Primitive man in Africa is found in the interior jungles and down at
Land's End in South Africa. The Pygmy people in the jungles represent
to-day a small survival from the past, but a survival of curious interest,
pushed aside by the torrent of conquest. Also pushed on by these waves of
Bantu conquest, moved the ancient Abatwa or Bushmen. They are small in
stature, yellow in color, with crisp-curled hair. The traditions of the
Bushmen say that they came southward from the regions of the Great Lakes,
and indeed the king and queen of Punt, as depicted by the Egyptians, were
Bushmen or Hottentots.
Their tribes may be divided, in accordance with their noticeable artistic
talents, into the painters and the sculptors. The sculptors entered South
Africa by moving southward through the more central portions of the
country, crossing the Zambesi, and coming down to the Cape. The painters,
on the other hand, came through Damaraland on the west coast; when they
came to the great mountain regions, they turned eastward and can be traced
as far as the mountains opposite Delagoa Bay. The mass of them settled
down in the lower part of the Cape and in the Kalahari desert. The
painters were true cave dwellers, but the sculptors lived in large
communities on the stony hills, which they marked with their carvings.
These Bushmen believed in an ancient race of people who preceded them in
South Africa. They attributed magic power to these unknown folk, and said
that some of them had been translated as stars to the sky. Before their
groups were dispersed the Bushmen had regular government. Tribes with
their chiefs occupied well-defined tracts of country and were subdivided
into branch tribes under subsidiary chiefs. The great cave represented the
dignity and glory of the entire tribe.
The Bushmen suffered most cruelly in the succeeding migrations and
conquests of South Africa. They fought desperately in self-defense; they
saw their women and children carried into bondage and they themselves
hunted like wild beasts. Both savage and civilized men appropriated their
land. Still they were brave people. "In this struggle for existence their
bitterest enemies, of whatever shade of color they might be, were forced
to make an unqualified acknowledgement of the courage and daring they so
invariably exhibited."[34]
Here, to a remote corner of the world, where, as one of their number said,
they had supposed that the only beings in the world were Bushmen and
lions, came a series of invaders. It was the outer ripples of civilization
starting far away, the indigenous and external civilizations of Africa
beating with great impulse among the Ethiopians and the Egyptian mulattoes
and Sudanese Negroes and Yorubans, and driving the Bantu race southward.
The Bantus crowded more and more upon the primitive Bushmen, and probably
a mingling of the Bushmen and the Bantus gave rise to the Hottentots.
The Hottentots, or as they called themselves, Khoi Khoin (Men of Men),
were physically a stronger race than the Abatwa and gave many evidences of
degeneration from a high culture, especially in the "phenomenal
perfection" of a language which "is so highly developed, both in its rich
phonetic system, as represented by a very delicately graduated series of
vowels and diphthongs, and in its varied grammatical structure, that
Lepsius sought for its affinities in the Egyptian at the other end of the
continent."
When South Africa was first discovered there were two distinct types of
Hottentot. The more savage Hottentots were simply large, strong Bushmen,
using weapons superior to the Bushmen, without domestic cattle or sheep.
Other tribes nearer the center of South Africa were handsomer in
appearance and raised an Egyptian breed of cattle which they rode.
In general the Hottentots were yellow, with close-curled hair, high cheek
bones, and somewhat oblique eyes. Their migration commenced about the end
of the fourteenth century and was, as is usual in such cases, a scattered,
straggling movement. The traditions of the Hottentots point to the lake
country of Central Africa as their place of origin, whence they were
driven by the Bechuana tribes of the Bantu. They fled westward to the
ocean and then turned south and came upon the Bushmen, whom they had only
partially subdued when the Dutch arrived as settlers in 1652.
The Dutch "Boers" began by purchasing land from the Hottentots and then,
as they grew more powerful, they dispossessed the dark men and tried to
enslave them. There grew up a large Dutch-Hottentot class. Indeed the
filtration of Negro blood noticeable in modern Boers accounts for much
curious history. Soon after the advent of the Dutch some of the
Hottentots, of whom there were not more than thirty or forty thousand, led
by the Korana clans, began slowly to retreat northward, followed by the
invading Dutch and fighting the Dutch, each other, and the wretched
Bushmen. In the latter part of the eighteenth century the Hottentots had
reached the great interior plain and met the on-coming outposts of the
Bantu nations.
The Bechuana, whom the Hottentots first met, were the most advanced of the
Negro tribes of Central Africa. They had crossed the Zambesi in the
fourteenth or fifteenth century; their government was a sort of feudal
system with hereditary chiefs and vassals; they were careful
agriculturists, laid out large towns with great regularity, and were the
most skilled of smiths. They used stone in building, carved on wood, and
many of them, too, were keen traders. These tribes, coming southward,
occupied the east-central part of South Africa comprising modern
Bechuanaland. Apparently they had started from the central lake country
somewhere late in the fifteenth century, and by the middle of the
eighteenth century one of their great chiefs, Tao, met the on-coming
Hottentots.
