THE CAUSES OF THE WAR DATE FAR BACK. THE FAULTS OF ENGLAND TO BE
SOUGHT IN THE PAST. A REVISED VERDICT NEEDED. DOWNING STREET
GOVERNMENT AND SUCCESSIVE COLONIAL GOVERNORS. M. MABILLE AND M.
DIETERLEN, FRENCH MISSIONARIES. EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE COLONY.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY BY GREAT BRITAIN. COMPENSATION TO SLAVE
OWNERS. FIRST TREK OF THE BURGHERS.
There is nothing so fallacious or misleading in history as the popular
tendency to trace the causes of a great war to one source alone, or to
fix upon the most recent events leading up to it, as the principal or
even the sole cause of the outbreak of war. The occasion of an event may
not be, and often is not, the cause of it. The occasion of this war was
not its cause. In the present case it is extraordinary to note how
almost the whole of Europe appears to be carried away with the idea that
the causes of this terrible South African war are, as it were, only of
yesterday's date. The seeds of which we are reaping so woeful a harvest
were not sown yesterday, nor a few years ago only. We are reaping a
harvest which has been ripening for a century past.
At the time of the Indian Mutiny, it was given out and believed by the
world in general that the cause of that hideous revolt was a supposed
attempt on the part of England to impose upon the native army of India
certain rules which, from their point of view, outraged their religion
in some of its most sacred aspects; (I refer to the legend of the
greased cartridges). After the mutiny was over, Sir Herbert Edwardes, a
true Seer, whose insight enabled him to look far below the surface, and
to go back many years into the history of our dealings with India in
order to take in review all the causes of the rebellion, addressed an
exhaustive report to the British Government at home, dealing with those
causes which had been accumulating for half-a-century or more. This was
a weighty document,--one which it would be worth while to re-peruse at
the present day; it had its influence in leading the Home Government to
acknowledge some grave errors which had led up to this catastrophe, and
to make an honest and persevering attempt to remedy past evils. That
this attempt has not been in vain, in spite of all that India has had to
suffer, has been acknowledged gratefully by the Native delegates to the
great Annual Congress in India of the past year.
In the case of the Indian Mutiny, the incident of the supposed insult to
their religious feelings was only the match which set light to a train
which had been long laid. In the same way the honest historian will
find, in the present case, that the events,--the "tragedy of errors," as
they have been called,--of recent date, are but the torch that has set
fire to a long prepared mass of combustible material which had been
gradually accumulating in the course of a century.
In order to arrive at a true estimate of the errors and mismanagement
which lie at the root of the causes of the present war, it is necessary
to look back. Those errors and wrongs must be patiently searched out and
studied, without partisanship, with an open mind and serious purpose.
Many of our busy politicians and others have not the time, some perhaps
have not the inclination for any such study. Hence, hasty, shallow, and
violent judgments.
Never has there occurred in history a great struggle such as the present
which has not had a deep moral teaching.
England is now suffering for her past errors, extending over many years.
The blood of her sons is being poured out like water on the soil of
South Africa. Wounded hearts and desolated families at home are counted
by tens of thousands.
But it needs to be courageously stated by those who have looked a little
below the surface that her faults have not been those which are
attributed to her by a large proportion of European countries, and by a
portion of her own people. These appear to attribute this war to a
sudden impulse on her part of Imperial ambition and greed, and to see in
the attitude which they attribute to her alone, the provocative element
which was chiefly supplied from the other side. There will have to be a
Revision of this Verdict, and there will certainly be one; it is on the
way, though its approach may be slow. It will be rejected by some to the
last.
The great error of England appears to have been a strange neglect, from
time to time, of the true interests of her South African subjects,
English, Dutch, and Natives. There have been in her management of this
great Colony alternations of apathy and inaction, with interference
which was sometimes unwise and hasty. Some of her acts have been the
result of ignorance, indifference, or superciliousness on the part of
our rulers.
The special difficulties, however, in her position towards that Colony
should be taken into account.
