. S. and G. Maritz, traders of
Natal, and were immediately ‘booked’ (ingeboekt) with the Landdrost
of Potchefstroom for twenty-five years each! Is this according to
treaty? If not, why does not Governor Cathcart interfere by force,
if reasoning be unavailing? For, without some force, I see little
prospect of the natives being saved from utter and universal
slavery.”
Mr. Holden also quotes from the “Grahamstown Journal” of September 24,
1853, the following significant incident:
“We are credibly informed that, in a private interview with Sir G.
R. Clark, one of the most respectable and loyal Boers, resident on
a confiscated farm in the most disaffected district, ‘inter alias
res,’ plainly told Sir George that he had some twenty or thirty
Bushman children on his place; and that if government withdrew he
must sell them, as, if he did not do so, other persons would come
and take them, and sell them. The reply, as stated to us, was to
the effect, ‘You have been too long a good subject to lead me to
think you would do such a thing now.’ To this the answer was, ‘I
have been a good subject; but if government will make me a rascal,
I cannot help it’”
These testimonies coming from separate and widely distant sources, and
giving the particulars of direct and positive slavery practiced under
another name, leave no reasonable doubt that the spirit of the compact
between the British government and the Africanders was being violated.
It has been thought that the account of the same matter given by Mr.
Theal, in his “South Africa,” puts an entirely different aspect on the
practice of “apprenticeship.”
“At this time,” he writes (1857), “complaints were beginning to be
heard that the practice of transferring apprentices, or selling
indentures, was becoming frequent. It was rumored also that several
lawless individuals were engaged in obtaining black children from
neighboring tribes, and disposing of them under the name of
apprentices. How many such cases occurred cannot be stated with any
pretension to accuracy, but the number was not great. The condition
of the country made it almost impossible to detain any one capable
of performing service longer than he chose to remain with a white
master, so that even if the farmers in general had been inclined to
become slaveholders, they could not carry such inclinations into
practice. The acts of a few of the most unruly individuals in the
country might, however, endanger the peace and even the
independence of the republic. The president, therefore, on the 29th
of September, 1857, issued a proclamation pointing out that the
sale or barter of black children was forbidden by the recently
adopted constitution, and prohibiting transfers of apprenticeships,
except when made before landdrosts.”
Treating of a later period (1864–65), he returns to this matter,
saying:
“A subject that was much discussed in Europe, as well as in South
Africa, during this period was the existence of slavery in the
republic. Charges against the burghers of reducing weak and
helpless blacks to a condition of servitude were numerous and
boldly stated on one side, and were indignantly denied on the
other. That the laws were clearly against slavery goes for nothing,
because in a time of anarchy law is a dead letter. There is
overwhelming evidence that blacks were transferred openly from one
individual to another, and there are the strongest assertions from
men of undoubted integrity that there was no slavery. To people in
Europe it seemed impossible that both should be true, and the
opinion was generally held that the farmers of the interior of
South Africa were certainly slave-holders.
“Since 1877 much concerning this matter that was previously
doubtful has been set at rest. On the 12th of April of that year
the South African republic was proclaimed British territory, and
when, soon afterward, investigation was made, not a single slave
was set free, because there was not one in the country. In the very
heart of the territory kraals of blacks were found in as prosperous
a condition as in any part of South Africa. It was ascertained that
these blacks had always lived in peace with the white inhabitants,
and that they had no complaints to make. Quite as strong was the
evidence afforded by the number of the Bantu. In 1877 there were,
at the lowest estimate, six times as many black people living in a
state of semi-independence within the borders of the South African
Republic as there had been on the same ground forty years before.
Surely these people would not have moved in if the character of the
burghers was such as most Englishmen believed it to be. A statement
of actual facts is thus much more likely now to gain credence
abroad than would have been the case in 1864.
“The individuals who were termed slaves by the missionary party
were termed apprentices by the farmers. The great majority—probably
nineteen out of every twenty—were children who had been made
prisoners in the wars which the tribes were continually waging with
each other. In olden days it had been the custom for the conquering
tribe to put all the conquered to death, except the girls and a few
boys who could be made useful as carriers. More recently they had
become less inhuman, from having found out that for smaller
children they could obtain beads and other merchandise.
“With a number of tribes bordering on the republic ready to sell
their captives, with the Betshuana everywhere prepared to dispose
of the children of their hereditary slaves, a few adventurous
Europeans were found willing to embark in the odious traffic. Wagon
loads of children were brought into the republic, where they were
apprenticed for a term of years to the first holder, and the deeds
of apprenticeship could afterward be transferred before a
landdrost. This was the slavery of the South African Republic. Its
equivalent was to be found a few years earlier in the Cape colony,
when negroes taken in slave-ships were apprenticed to individuals.
There would have been danger in the system if the demand for
apprentices had been greater. In that case the tribes might have
attacked each other purposely to obtain captives for sale. But the
demand was very limited, for the service of a raw black apprentice
was of no great value. A herd boy might be worth something more
than his food, clothing, and a few head of cattle which were given
him when his apprenticeship expired; but no other class of raw
native was.
“It is an open question whether it was better that these children
should remain with the destroyers of their parents, and according
to chance grow up either as slaves or as adopted members of the
conquering tribe; or that they should serve ten or fifteen years as
apprentices to white people, acquire some of the habits of European
life, and then settle down as freemen with a little property. It
was answered in 1864, and will be answered to-day according to the
bias of the individual.”
After all, Mr. Theal’s account of it does not materially change the
aspect of the system of enforced servitude that prevailed in the
Africander communities after they became independent. These
bond-children were either captured or bought from dealers in children;
they were held under bill of sale and indenture; and they were sold
from master to master by legal transfer of indenture before a
magistrate.
Mr. Theal’s low estimate of the value of the services that could be
rendered by raw black children, and of the limited demand for them, is
not in harmony with his own statement that such children were brought
into the republic in wagon loads, nor with the testimony, quoted by Mr.
Holden, covering two specific cases wherein one Kaffir boy was sold for
one hundred, and another for one hundred and fifty rix-dollars. And his
averment that in 1877 the British authorities could not find a single
slave to liberate in all the territory of the South African Republic is
simply amusing when viewed in the light of what he states on the next
page—that this system of enforced servitude under indentures that were
legally merchantable “was the slavery of the South African Republic.”
Undoubtedly; and, so far as is known, no other form of slavery was ever
seriously charged against the Africanders after their independence was
established. It is matter of surprise, however, that the British
conscience of this period was not able to scent the malodor of slavery
under the new form and title of “apprenticeship” which covered a
marketable property-right in the human chattel.
CHAPTER IX.
THIRD CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON—IN THE ORANGE FREE STATE.
The “Great Trek” of 1836 and 1838 removed from the old colony at the
Cape an element in the population which, however worthy in some
regards, was unrestful and disaffected, leaving abundant room for a new
immigration from Europe. It was some years, however, before there was
any considerable influx from continental Europe. Judged by the grim
rumors that were afloat everywhere, South Africa was a dangerous
country to live in because of the warlike and merciless Kaffirs; and
the trend of British emigration was yet towards America.
About 1845 the tide of fortune-seeking people was turned towards Cape
Colony. The British government of this time stimulated immigration to
that field so liberally that in five years between four and five
thousand loyal subjects from the mother country removed to the Cape.
Later, a considerable number of disbanded German soldiers who had
served under the British colors in the Crimean war were sent there as
citizens, and in 1858 over two thousand German civilians of the peasant
order were settled along the south coast on lands once occupied by the
Kaffirs.
Industries natural to the climate and soil were slowly but steadily
developed. Sheep and cattle raising, and agriculture to a limited
extent, became sources of wealth, and correspondingly expanded the
export trade. Public finances were gradually restored to a healthy
state, churches and schools sprang up, and there was no serious
drawback to the progress of the colony but the frequent Kaffir
invasions across the eastern border. These cost much loss of life and
property to the raided settlements, but the expense of the resulting
wars was borne by the home government. Under British rule the
population had increased from 26,000 Europeans in 1806 to 182,000 in
1865.
With the growth of population there came changes in the form of
government. The earlier governors exercised almost autocratic power,
fearing nothing but a possible appeal against their acts to the
Colonial Office in London. It should be stated, however, that the
colonists found as frequent cause to complain of the home government as
of their governors. The occasional irritation which broke out into open
protest was caused, for the most part, by difficulties with the
natives. The Europeans, dwelling among an inferior race, naturally
looked upon the natives as existing for their benefit, and bitterly
resented the disposition of both the imperial authorities and the
governors to give equal civil rights and protection to the blacks. The
missionaries were the special objects of this resentment, because they
held themselves bound by their sacred office to denounce the wrongs
inflicted on the Kaffirs, and to even defend their conduct in rebelling
against oppression.
These unfortunate dissensions had the effect of uniting the English and
the Dutch colonists in questions of policy and government regarding the
natives. After various attempts to satisfy the people with a governor
appointed by the crown and a Legislative Council constituted by the
governor’s nomination and imperial appointment, the home authorities,
in 1854, yielded to the public demand for representative institutions.
A legislature, consisting of a Legislative Council and a House of
Assembly, was established, both to be elected on a franchise wide
enough to include people of any race or color holding the reasonable
property qualification. The sole check upon the colonial legislature
retained by the imperial government was the right of the British crown
to disallow any of its acts considered objectionable, on constitutional
or other grounds, by her Majesty’s ministers. The executive power
remained, for a time, with the governor and his council, who were
appointed by the crown and in no way responsible to the colonial
houses. Later, the executive power was taken from the governors and
vested in a cabinet of ministers responsible to the colonial
legislature and holding office during its pleasure.
The range of industries followed by the people of Cape Colony was not
enlarged until the discovery of diamonds in 1869. This brought in a
sudden rush of population from Europe and America and so inflated trade
that the colonial revenue was more than doubled in the next five years.
Then began that unparalleled development of mineral resources in South
Africa which created immense wealth and furnished the elements of a
political situation whose outcome the wisest cannot foresee.
With this general view of the condition of Cape Colony in the three
decades succeeding the Great Trek of the Africanders, we turn again to
the special study proposed and consider the chain of events that led up
to the third unfriendly contact between Boer and Briton—this time
beginning in the Orange Free State.
By the conventions of 1852 and 1854 Great Britain formally relinquished
all claim to that part of the interior of South Africa lying to the
north of Cape Colony, and recognized the republics of the Orange Free
State and the Transvaal. There can be no doubt of the sincerity of the
British government in taking this action. The prevailing desires
actuating both the parliament and the executive were to be rid of the
responsibility and expense of governing these regions, and to leave the
two new Africander republics to work out their own destiny in their own
way.
For a few years the relations of the Cape government and its northern
neighbors were friendly. The first occurrence that disturbed the
welcome peace and harmony was a serious war which broke out in 1858
between the Basutos under Moshesh and the Orange Free State. The
Basutos laid claim to certain farms, held under English titles, in
Harrismith, Wynberg and Smithfield districts. These were taken
possession of by the petty Basuto captains, and when attempts were made
to eject the intruders, Moshesh, the paramount chief, and his eldest
son Letsie, assumed the right to interfere. This episode, together with
other unfriendly acts on the part of the Basutos, brought on a
condition which, it became evident, nothing but war could remedy.
Accordingly, the Volksraad of the Orange Free State authorized the
President, Mr. Boshof, to take any steps necessary to prevent intrusion
upon the territory of the State. After much and very insincere
diplomatic correspondence, the time of which was used by the Free State
government in collecting the forces of its western and northern
divisions, and by the Basutos in assembling their warriors, petty raids
began the conflict and led on to hostilities on a larger scale near the
end of March, 1858.
By the 26th of April Mr. Boshof became convinced that the Free State
could not hold its own against the Basutos, and that the salvation of
the country from being overrun by its enemies depended upon obtaining
aid from some quarter. Acting on this conviction, on the 24th of April
Mr. Boshof wrote Sir George Grey, governor of Cape Colony, informing
him of the critical condition of the Free State, and imploring his
mediation. Sir George, after obtaining the sanction of the House
Assembly to such a course, immediately tendered his services as
mediator to Mr. Boshof and Moshesh, and was unconditionally and
cordially accepted by both. Thereupon a cessation of hostilities was
agreed to pending the arrangement of final terms of peace by Sir
George.
In the meantime, the Free State was being ravaged on its western border
by petty chiefs, who saw in the struggle between the whites and the
powerful Basutos a favorable opportunity to enrich themselves with
spoil. In the distress occasioned by these forays the Free State was
aided by a force of burghers from the Transvaal Republic, under
Commandant Paul Kruger.
Out of this friendly act there grew up a desire and even a proposition
to unite the two republics in one. President Pretorius, Commandant Paul
Kruger, and about twenty other representatives from the Transvaal
visited Bloemfontein to confer with the Free State Volksraad on the
matter of union—a measure considered by many the only means of saving
the country from its savage foes.
While the conference on union was in progress there arrived, on the
11th of June, a letter from Sir George Grey announcing that in case an
agreement to unite the two republics were concluded, the conventions of
1852 and 1854—guaranteeing their separate independence—would no longer
be considered binding by Great Britain. Undoubtedly this action evinced
a desire, not to say a determination, that the Free State should find
safety not by union with the sister republic to the north, but by
coming again under British sovereignty and forming one of a group of
colonies to be united in a great British Dominion in South Africa. The
negotiations for union were dropped on the receipt of Sir George’s
letter, and both parties resolved to appoint commissioners to confer
with him after peace with the Basutos should be arranged.
It was not until the 20th of August that Sir George Grey arrived at
Bloemfontein to act as mediator between Moshesh and the Free State.
While preliminaries were being discussed the governor received urgent
dispatches from London ordering him to send all available troops to
India, where the Sepoy rebellion was raging. It became, therefore, a
matter of supreme importance to establish peace between the Free State
and the Basutos at once—for not a soldier could safely be spared until
that was accomplished. On the 29th of September the treaty was
completed and signed. It settled a new frontier for the Free State next
to Basutoland, and bound Moshesh to either punish marauders of his
people himself, or consent that the Free State authorities should do
so.
This peace lasted only seven years. In 1865 new troubles arose leading
to a renewal of war between the Free State and Moshesh. Again the
governor of Cape Colony acted as mediator, but his decisions were
rejected by the Basutos, and new hostilities began. This time, by a
heroic effort made in 1868, the whites defeated and scattered the
Basutos with great slaughter, and were at the point of utterly breaking
their power, when the always politic Moshesh appealed to the British
High Commissioner at the Cape to take his people under British
protection.
The commissioner doubtless considered the interests of Cape Colony
which, in the event of a dispersion of the Basutos, might be overrun by
the fugitives, and suffer injury thereby. And it is evident that he was
unwilling that the Free State should strengthen itself, beyond the
necessity of ever seeking readmission to the British dominions, by the
annexation of Basutoland. So, looking to the safety of the old colony,
and to the hope of some day adding thereto the Orange Free State, the
commissioner took the defeated Basutos under the wing of the imperial
government and declared them British subjects.
The Free State was allowed to retain a considerable area of good land
which it had conquered on the north side of the Caledon River, but the
adjustment reached was anything but satisfactory. The British had now
established their authority to the south of the republic all the way
from Cape Colony to Natal, and, thus, had extinguished a second time
the persistent Africander hope of extending their territory to the sea.
Thus, in 1869, recommenced the British advance toward the interior.
Another momentous step towards enlarging the sphere of British
influence was taken almost immediately. Diamonds were discovered in
1869, in a district lying between the Modder and the Vaal rivers, where
the present town of Kimberley stands. Within a few months thousands of
diggers and speculators from all parts of South Africa, Europe,
America, and from some parts of Asia, thronged into the region and
transformed it into a place of surpassing value and interest. The
question of ownership was raised at once. The Orange Free State claimed
it. The Transvaal Republic claimed it. It was claimed by Nicholas
Waterboer, a Griqua captain, son of old Andries Waterboer; his claim
being based on an abortive treaty made with the elder Waterboer in
1834, when, at Doctor Philip’s suggestion, the attempt was made to
interpose between the old colony and the northern populations a line of
three native states under British protection. And it was claimed by a
native Batlapin chief.
Three of these claimant—the Transvaal Republic, Nicholas Waterboer for
the Griquas, and the Batlapin chief for his clan—agreed to settle the
conflict by arbitration, naming the governor of Natal as arbitrator.
The governor promptly awarded the disputed ownership to Nicholas
Waterboer the Griqua, who as promptly placed himself under the British
government, which, with equal promptitude, constituted the district a
crown colony under the name of Griqualand. The Orange Free State, not
having been a party to the arbitration, protested, and was afterwards
sustained by the decision of a British court, which found that
Waterboer’s claim to the territory was null and void. But the colony
had been constituted and the British flag unfurled over it before the
finding of the court could stay proceedings.
Without admitting or denying the Free State’s contention, the British
government obtained a quitclaim title for a money consideration. It was
represented that a district so difficult to keep in order, because of
the transient and turbulent character of the population, should be
under the control of a more vigorous government than that of the Free
State. Finally, the British offered and the Free State authorities
accepted, £90,000 in settlement of any claim the republic might have to
the territory of Griqualand.
