[Contents]CHAPTER XI.THEAFRICANDERS’FIRST WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.Notwithstanding their native love of independence, and their protest to the British throne against the act of annexation, the Africanders of the Transvaal might have acquiesced in the British rule had they been fairly treated. There was a good promise of peace at first. The finances of the country were at once relieved by the expenditure of English money in liberal amounts. Numbers of the leading Africanders retained their official positions at the request of the British commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. It is only reasonable to suppose that the people at large would have settled down to permanent content as British subjects had the affairs of the newly constituted colony been administered to the satisfaction of the leaders.But, instead of following a policy dictated alike by wisdom and righteousness, the very opposite seems to have been the rule observed in[166]the attempt to govern these new and most difficult subjects of the British crown. A number of mistakes—so called—were made which, as even Canon Knox Little admits, were a sufficient justification of the Africander leaders in plotting and agitating against the British connection.The first of these mistakes was the too early recall of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had so deftly managed the bloodless though arbitrary annexation, who knew the country well and was much respected by the people. In place of his rule as special commissioner was substituted an administration under Sir Bartle Frere as governor of Cape Colony and British High Commissioner for South Africa. There being no representative government in the Transvaal after annexation, the administration became, perhaps necessarily, autocratic both in form and in spirit. Sir William Owen Lanyon, who had been appointed governor of the Transvaal, was an officer of some renown in dealing successfully with native uprisings, but proved totally unfit for the delicate management required in governing the Africanders. He has been described as haughty and arrogant in mind, indisposed to excuse the rudeness of the Transvaal farmers, and incapable of tolerating the social equality so dear to them.[167]His swarthy complexion, also, made against his popularity, for it suggested the possibility of a strain of black blood in his veins—a blemish unpardonable in the eyes of any slaveholding people. Under his rule complaints were ignored, taxes were levied and peremptorily collected by distraint, and soon the latent discontent broke out into open and active disaffection.The second mistake—if it does not deserve a harsher name—was the failure to institute the local self-government by representatives promised by Sir Theophilus Shepstone when he proclaimed annexation. The text of that part of the proclamation reads thus:“And I further proclaim and make known that the Transvaal will remain a separate government, with its own Laws and Legislature, and that it is the wish of her Most Gracious Majesty that it shall enjoy the fullest legislative privileges compatible with the circumstances of the country and the intelligence of the people. That arrangement will be made by which the Dutch language will practically be as much the official language as the English. All laws, proclamations and government notices will be published in the Dutch language; and in the courts of law the same may be done at the option of suitors to a[168]case. The laws so in force in the State will be retained until altered by competent legislative authority.”CECIL J. RHODES.CECIL J. RHODES.Not one of these promises was ever fulfilled. The volksraad was never convened. The promised constitution of local self-government was never promulgated. Instead of redeeming these promises the Transvaal was put upon the status of a crown colony in 1879, and the legislature proposed for it was to consist of some crown officials and six members—all to be the nominees of the governor.Mr. Bryce, in his “Impressions of South Africa,” calls this failure to redeem a promise authoritatively made as a concession to a people whose independence was beingarbitrarilysubverted, a “blunder.” Canon Little uses a still softer term, calling it a “mistake”; and adds, “It was given in good faith, and in good faith was received. Sir Theophilus Shepstone tried to fulfill it. He at once submitted his views as to the necessary legislative arrangements. No action whatever was taken on it, either by Conservatives or Liberals, and his dispatch is probably lying uncared for in the Colonial Office now!”—(1899.)And so, in the mutations of language as currently[169]used in history and in Christian ethics, it has come to pass that this piece of national treachery—this treachery of the strong against the weak—this treachery implicating both of the leading political parties of Great Britain and their chiefs, is only a “blunder,” a “mistake”!One real and very serious blunder was committed, if one judges of it from the view point of the policy intended to be pursued in the Transvaal by the British government. The Africanders had accepted, under protest, the act of annexation mainly because they were in mortal fear of the Zulus. That reason for submission the British proceeded to remove by overthrowing the Zulu power.In the northeast Sir Garnet Wolseley defeated Sikukuni and established what promised to be a permanent peace. In 1879 Sir Bartle Frere inflicted a like reverse uponCetawayo, in the southeast, and so completed the subjugation of the Zulus. The blunder in taking this course declared itself when, after subduing the natives at great cost of blood and treasure, the British found that in so doing they had relieved the Africanders of the one fear that thus far had prevented them from reasserting their independence.Many people, both in England and in South[170]Africa, regarded the annexation of the Transvaal as final. But leading members of the Liberal party, then in opposition, had emphatically condemned it, and this had raised hopes in the Transvaal Africanders and their sympathizers in England that when Gladstone came into power again the things which they regarded as wrong would be righted. Such hopes were doomed to disappointment.In 1880 the Liberals carried the country and took office in April of that year. Guided by information derived from the crown officials in South Africa, the new ministers were misled as to the measure of discontent in the Transvaal, and declared that the act of annexation would not be reversed.This flat refusal brought matters to an immediate issue. The Transvaal burghers, though they had continued to agitate and protest and memorialize the throne, had waited with considerable patience for three years, hoping for either a restoration of their independence or—as the next best thing—the instituting of such a representative local government as had been promised them by the imperial authorities. But now the new Liberal government, after using the Transvaal grievances for electioneering purposes,[171]had refused to consider and redress those grievances; the military administration of a mere crown colony continued in full force under the detested Sir William Owen Lanyon; and there appeared to be no hope that the promises made to mollify their indignation when their independence was being subverted would ever be fulfilled.It has been said, in extenuation, that