Boers and Little Englanders; the story of the conventions

Introduction

The chief object of this book is to render the position of Her Majesty as Suzerain over the South African Republic intelligible to all.

Few persons seem to be aware that Her authority as paramount Power is derived from the Convention of Pretoria of 1 88 1, and not from the London Convention of 1884.

The former Convention is still in full force in so far as the Queen’s guarantee and Suzerain rights are concerned, and the 1884 Convention is only supplemental and ancillary to it. The latter deals solely with the substitution of Articles for those of the former Convention, and it in no way alters the declaration made in 1881.

It will be found that the story of the Transvaal has been told in chronological order, from the trek in 1836 down to the present day ; and almost all the facts set forth, save what have come under my personal observation whilst in South Africa, are corroborated by evidence

VI

INTRODUCTION from Blue Books placed from time to time before Parliament.

Thus I have dealt :

(1) With the manner in which the South African Republic sprang into existence.

(2) With the annexation by us of that country in 1877, and the incidents which compelled us to that step.

(3) With the events prior to the Convention of 1881.

(4) With the Convention itself.

(5) With what transpired after the ratification of the Convention, and the surrender in 1884 by Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet of its most important provisions.

(6) With the situation to-day.

I have felt it my duty from my own personal experience of the brutal treatment of Kaffirs by Boer officials, in open violation of Article 19 of the Convention of 1884, to devote a chapter specially to this subject.

Outrages on the persons and property of natives, as well as murders in cold blood, have reached such proportions as to rouse the indignation of every British man and woman ; and, for the honour of England, it is to be hoped that Her Majesty’s Government will peremptorily demand that this portion of the Convention be strictly observed.

I have further introduced a chapter on the Hollander,

INTRODUCTION vii

which I regard as very necessary, when we consider the enormous influence now exercised by this group of foreigners over the Boer Executive and Government.

My work has no pretensions to literary merit. It is a plain, unvarnished tale, and the information thus collected will, I trust, be found useful to the great masses of those, both at home and abroad, who have interests in South Africa. If, perchance, its perusal should incite the members of the Parliamentary Committee, now sitting, to make inquiries as to the guarantee and obligations undertaken in 1 88 1 towards the inhabitants of the Transvaal State in the name of Her Majesty, and should further induce them to take a firm stand, I shall feel I have not laboured in vain. I have added an Appendix (including the texts of the Conventions of 1 88 1 and 1884), in which will be found copies of several documents corroborative of my views.

J- P.

Contents

CHAP. PACE

I. Origin of the South African Republic . i

II. Annexation by England io

Chapter I Origin Of The South African Republic

About the year 1835 the descendants of the Dutch and Huguenot families settled at the Cape were roused to a pitch of deadly resentment against British rule. Ever since the beginning of the century, when the Dutch possessions in Africa were ceded to England, relations between the British military authorities and the “Boers” (as these Dutch settlers were called) had been more than strained and, as the years rolled on, these Boers openly resented our masterful power over them, and compared it to the tyranny exhibited towards their fathers by their own Dutch East India Company of a generation earlier.

The climax was reached when England proclaimed the total abolition of slavery in the country. Our Government promised to compensate the masters liberally for the losses incurred by the enforced emancipation of their slaves, and were lavish in their assurances that sums of money would be handed over

A to the farmers to cover the expense of hired labour. But, in the main, these promises were unfulfilled, and scarce a tenth part of the funds agreed upon ever reached the farmer’s hands.

What followed is a story tragic in the extreme, and one of the most pathetic in the history of the century.