The incident closed with the payment and acceptance, in 1876, of the
price agreed upon. But the Africanders of the Free State had the
feeling at the time—and it never ceased to rankle in their breasts—that
they had been made the victims of sharp practice; that the
diamond-bearing territory had been rushed into the possession of the
British and made a crown colony without giving them a fair opportunity
to prove their claim to it; and that, while the price offered and paid
was a tacit recognition of the validity of their claim, it was so
infinitesimal in proportion to the rights conveyed as to imply that in
British practice not only is possession nine points in ten of the law
but that it also justifies the holder in keeping back nine parts out of
ten of the value.
Nor was this the only British grievance complained of at this time by
the Free State. The project of uniting the two republics for greater
strength and mutual safety had been vetoed for no apparent reason than
to keep them weak so that they might the sooner become willing to
re-enter the British dominions in South Africa. And the British High
Commissioner at the Cape had taken the vanquished Basutos and their
territory under imperial protection at the moment when the victorious
Free State was about to reduce them to permanent submission, and to
extend its territory to the sea—again interposing the arm of Great
Britain to prevent the strengthening of the republic by its proposed
acquisition of Basutoland and the gaining of a seaport at the mouth of
the St. John River.
Nevertheless, the Orange Free State accepted the situation
philosophically and, outwardly, continued on friendly terms with the
British government until the outbreak of war between that power and the
Africanders of the Transvaal in 1899.
CHAPTER X.
THIRD CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON—IN THE TRANSVAAL.
The aggressive policy of the British, which had served to widen and
deepen the breach between them and the Africanders of the Free State,
was felt in the Transvaal Republic, also, and led to an open rupture in
1880. It will be necessary to trace somewhat carefully the conditions
and events which brought on that conflict.
The Africanders who had settled beyond the Vaal River were of a ruder
sort than their brethren of the Orange River district. Moreover, the
reckless, unprincipled, and even criminal classes were attracted to the
Transvaal from various parts of South Africa, seeking freedom from the
restraints experienced under the stricter government prevailing in the
British colonies. These occasioned much scandal, and provoked many
conflicts with the Kaffirs by their lawlessness and violence along the
border and in the wilder districts of the territory.
The farmers of the Vaal in a general way considered themselves one
people, but had become grouped in several districts separated by
considerable distances. Thus, in 1852, there were four separate
communities—Potchefstroom, Utrecht, Lyndenburg, and Zoutspansberg, each
having its volksraad and president. There was no co-ordinate action of
the whole for internal administration and public improvement, but for
defense against the natives there was a sort of federative union—more a
matter of mutual understanding and consent than of loyalty to a formal
written document. That there was occasional independent action by a
single community in reference to outside matters is evident from the
invasion of the Orange Free State by the people of the Potchefstroom
district in 1857, under the leadership of Mr. Pretorius. The object was
to conquer the Free State, and was abandoned only when it was found
that the young sister republic was disposed and prepared to defend
itself. This invasion resulted in a treaty by which the independence,
boundaries and mutual obligations of the two republics were fully
defined and recognized.
In 1858 a single volksraad was chosen for all the four districts north
of the Vaal, and the “Grondwet” on Fundamental Law—an instrument in the
nature of a federal constitution—was prepared by delegates specially
elected for that purpose. This was adopted at once by Potchefstroom and
Zoutspansberg. In 1860 Lyndenburg and Utrecht followed their example.
Although it has been contended that the “Grondwet” is not to be
regarded as a fixed constitution, like that of the United States of
America, the people of the Transvaal have looked upon it as a
sufficient federative bond for the union of the four semi-independent
districts in one nationality. The practical union of all was delayed,
however, by a civil war which broke out in 1862, and had a most
disastrous influence on the future of the country.
This internal strife grew out of the election of the president of the
Transvaal Republic, the younger Pretorius, to the presidency of the
Orange Free State. It was hoped by his partisans in both republics that
the dual presidency would help to bring about the desired union of the
Free State and the Transvaal under one government. While Mr. Pretorius
was absent in the Free State, on a six months’ leave granted by the
volksraad of the Transvaal, a faction hostile to him began to protest
against this double dignity being enjoyed by any one man, and to argue
that the advantages of union would be largely with the Free State.
Hostility to Mr. Pretorius grew apace until it was strong enough to get
a resolution passed in the volksraad forbidding him to perform any
executive act north of the Vaal during the six months of his stay in
the Free State, and requiring him to give an account of his proceedings
at the expiration of his leave.
On the 10th of September, 1860, Mr. Pretorius appeared before the
volksraad of the Transvaal, accompanied by a commission from the Free
State appointed to ask for a further leave of absence for the
president, and to further the interests of union. When Pretorius
offered to give an account of his proceedings as president of the Free
State, the opposition raised the point that it was manifestly illegal
for any one to be president of the Transvaal Republic and of the Orange
Free State at the same time, for it was provided in their constitution
that during his term of office the president should follow no other
occupation, and Mr. Pretorius was pressed to resign one office or the
other.
Pretorius at once resigned the presidency of the Transvaal; but his
partisans held a mass meeting at Potchefstroom, on the 8th and 9th of
October, at which revolutionary proceedings were taken. It was
resolved, almost unanimously, that the volksraad no longer enjoyed the
confidence of the people they represented and must be held as having
ceased to exist; that Mr. Pretorius should remain president of the
Transvaal Republic and have a year’s leave of absence to bring about
union with the Free State, Mr. Stephanas Schoeman—instead of Mr.
Grobbelear—to be acting president during his absence; and that before
the return of Mr. Pretorius to resume his duties a new volksraad should
be elected.
The new election was so manipulated that only a thousand burghers
voted, and of these more than seven hundred declared in favor of the
resolutions of the Potchefstroom meeting. The committee that effected
this clever political strategy was composed of Messrs. D. Steyn,
Preller, Lombard, Spruyt, and Bodenstein. The new acting president, Mr.
Schoeman, assumed official duty immediately.
With amazing inconsistency—for he was thought to be a loyal friend of
Mr. Pretorius—Schoeman called a meeting of the old volksraad that had
been dissolved by the revolution. He held his office from the same
authority that had declared this body to have forfeited confidence, and
to be non-existent, and yet he acknowledged its legal existence. The
old volksraad met on the 14th of January, 1861, and after a session of
two hours the majority of the members resigned, being convinced of the
general antagonism of the people. Not content to let matters rest in a
peaceful acquiescence in the revolution, Mr. Schoeman called the old
volksraad together a second time, under armed protection, and procured
an order for legal proceedings to be instituted against the committee
that had carried out the Potchefstroom resolutions. A court consisting
of two landdrosts—one of whom was Cornelius Potgieter, their bitterest
political enemy—tried the committee for sedition, on the 14th of
February, found them guilty and sentenced each to pay a fine of £100,
except Mr. Bodenstein, whose fine was only £15.
These proceedings led to great disturbances throughout the republic,
and, finally, to war. Schoeman assembled an armed force to support his
authority. Thereupon, Commandant Paul Kruger, of Rustenburg, called out
the burghers of his district and marched to Pretoria for the purpose of
driving out Schoeman and establishing a better government.
Among the expedients resorted to to prevent bloodshed, a new volksraad
was elected, a new acting president was appointed, and for several
months there were two rival governments in the Transvaal. Acting
President Schoeman, supported by a strong party, persisted in endeavors
to rule the country. So grievous a state of anarchy prevailed that
Kruger resolved to put an end to it by the strong hand. Schoeman and
his partisans retreated from Pretoria to Potchefstroom, where he was
besieged by the burgher force under Kruger. The loss of life in the
bombardment, and one sortie by the garrison, was not great; but
Schoeman became disheartened and fled, on the night of the 9th of
October, into the Free State, accompanied by his principal adherents.
A few days later, Kruger having moved his force to Klip River, Schoeman
re-entered Potchefstroom, rallied some eight hundred men around him,
and Kruger returned to give him battle. At this critical point
President Pretorius interposed as mediator, and an agreement was
reached by which immediate hostilities were prevented. Schoeman,
however, continued to agitate.
Under the terms of agreement new elections were held by which W. C.
Janse Van Rensburg was chosen president over Mr. Pretorius, and Paul
Kruger was made Commandant-General.
But the tribulations of the Transvaal were by no means over. On the
pretense that the ballot papers had been tampered with the standard of
revolt was again raised—this time by Jan Viljoen. The first encounter
was against Kruger, who had underestimated the strength of the new
rebellion. Later, on the 5th of January, 1864, a battle was fought in
which Viljoen was defeated and compelled to retreat to a fortified camp
on the Limpopo.
Again Mr. Pretorius offered himself as mediator, and by common consent
a new election was held in which Pretorius was chosen president by a
large majority over Van Rensburg. With Pretorius as president, and Paul
Kruger as commandant-general, the government was of such harmony and
strength as prevented any further open rebellion on the part of
disaffected burghers.
But though the civil strife was ended, the injury it had inflicted was
well nigh incurable. It is to be reckoned chief among the causes of the
weakness in after years that made it possible—and, in the judgment of
some, necessary and justifiable—for the British government to thrust in
its strong hand and subvert the independent but tottering republic that
it might substitute therefor a more stable colonial administration. The
treasury had been impoverished. Taxes were uncollected and
irrecoverable. Salaries and other public liabilities were heavily in
arrears. Worse than all these, the republic had forfeited the
confidence of other nations to that degree that no one believed in its
stability. Even its nearest neighbor and sister republic, the Orange
Free State, no longer desired union, preferring to stand alone before
the constant menace of the Basutos rather than to be joined with a
country wherein efficient government seemed to have perished. To make
matters still worse, the discord among the whites was turned to
advantage by their colored foes.
When the several factions in the Transvaal united on Mr. Pretorius as
their executive head, in 1864, the white population, all told, did not
exceed 30,000—less than one person to three square miles—while the
blacks in the same territory numbered hundreds of thousands. During the
three years succeeding 1861 the prevailing anarchy made it impossible
to give attention to cessions of land agreed to by the Zulu chiefs. In
consequence, the boundaries had not been fixed, and these districts
remained unoccupied by the whites. With the restoration of something
like order in 1864, the government realized that its relations with
some of its native neighbors required definition and formal settlement.
This was successfully done, and the lines mutually agreed upon between
the whites and the native authorities were duly marked.
A leading spirit among the Zulus of this time was Cetawayo, a chief of
remarkable subtlety and power. In less than two months after the
settlement and marking of boundaries in the southern region of the
Transvaal Cetawayo found some pretext for repudiating his bargain,
appeared on the borders of Utrecht at the head of a Zulu army, in
February, 1865, and removed the landmarks so lately set up. During the
negotiations that followed, Cetawayo did not appear at any conference,
but the presence of his force on the border so far affected the final
settlement that the boundary was changed near the Pongolo River,
restoring a small district in that region to Zululand.
This was a time of perpetual struggle with the blacks. Some of the
tribes had been made tributary to the Republic, others were practically
independent, and with these frequent and cruel wars were waged.
Unspeakable atrocities were perpetrated on both sides—the Kaffirs
slaughtering without mercy such white families as they were able to
surprise in a defenseless state, and the Africanders inflicting
vengeance without mercy when they came upon the savages in kraal or
mountain stronghold.
The whites could always defeat the natives in a pitched battle, but to
hold so vast a number in subjection was beyond their power. And they
seem to have relished everything connected with an expedition against
the blacks but the expense; they had an invincible dislike to paying
taxes for any purpose.
In a rude way these Transvaal Africanders lived in the enjoyment of
plenty derived from their flocks and herds, but metal currency was
almost unknown to them. Such business as they transacted was mostly in
the nature of barter. They were yet too crude and primitive in their
ideas to value aright the benefits secured to a civilized community by
a well organized and firmly administered government controlling fiscal
and other domestic matters of general interest, as well as directing
foreign policies.
The public treasury was in a state of chronic emptiness. The paper
currency depreciated more and more till in 1870 its purchasing value
was only twenty-five per cent of its face value. Public works and
proper internal administration were unknown. Largely, every man’s will
was his law, which he was disposed to enforce upon others—whether black
or white—by the strong hand.
In 1872 Mr. Pretorius became cordially disliked by the people and was
forced to resign the presidency, because he had accepted the finding of
the arbitration which awarded the diamond fields to Nicholas Waterboer
instead of to the Transvaal Republic. His successor, Mr. Burgess, a
native of Cape Colony and an unfrocked clergyman of the Dutch Reformed
Church, was an unfortunate choice. Learned, eloquent and energetic, he
was nevertheless deficient in practical business wisdom and in
political acumen, and he was much distrusted by the burghers on account
of his theological opinions. Some of them charged that he was guilty of
maintaining that the real Devil differed from the pictures of him in
the old Dutch Bibles, in that he had no tail. For this and worse forms
of heterodoxy he was blamed as the cause of the calamities experienced
by the nation during his presidency. Mr. Burgers is said to have formed
many visionary though patriotic plans for the development of his
country and the extension of the Africander power over the whole of
South Africa, but his people were not of the sort that could appreciate
them, nor had he command of resources sufficient to carry them out.
Then drew near the culmination of evil—the inevitable consequence of
weakness in numbers; of indisposition to submit to a strong government;
of a treasury impoverished by civil war; of continual conflict with the
savage blacks; and, withal, of a state of anarchy among themselves. In
1876 the portents of approaching calamity multiplied. In a war with
Sikukuni, a powerful Kaffir chief paramount in the mountainous district
to the northeast, the Africanders were worsted so completely that they
returned to their homes disheartened and in confusion. On the southeast
their border was threatened by hordes of Zulus under Cetawayo, now
manifesting a decided disposition to attack.
In fact, the weak and disordered condition of the republic exposed its
own people—many of whom were British subjects—to immediate and
frightful danger. Moreover, it constituted a danger to all the European
communities in South Africa. In the event of two such chiefs as
Sikukuni and Cetawayo joining forces against the whites and prevailing,
as they seemed able and likely to do, over the frontier civilization in
the Transvaal Republic, nothing could prevent them from moving in
strength against the Free State on the south, and Natal on the
southeast, and later, against Cape Colony itself.
It was not without cause, therefore, that the British government
resolved to avert the threatened conflict. There were two possible ways
of doing this. Britain might have taken the field as a friendly ally,
making common cause with the Transvaal Republic against a common
danger, and leaving its independence intact. The other way was to annex
the Transvaal territory, subvert its republican government, and give it
the status and administration of a British colony. There is no record
to show that the British government ever entertained the thought of
acting as the ally of the republic. On the contrary, Sir Theophilus
Shepstone was appointed as imperial commissioner to visit the scene of
danger and examine into the state of the country. He was secretly
instructed and authorized to proclaim the immediate annexation of the
Transvaal territory to the British dominions in South Africa in case he
deemed it necessary for the general safety to do so, and if, in his
judgment, a majority of the people would favor the step.
After three months spent in observing and studying the situation Sir
Theophilus Shepstone, acting under the secret instructions given him,
on the 12th of April, 1877, declared The Transvaal Republic annexed,
for protection, to British dominions in South Africa. His act was
indorsed officially by the resident British High Commissioner at the
Cape, and by the Secretary of the Colonial Office in England. In 1879
the Territory was declared a crown colony of Great Britain. Thus, in
the third contact of Boer and Briton, an independent republic was
deprived of its independence by the self-same power that had guaranteed
it in 1852, and was reduced to the status of a crown colony without the
formal consent of its people and against the protests of many of them.
Before closing this chapter of events connected with this arbitrary and
startling measure, it will be well to consider some further facts which
belong to the setting in which the act should be viewed. Mr. Burgers,
the president, had repeatedly warned the people that unless certain
reforms could be effected they must lose their independence. They
agreed with him, but did nothing to carry out the necessary reforms,
nor would they pay taxes. Mr. Burgers was not strong with any party in
the country. One section of the people were for Paul Kruger, his rival
candidate for the approaching presidential election. Another
party—principally English settlers—favored annexation. Besides, he had
estranged the great body of the people by his heterodox opinions in
theology. Being helpless, Mr. Burgers recorded his personal protest
against annexation and returned to the Cape, where he lived on a
pension granted him in consideration of his having spent all his
private fortune in the service of his country.
Mr. Kruger—then the vice-president, the entire executive council, and
the volksraad, all protested against the annexation; and delegates were
sent to London to carry the protest to the foot of the British throne.
The mass of the people made no resistance at the time, nor did they
express much displeasure; but, a little later, a large majority of them
signed a petition praying for a reversal of the act of annexation.
Their temporary acquiescence in the loss of independence was due, no
doubt, to the depressing fears that had so lately burdened them, and a
sense of relief in knowing that now the Kaffir invasion that had
threatened their very existence would be repelled by the military power
of Great Britain.
CHAPTER XI.
THE AFRICANDERS’ FIRST WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
Notwithstanding their native love of independence, and their protest to
the British throne against the act of annexation, the Africanders of
the Transvaal might have acquiesced in the British rule had they been
fairly treated. There was a good promise of peace at first. The
finances of the country were at once relieved by the expenditure of
English money in liberal amounts. Numbers of the leading Africanders
retained their official positions at the request of the British
commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. It is only reasonable to
suppose that the people at large would have settled down to permanent
content as British subjects had the affairs of the newly constituted
colony been administered to the satisfaction of the leaders.
But, instead of following a policy dictated alike by wisdom and
righteousness, the very opposite seems to have been the rule observed
in the attempt to govern these new and most difficult subjects of the
British crown. A number of mistakes—so called—were made which, as even
Canon Knox Little admits, were a sufficient justification of the
Africander leaders in plotting and agitating against the British
connection.
