and obtained possession from Dingaan, chief of the Zulus, of that tract
of territory now known as Natal, the latter, incited by some Englishmen,
treacherously murdered him and his party on the 6th February, 1838; 66
Boers and 30 of their followers perished. The Great Trek thus lost its
most courageous and noble-minded leader. [9] Dingaan then sent two of
his armies, and they overcame the women and children and the aged at
Boesmans River (Blaauw-krantz), where the village of Weenen now stands;
282 white people and 252 servants were massacred.
Towards the end of the year we entered the land of this criminal with a
small commando of 464 men, and on the 16th December, 1838--since known
as "Dingaan's Day," the proudest in our history--we overthrew the
military might of the Zulus, consisting of 10,000 warriors, and burnt
Dingaan's chief kraal.
[Sidenote: No extension of British territory.]
[10] After that we settled down peaceably in Natal, and established a
new Republic. The territory had been purchased with our money and
baptised with our blood. But the Republic was not permitted to remain in
peace for long. The Colonial Office was in pursuit. The Government first
of all decided upon a military occupation of Natal, for, as Governor
Napier wrote to Lord Russell on the 22nd June, 1840, "it was apparently
the fixed determination of Her Majesty's Government not to extend Her
Colonial possessions in this quarter of the Globe." The only object of
the military occupation was to crush the Boers, as the Governor, Sir
George Napier, undisguisedly admitted in his despatch to Lord Glenelg,
of the 16th January, 1838. The Boers were to be prevented from obtaining
ammunition, and to be forbidden to establish an independent Republic. By
these means he hoped to put a stop to the emigration. Lord Stanley
instructed Governor Napier on the 10th April, 1842, to cut the emigrant
Boers off from all communication, and to inform them that the British
Government would assist the savages against them, and would treat them
as rebels.
Twice we successfully withstood the military occupation; more English
perished while in flight from drowning than fell by our bullets.
Commissioner Cloete was sent later to annex the young Republic as a
reward for having redeemed it for civilisation.
[Sidenote: Protest of Natal]
[11] Annexation, however, only took place under strong protest. On the
21st February, 1842, the Volksraad of Maritzburg, under the chairmanship
of Joachim Prinsloo, addressed the following letter to Governor
Napier:--
We know that there is a God, who is the Ruler of heaven and
earth, and who has power, and is willing to protect the injured,
though weaker, against oppressors. In Him we put our trust, and
in the justice of our cause; and should it be His will that total
destruction be brought upon us, our wives and children, and
everything we possess, we will with due submission acknowledge to
have deserved from Him, but not from men. We are aware of the
power of Great Britain, and it is not our object to defy that
power; but at the same time we cannot allow that might instead of
right shall triumph, without having employed all our means to
oppose it.
[Sidenote: The Boer women]
[12] The Boer women of Maritzburg informed the British Commissioner
that, sooner than subject themselves again to British sway, they would
walk barefoot over the Drakensberg to freedom or to death. [13] And they
were true to their word, as the following incident proves. Andries
Pretorius, our brave leader, had ridden through to Grahamstown, hundreds
of miles distant, in order to represent the true facts of our case to
Governor Pottinger. He was unsuccessful, for he was obliged to return
without a hearing from the Governor, who excused himself under the
pretext that he had no time to receive Pretorius. When the latter
reached the Drakensberg, on his return, he found nearly the whole
population trekking over the mountains away from Natal and away from
British sway. His wife was lying ill in the waggon, and his daughter had
been severely hurt by the oxen which she was forced to lead.
[Sidenote: Suffering in Natal]
Sir Harry Smith, who succeeded Pottinger, thus described the condition
of the emigrant Boers:--"They were exposed to a state of misery which he
had never before seen equalled, except in Massena's invasion of
Portugal. The scene was truly heart-rending."
This is what we had to suffer at the hands of the British Government in
connection with Natal.
We trekked back over the Drakensberg to the Free State, where some
remained, but others wandered northwards over the Vaal River.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 9: Theal, pages 104--130.]
[Footnote 10: Theal, 169.]
[Footnote 11: Theal, 155.]
[Footnote 12: Theal, 179.]
[Footnote 13: Theal, 244.]
THE ORANGE FREE STATE.