Ruined in pocket, their hearts filled with bitter hatred towards the Government which had played them false, and without the power of fighting for their own interests, they deserted the homes they could no longer keep, and wandered with their families northward and eastward, trying to find in the wilderness of the Veldt a resting-place, where at least they would be free from hated foreign official interference. Here they had ample time to brood over their wrongs. Cut off from the outside world, they had but their own misfortunes and the incidents of their daily life as food for reflection. Their only literature was the Bible, and in its perusal the strong and deeply religious tendency inherited from their forefathers daily gained force, until they began to interpret the Old Testament histories as referring to themselves, and to identify their mode of existence with that of the Israelites. Indeed, in their appalling ignorance so fully did they become imbued with the belief that they were a suffering people selected by God to work out their own salvation, that by a very simple process of analogy they were further convinced that they were the descendants of the Patriarchs, and as such were bound to accept the Old Testament as their guide and to live in accord with its injunctions.

These Boers were grim obstinate folk, both men and women, for the latter shared all dangers, and though a

ORIGIN OF THE REPUBLIC woman personally did not carry a gun she could load and fire one when needed, at times a most helpful accomplishment. Their religion was entirely of the militant order, the New Testament being to them practically a sealed book and no doctrine of peace or mercy ever entering into their theology.

At this period each family dwelt in a rudely constructed waggon drawn by oxen. They kept together for safety's sake, drawing up their waggons at night so as to form a temporary fortress against possible foes. Around the camp fires old and young assembled. Conversation amongst the elders was limited to the incidents of the day and to discussions on passages culled from their one book, from which they likened their own wanderings to those of the children of Israel. Fortified in this belief, they taught the younger generation that every black was the born bondsman of the white, and, moreover, that they were the chosen instruments appointed by divine command to be the black man’s master, and to take possession of his lands as their natural heritage. It must not be supposed that everything went smoothly in their different communities or that all agreed, even on the interpretation of the Scriptures. On the contrary, the want of diversion in their lives and the close neighbourhood of persons who had previously dwelt at long distances from one another naturally brought about divisions of opinion and even dissensions.

On two points they were, however, united. First, hostility towards the Englishman ; and secondly, subjugation of the Kaffir ; and on these their energies were invariably concentrated.

It is well known that impressions of early youth exercise a powerful influence over men’s future lives, especially when such impressions are graven on the memory by the solemnity of events in which they personally take part.

Now, a leading characteristic of the youthful Boer always has been a strong respect, amounting even to reverence, for the views and opinions of his elders.

No wonder then that he who had joined in the difficulties and adventures of his father determined in his turn to pursue the dominant idea, and go forth into the world to establish a home. Limited though his education, his wits were sharpened by the conflicting adversities of his daily life, and in Dame Nature’s school he soon acquired a knowledge of character far wider and more profound than is ordinarily possessed by a member of more civilised communities.

Amongst the young Boers there was no more apt pupil than Stephanus Johannis Paulus Kruger. Keen, shrewd and valorous, endowed with a strong physique, doggedly obstinate, and steeped in the history of Moses and Joshua, he soon became marked by his elders as one to be admitted to their deliberations. But, withal, he vigorously maintained his independence of party and never allied himself to any faction which was not prepared to pursue the path or policy which he had decided in his own mind ought to be followed.

The Boer modified his fighting tactics by the lessons of personal experience taught him in his frequent conflicts with his native foes. Soon his expertness in forming “laager,” or in taking advantage of every bush or ant-hill calculated to afford protection against his

ORIGIN OF THE REPUBLIC enemy’s bullet or assegai, as well as his own sure aim, won him reputation as a formidable antagonist.

Ever on the move, and constant in his determination to acquire land, although his knowledge of agriculture has never ceased to be of the most primitive character, it is not at all surprising that the population became scattered sparsely over a very large area as the years went by.

