[Contents]CHAPTER VI.SECOND CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON—NORTH OF THE ORANGE RIVER.The Africanders who had trekked into the spreading uplands lying between the Orange River and the Limpopo, west of Natal, were not exempt from the tribulations experienced by their brethren who had turned eastward to the coast. Like them they were forced to wage incessant war with the natives; but the enemies they had to encounter were less formidable than the Zulus. One tribe, however, and their historic chief, Moshesh, were foemen worthy of their steel. In the nineteenth century there were three men of the Kaffir race who were vastly superior to any of their own people, and measured up evenly with the ablest white opponents they met in diplomacy and war. These men were Tshaka the Zulu, Khama of the Bechuanos, and Moshesh the Basuto. It was the fortune of the Orange River emigrants to meet this Moshesh and the Basutos in many a hard-fought battle for the possession of the country.[99]Moshesh differed from other Kaffir leaders in that he was merciful to his wounded and captive enemies and ruled his own people with mildness and equity. As early as 1832 he opened the way for, and even invited, missionaries to teach the Basutos a better way of life, and they exerted a powerful formative influence on the Basuto nation. The missionaries were all European—some of them were British—which latter fact was made apparent in the result of their work. When the unavoidable conflict between the Basutos and the whites came, the Basutos, guided by their missionaries, were careful to avoid any fatal breach with the British government. Several times Moshesh engaged in war with the Orange River emigrants, but only once with the English.In 1843 the Africanders of this region were widely scattered over a vast spread of country measuring seven hundred miles in length and three hundred in width. To the southeast it was bounded by the Quathlamba mountains, but on the north and west there were no natural features to delimitate it from the plain which extends to the Zambesi on the north and to the Atlantic Ocean on the west. Within this territory the Africander population, in 1843, was not much more than 15,000. This seems a small[100]number in view of the fact that the pioneer emigrants of 1836 to 1838 had been largely re-enforced from the Cape colony. But it must be remembered their life was precarious in the extreme; many had died—some from disease, some in conflict with wild beasts, and a still greater number in their frequent wars with the natives. The white population was further recruited between 1843 and 1847 by a second Africander trek from Natal—which will be described in another chapter.So small a body of people, of whom not more than 4,000 were adult males, occupying so vast a territory, experienced serious difficulties in establishing an efficient government. The difficulties growing out of that cause were enhanced by the very qualities in the Africanders which had led to their emigration from the old colony, and which had made them successful in their wars of conquest in the interior. To an excessive degree they were possessed by a spirit of individual poise and independence. They desired isolation—even from one another. They chafed and grew restive under control of any kind, so much so that they were indisposed to obey even the authorities created by themselves. For warlike expeditions, which yielded them a pleasant excitement, enlarged their territory by[101]conquest, and enriched them with captured cattle and other spoil, they readily united under their military leaders and rendered them obedience, but any other form of control they found irksome. This predilection towards solitary independence was constantly strengthened by the circumstances in which they lived. The soil, being dry and parched in most places, did not invite agriculture to any considerable extent. Most of the people turned to stock-farming, and the nomadic life it necessitated in seeking change of pasture for the flocks and herds confirmed the disposition to live separate from other people.Out of these causes grew the determination to make their civil government absolutely popular, and conditioned, entirely, on the will of the governed. But unity of some kind must be had, for their very existence depended on acting together against the natives, and against the repeated claims of the British government to exercise sovereignty over the region they occupied. The first steps towards instituting civil government were taken in the organizing of several small republican communities, the design being that each should manage its own affairs by a general meeting of all the citizens. It was found, however, as the population spread over the country, that such independent neighborhood governments[102]failed to secure the necessary unity of the whole people in any matter requiring the aggregate strength of the whole people. To remedy this element of weakness and danger, the Africanders instituted a kind of federal bond between the little republican communities, in an elective assembly called the Volksraad—a Council of the People composed of delegates from all the sectional governments. This federative tie was of the weakest—its authority resting upon an unwritten understanding and common consent rather than upon formal articles of confederation, and its meaning being always subject to such interpretation as might be suggested by the error or the passion of the passing moment.The territory beyond the Vaal River, to the far northeast from Cape Colony, was left undisturbed by the British government. The Africanders living there were hundreds of miles from the nearest British outpost. Their wars with the natives projected no disturbing influence upon the tribes with whom the colonial government was in touch and for whose peace and prosperity it felt responsible. Moreover, the British authorities at the Cape were under instructions from the Colonial Office of the home government to rather contract than expand the scope of British influence in South Africa. For these[103]reasons the Cape government cared nothing for what took place in the outlying regions beyond the Vaal, unless, indeed, it was some event calculated to disturb the natives dwelling next the colonial borders.Altogether different, in the esteem of the Cape authorities and of the Colonial office, were the affairs of the region extending southwestward from the Vaal River to the borders of Cape Colony. Within that territory there had been frequent dissensions between Africander communities. And there had been a rapid increase of dangerous elements in the native population. The Basutos had grown powerful. Intermixed with the whites were the Griquas, a half-breed hunting people, sprung from Africander fathers and Hottentot mothers, and partially civilized. The possibility of serious native wars growing out of quarrels between the white emigrants themselves and between them and the mixed colored population was a constant distress to both colonial governors and the home authorities.At this time the Cape was regarded the least prosperous of all the British colonies, and there was a growing indisposition to annex any more territory in South Africa. The soil was mostly arid. The Africander population was alien. The[104]Kaffir wars threatened to be endless and very costly in men and in money. This reluctance to enlarge had been overcome in the case of Natal; but Natal was the garden of South Africa and the possession of it gave the British command of the east coast almost to Delagoa Bay. But to the north there seemed to be nothing sufficiently inviting to justify the taking up of new responsibility and expense.The problem of how to safeguard the peace of the old Cape Colony without undertaking the burdens involved in governing and holding the whole Africander territory to the northeast, including the region beyond the Vaal River, was thought to have been solved by Doctor Philip, an English missionary, who had some influence with the government. The scheme recommended by Doctor Philip was that the government should create a line of native states under British control along the northeast border of Cape Colony. These would act, he claimed, as a barrier to break the influence of the more turbulent Africanders in the regions north of that line on those of their blood who were yet citizens of the old colony, and they would, in like manner, separate between the native tribes in the colony and those in the interior.Doctor Philip’s plan was adopted with much[105]enthusiasm. A treaty suitable to the purpose contemplated had already been made with a northern Griqua leader named Waterboer. In 1843 two other treaties were made, one with Moshesh of the Basutos and the other with Adam Kok, a leader of the Orange River Griquas. It was fondly believed that these three states, recognized by and in treaty with Great Britain, would isolate the colony from the disturbing and dangerous people to the north of them.Doctor Philip’s promising arrangement disappointed every one. The Africanders living in the territory of the Griquas refused to be bound in any sense by a treaty made by the despised half-breeds, and the former troubles continued. A further effort was made to give effect to the doctor’s statesmanship by establishing