The Last Boer War
by H. Rider Haggard · English · Gutenberg #44649 · 458,832 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Last Boer War
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Last Boer War
Author: H. Rider Haggard
Release date: January 12, 2014 [eBook #44649]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44649
Credits: Produced by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST BOER WAR ***
Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
underscores: _italics_. The cover of this ebook was created by the
transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain.
THE LAST BOER WAR
"I am told that these men (the Boers) are told to keep on agitating in
this way, for a change of Government in England may give them again the
old order of things. Nothing can show greater ignorance of English
politics than such an idea. I tell you there is no Government--Whig or
Tory, Liberal, Conservative, or Radical--who would dare, under any
circumstances, to give back this country (the Transvaal). They would
not dare, because the English people would not allow them."--(_Extract
from Speech of Sir Garnet Wolseley, delivered at a Public Banquet in
Pretoria, on the 17th December 1879._)
"There was a still stronger reason than that for not receding (from the
Transvaal); it was impossible to say what calamities such a step as
receding might not cause.... For such a risk he could not make himself
responsible.... Difficulties with the Zulu and the frontier tribes
would again arise, and looking as they must to South Africa as a whole,
the Government, after a careful consideration of the question, came to
the conclusion that we could not relinquish the Transvaal."--(_Extract
from Speech of Lord Kimberley in the House of Lords, 24th May 1880.
H.P.D., vol. cclii., p. 208._)
"Our judgment is that the Queen cannot be advised to relinquish the
Transvaal."--(_Extract from Reply of Mr. Gladstone to Boer Memorial,
8th June 1880._)
THE LAST BOER WAR
BY
H. RIDER HAGGARD
_THIRTY-FIFTH THOUSAND_
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO. LTD.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1900
WORKS BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.
CETYWAYO AND HIS WHITE NEIGHBOURS.
DAWN.
KING SOLOMON'S MINES.
THE WITCH'S HEAD.
SHE.
ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
JESS.
COLONEL QUARITCH, V.C.
MAIWA'S REVENGE.
MR. MEESON'S WILL.
ALLAN'S WIFE.
CLEOPATRA.
BEATRICE.
ERIC BRIGHTEYES.
NADA THE LILY.
MONTEZUMA'S DAUGHTER.
THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST.
JOAN HASTE.
HEART OF THE WORLD.
DOCTOR THERNE.
SWALLOW.
A FARMER'S YEAR.
_IN COLLABORATION WITH ANDREW LANG._
THE WORLD'S DESIRE.
_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved._
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
It has been suggested that at this juncture some students of South
African history might be glad to read an account of the Boer Rebellion
of 1881, its causes and results. Accordingly, in the following pages
are reprinted portions of a book which I wrote so long ago as 1882. It
may be objected that such matter must be stale, but I venture to urge,
on the contrary, that to this very fact it owes whatever value it may
possess. This history was written at the time by one who took an active
part in the sad and stirring events which it records, immediately after
the issue of those events had driven him home to England. Of the
original handful of individuals who were concerned in the annexation of
the Transvaal by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in 1877, of whom I was one,
not many now survive. When they have gone, any further accurate report
made from an intimate personal knowledge of the incidents attendant on
that act will be an impossibility; indeed it is already impossible,
since after the lapse of twenty years men can scarcely trust to their
memories for the details of intricate political occurrences, even
should they be prompted to attempt their record. It is for this reason,
when the melancholy results which its pages foretell have overtaken us,
that I venture to lay them again before the public, so that any who are
interested in the matter may read and find in the tale of 1881 the true
causes of the war of 1899.
I have written "which its pages foretell." Here are one or two passages
taken from them almost at hazard that may be thought to justify the
words:
"It seems to me, however, to be a question worthy of the consideration
of those who at present direct the destinies of the Empire, whether it
would not be wise, as they have gone so far, to go a little farther,
and favour a scheme for the total abandonment of South Africa,
retaining only Table Bay. If they do not, it is now quite within the
bounds of possibility that they may one day have _to face a fresh
Transvaal rebellion, only on a ten times larger scale_, and might
find it difficult to retain even Table Bay."
And again: "The curtain, so far as this country is concerned, is down
for the moment on the South African stage; when it rises again, there
is but too much reason to fear that it will reveal a state of confusion
which, unless it is more wisely and consistently dealt with in the
future than it has been in the past, may develop into chaos."
One more quotation. In speaking of the various problems of South
Africa, I find that I said that "unless they are treated with more
honest intelligence, and on a more settled plan than it has hitherto
been thought necessary to apply to them, the British taxpayer will find
that he has by no means heard the last of that country and its wars."
Perhaps in a year from the present date the British taxpayer will be in
a position to admit the value of this prophecy.
Nearly two decades have gone by since these words were written. Put
very briefly, what has happened in that time? In 1884, at the request
of the Transvaal Government, the Ministry, of which the late Lord Derby
was a member, consented to modify the Convention of 1881, and to
substitute in its place what is known as the London Convention. This
new agreement amended the terms of the former document in certain
particulars. Notably all mention of the suzerainty of the Queen was
omitted, from which circumstance the Boers and their impassioned
advocates have argued that it was abrogated. There is nothing to show
that this contention is correct. Mere silence does not destroy so
important a stipulation, and it appears to be doubtful whether even a
Lord Derby would have been prepared to nullify the imperial rights of
his sovereign and his country in this negative and novel fashion. It is
more probable to suppose that had such action been decided on, effect
would have been given to it in direct and unmistakable language. But
even if it could be proved that this view of the case is wrong, the
general issue would scarcely be affected.
That issue, as I understand it, is as follows: The Convention of 1881
guaranteed to all inhabitants of the Transvaal equal rights--"Complete
self-government subject to the suzerainty of her Majesty, her heirs and
successors, will be accorded to the _inhabitants of the Transvaal
territory_"--Mr. Kruger explaining verbally at a meeting of the
conference, that the only difference would be that in the case of young
persons who became resident in the Transvaal, there might be some
slight delay in granting full burgher privileges, limited, it would
appear, to one year's residence.[1] After that time, then, according to
the terms of this solemn agreement, which in these particulars were not
modified or even touched, by the supplementary and amending paper of
1884, any one who wished to claim the advantages of Transvaal
citizenship might do so.
[1] In 1881, when the Convention was being discussed,
President Kruger was asked by our representative what
treatment would be given to British subjects in the
Transvaal. He said, "All strangers have now, and will always
have, equal rights and privileges to the Burghers of the
Transvaal."--_Quotation from Speech of_ MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN,
_June 26, 1899_.
Some years later an event occurred fated profoundly to influence the
destinies of South Africa, namely, the discovery of the Witwatersrand
gold deposits, perhaps the richest and the most permanent in the whole
world. Instantly adventurers, most of them of Anglo-Saxon origin,
flocked in thousands to the place where countless wealth lay buried in
the earth, and on the plains over which I have seen the wild game
wandering, sprang up the city of Johannesburg with its motley and
cosmopolitan population, its speculators, company promoters, traders,
miners, and labouring men.
To the Transvaal, at any rate in the beginning, the arrival of these
wealth-engendering hordes was what the fall of copious rain is to the
sun-parched veld. By this time the country was once more almost
bankrupt, but now, as though by the waving of a magician's wand, money
began to flow into its coffers. One of the characteristics of the Boer
is his hatred of taxation; one of his notions of terrestrial bliss is
to live in a land where the necessary expenses of administration are
paid by somebody else, an advantage, I understand, that among all the
civilised nations of the earth is enjoyed alone by the inhabitants of
the Principality of Monaco. It is not usual, either in the instance of
communities or individuals, that such ideals should be absolutely
attained. Yet to the fortunate possessors of the South African Republic
this happened. For quite a long period they lived at ease in their
dorps and on their farms, while the dwellers at Johannesburg, delving
like gnomes in the reefs of the Rand, provided them with magnificent
and never-failing supplies of cash. Then questions began to arise, as
they will do in this imperfect sphere. The Uitlanders, as the strangers
were called, remembering the terms of the Conventions, drawn under a
very different condition of affairs but still binding, hinted at a wish
for burgher rights.
The Boers, who if they liked their money objected to the money-makers,
instantly took alarm. If the vote were given to the Uitlanders it was
obvious that very soon they would outnumber the original electors. Then
in a natural, but to them terrifying, sequence would come a
redistribution of the burdens of taxation, the abolition of monopolies,
the punishment of corruption, the just treatment of the native races,
the absolute purity of the courts, and all the other things and
institutions, in their eyes abominable, which mark the advent of
Anglo-Saxon rule. Behind these also loomed another danger, that of the
ultimate reappearance of the English flag. So legislation was resorted
to, and bit by bit the Uitlanders were stripped of the rights inherent
to their position as "inhabitants of the Transvaal territory," till at
last none were left to them at all. Indeed Press laws were passed and
other enactments controlling the privilege of free speech and public
meetings. Of course had the British Government put down its foot firmly
and at once at the first symptom of a desire on the part of the Boers
to whittle away such advantages as the Conventions secured to our
fellow-subjects, the present sad situation need never have arisen. But
British Governments are seldom fond of doing things at the right time,
more especially if the issue is not sufficiently distinct to be
appreciated by the masses of the electorate. Therefore matters were
allowed to drift, and they drifted into that outrageous fiasco, the
Jameson Raid of 1895.
Into the history of that event I do not propose to enter; it is
sufficiently well known. Suffice it to say in this brief summary, that
it was the result of a compact under which Dr. Jameson was to come to
Johannesburg with a large armed force of Rhodesian police, with the
view of assisting the Uitlanders to obtain by arms what was denied to
their petitions.
The agreement is undoubted and admitted, but all the rest is chaos.
Failure in a hundred shapes dogged the steps of these ineffective
conspirators. Dr. Jameson, with 500 men instead of 1200, took the bit
between his teeth and started at the wrong time. The Uitlanders did not
sally forth to meet him, the wires were not cut, the railway line was
not destroyed, the Boers were warned, and assembled in great numbers.
Dr. Jameson, who apparently lost his way on the veld, was entrapped
into a bad position, where, after a space of somewhat feeble combat, he
and his whole force surrendered, their lives being guaranteed to them.
The despatch-box of the raiders, with the ciphers and sundry
incriminating documents, was allowed to fall into the hands of the
enemy, and, on their own ammunition-waggons, the personnel of the Raid
performed the journey to that city of Pretoria, which when reinforced
by the Uitlanders they were to have entered in triumph. Thence they
were in due course despatched to London for trial. The members of the
Reform Committee were also seized and tried at Pretoria, several of
them being condemned to death, a sentence which was not executed; the
whole story, coming to its end to an accompaniment of the clash not of
swords, but of gold; the fines inflicted upon the conspirators by the
Transvaal Government amounting to a total of many tens of thousands of
pounds.
Such, except for mutual recriminations which still continue, was the
end of Johannesburg's armed attempt to throw off the yoke of the Boer,
and of the efforts of the ruling powers of Rhodesia to assist them in
the task. Of course the upshot was that the poor Uitlanders fell into a
still deeper pit of oppression and despair. Lord Rosmead, then Sir
Hercules Robinson, never a proconsul remarkable for an iron will, it is
true visited the Transvaal in a great flurry, and assured, or caused
Sir Sidney Shippard and the British agent, a gentleman of the somewhat
alien-sounding name of Sir Jacobus de Wet, in substance to assure the
Uitlanders that if only they would disarm probably their wrongs must
shortly be righted by a beneficent Boer president, assisted to the task
by a Raad full of forgiveness and charity. Moreover, Sir Jacobus de Wet
told them explicitly that the lives of Jameson and his men depended
upon their laying down such weapons as they possessed, although of
course those lives were already guaranteed by the terms of the
surrender.
But this raid had wider issues of an imperial nature. Thus it provoked
the famous telegram from the Emperor William II., which at one time
threatened to bring about a war between Great Britain and Germany.
Also, so far as these South African troubles were concerned, it put our
country hopelessly in the wrong in the eyes of the civilised world,
whom it proved difficult to persuade, although in fact this was the
case, that such strange and tortuous developments of political and
martial activity were purely local in their origin. Again it armed the
Boer with a sword of wondrous power. If Providence had sent all the
German legions to his aid it could scarcely have served him better. Now
indeed he was able to point to his land violated by the foot of the
invader, and to talk of raids as though such a wicked word had never
defiled the innocence of his ears; as though in truth he had never
heard of the plains of Stellaland, and of a certain expedition sent by
the British Government under the command of Sir Charles Warren to
preserve those territories to the peaceful enjoyment of their owners;
nor of that stretch of country which once belonged to the Zulus, but is
now called the New Republic; nor of the trek into Rhodesia that was
"damped"; nor of the extension of authority over Swaziland in defiance
of the provisions of the Convention, and of other kindred matters.
Also it enabled him to claim "moral and intellectual damages" to a
considerable amount, although, so far as the public is aware, these
have never been satisfied, and indeed caused Pharaoh to harden his
heart, and while demanding from the new Israelites of Johannesburg an
even heavier tale of bricks in the shape of direct and indirect
taxation, to deprive them one by one of their last straws of freedom.
Thus things fell back into their former courses, the old abuses
flourished like bay trees, the lucky holders of dynamite and other
monopolies grew fabulously rich, and--so powerful is the love of
gold--_auri sacra fames_--so much more do men value it than
freedom and pure government--the population of Johannesburg still
increased.
More than two years have gone by since Sir Alfred Milner was sent as
High Commissioner to South Africa, during all which time, backed by her
Majesty's present Government, he has been doing his best to secure
redress for the Uitlanders, and to arrange various differences that
have arisen between the Empire and the Transvaal Republic. At length
these efforts resulted in the meeting between himself and President
Kruger, known as the Bloemfontein Conference, which took place about
four months ago. At that Conference Sir Alfred Milner advanced the
request, modest enough seeing that they are entitled to nothing less
than equal rights with the other "inhabitants of the Transvaal," that
those Uitlanders who wished to adopt the country as their home should
be entitled to the franchise after five years' residence. This was
refused by President Kruger as endangering the independence of the
State, and the Conference broke up. It was from this time forward that
war came to be looked upon as probable. In reply to various despatches
and representations of the Imperial Government, the President and
Volksraad made certain offers of a franchise which, if they were ever
seriously meant, were hampered with provisos, such as rendered them
impossible for this country to accept. Thus the five years' offer of
August 19 was coupled with the conditions that in the future there
should be no interference in the internal affairs of the Republic, that
her Majesty's Government would not further insist on the assertion of
the suzerainty, and that the principle of arbitration in the event of
future differences arising should be admitted.
Had the Government agreed to these terms it would have meant, of
course, that the last shadow of the Queen's authority would have
vanished from the Transvaal, and as they had bound themselves not to
interfere in future, that they might be forced to look on while the
franchise which was granted one year was repealed or rendered nugatory
the next. Also, it must be remembered that this question of the
franchise does not cover all the grounds of difference between the two
parties; indeed, it seems that a great deal too much importance has
been given to the matter. Even if a certain number of Uitlanders
elected to become citizens of a Boer state, it is difficult to see,
however advantageous that circumstance might prove to themselves, in
what way it would directly assist the Imperial power on such a
question, let us say, as the treatment of our Indian subjects settled
in the Transvaal. To begin with, the new-born burghers might be
indifferent to the needs and wishes of the country they had renounced.
They might even consider that their oath of allegiance bound them to
oppose those wishes. At the least, even if they had the power to help
us, which could not be the case for many years, surely it would be
neither wise nor dignified for the power to which they once belonged to
trust solely to their good offices.
In the newspapers and elsewhere Johannesburg and its Uitlanders are
spoken of continually as though they made up the sum of the situation.
It is the common cry of Liberal Forwards and of those gentlemen who
might perhaps be called Radical Backwards, that this war is to be waged
for the Uitlander and the millionaire. Of course this is not in the
least true. The Uitlander, with his woes, is only the blister that has
brought the sore of Transvaal misrule and Dutch ambitions in South
Africa to so proud a head, that at last the South African Republic has
come to describe itself as "a Sovereign independent State." That he and
his "Magnates," as Rand millionaires are called, will profit enormously
from a successful war waged by the Imperial Power is admitted; but
because the effect of such a struggle will be ultimately to put a
number of annual millions into certain pockets, it does not follow that
the war is fought for that purpose. Indeed the veriest "jingo" could
scarcely show himself self-sacrificing and altruistic. This is no local
but an Imperial question to be decided in the interests of the Empire.
To return to the course of the negotiations. Offers, withdrawals,
stipulations, palliative clauses, proposals for further conferences
followed each other in bewildering variety, till at length, worn out,
Mr. Chamberlain, on September 22, intimated to the Government of the
South African Republic, through Sir Alfred Milner, that it was "useless
to further pursue a discussion on the lines hitherto followed, and her
Majesty's Government are now compelled to consider the situation
afresh, and to formulate their own proposals for a final settlement of
the issues which have been created in South Africa by the policy
constantly followed for many years by the Government of the South
African Republic. They will communicate to you the result of their
deliberations in a later despatch."
It is rumoured that this later despatch has been delivered at Pretoria,
but has as yet received no reply. Three days later, however, namely, on
September 25, that industrious body, the Liberal Forwards, was honoured
with a telegram from the State Secretary of the Transvaal, which runs
as follows:--
"Liberal Forwards, London. Many thanks for your telegram. We stick
to the Convention, and rely upon England doing the same, as
Convention does not allow interference in internal affairs."
When, however, it is remembered that the Convention did allow equal
rights to all the "inhabitants of the Transvaal," it will be admitted
that this cable is about the strangest of the remarkable series of
State documents which of late have emanated from Pretoria. Very aptly
it crystallises the spirit of Boer diplomacy--a bold disregard of
inconvenient facts.
Meanwhile in South Africa various events of importance have happened.
The Orange Free State has openly thrown in its lot with the Transvaal.
The Uitlanders have fled by thousands from Johannesburg. The Boers have
massed their commandos at various points on the Natal and other British
borders, presumably for offensive purposes, since at present they can
expect no invasion of their territory. The first of these occurrences
reveals the hidden purpose of the Dutch party in South Africa, as at
night a sudden flash of lightning reveals the face of the veld. We have
never threatened the Orange Free State; it has no grievance, no cause
of quarrel, yet suddenly it appears in arms against us. Why? Because
its citizens believe that the time has come to translate into action
the old dream of the Boers, which so long as five-and-twenty years ago
was familiar to the late President Burgers when he spoke of the coming
Dutch Republic, with its eight millions of inhabitants ruling supreme
in the vast territories between the Zambezi and the Cape. Now the great
conspiracy that it has proved so hard to persuade the British public,
or a blind section of it, to credit stands unveiled, and it has for
object nothing less than the expulsion of the English power from
Southern Africa--a vain thing fondly imagined, but still a thing with
which we must reckon, and it is to be feared by the last stern
expedient of arms, since here soft words and diplomacy are of no avail.
Difficult as it is to make the fact understood among a proportion of
the home electorate and publicists, it cannot be stated too often or
too clearly that this war, which is to come, is a war that was forced
upon us by the Boers in their blind ignorance and conceit. The mass of
them believe, because they defeated our troops in various small affairs
in 1881, that they are a match for the British Empire. Their leaders
are better instructed. They trust not so much, perhaps, to the rifles
of their compatriots as to the prowess of certain party captains in
England, and to the enthusiasm of their advocates among the English
Press and public. They remember that the activity of these forces
eighteen years ago was followed by a miserable surrender on the part of
the English Government, and not understanding how greatly opinion has
changed in this country, they hope that history may repeat itself, and
that England, wearying of an unpopular struggle, will soon cede to them
all they ask. They are mistaken, but such is their faith. They hope
also, perchance with better reason, that other complications may force
us to stay our hand. If no more telegrams can be extracted from the
German Emperor, still there is a German regiment fighting on their side
who will take with them the sympathies of the Fatherland, and they know
that the hearts of the great Powers of Europe will go out towards any
people who try to strike a blow at the root of the ever-growing tree of
the might of the British Empire. Buoyed up by bubbles such as these
they have determined to tempt the stern arbitrament of battle.[2]
[2] See the very remarkable letter of the Boer "P.S." to the
_Times_ of October 14th, printed as Appendix III. to this
book, p. 241.