Within fifteen years of the exodus of 1835, different groups of these wanderers had spread over what are now the Orange Free State and the British Colony of Natal, whilst others had established themselves to the north of the Vaal River, many powerful Kaffir tribes having been subdued in the meantime. At first, and indeed for some years, these farmers beyond the Vaal obeyed the military and civil authority of tried and accepted leaders. In course of time, however, dissensions arose between different commanders, and serious bickerings broke out on religious matters to such an alarming extent that the more enlightened amongst them determined to create a form of government directly representative of the people’s will. Hence we find that in the year 1849 a Volksraad or parliament was instituted to which delegates were elected by popular vote. Meanwhile, the Imperial policy of England towards her Colonies had undergone those great changes which ultimately led to the establishment of a Colonial Department of the Home Government as distinguished from the control hitherto of the War Office. In 1852, after many disputes with the English authorities at the Cape, an arrangement known as the Sand River Convention was arrived at between Her

Majesty and those Boers who had crossed the Vaal (at whose head were two sagacious and valiant men named Andries Pretorius and Piet Potgieter), wherein the Boers were granted self-government under certain defined conditions, and were recognised as a nation under the title of the South African Republic. To achieve this result they had conquered Kaffir hordes in many a stubborn fight, and, possessing the blind belief that they were God’s messengers to do His work, it is not strange that they looked on the soil and the natives as a direct gift to them from the Almighty. No assistance had been rendered them by any other race during those long years of trial. They and they alone had made almost superhuman sacrifices, had endured untold privations, and had freely shed their blood to accomplish this object — a home and country free from foreign interference.

Is it singular, then, that in their hearts they should claim for themselves the sole right of representation in the Government of the State, to the exclusion of every other settler ?

In order to grasp the situation fully, we must consider the narrow limits of their social intercourse, confined for years to peripatetic meetings with other wandering religious fanatics of their own race, their intermarriages, and their moral and intellectual training. It will then be understood how these slow-thinking, ignorant and suspicious farmers felt (and still feel) that every promise they made, whether oral or written, which might have the effect of placing outsiders on an equality with them, had been extorted by superior force, and was not, therefore, binding on their conscience.

ORIGIN OF THE REPUBLIC

Most essential is it to understand this curious moral attitude ere we pass judgment on their flagrant disregard of all pledges, and open violation of all compacts. Let us be clear on this point. Whenever the terms and conditions expressed in Articles of different Conventions appear inimical to their interests, these Boers have never considered themselves bound to respect them, and this has been their line of action from the early days of the Sand River Convention down to the present year of grace. Once the right to govern themselves had been granted by Her Majesty in 1852, and before the Convention was ratified by their lately constituted Volksraad, a serious quarrel broke out between their two chief commanders, Potgieter and Pretorius, who were each supported by a body of adherents. And here Paul Kruger played an important part. Sometimes with Potgieter, and at others against him, but always acting as a sort of firebrand amid the factions, he took the line that the Zoutpansberg and Lydenburg Boers should be welded into the South African Republic.

The matter became at one time so grave as to render a civil war imminent, but the strong common sense of the two principals prevailed ; they became reconciled, and the dark cloud passed. Attention was then directed towards the framing of a Constitution, and after repeated meetings in different parts of the Republic, and many disagreements over details, this was finally accomplished in 1858. This Constitution, based more or less on that of the United States of America, was solemnly accepted by the people, and is now recognised as their charter under the name of

“ Grondwet.” All functions appertaining to Government, including the administration of justice, were usually carried out by those more enlightened and cultivated descendants of the old Dutch and Huguenot stock from the Cape Colony and Orange Free State, of whose services the more ignorant among the Transvaal Boers gladly availed themselves. But in a community such as this, the duties of judges and magistrates were obviously not very heavy. Financial affairs, however, were more serious, and as the difficulty of finding money for ordinary State purposes asserted itself, it will be readily understood that a revenue officer stood a very poor chance of collecting taxes from these wandering nomads.

As the young Republic grew in years, it became ever increasingly difficult for the authorities to raise money sufficient even for necessary defensive requirements. Strife had broken out amongst the Boers on the everlasting religious and territorial questions. In consequence, they became jealous and mistrustful of each other, until at last their condition was such that towards the close of 1876 they were not merely bankrupt as a nation, but had become totally unfitted for self-government.