a military post at Bloemfontein, about half way between the Orange River and the Vaal, for the purpose of enforcing order and of carrying out the provisions of the treaty. This step was followed up in 1848 by the formal annexation to the British dominions in South Africa of the entire country lying between the Orange and the Vaal, under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. The second contact of Boer and Briton, begun in[106]Natal in 1842, was thus extended into the Orange River territory.The Africanders rose up to assert their independence, encouraged and re-enforced by their brethren from beyond the Vaal. Under the able and energetic leadership of Mr. Pretorius, who had opposed the British in Natal, they attacked Bloemfontein, captured the garrison posted there and advanced to the south as far as Orange River.The governor of Cape Colony, Sir Harry Smith, hastily dispatched a sufficient force, which met and defeated the Africanders at Bloomplats, about seventy-five miles north of the Orange River, on the 29th of August, 1848. The sole result of this battle was the restoration of British authority over the Orange River Sovereignty. The territory was not incorporated with that of Cape Colony, neither were the Africanders dwelling north of the Vaal River further interfered with.The old conditions of unrest continued. Fresh quarrels among the native tribes seemed to call for British interference, and led them into war with the Basutos under Moshesh. Out of this conflict and its threatened complications grew a deliberate change of imperial policy in[107]South Africa, which the English have never ceased to regret.The situation, so pregnant with far-reaching results, may be stated thus, in brief: The British resident at Bloemfontein had no force at his command that could cope with the Basutos under the masterly leadership of Moshesh. The Africanders living in the district were disaffected—even hostile—to the British government. They therefore refused to support the resident, preferring to fight only their own battles and to make their own terms with the Basutos. The situation of the British grew still more critical when Mr. Pretorius—yet a leading spirit among the Africanders north of the Vaal—threatened to make common cause with the Basutos. As for the old colony at the Cape, it was already involved in a fierce conflict with the south coast Kaffirs, and could not spare a man to aid in quieting the northern disturbances.At this juncture of circumstances Mr. Pretorius made overtures to the colonial authorities, intimating that he and the northern Africanders desired to make some permanent pacific arrangement with Great Britain. The British authorities, disavowing all right to control the territory north of the Vaal, but still claiming the allegiance[108]of theAfricandersresident therein, appointed commissioners to negotiate with Mr. Pretorius and other representatives of the Transvaal group of emigrants. Subsequently the home authorities of the British government appointed and sent out Sir George R. Clark, K. C. B., as “Her Majesty’s Special Commissioner for settling the affairs of the Orange River Sovereignty.” Having conferred with all who were concerned personally in the affairs of the Sovereignty, Sir George, in a meeting held at Sand River in 1852, concluded a convention with the commandant and delegates of the Africanders living north of the Vaal.In the provisions of this convention the British government expressly “guaranteed 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 it permitted the emigrants to purchase ammunition in the British colonies in South Africa. It also disclaimed “all alliances with any of the colored nations north of the Vaal River,” and stipulated that “no slavery is or shall be permitted or practiced by the farmers north of the Vaal River.”[109]The Transvaal Republic, called, later, the South African Republic, dates its independence from this convention, concluded at Sand River in 1852. It also, by the same instrument, severed itself and its interests from the Africander emigrants living in theSovereigntysouth of the Vaal—an act which their southern brethren deemed little short of a betrayal.For a few months after the convention of 1852 the Sovereignty continued British, and might have done so for many years but for a serious defeat of the British arms in that territory by the Basutos. General Cathcart, who had just been installed as governor of the Cape, rashly attacked the Basutos with a strong force of regulars, was led into an ambush and suffered so great a disaster that further hostile operations were impossible without a new and larger army. The politic Moshesh saw in the situation an opportunity to make peace with the English on favorable terms, which he at once proceeded to do.This crushing reverse called out a report to the British ministers relative to the condition of affairs in the Sovereignty, and a statement of the policy he favored in reference to that part of her majesty’s dominions, from Sir George Clark, the[110]special commissioner appointed to settle the affairs thereof. The closing paragraphs of that report read as follows:“The more I consider the position, relative both to the Cape colony and its (the Sovereignty’s) own internal circumstances, the more I feel assured of its inutility as an acquisition, and am impressed with a sense of the vain conceit of continuing to supply it with civil and military establishments in a manner becoming the character of the British Government, and advantageous to our resources.“It is a vast territory, possessing nothing that can sanction its being permanently added to a frontier already inconveniently extended. It secures no genuine interests; it is recommended by no prudent or justifiable motive; it answers no really beneficial purpose; it imparts no strength to the British Government, no credit to its character, no lustre to the crown. To remain here, therefore, to superintend or to countenance this extension of British dominion, or to take part in any administrative measure for the furtherance of so unessential an object, would, I conceive, be tantamount to my encouraging a serious evil, and participating in one of the most signal fallacies which has ever come under my notice in the[111]course of nearly thirty years devoted to the public service.”The British Government, weary of the perpetual native wars, disgusted at the late defeat of the British regulars by Moshesh and his Basutos, and influenced by the emphatic and very significant report of their special commissioner, which report was heartily indorsed by Governor Cathcart, decided to abandon the Orange River Sovereignty altogether. An act of parliament in accordance with that decision was passed. Later, when there were vehement protests against the abandonment—protests from the missionaries who feared for the welfare of the natives, and from English settlers in the Sovereignty who desired to remain subject to the British crown—a motion was made in the House of Commons begging the Queen to reconsider the renunciation of her sovereignty over the Orange River territory, but the motion found no support at all, and had to be withdrawn. Instead, parliament voted £48,000 to compensate any who might suffer loss in the coming change, so eager were the authorities to be rid of this large territory with its constant vexations and its costliness. And thus it was that independence was literally forced upon the Orange River country.[112]By the convention of the 23d of February, 1854, signed at Bloemfontein, the British government “guaranteed the future independence of the country and its government,” and covenanted that they should be, “to all intents and purposes, a free and independent people.” It further provided that the Orange River government was to be free to purchase ammunition in the British South African colonies, and that liberal privileges were to be granted it in connection with import duties. As in the case of the Transvaal, so in this convention it was stipulated, that no slavery or trade in slaves was to be permitted north of the Orange River. The name given to the new nation was “The Orange River Free State.”It cannot be denied that these conventions of 1852 and 1854 created two new and independent states. Nor can it be denied that in consenting to their creation the action of the British government was taken under no pressure of war, under no powerful foreign interference, but altogether of its own free will, and with the conviction that in cutting loose from undesirable and disputed territory it was acting for the good of the empire.DOCTOR JAMESON.DOCTOR JAMESON.Canon Knox Little, in his “South Africa,” calls this action of the British government “a serious blunder.” Be that as it may, the Africanders[113]acted in perfect consistency with all their former aspirations and claims, and they made no blunders in the negotiations that secured to them independent national existence. The British “blunder”—if blunder it was—was written in a formal official document, and subscribed by theauthorisedrepresentatives of the government, appointed expressly to give effect to imperial legislation, and can no more be repudiated righteously than can a written contract between private individuals.[114]