the British government of this time was too busy with other pressing matters to give the attention necessary to a correct understanding of the condition, and the rights and the wrongs, of the Transvaal Africanders. And it has been said, in further extenuation, that there was an honest intention on the part of the government to fulfill the promises made—some time—as soon as the authorities could get to it. Be that as it may, at the end of three years, which had brought no betterment of their state, the burghers concluded that their protests and their patience had been wasted, and determined to wait no longer.Accordingly a mass-meeting was held at Paardekraal, in December, 1880, at which it was resolved to appeal to arms. The burghers elected Messrs. Pretorius, Paul Kruger and Joubert to proclaim for them the re-establishment of their former government as the South African[172]Republic, which was done in Heidelberg, and the national flag was raised, on the 16th of December, 1880.The first battles of this war were little more than skirmishes. The British troops were scattered through the country in small detachments, which the Africanders—every man of whom was a marksman and an experienced fighter—found it easy to either cut off or drive before them to positions that could be fortified.The nearest available British troops, besides those already in the Transvaal, were in Natal. General Sir George Colley, governor of that colony, raised what force he could and marched northward to check the uprising. Before he could enter the Transvaal, however, Commandant-General Joubert crossed the border into Natal and took up a strong position at Laing’s Nek. This now historic spot is a steep ridge forming the watershed between the Klip River, a tributary of the Vaal, and Buffalo River, a confluent of the Tugela, which flows into the Indian Ocean. Here a sanguinary battle was fought on the 28th of January, 1881. The British attacked the Africanders with great spirit, but Joubert’s position was invulnerable. The ridge protected his men from the artillery fire of the British,[173]while they, in charging up the slope, were cut down by the accurate rifle fire of the Africanders, and forced to retreat. On the 8th of February, in the same neighborhood, on the Ingogo heights, the British were again defeated after suffering severe loss.General Colley now decided to seize by night Majuba Hill, which is really a considerable mountain, rising nearly 2,000 feet above Laing’s Nek, and commanding that ridge for the purpose of artillery fighting. On the night of February 26th, leaving the main body of his army in camp, and unaccountably forgetting to order it to advance on the enemy so as to divert attention from his tactical movement, General Colley led a smaller division to the top of Majuba Hill.The burgher force was thrown into temporary dismay when they first observed British soldiers in that commanding position. But when there was no advance against them in front, and no artillery fire from the top of Majuba, they sent out a volunteer party to storm the hill. The story of that charge has gone into history to stay as an example, on the one side, of rugged bravery and splendid courage achieving victory, and on the other of equal bravery and courage strangely betrayed by some one’s blunder into defeat and[174]ruinous disaster. Why the main force of the British army was not ordered to co-operate in the movement, why there were no entrenchments thrown up on the hill, why the order, “Charge bayonets,” so eagerly looked for by the British soldiers on the hill-top, was never given, General Colley did not live to tell—no one else knew. The Africanders scaled the hill, shooting as they went up every man that showed on the sky line—themselves protected by the steep declivities above them, and carried the hill-top, routing and almost annihilating the British force. General Colley and ninety-two of his men were killed, and fifty-nine were made prisoners.In the meanwhile additional British troops were hurrying to the scene of conflict, under command of Sir Evelyn Wood. What the outcome would have been of further hostilities between the Africanders and the greatly increased British force no one can tell. The sudden and surprising action of the British government, that put an end to the war, was not based upon any estimate of the probable issue of continued conflict, but altogether upon the moral aspects of the situation as seen by Mr. Gladstone and his associates in the British cabinet. Before Sir Evelyn Wood could strike a single blow toward wiping[175]out the disgrace of Majuba Hill, the home government, on the 5th of March, 1881, ordered an armistice, and on the 23d agreed to terms of peace by which the Transvaal was restored to its former political independence in all regards, save that it was to be under the suzerainty of the British crown.In August, 1881, a more formal convention was held at Pretoria, when it was agreed that the Transvaal government should be independent in the management of its internal affairs; that the Republic should respect the independence of the Swazies, a tribe of natives on the eastern border of the Transvaal; that British troops should be allowed to pass through the territory of the Republic in time of war; and that the British sovereign should be acknowledged as suzerain of the Republic and have a veto power over all treaties between the government of the Transvaal and foreign nations.Several of the stipulations in this convention were very distasteful to Paul Kruger and other leading spirits in the Transvaal, and also to the volksraad. Negotiations for desired changes were continued until 1884, when, on the 27th of February, a revision called the London Convention[176]was made and signed, formulating the obligations of the Republic as follows:RAAD ZAAL (GOVERNMENT BUILDING), PRETORIA.RAAD ZAAL (GOVERNMENT BUILDING), PRETORIA.The Sovereign of Great Britain was to have, for the space of six months after their date, a veto power over all treaties between the Republic and any native tribes to the eastward and westward of its territory, and between it and any foreign state or nation except the Orange Free State.The stipulations of the two previous conventions respecting slavery, those of 1852 and 1881, were to be observed by the Republic.And the Republic was to accord to Great Britain the treatment of a most favored nation, and to deal kindly with strangers entering its territory.Nothing whatever was said in this latest convention of the suzerainty of the British Sovereign mentioned in that of 1881, and, as this instrument, negotiated in London with Lord Derby, the Colonial Secretary, was understood to take the place of all former conventions, the Africanders of the Transvaal have contended very reasonably that the omission issufficientevidence of the renunciation of suzerainty by the British government. Furthermore, by the London Convention of 1884, the British crown for the first time conceded to the Transvaal the title of “The[177]South African Republic,” by which name it has ever since been designated in all diplomatic transactions and correspondence between it and other states.[178]