It has always been a question as to how far interference from Downing
Street with the freedom of action of a Self-Governing Colony was wise
or practicable. In other instances, the exercise of great freedom of
colonial self-government has had happy results, as in Canada and
Australia.
Far from our South African policy having represented, as is believed by
some, the self-assertion of a proud Imperialism, it has been the very
opposite.
It seems evident that some of the greatest evils in the British
government of South Africa have arisen from the frequent changes of
Governors and Administrators there, _concurrently with changes in the
Government at home_. There have been Governors under whose influence and
control all sections of the people, including the natives, have had a
measure of peace and good government. Such a Governor was Sir George
Grey, of whose far-seeing provisions for the welfare of all classes many
effects last to this day.
The nature of the work undertaken, and to a great extent done, by Sir
George Grey and those of his successors who followed his example, was
concisely described by an able local historian in 1877:--"The aim of the
Colonial Government since 1855," he said, "has been to establish and
maintain peace, to diffuse civilization and Christianity, and to
establish society on the basis of individual property and personal
industry. The agencies employed are the magistrate, the missionary, the
school-master, and the trader." Of the years dating from the
commencement of Sir George Grey's administration, it was thus
reported:--"During this time peace has been uninterruptedly enjoyed
within British frontiers. The natives have been treated in all respects
with justice and consideration. Large tracts of the richest land are
expressly set apart for them under the name of 'reserves' and
'locations.' The greater part of them live in these locations, under the
superintendence of European magistrates or missionaries. As a whole,
they are now enjoying far greater comfort and prosperity than they ever
did in their normal state of barbaric independence and perpetually
recurring tribal wars, before coming into contact with Europeans. The
advantages and value of British rule have of late years struck root in
the native mind over an immense portion of South Africa. They believe
that it is a protection from external encroachment, and that only under
the _ægis_ of the Government can they be secure and enjoy peace and
prosperity. Influenced by this feeling, several tribes beyond the
colonial boundaries are now eager to be brought within the pale of
civilized authority, and ere long, it is hoped, Her Majesty's
sovereignty will be extended over fresh territories, with the full and
free consent of the chiefs and tribes inhabiting them."[5]
It maybe of interest to note here that one of these territories was
Basutoland, which lies close to the South Eastern border of the Orange
Free State.
Between the Basutos and the Orange Free State Boers war broke out in
1856, to be followed in 1858 by a temporary and incomplete pacification.
The struggle continued, and in 1861, and again in 1865, when war was
resumed, and all Basutoland was in danger of being conquered by the
Boers, Moshesh, their Chief, appealed to the British Government for
protection. It was not till 1868, after a large part of the country had
passed into Boer hands, that Sir Philip Wodehouse, Sir George Grey's
successor, was allowed to issue a proclamation declaring so much as
remained of Basutoland to be British territory.
It was Sir George Grey who first saw the importance of endeavouring to
bring all portions of South Africa, including the Boer Republics and the
Native States, into "federal union with the parent colony" at the Cape.
He was commissioned by the British Government to make enquiries with
this object (1858.) He had obtained the support of the Orange Free
State, whose Volksraad resolved that "a union with the Cape Colony,
either on the plan of federation or otherwise, is desirable," and was
expecting to win over the Transvaal Boers, when the British Government,
alarmed as to the responsibilities it might incur, vetoed the project.
(Such sudden alarms, under the influence of party conflicts at home,
have not been infrequent.)
For seven years, however, this good Governor was permitted to promote a
work of pacification and union.
I shall refer again later to the misfortunes, even the calamities, which
have been the result of our projecting our home system of _Government by
Party_ into the distant regions of South Africa. There are long proved
advantages in that system of party government as existing for our own
country, but it seems to have been at the root of much of the
inconsistency and vacillation of our policy in South Africa. As soon as
a good Governor (appointed by either political party) has begun to
develop his methods, and to lead the Dutch, and English, and Natives
alike to begin to believe that there is something homogeneous in the
principles of British government, a General Election takes place in
England. A new Parliament and a new Government come into power, and,
frequently in obedience to some popular representations at home, the
actual Colonial Governor is recalled, and another is sent out.
