Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South Africa

by J. W. Matthews

Petition of Jonathan Molapo and other Basuto Chiefs. Presented 21st March, 1882, by J. W. Matthews, M. L. A., Senior Member for Kimberley.

To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the Honourable House of Assembly of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, now in Parliament Assembled.

The humble Petition of the undersigned chiefs, sons and grandsons of the late Paramount Chief Moshesh, their councillors, headmen and followers, humbly sheweth,—

1st. That the Peace Preservation Act was proclaimed law in Basutoland by her Majesty’s High Commissioner and Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, from 21st May, 1880.

2d. That thereupon your petitioners, her Majesty’s loyal native subjects of the Basuto nation, did obey the said law, and surrendered their guns, her most gracious Majesty the Queen having been pleased previously to command their obedience, and to assure them most graciously of her deep interest in the welfare of her Majesty’s Basuto subjects, for proof of which your petitioners beg to refer to Earl Kimberley’s letter of 13th May, 1880, to his Excellency the Governor, Sir Bartle Frere, which was duly communicated to your petitioners by the Governor’s agent and chief magistrate in Basutoland, Colonel C. D. Griffith, C.M.G.

3d. That, owing to influences and wicked dispositions, which are now matters of history, the greater portion of her Majesty’s subjects in Basutoland, misled by the chiefs Lerothodi, Masupha, Joel Molapo, and other minor chiefs, rebelled against her Majesty’s commands, took up arms, slaughtered numbers of her Majesty’s loyal and obedient subjects for having obeyed her Majesty’s commands, and carried on open war against her Majesty’s colonial forces.

4th. That your petitioners, at the risk of their lives, and with the loss and sacrifice of all they had been possessed of before the rebellion, in cattle, sheep, horses, grain, wagons, ploughs, houses, lands and various other properties, remained faithful to her most gracious Majesty throughout the rebellion, and at her Majesty’s call did even enroll themselves for active service, fighting her Majesty’s battles against their rebellious countrymen at Kalabani, Lerothodi’s Village, Mafeting, Makwai’s Berg, Kolo, Tweefontein, Boleka, Maseru, Thlotse Heights, Mohalie’s Hoek and Quithing, in all of which the loyal Basuto subjects of her Majesty acquitted themselves to the satisfaction of the Commandant General of Colonial forces, as is most abundantly testified to in numerous dispatches, and in the official lists of killed and wounded.

5th. That in the month of April, 1881, and after open war had been carried on for nine months, negotiations were entered into between her Majesty’s Governor and High Commissioner and the Basuto chiefs then in rebellion, when your petitioners, knowing the character, feelings, and real objects of the rebel chiefs, as in duty bound, made humble petition to his Excellency the Governor, setting forth their apprehensions in regard to the consequences to themselves and their country that would assuredly arise from any arrangement which would not include a perfect submission of the rebels and the maintenance of a force sufficient to enforce such submission, to which they never received a reply, nor even acknowledgment.

6th. That subsequently, an agreement having been come to between his Excellency the Governor on one part, and the rebel chiefs of the Basutos on the other part, a document was published in the English language, but never publicly given out in Sesuto, bearing the signature of her Majesty’s Governor, Sir Hercules George Robert Robinson, G. C. M. G., known as the Governor’s Award, bearing date 29th April, 1881, and by which an end was put to actual hostilities in Basutoland.

7th. That the Governor’s Award having become known to your petitioners, they, feeling alarmed at and grieved with the apparent want of any tangible provision whereby the carrying out of the Award could if required be actually enforced, and further foreseeing great troubles and miseries to themselves arising from such a state of things, again approached his Excellency the Governor by humble petition of 11th of May, 1881, setting forth all their apprehensions and grievances, to which humble petition they never received either a reply or acknowledgment.

8th. That subsequently, to wit, on the 25th August, 1881, a change of government took place in Basutoland, Mr. J. M. Orpen succeeding Colonel C. D. Griffith, C. M. G., in the office of Governor’s agent, and from the first day when Mr. J. M. Orpen took over the government of Basutoland, your petitioners are grieved to say their rights and interests as her Majesty’s loyal and obedient subjects were ignored, they themselves were treated in every respect as if they had committed a crime by remaining loyal, whereas the rebels were encouraged in every way, and treated with a deference and submission as if their act of rebellion had been a virtuous and meritorious one; and the Colonial forces were gradually withdrawn from Basutoland, whilst it was a notorious fact that the rebels had not in any way complied with the conditions of the Award.

9th. That notwithstanding the open defiance of the Queen’s authority throughout Basutoland; notwithstanding the notorious anarchy which prevailed from one end of the country to the other; notwithstanding the persistent, obstinate refusal of complying in fact with his Excellency’s Award on the part of all the rebel chiefs; notwithstanding the repeated insults and injuries inflicted upon and forcible expulsion by the rebels of such of your petitioners as, in accordance with Mr. Orpen’s desires, had tried to reoccupy their former grounds; notwithstanding the direct insults and affronts offered frequently to the Queen’s representative and her magistrates in this country by the rebels; and notwithstanding the earnest reports of those magistrates in Basutoland who, from many years’ experience in the country, were best able to advise the government as to the real state of affairs; yet, the Acting Governor’s agent continued and persisted in officially reporting to the government that matters were satisfactory, that things were quieting down, that the Loyals’ cattle were being gradually restored, and that, more particularly in Mafeting and Leribe districts, the Loyals had returned and still were returning to live amongst the rebels, by whom they were well received, all of which official reports were diametrically opposed to real fact.

