THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BOER RACE
The early history of the Boers is contemporaneous with that of the
progress of white man's civilization at the Cape of Good Hope. The two
are interwoven to such an extent and for so long a time that it is
well-nigh impossible to separate them. In order to give an unwearisome
history of the modern Boer's ancestors, a general outline of the
settlement of the Cape will suffice.
The history of the Boers of South Africa has its parallel in that of the
early Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock and their descendants. The
comparison favours the latter, it is true, but the conditions which
confronted the early Boers were so much less favourable that their lack
of realization may easily be accounted for. In the early part of the
seventeenth century the progenitors of the Boers and the Pilgrims left
their continental homes to seek freedom from religious tyranny on
foreign shores.
The boat load of Pilgrims left England to come to America and found the
freedom they sought. About the same time a small number of Dutch and
Huguenot refugees from France departed from Holland for similar reasons,
and decided to seek their fortunes and religious freedom at the Cape of
Good Hope. There they found the liberty they desired, and, like the
Pilgrims, assiduously set to work to clear the land and institute the
works of a civilized community.
The experiences of the two widely separated colonists appear painfully
similar, although to them they were undoubtedly preferable to the
persecutions inflicted upon them in their native countries. The
Pilgrims were constantly harassed by the savage Indians; the Dutch and
Huguenots at the Cape had treacherous Hottentots and Bushmen to contend
against. Although probably ignorant of each other's existence, the two
parties conducted their affairs on similar lines and reached a common
result--a good local government and a reasonable state of material
prosperity.
The little South African settlement became of recognised importance in
the later years of the century, when it was made the halfway station of
all ships going to and returning from the East Indies. The necessity
for such a station was the foundation of the growth of the settlement at
Table Bay, which is only a short distance from the southernmost
extremity of the continent, and the increase in population came as a
natural sequence.
The Dutch East India Settlement, as it was officially called, attracted
hundreds of immigrants. The reports of a salubrious climate, good soil,
and, more than all, the promised religious toleration, were the
allurements that brought more immigrants from Holland, Germany, and
France. Cape Town even then was one of the most important ports in the
world, owing to its great strategic value and to the fact that it was
about the only port where vessels making the long trip to the East
Indies could secure even the scantiest supplies. The provisioning of
ships was responsible, in no small degree, for the growth of Cape Town
and the coincident increase in immigration.
When all the available land between Table Mountain and Table Bay was
settled, the new arrivals naturally took up the land to the northward,
and drove the bellicose natives before them. Like their Pilgrim
prototypes, they instituted military organizations to cope with the
natives, and they were not infrequently called upon for active duty
against them. It was owing to this savage disposition of the natives
that the settlers confined their endeavours to the vicinity of Table
Bay.
When immigrants became more numerous and land increased in value, the
pilgrims of more daring disposition proceeded inland, and soon carried
the northeastern boundary of the settlement close to the Orange River.
The soil around Table Bay was extremely rich, but farther inland it
became barren and, by reason of the many lofty table-lands, almost
uninhabitable. The Bushmen, too, were constantly attacking the
encroaching settlers, whose lives were filled with anything but thoughts
of safety, and high in the northern side of Table Mountain is to be seen
to-day an old-time fort that was erected by the settlers to ward off
natives' attacks upon Cape Town.
The Dutch East India Company, which controlled the settlement, looked
with disfavour upon the enlargement of the original boundary of the
colony, and attempted to enforce laws preventing such action. The
settlers in the outlying district felt that they owed no allegiance to
the laws of the colony in which they did not live, and refused to obey
the company's mandates. Then followed a long-drawn-out controversy
between the settlers and the East India Company, which resembled in many
respects the differences between England and her American colony.
It was during this period of oppression that the settlers of the Cape of
Good Hope first exhibited the betokening signs of a nation. The
communities of Hollanders, Germans, and French were constantly in such
close communication with one another that each lost its distinguishing
marks and adopted the new manners and customs which were their
collective coinage. They suffered the same indignities at the hands of
the East India Company, and naturally their sympathies drew them into a
closer bond of fellowship, so that almost all national and racial
differences were wiped out.