[Contents]CHAPTER VI.SECOND CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON—NORTH OF THE ORANGE RIVER.The Africanders who had trekked into the spreading uplands lying between the Orange River and the Limpopo, west of Natal, were not exempt from the tribulations experienced by their brethren who had turned eastward to the coast. Like them they were forced to wage incessant war with the natives; but the enemies they had to encounter were less formidable than the Zulus. One tribe, however, and their historic chief, Moshesh, were foemen worthy of their steel. In the nineteenth century there were three men of the Kaffir race who were vastly superior to any of their own people, and measured up evenly with the ablest white opponents they met in diplomacy and war. These men were Tshaka the Zulu, Khama of the Bechuanos, and Moshesh the Basuto. It was the fortune of the Orange River emigrants to meet this Moshesh and the Basutos in many a hard-fought battle for the possession of the country.[99]Moshesh differed from other Kaffir leaders in that he was merciful to his wounded and captive enemies and ruled his own people with mildness and equity. As early as 1832 he opened the way for, and even invited, missionaries to teach the Basutos a better way of life, and they exerted a powerful formative influence on the Basuto nation. The missionaries were all European—some of them were British—which latter fact was made apparent in the result of their work. When the unavoidable conflict between the Basutos and the whites came, the Basutos, guided by their missionaries, were careful to avoid any fatal breach with the British government. Several times Moshesh engaged in war with the Orange River emigrants, but only once with the English.In 1843 the Africanders of this region were widely scattered over a vast spread of country measuring seven hundred miles in length and three hundred in width. To the southeast it was bounded by the Quathlamba mountains, but on the north and west there were no natural features to delimitate it from the plain which extends to the Zambesi on the north and to the Atlantic Ocean on the west. Within this territory the Africander population, in 1843, was not much more than 15,000. This seems a small[100]number in view of the fact that the pioneer emigrants of 1836 to 1838 had been largely re-enforced from the Cape colony. But it must be remembered their life was precarious in the extreme; many had died—some from disease, some in conflict with wild beasts, and a still greater number in their frequent wars with the natives. The white population was further recruited between 1843 and 1847 by a second Africander trek from Natal—which will be described in another chapter.So small a body of people, of whom not more than 4,000 were adult males, occupying so vast a territory, experienced serious difficulties in establishing an efficient government. The difficulties growing out of that cause were enhanced by the very qualities in the Africanders which had led to their emigration from the old colony, and which had made them successful in their wars of conquest in the interior. To an excessive degree they were possessed by a spirit of individual poise and independence. They desired isolation—even from one another. They chafed and grew restive under control of any kind, so much so that they were indisposed to obey even the authorities created by themselves. For warlike expeditions, which yielded them a pleasant excitement, enlarged their territory by[101]conquest, and enriched them with captured cattle and other spoil, they readily united under their military leaders and rendered them obedience, but any other form of control they found irksome. This predilection towards solitary independence was constantly strengthened by the circumstances in which they lived. The soil, being dry and parched in most places, did not invite agriculture to any considerable extent. Most of the people turned to stock-farming, and the nomadic life it necessitated in seeking change of pasture for the flocks and herds confirmed the disposition to live separate from other people.Out of these causes grew the determination to make their civil government absolutely popular, and conditioned, entirely, on the will of the governed. But unity of some kind must be had, for their very existence depended on acting together against the natives, and against the repeated claims of the British government to exercise sovereignty over the region they occupied. The first steps towards instituting civil government were taken in the organizing of several small republican communities, the design being that each should manage its own affairs by a general meeting of all the citizens. It was found, however, as the population spread over the country, that such independent neighborhood governments[102]failed to secure the necessary unity of the whole people in any matter requiring the aggregate strength of the whole people. To remedy this element of weakness and danger, the Africanders instituted a kind of federal bond between the little republican communities, in an elective assembly called the Volksraad—a Council of the People composed of delegates from all the sectional governments. This federative tie was of the weakest—its authority resting upon an unwritten understanding and common consent rather than upon formal articles of confederation, and its meaning being always subject to such interpretation as might be suggested by the error or the passion of the passing moment.The territory beyond the Vaal River, to the far northeast from Cape Colony, was left undisturbed by the British government. The Africanders living there were hundreds of miles from the nearest British outpost. Their wars with the natives projected no disturbing influence upon the tribes with whom the colonial government was in touch and for whose peace and prosperity it felt responsible. Moreover, the British authorities at the Cape were under instructions from the Colonial Office of the home government to rather contract than expand the scope of British influence in South Africa. For these[103]reasons the Cape government cared nothing for what took place in the outlying regions beyond the Vaal, unless, indeed, it was some event calculated to disturb the natives dwelling next the colonial borders.Altogether different, in the esteem of the Cape authorities and of the Colonial office, were the affairs of the region extending southwestward from the Vaal River to the borders of Cape Colony. Within that territory there had been frequent dissensions between Africander communities. And there had been a rapid increase of dangerous elements in the native population. The Basutos had grown powerful. Intermixed with the whites were the Griquas, a half-breed hunting people, sprung from Africander fathers and Hottentot mothers, and partially civilized. The possibility of serious native wars growing out of quarrels between the white emigrants themselves and between them and the mixed colored population was a constant distress to both colonial governors and the home authorities.At this time the Cape was regarded the least prosperous of all the British colonies, and there was a growing indisposition to annex any more territory in South Africa. The soil was mostly arid. The Africander population was alien. The[104]Kaffir wars threatened to be endless and very costly in men and in money. This reluctance to enlarge had been overcome in the case of Natal; but Natal was the garden of South Africa and the possession of it gave the British command of the east coast almost to Delagoa Bay. But to the north there seemed to be nothing sufficiently inviting to justify the taking up of new responsibility and expense.The problem of how to safeguard the peace of the old Cape Colony without undertaking the burdens involved in governing and holding the whole Africander territory to the northeast, including the region beyond the Vaal River, was thought to have been solved by Doctor Philip, an English missionary, who had some influence with the government. The scheme recommended by Doctor Philip was that the government should create a line of native states under British control along the northeast border of Cape Colony. These would act, he claimed, as a barrier to break the influence of the more turbulent Africanders in the regions north of that line on those of their blood who were yet citizens of the old colony, and they would, in like manner, separate between the native tribes in the colony and those in the interior.Doctor Philip’s plan was adopted with much[105]enthusiasm. A treaty suitable to the purpose contemplated had already been made with a northern Griqua leader named Waterboer. In 1843 two other treaties were made, one with Moshesh of the Basutos and the other with Adam Kok, a leader of the Orange River Griquas. It was fondly believed that these three states, recognized by and in treaty with Great Britain, would isolate the colony from the disturbing and dangerous people to the north of them.Doctor Philip’s promising arrangement disappointed every one. The Africanders living in the territory of the Griquas refused to be bound in any sense by a treaty made by the despised half-breeds, and the former troubles continued. A further effort was made to give effect to the doctor’s statesmanship by establishing a military post at Bloemfontein, about half way