opinion of most students the greatest work of this kind in the English
language is _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, but if Gibbon
were now alive he could certainly improve that masterpiece by means of
discoveries that have been made since he last revised it. If this can be
said of volumes prepared by a man of means, who was able to devote his
whole time and thought to his work, it is infinitely more true of such a
book as my _History of South Africa_, which has been produced under
difficulties little short of being insurmountable.
Half a century has passed away since I commenced to gather materials for
my history, but during all that time I have had to toil for my bread,
and whenever I have gained a point of advantage I have found myself
speedily hurled from it. In a country like South Africa, where racial
prejudice has always been passionate, one who would try, as I have done,
to write impartially must expect to meet with opposition from the
extreme wings of both sections of the community, and unfortunately for
me that opposition, or more properly speaking animosity, has frequently
been sufficient to deprive me for a time of the power of making
researches or continuing my work.
And so great is the quantity of material to be examined for the
preparation of a history of South Africa, so scattered is it, and so
disordered is the manuscript portion, that fifty years, even if devoted
entirely to the work, would not be too long to master it all. Many
languages have to be learned, and libraries and archive departments
visited and worked in half over Europe as well as in South Africa. I am
speaking now only of the period since the discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope by the Portuguese, if one wants to go further back a knowledge of
Arabic and prolonged visits to many eastern towns would be
indispensable. This I was prevented from even attempting. In Indian
literature also much important information may possibly--even
probably--be found, for beyond a doubt there was intercourse between
Hindostan and Eastern Africa in ancient times. No man could grapple with
all this single-handed, and if any one were to try to do it, at the end
of fifty years he would find a very great deal still to be done.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
Owing to this cause--the vast amount of research that was needed and the
many interruptions I met with--my history, though correct, is defective,
that is there is nothing untruthful or misleading in it, but there are
sections that could be enlarged to advantage. Among such sections are
the deeds of Louis Triegard and Pieter Uys. I commenced my study of the
great emigration by getting accounts of it from numerous men and women
who had taken part in it. I soon found--as every one else has done who
has attempted to collect such materials--that the various relations did
not agree, and that something more reliable was needed to base a
description upon. I then read whatever was to be found in printed books
and the newspapers of the period, and as soon as I had an opportunity of
doing so I examined all the manuscripts that I could find in the Cape
archives bearing on the subject.
It is a quarter of a century since I published a volume containing the
history of the emigration, the first book on the subject prepared in
South Africa. The facts as related by me have never been disputed, but
there are some who profess to believe that they are described in a
spirit too favourable to the emigrants, and others that they are just
the reverse. I shall not alter a single word owing to such opinions,
but when I find new and reliable materials that enable me to enlarge my
former accounts, I shall certainly make use of them. Such materials have
recently come to hand with regard to Louis Triegard and Pieter Uys in a
collection of important documents made by Governor Sir Benjamin D’Urban,
taken by him to England, and preserved in the archives of his family
until 1911, when they were most generously presented by his grandson
through me to the Union government.
[Sidenote: Occupation of the Eastern Districts.]
Two centuries lacking less than two decades had passed away since
European farmers first made homes for themselves on the banks of the
Liesbeek river, near the foot of Table Mountain, and in 1835 white men
were cultivating ground and pasturing their flocks and herds as far away
as the banks of the Kat and the Fish in one direction and the great
plain bordering on the Orange in another. The area they had spread over
was thus wide and long, though its occupation had been slower than that
of any other settlement of Europeans possessing a tithe of its
attractions. In most parts of the districts beyond the coast belt it was
very sparsely peopled, the farms, which might with greater propriety
have been termed cattle-runs, being seldom less than five or six
thousand English acres in extent, and often carrying only a single
family upon them.
The small district of Albany was an exception to this general statement.
It was occupied chiefly by British settlers, who had originally plots of
ground only one hundred acres in size allotted to them, but these had
proved insufficient for the maintenance of a family, and most of them
had been abandoned. Those that remained occupied had then been enlarged,
though not to the extent of the great cattle-runs which the older
Dutch-speaking colonists considered necessary for their subsistence.