Never in the history of South Africa were all things so favourable for
the establishment of a truly Afrikander nation and government. A leader
was all that was necessary to throw off the yoke of continental control,
but none was forthcoming.
At this propitious time the Napoleonic wars in Europe resulted so
disastrously for France that she was compelled to cede to England the
South African settlement, which had been acquired with the annexation of
Holland, and the settlers believed their hour of deliverance from
tyranny had arrived. They hailed the coming of the British forces with
hopes for the improvement of their conditions, fondly believing that the
British could treat them with no greater severity than that which they
had suffered under the rule of the Dutch Company.
But their hopes were short-lived after the British garrison occupied
Cape Town, and they soon learned that they had escaped from one kind of
torment and oppression only to be burdened with another more harassing.
The British administrators found a friendly people, eager to become
British subjects, and, by exercise of undue authority, quickly
transformed them into desperate enemies of British rule. The American
colonies had but a short time before taught British colonial statesmen a
dire lesson, but it was not applied to the South African colony, and the
mistake has never been remedied.
Had the lesson learned in America been applied at that time, British
rule would now be supreme in South Africa, and the two republics which
are the eyesore of every Englishman in the country would probably never
have come into existence. The British administrators ruled the colony
as they had been taught in London, and allowed no local impediments to
swerve them. The result of this method of government was that the Boer
settlers, who had opinions of their own, became bitterly opposed to the
British rule. The administrators attempted to coerce the Boers, and
formulated laws which were meat to the newly arrived English immigrants
and poison to the old settlers.
One of the indirect causes of the first Boer uprising against the
British Government at the Cape was the slavery question. In the
Transvaal there is a national holiday--March 6th--to commemorate the
uprising of 1816, and it is known throughout the country as "Slagter's
Nek Day." To the Boers it is a day of sad memory, and the recurrence of
it does not soften their enmity of the English nation.
In October, 1815, a Boer farmer named Frederick Bezuidenhout was
summoned to appear in a local court to answer a charge of maltreating a
native. The Boer refused to obey the summons, and, with a sturdy
native, awaited the arrival of the Government authorities in a cave near
his home. A lieutenant named Rousseau and twenty soldiers found the
Boer and the native in the cave, and demanded their surrender.
Bezuidenhout refused to surrender, and he was almost instantly killed.
When the news of his death reached his friends they became greatly
aroused, and, arming themselves, vowed to expel the English "tyrants"
from the country. The English soldiers captured five of the leaders,
and on March 6, 1816, hanged them on the same scaffold at Slagter's Nek,
a name afterward given to the locality because of the bungling work of
the hangmen and the ghastly scenes presented when the scaffold fell to
the ground, bearing with it the half-dead prisoners.
The story of this event in the Boer history is as familiar to the Dutch
schoolboy as that of the Boston Tea-Party is to the American lad, and
its repetition never fails to arouse a Boer audience to the highest
degree of anger.
The primal cause of the departure of the Boers from Cape Colony, or the
"Great Trek,"[#] as it is popularly known, was the ill treatment which
they received from the British administration in connection with the
emancipation of their slaves and the depredations of hordes of thieving
native tribes. The Boers had agreed about 1830 to emancipate all their
slaves, and they had received from the British Government promises of
ample compensation.
[#] To trek is to travel from place to place in ox-wagons. A trek
generally refers to an organized migration of settlers to another part
of the country.
After the slaves had been freed, and the majority of the Boer farmers
had become bankrupt by the proceeding, the Government offered less than
half the promised compensation. The Boers naturally and indignantly
refused to accept less than the amounts England had promised of her own
free will. The Boers felt sorely aggrieved, but, being in the minority
in the colony, could secure no redress. Several years after the slaves
had been freed great hordes of thieving natives swept across the
frontiers, and in several months inflicted these losses upon the
farmers: 706 farmhouses partially or totally destroyed by fire; 60 farm
wagons destroyed; 5,713 horses, 112,000 head of cattle, and 162,000
sheep stolen.
