Boer views regarding coloured peoples are those retained from Dutch
practices of a hundred and more years ago, when the Cape of Good Hope still
belonged to that nation. Servitude, if not absolute slavery, was then
generally recognised as the proper status for coloured aborigines, and that
principle of differentiation continues to be upheld and applied in a
modified form, it must be admitted, in all the Colonial possessions of
Holland. The authority for this stand is sought from ancient biblical
history, where the descendants of Ham appear marked out for servitude, and
from that basis it is interpreted that people so marked are not designed for
tuition or evangelization until after they have been subjugated. According
to such a doctrine the injunction to preach the Gospel to every creature
would be limited to civilized whites, and might only be extended to such
coloured peoples who have been fitted, as is said, for the reception of the
Christian faith by being placed under the subserviency of whites, as their
sponsors if not their actual masters, and requiring mundane tuition and
education as essential bases to precede conversion.
For the refutation of such monstrous doctrines it may be urged that,
according to Scripture, savage as well as cultured peoples have a
consciousness of guilt towards the Divine Judge. The object of the Gospel is
to end the history of the culprit as such and to place him upon a new
standing—"the wind bloweth as it listeth": a new birth operated by the
acceptance of the Gospel proclamation addressed to every creature, black as
well as white. Growth and moral amendment properly "follow" that spiritual
birth; neither is conceivable before, except purely human education, which
is incapable of effecting a change, and in fact tends only to fortify the
natural man in his implacable hostility against the newly implanted element,
each lusting against the other.[12]
History records how the Spanish and other early explorers operated with the
aborigines in the regions discovered by them. The territories with their
inhabitants were declared possessions accruing to their respective
sovereigns, whose main policy was the exploitation of all the wealth
possible. The aborigines were dispossessed, treated as conquered peoples,
and forced to do the exploiting labour. No other results could follow than
the gradual diminution and final exhaustion of all the wealth and the
partial, if not total, extinction of the aboriginal races.
What retribution overtook those nations is also on record. Those enslaved
peoples were forced to accept the religion of their conquerors. Can true
converts be made to order by constraint, motives of self-interest, or by
baptizing them en bloc? What else but deepest aversion and mistrust could a
religion inspire which is professed and taught by a people who practise
spoliation, murder, and other descriptions of wickedness abhorrent even to a
savage mind? The aborigines would daily behold their own land and
possessions enjoyed by usurpers and "would be teachers," who subjected them
besides to slavery and abject misery. Could the religion of such teachers
ever find favour with their victims? How could doctrines of righteousness
and love be understood when so glaringly violated by their preceptors?
It
presents a sad paradox to see that the Boers, who are in many respects
consistently religious and even exemplary, could uphold principles which
place coloured people out of caste, not only in regard to political rights
but also as to the common religious standing before the Creator. It would be
unjust to charge the Boers with actually barbarous practices towards the
natives—what they do enforce is their submission to the condition of
servants.
The Boer people ever chafed against the restraining action of the British
Government as to their practice of slavery, and they have not hesitated
either to exhibit their hostility to missionary enterprise. The confiscation
of Protestant mission sites in the Orange Free State is one of the
instances; another was exemplified in a raid perpetrated about forty years
ago by the Transvaal Boers upon the inoffensive Bechuana tribe, whose chief
and many of his people had accepted the Christian faith through the teaching
of Moffat, David Livingstone, and other evangelists. The pretext for that
raid was a lying report that that Bechuana chief had bartered some 400 guns
from traders to fight the Boers with. The Boers sent an ultimatum requiring
the surrender of those weapons. Despite the protestation of the chief and
his people that not more than eight guns had been bartered for hunting,
which had later proved true, a commando was sent against them under
Commandant Paul Krüger, now President Krüger. Many of the natives were
slain, their villages burnt, their cattle seized, and great numbers of the
tribe taken captive for distribution as servants among the Boer farmers in
the Transvaal. That raid was further signalized by the total destruction of
Moffat's mission station—church, school buildings, and industrial shops.
These, after being looted, were all consigned to the flames, as also the
missionary dwellings, among which was that of David Livingstone, with his
furniture, books, and belongings. There are abundant records, besides that
of the Bechuana nation, that barbarous and idolatrous peoples are amenable
to Christianity without the prior influences of civilization or individual
education, or that they should be subjugated first, as the Boers would have
it. What indeed is of immense aid for moral and economic advancement is the
operation of civilized and liberal governmental authority, repressing
slavery, under which proprietary rights and justice are equally afforded to
black and white, and where the Gospel might have a free course without
constraint and without inducements of material advantages.
It
seemed that such conditions were on the eve of eventuating for the rescue
and disenthralment of darkest Africa. This is what Moffat, Livingstone,
Coillard, and many other devoted servants of the Gospel had prayed for all
their lives, what has been and still is the burden of the prayers (no doubt
all inspired) of millions of Christians. The interior is no more a blank on
the map. Much is done for the suppression of slavery. The whole continent is
parcelled out among different nations, who have assumed the task of
civilizing their respective spheres. The world's energy and capital stand
available for the object, and it appeared that many souls were being
seriously aroused to the responsibility of obeying the charge pronounced in
Ezekiel xxxiii. 1-11. But sinister influences have not failed in attempts to
bar beneficent dispensations. We have seen fanaticism resulting in the
fierce revolt of Mahdism in the north, and are now awaiting the issue of the
war brought on by Afrikaner Bondism in the south.
FOOTNOTES:
12. Another has aptly illustrated the change by comparing such a man's new
condition to a hotel that has come under totally different and perfectly new
management and controlling proprietorship.
