Native Races and the War. Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler
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 £20,000,000, of which, nearly £1,500,000 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