The first of these mistakes was the too early recall of Sir Theophilus
Shepstone, who had so deftly managed the bloodless though arbitrary
annexation, who knew the country well and was much respected by the
people. In place of his rule as special commissioner was substituted an
administration under Sir Bartle Frere as governor of Cape Colony and
British High Commissioner for South Africa. There being no
representative government in the Transvaal after annexation, the
administration became, perhaps necessarily, autocratic both in form and
in spirit. Sir William Owen Lanyon, who had been appointed governor of
the Transvaal, was an officer of some renown in dealing successfully
with native uprisings, but proved totally unfit for the delicate
management required in governing the Africanders. He has been described
as haughty and arrogant in mind, indisposed to excuse the rudeness of
the Transvaal farmers, and incapable of tolerating the social equality
so dear to them. His swarthy complexion, also, made against his
popularity, for it suggested the possibility of a strain of black blood
in his veins—a blemish unpardonable in the eyes of any slaveholding
people. Under his rule complaints were ignored, taxes were levied and
peremptorily collected by distraint, and soon the latent discontent
broke out into open and active disaffection.
The second mistake—if it does not deserve a harsher name—was the
failure to institute the local self-government by representatives
promised by Sir Theophilus Shepstone when he proclaimed annexation. The
text of that part of the proclamation reads thus:
“And I further proclaim and make known that the Transvaal will remain a
separate government, with its own Laws and Legislature, and that it is
the wish of her Most Gracious Majesty that it shall enjoy the fullest
legislative privileges compatible with the circumstances of the country
and the intelligence of the people. That arrangement will be made by
which the Dutch language will practically be as much the official
language as the English. All laws, proclamations and government notices
will be published in the Dutch language; and in the courts of law the
same may be done at the option of suitors to a case. The laws so in
force in the State will be retained until altered by competent
legislative authority.”
Not one of these promises was ever fulfilled. The volksraad was never
convened. The promised constitution of local self-government was never
promulgated. Instead of redeeming these promises the Transvaal was put
upon the status of a crown colony in 1879, and the legislature proposed
for it was to consist of some crown officials and six members—all to be
the nominees of the governor.
Mr. Bryce, in his “Impressions of South Africa,” calls this failure to
redeem a promise authoritatively made as a concession to a people whose
independence was being arbitrarily subverted, a “blunder.” Canon Little
uses a still softer term, calling it a “mistake”; and adds, “It was
given in good faith, and in good faith was received. Sir Theophilus
Shepstone tried to fulfill it. He at once submitted his views as to the
necessary legislative arrangements. No action whatever was taken on it,
either by Conservatives or Liberals, and his dispatch is probably lying
uncared for in the Colonial Office now!”—(1899.)
And so, in the mutations of language as currently used in history and
in Christian ethics, it has come to pass that this piece of national
treachery—this treachery of the strong against the weak—this treachery
implicating both of the leading political parties of Great Britain and
their chiefs, is only a “blunder,” a “mistake”!
One real and very serious blunder was committed, if one judges of it
from the view point of the policy intended to be pursued in the
Transvaal by the British government. The Africanders had accepted,
under protest, the act of annexation mainly because they were in mortal
fear of the Zulus. That reason for submission the British proceeded to
remove by overthrowing the Zulu power.
In the northeast Sir Garnet Wolseley defeated Sikukuni and established
what promised to be a permanent peace. In 1879 Sir Bartle Frere
inflicted a like reverse upon Cetawayo, in the southeast, and so
completed the subjugation of the Zulus. The blunder in taking this
course declared itself when, after subduing the natives at great cost
of blood and treasure, the British found that in so doing they had
relieved the Africanders of the one fear that thus far had prevented
them from reasserting their independence.
Many people, both in England and in South Africa, regarded the
annexation of the Transvaal as final. But leading members of the
Liberal party, then in opposition, had emphatically condemned it, and
this had raised hopes in the Transvaal Africanders and their
sympathizers in England that when Gladstone came into power again the
things which they regarded as wrong would be righted. Such hopes were
doomed to disappointment.
In 1880 the Liberals carried the country and took office in April of
that year. Guided by information derived from the crown officials in
South Africa, the new ministers were misled as to the measure of
discontent in the Transvaal, and declared that the act of annexation
would not be reversed.
This flat refusal brought matters to an immediate issue. The Transvaal
burghers, though they had continued to agitate and protest and
memorialize the throne, had waited with considerable patience for three
years, hoping for either a restoration of their independence or—as the
next best thing—the instituting of such a representative local
government as had been promised them by the imperial authorities. But
now the new Liberal government, after using the Transvaal grievances
for electioneering purposes, had refused to consider and redress those
grievances; the military administration of a mere crown colony
continued in full force under the detested Sir William Owen Lanyon; and
there appeared to be no hope that the promises made to mollify their
indignation when their independence was being subverted would ever be
fulfilled.
It has been said, in extenuation, that the British government of this
time was too busy with other pressing matters to give the attention
necessary to a correct understanding of the condition, and the rights
and the wrongs, of the Transvaal Africanders. And it has been said, in
further extenuation, that there was an honest intention on the part of
the government to fulfill the promises made—some time—as soon as the
authorities could get to it. Be that as it may, at the end of three
years, which had brought no betterment of their state, the burghers
concluded that their protests and their patience had been wasted, and
determined to wait no longer.
Accordingly a mass-meeting was held at Paardekraal, in December, 1880,
at which it was resolved to appeal to arms. The burghers elected
Messrs. Pretorius, Paul Kruger and Joubert to proclaim for them the
re-establishment of their former government as the South African
Republic, which was done in Heidelberg, and the national flag was
raised, on the 16th of December, 1880.
The first battles of this war were little more than skirmishes. The
British troops were scattered through the country in small detachments,
which the Africanders—every man of whom was a marksman and an
experienced fighter—found it easy to either cut off or drive before
them to positions that could be fortified.
The nearest available British troops, besides those already in the
Transvaal, were in Natal. General Sir George Colley, governor of that
colony, raised what force he could and marched northward to check the
uprising. Before he could enter the Transvaal, however,
Commandant-General Joubert crossed the border into Natal and took up a
strong position at Laing’s Nek. This now historic spot is a steep ridge
forming the watershed between the Klip River, a tributary of the Vaal,
and Buffalo River, a confluent of the Tugela, which flows into the
Indian Ocean. Here a sanguinary battle was fought on the 28th of
January, 1881. The British attacked the Africanders with great spirit,
but Joubert’s position was invulnerable. The ridge protected his men
from the artillery fire of the British, while they, in charging up the
slope, were cut down by the accurate rifle fire of the Africanders, and
forced to retreat. On the 8th of February, in the same neighborhood, on
the Ingogo heights, the British were again defeated after suffering
severe loss.
General Colley now decided to seize by night Majuba Hill, which is
really a considerable mountain, rising nearly 2,000 feet above Laing’s
Nek, and commanding that ridge for the purpose of artillery fighting.
On the night of February 26th, leaving the main body of his army in
camp, and unaccountably forgetting to order it to advance on the enemy
so as to divert attention from his tactical movement, General Colley
led a smaller division to the top of Majuba Hill.
The burgher force was thrown into temporary dismay when they first
observed British soldiers in that commanding position. But when there
was no advance against them in front, and no artillery fire from the
top of Majuba, they sent out a volunteer party to storm the hill. The
story of that charge has gone into history to stay as an example, on
the one side, of rugged bravery and splendid courage achieving victory,
and on the other of equal bravery and courage strangely betrayed by
some one’s blunder into defeat and ruinous disaster. Why the main force
of the British army was not ordered to co-operate in the movement, why
there were no entrenchments thrown up on the hill, why the order,
“Charge bayonets,” so eagerly looked for by the British soldiers on the
hill-top, was never given, General Colley did not live to tell—no one
else knew. The Africanders scaled the hill, shooting as they went up
every man that showed on the sky line—themselves protected by the steep
declivities above them, and carried the hill-top, routing and almost
annihilating the British force. General Colley and ninety-two of his
men were killed, and fifty-nine were made prisoners.
In the meanwhile additional British troops were hurrying to the scene
of conflict, under command of Sir Evelyn Wood. What the outcome would
have been of further hostilities between the Africanders and the
greatly increased British force no one can tell. The sudden and
surprising action of the British government, that put an end to the
war, was not based upon any estimate of the probable issue of continued
conflict, but altogether upon the moral aspects of the situation as
seen by Mr. Gladstone and his associates in the British cabinet. Before
Sir Evelyn Wood could strike a single blow toward wiping out the
disgrace of Majuba Hill, the home government, on the 5th of March,
1881, ordered an armistice, and on the 23d agreed to terms of peace by
which the Transvaal was restored to its former political independence
in all regards, save that it was to be under the suzerainty of the
British crown.
In August, 1881, a more formal convention was held at Pretoria, when it
was agreed that the Transvaal government should be independent in the
management of its internal affairs; that the Republic should respect
the independence of the Swazies, a tribe of natives on the eastern
border of the Transvaal; that British troops should be allowed to pass
through the territory of the Republic in time of war; and that the
British sovereign should be acknowledged as suzerain of the Republic
and have a veto power over all treaties between the government of the
Transvaal and foreign nations.
Several of the stipulations in this convention were very distasteful to
Paul Kruger and other leading spirits in the Transvaal, and also to the
volksraad. Negotiations for desired changes were continued until 1884,
when, on the 27th of February, a revision called the London Convention
was made and signed, formulating the obligations of the Republic as
follows:
The Sovereign of Great Britain was to have, for the space of six months
after their date, a veto power over all treaties between the Republic
and any native tribes to the eastward and westward of its territory,
and between it and any foreign state or nation except the Orange Free
State.
The stipulations of the two previous conventions respecting slavery,
those of 1852 and 1881, were to be observed by the Republic.
And the Republic was to accord to Great Britain the treatment of a most
favored nation, and to deal kindly with strangers entering its
territory.
Nothing whatever was said in this latest convention of the suzerainty
of the British Sovereign mentioned in that of 1881, and, as this
instrument, negotiated in London with Lord Derby, the Colonial
Secretary, was understood to take the place of all former conventions,
the Africanders of the Transvaal have contended very reasonably that
the omission is sufficient evidence of the renunciation of suzerainty
by the British government. Furthermore, by the London Convention of
1884, the British crown for the first time conceded to the Transvaal
the title of “The South African Republic,” by which name it has ever
since been designated in all diplomatic transactions and correspondence
between it and other states.
CHAPTER XII.
THE AFRICANDER REPUBLICS AND BRITISH POLICY.
The surprising policy pursued by the British government in arbitrarily
annexing the Transvaal in 1877, and in restoring its independence in
1881, after a brief and indecisive conflict at arms, and when strong
re-enforcements had placed the imperial troops in position to crush the
Africander uprising, caused widespread dissatisfaction and bitter
controversy both in England and in South Africa. Why had the country
been annexed at all? And seeing it had been annexed, why was it so
ignominiously yielded up immediately after the disgrace of Majuba Hill?
There were many at home and in the South African colonies who would
have been satisfied to restore the independence of the Transvaal—but
only after having inflicted on the Africander forces at least one
crushing defeat.
The only reply of the Liberal government was to the effect that the
annexation, and the refusal to reverse it, had been due to
misapprehension of the facts; that the officers of the crown in South
Africa, partly through ignorance and partly through prejudice, had
reported that there was no such passionate desire for independence
among the Africanders as was pretended by their leaders, and as was
proved to exist by the uprising; that as soon as the facts were known
it became the duty of a liberty-loving people like the English to honor
their own principles by the immediate retrocession of the Transvaal
without waiting to first avenge defeats and vindicate the military
superiority of Great Britain; and that a great country better
illustrated her greatness by doing justice and showing mercy, even at
great cost to herself, than by taking a bloody revenge for reverses
suffered on the fields of war in trying to enforce a policy now seen to
be morally wrong.
Moreover, associated with these moral considerations were reasons of
statecraft that made it appear wise as well as right to let the
Transvaal go. The Africanders of the Orange Free State, of Cape Colony,
of Natal, were known to be in warm sympathy with their brethren of the
Transvaal. Of course, the power of Great Britain could crush, in time,
a rebellion as extensive as the whole Dutch-speaking population of
South Africa, but at what cost of treasure and blood and bitter
disloyalty to the British crown! In comparison to the inevitable
results of a general civil war the loss of the Transvaal was as
nothing. How well grounded were these fears of a general uprising in
1881 may be seen in the earlier events of the second Africander War of
Independence in 1899. With no late grievance against Great Britain to
redress, the Orange Free State made common cause with the South African
Republic from the first, and the Africanders of Cape Colony and Natal
were more than suspected of aiding and abetting in a covert way the
cause for which the two republics had taken the field.
If the British ministers counted upon some recognition of the
magnanimity displayed in making the retrocession immediately after
defeat—of the humanity which renounced revenge for the humiliation of
Majuba Hill when it was within easy reach—they were disappointed. The
Africanders saw not generosity, not humanity, but only fear as the
motive for the sudden and easy yielding of the British; and to their
natural exultation they added contempt for their late antagonists, and
so became and have continued very unpleasant neighbors for so
proud-spirited a people as the English. And this is the principal
reason why the English in all South Africa have always condemned the
restoration of independence to the Transvaal—and, most of all, the time
and manner of the act. They have not been able to forget the fact that
the terms of peace were, in a way, dictated by the Africanders as
victorious invaders and holders of British territory in the colony of
Natal.
In order to view intelligently the causes of the second Africander War
of Independence, it is necessary to consider the general trend of
events in South Africa, and the conflicting policies sought to be
carried out there during the few years following the restitution of
independence to the Transvaal.
The South African Republic emerged from its brief and successful
struggle for independence impoverished and in a state of political
chaos, but rejoicing, nevertheless, in a sense of national freedom, and
more than ever confident that it enjoyed the special favor of Heaven.
The old constitution, or Grondwet, was revived, the volksraad was
convoked, and an election was held, resulting in the choice of Mr. Paul
Kruger to be president. Mr. Kruger immediately planned for bold and
far-reaching movements on three sides of the republic’s territory.
A great trek to the north for the occupation of Mashonaland was
projected but never carried out. To the south Zululand was now open,
and into it went a number of adventurers as trekkers, followed, a
little later, by others who took service under one of the warring
native chiefs. When these took steps to set up a government of their
own in the northern districts of Zululand the British authorities
interfered and restricted their claim to a small territory of about
three thousand square miles, which enjoyed an independent existence as
the New Republic from 1886 to 1888, when it was annexed by the
Transvaal.
Other bands of Africanders raided parts of Bechuanaland, to the west,
taking forcible possession of territory or obtaining grants of land by
devices not always honorable. These intimidated the native chiefs into
an acknowledgment of their authority and established two small
republics, Stella and Goshen, to the north of Kimberley.
These proceedings opened the eyes of the British government to the
policy upon which the South African Republic had entered—to annex
Bechuanaland and close the way of British communication with regions
still farther north in which the nation had become interested. To check
these designs in time, a military expedition under Sir Charles Warren
entered Bechuanaland toward the end of 1884, expelled the Africanders
without bloodshed, and proclaimed the whole region a crown colony under
the name of British Bechuanaland. This territory was annexed to Cape
Colony in 1895. In 1885 a British protectorate was established over a
still more northerly region, covering the whole country as far as the
borders of Matabeleland. In 1888 the British hold was made yet more
secure by a treaty with the king of the Matabele, Lo Bengula, by which
he bound himself to cede no territory to, and to make no treaty with,
any foreign power without the approval of the British High
Commissioner.
The raising of the British flag at St. Lucia Bay, on the Indian Ocean,
in 1884, and a treaty with the Tonga tribes, binding them to make no
treaties with any other power than the English, completed the hold of
the British crown on the eastern coast line up to the southern border
of the Portuguese possessions.
The Africanders, denied expansion on the north, sought compensation in
the acquisition of Swaziland, to the east of the Transvaal republic—a
small but fertile region and possessing considerable mineral wealth. It
was inhabited by some 70,000 Kaffirs, near of kin but hostile to the
Zulus. After long negotiations, in which the South African Republic,
Cetawayo of the Zulus, and the British authorities took part, the
Africanders secured a concession of right to build a railway through
the marshy region lying between Swaziland and the sea to the coast at
Kosi Bay; this concession was granted in 1890 and laid in abeyance
awaiting the acquisition of Swaziland itself, through which the railway
must run. In 1894 the whole territory of Swaziland was placed under the
control of the South African Republic, subject to a formal guaranty of
protection to the natives.
It is difficult to determine whether it was Africander dullness or
British sharpness, or both, that omitted from the Swaziland convention
of 1894 the concession to the South African Republic, granted in 1890,
of a right to construct a railway to the sea through the marshy
district of Tongaland lying next the coast line. But it was omitted
from that instrument, and it was held that, as the later convention
superseded and voided the earlier one, the provision for access to the
sea had lapsed. Whereupon the British government promptly secured the
consent of the three Tonga chiefs concerned, and proclaimed a
protectorate over the whole strip of land lying between Swaziland and
the ocean, up to the southern portion of the Portuguese territory. Thus
by a stroke of statecraft the access of the Africanders to the sea by
railway communication entirely under their own control was effectually
stopped.
