THE GAIKA AND GEALEKA WAR.—COLONEL WARREN AND “OUR BOYS.”—WARREN’S
BRILLIANT COUP.—THE RAPE OF THE GAIKA MATRONS.—SIGNAL VICTORY AT DEBE
NEK.—COLONEL LANYON AND GASIBONE.—BLOODLESS VICTORY AT PHOKWANE.—RETURN
OF VOLUNTEERS.—THE GRIQUALAND WEST WAR.—ENGAGEMENTS AT WITTEHUIS,
LANGEBERG AND TAIKOON.—CRUEL APPRENTICESHIP OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN.—CLOSE
OF THE GRIQUALAND WEST REBELLION.—KORANNAS AT THE SALT PAN.—HERMANUS
LYNX AND HIS UNTIMELY DEATH.—MR. G. BOTTOMLEY’S LIQUOR BILL.
Before touching upon what I will term our local wars, that occurred
during Major Lanyon’s term of office, I will very shortly refer to the
fourth Kafir war in which the Cape Colony was engaged, and this I do
because the contingent the Diamond Fields sent to assist in this
campaign played a far from unimportant part.
This outbreak arose from a dispute between the Gealekas and their
hereditary enemies, the Fingoes, the former looking with envy upon the
tract of country across the Kei occupied by the latter, but which the
former had at one time possessed. The war arose from an affray at a beer
drinking bout in August 1877, the Gealekas attacking the Fingoes to
revenge the murder of one of their friends, which had been committed in
a scuffle at the feast which I have just mentioned. Directly after this,
numerous incursions began to be made by the Gealekas into Fingoland, and
old colonists could easily see that war was imminent, when in September
Kreli could not be induced to meet Sir Bartle Frere, who at that time
happened to be on the frontier.
Toward the latter end of the above-named year, the chiefs Kreli and
Sandilli massed their followings in open rebellion against the
government. Corps of volunteers were raised, and with the regiments of
regulars in the Colony were marched against the savage hordes of the
Kafir chiefs, under the control of General Thesiger, afterward Lord
Chelmsford. The turn of the year came and no material change in the
state of affairs had taken place. The Gaikas and the Gealekas were
gradually creeping toward a fastness known as the Perie Bush. This bush
is in reality a forest, in length some thirty miles and in width varying
from two to seven, and terminating to the northwest in the Amatola
mountains, an almost impassable range, contiguous to the old frontier
town of Fort Beaufort. In consequence of the vast area to be covered by
the troops, it was impossible to prevent the natives and their cattle in
obtaining entrance into the bush.
Once there, they thought that they had an immunity from danger, for on
the top of the range a vast plateau extends, where they might obtain
luxuriant pasturage for their cattle and cool, refreshing springs of
water for themselves. It almost appeared, as the first moon of 1878 rose
upon that portion of the Colony, that the guerilla warfare would be
interminable, and a cry for help was raised through the Colony, which
reached the province of Griqualand West. One hundred and twenty of our
young bloods volunteered for service five hundred miles away, and with
that military ardor which characterizes all colonists, they slung their
guns across their shoulders, sprang into the saddle, and were at once
ready for the toilsome, dusty, wearisome journey by road to King
William’s Town, for those were the days of no railways. Colonel Warren,
now Sir Charles Warren, the chief commissioner of the metropolitan
police, was their trusted leader. The force, though small, was plucky
and inured to hardships, just the right stuff to fight the wily savage,
whilst their commander was highly popular with his men. It was on Jan.
10th, 1878, that this compact band started from the Diamond Fields, and
a fine sight it was when Colonel Lanyon, the administrator, made them a
parting address at Du Toit’s Pan in the presence of at least 3,000, who
had assembled to wish “our boys” “God speed.”