[Contents]CHAPTER XI.THEAFRICANDERS’FIRST WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.Notwithstanding their native love of independence, and their protest to the British throne against the act of annexation, the Africanders of the Transvaal might have acquiesced in the British rule had they been fairly treated. There was a good promise of peace at first. The finances of the country were at once relieved by the expenditure of English money in liberal amounts. Numbers of the leading Africanders retained their official positions at the request of the British commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. It is only reasonable to suppose that the people at large would have settled down to permanent content as British subjects had the affairs of the newly constituted colony been administered to the satisfaction of the leaders.But, instead of following a policy dictated alike by wisdom and righteousness, the very opposite seems to have been the rule observed in[166]the attempt to govern these new and most difficult subjects of the British crown. A number of mistakes—so called—were made which, as even Canon Knox Little admits, were a sufficient justification of the Africander leaders in plotting and agitating against the British connection.The first of these mistakes was the too early recall of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had so deftly managed the bloodless though arbitrary annexation, who knew the country well and was much respected by the people. In place of his rule as special commissioner was substituted an administration under Sir Bartle Frere as governor of Cape Colony and British High Commissioner for South Africa. There being no representative government in the Transvaal after annexation, the administration became, perhaps necessarily, autocratic both in form and in spirit. Sir William Owen Lanyon, who had been appointed governor of the Transvaal, was an officer of some renown in dealing successfully with native uprisings, but proved totally unfit for the delicate management required in governing the Africanders. He has been described as haughty and arrogant in mind, indisposed to excuse the rudeness of the Transvaal farmers, and incapable of tolerating the social equality so dear to them.[167]His swarthy complexion, also, made against his popularity, for it suggested the possibility of a strain of black blood in his veins—a blemish unpardonable in the eyes of any slaveholding people. Under his rule complaints were ignored, taxes were levied and peremptorily collected by distraint, and soon the latent discontent broke out into open and active disaffection.The second mistake—if it does not deserve a harsher name—was the failure to institute the local self-government by representatives promised by Sir Theophilus Shepstone when he proclaimed annexation. The text of that part of the proclamation reads thus:“And I further proclaim and make known that the Transvaal will remain a separate government, with its own Laws and Legislature, and that it is the wish of her Most Gracious Majesty that it shall enjoy the fullest legislative privileges compatible with the circumstances of the country and the intelligence of the people. That arrangement will be made by which the Dutch language will practically be as much the official language as the English. All laws, proclamations and government notices will be published in the Dutch language; and in the courts of law the same may be done at the option of suitors to a[168]case. The laws so in force in the State will be retained until altered by competent legislative authority.”CECIL J. RHODES.CECIL J. RHODES.Not one of these promises was ever fulfilled. The volksraad was never convened. The promised constitution of local self-government was never promulgated. Instead of redeeming these promises the Transvaal was put upon the status of a crown colony in 1879, and the legislature proposed for it was to consist of some crown officials and six members—all to be the nominees of the governor.Mr. Bryce, in his “Impressions of South Africa,” calls this failure to redeem a promise authoritatively made as a concession to a people whose independence was beingarbitrarilysubverted, a “blunder.” Canon Little uses a still softer term, calling it a “mistake”; and adds, “It was given in good faith, and in good faith was received. Sir Theophilus Shepstone tried to fulfill it. He at once submitted his views as to the necessary legislative arrangements. No action whatever was taken on it, either by Conservatives or Liberals, and his dispatch is probably lying uncared for in the Colonial Office now!”—(1899.)And so, in the mutations of language as currently[169]used in history and in Christian ethics, it has come to pass that this piece of national treachery—this treachery of the strong against the weak—this treachery implicating both of the leading political parties of Great Britain and their chiefs, is only a “blunder,” a “mistake”!One real and very serious blunder was committed, if one judges of it from the view point of the policy intended to be pursued in the Transvaal by the British government. The Africanders had accepted, under protest, the act of annexation mainly because they were in mortal fear of the Zulus. That reason for submission the British proceeded to remove by overthrowing the Zulu power.In the northeast Sir Garnet Wolseley defeated Sikukuni and established what promised to be a permanent peace. In 1879 Sir Bartle Frere inflicted a like reverse uponCetawayo, in the southeast, and so completed the subjugation of the Zulus. The blunder in taking this course declared itself when, after subduing the natives at great cost of blood and treasure, the British found that in so doing they had relieved the Africanders of the one fear that thus far had prevented them from reasserting their independence.Many people, both in England and in South[170]Africa, regarded the annexation of the Transvaal as final. But leading members of the Liberal party, then in opposition, had emphatically condemned it, and this had raised hopes in the Transvaal Africanders and their sympathizers in England that when Gladstone came into power again the things which they regarded as wrong would be righted. Such hopes were doomed to disappointment.In 1880 the Liberals carried the country and took office in April of that year. Guided by information derived from the crown officials in South Africa, the new ministers were misled as to the measure of discontent in the Transvaal, and declared that the act of annexation would not be reversed.This flat refusal brought matters to an immediate issue. The Transvaal burghers, though they had continued to agitate and protest and memorialize the throne, had waited with considerable patience for three years, hoping for either a restoration of their independence or—as the next best thing—the instituting of such a representative local government as had been promised them by the imperial authorities. But now the new Liberal government, after using the Transvaal grievances for electioneering purposes,[171]had refused to consider and redress those grievances; the military administration of a mere crown colony continued in full force under the detested Sir William Owen Lanyon; and there appeared to be no hope that the promises made to mollify their indignation when their independence was being subverted would ever be fulfilled.It has been said, in extenuation, that the British government of this time was too busy with other pressing matters to give the attention necessary to a correct understanding of the condition, and the rights and the wrongs, of the Transvaal Africanders. And it has been said, in