Within nine years the British control established in Bechuanaland in
1885 was extended over the whole unappropriated country as far north as
the Zambesi. By a new treaty made with Lo Bengula in 1888 the sphere of
British influence was further expanded to embrace not only
Matabeleland, but Mashonaland also—a partially explored territory to
the eastward, over which Lo Bengula claimed some authority.
The next step in working out the policy of the British in South Africa
was the granting of a royal charter to a corporation known as the
British South African Company, formed to develop this eastern and
undefined region of Lo Bengula’s territory. Mr. Cecil Rhodes was
conspicuous as the leader in this movement. The purpose of the company
was twofold: To develop the gold fields supposed to exist there, and to
forestall the Transvaal Africanders in taking possession of the
country. The charter not only invested the company with the rights of a
trading corporation, but also with administrative powers as
representative of the British crown. In 1890 the pioneer emigrants
under this management began to arrive in the chartered territory and
commenced to found settlements and build forts along the eastern
plateau.
With the conflicts which arose between the British South African
Company and the Portuguese—complicated by alliances with the natives,
with the wars which arose therefrom, and with the final adjustments and
treaties that followed—we have nothing to do in these pages. The one
fact that is of interest to us in closing this chapter of conflict in
statecraft is that at last the British succeeded in isolating the
Africanders from the sea, and in throwing around them a perfect cordon
of British territories and pre-emptions. By chartering the British
South African Company to the north of the Transvaal the last link in
the chain that inclosed the two Africander republics was completed. For
there had been left no possibility of advance toward the sea eastward
on the part of the Transvaal Republic—in the Arbitration Treaty of 1872
Great Britain had obtained pre-emption rights over the Portuguese
colonial possessions.
CHAPTER XIII.
CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
In one sense the causes of the Second War of Independence, like those
of the first, were as remote as the British seizure of Cape Colony in
1795, and as the years between 1814 and 1836, which saw the
accumulation of grievances that led to the “Great Trek.” Seeds of
dislike to the English were then sown in the Africander mind which have
never ceased to propagate themselves—an ominous heredity—from father to
son through all the intervening generations.
The immediate causes of that war were of a more recent date. Tracing
backward, the war was brought about by the alleged grievances of a
multitude of foreigners—vastly outnumbering the citizens—who, for their
own purposes, had entered the territory of the South African Republic
within a single decade; these foreigners went there in the pursuit of
wealth; the wealth that enticed them there was in the rich gold
deposits of the Witwatersrand district of the Transvaal. If the gold
had not been there, or had not been discovered, the excess of
foreigners would not have pressed into the country; if the foreigners
had not flocked into it in great excess of numbers over the citizens,
there would have been no alleged grievances to redress, and therefore
no war, unless one or both of the parties to it had predetermined to
bring about a conflict at this time and found some other pretext.
Tracing from cause to effect up to the war, we begin with unimportant
discoveries of gold near the eastern border of the Transvaal between
1867 and 1872. Though these were not rich in themselves, they
encouraged more vigorous and extensive prospecting than had been
practiced theretofore. This led to the discovery, in 1885, of the
marvelously rich deposits of the precious metal in beds of conglomerate
in the Witwatersrand district. The influx of strangers had been
considerable from 1882, but from 1885 to 1895 the foreign additions to
the population of the Transvaal threatened to submerge the native
Africander citizens, for the newcomers were mostly men, and largely
exceeded in number the entire Africander population, including the
women and the children.
The first result of the new mining industry and the rapid growth of the
towns was pleasant enough—the revenues of the needy republic were
increased, and there was a promise of unprecedented prosperity.
Nevertheless, in the tidal wave of incoming aliens from the British
colonies in South Africa, from Europe and from America—most of them
British, and nearly all speaking English—the far-seeing president, Paul
Kruger, and other leaders of political life in the Transvaal, early
recognized an element of peril to their cherished domestic
institutions.
As a defense against the passing of controlling power into the hands of
transient settlers, the electoral franchise was somewhat restricted. Up
to the convention of 1881 the probation of an alien seeking
enfranchisement in the Transvaal Republic was a residence in the
country for two years. At that time, with the arbitrary annexation of
1877 fresh in their minds, and knowing that the British authorities had
been solicited to take that step by English residents in the Transvaal,
it is a matter of no surprise that the Africanders extended the
probation for franchise to five years—the period required in the United
States of America. That provision was in force when the London
Convention was signed, in 1884; it passed unquestioned by the British
government, and was still in force in 1890. Up to that date the
franchise had kept the native Africander element in a safe majority.
As a concession to demands on the part of foreigners for a reduction of
the period of residence required for naturalization, Mr. Kruger
proposed, in 1890, to divide the volksraad, which consisted of
forty-eight members, into two chambers of twenty-four members each, the
first to retain supreme power, the second to be competent to legislate
in all matters local to the new industrial population gathered,
principally, in and about Johannesburg, and its acts to be subject
always to the veto of the first volksraad. The measure provided, also,
that in electing members of the second volksraad only two years’
residence and the ordinary process of naturalization should be required
of aliens, their franchise for the first volksraad still being subject
to an additional five years’ probation.
This measure was passed by the volksraad after a good deal of
opposition by the more conservative members. It has been condemned as
clumsy and inadequate; but it is worth while to weigh Mr. Kruger’s own
words explanatory of his purpose in it. “I intend this second
volksraad,” he said, “to act as a bridge. I want my burghers to see
that the new population may safely be trusted to take part in the
government of the country. When they see that this is done, and that no
harm happens, then the two volksraads may come together again, and the
distinction between the old and the new population can be obliterated.”
It should be remembered, however, that the two years’ franchise gave
the citizen no vote in the election of the president and the executive
council—for that privilege he had to fill out the additional five
years’ probation—and that no naturalized burgher could become a member
of the first volksraad.
Discontent continued to spread among the new industrial population, who
complained bitterly of exclusion from important political rights, and
of grievances which they and the mining industry suffered under the
existing laws and administration. As a means of redress a reform
association was formed in 1893. It is necessary to a correct judgment
of the situation at this time to consider the statements of both sides
as to the causes of complaint.
According to Canon Little, who cannot be accused of favoring the
Africanders—
“The grievances of the Uitlanders were these:
“1. That the customs tariff was excessive, making food shamefully dear,
and that the charges for railway freights were unduly heavy.
“2. That the duties on machinery and chemicals were extortionate.
“3. That these and the dynamite monopoly made the expense of all mining
operations excessive.
“4. The extreme unfairness as to the vexatious laws touching on
education and the use of language.”
Over against these allegations are the statements of Mr. F. Reginald
Statham in his “South Africa as It Is.” Mr. Statham writes from the
Africander viewpoint, but gives some guaranty of sincerity and of
confidence in his own averments by an appeal to figures—which can
always be verified. Speaking in a general way of the conditions
prevailing at this period, he says:
“The idea of the persecuted and oppressed Uitlanders has become so
fixed in the minds of English people—thanks to the efforts of those who
were occupied in preparing and justifying a revolt—that even the
plainest statement of facts seems powerless to dispossess it. No one
will claim, no one ever has claimed, that the government of the South
African Republic is perfect. Having regard to the extraordinary changes
that have come over the country during the last ten years, it is really
a marvel that the government is not much more imperfect than it is. The
present position of the Transvaal executive has been not inaptly
compared to the position of the crew of a collier brig who might
suddenly find themselves in control of a first-class mail steamer.
However desirous they might be of doing their best, they could hardly
avoid making some mistakes. If the foreign population had much more to
complain of than they have, it ought not to cause either surprise or
indignation.
“And what have they to complain of? Really, the life of the average
foreigner in Johannesburg is the freest imaginable. He can follow his
trade, he can follow his profession, no matter what it is, without any
question or hindrance from the government. His position as an Uitlander
in no way hinders him from investing in property, from practicing as a
lawyer in the courts, from undertaking, in fact, as freely as he could
undertake in his own country, any lawful kind of business or
occupation. If he pays a high rent for his house, that is not the fault
of the government, but of the land speculators who have bought up
building stands. If his water supply is somewhat defective, it is the
fault of the big foreign capitalists, who think more of the dividends
they put in their own pockets than of the water they put into the
people’s mouths.
“A government which depends on the goodwill of a strictly Sabbatarian
population allows the Uitlander to spend his Sunday exactly as he
pleases. He may play lawn tennis if he likes—and, indeed, he generally
does so; he may engage in cricket matches, he can attend so-called
sacred concerts, the programmes of which are drawn from the music hall
or the comic opera. If he is in a gayer mood he may witness on a Sunday
evening displays of “living pictures” which certainly would not be
tolerated at the Royal Aquarium. To put it shortly, allowing for little
drawbacks of climate and the expense of living, the Uitlander can live
more at his ease in Johannesburg or Pretoria than in almost any other
city under the sun.
“But he is taxed.
“How is he taxed? There is probably no one in the Transvaal, rich or
poor, whose personal taxes amount to more than £5 a year. If it is
complained that he is taxed through his interest in the gold industry
it is easy to make an appeal to published figures. In 1895 the Crown
Reef Gold Mining Company produced gold worth upward of £420,000, and
distributed nearly £97,000 in profits. Its payment to the Government
for rents, licenses, and all other privileges and rights amounted to
£1,191 9s 10d. In the same year the Robinson Company, which had
produced £651,000 in gold and distributed £346,000 in dividends, paid
to the government £395 11s 8d. The New Chimes Company, producing
£93,000 in gold and distributing £32,000 in profits, paid under the
head of rates and licenses, together with insurance premiums, £664 16s
5d. The Transvaal Coal Trust produced 266,945 tons of coal, and paid
the government £53 15s, while the Consolidated Land and Exploration
Company, in which the Ecksteins are the largest shareholders, and which
owns more than 250 farms of 6,000 acres each, paid to the government in
the shape of taxes, including absentee tax, no more than £722 2s 6d.
“These figures are sufficiently eloquent by themselves. They become
more eloquent when they are placed beside the 50 per cent impost
claimed by the Chartered Company on all gold-mining enterprise in
Rhodesia.
“But what about indirect taxation? Here are the facts:
“All machinery for mining purposes is subject to only 1½ per cent
impost dues, the term machinery being stretched by the government to
its uttermost possibilities to meet the mining industry, and it is made
to include sheet lead, cyanide, etc. All other articles not specially
rated are subject to an ad valorem duty of 7½ per cent, the Cape
Colonist paying an ad valorem duty of 12 per cent. Specially rated
articles affecting the white miners, such as tea, coffee, butter, rice,
soap, sugar, are in most cases subject to lower, and only in one
instance to higher, duties than in Cape Colony.
“Here is a comparison:
CAPE COLONY. TRANSVAAL.
Butter 3d per lb. 5s 0d per 100 lbs.
Cheese 3d per lb. 5s 0d per 100 lbs.
Coffee 12s 6d per 100 lbs. 2s 6d per 100 lbs.
Rice 3s 6d per 100 lbs. 1s 6d per 100 lbs.
Soap 4s 2d per 100 lbs. 5s 0d per 100 lbs.
Sugar 6s 3d per 100 lbs. 3s 6d per 100 lbs.
Tea 8d per lb. 2s 6d per 100 lbs.
Guns £1 per barrel. 10s 0d per barrel.
“As regards monopolies and concessions, the dynamite monopoly is often
quoted as an instance of the manner in which monopolies are granted, to
the detriment of the mining interest. It has been complained that the
government retains a right to charge 90s a case for what can be
produced for 30s a case. These figures, however, are exaggerated both
ways. The government charge is 85s a case, and as the dynamite used by
De Beers, at Kimberley, costs more than 60s a case laid down there, it
can hardly be held that 85s is a high charge in Johannesburg, having
regard to the much greater distance of Johannesburg from the sea. In
this matter of the dynamite concession, moreover, it was a choice
between a foreign monopoly and a local monopoly, while in the reports
of mining companies in which explosives are separately accounted for it
is shown that while total working expenses run up to over 30s per ton,
the cost of explosives is less than 1s 3d per ton.
“As regards the railway concessions, the truth of the matter is that
the Transvaal Railway Company—the Netherlands South African Railway
Company, that is—by providing competing routes to Johannesburg from
Natal and Delagoa Bay, keeps in check the monopoly which would
certainly be taken great advantage of by the Cape Colony if the only
route to Johannesburg was from Cape ports.”
It may be allowed—it must be—that the old saw, “figures will not lie,”
is unsound. In the hands of capable and unscrupulous persons they will
lie like Ananias and Sapphira. But, like that of Ananias and Sapphira,
the lie in figures brings swift detection and punishment. It ought to
be easy, therefore, for those who have filled the ears of the world
with charges of Africander oppression practiced upon the foreigners in
the way of “excessive customs tariff,” “extortionate duties on
machinery,” and the “dynamite monopoly that made the expense of all
mining operations excessive,” to convince the world-jury to which they
have appealed that they have a case. They ought at least to be able to
show that in British Rhodesia the impost on the profits of gold mining
was not 50 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was about 8 per cent
thereof; that in British Cape Colony the ad valorem duty on articles
not specially rated was not 12 per cent, while in the Transvaal it was
7½ per cent; that in British Cape Colony specially rated articles
affecting the white miner as to expense of living were not taxed all
the way from 100 to 500 per cent higher than in the Transvaal, with the
single exception of soap; that an import duty of 1½ per cent on mining
machinery was extortionate as compared with the tariff of other
nations, or that a higher duty than 1½ per cent was collected in the
Transvaal; and that a profit of 25s a case on dynamite, less the cost
of transportation from Kimberley to Johannesburg, and only causing the
expense for explosives used in mining to be 1s 3d per ton of ore out of
a total cost of 30s per ton, was an oppressive monopoly causing the
cost of mining to be excessive.
Concerning the other grounds of complaint Mr. Statham writes:
“There are, besides the material grievances alluded to above, what may
be called the political grievances, such as (1) the alleged government
of the country by a small faction of Hollanders, (2) the language
grievance, (3) the educational grievance, and (4) the franchise
grievance.
“As regards the first mentioned of these, an honest and impartial
person would search for evidence of it in vain. All the members of the
executive, with one exception, are South African born; so are the
majority of heads and sub-heads of departments. * * * The only
Hollander of any distinction in the government is the state secretary,
Dr. Leyds, a man of exceptional ability and integrity, who, in spite of
enormous difficulties and constant attacks, has deserved and retained
the confidence both of the president and the volksraad. To say that he
is the ablest and most cultured official in South Africa is to say what
is simply true, and if his ability has excited jealousy and resentment,
it is only what a general study of human nature would lead one to
expect.
“As regards the language question and the education question,
consideration has to be paid to the language most usually spoken in the
country. Entirely misleading ideas are liable to be formed on this
point, owing to the erroneous impression as to the relative strength of
the Dutch and the foreign population. A habit has arisen of speaking as
if the foreign population greatly outnumbered the burgher population.
The case is quite the opposite of this. The census of Johannesburg
taken in 1896 by the Johannesburg Sanitary Commission showed that the
population of the place had been greatly overestimated, the male
European population of all ages amounting to 31,000. As there are
25,000 burghers on the military register of the republic, it seems fair
to assume that the burgher population is at least 150,000, while the
foreign population is probably not more than half of that. Of the
150,000 burghers and their families fully two-thirds do not understand
English. Is it, then, unreasonable to claim that the official language,
the language of official documents, shall be the language spoken by
two-thirds of the people, or do the women and children count for
nothing? But although the official language by law is Dutch, there is
not a single government office in which there is not English or German
spoken to those who cannot speak Dutch. In the higher courts the judges
frequently shut their eyes to the use of the English language in the
witness-box, and in the lower courts English is invariably spoken by
English litigants.
“As regards the education question, there is not now much need to
discuss it. The volksraad during the session of 1896 passed a law in
further expansion of the principles laid down in the law of 1892, and
under the regulations drawn up in accordance with the law, as now
expanded, state schools, in which English-speaking children will be
taught in English, and which are placed under the control of
representative school boards, have been established in the gold-mining
districts.
“The franchise question has been made the subject of special complaint.
Here, however, there are several difficulties in the way. In the first
place, the majority of the foreign population do not want the
franchise, because they are quite content with their position as it is
and do not want to become—as they would have to do if they exercised
the franchise—burghers of the South African Republic. The very
agitation over the question has increased the difficulty, for the more
there seems to be a possibility of a serious misunderstanding between
the Transvaal and Great Britain, the less disposed British subjects
become to place themselves in a position which might compel them to
fight against their own countrymen. Meantime the government and the
volksraad have been compelled to the conclusion that the agitation for
the franchise is not genuine—that it has not been encouraged with the
view to obtaining a concession, but with the object of establishing a
grievance. They have seen, too, that to grant wholesale political
privileges to the foreign residents in Johannesburg, even if those
foreign residents were willing to become naturalized, would be to a
great extent to deliver up the interests of all the dependent
classes—the shopkeepers, the miners, the professional men—into the
hands of a small group of capitalists, who would use their influence,
as they have used it elsewhere, to corrupt the political atmosphere and
to subject the interests of every individual to their own. The
political tyranny that exists in Kimberley, where employes of De Beers
are compelled to vote to order on pain of dismissal, supplies a
sufficient illustration of what would happen in Johannesburg if once
the financial conspirators secured political control. A further and
most significant illustration is supplied by a well-known incident in
connection with the revolutionary movement in Johannesburg, when miners
under the control of the leading conspirators were ordered to take up
arms under penalty of forfeiting their wages. That in the great
majority of cases they preferred the latter course is in itself a
complete exposure of the hollowness of the whole revolutionary
movement. In all known cases of revolution arising from discontent on
the part of a mining population it has been the miners who have taken
the lead and dragged others in with them. In this case the miners, who
had never dreamed of discontent, were ordered to take up arms and
refused.
