The Napoleon of South Africa
Of these natives—Bantu, or Kaffirs, or whatever their local names might be—much has been written and much might be said here. The race has produced some great men. Merciless in war they generally were, but it is a question whether the cruelties perpetrated by Matabele or Zulu chiefs have not been excelled by leaders of Christian nations without the aggravation of continuous warfare or the excuse of natural savagery. The religious strife of mediæval Europe, or the fire and sword and tortures of Spain in Mexico and Peru, will occur to every mind. Bravery was an almost universal quality amongst the Bantu, though it varied in degree. Tshaka, the founder of the Zulu nation, possessed boundless ambition, a powerful and ruthless will, a genuine genius for military organization and rule. He was emphatically the native Napoleon of South Africa. Dingaan, his successor, had a few of his qualities; Cetywayo enough of them to constitute him an interesting figure and to give him a permanent place in history. Had he not been obliged to contest his supremacy with the firearms and cannon of the white man, he might have extended his sway up to the Zambesi and been a greater warrior than Tshaka. Moselkatze, until he came into conflict with the emigrant farmers, was a savage potentate of considerable ability. Like Tshaka with his Zulus, he organized the Matabele into a strong military power and ruled the west and north with a rod of iron for many years. His successor, Lobengula, resembled the Zulu Cetywayo in many respects, and in none more than in his final overthrow by the white man. Had conditions been otherwise the two chiefs might have disputed the primacy of South Africa; and it is hard to say which would have won. These men were all warriors by nature and environment and generals by instinct. Moshesh the Basuto was, however, a statesman as well, and his rise and progress and career afford most striking evidence of the natural ability which a savage may possess. Of a somewhat similar character is Khama, the present Chief of the Bechuanas. So much for the greater names among the Bantu.
Native Bravery
Their customs and characteristics are, and have always been, somewhat varied in detail amongst the different tribes, though the main points are the same. In a military sense they all possess bravery, skill in ambush, and resourcefulness in attack or defence. The assegai is certainly a manly weapon in many respects, as well as a deadly one. It required physical strength, skill and courage in assault, and marked powers of endurance in the long marches which they have so often undertaken to surprise a foe or raid a kraal, to attack a British force or a Dutch commando. The southern tribes—Zulus, Pondos, Tembus and Kosas—have been perhaps the fiercest and strongest warriors, but the Matabele of the north ran them pretty close. On the west coast, however, owing to intermixture with the Bushmen and Hottentots, the Bantu have deteriorated in both physique and intellect. As a whole, they knew something in earlier days of agriculture and tilling the soil, though their women performed the labor; could work in metals to some extent; had a common language, fairly developed, and a sort of general law of custom. In government they were, with certain exceptions, autocratic, and the chiefs possessed great personal power. Cattle constituted and still comprise the principal source of wealth and measure of value. Slavery amongst the tribes of the interior was common up to the days of British rule, and was a natural result of wars of conquest or predatory excursions. With the Zulu and the Matabele, as with the Boer, it was a matter of course to keep prisoners of strength or usefulness as slaves, and to the Kaffir, being constitutionally lazy, it was a great advantage to have some in his possession. If he had none, his wife, or wives, occupied a position of practical serfdom.
Religion and Superstitions
Religion has always been a strong factor in Kaffir life. It is not, however, a principle of Deity worship, nor has it ever been potent in morals, or government, or military enthusiasm. It is more like the Chinese deification of ancestors, and consists chiefly in a worship of the spirits of the dead. The greater the dead chiefs or warriors, the more pronounced the worship, and the system has, therefore, some influence in maintaining loyalty to the living chiefs. Spirits are supposed to pass into animals, and at different times and places, snakes and lions and antelopes and crocodiles are revered, and have been propitiated by the sacrifice of other animals—but never of human beings. It is a moot question as to whether a Supreme Being has ever been so much as thought of in their original conception of religion, and the probabilities seem to be against it. Of proof there is practically none. With a simple superstition which peoples the world with spirits of no higher character than their own gross or wild imaginations it has, therefore, been a matter of course that the Kaffir religion should not influence for good the morals and habits of the tribes or inspire them even with the religious and military enthusiasm of the Mahommedan dervish or the Hindoo devotee. Such power as it had, up to recent years, lay with the wizards, or witch-doctors, who took the place of the priests in other creeds, and, like the medicine men of the Red Indians, revelled in cruelties and ruled by playing upon superstitious fears. The practice of "smelling-out" persons suspected of witchcraft or of causing sickness, or drought, or cattle-disease, gave a tremendous power into the hands of chiefs and their unscrupulous allies. Once a victim was "smelled-out" little chance was left him, and, no matter how wealthy in person, or strong in influence, his end had usually come. His property then went to the chief. The murders and terrorism this system gave rise to constituted perhaps the darkest side of native life, and its suppression has caused at least one war between the British and the Kaffirs; while it was for long the greatest obstacle in the way of the missionary. Of morals the Kaffirs never knew much, and could not, therefore, lose by association with the white man in as important a degree as other savage races have done. They were distinctly inferior in their conception of woman's position to even the Indian of North America, and females appear to have always held a very degraded place amongst them. Hence the easy immorality of the Boers and the practical impossibility of abolishing the polygamous system amongst semi-independent tribes despite all the efforts of generations of missionaries.
Tribal Divisions
These general characteristics were, of course, modified by surroundings and external influences. Roughly speaking, the Kaffirs are divided into the military and industrial Bantu. The former live largely in the fertile regions between the Drakensberg mountains and the Indian Ocean, in the Zoutpansberg district of the Transvaal and in Kaffraria. The latter prefer the mountainous country, and are to be found in Basutoland, in the greater part of the two Boer republics and in the regions south of the Orange River or on the confines of the Kalahari Desert. The differences between these classes of the same race are pronounced. The military Bantu is stronger, fleeter of foot and sterner in battle. His assegai has a short handle and a long blade, and is used for fighting at close quarters; while the other tribes have a weapon with a long shaft and light blade intended primarily for hunting. Among the former the chief is a despot; amongst the Mashonas and Bechuanas and Basutos his power is limited by a council and sometimes by a general assemblage of the people. The town, or kraal, of the former is designed chiefly for defence; that of the latter for purposes of open intercourse and barter. The sole business of the one has, up to recent years, been warfare and the raising of corn and cattle as a subsidiary pursuit. The latter cultivated gardens, sowed fields of grain and could smelt ore and work in iron. Their seats of power and influence were, and are, in Basutoland and Bechuanaland. Outside of the steadily improved civilization and character of the Basutos themselves their country is noteworthy for the career of Moshesh; his almost final words in 1868, after twenty years of intermittent conflict with the Boers: "Let me and my people rest and live under the large folds of the flag of England before I am no more;" and for the general and sincere loyalty of its people in these later days. Bechuanaland is famous as the scene of the labors of Robert Moffat, David Livingstone and John Mackenzie; as being the trade route from Cape Colony to Central Africa; and as the scene of a prolonged struggle voiced in the words of Livingstone: "The Boers resolved to shut up the interior and I determined to open it." Eventually it was opened, and the work of the great missionary became triumphant.