Can it still be avoided? It would seem that except by our surrender,
which is out of the question, for that means the loss not only of South
Africa, but of our prestige throughout the world, this is not in any
way possible. Already acts of war have taken place, such as the seizure
of the gold from the mines, and the commandeering of goods belonging to
British subjects, and perhaps days before these lines can appear in
print the guns will have begun their reasoning.[3]
[3] Since the above was written, in the swift march of
events, the Transvaal has despatched its "ultimatum," perhaps
the most egregious document ever addressed to a great Power
by a petty State. In effect it is a declaration of war, and
hostilities have now commenced with the destruction by the
Boers of an armoured train at Kraaipan, and the capture or
slaying of its escort.
H. R. H.
_9th October _ 1899.
After the rebellion of 1881 a Boer jury, to whom the case was committed
by the tender mercies of Mr. Gladstone's Government, with the murdered
man's bullet-riddled skull lying before them upon the table of the
Court, acquitted the brutal slaughterers of Captain Elliot, not because
they had not done the deed with every circumstance of horrible
treachery and premeditation, but because to find them guilty was
against their brethren's wish. In much the same way, with all the facts
staring them in the face, there are men in England, some of them of
high position and character, who urge the righteousness of the Boer
cause, and with tongue and pen paint our national iniquity in hues
black as ink and red as blood. They write of the "Objects of the War,"
which they do not hesitate to describe as self-seeking and infamous, so
far of course as the English people are concerned, for according to the
same authorities, the Boer objects are uniformly pure and noble. Would
it not be better if they looked back a little and tried to discover the
causes of the war? I think that if they could have witnessed a certain
scene upon the market-square at Newcastle, at which it was my
misfortune to be present, on that night of the year 1881 when the news
of the base betrayal of the loyalists by England became known, they
would win a better understanding of the question. In the spectacle of
that maddened crowd of three or four thousand ruined and deserted men,
English, Boer, and Kaffir, raving, weeping, and blaspheming in the
despair of their shame and bitterness, they might have found
enlightenment. Even now a study of the following forgotten letter
written by Mr. White, the chairman of the Committee of Loyal
Inhabitants, to Mr. Gladstone, might give to some a food for thought:--
"If, sir, you had seen, as I have seen, promising young citizens of
Pretoria dying of wounds received for their country, and if you had had
the painful duty, as I have had, of bringing to their friends at home
the last mementoes of the departed; if you had seen the privations and
discomforts which delicate women and children bore without murmuring
for upwards of three months; if you had seen strong men crying like
children at the cruel and undeserved desertion of England; if you had
seen the long strings of half-desperate loyalists, shaking the dust off
their feet as they left the country, as I saw on my way to Newcastle;
and if you yourself had invested your all on the strength of the word
of England, and now saw yourself in a fair way of being beggared by the
acts of the country in whom you trusted, you would, sir, I think, be
'pronounced,' and England would ring with eloquent entreaties and
threats which would compel a hearing.... We claim, sir, at least as
much justice as the Boers. We are faithful subjects of England, and
have suffered and are suffering for our fidelity. Surely we, the
friends of our country, who stood by her in the time of trial, have as
much right to consideration as rebels who fought against her. We rely
on her word. We rely on the frequently repeated pledges and promises of
her ministers in which we have trusted. We rely on her sense of moral
right not to do us the grievous wrong which this miserable peace
contemplates. We rely on her fidelity to obligations, and on her
ancient reputation for honour and honesty. We rely on the material
consequences which will follow on a breach of faith to us. England
cannot afford to desert us after having solemnly pledged herself to
us."
"England cannot afford to desert us!" but England, or her rulers, could
and did afford itself this luxury. In vain did such men as the late
Lord Beaconsfield, the late Lord Cairns, and Lord Salisbury protest and
point out dangers. In vain did agonised loyalists flourish their own
words and promises in the face of her Majesty's Government; the spirit
of party, or the promptings of a newly acquired conscience proved too
strong. Her Majesty's loyal subjects were sneered at, insulted, and
abandoned, and the Boer, who had butchered them, was bid to go on and
prosper.
Now, nearly twenty years afterwards, England is called upon to pay the
bill of what is in effect, whatever may have been its motives, one of
the most infamous acts that stains the pages of her history. From the
moment that the Convention of 1881 was signed it became as certain as
anything human can be, that one of two things would happen--either that
the Imperial Power must in practice be driven out of South Africa, or
that a time would come when it must be forced to assert its dominion
even at the price of war.
Now that miserable hour is with us, and we are called upon to suppress
by arms a small, but sullen and obstinate people, whom we have taught
to believe themselves our equals, if not our superiors. Unless they
will yield at the last moment, which seems impossible seeing that the
war is of their own choosing, the new settlement of South Africa must
be celebrated by a mighty sacrifice of their blood and our blood. Not
to dwell upon other griefs and dangers, when, I ask, will the smoke and
the smell of it depart from the eyes and nostrils of the dwellers in
that unhappy land? As they troop back merrily to their mines and
workshops the money-spinners of Johannesburg may forget a past of
which, in many instances at least, their chief impression will be that
it was unpleasant and unprofitable. But after the Rand is worked out,
when the stamps cease to fall heavily by day and night, when the great
heaps of tailings no longer increase from month to month, when the
broker's voice is quiet in the Exchange, and the promoter inhabits some
new city, still the Boer women in the farmhouses will tell their
children how the "damned English soldiers" shot their grandfathers and
took the land. In South Africa new Irelands will arise, and from the
dragon's teeth that we are forced to sow the harvest of hate will
spring, and spring again. Thus must we eat of the bitter bread which we
have baked, and thus the ill fowl that we reared have come home to
roost, bringing their broods with them.
Again and again we have blundered in our treatment of the Dutch. For
instance, with kinder and fairer management they would never have
trekked from the Cape sixty years ago. Also, had the promises which
were made to them at the annexation in 1877 been kept, and had not Sir
Theophilus Shepstone, who grew up amongst them and to whom they were
attached, been removed in favour of a military martinet, there would
have been no rebellion, let the Cape wire-pullers working under a cloak
of loyalty to the Crown strive as they might. But the rebellion came
and the defeats, and after these that surrender whereof this country is
called upon to pluck the fruit to-day, which, by the Boers, is
attributed to those defeats with the fear of their prowess and to
nothing else.
And now, in due season, the war comes; an inevitable war which cannot
be escaped, and must be fought out to the end. There is only room for
one paramount power in Southern Africa!
How all these things happened is told briefly, but I trust clearly, in
the following pages. My excuse for reprinting them must be the desire
which, it is said, exists among some readers to become better
acquainted with the facts that engendered the present fateful crisis.
H. RIDER HAGGARD.
_9th October _1899.
CONTENTS.
PAGES
AUTHOR'S NOTE v
CHAPTER I.
ITS INHABITANTS, LAWS, AND CUSTOMS.
Invasion by Mosilikatze--Arrival of the emigrant Boers--Establishment
of the South African Republic--The Sand River Convention--Growth of
the territory of the republic--The native tribes surrounding it--
Capabilities of the country--Its climate--Its inhabitants--The Boers
--Their peculiarities and mode of life--Their abhorrence of settled
government and payment of taxes--The Dutch patriotic party--Form of
government previous to the annexation--Courts of law--The commando
system--Revenue arrangements--Native races in the Transvaal 1-22
CHAPTER II.
EVENTS PRECEDING THE ANNEXATION.
Mr. Burgers elected president--His character and aspirations--His
pension from the English Government--His visit to England--The
railway loan--Relations of the republic with native tribes--The
pass laws--Its quarrel with Cetywayo--Confiscation of native
territory in the Keate Award--Treaty with the Swazi king--The
Secocoeni war--Capture of Johannes' stronghold by the Swazi
allies--Attack on Secocoeni's mountain--Defeat and dispersion of
the Boers--Elation of the natives--Von Schlickmann's volunteers--
Cruelties perpetrated--Abel Erasmus--Treatment of natives by Boers
--Public meeting at Potchefstroom in 1868--The slavery question--
Some evidence on the subject--Pecuniary position of the Transvaal
prior to the annexation--Internal troubles--Divisions amongst the
Boers--Hopeless condition of the country 23-49
CHAPTER III.
THE ANNEXATION.
Anxiety of Lord Carnarvon--Despatch of Sir T. Shepstone as Special
Commissioner to the Transvaal--Sir T. Shepstone, his great
experience and ability--His progress to Pretoria, and reception
there--Feelings excited by the arrival of the mission--The
annexation _not_ a foregone conclusion--Charge brought against
Sir T. Shepstone of having called up the Zulu army to sweep the
Transvaal--Its complete falsehood--Cetywayo's message to Sir T.
Shepstone--Evidence on the matter summed up--General desire of
the natives for English rule--Habitual disregard of their
interests--Assembly of the Volksraad--Rejection of Lord
Carnarvon's Confederation Bill and of President Burgers' new
constitution--President Burgers' speeches to the Raad--His
posthumous statement--Communication to the Raad of Sir T.
Shepstone's intention to annex the country--Despatch of Commission
to inquire into the alleged peace with Secocoeni--Its fraudulent
character discovered--Progress of affairs in the Transvaal--Paul
Kruger and his party--Restlessness of natives--Arrangements for
the annexation--The annexation proclamation 50-86
CHAPTER IV.
THE TRANSVAAL UNDER BRITISH RULE.
Reception of the annexation--Major Clarke and the Volunteers--Effect
of the annexation on credit and commerce--Hoisting of the Union
Jack--Ratification of the annexation by Parliament--Messrs. Kruger
and Jorissen's mission to England--Agitation against the annexation
in the Cape Colony--Sir T. Shepstone's tour--Causes of the growth
of discontent among the Boers--Return of Messrs. Jorissen and Kruger
--The Government dispenses with their services--Despatch of a second
deputation to England--Outbreak of war with Secocoeni--Major Clarke,
R.A.--The Gunn of Gunn plot--Mission of Captain Paterson and Mr.
Sergeaunt to Matabeleland--Its melancholy termination--The Isandhlwana
disaster--Departure of Sir T. Shepstone for England--Another Boer
meeting--The Pretoria Horse--Advance of the Boers on Pretoria--
Arrival of Sir B. Frere at Pretoria and dispersion of the Boers--
Arrival of Sir Garnet Wolseley--His proclamation--The Secocoeni
expedition--Proceedings of the Boers--Mr. Pretorius--Mr. Gladstone's
Mid-Lothian speeches, their effect--Sir G. Wolseley's speech at
Pretoria, its good results--Influx of Englishmen and cessation of
agitation--Financial position of the country after three years of
British rule--Letter of the Boer leaders to Mr. Courtney 87-119
CHAPTER V.
THE BOER REBELLION.
Accession of Mr. Gladstone to power--His letters to the Boer
leader and the loyals--His refusal to rescind the annexation--The
Boers encouraged by prominent members of the Radical party--The
Bezeidenhout incident--Despatch of troops to Potchefstroom--Mass
meeting of the 8th December 1880--Appointment of the Triumvirate
and declaration of the republic--Despatch of Boer proclamation to
Sir O. Lanyon--His reply--Outbreak of hostilities at Potchefstroom
--Defence of the court-house by Major Clarke--The massacre of the
detachment of the 94th under Colonel Anstruther--Dr. Ward--The Boer
rejoicings--The Transvaal placed under martial law--Abandonment of
their homes by the people of Pretoria--Sir Owen Lanyon's admirable
defence organisation--Second proclamation issued by the Boers--Its
complete falsehood--Life at Pretoria during the siege--Murders of
natives by the Boers--Loyal conduct of the native chiefs--Difficulty
of preventing them from attacking the Boers--Occupation of Lang's
Nek by the Boers--Sir George Colley's departure to Newcastle--The
condition of that town--The attack on Lang's Nek--Its desperate
nature--Effect of victory on the Boers--The battle at the Ingogo--
Our defeat--Sufferings of the wounded--Major Essex--Advance of the
Boers into Natal--Constant alarms--Expected attack on Newcastle--
Its unorganised and indefensible condition--Arrival of the
reinforcements and retreat of the Boers to the Nek--Despatch
of General Wood to bring up more reinforcements--Majuba Hill--Our
disaster, and death of Sir George Colley--Cause of our defeat--A
Boer version of the disaster--Sir George Colley's tactics 120-155
CHAPTER VI.
THE RETROCESSION OF THE TRANSVAAL.
The Queen's Speech--President Brand and Lord Kimberley--Sir Henry
de Villiers--Sir George Colley's plan--Paul Kruger's offer--Sir
George Colley's remonstrance--Complimentary telegrams--Effect of
Majuba on the Boers and English Government--Collapse of the
Government--Reasons of the surrender--Professional sentimentalists
--The Transvaal Independence Committee--Conclusion of the armistice
--The preliminary peace--Reception of the news in Natal--Newcastle
after the declaration of peace--Exodus of the loyal inhabitants of
the Transvaal--The value of property in Pretoria--The Transvaal
officials dismissed--The Royal Commission--Mode of trial of persons
accused of atrocities--Decision of the Commission and its results
--The severance of territory question--Arguments _pro_ and _con_--
Opinion of Sir E. Wood--Humility of the Commissioners and its cause
--Their decision on the Keate Award question--The Montsioa difficulty
--The compensation and financial clauses of the report of the
Commission--The duties of the British Resident--Sir E. Wood's
dissent from the report of the Commission--Signing of the
Convention--Burial of the Union Jack--The native side of the
question--Interview between the Commissioners and the native
chiefs--Their opinion of the surrender--Objections of the Boer
Volksraad to the Convention--Mr. Gladstone temporises--The
ratification--Its insolent tone--Mr. Hudson, the British Resident
--The Boer festival--The results of the Convention--The larger
issue of the matter--Its effect on the Transvaal--Its moral
aspects--Its effect on the native mind 156-202
CHAPTER VII.
Extract from Introduction to new edition of 1888 203
APPENDIX.
I. The Potchefstroom Atrocities, &c. 231
II. Pledges given by Mr. Gladstone's Government as to the
Retention of the Transvaal 239
III. A Boer on Boer Designs 241
_THE TRANSVAAL._
CHAPTER I.
ITS INHABITANTS, LAWS, AND CUSTOMS.
The Transvaal is a country without a history. Its very existence was
hardly known of until about fifty years ago. Of its past we know
nothing. The generations who peopled its great plains have passed
utterly out of the memory and even the tradition of man, leaving no
monument to mark that they have existed, not even a tomb.
During the reign of Chaka, 1813-1828, whose history has been sketched
in a previous chapter, one of his most famous generals, Mosilikatze,
surnamed the Lion, seceded from him with a large number of his
soldiers, and striking up in a north-westerly direction, settled in or
about what is now the Morico district of the Transvaal. The country
through which Mosilikatze passed was at that time thickly populated
with natives of the Basuto or Macatee race, whom the Zulus look upon
with great contempt. Mosilikatze expressed the feelings of his tribe in
a practical manner, by massacring every living soul of them that came
within his reach. That the numbers slaughtered were very great, the
numerous ruins of Basuto kraals all over the country testify.
It was Chaka's intention to follow up Mosilikatze and destroy him, but
he was himself assassinated before he could do so. Dingaan, his
successor, however, carried out his brother's design, and despatched a
large force to punish him. This army, after marching over 300 miles,
burst upon Mosilikatze, drove him back with slaughter, and returned
home triumphant. The invasion is important, because the Zulus claim the
greater part of the Transvaal territory by virtue of it.
About the time that Mosilikatze was conquered, 1835-1840, the
discontented Boers were leaving the Cape Colony exasperated at the
emancipation of the slaves by the Imperial authorities. First they made
their way to Natal, but being followed thither by the English flag they
travelled further inland over the Vaal River and founded the town of
Mooi River Dorp or Potchefstroom. Here they were joined by other
malcontents from the Orange Sovereignty, which, though afterwards
abandoned, was at that time a British possession. Acting upon
"The good old rule, the simple plan,
Of let him take who has the power,
And let him keep who can,"
the Boers now proceeded to possess themselves of as much territory as
they wanted. Nor was this a difficult task. The country was, as I have
said, peopled by Macatees, who are a poor-spirited race as compared to
the Zulus, and had had what little courage they possessed crushed out
of them by the rough handling they had received at the hands of
Mosilikatze and Dingaan. The Boers, they argued, could not treat them
worse than the Zulus had done. Occasionally a chief, bolder than the
rest, would hold out, and then such an example was made of him and his
people that few cared to follow in his footsteps.
As soon as the Boers were fairly settled in their new home, they began
to think about setting up a Government. First they tried a system of
Commandants, with a Commandant-general, but this does not seem to have
answered. Next, those of their number who lived in Lydenburg district
(where the gold-fields now are) set up a Republic, with a President and
Volksraad, or popular assembly. This example was followed by the other
white inhabitants of the country, who formed another Republic and
elected another President, with Pretoria for their capital. The two
republics were subsequently incorporated.
In 1852 the Imperial authorities, having regard to the expense of
maintaining an effective government over an unwilling people in an
undeveloped and half-conquered country, concluded a convention with the
emigrant Boers "beyond the Vaal River." The following were the
principal stipulations of this convention, drawn up between Major Hogg
and Mr. Owen, Her Majesty's Assistant-Commissioners for the settling
and adjusting of the affairs of the eastern and north-eastern
boundaries of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope on the one part, and
a deputation representative of the emigrant farmers north of the Vaal
River on the other. It was guaranteed "in the fullest manner on the
part of the British Government to the emigrant farmers beyond the Vaal
River the right to manage their own affairs, and to govern themselves
according to their own laws, without any interference on the part of
the British Government, and that no encroachment shall be made by the
said Government on the territory beyond to the north of the Vaal River,
with the further assurance that the warmest wish of the British
Government is to promote peace, free trade, and friendly intercourse
with the emigrant farmers now inhabiting, or who hereafter may inhabit
that country, it being understood that this system of non-interference
is binding on both parties."
Next were disclaimed, on behalf of the British Government, "all
alliances whatever and with whomsoever of the coloured nations to the
north of the Vaal River."
It was also agreed "that no slavery is or shall be permitted or
practised in the country to the north of the Vaal River by the emigrant
farmers."
It was further agreed "that no objection shall be made by any British
authority against the emigrant Boers purchasing their supplies of
ammunition in any of the British colonies and possessions of South
Africa; it being mutually understood that all trade in ammunition with
the native tribes is prohibited both by the British Government and the
emigrant farmers on both sides of the Vaal River."
These were the terms of this famous convention, which is as slipshod in
its diction as it is vague in its meaning. What, for instance, is meant
by the territory to the north of the Vaal River? According to the
letter of the agreement, Messrs. Hogg and Owen ceded all the territory
between the Vaal and Egypt. This historical document was the Charta of
the new-born South African Republic. Under its provisions, the Boers,
now safe from interference on the part of the British, established
their own Government and promulgated their "Grond Wet," or
Constitution.
The history of the Republic between 1852 and 1876 is not very
interesting, and is besides too wearisome to enter into here. It
consists of an oft-told tale of civil broils, attacks on native tribes,
and encroachment on native territories. Until shortly before the
Annexation, every burgher was, on coming of age, entitled to receive
from the Government 6000 acres of land. As these rights were in the
early days of the Republic frequently sold to speculators for such
trifles as a bottle of brandy or half a dozen of beer, and as the
seller still required his 6000 acres: for a Boer considers it beneath
his dignity to settle on less, it is obvious that it required a very
large country to satisfy all demands. To meet these demands, the
territories of the Republic had to be stretched like an elastic band,
and they were stretched accordingly,--at the expense of the natives.
