II. THE CAUSES OF THE WAR DATE
FAR BACK. THE FAULTS OF ENGLAND TO BE SOUGHT IN THE PAST. A REVISED VERDICT
NEEDED. DOWNING STREET GOVERNMENT AND SUCCESSIVE COLONIAL GOVERNORS. M.
MABILLE AND M. DIETERLEN, FRENCH MISSIONARIES. EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE COLONY.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY BY GREAT BRITAIN. COMPENSATION TO SLAVE OWNERS. FIRST
TREK OF THE BURGHERS.
There is nothing so fallacious or
misleading in history as the popular tendency to trace the causes of a great
war to one source alone, or to fix upon the most recent events leading up to
it, as the principal or even the sole cause of the outbreak of war. The
occasion of an event may not be, and often is not, the cause of it. The
occasion of this war was not its cause. In the present case it is
extraordinary to note how almost the whole of Europe appears to be carried
away with the idea that the causes of this terrible South African war are,
as it were, only of yesterday's date. The seeds of which we are reaping so
woeful a harvest were not sown yesterday, nor a few years ago only. We are
reaping a harvest which has been ripening for a century past.
At the time of the Indian Mutiny, it
was given out and believed by the world in general that the cause of that
hideous revolt was a supposed attempt on the part of England to impose upon
the native army of India certain rules which, from their point of view,
outraged their religion in some of its most sacred aspects; (I refer to the
legend of the greased cartridges). After the mutiny was over, Sir Herbert
Edwardes, a true Seer, whose insight enabled him to look far below the
surface, and to go back many years into the history of our dealings with
India in order to take in review all the causes of the rebellion, addressed
an exhaustive report to the British Government at home, dealing with those
causes which had been accumulating for half-a-century or more. This was a
weighty document, - one which it would be worth while to re-peruse at the
present day; it had its influence in leading the Home Government to
acknowledge some grave errors which had led up to this catastrophe, and to
make an honest and persevering attempt to remedy past evils. That this
attempt has not been in vain, in spite of all that India has had to suffer,
has been acknowledged gratefully by the Native delegates to the great Annual
Congress in India of the past year.
In the case of the Indian Mutiny,
the incident of the supposed insult to their religious feelings was only the
match which set light to a train which had been long laid. In the same way
the honest historian will find, in the present case, that the events, - the
"tragedy of errors," as they have been called, - of recent date, are but the
torch that has set fire to a long prepared mass of combustible material
which had been gradually accumulating in the course of a century.
In order to arrive at a true
estimate of the errors and mismanagement which lie at the root of the causes
of the present war, it is necessary to look back. Those errors and wrongs
must be patiently searched out and studied, without partisanship, with an
open mind and serious purpose. Many of our busy politicians and others have
not the time, some perhaps have not the inclination for any such study.
Hence, hasty, shallow, and violent judgments.
Never has there occurred in history
a great struggle such as the present which has not had a deep moral
teaching.
England is now suffering for her
past errors, extending over many years. The blood of her sons is being
poured out like water on the soil of South Africa. Wounded hearts and
desolated families at home are counted by tens of thousands.
But it needs to be courageously
stated by those who have looked a little below the surface that her faults
have not been those which are attributed to her by a large proportion of
European countries, and by a portion of her own people. These appear to
attribute this war to a sudden impulse on her part of Imperial ambition and
greed, and to see in the attitude which they attribute to her alone, the
provocative element which was chiefly supplied from the other side. There
will have to be a Revision of this Verdict, and there will certainly be one;
it is on the way, though its approach may be slow. It will be rejected by
some to the last.
The great error of England appears
to have been a strange neglect, from time to time, of the true interests of
her South African subjects, English, Dutch, and Natives. There have been in
her management of this great Colony alternations of apathy and inaction,
with interference which was sometimes unwise and hasty. Some of her acts
have been the result of ignorance, indifference, or superciliousness on the
part of our rulers.
The special difficulties, however,
in her position towards that Colony should be taken into account.
It has always been a question as to
how far interference from Downing Street with the freedom of action of a
Self-Governing Colony was wise or practicable. In other instances, the
exercise of great freedom of colonial self-government has had happy results,
as in Canada and Australia.
