"A HISTORY OF THE BARALONGS"
MAFEKING, _March 22nd, 1900_.
Beyond a few successful cattle-raiding forays on the part of the
Baralongs, we have done nothing these past days but maintain
courageously the glories of our splendid isolation. In a way we have
been compelled to depend to no small extent upon the prowess of the
local tribe. The Baralongs have done well by us, and have served us
faithfully, and with no complaint. They have fought for us; they have
preyed upon the enemy's cattle, so that the white garrison might have
something better than horseflesh for their diet; they have manned the
western defences of the stadt, and they have suffered severe
privations with extraordinary fortitude. There have been moments in
the earlier stages of the war when they might well have considered the
advisability of supporting a power that could not from the outset
hinder their own arch-enemy, and one against whom they have been
pre-eminently successful in other years, from invading the territories
of the Empire. But whatever may have been the workings of the native
mind, however they may have dallied with the treacherous overtures of
the Boers, they have individually, and as a tribe, unanimously risen
to the occasion, and given to the Great White Queen their absolute
support. In the history of these people there is not much in the
consideration which we have shown them to justify their allegiance,
and if we have secured their loyalty at so critical a moment, let us
hope that it may, in some way, epitomise the actions for the future,
of the tribes that are allied with them, and, when the moment comes
for compensation, let us at least remember the debt of honour which we
owe them.
The Baralongs are, of course, identified with the Bantu peoples of
Africa, but they come from a stock that is industrial as opposed to
the military element of this race. The distribution of the military
and industrial Bantu is significant, but in this latter we will
consider one of the peaceable tribes. The military Bantu is found in
possession of the most fertile regions, and it may be well to remember
that they occupied the Southern extremity of Africa, contemporaneously
with Europeans. They are now found between the Drakensberg Mountains
and the Indian Ocean, fruitful areas about the Zoutpansberg and
Kaffraria. It would seem that they held these grounds by right of
might, and their district is in somewhat striking contrast to the
regions in which the industrial Bantu are at home. These latter cling
to the mountains, as in Basutoland, and are scattered over the high
plateau which forms so great a part of the Free State and the
Transvaal, or in the confines of the Kalahari Desert and those deserts
and karoos which lie to the south of the Orange River. The desert has
ever been their ultimate retreat, and as their more warlike kinsmen
seized and held the finer qualities of the country, the arid and, so
to speak, waste areas of Africa fell to the heritage of the industrial
Bantu. Descendants from the same family, there is naturally an analogy
between their tribal organisations which is yet curiously dissimilar.
They are both armed with the same weapon, but the assegai of the
military Bantu is short-handled and broad bladed; while the assegai of
the industrial Bantu is long and sharp, light in the blade, and
intended mainly for purposes of the chase. Among the former the chief
is a despot, against whose word there is no appeal; his town is
designed with a view to defence; the chief's hut and the cattle-pens
of the tribe are placed in the centre, and around these the remaining
huts are built in concentric circles. The power of the chief among the
industrial Bantu is limited; first by the council of lesser chiefs,
secondly by the general assemblage of the freemen of the tribe. His
town is intended to serve the requirements of a peaceful people, while
outside the ground is cultivated in a rough and unscientific manner;
they are even acquainted with the art of smelting ore and working in
iron. The pursuit of the military Bantu is directed to the successful
cultivation of a bare sufficiency of corn and cattle, and he pays
little attention to anything which is beyond his immediate
requirements. The Kaffirs, the Zulus, and the Matabele Zulus are among
the warlike tribes of this dark-skinned race; but the chief seats of
the industrial tribe are Bechuanaland and Basutoland, and it is with
the peaceful Bechuanas, with whom are identified the Baralongs, that
we propose to deal.
