THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND TREK TO THE NORTH.
The purview intended to be given in these pages requires that we now
look back to Natal, and to the condition and movements of the
Africanders living in that region after it became British territory. As
has been stated in chapter V., the English took forcible possession of
Natal in 1843. Two years later it was made a dependency of the older
colony at the Cape; in 1856 it was constituted a separate colony, and
so remains to this day.
A small minority of the Africanders—about five hundred families—being
greatly attached to the homes they had founded in that most attractive
part of South Africa, reconciled themselves to the British
administration and remained. But the majority, including all the
fiercer and more restless spirits, took their families and goods, their
flocks and herds, and once more trekked in search of independence.
Their course lay northwestward across the mountains to the elevated
plateaus of the Orange River district and the Transvaal.
Very reluctantly the Africanders abandoned sunny and fruitful Natal,
and the one hold they had ever gained of a part of the coast. But a
goodly land and access to the sea, to be of great value in their
esteem, must be associated with freedom to govern themselves and to
deal with the native population as an inferior and servile race not
entitled to civil equality with the whites.
The Africander love of independence, and their reasonable objection to
be civilly on a level with the ignorant and savage blacks, command
respect and admiration; but their treatment of the natives, where
unrestrained by British rule, was anything but creditable. They may be
excused for many wars with Bushmen and Kaffirs, for their very lives
depended on either reducing these to submission or driving them to a
safe distance from the white settlements. But the enslaving of men and
women, and, later, of children under the subterfuge of apprenticeship
for a term of years, cannot be justified; it was monstrously
incompatible with the insistent demand for personal freedom for
themselves so conspicuous in the Africander race. The one extenuating
circumstance is the fact that, leading an isolated life, they were
slower than other civilized peoples in catching the spirit of the age—a
spirit that makes for freedom, and a growing betterment in the
condition of every man.
The exodus of Natal Africanders between 1843 and 1848 encouraged an
immense influx of Kaffirs, who repopulated the country so plentifully
that the proportion of blacks to whites has been as ten to one ever
since.
The emigrants who settled north of the Vaal, both those of the Great
Trek and those from Natal who began to join them in 1843, were rude and
uneducated as compared to their brethren of the Orange River region.
The northern group had less of English blood in their veins, and
because of distance and difficulty of communication they were not at
all affected by intercourse with the more cultured people of Cape
Colony.
Lacking the upward lead that contact with a progressive civilization
would have given, there took place a marked degeneration of character
in these more northern emigrants. Their love of independence was
developed into a spirit of faction and dissension among themselves.
Their lionlike bravery was perverted into a too great readiness to
fight on the smallest provocation, and a disposition to prey upon their
weaker native neighbors. Through a desire to enlarge their grazing
lands they became greedy as to territory, and were almost constantly
engaged in bloody strife with the native occupants of the regions they
insisted on annexing.
The almost patriarchal mode of life they followed had the effect of
segregating them into family groups widely separated from one another,
largely exempted from any control of magistrates and law courts, and
susceptible to family feuds and bitter personal rivalries between
faction leaders. This absence of efficient control was a cause of
further evil in encouraging an influx of unprincipled adventurers from
other parts of South Africa. These went about through the more
unsettled parts and along the border, cheating and often violently
illtreating the natives to the great peril of peace both in the
Transvaal and in the contiguous British provinces. As an example of the
turmoil in which the people lived and participated, the following
account is introduced of an Africander expedition under Acting
Commandant-General Scholtz against Secheli, chief of the Baquaines, a
tribe of Zulus. It also covers the incident of the plundering of Doctor
Livingstone’s house by the force under General Scholtz.
The matter of complaint was that the Baquaines had been constantly
disturbing the country by thefts and threatenings, and that they were
sheltering a turbulent chief named Mosolele. In order to punish and
reduce them to obedience a commando was sent against them. After some
petty encounters with scouts the Africander force drew near to
Secheli’s town, in the direction of the Great Lake, on the 25th of
August, 1852. Two days’ further march brought them so near that the
Africander scouts discovered and reported that Secheli was making every
preparation for defense.