British Efforts at Civilizing the Natives
Meanwhile, much was being done by the British in the various parts of South Africa which they controlled, from time to time, to elevate the life and pursuits and character of the natives. In regions governed by the Dutch no such idea was ever tolerated. Dr. Moffat tells a story in this connection which describes much in a few words. He was visiting a Dutchman's house, and suggested that the servants be brought in to the Sunday service. His host roared with laughter. "Preach to Hottentots!" he exclaimed. "Call in my dogs and the preach to them! Go to the mountains and preach to the baboons! Preach to the Hottentots! A good joke." Aside from the missionaries, Sir George Grey was probably the first prominent Englishman to even partially understand the natives, and he was certainly the first to put his views into effect as Governor. He was greatly respected by all the tribes with whom he came into contact personally or by policy. Yet he had his limitations. Mr. Rees in his biography of the Governor tells an amusing story of his having upon some public occasion remonstrated against the extravagant folly of a number of the native women in wearing brass ornaments. One of the chiefs promptly rose and pointed out that there were bounds to human power. "Rest content, O great chief," said he, "with what you have accomplished. You have made us pay taxes. You have made our people work. These things we thought could never be. But think not you can stop women wearing ornaments. If you try to do this, O Governor, you will most surely fail."
Education of Natives
The first and most important point in the improvement of the native races is the matter of education. To be really effective it must take the form of an organized system with plenty of pliability and machinery; and there should be a fair number of Europeans in the general community to prevent the native children, after they have once been trained and taught, from relapsing by degrees into the barbarism of their natural associates and older relatives. For this reason little has been done in Natal to educate the Kaffirs; although there are some seventy-three native schools and the natives appear to be improving in general character and even in willingness to perform mild sorts of intermittent labor. Nothing of importance has been achieved in the purely native territories except such isolated teaching as the missionaries can manage. Nothing has been even attempted in the two Republics. But in Cape Colony very successful results have followed the labors of many men during a number of years—assisted by special provision made through the Government for purposes of native education. Sir Langham Dale, Superintendent-General of Education, reported in 1883 that there were 396 mission schools in the Colony, with an attendance of 44,307 pupils; 226 aborigines' schools, with 13,817 pupils; and 21 boarding and trade schools, with 2,519 pupils. About one-third of the annual Education Grant, which amounted in 1866 to $110,000, and in 1889 to $425,000, and in 1897 to nearly a million dollars, was appropriated to these purposes. In the latter year, it may be added, the number of mission schools had risen to 551, and the aborigines' schools to 420. Of the various native schools, or institutions, that at Lovedale is the most important. In 1883 there were 300 pupils in attendance, and it had a yearly revenue of $125,000. Native clergy and teachers are trained in its College department; young men are taught book-binding, printing and other trades in its workshops; young women are instructed in sewing and laundress work, and there is also an elementary school for children.
A MATABELE CHIEF. A KAFFIR CHIEF. PRESIDENT STEYN, ORANGE FREE STATE. SIR W. HALY-HUTCHINSON. GOVERNOR OF NATAL. ENGLISH, DUTCH AND NATIVE TYPES, SOUTH AFRICAA MATABELE CHIEF.A KAFFIR CHIEF.PRESIDENT STEYN, ORANGE FREE STATE.SIR W. HALY-HUTCHINSON. GOVERNOR OF NATAL.ENGLISH, DUTCH AND NATIVE TYPES, SOUTH AFRICA
A DERVISH CHARGE, SOUDAN WAR. A battle of the Soudan in which Sir Herbert Kitchener avenged the massacre of Hicks Pasha and his 12,000 men; also the death of the heroic Gordon which occurred a year later.A DERVISH CHARGE, SOUDAN WAR.A battle of the Soudan in which Sir Herbert Kitchener avengedthe massacre of Hicks Pasha and his 12,000 men; also the deathof the heroic Gordon which occurred a year later.
Progress of the Natives
The Superintendent-General of Education, already quoted, in a supplementary Report published in 1884, speaks of the general opposition he has had to meet as coming from two classes of people—one which describes the schools as worthless and decries educated natives as useless, and another which describes the aborigines as getting a better education than white people and denounces the system as consequently increasing the competition in industrial employments. And then he appeals to such evidences of progress and success as: "The large interchange among natives of letters passing through the Post-Office; of the utilization of educated natives as carriers of letters, telegrams and parcels; of the hundreds who fill responsible posts as clerks, interpreters, school-masters, sewing-mistresses; and of the still larger number engaged in industrial pursuits, as carpenters, blacksmiths, tin-smiths, wagon-makers, shoe-makers, printers, sail-makers, saddlers, etc., earning good wages and helping to spread civilization amongst their own people." This is a good record, and there is no doubt that amongst the million natives of Cape Colony the influence of the system is steadily spreading. There is the natural defect, however, of the refusal of the white population to mix with the black either in school or elsewhere, outside of politics. The native schools and the native system are things apart and isolated, although, throughout the Colony, there are wealthy and influential Kaffirs, many of whom are substantial owners of property. And, as a matter of fact, there are more negro children now attending Government schools than there are pupils of white extraction.
Everywhere in British territory an effort has been made to utilize Kaffir free labor and to make the native appreciate the money value of his work and his time. But although some progress may be seen, it has not been very great. In Natal, for instance, the sugar industry, with an invested capital of nearly five million dollars, finds colored labor absolutely essential. But the Kaffirs cannot be got to work with any degree of permanence, or effectiveness, and the planters have had to import coolies in thousands, while all around them are multitudes of natives admirably suited to the work. At the Diamond Mines of Kimberley, Mr. Rhodes has employed thousands of black laborers, but it has only been for short periods and in successive relays. They make a little money and then go back to their huts, or kraals, as miniature millionaires—able to obtain cattle enough to buy a wife and to settle down in Kaffir comfort. Of the important matter of liquor drinking and liquor selling to natives a word must be said here. In Natal, where there are at least half a million Zulus, scattered around the villages and settlements of the fifty thousand white men, it is naturally a vital question—as in a lesser degree it is all through South Africa. The law is therefore very strictly administered, and the penalty for a European selling liquor to a native is severe. It is practical prohibition, and a similar law has been enforced in the vast territories of the Chartered Company. Incidentally, it may be said that in the Colony of Natal the general native management approximates somewhat to the model of India. The tribal organization has been largely preserved, instead of being broken up, as it was in Cape Colony by Sir George Grey. The native mass was too great to be merged in the small white population. European Courts, mixed Courts of native and European Judges, and Courts composed of Kaffir chiefs alone, administer the law in a peculiar form which admits the validity of Kaffir custom and precedents and law—modified, of course, by Colonial statutes. Order is maintained, and splendidly so, by a system of passes and by a code of special police regulations applicable to natives alone. Written permission from a magistrate must be obtained before a Kaffir can change his abode, and in the towns all natives must retire to their huts when curfew rings at nine o'clock. Registration of firearms is imperative, and the sale to natives is guarded by very strict enactments. Every native who is responsible for a hut has to pay a yearly tax of 14s., and this is very cheerfully done.
