Part 957

He, and some of the mariners with him, called it the Cape of Torments, or Capo Tormentoso, from the miseries they endured. The more comfortable name which it now bears was given to it by King John of Portugal, as being the new way discovered by his subjects to the glorious Indies. Diaz, it seems, never in truth saw the Cape, but was carried past it to Algoa Bay. … Vasco da Gama, another sailor hero, said to have been of royal Portuguese descent, followed him in 1497. He landed to the west of the Cape. … Vasco da Gama did not stay long at the Cape, but proceeding on went up the East Coast as far as our second South African colony, which bears the name which he then gave to it. He called the land Tierra de Natal, because he reached it on the day of our Lord's Nativity. The name has stuck to it ever since and no doubt will now be preserved. From thence Da Gama went on to India. … The Portuguese seem to have made no settlement at the Cape intended even to be permanent; but they did use the place during the 16th and first half of the next century as a port at which they could call for supplies and assistance on their way out to the East Indies. The East had then become the great goal of commerce to others besides the Portuguese. In 1600 our own East India Company was formed, and in 1602 that of the Dutch. Previous to those dates, in 1591, an English sailor, Captain Lancaster, visited the Cape, and in 1620 Englishmen landed and took possession of it in the name of James I. But nothing came of these visitings and declarations, although an attempt was made by Great Britain to establish a house of call for her trade out to the East. For this purpose a small gang of convicts was deposited on Robben Island, which is just off Capetown, but as a matter of course the convicts quarrelled with themselves and the Natives, and came to a speedy end. In 1595 the Dutch came, but did not then remain. It was not till 1652 that the first Europeans who were destined to be the pioneer occupants of the new land were put on shore at the Cape of Good Hope, and thus made the first Dutch settlement. Previous to that the Cape had in fact been a place of call for vessels of all nations going and coming to and from the East. But from this date, 1652, it was to be used for the Dutch exclusively. … The home Authority at this time was not the Dutch Government, but the Council of Seventeen at Amsterdam, who were the Directors of the Dutch East India Company. … From 1658, when the place was but six years old, there comes a very sad record indeed. The first cargo of slaves was landed at the Cape from the Guinea Coast. In this year, out of an entire population of 360, more than a half were slaves. The total number of these was 187. To control them and to defend the place there were but 113 European men capable of bearing arms. This slave element at once became antagonistic to any system of real colonization, and from that day to this has done more than any other evil to retard the progress of the people. It was extinguished, much to the disgust of the old Dutch inhabitants, under Mr. Buxton's Emancipation Act in 1834;—but its effects are still felt." The new land of which the Dutch had taken possession "was by no means unoccupied or unpossessed. There was a race of savages in possession, to whom the Dutch soon gave the name of Hottentots. [The name was probably taken from some sound in their language which was of frequent occurrence; they seem to have been called 'Ottentoos,' 'Hotnots," Hottentotes,' 'Hodmodods,' and 'Hadmandods,' promiscuously. —Foot-note.) … Soon after the settlement was established the burghers were forbidden to trade with these people at all, and then hostilities commenced. The Hottentots found that much, in the way of land, had been taken from them and that nothing was to be got. They … have not received, as Savages, a bad character. They are said to have possessed fidelity, attachment, and intelligence. … But the Hottentot, with all his virtues, was driven into rebellion. There was some fighting, in which the natives of course were beaten, and rewards were offered, so much for a live Hottentot, and so much for a dead one. This went on till, in 1672, it was found expedient to purchase land from the natives. A contract was made in that year to prevent future cavilling, as was then alleged, between the Governor and one of the native princes, by which the district of the Cape of Good Hope was ceded to the Dutch for a certain nominal price. … But after a very early period—1684 —there was no further buying of land. … The land was then annexed by Europeans as convenience required. In all this the Dutch of those days did very much as the English have done since. … The Hottentot … is said to be nearly gone, and, being a yellow man, to have lacked strength to endure European seductions. But as to the Hottentot and his fate there are varied opinions. I have been told by some that I have never seen a pure Hottentot. Using my own eyes and my own idea of what a Hottentot is, I should have said that the bulk of the population of the Western Province of the Cape Colony is Hottentot. The truth probably is that they have become so mingled with other races as to have lost much of their identity; but that the race has not perished, as have the Indians of North America and the Maoris. … The last half of the 17th and the whole of the 18th century saw the gradual progress of the Dutch depôt,—a colony it could hardly be called,—going on in the same slow determined way, and always with the same purpose. It was no colony because those who managed it at home in Holland, and they who at the Cape served with admirable fidelity their Dutch masters, never entertained an idea as to the colonization of the country. … In 1795 came the English. In that year the French Republican troops had taken possession of Holland [see FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER)], and the Prince of Orange, after the manner of dethroned potentates, took refuge in England. He_gave an authority, which was dated from Kew, to the Governor of the Cape to deliver up all and everything in his hands to the English forces. {2962} On the arrival of the English fleet there was found to be, at the same time, a colonist rebellion. … In this double emergency the poor Dutch Governor, who does not seem to have regarded the Prince's order as an authority, was sorely puzzled. He fought a little, but only a little, and then the English were in possession. … In 1797 Lord Macartney came out as the first British Governor. Great Britain at this time took possession of the Cape to prevent the French from doing so. No doubt it was a most desirable possession, as being a half-way house for us to India as it had been for the Dutch. But we should not, at any rate then, have touched the place had it not been that Holland, or rather the Dutch, were manifestly unable to retain it. … Our rule over the Dutchmen was uneasy and unprofitable. Something of rebellion seems to have been going on during the whole time. … When at the peace of Amiens in 1802 it was arranged that the Cape of Good Hope should be restored to Holland [see FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802], English Ministers of State did not probably grieve much at the loss. … But the peace of Amiens was delusive, and there was soon war between England and France. Then again Great Britain felt the necessity of taking the Cape, and proceeded to do so on this occasion without any semblance of Dutch authority. At that time whatever belonged to Holland was almost certain to fall in to the hands of France. In 1805 … Sir David Baird was sent with half a dozen regiments to expel, not the Dutch, but the Dutch Governor and the Dutch soldiers from the Cape. This he did easily, having encountered some slender resistance; and thus in 1806, on the 19th January, after a century and a half of Dutch rule, the Cape of Good Hope became a British colony."