Lord Glenelg, for example, had held office as Governor of the Cape
Colony for five years,--up to 1846. His policy had been, it is said,
conciliatory and wise. But immediately on a change of party in the
Government at home, he was recalled, and Sir Harry Smith superseded him,
a recklessly aggressive person.
It was only by great pains and trouble that the succeeding Governor,
Sir George Cathcart, a wiser man, brought about a settlement of the
confusion and disputes arising from Sir Harry Smith's aggressive and
violent methods.
And so it has gone on, through all the years.
Allusion having been made above to the assumption of the Protectorate of
Basutoland by Great Britain, it will not be without interest to notice
here the circumstances and the motives which led to that act. It will be
seen that there was no aggressiveness nor desire of conquest in this
case; but that the protection asked was but too tardily granted on the
pathetic and reiterated prayer of the natives suffering from the
aggressions of the Transvaal.
The following is from the Biography of Adolphe Mabille, a devoted
missionary of the _Société des Missions Evangéliques_ of Paris, who
worked with great success in Basutoland. His life is written by Mr.
Dieterlen (a name well known and highly esteemed in France), and the
book has a preface by the famous missionary, Mr. F. Coillard.[6]
"The Boers had long been keeping up an aggressive war against the
Basutos (1864 to 1869), so much so that Mr. Mabille's missionary work
was for a time almost destroyed. The Boers thought they saw in the
missionaries' work the secret of the steady resistance of the Basutos,
and of the moral force which prevented them laying down their arms. They
exacted that Mr. Mabille should leave the country at once, which
theoretically, they said, belonged to them.
"This good missionary and his friends were subjected to long trials
during this hostility of the Boers. Moshesh, the chief of the Basutos,
had for a long time past been asking the Governor of Cape Colony to
have him and his people placed under the direction of Great Britain. The
reply from the Cape was very long delayed. Moshesh, worn out, was about
to capitulate at last to the Boers. Lessuto (the territory of
Basutoland) was on the point of being absorbed by the Transvaal. At the
last moment, however, and not a day too soon, there came a letter from
the Governor of the Cape announcing to Moshesh that Queen Victoria had
consented to take the Basutos under her protection. It was the
long-expected deliverance,--it was salvation! At this news the
missionaries, with Moshesh, burst into tears, and falling on their
knees, gave thanks to God for this providential and almost unexpected
intervention."
The Boers retained a large and fertile tract of Lessuto, but the rest of
the country, continues M. Dieterlen, "remained under the Protectorate of
a people who, provided peace is maintained, and their commerce is not
interfered with, know how to work for the right development of the
native people whose lands they annex."
Mr. Dieterlen introduces into his narrative the following
remarks,--which are interesting as coming, not from an Englishman, but
from a Frenchman,--and one who has had close personal experience of the
matters of which he speaks:--
"Stayers at home, as we Frenchmen are, forming our opinions from
newspapers whose editors know no more than ourselves what goes on in
foreign countries, we too willingly see in the British nation an
egotistical and rapacious people, thinking of nothing but the extension
of their commerce and the prosperity of their industry. We are apt to
pretend that their philanthropic enterprises and religious works are a
mere hypocrisy. Courage is absolutely needed in order to affirm, at the
risk of exciting the indignation of our _soi-disant_ patriots, that
although England knows perfectly well how to take care of her
commercial interests in her colonies, she knows equally well how to
pre-occupy and occupy herself with the moral interests of the people
whom she places by agreement or by force under the sceptre of her Queen.
Those who have seen and who know, have the duty of saying to those who
have not seen, and who cannot, or who do not desire to see, and who do
not know, that these two currents flowing from the British nation,--the
one commercial and the other philanthropic,--are equally active amongst
the uncivilized nations of Africa, and that if one wishes to find
colonies in which exist real and complete liberty of conscience, where
the education and moralisation of the natives are the object of serious
concern, drawing largely upon the budget of the metropolis, it is always
and above all in English possessions that you must look for them.