between the Orange River and the Vaal, for the purpose of enforcing order and of carrying out the provisions of the treaty. This step was followed up in 1848 by the formal annexation to the British dominions in South Africa of the entire country lying between the Orange and the Vaal, under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. The second contact of Boer and Briton, begun in[106]Natal in 1842, was thus extended into the Orange River territory.The Africanders rose up to assert their independence, encouraged and re-enforced by their brethren from beyond the Vaal. Under the able and energetic leadership of Mr. Pretorius, who had opposed the British in Natal, they attacked Bloemfontein, captured the garrison posted there and advanced to the south as far as Orange River.The governor of Cape Colony, Sir Harry Smith, hastily dispatched a sufficient force, which met and defeated the Africanders at Bloomplats, about seventy-five miles north of the Orange River, on the 29th of August, 1848. The sole result of this battle was the restoration of British authority over the Orange River Sovereignty. The territory was not incorporated with that of Cape Colony, neither were the Africanders dwelling north of the Vaal River further interfered with.The old conditions of unrest continued. Fresh quarrels among the native tribes seemed to call for British interference, and led them into war with the Basutos under Moshesh. Out of this conflict and its threatened complications grew a deliberate change of imperial policy in[107]South Africa, which the English have never ceased to regret.The situation, so pregnant with far-reaching results, may be stated thus, in brief: The British resident at Bloemfontein had no force at his command that could cope with the Basutos under the masterly leadership of Moshesh. The Africanders living in the district were disaffected—even hostile—to the British government. They therefore refused to support the resident, preferring to fight only their own battles and to make their own terms with the Basutos. The situation of the British grew still more critical when Mr. Pretorius—yet a leading spirit among the Africanders north of the Vaal—threatened to make common cause with the Basutos. As for the old colony at the Cape, it was already involved in a fierce conflict with the south coast Kaffirs, and could not spare a man to aid in quieting the northern disturbances.At this juncture of circumstances Mr. Pretorius made overtures to the colonial authorities, intimating that he and the northern Africanders desired to make some permanent pacific arrangement with Great Britain. The British authorities, disavowing all right to control the territory north of the Vaal, but still claiming the allegiance[108]of theAfricandersresident therein, appointed commissioners to negotiate with Mr. Pretorius and other representatives of the Transvaal group of emigrants. Subsequently the home authorities of the British government appointed and sent out Sir George R. Clark, K. C. B., as “Her Majesty’s Special Commissioner for settling the affairs of the Orange River Sovereignty.” Having conferred with all who were concerned personally in the affairs of the Sovereignty, Sir George, in a meeting held at Sand River in 1852, concluded a convention with the commandant and delegates of the Africanders living north of the Vaal.In the provisions of this convention the British government expressly “guaranteed 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 it permitted the emigrants to purchase ammunition in the British colonies in South Africa. It also disclaimed “all alliances with any of the colored nations north of the Vaal River,” and stipulated that “no slavery is or shall be permitted or practiced by the farmers north of the Vaal River.”[109]The Transvaal Republic, called, later, the South African Republic, dates its independence from this convention, concluded at Sand River in 1852. It also, by the same instrument, severed itself and its interests from the Africander emigrants living in theSovereigntysouth of the Vaal—an act which their southern brethren deemed little short of a betrayal.For a few months after the convention of 1852 the Sovereignty continued British, and might have done so for many years but for a serious defeat of the British arms in that territory by the Basutos. General Cathcart, who had just been installed as governor of the Cape, rashly attacked the Basutos with a strong force of regulars, was led into an ambush and suffered so great a disaster that further hostile operations were impossible without a new and larger army. The politic Moshesh saw in the situation an opportunity to make peace with the English on favorable terms, which he at once proceeded to do.This crushing reverse called out a report to the British ministers relative to the condition of affairs in the Sovereignty, and a statement of the policy he favored in reference to that part of her majesty’s dominions, from Sir George Clark, the[110]special commissioner appointed to settle the affairs thereof. The closing paragraphs of that report read as follows:“The more I consider the position, relative both to the Cape colony and its (the Sovereignty’s) own internal circumstances, the more I feel assured of its inutility as an acquisition, and am impressed with a sense of the vain conceit of continuing to supply it with civil and military establishments in a manner becoming the character of the British Government, and advantageous to our resources.“It is a vast territory, possessing nothing that can sanction its being permanently added to a frontier already inconveniently extended. It secures no genuine interests; it is recommended by no prudent or justifiable motive; it answers no really beneficial purpose; it imparts no strength to the British Government, no credit to its character, no lustre to the crown. To remain here, therefore, to superintend or to countenance this extension of British dominion, or to take part in any administrative measure for the furtherance of so unessential an object, would, I conceive, be tantamount to my encouraging a serious evil, and participating in one of the most signal fallacies which has ever come under my notice in the[111]course of nearly thirty years devoted to the public service.”The British Government, weary of the perpetual native wars, disgusted at the late defeat of the British regulars by Moshesh and his Basutos, and influenced by the emphatic and very significant report of their special commissioner, which report was heartily indorsed by Governor Cathcart, decided to abandon the Orange River Sovereignty altogether. An act of parliament in accordance with that decision was passed. Later, when there were vehement protests against the abandonment—protests from the missionaries who feared for the welfare of the natives, and from English settlers in the Sovereignty who desired to remain subject to the British crown—a motion was made in the House of Commons begging the Queen to reconsider the renunciation of her sovereignty over the Orange River territory, but the motion found no support at all, and had to be withdrawn. Instead, parliament voted £48,000 to compensate any who might suffer loss in the coming change, so eager were the authorities to be rid of this large territory with its constant vexations and its costliness. And thus it was that independence was literally forced upon the Orange River country.[112]By the convention of the 23d of February, 1854, signed at Bloemfontein, the British government “guaranteed the future independence of the country and its government,” and covenanted that they should be, “to all intents and purposes, a free and independent people.” It further provided that the Orange River government was to be free to purchase ammunition in the British South African colonies, and that liberal privileges were to be granted it in connection with import duties. As in the case of the Transvaal, so in this convention it was stipulated, that no slavery or trade in slaves was to be permitted north of the Orange River. The name given to the new nation was “The Orange River Free State.”It cannot be denied that these conventions of 1852 and 1854 created two new and independent states. Nor can it be denied that in consenting to their creation the action of the British government was taken under no pressure of war, under no powerful foreign interference, but altogether of its own free will, and with the conviction that in cutting loose from undesirable and disputed territory it was acting for the good of the empire.DOCTOR JAMESON.DOCTOR JAMESON.Canon Knox Little, in his “South Africa,” calls this action of the British government “a serious blunder.” Be that as it may, the Africanders[113]acted in perfect consistency with all their former aspirations and claims, and they made no blunders in the negotiations that secured to them independent national existence. The British “blunder”—if blunder it was—was written in a formal official document, and subscribed by theauthorisedrepresentatives of the government, appointed expressly to give effect to imperial legislation, and can no more be repudiated righteously than can a written contract between private individuals.[114]
CHAPTER VI.SECOND CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON—NORTH OF THE ORANGE RIVER.
