I.
It is an axiom that history repeats itself, and historical studies, therefore, become particularly useful in a political crisis like the present, when the policy of Sir Bartle Frere towards the native tribes of South Africa has been condemned by the Home Government. In all parts of the world a tragedy is enacted when barbarism and civilization come into contact. It was so with the Puritans, whose pioneers landed in North America from the Mayflower; it is so with the Dutch and the natives of Java, with the British and the Maoris, with the French and the people of New Caledonia. Wherever, throughout the world, colonization takes place among savages there must be war, or there can be no safety or progress. When the Dutch formed a settlement on the shores of Table Bay in 1652, it was neither their interest nor their wish to fight, but it was perfectly impossible to avoid it. Although a mere place of call for outward and homeward-bound ships was required, yet it soon became apparent that not merely as a sequence of successful defence, but as a means of protection, it was requisite to annex conquered territory. The Hottentots were the first enemies of Europeans in South Africa, and the Kafirs—themselves aggressors—were the second. The latter people were robbers by profession, and an organized system of plunder continually harassed the border farmers of the colony.
The first act of the present tragedy of Kafir war waged against Great Britain took place in 1811, when constant depredations on the part of the Kafirs made it necessary either to repel the enemy or to abandon the country. The latter system of tactics was not then in vogue among the countrymen of Nelson and Wellington, therefore a large force under Colonel Graham was despatched to the front. Landdrost Stockenstrom, who accompanied this force, rode up to a party of the natives and urgently endeavoured to secure peace. In reply he was stabbed to death, and fourteen of the men who accompanied him were likewise murdered. Of course the Kafirs were chastised, but the snake was only scotched, not killed, and in 1816 the colonial frontier farmers were so plundered by the natives that they were forced to state to Government that they would have to abandon their farms unless effectively protected. As a result, Lord Charles Somerset held a solemn conference with Gaika and other great chiefs in April, 1817, which was followed by a solemn treaty of peace. Those solemn farces must have been sources of immense amusement to the savages. Gaika gave pledges with the utmost readiness—there was no difficulty whatever. Honesty and justice were in future to prevail; the people of the kraal to which stolen cattle were traced should always be held responsible, and reparation was always to be made instanter. Presents were lavished upon the "Paramount" Chief, and then (in the words of the Rev. Mr. Williams) "Gaika fled instantly to the other side of the Kat river like a thief," plundering was soon vigorously recommenced, and the idea of restitution became almost as great a joke as the treaty of peace. In 1818 the chief T'Slambie positively refused to restore cattle traced to his kraal. Afterwards, to gain time, he promised, and then, of course, broke his promise. War was once more forced upon the authorities, and this time the contest was a serious one. While military operations were going on in Kafirland, the confederate chiefs got behind our forces, drove in the small military posts, and ravaged the frontier districts. Incited to fanaticism by the witch-doctor Mokanna, or Lynx, 9000 savages impetuously attacked the head-quarters of the military at Graham's Town, and it was only by means of desperate fighting that the town was saved. Soon afterwards another solemn treaty was made, in which it was agreed that all Kafirs should evacuate the country between the Great Fish and Keiskamma rivers, and that this territory should remain neutral and unoccupied. The usual sequence occurred, the treaty was laughed at and violated by our enemies at the earliest possible moment. Downing Street invariably looked upon the Kafirs in the light of honourable belligerents, and the unfortunate colonists as grasping, unscrupulous men. An outrageous divorce was constituted between truth and justice on the one side, and so-called philanthropy on the other, and the people of the Cape Colony had to suffer the heavy and bitter penalties of this extraordinary ignorance and fatuity. The course of events from first to last has been very simple. It must be borne in mind that the South African Kafir wars constitute one tragedy in various acts, with intervals of unequal duration. The war with Cetywayo is identical in principle with those waged with Gaika, T'Slambie, Dingaan, Kreli, and Sandilli. By immense exertions the tide of savagery has been periodically rolled back, and if wise counsel had been followed, the war of 1835 would have been final; but Downing Street intervened, and it is to the disastrous fatuous policy then adopted that we owe the wars of 1846 and 1852. It is to this intervention, and to this policy, that we desire in this article, and in others that are to follow, specially to draw attention, because the part taken by Sir Benjamin D'Urban in 1836 is now filled by Sir Bartle Frere in 1879; and the character of Lord Glenelg, who declared that "the Kafirs had ample justification in the late war," seems likely to be attempted by the gentleman who is at present her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.—April 22, 1879.
II.
