DR. LIVINGSTONE'S EXPERIENCES IN THE TRANSVAAL AND IN SURROUNDING
NATIVE DISTRICTS. LETTER OF DR. MOFFAT IN 1877. LETTER OF HIS SON,
REV. J. MOFFAT, 1899. REPORT OF M. DIETERLEN TO THE COMMITTEE OF
THE MISSIONS' EVANGÉLIQUES OF PARIS.
The following is an extract from the "Missionary Travels and Researches
in South Africa," of the venerable pioneer, David Livingstone.[12]
"An adverse influence with which the mission had to contend was the
vicinity of the Boers of the Cashan Mountains,[13] otherwise named
'Magaliesberg.' These are not to be confounded with the Cape Colonists,
who sometimes pass by the name. The word 'Boer,' simply means 'farmer,'
and is not synonymous with our word boor. Indeed, to the Boers generally
the latter term would be quite inappropriate, for they are a sober,
industrious, and most hospitable body of peasantry. Those, however, who
have fled from English Law on various pretexts, and have been joined by
English deserters, and every other variety of bad character in their
distant localities, are unfortunately of a very different stamp. The
great objection many of the Boers had, and still have, to English law,
is that it makes no distinction between black men and white. They felt
aggrieved by their supposed losses in the emancipation of their
Hottentot slaves, and determined to erect themselves into a republic, in
which they might pursue, without molestation, the 'proper treatment' of
the blacks. It is almost needless to add, that the 'proper treatment'
has always contained in it the essential element of slavery, namely,
compulsory unpaid labour.
"One section of this body, under the late Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter,
penetrated the interior as far as the Cashan Mountains, whence a Zulu
chief, named Mosilikátze, had been expelled by the well known Kaffir
Dingaan, and a glad welcome was given these Boers by the Bechuana
tribes, who had just escaped the hard sway of that cruel chieftain. They
came with the prestige of white men and deliverers; but the Bechuanas
soon found, as they expressed it, 'that Mosilikátze was cruel to his
enemies, and kind to those he conquered; but that the Boers destroyed
their enemies, and made slaves of their friends." The tribes who still
retain the semblance of independence are forced to perform all the
labour of the fields, such as manuring the land, weeding, reaping,
building, making dams and canals, and at the same time to support
themselves. I have myself been an eye-witness of Boers coming to a
village, and according to their usual custom, demanding twenty or thirty
women to weed their gardens, and have seen these women proceed to the
scene of unrequited toil, carrying their own food on their heads, their
children on their backs, and instruments of labour on their shoulders.
Nor have the Boers any wish to conceal the meanness of thus employing
unpaid labour; on the contrary, every one of them, from Mr. Potgeiter
and Mr. Gert Kruger, the commandants, downwards, lauded his own humanity
and justice in making such an equitable regulation. 'We make the people
work for us, in consideration of allowing them to live in our country.'
"I can appeal to the Commandant Kruger if the foregoing is not a fair
and impartial statement of the views of himself and his people. I am
sensible of no mental bias towards or against these Boers; and during
the several journeys I made to the poor enslaved tribes, I never avoided
the whites, but tried to cure and did administer remedies to their sick,
without money and without price. It is due to them to state that I was
invariably treated with respect; but it is most unfortunate that they
should have been left by their own Church for so many years to
deteriorate and become as degraded as the blacks, whom the stupid
prejudice against colour leads them to detest.
"This new species of slavery which they have adopted serves to supply
the lack of field labour only. The demand for domestic servants must be
met by forays on tribes which have good supplies of cattle. The
Portuguese can quote instances in which blacks become so degraded by the
love of strong drink as actually to sell themselves; but never in any
one case, within the memory of man, has a Bechuana Chief sold any of his
people, or a Bechuana man his child. Hence the necessity for a foray to
seize children. And those individual Boers who would not engage in it
for the sake of slaves, can seldom resist the twofold plea of a
well-told story of an intended uprising of the devoted tribe, and the
prospect of handsome pay in the division of captured cattle besides. It
is difficult for a person in a civilized country to conceive that any
body of men possessing the common attributes of humanity, (and these
Boers are by no means destitute of the better feelings of our nature,)
should with one accord set out, after loading their own wives and
children with caresses, and proceed to shoot down in cold blood, men and
women of a different colour, it is true, but possessed of domestic
feelings and affections equal to their own. I saw and conversed with
children in the houses of Boers who had by their own and their master's
account been captured, and in several instances I traced the parents of
these unfortunates, though the plan approved by the long-headed among
the burghers is to take children so young that they soon forget their
parents and their native language also. It was long before I could give
credit to the tales of bloodshed told by native witnesses, and had I
received no other testimony but theirs, I should probably have continued
sceptical to this day as to the truth of the accounts; but when I found
the Boers themselves, some bewailing and denouncing, others glorying in
the bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the actors, I was
compelled to admit the validity of the testimony, and try to account for
the cruel anomaly. They are all traditionally religious, tracing their
descent from some of the best men (Huguenots and Dutch) the world ever
saw. Hence they claim to themselves the title of 'Christians,' and all
the coloured race are 'black property' or 'creatures.' They being the
chosen people of God, the heathen are given to them for an inheritance,
and they are the rod of divine vengeance on the heathen, as were the
Jews of old.