The Africanders who had trekked into the spreading uplands lying between the Orange River and the Limpopo, west of Natal, were not exempt from the tribulations experienced by their brethren who had turned eastward to the coast. Like them they were forced to wage incessant war with the natives; but the enemies they had to encounter were less formidable than the Zulus. One tribe, however, and their historic chief, Moshesh, were foemen worthy of their steel. In the nineteenth century there were three men of the Kaffir race who were vastly superior to any of their own people, and measured up evenly with the ablest white opponents they met in diplomacy and war. These men were Tshaka the Zulu, Khama of the Bechuanos, and Moshesh the Basuto. It was the fortune of the Orange River emigrants to meet this Moshesh and the Basutos in many a hard-fought battle for the possession of the country.[99]Moshesh differed from other Kaffir leaders in that he was merciful to his wounded and captive enemies and ruled his own people with mildness and equity. As early as 1832 he opened the way for, and even invited, missionaries to teach the Basutos a better way of life, and they exerted a powerful formative influence on the Basuto nation. The missionaries were all European—some of them were British—which latter fact was made apparent in the result of their work. When the unavoidable conflict between the Basutos and the whites came, the Basutos, guided by their missionaries, were careful to avoid any fatal breach with the British government. Several times Moshesh engaged in war with the Orange River emigrants, but only once with the English.In 1843 the Africanders of this region were widely scattered over a vast spread of country measuring seven hundred miles in length and three hundred in width. To the southeast it was bounded by the Quathlamba mountains, but on the north and west there were no natural features to delimitate it from the plain which extends to the Zambesi on the north and to the Atlantic Ocean on the west. Within this territory the Africander population, in 1843, was not much more than 15,000. This seems a small[100]number in view of the fact that the pioneer emigrants of 1836 to 1838 had been largely re-enforced from the Cape colony. But it must be remembered their life was precarious in the extreme; many had died—some from disease, some in conflict with wild beasts, and a still greater number in their frequent wars with the natives. The white population was further recruited between 1843 and 1847 by a second Africander trek from Natal—which will be described in another chapter.So small a body of people, of whom not more than 4,000 were adult males, occupying so vast a territory, experienced serious difficulties in establishing an efficient government. The difficulties growing out of that cause were enhanced by the very qualities in the Africanders which had led to their emigration from the old colony, and which had made them successful in their wars of conquest in the interior. To an excessive degree they were possessed by a spirit of individual poise and independence. They desired isolation—even from one another. They chafed and grew restive under control of any kind, so much so that they were indisposed to obey even the authorities created by themselves. For warlike expeditions, which yielded them a pleasant excitement, enlarged their territory by[101]conquest, and enriched them with captured cattle and other spoil, they readily united under their military leaders and rendered them obedience, but any other form of control they found irksome. This predilection towards solitary independence was constantly strengthened by the circumstances in which they lived. The soil, being dry and parched in most places, did not invite agriculture to any considerable extent. Most of the people turned to stock-farming, and the nomadic life it necessitated in seeking change of pasture for the flocks and herds confirmed the disposition to live separate from other people.Out of these causes grew the determination to make their civil government absolutely popular, and conditioned, entirely, on the will of the governed. But unity of some kind must be had, for their very existence depended on acting together against the natives, and against the repeated claims of the British government to exercise sovereignty over the region they occupied. The first steps towards instituting civil government were taken in the organizing of several small republican communities, the design being that each should manage its own affairs by a general meeting of all the citizens. It was found, however, as the population spread over the country, that such independent neighborhood governments[102]failed to secure the necessary unity of the whole people in any matter requiring the aggregate strength of the whole people. To remedy this element of weakness and danger, the Africanders instituted a kind of federal bond between the little republican communities, in an elective assembly called the Volksraad—a Council of the People composed of delegates from all the sectional governments. This federative tie was of the weakest—its authority resting upon an unwritten understanding and common consent rather than upon formal articles of confederation, and its meaning being always subject to such interpretation as might be suggested by the error or the passion of the passing moment.The territory beyond the Vaal River, to the far northeast from Cape Colony, was left undisturbed by the British government. The Africanders living there were hundreds of miles from the nearest British outpost. Their wars with the natives projected no disturbing influence upon the tribes with whom the colonial government was in touch and for whose peace and prosperity it felt responsible. Moreover, the British authorities at the Cape were under instructions from the Colonial Office of the home government to rather contract than expand the scope of British influence in South Africa. For these[103]reasons the Cape government cared nothing for what took place in the outlying regions beyond the Vaal, unless, indeed, it was some event calculated to disturb the natives dwelling next the colonial borders.Altogether different, in the esteem of the Cape authorities and of the Colonial office, were the affairs of the region extending southwestward from the Vaal River to the borders of Cape Colony. Within that territory there had been frequent dissensions between Africander communities. And there had been a rapid increase of dangerous elements in the native population. The Basutos had grown powerful. Intermixed with the whites were the Griquas, a half-breed hunting people, sprung from Africander fathers and Hottentot mothers, and partially civilized. The possibility of serious native wars growing out of quarrels between the white emigrants themselves and between them and the mixed colored population was a constant distress to both colonial governors and the home authorities.At this time the Cape was regarded the least prosperous of all the British colonies, and there was a growing indisposition to annex any more territory in South Africa. The soil was mostly arid. The Africander population was alien. The[104]Kaffir wars threatened to be endless and very costly in men and in money. This reluctance to enlarge had been overcome in the case of Natal; but Natal was the garden of South Africa and the possession of it gave the British command of the east coast almost to Delagoa Bay. But to the north there seemed to be nothing sufficiently inviting to justify the taking up of new responsibility and expense.The problem of how to safeguard the peace of the old Cape Colony without undertaking the burdens involved in governing and holding the whole Africander territory to the northeast, including the region beyond the Vaal River, was thought to have been solved by Doctor Philip, an English missionary, who had some influence with the government. The scheme recommended by Doctor Philip was that the government should create a line of native states under British control along the northeast border of Cape Colony. These would act, he claimed, as a barrier to break the influence of the more turbulent Africanders in the regions north of that line on those of their blood who were yet citizens of the old colony, and they would, in like manner, separate between the native tribes in the colony and those in the interior.Doctor Philip’s plan was adopted with much[105]enthusiasm. A treaty suitable to the purpose contemplated had already been made with a northern Griqua leader named Waterboer. In 1843 two other treaties were made, one with Moshesh of the Basutos and the other with Adam Kok, a leader of the Orange River Griquas. It was fondly believed that these three states, recognized by and in treaty with Great Britain, would isolate the colony from the disturbing and dangerous people to the north of them.Doctor Philip’s promising arrangement disappointed every one. The Africanders living in the territory of the Griquas refused to be bound in any sense by a treaty made by the despised half-breeds, and the former troubles continued. A further effort was made to give effect to the doctor’s statesmanship by establishing a military post at Bloemfontein, about half way between the Orange River and the Vaal, for the purpose of enforcing order and of carrying out the provisions of the treaty. This step was followed up in 1848 by the formal annexation to the British dominions in South Africa of the entire country lying between the Orange and the Vaal, under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. The second contact of Boer and Briton, begun in[106]Natal in 1842, was thus extended into the Orange River territory.The Africanders rose up to assert their independence, encouraged and re-enforced by their brethren from beyond the Vaal. Under the able and energetic leadership of Mr. Pretorius, who had opposed the British in Natal, they attacked Bloemfontein, captured the garrison posted there and advanced to the south as far as Orange River.The governor