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CHAPTER V.

THE REASONS WHICH PROMPTED THE ANNEXATION

(continued).

Causes of wars with the natives-The purchase of and raiding for slaves-Cattle-lifting-Earth-hunger-Mr. Osborn and Mr. Chapman on the raids on natives-Story of the raid on bushmen on the eastern border-Attack on Maloeuw-The Commission of Inquiry into the Raids in the North-The retaliatory measures of the natives, resulting in the abandonment of Schoemansdal-The doings of Abel Erasmus - Weakness of the Executive-Financial condition of the country-Mr. Sargeaunt's report-Summary and conclusion.

THE apprentices, or slaves, of the Boers were obtained in two ways. Some were bought from the natives, and others were orphans "found" destitute after a raid. Both methods were provocative of fighting and disturbance. The raids produced retaliatory measures on the part of the natives, and the purchase of slaves from natives indirectly tended in the same direction. The native traders in human flesh trafficked in the children of other blacks, whom they plundered. The plundered blacks had a natural objection to parting with their children. Attack was followed by retaliation. This led to war, and in course of time the whites were sure to be involved.

Another prolific source of wars with the natives was

the raids made by the Boers for the purpose of obtaining cattle. Both the Betshuana and the Zulu races love their cattle almost more than themselves, certainly more than their wives. Among the natives cattle. form the standard of reputation and respectability. A native with a large store of oxen is a great man. Without cattle he is nobody. Oxen are the current coin of the country-the standard of value by which everything else is appraised. A native does not part with his beloved cattle on a slight occasion, and it must be an important reason which will induce him. even to kill one for food. The Boers of the Transvaal have an affection for cattle almost equal to that of the natives; and they found it less trouble to take the cattle of the "swart schepsels" (black rascals) than to buy or breed. But here, again, the natives objected. And so arose another cause of war.

The "earth-hunger" of the Boers was another source of war. It might be thought that a country of the size of the Transvaal would have been enough for the 6000 or 8000 heads of families who inhabited it. But such was not the case. The boundaries of the Republic were constantly being enlarged, to suit the capacious appetite of the Boers for more land. Sometimes by fighting, sometimes by fraud, and occasionally by purchase, land was constantly being acquired. A vivid picture of the mode in which the encroachments were carried out is given by Mr. Osborn, the Resident Magistrate of Newcastle, in Natal, now the British Resident in Zululand, in a report presented to Sir H. E. Bulwer in 1876. Mr. Osborn says (C. 1748, p. 196):

The Boers-as they have done before in other cases and are still doing-encroached by degrees upon native territory, commencing by

obtaining permission to graze stock upon portions of it at certain seasons of the year, followed by individual graziers obtaining from native headmen a sort of right or licence to squat upon certain defined portions, ostensibly in order to keep other Boer squatters away from the same land. These licences, temporarily extended as friendly or neighbourly acts by unauthorized headmen, after a few seasons of occupation by the Boer [are] construed by him as title, and his permanent occupation ensues. Damage for trespass is levied by him upon the very men from whom he obtained right to squat, to which the natives submit out of fear of the matter reaching the ears of the paramount chief, who would, in all probability, severely punish them for opening the door to encroachment by the Boer. After a while, however, the matter comes to a crisis, in consequence of the incessant disputes between the Boers and the natives: one or other of the disputants lays the case before the paramount chief, who, when hearing both parties, is literally frightened with violence and threats by the Boer into granting him the land. Upon this the usual plan followed by the Boer is at once to collect a few neighbouring Boers, including a field-cornet, or even an acting provisional field-cornet, appointed by the field-cornet or provisional cornet, the latter to represent the Government, although without instructions authorizing him to act in the matter. A few cattle are collected among themselves, which the party takes to the chief, and his signature is obtained to a written instrument alienating to the Republican Boers a large slice of or all his territory. The contents of this document are, so far as I can make out, never clearly or intelligibly explained to the chief who signs it, and [he] accepts of the cattle under the impression that it is all in settlement of hire for the grazing licences granted by his headmen.

This, I have no hesitation in saying, is the usual method by which the Boers obtain what they call cessions to them of territories by native chiefs. In Sikukuni's case, they allege that his father, Sikwato, ceded to them the whole of his territory (hundreds of square miles) for 100 head of cattle!