The Liquor Laws
Drunkenness amongst the Kaffirs of Natal is limited, as may be inferred from this sketch of their management. But in Cape Colony the natives are not nearly so well guarded from its evils—partly because of the aversion of the Dutch electorate to legislate in their behalf or to enforce laws of this kind when they are made; partly from the influence of the wine-growers and distillers, who naturally have something to say; partly, in general result, from the intermixture of lower races such as the Hottentot and Bushmen, and the creation of a type of negro and half-breed much inferior in parts of the Colony to the Kosa of the east or the Zulu of Natal.Civil Rights and QualificationsIn the important matter of civil rights there is a common feeling among all settlers of British origin in South Africa, as elsewhere in the Empire, that no color line should exist in the franchise—other things being reasonably equal. The qualification is, of course, vital, although the Dutch part of the community make no qualification or admission of equality in any way, shape or form, and were, for instance, greatly disgusted when, in 1895, Khama, the educated, Christianized and civilized Chief of the Bechuanas, was received in England with respect and consideration, and entertained by prominent personages. The principle of political equality is, however, firmly established in British South Africa. But, so far as the natives are concerned, the tribal system must be given up, and this debars the greater part of the population of Natal. In that Colony, also, a native must have lived for seven years exempt from tribal laws before he can share in the franchise under qualifications of the same kind as affect the white population. In Cape Colony there are similar conditions, with an added proviso that the would-be native voter must be able to sign his name and write his occupation and address.
Native Suffrage
Practically it is only at the Cape that the experiment of native suffrage has been fairly tried. In Jamaica it failed for various reasons, and in Natal it did not work when first tried, and at present has little more than a theoretical existence. In the eastern part of Cape Colony, which contains the chief native population—including the Kaffraria of earlier days and the Transkei region—a member of the Legislative Council is apportioned to mixed constituencies containing an average respectively of 227,000 colored people and 18,000 whites; and a member of the House of Assembly is similarly given to every 56,000 natives and 4,500 whites.[4] There are, as yet, not very many constituencies where this colored vote is an important consideration. The chief exceptions are to be found amongst the Malays in and around Cape Town, the Hottentots of the Kat River Settlement, and the Kaffirs at King Williamstown, Beaufort and Alice. But the number of voters is growing, and in the eastern part of the Colony their influence appears to be very good. The educated Kaffir is very unlike the educated Hindoo, who is apt to become a sort of skeptic in patriotism as well as in creed. He is intensely conservative in a natural fondness for land and aversion to change. He is also loyal in the extreme to the British institutions from which his opportunities and position are derived; and in this respect has set an example of gratitude worthy the appreciation of some more civilized peoples. Practically, he is an Imperialist, and one student of the subject has recently expressed a belief that the wiping out of the native vote in Cape Colony would mean the loss of eight or ten seats to the Progressive party in the Assembly. Most instructive of all, and even more striking than the fact of their being adherents of Mr. Rhodes' advanced British policy, has been the support given by educated natives to measures presented to the Legislature for the prohibition of the sale of liquor to colored people—proposals defeated from time to time largely by the Afrikander vote. This is, indeed, a fitting statement to conclude a brief sketch of native history and development.
[4] Tables of Director of Census. Cape Town. 1891.
A Peculiar Type
The Dutchmen of South Africa present in character and type one of the most peculiar racial results of all history. They came originally of a people who had proved its love of liberty and its faith in religion on many a well-fought field and in the pages of noble national annals. Yet they did not carry their qualities with them to the new land in any sufficient measure to overcome surrounding influences of a pernicious nature. They were raised from the lowest class in the home community and migrated practically for the wages offered them by the Dutch East India Company. In this respect the origin of the Colony was greatly different from that of New England, to which men of high character and earnest thought had migrated in order to obtain religious freedom; of Virginia, where men of the best English families and culture came in that adventurous spirit which has made the British Empire or the United States a present possibility; of French Canada, where Jesuits roamed the vast forests in a spirit of intense missionary zeal and where the scions of noble French families hunted in the wilderness of the West, or fought the Iroquois on the banks of the St. Lawrence; of English Canada, to which the United Empire Loyalists came from motives of loyalty to King and country.
Their Religious Life
As these Dutch settlers drifted into the Colony, over a period of a hundred years, they left every source of knowledge, refinement and high principle behind them. It is true they had their Bible. Upon its interpretation depended greatly their future development of character amid surroundings of absolute isolation, and it has been a permanent misfortune that they chose the natural view of narrow and ignorant men, and made their religious life one of practical devotion to the Old Testament dispensation in a most crude and sometimes cruel application. Around them on all sides were the moral laxities of savage life, the dangerous powers of slavery, the looseness incident to any small population of whites in the midst of great numbers of ignorant and superstitious natives. Their Government was intolerant in the extreme, they had no books or newspapers, they saw no intelligent visitors, and the naturally somewhat sombre character of the Dutchman developed under these conditions into a unique mixture of religious zeal, intolerant ignorance and qualified immorality. To this character was added the quality of undoubted bravery and into the general melting pot was thrown the further attributes, as time went on, of intense dislike and distrust of the Englishman and of absolute confidence and belief in themselves.
Mixture of Huguenots and Dutch Culture
The Huguenots, who joined the small Dutch population of 1689, brought a considerable element of culture and liberality of thought with them, but although many of the best families in Cape Colony, and South Africa generally, to-day trace their descent from these settlers, the effect upon the scattered masses of the people was very slight. The distinctive language and religion and culture to a large extent disappeared under laws which enforced uniformity and in time merged the Frenchman in the Boer. Of course, the influence was to some extent a good one and it yet dwells on the surface of affairs in such names as De Villiers and Joubert, Du Plessis and Le Seuer, or their local corruptions. A more potent factor in this evolution of character was the solitary nature of the settler's life.Boer and American ColonistPioneers on the American continent were often alone with their families for a time in some advanced frontier location, but it was not usually a continuous isolation. As the years passed on other families joined them, settlements grew rapidly, and with these villages came the various amenities of social and civilized life. But the Boer seemed to catch from the wandering savages around him something of the spirit of their roaming life, and in this he was encouraged by the nature of his occupation and by the Government regulations, which simply charged him rental for three thousand acres of grazing ground without confining him to any specific location. He did not carve his farm out of some primeval forest, build a permanent home for his family on his own land, or cultivate the soil with the strenuous labor of his hands. During the century in which his racial type was developing the Dutch settler moved from point to point with his cattle in accordance with the season and the pasture, and lived an almost nomadic life. His covered wagon was to him what the wigwam has been to the savage of the American continent, while his skill in shooting held a somewhat similar place to that of the bow and arrow in Indian economy. Hence the accentuation of his intellectual narrowness by continued isolation and the strengthening of the physical frame at the expense of mental power.
