Native Races and the War

III.

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."

Mr. A. McArthur, of Holland Park, wrote on March 22nd of this year:—

"When looking over some old letters a few days ago, I found one from the late venerable Dr. Moffat, who was one of the best friends South Africa ever had. It was written in answer to a few lines I wrote him, informing him that the Transvaal had been annexed by the British Government. I enclose a copy of his letter."

Dr. Moffat's letter is as follows:—July 27th, 1877.

"My dear friend,

"I have no words to express the pleasure the late annexation of the Transvaal territory to the Cape Colony has afforded me. It is one of the most important measures our Government could have adopted, as regards the Republic as well as the Aborigines. I have no hesitation in pronouncing the step as being fraught with incalculable benefits to both parties,—i.e., the settlers and the native tribes. A residence of more than half a century beyond the colonial boundary is quite sufficient to authorize one to write with confidence that Lord Carnarvon's measure will be the commencement of an era of blessing to Southern Africa. I was one of a deputation appointed by a committee to wait on Sir George Clarke, at Bloemfontein, to prevent, if possible, his handing over the sovereignty, now the Free State, to the emigrant Boers. Every effort failed to prevent the blunder. Long experience had led many to foresee that such a course would entail on the native tribes conterminous oppression, slavery, alias apprenticeship, etc. Many a tale of woe could be told arising, as they express it, from the English allowing their subjects to spoil and exterminate. Hitherto, the natives have been the sufferers, and might justly lay claim for compensation. With every expression of respect and esteem, I remain, yours very sincerely, Robert Moffat."

A letter from a Son of Dr. Moffat may have some interest here. It is dated December 20th, 1899.

The Rev. John Moffat, son of the famous Dr. Moffat, and himself for a long time resident in South Africa, has sent to a friend in London a letter regarding the relations of the British and Dutch races previous to the war. Mr. Moffat, throughout his varied experiences, has been a special friend to the natives. One of his younger sons, Howard, is with a force of natives 60 miles south west of Khama's town (at the time of writing, December 20th), and Dr. Alford Moffat, another son, was medical officer to 300 Volunteers occupying the Mangwe Pass, to prevent a Boer raid into Rhodesia at that point.

He writes:—

"1. Had Steyn sat still and minded his own business no one would have meddled with him. Had Kruger confined himself strictly to self-defence, and we had invaded him, we might have had to blame ourselves.

"2. To have placed an adequate defensive force on our borders before we were sure that there was going to be war would have been accepted (perhaps justly) by the Boers as a menace. We did not do it, out of respect for their susceptibilities.

"3. To most people in South Africa who knew the Boers it was quite plain that Kruger was all along playing what is colloquially known as the game of 'spoof.' He never intended to make the slightest concession.

"4. Take them as a whole, the Boers are not pleasant people to live with, especially to those who are within their power, as the natives have found out sufficiently, and as the British have found out ever since Majuba, and the retrocession of the Transvaal. The wrongs of the Uitlanders were only one symptom of a disease which originated at Pretoria in 1881, and was steadily spreading itself all over South Africa.

"5. With regard to the equal rights question, it is quite true that all is not as it ought to be in the Cape Colony. But the condition of the native in the Transvaal is 100 years behind that of our natives in the Cape Colony, and you may take it as a broad fact that in proportion as Boer domination prevails the gravitation of the native towards slavery will be accelerated."

In conclusion, Mr. Moffat has this to say of the "Boer dream of Afrikander predominance": "We, who have been living out here, have been hearing about this thing for years, but we have tried not to believe it. We felt, many of us, that the struggle had to come, but we held our peace because we did not want to be charged with fomenting race hatred." He refers to Ben Viljoen's manifesto of September 29th, and to President Steyn's manifesto, and State Secretary Reitz's proclamation of October 11th, and says, "When I read these in conjunction with the history of South Africa for the last 18 years, I see that the cause of peace was hopeless in such hands."

Almost contemporaneously with the expression of opinion of Dr. Moffat (in 1877), the following report was written by M. Dieterlen, to the Committee of the Missions Evangéliques de Paris:—

"Lessouto, June 28th, 1876.

"Gentlemen,

"I must give you details of the journey which I have just made with four native evangelists; for no doubt you will wish to know why a missionary expedition, begun under the happiest auspices, and with the good wishes of so many Christians, has come to grief, on account of the ill-will of certain men, and has been, from a human point of view, a humiliating failure. Having placed myself at the head of the expedition, and being the only white man in the missionary group, I must bear the whole responsibility of our return, and if there is anyone to blame it is I.