It will be remembered that about fifteen months ago the Transvaal Government sent their delegates with a commando of several hundred men to Swazi-land, ostensibly with no hostile intention. The real object of this large force being sent there I could not at the time clearly ascertain. It has since transpired, however, that the delegates entered into some treaty with the Swazi king, by which the latter ceded, it is said, the whole of Swazi-land to the Boer Republic, for what consideration I have been unable to learn. It is plain, however, that the commando was sent with the view of awing the chief,

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and thus indirectly, or rather directly, coercing him into agreeing to the demands.

President Burgers, in his speech at the late opening of the Volksraad (Special Session), asserts that Swazi-land forms part of the Republic.

His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor will doubtless perceive that this encroaching policy of the Transvaal Republic is fraught with danger to the peace of the whole of South Africa. The natives, being constantly deprived of their territories, will sooner or later be induced to make common cause against the white man, to save themselves from an extermination for want of land.

Mr. James Chapman, in the work I have cited in the previous chapter, states, from actual experience, how the raids on the natives endangered the peace of the country. On page 14 he says:

The country in the neighbourhood of the Transvaal State, and, as will be seen hereafter, far into the interior, was at this time liable to continual disturbances from the hostile feeling subsisting between the Boers and the native tribes, and the outrages and alarms thence originating. There were wrongs to be revenged, and acts of atrocious violence perpetrated, both on the one side and on the other, the natives being, I regret to say, the most injured, and that most unjustly. The Boers from time to time organized against them commandos, as they are termed, being levies in arms of all the ablebodied men, under the command of the field-cornet of the district. It was easy work for these men, well-mounted, inured to hardships in their hunting expeditions, and expert in the use of firearms, to carry devastation wherever they went. The cattle were swept off, villages burnt, the inhabitants massacred, and, what was perhaps the worst feature in the case, the women and children, and often the men, were dragged away to become forced labourers-in fact, slaves -on the Dutchmen's farms. Against such attacks the natives could offer little resistance; but they retaliated, when opportunity offered, by waylaying and murdering small parties of the Boers, and more frequently by lifting their cattle.

Again, Mr. Chapman says (p. 17):

Another outrage, which greatly exasperated the native tribes, was taking their cattle from them on some frivolous pretext, and

sometimes by perfectly illegitimate means. The consequence is, they rob in return; but, being the weaker party, are generally made to suffer in the end. I have known a single Boer to turn out twenty head of fine large cattle from the herd of a petty chief, and make them his own, under pretence of the cattle having trespassed on his lands; the Boer himself being at the time not even armed with any authority from a Landdrost or field-cornet, although, according to law, cattle found trespassing are to be impounded, and the damage done assessed and defrayed. But it is deemed quite unnecessary to resort to this mode of proceeding when dealing with natives.

It may be said that Mr. Chapman's sketch of the Boer dealings with the natives is applicable to the earlier days of the Transvaal Republic, but that the practices died out subsequently. In order to meet this possible suggestion I will make another quotation of a later date. It is an extract from a letter written by a resident at Lydenburg to the Natal Mercury in 1876. I make the quotation for the purpose of showing the danger of retaliation which the Boer raids provoked, and I refrain from any comments on the inhumanity of the proceedings reported.

In the year of grace 1860, a Boer named David Joubert, a resident of the Verzamel-bergen, applied to the field-cornet, Jan van der Schyff, complaining that his span of oxen had been stolen by bushmen; he had no proof to bring, but suspicion grounded on the fact that they, being bushmen, and a proscribed people, and living in the neighbourhood, must of consequence be the thieves. The fieldcornet, nothing loth, sent a patrol, who were inflamed with the hopes of booty in the shape of captive children, their wives specially impressing on their minds their requirements in that line, giving them strict injunctions not to return empty-handed. On their arrival at the kraal of these unsuspecting people, some dry ox-hides were seen, on which Joubert pointed them out as coming from his lost oxen, giving the names, and dilating on the capabilities of each, as only a Boer can do. There was now no doubt of their guilt; a war of extermination was declared, the men were immediately shot down, the women rushed shrieking into each other's arms. They, too, were shot down. The children who had not succumbed in this horrible