of Cape Colony, Sir Harry Smith, hastily dispatched a sufficient force, which met and defeated the Africanders at Bloomplats, about seventy-five miles north of the Orange River, on the 29th of August, 1848. The sole result of this battle was the restoration of British authority over the Orange River Sovereignty. The territory was not incorporated with that of Cape Colony, neither were the Africanders dwelling north of the Vaal River further interfered with.The old conditions of unrest continued. Fresh quarrels among the native tribes seemed to call for British interference, and led them into war with the Basutos under Moshesh. Out of this conflict and its threatened complications grew a deliberate change of imperial policy in[107]South Africa, which the English have never ceased to regret.The situation, so pregnant with far-reaching results, may be stated thus, in brief: The British resident at Bloemfontein had no force at his command that could cope with the Basutos under the masterly leadership of Moshesh. The Africanders living in the district were disaffected—even hostile—to the British government. They therefore refused to support the resident, preferring to fight only their own battles and to make their own terms with the Basutos. The situation of the British grew still more critical when Mr. Pretorius—yet a leading spirit among the Africanders north of the Vaal—threatened to make common cause with the Basutos. As for the old colony at the Cape, it was already involved in a fierce conflict with the south coast Kaffirs, and could not spare a man to aid in quieting the northern disturbances.At this juncture of circumstances Mr. Pretorius made overtures to the colonial authorities, intimating that he and the northern Africanders desired to make some permanent pacific arrangement with Great Britain. The British authorities, disavowing all right to control the territory north of the Vaal, but still claiming the allegiance[108]of theAfricandersresident therein, appointed commissioners to negotiate with Mr. Pretorius and other representatives of the Transvaal group of emigrants. Subsequently the home authorities of the British government appointed and sent out Sir George R. Clark, K. C. B., as “Her Majesty’s Special Commissioner for settling the affairs of the Orange River Sovereignty.” Having conferred with all who were concerned personally in the affairs of the Sovereignty, Sir George, in a meeting held at Sand River in 1852, concluded a convention with the commandant and delegates of the Africanders living north of the Vaal.In the provisions of this convention the British government expressly “guaranteed 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 it permitted the emigrants to purchase ammunition in the British colonies in South Africa. It also disclaimed “all alliances with any of the colored nations north of the Vaal River,” and stipulated that “no slavery is or shall be permitted or practiced by the farmers north of the Vaal River.”[109]The Transvaal Republic, called, later, the South African Republic, dates its independence from this convention, concluded at Sand River in 1852. It also, by the same instrument, severed itself and its interests from the Africander emigrants living in theSovereigntysouth of the Vaal—an act which their southern brethren deemed little short of a betrayal.For a few months after the convention of 1852 the Sovereignty continued British, and might have done so for many years but for a serious defeat of the British arms in that territory by the Basutos. General Cathcart, who had just been installed as governor of the Cape, rashly attacked the Basutos with a strong force of regulars, was led into an ambush and suffered so great a disaster that further hostile operations were impossible without a new and larger army. The politic Moshesh saw in the situation an opportunity to make peace with the English on favorable terms, which he at once proceeded to do.This crushing reverse called out a report to the British ministers relative to the condition of affairs in the Sovereignty, and a statement of the policy he favored in reference to that part of her majesty’s dominions, from Sir George Clark, the[110]special commissioner appointed to settle the affairs thereof. The closing paragraphs of that report read as follows:“The more I consider the position, relative both to the Cape colony and its (the Sovereignty’s) own internal circumstances, the more I feel assured of its inutility as an acquisition, and am impressed with a sense of the vain conceit of continuing to supply it with civil and military establishments in a manner becoming the character of the British Government, and advantageous to our resources.“It is a vast territory, possessing nothing that can sanction its being permanently added to a frontier already inconveniently extended. It secures no genuine interests; it is recommended by no prudent or justifiable motive; it answers no really beneficial purpose; it imparts no strength to the British Government, no credit to its character, no lustre to the crown. To remain here, therefore, to superintend or to countenance this extension of British dominion, or to take part in any administrative measure for the furtherance of so unessential an object, would, I conceive, be tantamount to my encouraging a serious evil, and participating in one of the most signal fallacies which has ever come under my notice in the[111]course of nearly thirty years devoted to the public service.”The British Government, weary of the perpetual native wars, disgusted at the late defeat of the British regulars by Moshesh and his Basutos, and influenced by the emphatic and very significant report of their special commissioner, which report was heartily indorsed by Governor Cathcart, decided to abandon the Orange River Sovereignty altogether. An act of parliament in accordance with that decision was passed. Later, when there were vehement protests against the abandonment—protests from the missionaries who feared for the welfare of the natives, and from English settlers in the Sovereignty who desired to remain subject to the British crown—a motion was made in the House of Commons begging the Queen to reconsider the renunciation of her sovereignty over the Orange River territory, but the motion found no support at all, and had to be withdrawn. Instead, parliament voted £48,000 to compensate any who might suffer loss in the coming change, so eager were the authorities to be rid of this large territory with its constant vexations and its costliness. And thus it was that independence was literally forced upon the Orange River country.[112]By the convention of the 23d of February, 1854, signed at Bloemfontein, the British government “guaranteed the future independence of the country and its government,” and covenanted that they should be, “to all intents and purposes, a free and independent people.” It further provided that the Orange River government was to be free to purchase ammunition in the British South African colonies, and that liberal privileges were to be granted it in connection with import duties. As in the case of the Transvaal, so in this convention it was stipulated, that no slavery or trade in slaves was to be permitted north of the Orange River. The name given to the new nation was “The Orange River Free State.”It cannot be denied that these conventions of 1852 and 1854 created two new and independent states. Nor can it be denied that in consenting to their creation the action of the British government was taken under no pressure of war, under no powerful foreign interference, but altogether of its own free will, and with the conviction that in cutting loose from undesirable and disputed territory it was acting for the good of the empire.DOCTOR JAMESON.DOCTOR JAMESON.Canon Knox Little, in his “South Africa,” calls this action of the British government “a serious blunder.” Be that as it may, the Africanders[113]acted in perfect consistency with all their former aspirations and claims, and they made no blunders in the negotiations that secured to them independent national existence. The British “blunder”—if blunder it was—was written in a formal official document, and subscribed by theauthorisedrepresentatives of the government, appointed expressly to give effect to imperial legislation, and can no more be repudiated righteously than can a written contract between private individuals.[114]
The Africanders who had trekked into the spreading uplands lying between the Orange River and the Limpopo, west of Natal, were not exempt from the tribulations experienced by their brethren who had turned eastward to the coast. Like them they were forced to wage incessant war with the natives; but the enemies they had to encounter were less formidable than the Zulus. One tribe, however, and their historic chief, Moshesh, were foemen worthy of their steel. In the nineteenth century there were three men of the Kaffir race who were vastly superior to any of their own people, and measured up evenly with the ablest white opponents they met in diplomacy and war. These men were Tshaka the Zulu, Khama of the Bechuanos, and Moshesh the Basuto. It was the fortune of the Orange River emigrants to meet this Moshesh and the Basutos in many a hard-fought battle for the possession of the country.[99]Moshesh differed from other Kaffir leaders in that he was merciful to his wounded and captive enemies and ruled his own people with mildness and equity. As early as 1832 he opened the way for, and even invited, missionaries to teach the Basutos a better way of life, and they exerted a powerful formative influence on the Basuto nation. The missionaries were all European—some of them were British—which latter fact was made apparent in the result of their work. When the unavoidable conflict between the Basutos and the whites came, the Basutos, guided by their missionaries, were careful to avoid any fatal breach with the British government. Several times Moshesh engaged in war with the Orange River emigrants, but only once with the English.
