SECOND CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON—NORTH OF THE ORANGE RIVER.
The Africanders who had trekked into the spreading uplands lying
between the Orange River and the Limpopo, west of Natal, were not
exempt from the tribulations experienced by their brethren who had
turned eastward to the coast. Like them they were forced to wage
incessant war with the natives; but the enemies they had to encounter
were less formidable than the Zulus. One tribe, however, and their
historic chief, Moshesh, were foemen worthy of their steel. In the
nineteenth century there were three men of the Kaffir race who were
vastly superior to any of their own people, and measured up evenly with
the ablest white opponents they met in diplomacy and war. These men
were Tshaka the Zulu, Khama of the Bechuanos, and Moshesh the Basuto.
It was the fortune of the Orange River emigrants to meet this Moshesh
and the Basutos in many a hard-fought battle for the possession of the
country. Moshesh differed from other Kaffir leaders in that he was
merciful to his wounded and captive enemies and ruled his own people
with mildness and equity. As early as 1832 he opened the way for, and
even invited, missionaries to teach the Basutos a better way of life,
and they exerted a powerful formative influence on the Basuto nation.
The missionaries were all European—some of them were British—which
latter fact was made apparent in the result of their work. When the
unavoidable conflict between the Basutos and the whites came, the
Basutos, guided by their missionaries, were careful to avoid any fatal
breach with the British government. Several times Moshesh engaged in
war with the Orange River emigrants, but only once with the English.
In 1843 the Africanders of this region were widely scattered over a
vast spread of country measuring seven hundred miles in length and
three hundred in width. To the southeast it was bounded by the
Quathlamba mountains, but on the north and west there were no natural
features to delimitate it from the plain which extends to the Zambesi
on the north and to the Atlantic Ocean on the west. Within this
territory the Africander population, in 1843, was not much more than
15,000. This seems a small number in view of the fact that the pioneer
emigrants of 1836 to 1838 had been largely re-enforced from the Cape
colony. But it must be remembered their life was precarious in the
extreme; many had died—some from disease, some in conflict with wild
beasts, and a still greater number in their frequent wars with the
natives. The white population was further recruited between 1843 and
1847 by a second Africander trek from Natal—which will be described in
another chapter.
So small a body of people, of whom not more than 4,000 were adult
males, occupying so vast a territory, experienced serious difficulties
in establishing an efficient government. The difficulties growing out
of that cause were enhanced by the very qualities in the Africanders
which had led to their emigration from the old colony, and which had
made them successful in their wars of conquest in the interior. To an
excessive degree they were possessed by a spirit of individual poise
and independence. They desired isolation—even from one another. They
chafed and grew restive under control of any kind, so much so that they
were indisposed to obey even the authorities created by themselves. For
warlike expeditions, which yielded them a pleasant excitement, enlarged
their territory by conquest, and enriched them with captured cattle and
other spoil, they readily united under their military leaders and
rendered them obedience, but any other form of control they found
irksome. This predilection towards solitary independence was constantly
strengthened by the circumstances in which they lived. The soil, being
dry and parched in most places, did not invite agriculture to any
considerable extent. Most of the people turned to stock-farming, and
the nomadic life it necessitated in seeking change of pasture for the
flocks and herds confirmed the disposition to live separate from other
people.
Out of these causes grew the determination to make their civil
government absolutely popular, and conditioned, entirely, on the will
of the governed. But unity of some kind must be had, for their very
existence depended on acting together against the natives, and against
the repeated claims of the British government to exercise sovereignty
over the region they occupied. The first steps towards instituting
civil government were taken in the organizing of several small
republican communities, the design being that each should manage its
own affairs by a general meeting of all the citizens. It was found,
however, as the population spread over the country, that such
independent neighborhood governments failed to secure the necessary
unity of the whole people in any matter requiring the aggregate
strength of the whole people. To remedy this element of weakness and
danger, the Africanders instituted a kind of federal bond between the
little republican communities, in an elective assembly called the
Volksraad—a Council of the People composed of delegates from all the
sectional governments. This federative tie was of the weakest—its
authority resting upon an unwritten understanding and common consent
rather than upon formal articles of confederation, and its meaning
being always subject to such interpretation as might be suggested by
the error or the passion of the passing moment.
The territory beyond the Vaal River, to the far northeast from Cape
Colony, was left undisturbed by the British government. The Africanders
living there were hundreds of miles from the nearest British outpost.
Their wars with the natives projected no disturbing influence upon the
tribes with whom the colonial government was in touch and for whose
peace and prosperity it felt responsible. Moreover, the British
authorities at the Cape were under instructions from the Colonial
Office of the home government to rather contract than expand the scope
of British influence in South Africa. For these reasons the Cape
government cared nothing for what took place in the outlying regions
beyond the Vaal, unless, indeed, it was some event calculated to
disturb the natives dwelling next the colonial borders.
