It Was Long Before I Could Give Credit
To The Tales Of Bloodshed Told By Native Witnesses, And Had I
Received
no other testimony but theirs I should probably have continued skeptical
to this day as to the truth of
The accounts; but when I found
the Boers themselves, some bewailing and denouncing, others glorying in
the bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the actors,
I was compelled to admit the validity of the testimony, and try to account
for the cruel anomaly. They are all traditionally religious,
tracing their descent from some of the best men (Huguenots and Dutch)
the world ever saw. Hence they claim to themselves the title of "Christians",
and all the colored race are "black property" or "creatures".
They being the chosen people of God, the heathen are given to them
for an inheritance, and they are the rod of divine vengeance on the heathen,
as were the Jews of old. Living in the midst of a native population
much larger than themselves, and at fountains removed many miles
from each other, they feel somewhat in the same insecure position
as do the Americans in the Southern States. 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:
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