"Under the domination of the Boers, Lessuto would have been devoted to
destruction, to ignorance, and to semi-slavery. Under the English régime
reign security and progress. Lessuto became a territory reserved solely
for its native proprietors, the sale of strong liquors was prohibited,
and the schools received generous subvention. Catholics, Protestants,
Anglicans, French and English Missionaries, could then enjoy the most
absolute liberty in order to spread, each one in his own manner, and in
the measure in which he possessed it, evangelic truth.
"It is for this reason that the French missionaries feared to see the
Basutos fall under the Boers' yoke, and that they hailed with joy the
intervention of the English Government in their field of work, hoping
and expecting for the missionary work the happiest fruits. Their hope
has not been deceived by the results."
The clash of opposing principles, and even the violence of party feeling
continued to send its echoes to the far regions of South Africa,
confusing the minds of the various populations there, and preventing any
real coherence and continuity in our Government of that great Colony. A
good and successful Administrator has sometimes been withdrawn to be
superseded by another, equally well-intentioned, perhaps, but whose
policy was on wholly different lines, thus undoing the work of his
predecessor. This has introduced not only confusion, but sometimes an
appearance of real injustice into our management of the colony. In all
this chequered history, the interests of the native races have been too
often postponed to those of the ruling races. This was certainly the
case in connexion with Mr. Gladstone's well-intentioned act in giving
back to the Transvaal its independent government.
It has been an anxious question for many among us whether this source of
vacillation, with its attendant misfortunes, is to continue in the
future.
* * * * *
The early history of the South African Colony has become, by this time,
pretty well known by means of the numberless books lately written on the
subject. I will only briefly recapitulate here a few of the principal
facts, these being, in part, derived from the annals and reports of the
Aborigines Protection Society, which may be considered impartial, seeing
that that Society has had a keen eye at all times for the faults of
British colonists and the British Government, while constrained, as a
truthful recorder, to publish the offences of other peoples and
Governments. I have also constantly referred to Parliamentary papers,
and the words of accredited historians and travellers.
The first attempt at a regular settlement by the Dutch at the Cape was
made by Jan Van Riebeck, in 1652, for the convenience of the trading
vessels of the Netherlands East India Company, passing from Europe to
Asia. Almost from the first these colonists were involved in quarrels
with the natives, which furnished excuse for appropriating their lands
and making slaves of them. The intruders stole the natives' cattle, and
the natives' efforts to recover their property were denounced by Van
Riebeck as "a matter most displeasing to the Almighty, when committed by
such as they." Apologising to his employers in Holland for his show of
kindness to one group of natives, Van Riebeck wrote: "This we only did
to make them less shy, so as to find hereafter a better opportunity to
seize them--1,100 or 1,200 in number, and about 600 cattle, the best in
the whole country. We have every day the finest opportunities for
effecting this without bloodshed, and could derive good service from the
people, _in chains_, in killing seals or in labouring in the silver
mines which we trust will be found here."