further extenuation, that there was an honest intention on the part of the government to fulfill the promises made—some time—as soon as the authorities could get to it. Be that as it may, at the end of three years, which had brought no betterment of their state, the burghers concluded that their protests and their patience had been wasted, and determined to wait no longer.Accordingly a mass-meeting was held at Paardekraal, in December, 1880, at which it was resolved to appeal to arms. The burghers elected Messrs. Pretorius, Paul Kruger and Joubert to proclaim for them the re-establishment of their former government as the South African[172]Republic, which was done in Heidelberg, and the national flag was raised, on the 16th of December, 1880.The first battles of this war were little more than skirmishes. The British troops were scattered through the country in small detachments, which the Africanders—every man of whom was a marksman and an experienced fighter—found it easy to either cut off or drive before them to positions that could be fortified.The nearest available British troops, besides those already in the Transvaal, were in Natal. General Sir George Colley, governor of that colony, raised what force he could and marched northward to check the uprising. Before he could enter the Transvaal, however, Commandant-General Joubert crossed the border into Natal and took up a strong position at Laing’s Nek. This now historic spot is a steep ridge forming the watershed between the Klip River, a tributary of the Vaal, and Buffalo River, a confluent of the Tugela, which flows into the Indian Ocean. Here a sanguinary battle was fought on the 28th of January, 1881. The British attacked the Africanders with great spirit, but Joubert’s position was invulnerable. The ridge protected his men from the artillery fire of the British,[173]while they, in charging up the slope, were cut down by the accurate rifle fire of the Africanders, and forced to retreat. On the 8th of February, in the same neighborhood, on the Ingogo heights, the British were again defeated after suffering severe loss.General Colley now decided to seize by night Majuba Hill, which is really a considerable mountain, rising nearly 2,000 feet above Laing’s Nek, and commanding that ridge for the purpose of artillery fighting. On the night of February 26th, leaving the main body of his army in camp, and unaccountably forgetting to order it to advance on the enemy so as to divert attention from his tactical movement, General Colley led a smaller division to the top of Majuba Hill.The burgher force was thrown into temporary dismay when they first observed British soldiers in that commanding position. But when there was no advance against them in front, and no artillery fire from the top of Majuba, they sent out a volunteer party to storm the hill. The story of that charge has gone into history to stay as an example, on the one side, of rugged bravery and splendid courage achieving victory, and on the other of equal bravery and courage strangely betrayed by some one’s blunder into defeat and[174]ruinous disaster. Why the main force of the British army was not ordered to co-operate in the movement, why there were no entrenchments thrown up on the hill, why the order, “Charge bayonets,” so eagerly looked for by the British soldiers on the hill-top, was never given, General Colley did not live to tell—no one else knew. The Africanders scaled the hill, shooting as they went up every man that showed on the sky line—themselves protected by the steep declivities above them, and carried the hill-top, routing and almost annihilating the British force. General Colley and ninety-two of his men were killed, and fifty-nine were made prisoners.In the meanwhile additional British troops were hurrying to the scene of conflict, under command of Sir Evelyn Wood. What the outcome would have been of further hostilities between the Africanders and the greatly increased British force no one can tell. The sudden and surprising action of the British government, that put an end to the war, was not based upon any estimate of the probable issue of continued conflict, but altogether upon the moral aspects of the situation as seen by Mr. Gladstone and his associates in the British cabinet. Before Sir Evelyn Wood could strike a single blow toward wiping[175]out the disgrace of Majuba Hill, the home government, on the 5th of March, 1881, ordered an armistice, and on the 23d agreed to terms of peace by which the Transvaal was restored to its former political independence in all regards, save that it was to be under the suzerainty of the British crown.In August, 1881, a more formal convention was held at Pretoria, when it was agreed that the Transvaal government should be independent in the management of its internal affairs; that the Republic should respect the independence of the Swazies, a tribe of natives on the eastern border of the Transvaal; that British troops should be allowed to pass through the territory of the Republic in time of war; and that the British sovereign should be acknowledged as suzerain of the Republic and have a veto power over all treaties between the government of the Transvaal and foreign nations.Several of the stipulations in this convention were very distasteful to Paul Kruger and other leading spirits in the Transvaal, and also to the volksraad. Negotiations for desired changes were continued until 1884, when, on the 27th of February, a revision called the London Convention[176]was made and signed, formulating the obligations of the Republic as follows:RAAD ZAAL (GOVERNMENT BUILDING), PRETORIA.RAAD ZAAL (GOVERNMENT BUILDING), PRETORIA.The Sovereign of Great Britain was to have, for the space of six months after their date, a veto power over all treaties between the Republic and any native tribes to the eastward and westward of its territory, and between it and any foreign state or nation except the Orange Free State.The stipulations of the two previous conventions respecting slavery, those of 1852 and 1881, were to be observed by the Republic.And the Republic was to accord to Great Britain the treatment of a most favored nation, and to deal kindly with strangers entering its territory.Nothing whatever was said in this latest convention of the suzerainty of the British Sovereign mentioned in that of 1881, and, as this instrument, negotiated in London with Lord Derby, the Colonial Secretary, was understood to take the place of all former conventions, the Africanders of the Transvaal have contended very reasonably that the omission issufficientevidence of the renunciation of suzerainty by the British government. Furthermore, by the London Convention of 1884, the British crown for the first time conceded to the Transvaal the title of “The[177]South African Republic,” by which name it has ever since been designated in all diplomatic transactions and correspondence between it and other states.[178]
CHAPTER XI.THEAFRICANDERS’FIRST WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