There was a marked difference in disposition between the Dutch-speaking
and the English-speaking colonists. The former, being cattle-breeders by
descent through several generations, were strongly attached to country
life, and disliked residence in a village or town, where they seldom
remained longer than a few hours. Restraint of any kind was exceedingly
irksome to them, even the slight restraint of conforming to urban
conditions. Their ideal of a happy life was a life on a farm where a man
could look north, south, east, and west, and see nothing that was not
his own, where a few fruit trees and vines provided him with peaches and
oranges, apples and grapes, and a little garden, irrigated from a
running stream or a fountain, yielded him all the vegetables he needed,
and where his horned cattle, horses, and sheep throve and increased. Cry
down such a life as one will, call it unprogressive, devoid of culture,
wanting in refinement, destructive of energy, it cannot be denied that
it was a happy life and one that brought man into closer communion with
nature and with God than if he passed his existence in a town or a
village. Except in the most secluded districts there is no longer room
for such a life in South Africa, though some there are even in the more
fertile parts who strive to cling to it still, but in the fourth decade
of the nineteenth century it was the ideal which nearly every
Dutch-speaking colonist in the eastern districts of the Cape settlement
kept constantly before his eyes.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
The English settler as a rule viewed life differently. He disliked a
lonely country home, where there was no opportunity of exercising his
spirit of enterprise, where the means of giving his children an
education in books were lacking, and where companionship with his
species was uncertain and scanty. He preferred to reside in a town,
where he would have greater scope for his abilities, and where he could
have more of such comforts and enjoyments as he desired. There were
indeed Englishmen to be found among the leading farmers, but the great
majority of them were traders or mechanics. Besides this in most cases
they had not the means to purchase stock to commence cattle-breeding
with, even if they had the disposition to do so, and they had no heart
to face the privations that many a Dutch-speaking youth underwent as a
matter of course to obtain a few sheep and cows to make a beginning
with. An Englishman could not, for instance, live almost entirely on
game for years, as they often did, to spare their domestic cattle and
allow them to increase. And so in Albany a town speedily rose, which
contained a large proportion of the British settlers, and which was by
far the most important centre of population in the eastern districts of
the Cape Colony. Grahamstown it was called, and it was as purely English
as if it stood in Kent or in Sussex.
[Sidenote: Causes of Discontent.]
For several years there had been great discontent throughout the
settlement. In England the party that wished to undo the errors of the
past, to atone for the crime of slave-trading in which earlier
generations had been deeply involved, and to make strenuous efforts for
the elevation of the coloured races, sunk in barbarism and heathenism
throughout the world, had been steadily growing in numbers and in
influence until at length it had become the dominant power in the state.
Its leaders were earnest well-meaning men, but they did not realise that
improvement to be most effective should be gradual rather than sudden.
They acted as did the men of the French revolution, and in both cases an
enormous amount of misery was the immediate consequence, though as time
went on the good that they did gradually came to surpass the evil which
was at first the result of too much haste. They did not study the
condition of things in South Africa, and the parliament at Westminster
applied laws to this country that were quite unsuitable to it.
They placed the Hottentots on a perfect political equality with the
European colonists and refused to sanction a vagrant act, thereby
creating a host of idlers and wanderers, that only time and missionary
effort could reduce to order. They emancipated the slaves of a sudden,
paying one-third of their appraised value as compensation, and by doing
so brought utter ruin upon many of the best families in the country and
deep distress upon nearly all. The gradual emancipation which the
colonists favoured they rejected, simply because it would take a
generation to work out, though all possible protection against ill-usage
of the slaves could have been secured under it, and the negroes as a
whole would have been better prepared for freedom.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
There were other causes of dissatisfaction among the Dutch-speaking
colonists. The suppression of their language in courts of law and
official documents was one. Another was the change of land tenure from
leases renewable yearly to perpetual quitrent, necessitating heavy
charges for surveying and much larger annual payments. This measure, by
giving security of tenure and permitting transfer on sale, was
undoubtedly beneficial, but the frontier farmers and graziers,
accustomed to the old system, regarded the new one as a plan for
extorting money from them, especially as in most instances the charges
for surveying were paid years before the issue of titles. The great
extent of the magisterial districts prevented the government officials
from explaining the real object of such changes to the farmers, and this
could not be remedied for want of funds.
Still another cause of dissatisfaction was owing to the swarms of
barbarians that of recent years had entered the colony from the north
and the east, who were a menace to the cattle farmers, from whom they
demanded food which, if not given at once, was taken by force. These
barbarians were the remnants of various Betshuana tribes that had been
nearly exterminated in the wars that originated with Tshaka and
Umsilikazi,[89] to whom was added a large section of the Tembu tribe
driven westward by Matiwane, himself a fugitive from the Zulu spears.
The government did what it could, without actual violence, to induce
these invaders to remove beyond the borders, but without success, and
public opinion in England would not admit of sterner measures being
resorted to, such as the cattle farmers desired.