Far from our South African policy
having represented, as is believed by some, the self-assertion of a proud
Imperialism, it has been the very opposite.
It seems evident that some of the
greatest evils in the British government of South Africa have arisen from
the frequent changes of Governors and Administrators there, concurrently
with changes in the Government at home. There have been Governors under
whose influence and control all sections of the people, including the
natives, have had a measure of peace and good government. Such a Governor
was Sir George Grey, of whose far-seeing provisions for the welfare of all
classes many effects last to this day.
The nature of the work undertaken,
and to a great extent done, by Sir George Grey and those of his successors
who followed his example, was concisely described by an able local historian
in 1877: - "The aim of the Colonial Government since 1855," he said, "has
been to establish and maintain peace, to diffuse civilization and
Christianity, and to establish society on the basis of individual property
and personal industry. The agencies employed are the magistrate, the
missionary, the school-master, and the trader." Of the years dating from the
commencement of Sir George Grey's administration, it was thus reported: -
"During this time peace has been uninterruptedly enjoyed within British
frontiers. The natives have been treated in all respects with justice and
consideration. Large tracts of the richest land are expressly set apart for
them under the name of 'reserves' and 'locations.' The greater part of them
live in these locations, under the superintendence of European magistrates
or missionaries. As a whole, they are now enjoying far greater comfort and
prosperity than they ever did in their normal state of barbaric independence
and perpetually recurring tribal wars, before coming into contact with
Europeans. The advantages and value of British rule have of late years
struck root in the native mind over an immense portion of South Africa. They
believe that it is a protection from external encroachment, and that only
under the aegis of the Government can they be secure and enjoy peace and
prosperity. Influenced by this feeling, several tribes beyond the colonial
boundaries are now eager to be brought within the pale of civilized
authority, and ere long, it is hoped, Her Majesty's sovereignty will be
extended over fresh territories, with the full and free consent of the
chiefs and tribes inhabiting them."[5]
It maybe of interest to note here
that one of these territories was Basutoland, which lies close to the South
Eastern border of the Orange Free State.
Between the Basutos and the Orange
Free State Boers war broke out in 1856, to be followed in 1858 by a
temporary and incomplete pacification. The struggle continued, and in 1861,
and again in 1865, when war was resumed, and all Basutoland was in danger of
being conquered by the Boers, Moshesh, their Chief, appealed to the British
Government for protection. It was not till 1868, after a large part of the
country had passed into Boer hands, that Sir Philip Wodehouse, Sir George
Grey's successor, was allowed to issue a proclamation declaring so much as
remained of Basutoland to be British territory.
It was Sir George Grey who first saw
the importance of endeavouring to bring all portions of South Africa,
including the Boer Republics and the Native States, into "federal union with
the parent colony" at the Cape. He was commissioned by the British
Government to make enquiries with this object (1858.) He had obtained the
support of the Orange Free State, whose Volksraad resolved that "a union
with the Cape Colony, either on the plan of federation or otherwise, is
desirable," and was expecting to win over the Transvaal Boers, when the
British Government, alarmed as to the responsibilities it might incur,
vetoed the project. (Such sudden alarms, under the influence of party
conflicts at home, have not been infrequent.)
For seven years, however, this good
Governor was permitted to promote a work of pacification and union.
I shall refer again later to the
misfortunes, even the calamities, which have been the result of our
projecting our home system of Government by Party into the distant regions
of South Africa. There are long proved advantages in that system of party
government as existing for our own country, but it seems to have been at the
root of much of the inconsistency and vacillation of our policy in South
Africa. As soon as a good Governor (appointed by either political party) has
begun to develop his methods, and to lead the Dutch, and English, and
Natives alike to begin to believe that there is something homogeneous in the
principles of British government, a General Election takes place in England.
A new Parliament and a new Government come into power, and, frequently in
obedience to some popular representations at home, the actual Colonial
Governor is recalled, and another is sent out.
Lord Glenelg, for example, had held
office as Governor of the Cape Colony for five years, - up to 1846. His
policy had been, it is said, conciliatory and wise. But immediately on a
change of party in the Government at home, he was recalled, and Sir Harry
Smith superseded him, a recklessly aggressive person.