Boer Characteristics
As the years passed on, however, and settlement increased; as the effects of English administration and laws were felt more and more throughout the regions owning the authority of the Cape Government; as, unfortunately, the growing inroads of the Kaffirs and their continuous raids made combination necessary amongst the Dutch farmers; as villages grew more numerous and occasional schools were to be found in the communities; some modification of these personal conditions might have been expected. Amongst the Dutch farmers of Cape Colony changes of this kind did occur. They adopted some of the customs of civilization, they lost a part of the more intense Boer narrowness and ignorance of the past, they developed a qualified interest in education of a racial character, they lived upon terms of slightly freer intercourse with their neighbors of both races, they had drilled into them a wholesome respect for the law and a more humane, or, at any rate, legal view of the natives position. But to the emigrant farmers of Natal, of the Orange River and the Vaal, these modifications of character were long indeed in coming, and to a great mass of them have never come at all. In their main pursuits the Boers of all South Africa are the same—owners of cattle and horses and dwellers upon ranches as widely separated from each other as conditions of population and law will permit. Of course, in Cape Colony and Natal, there are town and village Dutchmen sufficient to constitute a small class by themselves; and the slow-spreading influence of a persistent educational system is having its effect in other directions; while the natural increase of population has been doing its work in lessening the isolation of the farmers. So to some extent in the Orange Free State. Physically and mentally, however, the Dutch farmer is much the same everywhere in South Africa—tall, raw-boned, awkward in manner, slow of speech, fond of hunting whenever and wherever possible, accustomed to the open air, lazy as regards work, but active in pursuits involving personal pleasure. Especially has this latter quality been apparent in such amusements as war with the natives, or the English, or in predatory excursions into alien territory and the shooting of big game.
Livingstone's Description of the Boers
All these qualities have become accentuated in the two republics, while the latter ones have not been called into practical exercise of late years in the Colonies proper. The Boer of the Transvaal and the Free State is, in fact, a most peculiar type even in that region of the strangest inconsistencies. Authorities are not wanting who praise his general character in terms of the highest laudation. Mr. J. A. Froude, after spending a few crowded weeks in South Africa, declared with almost poetic enthusiasm of the Boers that they: "of all human beings now on this planet, correspond nearest to Horace's description of the Roman peasant soldiers who defeated Pyrrhus and Hannibal." Mr. F. C. Selous, who has hunted with and amongst them for years, found "no people in the world more genuinely kind and hospitable to strangers than the South African Dutch." Other less well-known travellers and public men have spoken in equally high terms of the Boer; while during the last few years a whole library of literature has been published on his behalf, and proves, if it does nothing else, that Englishmen have plenty of impartiality in dealing with such subjects. On the other hand, evidence accumulates that the character made by history and environment is in this case a permanent one; that the Boer of to-day is the natural and inevitable product of the past; and that the visitor, or traveller, or the interested advocate of racial and political theories, can no more turn over the pages of a record written in blood and sorrow throughout the wild veldt of South Africa than the Boer himself can, in Rudyard Kipling's phrase, "turn back the hands of the clock" in the region now under his control. Dr. Livingstone saw more of the emigrant farmer in the formative days of his republican and independent existence than any other Englishman, and he has described the strongest influence in his historic evolution as a distinct racial type[1] in the following words:
"They are all traditionally religious, tracing their descent from some of the best men (Huguenots and Dutch) the world ever saw. Hence they claim to themselves the title of 'Christians,' and all the colored race are 'black property' or 'creatures.' They being the chosen people of God, the heathen are given to them for an inheritance, and they are the rod of divine vengeance on the heathen as were the Jews of old.... No one can understand the effect of the unutterable meanness of the slave system on the minds of those who, but for the strange obliquity which prevents them from feeling the degradation of not being gentlemen enough to pay for services rendered, would be equal in virtue to ourselves. Fraud becomes as natural to them as 'paying one's way' is to the rest of mankind."
[1] Dr. Livingstone'sMissionary Travels. London, 1857.
Impressions of James Bryce
Mr. James Bryce, in hisImpressions of South Africa, points out with evident truth that: "Isolation and the wild life these ranchmen led soon told upon their habits. The children grew up ignorant; the women, as was natural where slaves were employed, lost the neat and cleanly ways of their Dutch ancestors; the men were rude, bigoted, indifferent to the comforts and graces of life."Opinion of Canon Knox LittleCanon Knox Little, so well known as a divine and a writer, declares[2] that "it is probable that even the most corrupt of the South American republics cannot surpass the Government of the Transvaal in wholesale corruption," and then proceeds to analyze the Boer character in the following expressive terms: "They detest progress of any kind, are frequently regardless of truth and unfaithful to promises when falsehood, or betrayal of engagement, will suit their purpose. They are subject to alternations of lethargic idleness and fierceness of courage which characterize many wild animals. Some of them are, of course, not bad fellows to get on with, if there is no reason for crossing them. They delight in isolation, detest work, dislike paying taxes, hate all progressive ways, cling to the most wretched stationary stage of semi-civilization with unparalleled tenacity, and love what is called 'independence'—that is, selfish self-seeking up to the verge and over the verge of license. They are utterly uncultured—indeed, have no conception of what culture means; their very language is incapable of expressing high philosophical ideas; and the pastoral home life so much insisted upon by their panegyrists thinly veils in many cases—such is the testimony of the many credible witnesses who have lived among them—the most odious vices."
[2]Sketches and Studies in South Africa. By W. J. Knox Little, Canon Residentiary of Worcester. London, 1899.
Misinterpretation of the Old Testament
Similar quotations might be given from many sources and of the same repute and strength. But, leaving unfavorable generalizations on the one side to offset favorable ones on the other, it might be well to take the qualities of the people in detail and examine them from various points of view. Religion is perhaps the first and foremost influence. The creed of the Boer is based by universal admission upon the Old Testament. The love and light and liberty of the newer dispensation has no place in his belief or in his life. The Bible, as he reads it, permits slavery, tolerates concubinage, teaches the perpetual intervention of a personal Providence, and makes him as truly one of a chosen people as was ever Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob. He lives upon the broad veldt of South Africa a patriarchal life not unlike in some respects that of the Hebrew of old, and he has thoroughly convinced himself that the British are to him what the Philistines were to the Jew, while the natives are intended to be his footstool as fully as ever were some of the surrounding races of Palestine to the heroes of Scripture. His religion is essentially a gloomy and serious one. There is no lighter side of life to him, and a text from the Old Testament is made to apply to most of the events of the day. Built into his character by isolation and intensified, in the crudest and wildest application, by an environment of inherited and continued ignorance, this religion has produced some very curious consequences. It has not made the Boer an enthusiast; it has simply rendered him contemptuous of all other creeds and sects to a degree of arrogance which is hard to meet and worse to endure. It has not had any softening influence, but rather a hardening one—making every prejudice stronger, every hatred more bitter, every avenue of intellectual expression more narrow and less susceptible to the forces of modern progress and education. It has developed into a more or less formal expression of defiant racial pride through the almost profane belief that the God of the Hebrews has become, essentially and entirely, the Providence of the Boers. The continuous use of Old Testament words and phrases has become a part of his individual life, though it usually means as little as do the continuous oaths of the cheerful sailor in the performance of his work. Ignorance has, in fact, crystallized the faith of his fathers into an extraordinarily narrow creed of which Tant' Sannie, in Olive Schreiner'sStory of an African Farm, presents one of many picturesque embodiments:
"Mymother boiled soap with bushes and I will boil soap with bushes. If the wrath of God is to fall upon this land (said Tant' Sannie, with the serenity of conscious virtue), it shall not be through me. Let them make their steam-wagons and their fire-carriages; let them go on as if the dear Lord didn't know what he was about when he gave their horses and oxen legs—the destruction of the Lord will follow them. I don't know how such people read their Bibles. When do we hear of Moses or Noah riding in a railway?"
