The Bechuanas Could Never Understand
The Changes Which Took Place In Their Commandants.
"Why, one can never know
who is the chief among these Boers.
Like the Bushmen, they have no king -
they must be the Bushmen of the English." The idea that any tribe of men
could be so senseless as not to have an hereditary chief
was so absurd to these people, that, in order not to appear equally stupid,
I was obliged to tell them that we English were so anxious
to preserve the royal blood, that we had made a young lady our chief.
This seemed to them a most convincing proof of our sound sense.
We shall see farther on the confidence my account of our queen inspired.
The Boers, encouraged by the accession of Mr. Pretorius,
determined at last to put a stop to English traders going past Kolobeng,
by dispersing the tribe of Bakwains, and expelling all the missionaries.
Sir George Cathcart proclaimed the independence of the Boers, the best thing
that could have been done had they been between us and the Caffres.
A treaty was entered into with these Boers; an article for
the free passage of Englishmen to the country beyond, and also another,
that no slavery should be allowed in the independent territory,
were duly inserted, as expressive of the views of her majesty's government
at home. "But what about the missionaries?" inquired the Boers.
"YOU MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE WITH THEM," is said to have been
the answer of the "Commissioner". This remark, if uttered at all,
was probably made in joke: designing men, however, circulated it, and caused
the general belief in its accuracy which now prevails all over the country,
and doubtless led to the destruction of three mission stations
immediately after. The Boers, four hundred in number,
were sent by the late Mr. Pretorius to attack the Bakwains in 1852.
Boasting that the English had given up all the blacks into their power,
and had agreed to aid them in their subjugation by preventing
all supplies of ammunition from coming into the Bechuana country,
they assaulted the Bakwains, and, besides killing a considerable
number of adults, carried off two hundred of our school children into slavery.
The natives under Sechele defended themselves till the approach of night
enabled them to flee to the mountains; and having in that defense killed
a number of the enemy, the very first ever slain in this country by Bechuanas,
I received the credit of having taught the tribe to kill Boers!
My house, which had stood perfectly secure for years
under the protection of the natives, was plundered in revenge.
English gentlemen, who had come in the footsteps of Mr. Cumming
to hunt in the country beyond, and had deposited large quantities of stores
in the same keeping, and upward of eighty head of cattle as relays
for the return journeys, were robbed of all, and, when they came back
to Kolobeng, found the skeletons of the guardians strewed all over the place.
The books of a good library - my solace in our solitude -
were not taken away, but handfuls of the leaves were torn out
and scattered over the place.
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