_A. Trollope, South Africa, volume 1, chapter 2._

ALSO IN: _W. Greswell, Our South African Empire, volume 1, chapters 1-4._

_R. Russell, Natal, part 2, chapters 1-3._

_Sir B. Frere, Historical Sketch of South Africa (Royal Historical Society Transactions N. S., volumes 2 and 4). _

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881. The English and the Dutch Boers. The "Great Trek." Successive Boer republics of Natal, Orange Free State, and the Transvaal, absorbed in the British dominions. The Boer War.

The early history of the Cape Colony, after it became a dependency of the British Crown, "is a record of the struggles of the settlers, both English and Dutch, against the despotic system of government established by Lord Charles Somerset; of Kaffir wars, in which the colonists were often hard put to it to hold their own; and of the struggle for the liberty of the Press, sustained with success by John Fairbairn, and Thomas Pringle, the poet of South Africa, the Ovid of a self-chosen exile. For a time the Dutch and English settlers lived in peace and amity together, but the English efforts to alleviate the condition of, and finally emancipate the slaves, severed the two races. The Dutch settlers held the old Biblical notions about slavery, and they resented fiercely the law of 1833 emancipating all slaves throughout the colony in 1834. The Boers at once determined to 'trek,' to leave the colony which was under the jurisdiction of the English law, and find in the South African wilderness, where no human law prevailed, food for their flocks, and the pastoral freedom of Jacob and of Abraham. The Boers would live their own lives in their own way. They had nothing in common with the Englishman, and they wished for nothing in common. … They were a primitive people, farming, hunting, reading the Bible, pious, sturdy, and independent; and the colonial Government was by no means willing to see them leaving the fields and farms that they had colonised, in order to found fresh states outside the boundaries of the newly acquired territory. But the Government was powerless, it tried, and tried in vain, to prevent this emigration. There was no law to prevent it. … So, with their waggons, their horses, their cattle and sheep, their guns, and their few household goods, the hardy Boers struck out into the interior and to the north-east, in true patriarchal fashion [the migration being known as the Great Trek], seeking their promised land, and that 'desolate freedom of the wild ass' which was dear to their hearts. They founded a colony at Natal, fought and baptized the new colony in their own blood. The Zulu chief, Dingaan, who sold them the territory, murdered the Boer leader, Peter Retief, and his 79 followers as soon as the deed was signed. This was the beginning of the Boer hatred to the native races. The Boers fought with the Zulus successfully enough, fought with the English who came upon them less successfully. The Imperial Government decided that it would not permit its subjects to establish any independent Governments in any part of South Africa. In 1843, after no slight struggle and bloodshed, the Dutch republic of Natal ceased to be, and Natal became part of the British dominion. Again the Boers, who were unwilling to remain under British rule, 'trekked' northward; again a free Dutch state was founded—the Orange Free State. Once again the English Government persisted in regarding them as British subjects, and as rebels if they refused to admit as much. Once again there was strife and bloodshed, and in 1848 the Orange settlement was placed under British authority, while the leading Boers fled for their lives across the Vaal River, and, obstinately independent, began to found the Transvaal Republic. After six years, however, of British rule in the Orange territory the Imperial Government decided to give it back to the Boers, whose stubborn desire for self-government, and unchanging dislike for foreign rule, made them practically unmanageable as subjects. In April 1854 a convention was entered into with the Boers of the Orange territory, by which the Imperial Government guaranteed the future independence of the Orange Free State. Across the Vaal River the Transvaal Boers grew and flourished after their own fashion, fought the natives, established their republic and their Volksraad. But in 1877 the