APOLOGY FOR "YET ANOTHER BOOK" ON THE SOUTH AFRICAN QUESTION.
FUTURE PEACE MUST BE BASED ON JUSTICE,--TO COLOURED AS WELL AS
WHITE MEN. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEGALIZED SLAVERY AND THE SUBJECTION
OF NATIVES BY INDIVIDUALS. THE TRANSVAAL IN 1877: ITS BANKRUPTCY:
ITS ANNEXATION BY GREAT BRITAIN: ITS LIBERATION FROM GREAT BRITAIN
IN 1881. CONVENTION OF 1881 SIGNED AT PRETORIA. BRITISH
COMMISSIONERS' AUDIENCE WITH 300 NATIVE CHIEFS. SPEECHES AND
SORROWFUL PROTESTS OF THE CHIEFS. ROYAL COMMISSION APPOINTED TO
TAKE EVIDENCE. EVIDENCE OF NATIVES AND OTHERS CONCERNING SLAVERY IN
THE TRANSVAAL. APPEAL OF THE CHRISTIAN KING KHAMA. LETTER OF
M'PLAANK, NEPHEW OF CETEWAYO. PREVALENCE OF CONTEMPT FOR THE NATIVE
RACES. SYMPATHY OF A NATIVE CHIEF WITH THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST.
In the midst of the manifold utterances and discussions on the burning
question of to-day,--the War in South Africa,--there is one side of the
subject which, it seems to me, has not as yet been considered with the
seriousness which it deserves,--and that is the question of Slavery, and
of the treatment of the native races of South Africa. Though this
question has not yet in England or on the Continent been cited as one of
the direct causes of the war, I am convinced,--as are many others,--that
it lies very near to the heart of the present trouble.
The object of this paper is simply to bring witnesses together who will
testify to the past and present condition of the native races under
British, Dutch, and Transvaal rule. These witnesses shall not be all of
one nation; they shall come from different countries, and among them
there shall be representatives of the native peoples themselves. I shall
add little of my own to the testimony of these witnesses. But I will
say, in advance, that what I desire to make plain for some sincere
persons who are perplexed, is this,--that where a Government has
established by Law the principle of the complete and final abolition of
Slavery, and made its practice illegal for all time,--as our British
Government has done,--there is hope for the native races;--there is
always hope that, by an appeal to the law and to British authority, any
and every wrong done to the natives, which approaches to or threatens
the reintroduction of slavery, shall be redressed. The Abolition of
Slavery, enacted by our Government in 1834, was the proclamation of a
great principle, strong and clear, a straight line by which every
enactment dealing with the question, and every act of individuals, or
groups of individuals, bearing on the liberty of the natives can be
measured, and any deviation from that straight line of principle can be
exactly estimated and judged.
When we speak of injustice done to the natives by the South African
Republics, we are apt to be met with the reproach that the English have
also been guilty of cruelty to native races. This is unhappily true, and
shall not be disguised in the following pages;--but mark this,--that it
is true of certain individuals bearing the English name, true of groups
of individuals, of certain adventurers and speculators. But this fact
does not touch the far more important and enduring fact that _wherever
British rule is established, slavery is abolished, and illegal_.
This fact is the ground of the hope for the future of the Missionaries
of our own country, and of other European countries, as well as of the
poor natives themselves, so far as they have come to understand the
matter; and in several instances they have shown that they do understand
it, and appreciate it keenly.
Those English persons, or groups of persons, who have denied to the
native labourers their hire (which is the essence of slavery), have
acted on their own responsibility, and _illegally_. This should be made
to be clearly understood in future conditions of peace, and rendered
impossible henceforward.
That future peace which we all desire, on the cessation of the present
grievous war, must be a peace founded on justice, for there is no other
peace worthy of the name; and it must be not only justice as between
white men, but as between white men and men of every shade of
complexion.
