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BY
(dedication)
DEDICATED TO MY CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN.
IN the midst of the manifold utterances and discussions on the
burning question of to-day,--the War in South
Africa,--there is one side of the subject which, it seems to me, has
not as yet been considered with the seriousness which it
deserves,--and that is the question of Slavery, and of the treatment
of the native races of South Africa. Though this question has not yet in
England or on the Continent been cited as one of the direct causes of the
war, I am convinced,--as are many others,--that it lies very near
to the heart of the present trouble.
The object of this paper is simply to bring witnesses together who will
testify to the past and present condition of the native
races under British, Dutch, and Transvaal rule. Thee witnesses shall not be all of one nation; they shall come from different countries, and among them there shall be representatives of the native peoples themselves. I shall add little of my own to the testimony of these witnesses. But I will say, in advance, that what I desire to make plain for some sincere persons who are perplexed, is this,--that where a Government has established by Law the principle of the complete and final abolition of Slavery, and made its practice illegal for all time,--as our British Government has done,--there is hope for the native races:--there is always hope that, by an appeal to the law and to British authority, any and every wrong done to the natives, which approaches to or threatens the reintroduction of slavery, shall be redressed. The Abolition of Slavery, enacted by our Government in 1834, was the proclamation of a great principle, strong and clear, a straight line by which every enactment dealing with the question, and every act of individuals, or groups of individuals, bearing on the liberty of the natives can be measured, and any deviation from that straight line of principle can be exactly estimated and judged.
When we speak of injustice done to the natives by the South African
Republics, we are apt to be met with the reproach that the English have
also been guilty of cruelty to native races. This in unhappily true, and
shall not be disguised in the following pages;--but mark
this,--that it is true of certain individuals bearing the English
name, true of groups of individuals, of certain adventurers and
speculators. But this fact does not touch the far more important and
enduring fact that wherever British rule is established, slavery is
abolished, and illegal.
This fact is the ground of the hope for the future of the Missionaries
of our own country, and of other European countries,
as well as of the poor natives themselves, so far as they have come to understand the matter; and in several instances they have shown that they do understand it, and appreciate it keenly.
Those English persons, or groups of persons, who have denied to the
native labourers their hire (which is the essence of slavery), have acted
on their own responsibility, and illegally. This should be
made to be clearly understood in future conditions of peace, and rendered
impossible henceforward.
That future peace which we all desire, on the cessation of the present
grievous war, must be a peace founded on justice, for there is no other
peace worthy of the name; and it must be not only justice as between white
men, but as between white men and men of every shade of complexion.
A speaker at a public meeting lately expressed a sentiment which is more
or less carelessly repeated by many. I quote it, as helping me to define
the principle to which I have referred, which marks the difference between
an offence or crime committed by an individual against the
law, and an offence or crime sanctioned, permitted, or enacted by a State
or Government itself, or by public authority in any way.
This speaker, after confessing, apparently with reluctance, that
"the South African Republic had not been stainless in its relations
towards the blacks," added, "but for these deeds--every
one of them--we could find a parallel among our own people." I
think a careful study of the history of the South African races would
convince this speaker that he has exaggerated the case as against
"our own people" in the matter of deliberate cruelty and
violence towards the natives. However that may be, it does not alter the
fact of the wide difference between the evil deeds of men acting on their
own responsibility and the evil deeds of Governments, and of Communities in
which the
Governmental Authorities do not forbid, but sanction, such actions.
As an old Abolitionist, who has been engaged for thirty years in a war
against slavery in another form, may I be allowed to cite a parallel? That
Anti-slavery War was undertaken against a Law introduced into
England, which endorsed, permitted, and in fact, legalized, a moral and
social slavery already existing--a slavery to the vice of
prostitution. The pioneers of the opposition to this law saw the tremendous
import, and the necessary consequences of such a law. They had previously
laboured to lessen the social evil by moral and spiritual means, but now
they turned their whole attention to obtaining the abolition of the
disastrous enactment which took that evil under its protection. They felt
that the action of Government in passing that law brought the whole nation
(which is responsible for its Government) under a sentence of guilt--a
sentence of moral death. It lifted off from the shoulders of individuals,
in a measure, the moral responsibility which God had laid upon the, and
took that responsibility on its own shoulders, as representing the whole
nation; it foreshadowed a national blight. My readers know that we
destroyed that legislation after a struggle of eighteen years. In the
course of that long struggle, we were constantly met by an assertion
similar in spirit to that made by the speaker to whom I have referred; and
to this day we are met by it in certain European countries. They say to us,
"But for every scandal proceeding from this social vice, which you
cite as committed under the system of Governmental Regulation and sanction,
we can find a parallel in the streets of London, where no Governmental
sanction exists." We are constantly taunted with this, and possibly
we may have to admit its truth in a measure. But our accusers do not see
the immense difference
between Governmental and individual responsibility in this vital matter, neither do they see how additionally hard, how hopeless, becomes the position of the slave who, under the Government sanction, has no appeal to the law of the land; an appeal to the Government which is itself an upholder of slavery, is impossible. The speaker above cited concluded by saying: "The best precaution against the abuse of power on the part of whites living amidst a coloured population is to make the punishment of misdeeds come home to the persons who are guilty of those misdeeds; and if he could but get his countrymen to act up to that view he believed we should really have a better prospect for the future of South Africa than we had had in the past."
With this sentiment I am entirely in accord. It is our hope that the
present national awakening on the whole subject of our position and
responsibilities in South Africa will--in case of the
re-establishment of peace under the principles of British
rule--result in a change in the condition of the native races, both in
the Transvaal, and at the hands of our countrymen and others who may be
acting in their own interests, or in the interests of Commercial
Societies.
I do not intend to sketch anything approaching to a history of South
African affairs during the last seventy or eighty years; that has been ably
done by others, writing from both the British and the Boer side. I shall
only attempt to trace the condition of certain native tribes in connection
with some of the most salient events in South Africa of the century which
is past.
In 1877, as my readers know, the Transvaal was annexed by Sir Theophilus
Shepstone. There are very various opinions as to the justice of that
annexation. I will only here remark that it was at the earnest solicitation
of the Transvaal leaders of that date that an interference on the part of
the British
Commissioner was undertaken. The Republic was in a state of apparently hopeless anarchy, owing to constant conflicts with warlike native tribes around and in the heart of the country. The exchequer was exhausted. By the confession of the President (Burgers) the country was on the verge of bankruptcy.* The acceptance of the annexation was not unanimous, but it was accepted formally in a somewhat sullen and desponding spirit, as a means of averting further impending calamity and restoring a measure of order and peace. Whether this justified or not the act of annexation I do not pretend to judge. The results, however, for the Republic were for the time, financial relief and prosperity, and better treatment of the natives. The financial condition of the country, as I have said, at the tie of the annexation, was one of utter bankruptcy. "After three years of British rule, however, the total revenue receipts for the first quarter of 1879 and 1880 amounted to £22,773 and £47,982 respectively. That is to say, that, during the last year of British rule, the revenue of the country more than doubled itself, and amounted to about £160,000 a year, taking the quarterly returns at the low average of £40,000."+ Trade, also, which in April, 1877, was completely paralysed, had increased enormously. In the middle of 1879, the committee of the Transvaal Chamber of Commerce pointed out that the trade of the country had in two years risen to the sum of two millions sterling per annum. They also pointed out that more than half the land-tax was paid by Englishmen and other Europeans.
In 1881, the Transvaal (under Mr. Gladstone's administration) was
liberated from British control. It was given back to its own leaders, under
certain conditions, agreed to and solemnly
___________________* The financial resources of the
country at that time amounted to 12s.
6d.
___________________+ Quoted from Parliamentary
Blue Book.
Page 7
signed by the President. These are the much-discussed conditions of the Convention of 1881, one of these conditions being that Slavery should be abolished. This condition was indeed, insisted on in every agreement or convention made between the British Government and the Boers; the first being that of 1852, called the Sand River Convention; the second, a convention entered into two years later called the Bloemfontein Convention (which created the Orange Free State); a third agreement as to the cessation of Slavery was entered into at the period of the Annexation, 1877; a fourth was the Convention of 1881; a fifth the Convention of 1884. I do not here speak of the other terms of these Conventions, I only remark that in each a just treatment of the native races was demanded and agreed to.
The retrocession of the Transvaal in 1881 has been much lauded as an act
of magnanimity and justice. There is no doubt that the motive which
prompted it was a noble and generous one; yet neither is there any doubt,
that in certain respects, the results of that act were unhappy, and were no
doubt unanticipated. It was on the natives, whose interests appeared to
have had no place in the generous impulses of Mr. Gladstone, that the
action of the British Government fell most heavily, most mournfully. In
this matter, it must be confessed that the English Government broke faith
with the unhappy natives, to whom it had promised protection, and who so
much needed it. In this, as in many other matters, our country, under
successive Governments, has greatly erred; at times neglecting
responsibilities to her loyal Colonial subjects, and at other times
interfering unwisely.
In one matter, England has, however been consistent, namely, in the
repeated proclamations that Slavery should never be permitted under her
rule and authority.
The formal document of agreement between Her Majesty's Government
and the Boer leaders, known as the Convention of 1881, was signed by both
parties at Pretoria on the afternoon of the 3rd August, in the same room in
which, nearly four years before the Annexation Proclamation was signed by
Sir T. Shepstone.
This formality was followed by a more unpleasant duty for the
Commissioners appointed to settle this business, namely, the necessity of
conveying their message to the natives, and informing them that they had
been handed back by Great Britain, "poor Canaanites," to the
tender mercies of their masters, the "Chosen people," in spite
of the despairing appeals which many of them had made to her.
Some three hundred of the principal native chiefs were called together
in the Square at Pretoria, and there the English Commissioner read to them
the proclamation of Queen Victoria. Sir Hercules Robinson, the Chief
Commissioner, having "introduced the native chiefs to Messrs. Kruger,
Pretorius, and Joubert," having given them good advice as to
indulging in manual labour when asked to do so by the Boers, and having
reminded them that it would be necessary to retain the law relating to
Passes, which is, in the hands of a people like the Boers, almost as unjust
a regulation as a dominant race can invent for the oppression of a subject
people, concluded by assuring them that their "interests would never
be forgotten or neglected by Her Majesty's Government." Having
read this document, the Commission hastily withdrew, and after their
withdrawal the Chiefs were "allowed" to state their opinions to
the Secretary for Native Affairs.
In availing themselves of this permission, it is noticeable that no
allusion was made by the Chiefs to the advantages they
were to reap under the Convention. All their attention was given to the great fact that the country had been ceded to the Boers, and that they were no longer the Queen's subjects. I beg attention to the following appeals from the hearts of these oppressed people. They got very excited, and asked whether it was thought that they had no feelings or hearts, that they were thus treated as a stick or piece of tobacco, which could be passed from hand to hand without question.
Umgombarie, a Zoutpansberg Chief, said: "I am Umgombarie. I
have fought with the Boers, and have many wounds, and they know that what I
say is true. I will never consent to place myself under their rule. I
belong to the English Government. I am not a man who eats with both sides
of his jaw at once; I only use one side. I am English. I have
said."