Prejudice Against Civilization
It would appear, therefore, as beyond doubt, and the conclusion may be stated in very few words, that his religion has intensified the racial peculiarities of the Boer; has increased an already strong natural bigotry and tendency to superstition; and has helped to evolve a most unique and unpleasant personal character. What it has not done for him may be still further summarized. It has not taught him that "cleanliness is next to Godliness;" that morality is more than a matter of the color line; that honesty in word and action is a part of righteousness; that hatred toward his territorial neighbors, and malice or contempt toward his racial inferiors, are characteristics of anything rather than Christianity. Incidentally, it may be said that the Boer hates the slightest tendency toward show or display in his religious worship, and that he will obtrude his views of religion upon others at any and every opportunity. The Dutch Reformed Church is the State Church of the Transvaal, and has two branches—the Gereformeede, which believes in the singing of hymns during service, and the opposing Hervormde Dopper branch, which has been led by Paul Kruger since the disagreement of 1883 upon this subject. The matter has become a political one, and the party opposed to singing hymns has now been in power for a decade. To the Boers of both Republics the Nachtmaal, or annual Communion, is the great event of the year. Pretoria is the centre of the annual pilgrimage and the Mecca of all Boers at this period. From the ranch and farm and village they trek to that point in wagons loaded with supplies and holding the entire family. It is really a national holiday, as well as a religious festival, and is the one occasion upon which the Boer throws aside his love for solitude and shows himself willing to mix with his kind. Such is the religion of the Boer in its general results.
Home Life and Morals
Of his home life and morals much might be written. The families live far apart from each other in a house which forms the centre of some wide-stretching ranch or farm, and the larger the farm, the more isolated the situation, the fewer and further the neighbors, the better pleased is the Boer. In a limited sense only is he hospitable. Visitors are very few, and when they come on horseback and properly attended they are received in a sort of rude way. Englishmen are not considered desirable guests—unless they happen to be great hunters with many stories of the sport which the Boer loves so well. Poor men, or those who have met with misfortune, are spurned. The women of the republics are very ignorant, and as mentally feeble as might be expected from their surroundings and history. Physically, stoutness is the end and aim of female ambition, and to weigh two, or even three, hundred pounds is the greatest pride of the Dutch women of the veldt. They are invariably treated as the inferior sex, and even eat apart from the men. The Boer woman thinks little of dress, and in the house wears chiefly a loose and scantily made gown, which does for night as well as day. Out of doors, upon the weekly visit to church, something slightly better is used, together with an immense bonnet and a veil so thick as to make the face invisible. Next to the desire for fatness is the wish for a good complexion, and these two vanities constitute the special distinction of the Boer woman. She does little work and takes less exercise; except in times of war, when she sleeps as easily on the veldt as in a feather bed, and handles her gun as skilfully as does her husband. The Kaffirs and Hottentots and miscellaneous colored servants do the labor of both the kitchen and the farm. They do not share in the long prayers of the family, or indeed in any religious exercise, as the Boer regards them as animals not requiring salvation. The common belief is that they are descended from apes and baboons.
The Homestead and Immorality
The homesteads are small and unpretentious, and nearly always dirty in the extreme, as are the clothes and persons of the people themselves. Washing is perfunctory and generally the merest pretense. Of course water is frequently scarce, and this fact affords some excuse for what has now become a general habit and condition. As to the morals of the Dutch farmer facts speak stronger than words. In his relations with his own race his code is as strict as can be desired, and im that respect the home life is entirely moral. But no law, spiritual or human, controls him in regard to the negro women with whom he has been surrounded for centuries. And the result is a brutalization of his whole nature, a loss of all refinement in manners and the absence of any real respect for the sex. The Griquas, who have numbered thousands and constituted large and distinct communities in South Africa, and are still being added to, are the offspring of Boer and Hottentot unions; while the Cape-Boys are the result of similarly unrecognized relations between Boers and the Kaffir women. This immorality extends to the Boers all through South Africa in their relation with colored dependents, and it is not difficult to comprehend its degrading effect upon men, women and children alike.
Lack of Education
Ignorance is universal and pronounced. It is more than a mere lack of education. Such as there is amongst the wealthier portion of the rural population consists in the occasional visit of some travelling schoolmaster—generally a broken-down Englishman, or drunken Hollander who has failed in every other pursuit. Even this measure of instruction is not supported by the poorer farmers. Schools in the Transvaal are very rare, though more frequently found in the Free State. Distances are, of course, considerable, and for this reason alone organized education would be difficult. In late years the well-to-do frequently engage tutors—usually of rather doubtful qualifications—for six months and in order to teach the children to read and write. But of anything more than this they do not dream, and the great majority of the adults can do neither. The Old Testament they are taught until they know it by heart, and do not really require to read it. Of literature, history, astronomy, the sciences, political economy, the nations of the world, nothing is known to the average Boer of the veldt. He believes the earth to be a flat and solid surface around which the sun revolves. A member of the Transvaal Volksraad is on record as having jeered at the English view of the matter. He declared that the earth couldn't move because he had often for hours at a time watched upon the veldt to see if a certain kopje gave any sign of motion. As to the sun, didn't Joshua bid it stand still, and how could he have done that if it was already stationary and the world went round it? No native Dutchman of South Africa has shown literary ability. Its only poet is Pringle—a Scotchman. Its only writer is Mrs. Cornwright-Schreiner—the daughter of a German. Its only historian is Dr. Theal—a Canadian. New ideas are to the Boer a source of dread; improvements are spurned as either impious or unnecessary. Cures for infectious sheep disease or for rinderpest amongst the cattle are opposed as contravening the intentions of Providence. Compulsory education is as heartily and vigorously denounced in Cape Colony, where the most intelligent members of the race are to be found, as is compulsory vaccination.
THE LAST CARTRIDGE. An incident in the battle of Glencoe.THE LAST CARTRIDGE.An incident in the battle of Glencoe.
QUEEN VICTORIA AT BALMORAL, OCTOBER 22, 1899. Writing letters of sympathy to the near relations of the killed and wounded at the battle of Glencoe.QUEEN VICTORIA AT BALMORAL, OCTOBER 22, 1899.Writing letters of sympathy to the near relationsof the killed and wounded at the battle of Glencoe.