Transvaal republic, had been getting rather the worst of it in some of these struggles, and certain of the Transvaal Boers seem to have made suggestions to England that she should take the Transvaal republic under her protection. Sir Theophilus Shepstone was sent out to investigate the situation. He seems to have entirely misunderstood the condition of things, and to have taken the frightened desires of a few Boers as the honest sentiments of the whole Boer nation. In an evil hour he hoisted the English flag in the Transvaal, and declared the little republic a portion of the territory of the British Crown. {2963} As a matter of fact, the majority of the Boers were a fierce, independent people, very jealous of their liberty, and without the least desire to come under the rule, to escape which they had wandered so far from the earliest settlements of their race. … The Boers of the Transvaal sent deputation after deputation to England to appeal, and appeal in vain, against the annexation. Lord Carnarvon had set his whole heart upon a scheme of South African confederation; his belief in the ease with which this confederation might be accomplished was carefully fostered by judiciously coloured official reports. … Sir Bartle Frere, 'as a friend,' advised the Boers 'not to believe one word' of any statements to the effect that the English people would be willing to give up the Transvaal. 'Never believe,' he said, 'that the English people will do anything of the kind.' 'When the chief civil and military command of the eastern part of South Africa was given to Sir Garnet Wolseley, Sir Garnet Wolseley was not less explicit in his statements. … In spite of the announcements of Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Garnet Wolseley, and Sir Owen Lanyon, the disaffected Boers were not without more or less direct English encouragement. The Boer deputations had found many friends in England. … One of those who thus sympathised was Mr. Gladstone. In his Midlothian speeches he denounced again and again the Conservative policy which had led to the annexation of the Transvaal. … While all the winds of the world were carrying Mr. Gladstone's words to every corner of the earth, it is not surprising that the Boers of the Transvaal … should have caught at these encouraging sentences, and been cheered by them, and animated by them to rise against the despotism denounced by a former Prime Minister of England. … For some time there seemed to be no reasonable chance of liberty, but in the end of 1880 the Boers saw their opportunity. … There were few troops in the Transvaal. The Boer hour had come. As in most insurrections, the immediate cause of the rising was slight enough. A Boer named Bezhuidenot was summoned by the landdrost of Potchefstrom to pay a claim made by the Treasury officials at Pretoria. Bezhuidenot resisted the claim, which certainly appears to have been illegal. … The landdrost attached a waggon of Bezhuidenot's, and announced that it would be sold to meet the claim. On November 11 the waggon was brought into the open square of Potchefstrom, and the sheriff was about to begin the sale, when a number of armed Boers pulled him off and carried the waggon away in triumph. They were unopposed, as there was no force in the town to resist them. The incident, trifling in itself, of Bezhuidenot's cart, was the match which fired the long-prepared train. Sir Owen Lanyon sent some troops to Potchefstrom; a wholly unsuccessful attempt was made to arrest the ringleaders of the Bezhuidenot affair; it was obvious that a collision was close at hand. … On Monday, December 13, 1880, almost exactly a month after the affair of Bezhuidenot's waggon, a mass meeting of Boers at Heidelberg proclaimed the Transvaal once again a republic, established a triumvirate Government, and prepared to defend their republic in arms. … The news of the insurrections aroused the Cape Government to a sense of the seriousness of the situation. Movements of British troops were at once made to put the insurgents down with all speed. It is still an unsettled point on which side the first shot was fired. There were some shots exchanged at Potchefstrom on December 15. … Previously to this the 94th regiment had marched from Leydenberg to reinforce Pretoria on December 5, and had reached Middleburgh about a week later. On the way came rumours