Silamba said: "I belong to the English. I will never return
under the Boers. You see me, a man of my rank and position; is it right
that such as I should be seized and laid on the ground and flogged, as has
been done to me and other Chiefs?"
Sinkanhla said: "We hear and yet do not hear, we cannot
understand. We are troubling you, Chief, by talking in this way; we hear
the Chiefs say that the Queen took the country because the people of the
country wished it, and again, that the majority of the owners of the
country did not wish her rule, and that therefore the country was given
back. We should like to have the man pointed out from among us black people
who objects to the rule of the Queen. We are the real owners of the
country; we were here when the Boers came, and without asking leave,
settled down and treated us in every way badly. The English Government then
came and took the country; we have now had four
years of rest, and peaceful and just rule. We have been called here to-day, and are told that the country, our country, has been given to the Boers by the Queen. This is a thing which surprises us. Did the country, then, belong to the Boers? Did it not belong to our fathers and forefathers before us, long before the Boers came here? We have heard that the Boers' country is at the Cape. If the Queen wishes to give them their land, why does she not give them back the Cape?"
Umyethile said: "We have no heart for talking. I have
returned to the country from Sechelis, where I had to fly from Boer
oppression. Our hearts are black and heavy with grief to-day at the
news told us. We are in agony; our intestines are twisting and writhing
inside of us, just as you see a snake do when it is struck on the head. We
do not know what has become of us, but we feel dead. It may be that the
Lord may change the nature of the Boers, and that we will not be treated
like dogs and beasts of burden as formerly; but we have no hope of such a
change, and we leave you with heavy hearts and great apprehension as to the
future."* In his Report, Mr.
Shepstone (Secretary for Native Affairs) says, "One chief, Jan
Sibilo, who had been personally threatened with death by the Boers after
the English should leave, could not restrain his feelings, but cried like a
child."
In 1881, the year of the retrocession of the Transvaal, a Royal
Commission was appointed from England to enquire into the internal state of
affairs in the South African Republic. On the 9th of May of that year, an
affidavit was sworn to before that Commission by the Rev. John Thorne, of
St. John the Evangelist, Lydenburg, Transvaal. He stated: "I
was appointed to the
___________________* Report made on the spot by Mr.
Shepstone (not Sir Theophilus Shepstone), Secretary for Native
Affairs.
Page 11
charge of a congregation in Potchefstroom when the Republic was under the Presidency of Mr. Pretorius. I noticed one morning, as I walked through the streets, a number of young natives whom I knew to be strangers. I enquired where they came from. I was told that they had just been brought from Zoutpansberg. This was the locality from which slaves were chiefly brought at that time, and were traded for under the name of 'Black Ivory.' One of these slaves belonged to Mr. Munich, the State Attorney." In the fourth paragraph of the same affidavit, Mr. Thorne says that "the Rev. Dr. Nachtigal, of the Berlin Missionary Society, was the interpreter for Shatane's people, in the private office of Mr. Roth, and, at the close of the interview, told me what had occurred. On my expressing surprise, he went on to relate that he had information on native matters which would surprise me more. He then produced the copy of a register, kept in the Landdrost's office, of men, women, and children, to the number of four hundred and eighty (480), who had been disposed of by one Boer to another for a consideration. In one case an ox was given in exchange, in another goats, in a third a blanket, and so forth. Many of these natives he (Mr. Nachtigal) knew personally. The copy was certified as true and correct by an official of the Republic."*
On the 16th May, 1881, a native, named Frederick Molepo, was examined by
the Royal Commission. The following are extracts from his
examination:--
"(Sir Evelyn Wood.) Are you a
Christian?--Yes.
"(Sir H. de Villiers.) How long were you a
slave?--Half-a-year.
___________________* The name of that official was
held back from publication at the time, as if his act were known by the
Boers, it was believed it might have cost the man his life.
Page 12
"How do you know that you were a slave? Might you not have been an
apprentice?--No, I was not apprenticed.
"How do you know?--They got me from my parents, and
ill-treated me.
"(Sir Evelyn Wood.) How many times did you get the
stick?--Every day.
"(Sir H. de Villiers.) What did the Boers do with you
when they caught you?--They sold me.
"How much did they sell you for?--One cow and a big
pot."
On the 28th May, 1881, amongst the other documents handed in for the
consideration of the Royal Commission, is the statement of a Headman, whose
name also it was considered advisable to omit in the Blue book, lest the
Boers should take vengeance on him. He says, "I say, that if the
English Government dies I shall die too; I would rather die than be under
the Boer Government. I am the man who helped to make bricks for the church
you see now standing in the square here (Pretoria), as a slave without
payment. As a representative of my people, I am still obedient to the
English Government, and willing to obey all commands from them, even to die
for their cause in this country, rather than submit to the Boers.
"I was under Shambok, my chief, who fought the Boers formerly, but
he left us, and we were put up to auction and sold among the
Boers. I want to state this myself to the Royal Commission. I was bought by
Fritz Botha and sold by Frederick Botha, who was then veldt cornet (justice
of the peace) of the Boers."
Many more of such extracts might be quoted, but it is not m motive to
multiply horrors. These are given exactly as they stand in the original,
which may all be found in Blue Books presented to Parliament.
It has frequently been denied on behalf of the Transvaal, and is denied
at this day, in the face of innumerable witnesses to the contrary, that
slavery exists in the Transvaal. Now, this may be considered to be verbally
true. Slavery, they say, did not exist; but apprenticeship did, and does
exist. It is only another name. It is not denied that some Boers have been
kind to their slaves, as humane slave-owners frequently were in the
Southern States of America. But kindness, even the most indulgent, to
slaves, has never been held by abolitionists to excuse the existence of
slavery.
Mr. Rider Haggard, who spent a great part of his life in the Transvaal
and other parts of South Africa, wrote in 1899: "The assertion
that Slavery did not exist in the Transvaal is made to hoodwink the British
public. I have known men who have owned slaves, and who have seen whole
waggon-loads of Black Ivory, as they were called, sold for about
£15 a piece. I have at this moment a tenant, Carolus by name, on some
land I own in Natal, now a well-to-do man, who was for twenty
years a Boer slave. He told me that during those years he worked from
morning till night, and the only reward he received was two calves. He
finally escaped to Natal."
Going back some years, evidence may be found, equally well attested with
that already quoted. On the 22nd August, 1876, Khama, the Christian King of
the Bamangwato (Bechuanaland), one of the most worthy Chiefs which any
country has had the good fortune to be ruled by, wrote to Sir Henry de
Villiers the following message, to be sent to Queen
Victoria:--"I write to you, Sir Henry, in order that your
Queen may preserve for me my country, it being in her hands. The Boers are
coming into it, and I do not like them. Their actions are cruel among us
black people. We are like money; they sell us and our children.
I ask Her Majesty to pity me, and to hear that which I write quickly. I wish to hear upon what conditions Her Majesty will receive me, and my country and my people, under her protection. I am weary with fighting. I do not like war, and I ask Her Majesty to give me peace. I am very much distressed that my people are being destroyed by war, and I wish them to obtain peace. I ask Her Majesty to defend me, as she defends all her people. There are three things which distress me very much--war, selling people, and drink. All these things I find in the Boers, and it is these things which destroy people, to make an end of them in the country. The custom of the Boers has always been to cause people to be sold, and to-day they are still selling people. Last year I saw them pass with two waggons full of people whom they had bought at the river at Tanane (Lake Ngate).--Khama."
The visit of King Khama to England, a few years ago, his interview with
the Queen, and his pathetic appeals on behalf of his people against the
intrusion of any aggressors (drink being one of them), are fresh in our
memory.
Coming down to a recent date, I reproduce here a letter from a Zulu
Chief, which appeared in the London Press in November, 1899. This letter is
written to a gentleman, who accompanied it by the following
remarks:--"After I had read this very remarkable letter, I
found myself half unconsciously wondering what place in the scheme of South
African life will be found for Zulus such as this nephew of the last of the
Zulu Kings. One thing I am fully certain of, that there are few natives in
the Cape Colony (where they are full-fledged voters) capable of
inditing so sensible an epistle. This communication throws a most welcome
light upon the attitude of his people with respect to the momentous events
that are in progress, and also it
reveals to what a high standard of intellectual culture a pure Zulu may attain."
Duff's Road, Durban,
November 3rd, 1899.
Sir,--I keenly appreciate your generous tribute to the loyalty of
the Zulu nation during the fierce crisis of English rule in South Africa.
It is the first real test of the loyalty of the Zulus, and as a Zulu who
was once a Chief, I rejoice to see that the loyalty and gratitude of my
people is appreciated by the white people of Natal.
It is, as you say, respected Sir, a tribute, and a magnificent one, to
England's just policy to the Zulus. I dare to assert it is even a
finer tribute to the natives' appreciation, not only of benefits
already conferred,
but of the spirit that actuated England in her dealings with him. I may
disagree as to the lessons taught by Maxim guns, hollow squares, and the
'thin red line.' I think no one can have read Colonial history,
chronicling as it does, the rise again and again of the native against
Imperial forces, without feeling that he is influenced far less by
England's prowess in war than by her justice in peace. My Zulu
fellow-countrymen understand as clearly as anyone the weakness and
the strength of the present time. If the Zulu wished to remember Kambula
and Ulundi, this would be his supreme opportunity to rise and hurl himself
across the Natal frontier. But I, having just returned from my native
country, have been able to report to the Government at Pietermaritzburg
that there is not the slightest symptom of disloyalty, not the idea of
lifting a finger against the white subjects of the great and good
Queen.
There is among the Chiefs and Indunas of my people an almost
universal hope that the Imperial arms will be victorious, and that a
Government which, by its inhumanity and relentless
injustice, and apparent inability to see that the native has any rights a white man should respect, has forfeited its place among the civilised Governments of the earth, and should therefore be deprived of powers so scandalously abused--formerly by slavery, and in later years by disallowing the native to buy land, and utterly neglecting his intellectual and spiritual needs. There are wrongs to be redressed, and we Zulus believe that England will be more willing to redress them than any other Power. There is still much to be done in the way of educating and civilizing the mass of the Zulu nation. We Chiefs of that nation have observed that wherever England has gone there the Missionary and teacher follow, and that there exists sympathy between the authority of Her Majesty and the forces that labour for civilization and Christianity. We Zulus have not yet forgotten what we owe to the late Bishop Colenso's lifelong advocacy, or to Lady Florence Dixie's kindly interest. These are things that are more than fear of England's might, that keep our people quiet outside and loyal inside. This is not a passive loyalty with us. Speaking for almost all my fellow-countrymen in Zululand, I believe if a great emergency arises in the course of this history-making war, in which England might find it necessary to put their loyalty to the test, they would respond with readiness and enthusiasm equal to that when they fought under King Cetewayo against Lord Chelmsford's army. Again assuring you that the Zulu people are turning deaf ears to Boer promises, as well as threats, I remain, with the most earnest hope for the ultimate triumph of General Buller--who fought my King for half a year. Your humble and most obedient servant,
M'PLAANK, Son of Maguendé, brother of
Cetewayo."