A speaker at a public meeting lately expressed a sentiment which is more
or less carelessly repeated by many. I quote it, as helping me to define
the principle to which I have referred, which marks the difference
between an offence or crime committed by an individual _against_ the
law, and an offence or crime sanctioned, permitted, or enacted by a
State or Government itself, or by public authority in any way.
This speaker, after confessing, apparently with reluctance, that "the
South African Republic had not been stainless in its relations towards
the blacks," added, "but for these deeds--every one of them--we could
find a parallel among our own people." I think a careful study of the
history of the South African races would convince this speaker that he
has exaggerated the case as against "our own people" in the matter of
deliberate cruelty and violence towards the natives. However that may
be, it does not alter the fact of the wide difference between the evil
deeds of men acting on their own responsibility and the evil deeds of
Governments, and of Communities in which the Governmental Authorities
do not forbid, but sanction, such actions.
As an old Abolitionist, who has been engaged for thirty years in a war
against slavery in another form, may I be allowed to cite a parallel?
That Anti-slavery War was undertaken against a Law introduced into
England, which endorsed, permitted, and in fact, legalized, a moral and
social slavery already existing--a slavery to the vice of prostitution.
The pioneers of the opposition to this law saw the tremendous import,
and the necessary consequences of such a law. They had previously
laboured to lessen the social evil by moral and spiritual means, but now
they turned their whole attention to obtaining the abolition of the
disastrous enactment which took that evil under its protection. They
felt that the action of Government in passing that law brought the whole
nation (which is responsible for its Government) under a sentence of
guilt--a sentence of moral death. It lifted off from the shoulders of
individuals, in a measure, the moral responsibility which God had laid
upon them, and took that responsibility on its own shoulders, as
representing the whole nation; it foreshadowed a national blight. My
readers know that we destroyed that legislation after a struggle of
eighteen years. In the course of that long struggle, we were constantly
met by an assertion similar in spirit to that made by the speaker to
whom I have referred; and to this day we are met by it in certain
European countries. They say to us, "But for every scandal proceeding
from this social vice, which you cite as committed under the system of
Governmental Regulation and sanction, we can find a parallel in the
streets of London, where no Governmental sanction exists." We are
constantly taunted with this, and possibly we may have to admit its
truth in a measure. But our accusers do not see the immense difference
between Governmental and individual responsibility in this vital
matter, neither do they see how additionally hard, how hopeless, becomes
the position of the slave who, under the Government sanction, has no
appeal to the law of the land; an appeal to the Government which is
itself an upholder of slavery, is impossible. The speaker above cited
concluded by saying: "The best precaution against the abuse of power on
the part of whites living amidst a coloured population is to make the
punishment of misdeeds come home to the persons who are guilty of those
misdeeds; and if he could but get his countrymen to act up to that view
he believed we should really have a better prospect for the future of
South Africa than we had had in the past."
With this sentiment I am entirely in accord. It is our hope that the
present national awakening on the whole subject of our position and
responsibilities in South Africa will--in case of the re-establishment
of peace under the principles of British rule--result in a change in the
condition of the native races, both in the Transvaal, and at the hands
of our countrymen and others who may be acting in their own interests,
or in the interests of Commercial Societies.
I do not intend to sketch anything approaching to a history of South
African affairs during the last seventy or eighty years; that has been
ably done by others, writing from both the British and the Boer side. I
shall only attempt to trace the condition of certain native tribes in
connection with some of the most salient events in South Africa of the
century which is past.
In 1877, as my readers know, the Transvaal was annexed by Sir Theophilus
Shepstone. There are very various opinions as to the justice of that
annexation. I will only here remark that it was at the earnest
solicitation of the Transvaal leaders of that date that an interference
on the part of the British Commissioner was undertaken. The Republic
was in a state of apparently hopeless anarchy, owing to constant
conflicts with warlike native tribes around and in the heart of the
country. The exchequer was exhausted. By the confession of the President
(Burgers) the country was on the verge of bankruptcy.[1] The acceptance
of the annexation was not unanimous, but it was accepted formally in a
somewhat sullen and desponding spirit, as a means of averting further
impending calamity and restoring a measure of order and peace. Whether
this justified or not the act of annexation I do not pretend to judge.