of the Boer rising. … Colonel Anstruther seems to have felt convinced that the force he had with him was quite strong enough to render a good account of any rebels who might attempt to intercept its march. The whole strength of his force, however, officers included, did not amount to quite 250 men. The troops crossed the Oliphants River, left it two days' march behind them, and on the morning of the 20th were marching quietly along with their long line of waggons and their band playing 'God save the Queen' under the bright glare of the sun. Suddenly, on the rising ground near the Bronkhorst Spruit a body of armed Boers appeared. A man galloped out from among them—Paul de Beer—with a flag of truce. Colonel Anstruther rode out to meet him, and received a sealed despatch warning the colonel that the British advance would be considered as a declaration of war. Colonel Anstruther replied simply that he was ordered to go to Pretoria, and that he should do so. Each man galloped back to his own force, and firing began. In ten minutes the fight, if fight it can be called, was over. The Boers were unrivalled sharp-shooters, had marked out every officer; every shot was aimed, and every shot told. The Boers were well covered by trees on rising ground; the English were beneath them, had no cover at all, and were completely at their mercy. In ten minutes all the officers had fallen, some forty men were killed, and nearly double the number wounded. Colonel Anstruther, who was himself badly wounded, saw that he must either surrender or have all his men shot down, and he surrendered. … Colonel Anstruther, who afterwards died of his wounds, bore high tribute in his despatch to the kindness and humanity of the Boers when once the fight was done. … Sir George Colley struggled bravely for a while to make head against the Boers. At Lang's Nek and Ingago he did his best, and the men under him fought gallantly, but the superior positions and marksmanship of the Boers gave them the advantage in both fights. Under their murderous fire the officers and men fell helplessly. Officer after officer of a regiment would be shot down by the unerring aim of the Boers while trying to rally his men, while the British fire did comparatively slight damage, and the troops seldom came to sufficiently close quarters to use the bayonet. But the most fatal battle of the campaign was yet to come. Sir Evelyn Wood had arrived at the Cape with reinforcements, had met Sir George Colley, and had gone to Pietermaritzburg to await the coming of further reinforcements. On Saturday night, February 26, Sir George Colley with a small force moved out of the camp at Mount Prospect, and occupied the Majuba Hill, which overlooked the Boer camps on the flat beyond Lang's Nek. Early next morning the Boers attacked the hill; there was some desultory firing for a while, under cover of which three Boer storming parties ascended the hill almost unseen. {2964} The British were outflanked and surrounded, a deadly fire was poured in upon them from all sides. The slaughter was excessive. As usual the officers were soon shot down. Sir George Colley, who was directing the movements as coolly as if at review, was killed just as he was giving orders to cease firing. The British broke and fled, fired upon as they fled by the sharpshooters. Some escaped; a large number were taken prisoners. So disastrous a defeat had seldom fallen upon British arms. The recent memory of Maiwand was quite obliterated. That was the last episode of the war. General Wood agreed to a temporary armistice. There had been negotiations going on between the Boers and the British before the Majuba Hill defeat, which need never have occurred if there had not been a delay in a reply of Kruger's to a letter of Sir George Colley's. The negotiations were now resumed, and concluded in the establishment of peace, on what may be called a Boer basis. The republic of the Transvaal was to be re-established, with a British protectorate and a British Resident indeed, but practically granting the Boers the self-government for which they took up arms."

_J. H. McCarthy, England under Gladstone, chapter 5. _

ALSO IN: _J. Nixon, Complete Story of the Transvaal._

_T. F. Carter, Narrative of the Boer War._

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1811-1868. The Kafir wars. British absorption of Kafraria.