The First Question
Put By Them To Strangers Is Respecting Peace; And When They Receive Reports
From Disaffected Or Envious
Natives against any tribe, the case assumes
all the appearance and proportions of a regular insurrection.
Severe measures then appear
To the most mildly disposed among them
as imperatively called for, and, however bloody the massacre that follows,
no qualms of conscience ensue: it is a dire necessity for the sake of peace.
Indeed, the late Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter most devoutly believed himself to be
the great peacemaker of the country.
But how is it that the natives, being so vastly superior in numbers to
the Boers, do not rise and annihilate them? The people among whom they live
are Bechuanas, not Caffres, though no one would ever learn that distinction
from a Boer; and history does not contain one single instance
in which the Bechuanas, even those of them who possess fire-arms,
have attacked either the Boers or the English. If there is such an instance,
I am certain it is not generally known, either beyond or in the Cape Colony.
They have defended themselves when attacked, as in the case of Sechele,
but have never engaged in offensive war with Europeans.
We have a very different tale to tell of the Caffres,
and the difference has always been so evident to these border Boers that,
ever since those "magnificent savages"* obtained possession of fire-arms,
not one Boer has ever attempted to settle in Caffreland, or even face them
as an enemy in the field. The Boers have generally manifested
a marked antipathy to any thing but "long-shot" warfare,
and, sidling away in their emigrations toward the more effeminate Bechuanas,
have left their quarrels with the Caffres to be settled by the English,
and their wars to be paid for by English gold.
-
* The "United Service Journal" so styles them.
-
The Bakwains at Kolobeng had the spectacle of various tribes
enslaved before their eyes - the Bakatla, the Batlokua, the Bahukeng,
the Bamosetla, and two other tribes of Bakwains were all groaning
under the oppression of unrequited labor. This would not have been felt
as so great an evil but that the young men of those tribes, anxious to
obtain cattle, the only means of rising to respectability and importance
among their own people, were in the habit of sallying forth,
like our Irish and Highland reapers, to procure work in the Cape Colony.
After laboring there three or four years, in building stone dikes and dams
for the Dutch farmers, they were well content if at the end of that time
they could return with as many cows. On presenting one to their chief,
they ranked as respectable men in the tribe ever afterward. These volunteers
were highly esteemed among the Dutch, under the name of Mantatees.
They were paid at the rate of one shilling a day and a large loaf of bread
between six of them. Numbers of them, who had formerly seen me
about twelve hundred miles inland from the Cape, recognized me
with the loud laughter of joy when I was passing them at their work
in the Roggefelt and Bokkefelt, within a few days of Cape Town.
I conversed with them and with elders of the Dutch Church, for whom
they were working, and found that the system was thoroughly satisfactory
to both parties.
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