Altogether different, in the esteem of the Cape authorities and of the
Colonial office, were the affairs of the region extending southwestward
from the Vaal River to the borders of Cape Colony. Within that
territory there had been frequent dissensions between Africander
communities. And there had been a rapid increase of dangerous elements
in the native population. The Basutos had grown powerful. Intermixed
with the whites were the Griquas, a half-breed hunting people, sprung
from Africander fathers and Hottentot mothers, and partially civilized.
The possibility of serious native wars growing out of quarrels between
the white emigrants themselves and between them and the mixed colored
population was a constant distress to both colonial governors and the
home authorities.
At this time the Cape was regarded the least prosperous of all the
British colonies, and there was a growing indisposition to annex any
more territory in South Africa. The soil was mostly arid. The
Africander population was alien. The Kaffir wars threatened to be
endless and very costly in men and in money. This reluctance to enlarge
had been overcome in the case of Natal; but Natal was the garden of
South Africa and the possession of it gave the British command of the
east coast almost to Delagoa Bay. But to the north there seemed to be
nothing sufficiently inviting to justify the taking up of new
responsibility and expense.
The problem of how to safeguard the peace of the old Cape Colony
without undertaking the burdens involved in governing and holding the
whole Africander territory to the northeast, including the region
beyond the Vaal River, was thought to have been solved by Doctor
Philip, an English missionary, who had some influence with the
government. The scheme recommended by Doctor Philip was that the
government should create a line of native states under British control
along the northeast border of Cape Colony. These would act, he claimed,
as a barrier to break the influence of the more turbulent Africanders
in the regions north of that line on those of their blood who were yet
citizens of the old colony, and they would, in like manner, separate
between the native tribes in the colony and those in the interior.
Doctor Philip’s plan was adopted with much enthusiasm. A treaty
suitable to the purpose contemplated had already been made with a
northern Griqua leader named Waterboer. In 1843 two other treaties were
made, one with Moshesh of the Basutos and the other with Adam Kok, a
leader of the Orange River Griquas. It was fondly believed that these
three states, recognized by and in treaty with Great Britain, would
isolate the colony from the disturbing and dangerous people to the
north of them.
Doctor Philip’s promising arrangement disappointed every one. The
Africanders living in the territory of the Griquas refused to be bound
in any sense by a treaty made by the despised half-breeds, and the
former troubles continued. A further effort was made to give effect to
the doctor’s statesmanship by establishing a military post at
Bloemfontein, about half way between the Orange River and the Vaal, for
the purpose of enforcing order and of carrying out the provisions of
the treaty. This step was followed up in 1848 by the formal annexation
to the British dominions in South Africa of the entire country lying
between the Orange and the Vaal, under the name of the Orange River
Sovereignty. The second contact of Boer and Briton, begun in Natal in
1842, was thus extended into the Orange River territory.
The Africanders rose up to assert their independence, encouraged and
re-enforced by their brethren from beyond the Vaal. Under the able and
energetic leadership of Mr. Pretorius, who had opposed the British in
Natal, they attacked Bloemfontein, captured the garrison posted there
and advanced to the south as far as Orange River.
The governor of Cape Colony, Sir Harry Smith, hastily dispatched a
sufficient force, which met and defeated the Africanders at Bloomplats,
about seventy-five miles north of the Orange River, on the 29th of
August, 1848. The sole result of this battle was the restoration of
British authority over the Orange River Sovereignty. The territory was
not incorporated with that of Cape Colony, neither were the Africanders
dwelling north of the Vaal River further interfered with.
The old conditions of unrest continued. Fresh quarrels among the native
tribes seemed to call for British interference, and led them into war
with the Basutos under Moshesh. Out of this conflict and its threatened
complications grew a deliberate change of imperial policy in South
Africa, which the English have never ceased to regret.
The situation, so pregnant with far-reaching results, may be stated
thus, in brief: The British resident at Bloemfontein had no force at
his command that could cope with the Basutos under the masterly
leadership of Moshesh. The Africanders living in the district were
disaffected—even hostile—to the British government. They therefore
refused to support the resident, preferring to fight only their own
battles and to make their own terms with the Basutos. The situation of
the British grew still more critical when Mr. Pretorius—yet a leading
spirit among the Africanders north of the Vaal—threatened to make
common cause with the Basutos. As for the old colony at the Cape, it
was already involved in a fierce conflict with the south coast Kaffirs,
and could not spare a man to aid in quieting the northern disturbances.
At this juncture of circumstances Mr. Pretorius made overtures to the
colonial authorities, intimating that he and the northern Africanders
desired to make some permanent pacific arrangement with Great Britain.
The British authorities, disavowing all right to control the territory
north of the Vaal, but still claiming the allegiance of the Africanders
resident therein, appointed commissioners to negotiate with Mr.