Notwithstanding their native love of independence, and their protest to the British throne against the act of annexation, the Africanders of the Transvaal might have acquiesced in the British rule had they been fairly treated. There was a good promise of peace at first. The finances of the country were at once relieved by the expenditure of English money in liberal amounts. Numbers of the leading Africanders retained their official positions at the request of the British commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. It is only reasonable to suppose that the people at large would have settled down to permanent content as British subjects had the affairs of the newly constituted colony been administered to the satisfaction of the leaders.But, instead of following a policy dictated alike by wisdom and righteousness, the very opposite seems to have been the rule observed in[166]the attempt to govern these new and most difficult subjects of the British crown. A number of mistakes—so called—were made which, as even Canon Knox Little admits, were a sufficient justification of the Africander leaders in plotting and agitating against the British connection.The first of these mistakes was the too early recall of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had so deftly managed the bloodless though arbitrary annexation, who knew the country well and was much respected by the people. In place of his rule as special commissioner was substituted an administration under Sir Bartle Frere as governor of Cape Colony and British High Commissioner for South Africa. There being no representative government in the Transvaal after annexation, the administration became, perhaps necessarily, autocratic both in form and in spirit. Sir William Owen Lanyon, who had been appointed governor of the Transvaal, was an officer of some renown in dealing successfully with native uprisings, but proved totally unfit for the delicate management required in governing the Africanders. He has been described as haughty and arrogant in mind, indisposed to excuse the rudeness of the Transvaal farmers, and incapable of tolerating the social equality so dear to them.[167]His swarthy complexion, also, made against his popularity, for it suggested the possibility of a strain of black blood in his veins—a blemish unpardonable in the eyes of any slaveholding people. Under his rule complaints were ignored, taxes were levied and peremptorily collected by distraint, and soon the latent discontent broke out into open and active disaffection.The second mistake—if it does not deserve a harsher name—was the failure to institute the local self-government by representatives promised by Sir Theophilus Shepstone when he proclaimed annexation. The text of that part of the proclamation reads thus:“And I further proclaim and make known that the Transvaal will remain a separate government, with its own Laws and Legislature, and that it is the wish of her Most Gracious Majesty that it shall enjoy the fullest legislative privileges compatible with the circumstances of the country and the intelligence of the people. That arrangement will be made by which the Dutch language will practically be as much the official language as the English. All laws, proclamations and government notices will be published in the Dutch language; and in the courts of law the same may be done at the option of suitors to a[168]case. The laws so in force in the State will be retained until altered by competent legislative authority.”CECIL J. RHODES.CECIL J. RHODES.Not one of these promises was ever fulfilled. The volksraad was never convened. The promised constitution of local self-government was never promulgated. Instead of redeeming these promises the Transvaal was put upon the status of a crown colony in 1879, and the legislature proposed for it was to consist of some crown officials and six members—all to be the nominees of the governor.Mr. Bryce, in his “Impressions of South Africa,” calls this failure to redeem a promise authoritatively made as a concession to a people whose independence was beingarbitrarilysubverted, a “blunder.” Canon Little uses a still softer term, calling it a “mistake”; and adds, “It was given in good faith, and in good faith was received. Sir Theophilus Shepstone tried to fulfill it. He at once submitted his views as to the necessary legislative arrangements. No action whatever was taken on it, either by Conservatives or Liberals, and his dispatch is probably lying uncared for in the Colonial Office now!”—(1899.)And so, in the mutations of language as currently[169]used in history and in Christian ethics, it has come to pass that this piece of national treachery—this treachery of the strong against the weak—this treachery implicating both of the leading political parties of Great Britain and their chiefs, is only a “blunder,” a “mistake”!One real and very serious blunder was committed, if one judges of it from the view point of the policy intended to be pursued in the Transvaal by the British government. The Africanders had accepted, under protest, the act of annexation mainly because they were in mortal fear of the Zulus. That reason for submission the British proceeded to remove by overthrowing the Zulu power.In the northeast Sir Garnet Wolseley defeated Sikukuni and established what promised to be a permanent peace. In 1879 Sir Bartle Frere inflicted a like reverse uponCetawayo, in the southeast, and so completed the subjugation of the Zulus. The blunder in taking this course declared itself when, after subduing the natives at great cost of blood and treasure, the British found that in so doing they had relieved the Africanders of the one fear that thus far had prevented them from reasserting their independence.Many people, both in England and in South[170]Africa, regarded the annexation of the Transvaal as final. But leading members of the Liberal party, then in opposition, had emphatically condemned it, and this had raised hopes in the Transvaal Africanders and their sympathizers in England that when Gladstone came into power again the things which they regarded as wrong would be righted. Such hopes were doomed to disappointment.In 1880 the Liberals carried the country and took office in April of that year. Guided by information derived from the crown officials in South Africa, the new ministers were misled as to the measure of discontent in the Transvaal, and declared that the act of annexation would not be reversed.This flat refusal brought matters to an immediate issue. The Transvaal burghers, though they had continued to agitate and protest and memorialize the throne, had waited with considerable patience for three years, hoping for either a restoration of their independence or—as the next best thing—the instituting of such a representative local government as had been promised them by the imperial authorities. But now the new Liberal government, after using the Transvaal grievances for electioneering purposes,[171]had refused to consider and redress those grievances; the military administration of a mere crown colony continued in full force under the detested Sir William Owen Lanyon; and there appeared to be no hope that the promises made to mollify their indignation when their independence was being subverted would ever be fulfilled.It has been said, in extenuation, that the British government of this time was too busy with other pressing matters to give the attention necessary to a correct understanding of the condition, and the rights and the wrongs, of the Transvaal Africanders. And it has been said, in further extenuation, that there was an honest intention on the part of the government to fulfill the promises made—some time—as soon as the authorities could get to it. Be that as it may, at the end of three years, which had brought no betterment of their state, the