The results, however, for the Republic were for the time, financial
relief and prosperity, and better treatment of the natives. The
financial condition of the country, as I have said, at the time of the
annexation, was one of utter bankruptcy. "After three years of British
rule, however, the total revenue receipts for the first quarter of 1879
and 1880 amounted to £22,773 and £47,982 respectively. That is to say,
that, during the last year of British rule, the revenue of the country
more than doubled itself, and amounted to about £160,000 a year, taking
the quarterly returns at the low average of £40,000."[2] Trade, also,
which in April, 1877, was completely paralysed, had increased
enormously. In the middle of 1879, the committee of the Transvaal
Chamber of Commerce pointed out that the trade of the country had in two
years risen to the sum of two millions sterling per annum. They also
pointed out that more than half the land-tax was paid by Englishmen and
other Europeans.
In 1881, the Transvaal (under Mr. Gladstone's administration) was
liberated from British control. It was given back to its own leaders,
under certain conditions, agreed to and solemnly signed by the
President. These are the much-discussed conditions of the Convention of
1881, one of these conditions being that Slavery should be abolished.
This condition was indeed, insisted on in every agreement or convention
made between the British Government and the Boers; the first being that
of 1852, called the Sand River Convention; the second, a convention
entered into two years later called the Bloemfontein Convention (which
created the Orange Free State); a third agreement as to the cessation of
Slavery was entered into at the period of the Annexation, 1877; a fourth
was the Convention of 1881; a fifth the Convention of 1884. I do not
here speak of the other terms of these Conventions, I only remark that
in each a just treatment of the native races was demanded and agreed to.
The retrocession of the Transvaal in 1881 has been much lauded as an act
of magnanimity and justice. There is no doubt that the motive which
prompted it was a noble and generous one; yet neither is there any
doubt, that in certain respects, the results of that act were unhappy,
and were no doubt unanticipated. It was on the natives, whose interests
appeared to have had no place in the generous impulses of Mr. Gladstone,
that the action of the British Government fell most heavily, most
mournfully. In this matter, it must be confessed that the English
Government broke faith with the unhappy natives, to whom it had promised
protection, and who so much needed it. In this, as in many other
matters, our country, under successive Governments, has greatly erred;
at times neglecting responsibilities to her loyal Colonial subjects, and
at other times interfering unwisely.
In one matter, England has, however, been consistent, namely, in the
repeated proclamations that Slavery should never be permitted under her
rule and authority.
The formal document of agreement between Her Majesty's Government and
the Boer leaders, known as the Convention of 1881, was signed by both
parties at Pretoria on the afternoon of the 3rd August, in the same room
in which, nearly four years before, the Annexation Proclamation was
signed by Sir T. Shepstone.
This formality was followed by a more unpleasant duty for the
Commissioners appointed to settle this business, namely, the necessity
of conveying their message to the natives, and informing them that they
had been handed back by Great Britain, "poor Canaanites," to the tender
mercies of their masters, the "Chosen people," in spite of the
despairing appeals which many of them had made to her.
Some three hundred of the principal native chiefs were called together
in the Square at Pretoria, and there the English Commissioner read to
them the proclamation of Queen Victoria. Sir Hercules Robinson, the
Chief Commissioner, having "introduced the native chiefs to Messrs.
Kruger, Pretorius, and Joubert," having given them good advice as to
indulging in manual labour when asked to do so by the Boers, and having
reminded them that it would be necessary to retain the law relating to
Passes, which is, in the hands of a people like the Boers, almost as
unjust a regulation as a dominant race can invent for the oppression of
a subject people, concluded by assuring them that their "interests would
never be forgotten or neglected by Her Majesty's Government." Having
read this document, the Commission hastily withdrew, and after their
withdrawal the Chiefs were "allowed" to state their opinions to the
Secretary for Native Affairs.