Historically, Bechuanaland will remain ever interesting to Englishmen
as being the scene of the labours of Robert Moffat, David Livingstone,
and John Mackenzie: three famous missionaries, who in their time did
so much for the interests of our country in what was then the Dark
Continent. The immense area lying to the north of Cape Colony
possessed in itself one great political feature which made its
possession of paramount importance. It was the natural trade route
between that colony and Central Africa at a moment when Imperialism
was a soulless conception, and when our ideas of the Empire in Africa
shrank at the possibility of northern expansion. During all those
years possession of Bechuanaland was the golden key to a future which,
had we but realised it then, would have given us some right to claim
the distinction of being a race of discoverers. We were, however, very
diffident about accepting and recognising any greater responsibilities
in relation to any enlargement of the areas of our African domains,
and if a vindictive spirit had not encouraged the Boers to plunder and
destroy the settlement in which missionary Livingstone abode, and thus
driven him to pastures of a fresh kind, we might never have possessed
the gate through which the stream of prosperity has flowed, until it
reached to the limits of Central Africa. If the Boers had resolved to
oust this intrepid Englishman, they failed lamentably, insomuch as
they did but drive him to explore the interior, and to open up a
magnificent reach of country to his fellow Englishmen. Bechuanaland
lay at his feet when he first started forth, but to-day the point of
exploration is many hundred miles in advance. Bechuanaland has
flourished, and would have prospered more, had we but appreciated the
doctrine of those Victorian statesmen who, recognising the wondrous
wealth which lay in this new country, but fearing that the moment had
not come for such gigantic undertakings, were regretfully compelled
to delegate to posterity the duty of some day acquiring these very
areas. Great Britain does not go very far back into the history of the
native tribes of Bechuanaland. We are the later agents of a new
civilisation, but we have yet to undo many wrongs to the lawful
possessors of this proud heritage, to adjust many intricate questions,
and to grapple, without fear and hesitation, with the problems which
confront us--problems upon which it is surely not too much to say the
effectual solidarity and stability of this great African Empire
depends.
Tradition tells us that the Baralong branch of the Bantu came from the
north under the leadership of Chief Morolong, and that the tribe
settled, after a protracted exodus from the north, on the Molopo River
under a chief who was fourth in descent from their first leader,
Morolong. The combination of the military and industrial Bantu had
been already broken by the character of the tribe itself. Before they
had been settled very long, Matabele Zulus under Moselekatse attacked
Mabua, and there was once again a complete division of tribe. They
scattered in three directions. Thaba N'chu was selected by the leader
of that party as their eventual resting-place. Two other sections, led
by Taoane, the father of Montsioa, and Machabi, found their way into
the country which lay between the Orange River and the Vaal. There
they remained, leading a quiet and comparatively harmless existence
until the Boers, under Hendrik Potgieter, entered into alliance with
the Baralongs to attack Moselekatse. When the old lion of the north
had been driven beyond the Limpopo, Taoane returned with his followers
to the south bank of the Marico. By virtue of this conquest Potgieter
issued a proclamation, claiming for himself and the Transvaal
Government the country which had previously been overrun by the Zulu
chief. Under this proclamation the Boers claimed to exercise sovereign
powers over the Bechuana tribes, but upon the protest of the British
Government this was withdrawn, Taoane and Montsioa, who had by this
time succeeded his father, refusing to recognise the implied
sovereignty of the Boers. By the intervention of the Imperial
Government on behalf of the native chiefs of a territory which was
practically unknown, it became the eventual channel through which we
pushed a benign salvation, and an indifferent protection upon the
natives of Bechuanaland until that time when we were enabled to
assimilate the country. The attempt of the Transvaal Government to
seize the areas of Bechuanaland was the rift in the silver lining of
the clouds of Transvaal prosperity. The question became, between the
two Governments, one of great moment, and its existence, since the
Republic declined to ratify the award of the Keate Arbitration, was a
bone of contention which was never altogether buried. The attitude of
this Republic, the indirect assistance which the Transvaal offered to
Moshette and Massou for the perpetuation of civil strife among the
Bechuana chiefs, undoubtedly hastened the annexation by Great Britain
in 1877 of the Transvaal territory. When this happened, despite the
fact that the border was immediately delimited, Bechuanaland passed
through a period of the greatest anarchy. The chiefs were warring
amongst themselves, and although the two parties claimed the
protection of either the Transvaal or the Imperial Government, the
country was not definitely pacified till the despatch of the Warren