The value of the property destroyed and stolen by the blacks amounted to
almost two million dollars. Much of the live stock was recovered by the
Boer farmers, who had the boldness to pursue the robbers into their
mountain fastnesses, but the Government did not allow them to hold even
such cattle as they identified as having been driven away by the
natives, but compelled them to yield all to the Government. When they
asked for compensation for restoring the property to the Government, the
Boers received such a promise from the governor, D'Urban; but Lord
Glenelg, the British colonial secretary, vetoed the suggestion, and
informed the Boers that their conduct in recovering the stolen property
was outrageous and unworthy of English subjects.
Even Boer disposition, inured as it was to all kinds of unrighteousness,
could not fail to take notice of this crowning insult. They consulted
among themselves, and it was decided to leave the colony where they had
suffered so many wrongs. Accordingly, in the spring of 1835 they
sacrificed their farms at whatever prices they could secure for them,
and announced to Lieutenant-Governor Stockenstrom their intention of
departing to another section of the country.
To be certain that they would be free from British interference, the
Boer leaders applied to the lieutenant-governor for his opinion on the
subject, and he informed them that they were free to leave the colony,
and that as soon as they stepped across the border England ceased to be
their master. Later, Englishmen have sagely declared that the Boers
having once been British subjects always remained such, whether they
lived on British or Transvaal soil. The objects of the expedition where
set forth in a document published in 1837 by Piet Retief, its leader.
It reads, in part, as follows:
"We despair of saving the colony from those evils which threaten it by
the turbulent and dishonest conduct of native vagrants who are allowed
to infest the country in every part; nor do we see any prospect of peace
or happiness for our children in a country thus distracted by internal
commotions.
"We complain of the continual system of plunder which we have for years
endured from the Kaffirs and other coloured classes, and particularly by
the last invasion of the colony, which has desolated the frontier
districts and ruined most of the inhabitants.
"We complain of the unjustifiable odium which has been cast upon us by
interested and dishonest persons under the name of religion, whose
testimony is believed in England, to the exclusion of all evidence in
our favour, and we can foresee as a result of this prejudice nothing but
the total ruin of the country.
"We are now leaving the fruitful land of our birth, in which we have
suffered enormous losses and continual vexations, and are about to enter
a strange and dangerous territory; but we go with a firm reliance on an
all-seeing, just, and merciful God, whom we shall always fear and humbly
endeavour to obey."
The first "trekking" party, or the "Voor-trekkers," consisted of about
two hundred persons under the leadership of Andries Hendrik Potgieter.
These crossed the Orange River and settled in that part of the country
now known as the Orange Free State. This party had many battles with
the natives, but succeeded in securing a level although not particularly
arable stretch of land near Thaba'ntshu for settlement.
In August, 1836, after remaining a short time in the neighbourhood of
Thaba'ntshu, a number of the settlers became dissatisfied with their
location and "trekked" farther north toward the Vaal River, which is the
present northern boundary of the Orange Free State. Before they had
proceeded a great distance they were attacked by the Matabele natives
under Chief Moselekatse, and fifty of their number were slain.
When the news of the slaughter reached the main body of the settlers a
"laager," or improvised fort, was formed by locking together the fifty
big transport wagons that had been brought from Cape Colony. Behind
these the men, women, and children fought side by side against the
innumerable Matabeles, and after a desperate battle succeeded in
defeating them. The natives captured and drove away about ten thousand
head of cattle and sheep--almost the entire wealth of the settlers.
The settlement, however, increased rapidly in population, and, several
years after the first Boers arrived there, application was made for
English protection. It was granted to them, but was withdrawn again in
1854, when the British colonial secretary decided that England had more
African land than was desirable. The Boers begged to be retained as an
English colony, but in vain, and the fifteen thousand inhabitants were
compelled to establish a government of their own, which is to-day
embodied in that of the Orange Free State.
Since that memorable day in 1854, when the British flag was hauled down
from the flagstaff at the Bloemfontein fort, both the British and the
Boers have had revulsions of feeling. The British regret that their
flag is absent from the fort, and the Boers will yield their lives
before they ever allow it to be raised again.