Pretorius and other representatives of the Transvaal group of
emigrants. Subsequently the home authorities of the British government
appointed and sent out Sir George R. Clark, K. C. B., as “Her Majesty’s
Special Commissioner for settling the affairs of the Orange River
Sovereignty.” Having conferred with all who were concerned personally
in the affairs of the Sovereignty, Sir George, in a meeting held at
Sand River in 1852, concluded a convention with the commandant and
delegates of the Africanders living north of the Vaal.
In the provisions of this convention the British government expressly
“guaranteed to the emigrant-farmers beyond the Vaal River the right to
manage their own affairs and to govern themselves according to their
own laws, without any interference on the part of the British
government,” and it permitted the emigrants to purchase ammunition in
the British colonies in South Africa. It also disclaimed “all alliances
with any of the colored nations north of the Vaal River,” and
stipulated that “no slavery is or shall be permitted or practiced by
the farmers north of the Vaal River.”
The Transvaal Republic, called, later, the South African Republic,
dates its independence from this convention, concluded at Sand River in
1852. It also, by the same instrument, severed itself and its interests
from the Africander emigrants living in the Sovereignty south of the
Vaal—an act which their southern brethren deemed little short of a
betrayal.
For a few months after the convention of 1852 the Sovereignty continued
British, and might have done so for many years but for a serious defeat
of the British arms in that territory by the Basutos. General Cathcart,
who had just been installed as governor of the Cape, rashly attacked
the Basutos with a strong force of regulars, was led into an ambush and
suffered so great a disaster that further hostile operations were
impossible without a new and larger army. The politic Moshesh saw in
the situation an opportunity to make peace with the English on
favorable terms, which he at once proceeded to do.
This crushing reverse called out a report to the British ministers
relative to the condition of affairs in the Sovereignty, and a
statement of the policy he favored in reference to that part of her
majesty’s dominions, from Sir George Clark, the special commissioner
appointed to settle the affairs thereof. The closing paragraphs of that
report read as follows:
“The more I consider the position, relative both to the Cape colony and
its (the Sovereignty’s) own internal circumstances, the more I feel
assured of its inutility as an acquisition, and am impressed with a
sense of the vain conceit of continuing to supply it with civil and
military establishments in a manner becoming the character of the
British Government, and advantageous to our resources.
“It is a vast territory, possessing nothing that can sanction its being
permanently added to a frontier already inconveniently extended. It
secures no genuine interests; it is recommended by no prudent or
justifiable motive; it answers no really beneficial purpose; it imparts
no strength to the British Government, no credit to its character, no
lustre to the crown. To remain here, therefore, to superintend or to
countenance this extension of British dominion, or to take part in any
administrative measure for the furtherance of so unessential an object,
would, I conceive, be tantamount to my encouraging a serious evil, and
participating in one of the most signal fallacies which has ever come
under my notice in the course of nearly thirty years devoted to the
public service.”
The British Government, weary of the perpetual native wars, disgusted
at the late defeat of the British regulars by Moshesh and his Basutos,
and influenced by the emphatic and very significant report of their
special commissioner, which report was heartily indorsed by Governor
Cathcart, decided to abandon the Orange River Sovereignty altogether.
An act of parliament in accordance with that decision was passed.
Later, when there were vehement protests against the
abandonment—protests from the missionaries who feared for the welfare
of the natives, and from English settlers in the Sovereignty who
desired to remain subject to the British crown—a motion was made in the
House of Commons begging the Queen to reconsider the renunciation of
her sovereignty over the Orange River territory, but the motion found
no support at all, and had to be withdrawn. Instead, parliament voted
£48,000 to compensate any who might suffer loss in the coming change,
so eager were the authorities to be rid of this large territory with
its constant vexations and its costliness. And thus it was that
independence was literally forced upon the Orange River country.
By the convention of the 23d of February, 1854, signed at Bloemfontein,
the British government “guaranteed the future independence of the
country and its government,” and covenanted that they should be, “to
all intents and purposes, a free and independent people.” It further
provided that the Orange River government was to be free to purchase
ammunition in the British South African colonies, and that liberal
privileges were to be granted it in connection with import duties. As
in the case of the Transvaal, so in this convention it was stipulated,
that no slavery or trade in slaves was to be permitted north of the
Orange River. The name given to the new nation was “The Orange River
Free State.”
It cannot be denied that these conventions of 1852 and 1854 created two
new and independent states. Nor can it be denied that in consenting to
their creation the action of the British government was taken under no
pressure of war, under no powerful foreign interference, but altogether
of its own free will, and with the conviction that in cutting loose
from undesirable and disputed territory it was acting for the good of
the empire.
Canon Knox Little, in his “South Africa,” calls this action of the
British government “a serious blunder.” Be that as it may, the
Africanders acted in perfect consistency with all their former
aspirations and claims, and they made no blunders in the negotiations
that secured to them independent national existence. The British
“blunder”—if blunder it was—was written in a formal official document,
and subscribed by the authorised representatives of the government,
appointed expressly to give effect to imperial legislation, and can no
more be repudiated righteously than can a written contract between
private individuals.