There is unhappily a tendency among persons living for any length of
time among heathen people, to think and speak with a certain contempt for
those people, at whose moral elevation they may even be sincerely aiming.
They see all that is bad in these "inferior races," and little
that is good. This was not so in the case of the greatest and most
successful Missionaries. They never lost faith in human nature, even at its
lowest estate, and hence they were able to raise the standard of the least
promising of the outcast races of the world. This faith in the possibility
of the elevation of these races has been firmly held, however, by some who
know them best, and have lived among them the longest.
Mr Rider Haggard writes thus on this subject:--"So far
as my own experience of natives has gone, I have found that in all the
essential qualities of mind and body they very much resemble white men. Of
them might be aptly quoted the speech Shakespeare puts into Shylock's
mouth: 'Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions?' In the same way, I ask,
has a native no feelings or affections? does he not suffer when his parents
are shot, or his children stolen, or when he is driven a wanderer from his
home? Does he not know fear, feel pain, affection, hate, and gratitude?
Most certainly he does; and this being so, I cannot believe that the
Almighty, who made both white and black, gave to the one race the right or
mission of exterminating or of robbing or maltreating the other, and
calling the process the advance of civilization. It seems to me, that on
only one condition, if at all, have we the right to take the black
men's land; and that is, that we provide them with an equal and a
just Government, and allow no maltreatment of them, either as individuals
or tribes, but, on the contrary, do our best to elevate them, and wean them
from
savage customs. Otherwise, the practice is surely undefensible.
"I am aware, however, that with the exception of a small class,
these are sentiments which are not shared by the great majority of the
public, either at home or abroad."
A French gentleman, who has been for many years connected with the
Missions Evangéliques of France, related recently in my
presence some incidents of the early experience of French Missionaries in
South Africa. One of these had laboured for years without encouragement.
The hearts of the native people around him remained unmoved. One day,
however, he spoke among them especially of Calvary, of the sufferings of
Christ on the Cross. A Chief who was present left the building in which the
teacher was speaking. At the close, this Chief was found sitting on the
ground outside, his back to the door, his head bent forward and buried in
his arms. He was weeping. When spoken to, he raided his arm with a movement
of deprecation, and, in a voice full of pity and indignation,
said--"to think that there was no one even to give Him a drink
of water!" That poor savage had known what thirst is. This one
awakened chord of human sympathy with the human Christ was communicative.
Other hearts were touched, and from that time the Missionary began to reap
a rich harvest from his labours. In the midst of the elaborate services of
our fashionable London churches is there often to be found so genuine a
feeling as that which shook the soul of this Chief, and broke down the
barrier of coldness and hardness in his fellow-countrymen which had
before prevented the acceptance of the message of Salvation and of the
practical obligations of Christianity among them? Men who are capable of
rising to the knowledge and love of divine truth cannot be supposed to be
impervious to the influence of civilization properly
understood.
THERE is nothing so fallacious or misleading in history as the
popular tendency to trace the causes of a great war to one source alone, or
to fix upon the most recent events leading up to it, as the principal or
even the sole cause of the outbreak of war. The occasion of an event may
not be, and often is not, the cause of it. The occasion of this war was not
its cause. In the present case it is extraordinary to note how almost the
whole of Europe appears to be carried away with the idea that the causes of
this terrible South African war are, as it were, only of yesterday's
date. The seeds of which we are reaping so woeful a harvest were not sown
yesterday, nor a few years ago only. We are reaping a harvest which has
been ripening for a century past.
At the time of the Indian Mutiny, it was given out and believed by the
world in general that the cause of that hideous revolt was a supposed
attempt on the part of England to impose
upon the native army of India certain rules which, from their point of view, outraged their religion in some of its most sacred aspects; (I refer to the legend of the greased cartridges). After the mutiny was over, Sir Herbert Edwardes, a true Seer, whose insight enabled him to look far below the surface, and to go back many years into the history or our dealings with India in order to take in review all the causes of the rebellion, addressed an exhaustive report to the British Government at home, dealing with those causes which had been accumulating for half-a-century or more. This was a weighty document,--one which it would be worth while to re-peruse at the present day; it had its influence in leading the Home Government to acknowledge some grave errors which had led up to this catastrophe, and to make an honest and persevering attempt to remedy past evils. That this attempt has not been in vain, in spite of all that India has had to suffer, has been acknowledged gratefully by the Native delegates to the great Annual Congress in India of the past year.
In the case of the Indian Mutiny, the incident of the supposed insult to
their religious feelings was only the match which set light to a train
which had been long laid. In the same way the honest historian will find,
in the present case, that the events--the "tragedy of
errors," as they have been called,--of recent date, are but the
torch that has set fire to a long prepared mass of combustible material
which had been gradually accumulating in the course of a century.
In order to arrive at a true estimate of the errors and mismanagement
which lie at the root of the causes of the present war, it is necessary to
look back. Those errors and wrongs must be patiently searched out and
studied, without partisanship, with an open mind and serious purpose. Many
of our busy politicians and others have not the time, some perhaps have not
the
inclination for any such study. Hence, hasty, shallow, and violent judgments.
Never has there occurred in history a great struggle such as the present
which has not had a deep moral teaching.
England is now suffering for her past errors, extending over many years.
The blood of her sons is being poured out like water on the soil of South
Africa. Wounded hearts and desolated families at home are counted by tens
of thousands.
But it needs to be courageously stated by those who have looked a little
below the surface that her faults have not been those which are attributed
to her by a large proportion of European countries, and by a portion of her
own people. These appear to attribute this war to a sudden impulse on her
part of Imperial ambition and greed, and to see in the attitude which they
attribute to her alone, the provocative element which was chiefly supplied
from the other side. There will have to be a Revision of this Verdict, and
there will certainly be one; it is on the way, though its approach may be
slow. It will be rejected by some to the last.
The great error of England appears to have been a strange neglect, from
time to time, of the true interests of her South African subjects, English,
Dutch, and Natives. There have been in her management of this great Colony
alternations of apathy and inaction, with interference which was sometimes
unwise and hasty. Some of her acts have been the result of ignorance,
indifference, or superciliousness on the part of our rulers.
The special difficulties, however, in her position towards that Colony
should be taken into account.
It has always been a question as to how far interference from Downing
Street with the freedom of action of a Self-Governing
Colony was wise or practicable. In other instances, the exercise of great freedom of colonial self-government has had happy results, as in Canada and Australia.
Far from our South African policy having represented, as is believed by
some, the self-assertion of a proud Imperialism, it has been the
very opposite.
It seems evident that some of the greatest evils in the British
government of South Africa have arisen from the frequent changes of
Governors and Administrators there, concurrently with changes in the
Government at home. There have been Governors under whose influence
and control all sections of the people, including the natives, have had a
measure of peace and good government. Such a Governor was Sir George Grey,
of whose far-seeing provisions for the welfare of all classes many
effects last to this day.
The nature of the work undertaken, and to a great extent done, by Sir
George Grey and those of his successors who followed his example, was
concisely described by an able local historian in
1877:--"The aim of the Colonial Government since
1855," he said, "has been to establish and maintain peace, to
diffuse civilization and Christianity, and to establish society on the
basis of individual property and personal industry. The agencies employed
are the magistrate, the missionary, the schoolmaster, and the
trader." Of the years dating from the commencement of Sir Geroge
Grey's administration, it was thus
reported:--"During this time peace has been
uninterruptedly enjoyed within British frontiers. The natives have been
treated in all respects with justice and consideration. Large tracts of the
richest land are expressly set apart for them under the name of
'reserves' and 'locations.' The greater part of
them live in these locations, under the superintendence of European
magistrates
or missionaries. As a whole, they are now enjoying far greater comfort and prosperity than they ever did in their normal state of barbaric independence and perpetually recurring tribal wars, before coming into contact with Europeans. The advantages and value of British rule have of late years struck root in the native mind over an immense portion of South Africa. They believe that it is a protection from external encroachment, and that only under the ægis of the Government can they be secure and enjoy peace and prosperity. Influenced by this feeling, several tribes beyond the colonial boundaries are now eager to be brought within the pale of civilized authority, and ere long, it is hoped, Her Majesty's sovereignty will be extended over fresh territories, with the full and free consent of the chiefs and tribes inhabiting them."*
It may be of interest to note here that one of these territories was
Basutoland, which lies close to the South Eastern border of the Orange Free
State.
Between the Basutos and the Orange Free State Boers war broke out in
1856, to be followed in 1858 by a temporary and incomplete pacification.
The struggle continued, and in 1861, and again in 1865, when war was
resumed, and all Basutoland was in danger of being conquered by the Boers.
Moshesh, their Chief, appealed to the British Government for protection. It
was not till 1868, after a large part of the country had passed into Boer
hands, that Sir Philip Wodehouse, Sir George Grey's successor, was
allowed to issue a proclamation declaring so much as remained of Basutoland
to be British territory.
It was Sir George Grey who first saw the importance of endeavouring to
bring all portions of South Africa, including the Boer Republics and the
Native States, into "federal union with
___________________* South Africa, Past and Present
(1899) by Noble.
Page 24
the parent colony" at the Cape. He was commissioned by the British Government to make enquiries with this object (1858.) He obtained the support of the Orange Free State, whose Volksraad resolved that "a union with the Cape Colony, either on the plan of federation or otherwise, is desirable," and was expecting to win over the Transvaal Boers, when the British Government, alarmed as to the responsibilities it might incur, vetoed the project. (Such sudden alarms, under the influence of party conflicts at home, have not been infrequent.)
For seven years, however, this good Governor was permitted to promote a
work of pacification and union.
I shall refer again later to the misfortunes, even the calamities, which
have been the result of our projecting our home system of Government
by Party into the distant regions of South Africa. There are long
proved advantages in that system of party government as existing for our
own country, but it seems to have been at the root of much of the
inconsistency and vacillation of our policy in South Africa. As soon as a
good Governor (appointed by either political party) has begun to develop
his methods, and to lead the Dutch, and English, and Natives alike to begin
to believe that there is something homogeneous in the principles of British
government, a General Election takes place in England. A new Parliament and
a new Government come into power, and, frequently in obedience to some
popular representations at home, the actual Colonial Governor is recalled,
and another is sent out.
Lord Glenelg, for example, had held office as Governor of the Cape
Colony for five years,--up to 1846. His policy had been, it is said,
conciliatory and wise. But immediately on a change of party in the
Government at home, he was recalled, and Sir Harry Smith superseded him, a
recklessly aggressive person.
It was only by great pains and trouble that the succeeding Governor, Sir
George Cathcart, a wiser man, brought about a settlement of the confusion
and disputes arising from Sir Harry Smith's aggressive and violent
methods.
And so it has gone on, through all the years.