“Out of the facts of the position actually existing in Johannesburg and
other gold-mining centers it was utterly impossible for any honest man
to manufacture a serious complaint, least of all such a complaint as
would in any respect justify a revolution to secure redress. So far
from being treated with unfairness or hardship, the foreign residents
in the Transvaal have been treated with marked consideration. The
interests of the gold industry have been consulted in every possible
way. If the government has not in some instances been able to do all it
might have wished to do, it has been because the reckless language of a
portion of the press and the overbearing attitude of the capitalist
agitators have aroused the suspicion and the resentment of the
volksraad.
“Yet out of this position of things a case had to be got up against the
Transvaal government in order to justify the revolutionary movement
that had been planned in the interest of the small groups of
capitalists who had determined to make themselves as supreme over the
gold industry in Johannesburg as they had become over the diamond
industry in Kimberley.”
It has seemed necessary to quote Mr. Statham thus at length in order
that the alleged grievances of the foreigners in the Transvaal, and the
Africander answer thereto may be considered side by side. To say the
least, Mr. Statham has not dealt in vague generalities. His assertions
are specific and his figures can easily be investigated. It is for
those who sympathize with the complaints which led to prolonged
agitation and finally to war, to show that Mr. Statham was in error.
Until they shall have done so charges of “oppressive” and
“extortionate” imposts, taxes and tariffs will lie, not against the
South African Republic, but against the British administration in Cape
Colony, Natal and Rhodesia.
Mr. Statham’s contention that the Dutch ought to be the official
language of the Transvaal seems well founded. The account he gives of a
somewhat tardy provision—made after the raid of December, 1895—for the
instruction of English children in the English language evinces a
disposition to meet the reasonable demands of the foreigners in that
regard; but the delay in doing so is to be regretted. The matter of
franchise became the subject of acrimonious diplomatic negotiation and
the immediate cause of war, which will be treated of more fully in a
later chapter.
CHAPTER XIV.
CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.—CONTINUED.
The foreigners’ Reform Association, sometimes called the National
Union, was organized at Johannesburg in 1893. Its professed object was
to secure redress of grievances. This is always allowable in a free
country; but it is matter of record that the spirit and methods of this
particular association were not calculated to propitiate the people to
whom they must look for any relief from the sufferings of which they
complained.
Two incidents will sufficiently illustrate this. In 1894 Lord Loch, the
British High Commissioner for South Africa, visited the Transvaal to
conduct certain negotiations with the executive concerning Swaziland.
The presence of this distinguished Crown Official in the Transvaal was
made the occasion by the association of offering a public insult to
President Kruger in Pretoria, of promoting a violent outburst of
pro-British and anti-Africander sentiment in Johannesburg, and of a
conference between Lord Loch and Mr. Lionel Phillips, a member of one
of the leading financial houses in Johannesburg, in which was
considered the propriety of assembling a body of imperial troops on the
borders of the Transvaal for the support of any revolutionary movement
that might be made. These proceedings were reminiscent to the
Africanders of an earlier demonstration, prior to the forming of the
National Union. In 1890 President Kruger visited Johannesburg to confer
with leading citizens on the mitigation of the grievances complained
of. The foreigners celebrated his coming in that friendly way by
drinking to excess, by singing in his ears “God Save the Queen” as a
suitable song of welcome to the President of the South African
Republic, and by tearing down the national flag of the Transvaal which
was floating in front of the house in which the conference was being
held. With a moderation not to be expected from Paul Kruger, the
president charitably attributed the offensive proceedings to “long
drinks”; but the people in general and their representatives were much
embittered by them, and the effect was unfavorable to the carrying of
any measures for the benefit of the foreigners.
Throughout 1894 and 1895, both on the surface of things and beneath it,
appearances were ominous of coming disturbance. On the surface there
was, from Cape Town, an open advocacy of violent measures in
Johannesburg, should such be found necessary to bring about the desired
changes in favor of the foreigners. Mr. Edmund Garrett, editor of the
“Cape Times,” openly stated at Bloemfontein, in 1895, that his presence
in South Africa was connected with a purpose on the part of Mr. Cecil
Rhodes, premier of Cape Colony, and his associates, to “force the
pace.” And it was at this time that, as before stated, the British
authorities suddenly annexed the Tongaland territory, through which the
Africanders had secured a concession and projected a railway to the
sea—thus deepening the impression to a painful and alarming certainty
that the Imperial Government was intentionally unfriendly to that of
the South African Republic.
Under the surface very momentous things were going on. In Rhodesia a
volunteer police force was being enrolled by Sir John Willoughby. This
gentleman, speaking for his superior, Doctor Jameson, assured the men
that they would only be required to serve in a “camp of exercise” once
a year, and that they would not be taken beyond the borders of
Rhodesia.
Fitting in very significantly with this movement, the Bechuanaland
Protectorate—lying next neighbor to Rhodesia on the south and to the
Transvaal on the west—was transferred to the Chartered Company
controlling Rhodesia, a measure that enabled Doctor Jameson to station
his volunteer police force on the Transvaal border without taking them
out of the enlarged Rhodesia.
Meantime, rifles, ammunition and Maxim guns were smuggled across the
border from Kimberley to Johannesburg, to be in readiness for an armed
uprising of the foreigners on a date to be agreed upon. Over in the
British territory of Rhodesia, Doctor Jameson’s force—ostensibly for
local police purposes—was armed and near the border, ready to
co-operate with the revolt about to be initiated at Johannesburg. As a
provision for the sustenance of the invading force, a number of
so-called “canteens,” said to be for the convenience of a projected
stage line, but really stores of food for Jameson’s troopers and their
horses, were established at convenient distances along the road over
which the force was to advance upon Johannesburg.
At the same time, the official opening of the new railway from Pretoria
to Delagoa Bay was made the occasion of such marked congratulation from
the Imperial Government as implied nothing but the most friendly
relations. Afterwards the Africanders held that the Imperial
congratulations were sincere, and that the fact of their being sent was
evidence that the policy of implacable hostility toward the South
African Republic being pursued by Mr. Cecil Rhodes was in no sense the
policy of the British government.
It is almost past belief, however, that so small a matter as the
closing of a ford, or “drift,” across the Vaal River could be made the
subject of international dispute, and become the cause of ill-will
between two nations on terms of perfect amity and good will; but so it
was. In a rate war between the Cape Government Railway system and the
Transvaal Railway Company, in order to force the hand of the Transvaal
Company, the Cape authorities adopted the practice of unloading freight
on the south side of the Vaal, on Free State soil, and sending it on by
ox-wagons across the “drift” and so transporting it over the more than
fifty miles to Johannesburg—this to deprive the Transvaal section of
the through railway of the carrying trade from the border to
Johannesburg until it submitted to a certain prescribed rate. In order
to protect a railway enterprise in which it was a partner, the
Transvaal government promptly proclaimed the “drift” closed to traffic.
The Cape government then complained to the imperial authorities, and
obtained from the Colonial Office a decision that the closing of the
“drift” was a breach of the London Convention, of 1884, and must be
reversed. To avoid trouble over so paltry a matter the Transvaal
government withdrew the proclamation, but there was bitter feeling
occasioned by this interference, naturally in inverse ratio to the
petty cause of it. The resentment was as widespread as the two
Africander Republics. It was this incident, together with the Jameson
raid of a few months later, that decided the Free State to dissolve all
partnership with Cape Colony as to railway interests, and to use its
option of buying the Free State section of this trunk line at cost
price. As this was the most profitable part of the whole system, the
Cape government was a heavy loser—to the extent of 7 per cent out of 11
per cent profits previously derived from the road;—but if the ultimate
object sought by those who directed the movement was to create a strong
prejudice in England against the Transvaal government, it was gained.
As time went on preparations for the contemplated uprising were
matured. Ostensibly to participate in the taking over of the
Bechuanaland Protectorate Doctor Jameson and his police were brought
down to the vicinity of the Transvaal frontier. Simultaneously,
mutterings of the coming earthquake—as it was intended to be—began to
be heard. At the meeting of the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, held on
the 20th of November, 1895, Mr. Lionel Phillips, in an incendiary
speech, declared that “capital was always on the side of order, but
there was a limit to endurance, though there was nothing further from
their desires than an upheaval which would end in bloodshed.” How this
was understood, even in Europe, may be seen from the following
reference to it in a letter from a gentleman in Hamburg, written on the
6th of December, and quoted by Mr. Statham in his “South Africa as It
Is”:
“Master Lionel’s speech has been very foolish, and is likely to do a
great deal of harm and no good—unless his instructions are to incite to
bloodshed—and I can scarcely imagine such instructions to have gone out
while the boom is lasting. If there is anything that is likely to put
Paul Kruger’s back up, it is threats; and unless Cecil Rhodes is
prepared to back up with his Matabele heroes those threats, you will
find the Volksraad of 1896 give an unmistakable answer to what they
will wrongly call ‘British threats.’”
How the real state of things was comprehended locally is evinced in the
answer to that letter, dated December the 10th:
“Your remark concerning Rhodes’ Matabele heroes is probably more
prophetic than you yourself are aware of. South Africa is, as you say,
the land of surprises.”
Among the parties privy to the conspiracy the date of uprising was
spoken of as the “day of flotation.” It was carefully discussed, as was
the use that could be made of the British crown officials at the Cape.
Arms and ammunition for the use of the revolutionists continued to
arrive at Johannesburg, concealed in coal trucks and oil tanks. It
looked like an appointment when, on the 21st of December, Colonel
Rhodes, brother and representative of Cecil Rhodes at Johannesburg,
telegraphed to the Cape that a high official, whom he called the
“Chairman,” should interfere at the earliest possible moment, and that
he and Mr. Cecil Rhodes should start from Cape Town for Johannesburg on
the “day of flotation.”
This telegram has been interpreted to mean that the conspirators wanted
to create just enough of disturbance to justify alarming telegrams and
calls for help, but not so prolonged and violent as to make it
necessary for them to lead a hand-to-hand fight against the burghers in
the streets of Johannesburg. They would have the Jameson force near
enough to take the brunt of the fighting, and the High Commissioner to
come in opportunely to mediate a peace favoring the re-establishment of
British control in the Transvaal.
Strangely enough, at the last moment divisions arose among the local
conspirators at Johannesburg; they hesitated, and were lost. To some,
the project which had been much talked of—that of re-establishing
British rule—became suddenly distasteful, the principal reason being
that the desired control of capital over legislation could not be as
complete under British colonial administration as it might be made
under some other regime. They had appealed to the sentiment of British
loyalty in persuading English recruits to enter their ranks, but they
began to see that this sentiment, carried to its legitimate fruition,
would defeat the chief end of the capitalists in seeking the overthrow
of the Kruger government. Christmas day of 1895 found the Johannesburg
reformers so divided in feeling that most of them were in favor of
postponing all action until some definite assurance could be obtained
as to what, and for whom, they were to fight. To this end the President
of the National Union, Mr. Charles Leonard, was sent off to Cape Town
to confer with Mr. Cecil Rhodes.
In enlisting Doctor Jameson and his police force in this movement an
uncertain and dangerous factor had been included. The situation became
critical. Jameson, who had been warned that he must on no account make
any move until he received further orders, grew restive and eager for
the fray. In Johannesburg the conspirators were in a state of
indecision and alarm. Mr. Cecil Rhodes himself was halting between the
two opinions, whether to abandon the enterprise altogether or to
precipitate the struggle regardless of the divided counsels at
Johannesburg.
Then the factor of danger declared itself. On the night of the 29th of
December, 1895, Doctor Jameson broke his tether and, presumably without
orders, invaded the territory of the South African Republic from the
British territory of Bechuanaland, at the head of about six hundred
men.
Just why Jameson moved at that time probably never will be known. He
has himself assumed the entire responsibility; Mr. Rhodes and Sir
Hercules Robinson, the High Commissioner, have disavowed it utterly.
There are few who believe that his invasion was intended to initiate
the revolution. A probable solution of the mystery is that the
revolutionary programme included (1) a collision between the
conspirators in Johannesburg and the burgher police, (2) the calling in
of the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, as mediator, (3) the
ordering up of Jameson and his force to support the High Commissioner
in any course he might decide upon, and that Jameson thought he could
time his arrival aright without waiting for further orders.
But the skillfully arranged programme was spoiled by the shrewdness of
President Kruger. There was no initial conflict in the streets of
Johannesburg. Penetrating the design, the president withdrew all the
Transvaal police from the streets of the city; there was no one to
exchange shots with, and therefore no reason to justify a call for
outside interference.
By cutting the telegraph wires Jameson made it impossible for friend or
foe to know his whereabouts, but the report got abroad that he was
coming. In Johannesburg some desired, some feared, his coming. A member
of the committee of the National Union assembled a hundred of the
malcontents and attempted to lead them out to co-operate with the
invaders, but they tamely surrendered to a burgher force without firing
a shot. As for Jameson, on Wednesday, the 1st of January, 1896, he was
checked near Krugersdorp by a few hundred burghers hastily collected,
and on the next day was surrounded near Doornkop and forced to
surrender. Thus ended the attempt at revolution.
During the few days which closed 1895 and opened 1896, there was a
state of social, political and financial chaos in Johannesburg. All
that was left visible of the reform association was confined within the
walls of a single clubhouse—a resort of the leading spirits in the
conspiracy. The European population at large seemed to be unaware of
anything connected with the affair but the, to them, unaccountable
situation—full of peril to life and property—which had been created
they knew not how. The state of panic was sustained and intensified by
the wildest rumors of what Jameson was to do, of thousands of burghers
assembling to lay siege to the town, of a purpose to bombard the city
from the forts, of a new government about to be proclaimed—indeed,
anything and everything might happen.
When it leaked out that the principal actors in the revolutionary
movement had secretly removed their families from the city—which was to
be the storm-center of the expected disturbance—there was a general
stampede. Men and women fought for place on the outgoing trains. In one
tragical instance an overladen train left the track, and forty persons,
mostly women and children, perished. To exaggerate the misery and
disaster to innocent and peaceable people, caused by this unfortunate
and abortive uprising, would be impossible.
The immediate effect of the raid was most unfavorable to the return of
anything like good feeling between the British and the Africanders. The
historic cablegram of the German Emperor to President Kruger,
congratulating him on the prompt and easy suppression of the rebellion,
was construed as evidence that the South African Republic was secretly
conniving at a German rivalry to Great Britain as the paramount power
in South Africa. On the other hand, every burgher in the Transvaal saw
in the conspiracy a new indication of the inexorable hostility of the
British to their independence, and of a relentless purpose to subvert
it again by any means necessary to accomplish their end, however unjust
or violent. The effect on the burghers of the raid was much the same as
that of the blowing up of the Maine on the citizens of the United
States—a feeling that relations had been created which nothing could
finally adjust but war.
Notwithstanding the intensified bitterness between the two peoples, no
one was put to death, nor was any one very seriously punished for
taking up arms against the Transvaal government. This is to be credited
not to any doubt or extenuation of their guilt, but to urgent
intercession on the part of the British authorities, and to the wisdom
of those who administered the government whose territory had been
invaded from the soil of a professedly friendly nation, whose very
existence had been conspired against by resident aliens, and which had
in its power both the invaders and the resident conspirators.
CHAPTER XV.
CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.—CONTINUED.
After the conspiracy and raid of 1895–1896 the peace of South Africa
and the final paramountcy of Great Britain therein by the mere force of
a superior civilization and of preponderating financial and diplomatic
resources, depended upon a policy which was not followed.
If the British authorities had eliminated Mr. Cecil Rhodes and his
schemes from the situation, and had suffered matters in South Africa to
return to the state which prevailed in 1887, the end would have been
different, and better. At that time the country was being allowed to
move in an unforced way toward a destiny of settled peace between the
two races. A genuine but unaggressive loyalty in the British colonies
was beginning to develop a reciprocal good will on the part of the two
republics, giving promise of a pleasant fellowship of nations in South
Africa.
The result would not have been a confederated South Africa under the
British crown; that was and is impossible, both for geographical and
political reasons. But there might have been brought about
acquaintanceship and mutual esteem between Great Britain, the would-be
Paramount Power, and the Africander race throughout the Transvaal, the
Orange Free State, and the British colonies of Natal and the Cape—which
race is and will long continue to be the dominant factor in South
Africa. Out of that friendly relationship might have come a paramount
power to Great Britain well worth the having, and in every way
consistent with the honor of the British crown and the continued
independence of the Africander republics.
But Mr. Rhodes and his projects were not eliminated from the situation.
By force of almost unequaled genius for acquisition and intrigue, and
of great powers in no least degree controlled by moral considerations,
he continued to dominate—both locally and in England—the British policy
in South Africa. His presence and influence made final peace in the
country impossible on any condition other than the subjugation of the
Africander Republics. Probably two-thirds of the European population of
South Africa believed that he was the chief criminal—though
unpunished—in connection with the conspiracy and raid of 1895–1896. His
influence, therefore, had the effect of intensifying the race enmities,
already the too vigorous growth of a century, and of warning every
Africander in the two republics to stand armed and ready to defend the
independence of his country. And these men, to whom Mr. Rhodes’
presence and activities were a constant irritation and threat, loved
freedom after the fashion of their Netherland forefathers who worsted
Spain in diplomacy and war in the sixteenth century, and after the
fashion of their Huguenot forefathers who counted no sacrifice too
great to make for liberty.