The stretching process was an ingenious one, and is very well described
in a minute written by Mr. Osborn, the late magistrate at Newcastle,
dated 22d September 1876, in these words:--
"The Boers, as they have done in other cases and are still doing,
encroached by degrees on native territory, commencing by obtaining
permission to graze stock upon portions of it at certain seasons of the
year, followed by individual graziers obtaining from native headmen a
sort of right or license to squat upon certain defined portions,
ostensibly in order to keep other Boer squatters away from the same
land. These licenses, temporarily intended as friendly or neighbourly
acts by unauthorised headmen, after a few seasons of occupation by the
Boer, are construed by him as title, and his permanent occupation
ensues. Damage for trespass is levied by him from the very man from
whom he obtained the right to squat, to which the natives submit out of
fear of the matter reaching the ears of the paramount chief, who would
in all probability severely punish them for opening the door to
encroachment by the Boer. After a while, however, the matter comes to a
crisis in consequence of the incessant disputes between the Boers and
the natives; one or other of the disputants lays the case before the
paramount chief, who, when hearing both parties, is literally
frightened with violence and threats by the Boer into granting him the
land. Upon this the usual plan followed by the Boer is at once to
collect a few neighbouring Boers, including a field cornet, or even an
acting provisional field cornet, appointed by the field cornet or
provisional cornet, the latter to represent the Government, although
without instructions authorising him to act in the matter. A few cattle
are collected among themselves, which the party takes to the chief, and
his signature is obtained to a written document alienating to the
Republican Boers a large slice of all his territory. The contents of
this document are, as far as I can make out, never clearly or
intelligibly explained to the chief, who signs and accepts of the
cattle under the impression that it is all in settlement of hire for
the grazing licenses granted by his headmen. This, I have no hesitation
in saying, is the usual method by which the Boers obtain what they call
cessions to them of territories by native chiefs. In Secocoeni's case
they allege that his father Sequati cedes to them the whole of his
territory (hundreds of square miles) for a hundred head of cattle."
So rapidly did this process go on that the little Republic to the
"North of the Vaal River" had at the time of the Annexation grown into
a country of the size of France. Its boundaries had only been clearly
defined where they abutted on neighbouring White Communities, or on the
territories of great native powers, on which the Government had not
dared to infringe to any marked degree, such as those of Lo Bengula's
people in the north. But wheresoever on the State's borders there had
been no white Power to limit its advances, or where the native tribes
had found themselves too isolated or too weak to resist aggressions,
there the Republic had by degrees encroached, and extended the shadow,
if not the substance, of its authority.
The Transvaal has a boundary line of over 1600 miles in circumference,
and of this a large portion is disputed by different native tribes.
Speaking generally, the territory lies between the 22° and 28° of South
Latitude and the 25° and 32° of East Longitude, or between the Orange
Free State, Natal and Griqualand West on the south, and the Limpopo
River on the north; and between the Lebombo mountains on the east, and
the Kalihari desert on the west. On the north of its territory live
three great tribes--the Makalaka, the Matabele, (descendants of the
Zulus who deserted Chaka under Mosilikatze), and the Matyana. These
tribes are all warlike. On the west, following the line down to the
Diamond Field territory, are the Sicheli, the Bangoaketsi, the
Baralong, and the Koranna tribes. Passing round by Griqualand West, the
Free State, and Natal, we reach Zululand on the south-east corner; then
come the Lebombo mountains on the east, separating the Transvaal from
Amatonga land, and from the so-called Portuguese possessions, which are
entirely in the hands of native tribes, most of them subject to the
great Zulu chief, Umzeila, who has his stronghold in the north-east.
It will be observed that the country is almost surrounded by native
tribes. Besides these there are about one million native inhabitants
living within its borders. In one district alone, Zoutpansberg, it is
computed that there are 364,250 natives, as compared to about 750
whites.
If a beautiful and fertile country were alone necessary to make a state
and its inhabitants happy and prosperous, happiness and prosperity
would rain upon the Transvaal and the Dutch Boers. The capabilities of
this favoured land are vast and various. Within its borders are to be
found highlands and lowlands, vast stretches of rolling veldt like
gigantic sheep downs, hundreds of miles of swelling bushland, huge
tracts of mountainous country, and even little glades spotted with
timber that remind one of an English park. There is every possible
variety of soil and scenery. Some districts will grow all tropical
produce, whilst others are well suited for breeding sheep, cattle, and
horses. Most of the districts will produce wheat and all other cereals
in greater perfection and abundance than any of the other South African
colonies. Two crops of cereals may be obtained from the soil every
year, and both the vine and tobacco are cultivated with great success.
Coffee, sugar-cane, and cotton have been grown with profit in the
northern parts of the State. Also the undeveloped mineral wealth of the
country is very great. Its known minerals are gold, copper, lead,
cobalt, iron, coal, tin, and plumbago: copper and iron having long been
worked by the natives. Altogether there is little doubt that the
Transvaal is the richest of all the South African states, and had it
remained under English rule it would, with the aid of English
enterprise and capital, have become a very wealthy and prosperous
country. However there is little chance of that now. Perhaps the
greatest charm of the Transvaal lies in its climate, which is among the
best in the world, and in all the southern districts very healthy.
During the winter months--that is, from April to October--little or no
rain falls, and the climate is cold and bracing. In summer it is rather
warm, but not overpoweringly hot, the thermometer at Pretoria averaging
from 65° to 73° and in the winter from 59° to 65°. The population of
the Transvaal is estimated at about 40,000 whites, mostly of Dutch
origin, consisting of about thirty vast families; and one million
natives. There are several towns, the largest of which are Pretoria and
Potchefstroom.
Such is the country that we annexed in 1877, and were drummed out of in
1881. Now let us turn to its inhabitants. It has been the fashion to
talk of the Transvaal as though nobody but Boers lived in it. In
reality the inhabitants were divided into three classes: 1. Natives; 2.
Boers; 3. English. I say were divided, because the English class can
now hardly be said to exist, the country having been made too hot to
hold it since the war. The natives stand in the proportion of nearly
twenty to one to the whites. The Boers were in their turn much more
numerous than the English, but the latter owned nearly all the trading
establishments in the country, and also a very large amount of
property.
The Transvaal Boers have been very much praised up by members of the
Government in England, and others who are anxious to advance their
interests, as against English interests. Mr. Gladstone, indeed, can
hardly find words strong enough to express his admiration of their
leaders, those "able men," since they inflicted a national humiliation
on us; and doubtless they are a people with many good points. That they
are not devoid of sagacity can be seen by the way they have dealt with
the English Government.
The Boers are certainly a peculiar people, though they can hardly be
said to be "zealous of good works." They are very religious, but their
religion takes its colour from the darkest portions of the Old
Testament; lessons of mercy and gentleness are not at all to their
liking, and they seldom care to read the Gospels. What they delight in
are the stories of wholesale butchery by the Israelites of old; and in
their own position they find a reproduction of that of the first
settlers in the Holy Land. Like them they think they are entrusted by
the Almighty with the task of exterminating the heathen native tribes
around them, and are always ready with a scriptural precedent for
slaughter and robbery. The name of the Divinity is continually on their
lips, sometimes in connection with very doubtful statements. They are
divided into three sects, none of which care much for the other two.
These are the Doppers, who number about half the population, the
Orthodox Reform, and the Liberal Reform, which is the least numerous.
Of these three sects the Doppers are by far the most uncompromising and
difficult to deal with. They much resemble the Puritans of Charles the
First's time, of the extreme Hew-Agag-in-pieces stamp.
It is difficult to agree with those who call the Boers cowards, an
accusation which the whole of their history belies. A Boer does not
like fighting if he can avoid it, because he sets a high value on his
own life; but if he is cornered, he will fight as well as anybody else.
The Boers fought well enough in the late war, though that, it is true,
is no great criterion of courage, since they were throughout flushed
with victory, and, owing to the poor shooting of the British troops, in
but little personal danger. One very unpleasant characteristic they
have, and that is an absence of regard for the truth, especially where
land is concerned. Indeed the national characteristic is crystallised
into a proverb, "I am no slave to my word." It has several times
happened to me to see one set of highly respectable witnesses in a land
case go into the box and swear distinctly that they saw a beacon placed
on a certain spot, whilst an equal number on the other side will swear
that they saw it placed a mile away. Filled as they are with a land
hunger, to which that of the Irish peasant is a weak and colourless
sentiment, there is little that they will not do to gratify their
taste. It is the subject of constant litigation amongst them, and it is
by no means uncommon for a Boer to spend several thousand pounds in
lawsuits over a piece of land not worth as many hundreds.
Personally Boers are fine men, but as a rule ugly. Their women-folk are
good-looking in early life, but get very stout as they grow older.
They, in common with most of their sex, understand how to use their
tongues; indeed, it is said that it was the women who caused the rising
against the English Government. None of the refinements of civilisation
enter into the life of an ordinary Transvaal Boer. He lives in a way
that would shock an English labourer at twenty-five shillings the week,
although he is very probably worth fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.
His home is but too frequently squalid and filthy to an extraordinary
degree. He himself has no education, and does not care that his
children should receive any. He lives by himself in the middle of a
great plot of land, his nearest neighbour being perhaps ten or twelve
miles away, caring but little for the news of the outside world and
nothing for its opinions, doing very little work, but growing daily
richer through the increase of his flocks and herds. His expenses are
almost nothing, and as he gets older wealth increases upon him. The
events in his life consist of an occasional trip on "commando" against
some native tribe, attending a few political meetings, and the journeys
he makes with his family to the nearest town, some four times a year,
in order to be present at "Nachtmaal" or communion. Foreigners,
especially Englishmen, he detests, but he is kindly and hospitable to
his own people. Living isolated as he does, the lord of a little
kingdom, he naturally comes to have a great idea of himself, and a
corresponding contempt for all the rest of mankind. Laws and taxes are
things distasteful to him, and he looks upon it as an impertinence that
any court should venture to call him to account for his doings. He is
rich and prosperous, and the cares of poverty, and all the other
troubles that fall to the lot of civilised men, do not affect him. He
has no romance in him, nor any of the higher feelings and aspirations
that are found in almost every other race; in short, unlike the Zulu he
despises, there is little of the gentleman in his composition, though
he is at times capable of acts of kindness and even generosity. His
happiness is to live alone in the great wilderness, with his children,
his men-servants, and his maid-servants, his flocks and his herds, the
monarch of all he surveys. If civilisation presses him too closely, his
remedy is a simple one. He sells his farm, packs up his goods and cash
in his waggon, and starts for regions more congenially wild. Such are
some of the leading characteristics of that remarkable product of South
Africa, the Transvaal Boer, who resembles no other white man in the
world.
Perhaps, however, the most striking of all his oddities is his
abhorrence of all government, more especially if that government be
carried out according to English principles. The Boers have always been
more or less in rebellion; they rebelled against the rule of the
Company when the Cape belonged to Holland, they rebelled against the
English Government in the Cape, they were always in a state of
semi-rebellion against their own Government in the Transvaal, and now
they have for the second time, with the most complete success, rebelled
against the English Government. The fact of the matter is that the bulk
of their number hate all Governments, because Governments enforce law
and order, and they hate the English Government worst of all because it
enforces law and order most of all. It is not liberty they long for,
but license. The "sturdy independence" of the Boer resolves itself into
a determination not to have his affairs interfered with by any superior
power whatsoever, and not to pay taxes if he can possibly avoid it. But
he has also a specific cause of complaint against the English
Government, which would alone cause him to do his utmost to get rid of
it, and that is its mode of dealing with natives, which is radically
opposite to his own. This is the secret of Boer patriotism. To
understand it, it must be remembered that the Englishman and the Boer
look at natives from a very different point of view. The Englishman,
though he may not be very fond of him, at any rate regards the Kafir as
a fellow human being with feelings like his own. The average Boer does
not. He looks upon the "black creature" as having been delivered into
his hand by the "Lord" for his own purposes, that is, to shoot and
enslave. He must not be blamed too harshly for this, for, besides being
naturally of a somewhat hard disposition, hatred of the native is
hereditary, and is partly induced by the history of many a bloody
struggle. Also the native hates the Boer fully as much as the Boer
hates the native, though with better reason. Now native labour is a
necessity to the Boer, because he will not as a rule do hard manual
labour himself, and there must be some one to plant and garner the
crops and herd the cattle. On the other hand, the natives are not
anxious to serve the Boers, which means little or no pay and plenty of
thick stick, and sometimes worse. The result of this state of affairs
is that the Boer often has to rely on forced labour to a very great
extent. But this is a thing that an English Government will not
tolerate, and the consequence is that under its rule he cannot get the
labour that is necessary to him.
Then there is the tax question. If he lives under the English flag the
money has to be paid regularly, but under his own Government he pays or
not as he likes. It was this habit of his of refusing payment of taxes
that brought the Republic into difficulties in 1877, and that will ere
long bring it into trouble again. He cannot understand that cash is
necessary to carry on a Government, and looks upon a tax as though it
were so much money stolen from him. These things are the real springs
of the "sturdy independence" and the patriotism of the ordinary
Transvaal farmer. Doubtless there are some who are really patriotic;
for instance, one of their leaders, Paul Kruger. But with the majority,
patriotism is only another word for unbounded license and forced
labour.
These remarks must not be taken to apply to the Cape Boers, who are a
superior class of men, since they, living under a settled and civilised
Government, have been steadily improving, whilst their cousins, living
every man for his own hand, have been deteriorating. The old
Voortrekkers, the fathers and grandfathers of the Transvaal Boer of
to-day, were, without doubt, a very fine set of men, and occasionally
you may in the Transvaal meet individuals of the same stamp whom it is
a pleasure to know. But these are generally men of a certain age, with
some experience of the world; the younger men are very objectionable in
their manners.
The real Dutch Patriotic party is not to be found in the Transvaal, but
in the Cape Colony. Their object, which, as affairs now are, is well
within the bounds of possibility, is by fair means or foul to swamp the
English element in South Africa, and to establish a great Dutch
Republic. It was this party, which consists of clever and well educated
men, who raised the outcry against the Transvaal Annexation, because it
meant an enormous extension of English influence, and who had the wit,
by means of their emissaries and newspapers, to work upon the feeling
of the ignorant Transvaal farmers until they persuaded them to rebel;
and finally, to avail themselves of the yearnings of English radicalism
for the disruption of the Empire and the minimisation of British
authority, to get the Annexation cancelled. All through this business
the Boers have more or less danced in obedience to strings pulled at
Cape Town, and it is now said that one of the chief wire-pullers, Mr.
Hofmeyer, is to be asked to become President of the Republic. These men
are the real patriots of South Africa, and very clever ones too--not
the Transvaal Boers, who vapour about their blood and their country and
the accursed Englishman to order, and are in reality influenced by very
small motives, such as the desire to avoid payment of taxes, or to hunt
away a neighbouring Englishman, whose civilisation and refinement are
as offensive as his farm is desirable. Such are the Dutch inhabitants
of the Transvaal. I will now give a short sketch of their institutions
as they were before the Annexation, and to which the community has
reverted since its recision, with, I believe, but few alterations.
The form of government is republican, and to all intents and purposes
manhood suffrage prevails, supreme power resting in the people. The
executive power of the State centres in a President elected by the
people to hold office for a term of five years, every voter having a
voice in his election. He is assisted in the execution of his duties by
an Executive Council, consisting of the State Secretary and such other
three members as are selected for that purpose by the legislative body,
the Volksraad. The State Secretary holds office for four years, and is
elected by the Volksraad. The members of the Executive have all seats
in the Volksraad, but have no votes. The Volksraad is the legislative
body of the State, and consists of forty-two members. The country is
divided into twelve electoral districts, each of which has the right to
return three members; the Gold Fields have also the right of electing
two members, and the four principal towns one member each. There is no
power in the State competent to either prorogue or dissolve the
Volksraad except that body itself, so that an appeal to the country on
a given subject or policy is impossible without its concurrence.
Members are elected for four years, but half retire by rotation every
two years, the vacancies being filled by re-elections. Members must
have been voters for three years, and be not less than thirty years of
age, must belong to a Protestant Church, be resident in the country,
and owners of immovable property therein. A father and son cannot sit
in the same Raad, neither can seats be occupied by coloured persons,
bastards, or officials.
For each electoral district there is a magistrate or Landdrost, whose
duties are similar to those of a Civil Commissioner. These districts
are again subdivided into wards presided over by field cornets, who
exercise judicial powers in minor matters, and in times of war have
considerable authority. The Roman Dutch law is the common law of the
country, as it is of the colonies of the Cape of Good Hope and Natal,
and of the Orange Free State.
Prior to the Annexation justice was administered in a very primitive
fashion. First, there was the Landdrosts' Court, from which an appeal
lay to a court consisting of the Landdrost and six councillors elected
by the public. This was a court of first instance as well as a court of
appeal. Then there was a Supreme Court, consisting of three Landdrosts
from three different districts, and a jury of twelve selected from the
burghers of the State. There was no appeal from this court, but cases
have sometimes been brought under the consideration of the Volksraad as
the supreme power. It is easy to imagine what the administration of
justice was like when the presidents of all the law courts in the
country were elected by the mob, not on account of their knowledge of
the law, but because they were popular. Suitors before the old
Transvaal courts found the law surprisingly uncertain. A High Court of
Justice was, however, established after the Annexation, and has been
continued by the Volksraad, but an agitation is being got up against
it, and it will possibly be abolished in favour of the old system.
In such a community as that of the Transvaal Boers the question of
public defence was evidently of the first importance. This is provided
for under what is known as the Commando system. The President, with the
concurrence of the Executive Council, has the right of declaring war,
and of calling up a commando, in which the burghers are placed under
the field cornets and commandants. These last are chosen by the field
cornets for each district, and a Commandant-general is chosen by the
whole laager or force, but the President is the Commander-in-Chief of
the army. All the inhabitants of the State between sixteen and sixty,
with a few exceptions, are liable for service. Young men under
eighteen, and men over fifty, are only called out under circumstances
of emergency. Members of the Volksraad, officials, clergymen, and
school-teachers are exempt from personal service, unless martial law is
proclaimed, but must contribute an amount not exceeding £15 towards the
expense of the war. All legal proceedings in civil cases are suspended
against persons on commando, no summonses can be made out, and as soon
as martial law is proclaimed no legal execution can be prosecuted, the
pounds are closed, and transfer dues payments are suspended until after
thirty days from the recall of the proclamation of martial law. Owners
of land residing beyond the borders of the Republic are also liable, in
addition to the ordinary war tax, to place a fit and proper substitute
at the disposal of the Government, or otherwise to pay a fine of £15.
The first levy of the burghers is, of men from eighteen to thirty-four
years of age; the second, thirty-four to fifty; and the third, from
sixteen to eighteen, and from fifty to sixty years. Every man is bound
to provide himself with clothing, a gun, and ammunition, and there must
be enough waggons and oxen found between them to suffice for their
joint use. Of the booty taken, one quarter goes to Government, and the
rest to the burghers. The most disagreeable part of the commandeering
system is, however, yet to come; personal service is not all that the
resident in the Transvaal Republic has to endure. The right is vested
in field cornets to commandeer articles as well as individuals, and to
call upon inhabitants to furnish requisites for the commando. As may be
imagined, it goes very hard on these occasions with the property of any
individual whom the field cornet may not happen to like.