The second expedition, and the one which comprised the founders of the
South African Republic, departed from Cape Colony in the fall of 1835,
with no fixed destination in view, but with a general idea to settle
somewhere outside the realm of British influence. The "trekkers" were
under the leadership of Piet Retief, a man of considerable wealth and
executive ability, who determined to lead them across the untravelled
Dragon Mountain, in the east of the colony.
In this party were three families of Krugers, and among them the present
President of the South African Republic, then a boy of ten years. After
many skirmishes with the natives, Retief and his followers reached Port
Natal, the site of the present beautiful city of Durban, where they were
welcomed by the members of the English settlement who had established
themselves on the edge of Zululand as an independent organization. The
handful of British immigrants were overjoyed to have this addition to
the forces which were necessary to hold the natives in subjection, and
they induced the majority of the Boers to settle in the vicinity of Port
Natal.
Retief and his leaders were pleased with the location and the richness
of the soil, and finally determined to remain there if the native chiefs
could be induced to enter into treaties transferring all rights to the
soil. Dingaan, a warlike native, was the chief of the tribes surrounding
Port Natal, and to him Retief applied for the grant of territory which
was to be the future home of the several thousand "trekkers" who had by
that time journeyed over Dragon Mountain. Retief and his party of
seventy, and thirty native servants, reached Dingaan's capital in
January, 1838, and took with them as a peace-offering several hundred
head of cattle which had been stolen from Dingaan by another tribe and
recovered by Retief.
Dingaan treated the Boers with great courtesy, and profusely thanked
them for recovering his stolen cattle. After several interviews he
ceded to the Boers the large territory from the Tugela to the Umzimvubu
River, from the Dragon Mountain to the sea. This territory included
almost the entire colony of Natal, as now constituted, and was one of
the richest parts of South Africa.
On February 4, 1838, when the treaty had been signed and the Boer
leaders were being entertained by the chief in his hut, a typical
massacre by the natives was enacted. At a signal from Dingaan, which is
recorded as having been "Bulala abatagati" ("Slay the white devils!"),
the Zulus sprang upon the unarmed Boers and massacred the seventy men
with assegais and clubs before they could make the slightest resistance.
Frenzied by the sight of the white men's blood, the Zulu chieftain
gathered his hordes in warlike preparation, and determined to drive all
the white settlers out of the country. A large "impi," or war party,
was despatched to attack and exterminate the remaining whites in their
camps on the Tugela and Bushmans Rivers. These latter, while anxiously
awaiting Retief's return, were in no fear of hostilities, and the men
for the most part were absent from their camps on hunting trips.
The "impi" swept down upon the camps by night, and murder of the foulest
description prevailed. The Zulus spared none; men, women, and children,
cattle, goats, sheep, and dogs--all fell under the ruthless assegais in
the hands of the treacherous savages. In the confusion and darkness a
few of the Boers escaped, among them having been the Pretorius and
Rensburg families, which have since been high in the councils of the
Boer nation. Fourteen men and boys took refuge on a hill now called
Rensburg Kop, and held their assailants at bay while they improvised a
"laager."
[Illustration: A band of Zulu warriors in war costume.]
When their ammunition was almost expended and their spirit exhausted, a
white man on horseback was observed in the rear of the Zulu warriors.
The hard-pressed emigrants signalled to him, and his ready mind,
strained to the utmost tension, grasped the situation at a glance. He
fearlessly turned his horse and rode to the abandoned wagons, almost a
mile away, to secure some of the ammunition that had been left behind by
the Boers when they were attacked by the Zulus. He loaded himself and
his horse with powder and ball from the wagons, and with a courage that
has never been surpassed rode headlong through the Zulu battle lines and
bore to the beleaguered Boers the means of their subsequent salvation.
That night the fearless rider assisted the fourteen Boers in routing the
Zulus, and when morning dawned not a single living Zulu was to be seen.
The hero of that ride was Marthinus Oosthuyse, and his fame in South
Africa rivals that of Paul Revere in American history. With the coming
of the day the scattered emigrants congregated in a large "laager," and
for several days were engaged in beating off the attacks of the
unsatiated Zulus. Wives, daughters, and sweethearts served the
ammunition to the men, and with hatchets and clubs aided them in the
uneven struggle.