Primitiveness
Taxation in the republics of to-day is as strongly and sincerely disliked as it was in the days of the Great Trek, or of the little republics in the time of Pretorius. Had the Government of the Transvaal depended upon its ordinary revenues, or upon the taxation of its own people for munitions of war and for the great armament of the present day, it would have long since been overthrown by the Boers themselves. Like the Chinaman, the Dutch farmer reveres the practices and precepts of his equally ignorant father or grandfathers. They did not endure taxation, neither will he. His method of cultivating the soil affords another illustration of this quality. It is that of Syria and Palestine. Corn is still trodden under the foot of the ox, and the little agricultural work carried on is done by native servants. There is, of course, a better class of South African Dutchmen than the Boer of the veldt. But it is limited in number, outside of Cape Colony, and the latter constitutes the really important subject for consideration. For some of his qualities the Boer cannot be seriously blamed. Surliness of manner, uncouthness in appearance, aversion to strangers, ignorance of the outer world, religious superstition, are all matters in which he does not stand alone, and which are the natural products of an isolated life. So also is the fact of his being stupid and lazy in ordinary life, and only keen, alert and quick when he stands on the veldt with gun in hand and his horse by his side intent upon the game of sport or the greater game of war. But there is no adequate excuse for his continued hatred of the Englishman, for his tyranny toward inferiors and colored people, for his personal immorality, or for the phenomenal arrogance of his conduct and character. The higher class Boer of the towns in the Free State, and of Pretoria itself, may eliminate some of the more evident barbarisms of his veldt brother, but there remains the same extraordinary ignorance of external conditions, the same monumental conceit, the same absence of truthfulness and honor, the same arrogance and hatred of British power and progress. Added to this is the political corruption arising, in the Transvaal, out of conditions in which poor and ignorant farmers have obtained and held, through designing adventurers from Holland, the entire government and control of a State in which gold is being produced in immense quantities, and lavished, as opportunity offers, for the purchase of privileges or powers not obtainable through the usual channels of popular government.
Love of Liberty
What of the Boer love of freedom? There is no more admirable quality in the world than love of liberty; no greater inspiration to gallant deeds, to high ideals, to noble practices. But there are different kinds of liberty. The Iroquois of North American history stalked through his noble forests in all the pride of physical power and the freedom to torture and slaughter his red enemy or white foe whenever and wherever he could. He loved liberty in the sense of doing what he liked. The Dublin assassins of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Chicago bomb-throwers, the lovers of lynch-law in Southern States, the anarchists of Paris or St. Petersburg, all have feelings of the fiercest nature in favor of freedom. License, however, is not true liberty, nor is the love of independence amongst the Boers a regard for freedom in the ordinary sense of that much-abused word. Of course, there is much that is admirable in the feeling, as there is in any sentiment or aspiration for which men will fight and die—as there was in the freebooting instincts of the old-time Scottish clans; as there was in the loyal passion of the Scottish Highlanders for "Bonnie Prince Charlie;" as there was in the prolonged and desperate struggle of the Southern States for a dying cause; as there is even in the Filipino desire for a sort of wild freedom. In the case of the Boer, however, it is simply an instinctive desire for solitude and for the free practice of certain inbred tendencies, such as hunting, slave-holding and ranching. It can hardly be said to be connected with questions of government or constitution. No Government at all would suit the Boer if it were practicable, and his record shows that an oligarchy is no less agreeable to him than was the one-time division of 15,000 settlers into four republics. He knows little of the struggles of his reputed ancestors in Holland for freedom of the higher kind, and for that equality of religious and racial rights which he is now the first to spurn, and to even fight in order to prevent others from obtaining in parts of South Africa.
Change of Policy
So long as the Boer love for independence was simply a fond regard for isolation, which inflicted no serious injury upon other white people around him, the British Empire and its citizens had no right to interfere or to do more than laugh at its crudities and, perhaps, denounce its cruelties to inferior races. But, when the so-called passion for independence became an aggressive passion for territorial acquisition, and the love for license to do as he liked with his own colored population was lost sight of in a widely manifested desire to acquire control over outside native tribes, the issue became an Imperial one, and raids upon Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Zululand, Mashonaland and Tongaland marked the direct pathway to present developments. This policy of extension, however, required statecraft, a quality somewhat lacking amongst the rude legislators of Pretoria or Bloemfontein. It also needed money, the supply of which, before the discovery of gold, was sadly deficient.Government of Dutch AdventurersPresident Brand, of the Free State, was a statesman, but, in the ordinary sense of the word, was never a Boer, and would have nothing to do with the more aggressive ambitions of the Transvaal rulers. President Kruger had plenty of native ability, and from the time of his taking hold of affairs in the Transvaal dates its growth in strength and influence. He is, however, of German extraction, although one of the boys who participated in the original Great Trek. Dr. F. W. Reitz, who ultimately became so strong a personality in the Government of both republics, was also of German origin. So with Hofmeyr of Cape Colony. President Steyn, of the Free State, is the son of a Dutchman, but one who was a resident of Bloemfontein and not a Boer in the popular sense of the term. Dr. W. J. Leyds, the cleverest manipulator and schemer of South African history, is a Hollander, as was Dr. E. J. P. Jorrissen, one of the Dutch negotiators of the Convention of 1881.
These facts illustrate an interesting phase of the situation. It was not from the ranks of the Boers that men came who were capable of making the Transvaal an arsenal of military power, a close corporation of clever financial government, the head of the great Afrikander movement of the past decade, a force of organized strength for the destruction of British rule in South Africa, and a diplomatic factor at the capitals of Europe. The Boers were, and are, simply the instruments of clever adventurers from Holland. The "Hollanders" first came to the front in South Africa during the early days of the Free State. They controlled its incipient constitution for some years, and helped, incidentally, to check and then kill the agitation for reincorporation in the Empire. They caused President Brand some trouble during the preliminary period of his administration, but then gradually settled down into the quiet and comfortable occupancy of such offices as required more education than the average Boer possessed. These they still hold to a considerable extent. After Brand's death their governing influence became greater; they joined and organized the Afrikander Bund in the State, and then stood shoulder to shoulder with President Reitz and his successor, Steyn, until the development of events brought them into closer relationship with fellow-Hollanders in the Transvaal under the common leadership of Kruger and the clever manipulation of Reitz and Leyds.
Anti-English Influence
In the Republic beyond the Vaal they first came into prominence under the administration of President Burgers, who, after his visit to Europe in the early seventies, brought some individual Hollanders back with him. But the bankrupt State did not possess sufficient attractiveness to draw very many adventurers from anywhere during the immediately succeeding years; and it was not until the discovery of gold, in 1884, and the prospect of the country becoming wealthy arose, that clever and adventurous natives of Holland began to think seriously of entering into the heritage they have since acquired. They did come, however, and in time acquired control of the chief offices in the State outside of the Presidency and Vice-Presidency; of the educational system, such as it was; of the railways and taxes and customs. It was not hard for them to see that the more isolated they could keep the Boer of the veldt the better it would be for their permanent success, and that the more they could estrange the Transvaal from Great Britain and the British Colonial system of South Africa the easier it would be to preserve the Republic and its riches for their own use and control. From these considerations it was natural and easy to take advantage of President Kruger's anti-British ambitions, of the machinery of the Afrikander Bund at the Cape, and of the money of the Uitlanders, in order to build up a great movement against British power in combination with the Free State; and to transform the republic of emigrant farmers into a strong, though small, military power. Plenty of foreigners and foreign help—especially German—was available, and out of that prominent Boer characteristic of hatred of England and the other one of pride in his own fighting records and belief in his own invincibility in war, were built up the military structure of the year 1899.