In availing themselves of this permission, it is noticeable that no
allusion was made by the Chiefs to the advantages they were to reap
under the Convention. All their attention was given to the great fact
that the country had been ceded to the Boers, and that they were no
longer the Queen's subjects. I beg attention to the following appeals
from the hearts of these oppressed people. They got very excited, and
asked whether it was thought that they had no feelings or hearts, that
they were thus treated as a stick or piece of tobacco, which could be
passed from hand to hand without question.
Umgombarie, a Zoutpansberg Chief, said: "I am Umgombarie. I have fought
with the Boers, and have many wounds, and they know that what I say is
true. I will never consent to place myself under their rule. I belong to
the English Government. I am not a man who eats with both sides of his
jaw at once; I only use one side. I am English. I have said."
Silamba said: "I belong to the English. I will never return under the
Boers. You see me, a man of my rank and position; is it right that such
as I should be seized and laid on the ground and flogged, as has been
done to me and other Chiefs?"
Sinkanhla said: "We hear and yet do not hear, we cannot understand. We
are troubling you, Chief, by talking in this way; we hear the Chiefs say
that the Queen took the country because the people of the country wished
it, and again, that the majority of the owners of the country did not
wish her rule, and that therefore the country was given back. We should
like to have the man pointed out from among us black people who objects
to the rule of the Queen. We are the real owners of the country; we were
here when the Boers came, and without asking leave, settled down and
treated us in every way badly. The English Government then came and took
the country; we have now had four years of rest, and peaceful and just
rule. We have been called here to-day, and are told that the country,
our country, has been given to the Boers by the Queen. This is a thing
which surprises, us. Did the country, then, belong to the Boers? Did it
not belong to our fathers and forefathers before us, long before the
Boers came here? We have heard that the Boers' country is at the Cape.
If the Queen wishes to give them their land, why does she not give them
back the Cape?"
Umyethile said: "We have no heart for talking. I have returned to the
country from Sechelis, where I had to fly from Boer oppression. Our
hearts are black and heavy with grief to-day at the news told us. We are
in agony; our intestines are twisting and writhing inside of us, just as
you see a snake do when it is struck on the head. We do not know what
has become of us, but we feel dead. It may be that the Lord may change
the nature of the Boers, and that we will not be treated like dogs and
beasts of burden as formerly; but we have no hope of such a change, and
we leave you with heavy hearts and great apprehension as to the
future."[3] In his Report, Mr. Shepstone (Secretary for Native Affairs)
says, "One chief, Jan Sibilo, who had been personally threatened with
death by the Boers after the English should leave, could not restrain
his feelings, but cried like a child."
In 1881, the year of the retrocession of the Transvaal, a Royal
Commission was appointed from England to enquire into the internal state
of affairs in the South African Republic. On the 9th May of that year,
an affidavit was sworn to before that Commission by the Rev. John
Thorne, of St. John the Evangelist, Lydenburg, Transvaal. He stated: "I
was appointed to the charge of a congregation in Potchefstroom when the
Republic was under the Presidency of Mr. Pretorius. I noticed one
morning, as I walked through the streets, a number of young natives whom
I knew to be strangers. I enquired where they came from. I was told that
they had just been brought from Zoutpansberg. This was the locality from
which slaves were chiefly brought at that time, and were traded for
under the name of 'Black Ivory.' One of these slaves belonged to Mr.
Munich, the State Attorney." In the fourth paragraph of the same
affidavit, Mr. Thorne says that "the Rev. Dr. Nachtigal, of the Berlin
Missionary Society, was the interpreter for Shatane's people, in the
private office of Mr. Roth, and, at the close of the interview, told me
what had occurred. On my expressing surprise, he went on to relate that
he had information on native matters which would surprise me more. He
then produced the copy of a register, kept in the Landdrost's office, of
men, women, and children, to the number of four hundred and eighty
(480), who had been disposed of by one Boer to another for a
consideration. In one case an ox was given in exchange, in another
goats, in a third a blanket, and so forth. Many of these natives he (Mr.
