Part 2

Sinkanhla said: "We hear and yet do not hear, we cannot understand. We are troubling you, Chief, by talking in this way; we hear the Chiefs say that the Queen took the country because the people of the country wished it, and again, that the majority of the owners of the country did not wish her rule, and that therefore the country was given back. We should like to have the man pointed out from among us black people who objects to the rule of the Queen. We are the real owners of the country; we were here when the Boers came, and without asking leave, settled down and treated us in every way badly. The English Government then came and took the country; we have now had four years of rest, and peaceful and just rule. We have been called here to-day, and are told that the country, our country, has been given to the Boers by the Queen. This is a thing which surprises, us. Did the country, then, belong to the Boers? Did it not belong to our fathers and forefathers before us, long before the Boers came here? We have heard that the Boers' country is at the Cape. If the Queen wishes to give them their land, why does she not give them back the Cape?"

Umyethile said: "We have no heart for talking. I have returned to the country from Sechelis, where I had to fly from Boer oppression. Our hearts are black and heavy with grief to-day at the news told us. We are in agony; our intestines are twisting and writhing inside of us, just as you see a snake do when it is struck on the head. We do not know what has become of us, but we feel dead. It may be that the Lord may change the nature of the Boers, and that we will not be treated like dogs and beasts of burden as formerly; but we have no hope of such a change, and we leave you with heavy hearts and great apprehension as to the future." In his Report, Mr. Shepstone (Secretary for Native Affairs) says, "One chief, Jan Sibilo, who had been personally threatened with death by the Boers after the English should leave, could not restrain his feelings, but cried like a child."

In 1881, the year of the retrocession of the Transvaal, a Royal Commission was appointed from England to enquire into the internal state of affairs in the South African Republic. On the 9th May of that year, an affidavit was sworn to before that Commission by the Rev. John Thorne, of St. John the Evangelist, Lydenburg, Transvaal. He stated: "I was appointed to the charge of a congregation in Potchefstroom when the Republic was under the Presidency of Mr. Pretorius. I noticed one morning, as I walked through the streets, a number of young natives whom I knew to be strangers. I enquired where they came from. I was told that they had just been brought from Zoutpansberg. This was the locality from which slaves were chiefly brought at that time, and were traded for under the name of 'Black Ivory.' One of these slaves belonged to Mr. Munich, the State Attorney." In the fourth paragraph of the same affidavit, Mr. Thorne says that "the Rev. Dr. Nachtigal, of the Berlin Missionary Society, was the interpreter for Shatane's people, in the private office of Mr. Roth, and, at the close of the interview, told me what had occurred. On my expressing surprise, he went on to relate that he had information on native matters which would surprise me more. He then produced the copy of a register, kept in the Landdrost's office, of men, women, and children, to the number of four hundred and eighty (480), who had been disposed of by one Boer to another for a consideration. In one case an ox was given in exchange, in another goats, in a third a blanket, and so forth. Many of these natives he (Mr. Nachtigal) knew personally. The copy was certified as true and correct by an official of the Republic."

On the 16th May, 1881, a native, named Frederick Molepo, was examined by the Royal Commission. The following are extracts from his examination:--

"(Sir Evelyn Wood.) Are you a Christian?--Yes.

"(Sir H. de Villiers.) How long were you a slave?--Half-a-year.

"How do you know that you were a slave? Might you not have been an apprentice?--No, I was not apprenticed.

"How do you know?--They got me from my parents, and ill-treated me.

"(Sir Evelyn Wood.) How many times did you get the stick?--Every day.

"(Sir H. de Villiers.) What did the Boers do with you when they caught you?--They sold me.

"How much did they sell you for?--One cow and a big pot."

On the 28th May, 1881, amongst the other documents-handed in for the consideration of the Royal Commission, is the statement of a Headman, whose name also it was considered advisable to omit in the Blue book, lest the Boers should take vengeance on him. He says, "I say, that if the English Government dies I shall die too; I would rather die than be under the Boer Government. I am the man who helped to make bricks for the church you see now standing in the square here (Pretoria), as a slave without payment. As a representative of my people, I am still obedient to the English Government, and willing to obey all commands from them, even to die for their cause in this country, rather than submit to the Boers.