During 1896 there was a temporary lull in the agitation for reforms in
the Transvaal. Investigations had become an international necessity,
for appearance’s sake if for no other reason; but they led to nothing
except the rehabilitation of the principal leaders in the conspiracy
which had miscarried. Of necessity Doctor Jameson, and his immediate
associates in conducting the invasion, were condemned to death by the
Transvaal authorities, for they were taken in the act, and confessed
themselves guilty of a capital crime. After a time the death sentences
were reversed, and the offenders were set free.
By the opening of 1897 a good degree of order had replaced the state of
chaos into which the uprising had thrown the foreign population and
interests in the Transvaal. Then the agitation for reforms was renewed,
and the claims of the foreigners were backed up and pressed
diplomatically by the British government, of which the exponent in the
long controversy was the Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State
for the Colonies.
It is not necessary to trace, step by step, the diplomatic
correspondence on the subject of reforms in the Transvaal during 1897,
1898 and the first two months of 1899. The whole situation—including
every subject in dispute between the two governments—will come into
view in the discussions and negotiations immediately preceding the
outbreak of the Africanders’ Second War of Independence, in October,
1899.
On the 20th of March, 1899, in reply to a question by Sir E. Ashmead
Bartlett as to Great Britain’s right to interfere with the affairs of
the South African Republic, Mr. Chamberlain, from his place in
parliament, said:
“There are certain cases where we can intervene, and rightly intervene,
in Transvaal affairs.
“1. In the first place, we may intervene if there is any breach of the
convention.
“2. There is no doubt we should have the usual right of interference if
* * * the treatment of British subjects in the Transvaal was of such
nature as would give us the right to interfere as to the treatment of
British subjects in France or Germany.
“3. Then there is only one other case—the third case. We can make
friendly recommendations to the Transvaal for the benefit of South
Africa generally and in the interests of peace.”
In concluding Mr. Chamberlain said: “I do not feel at the moment that
any case has arisen which would justify me in taking the strong action
suggested”; the reference being to the sending of an ultimatum.
The next important development was a petition to the Imperial
Government, signed by 21,684 British subjects in the Transvaal, praying
for interference in their behalf. This was forwarded through Mr.
Conyngham Greene, the British agent at Pretoria, to Sir Alfred Milner,
Governor of Cape Colony, who transmitted it to London, where it was
received by Mr. Chamberlain on the 14th of April.
Summarized, the complaints of the petitioners were as follows:
1. The great majority of the uitlander population consists of British
subjects who have no share in the government.
2. Petitions of the uitlanders to the Transvaal government have either
failed or have been scornfully rejected.
3. Instead of redressing uitlander grievances, the Transvaal
government, after the Jameson raid, passed laws making their position
more irksome—i.e., the immigration of aliens act, the press law, the
aliens expulsion law. The immigration act was suspended at the
insistence of the British government, but the others remain in force.
4. The Transvaal government exercises the power of suppressing
publications devoted to the interests of British uitlanders.
5. British subjects are expelled from the Transvaal without the right
of appeal to the high court.
6. The promise of municipal government for the city of Johannesburg has
been kept in appearance only. There are 1,039 burghers resident of
Johannesburg, and 23,503 uitlanders, but the law giving each ward of
the city two members of the council also requires that one of them must
be a burgher, and the Burgomaster, who is appointed by the government,
has the casting vote.
7. The city of Johannesburg is menaced by forts occupied by strong Boer
garrisons.
8. The uitlanders of Johannesburg are denied the right to police their
own city.
9. Trial by jury is a farce, as uitlanders can be tried by burghers
only.
10. The uitlanders are deprived of political representation; are taxed
beyond the requirements of the Transvaal government.
11. The education of uitlander children is made subject to impossible
conditions.
12. The Boer police give no protection to lives and property in the
city of Johannesburg.
It will be noted that this petition, dealing with political and other
grievances, makes no mention of the dynamite monopoly, extortionate
railway charges, burdensome tariffs on imported foodstuffs, and other
industrial and commercial grievances of which complaints had been made
at an earlier date. And in judging of this list of complaints it should
be considered that, with the exception of the eleventh, concerning the
education of children—which is fatally indefinite in expression—most of
the conditions complained of are exactly such as would be imposed on a
city lately in insurrection, and yet inhabited by the same persons who
had conspired to overthrow the government.
The dangerous tension already existing was greatly heightened by a long
telegraphic communication from Sir Alfred Milner, Governor of Cape
Colony, to Mr. Chamberlain, on the 5th of May. After reviewing the
situation, and reiterating the grievances which British subjects were
said to be suffering, and declaring that the spectacle presented “does
steadily undermine the influence and reputation of Great Britain,” Sir
Alfred revealed the true inwardness of the struggle already begun
between the Africanders and the British by saying:
“A certain section of the press, not in the Transvaal only, preaches
openly and constantly the doctrine of a republic embracing all South
Africa, and supports it by menacing references to the armaments of the
Transvaal, its alliance with the Orange Free State, and the active
sympathy which in case of war it would receive from a section of her
Majesty’s subjects.
“I can see nothing which will put a stop to this mischievous propaganda
but some striking proof of the intention of her Majesty’s government
not to be ousted from its position in South Africa.”
Sir Alfred’s reference in the last two paragraphs is to the “Africander
Bund,” a society whose ramifications were to be found throughout Natal,
Cape Colony, and, indeed, wherever members of the Africander race were
to be found.
He that runneth may read and understand these luminous words in Sir
Alfred Milner’s dispatch. The coming struggle was not to be about some
foreigners in the Transvaal, but to defeat, in time, the republican
aspirations of the whole Africander race, including those in the two
republics already established and “a section of her Majesty’s subjects”
in the British territories of Natal and Cape Colony; and the issue was
understood to be either “a republic embracing all South
Africa”—involving the expulsion of the British government “from its
position in South Africa”—or the defeat of those aspirations in the
establishing of a confederated South Africa under the British crown.
In the light of Sir Alfred’s dispatch one ceases to wonder that all
negotiations about the uitlander grievances, and that the repeated
concessions as to the franchise offered by the Transvaal, were without
effect. It is evident that both parties saw inevitable war approaching
on quite another and a much larger question.
The response of the British government to the uitlanders’ petition, and
to Sir Alfred Milner’s appeal for intervention, was a suggestion that
President Kruger and Sir Alfred Milner should meet at Pretoria and
confer concerning the chief matters in dispute between the two
governments. Afterward, upon the invitation of Mr. Steyn, president of
the Orange Free State, it was decided to hold the conference at
Bloemfontein, the capital of the Free State Republic. In accepting the
invitation to this conference in a telegram dated the 17th of May, Mr.
Kruger said:
“I remain disposed to come to Bloemfontein and will gladly discuss
every proposal in a friendly way that can conduce to a good
understanding between the South African Republic and England, and to
the maintenance of peace in South Africa, provided that the
independence of this republic is not impugned.”
The date selected for the first meeting between Mr. Kruger and Sir
Alfred was the 31st of May. On the 22d Sir Alfred telegraphed Mr.
Chamberlain asking for final instructions to guide him in the
approaching conference, and outlining his own views of the situation
thus:
“It is my own inclination to put in the foreground the question of the
uitlanders’ grievances, treating it as broadly as possible, and
insisting that it is necessary, in order to relieve the situation, that
uitlanders should obtain some substantial degree of representation by
legislation to be passed this session. Following would be the general
line:
“Franchise after six years, retroactive, and at least seven members for
the Rand” (the mining district). “Present number of Volksraad of South
Africa being twenty-eight, this would make one-fifth of it uitlander
members.
“If President Kruger will not agree to anything like this, I should try
municipal government for the whole Rand as an alternative, with wide
powers, including control of police.
“If he rejects this, too, I do not see much use in discussing the
various outstanding questions between the two governments in detail,
such as dynamite, violations of Zululand boundary, ‘Critic’ case, Cape
boys and Indians, though it would be desirable to allude to them in
course of discussion, and point out the gravity of having so many
subjects of dispute unsettled.”
In a telegram, dated the 24th of May, Mr. Chamberlain instructed Sir
Alfred Milner, in part, as follows:
“I think personally you should lay all stress on the question of
franchise in first instance. Other reforms are less pressing and will
come in time if this can be arranged satisfactorily and form of oath
modified. Redistribution is reasonable, and you might accept a moderate
concession.
“If fair terms of franchise are refused by President Kruger it is
hardly worth while to bring forward other matters, such as aliens,
colored people, education, dynamite, etc., at the conference, and the
whole situation must be reconsidered.”
On the 31st of May, 1899, Sir Alfred Milner and President Kruger met in
conference at Bloemfontein. Their negotiations form one of the most
interesting features of the controversy between the two governments.
The results of the conference, in brief, were as follows. For the
uitlanders, Sir Alfred demanded that:
“Every foreigner who can prove satisfactorily that he has been a
resident in the country for five years; that he desires to make it his
permanent place of residence; that he is prepared to take the oath to
obey the laws, to undertake all obligations of citizenship, and to
defend the independence of the country; should be allowed to become a
citizen on taking that oath.”
Sir Alfred Milner modified these proposals by suggesting that the
franchise be restricted to persons possessing a specific amount of
property or of yearly wages, and who have good characters. He asked,
further, that “in order to make that proposal of any real use for the
new citizens, who mostly live in one district, * * * there should be a
certain number of new constituencies created,” and that “the number of
these districts should not be so small as to leave the representatives
of the new population in a contemptible minority.”
President Kruger did not accept Sir Alfred’s proposals, and submitted
counter proposals as follows:
“1. Every person who fixes his residence in the South African Republic
has to get himself registered on the Field Cornet’s books within
fourteen days after his arrival, according to the existing law. He will
be able after complying with the conditions under ‘A’ and after the
lapse of two years to get himself naturalized, and will, five years
after naturalization, on complying with the conditions under ‘B,’
obtain the full franchise.
“A.
“1. Six months’ notice of intention to apply for naturalization. 2.
Two years’ continuous residence. 3. Residence in the South African
Republic during that time. 4. No dishonoring sentence. 5. Proof of
obedience to laws; no act against the government or independence.
6. Proof of full state citizenship and franchise or title thereto
in former country. 7. Possession of unmortgaged property to the
value of £150; or occupation of house to the rental of £50 per
annum; or yearly income of at least £200. Nothing, however, shall
prevent the government from granting naturalization to persons who
have not satisfied this condition. 8. Taking of an oath similar to
that of the Orange Free State.
“B.
“1. Continuous registration for five years after naturalization. 2.
Continuous residence during that period. 3. No dishonoring
sentence. 4. Proof of obedience to laws. 5. Proof that applicant
still complies with the condition of A 7.”
In a memorandum which is a part of the records of the conference Sir
Alfred Milner admitted that President Kruger’s proposals were “a
considerable advance upon the existing provisions as to franchise.” But
he intimated that they stopped far short of the solution he had
suggested, and which, he said, “alone appeared to be adequate to the
needs of the case.” He also declared it a waste of time to discuss
further details; and so the conference ended in failure.
Notwithstanding the failure of the conference, the Volksraad of the
South African Republic passed a seven years’ retroactive franchise law
on the 19th of July, 1899. This law was somewhat modified from the
proposals submitted by President Kruger at the conference. It also gave
the uitlanders additional representation in both raads, which President
Kruger announced on the 27th of July as follows:
“By virtue of the powers conferred upon them the Executive Council
yesterday decided to give three new members in each Volksraad for the
Witwatersrand gold fields. That is to say, there are at present two
members for both raads; the number will be increased to eight, four to
sit in the first and four in the second raad. With the De Kaap
representative, there will now be five members to represent the mining
industry in a proposed enlarged legislature of thirty-one members.”
In London it was believed that the action of the Volksraad was a long
stride toward a peaceful solution of the difficulties. In the House of
Commons Mr. Chamberlain, after reading a telegram from Sir Alfred
Milner announcing the action of the Volksraad, said:
“I have no official information as to the redistribution, but it has
been stated that the government of the South African Republic proposes
to give seven new seats to the district chiefly inhabited by aliens.
“If this report is confirmed this important change in the proposals of
President Kruger, coupled with previous amendments, leads the
government to hope that the new law may prove a basis of a settlement
on the lines laid down by Sir Alfred Milner at the Bloemfontein
conference.”
But somewhere in the counsels by which the British authorities acted at
this time there was an element of suspicion and of yet unsatisfied
aggression, which did not make for a peaceful settlement. After the
Volksraad of the South African Republic had passed the seven years’
franchise law, together with enlarged representation of the uitlanders
in both raads, and after Mr. Chamberlain had made his hopeful
announcement in the House of Commons, the whole subject was reopened by
a new request. The Transvaal government was asked to agree that a joint
commission of inquiry, made up of expert delegates representing the
Transvaal and the British government, should be appointed to
investigate the exact effect of the new franchise law.
It is not surprising that this request fell as a shock upon a
government which had received from the power making this and other
extraordinary demands a guaranty, in the convention of 1884, that it
should be in every sense independent in the management of its internal
affairs. On the 21st of August President Kruger formally declined to
accede to the request for a joint committee to investigate the effect
of the new franchise law, and submitted an alternative proposition: The
South African Republic would give a five years’ retroactive franchise,
eight new seats in the Volksraad and a vote for President and
Commandant-General, conditioned upon Great Britain consenting:
“1. In the future not to interfere in the internal affairs of the
Transvaal Republic. 2. Not to insist further on its assertion of the
existence of suzerainty. 3. To agree to arbitration.”
In a dispatch dated the 2d of September, 1899, Mr. Chamberlain, having
rejected President Kruger’s alternative proposals, suggested another
conference, to be held at Cape Town, and ended with the significant
statement:
“Her Majesty’s government also desires to remind the government of the
South African Republic that there are other matters of difference
between the two governments which will not be settled by the grant of
political representation to the uitlanders, and which are not proper
subjects for reference to arbitration.”
In dispatches printed on the 7th of September President Kruger
signified a willingness to attend the Cape Town conference, and, while
holding that no good could come of a joint inquiry into the effect of
the new franchise law, he would agree that British representatives
should make an independent inquiry, after which any suggestions they
might make would be submitted to the raad. Concerning suzerainty he
announced the unalterable purpose of his people to adhere absolutely to
the convention of 1884.
On the 8th of September the British cabinet formulated a note to the
South African Republic very much in the nature of an ultimatum,
refusing point blank to entertain the proposal that Great Britain
should relinquish suzerainty over the Transvaal and pointedly
intimating that the offer of a joint inquiry into the effect of the
seven years’ franchise law would not remain open indefinitely.
The Transvaal’s rejoinder, printed unofficially on the 16th of
September, announced that the South African Republic withdrew the
proposal to give a five years’ franchise, that it would adhere to the
original seven years’ law already passed by the Volksraad, and that it
would, if necessary, adopt any suggestions Great Britain might make
with reference to the practical workings of the law.
On the 25th of September, after three days’ consideration, the British
cabinet gave out the text of another note to the South African
Republic, which read as follows:
“The object Her Majesty’s government had in view in the recent
negotiations has been stated in a manner which cannot admit of
misunderstanding—viz.: To obtain such substantial and immediate
representation for the outlanders as will enable them to secure for
themselves that fair and just treatment which was formally promised
them in 1881, and which Her Majesty intended to secure for them when
she granted privileges of self-government to the Transvaal.
“No conditions less comprehensive than those contained in the telegram
of September 8 can be relied on to effect this object.
“The refusal of the South African government to entertain the offer
thus made—coming, as it does, after four months of protracted
negotiations, themselves the climax of five years of extended
agitation—makes it useless to further pursue the discussion on the
lines hitherto followed, and the imperial government is now compelled
to consider the situation afresh and formulate its own proposals for a
final settlement of the issues which have been created in South Africa
by the policy constantly followed by the government of South Africa.
“They will communicate the result of their deliberations in a later
dispatch.”
CHAPTER XVI.
CAUSES OF THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.—CONCLUDED.
The “later dispatch” promised by the British cabinet was never sent.
The answer to it of the Transvaal government was, therefore, delayed
for several days, awaiting the new proposals that were to come as the
result of further deliberations on the part of Her Majesty’s
government. At last, on the eve of the outbreak of war, Mr. Chamberlain
gave out, on the 10th of October, the text of the republic’s rejoinder
to the British cabinet’s note of the 25th of September. It was
transmitted by cable, through Sir Alfred Milner, and read thus:
“Dear Sir: The government of the South African Republic feels itself
compelled to refer the government of Her Majesty, Queen of Great
Britain and Ireland, once more to the convention of London, 1884,
concluded between this republic and the United Kingdom, and which, in
Article XIV., secures certain specific rights to the white population
of this republic—namely: That all persons other than natives, on
conforming themselves to the laws of the South African Republic—
“A—Will have full liberty, with their families, to enter, travel or
reside in any part of the South African Republic.
“B—They will be entitled to hire or possess houses, manufactories,
warehouses, shops and other premises.
“C—They may carry on their commerce either in person or by any agents
whom they may think fit to employ.
“D—They shall not be subject, in respect of their premises or property
or in respect of their commerce and industry, to any taxes other than
those which are or may be imposed upon the citizens of the said
republic.