"From our departure from Leriba, as far as the other side of Pretoria, our voyage was most agreeable. We went on with energy, thinking only of our destination, the Banyaïs country, making plans for our settling amongst those people, and full of happiness at the thought of our new enterprise. An excellent spirit prevailed in our little troop,—serious and gay at the same time; no regrets, no murmurings; with a presentiment, indeed, that the Transvaal Government might make some objection to our advance, but with the certainty that God was with us, and would over-rule all that man might try to do. We crossed the Orange Free State without hindrance, we passed the Vaal, and continued our route towards the capital of the Transvaal; we reached the first village through which we must pass—Heidelberg—and encamped some distance from there. There they told us that the Boers knew that we were about to pass, and if they wished to stop us, it would be there they would do it. Let us take courage, therefore, we said, and be ready for everything. We unharnessed, and walked through the village in full daylight, posting our letters, etc. No one stopped us or spoke to us, and we retired to our encampment, thanking God that He had kept us through this critical moment. Some days later, we approached a charming spot, within three hours of Pretoria, near a clear stream, surrounded with lovely trees and flowers; we took the Communion together, strengthening each other for the future. Monday, at nine o'clock, we reached Pretoria. We were looked at with curiosity; they read our names on the sides of my waggon, they seemed surprised, and held discussions among themselves; the Field Cornet himself saw us pass, they told me sometime later. But we passed through the town without opposition.

"We continued our way to the north-east full of thankfulness, saying to each other that after all the Government of the Transvaal was not so ill-disposed towards us. Our oxen continued to walk with sturdy steps; we had not yet lost one, although the cattle plague was prevalent at the time. Wednesday, at four o'clock in the evening, we left the house of an English merchant, with whom we had passed a little time, and who had placed at our disposal everything which we needed. Towards eight o'clock, by a splendid moonlight, I was walking in front of my waggon with Asser (one of the native missionaries), seeking a suitable place where we could pass the night, when two horsemen galloped up, and drawing bridle, brusquely asked for my papers, and seeing that I had not the papers that they desired, ordered us to turn round and go back to Pretoria. One of these men was the Sheriff, who showed me a warrant for my arrest, and putting his hand on my shoulder, declared me to be his prisoner. This, I may say in passing, made little impression on me. We retraced our steps, always believing that when we had paid some duty exacted for our luggage and our goods, we should be allowed to go in peace. Towards midnight they permitted us to unharness near a farm. The next morning these gentlemen searched all through the waggon of the native evangelists, and put any objects which they suspected aside. All this, with my waggon, must be sent back to Pretoria, there to be inspected by anyone who chose.

"That same day I arrived in Pretoria in a cart, seated between the Field Cornet and the Sheriff, who were much softened when they saw that I did not reply to them in the tone which they themselves adopted, and that I had not much the look of a smuggler. The Secretary of the Executive Council exacted from me bail to the amount of £300 sterling, for which a German missionary from Berlin, Mr. Grüneberger, had the goodness to be my guarantor. I made a deposition, saying who we were, whence we came, and where we were going, insisting that we had no merchandise in our waggon, only little objects of exchange by which we could procure food in countries where money has no value. We had no intention of establishing ourselves within the limits of the Transvaal; we were going beyond the Limpopo, and consequently were simple travellers, and were not legally required to take any steps in regard to the Government, nor even to ask a passport. All this was written down and addressed to the Executive Committee, who took the matter in hand.

"As they, however, accused us of being smugglers, and having somewhere a cannon, they proceeded to the examination of my waggon. They opened everything, ran their hands in everywhere, into biscuit boxes, among clothes, among candles, etc., and found neither cannon nor petroleum. The comedy of the smuggling ended, they took note of the contents of my boxes, and then attacked us from another side. They decided to treat me as a missionary. The Solicitor-General said to me that the Government did not care to have French missionaries going to the other side of the Limpopo. I said, 'these countries do not belong to the Transvaal;' to which they replied, 'Do you know what our intentions are? Have you not heard of the treaties which we have been able to make with the natives and with the Portuguese?' There! that is the reply which they made to me. They took good care not to inscribe it in the document in which they ordered us to leave the Transvaal immediately. These are things which they do not care to write, lest they should awaken the just susceptibilities of other Governments, or arouse the indignation of all true Christians. But there is the secret of the policy of the Transvaal in regard to us missionaries; they feared us, because they know our attachment to the natives, and our devotion to their interests.