Each ward is expected to turn out its contingent ready and equipped for
war, and this can only be done by seizing goods right and left. One
unfortunate will have to find a waggon, another to deliver over his
favourite span of trek oxen, another his riding-horse or some slaughter
cattle, and so on. Even when the officer making the levy is desirous of
doing his duty as fairly as he can, it is obvious that very great
hardships must be inflicted under such a system. Requisitions are made
more with regard to what is wanted than with a view to an equitable
distribution of demands; and like the Jews in the time of the Crusades,
he who has got most must pay most, or take the consequences, which may
be unpleasant. Articles which are not perishable, such as waggons, are
supposed to be returned, but if they come back at all they are
generally worthless.
In case of war, the native tribes living within the borders of the
State are also expected to furnish contingents, and it is on them that
most of the hard work of the campaign generally falls. They are put in
the front of the battle, and have to do the hand-to-hand fighting,
which, however, if of the Zulu race, they do not object to.
The revenue of the State is so arranged that the burden of it should
fall as much as possible on the trading community, and as little as
possible on the farmer. It is chiefly derived from licenses on trades,
professions, and callings, 30s. per annum quit-rent on farms, transfer
dues and stamps, auction dues, court fees, and contributions from such
native tribes as can be made to pay them. Since we have given up the
country, the Volksraad has put a very heavy tax on all imported goods,
hoping thereby to beguile the Boers into paying taxes without knowing
it, and at the same time strike a blow at the trading community, which
is English in its proclivities. The result has been to paralyse what
little trade there was left in the country, and to cause great
dissatisfaction amongst the farmers, who cannot understand why, now
that the English are gone, they should have to pay twice as much for
their sugar and coffee as they have been accustomed to do.
I will conclude this chapter with a few words about the natives who
swarm in and around the Transvaal. They can be roughly divided into two
great races, the Amazulu and their offshoots, and the Macatee or Basuto
tribes. All those of Zulu blood, including the Swazis, Mapock's Kafirs,
the Matabele, the Knob-noses, and others are very warlike in
disposition, and men of fine physique. The Basutos (who must not be
confounded with the Cape Basutos), however, differ from these tribes in
every respect, including their language, which is called Sisutu, the
only mutual feeling between the two races being their common
detestation of the Boers. They do not love war; in fact, they are timid
and cowardly by nature, and only fight when they are obliged to. Unlike
the Zulus, they are much addicted to the arts of peace, show
considerable capacities for civilisation, and are even willing to
become Christians. There would have been a far better field for the
Missionary in the Transvaal than in Zululand and Natal. Indeed, the
most successful mission station I have seen in Africa is near
Middleburg, under the control of Mr. Merensky. In person the Basutos
are thin and weakly when compared to the stalwart Zulu, and it is their
consciousness of inferiority both to the white men and their black
brethren that, together with their natural timidity, makes them submit
as easily as they do to the yoke of the Boer.
CHAPTER II.
EVENTS PRECEDING THE ANNEXATION.
In or about the year 1872, the burghers of the Republic elected Mr.
Burgers their President. This remarkable man was a native of the Cape
Colony, and passed the first sixteen or seventeen years of his life, he
once informed me, on a farm herding sheep. He afterwards became a
clergyman noted for the eloquence of his preaching, but his ideas
proving too broad for his congregation, he resigned his cure, and in an
evil moment for himself took to politics.
President Burgers was a man of striking presence and striking talents,
especially as regards his oratory, which was really of a very high
class, and would have commanded attention in our own House of Commons.
He possessed, however, a mind of that peculiarly volatile order that is
sometimes met with in conjunction with great talents, and which seems
to be entirely without ballast. His intellect was of a balloon-like
nature, and as incapable of being steered. He was always soaring in the
clouds, and, as is natural to one in that elevated position, taking a
very different and more sanguine view of affairs to that which men of a
more lowly, and perhaps a more practical, turn of mind would do.
But notwithstanding his fly-away ideas, President Burgers was
undoubtedly a true patriot, labouring night and day for the welfare of
the State of which he had undertaken the guidance; but his patriotism
was too exalted for his surroundings. He wished to elevate to the rank
of a nation a people who had not got the desire to be elevated; with
this view he contracted railway loans, made wars, minted gold, &c., and
then suddenly discovered that the country refused to support him. In
short, he was made of very different clay to that of the people he had
to do with. He dreamt of a great Dutch Republic "with eight millions of
inhabitants," doing a vast trade with the interior through the Delagoa
Bay Railway. They, on the other hand, cared nothing about republics or
railways, but fixed their affections on forced labour and getting rid
of the necessity of paying taxes--and so between them the Republic came
to grief. But it must be borne in mind that President Burgers was
throughout actuated by good motives; he did his best by a stubborn and
a stiff-necked people; and if he failed, as fail he did, it was more
their fault than his. As regards the pension he received from the
English Government, which has so often been brought up against him, it
was after all no more than his due after five years of arduous work. If
the Republic had continued to exist, it is to be presumed that they
would have made some provision for their old President, more especially
as he seems to have exhausted his private means in paying the debts of
the country. Whatever may be said of some of the other officials of the
Republic, its President was, I believe, an honest man.
In 1875, Mr. Burgers proceeded to Europe, having, he says in a
posthumous document recently published been empowered by the Volksraad
"to carry out my plans for the development of the country, by opening
up a direct communication for it, free from the trammels of British
ports and influence." According to this document, during his absence
two powerful parties, viz., "the faction of unprincipled
fortune-hunters, rascals, and runaways on the one hand, and the faction
of the extreme orthodox party in a certain branch of the Dutch Reform
Church on the other, began to co-operate against the Government of the
Republic and me personally.... Ill as I was, and contrary to the advice
of my medical men, I proceeded to Europe, in the beginning of 1875, to
carry out my project, and no sooner was my back turned on the Transvaal
than the conspiring elements began to act. The new coat of arms and
flag adopted in the Raad by an almost unanimous vote were abolished;
the laws for a free and secular education were tampered with; and my
resistance to a reckless inspection and disposal of Government lands,
still occupied by natives, was openly defied. The Raad, filled up to a
large extent with men of ill repute, who, under the cloak of progress
and favour to the Government view, obtained their seats, was too weak
to cope with the skill of the conspirators, and granted leave to the
acting President to carry out measures diametrically opposed to my
policy. _Native lands_ were inspected and given out to a few
speculators, who held large numbers of claims to lands which were
destined for citizens, and so a war was prepared for me, on my return
from Europe, which I could not avert." This extract is interesting, as
showing the state of feeling existing between the President and his
officers previous to the outbreak of the Secocoeni war. It also shows
how entirely he was out of sympathy with the citizens, seeing that, as
soon as his back was turned, they, with Mr. Joubert and Paul Kruger at
their head, at once undid all the little good he had done.
When Mr. Burgers got to England, he found that city capitalists would
have nothing whatever to say to his railway scheme. In Holland,
however, he succeeded in getting £90,000 of the £300,000 he wished to
borrow at a high rate of interest, and by passing a bond on five
hundred Government farms. This money was immediately invested in
railway plant, which, when it arrived at Delagoa Bay, had to be
mortgaged to pay the freight on it, and that was the end of the Delagoa
Bay railway scheme, except that the £90,000 is, I believe, still owing
to the confiding shareholders in Holland.
On his return to the Transvaal the President was well received, and for
a month or so all went smoothly. But the relations of the Republic with
the surrounding native tribes had by this time become so bad that an
explosion was imminent somewhere. In the year 1874 the Volksraad raised
the price of passes under the iniquitous pass law, by which every
native travelling through the territory was made to pay from £1 to £5.
In case of non-payment the native was made subject to a fine of from £1
to £10, and to a beating of from "ten to twenty-five lashes." He was
also to go into service for three months, and have a certificate
thereof, for which he must pay five shillings; the avowed object of the
law being to obtain a supply of Kafir labour. This was done in spite of
the earnest protest of the President, who gave the Raad distinctly to
understand that by accepting this law they would, in point of fact,
annul treaties concluded with the chiefs on the south-western borders.
It is not clear, however, if this amended pass law ever came into
force. It is to be hoped it did not, for even under the old law natives
were shamefully treated by Boers, who would pretend that they were
authorised by Government to collect the tax; the result being that the
unfortunate Kafir was frequently obliged to pay twice over. Natives had
such a horror of the pass laws of the country, that when travelling to
the Diamond Fields to work they would frequently go round some hundreds
of miles rather than pass through the Transvaal.
That the Volksraad should have thought it necessary to enact such a law
in order that the farmers should obtain a supply of Kafir labour in a
territory that had nearly a million of native inhabitants, who, unlike
the Zulus, are willing to work if only they meet with decent treatment,
is in itself an instructive commentary on the feelings existing between
Boer master and Kafir servant.
But besides the general quarrel with the Kafir race in its entirety,
which the Boers always have on hand, they had just then several
individual differences, in each of which there lurked the possibilities
of disturbance.
To begin with, their relations with Cetywayo were by no means amicable.
During Mr. Burgers' absence the Boer Government, then under the
leadership of P. J. Joubert, sent Cetywayo a very stern message--a
message that gives the reader the idea that Mr. Joubert was ready to
enforce it with ten thousand men. After making various statements and
demands with reference to the Amaswazi tribe, the disputed boundary
line, &c. it ends thus:--
"Although the Government of the South African Republic has never
wished, and does not now desire, that serious disaffection and
animosities should exist between you and them, yet it is not the less
of the greatest consequence and importance for you earnestly to weigh
these matters and risks, and to satisfy them; the more so, if you on
your side also wish that peace and friendship shall be maintained
between you and us."
The Secretary for Native Affairs for Natal comments on this message in
these words: "The tone of this message to Cetywayo is not very
friendly, it has the look of an ultimatum, and if the Government of the
Transvaal were in circumstances different to what it is, the message
would suggest an intention to coerce if the demands it conveys are not
at once complied with; but I am inclined to the opinion that no such
intention exists, and that the transmission of a copy of the message to
the Natal Government is intended as a notification that the Transvaal
Government has proclaimed the territory hitherto in dispute between it
and the Zulus to be Republican territory, and that the Republic intends
to occupy it."
In the territories marked out by a decision known as the Keate Award,
in which Lieutenant-Governor Keate of Natal, at the request of both
parties, laid down the boundary line between the Boers and certain
native tribes, the Boer Government carried it with a yet higher hand,
insomuch as the natives of those districts, being comparatively
unwarlike, were less likely to resist.
On the 18th August 1875, Acting President Joubert issued a proclamation
by which a line was laid down far to the southward of that marked out
by Mr. Keate, and consequently included more territory within the
elastic boundaries of the Republic. A Government notice of the same
date invites all claiming lands now declared to belong to the Republic
to send in their claims to be settled by a land commission.
On the 6th March 1876, another chief in the same neighbourhood
(Montsoia) writes to the Lieutenant-Governor of Griqualand West in
these terms:--
"MY FRIEND,--I wish to acquaint you with the doings of some people
connected with the Boers. A man-servant of mine has been severely
injured in the head by one of the Boers' servants, which has proved
fatal. Another of my people has been cruelly treated by a Boer
tying a rein about his neck, and then mounting his horse and
dragging him about the place. My brother Molema, who is the bearer
of this, will give you full particulars."
Molema explains the assaults thus: "The assaulted man is not dead; his
skull was fractured. The assault was committed by a Boer named Wessels
Badenhorst, who shamefully ill-treated the man, beat him till he
fainted, and, on his revival, fastened a rim round his neck, and made
him run to the homestead by the side of his (Badenhorst's) horse
cantering. At the homestead he tied him to the waggon-wheel, and
flogged him again till Mrs. Badenhorst stopped her husband."
Though it will be seen that the Boers were on good terms neither with
the Zulus nor the Keate Award natives, they still had one Kafir ally,
namely, Umbandeni, the Amaswazi king. This alliance was concluded under
circumstances so peculiar that they are worthy of a brief
recapitulation. It appears that in the winter of the year 1875, Mr.
Rudolph, the Landdrost of Utrecht, went to Swaziland, and, imitating
the example of the Natal Government with Cetywayo, crowned Umbandeni
king, on behalf of the Boer Government. He further made a treaty of
alliance with him, and promised him a commando to help him in case of
his being attacked by the Zulus. Now comes the curious part of the
story. On the 18th May 1876, a message came from this same Umbandeni to
Sir H. Bulwer, of which the following is an extract:--"We are sent by
our king to thank the Government of Natal for the information sent to
him last winter by that Government, and conveyed by Mr. Rudolph, of the
intended attack on his people by the Zulus. We are further instructed
by the king to thank the Natal Government for the influence it used to
stop the intended raid, and for instructing a Boer commando to go to
his country to render him assistance in case of need; and further for
appointing Mr. Rudolph at the head of the commando to place him
(Umbandeni) as king over the Amaswazi, and to make a treaty with him
and his people on behalf of the Natal Government.... The Transvaal
Government has asked Umbandeni to acknowledge himself a subject of the
Republic, but he has distinctly refused to do so." In a minute written
on this subject, the Secretary for Native Affairs for Natal says, "No
explanation or assurance from me was sufficient to convince them
(Umbandeni's messengers) that they had on that occasion made themselves
subjects of the South African Republic; they declared it was not their
wish or intention to do so, and that they would refuse to acknowledge a
position into which they had been unwittingly betrayed." I must
conclude this episode by quoting the last paragraph of Sir H. Bulwer's
covering despatch, because it concerns larger issues than the supposed
treaty: "It will not be necessary that I should at present add any
remarks to those contained in the minute of the Secretary for Native
Affairs, but I would observe that the situation arising out of the
relations of the Government of the South African Republic with the
neighbouring native States is so complicated, and presents so many
elements of confusion and of danger to the peace of this portion of
South Africa, that I trust some way may be found to an early settlement
of questions that ought not, in my opinion, to be left alone, as so
many have been left, to take the chance of the future."
And now I come to the last and most imminent native difficulty that at
the time faced the Republic. On the borders of Lydenburg district there
lived a powerful chief named Secocoeni. Between this chief and the
Transvaal Government difficulties arose in the beginning of 1876 on the
usual subject--land. The Boers declared that they had bought the land
from the Swazis, who had conquered portions of the country, and that
the Swazis offered to make it "clean from brambles," _i.e._, kill
everybody living on it; but that they (the Boers) said that they were
to let them be, that they might be their servants. The Basutos, on the
other hand, said that no such sale ever took place, and, even if it did
take place, it was invalid, because the Swazis were not in occupation
of the land, and therefore could not sell it. It was a Christian Kafir
called Johannes, a brother of Secocoeni, who was the immediate cause
of the war. This Johannes used to live at a place called Botsobelo, the
mission-station of Mr. Merensky, but moved to a stronghold on the
Spekboom river, in the disputed territory. The Boers sent to him to
come back, but he refused, and warned the Boers off his land.
Secocoeni was then appealed to, but declared that the land belonged
to his tribe, and would be occupied by Johannes. He also told the Boers
"that he did not wish to fight, but that he was quite ready to do so if
they preferred it." Thereupon the Transvaal Government declared war,
although it does not appear that the natives committed any outrage or
acts of hostility before the declaration. As regards the Boers' right
to Secocoeni's country, Sir H. Barkly sums up the question thus, in a
despatch addressed to President Burgers, dated 28th Nov. 1876:--"On the
whole, it seems perfectly clear, and I feel bound to repeat it, that
Sikukuni was neither _de jure_ or _de facto_ a subject of the
Republic when your Honour declared war against him in June last." As
soon as war had been declared, the clumsy commando system was set
working, and about 2500 white men collected; the Swazis also were
applied to to send a contingent, which they did, being only too glad of
the opportunity of slaughter.
At first all went well, and the President, who accompanied the commando
in person, succeeded in reducing a mountain stronghold, which, in his
high-flown way, he called a "glorious victory" over a "Kafir
Gibraltar."
On the 14th July another engagement took place, when the Boers and
Swazis attacked Johannes' stronghold. The place was taken with
circumstances of great barbarity by the Swazis, for when the signal was
given to advance the Boers did not move. Nearly all the women were
killed, and the brains of the children were dashed out against the
stones; in one instance, before the captive mother's face. Johannes was
badly wounded, and died two days afterwards. When he was dying, he said
to his brother, "I am going to die. I am thankful I do not die by the
hands of these cowardly Boers, but by the hand of a black and
courageous nation like myself...." He then took leave of his people,
told his brother to read the Bible, and expired. The Swazis were so
infuriated at the cowardice displayed by the Boers on this occasion
that they returned home in great dudgeon.
On the 2d of August Secocoeni's mountain, which is a very strong
fortification, was attacked in two columns, or rather an attempt was
made to attack it, for when it came to the pinch only about forty men,
mostly English and Germans, would advance. Thereupon the whole commando
retreated with great haste, the greater part of it going straight home.
In vain the President entreated them to shoot him rather than desert
him; they had had enough of Secocoeni and his stronghold, and home
they went. The President then retreated with what few men he had left
to Steelport, where he built a fort, and from thence returned to
Pretoria. The news of the collapse of the commando was received
throughout the Transvaal, and indeed the whole of South Africa, with
the greatest dismay. For the first time in the history of that country
the white man had been completely worsted by a native tribe, and that
tribe wretched Basutos, people whom the Zulus call their "dogs." It was
glad tidings to every native from the Zambesi to the Cape, who learnt
thereby that the white man was not so invincible as he used to be.
Meanwhile the inhabitants of Lydenburg were filled with alarm, and
again and again petitioned the Governors of the Cape and Natal for
assistance. Their fears were, however, to a great extent groundless,
for, with the exception of occasional cattle-lifting, Secocoeni did
not follow up his victory.
On the 4th September the President opened the special sitting of the
Volksraad, and presented to that body a scheme for the establishment of
a border force to take the place of the commando system, announcing
that he had appointed a certain Captain Von Schlickmann to command it.
He also requested the Raad to make some provision for the expenses of
the expedition, which they had omitted to do in their former sitting.
Captain Von Schlickmann determined to carry on the war upon a different
system. He got together a band of very rough characters on the Diamond
Fields, and occupied the fort built by the President, from whence he
would sally out from time to time and destroy kraals. He seems, if
we may believe the reports in the blue-books and the stories of
eye-witnesses, to have carried on his proceedings in a somewhat savage
way. The following is an extract from a private letter written by one
of his volunteers:--
"About daylight we came across four Kafirs. Saw them first, and charged
in front of them to cut off their retreat. Saw they were women, and
called out not to fire. In spite of that, one of the poor things got
her head blown off (a d----d shame).... Afterwards two women and a baby
were brought to the camp prisoners. The same night they were taken out
by our Kafirs and murdered in cool blood by order of ----. Mr. ---- and
myself strongly protested against it, but without avail. I never heard
such a cowardly piece of business in my life. No good will come of it,
you may depend.... ---- says he would cut all the women and children's
throats he catches. Told him distinctly he was a d----d coward."
Schlickmann was, however, a mild-mannered man when compared to a
certain Abel Erasmus, afterwards denounced at a public dinner by Sir
Garnet Wolseley as a fiend "in human form." This gentleman, in the
month of October, attacked a friendly kraal of Kafirs. The incident is
described thus in a correspondent's letter:--
"The people of the kraals, taken quite by surprise, fled when they saw
their foes, and most of them took shelter in the neighbouring bush. Two
or three men were distinctly seen in their flight from the kraal, and
one of them is known to have been wounded. According to my informant
the remainder were women and children, who were pursued into the bush,
and there, all shivering and shrieking, were put to death by the Boers'
Kafirs, some being shot, but the majority stabbed with assegais. After
the massacre he counted thirteen women and three children, but he says
he did not see the body of a single man. Another Kafir said, pointing
to a place in the road where the stones were thickly strewn, 'the
bodies of the women and children lay like these stones.' The Boer
before mentioned, who has been stationed outside, has told one of his
own friends, whom he thought would not mention it, that the shrieks
were fearful to hear."
Several accounts of, or allusion to, this atrocity can be found in the
blue-books, and I may add that it, in common with others of the same
stamp, was the talk of the country at the time.