But more than all that has been mentioned, the greatest cause of
irritation was due to the tone of the missionary and so-called
philanthropic press. By it the farmers were vilified as if they were
cruel tyrants who treated the coloured people as mere animals, and all
their misfortunes, which were diminished to next to nothing, were
alleged to be due to themselves. Extracts from books and pamphlets of
this tone found their way to the farms and were discussed whenever
individuals met, until a general feeling of indignation was aroused. By
no one was it disputed that in South Africa, as in all other countries
of the world, there were violent men to be found, and that instances of
extreme cruelty to coloured dependents could be pointed out; but that a
whole community should be branded with infamy on account of the misdeeds
of a few individuals seemed to be as unjust as if the inhabitants of
London should be termed murderers because occasionally a terrible crime
was committed there.
[Sidenote: Causes of Discontent.]
And now in the closing days of 1834 a calamity more dreadful than any
that preceded it had overtaken the English settlers of Albany and the
Dutch-speaking farmers of Somerset, and had reduced them all alike to a
condition of the direst distress.[90] Without notice, without anything
that a European can regard as sufficient provocation, great bands of
Xosas suddenly crossed the border and spread over these frontier
districts, murdering all the male inhabitants who had not time to escape
to places where they could defend themselves and their families, burning
their farmhouses and outbuildings, and driving off the horses, horned
cattle, sheep, and goats. The whole frontier, with the exception of
Grahamstown and a few of the most important villages which were left
like oases, was reduced to an absolute desert. Seven thousand
individuals, the majority of whom had previously been in comfortable
circumstances, were reduced to such destitution that the government was
obliged to supply them with food, or they must have starved.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
By dint of great exertion the burgher forces, with two regiments of
British infantry and a strong contingent of Hottentots, drove the Xosas
out of the colony and reduced them to partial subjection in the
territory between the Keiskama and Kei rivers. A British and colonial
army penetrated the country beyond the Kei, captured some thousands of
cattle, and released the Fingoes from subjection to the Xosas. These
Fingoes were the remnants of tribes that had lived in Natal, where they
were all but exterminated in the wars of Tshaka. They were brought
westward, and were located chiefly in what is now the district of
Peddie, that they might become a kind of buffer between the colonists
and the Xosas. Then the territory between the Keiskama and Kei rivers
was proclaimed a British possession, under the name of the Province of
Queen Adelaide.
Sir Benjamin D’Urban, the governor, enjoyed the esteem and affection of
a great majority of the colonists, English and Dutch-speaking alike, in
a larger degree than any one before him had done, and Colonel H. G.
Smith, who was stationed at King-Williamstown as the governor’s
representative in the new province, was deservedly popular with all but
a few persons of malignant disposition. A more energetic man never
lived, nor one who had the happiness of the people committed to his
charge more at heart. The Xosa chiefs were permitted to govern their
dependents in their old way, though they were now officially termed
British magistrates, fieldcornets, &c., but they were supposed to act
under the supervision of English commissioners, and the most serious
crimes were legally punishable only after trial before European courts.
Missionary effort was encouraged, and respectable traders were permitted
to settle at selected stations, but traffic in munitions of war or in
intoxicating liquor was strictly prohibited.
[Sidenote: Plans of Sir Benjamin D’Urban.]
There were no colonists so simple as to believe that this measure would
immediately put an end to depredations by the Xosas, or that it would in
some almost miraculous way turn barbarians suddenly into civilised men.
But it was generally supposed that under the circumstances then existing
this system was better than any other that could be adopted, and that it
really offered some hope that in course of time a great improvement in
the condition of the Xosas might take place. A small section of the
missionary party thought differently, however, as in their view the
system placed too much restraint upon the black people. With this
trifling exception Sir Benjamin D’Urban’s plans in general were heartily
approved of by nearly every frontier colonist, though many of them
feared that the settlement of the Fingoes on the border might prove to
be a mistake.
Looking back now after the experience of three-quarters of a century, we
can say positively that Sir Benjamin D’Urban’s policy was wise and
benevolent. It might have been better if the Fingoes had not been
located where they were, but this was at the time the best thing that
could be done with them. We can see too that Colonel Smith was over
confident in his influence with the people,--he even believed that he
could depose the chiefs at his will,--for he did not know, as we do, the
cause of the fidelity of the commoners to them. But upon the whole
things were working well, infinitely better indeed than ever before as
far as the European colonists were concerned, while the blacks were in a
position where improvement was much more easy than it had previously
been.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
The party in power in England, however, was decidedly of opinion that a
great wrong of some kind or other must have been done to the Xosas, or
they would not have made war upon the colony. The white people,
consequently, must have been at fault. Lord Glenelg, then secretary of
state for the colonies, in whose hands the destiny of South Africa was
at the time, held this opinion, and issued instructions that British
rule was to be withdrawn from the Province of Queen Adelaide, all the
land east of the Fish and Kat rivers be abandoned to the Xosas, and
treaties of friendship be entered into with the chiefs as independent
and sovereign powers. An officer who was not favourably regarded at that
time by the farmers, though in later years he performed eminent services
for the country, was appointed to carry out these measures, and it was
announced that he would leave England at once. When this information
reached South Africa, the last ray of hope died out in the hearts of the
Dutch-speaking farmers in the eastern districts of the Cape Colony, and
there was a general resolution to abandon the land of their birth and
seek a new home somewhere beyond the border. The British government had
repeatedly announced its fixed determination not to enlarge its domain
in this part of the world, so they believed that upon their removal they
would be free and independent.