[Sidenote: Boomplaats]
[14] Giving effect to Law 6 and 7, William IV., ch. 57, the English
appointed a Resident in the Free State. Pretorius, however, gave him 48
hours' notice to quit the Republic. Thereupon Sir Harry Smith mobilised
an army, chiefly consisting of blacks, against us white people, and
fought us at Boomplaats, on the 29th August, 1848. After an obstinate
struggle a Boer named Thomas Dreyer was caught by the blacks of Smith's
army, and to the shame of English reputation, was killed by the English
Governor for no other crime than that he was once, though years before,
a British subject, and had now dared to fight against Her Majesty's
Flag.
Another murder and deed of shame in South Africa's account with England!
[Sidenote: Annexation of the Orange Free State]
In the meantime Sir Harry Smith had annexed the Free State as the
"Orange River Sovereignty," on the pretext that four-fifths of the
inhabitants favoured British dominion, and were only intimidated by the
power of Pretorius from manifesting their wishes.
[Sidenote: Moshesh]
But the British Resident soon came into collision with Moshesh, the
great and crafty head chieftain of the Basutos.
The Boers were called up to assist, but only 75 responded out of the
1,000 who were called up. The English had then to eat the leek. The
Resident informed his Government that the fate of the Orange River
Sovereignty depended upon Andries Pretorius, the very man on whose head
Sir Harry Smith had put a price of £2,000. Earl Grey censured and
abandoned both Sir Harry Smith and the Resident, Major Warden, saying in
his despatch to the Governor dated 15th December, 1851, that the British
Government had annexed the country on the understanding that the
inhabitants had generally desired it. But if they would not support the
British Government, which had only been established in their interests,
and if they wished to be freed from that authority, there was no longer
any use in continuing it.
[Sidenote: The Orange Sovereignty once more a Republic.]
The Governor was clearly given to understand by the British Government
that there was in future to be no interference in any of the wars which
might take place between the different tribes and the inhabitants of
independent states beyond the Colonial boundaries, no matter how
sanguinary such wars might happen to be.
In other words, as Froude says, [15] "In 1852 we had discovered that wars
with the Natives and wars with the Dutch were expensive and useless,
that sending troops out and killing thousands of Natives was an odd way
of protecting them. We resolved then to keep within our own territories,
to meddle no more beyond the Orange River, and to leave the Dutch and
the Natives to settle their differences among themselves."
And again: [16] "Grown sick at last of enterprises which led neither to
honour nor peace, we resolved, in 1852, to leave Boers, Kaffirs,
Basutos, and Zulus to themselves, and make the Orange River the boundary
of British responsibilities. We made formal treaties with the two Dutch
States, binding ourselves to interfere no more between them and the
Natives, and to leave them either to establish themselves as a barrier
between ourselves and the interior of Africa, or to sink, as was
considered most likely, in an unequal struggle with warlike tribes, by
whom they were infinitely outnumbered."
The administration of the Free State cost the British taxpayer too much.
There was an idea, too, that if enough rope were given to the Boer he
would hang himself.
A new Governor, Sir George Cathcart, was sent out with two Special
Commissioners to give effect to the new policy. A new Treaty between
England and the Free State was signed, by which full independence was
guaranteed to the Republic, the British Government undertaking at the
same time not to interfere with any of the Native tribes north of the
Orange River.
As Cathcart remarked in his letters--the Sovereignty bubble had burst,
and the silly Sovereignty farce was played out.
[Sidenote: The Diamond Fields]
[17] It must not be forgotten that as long as the Free State was English
territory it was supposed to include that strip of ground now known as
Kimberley and the Diamond Fields; English title deeds had been issued
during the Orange River Sovereignty in respect of the ground in
question, which was considered to belong to the Sovereignty, and to be
under the jurisdiction of one of the Sovereignty Magistrates. At the
reestablishment of the Free State it consequently became a part of the
Orange Free State.
[Sidenote: The Basutos.]
Not fifteen years had elapsed since the Convention between England and
the Free State before it was broken by the English. It had been solemnly
stipulated that England would not interfere in Native affairs north of
the Orange River. The Basutos had murdered the Freestaters, plundered
them, ravished their wives, and committed endless acts of violence.