I do not relate these horrors out of any wish to rake up old stories to
the prejudice of the Boers, but because I am describing the state of
the country before the Annexation, in which they form an interesting
and important item. Also, it is as well that people in England should
know into what hands they have delivered over the native tribes who
trusted in their protection. What happened in 1876 is probably
happening again now, and will certainly happen again and again. The
character of the Transvaal Boer and his sentiments towards the native
races have not modified during the last five years, but, on the
contrary, a large amount of energy, which has been accumulating during
the period of British protection, will now be expended on their devoted
heads.
As regards the truth of these atrocities, the majority of them are
beyond the possibility of doubt; indeed, to the best of my knowledge,
no serious attempt has ever been made to refute such of them as have
come into public notice, except in a general way, for party purposes.
As, however, they may be doubted, I will quote the following extract
from a despatch written by Sir H. Barkly to Lord Carnarvon, dated 18th
December 1876:--
"As Von Schlickmann has since fallen fighting bravely, it is not
without reluctance that I join in affixing this dark stain on his
memory, but truth compels me to add the following extract from a letter
which I have since received from one whose name (which I communicate to
your Lordship privately) forbids disbelief: 'There is no longer the
_slightest doubt_ as to the murder of the two women and the child
at Steelport by the direct order of Schlickmann, and in the attack on
the kraal near which these women were captured (or some attack about
that period) he ordered his men to cut the throats of all the wounded!
This is no mere report; it is positively true.'" He concludes by
expressing a hope that the course of events will enable Her Majesty's
Government to take such steps "as will terminate this wanton and
useless bloodshed, and prevent the recurrence of the _scenes of
injustice, cruelty, and rapine which abundant evidence is every day
forthcoming to prove have rarely ceased to disgrace the Republics
beyond the Vaal ever since they first sprang into existence_."[4]
[4] The italics are my own.--AUTHOR.
These are strong words, but none too strong for the facts of the case.
Injustice, cruelty, and rapine have always been the watchwords of the
Transvaal Boers. The stories of wholesale slaughter in the earlier days
of the Republic are very numerous. One of the best known of those
shocking occurrences took place in the Zoutpansberg war in 1865. On
this occasion a large number of Kafirs took refuge in caves, where the
Boers smoked them to death. Some years afterwards Dr. Wangeman, whose
account is, I believe, thoroughly reliable, describes the scene of
their operations in these words:--
"The roof of the first cave was black with smoke; the remains of the
logs which were burnt lay at the entrance. The floor was strewn with
hundreds of skulls and skeletons. In confused heaps lay karosses,
kerries, assegais, pots, spoons, snuff-boxes, and the bones of men,
giving one the impression that this was the grave of a whole people.
Some estimate the number of those who perished here from twenty to
thirty thousand. This is, I believe, too high. In the one chamber there
were from two hundred to three hundred skeletons; the other chambers I
did not visit."
In 1868 a public meeting was held at Potchefstroom to consider the war
then going on with the Zoutpansberg natives. According to the report of
the proceedings, the Rev. Mr. Ludorf said that "on a particular
occasion a number of native children, who were too young to be removed,
had been collected in a heap, covered with long grass, and burned
alive. Other atrocities had also been committed, but these were too
horrible to relate." When called upon to produce his authority for this
statement, Mr. Ludorf named his authority "in a solemn declaration to
the State Attorney." At this same meeting Mr. J. G. Steyn, who had been
Landdrost of Potchefstroom, said, "there now was innocent blood on our
hands which had not yet been avenged, and the curse of God rested on
the land in consequence." Mr. Rosalt remarked that "it was a singular
circumstance that in the different colonial Kafir wars, as also in the
Basuto wars, one did not hear of destitute children being found by the
commandoes, and asked how it was that every petty commando that took
the field in this Republic invariably found numbers of destitute
children. He gave it as his opinion that the present system of
apprenticeship was an essential cause of our frequent hostilities with
the natives." Mr. Jan Talyard said, "Children were forcibly taken from
their parents, and were then called destitute and apprenticed." Mr.
Daniel Van Nooren was heard to say, "If they had to clear the country,
and could not have the children they found, he would shoot them." Mr.
Field-Cornet Furstenburg stated "that when he was at Zoutpansberg with
his burghers, the chief Katse-Kats was told to come down from the
mountains; that he sent one of his subordinates as a proof of amity;
that whilst a delay of five days was guaranteed by Commandant Paul
Kruger, who was then in command, orders were given at the same time to
attack the natives at break of day, which was accordingly done, but
which resulted in total failure." Truly, this must have been an
interesting meeting.
Before leaving these unsavoury subjects, I must touch on the question
of slavery. It has been again and again denied, on behalf of the
Transvaal Boers, that slavery existed in the Republic. Now, this is,
strictly speaking, true; slavery did not exist, but apprenticeship
did--the rose was called by another name, that is all. The poor
destitute children who were picked up by kind-hearted Boers, after the
extermination of their parents, were apprenticed to farmers till they
came of age. It is a remarkable fact that these children never attained
their majority. You might meet oldish men in the Transvaal who were
not, according to their masters' reckoning, twenty-one years of age.
The assertion that slavery did not exist in the Transvaal is only made
to hoodwink the English public. I have known men who have owned slaves,
and who have seen whole waggon-loads of "black ivory," as they were
called, sold for about £15 a-piece. I have at this moment a tenant,
Carolus by name, on some land I own in Natal, now a well-to-do man, who
was for many years--about twenty, if I remember right--a Boer slave.
During those years, he told me, he worked from morning till night, and
the only reward he received was two calves. He finally escaped into
Natal.
If other evidence is needed it is not difficult to find, so I will
quote a little. On the 22d August 1876 we find Khama, king of the
Bamangwato, one of the most worthy chiefs in South Africa, sending a
message to "Victoria, the great Queen of the English people," in these
words:--
"I write to you, Sir Henry, in order that your Queen may preserve for
me my country, it being in her hands. The Boers are coming into it, and
I do not like them. Their actions are cruel among us black people. We
are like money, they sell us and our children. I ask Her Majesty to
pity me, and to hear that which I write quickly. I wish to hear upon
what conditions Her Majesty will receive me, and my country and my
people, under her protection. I am weary with fighting. I do not like
war, and I ask Her Majesty to give me peace. I am very much distressed
that my people are being destroyed by war, and I wish them to obtain
peace. I ask Her Majesty to defend me, as she defends all her people.
There are three things which distress me very much--war, selling
people, and drink. All these things I shall find in the Boers, and it
is these things which destroy people to make an end of them in the
country. _The custom of the Boers has always been to cause people to
be sold, and to-day they are still selling people._ Last year I saw
them pass with two waggons full of people whom they had bought at the
river at Tanane" (Lake Ngate).
The Special Correspondent of the _Cape Argus_, a highly respectable
journal, writes thus on the 28th November 1876:--"The Boer from whom
this information was gleaned has furnished besides some facts which may
not be uninteresting, as a commentary on the repeated denials by Mr.
Burgers of the existence of slavery. During the last week slaves have
been offered for sale on his farm. The captives have been taken from
Secocoeni's country by Mapoch's people, and are being exchanged at the
rate of a child for a heifer. He also assures us that the whole of the
High-veld is being replenished with Kafir children, whom the Boers have
been lately purchasing from the Swazis at the rate of a horse for a
child. I should like to see this man and his father as witnesses before
an Imperial Commission. He let fall one or two incidents of the past
which were brought to mind by the occurrences of the present. In 1864,
he says, 'The Swazis accompanied the Boers against Males. The Boers did
nothing but stand by and witness the fearful massacre. The men and
women were also murdered. One poor woman sat clutching her baby of
eight days old. The Swazis stabbed her through the body, and when she
found that she could not live, she wrung the baby's neck with her own
hands to save it from future misery. On the return of that commando the
children who became too weary to continue the journey were killed on
the road. The survivors were sold as slaves to the farmers.'"
The same gentleman writes in the issue of the 12th December as
follows:--"The whole world may know it, for it is true, and
investigation will only bring out the horrible details, that through
the whole course of this Republic's existence it has acted in
contravention of the Sand River Treaty; and slavery has occurred not
only here and there in isolated cases, but as an unbroken practice, and
has been one of the peculiar institutions of the country, mixed up with
all its social and political life. It has been at the root of most of
its wars. It has been carried on regularly even in times of peace. It
has been characterised by all those circumstances which have so often
roused the British nation to an indignant protest, and to repeated
efforts to banish the slave trade from the world. The Boers have not
only fallen on unsuspecting kraals simply for the purpose of obtaining
the women and children and cattle, but they have carried on a traffic
through natives who have kidnapped the children of their weaker
neighbours, and sold them to the white man. Again, the Boers have sold
and exchanged their victims among themselves. Waggon-loads of slaves
have been conveyed from one end of the country to the other for sale,
and that with the cognisance of, and for the direct advantage of, the
highest officials of the land. The writer has himself seen in a town,
situated in the south of the Republic, the children who had been
brought down from a remote northern district. One fine morning, in
walking through the streets, he was struck with the number of little
black strangers standing about certain houses, and wondered where they
could have come from. He learnt a few hours later that they were part
of loads which were disposed of on the outskirts of the town the day
before. The circumstances connected with some of these kidnapping
excursions are appalling, and the barbarities practised by cruel
masters upon some of these defenceless creatures during the course of
their servitude are scarcely less horrible than those reported from
Turkey. It is no disgrace in this country for an official to ride a
fine horse which was got for two Kafir children, to procure whom the
father and mother were shot. No reproach is inherited by the mistress
who, day after day, tied up her female servant in an agonising posture,
and had her beaten until there was no sound part in her body, securing
her in the stocks during the intervals of torture. That man did not
lose caste who tied up another woman and had her thrashed until she
brought forth at the whipping-post. These are merely examples of
thousands of cases which could be proved were an Imperial Commission to
sit, and could the wretched victims of a prolonged oppression recover
sufficiently from the dread of their old tyrants to give a truthful
report."
To come to some evidence more recently adduced. On the 9th May 1881, an
affidavit was sworn to by the Rev. John Thorne, curate of St. John the
Evangelist, Lydenburg, Transvaal, and presented to the Royal Commission
appointed to settle Transvaal affairs, in which he states:--"That I was
appointed to the charge of a congregation in Potchefstroom, about
thirteen years ago, when the Republic was under the presidency of Mr.
Pretorius.[5] I remember noticing one morning as I walked through the
streets, a number of young natives, whom I knew to be strangers. I
inquired where they came from. I was told that they had just been
brought from Zoutpansberg. This was the locality from which slaves were
chiefly brought at that time, and were traded for under the name of
'Black Ivory.' One of these natives belonged to Mr. Munich, the State
Attorney. It was a matter of common remark at that time that the
President of the Republic was himself one of the greatest dealers in
slaves." In the fourth paragraph of the same affidavit Mr. Thorne says,
"That the Rev. Doctor Nachtigal, of the Berlin Missionary Society, was
the interpreter for Shatane's people in the private office of Mr. Roth,
and, at the close of the interview, told me what had occurred. On my
expressing surprise, he went on to relate that he had information on
native matters which would surprise me more. He then produced the copy
of a register, kept in the Landdrost's office, of men, women, and
children, to the number of four hundred and eighty (480), who had been
disposed of by one Boer to another for a consideration. In one case an
ox was given in exchange, in another goats, in a third a blanket, and
so forth. Many of these natives he (Mr. Nachtigal) knew personally. The
copy was certified as true and correct by an official of the Republic,
and I would mention his name now, only that I am persuaded that it
would cost the man his life if his act became known to the Boers."
[5] One of the famous Triumvirate.
On the 16th May 1881, a native, named Frederick Molepo, was examined by
the Royal Commission. The following are extracts from his
examination:--
"(_Sir E. Wood._) Are you a Christian?--Yes.
"(_Sir H. de Villiers._) How long were you a slave?--Half a year.
"How do you know that you were a slave? Might you not have been an
apprentice?--No, I was not apprenticed.
"How do you know?--They got me from my parents, and ill-treated me.
"(_Sir E. Wood._) How many times did you get the stick?--Every day.
"(_Sir H. de Villiers._) What did the Boers do with you when they
caught you?--They sold me.
"How much did they sell you for?--One cow and a big pot."
On the 28th May 1881, amongst the other documents handed in for the
consideration of the Royal Commission, is the statement of a headman,
whose name it has been considered advisable to omit in the blue-book
for fear the Boers should take vengeance on him. He says, "I say, that
if the English government dies I shall die too; I would rather die than
be under the Boer Government. I am the man who helped to make bricks
for the church you see now standing in the square here (Pretoria), as a
slave without payment. As a representative of my people I am still
obedient to the English Government, and willing to obey all commands
from them, even to die for their cause in this country, rather than
submit to the Boers.
"I was under Shambok, my chief, who fought the Boers formerly, but he
left us, and we were _put up to auction_ and sold among the Boers. I
want to state this myself to the Royal Commission in Newcastle. I was
bought by Fritz Botha and sold by Frederick Botha, who was then veld
cornet (justice of the peace) of the Boers."[6]
[6] I have taken the liberty to quote all these extracts
exactly as they stand in the original, instead of weaving
their substance into my narrative, in order that I may not be
accused, as so often happens to authors who write upon this
subject, of having presented a garbled version of the truth.
The original of every extract is to be found in blue-books
presented to Parliament. I have thought it best to confine
myself to these, and avoid repeating stories of cruelties and
slavery, however well authenticated, that have come to my
knowledge privately such stories being always more or less
open to suspicion.
It would be easy to find more reports of the slave-trading practices of
the Boers, but as the above are fair samples it will not be necessary
to do so. My readers will be able from them to form some opinion as to
whether or not slavery or apprenticeship existed in the Transvaal. If
they come to the conclusion that it did, it must be borne in mind that
what existed in the past will certainly exist again in the future.
Natives are not now any fonder of working for Boers than they were a
few years back, and Boers must get labour somehow. If, on the other
hand, it did not exist, then the Boers are a grossly slandered people,
and all writers on the subject, from Livingstone down, have combined to
take away their character.
Leaving native questions for the present, we must now return to the
general affairs of the country. When President Burgers opened the
special sitting of the Volksraad, on the 4th September, he appealed, it
will be remembered, to that body for pecuniary aid to liquidate the
expenses of the war. This appeal was responded to by the passing of a
war tax, under which every owner of a farm was to pay £10, the owner of
half a farm £5, and so on. The tax was not a very just one, since it
fell with equal weight on the rich man who held twenty farms and the
poor man who held but one. Its justice or injustice was, however, to a
great extent immaterial, since the free and independent burghers,
including some of the members of the Volksraad who had imposed it,
promptly refused to pay it, or indeed, whilst they were about it, any
other tax. As the Treasury was already empty, and creditors were
pressing, this refusal was most ill-timed, and things began to look
very black indeed. Meanwhile, in addition to the ordinary expenditure,
and the interest payable on debts, money had to be found to pay Von
Schlickmann's volunteers. As there was no cash in the country, this was
done by issuing Government promissory notes, known as "goodfors," or
vulgarly as "good for nothings," and by promising them all booty, and
to each man a farm of two thousand acres, lying east and north-east of
the Loolu mountains--in other words, in Secocoeni's territory, which
did not belong to the Government to give away. The officials were the
next to suffer, and for six months before the Annexation these
unfortunate individuals lived as best they could, for they certainly
got no salary, except in the case of a postmaster, who was told to help
himself to his pay in stamps. The Government issued large numbers of
bills, but the banks refused to discount them, and in some cases the
neighbouring colonies had to advance money to the Transvaal post-cart
contractors who were carrying the mails, as a matter of charity. The
Government even mortgaged the great salt-pan near Pretoria for the
paltry sum of £400, whilst the leading officials of the Government were
driven to pledging their own private credit in order to obtain the
smallest article necessary to its continuance. In fact, to such a pass
did things come that when the country was annexed a single threepenny
bit (which had doubtless been overlooked) was found in the Treasury
chest, together with acknowledgments of debts to the extent of nearly
£300,000.
Nor was the refusal to pay taxes, which they were powerless to enforce,
the only difficulty with which the Government had to contend. Want of
money is as bad and painful a thing to a State as to an individual, but
there are perhaps worse things than want of money, one of which is to
be deserted by your own friends and household. This was the position of
the Government of the Republic; no sooner was it involved in
overwhelming difficulties than its own subjects commenced to bait it,
more especially the English portion of its subjects. They complained to
the English authorities about the commandeering of members of their
family or goods; they petitioned the British Government to interfere,
and generally made themselves as unpleasant as possible to the local
authorities. Such a course of action was perhaps natural, but it can
hardly be said to be either quite logical or just. The Transvaal
Government had never asked them to come and live in the country, and if
they did so, it was presumably at their own risk. On the other hand, it
must be remembered that many of the agitators had accumulated property,
to leave which would mean ruin; and they saw that, unless something was
done, its value would be destroyed.
Under the pressure of all these troubles the Boers themselves split up
into factions, as they are always ready to do. The Dopper party
declared that they had had enough progress, and proposed the extremely
conservative Paul Kruger as President, Burgers' time having nearly
expired. Paul Kruger accepted the candidature, although he had
previously promised his support to Burgers, and distrust of each other
was added to the other difficulties of the Executive, the Transvaal
becoming a house very much divided against itself. Natives, Doppers,
Progressionists, Officials, English, were all pulling different ways,
and each striving for his own advantage. Anything more hopeless than
the position of the country on the 1st January 1877 it is impossible to
conceive. Enemies surrounded it; on every border there was the prospect
of a serious war. In the exchequer there was nothing but piles of
overdue bills. The President was helpless, and mistrustful of his
officers, and the officers were caballing against the President. All
the ordinary functions of Government had ceased, and trade was
paralysed. Now and then wild proposals were made to relieve the State
of its burdens, some of which partook of the nature of repudiation, but
these were the exception; the majority of the inhabitants, who would
neither fight nor pay taxes, sat still and awaited the catastrophe,
utterly careless of all consequences.
CHAPTER III.
THE ANNEXATION.
The state of affairs described in the previous chapter was one that
filled the Secretary of State for the Colonies with alarm. During his
tenure of office Lord Carnarvon evidently had the permanent welfare of
South Africa much at heart, and he saw with apprehension that the
troubles that were brewing in the Transvaal were of a nature likely to
involve the Cape and Natal in a native war. Though there is a broad
line of demarcation between Dutch and English, it is not so broad but
that a victorious nation like the Zulus might cross it, and beginning
by fighting the Boer, might end by fighting the white man irrespective
of race. When the reader reflects how terrible would be the
consequences of a combination of native tribes against the Whites, and
how easily such a combination might at that time have been brought
about in the first flush of native successes, he will understand the
anxiety with which all thinking men watched the course of events in the
Transvaal in 1876.
At last they took such a serious turn that the Home Government saw that
some action must be taken if the catastrophe was to be averted, and
determined to despatch Sir Theophilus Shepstone as Special Commissioner
to the Transvaal, with powers, should it be necessary, to annex the
country to Her Majesty's dominions, "in order to secure the peace and
safety of Our said colonies and of Our subjects elsewhere."
The terms of his Commission were unusually large, leaving a great deal
to his discretionary power. In choosing that officer for the execution
of a most difficult and delicate mission, the Government, doubtless,
made a very wise selection. Sir Theophilus Shepstone is a man of
remarkable tact and ability, combined with great openness and
simplicity of mind, and one whose name will always have a leading place
in South African history. During a long official lifetime he has had to
do with most of the native races in South Africa, and certainly knows
them and their ways better than any living man; whilst he is by them
all regarded with a peculiar and affectionate reverence. He is _par
excellence_ their great white chief and "father," and a word from
him, even now that he has retired from active life, still carries more
weight than the formal remonstrances of any governor in South Africa.