It was only by great pains and
trouble that the succeeding Governor, Sir George Cathcart, a wiser man,
brought about a settlement of the confusion and disputes arising from Sir
Harry Smith's aggressive and violent methods.
And so it has gone on, through all
the years.
Allusion having been made above to
the assumption of the Protectorate of Basutoland by Great Britain, it will
not be without interest to notice here the circumstances and the motives
which led to that act. It will be seen that there was no aggressiveness nor
desire of conquest in this case; but that the protection asked was but too
tardily granted on the pathetic and reiterated prayer of the natives
suffering from the aggressions of the Transvaal.
The following is from the Biography
of Adolphe Mabille, a devoted missionary of the Societe des Missions
Evangeliques of Paris, who worked with great success in Basutoland. His life
is written by Mr. Dieterlen (a name well known and highly esteemed in
France), and the book has a preface by the famous missionary, Mr. F.
Coillard.[6]
"The Boers had long been keeping up
an aggressive war against the Basutos (1864 to 1869), so much so that Mr.
Mabille's missionary work was for a time almost destroyed. The Boers thought
they saw in the missionaries' work the secret of the steady resistance of
the Basutos, and of the moral force which prevented them laying down their
arms. They exacted that Mr. Mabille should leave the country at once, which
theoretically, they said, belonged to them.
"This good missionary and his
friends were subjected to long trials during this hostility of the Boers.
Moshesh, the chief of the Basutos, had for a long time past been asking the
Governor of Cape Colony to have him and his people placed under the
direction of Great Britain. The reply from the Cape was very long delayed.
Moshesh, worn out, was about to capitulate at last to the Boers. Lessuto
(the territory of Basutoland) was on the point of being absorbed by the
Transvaal. At the last moment, however, and not a day too soon, there came a
letter from the Governor of the Cape announcing to Moshesh that Queen
Victoria had consented to take the Basutos under her protection. It was the
long-expected deliverance, - it was salvation! At this news the
missionaries, with Moshesh, burst into tears, and falling on their knees,
gave thanks to God for this providential and almost unexpected
intervention."
The Boers retained a large and
fertile tract of Lessuto, but the rest of the country, continues M.
Dieterlen, "remained under the Protectorate of a people who, provided peace
is maintained, and their commerce is not interfered with, know how to work
for the right development of the native people whose lands they annex."
Mr. Dieterlen introduces into his
narrative the following remarks, - which are interesting as coming, not from
an Englishman, but from a Frenchman, - and one who has had close personal
experience of the matters of which he speaks: -
"Stayers at home, as we Frenchmen
are, forming our opinions from newspapers whose editors know no more than
ourselves what goes on in foreign countries, we too willingly see in the
British nation an egotistical and rapacious people, thinking of nothing but
the extension of their commerce and the prosperity of their industry. We are
apt to pretend that their philanthropic enterprises and religious works are
a mere hypocrisy. Courage is absolutely needed in order to affirm, at the
risk of exciting the indignation of our soi-disant patriots, that although
England knows perfectly well how to take care of her commercial interests in
her colonies, she knows equally well how to pre-occupy and occupy herself
with the moral interests of the people whom she places by agreement or by
force under the sceptre of her Queen. Those who have seen and who know, have
the duty of saying to those who have not seen, and who cannot, or who do not
desire to see, and who do not know, that these two currents flowing from the
British nation, - the one commercial and the other philanthropic, - are
equally active amongst the uncivilized nations of Africa, and that if one
wishes to find colonies in which exist real and complete liberty of
conscience, where the education and moralisation of the natives are the
object of serious concern, drawing largely upon the budget of the
metropolis, it is always and above all in English possessions that you must
look for them.
"Under the domination of the Boers,
Lessuto would have been devoted to destruction, to ignorance, and to
semi-slavery. Under the English regime reign security and progress. Lessuto
became a territory reserved solely for its native proprietors, the sale of
strong liquors was prohibited, and the schools received generous subvention.
Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, French and English Missionaries, could
then enjoy the most absolute liberty in order to spread, each one in his own
manner, and in the measure in which he possessed it, evangelic truth.