After a bitter struggle of three years, the Freestaters had succeeded in
inflicting a well-merited chastisement on the Basutos, when the British
intervened in 1869 in favour of the Natives, notwithstanding the fact
that they had reiterated their declaration of non-interference in the
Aliwal Convention.
[Sidenote: The Diamond Fields.]
[18] To return to the Diamond Fields, as Froude remarks: "The ink on the
Treaty of Aliwal was scarcely dry when diamonds were discovered in large
quantities in a district which we had ourselves treated as part of the
Orange Territory." Instead of honestly saying that the British
Government relied on its superior strength, and on this ground demanded
the territory in question, which contained the richest diamond fields in
the world, it hypocritically pretended that the real reason of its
depriving the Free State of the Diamond Fields was that they belonged to
a Native, notwithstanding the fact that this contention was falsified
by the judgment of the English Courts. [19] "There was a notion also,"
says Froude, "that the finest diamond mine in the world ought not to be
lost to the British Empire."
The ground was thereupon taken from the Boers, and "from that day no
Boer in South Africa has been able to trust to English promises."
Later, when Brand went to England, the British Government acknowledged
its guilt and paid £90,000 for the richest diamond fields in the world,
a sum which scarcely represents the daily output of the mines.
But notwithstanding the Free State Convention, notwithstanding the
renewed promises of the Aliwal Convention[20]--the Free State was forced
to suffer a third breach of the Convention at the hands of the English.
Ten thousand rifles were imported into Kimberley through the Cape
Colony, and sold there to the natives who encircled and menaced the two
Dutch Republics.[21] General Sir Arthur Cunynghame, the British
Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, admits that 400,000 guns were sold
to Kaffirs during his term of office. Protests from the Transvaal and
the Free State were of no avail.[22] And when the Free State in the
exercise of its just rights stopped waggons laden with guns on their way
through its territory, it was forced to pay compensation to the British
Government.
"The Free State," says the historian Froude, "paid the money, but paid
it under protest, with an old-fashioned appeal to the God of
Righteousness, whom, strange to say, they believed to be a reality."
It seems thus that there is no place for the God of Righteousness in
English policy.
So far we have considered our Exodus from the Cape Colony, and the way
in which we were deprived of Natal and the Free State by England. Now
for the case of the Transvaal.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: Theal, 256-64. Hofstede.]
[Footnote 15: _Oceana_, page 31.]
[Footnote 16: _Oceana_, page 36.]
[Footnote 17: Froude, _Oceana_. Hofstede.]
[Footnote 18: _Oceana_, page 41.]
[Footnote 19: _Oceana_, page 40.]
[Footnote 20: _Oceana_, page 42.]
[Footnote 21: Cunynghame, page XI.]
[Footnote 22: _Oceana_, page 42.]
THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC.
The disastrous fate of the Trichardt Trek has already been told. The
Trichardts found the Transvaal overrun by the warriors of Moselikatse,
the King of the Matabele and father of Lobengula. The other tribes of
the Transvaal were his "dogs," according to the Kaffir term.
[Sidenote: Moselikatse.]
As soon as he heard of the approach of the emigrant Boers he sent out an
army to exterminate them. This army succeeded in cutting off and
murdering one or two stragglers, but it was defeated at Vechtkop by the
small laager of Sarel Celliers, where the Boer women distinguished
themselves by deeds of striking heroism.
Shortly afterwards the emigrant Boers journeyed across the Vaal River,
and after two battles drove Moselikatse and his hordes across the
Limpopo right into what is now Matabeleland. Andries Pretorius had come
into the Transvaal after the Annexation of Natal, and lived there
quietly, notwithstanding the price which had been put on his head after
Boomplaats. The British Resident in the Free State, which at this time
still belonged to England, was compelled to admit in a letter to the
English Governor that the fate of the Free State depended upon the
selfsame Pretorius. It was owing to his influence that Moshesh had not
killed off the English soldiers. People had decided in England--to quote
Froude once more--to abandon the Africanders and the Kaffirs beyond the
borders to their fate, in the hope that the Kaffirs would exterminate
the Africanders.
[Sidenote: The Sand River Convention.]