With the Boers he is almost equally well acquainted, having known many
of them personally for years. He possesses, moreover, the rare power of
winning the regard and affection, as well as the respect, of those
about him in such a marked degree that those who have served him once
would go far to serve him again. Sir T. Shepstone, however, has enemies
like other people, and is commonly reported among them to be a disciple
of Machiavelli, and to have his mind steeped in all the darker wiles of
Kafir policy. The Annexation of the Transvaal is by them attributed to
a successful and vigorous use of those arts that distinguished the
diplomacy of two centuries ago. Falsehood and bribery are supposed to
have been the great levers used to effect the change, together with
threats of extinction at the hands of a savage and unfriendly nation.
That the Annexation was a triumph of mind over matter is quite true,
but whether or no that triumph was unworthily obtained, I will leave
those who read this short chronicle of the events connected with it to
judge. I saw it somewhat darkly remarked in a newspaper the other day
that the history of the Annexation had evidently yet to be written; and
I fear that the remark represents the feeling of most people about that
event, implying as it did that it was carried out by means certainly
mysteriously and presumably doubtful. I am afraid that those who think
thus will be disappointed in what I have to say about the matter, since
I know that the means employed to bring the Boers--
"Fracti bello, fatisque repulsi"--
under Her Majesty's authority were throughout as fair and honest as the
Annexation itself was, in my opinion, right and necessary.
To return to Sir T. Shepstone. He undoubtedly had faults as a ruler,
one of the most prominent of which was that his natural mildness of
character would never allow him to act with severity even when severity
was necessary. The very criminals condemned to death ran a good chance
of reprieve when he had to sign their death-warrants. He has also that
worst of faults (so-called), in one fitted by nature to become
great--want of ambition, a failing that in such a man marks him the
possessor of an even and a philosophic mind. It was no seeking of his
own that raised him out of obscurity, and when his work was done to
comparative obscurity he elected to return, though whether a man of his
ability and experience in South African affairs should, at the present
crisis, be allowed to remain there, is another question.
On the 20th December 1876, Sir T. Shepstone wrote to President Burgers,
informing him of his approaching visit to the Transvaal, to secure, if
possible, the adjustment of existing troubles, and the adoption of such
measures as might be best calculated to prevent their recurrence in the
future.
On his road to Pretoria, Sir Theophilus received a hearty welcome from
the Boer as well as the English inhabitants of the country. One of
these addresses to him says: "Be assured, high honourable Sir, that we
burghers, now assembled together, entertain the most friendly feeling
towards your Government, and that we shall agree with anything you may
do in conjunction with our Government for the progress of our State,
the strengthening against our native enemies, and for the general
welfare of all the inhabitants of the whole of South Africa. Welcome in
Heidelberg, and welcome in the Transvaal."
At Pretoria the reception of the Special Commissioner was positively
enthusiastic; the whole town came out to meet him, and the horses
having been taken out of the carriage, he was dragged in triumph
through the streets. In his reply to the address presented to him, Sir
Theophilus shadowed forth the objects of his mission in these words:
"Recent events in this country have shown to all thinking men the
absolute necessity for closer union and more oneness of purpose among
the Christian Governments of the southern portion of this continent:
the best interests of the native races, no less than the peace and
prosperity of the white, imperatively demand it, and I rely upon you
and upon your Government to co-operate with me in endeavouring to
achieve the great and glorious end of inscribing on a general South
African banner the appropriate motto--"Eendragt maakt magt" (Unity
makes strength)."
A few days after his arrival a commission was appointed, consisting of
Messrs. Henderson and Osborn, on behalf of the Special Commissioner,
and Messrs. Kruger and Jorissen, on behalf of the Transvaal Government,
to discuss the state of the country. This commission came to nothing,
and was on both sides nothing more than a bit of by-play.
The arrival of the mission was necessarily regarded with mixed feelings
by the inhabitants of the Transvaal. By one party it was eagerly
greeted, viz., the English section of the population, who devoutly
hoped that it had come to annex the country. With the exception of the
Hollander element, the officials also were glad of its arrival, and
secretly hoped that the country would be taken over, when there would
be more chance of their getting their arrear pay. The better educated
Boers also were for the most part satisfied that there was no hope for
the country unless England helped it in some way, though they did not
like having to accept the help. But the more bigoted and narrow-minded
among them were undoubtedly opposed to English interference, and under
their leader, Paul Kruger, who was at the time running for the
President's chair, did their best to be rid of it. They found ready
allies in the Hollander clientelle, with which Mr. Burgers had
surrounded himself, headed by the famous Dr. Jorissen, who was, like
most of the rulers of this singular State, an ex-clergyman, but now an
Attorney-general, not learned in the law. These men were for the most
part entirely unfit for the positions they held, and feared that in the
event of the country changing hands they might be ejected from them;
and also, they did all Englishmen the favour to regard them with that
peculiarly virulent and general hatred which is a part of the secret
creed of many foreigners, more especially of such as are under our
protection. As may easily be imagined, what between all these different
parties and the presence of the Special Commissioner, there were
certainly plenty of intrigues going on in Pretoria during the first few
months of 1877, and the political excitement was very great. Nobody
knew how far Sir T. Shepstone was prepared to go, and everybody was
afraid of putting out his hand further than he could pull it back, and
trying to make himself comfortable on two stools at once. Members of
the Volksraad and other prominent individuals in the country who had
during the day been denouncing the Commissioner in no measured terms,
and even proposing that he and his staff should be shot as a warning to
the English Government, might be seen arriving at his house under cover
of the shades of evening, to have a little talk with him, and express
the earnest hope that it was his intention to annex the country as soon
as possible. It is necessary to assist at a peaceable annexation to
learn the depth of meanness human nature is capable of.
In Pretoria, at any rate, the ladies were of great service to the cause
of the mission, since they were nearly all in favour of a change of
government, and, that being the case, they naturally soon brought their
husbands, brothers, and lovers to look at things from the same point of
view. It was a wise man who said that in any matter where it is
necessary to obtain the goodwill of a population you should win over
the women; that done, you need not trouble yourself about the men.
Though the country was thus overflowing with political intrigues,
nothing of the kind went on in the Commissioner's camp. It was not he
who made the plots to catch the Transvaalers; on the contrary, they
made the plots to catch him. For several months all that he did was to
sit still and let the rival passions work their way, fighting what the
Zulus afterwards called the "fight of sit down." When anybody came to
see him he was very glad to meet them, pointed out the desperate
condition of the country, and asked them if they could suggest a
remedy. And that was about all he did do, beyond informing himself very
carefully as to all that was going on in the country, and the movements
of the natives within and outside its borders. There was no money spent
in bribery, as has been stated, though it is impossible to imagine a
state of affairs in which it would have been more easy to bribe, or in
which it could have been done with greater effect; unless indeed the
promise that some pension should be paid to President Burgers can be
called a bribe, which it was certainly never intended to be, but simply
a guarantee that after having spent all his private means on behalf of
the State he should not be left destitute. The statement that the
Annexation was effected under a threat that if the Government did not
give its consent Sir T. Shepstone would let loose the Zulus on the
country is also a wicked and malicious invention, but with this I shall
deal more at length further on.
It must not, however, be understood that the Annexation was a foregone
conclusion, or that Sir T. Shepstone came up to the Transvaal with the
fixed intention of annexing the country without reference to its
position, merely with a view of extending British influence, or, as has
been absurdly stated, in order to benefit Natal. He had no fixed
purpose, whether it were necessary or no, of exercising the full powers
given to him by his commission; on the contrary, he was all along most
anxious to find some internal resources within the State by means of
which Annexation could be averted, and of this fact his various letters
and despatches give full proof. Thus, in his letter to President
Burgers, of the 9th April 1877, in which he announces his intention of
annexing the country, he says: "I have more than once assured your
Honour that if I could think of any plan by which the independence of
the State could be maintained by its own internal resources I would
most certainly not conceal that plan from you." It is also incidentally
remarkably confirmed by a passage in Mr. Burgers' posthumous defence,
in which he says: "Hence I met Shepstone alone in my house, and opened
up the subject of his mission. With a candour that astonished me, he
avowed that his purpose was to annex the country, as he had sufficient
grounds for it, unless I could so alter as to satisfy his Government.
My plan of a new constitution, modelled after that of America, of a
standing police force of two hundred mounted men, was then proposed. He
promised to give me time to call the Volksraad together, and to
_abandon his design_ if the Volksraad would adopt these measures,
and the country be willing to submit to them, and to carry them out."
Further on he says: "In justice to Shepstone I must say that I would
not consider an officer of my Government to have acted faithfully if he
had not done what Shepstone did."
It has also been frequently alleged in England, and always seems to be
taken as the groundwork of argument in the matter of the Annexation,
that the Special Commissioner represented that the majority of the
inhabitants wished for the Annexation, and that it was sanctioned on
that ground. This statement shows the great ignorance that exists in
this country of South African affairs, an ignorance which in this case
has been carefully fostered by Mr. Gladstone's Government for party
purposes, they having found it necessary to assume, in order to make
their position in the matter tenable, that Sir T. Shepstone and other
officers had been guilty of misrepresentation. Unfortunately, the
Government and its supporters have been more intent upon making out
their case than upon ascertaining the truth of their statements. If
they had taken the trouble to refer to Sir T. Shepstone's despatches,
they would have found that the ground on which the Transvaal was
annexed was, not because the majority of the inhabitants wished for it
but because the State was drifting into anarchy, was bankrupt, and was
about to be destroyed by native tribes. They would further have found
that Sir T. Shepstone never represented that the majority of the Boers
were in favour of Annexation. What he did say was that most thinking
men in the country saw no other way out of the difficulty; but what
proportion of the Boers can be called "thinking men?" He also said, in
the fifteenth paragraph of his despatch to Lord Carnarvon of 6th March
1877, that petitions signed by 2500 people, representing every class of
the community, out of a total adult male population of 8000, had been
presented to the Government of the Republic, setting forth its
difficulties and dangers, and praying it "to treat with me for their
amelioration or removal." He also stated, and with perfect truth, that
many more would have signed had it not been for the terrorism that was
exercised, and that all the towns and villages in the country desired
the change, which was a patent fact.
This is the foundation on which the charge of misrepresentation is
built--a charge which has been manipulated so skilfully, and with such
a charming disregard for the truth, that the British public has been
duped into believing it. When it is examined into, it vanishes into
thin air.
But a darker charge has been brought against the Special Commissioner--a
charge affecting his honour as a gentleman and his character as a
Christian; and, strange to say, has gained a considerable credence,
especially amongst a certain party in England. I allude to the
statement that he called up the Zulu army with the intention of
sweeping the Transvaal if the Annexation was objected to. I may state,
from my own personal knowledge, that the report is a complete
falsehood, and that no such threat was ever made, either by Sir T.
Shepstone or by anybody connected with him, and I will briefly prove
what I say.
When the mission first arrived at Pretoria, a message came from
Cetywayo to the effect that he had heard that the Boers had fired at
"Sompseu" (Sir T. Shepstone), and announcing his intention of attacking
the Transvaal if "his father" was touched. About the middle of March
alarming rumours began to spread as to the intended action of Cetywayo
with reference to the Transvaal; but as Sir T. Shepstone did not think
that the king would be likely to make any hostile movement whilst he
was in the country, he took no steps in the matter. Neither did the
Transvaal Government ask his advice and assistance. Indeed, a
remarkable trait in the Boers is their supreme self-conceit, which
makes them believe that they are capable of subduing all the natives in
Africa, and of thrashing the whole British army if necessary.
Unfortunately, the recent course of events has tended to confirm them
in their opinion as regards their white enemies. To return: towards the
second week in April, or the week before the proclamation of Annexation
was issued, things began to look very serious; indeed, rumours that
could hardly be discredited reached the Special Commissioner that the
whole Zulu army was collected in a chain of Impis or battalions, with
the intention of bursting into the Transvaal and sweeping the country.
Knowing how terrible would be the catastrophe if this were to happen,
Sir T. Shepstone was much alarmed about the matter, and at a meeting
with the Executive Council of the Transvaal Government he pointed out
to them the great danger in which the country was placed. This was done
in the presence of several officers of his staff, and it was on this
friendly exposition of the state of affairs that the charge that he had
threatened the country with invasion by the Zulus was based. On the
11th April, or the day before the Annexation, a message was despatched
to Cetywayo, telling him of the reports that had reached Pretoria, and
stating that if they were true he must forthwith give up all such
intentions, as the Transvaal would at once be placed under the
sovereignty of Her Majesty, and that if he had assembled any armies for
purposes of aggression they must be disbanded at once. Sir T.
Shepstone's message reached Zululand not a day too soon. Had the
Annexation of the Transvaal been delayed by a few weeks even--and this
is a point which I earnestly beg Englishmen to remember in connection
with that act--Cetywayo's armies would have entered the Transvaal,
carrying death before them, and leaving a wilderness behind them.
Cetywayo's answer to the Special Commissioner's message will
sufficiently show, to use Sir Theophilus' own words in his despatch on
the subject, "the pinnacle of peril which the Republic and South Africa
generally had reached at the moment when the Annexation took place." He
says, "I thank my Father Sompseu (Sir T. Shepstone) for his message. I
am glad that he has sent it, because the Dutch have tired me out, and I
intended to fight them once and once only, and to drive them over the
Vaal. Kabana (name of messenger), you see my Impis (armies) are
gathered. It was to fight the Dutch I called them together; now I will
send them back to their homes. Is it well that two men ('amadoda-amabili')
should be made 'iziula' (fools)? In the reign of my father Umpanda the
Boers were constantly moving their boundary further into my country.
Since his death the same thing has been done. I had therefore
determined to end it once for all!" The message then goes on to other
matters, and ends with a request to be allowed to fight the Amaswazi,
because "they fight together and kill one another. This," says Cetywayo
naively, "is wrong, and I want to chastise them for it."
This quotation will suffice to convince all reasonable men, putting
aside all other matters, from what imminent danger the Transvaal was
delivered by the much-abused Annexation.
Some months after that event, however, it occurred to the ingenious
mind of some malicious individual in Natal that, properly used, much
political capital might be made out of this Zulu incident, and the
story that Cetywayo's army had been called up by Sir Theophilus himself
to overawe, and, if necessary, subdue the Transvaal, was accordingly
invented and industriously circulated. Although Sir T. Shepstone at
once caused it to be authoritatively contradicted, such an astonishing
slander naturally took firm root, and on the 12th April 1879 we have
Mr. M. W. Pretorius, one of the Boer leaders, publicly stating at a
meeting of the farmers that "previous to the Annexation Sir T.
Shepstone had threatened the Transvaal with an attack from the Zulus as
an argument for advancing the Annexation." Under such an imputation the
Government could no longer keep silence, and accordingly Sir Owen
Lanyon, who was then Administrator of the Transvaal, caused the matter
to be officially investigated, with these results, which are summed up
by him in a letter to Mr. Pretorius, dated 1st May 1879:--
1. The records of the Republican Executive Council contained no
allusion to any such statement.
2. Two members of that Council filed statements in which they
unreservedly denied that Sir T. Shepstone used the words or threats
imputed to him.
3. Two officers of Sir T. Shepstone's staff, who were always present
with him at interviews with the Executive Council, filed statements to
the same effect.
"I have no doubt," adds Sir Owen Lanyon, "that the report has been
originated and circulated by some evil-disposed person."
In addition to this evidence we have a letter written to the Colonial
Office by Sir T. Shepstone, dated London, August 12, 1879, in which he
points out that Mr. Pretorius was not even present at any of the
interviews with the Executive Council on which occasion he accuses him
of having made use of the threats. He further shows that the use of
such a threat on his part would have, been the depth of folly, and
"knowingly to court the instant and ignominious failure of my mission,"
because the Boers were so persuaded of their own prowess that they
could not be convinced that they stood in any danger from native
sources, and also because "such play with such keen-edged tools as the
excited passions of savages are, and especially such savages as I knew
the Zulus to be, is not what an experience of forty-two years in
managing them inclined me to." And yet, in the face of all this
accumulated evidence, this report continues to be believed, that is, by
those who wished to believe it.
Such are the accusations that have been brought against the manner of
the Annexation and the officer who carried it out, and never were
accusations more groundless. Indeed, both for party purposes, and from
personal animus, every means, fair or foul, has been used to discredit
it and all connected with it. To take a single instance, one author
(Miss Colenso, p. 134, "History of the Zulu War") actually goes the
length of putting a portion of a speech made by President Burgers into
the mouth of Sir T. Shepstone, and then abusing him for his incredible
profanity. Surely this exceeds the limits of fair criticism.
Before I go on to the actual history of the Annexation there is one
point I wish to submit to my reader. In England the change of
Government has always been talked of as though it only affected the
forty thousand white inhabitants of the country, whilst everybody seems
to forget that this same land had about a million human beings living
on it, its original owners, and only, unfortunately for themselves,
possessing a black skin, and therefore entitled to little
consideration,--even at the hands of the most philanthropic Government
in the world. It never seems to have occurred to those who have raised
so much outcry on behalf of the forty thousand Boers, to inquire what
was thought of the matter by the million natives. If they were to be
allowed a voice in their own disposal, the country was certainly
annexed by the wish of a very large majority of the inhabitants. It is
true that Secocoeni, instigated thereto by the Boers, afterwards
continued the war against us, but, with the exception of this one
chief, the advent of our rule was hailed with joy by every native in
the Transvaal, and even he was glad of it at the time. During our
period of rule in the Transvaal the natives have had, as they foresaw,
more peace than at any time since the white man set foot in the land.
They have paid their taxes gladly, and there has been no fighting among
themselves; but since we have given up the country we hear a very
different tale. It is this million of men, women, and children who,
notwithstanding their black skins, live and feel, and have intelligence
as much as ourselves, who are the principal, because the most numerous
sufferers from Mr. Gladstone's conjuring tricks, that can turn a
Sovereign into a Suzerain as airily as the professor of magic brings a
litter of guinea-pigs out of a top hat. It is our falsehood and
treachery to them whom we took over "for ever," as we told them, and
whom we have now handed back to their natural enemies to be paid off
for their loyalty to the Englishman, that is the blackest stain in all
this black business, and that has destroyed our prestige, and caused us
to be looked on amongst them, for they do not hide their opinion, as
"cowards and liars."
But very little attention, however, seems to have been paid to native
views or claims at any time in the Transvaal; indeed they have all
along been treated as serfs of the soil, to be sold with it, if
necessary, to a new master. It is true that the Government, acting
under pressure from the Aborigines Protection Society, made, on the
occasion of the Surrender, a feeble effort to secure the independence
of some of the native tribes; but when the Boer leaders told them
shortly that they would have nothing of the sort, and that, if they
were not careful, they would reoccupy Laing's Nek, the proposal was at
once dropped, with many assurances that no offence was intended. The
worst of the matter is that this treatment of our native subjects and
allies will assuredly recoil on the heads of future innocent
Governments.
Shortly after the appointment of the Joint-Commission alluded to at the
beginning of this chapter, President Burgers, who was now in possession
of the Special Commissioner's intentions, should he be unable to carry
out reforms sufficiently drastic to satisfy the English Government,
thought it best to call together the Volksraad. In the meantime, it had
been announced that the "rebel" Secocoeni had sued for peace and
signed a treaty declaring himself a subject of the Republic. I shall
have to enter into the question of this treaty a little further on, so
I will at present only say that it was the first business laid before
the Raad, and, after some discussion, ratified. Next in order to the
Secocoeni peace came the question of Confederation, as laid down in
Lord Carnarvon's Permissive Bill. This proposal was laid before them in
an earnest and eloquent speech by their President, who entreated them
to consider the dangerous position of the Republic, and to face their
difficulties like men. The question was referred to a committee, and an
adverse report being brought up, was rejected without further
consideration. It is just possible that intimidation had something to
do with the summary treatment of so important a matter, seeing that
whilst it was being argued a large mob of Boers, looking very
formidable with their sea-cow hide whips, watched every move of their
representatives through the windows of the Volksraad Hall. It was Mr.