"Living in the midst of a native population much larger than themselves,
and at fountains removed many miles from each other, they feel somewhat
in the same insecure position as do the Americans in the Southern
States. The first question put by them to strangers is respecting peace;
and when they receive reports from disaffected or envious natives
against any tribe, the case assumes all the appearance and proportions
of a regular insurrection. Severe measures then appear to the most
mildly disposed among them as imperatively called for, and, however
bloody the massacre that follows, no qualms of conscience ensue: it is a
dire necessity for the sake of peace. Indeed, the late Mr. Hendrick
Potgeiter most devoutly believed himself to be the great peace-maker of
the country.
"But how is it that the natives, being so vastly superior in numbers to
the Boers, do not rise and annihilate them? The people among whom they
live are Bechuanas, not Kaffirs, though no one would ever learn that
distinction from a Boer; and history does not contain one single
instance in which the Bechuanas, even those of them who possess
firearms, have attacked either the Boers or the English. If there is
such an instance, I am certain it is not generally known, either beyond
or in the Cape Colony. They have defended themselves when attacked, as
in the case of Sechele, but have never engaged in offensive war with
Europeans. We have a very different tale to tell of the Kaffirs, and the
difference has always been so evident to these border Boers that, ever
since 'those magnificent savages,' (the Kaffirs,) obtained possession of
firearms, not one Boer has ever attempted to settle in Kaffirland, or
even face them as an enemy in the field. The Boers have generally
manifested a marked antipathy to anything but 'long-shot' warfare, and,
sidling away in their emigrations towards the more effeminate Bechuanas,
they have left their quarrels with the Kaffirs to be settled by the
English, and their wars to be paid for by English gold.
"The Bechuanas at Kolobeng had the spectacle of various tribes enslaved
before their eyes;--the Bakatla, the Batlo'kua, the Bahúkeng, the
Bamosétla, and two other tribes of Bechuanas, were all groaning under
the oppression of unrequited labour. This would not have been felt as so
great an evil, but that the young men of those tribes, anxious to obtain
cattle, the only means of rising to respectability and importance among
their own people, were in the habit of sallying forth, like our Irish
and Highland reapers, to procure work in the Cape Colony. After
labouring there three or four years, in building stone dykes and dams
for the Dutch farmers, they were well content if at the end of that time
they could return with as many cows. On presenting one to the chief,
they ranked as respectable men in the tribe ever afterwards. These
volunteers were highly esteemed among the Dutch, under the name of
Mantátees. They were paid at the rate of one shilling a day, and a large
loaf of bread among six of them. Numbers of them, who had formerly seen
me about twelve hundred miles inland from the Cape, recognised me with
the loud laughter of joy when I was passing them at their work in the
Roggefelt and Bokkefelt, within a few days of Cape Town. I conversed
with them, and with Elders of the Dutch Church, for whom they were
working, and found that the system was thoroughly satisfactory to both
parties. I do not believe that there is a Boer, in the Cashan or
Magaliesberg country, who would deny that a law was made, in consequence
of this labour passing to the Colony, to deprive these labourers of
their hardly-earned cattle, for the very urgent reason that, "if they
want to work, let them work for us, their masters," though boasting that
in their case their work would not be paid.
"I can never cease to be most unfeignedly thankful that I was not born
in a land of slaves. No one can understand the effect of the unutterable
meanness of the slave system on the minds of those who, but for the
strange obliquity which prevents them from feeling the degradation of
not being gentlemen enough to pay for services rendered, would be equal
in virtue to ourselves."