Marching some forty miles a day under a “sky of molten brass,” they
arrived in King William’s Town on the 25th of the same month. At that
time the chief Sandilli was on the move, so the Diamond Fields horse
were stationed about fifty miles out of King William’s Town in
conjunction with the hapless 24th, afterward annihilated at Isandhlwana
during the now historical Zulu campaign. Patroling the country around
was their main duty for some six weeks, during which time, although the
commissariat department was fairly well attended to, much hardship was
endured by reason of the daily rains and the inadequate tent provision
supplied by the colonial government. Strange to say, little sickness was
engendered, nor did the hardy fellows suffer subsequently from their
exposure. The rebels having in the meantime congregated in the Perie
Bush, an order was issued for the Diamond Fields horse to repair
thither.
Just at this juncture the Pondoland difficulties were drawing to a
crisis, and when the Hon. Mr. Lyttleton was deputed to go to Kokstadt,
it was thought the little force under Colonel Warren would be ordered to
escort him.
It turned out otherwise; the Diamond Fields horse was required for
action, and all the men were delighted. They had not, they urged, come
down country for escort duty, but to show their qualities as fighting
men. At all events they had not long to wait, for after a short period
of duty in the dense demesne of the Perie Bush a brush with the enemy
took place. Such was the thick and jungle-like nature of the underwood,
and such the natural advantages of the position which the enemy had
chosen, that two officers of the corps, Captain Donovan and Lieutenant
Ward, a gallant young fellow, well known in Kimberley, were shot by the
savage horde, and there was no chance at that moment for their comrades
to avenge their death. The little force bided its time. In a few days it
was reported to Colonel Warren that a vast body of the enemy, advancing
on foot, according to Kafir custom, in battalions, and headed by petty
chiefs on horseback, were making for the Perie Bush. This was at an
outlying station known as Debe Nek, midway between King William’s Town
and Fort Beaufort, and in sight of the fastness wherein they believed
their safety would be assured.
The Diamond Fields horse (increased at this time by colonial recruits)
was detached, but yet there were fifty-seven men of the original corps
who volunteered to go out to meet the enemy. The latter was estimated at
1,500, or in other words the odds were twenty-five to one against our
men.
They came on, one huge phalanx, singing their war songs, and fired with
an enthusiasm peculiar to the Kafir race. Taking in the situation at
once Colonel Warren ordered his men to dismount and secure the
protection of a wide sluit running to the left of the Fort Beaufort
road. Telling off three or four to hold the horses, and holding fully a
dozen himself, he ordered the men to commence firing, and many of the
enemy fell, but, as the front row dropped, on came the vast mass behind.
As our brave fellows peppered away with the skill of sharp-shooters some
seventy of the savage horde were laid low, and then dismay seized the
remainder. From the advantageous position selected by Colonel Warren it
was impossible for the enemy to know the strength of its opponents.
Consternation, as I have said, seized the sable host, and like
Sennacherib’s army they melted away even as snow, not, however, before
several of the Diamond Fields horse got into hand-to-hand combat with
them. Although the slaughter was great on the side of the rebels, yet of
the little force under Colonel Warren only one man was wounded, who
through his own neglect afterward succumbed. The news of this gallant
defence filled the inhabitants of the Diamond Fields with exultation.
Congratulations were telegraphed down to Colonel Warren and his men,
while the friends of the brave band under him were highly delighted. The
back of the rebellion had been virtually broken. The news spread, as
news only can spread among Kafir tribes, and Colonel Warren was looked
upon by the Kafirs as possessed of supernatural powers. It only required
tact to complete the subjugation of the rebels, and the leader was not
lacking in this quality. It had been known that the women folk of the
Kafir tribes intrenched within the Perie Bush were habitually allowed
free ingress and egress. This they made use of for the purpose of
bringing supplies from King William’s Town.
Reporting this fact to the late Sir Bartle Frere, the then governor of
the colony, Colonel Warren was advised to communicate with General
Thesiger. That red-tape entangled officer, however, deigned no reply,
and seeing the waste of public treasure involved by General Thesiger’s
indifference, Colonel Warren decided to act, knowing full well, if
successful, that he would have the full support of Sir Bartle Frere.