Chamberlain's caucus system in practical and visible operation.
A few days after the rejection of the Confederation Bill, President
Burgers, who had frequently alluded to the desperate condition of the
Republic, and stated that either some radical reform must be effected
or the country must come under the British flag, laid before the Raad a
brand new constitution of a very remarkable nature, asserting that they
must either accept it or lose their independence.
The first part of this strange document dealt with the people and their
rights, which remained much as they were before, with the exception
that the secrecy of all letters entrusted to the post was to be
inviolable. The recognition of this right is an amusing incident in the
history of a free Republic. Under following articles the Volksraad was
entrusted with the charge of the native inhabitants of the State, the
provision for the administration of justice, the conduct of education,
the regulation of money-bills, &c. It is in the fourth chapter,
however, that we come to the real gist of the Bill, which was the
endowment of the State President with the authority of a dictator. Mr.
Burgers thought to save the State by making himself an absolute
monarch. He was to be elected for a period of seven instead of five
years, and to be eligible for re-election. In him was vested the power
of making all appointments without reference to the Legislature. All
laws were to be drawn up by him, and he was to have the right of veto
on Volksraad resolutions, which body he could summon and dissolve at
will. Finally, his Executive Council was to consist of heads of
departments appointed by himself, and of one member of the Volksraad.
The Volksraad treated this Bill in much the same way as they had dealt
with the Permissive Confederation Bill, gave it a casual consideration,
and threw it out.
The President, meanwhile, was doing his best to convince the Raad of
the danger of the country; that the treasury was empty, whilst duns
were pressing, that enemies were threatening on every side, and,
finally, that Her Majesty's Special Commissioner was encamped within a
thousand yards of them, watching their deliberations with some
interest. He showed them that it was impossible at once to scorn reform
and reject friendly offers, that it was doubtful if anything could save
them, but that if they took no steps they were certainly lost as a
nation. The "Fathers of the land," however, declined to dance to the
President's piping. Then he took a bolder line. He told them that a
guilty nation never can evade the judgment that follows its steps. He
asked them "conscientiously to advise the people not obstinately to
refuse a union with a powerful Government. He could not advise them to
refuse such a union.... He did not believe that a new constitution
would save them; for as little as the old constitution had brought them
to ruin, so little would a new constitution bring salvation.... If the
citizens of England had behaved towards the Crown as the burghers of
this State had behaved to their Government, England would never have
stood so long as she had." He pointed out to them their hopeless
financial position. "To-day," he said, "a bill for £1100 was laid
before me for signature; but I would sooner have cut off my right hand
than sign that paper--(cheers)--for I have not the slightest ground
to expect that, when that bill becomes due, there will be a penny to
pay it with." And finally, he exhorted them thus: "Let them make the
best of the situation, and get the best terms they possibly could;
let them agree to join their hands to those of their brethren in the
south, and then from the Cape to the Zambesi there would be one great
people. Yes, there was something grand in that, grander even than
their idea of a Republic, something which ministered to their national
feeling--(cheers)--and would this be so miserable? Yes, this would be
miserable for those who would not be under the law, for the rebel and
the revolutionist, but welfare and prosperity for the men of law and
order."
These powerful words form a strong indictment against the Republic, and
from them there can be little doubt that President Burgers was
thoroughly convinced of the necessity and wisdom of the Annexation. It
is interesting to compare them, and many other utterances of his made
at this period, with the opinions he expresses in the posthumous
document recently published, in which he speaks somewhat jubilantly of
the lessons taught us on Laing's Nek and Majuba by such "an inherently
weak people as the Boers," and points to them as striking instances of
retribution. In this document he attributes the Annexation to the
desire to advance English supremacy in South Africa, and to lay hold of
the way to Central South Africa. It is, however, noticeable that he
does not in any way indicate how it could have been averted, and the
State continue to exist; and he seems all along to feel that his case
is a weak one, for in explaining, or attempting to explain, why he had
never defended himself from the charges brought against him in
connection with the Annexation, he says: "Had I not endured in silence,
had I not borne patiently all the accusations, but out of selfishness
or fear told the plain truth of the case, the Transvaal would never
have had the consideration it has now received from Great Britain.
However unjust the Annexation was, my self-justification would have
_exposed the Boers to such an extent_, and the state of the country in
such a way, that it would have deprived them both of the sympathy of
the world and the consideration of the English politicians." In other
words, "If I had told the truth about things as I should have been
obliged to do to justify myself, there would have been no more outcry
about the Annexation, because the whole world, even the English
Radicals, would have recognised how necessary it was, and what a
fearful state the country was in."
But to let that pass, it is evident that President Burgers did not take
the same view of the Annexation in 1877 as he did in 1881, and indeed
his speeches to the Volksraad would read rather oddly printed in
parallel columns with his posthumous statement. The reader would be
forced to one of two conclusions, either on one of the two occasions he
is saying what he does not mean, or he must have changed his mind. As I
believe him to have been an honest man, I incline to the latter
supposition; nor do I consider it so very hard to account for, taking
into consideration his natural Dutch proclivities. In 1877 Burgers is
the despairing head of a State driving rapidly to ruin, if not to
actual extinction, when the strong hand of the English Government is
held out to him. What wonder that he accepts it gladly on behalf of his
country, which is by its help brought into a state of greater
prosperity than it has ever before known? In 1881 the wheel has gone
round, and great events have come about whilst he lies dying. The
enemies of the Boers have been destroyed, the powers of the Zulus and
Secocoeni are no more; the country has prospered under a healthy
rule, and its finances have been restored. More,--glad tidings have
come from Mid-Lothian to the "rebel and the revolutionist," whose hopes
were flagging, and eloquent words have been spoken by the new English
Dictator that have aroused a great rebellion. And, to crown all,
English troops have suffered one massacre and three defeats, and
England sues for peace from the South African peasant, heedless of
honour or her broken word, so that the prayer be granted. With such
events before him, that dying man may well have found cause to change
his opinion. Doubtless the Annexation was wrong, since England disowns
her acts; and may not that dream about the great South African Republic
come true after all? Has not the pre-eminence of the Englishman
received a blow from which it can never recover, and is not his
control over Boers and natives irredeemably weakened? And must
he,--Burgers,--go down to posterity as a Dutchman who tried to forward
the interests of the English party? No, doubtless the Annexation was
wrong; but it has done good, for it has brought about the downfall of
the English: and we will end the argument in the very words of his last
public utterance, with which he ends his statement: "South Africa
gained more from this, and has made a larger step forward in the march
of freedom, than most people can conceive."
Who shall say that he is wrong? the words of dying men are sometimes
prophetic! South Africa has made a great advance towards the "freedom"
of a Dutch Republic.
This has been a digression, but I hope not an uninteresting one. To
return--on the 1st March, Sir T. Shepstone met the Executive Council,
and told them that in his opinion there was now but one remedy to be
adopted, and that was that the Transvaal should be united with the
English colonies of South Africa under one head, namely the Queen,
saying at the same time that the only thing now left to the Republic
was to make the best arrangements it could for the future benefit of
its inhabitants, and to submit to that which he saw to be, and every
thinking man saw to be, inevitable. So soon as this information was
officially communicated to the Raad, for a good proportion of its
members were already acquainted with it unofficially, it flew from a
state of listless indifference into vigorous and hasty action. The
President was censured, and a committee was appointed to consider and
report upon the situation, which reported in favour of the adoption of
Burgers' new constitution. Accordingly, the greatest part of this
measure, which had been contemptuously rejected a few days before, was
adopted almost without question, and Mr. Paul Kruger was appointed
Vice-President. On the following day, a very drastic treason law was
passed, borrowed from the statute-book of the Orange Free State, which
made all public expression of opinion, if adverse to the Government, or
in any way supporting the Annexation party, high treason. This done,
the Assembly prorogued itself until--October 1881.
During and after the sitting of the Raad, rumours arose that the chief
Secocoeni's signature to the treaty of peace, ratified by that body,
had been obtained by misrepresentation. As ratified, this treaty
consisted of three articles, according to which Secocoeni consented,
first, to become a subject of the Republic, and obey the laws of the
country; secondly, to agree to a certain restricted boundary line; and,
thirdly, to pay 2000 head of cattle; which, considering he had captured
quite 5000 head, was not exorbitant.
Towards the end of February a written message was received from
Secocoeni by Sir T. Shepstone, dated after the signing of the
supposed treaty. The original, which was written in Sisutu, was a great
curiosity. The following is a correct translation:--
"_February 16, 1877._
"FOR MYN HEER SHEPSTONE,--I beg you, Chief, come help me, the Boers
are killing me, and I don't know the reasons why they should be
angry with me; Chief, I beg you come with Myn Heer Merensky.--I am
SIKUKUNI."
This message was accompanied by a letter from Mr. Merensky, a
well-known and successful missionary, who had been for many years
resident in Secocoeni's country, in which he stated that he heard on
very good authority that Secocoeni had distinctly refused to agree to
that article of the treaty by which he became a subject of the State.
He adds that he cannot remain "silent while such tricks are played."
Upon this information, Sir T. Shepstone wrote to President Burgers,
stating that "if the officer in whom you have placed confidence has
withheld any portion of the truth from you, especially so serious a
portion of it, he is guilty of a wrong towards you personally, as well
as towards the Government, because he has caused you to assume an
untenable position," and suggesting that a joint-commission should be
despatched to Secocoeni, to thoroughly sift the question in the
interest of all concerned. This suggestion was after some delay agreed
to, and a commission was appointed, consisting of Mr. Van Gorkom, a
Hollander, and Mr. Holtshausen, a member of the Executive Council, on
behalf of the Transvaal Government, and Mr. Osborn, R.M., and Captain
Clarke, R.A.,[7] on behalf of the Commissioner, whom I accompanied as
Secretary.
[7] Now Sir Marshall Clarke, Special Commissioner for
Basutoland.
At Middleburg the native Gideon who acted as interpreter between
Commandant Ferreira, C.M.G. (the officer who negotiated the treaty on
behalf of the Boer Government), and Secocoeni was examined, and also
two natives, Petros and Jeremiah, who were with him, but did not
actually interpret. All these men persisted that Secocoeni had
positively refused to become a subject of the Republic, and only
consented to sign the treaty on the representations of Commandant
Ferreira that it would only be binding as regards to the two articles
about the cattle and the boundary line.
The Commission then proceeded to Secocoeni's town, accompanied by a
fresh set of interpreters, and had a long interview with Secocoeni.
The chiefs Prime Minister or "mouth," Makurupiji, speaking in his
presence and on his behalf, and making use of the pronoun "I" before
all the assembled headmen of the tribe, gave an account of the
interview between Commandant Ferreira in the presence of that
gentleman, who accompanied the Commission, and Secocoeni, in almost
the same words as had been used by the interpreters at Middleburg. He
distinctly denied having consented to become a subject of the Republic
or to stand under the law, and added that he feared he "had touched the
feather to" (signed) things that he did not know of in the treaty.
Commandant Ferreira then put some questions, but entirely failed to
shake the evidence; on the contrary, he admitted by his questions that
Secocoeni had not consented to become a subject of the Republic.
Secocoeni had evidently signed the piece of paper under the
impression that he was acknowledging his liability to pay 2000 head of
cattle, and fixing a certain portion of his boundary line, and on the
distinct understanding that he was not to become a subject of the
State.
Now it was the Secocoeni war that had brought the English Mission
into the country, and if it could be shown that the Secocoeni war had
come to a successful termination, it would go far towards helping the
Mission out again. To this end, it was necessary that the chief should
declare himself a subject of the State, and thereby, by implication,
acknowledge himself to have been a rebel, and admit his defeat. All
that was required was a signature, and that once obtained the treaty
was published and submitted to the Raad for confirmation, without a
whisper being heard of the conditions under which this ignorant Basuto
was induced to sign. Had no Commission visited Secocoeni, this treaty
would afterwards have been produced against him in its entirety.
Altogether, the history of the Secocoeni Peace Treaty does not
reassure one as to the genuineness of the treaties which the Boers are
continually producing, purporting to have been signed by native chiefs,
and, as a general rule, presenting the State with great tracts of
country in exchange for a horse or a few oxen. However fond the natives
may be of their Boer neighbours, such liberality can scarcely be
genuine. On the other hand, it is so easy to induce a savage to sign a
paper, or even, if he is reticent, to make a cross for him, and once
made, as we all know, _litera scripta manet_, and becomes title to
the lands.
During the Secocoeni investigation, affairs in the Transvaal were
steadily drifting towards anarchy. The air was filled with rumours; now
it was reported that an outbreak was imminent amongst the English
population at the Gold Fields, who had never forgotten Von
Schlickmann's kind suggestion that they should be "subdued;" now it was
said that Cetywayo had crossed the border, and might shortly be
expected at Pretoria; now that a large body of Boers were on their road
to shoot the Special Commissioner, his twenty-five policemen, and
Englishmen generally, and so on.
Meanwhile, Paul Kruger and his party were not letting the grass grow
under their feet, but worked public feeling with great vigour, with the
double object of getting Paul made President and ridding themselves of
the English. Articles in his support were printed in the well-known
Dutch paper _Die Patriot_, published in the Cape Colony, which are
so typical of the Boers and of the only literature that has the
slightest influence over them, that I will quote a few extracts from
one of them.
After drawing a very vivid picture of the wretched condition of the
country as compared to what it was when the Kafirs had "a proper
respect" for the Boers, before Burgers came into power, the article
proceeds to give the cause of this state of affairs. "God's word," it
says, "gives us the solution. Look at Israel, while the people have a
godly king, everything is prosperous, but under a godless prince the
land retrogrades, and the whole of the people must suffer. Read
Leviticus, chapter xxvi., with attention, &c. In the day of the
Voortrekkers (pioneers), a handful of men chased a thousand Kafirs and
made them run; so also in the Free State war (Deut. xxxii. 30; Jos.
xxiii. 10; Lev. xxvi. 8). But mark, now, when Burgers became President,
he knows no Sabbath, he rides through the land in and out of town on
Sunday, he knows not the church and God's service (Lev. xxvi. 2, 3), to
the scandal of pious people. And he formerly was a priest too. And what
is the consequence? No harvest (Lev. xxvi. 16), an army of 6000 men
runs because one man falls (Lev. xxvi 17, &c.). What is now the
remedy?" The remedy proves to be Paul Kruger, "because there is no
other candidate. Because our Lord clearly points him out to be the man,
for why is there no other candidate? Who arranged it this way?" Then
follows a rather odd argument in favour of Paul's election. "Because he
himself (Paul Kruger) acknowledges in his own reply that he is
_incompetent_, but that all his ability is from our Lord. Because
he is a warrior. Because he is a Boer." Then Paul Kruger, the warrior
and the Boer, is compared to Joan of Arc, "a simple Boer girl who came
from behind the sheep." The burghers of the Transvaal are exhorted to
acknowledge the hand of the Lord, and elect Paul Kruger, or to look for
still heavier punishment. (Lev. xxvi. 18 _et seq._) Next the _Patriot_
proceeds to give a bit of advice to "our candidate, Paul Kruger." He is
to deliver the land from the Kafirs. "The Lord has given you the heart
of a warrior, arise and drive them," a bit of advice quite suited to
his well-known character. But this chosen vessel was not to get all the
loaves and fishes; on the contrary, as soon as he had fulfilled his
mission of "driving" the Kafirs, he was to hand over his office to a
"good" President. The article ends thus: "If the Lord wills to use you
now to deliver this land from its enemies, and a day of peace and
prosperity arises again, and you see that you are not exactly the
statesman to further govern the Republic, then it will be your greatest
honour to say, 'Citizens, I have delivered you from the enemy, I am no
statesman, but now you have peace and time to choose and elect a _good_
President.'"
An article such as the above, is instructive reading, as showing the
low calibre of the minds that are influenced by it. Yet such writings
and sermons have more power among the Boers than any other arguments,
appealing as they do to the fanaticism and vanity of their nature,
which causes them to believe that the Divinity is continually
interfering on their behalf at the cost of other people. It will be
noticed that the references given are all to the Old Testament, and
nearly all refer to acts of blood.
These doctrines were not, however, at all acceptable to Burgers' party,
or the more enlightened members of the community, and so bitter did the
struggle of rival opinions become that there is very little doubt that
had the country not been annexed, civil war would have been added to
its other calamities. Meanwhile the natives were from day to day
becoming more restless, and messengers were constantly arriving at the
Special Commissioner's camp, begging that their tribe might be put
under the Queen, and stating that they would fight rather than submit
any longer to the Boers.
At length on the 9th April, Sir T. Shepstone informed the Government of
the Republic that he was about to declare the Transvaal British
territory. He told them that he had considered and reconsidered his
determination, but that he could see no possible means within the State
by which it could free itself from the burdens that were sinking it to
destruction, adding that if he could have found such means he would
certainly not have hidden them from the Government. This intimation was
received in silence, though all the later proceedings with reference to
the Annexation were in reality carried out in concert with the
authorities of the Republic. Thus on the 13th March the Government
submitted a paper of ten questions to Sir T. Shepstone as regards the
future condition of the Transvaal under English rule, whether the debts
of the State would be guaranteed, &c. To these questions replies were
given which were on the whole satisfactory to the Government. As these
replies formed the basis of the proclamation guarantees, it is not
necessary to enter into them.
It was further arranged by the Republican Government that a formal
protest should be entered against the Annexation, which was accordingly
prepared and privately shown to the Special Commissioner. The
Annexation proclamation was also shown to President Burgers, and a
paragraph eliminated at his suggestion. In fact, the Special
Commissioner and the President, together with most of his Executive,
were quite at one as regards the necessity of the proclamation being
issued, their joint endeavours being directed to the prevention of any
disturbance, and to secure a good reception for the change.
At length, after three months of inquiry and negotiation, the
proclamation of annexation was on the 12th of April 1877 read by Mr.
Osborn, accompanied by some other gentlemen of Sir T. Shepstone's
staff. It was an anxious moment for all concerned. To use the words of
the Special Commissioner in his despatch home on the subject, "Every
effort had been made during the previous fortnight by, it is said,
educated Hollanders, and who had but lately arrived in the country, to
rouse the fanaticism of the Boers, and to induce them to offer 'bloody'
resistance to what it was known I intended to do. The Boers were
appealed to in the most inflammatory language by printed manifestoes
and memorials; ... it was urged that I had but a small escort, which
could easily be overpowered." In a country so full of desperadoes and
fanatical haters of anything English, it was more than possible that,
though such an act would have been condemned by the general sense of
the country, a number of men could easily be found who would think they
were doing a righteous act in greeting the "annexationists" with an
ovation of bullets. I do not mean that the anxiety was personal,
because I do not think the members of that small party set any higher
value on their lives than other people, but it was absolutely necessary
for the success of the act itself, and for the safety of the country,
that not a single shot should be fired. Had that happened it is
probable that the whole country would have been involved in confusion
and bloodshed, the Zulus would have broken in, and the Kafirs would
have risen; in fact, to use Cetywayo's words, "the land would have
burned with fire."
It will therefore be easily understood what an anxious hour that was
both for the Special Commissioner sitting up at Government House, and
for his staff down on the Market Square, and how thankful they were
when the proclamation was received with hearty cheers by the crowd. Mr.
Burgers' protest, which was read immediately afterwards, was received
in respectful silence.
