Chapter Seventeen.
A brief historical sketch of the Transvaal from 1825 to 1877.
It will only be necessary to touch very lightly on the principal and most important events that have occurred from the commencement of the invasion of the Kaffir chief, Moselikatze (pronounced Umseligas), to the time when the country was taken over by the British Government, as it is my intention to go into the history of this Republic only so far as will throw light on its physical geography.
In 1820 the powerful chief Moselikatze fled from Chaka, the king of Zululand, with all his people, and crossed the Drakensberg mountains to the north, into what is now the southern portion of the Transvaal and Free State. There he found the country thickly populated by various native tribes, living independent of each other in large kraals along the river-banks, fountains, and pans—many of these stone kraals are still in existence, but in ruins—the principal tribes being Makatees or Mahows, Bapedi, Bakala, Basutos, and some Bechuanas, Bushmen, also Hottentots, where they must have lived in peace for many generations, from the remains of extensive gardens now grown over with grass, proving, I think, they were not a wandering tribe, but a peaceful people, as the country was most suitable for agricultural purposes, being free from bush and comparatively level, with numerous streams of good water flowing in every direction. Moselikatze, with his several hundred warriors, soon cleared the country by the death and flight of these people; and eventually spreading northwards and towards the west, crossed the Vaal river, and occupied all the south part of what is now the Transvaal. Moselikatze, in 1825, pushed on his conquests where he found the country occupied by the Bahurutse tribe of Bechuanas, on the west of what is now Klein Marico, and fought a great battle with them at their station named Mosega, situated on a small branch of the Klein Marico river, above where Sindling’s post is now built, and defeated them with great slaughter, occupying the country, and taking possession of the station—situated in 25 degrees 40 minutes South latitude, 26 degrees 26 minutes East longitude, south of several picturesque hills, that appear by every indication to have been a volcano—and there he collected his forces, and there he seems to have remained until he was, in 1836, attacked by the emigrant Boers under one Potgieter, who suffered a great defeat at the hands of the Zulu chief, who nearly destroyed the Boer commando. Those who escaped fled to the Orange Free State on to Thaba Nchu, then occupied by the Barolong tribe of Bechuanas under the great chief Moroka, who died in 1880.
When the Boers reached Moroka’s town, they were reduced to the greatest extremity, and were received with the greatest hospitality and kindness by the natives; they remained until the following year, getting supplies and fitting out another commando at Thaba Nchu. Again they started on an expedition to attack Moselikatze, accompanied by a large force of Moroka’s people under his own command, whilst Gert Maritz commanded the Boer contingent. The present chief Montsioa, then a young man, also aided the Boers in person with men, and a small Griqua force, under a petty chief Bloem, completed the little army. A great part of Moselikatze’s warriors were killed, and he had to fly north with the remnant of his army, and eventually settled in the country his people now occupy called Matabeleland, showing that the main success of the Boers in gaining a footing in the Transvaal was through the Barolong tribe, of which the chief Montsioa was a captain.
In the same year Potgieter took possession of the south part of the Transvaal, then, as it is now, an open uninteresting country—rolling grass plains, with a few isolated hills; and he laid out the town of Potchefstroom, in 1839, which is partly called after his name and partly after the river upon which it is built, on an extensive open plain, as all towns were then built, that no enemy could advance to it without being seen, and it became the capital of the country until the seat of Government was removed to Pretoria in 1860. At that time the country was full of large game—elephants, rhinoceros, and giraffe browsed on the banks of the Vaal, down to the Orange river.
Soon after, Potgieter left Potchefstroom and went north-east, and laid out the village of Origstad, now a gold-field. Other Boers in 1847 followed, and being mounted on horses with rifles, had no difficulty in destroying the natives, who had only the assagai and arrows, as they advanced into the country.
Another party went south from Origstad, and built the town of Lydenburg, that district being formed into a republic, separate from the republic at Potchefstroom; but, by common consent, in 1860 they were united into one.
In 1834 a party of Boers, numbering twenty-seven families, under the command of Rensburg and Trichard, endeavoured to reach the Indian Ocean. Passing down the Olifanta river, they crossed the mountains, after many hardships; where they divided. Rensburg went north, Trichard and his party travelled south-east towards Delagoa Bay. Many of them died on the road; the remainder were sent on to Natal by the Portuguese Governor. Rensburg’s party was never heard of again, showing the restless nature of these discontented Boers. They were all killed, or died of fever.
Although they had secured the fertile plains of the Transvaal, where there was more land than they could hope to occupy, their thirst for more land was still unsated.