"I was under Shambok, my chief, who fought the Boers-formerly, but he left us, and we were put up to auction and sold among the Boers. I want to state this myself to the Royal Commission. I was bought by Fritz Botha and sold by Frederick Botha, who was then veldt cornet (justice of the peace) of the Boers."

Many more of such extracts might be quoted, but it is not my motive to multiply horrors. These are given exactly as they stand in the original, which may all be found in Blue Books-presented to Parliament.

It has frequently been denied on behalf of the Transvaal, and is denied at this day, in the face of innumerable witnesses to the contrary, that slavery exists in the Transvaal. Now, this may be considered to be verbally true. Slavery, they say, did not exist; but apprenticeship did, and does exist. It is only another name. It is not denied that some Boers have been kind to their slaves, as humane slave-owners frequently were in the Southern States of America. But kindness, even the most indulgent, to slaves, has never been held by abolitionists to excuse the existence of slavery.

Mr. Rider Haggard, who spent a great part of his life in the Transvaal and other parts of South Africa, wrote in 1899: "The assertion that Slavery did not exist in the Transvaal is made to hoodwink the British public. I have known men who have owned slaves, and who have seen whole waggon-loads of Black Ivory, as they were called, sold for about £15 a piece. I have at this moment a tenant, Carolus by name, on some land I own in Natal, now a well-to-do man, who was for twenty years a Boer slave. He told me that during those years he worked from morning till night, and the only reward he received was two calves. He finally escaped to Natal."

Going back some years, evidence may be found, equally well attested with that already quoted. On the 22nd August, 1876, Khama, the Christian King of the Bamangwato (Bechuanaland), one of the most worthy Chiefs which any country has had the good fortune to be ruled by, wrote to Sir Henry de Villiers the following message, to be sent to Queen Victoria:--"I write to you, Sir Henry, in order that your Queen may preserve for me my country, it being in her hands. The Boers are coming into it, and I do not like them. Their actions are cruel among us black people. We are like money; they sell us and our children. I ask Her Majesty to pity me, and to hear that which I write quickly. I wish to hear upon what conditions Her Majesty will receive me, and my country and my people, under her protection. I am weary with fighting. I do not like war, and I ask Her Majesty to give me peace. I am very much distressed that my people are being destroyed by war, and I wish them to obtain peace. I ask Her Majesty to defend me, as she defends all her people. There are three things which distress me very much--war, selling people, and drink. All these things I find in the Boers, and it is these things which destroy people, to make an end of them in the country. The custom of the Boers has always been to cause people to be sold, and to-day they are still selling people. Last year I saw them pass with two waggons full of people whom they had bought at the river at Tanane (Lake Ngate).--Khama."

The visit of King Khama to England, a few years ago, his interview with the Queen, and his pathetic appeals on behalf of his people against the intrusion of any aggressors (drink being one of them), are fresh in our memory.

Coming down to a recent date, I reproduce here a letter from a Zulu Chief, which appeared in the London Press in November, 1899. This letter is written to a gentleman, who accompanied it by the following remarks:--"After I had read this very remarkable letter, I found myself half unconsciously wondering what place in the scheme of South African life will be found for Zulus such as this nephew of the last of the Zulu Kings. One thing I am fully certain of, that there are few natives in the Cape Colony (where they are full-fledged voters) capable of inditing so sensible an epistle. This communication throws a most welcome light upon the attitude of his people with respect to the momentous events that are in progress, and also it reveals to what a high standard of intellectual culture a pure Zulu may attain."

"Duff's Road, Durban, November 3rd, 1899.

Sir,--I keenly appreciate your generous tribute to the loyalty of the Zulu nation during the fierce crisis of English rule in South Africa. It is the first real test of the loyalty of the Zulus, and as a Zulu who was once a Chief, I rejoice to see that the loyalty and gratitude of my people is appreciated by the white people of Natal.