burghers concluded that their protests and their patience had been wasted, and determined to wait no longer.Accordingly a mass-meeting was held at Paardekraal, in December, 1880, at which it was resolved to appeal to arms. The burghers elected Messrs. Pretorius, Paul Kruger and Joubert to proclaim for them the re-establishment of their former government as the South African[172]Republic, which was done in Heidelberg, and the national flag was raised, on the 16th of December, 1880.The first battles of this war were little more than skirmishes. The British troops were scattered through the country in small detachments, which the Africanders—every man of whom was a marksman and an experienced fighter—found it easy to either cut off or drive before them to positions that could be fortified.The nearest available British troops, besides those already in the Transvaal, were in Natal. General Sir George Colley, governor of that colony, raised what force he could and marched northward to check the uprising. Before he could enter the Transvaal, however, Commandant-General Joubert crossed the border into Natal and took up a strong position at Laing’s Nek. This now historic spot is a steep ridge forming the watershed between the Klip River, a tributary of the Vaal, and Buffalo River, a confluent of the Tugela, which flows into the Indian Ocean. Here a sanguinary battle was fought on the 28th of January, 1881. The British attacked the Africanders with great spirit, but Joubert’s position was invulnerable. The ridge protected his men from the artillery fire of the British,[173]while they, in charging up the slope, were cut down by the accurate rifle fire of the Africanders, and forced to retreat. On the 8th of February, in the same neighborhood, on the Ingogo heights, the British were again defeated after suffering severe loss.General Colley now decided to seize by night Majuba Hill, which is really a considerable mountain, rising nearly 2,000 feet above Laing’s Nek, and commanding that ridge for the purpose of artillery fighting. On the night of February 26th, leaving the main body of his army in camp, and unaccountably forgetting to order it to advance on the enemy so as to divert attention from his tactical movement, General Colley led a smaller division to the top of Majuba Hill.The burgher force was thrown into temporary dismay when they first observed British soldiers in that commanding position. But when there was no advance against them in front, and no artillery fire from the top of Majuba, they sent out a volunteer party to storm the hill. The story of that charge has gone into history to stay as an example, on the one side, of rugged bravery and splendid courage achieving victory, and on the other of equal bravery and courage strangely betrayed by some one’s blunder into defeat and[174]ruinous disaster. Why the main force of the British army was not ordered to co-operate in the movement, why there were no entrenchments thrown up on the hill, why the order, “Charge bayonets,” so eagerly looked for by the British soldiers on the hill-top, was never given, General Colley did not live to tell—no one else knew. The Africanders scaled the hill, shooting as they went up every man that showed on the sky line—themselves protected by the steep declivities above them, and carried the hill-top, routing and almost annihilating the British force. General Colley and ninety-two of his men were killed, and fifty-nine were made prisoners.In the meanwhile additional British troops were hurrying to the scene of conflict, under command of Sir Evelyn Wood. What the outcome would have been of further hostilities between the Africanders and the greatly increased British force no one can tell. The sudden and surprising action of the British government, that put an end to the war, was not based upon any estimate of the probable issue of continued conflict, but altogether upon the moral aspects of the situation as seen by Mr. Gladstone and his associates in the British cabinet. Before Sir Evelyn Wood could strike a single blow toward wiping[175]out the disgrace of Majuba Hill, the home government, on the 5th of March, 1881, ordered an armistice, and on the 23d agreed to terms of peace by which the Transvaal was restored to its former political independence in all regards, save that it was to be under the suzerainty of the British crown.In August, 1881, a more formal convention was held at Pretoria, when it was agreed that the Transvaal government should be independent in the management of its internal affairs; that the Republic should respect the independence of the Swazies, a tribe of natives on the eastern border of the Transvaal; that British troops should be allowed to pass through the territory of the Republic in time of war; and that the British sovereign should be acknowledged as suzerain of the Republic and have a veto power over all treaties between the government of the Transvaal and foreign nations.Several of the stipulations in this convention were very distasteful to Paul Kruger and other leading spirits in the Transvaal, and also to the volksraad. Negotiations for desired changes were continued until 1884, when, on the 27th of February, a revision called the London Convention[176]was made and signed, formulating the obligations of the Republic as follows:RAAD ZAAL (GOVERNMENT BUILDING), PRETORIA.RAAD ZAAL (GOVERNMENT BUILDING), PRETORIA.The Sovereign of Great Britain was to have, for the space of six months after their date, a veto power over all treaties between the Republic and any native tribes to the eastward and westward of its territory, and between it and any foreign state or nation except the Orange Free State.The stipulations of the two previous conventions respecting slavery, those of 1852 and 1881, were to be observed by the Republic.And the Republic was to accord to Great Britain the treatment of a most favored nation, and to deal kindly with strangers entering its territory.Nothing whatever was said in this latest convention of the suzerainty of the British Sovereign mentioned in that of 1881, and, as this instrument, negotiated in London with Lord Derby, the Colonial Secretary, was understood to take the place of all former conventions, the Africanders of the Transvaal have contended very reasonably that the omission issufficientevidence of the renunciation of suzerainty by the British government. Furthermore, by the London Convention of 1884, the British crown for the first time conceded to the Transvaal the title of “The[177]South African Republic,” by which name it has ever since been designated in all diplomatic transactions and correspondence between it and other states.[178]
Notwithstanding their native love of independence, and their protest to the British throne against the act of annexation, the Africanders of the Transvaal might have acquiesced in the British rule had they been fairly treated. There was a good promise of peace at first. The finances of the country were at once relieved by the expenditure of English money in liberal amounts. Numbers of the leading Africanders retained their official positions at the request of the British commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. It is only reasonable to suppose that the people at large would have settled down to permanent content as British subjects had the affairs of the newly constituted colony been administered to the satisfaction of the leaders.