10th. That consequently, and as a natural sequence of such a policy, the conditions of the Governor’s Award remained unfulfilled in almost every particular clause thereof: the cattle fine was only partially complied with, no guns were surrendered, gun licences were taken up in, comparatively speaking, few instances, and then only without even the production, much less the surrender, of a single gun, and on payment of such insignificant sums, that in many instances even the sum of two shillings and sixpence sterling was accepted, instead of one pound as laid down in the Award; the great bulk of the cattle, almost all the horses, all the sheep and goats, and every description of movable and immovable property belonging to your petitioners, and which, according to the Award, should have been restored to them, were retained in the hands of the rebels, who refused to give them up; not a single sixpence of compensation was made to traders and others for losses inflicted upon them during the rebellion, and your petitioners being debarred from re-entering upon their lands and houses, were kept in the greatest misery, depending upon government rations, scarcely adequate to maintain themselves and their families, cooped up within confined areas around the fortified camps of the diverse seats of magistrates in Basutoland.

11th. That under these heartrending sufferings, and exposed daily to insults and injuries, not only on the part of the rebel Basutos, but, they grieve to say it, under continued pressure and insults heaped upon them by and through the acting Governor’s agent, your petitioners never swerving from their loyalty to her Majesty’s government, again, and for the third time, approached most humbly his Excellency the Governor by respectful petition of 20th October, 1881, setting forth again their miseries and grievances, and representing the true state of affairs in Basutoland, to which humble petition they have never received either reply or acknowledgment; but the said petition, for reasons unknown to your petitioners, was held back by the acting Governor’s agent, from the 20th of October to the end of November or beginning of December, and, subsequently, your petitioners were harassed and persecuted beyond measure by the acting Governor’s agent, who persisted in representing what is absolutely untrue—that your petitioners had been instigated by some white man to petition his Excellency; that the petition had been made by the said white man, and that its contents were not true, whereas the said petition was the cry from the hearts of your petitioners, and contained nothing but what was absolutely and strictly true; saying which, according to truth, your petitioners nevertheless humbly maintain that they have a perfect and constitutional right to ask any man, white or black, to draft, write, or translate such letters or petitions as they may deem expedient to address to the authorities in matters concerning their interests, and that neither the Governor’s agent nor any other official person serving in the government, has a right to object to or to discredit such documents bearing your petitioners’ signatures in any way whatever, on account of such having been drafted, written, or translated for them at their own request by any person whatsoever.

12th. That all the grievances and miseries of your petitioners remaining unredressed to the present day, the Governor’s Award being succeeded by an Ultimatum, which holds out the eventuality of an entire cancellation of the Award, whereby your petitioners, after having been dealt with more harshly and unjustly ever since they ventured to exercise their undoubted rights as free subjects of her Majesty the Queen, to petition his Excellency the Governor, would now be cast away entirely, and deprived even of the most solemn acknowledgment of their most sacred rights, which had been clearly laid down in the Award, and all their most humble petitions having been studiously ignored, your petitioners have but one anchor of hope left to them, to which last anchor they would now cling by approaching most humbly and yet most hopefully your Honourable House with their cries for justice.

13th. That your petitioners, before the rebellion, were possessed, in round numbers, of 28,000 head of cattle, 7,000 horses, 29,000 sheep and goats, 200 wagons, 400 ploughs, 12,000 bags of grain, and property of other description to the amount of £12,000 sterling, all of which losses have been duly registered at the diverse magistracies, and the lists of which losses will be found on official record, besides the value of their lands and the great comfort of their families, and tribal rights and positions, which cannot possibly be valued in money, and all of which they sacrificed in order to remain loyal subjects and faithful to her Majesty’s commands.

14th. That your petitioners, taking all the obligations of loyal subjects upon themselves, are fully aware that they owe, and they are fully prepared to maintain, that loyalty, as a moral obligation towards their most gracious Sovereign Lady the Queen, even in adversity, and they would cheerfully bear all their losses without a murmur, nor would they dare to trouble her most gracious Majesty’s government with their complaints and prayers for redress, if they knew or were told by her Majesty’s government that the power of the government had ceased to be strong enough to carry out her Majesty’s promise of protection, or to enforce the terms of the Award given by her Majesty’s Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, in which case your petitioners would loyally sympathise with her Majesty’s adversities in her dominions in South Africa, and, although poor and miserable by the misfortunes of war, they would nevertheless rally round her Majesty’s throne, and, being unable to give any more, they would at least offer their last drop of blood in the defence of her Majesty’s prestige and in the maintenance of her Majesty’s rule in South Africa; but

15th. That your petitioners’ faith in the might and good faith of her Majesty’s all-powerful rule over her glorious Empire throughout the world has not in the least been shaken by recent events in Basutoland; and they being convinced of this power, and fully confident that their interests are now as dear to her Majesty as they were when Earl Kimberley expressed her Majesty’s sentiments towards your petitioners in his letter of the 13th May, 1880; and further knowing that the justice of your petitioners’ claim to be reinstated in all the rights and properties lost by reason of their loyalty during the late rebellion has been clearly laid down in his Excellency’s Award, and was acknowledged as indisputable by both the last and the present responsible Ministers of the Cape Colony, and being fully convinced that all their present miseries and wretched situation is exclusively due to the mistaken policy adopted by the present government of Basutoland in dealing with the rebellious chiefs.

Your petitioners, therefore, approach your Honourable House most humbly and most hopefully, and pray that it may please your Honourable House to inquire into your petitioners’ case, and if it so please your Honourable House to permit your petitioners to plead their cause at the bar of your Honourable House, by a deputation of three chiefs whom your petitioners have chosen as their spokesmen, and to grant generally such relief to your petitioners as your Honourable House may deem meet, and in duty bound will ever pray.

Jonathan Molapo,

Chief of the Leribe District.

Mokhethi Moshesh,

Hadiyana Mosheshoe,

(And 896 others).

Basutoland, March 14, 1882.