In 1843 the Africanders of this region were widely scattered over a vast spread of country measuring seven hundred miles in length and three hundred in width. To the southeast it was bounded by the Quathlamba mountains, but on the north and west there were no natural features to delimitate it from the plain which extends to the Zambesi on the north and to the Atlantic Ocean on the west. Within this territory the Africander population, in 1843, was not much more than 15,000. This seems a small[100]number in view of the fact that the pioneer emigrants of 1836 to 1838 had been largely re-enforced from the Cape colony. But it must be remembered their life was precarious in the extreme; many had died—some from disease, some in conflict with wild beasts, and a still greater number in their frequent wars with the natives. The white population was further recruited between 1843 and 1847 by a second Africander trek from Natal—which will be described in another chapter.
So small a body of people, of whom not more than 4,000 were adult males, occupying so vast a territory, experienced serious difficulties in establishing an efficient government. The difficulties growing out of that cause were enhanced by the very qualities in the Africanders which had led to their emigration from the old colony, and which had made them successful in their wars of conquest in the interior. To an excessive degree they were possessed by a spirit of individual poise and independence. They desired isolation—even from one another. They chafed and grew restive under control of any kind, so much so that they were indisposed to obey even the authorities created by themselves. For warlike expeditions, which yielded them a pleasant excitement, enlarged their territory by[101]conquest, and enriched them with captured cattle and other spoil, they readily united under their military leaders and rendered them obedience, but any other form of control they found irksome. This predilection towards solitary independence was constantly strengthened by the circumstances in which they lived. The soil, being dry and parched in most places, did not invite agriculture to any considerable extent. Most of the people turned to stock-farming, and the nomadic life it necessitated in seeking change of pasture for the flocks and herds confirmed the disposition to live separate from other people.
Out of these causes grew the determination to make their civil government absolutely popular, and conditioned, entirely, on the will of the governed. But unity of some kind must be had, for their very existence depended on acting together against the natives, and against the repeated claims of the British government to exercise sovereignty over the region they occupied. The first steps towards instituting civil government were taken in the organizing of several small republican communities, the design being that each should manage its own affairs by a general meeting of all the citizens. It was found, however, as the population spread over the country, that such independent neighborhood governments[102]failed to secure the necessary unity of the whole people in any matter requiring the aggregate strength of the whole people. To remedy this element of weakness and danger, the Africanders instituted a kind of federal bond between the little republican communities, in an elective assembly called the Volksraad—a Council of the People composed of delegates from all the sectional governments. This federative tie was of the weakest—its authority resting upon an unwritten understanding and common consent rather than upon formal articles of confederation, and its meaning being always subject to such interpretation as might be suggested by the error or the passion of the passing moment.
The territory beyond the Vaal River, to the far northeast from Cape Colony, was left undisturbed by the British government. The Africanders living there were hundreds of miles from the nearest British outpost. Their wars with the natives projected no disturbing influence upon the tribes with whom the colonial government was in touch and for whose peace and prosperity it felt responsible. Moreover, the British authorities at the Cape were under instructions from the Colonial Office of the home government to rather contract than expand the scope of British influence in South Africa. For these[103]reasons the Cape government cared nothing for what took place in the outlying regions beyond the Vaal, unless, indeed, it was some event calculated to disturb the natives dwelling next the colonial borders.
Altogether different, in the esteem of the Cape authorities and of the Colonial office, were the affairs of the region extending southwestward from the Vaal River to the borders of Cape Colony. Within that territory there had been frequent dissensions between Africander communities. And there had been a rapid increase of dangerous elements in the native population. The Basutos had grown powerful. Intermixed with the whites were the Griquas, a half-breed hunting people, sprung from Africander fathers and Hottentot mothers, and partially civilized. The possibility of serious native wars growing out of quarrels between the white emigrants themselves and between them and the mixed colored population was a constant distress to both colonial governors and the home authorities.
At this time the Cape was regarded the least prosperous of all the British colonies, and there was a growing indisposition to annex any more territory in South Africa. The soil was mostly arid. The Africander population was alien. The[104]Kaffir wars threatened to be endless and very costly in men and in money. This reluctance to enlarge had been overcome in the case of Natal; but Natal was the garden of South Africa and the possession of it gave the British command of the east coast almost to Delagoa Bay. But to the north there seemed to be nothing sufficiently inviting to justify the taking up of new responsibility and expense.
The problem of how to safeguard the peace of the old Cape Colony without undertaking the burdens involved in governing and holding the whole Africander territory to the northeast, including the region beyond the Vaal River, was thought to have been solved by Doctor Philip, an English missionary, who had some influence with the government. The scheme recommended by Doctor Philip was that the government should create a line of native states under British control along the northeast border of Cape Colony. These would act, he claimed, as a barrier to break the influence of the more turbulent Africanders in the regions north of that line on those of their blood who were yet citizens of the old colony, and they would, in like manner, separate between the native tribes in the colony and those in the interior.
Doctor Philip’s plan was adopted with much[105]enthusiasm. A treaty suitable to the purpose contemplated had already been made with a northern Griqua leader named Waterboer. In 1843 two other treaties were made, one with Moshesh of the Basutos and the other with Adam Kok, a leader of the Orange River Griquas. It was fondly believed that these three states, recognized by and in treaty with Great Britain, would isolate the colony from the disturbing and dangerous people to the north of them.
Doctor Philip’s promising arrangement disappointed every one. The Africanders living in the territory of the Griquas refused to be bound in any sense by a treaty made by the despised half-breeds, and the former troubles continued. A further effort was made to give effect to the doctor’s statesmanship by establishing a military post at Bloemfontein, about half way between the Orange River and the Vaal, for the purpose of enforcing order and of carrying out the provisions of the treaty. This step was followed up in 1848 by the formal annexation to the British dominions in South Africa of the entire country lying between the Orange and the Vaal, under the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. The second contact of Boer and Briton, begun in[106]Natal in 1842, was thus extended into the Orange River territory.