"It is for this reason that the
French missionaries feared to see the Basutos fall under the Boers' yoke,
and that they hailed with joy the intervention of the English Government in
their field of work, hoping and expecting for the missionary work the
happiest fruits. Their hope has not been deceived by the results."
The clash of opposing principles,
and even the violence of party feeling continued to send its echoes to the
far regions of South Africa, confusing the minds of the various populations
there, and preventing any real coherence and continuity in our Government of
that great Colony. A good and successful Administrator has sometimes been
withdrawn to be superseded by another, equally well-intentioned, perhaps,
but whose policy was on wholly different lines, thus undoing the work of his
predecessor. This has introduced not only confusion, but sometimes an
appearance of real injustice into our management of the colony. In all this
chequered history, the interests of the native races have been too often
postponed to those of the ruling races. This was certainly the case in
connexion with Mr. Gladstone's well-intentioned act in giving back to the
Transvaal its independent government.
It has been an anxious question for
many among us whether this source of vacillation, with its attendant
misfortunes, is to continue in the future.
* * * * *
The early history of the South
African Colony has become, by this time, pretty well known by means of the
numberless books lately written on the subject. I will only briefly
recapitulate here a few of the principal facts, these being, in part,
derived from the annals and reports of the Aborigines Protection Society,
which may be considered impartial, seeing that that Society has had a keen
eye at all times for the faults of British colonists and the British
Government, while constrained, as a truthful recorder, to publish the
offences of other peoples and Governments. I have also constantly referred
to Parliamentary papers, and the words of accredited historians and
travellers.
The first attempt at a regular
settlement by the Dutch at the Cape was made by Jan Van Riebeck, in 1652,
for the convenience of the trading vessels of the Netherlands East India
Company, passing from Europe to Asia. Almost from the first these colonists
were involved in quarrels with the natives, which furnished excuse for
appropriating their lands and making slaves of them. The intruders stole the
natives' cattle, and the natives' efforts to recover their property were
denounced by Van Riebeck as "a matter most displeasing to the Almighty, when
committed by such as they." Apologising to his employers in Holland for his
show of kindness to one group of natives, Van Riebeck wrote: "This we only
did to make them less shy, so as to find hereafter a better opportunity to
seize them - 1,100 or 1,200 in number, and about 600 cattle, the best in the
whole country. We have every day the finest opportunities for effecting this
without bloodshed, and could derive good service from the people, in chains,
in killing seals or in labouring in the silver mines which we trust will be
found here."
The Netherlands Company frequently
deprecated such acts of treachery and cruelty, and counselled moderation.
Their protests however were of no avail. The mischief had been done. The
unhappy natives, with whom lasting friendship might have been established by
fair treatment, had been converted into enemies; and the ruthless punishment
inflicted on them for each futile effort to recover some of the property
stolen from them, had rendered inevitable the continuance and constant
extension of the strife all through the five generations of Dutch rule, and
furnished cogent precedent for like action afterwards,[7] After 1652,
Colonists of the baser sort kept arriving in cargoes, and gradually the
Netherlands Company allowed persons not of their own nation to land and
settle under severe fiscal and other restrictions. Among these were a number
of French Huguenots, good men, driven from their homes by the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes in 1690. Then Flemings, Germans, Poles, and others
constantly swelled the ranks. All these Europeans were forced to submit to
the arbitrary rules of the Netherlands Company's agents, scarcely at all
restrained from Amsterdam. Unofficial residents, known as Burghers, came to
be admitted to share in the management of affairs. It was for their benefit
chiefly, that as soon as the Hottentots were found to be unworkable as
slaves, Negroes from West Africa and Malays from the East Indies began to be
imported for the purpose. In 1772, when the settlement was a hundred and
twenty years old, and had been in what was considered working order for a
century, Cape Town and its suburbs had a population of 1,963 officials and
servants of the Company, 4,628 male and 3,750 female colonists, and 8,335
slaves. In these figures no account is taken of the Hottentots and others
employed in menial capacities, nor of the black prisoners, among whom, in
1772, a Swedish traveller saw 950 men, women, and children of the Bushman
race, who had been captured about a hundred and fifty miles from Cape Town
in a war brought about by encroachment on their lands.[8]
The Aborigines Protection Society
endorses the following statement of Sparrman (visit to the Cape of Good
Hope, 1786, Vol. II, p. 165,) who says, "The Slave business, that violent
outrage against the natural rights of man, which is always a crime and leads
to all manner of wickedness, is exercised by the Colonists with a cruelty
that merits the abhorrence of everyone, though I have been told that they
pique themselves upon it; and not only is the capture of the Hottentots
considered by them merely as a party of pleasure, but in cold blood they
destroy the bands which nature has knit between husband and wife, and
between parents and their children. Does a Colonist at any time get sight of
a Bushman, he takes fire immediately, and spirits up his horse and dogs, in
order to hunt him with more ardour and fury than he would a wolf or any
other wild beast.".