But, instead of following a policy dictated alike by wisdom and righteousness, the very opposite seems to have been the rule observed in[166]the attempt to govern these new and most difficult subjects of the British crown. A number of mistakes—so called—were made which, as even Canon Knox Little admits, were a sufficient justification of the Africander leaders in plotting and agitating against the British connection.
The first of these mistakes was the too early recall of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had so deftly managed the bloodless though arbitrary annexation, who knew the country well and was much respected by the people. In place of his rule as special commissioner was substituted an administration under Sir Bartle Frere as governor of Cape Colony and British High Commissioner for South Africa. There being no representative government in the Transvaal after annexation, the administration became, perhaps necessarily, autocratic both in form and in spirit. Sir William Owen Lanyon, who had been appointed governor of the Transvaal, was an officer of some renown in dealing successfully with native uprisings, but proved totally unfit for the delicate management required in governing the Africanders. He has been described as haughty and arrogant in mind, indisposed to excuse the rudeness of the Transvaal farmers, and incapable of tolerating the social equality so dear to them.[167]His swarthy complexion, also, made against his popularity, for it suggested the possibility of a strain of black blood in his veins—a blemish unpardonable in the eyes of any slaveholding people. Under his rule complaints were ignored, taxes were levied and peremptorily collected by distraint, and soon the latent discontent broke out into open and active disaffection.
The second mistake—if it does not deserve a harsher name—was the failure to institute the local self-government by representatives promised by Sir Theophilus Shepstone when he proclaimed annexation. The text of that part of the proclamation reads thus:
“And I further proclaim and make known that the Transvaal will remain a separate government, with its own Laws and Legislature, and that it is the wish of her Most Gracious Majesty that it shall enjoy the fullest legislative privileges compatible with the circumstances of the country and the intelligence of the people. That arrangement will be made by which the Dutch language will practically be as much the official language as the English. All laws, proclamations and government notices will be published in the Dutch language; and in the courts of law the same may be done at the option of suitors to a[168]case. The laws so in force in the State will be retained until altered by competent legislative authority.”
CECIL J. RHODES.CECIL J. RHODES.
CECIL J. RHODES.
Not one of these promises was ever fulfilled. The volksraad was never convened. The promised constitution of local self-government was never promulgated. Instead of redeeming these promises the Transvaal was put upon the status of a crown colony in 1879, and the legislature proposed for it was to consist of some crown officials and six members—all to be the nominees of the governor.
Mr. Bryce, in his “Impressions of South Africa,” calls this failure to redeem a promise authoritatively made as a concession to a people whose independence was beingarbitrarilysubverted, a “blunder.” Canon Little uses a still softer term, calling it a “mistake”; and adds, “It was given in good faith, and in good faith was received. Sir Theophilus Shepstone tried to fulfill it. He at once submitted his views as to the necessary legislative arrangements. No action whatever was taken on it, either by Conservatives or Liberals, and his dispatch is probably lying uncared for in the Colonial Office now!”—(1899.)
And so, in the mutations of language as currently[169]used in history and in Christian ethics, it has come to pass that this piece of national treachery—this treachery of the strong against the weak—this treachery implicating both of the leading political parties of Great Britain and their chiefs, is only a “blunder,” a “mistake”!
One real and very serious blunder was committed, if one judges of it from the view point of the policy intended to be pursued in the Transvaal by the British government. The Africanders had accepted, under protest, the act of annexation mainly because they were in mortal fear of the Zulus. That reason for submission the British proceeded to remove by overthrowing the Zulu power.
In the northeast Sir Garnet Wolseley defeated Sikukuni and established what promised to be a permanent peace. In 1879 Sir Bartle Frere inflicted a like reverse uponCetawayo, in the southeast, and so completed the subjugation of the Zulus. The blunder in taking this course declared itself when, after subduing the natives at great cost of blood and treasure, the British found that in so doing they had relieved the Africanders of the one fear that thus far had prevented them from reasserting their independence.
Many people, both in England and in South[170]Africa, regarded the annexation of the Transvaal as final. But leading members of the Liberal party, then in opposition, had emphatically condemned it, and this had raised hopes in the Transvaal Africanders and their sympathizers in England that when Gladstone came into power again the things which they regarded as wrong would be righted. Such hopes were doomed to disappointment.
In 1880 the Liberals carried the country and took office in April of that year. Guided by information derived from the crown officials in South Africa, the new ministers were misled as to the measure of discontent in the Transvaal, and declared that the act of annexation would not be reversed.
This flat refusal brought matters to an immediate issue. The Transvaal burghers, though they had continued to agitate and protest and memorialize the throne, had waited with considerable patience for three years, hoping for either a restoration of their independence or—as the next best thing—the instituting of such a representative local government as had been promised them by the imperial authorities. But now the new Liberal government, after using the Transvaal grievances for electioneering purposes,[171]had refused to consider and redress those grievances; the military administration of a mere crown colony continued in full force under the detested Sir William Owen Lanyon; and there appeared to be no hope that the promises made to mollify their indignation when their independence was being subverted would ever be fulfilled.