According to Molesworth, the English member of Parliament, the Colonial
Office was delighted when the Governor received a letter in 1851 from
Andries Pretorius, Commandant-General of the Transvaal Boers, in which
he offered on behalf of his people to enter into negotiations with the
British Government for a Treaty of Peace and Friendship. [23] The price
put on his head was promptly cancelled, and when Sir Harry Smith was
recalled in disgrace, Governor Cathcart was sent out to recognise the
independence of the Boers. The Aberdeen Ministry declared through its
representative in the House of Commons that they regretted having
crossed the Orange River, as the Boers were hostile to British rule, and
that Lord Grey had permitted it out of deference to the views of Sir
Harry Smith, against his own better judgment and convictions. This
policy was almost unanimously endorsed by the House of Commons.
The proposal of Pretorius was then accepted, and two Assistant
Commissioners, Hogge and Owen, were sent out with Governor Cathcart, and
met the Boer representatives at Sand River, a meeting which resulted in
the Sand River Convention, respectively signed by both the contracting
parties.
In this Convention, as in the later Free State Treaty, the Transvaal
Boers were guaranteed in the fullest way against interference or
hindrance on the part of Great Britain, either in regard to themselves
or the natives, to whom it was mutually agreed that the sale of firearms
and ammunition should be strictly forbidden. The British Commissioners
reported that the recognition of the independence of the Transvaal Boers
would secure great advantages, as it would ensure their friendship and
prevent any union with Moshesh. It would also be a guarantee against
slavery, and would provide for the extradition of criminals. [24] On the
13th May, 1852, great satisfaction was expressed by the Governor, Sir
George Cathcart, in his proclamation that one of the first acts of his
administration was to approve and fully confirm the Sand River
Convention. On the 24th June, 1852, the Colonial Secretary also
signified his approval of the Convention.
[Sidenote: Recognition of the South African Republic by Foreign Powers.]
The Republic was now in possession of a Convention, which from the
nature of its provisions seemed to promise a peaceful future. In
addition to Great Britain it was recognised in Holland, France, Germany,
Belgium, and especially in the United States of America. The American
Secretary of State at Washington, writing to President Pretorius on the
19th November, 1870, said:--"That his Government, while heartily
acknowledging the Sovereignty of the Transvaal Republic, would be ready
to take any steps which might be deemed necessary for that purpose."
But no reliance could be placed on England's word, even though it was
embodied in a Convention duly signed and ratified, for when the Diamond
Fields were discovered, barely seventeen years later, England claimed a
portion of Transvaal territory next to that part which had already been
wrested from the Free State. Arbitration was decided upon. As the
Arbitrators could not agree, the Umpire, Governor Keate, gave judgment
against the Transvaal. Thereupon it appeared that the English Arbitrator
had bought 12,000 morgen (of the ground in dispute) from the Native
Chief Waterboer for a mere song, and also that Governor Keate had
accepted Waterboer as a British subject, which was contrary to the
Convention. Even Dr. Moffat, who was no friend of the Boers, entered a
protest in a letter to the _Times_, on the ground that the territory in
question had all along been the property of the Transvaal.
[Sidenote: Sale of guns to Natives.]
But this was only one of the breaches of the Convention. When the
400,000 guns, about which Cunynghame and Moodie testify, were sold to
the Kaffirs, the Transvaal lodged a strong protest in 1872 with the Cape
High Commissioner. Their only satisfaction was an insolent reply from
Sir Henry Barkly.
[Sidenote: Annexation of the Transvaal.]
As a crowning act in these deeds of shame came the Annexation of the
Transvaal by Shepstone on the 12th April, 1877. Sir Bartle Frere was
sent out as Governor to Cape Town by Lord Carnarvon to carry out the
confederation policy of the latter. Shepstone was also sent to the
Transvaal to annex that State, in case the consent of the Volksraad or
that of the majority of the inhabitants could be obtained. The Volksraad
protested against the Annexation. The President protested. Out of a
possible 8,000 burghers, 6,800 protested. But all in vain.
Bishop Colenso declared that: [25] "The sly and underhand way in which
the Transvaal has been annexed appears to be unworthy of the English
name."
The Free State recorded its deepest regret at the Annexation.
Even Gladstone, in expressing his regret, admitted that England had in
the Transvaal acted in such a way as to use the free subjects of a
kingdom to oppress the free subjects of a Republic, and to compel them
to accept a citizenship which they did not wish to have.