The Netherlands Company frequently deprecated such acts of treachery and
cruelty, and counselled moderation. Their protests however were of no
avail. The mischief had been done. The unhappy natives, with whom
lasting friendship might have been established by fair treatment, had
been converted into enemies; and the ruthless punishment inflicted on
them for each futile effort to recover some of the property stolen from
them, had rendered inevitable the continuance and constant extension of
the strife all through the five generations of Dutch rule, and furnished
cogent precedent for like action afterwards,[7] After 1652, Colonists of
the baser sort kept arriving in cargoes, and gradually the Netherlands
Company allowed persons not of their own nation to land and settle under
severe fiscal and other restrictions. Among these were a number of
French Huguenots, good men, driven from their homes by the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes in 1690. Then Flemings, Germans, Poles, and others
constantly swelled the ranks. All these Europeans were forced to submit
to the arbitrary rules of the Netherlands Company's agents, scarcely at
all restrained from Amsterdam. Unofficial residents, known as Burghers,
came to be admitted to share in the management of affairs. It was for
their benefit chiefly, that as soon as the Hottentots were found to be
unworkable as slaves, Negroes from West Africa and Malays from the East
Indies began to be imported for the purpose. In 1772, when the
settlement was a hundred and twenty years old, and had been in what was
considered working order for a century, Cape Town and its suburbs had a
population of 1,963 officials and servants of the Company, 4,628 male
and 3,750 female colonists, and 8,335 slaves. In these figures no
account is taken of the Hottentots and others employed in menial
capacities, nor of the black prisoners, among whom, in 1772, a Swedish
traveller saw 950 men, women, and children of the Bushman race, who had
been captured about a hundred and fifty miles from Cape Town in a war
brought about by encroachment on their lands.[8]
The Aborigines Protection Society endorses the following statement of
Sparrman (visit to the Cape of Good Hope, 1786, Vol. II, p. 165,) who
says, "The Slave business, that violent outrage against the natural
rights of man, which is always a crime and leads to all manner of
wickedness, is exercised by the Colonists with a cruelty that merits the
abhorrence of everyone, though I have been told that they pique
themselves upon it; and not only is the capture of the Hottentots
considered by them merely as a party of pleasure, but in cold blood
they destroy the bands which nature has knit between husband and wife,
and between parents and their children. Does a Colonist at any time get
sight of a Bushman, he takes fire immediately, and spirits up his horse
and dogs, in order to hunt him with more ardour and fury than he would a
wolf or any other wild beast.".
"I am far from accusing all the colonists," he continues, "of these
cruelties, which are too frequently committed. While some of them plumed
themselves upon them, there were many who, on the contrary, held them in
abomination, and feared lest the vengeance of Heaven should, for all
their crimes, fall upon their posterity."
The inability of the Amsterdam authorities to control the filibustering
zeal of the colonists rendered it easy for the people at the Cape to
establish among themselves, in 1793, what purported to be an independent
Republic. One of their proclamations contained the following resolution,
aimed especially at the efforts of the missionaries--most of whom were
then Moravians--to save the natives from utter ruin: "We will not permit
any Moravians to live here and instruct the Hottentots; for, as there
are many Christians who receive no instruction, it is not proper that
the Hottentots should be taught; they must remain in the same state as
before. Hottentots born on the estate of a farmer must live there, and
serve him until they are twenty-five years old, before they receive any
wages. All Bushmen or wild Hottentots caught by us must remain slaves
for life."[9]
I have given these facts of more than a hundred years ago to show for
how long a time the traditions of the usefulness and lawfulness of
Slavery had been engrained in the minds of the Dutch settlers. We ought
not, perhaps, to censure too severely the Boer proclivities in favour of
that ancient institution, nor to be surprised if it should be a work of
time, accompanied with severe Providential chastisement, to uproot that
fixed idea from the minds of the present generation, of Boer descent.
The sin of enslaving their fellow-men may perhaps be reckoned, for them,
among the "sins of ignorance." Nevertheless, the Recording Angel has not
failed through all these generations to mark the woes of the slaves; and
the historic vengeance, which sooner or later infallibly follows a
century or centuries of the violation of the Divine Law and of human
rights, will not be postponed or averted even by a late repentance on
the part of the transgressors. It is striking to note how often in
history the sore judgment of oppressors has fallen (in this world), not
on those who were first in the guilt, but on their successors, just as
they were entering on an amended course of "ceasing to do evil and
learning to do well."
In 1795, Cape Town was formally ceded by the Prince of Orange to Great
Britain, as an incident of the great war with France, for which, six
million pounds sterling was paid by Great Britain to Holland. British
supremacy was formally recognized in this part of South Africa by a
Convention signed in 1814, which was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in
1815.
British rule for some thirty years after 1806 was perforce despotic, but
for the most part, with some exceptions, it was a benevolent despotism.