War a Big Game Hunt
To the fighting qualities of the Boer many tributes have been and more will be paid in the future. It is essentially a product of his environment. The student of British wars with the Kaffirs and of the interminable succession of struggles fought by the Boer with Hottentots and Bushmen in early Colonial days; with the Kosas on the frontiers of Cape Colony and the Zulus in Natal; with the Matabeles in the pioneer days of the republics, and with the Basutos during more than a decade in the history of the Free State; with the Bapedis of the Transvaal and the Bechuanas of the northern and western borders; with the Baramapulana of the Limpopo River and the Swazis of the southeastern border; will understand how much of native guile and savagery there is in the Boer method of warfare, and why it is so difficult for troops trained in other kinds of fighting to meet it when combined with European science in armament and trained skill in the management of great guns. Added to the quality of native cunning in warfare is an alertness of movement derived from long and hereditary skill in hunting wild animals and living constantly on horseback; as well as in fighting continuously a wily and ambush-making native foe. As with the Kaffir himself, laziness disappears when the game of the Boer is on the horizon, and it matters not whether the quarry be animal or human, the hunter and fighter becomes at once a creature of the veldt; a very part and parcel of the country around him. He knows every foot of South African soil. In the words of Pringle, referring to the emigrant farmer of earlier years:
"Afar in the desert I love to ride,With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:Away—away—in the wilderness vast,Where the White Man's foot hath never passed,And the quivered Koranna or BechuanHath rarely crossed with his roving clan:A region of emptiness, howling and drear,Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear."
Those days are passed; but the instinct remains, the knowledge has become hereditary, and, through the love of hunting which still continues in the breast of the Boer, it is to-day a practical and potent force. To the average Dutch farmer maps are therefore unnecessary, and the Drakensberg is as familiar in its every detail of mountain and kopje and rainless river as are the rooms of his own home on the rolling plains of the Transvaal or the Orange Free State. Hence it is that the general peculiarities of his complex character combine to make him a soldier and enemy whom it is no easy task to subdue—even for the legions of Britain and her allied Empire.
Dangers Without, Difficulties Within
In the years immediately following 1872 the disorganization and public weakness of the Transvaal Boers became dangerous to themselves and inimical to the peace of all South Africa. The emigrant farmers had for two decades been living in a chronic state of war with the ever-increasing number of natives around them and, while successful in their raids upon individual Bantu kraals, were entirely unsuccessful in the subjection of the tribes as a whole. They would not submit to taxation, what little paper money they possessed had in 1870 depreciated to a quarter of its face value, and the few business transactions indulged in were carried out on lines of barter not dissimilar to the aboriginal customs around them. No public improvements were made and no administrative system existed further than a nominal Presidency which was helpless in the face of the surrounding disorganization. The accession of Mr. Burghers to the position, in 1872, did not remedy matters and the repulse of the Boers from the stronghold of Sekukuni on their north-eastern border, in 1876, precipitated a situation which resulted in the British annexation of the Republic.
Authoritative Questions
So much of the subsequent discussion regarding this policy turns upon the then existing internal situation of the Transvaal that a couple of authoritative quotations may be given here. Mr. James Bryce, who has since made himself unpopular in England by his opposition to the War of 1899, states in hisImpressions of South Africathat: "The weakness and disorders of the Republic had become a danger not only to the British subjects who had begun to settle in it but also to the neighbouring British territories and especially Natal." Dr. George M. Theal, a recognized authority upon South African affairs, despite a pronounced tendency to sympathize with the Dutch, refers in theStory of the NationsSeries, to the troubles with Sekukuni and then proceeds; "But the country was quite unable to bear the strain. The ordinary charges of government and the interest on the public debt could not be met, much less an additional burden. And so the whole administrative machinery broke down. The Republic was really in a pitiable state, without money or an army, with rebellion triumphant and a general election approaching that was feared might be attended with civil war."
A Great Peril
National bankruptcy and the danger arising from 300,000 threatening natives surrounding, within the Transvaal, some 30,000 people of Dutch descent were also added to by the possibility of external attack from the Zulus. There can be no doubt of the reality of this peril although the events which followed led the Dutch to minimize its extent. Cetywayo, in 1876, had a large army of trained and physically powerful warriors numbering at least 30,000 men. He had immense reserves of savage population, in the event of war, both in the Transvaal and Natal, and all were bound together by a bond of hatred against the Boer—the only tie recognized by native tribes. He had his men in threatening positions upon the frontier from time to time and had announced that hisImpismust have an opportunity of wetting their spears in the blood of an enemy. But at this point the Zulu chieftain touched British interests. If he attacked the Boers and was successful it meant a future onslaught with increased power upon Natal, and, in any case, might easily involve the hundreds of thousands of related tribes in the Colony. For the safety of the scattered British settlements it was therefore necessary to protect the now almost helpless Boer. Of course, the commandos of the latter would have put up a good fight against the invading hordes and the enmity of surrounding natives, but, without provisions, without ammunition, without fortifications, and without money (the Transvaal Treasury was so empty in 1876 that it could not pay for the transportation of some ammunition from Durban to Pretoria) the result must have been extremely disastrous.
The Federation Policy of Lord Carnarvon
It was at this junction that the Federation policy of Lord Carnarvon, Colonial Secretary in the Beaconsfield Government, combined with the apparent local necessities of the case to cause the intervention of the Imperial authorities. Lord Beaconsfield was an Imperialist of the strongest type, imaginative yet practical, initiative in policy and also courageous in execution. His Government had bought the Suez Canal shares in order to ensure the trade route of the Empire to India, and had made the Queen an eastern Empress and the Prince of Wales the centre of Oriental hospitality and magnificence, in order to appeal to the sentiment of those vast regions and teeming populations. Lord Carnarvon had, in 1867, as Colonial Secretary, presided over the Confederation of British America, and his present great ambition was to help in creating a federated South Africa. But it was too late so far as South Africa was concerned; too early so far as Imperialistic sentiment at home was concerned. When Sir Bartle Frere reached Cape Town he found that the Transvaal had just been annexed, and that one great apparent difficulty had been removed from his path. At the same time, however, he found the Orange Free State opposed to federation though ready for a customs union; and two years later the malcontents in the Transvaal, roused and encouraged by Mr. Gladstone's public sentiments as Leader of the Liberal Opposition and in defence of the Boer right to independence, were in rebellion and able to influence their racial allies at Cape Town in the vetoing of the Commissioner's general policy of federation. Such was the story in a brief summary.
Threatened Anarchy
The details are both interesting and important. In 1876 the Boer attack on Sekukuni—a not very strong Kaffir chief upon the Transvaal border—had, as already stated, been repulsed, and the High Commissioner of the moment in South Africa, Sir Henry Barkly, wrote to Lord Carnarvon, under date of October 30th, describing the ensuing situation of the Transvaal at some length, and concluded with the following expressive words:
"In short, the whole state of things borders very closely upon anarchy; and, although in other parts of the Republic lawlessness and inhumanity are less rampantly exhibited, the machinery of administration is everywhere all but paralyzed, and the Republic seems about to fall to pieces through its own weakness. In that event the Boers in each district would either have to make their own terms with the adjacent Kaffir tribes or trek onwards into the wilderness, as is their wont, whilst the position of the large number of British subjects scattered about on farms, or resident in the towns, or at the gold fields, might fairly claim the humane consideration of Her Majesty's Government even if there were not other reasons to save so fine a country from so miserable a fate."