It has been said, in extenuation, that the British government of this time was too busy with other pressing matters to give the attention necessary to a correct understanding of the condition, and the rights and the wrongs, of the Transvaal Africanders. And it has been said, in further extenuation, that there was an honest intention on the part of the government to fulfill the promises made—some time—as soon as the authorities could get to it. Be that as it may, at the end of three years, which had brought no betterment of their state, the burghers concluded that their protests and their patience had been wasted, and determined to wait no longer.
Accordingly a mass-meeting was held at Paardekraal, in December, 1880, at which it was resolved to appeal to arms. The burghers elected Messrs. Pretorius, Paul Kruger and Joubert to proclaim for them the re-establishment of their former government as the South African[172]Republic, which was done in Heidelberg, and the national flag was raised, on the 16th of December, 1880.
The first battles of this war were little more than skirmishes. The British troops were scattered through the country in small detachments, which the Africanders—every man of whom was a marksman and an experienced fighter—found it easy to either cut off or drive before them to positions that could be fortified.
The nearest available British troops, besides those already in the Transvaal, were in Natal. General Sir George Colley, governor of that colony, raised what force he could and marched northward to check the uprising. Before he could enter the Transvaal, however, Commandant-General Joubert crossed the border into Natal and took up a strong position at Laing’s Nek. This now historic spot is a steep ridge forming the watershed between the Klip River, a tributary of the Vaal, and Buffalo River, a confluent of the Tugela, which flows into the Indian Ocean. Here a sanguinary battle was fought on the 28th of January, 1881. The British attacked the Africanders with great spirit, but Joubert’s position was invulnerable. The ridge protected his men from the artillery fire of the British,[173]while they, in charging up the slope, were cut down by the accurate rifle fire of the Africanders, and forced to retreat. On the 8th of February, in the same neighborhood, on the Ingogo heights, the British were again defeated after suffering severe loss.
General Colley now decided to seize by night Majuba Hill, which is really a considerable mountain, rising nearly 2,000 feet above Laing’s Nek, and commanding that ridge for the purpose of artillery fighting. On the night of February 26th, leaving the main body of his army in camp, and unaccountably forgetting to order it to advance on the enemy so as to divert attention from his tactical movement, General Colley led a smaller division to the top of Majuba Hill.
The burgher force was thrown into temporary dismay when they first observed British soldiers in that commanding position. But when there was no advance against them in front, and no artillery fire from the top of Majuba, they sent out a volunteer party to storm the hill. The story of that charge has gone into history to stay as an example, on the one side, of rugged bravery and splendid courage achieving victory, and on the other of equal bravery and courage strangely betrayed by some one’s blunder into defeat and[174]ruinous disaster. Why the main force of the British army was not ordered to co-operate in the movement, why there were no entrenchments thrown up on the hill, why the order, “Charge bayonets,” so eagerly looked for by the British soldiers on the hill-top, was never given, General Colley did not live to tell—no one else knew. The Africanders scaled the hill, shooting as they went up every man that showed on the sky line—themselves protected by the steep declivities above them, and carried the hill-top, routing and almost annihilating the British force. General Colley and ninety-two of his men were killed, and fifty-nine were made prisoners.
In the meanwhile additional British troops were hurrying to the scene of conflict, under command of Sir Evelyn Wood. What the outcome would have been of further hostilities between the Africanders and the greatly increased British force no one can tell. The sudden and surprising action of the British government, that put an end to the war, was not based upon any estimate of the probable issue of continued conflict, but altogether upon the moral aspects of the situation as seen by Mr. Gladstone and his associates in the British cabinet. Before Sir Evelyn Wood could strike a single blow toward wiping[175]out the disgrace of Majuba Hill, the home government, on the 5th of March, 1881, ordered an armistice, and on the 23d agreed to terms of peace by which the Transvaal was restored to its former political independence in all regards, save that it was to be under the suzerainty of the British crown.
In August, 1881, a more formal convention was held at Pretoria, when it was agreed that the Transvaal government should be independent in the management of its internal affairs; that the Republic should respect the independence of the Swazies, a tribe of natives on the eastern border of the Transvaal; that British troops should be allowed to pass through the territory of the Republic in time of war; and that the British sovereign should be acknowledged as suzerain of the Republic and have a veto power over all treaties between the government of the Transvaal and foreign nations.
Several of the stipulations in this convention were very distasteful to Paul Kruger and other leading spirits in the Transvaal, and also to the volksraad. Negotiations for desired changes were continued until 1884, when, on the 27th of February, a revision called the London Convention[176]was made and signed, formulating the obligations of the Republic as follows:
RAAD ZAAL (GOVERNMENT BUILDING), PRETORIA.RAAD ZAAL (GOVERNMENT BUILDING), PRETORIA.
RAAD ZAAL (GOVERNMENT BUILDING), PRETORIA.
The Sovereign of Great Britain was to have, for the space of six months after their date, a veto power over all treaties between the Republic and any native tribes to the eastward and westward of its territory, and between it and any foreign state or nation except the Orange Free State.
The stipulations of the two previous conventions respecting slavery, those of 1852 and 1881, were to be observed by the Republic.
And the Republic was to accord to Great Britain the treatment of a most favored nation, and to deal kindly with strangers entering its territory.
Nothing whatever was said in this latest convention of the suzerainty of the British Sovereign mentioned in that of 1881, and, as this instrument, negotiated in London with Lord Derby, the Colonial Secretary, was understood to take the place of all former conventions, the Africanders of the Transvaal have contended very reasonably that the omission issufficientevidence of the renunciation of suzerainty by the British government. Furthermore, by the London Convention of 1884, the British crown for the first time conceded to the Transvaal the title of “The[177]South African Republic,” by which name it has ever since been designated in all diplomatic transactions and correspondence between it and other states.[178]