An opportunity of carrying out his plan quickly offered itself. Out of
the Perie Bush, seeking supplies, and almost in a starving condition,
came 600 women and children. Surrounded and made prisoners by the
Diamond Fields horse they were fed and taken into King William’s Town
and there handed over to the civil authorities, to be afterward sent to
Capetown and apprenticed as domestic servants.
The husbands and fathers, rather than that those they held most dear
should be separated from them, possibly for ever, appealed to the
chiefs, some of whom perhaps were sufferers from Colonel Warren’s _coup
de main_, and so ended the Gaika-Gealika rebellion.
This sudden termination to the war, however, I believe was also the
termination in the friendship previously existing between General
Thesiger and Colonel Warren.
About this time bad news was received from the northern border of
Griqualand West. Bolasike Gasibone, it was reported, was committing acts
of plunder and generally exhibiting a total disregard of the laws of
_meum_ and _tuum_, and in consequence Major Lanyon, the administrator of
the province, left on January 21st, 1878, with 150 volunteers for
Phokwane to punish him. The major was absent from Kimberley some twelve
days, found that there had been no fighting, found no one with whom to
fight, merely old women, children and cows; he collared the cows, and
returned with the spoil to the diamond fields. Many laughed at the whole
affair, but a more serious view was afterward presented for
consideration when the Revs. Messrs. Bevan and Ashton, two well-known
missionaries, appealed to the public for assistance for the poor
natives, who, they stated, were starving. Major Lanyon to stay public
indignation sent a so-called independent commission to report on the
state of affairs, consisting of Mr. Lord, acting attorney general, a
submissive admirer of every act of government, and Mr. Baillie, merely a
subordinate in the survey department. The report framed was of almost
interminable length, occupying fifteen pages in the government _Gazette_
of March 16th, but before it was issued the public had openly expressed
their anticipations respecting the document. The public was not,
however, prepared for its “highfalutin” rhapsodies on the “duty of man,”
nor for the strange citing of Holy Writ in its concluding sentence, in
which natives, owners of the soil and living an independent pastoral
life, were told, after all their cattle had been forcibly removed, “if
any man will not work neither shall he eat.”
Two months later (April 13th, 1878), the administrator of the Transvaal
solicited assistance against Sekukuni, and as preparations were being
made to give him assistance news arrived of trouble on our southwestern
border, which was confirmed by a dispatch on April 21st from Mr. H. B.
Roper, the magistrate of Griqua Town. A call to arms was at once made
and readily responded to. Major Lanyon again left Kimberley, in three
days’ time, with 100 men for Koejas. As soon as he arrived at his
destination he called upon the natives to put down their arms, which
they refused to do, and as they occupied a position from which it was
impossible to dislodge them without cannon, Major Maxwell was
telegraphed to at King William’s Town to at once bring up some
field-pieces. In the meantime volunteers were leaving Kimberley almost
every day for the front to strengthen Major Lanyon.
During Major Lanyon’s encampment at Koejas the Griquas, who had up to
that time remained quiet (the rebellion having broken out among a number
of colonial Kafirs and Korannas living on the banks of the Orange
River), rose _en masse_ and besieged Griqua Town, which was surrounded
by them for eight days. On the night of the eighth day Major Lanyon rode
through them with twenty men undiscovered and joined some 100 volunteers
who had managed, the same day, to get into Griqua Town from the
Kimberley side. On the following day the rebels were completely routed
at Driefontein in a decisive engagement which lasted twelve hours and
driven into their fastnesses in the Langeberg. Major Maxwell, whose
arrival was eagerly looked for, arrived at Koejas on May 25th with the
cannon, just in the nick of time, as on the 31st 600 natives attacked
the camp, when the guns which he had brought up materially assisted to
secure the success of the day. During the time all these events had been
occurring Colonel Warren and “our boys” had been burning to respond to
the calls for assistance which had reached them from Griqualand West.