Allusion having been made above to the assumption of the Protectorate of
Basutoland by Great Britain, it will not be without interest to notice here
the circumstances and the motives which led to that act. It will be seen
that there was no aggressiveness nor desire of conquest in this case; but
that the protection asked was but too tardily granted on the pathetic and
reiterated prayer of the natives suffering from the aggressions of the
Transvaal.
The following is from the Biography of Adolphe Mabille, a devoted
missionary of the Société des Missions
Evangéliques of Paris, who worked with great success in
Basutoland. His life is written by Mr. Dieterlen (a name well known and
highly esteemed in France), and the book has a preface by the famous
missionary, Mr. F. Coillard.*
"The Boers had long been keeping up an aggressive war against the
Basutos (1864 to 1869), so much so that Mr. Mabille's missionary work
was for a time almost destroyed. The Boers thought they saw in the
missionaries' work the secret of the steady resistance of the
Basutos, and of the moral force which prevented them laying down their
arms. They exacted that Mr. Mabille should leave the country at once, which
theoretically, they said, belonged to them.
"This good missionary and his friends were subjected to long
trials during this hostility of the Boers. Moshesh, the chief of the
Basutos, had for a long time past been asking the Governor
___________________* Adolphe Mabille, Published in
Paris, 1898.
Page 26
of Cape Colony to have him and his people placed under the direction of Great Britain. The reply from the Cape was very long delayed. Moshesh, worn out, was about to capitulate at last to the Boers. Lessuto (the territory of Basutoland) was on the point of being absorbed by the Transvaal. At the last moment, however, and not a day too soon, there came a letter from the Governor of the Cape announcing to Moshesh, that Queen Victoria had consented to take the Basutos under her protection. It was the long-expected deliverance,--it was salvation! At this news the missionaries, with Moshesh, burst into tears, and falling on their knees, gave thanks to God for this providential and almost unexpected intervention."
The Boers retained a large and fertile tract of Lessuto, but the rest of
the country, continues M. Dieterlen, "remained under the Protectorate
of a people who, provided peace is maintained, and their commerce is not
interfered with, know how to work for the right development of the native
people whose lands they annex."
Mr. Dieterlen introduces into his narrative the following
remarks,--which are interesting as coming, not from an Englishman, but
from a Frenchman,--and one who has had close personal experience of
the matters of which he speaks:--
"Stayers at home, as we Frenchmen are, forming our opinions from
newspapers whose editors know no more than ourselves what goes on in
foreign countries, we too willingly see in the British nation an
egotistical and rapacious people, thinking of nothing but the extension of
their commerce and the prosperity of their industry. We are apt to pretend
that their philanthropic enterprises and religious works are a mere
hypocrisy. Courage is absolutely needed in order to affirm, at the risk of
exciting the indignation of
our soi-disant patriots, that although
England knows
perfectly well how to take care of her commercial interests in her colonies, she knows equally well how to pre-occupy and occupy herself with the moral interests of the people whom she places by agreement or by force under the sceptre of her Queen. Those who have seen and who know, have the duty of saying to those who have not seen, and who cannot, or who do not desire to see, and who do not know, that these two currents flowing from the British nation,--the one commercial and the other philanthropic,--are equally active amongst the uncivilized nations of Africa, and that if one wishes to find colonies in which exist real and complete liberty of conscience, where the education and moralisation of the natives are the object of serious concern, drawing largely upon the budget of the metropolis, it is always and above all in English possessions that you must look for them.
"Under the domination of the Boers, Lessuto would have been
devoted to destruction, to ignorance, and to semi-slavery. Under the
English régime reign security and progress. Lessuto became a
territory reserved solely for its native proprietors, the sale of strong
liquors was prohibited, and the schools received generous subvention.
Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, French and English Missionaries, could
then enjoy the most absolute liberty in order to spread, each one in his
own manner, and in the measure in which he possessed it, evangelic
truth.
"It is for this reason that the French missionaries feared to see
the Basutos fall under the Boers' yoke, and that they hailed with joy
the intervention of the English Government in their field of work, hoping
and expecting for the missionary work the happiest fruits. Their hope has
not been deceived by the results."
The clash of opposing principles, and even the violence of party feeling
continued to send its echoes to the far regions of
South Africa, confusing the minds of the various populations there, and preventing any real coherence and continuity in our Government of that great Colony. A good and successful Administrator has sometimes been withdrawn to be superseded by another, equally well-intentioned, perhaps, but whose policy was on wholly different lines, thus undoing the work of his predecessor. This has introduced not only confusion, but sometimes an appearance of real injustice into our management of the colony. In all this chequered history, the interests of the native races have been too often postponed to those of the ruling races. This was certainly the case in connexion with Mr. Galdstone's well-intentioned act in giving back to the Transvaal its independent government.
It has been an anxious question for many among us whether this source of
vacillation, with its attendant misfortunes, is to continue in the
future.
The early history of the South African Colony has become, by this time,
pretty will known by means of the numberless books lately written on the
subject. I will only briefly recapitulate here a few of the principal
facts, these being, in part derived from the annals and reports of the
Aborigines Protection Society, which may be considered impartial, seeing
that that Society has had a keen eye at all times for the faults of British
colonists and the British Government, while constrained, as a truthful
recorder, to publish the offences of other peoples and Governments. I have
also constantly referred to Parliamentary papers, and the words of
accredited historians and travellers.
The first attempt at a regular settlement by the Dutch at the Cape was
made by Jan Van Riebeck, in 1652, for the convenience of the trading
vessels of the Netherlands East India
Company, passing from Europe to Asia. Almost from the first these colonists were involved in quarrels with the natives, which furnished excuse for appropriating their lands and making slaves of them. The intruders stole the natives' cattle, and the natives' efforts to recover their property were denounced by Van Riebeck as "a matter most displeasing to the Almighty, when committed by such as they." Apologising to his employers in Holland for his show of kindness to one group of natives, Van Riebeck wrote: "This we only did to make them less shy, so as to find hereafter a better opportunity to seize them--1,100 or 1,200 in number, and about 600 cattle, the best in the whole country. We have every day the finest opportunities for effecting this without bloodshed, and could derive good service from the people, in chains, in killing seals or in labouring in the silver mines which we trust will be found here."
The Netherlands Company frequently deprecated such acts of treachery and
cruelty, and counselled moderation. Their protests however were of no
avail. The mischief had been done. The unhappy natives, with whom lasting
friendship might have been established by fair treatment, had been
converted into enemies; and the ruthless punishment inflicted on them for
each futile effort to recover some of the property stolen for them, had
rendered inevitable the continuance and constant extension of the strife
all through the five generations of Dutch rule, and furnished cogent
precedent for like action
afterwards.*
After 1652, Colonists of the baser sort kept arriving in cargoes, and
gradually the Netherlands Company allowed persons not of their own nation
to land and settle under severe fiscal and
___________________* These and other details which
follow are taken from Dutch official papers, giving a succinct account of
the treatment of the natives between 1649 and 1809. These papers were
translated from the Dutch by Lieut. Moodie (1838). See Moodie's
"Record."
Page 30
other restrictions. Among these were a number of French Huguenots, good men, driven from their homes by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1690. Then Flemings, Germans, Poles, and others constantly swelled the ranks. All these Europeans were forced to submit to the arbitrary rules of the Netherlands Company's agents, scarcely at all restrained from Amsterdam. Unofficial residents, known as Burghers, came to be admitted to a share in the management of affairs. It was for their benefit chiefly, that as soon as the Hottentots were found to be unworkable as slaves, Negroes from West Africa and Malays from the East Indies began to be imported for the purpose. In 1772, when the settlement was a hundred and twenty years old, and had been in what was considered working order for a century, Cape Town and its suburbs had a population of 1,963 officials and servants of the Company, 4,628 male and 3,750 female colonists, and 8,335 slaves. In these figures no account is taken of the Hottentots and others employed in menial capacities, nor of the black prisoners, among whom, in 1772, a Swedish traveller saw 950 men, women, and children of the Bushman race, who had been captured about a hundred and fifty miles form Cape Town in a war brought about by encroachment on their lands.+
The Aborigines Protection Society endorses the following statement of
Sparrman (visit to the Cape of Good Hope, 1786, Vol. II, p. 165,) who says,
"The Slave business, that violent outrage against the natural rights
of man, which is always a crime and leads to all manner of wickedness, is
exercised by the Colonists with a cruelty that merits the abhorrence of
everyone, though I have been told that they pique themselves upon it; and
not only is the capture of the Hottentots considered by them merely as a
___________________+ Thunberg "Travels in
Europe, Africa, and Asia, between 1770 and 1779."
Page 31
party of pleasure, but in cold blood they destroy the bands which nature has knit between husband and wife, and between parents and their children. Does a Colonist at any time get sight of a Bushman, he takes fire immediately, and spirits up his horse and dogs, in order to hunt him with more ardour and fury than he would a wolf or any other wild beast."
"I am far from accusing all the colonists," he continues,
"of these cruelties, which are too frequently committed. While some
of them plumed themselves upon them, there were many who, on the contrary,
held them in abomination, and feared lest the vengeance of Heaven should,
for all their crimes, fall upon their posterity."
The inability of the Amsterdam authorities to control the filibustering
zeal of the colonists rendered it easy for the people at the Cape to
establish among themselves, in 1793, what purported to be an independent
Republic. One of their proclamations contained the following resolution,
aimed especially at the efforts of the missionaries--most of whom were
then Moravians--to save the natives from utter ruin: "We
will not permit any Moravians to live here and instruct the Hottentots;
for, as there are many Christians who receive no instruction, it is not
proper that the Hottentots should be taught; they must remain in the same
state as before. Hottentots born on the estate of a farmer must live there,
and serve him until they are twenty-five years old, before they
receive any wages. All Bushmen or wild Hottentots caught by us must remain
slaves for life."*
I have given these facts of more than a hundred years ago to show for
how long a time the traditions of the usefulness and lawfulness of Slavery
had been engrained in the minds of the
___________________* Sir John Barrow (Travels in South
Africa, 1806.) Vol ii. p. 165.
Page 32
Dutch settlers. We ought not, perhaps, to censure too severely the Boer proclivities in favour of that ancient institution, nor to be surprised if it should be a work of time, accompanied with severe Providential chastisement, to uproot that fixed idea from the minds of the present generation, of Boer descent. The sin of enslaving their fellow-men may perhaps be reckoned, for them, among the "sins of ignorance." Nevertheless, the Recording Angel has not failed through all these generations to mark the woes of the slaves; and the historic vengeance, which sooner or later infallibly follows a century or centuries of the violation of the Divine Law and of human rights, will not be postponed or averted even by a late repentance on the part of the transgressors. It is striking to note how often in history the sore judgment of oppressors has fallen (in this world), not on those who were first in the guilt, but on their successors, just as they were entering on an amended course of "ceasing to do evil and learning to do well."
In 1795, Cape Town was formally ceded by the Prince of Orange to Great
Britain, as an incident of the great war with France, for which, six
million pounds sterling was paid by Great Britain to Holland. British
supremacy was formally recognized in this part of South Africa by a
Convention signed in 1814, which was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in
1815.
