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Boers and Little Englanders

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

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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

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.

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