After the Zulus' spirit had been broken and they commenced to retreat,
the gallant pioneers, their strength now increased by the addition of
many stragglers, pursued their late assailants and killed hundreds of
them. The town of Weenen, in Natal, takes its name from the weeping of
the Boers for their dead. Rightly was it named, for no less than six
hundred of the emigrants were massacred by the Zulus in the
neighbourhood of the present site of the town.
While this massacre was in progress Dingaan and another part of his vast
and well-trained army set out to wreak destruction upon the main body of
the Boers which was still encamped upon the Dragon Mountain waiting for
the return of Retief and his party. When the news of the massacre
reached the main body, Pieter Uys and Potgieter hastened to re-enforce
their distressed countrymen. They were not molested on the way, and had
ample time to marshal all the Boer forces in the country and make
preparations for vengeance upon the savages.
A force of three hundred and fifty men was raised, and this set out in
the month of April, 1838, to attack Dingaan in his stronghold. The Zulu
army was encountered near the King's "Great Place." The small army of
Boers rode to within twenty yards of the van of the Zulus and then
opened a steady and deadly fire. The savage weapons were no match for
the poor yet superior firearms of the Boers, and in a short time
Dingaan's army was in full retreat. In pursuing them the Boers became
separated and had great difficulty in fighting their way back to the
main camp.
The story of how Pieter Uys was wounded by an assegai, and how his son,
in endeavouring to save him, was pierced by a spear, is one of the
noblest examples of heroism in the annals of South Africa. There were
several more skirmishes with the Zulus, but the battle that broke the
strength of the tribe was fought on December 16, 1838. There were but
four hundred and sixty Boers in the army that attacked Dingaan's army of
twelve thousand, but the attack was so minutely planned and so admirably
executed that the smaller force overwhelmed the greater and won the
victory, which is annually observed on "Dingaan's Day."
The Boers lay fortified in a "laager," and with unusual fortitude
withstood the terrific onslaughts of the thousands of Zulus. Finally a
cavalry charge of two hundred Boers created a panic in the Zulu army,
and they retreated precipitously toward the Blood River, which was so
named because its waters literally ran red with the life fluid of four
hundred warriors who were shot on its banks or while attempting to ford
it. On that day three thousand Zulus perished, and Dingaan made his
ruin still more complete by burning his capital and hiding with his
straggling army in the wilderness beyond the Tugela River.
After these grave experiences the Boer settlers believed themselves to
be the rightful owners of the country which they had first sought to
obtain by peaceful methods and afterward been compelled to take by
sterner ones. But when they reached Port Natal they found that the
British Government had taken possession of the country, and had issued a
manifesto that the immigrant Boers were to be treated as a conquered
race, and that their arms and ammunition should be confiscated.
To the Boers, who had just made the country valuable by clearing it of
the Zulus, this high-handed action of the British Government had the
appearance of persecution, and they naturally resented it, although they
were almost powerless to oppose it by force of arms.
The Boer leader, Commandant-General Pretorius, who had been chosen by
the first "Volksraad"--a governing body elected while the journey from
Cape Colony to Natal was being made--led a number of his countrymen to
the outskirts of Durban and formed a camp near that of the British
garrison. He sent a message to Captain Smith, the commander of the
British force of several hundred soldiers, and demanded the surrender of
his position. In reply Smith led one hundred and fifty of his soldiers
in a moonlight attack on the Boer forces and was completely routed.
The Boers then besieged Durban for twenty-six days and killed many of
the English soldiers, but on the twenty-seventh day a schooner load of
soldiers from Cape Colony augmented the forces of Captain Smith, and
Pretorius was compelled to relinquish his efforts to secure control of
the territory that his countrymen had a short time previously won from
the Zulus.
Disheartened by their successive failures to secure a desirable part of
the country wherein they might settle, the Boers again "trekked"
northward over the Dragon Mountain. There they occupied the territory
south of the Vaal River which had a short time previously been deserted
by Potgieter and his party, who had journeyed northward with the
intention of joining the Portuguese colony at Delagoa Bay, on the Indian
Ocean.