Nachtigal) knew personally. The copy was certified as true and correct
by an official of the Republic."[4]
On the 16th May, 1881, a native, named Frederick Molepo, was examined by
the Royal Commission. The following are extracts from his examination:--
"(_Sir Evelyn Wood_.) Are you a Christian?--Yes.
"(_Sir H. de Villiers_.) How long were you a slave?--Half-a-year.
"How do you know that you were a slave? Might you not have been an
apprentice?--No, I was not apprenticed.
"How do you know?--They got me from my parents, and ill-treated me.
"(_Sir Evelyn Wood_.) How many times did you get the stick?--Every day.
"(_Sir H. de Villiers_.) What did the Boers do with you when they caught
you?--They sold me.
"How much did they sell you for?--One cow and a big pot."
On the 28th May, 1881, amongst the other documents-handed in for the
consideration of the Royal Commission, is the statement of a Headman,
whose name also it was considered advisable to omit in the Blue book,
lest the Boers should take vengeance on him. He says, "I say, that if
the English Government dies I shall die too; I would rather die than be
under the Boer Government. I am the man who helped to make bricks for
the church you see now standing in the square here (Pretoria), as a
slave without payment. As a representative of my people, I am still
obedient to the English Government, and willing to obey all commands
from them, even to die for their cause in this country, rather than
submit to the Boers.
"I was under Shambok, my chief, who fought the Boers-formerly, but he
left us, and we were _put up to auction_ and sold among the Boers. I
want to state this myself to the Royal Commission. I was bought by Fritz
Botha and sold by Frederick Botha, who was then veldt cornet (justice of
the peace) of the Boers."
Many more of such extracts might be quoted, but it is not my motive to
multiply horrors. These are given exactly as they stand in the original,
which may all be found in Blue Books-presented to Parliament.
It has frequently been denied on behalf of the Transvaal, and is denied
at this day, in the face of innumerable witnesses to the contrary, that
slavery exists in the Transvaal. Now, this may be considered to be
verbally true. Slavery, they say, did not exist; but apprenticeship did,
and does exist. It is only another name. It is not denied that some
Boers have been kind to their slaves, as humane slave-owners frequently
were in the Southern States of America. But kindness, even the most
indulgent, to slaves, has never been held by abolitionists to excuse the
existence of slavery.
Mr. Rider Haggard, who spent a great part of his life in the Transvaal
and other parts of South Africa, wrote in 1899: "The assertion that
Slavery did not exist in the Transvaal is made to hoodwink the British
public. I have known men who have owned slaves, and who have seen whole
waggon-loads of Black Ivory, as they were called, sold for about £15 a
piece. I have at this moment a tenant, Carolus by name, on some land I
own in Natal, now a well-to-do man, who was for twenty years a Boer
slave. He told me that during those years he worked from morning till
night, and the only reward he received was two calves. He finally
escaped to Natal."
Going back some years, evidence may be found, equally well attested with
that already quoted. On the 22nd August, 1876, Khama, the Christian King
of the Bamangwato (Bechuanaland), one of the most worthy Chiefs which
any country has had the good fortune to be ruled by, wrote to Sir Henry
de Villiers the following message, to be sent to Queen Victoria:--"I
write to you, Sir Henry, in order that your Queen may preserve for me my
country, it being in her hands. The Boers are coming into it, and I do
not like them. Their actions are cruel among us black people. We are
like money; they sell us and our children. I ask Her Majesty to pity
me, and to hear that which I write quickly. I wish to hear upon what
conditions Her Majesty will receive me, and my country and my people,
under her protection. I am weary with fighting. I do not like war, and I
ask Her Majesty to give me peace. I am very much distressed that my
people are being destroyed by war, and I wish them to obtain peace. I
ask Her Majesty to defend me, as she defends all her people. There are
three things which distress me very much--war, selling people, and
drink. All these things I find in the Boers, and it is these things
which destroy people, to make an end of them in the country. The custom
of the Boers has always been to cause people to be sold, and to-day they
are still selling people. Last year I saw them pass with two waggons
full of people whom they had bought at the river at Tanane (Lake
Ngate).--Khama."