British rule for some thirty years after 1806 was perforce despotic, but
for the most part, with some exceptions, it was a benevolent despotism.
"They had the difficult task of controlling a straggling white
community, at first almost exclusively composed of Boers, who had been too
sturdy and stubborn to tolerate any effective interference by the
Netherlands Company and other authorities in Holland, and who resented both
English domination and the advent of English colonists which more than
doubled the white population in less than two decades." "The Governors sent out from Downing Street had tasks imposed upon them which were beyond the powers of even the wisest and worthiest. Most of the English colonists found it easier to fall in with the thoughts and habits of the Boers than to uphold the purer traditions of life and conduct in the mother country, and it is not strange that many of the officials should have been in like case."*
Great Britain abolished the Slave Trade in 1807, which prevented the
further importation of Slaves, and the traffic in them.
The great Emancipation Act, by which Great Britain abolished Slavery in
all lands over which she had control, was passed in 1834.
The great grievance for the Burghers was this abolition of slavery by
Great Britain. According to a Parliamentary Return of March, 1838, the
slaves of all sorts liberated in Cape Colony numbered 35,750. The British
Parliament awarded as compensation to the slave owners throughout the
British dominions a sum of £20,000,000, of which, nearly
£1,500,000 fell to the share of the Burghers. Concerning this Act of
Compensation there have been very divided opinions; there is not a doubt
that the British Government intended to deal fairly by the former slave
owners, but it is stated that there was great and culpable carelessness on
the part of the British agents in distributing this compensation money. It
seems that many of the Burghers to whom it was due never obtained it, and
these considered themselves aggrieved and defrauded by the British
Government. On the other hand, there are person who have continually
___________________* Mr. Fox Bourne, Secretary of the
Aborigines Protection Society.
Page 34
disapproved of the principle of compensation for a wrong given up, or the loss of an advantage unrighteously purchased. It is however to be regretted, that an excuse should have been given for the Boers' complaints by irregularities attributed to the British in the partition of the compensation money.
It has often been asserted that the first great Dutch emigration from
the Cape was instigated simply by love of freedom on their part, and their
dislike of British Government. But why did they dislike British Government?
There may have been minor reasons, but the one great grievance complained
of by themselves, from the first, was the abolition of slavery. They
desired to be free to deal with the natives in their own manner.
Taking with them their household belongings and as much cattle as they
could collect, they went forth in search of homes in which they hoped they
would be no longer controlled, and as they thought, sorely wronged by the
nation which had invaded their Colony. But they did not all trek; only
about half, it was estimated, did so. The rest remained, finding it
possible to live and prosper without slavery.
They crossed the Orange River, and finally trekked beyond the Vaal.
From 1833, Cape Colony, under British rule, began to be endowed with
representative institutions. In 1854, the Magna Charta of the Hottentots,
as it was called, was created. It was a measure of remarkable liberality.
"It conferred on all Hottentots and other free persons of colour
lawfully residing in the Colony, the right to become burghers, and to
exercise and enjoy all the privileges of burghership. It enabled them to
acquire land and other property. It exempted them from any compulsory
service to which other subjects of the Crown were not liable, and from
'any hindrance, molestation, fine, imprisonment or other
punishment' not awarded to them after trial in due course of law, 'any custom or usage to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.' Among other provisions it was stipulated that wages should no longer be paid to them in liquor or tobacco, and that, in the event of a servant having reasonable ground of complaint against his master for ill-usage, and not being able to bear the expense of a summons, one should be issued to him free of charge. By this ordinance a stop was put, as far as the law could be enforced, to the bondage, other than admitted and legalized slavery, by which through nearly two centuries the Dutch farmers and others had oppressed the natives whom they had deprived of their lands."*
The Boers who had trekked resented every attempt at interference with
them on the part of the Cape Government with a view to their acceptance of
such principles of British Government as are expressed above. Wearied by
its hopeless efforts to restore order among the emigrant farmers, the
British Government abandoned the task, and contented itself with the
arrangement made with Andries Pretorius, in 1852, called the Sand River
Convention. This Convention conceded to "the emigrant farmers beyond
the Vaal River" "the right to manage their own affairs and to
govern themselves, without any interference on the part of Her Majesty the
Queen's Government." It was stipulated, however, that "no
slavery is or shall be permitted or practised in the country to the north
of the Vaal River by the emigrant farmers." This stipulation has been
made in every succeeding Convention down to that of 1884. These Conventions
have been regularly agreed to and signed by successive Boer Leaders, and
have been as regularly and successively violated.
___________________* Parliamentary paper quoted by Mr.
Fox Bourne "Black and White," page 18.
Page 36
THE following is an extract from the "Missionary Travels
and Researches in South Africa," of the venerable pioneer, David
Livingstone.*
"An adverse influence with which the mission had to contend was
the vicinity of the Boers of the Cashan
Mountains,+ otherwise named
'Magaliesberg.' These are not to be confounded with the Cape
Colonists, who sometimes pass by the name. The word 'Boer,'
simply means 'farmer,' and is not synonymous with our word
boor. Indeed, to the Boers generally the latter term would be quite
inappropriate, for they are a sober, industrious, and most hospitable body
of peasantry. Those, however, who have fled from English Law on various
pretexts, and have been joined by English deserters, and every other
variety of bad character in their distant localities, are unfortunately of
a very different stamp. The great objection many of the Boers had, and
still have, to English law, is that it makes no distinction between black
men and white. They felt aggrieved
___________________* The extract commences at chapter
II, page 29.
___________________+ Near Pretoria.
Page 37
by their supposed losses in the emancipation of their Hottentot slaves, and determined to erect themselves into a republic, in which they might pursue, without molestation, the 'proper treatment' of the blacks. It is almost needless to add, that the 'proper treatment' has always contained in it the essential element of slavery, namely, compulsory unpaid labour.
"One section of this body, under the late Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter,
penetrated the interior as far as the Cashan Mountains, whence a Zulu
chief, named Mosilikátze, had been expelled by the well known Kaffir
Dingaan, and a glad welcome was given these Boers by the Bechuana tribes,
who had just escaped the hard sway of that cruel chieftain. They came with
the prestige of white men and deliverers; but the Bechuanas soon found, as
they expressed it, 'that Mosilikátze was cruel to his enemies,
and kind to those he conquered; but that the Boers destroyed their enemies,
and made slaves of their friends.' The tribes who still retain the
semblance of independence are forced to perform all the labour of the
fields, such as manuring the land, weeding, reaping, building, making dams
and canals, and at the same time to support themselves. I have myself been
an eye-witness of Boers coming to a village, and according to their
usual custom, demanding twenty or thirty women to weed their gardens, and
have seen these women proceed to the scene of unrequited toil, carrying
their own food on their heads, their children on their backs, and
instruments of labour on their shoulders. Nor have the Boers any wish to
conceal the meanness of thus employing unpaid labour; on the contrary,
every one of them, from Mr. Potgeiter and Mr. Gert Kruger, the commandants,
downwards, lauded his own humanity and justice in making such an equitable
regulation. 'We make the people work for us, in consideration of
allowing them to live in our country.'
"I can appeal to the Commandant Kruger if the foregoing is not a
fair and impartial statement of the views of himself and his people. I am
sensible of no mental bias towards or against these Boers; and during the
several journeys I made to the poor enslaved tribes, I never avoided the
whites, but tried to cure and did administer remedies to their sick,
without money and without price. It is due to them to state that I was
invariably treated with respect; but it is most unfortunate that they
should have been left by their own Church for so many years to deteriorate
and become as degraded as the blacks, whom the stupid prejudice against
colour leads them to detest.
"This new species of slavery which they have adopted serves to
supply the lack of field labour only. The demand for domestic servants must
be met by forays on tribes which have good supplies of cattle. The
Portuguese can quote instances in which blacks become so degraded by the
love of strong drink as actually to sell themselves; but never in any one
case, within the memory of man, has a Bechuana Chief sold any of his
people, or a Bechuana man his child. Hence the necessity for a foray to
seize children. And those individual Boers who would not engage in it for
the sake of slaves, can seldom resist the twofold plea of a
well-told story of an intended uprising of the devoted tribe, and
the prospect of handsome pay in the division of captured cattle besides. It
is difficult for a person in a civilized country to conceive that any body
of men possessing the common attributes of humanity, (and these Boers are
by no means destitute of the better feelings of our nature,) should with
one accord set out, after loading their own wives and children with
caresses, and proceed to shoot down in cold blood, men and women of a
different colour, it is true, but possessed of domestic feelings and
affections equal to their own. I saw and conversed
with children in the houses of Boers who had by their own and their master's account been captured, and in several instances I traced the parents of these unfortunates, though the plan approved by the long-headed among the burghers is to take children so young that they soon forget their parents and their native language also. It was long before I could give credit to the tales of bloodshed told by native witnesses, and had I received no other testimony but theirs, I should probably have continued sceptical to this day as to the truth of the accounts; but when I found the Boers themselves, some bewailing and denouncing, others glorying in the bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the actors, I was compelled to admit the validity of the testimony, and try to account for the cruel anomaly. They are all traditionally religious, tracing their descent from some of the best men (Huguenots and Dutch) the world ever saw. Hence they claim to themselves the title of 'Christians,' and all the coloured race are 'black property' or 'creatures.' They being the chosen people of God, the heathen are given to them for an inheritance, and they are the rod of divine vengeance on the heathen, as were the Jews of old.
"Living in the midst of a native population much larger than
themselves, and at fountains removed many miles from each other, they feel
somewhat in the same insecure position as do the Americans in the Southern
States. The first question put by them to strangers is respecting peace;
and when they receive reports from disaffected or envious natives against
any tribe, the case assumes all the appearance and proportions of a regular
insurrection. Severe measures then appear to the most mildly disposed among
them as imperatively called for, and, however bloody the massacre that
follows, no qualms of conscience ensue: it is a dire necessity for
the sake of peace. Indeed, the late Mr.
Hendrick Potgeiter most devoutly believed himself to be the great peace-maker of the country.
"But how is it that the natives, being so vastly superior in
numbers to the Boers, do not rise and annihilate them? The people among
whom they live are Bechuanas, not Kaffirs, though no one would ever learn
that distinction from a Boer; and history does not contain one single
instance in which the Bechuanas, even those of them who possess firearms,
have attacked either the Boers or the English. If there is such an
instance, I am certain it is not generally known, either beyond or in the
Cape Colony. They have defended themselves when attacked, as in the case of
Sechele, but have never engaged in offensive war with Europeans. We have a
very different tale to tell of the Kaffirs, and the difference has always
been so evident to these border Boers that, ever since 'those
magnificent savages,' (the Kaffirs,) obtained possession of firearms,
not one Boer has ever attempted to settle in Kaffirland, or even face them
as an enemy in the field. The Boers have generally manifested a marked
antipathy to anything but 'long-shot' warfare, and,
sidling away in their emigrations towards the more effeminate Bechuanas,
they have left their quarrels with the Kaffirs to be settled by the
English, and their wars to be paid for by English gold.