From the uncompromising character of the man and with our knowledge of his narrow, bigoted, religious views, it is not singular that in that year we find Paul Kruger had attained to the position of a member of the Executive, and Vice-President of the Republic, the head of the State being a quiet cultured man, President Thomas Burgers. Neither is it surprising, when we consider the training and mode of life of the two men,

ORIGIN OF THE REPUBLIC that on all matters of expediency relating to the Government or the future destinies of the Republic, their views were as wide apart as the poles. The more educated of the community supported the President, but the Voortrekkers either stood aloof or trusted to Kruger, who urged them to continue the struggle for the maintenance of their independence, although he was incapable of suggesting a way out of the difficulty which their own dissensions and incapacity had brought about.

Chapter II

With their usual aggressiveness towards natives, the Boer Government in the year 1876 seized lands belonging to an independent Kaffir chief named Sekukuni, who, though by no means powerful in comparison with others on their borders, utterly routed the Boer forces. In short, the Boers displayed such cowardice in their attack on Sekukuni’s stronghold that their President Thomas Burgers had to raise a force of mercenaries regardless of nationality, by the offer to each of ^5 per month and a farm at the end of the campaign. This body was commanded by a German, named Von Schlickman. Matters progressed from bad to worse, and other native chiefs, emboldened by Sekukuni’s success, began to threaten both the Boers and our own colonists. Notable among these was the Zulu King Cetewayo, the most powerful of all, who in haughty terms declared his intention to “allow his young men to wash their spears.”

Sir Henry Barkly, at that time Governor of Cape Colony, in a letter dated October 30, 1876, to the Earl of Carnarvon, Secretary of State for the Colonies,

1 1

explanatory of the situation, expressed himself as follows* : —

“ 5. Thirteen volunteers it is further stated had reached Pretoria from the Diamond Fields, sixty or seventy more being expected the week after, and Von Schlickman had gone on before them to Lydenburg, to the military command of which district he has been officially gazetted.

“6. lie is said likewise to have been appointed by President Burgers to collect the taxes there with a salary of £1 a day and 5 per cent, on the amount collected.

“ 7. This appointment, as your Lordship will perceive from the enclosed letter, which has just reached me from the chairman of the Defence Committee at Pilgrims Rest, has excited much apprehension, in consequence of Von Schlickman having recommended when examined before the Volksraad ‘ that the Gold .Fields should be subdued.’

“ 8. It is feared that an attempt to coerce the diggers into exorbitant payments by armed force will be made, the impression that this is contemplated acquiring strength from the summary suppression of the office of Special Magistrate, which is described in the letter as an arbitrary and unconstitutional act.

“9. Nor is the discontent confined to the Gold Fields population only. At a public meeting held in Lydenburg on the 2nd inst., before the appointment of Von Schlickman was known, resolutions moved by some of the oldest and most influential inhabitants of Dutch * See Blue Book C 1748, No. 14S, p. 178.

relations of the Boers with men of other nations and churches.

“ The whole world may know it, for it is true, and investigation will only bring out the horrible details, that through the whole course of this Republic’s existence it has acted in contravention of the Sand River Treaty ; and slavery has occurred, not only here and there in isolated cases, but as an unbroken practice has been one of the peculiar institutions of the country, mixed up with all its social and political life. It has been at the root of most of its wars ; it has been carried on regular^ even in the times of peace.

“ It has been characterised by all those circumstances which have so often roused the British nation to an indignant protest and to repeated efforts to banish the slave-trade from the world. The Boers have not only fallen upon unsuspecting kraals simply for the purpose of obtaining the women and children and cattle, but they have carried on a traffic through natives, who have kidnapped the children of their weaker neighbours and sold them to the white man. Again, the Boers have sold and exchanged their victims amongst themselves. Waggon-loads of slaves have been conveyed from one end of the country to the other for sale, and that with the cognisance of, and for the direct advantage of, the higher officials of the land. The writer has himself seen in a town situated in the south of the Republic the children who had been brought down from a remote northern district.”