On the 28th Scholtz marched close by the town where Secheli was
fortified, and camped beside the town-water, a little distance from the
intrenchments. It being Saturday Scholtz resolved to do nothing to
provoke a battle before Monday, being desirous of keeping the Lord’s
Day in quiet. He did, however, dispatch a letter to Secheli demanding
the surrender of Mosolele, in the following terms:
“Friend Secheli: As an upright friend, I would advise you not to allow
yourself to be misled by Mosolele, who has fled to you because he has
done wrong. Rather give him back to me, that he may answer for his
offense. I am also prepared to enter into the best arrangements with
you. Come over to me, and we shall arrange everything for the best,
even were it this evening. Your friend,
“P. E. SCHOLTZ, Act. Com.-Gen.”
To this Secheli replied:
“Wait till Monday. I shall not deliver up Mosolele. * * * But I
challenge you on Monday to show which is the strongest man. I am, like
yourself, provided with arms and ammunition, and have more fighting
people than you. I should not have allowed you thus to come in, and
would assuredly have fired upon you; but I have looked in the book,
upon which I reserved my fire. I am myself provided with cannon. Keep
yourself quiet to-morrow, and do not quarrel for water till Monday;
then we shall see who is the strongest man. You are already in my pot;
I shall only have to put the lid on it on Monday.”
On Sunday Secheli sent two men to the camp to borrow some sugar—which
Scholtz regarded as bravado. The messengers also brought word from
Secheli directing Scholtz to take good care that the oxen did not
pasture on the poisonous grass in the neighborhood of his camp, for he
now looked upon them as his own.
On Monday Scholtz sent messengers to Secheli to ascertain his
intentions and to renew the offers of peace. The Zulu chieftain replied
that he required no peace, that he now challenged Scholtz to fight, and
added, “If you have not sufficient ammunition, I will lend you some.”
After some further exchanges of diplomatic courtesies between the
African and the Africander the battle began. By six hours of hard
fighting Scholtz carried all the native intrenchments, killed a large
number of the warriors, and captured many guns and prisoners. The Zulus
still held one fortified ridge of rocks when nightfall put an end to
the battle. In the morning it was found that Secheli had retreated from
his stronghold under cover of night. Scholtz sent out a force in
pursuit, who inflicted further punishment on the fugitives and returned
the next day without loss of a man.
General Scholtz’s official report of this expedition contains the
following remarkable statement regarding the looting of Doctor
Livingstone’s house:
“On the 1st of September I dispatched Commandant P. Schutte with a
patrol to Secheli’s old town; but he found it evacuated, and the
missionary residence broken open by the Kaffirs. The commandant found,
however, two percussion rifles; and the Kaffir prisoners declared that
Livingstone’s house, which was still locked, contained ammunition, and
that shortly before he had exchanged thirteen guns with Secheli, which
I had also learnt two weeks previously, the missionaries Inglis and
Edwards having related it to the burghers, A. Bytel and J. Synman; and
that Livingstone’s house had been broken open by Secheli to get powder
and lead. I therefore resolved to open the house that was still locked,
in which we found several half-finished guns and a gunmaker’s shop with
abundance of tools. We here found more guns and tools than Bibles, so
that the place had more the appearance of a gunmaker’s shop than a
mission-station, and more of a smuggling-shop than a school place.”
Doctor Livingstone’s character is too well known in all the civilized
world to need even a word of vindication. General Scholtz, being taken
as sincere in his statements, fell into an egregious and well-nigh
inexcusable error concerning the tools found in the doctor’s house and
the guns in various stages of completeness. In those parts, so distant
from carpenters, wagon-makers and smiths, it was absolutely necessary
for the explorer to have with him all tools required in making or
repairing wagons, harness, guns, and whatever else belonged to his
outfit. It is impossible to account for General Scholtz’s statements
concerning the altogether blameless Doctor Livingstone in any other way
than to ascribe them to prejudice. It is well known that there was in
the Africander mind a deep-rooted hostility against the missionaries,
of whom David Livingstone was chief, because they denounced the
practice of slavery and reported the cruelties incident to it. Had
General Scholtz been entirely free from the prejudice due to this cause
he would have seen on Doctor Livingstone’s premises not an illicit gun
factory, but an honest repair shop such as any pioneer in those parts
must have.