"I am far from accusing all the
colonists," he continues, "of these cruelties, which are too frequently
committed. While some of them plumed themselves upon them, there were many
who, on the contrary, held them in abomination, and feared lest the
vengeance of Heaven should, for all their crimes, fall upon their
posterity."
The inability of the Amsterdam
authorities to control the filibustering zeal of the colonists rendered it
easy for the people at the Cape to establish among themselves, in 1793, what
purported to be an independent Republic. One of their proclamations
contained the following resolution, aimed especially at the efforts of the
missionaries - most of whom were then Moravians - to save the natives from
utter ruin: "We will not permit any Moravians to live here and instruct the
Hottentots; for, as there are many Christians who receive no instruction, it
is not proper that the Hottentots should be taught; they must remain in the
same state as before. Hottentots born on the estate of a farmer must live
there, and serve him until they are twenty-five years old, before they
receive any wages. All Bushmen or wild Hottentots caught by us must remain
slaves for life."[9]
I have given these facts of more
than a hundred years ago to show for how long a time the traditions of the
usefulness and lawfulness of Slavery had been engrained in the minds of the
Dutch settlers. We ought not, perhaps, to censure too severely the Boer
proclivities in favour of that ancient institution, nor to be surprised if
it should be a work of time, accompanied with severe Providential
chastisement, to uproot that fixed idea from the minds of the present
generation, of Boer descent. The sin of enslaving their fellow-men may
perhaps be reckoned, for them, among the "sins of ignorance." Nevertheless,
the Recording Angel has not failed through all these generations to mark the
woes of the slaves; and the historic vengeance, which sooner or later
infallibly follows a century or centuries of the violation of the Divine Law
and of human rights, will not be postponed or averted even by a late
repentance on the part of the transgressors. It is striking to note how
often in history the sore judgment of oppressors has fallen (in this world),
not on those who were first in the guilt, but on their successors, just as
they were entering on an amended course of "ceasing to do evil and learning
to do well."
In 1795, Cape Town was formally
ceded by the Prince of Orange to Great Britain, as an incident of the great
war with France, for which, six million pounds sterling was paid by Great
Britain to Holland. British supremacy was formally recognized in this part
of South Africa by a Convention signed in 1814, which was confirmed by the
Treaty of Paris in 1815.
British rule for some thirty years
after 1806 was perforce despotic, but for the most part, with some
exceptions, it was a benevolent despotism. "They had the difficult task of
controlling a straggling white community, at first almost exclusively
composed of Boers, who had been too sturdy and stubborn to tolerate any
effective interference by the Netherlands Company and other authorities in
Holland, and who resented both English domination and the advent of English
colonists which more than doubled the white population in less than two
decades." "The Governors sent out from Downing Street had tasks imposed upon
them which were beyond the powers of even the wisest and worthiest. Most of
the English colonists found it easier to fall in with the thoughts and
habits of the Boers than to uphold the purer traditions of life and conduct
in the mother country, and it is not strange that many of the officials
should have been in like case."[10]
Great Britain abolished the Slave
Trade in 1807, which prevented the further importation of Slaves, and the
traffic in them.
The great Emancipation Act, by which
Great Britain abolished Slavery in all lands over which she had control, was
passed in 1834.