After the battle of Boomplaats the rebel Boers crossed the Vaal, treked to Marico in 1850, where some of them are now occupying the land they laid out for themselves; and they still foster hatred against the English, and since this last rebellion it has greatly increased in intensity, and nothing but a strong Government and an influx of British emigrants will allay, or partly extinguish, that feeling, which their present isolated position is conducive to foster, and teach them to understand, as General Warren is now doing, that there must be a limit to their lawless acts.
From 1850 many Free State Boers and others from the Cape Colony, as also many English, Germans, Swedes, and other nationalities, came in and settled down in different parts of the country, making small villages and occupying farms over the whole of the more southern portion of the republic, leaving the northern part, which is thickly populated by the native tribes already described.
On the diamond-fields being discovered, diggers came flocking on to the banks of the Vaal, to open up the mines at Hebron and Klip Drift. In 1869 there was great demand for all kinds of produce, consequently prices went up quickly to 200 per cent., which brought money into the Transvaal, as the greater portion of the food supply was obtained from thence.
Pretorius was president, and made an attempt to annex all the country on the north side of the Vaal, but was opposed by the Cape Government and by the diamond-diggers, which led to the dispute as to the western boundary of the republic. A commission was formed, which ended in the Keats award; the map I made in 1864 was used for the occasion by the Colonial Government.
Soon after, in 1871, President Pretorius resigned, and Erasmus acted until Mr Burgers was elected by the people. The State all this time was getting into such confusion that people would not pay their taxes, and there was no law to make them.
The Secocoene war was going on, “commandeering” was at its height, general discontent prevailed, and matters arrived at such an unsatisfactory state in 1876 that hundreds of Boers sold their farms with the intention of leaving the country, as they could not live under their own Government.
I was constantly passing through the Transvaal with my waggon to distant parts, and every Boer who had not tied from the colony for misdeeds, hoped the British Government would take over the Transvaal under British rule. Hundreds expressed this wish; the rebels from the colony and their sons did not say a word.
Those Boers who sold their farms agreed to trek together, and make for Damaraland on the west coast.
One of the Boer’s statements for leaving his Transvaal home may give some idea of the feeling that pervaded these trek Boers at the time:—“I found myself among the commandeered. On my farm nothing had as yet been put in the ground, and as no one could be got to go as my substitute, there was nothing for me but to go on the commando. My waggons and cattle had also to be given up for the use of the commando. In my absence my wife had to plough, in order to obtain sufficient food for the year. I returned from the commando, having lost several of my cattle on the way. I went to the field-cornet of Moi river, in whose district I lived, with the view of obtaining compensation, but I was informed that nothing could be done in the matter. Under the old law compensation could be obtained for damage to what had been lent, but there was nothing mentioned about this in the new commando laws. It appeared the waggons and oxen were commandeered at the owner’s own risk. I was so struck with the unrighteousness of this mode of proceeding that I felt myself compelled, with all my belongings, to join the trek for which a party of Boers were already prepared, and with them I then threw in my lot; and on the 2nd of March, 1877, we left the Transvaal. Our party consisted of 600 souls, large and small, with 100 waggons, under the command of Du Plessis, and arrived at the Crocodile river or Limpopo, where we remained a fortnight, and then went forward into the wilderness.”
Very few ever reached their destination. They were attacked by the natives, and had constantly to form themselves into laager to defend themselves. Their cattle died of lung-sickness and thirst, many of them were stolen, some lost in the bush; waggons and property had to be abandoned; women had to inspan the waggons and drive them; to lighten them their household goods had to be thrown from the waggons. Some few reached Damaraland, and a few went more north into the Portuguese possessions, where small plots of land were given to them; those in Damaraland were taken to Cape Town from Walfish Bay, and sent back to the Transvaal at the Cape Government expense; and this occurred during the time the Boers had the Transvaal, and their own chosen president was at the head of the republic.
In a few months after I followed them up, and saw the graves of those who had died of fever; and a Kaffir told me one of the Boers had given him a good gun for a small bucket of water. Chairs, tables, cooking utensils, and other articles strewed the path through the desert; and the bones of the dead oxen, that the vultures, wolves, and jackals had picked clean, covered the ground where they fell—a melancholy sight; and all this suffering was caused because these Boers found their own republican Government unbearable to live under. And this is the best answer to be given as to why the British Government found it imperative to step in, and put an end to such a wretched state of affairs, which act was accomplished on the 12th of April, 1877.
The remnant of these trek Boers were in the Portuguese territory, at the back of Mossamedes on the west coast, perishing from starvation and misery, when a subscription was raised at Cape Town for them, and a ship-load of supplies and a man-of-war were sent down. They tried to land some hundreds of miles up the coast beyond Walfish Bay, so as to be nearer to the Boers, but were prevented by the surf; they returned, and the supplies were sent up with great difficulty, and many of the Boers came down, as stated, and went back by sea.