It is, as you say, respected Sir, a tribute, and a magnificent one, to England's just policy to the Zulus. I dare to assert it is even a finer tribute to the natives' appreciation, not only of benefits already conferred, but of the spirit that actuated England in her dealings with him. I may disagree as to the lessons taught by Maxim guns, hollow squares, and the 'thin red line.' I think no one can have read Colonial history, chronicling as it does, the rise again and again of the native against Imperial forces, without feeling that he is influenced far less by England's prowess in war than by her justice in peace. My Zulu fellow-countrymen understand as clearly as anyone the weakness and the strength of the present time. If the Zulu wished to remember Kambula and Ulundi, this would be his supreme opportunity to rise and hurl himself across the Natal frontier. But I, having just returned from my native country, have been able to report to the Government at Pietermaritzburg that there is not the slightest symptom of disloyalty, not the idea of lifting a finger against the white subjects of the great and good Queen.

There is among the Chiefs and Indunas of my people an almost universal hope that the Imperial arms will be victorious, and that a Government which, by its inhumanity and relentless injustice, and apparent inability to see that the native has any rights a white man should respect, has forfeited its place among the civilised Governments of the earth, and should therefore be deprived of powers so scandalously abused--formerly by slavery, and in later years by disallowing the native to buy land, and utterly neglecting his intellectual and spiritual needs. There are wrongs to be redressed, and we Zulus believe that England will be more willing to redress them than any other Power. There is still much to be done in the way of educating and civilizing the mass of the Zulu nation. We Chiefs of that nation have observed that wherever England has gone there the Missionary and teacher follow, and that there exists sympathy between the authority of Her Majesty and the forces that labour for civilization and Christianity. We Zulus have not yet forgotten what we owe to the late Bishop Colenso's lifelong advocacy, or to Lady Florence Dixie's kindly interest. These are things that are more than fear of England's might, that keep our people quiet outside and loyal inside. This is not a passive loyalty with us. Speaking for almost all my fellow-countrymen in Zululand, I believe if a great emergency arises in the course of this history-making war, in which England might find it necessary to put their loyalty to the test, they would respond with readiness and enthusiasm equal to that when they fought under King Cetewayo against Lord Chelmsford's army. Again assuring you that the Zulu people are turning deaf ears to Boer promises, as well as threats, I remain, with the most earnest hope for the ultimate triumph of General Buller--who fought my King for half a year. Your humble and most obedient servant,

M'PLAANK,

Son of Maguendé, brother of Cetewayo."

There is unhappily a tendency among persons living for any length of time among heathen people, to think and speak with a certain contempt for those people, at whose moral elevation they may even be sincerely aiming. They see all that is bad in these "inferior races," and little that is good. This was not so in the case of the greatest and most successful Missionaries. They never lost faith in human nature, even at its lowest estate, and hence they were able to raise the standard of the least promising of the outcast races of the world. This faith in the possibility of the elevation of these races has been firmly held, however, by some who know them best, and have lived among them the longest.

Mr Rider Haggard writes thus on this subject:--"So far as my own experience of natives has gone, I have found that in all the essential qualities of mind and body they very much resemble white men. Of them might be aptly quoted the speech Shakespeare puts into Shylock's mouth: 'Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?' In the same way, I ask, has a native no feelings or affections? does he not suffer when his parents are shot, or his children stolen, or when he is driven a wanderer from his home? Does he not know fear, feel pain, affection, hate, and gratitude? Most certainly he does; and this being so, I cannot believe that the Almighty, who made both white and black, gave to the one race the right or mission of exterminating or of robbing or maltreating the other, and calling the process the advance of civilization. It seems to me, that on only one condition, if at all, have we the right to take the black men's land; and that is, that we provide them with an equal and a just Government, and allow no maltreatment of them, either as individuals or tribes, but, on the contrary, do our best to elevate them, and wean them from savage customs. Otherwise, the practice is surely undefensible.

"I am aware, however, that with the exception of a small class, these are sentiments which are not shared by the great majority of the public, either at home or abroad."