They Came With The Prestige Of White Men And Deliverers;
But The Bechuanas Soon Found, As They Expressed It, "That
Mosilikatze
was cruel to his enemies, and kind to those he conquered;
but that the Boers destroyed their enemies, and
Made slaves of their friends."
The tribes who still retain the semblance of independence
are forced to perform all the labor of the fields, such as manuring the land,
weeding, reaping, building, making dams and canals, and at the same time
to support themselves. I have myself been an eye-witness of Boers
coming to a village, and, according to their usual custom,
demanding twenty or thirty women to weed their gardens,
and have seen these women proceed to the scene of unrequited toil,
carrying their own food on their heads, their children on their backs,
and instruments of labor on their shoulders. Nor have the Boers
any wish to conceal the meanness of thus employing unpaid labor;
on the contrary, every one of them, from Mr. Potgeiter and Mr. Gert Krieger,
the commandants, downward, lauded his own humanity and justice
in making such an equitable regulation. "We make the people work for us,
in consideration of allowing them to live in our country."
I can appeal to the Commandant Krieger if the foregoing is not
a fair and impartial statement of the views of himself and his people.
I am sensible of no mental bias toward or against these Boers;
and during the several journeys I made to the poor enslaved tribes,
I never avoided the whites, but tried to cure and did administer remedies
to their sick, without money and without price.
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