"The Bechuanas at Kolobeng had the spectacle of various tribes
enslaved before their eyes:--the Bakatla, the Batlo'kua,
the Bahúkeng, the Bamosétla, and two other tribes of
Bechuanas, were all groaning under the oppression of unrequited labour.
This would not have been felt as so great an evil, but that the young men
of those tribes, anxious to obtain cattle, the only means of rising to
respectability and importance among their own people, were in the habit of
sallying forth, like our Irish and Highland reapers, to procure work in the
Cape Colony. After
labouring there three or four years, in building stone dykes and dams for the Dutch farmers, they were well content if at the end of that time they could return with as many cows. On presenting one to the chief, they ranked as respectable men in the tribe ever afterwards. These volunteers were highly esteemed among the Dutch, under the name of Mantátees. They were paid at the rate of one shilling a day, and a large loaf of bread among six of them. Numbers of them, who had formerly seen me about twelve hundred miles inland from the Cape, recognised me with the loud laughter of joy when I was passing them at their work in the Roggefelt and Bokkefelt, within a few days of Cape Town. I conversed with them, and with Elders of the Dutch Church, for whom they were working, and found that the system was thoroughly satisfactory to both parties. I do not believe that there is a Boer, in the Cashan or Magaliesberg country, who would deny that a law was made, in consequence of this labour passing to the Colony, to deprive these labourers of their hardly-earned cattle, for the very urgent reason that, "if they want to work, let them work for us, their masters," though boasting that in their case their work would not be paid.
"I can never cease to be most unfeignedly thankful that I was not
born in a land of slaves. No one can understand the effect of the
unutterable meanness of the slave system on the minds of those who, but for
the strange obliquity which prevents them from feeling the degradation of
not being gentlemen enough to pay for services rendered, would be equal in
virtue to ourselves."
After giving his experience of eight years in Sechele's country,
in Bechuanaland, Livingstone continues:--"During that
time, no winter passes without one or two of the tribes in the east country
being plundered of both cattle and children by the Boers. The plan pursued
is the following: one or two
friendly tribes are forced to accompany a party of mounted Boers. When they reach the tribe to be attacked, the friendly native are ranged in front, to form, as they say, 'a shield;' the Boers then coolly fire over their heads till the devoted people flee and leave cattle, wives and children to their captors. This was done in nine cases during my residence in the interior, and on no occasion was a drop of Boer's blood shed. News of these deeds spread quickly among the Bechuanas, and letters were repeatedly sent by the Boers to Sechele, ordering him to come and surrender himself as their vassal, and stop English traders from proceeding into the country. But the discovery of lake Ngami, hereafter to be described, made the traders come in five-fold greater numbers, and Sechele replied, 'I was made an independent chief and placed here by God, and not by you; I was never conquered by Mosilikátze, as those tribes whom you rule over; and the English are my friends; I get everything I wish from them; I cannot hinder them from going where they like.' Those who are old enough to remember the threatened invasion of our own island, may understand the effect which the constant danger of a Boer invasion had on the minds of the Bechuanas; but no others can conceive how worrying were the messages and threats from the endless self-constituted authorities of the Magaliesberg Boers, and when to all this harassing annoyance was added the scarcity produced by the drought, we could not wonder at, though we felt sorry for, their indisposition to receive instruction.
"I attempted to benefit the native tribes among the Boers of
Magaliesberg by placing native teachers at different points. 'You
must teach the blacks,' said Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter, the commandant
in chief, 'that they are not equal to us.' Other Boers told me
'I might as well teach the baboons on the rocks as the
Africans,' but declined the test which I proposed, namely,
to examine whether they or my native attendants could read best. Two of their clergymen came to baptize the children of the Boers, so, supposing these good men would assist me in overcoming the repugnance of their flock to the education of the blacks, I called on them, but my visit ended in a ruse practised by the Boerish commandant, whereby I was led, by professions of the greatest friendship, to retire to Kolobeng, while a letter passed me, by another way, to the missionaries in the south, demanding my instant recall for 'lending a cannon to their enemies.'*
"These notices of the Boers are not intended to produce a sneer at
their ignorance, but to excite the compassion of their friends.
"They are perpetually talking about their laws; but practically
theirs is only the law of the strongest. The Bechuanas could never
understand the changes which took place in their commandants. 'Why,
one can never know who is the chief among these Boers. like the Bushmen,
they have no king--they must be the Bushmen of the English.' The
idea that any tribe of men could be so senseless as not to have an
hereditary chief was so absurd to these people, that in order not to appear
equally stupid, I was obliged to tell them that we English were so anxious
to preserve the royal blood that we had made a young lady our chief. This
seemed to them a most convincing proof of our sound sense. We shall see
farther on the confidence my account of our Queen inspired. The Boers,
encouraged by the accession of Mr. Pretorius, determined at last to put a
stop to English traders going past Kolobeng, by dispersing the tribe of
___________________* Livingstone had given to the
Chief, Sechele, a large iron pot for cooking purposes, and the form of it
excited the suspicions of the Boers, who reported that it was a cannon.
That pot is now in the Museum, at Cape Town.
Page 44
Bechuanas, and expelling all the missionaries. Sir George Cathcart proclaimed the independence of the Boers. A treaty was entered into with them; an article for the free passage of Englishmen to the country beyond, and also another, that no slavery should be allowed in the independent territory, were duly inserted, as expressive of the views of Her Majesty's Government at home. 'But what about the missionaries?' enquired the Boers. 'You may do as you please with them,' is said to have been the answer of the Commissioner. This remark, if uttered at all, was probably made in joke: designing men, however, circulated it, and caused the general belief in its accuracy which now prevails all over the country, and doubtless led to the destruction of three mission stations immediately after. The Boers, 400 in number, were sent by the late Mr. Pretorius to attack the Bechuanas in 1852. Boasting that the English had given up all the blacks into their power, and had agreed to aid them in their subjugation by preventing all supplied of ammunition from coming into the Bechuana country, they assaulted the Bechuanas, and, besides killing a considerable number of adults, carried off 200 of our school children into slavery. The natives, under Sechele, defended themselves till the approach of night enabled them to flee to the mountains; and having in that defence killed a number of the enemy, the very first ever slain in this country by Bechuanas, I received the credit of having taught the tribe to kill Boers! My house, which had stood perfectly secure for years under the protection of the natives, was plundered in revenge. English gentlemen, who had come in the footsteps of Mr. Cumming to hunt in the country beyond, and had deposited large quantities of stores in the same keeping, and upwards of eighty head of cattle as relays for the return journeys, were robbed of all; and when they came back to Kolobeng, found the
skeletons of the guardians strewed all over the place. The books of a good library--my solace in our solitude--were not taken away, but handfuls of the leaves were torn out and scattered over the place. My stock of medicines was smashed; and all our furniture and clothing carried off and sold at public auction to pay the expenses of the foray. I do not mention these things by way of making a pitiful wail over my losses, in order to excite commiseration; for though I feel sorry for the loss of lexicons, dictionaries, &c., &c., which had been the companions of my boyhood, yet, after all, the plundering only set me entirely free for my expedition to the north, and I have never since had a moment's concern for anything I left behind. The Boers resolved to shut up the interior, and I determined to open the country."
Mr. A. McArthur, of Holland Park, wrote on March 22nd of this
year:--
"When looking over some old letters a few days ago, I found one
from the late venerable Dr. Moffat, who was one of the best friends South
Africa ever had. It was written in answer to a few lines I wrote him,
informing him that the Transvaal had been annexed by the British
Government. I enclose a copy of his letter."
Dr. Moffat's letter is as follows:--
July 27th, 1877.
My dear friend,
"I have no words to express the pleasure the late annexation of
the Transvaal territory to the Cape Colony has afforded me. It is one of
the most important measures our Government could have adopted, as regards
the Republic as well as the Aborigines. I have no hesitation in pronouncing
the step as being fraught with incalculable benefits to both
parties,--i.e., the settlers and the native tribes. A residence of
more than half a century beyond
the colonial boundary is quite sufficient to authorize one to write with
confidence that Lord Carnarvon's measure will be the commencement of
an era of blessing to Southern Africa. I was one of a deputation appointed
by a committee to wait on Sir George Clarke, at Bloemfontein, to prevent,
if possible, his handing over the sovereignty, now the Free State, to the
emigrant Boers. Every effort failed to prevent the blunder. Long experience
had led many to foresee that such a course would entail on the native
tribes conterminous oppression, slavery,
strictly to self-defence, and we had invaded
him, we might have had to blame ourselves.
11th, and says, "When I read these in conjunction with the history of
South Africa for the last 18 years, I see that the cause of peace was
hopeless in such hands."
Lessouto, June 28th, 1876.
"Gentlemen,
reached the first village through which we must
pass--Heidelberg--and encamped some distance from there. There
they told us that the Boers knew that we were about to pass, and if they
wished to stop us, it would be there they would do it. Let us take courage,
therefore, we said, and be ready for everything. We unharnessed, and walked
through the village in full daylight, posting our letters. etc. No one
stopped us or spoke to us, and we retired to our encampment, thanking God
that He had kept us through this critical moment. Some days later, we
approached a charming spot, within three hours of Pretoria, near a clear
stream, surrounded with lovely trees and flowers; we took the Communion
together, strengthening each other for the future. Monday, at nine
o'clock, we reached Pretoria. We were looked at with curiosity; the
Field Cornet himself saw us pass, they told me sometime later. But we
passed through the town without opposition.
turn round and go back to Pretoria. One of these men was the Sheriff, who
showed me a warrant for my arrest, and putting his hand on my shoulder,
declared me to be his prisoner. This, I may say in passing, made little
impression on me. We retraced our steps, always believing that when we had
paid some duty exacted for our luggage and our goods, we should be allowed
to go in peace. towards midnight they permitted us to unharness near a
farm. The next morning these gentlemen searched all through the waggon of
the native evangelists, and put any objects which they suspected aside. All
this, with my waggon, must be sent back to Pretoria, there to be inspected
by anyone who chose.
having somewhere a cannon, they proceeded to the examination of my waggon.
They opened everything, ran their hands in everywhere, into biscuit boxes,
among clothes, among candles, etc., and found neither cannon nor petroleum.
The comedy of the smuggling ended, they took note of the contents of my
boxes, and then attacked us from another side. They decided to treat me as
a missionary. The Solicitor-General said to me that the Government
did not care to have French missionaries going to the other side of the
Limpopo. I said, 'these countries do not belong to the
Transvaal;' to which they replied, 'Do you know what our
intentions are? Have you not heard of the treaties which we have been able
to make with the natives and with the Portuguese?' There! that is the
reply which they made to me. They took good care not to inscribe it in the
document in which they ordered us to leave the Transvaal immediately. These
are things which they do not care to write, lest they should awaken the
just susceptibilities of other Governments, or arouse the indignation of
all true Christians. But there is the secret of the policy of the Transvaal
in regard to us missionaries; they feared us, because they know our
attachment to the natives, and our devotion to their interests.
in the Transvaal shall enjoy--I cannot say the same privileges, but a
faint shadow of what every Dutchman, as well as every man, white and black,
in the Cape Colony enjoys. Every Dutchman in the Cape Colony is treated
exactly as if he were an Englishman; and every subject of Her Majesty the
Queen, black and white, is treated in the Transvaal, and has always been,
as a man of an alien and subject race. The franchise is only one of many
grievances, and it is utterly a mistake to suppose that England is going to
war over a question of mere franchise. Let us be just, however. There are
in the Cape Colony and out of it loyal Dutchmen, loyal as the day, to the
British power, which is the ruling power. They know the freedom they enjoy
under it, and the folly and futility of trying to upset it.