“This government wishes further to observe that these are the only
rights which Her Majesty’s government has reserved in the above
convention with regard to the outlander population of this republic,
and that a violation only of those rights could give that government a
right to diplomatic representations or intervention; while, moreover,
the regulation of all other questions affecting the position of the
rights of the outlander population under the above-mentioned convention
is handed over to the government and representatives of the people of
the South African Republic.
“Among the questions the regulation of which falls exclusively within
the competence of this government and of the Volksraad are included
those of the franchise and the representation of the people in this
republic; and, although this exclusive right of this government and of
the Volksraad for the regulation of the franchise and the
representation of the people is indisputable, yet this government has
found occasion to discuss, in friendly fashion, the franchise and
representation of the people with Her Majesty’s government—without,
however, recognizing any right thereto on the part of Her Majesty’s
government.
“This government has also, by the formulation of the now existing
franchise law and by a resolution with regard to the representation,
constantly held these friendly discussions before its eyes. On the part
of Her Majesty’s government, however, the friendly nature of these
discussions has assumed more and more a threatening tone, and the minds
of the people of this republic and the whole of South Africa have been
excited and a condition of extreme tension has been created, owing to
the fact that Her Majesty’s government could no longer agree to the
legislation respecting the franchise and the resolution respecting
representation in this republic, and, finally, by your note of Sept.
25, 1899, which broke off all friendly correspondence on the subject
and intimated that Her Majesty’s government must now proceed to
formulate its own proposals for the final settlement.
“This government can only see in the above intimation from Her
Majesty’s government a new violation of the convention of London, 1884,
which does not reserve to Her Majesty’s government the right to a
unilateral settlement of a question which is exclusively a domestic one
for this government, and which has been already regulated by this
government.
“On account of the strained situation and the consequent serious loss
in and interruption of trade in general, which the correspondence
respecting franchise and the representation of the people of this
republic has carried in its train, Her Majesty’s government has
recently pressed for an early settlement, and finally pressed, by your
intervention, for an answer within forty-eight hours, a demand
subsequently somewhat modified, to your note of September 12, replied
to by the note of this government of September 15, and to your note of
September 25, 1899, and thereafter further friendly negotiations were
broken off, this government receiving an intimation that a proposal for
a final settlement would shortly be made.
“Although this promise was once more repeated, the proposal, up to now,
has not reached this government.
“Even while this friendly correspondence was still going on the
increase of troops on a large scale was introduced by Her Majesty’s
government, the troops being stationed in the neighborhood of the
borders of this republic.
“Having regard to occurrences in the history of this republic, which it
is unnecessary here to call to mind, this republic felt obliged to
regard this military force in the neighborhood of its borders as a
threat against the independence of the South African Republic, since it
was aware of no circumstances which could justify the presence of such
a military force in South Africa and in the neighborhood of its
borders.
“In answer to an inquiry with respect thereto, addressed to His
Excellency, the High Commissioner, this government received, to its
great astonishment, in answer a veiled insinuation that from the side
of the republic an attack was being made on Her Majesty’s colonies,
and, at the same time, a mysterious reference to possibilities whereby
this government was strengthened in its suspicion that the independence
of this republic was being threatened.
“As a defensive measure this government was, therefore, obliged to send
a portion of the burghers of this republic in order to offer requisite
resistance to similar possibilities.”
It will be seen from this correspondence that the British government
had failed to send the formulation of “its own proposals for a final
settlement” promised in the note of September 25, and that active
preparations for war, even to the mobilization of troops, had been
going on—on both sides—for some weeks.
On the 7th of August, forty-nine days before the British cabinet
engaged to prolong friendly diplomatic correspondence on the subjects
at issue by promising a later dispatch containing its own proposals for
a final settlement, Mr. Chamberlain delivered a speech in the House of
Commons which has become historic—a speech which signified past all
possibility of mistake that at that early date war was a foregone
conclusion. After deprecating the use of the word “war” unless it were
absolutely necessary, he went on to say:
“The government had stated that they recognized the grievances under
which their subjects in Africa were laboring. They had stated that they
found those grievances not only in themselves a serious cause for
interposition, but a source of danger to the whole of South Africa.
“They (the government) said that their predominance, which both sides
of the House had constantly asserted, was menaced by the action of the
Transvaal government in refusing the redress of grievances, and in
refusing any consideration of the requests hitherto put in the most
moderate language of the suzerain power. They said that that was a
state of things which could not be long tolerated. They had said: ‘We
have put our hands to the plow and we will not turn back,’ and with
that statement I propose to rest content.”
Language could not be plainer. It was the British government’s demand
that the South African Republic must accept British control of her
internal affairs—of affairs so purely domestic as the franchise and the
representation of her citizens—or fight. It is not a little remarkable
in this connection that Germany, France, the United States of America
and other powerful nations whose subjects were mingled with the English
in that vast foreign population in the Transvaal, heard of no
grievances inflicted on their subjects by the South African Republic
sufficient to call forth even a friendly diplomatic representation and
request for redress.
On the morning of August the 8th, the day after Mr. Chamberlain’s
warlike speech, the London papers announced that the Liverpool and
Manchester regiments, then at the Cape, had been ordered to Natal; that
the Fifteenth Hussars were to embark on the 23d of August, and that
troops were to be massed along the Transvaal frontier. On the 11th of
August it was announced that 12,000 British troops were to be
dispatched from India to South Africa, and on the same day a large
consignment of war stores, including medical requisites, was given out
from the royal arsenal, Woolwich, for shipment to Natal, and the sum of
$2,000,000 in gold was sent to South Africa for the War Office account.
British troops began to arrive in South Africa from India and from
England in the first week of October. By the 10th some 15,000 had
landed. These were hurried to the frontiers of the Orange Free
State—both west and east—most of them being concentrated along the
northern boundary of Natal, convenient to the southern frontier of the
Transvaal.
The government of the South African Republic made no mistake as to the
meaning of Chamberlain’s belligerent speech in the House of Commons. On
the 8th of August orders were given for the purchase of 1,000 trek
oxen, to be used in the operations of the commissary department. On the
11th the German steamer Reichstag arrived at Lorenzo Marquez with 401
cases of ammunition. On the 12th it was decided to proceed at once with
the construction of fortified camps at Laing’s Nek and Majuba Hill, and
orders were issued for the preparation of armored trains. The
mobilization of artillery was begun on the 13th, and the next day that
force went into camps of instruction to learn the handling of guns of
the latest pattern. On the 14th of August the Field Cornets were
ordered to distribute Mauser rifles to the burghers, and the government
began the purchase of mules, provisions and general war supplies. Large
quantities of arms and ammunition were dispatched on the 15th of August
to Oudtshoorn, Aliwal Bethany, and other points in Cape Colony and the
Orange Free State for the use of any Africanders who should rise
against Great Britain when hostilities began. On the 19th of August
another German steamer, the Kœnig, arrived in Delagoa Bay with 2,000
cases of cartridges for the Transvaal government. The same day fifty
cases of ammunition each were dispatched to Kimberley, Jagersfontein
and Aliwal North for the arming of sympathizers in those districts of
Cape Colony. On the same day 300 Transvaal artillerists, with guns,
ammunition and camp equipage, left Johannesburg for Komati Pass, in the
Libombo Mountains.
And so it went on during the “friendly diplomatic correspondence,”
which terminated on the 25th of September—awaiting the “later dispatch”
from the British cabinet, which never came; both sides arming and
maneuvering for strategic advantages in preparation for the struggle
that was seen to be inevitable.
Perceiving that all the days spent in waiting for that “later dispatch”
were being used by Great Britain in massing her gigantic powers of war
in South Africa and along the Transvaal frontier, and believing that no
such dispatch would now come until the points of war were all secured
by his great antagonist, President Kruger at last astonished the
world—and, most of all, Great Britain—by issuing an ultimatum
sufficiently bold and defiant to have come from any of the first-rate
powers of the earth.
The document was dated 5 o’clock, p. m., on Monday, October the 9th,
and read as follows:
“Her Majesty’s unlawful intervention in the internal affairs of this
republic, in conflict with the London convention of 1884, and by the
extraordinary strengthening of her troops in the neighborhood of the
borders of this republic, has caused an intolerable condition of things
to arise, to which this government feels itself obliged, in the
interest not only of this republic, but also of all South Africa, to
make an end as soon as possible.
“This government feels itself called upon and obliged to press
earnestly and with emphasis for an immediate termination of this state
of things, and to request Her Majesty’s government to give assurances
upon the following four demands:
“First—That all points of mutual difference be regulated by friendly
recourse to arbitration or by whatever amicable way may be agreed upon
by this government and Her Majesty’s government.
“Second—That all troops on the borders of this republic shall be
instantly withdrawn.
“Third—That all re-enforcements of troops which have arrived in South
Africa since June 1, 1899, shall be removed from South Africa within a
reasonable time, to be agreed upon with this government, and with the
mutual assurance and guaranty on the part of this government that no
attack upon or hostilities against any portion of the possessions of
the British government shall be made by this republic during the
further negotiations within a period of time to be subsequently agreed
upon between the governments; and this government will, on compliance
therewith, be prepared to withdraw the burghers of this republic from
the borders.
“Fourth—That Her Majesty’s troops which are now on the high seas shall
not be landed in any part of South Africa.
“This government presses for an immediate and an affirmative answer to
these four questions and earnestly requests Her Majesty’s government to
return an answer before or upon Wednesday, October 11, 1899, not later
than 5 o’clock p. m.
“It desires further to add that in the unexpected event of an answer
not satisfactory being received by it within the interval, it will with
great regret be compelled to regard the action of Her Majesty’s
government as a formal declaration of war and will not hold itself
responsible for the consequences thereof, and that, in the event of any
further movement of troops occurring within the above-mentioned time in
a nearer direction to our borders, this government will be compelled to
regard that also as a formal declaration of war.”
This document was signed by F. W. Reitz, State Secretary, and handed by
him to Mr. Conyngham Greene, Her Majesty’s agent at Pretoria. On
Wednesday afternoon, October the 11th, at 3 o’clock, Mr. Greene
delivered the reply of his government, which read thus:
“Her Majesty’s government declines even to consider the peremptory
demands of the Transvaal government.”
Within an hour the telegraphic wires had flashed through all the South
African Republic the ominous word “Oorlog”—war!
Mr. Conyngham Greene at once asked for his passport, and on the next
day, October the 12th, with his family, he was sent, attended by a
guard of honor, to the border of the Orange Free State, where a similar
guard received and conducted him to British territory in Cape Colony.
Thursday, the 12th of October, was a busy and exciting day in both the
Transvaal and the Orange Free State—for the two republics stood as one
in the struggle. That night—twenty-four hours after war had been
declared—30,000 burghers were on the borders ready to do battle. Of
these 20,000 invaded Natal under General Joubert, and the vanguard
under General Kock occupied Newcastle on the 13th of October. The other
10,000, under General Piet Cronje, crossed the western border into
British Bechuanaland and marched on Mafeking.
Thus, and for the causes set forth, began the Africanders’ Second War
of Independence. It was not in the proposed scope of this book to treat
of its fortunes. The prospect is that it will be a long and sanguinary
war. The story of it will afford abundant and interesting matter for a
later volume.
It only remains to show that in all the matters in dispute between the
government of the Transvaal and that of Great Britain, and in the war
which resulted therefrom, the two Africander republics acted in
solidarity. Early in November, 1899, the President of the Orange Free
State announced this to his people and to the world in the following
proclamation:
“Burghers of the Orange Free State: The time which we had so much
desired to avoid—the moment when we as a nation are compelled with arms
to oppose injustice and shameless violence—is at hand. Our sister
republic to the north of the Vaal river is about to be attacked by an
unscrupulous enemy, who for many years has prepared herself and sought
pretexts for the violence of which he is now guilty, whose purpose is
to destroy the existence of the Africander race.
“With our sister republic we are not only bound by ties of blood, of
sympathy and of common interests, but also by formal treaty which has
been necessitated by circumstances. This treaty demands of us that we
assist her if she should be unjustly attacked, which we unfortunately
for a long time have had too much reason to expect. We therefore cannot
passively look on while injustice is done her, and while also our own
dearly bought freedom is endangered, but are called as men to resist,
trusting the Almighty, firmly believing that He will never permit
injustice and unrighteousness to triumph.
“Now that we thus resist a powerful enemy, with whom it has always been
our highest desire to live in friendship, notwithstanding injustice and
wrong done by him to us in the past, we solemnly declare in the
presence of the Almighty God that we are compelled thereto by the
injustice done to our kinsmen and by the consciousness that the end of
their independence will make our existence as an independent state of
no significance, and that their fate, should they be obliged to bend
under an overwhelming power, will also soon after be our own fate.
“Solemn treaties have not protected our sister republic against
annexation, against conspiracy, against the claim of an abolished
suzerainty, against continuous oppression and interference, and now
against a renewed attack which aims only at her downfall.
“Our own unfortunate experiences in the past have also made it
sufficiently clear to us that we cannot rely on the most solemn
promises and agreements of Great Britain, when she has at her helm a
government prepared to trample on treaties, to look for feigned
pretexts for every violation of good faith by her committed. This is
proved among other things by the unjust and unlawful British
intervention, after we had overcome an armed and barbarous black tribe
on our eastern frontier, as also by the forcible appropriation of the
dominion over part of our territory where the discovery of diamonds had
caused the desire for this appropriation, although contrary to existing
treaties. The desire and intention to trample on our rights as an
independent and sovereign nation, notwithstanding a solemn convention
existing between this state and Great Britain, have also been more than
once and are now again shown by the present government, by giving
expressions in public documents to an unfounded claim of paramountcy
over the whole of South Africa, and therefore also over this state.
“With regard to the South African Republic, Great Britain has moreover
refused until the present to allow her to regain her original position
in respect to foreign affairs, a position which she had lost in no
sense by her own faults. The original intention of the conventions to
which the republic had consented under pressure and circumstances has
been perverted and continually been used by the present British
administration as a means for the practice of tyranny and of injustice,
and, among other things, for the support of a revolutionary propaganda
within the republic in favor of Great Britain.
“And while no redress has been offered, as justice demands, for
injustice done to the South African Republic on the part of the British
government; and while no gratitude is exhibited for the magnanimity
shown at the request of the British government to British subjects who
had forfeited under the laws of the republic their lives and property,
yet no feeling of shame has prevented the British government, now that
the gold mines of immense value have been discovered in the country, to
make claims of the republic, the consequence of which, if allowed, will
be that those who—or whose forefathers—have saved the country from
barbarism and have won it for civilization with their blood and their
tears, will lose their control over the interests of the country to
which they are justly entitled according to divine and human laws. The
consequence of these claims would be, moreover, that the greater part
of the power will be placed in the hands of those who, foreigners by
birth, enjoy the privilege of depriving the country of its chief
treasure, while they have never shown any loyalty to a foreign
government. Besides, the inevitable consequence of the acceptance of
these claims would be that the independence of the country as a
self-governing, independent sovereign republic would be irreparably
lost. For years past British troops in great numbers have been placed
on the frontiers of our sister republic in order to compel her by fear
to accede to the demands which would be pressed upon her, and in order
to encourage revolutionary disturbances and the cunning plans of those
whose greed for gold is the cause of their shameless undertakings.
“Those plans have now reached their climax in the open violence to
which the present British government now resorts. While we readily
acknowledge the honorable character of thousands of Englishmen who
loathe such deeds of robbery and wrong, we cannot but abhor the
shameless breaking of treaties, the feigned pretexts for the
transgression of law, the violation of international law and of justice
and the numerous right-rending deeds of the British statesmen, who will
now force a war upon the South African Republic. On their heads be the
guilt of blood, and may a just Providence reward all as they deserve.
“Burghers of the Orange Free State, rise as one man against the
oppressor and the violator of right!
“In the strife to which we are now driven have care to commit no deed
unworthy of a Christian and of a burgher of the Orange Free State. Let
us look forward with confidence to a fortunate end of this conflict,
trusting to the Higher Power without whose help human weapons are of no
avail.
“May He bless our arms. Under His banner we advance to battle for
liberty and for fatherland.
M. T. Steyn, State President.”
CHAPTER XVII.
THE COUNTRY OF THE AFRICANDERS.
Some knowledge of the physical structure of South Africa is necessary
to an understanding of its resources, economic conditions and the
longstanding political problems which, to all appearance, are now
nearing a final solution.
Nature has divided that part of Africa lying south of the Zambesi River
into three distinct and well-defined regions. A strip of lowland skirts
the coast of the Indian Ocean all the way from Cape Town around to
Natal, Delagoa Bay and still northeast to the mouths of the Zambesi.
Between Durban, the principal port of Natal, and Cape Town this strip
is very narrow in places—the hills coming down almost to the margin of
the sea. Beyond Durban, to the northeast, the low plain grows wider.
This belt of lowland is more or less swampy, and from Durban northward
is exceedingly malarious and unhealthful. This feature is a prime
factor in the physical structure of the country and has had much to do
with shaping its history.
The second region is composed of the elevated and much broken surface
presented by the Drakensburg or Quathlamba range of mountains, reaching
from Cape Town to the Zambesi Valley—a distance of sixteen hundred
miles. In traveling inland, after leaving the level belt, at from
thirty to sixty miles from the sea the hills rise higher and
higher—from three thousand to six thousand feet. These hills are only
the spurs of the principal range, some of whose peaks rise to an
elevation of eleven thousand feet.
