LITMIR.BIZ

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'By Africans,' said the missionaries; 'this is African soil; and if mission stations are established on its desolate tracts, people will be drawn to them from the far interior, the community will grow rapidly, those enlightened by Christianity here will desire in their turn to enlighten their friends beyond, and thus the Gospel teaching will spread until all Africa stretches out its hands to God.' Coupled with such arguments, which were constantly used by missionaries in the early part of this century, before their enthusiasm was cooled by experience, were calculations that appealed strongly to the commercial instincts of people in England. A dozen colonial farmers required something like a hundred square miles of land for their cattle runs; on this same ground, under missionary supervision, three or four hundred families of blacks could exist; these blacks would shortly need large quantities of manufactured goods; and thus it would be to the interest of trade to encourage them rather than the colonists. 'Already,' said they, 'after only a few years' training, many blacks can read as well or better than the ordinary colonists, and are exhibiting a decided taste for civilization.'

      There was thus a broad line of demarcation between the colonists and such of the missionaries as held these views, and the tendency on each side was to make it still broader. It was deepened into positive antipathy towards those missionaries who, following Dr. Vanderkemp's example, united themselves in marriage with black women, and proclaimed themselves the champions of the black population against the white. Everyone acquainted with South African natives knows how ready they are to please their friends by bringing forward charges against anyone whom those friends dislike. Unfortunately the missionaries Vanderkemp and Read were deceived into believing a great number of charges of cruelty made against various colonists, which a little observation would have shown in most instances to be groundless; and thereupon they lodged accusations before the High Court of Justice. In 1811 between seventy and eighty such cases came before the Circuit Court for trial. There was hardly a family on the frontier of which some relative was not brought as a criminal before the judges to answer to a charge of murder or violent assault. Several months were occupied in the trials, and more than a thousand witnesses were examined, but in every instance the most serious charges were proved to be without foundation. Only a few convictions, and those of no very outrageous crimes, resulted from these prosecutions, which kept the entire colony in a ferment until long after the circuit was closed.

      Thus far everyone will approve of the sentiments of one party or the other according to his sympathy, but in what follows no unprejudiced person who will take the trouble to study the matter thoroughly can acquit the anti-colonial missionaries of something more faulty than mere error of judgment. For years their writings teemed with charges against the colonists similar to those they had brought before the High Court of Justice. These writings were circulated widely in Europe, where the voice of the colonists was never heard, and they created impressions there which no refutation made in South Africa could ever counteract. The acts, the language, even the written petitions of the colonists, were so distorted in accounts sent home, that these accounts cannot now be read by those who have made themselves acquainted with the truth, without the liveliest feelings of indignation being excited.

      The colonists learned that in England they were regarded as cruel barbarians because they refused to permit Hottentot herds, swarming with vermin, to be seated in their front rooms at the time of family prayer. They found themselves pictured as the harshest of taskmasters, as unfeeling violators of native rights. And of late years it had become plain to them that the views of their opponents were being acted upon at the Colonial Office, while their complaints were wholly disregarded.

      Several causes of dissatisfaction, besides those above mentioned, contributed to the impulse of emigration, but all in a very slight degree. Judge Cloete, in his 'Five Lectures,' mentions the severe punishment inflicted upon the frontier insurgents of 1815 as one of them; and there is no doubt that it was so with some families, though no trace of it can be found in the correspondence of the emigrants. The substitution in 1827 of the English for the Dutch language in the colonial courts of law was certainly generally felt as a grievance. The alteration in 1813 of the system of land tenure, the redemption in 1825 of the paper currency at only thirty-six hundredths of its nominal value, and the abolition in 1827 of the courts of landdrost and heemraden, unquestionably caused much dissatisfaction, though all of these measures are now admitted by everyone to have been beneficial. The long delay in issuing titles to farms, the cost of which has been paid to Government years before, is mentioned as a grievance in some of the declarations.

      Two parties—men, women, and children—numbering ninety-eight in all, pioneered the great trek; of these twenty-six survived fever and fighting, loss of provisions, waggons, and cattle, and a long weary tramp from Zoutpansberg to Delagoa Bay, and were rescued and taken thence to Natal, and two children were carried off by the natives. The survivors were three women with their twelve children—seven orphan children and four youths. Not a single grown man escaped.

      During the winter of 1836 preparations for emigration were being made over the eastern and midland districts. The Governor was perfectly helpless in the matter. The Attorney-General, Mr. A. Oliphant, was consulted by the Governor, and gave his opinion that 'it seemed next to an impossibility to prevent persons passing out of the colony by laws in force, or by any which could be framed.' On August 19 Sir Benjamin D'Urban wrote to the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Andries Stockenstrom, that 'he could see no means of stopping the emigration, except by persuasion, and attention to the wants and necessities of the farmers.' In that direction the Governor had done all that was in his power, but he could not act in opposition to the instructions of the Secretary of State. Sir Andries Stockenstrom himself, in replying to an address from the inhabitants of Uitenhage, stated that 'he was not aware of any law which prevented any of his Majesty's subjects from leaving his dominions and settling in another country; and such a law, if it did exist, would be tyrannical and oppressive.'

      The story of the trekkers is one of surpassing interest, and must enlist for them the sympathy and unbounded admiration of all.

      By the middle of the year 1837 there were over one thousand waggons between the Caledon and Vaal rivers—truly a notable and alarming exodus; and the Boers then began the work of carving out new countries for themselves. Their history surpasses all fiction in its vicissitudes, successes, and tragedies. They fought and worked and trekked, onward, always onward—never returning—on beyond the furthermost outposts of civilization.

      And so the story rolls on, gaining pathos, but losing no whit of interest from its eternal sameness. They fought, and worked, and starved, and died for their land of promise, where they might hope to be alone, like the simple people of their one Book; where they might never know the hated British rule; where they might never experience the forms and trammels, the restlessness and changes, the worries, the necessities or benefits, of progressing civilization. Their quarrel had been with the abuses and blunders of one Government; but a narrow experience moved them to mistrust all but their own pastoral patriarchal way, moulded on the records of the Bible, and to regard the evidences of progress as warnings of coming oppression and curtailment of liberty, and a departure from the simple and ideal way. The abuses from which they suffered are no more; the methods which were unjust have been abandoned; the ignorance of the ruler has been dispelled; in place of despotism there is autonomy; justice rules where ignorance and bias sat; liberty where there was interference; protection for oppression; progress and civilization have increased as in no other epoch; and the nation and Government from which they severed themselves have taken their place in the very forefront of all. But the Boer sees with the eyes of sixty years ago!

      The ideal was impossible, the struggle hopeless, the end certain. They trekked, and trekked and trekked again; but the flag of England—emblem of all they hated—was close by; behind, beside, in front, or over them; and the something which they could not fight—the ever-advancing tide of civilization—lapped at their feet, and slowly, silently, and for ever blotted out the line where they had written, 'Thus far and no further.'

      The South African Republic had been in existence as an independent State for twelve years when it reached that condition of insolvency which appeared to invite, or at least justify, annexation, as the only alternative to complete ruin and chaos. And there are very few, even among the most uncompromising supporters of the Boers, who seriously attempt to show that the Transvaal had any prospect of prolonging its existence

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