The great grievance for the Burghers
was this abolition of slavery by Great Britain. According to a Parliamentary
Return of March, 1838, the slaves of all sorts liberated in Cape Colony
numbered 35,750. The British Parliament awarded as compensation to the slave
owners throughout the British dominions a sum of L20,000,000, of which,
nearly L1,500,000 fell to the share of the Burghers. Concerning this Act of
Compensation there have been very divided opinions; there is not a doubt
that the British Government intended to deal fairly by the former slave
owners, but it is stated that there was great and culpable carelessness on
the part of the British agents in distributing this compensation money. It
seems that many of the Burghers to whom it was due never obtained it, and
these considered themselves aggrieved and defrauded by the British
Government. On the other hand, there are persons who have continually
disapproved of the principle of compensation for a wrong given up, or the
loss of an advantage unrighteously purchased. It is however to be regretted,
that an excuse should have been given for the Boers' complaints by
irregularities attributed to the British in the partition of the
compensation money.
It has often been asserted that the
first great Dutch emigration from the Cape was instigated simply by love of
freedom on their part, and their dislike of British Government. But why did
they dislike British Government? There may have been minor reasons, but the
one great grievance complained of by themselves, from the first, was the
abolition of slavery. They desired to be free to deal with the natives in
their own manner.
Taking with them their household
belongings and as much cattle as they could collect, they went forth in
search of homes in which they hoped they would be no longer controlled, and
as they thought, sorely wronged by the nation which had invaded their
Colony. But they did not all trek; only about half, it was estimated, did
so. The rest remained, finding it possible to live and prosper without
slavery.
They crossed the Orange River, and
finally trekked beyond the Vaal.
From 1833, Cape Colony, under
British rule, began to be endowed with representative institutions. In 1854,
the Magna Charta of the Hottentots, as it was called, was created. It was a
measure of remarkable liberality. "It conferred on all Hottentots and other
free persons of colour lawfully residing in the Colony, the right to become
burghers, and to exercise and enjoy all the privileges of burghership. It
enabled them to acquire land and other property. It exempted them from any
compulsory service to which other subjects of the Crown were not liable, and
from 'any hindrance, molestation, fine, imprisonment or other punishment'
not awarded to them after trial in due course of law, 'any custom or usage
to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.' Among other provisions it was
stipulated that wages should no longer be paid to them in liquor or tobacco,
and that, in the event of a servant having reasonable ground of complaint
against his master for ill-usage, and not being able to bear the expense of
a summons, one should be issued to him free of charge. By this ordinance a
stop was put, as far as the law could be enforced, to the bondage, other
than admitted and legalized slavery, by which through nearly two centuries
the Dutch farmers and others had oppressed the natives whom they had
deprived of their lands."[11]
The Boers who had trekked resented
every attempt at interference with them on the part of the Cape Government
with a view to their acceptance of such principles of British Government as
are expressed above. Wearied by its hopeless efforts to restore order among
the emigrant farmers, the British Government abandoned the task, and
contented itself with the arrangement made with Andries Pretorius, in 1852,
called the Sand River Convention. This Convention conceded to "the emigrant
farmers beyond the Vaal River" "the right to manage their own affairs and to
govern themselves, without any interference on the part of Her Majesty the
Queen's Government." It was stipulated, however, that "no slavery is or
shall be permitted or practised in the country to the north of the Vaal
River by the emigrant farmers." This stipulation has been made in every
succeeding Convention down to that of 1884. These Conventions have been
regularly agreed to and signed by successive Boer Leaders, and have been as
regularly and successively violated.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: South Africa, Past and
Present (1899), by Noble.]
[Footnote 6: Adolphe Mabille, Published in Paris, 1898.]
[Footnote 7: These and other details which follow are taken from Dutch
official papers, giving a succinct account of the treatment of the natives
between 1649 and 1809. These papers were translated from the Dutch by Lieut.
Moodie (1838). See Moodie's "Record."]
[Footnote 8: Thunberg. "Travels in Europe, Africa, and Asia, between 1770
and 1779."]
[Footnote 9: Sir John Barrow (Travels in South Africa, 1806.) Vol ii. p.
165.]
[Footnote 10: Mr. Fox Bourne, Secretary of the Aborigines Protection
Society.]
[Footnote 11: Parliamentary paper quoted by Mr. Fox Bourne. "Black and
White," page 18.]