These pilgrims were attacked by the deadly fever of the Portuguese
country, and after remaining a short time in that region moved again and
settled in different localities in the northern part of the territory
now included in the South African Republic. Moselekatse and his
Matabele warriors having been driven out of the country by the other
"trekking" parties, the extensive region north of the Vaal River was
then in undisputed possession of the Boers.
The farmers who left Cape Colony in 1835 and 1836 in different parties
and after various vicissitudes settled across the Vaal were less than
sixteen thousand in number, and were scattered over a large area of
territory. The nature of the country and the enmity of the leaders of
the parties prevented a close union among them, although a legislative
assembly, called a "Volksraad," was established after much disorder.
The four principal "trekking" parties had sought four of the most
fertile spots in the newly discovered territory, and established the
villages of Utrecht, Lydenburg, Potchefstrom, and Zoutpansberg.
When the Volksraad was found to be inadequate to meet the requirements
of the situation these villages were transformed into republics, each
with a government independent of the others. The government of the
limited areas of land occupied by the four republics was fairly
successful, but the surrounding territory became a practical
no-man's-land, where roamed the worst criminals of the country and
hundreds of detached bands of marauding natives.
The Boers imposed a labour tax upon all the natives who lived in the
territory claimed by the four republics, and for a period of ten years
the taxes were paid without a murmur. About that time, however, the
native tribes had recovered from the great losses inflicted upon them by
the emigrant farmers, and they were numerous enough to make an armed
resistance to the demands of the governments. White women and children
were massacred and property was destroyed at every opportunity.
For purposes of self-preservation the four republics decided to unite
the governments under one head, and, after many disputes and disorders,
succeeded, in May, 1864, in forming a single republic, with Marthinus
Wessel Pretorius as President, and Paul Kruger as commandant-general of
the army.
Ten months after the organization of the republic the Barampula tribe
and a number of lawless Europeans rebelled against the authority of the
Government, and Kruger was obliged to attempt their subjugation. Owing
to a lack of ammunition and funds, he failed to end the rebellion, and
as a result the Boers were compelled to withdraw from a large part of
the territory they had occupied. Up to this time the Boers had not been
interfered with by the Government of Cape Colony, but another tribal
rebellion that followed the Barampula disturbance led to the
establishment of a court of arbitration, in which the English governor
of Natal figured as umpire.
The result of the arbitration was that the rebellious tribes were
awarded their independence, and that a large part of the Boers'
territory was taken from them. The emigrant farmers who had settled the
country maintained that President Pretorius was responsible for the loss
of territory and compelled him to resign, after which the Rev. Thomas
Francois Burgers, a shrewd but just clergyman-lawyer, was elected head
of the republic. Burgers believed that the republic was destined to
become a power of world-wide magnitude, and instantly used his position
to attain that object. He went to Holland to secure money, immigrants,
and teachers for the state schools. He secured half a million dollars
with which to build a railroad from his seat of government to Delagoa
Bay, and sent the railway material to Lourenzo Marques, where the rust
is eating it to-day.
When Burgers returned to Pretoria, the capital of the republic, he found
that Chief Secoceni, of the big Bapedi tribe, had defied the power of
his Government, and was murdering the white immigrants in cold blood.
Burgers led his army in person to punish Secoceni, and captured one of
the native strongholds, but was so badly defeated afterward that his
soldiers became disheartened and decided to return to their homes.
Heavy war taxes were levied, and when the farmers were unable to pay
them the Government was impotent to conduct its ordinary affairs, much
less quell the rebellion of the natives. The Boers were divided among
themselves on the subject of further procedure, and a civil war was
imminent. The British Government, hearing of the condition of the
republic's affairs, sent Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had held a minor
office at Natal, to Pretoria with almost limitless powers. He called
upon President Burgers and stated to him that his mission was to annex
the country to England, and gave as his reasons for such a proceeding
the excuse that the unsettled condition of the native races demanded it.