The enormous destruction of human life in the wars of Tshaka and
Moselekatse had left wide tracts of land in South Africa almost--in some
instances quite--uninhabited, and although the extent of these wastes
was unknown, the farmers were cognisant of the fact that there were
unoccupied areas where, they thought, they might settle without doing
wrong to any one. One of these nearly vacant tracts was the country
called Natal, which at that time was taken to signify the land between
the Tugela and Umzimvubu rivers, the Kathlamba mountains and the sea. It
was the most beautiful and most fertile part of South Africa, rising in
steps from the ocean to the great wall that bounds the interior plain,
and thus embracing a variety of climates. It was abundantly watered by
the rains driven up from the Indian ocean, and was well drained by
rivers and rivulets that carried the surplus moisture to the sea. Every
one who saw the land spoke of it with enthusiasm, as being one of the
fairest regions on earth, and one of the best adapted to make
comfortable homes in.
[Sidenote: Condition of Natal.]
Some forty Englishmen had settled on the shore of the inlet called Port
Natal, where they made a living chiefly by hunting elephants and
buffaloes and trading with the Zulu chief for ivory. Some of them were
living more like barbarians than civilised men, and were the only
acknowledged heads or chiefs of little bands of fugitives from Zululand,
who placed themselves under the white men’s guidance and protection. A
petty chief named Umnini, who with a few followers lived in a thicket
adjoining the Bluff, and who had concealed himself during the Zulu
invasions, was also a dependent of the white people.[91] On the 23rd of
June 1835 fourteen of these men under the guidance of Captain Allen F.
Gardiner, recently of the royal navy, who was then on a visit to the
country with a view of preparing for the establishment of missions
among the Zulus, signed a petition to Sir Benjamin D’Urban, requesting
him to forward it to the authorities in England, asking that the
territory might be annexed and a proper government be established in it.
They estimated the number of Bantu inhabitants at not less than three
thousand.[92] As some of these men were hunters who knew every inch of
the country, this number might be accepted as at least approximately
correct, though from the observations of others perhaps five or even six
thousand would be more accurate.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
This low estimate is supported by such an amount of trustworthy
testimony that only those who refuse to accept any evidence that is in
conflict with their prejudices can reject it. Nathaniel Isaacs’ _Travels
and Adventures in Eastern Africa, with a Sketch of Natal_, two volumes,
London, 1836,[93] and Gardiner’s _Narrative of a Journey to the Zoolu
Country in South Africa_, London, 1836,[94] support it in general
terms. Mr. Henry Fynn, who lived in Natal from 1824 to 1834, writing in
1838, says: “The number now under the management of the Europeans at
Port Natal amounts to nearly six thousand souls, who would all be
massacred if the Europeans were to be withdrawn from the Port.”[95] All
the documents of the next five years in which mention is made of the
number of black people in Natal agree with it. Only a few years ago Mr.
G. M. Rudolph, when giving evidence before the last Native Affairs
Commission, stated that he did not think there were more than three
thousand natives (_i.e._ Bantu) in Natal when he as a boy nine years of
age went there with the first voortrekkers. A party of farmers, one of
whom was Pieter Lavras Uys, travelled through Kaffraria in 1834 with
fourteen waggons to Port Natal, and after thoroughly inspecting the
uplands as well as the coast belt and the harbour, returned to the Cape
Colony highly satisfied with the country as a desirable locality to
migrate to.
[Sidenote: Betshuana Refugees.]
Of the vast regions north of the Orange river that had been swept nearly
clean by war the farmers knew very little except from the statements of
Betshuana refugees, whose intelligence was vague and often
contradictory. No one of them seemed to know anything beyond the fate of
the particular tribe or clan to which he belonged, and there was always
so much that was fabulous mixed with their accounts that in general no
credence was given to them. Then they could only be spoken to through
interpreters, who were rarely obtainable and whose knowledge of any
other language than their own was usually very defective.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
This was the condition of things on the frontier of the Cape Colony when
the emigration of the Dutch-speaking farmers commenced, an emigration
without parallel in any other dependency of Great Britain. The farmers
formed themselves in little bands and moved away together, under the
leadership of an elected commandant, whose authority, however, was very
limited.