And thus the Transvaal Territory passed for a while into the great
family of the English Colonies. I believe that the greatest political
opponent of the act will bear tribute to the very remarkable ability
with which it was carried out. When the variety and number of the
various interests that had to be conciliated, the obstinate nature of
the individuals who had to be convinced, as well as the innate hatred
of the English name and ways which had to be overcome to carry out this
act successfully, are taken into consideration, together with a
thousand other matters, the neglect of any one of which would have
sufficed to make failure certain, it will be seen what tact and skill
and knowledge of human nature was required to execute so difficult a
task. It must be remembered that no force was used, and that there
never was any threat of force. The few troops that were to enter the
Transvaal were four weeks' march from Pretoria at the time. There was
nothing whatsoever to prevent the Boers putting a summary stop to the
proceedings of the Commissioner if they had thought fit.
That Sir Theophilus played a bold and hazardous game nobody will deny,
but, like most players who combine boldness with coolness of head and
justice of cause, he won; and, without shedding a single drop of blood,
or even confiscating an acre of land, and at no cost, annexed a great
country, and averted a very serious war. That same country four years
later cost us a million of money, the loss of nearly a thousand men
killed and wounded, and the ruin of many more confiding thousands, to
surrender. It is true, however, that nobody can accuse the retrocession
of having been conducted with judgment or ability--very much the
contrary.
There can be no more ample justification of the issue of the Annexation
proclamation than the proclamation itself.
First, it touches on the Sand River Convention of 1852, by which
independence was granted to the State, and shows that the "evident
objects and inciting motives" in granting such guarantee were to
promote peace, free-trade, and friendly intercourse, in the hope and
belief that the Republic "would become a flourishing and
self-sustaining State, a source of strength and security to
neighbouring European communities, and a point from which Christianity
and civilisation might rapidly spread toward Central Africa." It goes
on to show how these hopes have been disappointed, and how that
increasing weakness in the State itself on the one side, and more than
corresponding growth of real strength and confidence among the native
tribes on the other, have produced their natural and inevitable
consequence ... that after more or less of irritating conflict with
aboriginal tribes to the north, there commenced about the year 1867
gradual abandonment to the natives in that direction of territory
settled by burghers of the Transvaal "in well-built towns and villages
and on granted farms."
It goes on to show that "this decay of power and ebb of authority in
the north is being followed by similar processes in the south under yet
more dangerous circumstances. People of this State residing in that
direction have been compelled within the last three months, at the
bidding of native chiefs, and at a moment's notice, to leave their
farms and homes, their standing crops ... all to be taken possession of
by natives, but that the Government is more powerless than ever to
vindicate its assumed rights or to resist the declension that is
threatening its existence." It then recites how all the other colonies
and communities of South Africa have lost confidence in the State, how
it is in a condition of hopeless bankruptcy, and its commerce
annihilated, whilst the inhabitants are divided into factions, and the
Government has fallen into "helpless paralysis." How also the prospect
of the election of a new President, instead of being looked forward to
with hope, would in the opinion of all parties be the signal for civil
war, anarchy, and bloodshed. How that this state of things affords the
very strongest temptation to the great neighbouring native powers to
attack the country, a temptation that they were only too ready and
anxious to yield to, and that the State was in far too feeble a
condition to repel such attacks, from which it had hitherto only been
saved by the repeated representations of the Government of Natal. The
next paragraphs I will quote as they stand, for they sum up the reasons
for the Annexation.
"That the Secocoeni war, which would have produced but little effect
on a healthy constitution, has not only proved suddenly fatal to the
resources and reputation of the Republic, but has shown itself to be a
culminating point in the history of South Africa, in that a Makatee or
Basuto tribe, unwarlike and of no account in Zulu estimation,
successfully withstood the strength of the State, and disclosed for the
first time to the native powers outside the Republic, from the Zambesi
to the Cape, the great change that had taken place in the relative
strength of the white and black races, that this disclosure at once
shook the prestige of the white man in South Africa, and placed every
European community in peril, that this common danger has caused
universal anxiety, has given to all concerned the right to investigate
its cause, and to protect themselves from its consequences, and has
imposed the duty upon those who have the power to shield enfeebled
civilisation from the encroachments of barbarism and inhumanity." It
proceeds to point out that the Transvaal will be the first to suffer
from the results of its own policy, and that it is for every reason
perfectly impossible for Her Majesty's Government to stand by and see a
friendly white State ravaged, knowing that its own possessions will be
the next to suffer. That Her Majesty's Government, being persuaded that
the only means to prevent such a catastrophe would be by the annexation
of the country, and, knowing that this was the wish of a large
proportion of the inhabitants of the Transvaal, the step must be taken.
Next follows the formal annexation.
Together with the proclamation, an address was issued by Sir T.
Shepstone to the burghers of the State, laying the facts before them in
a friendly manner, more suited to their mode of thought than it was
possible to do in a formal proclamation. This document, the issue of
which was one of those touches that insured the success of the
Annexation, was a powerful summing up in colloquial language of the
arguments used in the proclamation, strengthened by quotations from the
speeches of the President. It ends with these words: "It remains only
for me to beg of you to consider and weigh what I have said calmly and
without undue prejudice. Let not mere feeling or sentiment prevail over
your judgment. Accept what Her Majesty's Government intends shall be,
and what you will soon find from experience, is a blessing not only to
you and your children, but to the whole of South Africa through you,
and believe that I speak these words to you as a friend from my heart."
Two other proclamations were also issued, one notifying the assumption
of the office of Administrator of the Government by Sir T. Shepstone,
and the other repealing the war-tax, which was doubtless an unequal and
oppressive impost.
I have in the preceding pages stated all the principal grounds of the
Annexation and briefly sketched the history of that event. In the next
chapter I propose to follow the fortunes of the Transvaal, under
British Rule.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TRANSVAAL UNDER BRITISH RULE.
The news of the Annexation was received all over the country with a
sigh of relief, and in many parts of it with great rejoicings. At the
Gold Fields, for instance, special thanksgiving services were held, and
"God save the Queen" was sung in church. Nowhere was there the
slightest disturbance, but, on the contrary, addresses of
congratulation and thanks literally poured in by every mail, many of
them signed by Boers who have since been conspicuous for their bitter
opposition to English rule. At first, there was some doubt as to what
would be the course taken under the circumstances by the volunteers
enlisted by the late Republic. Major Clarke, R.A., was sent to convey
the news, and to take command of them, unaccompanied save by his Kafir
servant. On arrival at the principal fort, he at once ordered the
Republican flag to be hauled down and the Union Jack run up, and his
orders were promptly obeyed. A few days afterwards some members of the
force thought better of it, and having made up their minds to kill him,
came to the tent where he was sitting to carry out their purpose. On
learning their kind intentions, Major Clarke fixed his eye-glass in his
eye, and after steadily glaring at them through it for some time, said,
"You are all drunk, go back to your tents." The volunteers, quite
overcome by his coolness and the fixity of his gaze, at once slipped
off, and there was no further trouble. About three weeks after the
Annexation, the I-13th Regiment arrived at Pretoria, having been very
well received all along the road by the Boers, who came from miles
round to hear the band play. Its entry into Pretoria was quite a sight;
the whole population turned out to meet it; indeed the feeling of
rejoicing and relief was so profound that when the band began to play
"God save the Queen" some of the women burst into tears.
Meanwhile the effect of the Annexation on the country was perfectly
magical. Credit and commerce were at once restored; the railway bonds
that were down to nothing in Holland rose with one bound to par, and
the value of landed property nearly doubled. Indeed it would have been
possible for any one, knowing what was going to happen, to have
realised large sums of money by buying land in the beginning of 1877,
and selling it shortly after the Annexation.
On the 24th May, being Her Majesty's birthday, all the native chiefs
who were anywhere within reach were summoned to attend the first formal
hoisting of the English flag. The day was a general festival, and the
ceremony was attended by a large number of Boers and natives in
addition to all the English. At mid-day, amidst the cheers of the
crowd, the salute of artillery, and the strains of "God save the
Queen," the Union Jack was run up a lofty flagstaff, and the Transvaal
was formally announced to be British soil. The flag was hoisted by
Colonel Brooke, R.E., and the present writer. Speaking for myself, I
may say that it was one of the proudest moments of my life. Could I
have foreseen that I should live to see that same flag, then hoisted
with so much joyous ceremony, within a few years shamefully and
dishonourably hauled down and buried,[8] I think it would have been the
most miserable.
[8] The English flag was during the signing of the Convention
at Pretoria formally buried by a large crowd of Englishmen
and loyal natives.
The Annexation was as well received in England as it was in the
Transvaal. Lord Carnarvon wrote to Sir T. Shepstone to convey "the
Queen's entire approval of your conduct since you received Her
Majesty's commission, with a renewal of my own thanks on behalf of the
Government for the admirable prudence and discretion with which you
have discharged a great and unwonted responsibility." It was also
accepted by Parliament with very few dissentient voices, since it was
not till afterwards, when the subject became useful as an
electioneering howl, that the Liberal party, headed by our "powerful
popular minister," discovered the deep iniquity that had been
perpetrated in South Africa. So satisfied were the Transvaal Boers with
the change that Messrs. Kruger, Jorissen, and Bok, who formed the
deputation to proceed to England and present President Burgers' formal
protest against the Annexation, found great difficulty in raising
one-half of the necessary expenses--something under one thousand
pounds--towards the cost of the undertaking. The thirst for
independence cannot have been very great when all the wealthy burghers
in the Transvaal put together would not subscribe a thousand pounds
towards retaining it. Indeed, at this time the members of the
deputation themselves seem to have looked upon their undertaking as
being both doubtful and undesirable, since they informed Sir T.
Shepstone that they were going to Europe to discharge an obligation
which had been imposed upon them, and if the mission failed, they would
have done their duty. Mr. Kruger said that if they did fail, he would
be found to be as faithful a subject under the new form of government
as he had been under the old; and Dr. Jorissen admitted with equal
frankness that "the change was inevitable, and expressed his belief
that the cancellation of it would be calamitous."
Whilst the Annexation was thus well received in the country immediately
interested, a lively agitation was commenced in the Western Province of
the Cape Colony, a thousand miles away, with a view of inducing the
Home Government to repudiate Sir T. Shepstone's act. The reason of this
movement was that the Cape Dutch party, caring little or nothing for
the real interests of the Transvaal, did care a great deal about their
scheme to turn all the white communities of South Africa into a great
Dutch Republic, to which they thought the Annexation would be a
deathblow. As I have said elsewhere, it must be borne in mind that the
strings of the anti-annexation agitation have all along been pulled in
the Western Province, whilst the Transvaal Boers have played the parts
of puppets. The instruments used by the leaders of the movement in the
Cape were, for the most part, the discontented and unprincipled
Hollander element, a newspaper of an extremely abusive nature called
the _Volkstem_, and another in Natal known as the _Natal Witness_,
lately edited by the notorious Aylward, which has an almost equally
unenviable reputation.
On the arrival of Messrs. Jorissen and Kruger in England, they were
received with great civility by Lord Carnarvon, who was, however,
careful to explain to them that the Annexation was irrevocable. In this
decision they cheerfully acquiesced, assuring his lordship of their
determination to do all they could to induce the Boers to accept the
new state of things, and expressing their desire to be allowed to serve
under the new Government.
Whilst these gentlemen were thus satisfactorily arranging matters with
Lord Carnarvon, Sir. T. Shepstone was making a tour round the country
which resembled a triumphal progress more than anything else. He was
everywhere greeted with enthusiasm by all classes of the community,
Boers, English, and natives, and numerous addresses were presented to
him couched in the warmest language, not only by Englishmen, but also
by Boers.
It is very difficult to reconcile the enthusiasm of a great number of
the inhabitants of the Transvaal for English rule, and the quiet
acquiescence of the remainder, at this time, with the decidedly
antagonistic attitude assumed later on. It appears to me, however, that
there are several reasons that go far towards accounting for it. The
Transvaal, when we annexed it, was in the position of a man with a
knife at his throat, who is suddenly rescued by some one stronger than
he, on certain conditions which at the time he gladly accepts, but
afterwards, when the danger is passed, wishes to repudiate. In the same
way the inhabitants of the South African Republic were in the time of
need very thankful for our aid, but after a while, when the
recollection of their difficulties had grown faint, when their debts
had been paid and their enemies defeated, they began to think that they
would like to get rid of us again, and start fresh on their own account
with a clean sheet. What fostered agitation more than anything else,
however, was the perfect impunity with which it was allowed to be
carried on. Had only a little firmness and decision been shown in the
first instance there would have been no further trouble. We might have
been obliged to confiscate half-a-dozen farms, and perhaps imprison as
many free burghers for a few months, and there it would have ended.
Neither Boers or natives understand our namby-pamby way of playing at
government; they put it down to fear. What they want, and what they
expect, is to be governed with a just but a firm hand. Thus when the
Boers found that they could agitate with impunity, they naturally
enough continued to agitate. Anybody who knows them will understand
that it was very pleasant to them to find themselves in possession of
that delightful thing, a grievance, and, instead of stopping quietly at
home on their farms, to feel obliged to proceed, full of importance and
long words, to a distant meeting, there to spout and listen to the
spouting of others. It is so much easier to talk politics than to sow
mealies. Some attribute the discontent among the Boers to the
postponement of the carrying out of the Annexation proclamation
promises with reference to the free institutions to be granted to the
country, but in my opinion it had little or nothing to do with it. The
Boers never understood the question of responsible government, and
never wanted that institution; what they did want was to be free of all
English control, and this they said twenty times in the most outspoken
language. I think there is little doubt the causes I have indicated are
the real sources of the agitation, though there must be added to them
their detestation of our mode of dealing with natives, and of being
forced to pay taxes regularly, and also the ceaseless agitation of the
Cape wire-pullers, through their agents the Hollanders, and their
organs in the press.
On the return of Messrs. Kruger and Jorissen to the Transvaal, the
latter gentleman resumed his duties as Attorney-General, on which
occasion, if I remember aright, I myself had the honour of
administering to him the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty, that he
afterwards kept so well. The former reported the proceedings of the
deputation to a Boer meeting, when he took a very different tone to
that in which he addressed Lord Carnarvon, announcing that if there
existed a majority of the people in favour of independence, he still
was Vice-President of the country.
Both these gentlemen remained for some time in the pay of the British
Government, Mr. Jorissen as Attorney-General, and Mr. Kruger as member
of the Executive Council. The Government, however, at length found it
desirable to dispense with their services, though on different grounds.
Mr. Jorissen had, like several other members of the Republican
Government, been a clergyman, and was quite unfit to hold the post of
Attorney-General in an important colony like the Transvaal, where legal
questions were constantly arising requiring all the attention of a
trained mind; and after he had on several occasions been publicly
admonished from the bench, the Government retired him on liberal terms.
Needless to say, his opposition to English rule then became very
bitter. Mr. Kruger's appointment expired by law in November 1877, and
the Government did not think it advisable to re-employ him. The terms
of his letter of dismissal can be found on page 135 of Blue-book (c.
144), and involving as they do a serious charge of misrepresentation in
money matters, are not very creditable to him. After this event he also
pursued the cause of independence with increased vigour.
During the last months of 1877 and the first part of 1878 agitation
against British rule went on unchecked, and at last grew to alarming
proportions, so much so that Sir T. Shepstone, on his return from the
Zulu border in March 1878, where he had been for some months discussing
the vexed and dangerous question of the boundary line with the Zulus,
found it necessary to issue a stringent proclamation warning the
agitators that their proceedings and meetings were illegal, and would
be punished according to law. This document, which was at the time
vulgarly known as the "Hold-your-jaw" proclamation, not being followed
by action, produced but little effect.
On the 4th April 1878 another Boer meeting was convened, at which it
was decided to send a second deputation to England, to consist this
time of Messrs. Kruger and Joubert, with Mr. Bok as secretary. This
deputation proved as abortive as the first, Sir. M. Hicks Beach
assuring it, in a letter dated 6th August 1878, that it is "impossible,
for many reasons, ... that the Queen's sovereignty should now be
withdrawn."
Whilst the Government was thus hampered by internal disaffection, it
had also many other difficulties on its hands. First, there was the
Zulu boundary question, which was constantly developing new dangers to
the country. Indeed, it was impossible to say what might happen in that
direction from one week to another. Nor were its relations with
Secocoeni satisfactory. It will be remembered that just before the
Annexation this chief had expressed his earnest wish to become a
British subject, and even paid over part of the fine demanded from him
by the Boer Government to the Civil Commissioner, Major Clarke. In
March 1878, however, his conduct towards the Government underwent a
sudden change, and he practically declared war. It afterwards appeared,
from Secocoeni's own statement, that he was instigated to this step
by a Boer, Abel Erasmus by name--the same man who was concerned in the
atrocities in the first Secocoeni war--who constantly encouraged him
to continue the struggle. I do not propose to minutely follow the
course of this long war, which, commencing in the beginning of 1878,
did not come to an end till after the Zulu war: when Sir Garnet
Wolseley attacked Secocoeni's stronghold with a large force of
troops, volunteers, and Swazi allies, and took it with great slaughter.
The losses on our side were not very heavy, so far as white men were
concerned, but the Swazis are reported to have lost 400 killed and 500
wounded.
The struggle was, during the long period preceding the final attack,
carried on with great courage and ability by Major Clarke, R.A.,
C.M.G., whose force, at the best of times, only consisted of 200
volunteers and 100 Zulus. With this small body of men he contrived,
however, to keep Secocoeni in check, and to take some important
strongholds. It was marked also by some striking acts of individual
bravery, of which one, performed by Major Clarke himself, whose
reputation for cool courage and presence of mind in danger is
unsurpassed in South Africa, is worthy of notice; and which, had public
attention been more concentrated on the Secocoeni war, would
doubtless have won him the Victoria Cross. On one occasion, on visiting
one of the outlying forts, he found that a party of hostile natives,
who were coming down to the fort on the previous day with a flag of
truce, had been accidentally fired on, and had at once retreated. As
his system in native warfare was always to try and inspire his enemy
with perfect faith in the honour of Englishmen, and their contempt of
all tricks and treachery even towards a foe, he was very angry at this
occurrence, and at once, unarmed and unattended save by his native
servant, rode up into the mountains to the kraal from which the white
flag party had come on the previous day, and apologised to the chief
for what had happened. When I consider how very anxious Secocoeni's
natives were to kill or capture Clarke, whom they held in great dread,
and how terrible the end of so great a captain would in all probability
have been had he been taken alive by these masters of refined torture,
I confess that I think this act of gentlemanly courage is one of the
most astonishing things I ever heard of. When he rode up those hills he
must have known that he was probably going to meet his death at the
hands of justly incensed savages. When Secocoeni heard of what Major
Clarke had done he was so pleased that he shortly afterwards released a
volunteer whom he had taken prisoner, and who would otherwise, in all
probability, have been tortured to death. I must add that Major Clarke
himself never reported or alluded to this incident, but an account of
it can be found in a despatch written by Sir O. Lanyon to the Secretary
of State, dated 2d February 1880.
Concurrently with, though entirely distinct from, the political
agitation that was being carried on among the Boers having for object
the restoration of independence, a private agitation was set on foot by
a few disaffected persons against Sir T. Shepstone, with the view of
obtaining his removal from office in favour of a certain Colonel
Weatherley. The details of this impudent plot are so interesting, and
the plot itself so typical of the state of affairs with which Sir T.
Shepstone had to deal, that I will give a short account of it.
After the Annexation had taken place, there were naturally enough a
good many individuals who found themselves disappointed in the results
so far as they personally were concerned; I mean that they did not get
so much out of it as they expected. Among these was a gentleman called
Colonel Weatherley, who had come to the Transvaal as manager of a
gold-mining company, but getting tired of that had taken a prominent
part in the Annexation, and who, being subsequently disappointed about
an appointment, became a bitter enemy of the Administrator. I may say
at once that Colonel Weatherley seems to me to have been throughout the
dupe of the other conspirators.
The next personage was a good-looking desperado, who called himself
Captain Gunn of Gunn, and who was locally somewhat irreverently known
as the very Gunn of very Gunn. This gentleman, whose former career had
been of a most
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/44649