There was more, however, to be thought of than the mere paralysis of the functions of Government, bad as it was. Then as now, the Transvaal was the Turkey of South Africa in its treatment of other races as well as in a Mahommedan-like superciliousness of religious view. Writing a few months after the above despatch from the High Commissioner, Lord Carnarvon—January 25, 1877—in referring to the Boer method of warfare on the native tribes as particularly illustrated in the Sekukuni struggle, declared that: "Her Majesty's Government, after having given full consideration to all the information attainable on the subject, and with every desire to view matters in the most favorable light, deeply regret that they are forced to come to the conclusion that the barbarities alleged to have been committed, though denied by the Transvaal Government, have, in fact, occurred."
Sir T. Shepstone's Arrival in Pretoria
Meanwhile, on October 5, 1876, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who, during forty years of life and administration in South-eastern Africa had won the general respect of Englishmen, Boers and natives, received a Royal Commission to inquire into the Transvaal disturbances and to exercise power and jurisdiction in the matter subject to the will and welfare of the people. He arrived at Pretoria on January 22d, after a slow progress through the country and accompanied only by a small personal staff and 25 Natal Mounted Police. He had, during this period, in different parts of the Transvaal and to various portions of the people, explained his policy of annexation and the necessity of doing something for the preservation of personal property as well as real liberty. Everywhere he had been well received, and, for a month after his Proclamation annexing the Republic to the Empire had been issued on April 12th, he remained at Pretoria without the support of a single soldier of the Queen. The general position of the country was well explained in a despatch to Lord Carnarvon dated at Pretoria on March 6th. The white population was made up, at the outside estimate, of 8,000 men capable of bearing arms, and of these more than 6,000 were farmers scattered in isolated homesteads over a surface equal to that of the British Isles. It was patent, he declared, to every observer that:
Boer Government's Weakness
"The Government was powerless to control either its white citizens or its native subjects, and that it was incapable of enforcing its laws or collecting its taxes; that the Treasury was empty; that the salaries of officials had been and are for months in arrears; and that sums payable for the ordinary and necessary expenses of Government cannot be had; that payment for such services as postal contracts were long and hopelessly overdue; that the white inhabitants had become split into factions; that the large native population within the boundaries of the State ignore its authority and its laws, and that the powerful ruling king, Cetywayo, is anxious to seize upon the first opportunity of attacking a country the conduct of whose warriors at Sekukuni's mountain has convinced him that it can be easily conquered by his clamoring regiments."
Kruger's Visit to London
President Burgers himself recognized the situation, and a month before the annexation was consummated told the assembled Volksraad that "matters are as bad as they ever can be; they cannot be worse." Practically, he supported the policy of Sir T. Shepstone, and shortly afterwards retired on a pension to live at Cape Town. The Hollanders, who stood to lose heavily by the supremacy of British ideas and intelligence in the country, did their utmost to arouse the fanaticism of the farmers by printed manifestoes and memorials of the most inflammatory character, but without much success. In the end the only practical opposition made was the appointment by the expiring Executive Council, on the day before the Proclamation, of a delegation to England composed of Mr. Paul Kruger, Vice-President, and Dr. E. J. P. Jorrissen, Attorney-General. These gentlemen went to London and were well received personally, and a similar result followed from a second deputation headed by, Mr. Kruger in 1878. One evil, however, came from these visits. Instead of the astute Paul Kruger being impressed by the power of Great Britain, or conciliated by the courtesy of political leaders, he seems to have been interested chiefly in the study of party tactics and of the disintegrating influence of politics when carried into the field of Colonial government and foreign affairs. Coupled with the knowledge thus gained of a Radical faction which was already denouncing Lord Carnarvon's Confederation scheme, and of the anti-expansion views of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Morley and Sir William Harcourt, was a keen appreciation of the strength of the Home Rule issue then evolving such incipient power in the field of partisan battle. It was not hard for Mr. Kruger to discern, or hope for, the coming fall of the Beaconsfield Government; the growing power of a Radical element which would parallel the case of the Transvaal with that of Ireland; and a future in which some strong movement in the now quiet and peace-environed Boer country would result in a reversal of British policy.
But the annexation was now a fact. In England it was received with comparative indifference by the Tories and with a sort of passive hostility by the Liberals. No one seemed to know very much of the real state of affairs, and when, in the autumn of 1879, Mr. Gladstone practically urged the independence of the Boers as a portion of Liberal policy, his party opponents did not themselves realize the greatness of the issue involved or the inevitable consequences of playing with Empire questions as with measures for the building of a local bridge or the amending of some local law. In South Africa the English element rejoiced greatly at the annexation, and never dreamt of its reversal.
Dr. Moffat's Joy Over Annexation
The Rev. Dr. Robert Moffat, writing privately on July 27, 1877, with all his long accumulated experience in the South African missionary field,[1] declared that: "I have no words to express the pleasure the annexation of the Transvaal Territory has afforded me. It is one of the most important measures our Government could have adopted as regards the Republic as well as the aborigines. I have no hesitation in pronouncing the step one fraught with incalculable benefit to both parties,i.e., the settlers and the native tribes. A residence of more than half a century beyond the Colonial boundary is quite sufficient to authorize me to write with confidence that Lord Carnarvon's action will be the commencement of an era of blessing to South Africa." Such was the general view of the English element at the Cape, and such would have been the expressed view of Dutchmen like President Brand of the Free State if they could have ventured to explain their own sentiments. But Lord Carnarvon proposed, and Mr. Kruger's astute perception, combined with Hollander scheming and the fickleness of British party policy, disposed.
[1] Letter to Alexander McArthur, M.P., published in theEnglish Independentof August 16, 1877.
Dutch Appeal to Gladstone
Slowly but surely Kruger played upon Boer ignorance and local prejudices, intense aversion to taxation and dislike of the English. Slowly and steadily he worked upon the racial sentiment of the Dutch at the Cape, until, in 1880, they largely signed an address to Mr. Gladstone asking his support for the "liberties" of their kinsmen. Eventually, he defeated, by indirect means, Sir Bartle Frere's policy of federating Cape Colony, Natal, Griqualand West and the Transvaal when it came before the Cape Legislature in June, 1880. Carefully, but with certainty, he built upon the shifting sands of England's Colonial policy that later structure of personal supremacy so well described by Kipling:
"Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,Far beyond his border shall his teaching run.Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled,Laying on a new land evil of the old."
For a couple of years, however, matters went on without open rebellion. The administration of Sir T. Shepstone was, upon the whole, a wise one. The former officials were largely retained, provision was made for a dual official language, the finances were got into fairly good shape, and the natives were conciliated. Sir Bartle Frere, looking on from Cape Town, wished to establish complete responsible government, and had his policy been carried out, it is possible that the war might have been averted, and certain that the growing influence of Kruger would have been checked. Two Dutch deputations had gone to London, and the restoration of independence had been refused them by both the Beaconsfield Government and the succeeding one of Mr. Gladstone. High officials of all kinds—Frere, Wolseley, Shepstone and Lanyon—had declared that it was an absolute impossibility, and, certainly, no overt attempts were made to obtain it while British troops were present in South Africa in large numbers engaged in crushing the Zulu enemy or the lesser power of the Sekukuni.