Burgers pointed out to Shepstone that the native races had not harmed
the English colonies, and that a new constitution, modelled after that
of America, with a standing police force of two hundred mounted men,
would put an end to all the republic's troubles with the natives.
Shepstone, however, had the moral support of a small party of Boers who
were dissatisfied with Burgers' administration, and on April 12, 1877,
declared the republic a possession of the British Empire. Burgers
retired from the presidency under protest, and Shepstone established a
form of government that for a short time proved acceptable to many of
the Boers. He renamed the country Transvaal, and added a considerable
military force.
But the Boers were not accustomed to foreign interference in their
affairs, and twice sent deputations to England to have the government of
the country returned to their own hands. Paul Kruger was a member of
both deputations, which showed ample proof that the annexation was made
without the consent of the majority of the Boers, but the English
Colonial Office refused to withdraw the British flag from the Transvaal.
Sir Owen Lanyon, a man of no tact and an inordinate hater of the Boers,
succeeded Shepstone as administrator of the Transvaal in 1879, and in a
short time aroused the anger of his subjects to such an extent that an
armed resistance to the British Government was decided upon. The open
rebellion was delayed a short time by the election of Mr. Gladstone as
Prime Minister of England, and, as he had publicly declared the
righteousness of the Boer cause, the people of the Transvaal looked to
him for their independence. When Mr. Gladstone refused to interfere in
the Transvaal affairs the Boers held a meeting on the present site of
Krugersdorp, and elected Paul Kruger, M. W. Pretorius, and Pieter J.
Joubert a triumvirate to conduct the government.
At this meeting each Boer, holding a stone in his hand, took an oath
before the Almighty that he would shed the last drop of blood, if need
were, for his beloved country. The stones were cast into one great
heap, over which a tall monument was erected several years afterward.
The monument is annually made the rendezvous of large numbers of Boers,
who there renew the solemn pledges to protect their country from
aggressors.
On the national holiday, Dingaan's Day, December 16, 1880, the
four-colour flag of the republic was again raised at the temporary
capital at Heidelberg. The triumvirate sent a manifesto to Sir Owen
Lanyon explaining the causes of discontent, and ending with this
significant sentence, which has ever remained a motto of the individual
Boers:
"We declare before God, who knows the heart, and before the world, that
the people of the South African Republic have never been subjects of Her
Majesty, and never will be."
Lanyon cursed the men who brought the manifesto to him, and straightway
proceeded to execute the authority he possessed. His soldiers fired on
a party of Boers proceeding toward Potchefstrom, where they intended to
have the proclamation of independence printed. The Boers defeated the
soldiers the same day the Transvaal flag was hoisted at Heidelberg, and
the war, which had been impending for several months, was suddenly
precipitated before either of the contestants was prepared.
Lanyon ordered the garrison of two hundred and sixty-four men at
Leydenburg, under Colonel Anstruther, to proceed to Pretoria, the
English capital. At Bronkhorst Spruit, Colonel Anstruther's force was
met by an equal number of Boers, who immediately attacked him. The
engagement was brief but terrible, and the English forces were compelled
to surrender.
Lanyon then sent to Natal for assistance, and Sir George Colley and a
body of more than a thousand trained soldiers and volunteers set out to
assist the English in the Transvaal, who for the most part were besieged
in the different towns. Commandant-General Pieter Joubert, with a force
of about fifteen hundred Boers, went forward into Natal for the purpose
of meeting Colley, and occupied a narrow passage in the mountains known
as Laing's Nek. Colley attempted to force the pass on January 28, 1881,
but the Boers inflicted such a heavy loss upon his forces that he was
compelled to retreat to Mount Prospect and await the arrival of fresh
troops from England.
Eleven days after the battle of Laing's Nek, General Colley and three
hundred men, while patrolling the road near the Ingogo River, were
attacked by a body of Boers under Commandant Nicholaas Smit. The Boers
killed and wounded two thirds of the English force engaged, and
compelled the others to retreat in disorder. Up to this time the Boers
had lost seventeen men killed and twenty-eight wounded, while the
British loss was two hundred and fifty killed and three hundred and
fifty wounded.