The visit of King Khama to England, a few years ago, his interview with
the Queen, and his pathetic appeals on behalf of his people against the
intrusion of any aggressors (drink being one of them), are fresh in our
memory.
Coming down to a recent date, I reproduce here a letter from a Zulu
Chief, which appeared in the London Press in November, 1899. This letter
is written to a gentleman, who accompanied it by the following
remarks:--"After I had read this very remarkable letter, I found myself
half unconsciously wondering what place in the scheme of South African
life will be found for Zulus such as this nephew of the last of the Zulu
Kings. One thing I am fully certain of, that there are few natives in
the Cape Colony (where they are full-fledged voters) capable of inditing
so sensible an epistle. This communication throws a most welcome light
upon the attitude of his people with respect to the momentous events
that are in progress, and also it reveals to what a high standard of
intellectual culture a pure Zulu may attain."
"Duff's Road, Durban,
November 3rd, 1899.
Sir,--I keenly appreciate your generous tribute to the loyalty of the
Zulu nation during the fierce crisis of English rule in South Africa. It
is the first real test of the loyalty of the Zulus, and as a Zulu who
was once a Chief, I rejoice to see that the loyalty and gratitude of my
people is appreciated by the white people of Natal.
It is, as you say, respected Sir, a tribute, and a magnificent one, to
England's just policy to the Zulus. I dare to assert it is even a finer
tribute to the natives' appreciation, not only of benefits already
conferred, but of the spirit that actuated England in her dealings with
him. I may disagree as to the lessons taught by Maxim guns, hollow
squares, and the 'thin red line.' I think no one can have read Colonial
history, chronicling as it does, the rise again and again of the native
against Imperial forces, without feeling that he is influenced far less
by England's prowess in war than by her justice in peace. My Zulu
fellow-countrymen understand as clearly as anyone the weakness and the
strength of the present time. If the Zulu wished to remember Kambula and
Ulundi, this would be his supreme opportunity to rise and hurl himself
across the Natal frontier. But I, having just returned from my native
country, have been able to report to the Government at Pietermaritzburg
that there is not the slightest symptom of disloyalty, not the idea of
lifting a finger against the white subjects of the great and good Queen.
There is among the Chiefs and Indunas of my people an almost universal
hope that the Imperial arms will be victorious, and that a Government
which, by its inhumanity and relentless injustice, and apparent
inability to see that the native has any rights a white man should
respect, has forfeited its place among the civilised Governments of the
earth, and should therefore be deprived of powers so scandalously
abused--formerly by slavery, and in later years by disallowing the
native to buy land, and utterly neglecting his intellectual and
spiritual needs. There are wrongs to be redressed, and we Zulus believe
that England will be more willing to redress them than any other Power.
There is still much to be done in the way of educating and civilizing
the mass of the Zulu nation. We Chiefs of that nation have observed that
wherever England has gone there the Missionary and teacher follow, and
that there exists sympathy between the authority of Her Majesty and the
forces that labour for civilization and Christianity. We Zulus have not
yet forgotten what we owe to the late Bishop Colenso's lifelong
advocacy, or to Lady Florence Dixie's kindly interest. These are things
that are more than fear of England's might, that keep our people quiet
outside and loyal inside. This is not a passive loyalty with us.
Speaking for almost all my fellow-countrymen in Zululand, I believe if a
great emergency arises in the course of this history-making war, in
which England might find it necessary to put their loyalty to the test,
they would respond with readiness and enthusiasm equal to that when they
fought under King Cetewayo against Lord Chelmsford's army. Again
assuring you that the Zulu people are turning deaf ears to Boer
promises, as well as threats, I remain, with the most earnest hope for
the ultimate triumph of General Buller--who fought my King for half a
year. Your humble and most obedient servant,