The Africanders rose up to assert their independence, encouraged and re-enforced by their brethren from beyond the Vaal. Under the able and energetic leadership of Mr. Pretorius, who had opposed the British in Natal, they attacked Bloemfontein, captured the garrison posted there and advanced to the south as far as Orange River.
The governor of Cape Colony, Sir Harry Smith, hastily dispatched a sufficient force, which met and defeated the Africanders at Bloomplats, about seventy-five miles north of the Orange River, on the 29th of August, 1848. The sole result of this battle was the restoration of British authority over the Orange River Sovereignty. The territory was not incorporated with that of Cape Colony, neither were the Africanders dwelling north of the Vaal River further interfered with.
The old conditions of unrest continued. Fresh quarrels among the native tribes seemed to call for British interference, and led them into war with the Basutos under Moshesh. Out of this conflict and its threatened complications grew a deliberate change of imperial policy in[107]South Africa, which the English have never ceased to regret.
The situation, so pregnant with far-reaching results, may be stated thus, in brief: The British resident at Bloemfontein had no force at his command that could cope with the Basutos under the masterly leadership of Moshesh. The Africanders living in the district were disaffected—even hostile—to the British government. They therefore refused to support the resident, preferring to fight only their own battles and to make their own terms with the Basutos. The situation of the British grew still more critical when Mr. Pretorius—yet a leading spirit among the Africanders north of the Vaal—threatened to make common cause with the Basutos. As for the old colony at the Cape, it was already involved in a fierce conflict with the south coast Kaffirs, and could not spare a man to aid in quieting the northern disturbances.
At this juncture of circumstances Mr. Pretorius made overtures to the colonial authorities, intimating that he and the northern Africanders desired to make some permanent pacific arrangement with Great Britain. The British authorities, disavowing all right to control the territory north of the Vaal, but still claiming the allegiance[108]of theAfricandersresident therein, appointed commissioners to negotiate with Mr. Pretorius and other representatives of the Transvaal group of emigrants. Subsequently the home authorities of the British government appointed and sent out Sir George R. Clark, K. C. B., as “Her Majesty’s Special Commissioner for settling the affairs of the Orange River Sovereignty.” Having conferred with all who were concerned personally in the affairs of the Sovereignty, Sir George, in a meeting held at Sand River in 1852, concluded a convention with the commandant and delegates of the Africanders living north of the Vaal.
In the provisions of this convention the British government expressly “guaranteed 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 it permitted the emigrants to purchase ammunition in the British colonies in South Africa. It also disclaimed “all alliances with any of the colored nations north of the Vaal River,” and stipulated that “no slavery is or shall be permitted or practiced by the farmers north of the Vaal River.”[109]
The Transvaal Republic, called, later, the South African Republic, dates its independence from this convention, concluded at Sand River in 1852. It also, by the same instrument, severed itself and its interests from the Africander emigrants living in theSovereigntysouth of the Vaal—an act which their southern brethren deemed little short of a betrayal.
For a few months after the convention of 1852 the Sovereignty continued British, and might have done so for many years but for a serious defeat of the British arms in that territory by the Basutos. General Cathcart, who had just been installed as governor of the Cape, rashly attacked the Basutos with a strong force of regulars, was led into an ambush and suffered so great a disaster that further hostile operations were impossible without a new and larger army. The politic Moshesh saw in the situation an opportunity to make peace with the English on favorable terms, which he at once proceeded to do.
This crushing reverse called out a report to the British ministers relative to the condition of affairs in the Sovereignty, and a statement of the policy he favored in reference to that part of her majesty’s dominions, from Sir George Clark, the[110]special commissioner appointed to settle the affairs thereof. The closing paragraphs of that report read as follows:
“The more I consider the position, relative both to the Cape colony and its (the Sovereignty’s) own internal circumstances, the more I feel assured of its inutility as an acquisition, and am impressed with a sense of the vain conceit of continuing to supply it with civil and military establishments in a manner becoming the character of the British Government, and advantageous to our resources.
“It is a vast territory, possessing nothing that can sanction its being permanently added to a frontier already inconveniently extended. It secures no genuine interests; it is recommended by no prudent or justifiable motive; it answers no really beneficial purpose; it imparts no strength to the British Government, no credit to its character, no lustre to the crown. To remain here, therefore, to superintend or to countenance this extension of British dominion, or to take part in any administrative measure for the furtherance of so unessential an object, would, I conceive, be tantamount to my encouraging a serious evil, and participating in one of the most signal fallacies which has ever come under my notice in the[111]course of nearly thirty years devoted to the public service.”
The British Government, weary of the perpetual native wars, disgusted at the late defeat of the British regulars by Moshesh and his Basutos, and influenced by the emphatic and very significant report of their special commissioner, which report was heartily indorsed by Governor Cathcart, decided to abandon the Orange River Sovereignty altogether. An act of parliament in accordance with that decision was passed. Later, when there were vehement protests against the abandonment—protests from the missionaries who feared for the welfare of the natives, and from English settlers in the Sovereignty who desired to remain subject to the British crown—a motion was made in the House of Commons begging the Queen to reconsider the renunciation of her sovereignty over the Orange River territory, but the motion found no support at all, and had to be withdrawn. Instead, parliament voted £48,000 to compensate any who might suffer loss in the coming change, so eager were the authorities to be rid of this large territory with its constant vexations and its costliness. And thus it was that independence was literally forced upon the Orange River country.[112]
By the convention of the 23d of February, 1854, signed at Bloemfontein, the British government “guaranteed the future independence of the country and its government,” and covenanted that they should be, “to all intents and purposes, a free and independent people.” It further provided that the Orange River government was to be free to purchase ammunition in the British South African colonies, and that liberal privileges were to be granted it in connection with import duties. As in the case of the Transvaal, so in this convention it was stipulated, that no slavery or trade in slaves was to be permitted north of the Orange River. The name given to the new nation was “The Orange River Free State.”
It cannot be denied that these conventions of 1852 and 1854 created two new and independent states. Nor can it be denied that in consenting to their creation the action of the British government was taken under no pressure of war, under no powerful foreign interference, but altogether of its own free will, and with the conviction that in cutting loose from undesirable and disputed territory it was acting for the good of the empire.
DOCTOR JAMESON.DOCTOR JAMESON.
DOCTOR JAMESON.
Canon Knox Little, in his “South Africa,” calls this action of the British government “a serious blunder.” Be that as it may, the Africanders[113]acted in perfect consistency with all their former aspirations and claims, and they made no blunders in the negotiations that secured to them independent national existence. The British “blunder”—if blunder it was—was written in a formal official document, and subscribed by theauthorisedrepresentatives of the government, appointed expressly to give effect to imperial legislation, and can no more be repudiated righteously than can a written contract between private individuals.[114]