But it was all of no avail.
Sir Garnet Wolseley declared: "As long as the sun shines the Transvaal
will remain British Territory." He also stated that the Vaal River would
flow backwards to its source over the Drakensberg before England would
give up the Transvaal.
[Sidenote: Pretexts for the Annexation.]
Shepstone's chief pretexts for the Annexation were that the Transvaal
could not subdue Secoecoeni, and that the Zulus threatened to overpower
the Transvaal. As far as Secoecoeni is concerned, he had shortly before
sued for peace, and the Transvaal Republic had fined him 2,000 head of
cattle. With regard to the Zulus, the threatened danger was never felt
by the Republic. Four hundred burghers had crushed the Zulu power in
1838, and the burghers had crowned Panda, Cetewayo's father, in 1840.
Sir Bartle Frere acknowledged in a letter to Sir Robert Herbert dated
12th January, 1879, that he could not understand how it was that the
Zulus had left Natal unmolested for so long, until he found out that
the Zulus had been thoroughly subdued by the Boers during Dingaan's
time. Just before the Annexation a small patrol of Boers had pursued the
Chief Umbeline into the very heart of Zululand. But Bishop Colenso
points out clearly what a fraudulent stalking horse the Zulu difficulty
was. There had been a dispute of some years standing between the
Transvaal and the Zulus about a strip of territory along the border,
which had been claimed and occupied by the Boers since 1869. The
question was referred to Shepstone before the Annexation, while he was
still in Natal, and he gave a direct decision against the Boers, and in
favour of the Zulus. There was thus no cause on that account for the
fear of a Zulu attack upon the Transvaal. But scarcely had Shepstone
become administrator of the Transvaal when he declared the ground in
dispute to be British territory, and discovered that there was the
strongest evidence for the contention of the Boers that the Zulus had no
right to the ground. Bulwer, the Governor of Natal, appointed a Boundary
Commission, which decided in favour of the Zulus, but Shepstone
vehemently opposed their verdict, and Bartle Frere and the High
Commissioner (Wolseley) followed him blindly.[26] The result was that
England sent an ultimatum to the Zulus, and the Zulu War took place,
which lowered the prestige of England among the Natives of South Africa.
It will thus be seen that Shepstone's two chief reasons for the
Annexation were devoid of foundation.
It was naturally difficult for the Secretary of State to justify his
instructions that the Annexation of the Transvaal was only to take
place in case a majority of the inhabitants favoured such a course, in
face of the fact that 6,800 out of 8,000 burghers had protested against
it.
But both Shepstone and Lord Carnarvon declared without a shadow of proof
that the signatures of the protesting petitions were obtained under
threats of violence. The case, indeed, was exactly the reverse. When the
meeting was held at Pretoria to sign this petition, Shepstone caused the
cannons to be pointed at the assemblage. As if this were not enough, he
issued a menacing proclamation against the signing of the petition.
When these pretexts were thus disposed of, they relied on the fact that
the Annexation was a _fait accompli_.
Delegates were sent to England to protest against the Annexation, but
Lord Carnarvon told them that he would only be misleading them if he
held out any hope of restitution. Gladstone afterwards endorsed this by
saying that he could not advise the Queen to withdraw her Sovereignty
from the Transvaal.
When it was represented that the Annexation was a deliberate breach of
the Sand River Convention, Sir Bartle Frere replied, in 1879, that if
they wished to go back to the Sand River Convention, they might just as
well go back to the Creation!
It is necessary here not to lose sight of the fact that the ground,
which according to the Keate award in 1870 had been declared to lie
beyond the borders of the Republic, was now included by Shepstone as
being a part of the Transvaal.
There were, however, other matters which under Republican
administration were branded as wrong, but which under English rule were
perfectly right. In the Secoecoeni War under the Republic the British
High Commissioner had protested against the use of the Swazies and
Volunteers by the Republic in conducting the campaign.
Under British administration the war was carried on at first by regulars
only, but when these were defeated by the Kaffirs, an army of Swazies,
as well as Volunteers, was collected. The number of the former can be
gathered from the fact that 500 Swazies were killed. The atrocities
committed by these Swazi allies of the English on the people of
Secoecoeni's tribe were truly awful.