"They then ordered me to retrace at once my steps, threatening confiscation of our goods and the imprisonment of our persons if we attempted to force a passage through the country. I had to pay £14 sterling for the expenses of this mock trial. They brought the four native Evangelists out of the prison where they had spent two nights and a day in a very unpleasant manner; they gave me leave to take our two waggons out of the square of the Hotel de Ville where they had been put, together with the Transvaal Artillery, some pieces of ordnance, a large Prussian cannon and a French mitrailleuse from Berlin.

"We were free, we were again united, but what a sorrowful reunion! We could hardly believe that all was ended, and that we must retrace our steps; so many hopes dissipated in a moment! and the thought of having to turn back after having arrived so near to our destination, was heart breaking. We were all rather sad, asking each other if we were merely the sport of a bad dream or if this was indeed the will of God. T resolved to make one more effort and ask an interview with the President of the Transvaal, Mr. Burgers. It was granted to me. I went therefore to the Cabinet of the President and spoke a long time with the Solicitor-General, protesting energetically against the force they had used against us, and I discussed the matter also with the President himself, but without being able to obtain any reasonable reply to the objections I raised. I saw clearly that I had to do with men determined to have their own way, and putting what they chose to consider the interests of the State above those of all Divine and human laws.

"Their Parliament (Raad) was sitting, and I addressed myself to two of its members whom I had seen the day before, and who had seemed annoyed at the conduct of the Government towards us. I besought them for the honour of their country, to bring before their Parliament a question on the subject; but they dared not consent to this, declaring that if the Government were to put the matter before the representatives of the country these latter would decide in our favour, but that they could never take the initiative.

"I had now exhausted all the means at my disposal. I did all I could to obtain leave to continue our journey, and only capitulated at the last extremity. I received a written order from the Government telling me to leave the soil of the Republic immediately.

"These gentlemen had made me wait a long time, perhaps because they found it more difficult and dangerous to put down on paper orders which it was much easier to give vocally. This note was only a reproduction of the accusations they had made against us from the beginning. They declared to us that we were driven from the country because we had introduced guns, ammunition, and a great quantity of merchandise, and because we had entered the Transvaal without a passport, in spite of the Government itself having recently proclaimed a passport unnecessary for evangelists going through the country. In this document they systematically misrepresented and violated the right which every white man had had until then of travelling without permission. From the beginning to the end of this document it was open to criticism, which the feeblest jurist could have made; but in the Transvaal, as elsewhere, might dominates right, and we have to suffer the consequences of this odious principle.

"We sorrowfully retraced the route towards the Vaal; this time no more joyous singing around our fire at night, no more cheerful projects, no more the hope of being the first to announce the glad Evangel among pagan populations. The veldt we traversed seemed to have lost its poetry and to have become desolate. To add to our misfortunes the epidemic seized our oxen. We lost first one and then a second,—altogether eight. Those which were left, tired and lean, dragged slowly and with pain the waggons which before they had drawn along with such vigour. At last we were in sight of Mabolela, and arrived at our destination, sorrowful, yet not unhappy, determined not to be discouraged by this first check. And now we were again at Lessouto, waiting for God to open to us a new door."

FOOTNOTES:

[12] The extract commences at chapter II, page 29.

[13] Near Pretoria.

[14] Livingstone had given to the Chief, Sechele, a large iron pot for cooking purposes, and the form of it excited the suspicions of the Boers, who reported that it was a cannon. That pot is now in the Museum, at Cape Town.

IV.