Beyond the Quathlamba Mountains, to the west and north, is the third
natural division of South Africa—a vast tableland or plateau, varying
from three thousand to five thousand feet above the sea level. This
region occupies about seven-eighths of the area of South Africa.
To a bird’s-eye view of the country the physical scheme is exceedingly
simple—a great plateau filling the interior, a belt of lowland
bordering the Indian Ocean and one principal mountain range between the
two.
Geologically considered, the oldest formation is found in the northern
part of the tableland and toward the northeastern end of the Quathlamba
Mountains. The principal formations in this region are granite and
gneiss, believed to be of great antiquity—probably of the same age as
the Laurentian formations in America. The rocks of the Karoo district
are not so ancient. There are no traces anywhere in South Africa of
late volcanic action, nor has any active volcano been discovered there;
but eruptive rocks of ancient date—porphyries and greenstones—are found
overlying the sedimentary deposits in the Karoo district and in the
mountain systems of Basutoland and the Orange Free State.
The African coast is notably poor in harbors. There is no haven between
Cape Town and Durban. From Durban to the Zambesi there are but two good
ports—that of Delagoa Bay and Beira. With the exception of Saldanha
Bay, twenty miles north of Cape Town, the western coast, for a thousand
miles, has no harbor.
The temperature in Southern Africa is much lower than the latitude
would lead one to expect. This is accounted for by the fact that there
is a vast preponderance of water in the southern hemisphere, which has
the effect of giving a cooler temperature than prevails in a
corresponding northern latitude. The difference in both heat and cold
represents over two degrees of difference in latitude. Thus, Cape Town,
34° S., has a lower temperature in both summer and winter than
Gibraltar and Aleppo, in 36° N. Nevertheless, the thermometer registers
high in some parts of South Africa. Even at Durban, in latitude 30° S.,
the heat is often severe, and the northern part of the Transvaal and
the British territories to the north of it lie within the Tropic of
Capricorn. The mean temperature in South Africa proper is 70°
Fahrenheit in January and 80° in July.
Over most of the country the climate is exceptionally dry. In the
region of Cape Colony there are well-defined summer and winter; but in
the rest of South Africa for about two-thirds of the year there is only
a dry season, when the weather is cooler, and a wet season of four or
five months, when the sun is the highest and the heat is most intense.
The rainy season is not so continuous, nor is there so great a
precipitation, as in some other hot countries. In the parts where the
rainfall is heaviest, averaging over thirty inches in the year, the
moisture soon disappears by evaporation and absorption, and the surface
remains parched till the next wet season. As a consequence of this the
air is generally dry, clear and stimulating.
It is interesting to note the effect upon climate of the physical
structure described above. The prevailing and rain-bringing winds are
from the east and the southeast. They bring sufficient moisture to the
low plain along the sea coast, and passing inland the rain-bearing
clouds water the foothills of the Quathlamba Mountains and precipitate
snow on the loftier peaks beyond them. A portion of the moisture is
carried still farther to the west and falls in showers on the eastern
part of the plateau—the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, the eastern
border of Bechuanaland and the region northward toward the Zambesi.
Sections farther to the north and west receive but little of the annual
rainfall, ranging from five to ten inches in the year. That little is
soon dissipated, the surface becomes dry and hard, and such vegetation
as springs up under the brief showers soon dies. Much of this region is
a desert, and so must remain until more and more continuous moisture is
supplied, either by artificial irrigation or by some favorable change
in natural conditions.
From these permanent physical features—the lowlands along the coast,
the elevated plateau in the interior, the mountain range running
between them, a burning sun and a dry atmosphere—have developed many of
the other natural phenomena of South Africa.
The rivers of that country—laid down in great numbers on the maps—are
not rivers during much of the year. In the dry season they are either
without water altogether or consist of a succession of little pools
scarcely sufficient to supply the cattle on their banks with drink. And
when they are rivers they are, most of the time, such as can neither be
forded nor navigated; the violent rains—continuing for hours and
sometimes for many days—have converted them into roaring torrents.
Now, if that country could have been entered by waterways, as were
North and South America, it would not have remained an unknown land so
long. But there was no other means of penetrating it than the lumbering
ox-wagon, making at best a dozen miles a day, with frequent long halts
in the neighborhood of good grass in order to rest and recuperate the
cattle. It is this lack of navigable rivers that now compels the people
to depend exclusively on railways for internal transportation and
travel. With the exception of tidal streams there is no internal water
communication of any value.
Another peculiarity of the east coast rivers arises out of the nearness
of the Quathlamba Mountains to the sea. Such rivers as take their rise
in the mountains have very short courses, and the few that come from
beyond, finding channels through the mountain passes, are so obstructed
by rapids and cataracts at the point of descent from the higher levels
that no boat can ascend them.
South Africa presents to the foreigner from cooler climates no serious
danger as to health. The sun-heat would be trying were it not for the
dryness of the atmosphere and the invariable coolness of the nights,
which have the effect of a refreshing tonic. With due care in providing
sufficient wraps for the occasional cold day in the dry season, and the
means of comfortable sleep during the cool nights, there is nothing to
fear.
The much-dreaded malarial fever has its habitat in the lowlands of both
the east and the west coast. Persons who are not immune to it can
choose their place of residence on the higher lands, or take refuge in
quinine.
The dryness and purity of the air in many parts of South Africa—notably
Ceres, Kimberley, Beauport West and other places in the interior
plateau—make it peculiarly suitable for persons suffering from any form
of chest disease—always excepting tuberculosis, for which the sure
remedy has not yet been discovered. But even the victims of that malady
find atmospheric and other conditions friendly to a prolongation of
life in the salubrious air and sunshine of the South African
tablelands.
On the whole, there can be no question as to the general good effect
upon health of the South African climate. Europeans and Americans
living therein pursue their athletic sports with all the zest
experienced in their native climates, and the descendants of the
original Dutch and Huguenot settlers—now in the sixth and seventh
generations—have lost nothing of the stature nor of the physical energy
that characterized their forefathers.
South Africa used to be the habitat of an unusually rich fauna. The
lion, leopard, elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, antelope in
thirty-one species, zebra, quagga, buffalo and various other wild
creatures—some of them savage, and all of them beautiful after their
kind—abounded. But of late years all this has been changed. Since
firearms have been greatly improved and cheapened and the country has
been opened to the Nimrods of the world and the swarming natives have
procured guns and learned to use them, the wild animals have been
thinned out. There are now but two regions in South Africa where big
game can be killed in any great numbers—the Portuguese territory from
the Zambesi to Delagoa Bay, and the adjoining eastern frontier of the
Transvaal.
Snakes of various kinds and sizes, from the poisonous black mamba to
the python that grows to over twenty feet in length, used to infest
many parts of the country, but they have almost disappeared from the
temperate regions inhabited by the whites.
The farmers’ worst enemies are not now the great beasts and reptiles of
former years, but the baboons, which gather in the more rocky districts
and kill the lambs, and two species of insects—the white ants and the
locusts—which sometimes ravage the eastern coast.
Beyond that of most countries in the world of equal extent the flora of
South Africa is rich in both genera and species. The neighborhood of
Cape Town and the warm, sub-tropical regions of eastern Cape Colony and
Natal are specially affluent in beautiful flowers. In the Karoo
district, and northeastward over the plateau into Bechuanaland and the
Transvaal, vegetation presents but little variety of aspect, owing in
part to the general sameness of geological formations and in part to
the prevailing dryness of the surface.
In general, South Africa is comparatively bare of forests—a fact for
which denudation by man cannot account, for it is yet a country new to
civilization. Some primitive forests are to be found on the south coast
of Cape Colony and in Natal. These have been put under the care of a
Forest Department of the government. In the great Knysna forest wild
elephants still roam at large. The trees, however, even in the
preserved forests, are small, few of them being more than fifty or
sixty feet in height. The yellowwood grows the tallest, but the less
lofty sneezewood is the most useful to man. Up the hillsides north of
Graham’s Town and King William’s Town are immense tracts of scrub from
four to eight feet high, with occasional patches of prickly pear—a
formidable invader from America, through which both men and cattle make
their passage at the cost of much effort and many irritating wounds
from the sharp spines. A large part of this region, being suitable for
little else, has been utilized for ostrich farming.
In the Karoo district and northward through Cape Colony, western
Bechuanaland and the German possessions in Namaqualand and Damaraland—a
desert region—there are few trees except small and thorny mimosas.
Farther east, where there is a greater rainfall, the trees are more
numerous and less thorny. The plain around Kimberley, once well wooded,
has been stripped of its trees to furnish props for the diamond mines
and fuel.
The lack of forests is one of the principal drawbacks to the
development of South Africa. Timber is everywhere costly; the rainfall
is less than it would be if the country were well wooded; and when
rains do come the moisture is more rapidly dissipated by absorption,
evaporation and sudden freshets because of the absence of shade. Of
late energetic measures have been taken to supply nature’s lack by
artificial forestry. On the great veldt plateau in the vicinity of
Kimberley and of Pretoria and in other localities the people have
planted the Australian gum tree, the eucalyptus and several varieties
of European trees, including the oak, which, besides being useful, is
very beautiful. If the practice be continued the country will reap an
incalculable benefit, not only in appearance, but also in climatic
conditions.
The largest political division of South Africa is Cape Colony. The area
is about 292,000 square miles and the population, white and native, is
2,011,305. The whites number about 400,000. But little of it is
suitable for agriculture, and considerable portions of it are too arid
for stock raising. Including the natives the population is only about
seven to the square mile. On the lowlands skirting the sea on the south
and west are some fruitful regions that give a profitable yield of
grapes and corn. On the tableland of the interior there is a rainfall
of only from five to fifteen inches in the year. As a consequence the
surface is dry and unfriendly to vegetable life. In an area of three
hundred miles by one hundred and fifty there is not a stream having a
current throughout the year, nor is there any moisture at all in the
dry season except some shallow pools which are soon dried up by
evaporation. Nevertheless, in this desert, bare of trees and of
herbage, there is abundance of prickly shrubs, which are sufficiently
succulent when they sprout under the summer rains to afford good
browsing for goats and sheep. In the northwestern part of the interior
and northward to Kimberley and Mafeking, the country is better watered
than the more westerly regions, and grazing animals find a generous
growth of grass as well as nutritious shrubs. In the southeastern part
the rainfall is still heavier. The foothills of the Quathlamba Range
toward the sea are covered in places with forests, the grass is more
abundant and much of the land can be tilled to profit without
artificial irrigation. In 1899 there were about 3,000 miles of railway
and nearly 7,000 miles of telegraph open in the colony. The number of
vessels entering the ports of Cape Colony in 1897 was 1,093, with a
total tonnage of 2,694,370 tons; in addition to this there were 1,278
vessels engaged in the coastwise trade, with a tonnage of 3,725,831
tons. The foreign commerce of Cape Colony is large, including, as it
does, the bulk of the import and export trade of all South Africa. The
total importation of merchandise for 1897 was $80,127,495, and the
exports, including a large proportion of the gold and diamond products
of Kimberley and the Transvaal, amounted, in 1898, to $123,213,458.
Natal, beyond any other part of South Africa, is favored by natural
advantages. It lies on the seaward slope of the Quathlamba Mountains,
and its scenery is charmingly diversified by some of the lesser peaks
and the foothills of that range. It is well watered by perennial
streams fed by the snows and springs of the mountains. While the higher
altitudes to the west are bare, there is abundance of grass lower down
and toward the coast there is plenty of wood. The climate in general is
much warmer than that of Cape Colony; in the low strip bordering the
sea it is almost tropical. This high temperature is not caused so much
by latitude as by the current in the Mozambique Channel, which brings
from the tropical regions of the Indian Ocean a vast stream of warm
water, which acts on the climate of Natal as does the Gulf Stream on
that of Georgia and the Carolinas. Nearly the whole of Natal may be
counted temperate; the soil is rich, the scenery is beautiful, and,
with the exception of certain malarious districts at the north, the
climate is healthful. Foreigners from Europe and America may reasonably
hope to enjoy long life and prosperity in it. The principal crop for
export is sugar, but cereals of all kinds, coffee, indigo, arrowroot,
ginger, tobacco, rice, pepper, cotton and tea are grown to profit. The
coal fields of the colony are large, the output in 1897 being 244,000
tons. There are 487 miles of railway, built and operated by the
government. The imports in 1897 amounted to nearly $30,000,000. Pop.
828,500; whites, 61,000.
The Orange Free State, in its entire area of 48,000 square miles, is on
the great interior plateau at an altitude of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet
above the sea level. The surface is mostly level, but there are
occasional hills—some of them rising to a height of 6,000 feet. The
land is, for the most part, bare of trees, but affords good grazing for
two-thirds of the year. The air is remarkably pure and bracing. There
are no blizzards to encounter. There are, however, occasional violent
thunderstorms, which precipitate enormous hailstones—large enough to
kill the smaller animals, and even men. Notwithstanding the generally
parched appearance of the country, the larger streams do not dry up in
winter. The southeastern part of the Free State, particularly the
valley of the Caledon River, is one of the best corn-growing regions in
Africa. In the main, however, with the exception of the river valleys,
the land is more suitable for pasture than for tillage. The grazing
farms are large and require the services of but few men; as a
consequence the population increases slowly. The Free State,
corresponding in size to the State of New York, has only about 80,000
white inhabitants and 130,000 natives. The chief industry is
agriculture and stock-raising. A railway, constructed by the Cape
Colony government, connects Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange
Free State, with the ports of Cape Colony and Natal, and with Pretoria,
the capital of the South African Republic.
The South African Republic, commonly called the Transvaal, is 119,139
square miles in area. The white population, numbering 345,397, is
largely concentrated in the Witwatersrand mining district. The native
inhabitants number 748,759. All the Transvaal territory belongs to the
interior plateau, with the exception of a strip of lower land on the
eastern and northern borders. This lower section is malarious. It is
thought, however, that drainage and cultivation will correct this, as
they have done in other fever districts. Like the Free State, the
Transvaal is principally a grazing country. The few trees that exist in
the more sheltered parts are of little value, except those in the lower
valleys. The winters are severely cold, and the burning sun of summer
soon dries up the moisture and bakes the soil, causing the grass to be
stunted and yellow during most of the year. Until about sixteen years
ago there was little in the surface appearance and known resources of
the Transvaal to attract settlers, and nothing to make it a desirable
possession to any other people than its Africander inhabitants. In 1884
discoveries of gold were made, the first of which that excited the
world being some rich auriferous veins on the Sterkfontein farm. In a
little time it became known that probably the richest deposit of gold
in the world was in the Witwatersrand district of the Transvaal. Later,
in 1897, diamonds were discovered in the Transvaal, the first stone
having been picked up at Reitfontein, near the Vaal River, in August of
that year. Since then the precious crystals have been found in the
Pretoria district, in Roodeplaats on the Pienaars River, at
Kameelfontein and at Buffelsduff. The output of gold in 1898 was
$68,154,000, and of diamonds $212,812.01. The total output of gold
since it was first discovered amounts to over $300,000,000, with
$3,500,000,000 “in sight,” as valued by experts. The commerce of the
South African Republic, while necessarily great because of the large
number of people employed by the mining industries, cannot be as
accurately stated as that of states whose imports are all received
through a given port or ports. Foreign goods reach it through several
ports in Cape Colony, Natal, Portuguese East Africa, and in smaller
quantities from other ports on the coast. The total imports for 1897
are estimated at $107,575,000.
Griqualand West, a British possession bordering on Cape Colony on the
south and on the Free State on the east, owes its chief importance to
the Kimberley diamond mines, near the western boundary of the Free
State and 600 miles from Cape Town. These mines were opened in 1868 and
1869. It is estimated that since that time $350,000,000 worth of
diamonds in the rough—worth double that sum after cutting—have been
taken out. This enormous production would have been greatly exceeded
had not the owners of the various mines in the group formed an
agreement by which the annual output was limited to a small excess over
the annual demand in the world’s diamond markets. So plentiful is the
supply, and so inexpensive, comparatively, is the cost of mining that
other diamond-producing works have almost entirely withdrawn from the
industry since the South African mines were opened. It has been
estimated that ninety-eight per cent of the diamonds of commerce are
now supplied by these mines.
The British protectorate of Bechuanaland, lying to the north of Cape
Colony and Griqualand and to the west of the Transvaal, has an area of
about 213,000 square miles, with a population of 200,000—mostly
natives. A railway and telegraph line connect it with Cape Colony on
the south and Rhodesia on the north.
Rhodesia includes the territory formerly known as British South Africa
and a large part of that known as British East Africa. The area is
about 750,000 square miles—equal to about one-fourth of the area of the
United States of America, excluding Alaska. No exact statement of
population can be made; estimates range from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000, of
which only about 6,000 are whites. The entire territory is under the
administration of the British South African Company, organized and
incorporated in 1889, subject to the British High Commissioner at Cape
Town. Rhodesia lies chiefly within the tablelands of South Africa and
has large but yet undeveloped resources, including grazing and
agricultural lands and important mining districts. Owing to the newness
of the country to civilization no definite statement can be made
relative to its commerce. In all probability Rhodesia will open a field
wherein enterprise along the lines favored by its natural resources and
conditions will be richly rewarded.
THE END.
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