They had heard how volunteers had been raised and had taken the field
under the command of the administrator, and how the country on the
southwestern border was in a state of tumult and insurrection. Springing
to saddle the plucky band made forced marches, this time in the cold,
pinching month of May. “The air bit shrewdly and ’twas bitter cold,” but
with no covering save a blanket and the saddle for a pillow, they
quickly reached the junction of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. Scarcely had
the force (numbering then about 200 men) crossed the Vaal River than
Colonel Warren scented the disaffected Griquas at Wittehuis, where they
had “enschanged” themselves in a formidable position between the Kaap
Range and the Vaal River. Here the rebels were attacked and routed, and
after completing their defeat Colonel Warren and his men pushed on to
Griqua Town.
Thence he and Major Lanyon proceeded to the Langeberg, where several
engagements took place, in all of which the rebels were defeated. The
most important of these skirmishes was that of Paarde-Kloop, at which an
immense quantity of wagons, oxen, horses and sheep were captured. There
is nothing which makes a native regret rebellion more than the loss of
his worldly goods. Capture his stock and he is defeated.
After these engagements the administrator returned to Griqua Town,
leaving Colonel Warren in command, and there received the sad
intelligence of the skirmish at Manyeering, resulting in the death of
Messrs. Paterson, Rawstorne and several other well-known persons. While
proceeding as quickly as possible on his road to Kimberley, he was
attacked by and succeeded in defeating a body of rebels at Campbell,
some thirty miles from Kimberley, where he arrived in safety after being
some two months absent from the seat of government.
Colonel Warren now made a detour, suspecting the enemy to be lodged in a
mountain situated to the northeast, and distant from the Griqua Town
road some twenty miles. Here he only found groups of chattering monkeys,
instead of the Griquas he expected.
The rebels had fled!
[Illustration:
TAIKOON PASS.
]
After remaining a few days in Kimberley to settle some urgent matters
connected with the government, Major Lanyon proceeded to Bechuanaland,
where he was joined by Colonel Warren, and where after the battle of
Taikoon and other smart engagements the rebellion was finally crushed.
I may here say that the rebellion among the natives who were once, it
must be kept in mind, the owners of the soil, arose with the white man
from difficulties mainly respecting land, and from the dissatisfaction
generally felt by a large proportion of them with Colonel Warren’s
previous decisions in this regard, which had driven them to utter
despair; for it was not until entreaties and even tears had failed to
have any effect that they resorted to rebellion. Colonel Warren was by
nature hasty beyond description, autocratic to a degree, and bigoted in
the extreme.
The manner in which the natives had been treated both by Stockenstrom in
the land court and afterward by Warren was freely commented upon by
colonial statesmen. Mr. R. Southey, formerly lieutenant governor of
Griqualand West, gave utterance to the following significant words in
the Cape house of assembly, when speaking on the subject: “So gross was
the injustice sustained by these people in the land court that had I
been a Griqua, I too would have rebelled.”
Mr. H. B. Roper, now chief of the detective department and police
commissioner of Kimberley, then the resident magistrate of Hay, was
accused in an official dispatch by Colonel Warren of having been the
sole cause of this war through his magisterial judgments, and every
endeavor was made by interested officials to throw the entire blame of
the war upon him. This official’s record books were subjected to the
private scrutiny of the attorney general by the magistrate who succeeded
him, who by this means wished to curry favor with the powers that used
to be, but, although his sentences were found to be decidedly severe,
they showed no taint of what could be construed into injustice, and the
sinister scheme with respect to him fell through.
When Colonel Warren became acting administrator of Griqualand West, he
published in the government _Gazette_ the names of a commission which
was to sit at various places and inquire into the causes of the war, but
it never sat once.
And why?
Because it was found to be indubitably certain that the answer to every
question as to the cause of the rebellion would be “land.”
In the month of August, 1878, all the volunteers, including “our boys,”
returned to Kimberley, the latter having been more than nine months in
the field, when the proceeds of the prizes captured throughout the
campaign were equally distributed among them.
The reception given to the volunteers by the Kimberley people and the
inhabitants of the Diamond Fields generally was most cordial and
enthusiastic, reviews, balls and dinners being the order of the day.