Expedition, an expedient which by its success made Bechuanaland an
integral portion of our African Empire. Montsioa, the Baralong chief,
was fighting with his brother Moshette; Mankorane, the Batlapin chief,
was engaged in struggle with David Massou, who was head of the
Korannas. Of these four chiefs Montsioa and Mankorane sought the
protection of the Imperial Government, while Moshette and Massou
acknowledged the sovereignty of the Transvaal. European volunteers or
freebooters who would be rewarded for their services by grants of
land, assisted each of the four chiefs. At this juncture the Imperial
Government changed its policy of administration in relation to the
natives of Bechuanaland, and the result was that the High Commissioner
of the Cape became supreme chief of the natives outside the Republic
and the territories of foreign powers. In pursuance of the new policy
Mr. Mackenzie arrived in Bechuanaland as British Resident, for the
purpose of giving effect to the newly proclaimed Protectorate which
had been established over the country outside the south-western
boundary of the Transvaal by the consent of the delegates from the
Republic, who had visited London to obtain certain modifications of
the Convention of Pretoria. An extraordinary state of things awaited
the arrival of Mackenzie, for the volunteers in the service of the
Bechuana chiefs, Moshette and Massou, had established two independent
communities, the "republics" of Land Goshen and Stellaland. The
freebooters of Stellaland offered no resistance to the authority of
the British Resident, but the burghers of Land Goshen celebrated the
arrival of the Resident by a series of outrages and the contemptuous
rejection of the demands made to them by these new officials. With
the successful resistance of the filibusters from Rooigrond, the
capital of Land Goshen, President Kruger issued a proclamation in the
interests of humanity, by which he brought under the protecting wing
of this South African State, the contending chiefs and their European
advisers; thus the anomaly existed of a power endeavouring to assert
its authority over rebels in a country in which we ourselves had
assumed control. The mediation of the Transvaal Government was brought
about, partly by the situation of Rooigrond, partly by the
unjustifiable arrogance and assumption of the Transvaal President. The
town had been so placed that it lay across the line of the new
south-western boundary; the divisions lying partly in the Transvaal,
partly in the Protectorate, and since it had become apparent that the
Imperial or Colonial Government were unable to remedy the evils which
arose from the depredations of marauders of Rooigrond, their leaders
justified their actions by claiming that their town was the property
of the Transvaal, and that they themselves were acting for that state,
under the orders of General Joubert, and endeavouring to suppress
conditions of anarchy in a country which, from the state of its
existence, would appear to possess no controlling influences. If the
outcome of this diplomatic feat were the proclamation of the
Transvaal, it also aroused Great Britain to the true condition of
affairs. The Transvaal had gone too far, and, in response to hints
from the Imperial Government as to the feeling of the colony,
resolutions were passed stating that public opinion in Cape Colony
considered the intervention of her Majesty's Government for the
maintenance of the trade route to the interior, and the preservation
of native tribes to whom promise of Imperial protection had already
been given, was an act dictated by the claims of humanity and by the
necessities of policy. It was thus brought home to the Government that
the Cape Colonists considered that it would be fatal to British
supremacy in South Africa if we failed to maintain our rights which we
derived from the Convention of London, and to fulfil our obligations
towards the native tribes of the new Protectorate. After this
assurance of moral support the Imperial Government despatched Sir
Charles Warren, in order that he might remove the filibusters from
Bechuanaland, pacify the country, and restore the natives their land,
taking measures, in the meantime, to prevent a recurrence of the
depredations and atrocities which had been enacted recently there.
When the forces were finally withdrawn Bechuanaland was created a
Crown Colony, and at a subsequent date, it was incorporated into the
Cape Colony. Since this time we have continued to perform the duties
of a central authority in respect to the native tribes beyond the
borders of the South African Republic, the expenses of administration
being paid from the proceeds of the hut tax which is levied upon
natives, together with the revenue derived from trading licenses, and
paid for by European traders. In the settlement of Bechuanaland we
reached a critical point in the history of England's administration in
South Africa. We have been compelled to accept the responsibilities of
such a central power as we have become, and we can no longer disregard
the adjustment of those problems which so burdened that office. Now
that our Imperial interests are so strong and our holdings in the
country so great, let us no longer continue to oppose the means which
will lead to that eventual federation of the Colonies and States of
South Africa, the union which, once secured, will do so much to
rectify the mistakes that we have made in our African policy.