"They had the difficult task of controlling a straggling white
community, at first almost exclusively composed of Boers, who had been
too sturdy and stubborn to tolerate any effective interference by the
Netherlands Company and other authorities in Holland, and who resented
both English domination and the advent of English colonists which more
than doubled the white population in less than two decades." "The
Governors sent out from Downing Street had tasks imposed upon them which
were beyond the powers of even the wisest and worthiest. Most of the
English colonists found it easier to fall in with the thoughts and
habits of the Boers than to uphold the purer traditions of life and
conduct in the mother country, and it is not strange that many of the
officials should have been in like case."[10]
Great Britain abolished the Slave Trade in 1807, which prevented the
further importation of Slaves, and the traffic in them.
The great Emancipation Act, by which Great Britain abolished Slavery in
all lands over which she had control, was passed in 1834.
The great grievance for the Burghers was this abolition of slavery by
Great Britain. According to a Parliamentary Return of March, 1838, the
slaves of all sorts liberated in Cape Colony numbered 35,750. The
British Parliament awarded as compensation to the slave owners
throughout the British dominions a sum of £20,000,000, of which, nearly
£1,500,000 fell to the share of the Burghers. Concerning this Act of
Compensation there have been very divided opinions; there is not a doubt
that the British Government intended to deal fairly by the former slave
owners, but it is stated that there was great and culpable carelessness
on the part of the British agents in distributing this compensation
money. It seems that many of the Burghers to whom it was due never
obtained it, and these considered themselves aggrieved and defrauded by
the British Government. On the other hand, there are persons who have
continually disapproved of the principle of compensation for a wrong
given up, or the loss of an advantage unrighteously purchased. It is
however to be regretted, that an excuse should have been given for the
Boers' complaints by irregularities attributed to the British in the
partition of the compensation money.
It has often been asserted that the first great Dutch emigration from
the Cape was instigated simply by love of freedom on their part, and
their dislike of British Government. But why did they dislike British
Government? There may have been minor reasons, but the one great
grievance complained of by themselves, from the first, was the abolition
of slavery. They desired to be free to deal with the natives in their
own manner.
Taking with them their household belongings and as much cattle as they
could collect, they went forth in search of homes in which they hoped
they would be no longer controlled, and as they thought, sorely wronged
by the nation which had invaded their Colony. But they did not all trek;
only about half, it was estimated, did so. The rest remained, finding it
possible to live and prosper without slavery.
They crossed the Orange River, and finally trekked beyond the Vaal.
From 1833, Cape Colony, under British rule, began to be endowed with
representative institutions. In 1854, the Magna Charta of the
Hottentots, as it was called, was created. It was a measure of
remarkable liberality. "It conferred on all Hottentots and other free
persons of colour lawfully residing in the Colony, the right to become
burghers, and to exercise and enjoy all the privileges of burghership.
It enabled them to acquire land and other property. It exempted them
from any compulsory service to which other subjects of the Crown were
not liable, and from 'any hindrance, molestation, fine, imprisonment or
other punishment' not awarded to them after trial in due course of law,
'any custom or usage to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.' Among
other provisions it was stipulated that wages should no longer be paid
to them in liquor or tobacco, and that, in the event of a servant having
reasonable ground of complaint against his master for ill-usage, and not
being able to bear the expense of a summons, one should be issued to him
free of charge. By this ordinance a stop was put, as far as the law
could be enforced, to the bondage, other than admitted and legalized
slavery, by which through nearly two centuries the Dutch farmers and
others had oppressed the natives whom they had deprived of their
lands."[11]
The Boers who had trekked resented every attempt at interference with
them on the part of the Cape Government with a view to their acceptance
of such principles of British Government as are expressed above. Wearied
by its hopeless efforts to restore order among the emigrant farmers, the
British Government abandoned the task, and contented itself with the
arrangement made with Andries Pretorius, in 1852, called the Sand River
Convention. This Convention conceded to "the emigrant farmers beyond the
Vaal River" "the right to manage their own affairs and to govern
themselves, without any interference on the part of Her Majesty the
Queen's Government." It was stipulated, however, that "no slavery is or
shall be permitted or practised in the country to the north of the Vaal
River by the emigrant farmers." This stipulation has been made in every
succeeding Convention down to that of 1884. These Conventions have been
regularly agreed to and signed by successive Boer Leaders, and have been
as regularly and successively violated.