As a _resumé_ of the events of the war, I may here state there had been
during the campaign fully twenty engagements, attended with considerable
slaughter in the rebel ranks, from whom vast herds of cattle and
numberless wagons were captured, while on the side of the volunteers the
average loss amounted to little more than one man per engagement.
The rebellion brought attendant miseries in its train. The prisoners,
including old men, women and children, were removed to Kimberley as soon
as captured, and miserable objects they were.
In piercing cold weather, it being the middle of winter, with scarcely a
stitch of clothes to their backs, they were sent up in wagon-loads, and
penned like so many sheep in a yard adjoining the jail. In all they
numbered some 700. During their confinement, extending over some fifty
days, at the rate of three a day more than one-fifth died, and the
survivors were exposed to public gaze in order that the townspeople
might select those whom they chose for domestic service. The ravages of
syphilis among these Griquas were perfectly astounding, scarcely a man,
woman or child being free from its secondary effects. These prisoners of
war, virtually slaves, soon one by one made their escape to their homes,
and the government very wisely, on peace being proclaimed, did not
enforce the terms of their apprenticeship.
But notwithstanding the victory achieved by our arms, native
disturbances were not altogether finished. Shadows of a disturbance
among the Korannas at the Salt Pan, near Christiana, darkening the air,
Colonel Warren thought it better to nip any rising among these people in
the bud. In this case there was “much ado about nothing.” The _émeute_
commenced through a difference of opinion between a Koranna and a Dutch
farmer concerning a cow, in which a German missionary took the part of
the native.
The affair was so much magnified that Colonel Warren went up to
Christiana accompanied by volunteers in January 1879, and sent for
Hermanus Lynx, the captain of the tribe, and the German missionary to
come before him. After inquiring into the affair Colonel Warren deemed
it sufficient to put the missionary on his _parole d’honneur_, which
parole the German missionary incontinently broke.
It then was deemed necessary to take more decisive steps, and a body of
men were next day sent to the Salt Pan to arrest the “reverend” violator
of the first law of honor, which was done, and he was brought back to
Christiana, not, however, without the loss of one of the volunteers, who
was killed by the accidental discharge of a gun by a Koranna.
After this all became quiet and the volunteers returned to Kimberley.
The whole of the affair was much exaggerated, two men could just as
satisfactorily have arranged the dispute between the Koranna and the
Dutchman as two hundred.
Hermanus Lynx, the unfortunate captain of the Korannas, was confined for
months a prisoner in the Kimberley jail, and Major Maxwell, the
inspector of prisons, was compelled to state, when as vice-president of
the legislative council I called for the papers in the case, “I have no
warrant for his detention nor papers of any kind.” In a written
statement which Hermanus Lynx afterward made, he imploringly said: “I
want to know what I have done to merit my having been kept in prison for
the past eight months. I have not committed theft nor killed any
person.... I am not afraid.” As I have before mentioned I brought this
poor fellow’s case before the council by asking the simple question:
“For what crime and under what warrant is Hermanus Lynx confined a
prisoner in the Kimberley jail?”
The illegality, the cruelty, with which this unfortunate chief had been
treated would not bear exposure, consequently before the day came round
on which my question must have been answered by the government Hermanus
Lynx was a free man. This act of simple justice came too late to repair
the injury done him. The government on his liberation supplied him with
a tent, wagon and rations, but within a week he died on the banks of the
Vaal River, ruined and heart-broken, having covered only twenty-five
miles of his homeward journey.
Since the events chronicled in this chapter there has been no further
disturbance among the natives in the country districts of Griqualand,
for the possibly very excellent reason that there are no independent
natives left.
About this time my colleague, Mr. George Bottomley, introduced an act
into the legislative council amending the liquor laws of the province,
which was much needed,[64] and I fathered a private bill authorizing the
supply of Kimberley with water from the Vaal River; but with the
exception of continued progressive diamond legislation (which has been
elsewhere fully detailed) nothing further of particular moment came
before the council that session.
[Illustration]