But more authoritative than all, and most interesting at this time, is it to know what was the conviction of

Her Majesty’s Government with regard to these matters, and we learn from the concise despatch of the Earl of Carnarvon to Governor Sir Henry Barkly, dated January 25, 1877, that the Boer Government had manifested towards that of Her Majesty just the same reckless disregard of all warnings, friendly advice or remonstrance, that President Kruger and his Hollanders of to-day exhibit in response to the good offices of our Colonial Department. This despatch is of such importance, and so illustrative of the circumstances which induced Lord Carnarvon’s action, that I have appended it in full : *

“The Earl of Carnarvon to Governor Sir H. Barkly, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.

■ "Downing Street, January 25, 1877.

“ Sir,

“I have received your despatches of the nth December and of the 18th of that month, f on the subject of the barbarous mode in which the hostilities undertaken by the President of the South African Republic against the natives have been conducted.

“ 2. Her Majesty’s Government, after having given full consideration to all the information attainable on the subject, and with every desire to view matters in the most favourable light, deeply regret that they are forced to come to the conclusion that the barbarities alleged to have been committed, though denied by the Transvaal Government, have in fact occurred.

“ 3. Warnings against this wholly gratuitous and * See Blue Book C 1776, p. 25. f Nos. 13 and 16.

H BOERS AND LITTLE ENGLANDERS

relations of the Boers with men of other nations and churches.

“ The whole world may know it, for it is true, and investigation will only bring out the horrible details, that through the whole course of this Republic’s existence it has acted in contravention of the Sand River Treaty ; and slavery has occurred, not only here and there in isolated cases, but as an unbroken practice has been one of the peculiar institutions of the country, mixed up with all its social and political life. It has been at the root of most of its wars ; it has been carried on regularly even in the times of peace.

“ It has been characterised by all those circumstances which have so often roused the British nation to an indignant protest and to repeated efforts to banish the slave-trade from the world. The Boers have not only fallen upon unsuspecting kraals simply for the purpose of obtaining the women and children and cattle, but they have carried on a traffic through natives, who have kidnapped the children of their weaker neighbours and sold them to the white man. Again, the Boers have sold and exchanged their victims amongst themselves. Waggon-loads of slaves have been conveyed from one end of the country to the other for sale, and that with the cognisance of, and for the direct advantage of, the higher officials of the land. The writer has himself seen in a town situated in the south of the Republic the children who had been brought down from a remote northern district.”

But more authoritative than all, and most interesting at this time, is it to know what was the conviction of

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Her Majesty’s Government with regard to these matters, and we learn from the concise despatch of the Earl of Carnarvon to Governor Sir Henry Barkly, dated January 25, 1877, that the Boer Government had manifested towards that of Her Majesty just the same reckless disregard of all warnings, friendly advice or remonstrance, that President Kruger and his Hollanders of to-day exhibit in response to the good offices of our Colonial Department. This despatch is of such importance, and so illustrative of the circumstances which induced Lord Carnarvon’s action, that I have appended it in full : *

“The Earl of Carnarvon to Governor Sir H. Barkly, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.

“Downing Street, January 25, 1877.

“ Sir,

“I have received your despatches of the nth December and of the 18th of that month, f on the subject of the barbarous mode in which the hostilities undertaken by the President of the South African Republic against the natives have been conducted.

“ 2. Her Majesty’s Government, after having given full consideration to all the information attainable on the subject, and with every desire to view matters in the most favourable light, deeply regret that they are forced to come to the conclusion that the barbarities alleged to have been committed, though denied by the Transvaal Government, have in fact occurred.

“ 3. Warnings against this wholly gratuitous and * See Blue Book C 1776, p. 25. f Nos. 13 and 16.

i6 unjust war, earnest and friendly advice and finally remonstrances, have been offered by Her Majesty’s Government ; they have all been ineffectual to arrest the course to which the Transvaal Government seems to have committed itself, leading, as it must, to national bankruptcy and anarchy, but most dangerous to all the neighbouring European communities, whose interests have already been gravely affected by these reckless proceedings.