Kruger and his supporters do what is right, and give what is barely and
simply and only necessary as well as right, and the whole difficulty will
pass into solution, to the relief of all concerned and the preservation of
peace in South Africa. If not, the blame must rest with him.
that if we love all men we can under no circumstances go to war. There is,
however, a spurious advocacy of peace, which is based, not upon love to men
so much as upon enmity to our own Government, and which levels against it
untrue charges of having caused the Transvaal War. It was to show the
erroneousness of these charges that I wrote this letter."
that has now been brought into play, not to keep the English out of the
Transvaal, but to realise what is called the Afrikander programme of a
Dutch domination over the whole of South Africa. Thus, he a short time ago
imported from Europe 149,000 rifles--nearly five times as many as the
whole military population of the Transvaal--clearly with a view to
arming the Cape Dutch in case of the general rising he hoped for. The
Jameson Raid gave him exactly the grievance he wanted--to persuade
these Cape Dutch that England sought to crush the Transvaal.
three conditions: that the Boers should not make treaties with
foreign Powers without the consent of the paramount Power in South Africa,
i.e., England; that they should not
make slaves of the native tribes; and that they should guarantee equal
treatment for all the white inhabitants of the country as respects
taxation. As the whole war has risen out of Kruger's persistent
refusal to keep his promises, both verbal and in writing, that he would
observe this condition, I append the clause giving rise to the
contention:--
explosive was bad, often causing accident or death. When it did cause
accident or death, the miners were prosecuted by the Government, from whose
agent they were compelled to buy it, and fined for having used it!
for some time past, any law of any sort can be passed by a small clique of
Kruger's in secret session of the Raad without notice of any
sort, and without the knowledge or assent of the people. The Boers
have no more voice in such legislation than if they were Chinese. The
Transvaal is only a Republic in the same sense that a nutshell is a nut, or
a fossil oyster shell is an oyster.
though the natives pay 3 per cent. of the revenue, the Boers paying
7½, and the Uitlanders 89½. The natives have, therefore,
actually been helping to educate the Boer children. "In 1896,"
says Mr. Phillips, "only £650 was granted to the schools of
those who paid nine-tenths of the revenue, £63,000 being spent
upon the Boer Schools. In other words, the Uitlander child get 1s. 10d.,
the Boer child £8 6s. 1d. The Uitlander pays £7 per head for
the education of every Boer child, and he has to provide in addition for
the education of his own children."
A letter from a Son of Dr. Moffat may have some interest here. It is
dated December 20th, 1899.
The Rev. John Moffat, son of the famous Dr. Moffat, and himself for a
long time resident in South Africa, has sent to a friend in London a letter
regarding the relations of the British and Dutch races previous to the war.
Mr. Moffat, throughout his varied experiences, has been a special friend to
the natives. One of his younger sons, Howard, is with a force of natives 60
miles south west of Khama's town (at the time of writing, December
20th), and Dr. Alford Moffat, another son, was medical officer to 300
Volunteers occupying the Mangwe Pass, to prevent a Boer raid into Rhodesia
at that point.
He writes:--
"1. Had Steyn sat still and minded his own business
no one would have meddled with him. Had Kruger confined himself
Page 47
"2. To have placed an adequate defensive force on our borders
before we were sure that there was going to be war would have been accepted
(perhaps justly) by the Boers as a menace. We did not do it, out of respect
for their susceptibilities.
"3. To most people in South Africa who knew the Boers it was quite
plain that Kruger was all along playing what is colloquially known as the
game of ':spoof.' He never intended to make the slightest
concession.
"4. Take them as a whole, the Boers are not pleasant people to
live with, especially to those who are within their power, as the natives
have found out sufficiently, and as the British have found out ever since
Majuba, and the retrocession of the Transvaal. The wrongs of the Uitlanders
were only one symptom of a disease which originated at Pretoria in 1881,
and was steadily spreading itself all over South Africa.
"5. With regard to the equal rights question, it is quite true
that all is not as it ought to be in the Cape Colony. But the condition of
the native in the Transvaal is 100 years behind that of our natives in the
Cape Colony, and you may take it as a broad fact that in proportion as Boer
domination prevails the gravitation of the native towards slavery will be
accelerated."
In conclusion, Mr. Moffat has this to say of the "Boer dream of
Afrikander predominance": "We, who have been living out
here, have been hearing about this thing for years, but we have tried not
to believe it. We felt, many of us, that the struggle had to come, but we
held our peace because we did to want to be charged with fomenting race
hatred." He refers to Ben Viljoen's manifesto of September
29th, and to President Steyn's manifesto, and State Secretary
Reitz's proclamation of October
Page 48
Almost contemporaneously with the expression of opinion of Dr. Moffat
(in 1877), the following report was written by M. Dieterlen, to the
Committee of the Missions Evangéliques de
Paris:--
"I must give you details of the journey which I have just made
with four native evangelists; for no doubt you will wish to know why a
missionary expedition, begun under the happiest auspices, and with the good
wishes of so many Christians, has come to grief, on account of the
ill-will of certain men, and has been, from a human point of view, a
humiliating failure. Having placed myself at the head of the expedition,
and being the only white man in the missionary group, I must bear the whole
responsibility of our return, and if there is anyone to blame it is I.
"From our departure from Leriba, as far as the other side of
Pretoria, our voyage was most agreeable. We went on with energy, thinking
only of our destination, the Banyaïs country, making plans for our
settling amongst those people, and full of happiness at the thought of our
new enterprise. An excellent spirit prevailed in our little
troop,--serious and gay at the same time; no regrets, no murmurings;
with a presentiment, indeed, that the Transvaal Government might make some
objection to our advance, but with the certainty that God was with us, and
would over-rule all that man might try to do. We crossed the Orange
Free State without hindrance, we passed the Vaal, and continued our route
towards the capital of the Transvaal; we
Page 49
"We continued our way to the north-east full of
thankfulness, saying to each other that after all the Government of the
Transvaal was not so ill-disposed towards us. Our oxen continued to
walk with sturdy steps we had not yet lost one, although the cattle plague
was prevalent at the time. Wednesday, at four o'clock in the evening,
we left the house of an English merchant, with whom we had passed a little
time, and who had placed at our disposal everything which we needed.
Towards eight o'clock, by a splendid moonlight, I was walking in
front of my waggon with Asser (one of the native missionaries), seeking a
suitable place where we could pass the night, when two horsemen galloped
up, and drawing bridle, brusquely asked for my papers, and seeing that I
had not the papers that they desired, ordered us to
Page 50
"That same day I arrived in Pretoria in a cart, seated between the
Field Cornet and the Sheriff, who were much softened when they saw that I
did not reply to them in the tone which they themselves adopted, and that I
had not much the look of a smuggler. The Secretary of the Executive Council
exacted from the bail to the amount of £300 sterling, for which a
German missionary from Berlin, Mr. Grüneberger, had the goodness to be
my guarantor. I made a deposition, saying who we were, whence we came, and
where we were going, insisting that we had no merchandise in our waggon,
only little objects of exchange by which we could procure food in countries
where money has no value. We had no intention of establishing ourselves
within the limits of the Transvaal; we were going beyond the Limpopo, and
consequently were simple travellers, and were not legally required to take
any steps in regard to the Government, nor even to ask a passport. All this
was written down and addressed to the Executive committee, who took the
matter in hand.
"As they, however, accused us of being smugglers, and
Page 51
"They then ordered me to retrace at once my steps, threatening
confiscation of our goods and the imprisonment of our persons if we
attempted to force a passage through the country. I had to pay £14
sterling for the expenses of this mock trial. They brought the four native
Evangelists out of the prison where they had spent two nights and a day in
a very unpleasant manner; they gave me leave to take our two waggons out of
the square of the Hotel de Ville where they had been put, together with the
Transvaal Artillery, some pieces of ordnance, a large Prussian cannon and a
French mitrailleuse from Berlin.
Page 52
"We were free, we were again united, but what a sorrowful reunion!
We could hardly believe that all was ended, and that we must retrace our
steps; so many hopes dissipated in a moment! and the thought of having to
turn back after having arrived so near to our destination, was heart
breaking. We were all rather sad, asking each other if we were merely the
sport of a bad dream or if this was indeed the will of God. I resolved to
make one more effort and ask an interview with the President of the
Transvaal, Mr. Burgers. It was granted to me. I went therefore to the
Cabinet of the President and spoke a long time with the
Solicitor-General, protesting energetically against the force they
had used against us, and I discussed the matter also with the President
himself, but without being able to obtain any reasonable reply to the
objections I raised. I saw clearly that I had to do with men determined to
have their own way, and putting what they chose to consider the interests
of the State above those of all Divine and human laws.
"Their Parliament (Raad) was sitting, and I addressed myself to
two of its members whom I had seen the day before, and who had seemed
annoyed at the conduct of the Government towards us. I besought them for
the honour of their country, to bring before their Parliament a question on
the subject: but they dared not consent to this, declaring that if
the Government were to put the matter before the representatives of the
country these latter would decide in our favour, but that they could never
take the initiative.
"I had now exhausted all the means at my disposal. I did all I
could to obtain leave to continue our journey, and only capitulated at the
last extremity. I received a written order from the Government telling me
to leave the soil of the Republic immediately.
Page 53
"These gentlemen had made me wait a long time, perhaps because
they found it more difficult and dangerous to put down on paper orders
which it was much easier to give vocally. This note was only a reproduction
of the accusations they had made against us from the beginning. They
declared to us that we were driven from the country because we had
introduced guns, ammunition, and a great quantity of merchandise, and
because we had entered the Transvaal without a passport, in spite of the
Government itself having recently proclaimed a passport unnecessary for
evangelists going through the country. In this document they systematically
misrepresented and violated the right which every white man had had until
then of travelling without permission. From the beginning to the end of
this document it was open to criticism, which the feeblest jurist could
have made; but in the Transvaal, as elsewhere, might dominates right, and
we have to suffer the consequences of this odious principle.
"We sorrowfully retraced the route towards the Vaal; this time no
more joyous singing around our fire at night, no more cheerful projects, no
more the hope of being the first to announce the glad Evangel among pagan
populations. The veldt we traversed seemed to have lost its poetry and to
have become desolate. To add to our misfortunes the epidemic seized our
oxen. We lost first one and then a second,--altogether eight. Those
which were left, tired and lean, dragged slowly and with pain the waggons
which before they had drawn along with such vigour. At last we were in
sight of Mabolela, and arrived at our destination, sorrowful, yet not
unhappy, determined not to be discouraged by this first check. And now we
were again at Lessouto, waiting for God to open to us a new
door."