The Hottentots compelled Tao to retreat, but the mulatto Gricquas arrived
from the south, and, allying themselves with the Bechuana, stopped the
rout. The Gricquas sprang from and took their name from an old Hottentot
tribe. They were led by Kok and Barends, and by adding other elements they
became, partly through their own efforts and partly through the efforts of
the missionaries, a community of fairly well civilized people. In
Gricqualand West the mulatto Gricquas, under their chiefs Kok and
Waterboer, lived until the discovery of diamonds.
The Griquas and Bechuana tribes were thus gradually checking the
Hottentots when, in the nineteenth century, there came two new
developments: first, the English took possession of Cape Colony, and the
Dutch began to move in larger numbers toward the interior; secondly, a
newer and fiercer element of the Bantu tribes, the Zulu-Kaffirs, appeared.
The Kaffirs, or as they called themselves, the Amazosas, claimed descent
from Zuide, a great chief of the fifteenth century in the lake country.
They are among the tallest people in the world, averaging five feet ten
inches, and are slim, well-proportioned, and muscular. The more warlike
tribes were usually clothed in leopard or ox skins. Cattle formed their
chief wealth, stock breeding and hunting and fighting their main pursuits.
Mentally they were men of tact and intelligence, with a national religion
based upon ancestor worship, while their government was a patriarchal
monarchy limited by an aristocracy and almost feudal in character. The
common law which had grown up from the decisions of the chiefs made the
head of the family responsible for the conduct of its branches, a village
for all its residents, and the clan for all its villages. Finally there
was a paramount chief, who was the civil and military father of his
people. These people laid waste to the coast regions and in 1779 came in
contact with the Dutch. A series of Dutch-Kaffir wars ensued between 1779
and 1795 in which the Dutch were hard pressed.
In 1806 the English took final possession of Cape Colony. At that time
there were twenty-five thousand Boers, twenty-five thousand pure and mixed
Hottentots, and twenty-five thousand slaves secured from the east coast.
Between 1811 and 1877 there were six Kaffir-English wars. One of these in
1818 grew out of the ignorant interference of the English with the Kaffir
tribal system; then there came a terrible war between 1834 and 1835,
followed by the annexation of all the country as far as the Kei River. The
war of the Axe (1846-48) led to further annexation by the British.
Hostilities broke out again in 1856 and 1863. In the former year,
despairing of resistance to invading England, a prophet arose who advised
the wholesale destruction of all Kaffir property except weapons, in order
that this faith might bring back their dead heroes. The result was that
almost a third of the nation perished from hunger. Fresh troubles occurred
in 1877, when the Ama-Xosa confederacy was finally broken up, and to-day
gradually these tribes are passing from independence to a state of mild
vassalage to the British.
Meantime the more formidable part of the Zulu-Kaffirs had been united
under the terrible Chief Chaka. He had organized a military system, not a
new one by any means, but one of which we hear rumors back in the lake
regions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. McDonald says, "There
has probably never been a more perfect system of discipline than that by
which Chaka ruled his army and kingdom. At a review an order might be
given in the most unexpected manner, which meant death to hundreds. If the
regiment hesitated or dared to remonstrate, so perfect was the discipline
and so great the jealousy that another was ready to cut them down. A
warrior returning from battle without his arms was put to death without
trial. A general returning unsuccessful in the main purpose of his
expedition shared the same fate. Whoever displeased the king was
immediately executed. The traditional courts practically ceased to exist
so far as the will and action of the tyrant was concerned." With this army
Chaka fell on tribe after tribe. The Bechuana fled before him and some
tribes of them were entirely destroyed. The Hottentots suffered severely
and one of his rival Zulu tribes under Umsilikatsi fled into Matabililand,
pushing back the Bechuana. By the time the English came to Port Natal,
Chaka was ruling over the whole southeastern seaboard, from the Limpopo
River to Cape Colony, including the Orange and Transvaal states and the
whole of Natal. Chaka was killed in 1828 and was eventually succeeded by
his brother Dingan, who reigned twelve years. It was during Dingan's reign
that England tried to abolish slavery in Cape Colony, but did not pay
promptly for the slaves, as she had promised; the result was the so-called
"Great Trek," about 1834, when thousands of Boers went into the interior
across the Orange and Vaal rivers.
Dingan and these Boers were soon engaged in a death struggle in which the
Zulus were repulsed and Dingan replaced by Panda. Under this chief there
was something like repose for sixteen years, but in 1856 civil war broke
out between his sons, one of whom, Cetewayo, succeeded his father in 1882.