During the night of February 26th General Colley made a move which was
responsible for one of the greatest displays of bravery the world has
ever seen. The fight at Majuba Hill was won by the Boers against
greater odds than have been encountered by any volunteer force in modern
times, and is an example of the courage, bravery, and absolute
confidence of the Boers when they believe they are divinely guided.
Between the camps of General Colley and Commandant-General Joubert lay
Majuba Hill, a plateau with precipitous sides and a perfectly level top
about twenty-five hundred feet above the camps. In point of resemblance
the hill was a huge inverted tub whose summit could only be reached by a
narrow path. General Colley and six hundred men, almost all of whom were
trained soldiers fresh from England, ascended the narrow path by
moonlight, and when the sun rose in the morning were able to look from
the summit of the hill and see the Boer camp in the valley.
[Illustration: Majuba Hill, where one hundred and fifty Boer volunteers
defeated six hundred British soldiers.]
The plan of campaign was that the regiments that had been left behind in
camp should attempt to force the pass through Laing's Nek, and that the
force on Majuba Hill should make a new attack on the Boers and in that
manner crush the enemy in the pass. So positive were the soldiers of
the success that awaited their plans that they looked down from their
lofty position into the enemy's lines and speculated on the number of
Boers that would live to tell the story of the battle.
It was Sunday morning, and had the distance between the two armies been
less, the soldiers on the hill might have heard the sound of many voices
singing hymns of praise and the prayers that were being offered by the
Boers kneeling in the valley. The English held their enemies in the
palm of their hand, it seemed, and with a few heavy guns they could have
killed them by the score. The sides of the hill were so steep that it
did not enter the minds of the English that the Boers would attempt to
ascend except by the same path which they had traversed, and that was
impossible, because the path leading from the base was occupied by the
remaining English forces.
The idea that the Boers would climb from terrace to terrace, from one
bush to another, and gain the summit in that manner, occurred to no one.
Before there was any stir in the Boers' camp the English soldiers stood
on the edge of the summit and, shaking their fists in exultation,
challenged the enemy: "Come up here, you beggars!"
The Boers soon discovered the presence of the English on the hill, and
the camp presented such an animated scene that the English soldiers were
led to imagine that consternation had seized the Boers, and that they
were preparing for a retreat.
A short time afterward, when the Boers marched toward the base of the
hill, the illusion was dispelled; and still later, when one hundred and
fifty volunteers from the Boer army commenced to ascend the sides of the
hill, the former spirit of braggadocio which characterized the British
soldier resolved itself into a feeling of nervousness. During the
forenoon the British soldiers fired at such of the climbing Boers as
they could see, but the Boers succeeded in dodging from one stone to
another, so that only one of their number was killed in the ascent.
When the one hundred and fifty Boers reached the summit of the hill,
after an arduous climb of more than five hours, they lay behind rocks at
the edge and commenced a hot fire at the English soldiers, who had
retreated into the centre of the plateau, thirty yards distant. The
English soldiers had been ordered to fix their bayonets and were
prepared to charge, but the order was never given. A fresh party of
Boers had reached the summit and threatened to flank the English, who,
having lost many of their officers and scores of men, became wildly
panic-stricken.
Several minutes after General Colley was killed, the British soldiers
who had escaped from the storm of bullets broke for the edge of the
summit and allowed themselves to drop and roll down the sides of the
hill. When the list of casualties was completed it was found that the
Boers had killed ninety-two, wounded one hundred and thirty-four, and
taken prisoners fifty-nine soldiers of the six hundred who ascended the
hill. The loss on the Boers' side was one killed and five wounded.
A short time after the fight at Majuba Hill an armistice was arranged
between Sir Evelyn Wood, the successor of General Colley, and the
Triumvirate, and this led to the partial restoration of the independence
of the South African Republic. By the terms of peace concluded between
the two Governments, the suzerainty of Great Britain was imposed as one
of the conditions, but this was afterward modified so that the Transvaal
became absolutely independent in everything relating to its internal
affairs. Great Britain, however, retained the right to veto treaties
which the Transvaal Government might make with foreign countries.