Page 54IV.
INTERVIEW WITH DR. JAMES STEWART, MODERATOR (1899) OF THE FREE
CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. LETTER OF MR. BELLOWS TO SENATOR HOAR, U.S.A. THE REV.
C. PHILLIPS. EXTRACTS FROM THE "CHRISTIAN AGE," AND FROM M.
ELISÉE RECLUS, GEOGRAPHER. RETROCESSION OF THE TRANSVAAL. MR.
GLADSTONE'S ACTION. ITS EFFECT ON THE TRANSVAAL LEADERS, AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES FOR THE NATIVE SUBJECTS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
THE Rev. Dr. James Stewart, of Lovedale Mission Institute,
South Africa, who, in May, 1899, was elected Moderator of the General
Assembly of the Scotch Free Church, imparted his views with regard to the
Transvaal question to a representative of the New York Tribune
on the occasion of his visit to Washington in the autumn of 1899, to attend
the Pan-Presbyterian Council as a delegate from the Free Church of
Scotland.
Dr. Stewart's title to speak on matters connected with the
Transvaal rests upon thirty years' residence in South Africa.
On the morning of his election as Moderator of the General Assembly the
Scotsman coupled his name with that of Dr. Livingstone as the
men to whom the British Central Africa Protectorate was due.
The interview was published in the Tribune of September
24th, 1899.
Dr. Stewart said:--
"As to the principle politically in dispute, the British
Government asks nothing more than this--That British subjects
Page 55
"No superfluous pity or sympathy need be wasted on President
Kruger or the Transvaal Republic. The latter (Republic) is a shadow of a
name, and as great a travesty and burlesque on the word as it is possible
to conceive.
"Paul Kruger is at the present moment the real troubler of South
Africa. If the spirit and principles which he himself and his Government
represent were to prevail in this struggle, it would arrest the development
of the southern half of the continent. It is too late in the day by the
world's clock for that type of man or government to continue.
"The plain fact is this:--President Kruger does not
mean to give, never meant to give, and will not give anything as a
concession in the shape of just and necessary rights, except what he is
forced to give. He wants also to get rid of the suzerainty. That darkens
and poisons his days and disturbs his nights by fearful dreams. There is no
excuse for him, and, as I say, there need be no sentiment wasted on the
subject. Let President
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"I am sorry I cannot give any information or express any views
different from what I have now stated. They are the result of thirty
years' residence in Africa. But I would ask your readers to believe
that the British Government are rather being forced into war than choosing
it of their own accord. I would also ask your readers to believe that Sir
Alfred Milner, the present Governor of Cape Colony, though undoubtedly a
strong man, is also one of the least aggressive, most cautious, and pacific
of men; and that he has the entire confidence of the whole British
population of the Cape Colony. I know also that when he began his rule
three years ago, he did so with the expectation that by pacific measures
the Dutch question was capable of a happier and better solution than that
in which the situation finds it to-day. The question and trouble
to-day is, briefly, whether the British Government is able to give
protection and secure reasonable rights for its subjects abroad."
The following was addressed by Mr. John Bellows of Gloucester, to
Senator Hoar, United States, America, and was published in the New
York Tribune, Feb. 22nd, 1900. Mr. Bellows, on seeing the
publication of his letter, wrote the following postscript, to Senator
Hoar:--
"As the foregoing letter was headed by the Editor of the New
York Tribune, 'A Quaker on the War,' I would say, to
prevent misunderstanding, that I speak for myself only, and not for the
Society of Friends, although I entirely believe in its teaching,
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The following is the text of the letter:--
"Dear Friend, I am glad to receive thy letter, as it gives me the
opportunity of pointing out a misconception into which thou hast fallen in
reference to the Transvaal and its position with respect to the present
war.
"Thou sayest: 'I am myself a great lover of England;
but I do not like to see the two countries joining hands for warlike
purposes, and especially to crush out the freedom of small and weak
nations.'
"To this I willingly assent. I am certain that war is in all
circumstances opposed to that sympathy all men owe one to another, and to
that Greater Source of love and sympathy in which 'we live and move
and have our being.' Where this bond has been broken, we long for its
restoration; but it cannot but tend to retard this restoration, to impute
to one or other of the parties concerned motives that are entirely foreign
to its action. Peace, to be lasting, must stand on a foundation of truth;
and there is no truth whatever in the idea that the English Government
provoked the present war, or that it intended, at any time during the
negotiations that preceded the war, an attack on the independence either of
the Transvaal or of the Orange Free State. It is true that President Kruger
has for many years carefully propagated the fear of such an attempt among
the Dutch in South Africa, as a means of separating Boers and Englishmen
into two camps, and as an incentive to their preparing the colossal
armament
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"An examination of the 'Blue Book,' which contains the
whole of the correspondence immediately preceding the war, will at once
show the patient efforts put forth by the London Cabinet to maintain peace.
There are no irritating words used, and the last despatch of importance
before the outbreak of hostilities, dealing with the insinuations just
alluded to, is not only most courteous and conciliatory in tone, but it
states that the Queen's Government will give the most solemn
guarantees against any attack upon the independence of the Transvaal either
by Great Britain or the Colonies, or by any foreign power. I am absolutely
certain that no American reading that despatch would say that President
Kruger was justified in seizing the Netherlands Railway line within one
week after he had received it, and cutting the telegraph wires, to prepare
for the invasion of British territory, in which act of violence lay his
last and only hope of forcing England to fight; his last and desperate
chance of setting up a racial domination instead of the freedom and
equality of the two races that prevail in the Cape and Natal, and that did
prevail in the Orange Free State.
"The cause of the dispute was this: In 1884 a Convention was
agreed on between Great Britain and the Transvaal, acknowledging the
independence of the Transvaal, subject to
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"Article XIV. (1884 Convention).--'All persons other
than natives conforming themselves to the laws of the South African
Republic will not be subject in respect to their persons or property or in
respect of their commerce and industry to any taxes, whether general or
local, other than those which are or may be imposed upon citizens of the
said Republic.
"The mines brought so large a population to Johannesburg that it
at last outnumbered by very far the entire Boer burghers in the State.
Kruger, seeing that the inevitable effect of such an increase must be the
same amalgamation of the new and old populations which was going on in
Natal and Cape Colony, and to a smaller extent in the Orange Free State,
unless artificial barriers could be devised to keep the races apart, at
once set to scheme modes of taxation that should evade Article XIV. of the
Convention, throwing the entire burden on the Uitlanders, and letting the
Boers, who were nearly all farmers, escape scot free. Farmers, for example,
use no dynamite, miners do; and President Kruger gave
a monopoly of its supply to a
German, nonresident in the country, who taxed the miners for this article
alone $2,600,000 a year beyond the highest price it could otherwise
have been bought for. This was his own act, the Volksraad not being
consulted. Besides the high price, the quality of the
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"At the time the Convention was signed, in 1884, the franchise was
obtainable after one year's residence. President Kruger determined to
serve the Uitlanders, however, as George III.'s Government served the
American Colonists, that is, tax them while refusing them representation in
the control of the taxes. He went on at one and the same time increasing
their burdens monstrously, while he prolonged the period of residence that
qualified for a vote from one year to five, and so on, till he made it
fourteen years--or fourteen times as long as when the Convention was
signed. Nor was this all. He reserved the right personally to veto any
Uitlander being placed on the register even after the fourteen years if he
thought he was for any reason objectionable. That is, the majority of the
taxpayers were disfranchised for ever! These Uitlanders had bought and paid
for 60 per cent. of all the property in the Transvaal, and 90 per cent. of
the taxes were levied from them; an amount equal to giving every Boer in
the country $200 a year of plunder.
"Is a country that is so governed justly to be called a
'Republic?'
"But even the Boers themselves have been adroitly edged out of
power by Paul Kruger. The Grondwet, or Constitution, provided that to
prevent abuses in legislation, no new law should be passed until the bill
for it had been published three months in advance. To evade this, Kruger
passed all kinds of measures as amendments to existing laws; which, as he
explained, not being new laws, required no notification! Finally, however,
he got the Volksraad to rescind this article of the Grondwet; and now, as
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"All the British Government has ever contended for with President
Kruger has been the fair and honourable observance of his engagement in
respect of equal rights in Article XIV. of the 1884 Convention. This he has
persistently and doggedly refused, while he has been using the millions of
money he has wrung from the Uitlanders to purchase the material for the war
he has been long years preparing on such a colossal scale to drive the
English out of those Colonies in which they have given absolute equality to
all. It is this very equality which has upset his calculations, by its
leaving too few malcontents among the Dutch population to make any general
rising of them possible in Natal or the Cape, on which rising Kruger staked
his hope of success in the struggle. As for the Transvaal Boers, the only
part they have in the war is to fight for their independence, which was
never threatened until they invaded British territory, and thus compelled
the Queen's Government to defend it.
"The only alternative left to England to refuse fighting would
have been the ground that all war is wrong; but as neither England nor any
other nation has ever taken this Christian ground, there was in reality no
alternative. Is it fair to stigmatise England as endeavouring to crush two
small and weak nations because they have been so small in wisdom and weak
in common sense as to become the tools of the daring and crafty autocrat
who has decoyed both friend and foe into this war?--I am, with high
esteem, thy friend,--JOHN
BELLOWS."
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It does not come within the scope of this treatise to deal with the case
of the Uitlanders,--but I have given the foregoing, because it is a
clear and concise statement of that case, and because it expresses the
strong conviction that I and many others have had from the first, that the
worst enemy the Boers have is their own Government. A Government could
scarcely be found less amenable to the principles of all just Law, which
exists alike for Rulers and ruled. These principles have been violated in
the most reckless manner by President Kruger and his immediate supporters.
The Boers are suffering now, and paying with their life-blood for
the sins of their Government. Pity and sympathy for them, (more especially
for those among them who undoubtedly possess higher qualities than mere
military prowess and physical courage,) are consistent with the strongest
condemnation of the duplicity and lawlessness of their Government.
The Rev. Charles Phillips, who has been eleven years in South Africa,
has given his opinion on the native question.
It was part of the Constitution of the Transvaal that no equality in
Church or State should be permitted between whites and blacks. In Cape
Colony, on the contrary, the Constitution insisted that there should be no
difference in consequence of colour. Mr. Phillips enumerates the oppressive
conditions under which the natives live in the Transvaal. They may not walk
on the sidepaths, or trade even as small hucksters, or hold land. Until two
years ago there was no marriage law for the blacks, and that which was then
passed was so bad--a £3 fee being demanded for every marriage,
with many other difficulties placed in the way of marriage--that the
missionaries endeavoured to procure its abolition, and to return to the old
state of things. No help is given towards the education of native children,
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The following extract is from a more general point of view, but one
which it is unphilosophical to overlook.
The Christian Age reproduces a communication from an
American gentleman residing in the Transvaal to the New York
Independent.