“ 4. Such being the case, it is to be feared that nothing that can be further urged in the way of protest will be of much avail. Nevertheless, it is the duty of Her Majesty’s Government again to protest in the plainest and strongest terms possible against the proceedings of the Transvaal Government and the prosecution of this so-called war on the lines of action hitherto adopted ; and while I approve of the remonstrance which you have already addressed to President Burgers, I have to instruct you once more to express to him the deep regret and indignation with which Her Majesty’s Government view the proceedings of the armed force which is acting in the name and under the authority of the Transvaal Government, and to cause him to understand that he is rapidly making impossible the continuance either of those sentiments of respect and confidence towards him, or of those friendly relations with him as the chief of a neighbouring Government which it was the earnest hope of Her Majesty’s Government to preserve.

“5. I am aware that very many of the inhabitants of the Transvaal deplore as deeply as I do these unhappy occurrences, nor do I suppose that any, except those who arc urged by strong personal or political motives, would do otherwise than condemn and put aside the system of which they have been the result. Some, indeed, of the inhabitants (as, for example, in the Lydenburg district) appeal directly to my sympathies and anxieties as British subjects ; but, in dealing officially with the responsibilities of the Republic in this matter, I cannot separate the private individuals from the Government which represents them, with whom alone I can remonstrate, and in whose hands is the power of granting redress.

“ 6. Under the peculiar and critical circumstances which now exist, I propose to await the result of Sir T. Shepstone’s mission to Pretoria before instructing you to take any further steps beyond conveying to President Burgers the further protest which I am compelled by a sense of public duty to make through you, and in the plainest and most unequivocal terms.

" (Signed) ■■ CARNARVON.

"Sir Henry Barkly.”

Now it has been frequently alleged by Boer propagandists and by those others who have attempted to palliate Mr. Gladstone’s line of conduct in 1881, as well as his subsequent surrender in 1884 of all the most important articles of the Convention of 1881, which he and his Cabinet had formally imposed, that Sir T. Shepstone was delegated to Pretoria expressly to carry out a “ hobby ” of the late Earl of Carnarvon, originally suggested and matured in detail by Sir Bartle Frere — this hobby being nothing less than that the

B

South African Republic was to be driven, if necessary by force of arms, into joining in a grand scheme of confederation of all the South African States ; and, failing this, that the country was to be annexed to the British Crown, that Sir Bartle Frere was sent as High Commissioner to Cape Town to effect this annexation, and that Sir T. Shepstone acted in Pretoria under his instructions !

There is not a shadow of truth in any of the above allegations.

As a matter of fact, Sir Bartle Frere did not reach Cape Town from England until March 31, 1877, and Sir T. Shepstone had actually been in Pretoria from January 22 of the same year, whilst his proclamation annexing the Republic was issued on April 12. So that before Sir Bartle Frere set foot on African soil, the whole of the arrangements for supplanting the Boer Government of the country had been already made by Sir T. Shepstone.

We have only to read the despatches sent to the Home Government long before Sir Bartle Frere came on the scene, by such men as Sir H. Barkly and Sir Henry Bulwer, and Lord Carnarvon’s replies thereto, to learn how Her Majesty’s advisers were compelled, against their own desires, to take the line they did.

Those measures, which they were driven to adopt, had been forced on them by a situation created by the Boers themselves, and their policy was formed mainly on the long array of stern facts as reported by high responsible British officials in South Africa.

A study of these documents as contained in Blue Books presented to our Houses of Parliament cannot

*9 fail to convince any unbiased person of the patient consideration, repeated warnings, and friendly advice given by Lord Carnarvon to the Boer Government. It was only when at length he became thoroughly roused to the imminent danger threatening our people and Colonies by further delay that he assented to Sir T. Shepstone's mission.