He fell into border disputes with the English, and the result was one of
the fiercest clashes of Europe and Africa in modern days. The Zulus fought
desperately, annihilating at one time a whole detachment and killing the
young prince Napoleon. But after all it was assagais against machine guns,
and the Zulus were finally defeated at Ulundi, July 4, 1879. Thereupon
Zululand was divided among thirteen semi-independent chiefs and became a
British protectorate.
[Illustration: Ancient Kingdom of Africa]
Since then the best lands have been gradually reoccupied by a large number
of tribes--Kaffirs from the south and Zulus from the north. The tribal
organization, without being actually broken up, has been deprived of its
dangerous features by appointing paid village headmen and transforming the
hereditary chief into a British government official. In Natal there are
about one hundred and seventy tribal chiefs, and nearly half of these have
been appointed by the governor.
Umsilikatsi, who had been driven into Matabililand by the terrible Chaka
in 1828 and defeated by the Dutch in 1837, had finally reestablished his
headquarters in Rhodesia in 1838. Here he introduced the Zulu military
system and terrorized the peaceful and industrious Bechuana populations.
Lobengula succeeded Umsilikatsi in 1870 and, realizing that his power was
waning, began to retreat northward toward the Zambesi. He was finally
defeated by the British and native forces in 1893 and the land was
incorporated into South Central Africa.
The result of all these movements was to break the inhabitants of
Bechuanaland into numerous fragments. There were small numbers of mulatto
Gricquas in the southwest and similar Bastaards in the northwest. The
Hottentots and Bushmen were dispersed into groups and seem doomed to
extinction, the last Hottentot chief being deposed in 1810 and replaced by
an English magistrate. Partially civilized Hottentots still live grouped
together in their kraals and are members of Christian churches. The
Bechuana hold their own in several centers; one is in Basutoland, west of
Natal, where a number of tribes were welded together under the far-sighted
Moshesh into a modern and fairly well civilized nation. In the north part
of Bechuanaland are the self-governing Bamangwato and the Batwana, the
former ruled by Khama, one of the canniest of modern rulers in Africa.
Meantime, in Portuguese territory south of the Zambesi, there arose Gaza,
a contemporary and rival of Chaka. His son, Manikus, was deputed by
Dingan, Chaka's successor, to drive out the Portuguese. This Manikus
failed to do, and to escape vengeance he migrated north of the Limpopo.
Here he established his military kraal in a district thirty-six hundred
and fifty feet above the sea and one hundred and twenty miles inland from
Sofala. From this place his soldiery nearly succeeded in driving the
Portuguese out of East Africa. He was succeeded by his son, Umzila, and
Umzila's brother, Guzana (better known as Gungunyana), who exercised for a
time joint authority. Gungunyana was finally overthrown in November, 1895,
captured, and removed to the Azores.
[Illustration: Races in Africa]
North of the Zambesi, in British territory, the chief role in recent times
has been played by the Bechuana, the first of the Bantu to return
northward after the South African migration. Livingstone found there the
Makolo, who with other tribes had moved northward on account of the
pressure of the Dutch and Zulus below, and by conquering various tribes
in the Zambesi region had established a strong power. This kingdom was
nearly overthrown by the rebellion of the Barotse, and in 1875 the Barotse
kingdom comprised a large territory. To-day their king, Lewanika, rules
directly and indirectly fifty thousand square miles, with a population
between one and two and a half million. They are under a protectorate of
the British.
In Southwest Africa, Hottentot mulattoes crossing from the Cape caused
widespread change. They were strong men and daring fighters and soon
became dominant in what is now German Southwest Africa, where they fought
fiercely with the Bantu Ova-Hereros. Armed with fire arms, these Namakwa
Hottentots threatened Portuguese West Africa, but Germany intervened,
ostensibly to protect missionaries. By spending millions of dollars and
thousands of soldiers Germany has nearly exterminated these brave men.
Thus we have between the years 1400 and 1900 a great period of migration
up to 1750, when Bushmen, Hottentot, Bantu, and Dutch appeared in
succession at Land's End. In the latter part of the eighteenth century we
have the clash of the Hottentots and Bechuana, followed in the nineteenth
century by the terrible wars of Chaka, the Kaffirs, and Matabili. Finally,
in the latter half of the nineteenth century, we see the gradual
subjection of the Kaffir-Zulus and the Bechuana under the English and the
final conquest of the Dutch. The resulting racial problem in South Africa
is one of great intricacy.
To the racial problem has been added the tremendous problem of modern
capital brought by the discovery of gold and diamond mines, so that the
future of the Negro race is peculiarly bound up in developments here at
Land's End, where the ship of the Flying Dutchman beats back and forth on
its endless quest.