After giving his experience of eight years in Sechele's country, in
Bechuanaland, Livingstone continues:--"During that time, no winter
passed without one or two of the tribes in the east country being
plundered of both cattle and children by the Boers. The plan pursued is
the following: one or two friendly tribes are forced to accompany a
party of mounted Boers. When they reach the tribe to be attacked, the
friendly natives are ranged in front, to form, as they say, 'a shield;'
the Boers then coolly fire over their heads till the devoted people flee
and leave cattle, wives and children to their captors. This was done in
nine cases during my residence in the interior, and on no occasion was a
drop of Boer's blood shed. News of these deeds spread quickly among the
Bechuanas, and letters were repeatedly sent by the Boers to Sechele,
ordering him to come and surrender himself as their vassal, and stop
English traders from proceeding into the country. But the discovery of
lake Ngami, hereafter to be described, made the traders come in
five-fold greater numbers, and Sechele replied, 'I was made an
independent chief and placed here by God, and not by you. I was never
conquered by Mosilikátze, as those tribes whom you rule over; and the
English are my friends; I get everything I wish from them; I cannot
hinder them from going where they like.' Those who are old enough to
remember the threatened invasion of our own island, may understand the
effect which the constant danger of a Boer invasion had on the minds of
the Bechuanas; but no others can conceive how worrying were the messages
and threats from the endless self-constituted authorities of the
Magaliesberg Boers, and when to all this harassing annoyance was added
the scarcity produced by the drought, we could not wonder at, though we
felt sorry for, their indisposition to receive instruction.
"I attempted to benefit the native tribes among the Boers of
Magaliesberg by placing native teachers at different points. 'You must
teach the blacks,' said Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter, the commandant in chief,
'that they are not equal to us.' Other Boers told me 'I might as well
teach the baboons on the rocks as the Africans,' but declined the test
which I proposed, namely, to examine whether they or my native
attendants could read best. Two of their clergymen came to baptize the
children of the Boers, so, supposing these good men would assist me in
overcoming the repugnance of their flock to the education of the blacks,
I called on them, but my visit ended in a _ruse_ practised by the
Boerish commandant, whereby I was led, by professions of the greatest
friendship, to retire to Kolobeng, while a letter passed me, by another
way, to the missionaries in the south, demanding my instant recall for
'lending a cannon to their enemies.'[14]
"These notices of the Boers are not intended to produce a sneer at their
ignorance, but to excite the compassion of their friends.
"They are perpetually talking about their laws; but practically theirs
is only the law of the strongest. The Bechuanas could never understand
the changes which took place in their commandants. 'Why, one can never
know who is the chief among these Boers. Like the Bushmen, they have no
king--they must be the Bushmen of the English.' The idea that any tribe
of men could be so senseless as not to have an hereditary chief was so
absurd to these people, that in order not to appear equally stupid, I
was obliged to tell them that we English were so anxious to preserve the
royal blood that we had made a young lady our chief. This seemed to them
a most convincing proof of our sound sense. We shall see farther on the
confidence my account of our Queen inspired. The Boers, encouraged by
the accession of Mr. Pretorius, determined at last to put a stop to
English traders going past Kolobeng, by dispersing the tribe of
Bechuanas, and expelling all the missionaries. Sir George Cathcart
proclaimed the independence of the Boers. A treaty was entered into with
them; an article for the free passage of Englishmen to the country
beyond, and also another, that _no slavery should be allowed in the
independent territory_, were duly inserted, as expressive of the views
of Her Majesty's Government at home. 'But what about the missionaries?'
enquired the Boers. '_You may do as you please with them_,' is said to
have been the answer of the Commissioner. This remark, if uttered at
all, was probably made in joke: designing men, however, circulated it,
and caused the general belief in its accuracy which now prevails all
over the country, and doubtless led to the destruction of three mission
stations immediately after. The Boers, 400 in number, were sent by the
late Mr. Pretorius to attack the Bechuanas in 1852. Boasting that the
English had given up all the blacks into their power, and had agreed to
aid them in their subjugation by preventing all supplies of ammunition
from coming into the Bechuana country, they assaulted the Bechuanas,
and, besides killing a considerable number of adults, carried off 200 of
our school children into slavery. The natives, under Sechele, defended
themselves till the approach of night enabled them to flee to the
mountains; and having in that defence killed a number of the enemy, the
very first ever slain in this country by Bechuanas, I received the
credit of having taught the tribe to kill Boers! My house, which had
stood perfectly secure for years under the protection of the natives,
was plundered in revenge. English gentlemen, who had come in the
footsteps of Mr. Cumming to hunt in the country beyond, and had
deposited large quantities of stores in the same keeping, and upwards of
eighty head of cattle as relays for the return journeys, were robbed of
all; and when they came back to Kolobeng, found the skeletons of the
guardians strewed all over the place. The books of a good library--my
solace in our solitude--were not taken away, but handfuls of the leaves
were torn out and scattered over the place. My stock of medicines was
smashed; and all our furniture and clothing carried off and sold at
public auction to pay the expenses of the foray. I do not mention these
things by way of making a pitiful wail over my losses, in order to
excite commiseration; for though I feel sorry for the loss of lexicons,
dictionaries, &c., &c., which had been the companions of my boyhood,
yet, after all, the plundering only set me entirely free for my
expedition to the north, and I have never since had a moment's concern
for anything I left behind. The Boers resolved to shut up the interior,
and I determined to open the country."
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