There can be no doubt that the desire to supplant British by Dutch supremacy has existed for a long time. President Kruger puts back the origin of the opposition of the two races to a very distant date. In 1881, he said, "In the Cession of the Cape of Good Hope by the King of Holland to England lies the root out of which subsequent events and our present struggle have grown." The Dutch believe themselves,—and not without reason,—capable of great things, they were moved by an ambition to seize the power which they believed,—and the retrocession fostered that belief,—was falling from England's feeble and vacillating grasp. "Long before the present trouble" says a Member of the British Parliament well acquainted with South African affairs, "I visited every town in South Africa of any importance, and was brought into close contact with every class of the population; wherever one went, one heard this ambition voiced, either advocated or deprecated, but never denied. It dates back some forty or fifty years."[15] The first reference to it is in a despatch of Governor Sir George Grey, in 1858; and it is to be found more definitely in the speeches of President Burgers in the Transvaal Raad in 1877 before the annexation, and in his apologia published after the annexation. The movement continued under the administration of Sir Bartle Frere, who wrote in a despatch (published in Blue book) in 1879, "The Anti-English opposition are sedulously courting the loyal Dutch party (a great majority of the Cape Dutch) in order to swell the already considerable minority who are disloyal to the English Crown here and in the Transvaal." Mr. Theodore Schreiner, the brother of the Cape Premier, in a letter to the "Cape Times," November, 1899, described a conversation he had some seventeen years ago with Mr. Reitz, then a judge, afterwards President of the Orange Free State, and now State Secretary of the Transvaal, in which Mr. Reitz admitted that it was his object to overthrow the British power and expel the British flag from South Africa. Mr. Schreiner adds; "During the seventeen years that have elapsed I have watched the propaganda for the overthrow of British power in South Africa being ceaselessly spread by every possible means, the press, the pulpit, the platform, the schools, the colleges, the legislature; and it has culminated in the present war, of which Mr. Reitz and his co-workers are the origin and the cause."

The Retrocession of the Transvaal (1881) gave a strong impulse to this movement, and encouraged President Kruger in his persistent efforts since that date to foster it. A friend of the late General Joubert,—in a letter which I have read,—wrote of Mr. Kruger as "the man who, for more than twenty years past, has persistently laboured to drive in the wedge between the two races. It has been his deliberate policy throughout."

I always wish that I could separate the memory of that truly great man, Mr. Gladstone, from this Act of his Administration. Few people cherish his memory with more affectionate admiration than I do. Independently of his great intellect, his eloquence, and his fidelity in following to its last consequences a conviction which had taken possession of him, I revered him because he seemed like King Saul, to stand a head and shoulders above all his fellows,—not like King Saul in physical, but in moral stature. Pure, honourable and strong in character and principles, a sincere Christian, he attracted and deserved the affection and loyalty of all to whom purity and honour are dear. I may add that I may speak of him, in a measure also as a personal friend of our family. I have memories of delightful intercourse with him at Oxford, when he represented that constituency, and later, in other places and at other times.

I recall, however, an occasion in which a chill of astonishment and regret fell upon me and my husband (politically one of his supporters), in hearing a pronouncement from him on a subject, which to us was vital, and had been pressing heavily on our hearts. I allude to a great speech which Mr. Gladstone made in Liverpool during the last period of the Civil War in America, the Abolitionist War. Our friend spoke with his accustomed fiery eloquence wholly in favour of the spirit and aims of the combatants of the Southern States, speaking of their struggle as one on behalf of liberty and independence, and wishing them success. Not one word to indicate that the question which, like burning lava in the heart of a volcano, was causing that terrible upheaval in America, had found any place in that great man's mind, or had even "cast its shadow before" in his thoughts. It appeared as though he had not even taken in the fact of the existence of those four millions of slaves, the uneasy clanking of whose chains had long foreboded the approach of the avenging hand of the Deliverer. This obscured perception of the question was that of a great part, if not of the majority, of the Press of that day, and of most persons of the "privileged" classes; but that he, a trusted leader of so many, should be suffering from such an imperfection of mental vision, was to us an astonishment and sorrow. As we left that crowded hall, my companion and I, we looked at each other in silent amazement, and for a long time we found no words.

As I look back now, there seems in this incident some explanation of Mr. Gladstone's total oblivion of the interests of our loyal native subjects of the Transvaal at the time when he handed them over to masters whose policy towards them was well known. These poor natives had appealed to the British Government, had trusted it, and were deceived by it.

I recollect that Mr. Gladstone himself confessed, with much humility it seemed to us, in a pamphlet written many years after the American War, that it "had been his misfortune" on several occasions "not to have perceived the reality and importance of a question until it was at the door." This was very true. His noble enthusiasm for some good and vital cause so engrossed him at times that the humble knocking at the door of some other, perhaps equally vital question, was not heard by him. The knocking necessarily became louder and louder, till at last the door was opened; but then it may have been too late for him to take the part in it which should have been his.

FOOTNOTE:

[15] Speech of Mr. Drage, M.P., at Derby, December, 1899.

V.