The Kafir war of 1835 was exceedingly disastrous to the colonists. Shortly after it had commenced Colonel Smith (afterwards Sir Harry Smith) wrote: "Already are 7000 persons dependent upon the Government for the necessaries of life. The land is filled with the lamentations of the widows and the fatherless. The indelible impressions already made upon myself by the horrors of an irruption of savages upon a scattered population, almost exclusively engaged in the peaceful occupation of husbandry, are such as make me look on those I have witnessed in a service of thirty years as trifles to what I have now witnessed." The Kafirs were on this occasion, as on every other, the aggressors, and plunder was the principal motive of the war. Fifteen years previously Great Britain had taken the responsibility of settling 5000 of her subjects in the frontier districts of the Cape Colony, and then defence and protection became both the duty and the interest of the home country. With great exertions and after immense loss the war was brought to a close. As a glorious trophy of the war no fewer than 15,000 Fingoes were literally saved from cruel captivity. The Moses who led them out of their house of bondage was Sir Benjamin D'Urban, and it was this wise and enlightened Governor who annexed the province of Queen Adelaide, and determined that the liberated people should be placed in this territory, so as to form "the best barrier against the entrance of the Kafirs into the great Fish River jungle." This extensive bush was the "quadrilateral" of the Kafirs, and it was only acquired by the best blood of the British and colonial troops.
During the whole period of the war of 1835 a very small section of colonists had endeavoured to poison the minds of our Downing Street rulers. Their arguments were based on several fictions, including affirmations about violence on the part of colonists having begot violence on the part of Kafirs, and that the great body of Kafirs had never offended us. They even went so far as to make use of glaring untruths respecting Hintza not having been engaged in the war, and misled Lord Glenelg so much respecting the particulars of that chief's death as to induce his lordship to make use of expressions which he was afterwards compelled to retract. A steady fire of prejudice, fed by pre-conceived ideas, constantly existed at home in favour of the Kafir tribes—and indeed all savages—which required very little effort to turn into a consuming fire of anger and indignation. These little efforts were sedulously made and constantly continued in South Africa with the most disastrous results. A number of well-meaning and prejudiced men, who can be styled the Exeter Hall party, declaimed with virulence against the colonists, and unfortunately Lord Glenelg was enrolled among their number. This nobleman evidently considered that humanitarian efforts were due to savages only, not to colonists, and through his contemptible folly became the means of inflicting the most severe injuries upon both. Sir Benjamin D'Urban, who was completely master of the situation, and had proved himself an honest and wise administrator, was entirely ignored, his policy was stigmatized in the most insulting manner, and the sentimental ideas of theorists made to take its place. In a despatch, dated 28th December, 1835, the Secretary of State entirely exculpates the Kafirs and censures both Sir Benjamin D'Urban and the colonists. He says: "In the conduct which was pursued towards the Kafir nation by the colonists, and the public authorities of the colony, through a long series of years, the Kafirs had ample justification of the late war; they had a perfect right to hazard the experiment, however hopeless, of extorting by force that redress which they could not expect otherwise to obtain; and the claim of sovereignty over the new province, bounded by the Keiskamma and the Kei, must be renounced. It rests upon a conquest resulting from a war in which, as far as I am at present able to judge, the original justice is on the side of the conquered, not of the conquering party." The governor is severely reproved for styling the Kafirs "irreclaimable savages," and the Wesleyan missionaries are also censured. As a sequence the whole country between the Fish and Buffalo rivers had to be handed over to the Kafirs, although that portion of this territory which extended between the Fish and Keiskamma rivers had been ceded by Gaika to the colony so far back as the year 1819, and was therefore not conquered in the recent war. The extraordinary fatuity of this course, judged from a military point of view, is evident from the description of the boundary furnished by Major Charters, military secretary to Sir George Napier. This able officer says: "The line of frontier is all in favour of the Kafirs; a dense jungle—the medium breadth is about five miles—torn and intersected by deep ravines, a great part impenetrable except to Kafirs and wild beasts, occupies about one hundred miles of frontier, following the sinuosities of the Great Fish river. The whole British army would be insufficient to guard it." In fact, this country comprised what, by analogy, may be styled the Kafir quadrilateral, or combination of almost impregnable fortresses. British and colonial blood had to be poured out as water in the wars of 1845 and 1852 to recapture this country; but fanaticism and prejudice are always impervious to argument. "Their blood be upon us and upon our children" is a sentence often repeated in history, so when the Waterloo veteran and gallant British soldier, Sir Benjamin D'Urban, was dismissed for doing his duty, Lord Glenelg defiantly wrote, "You announce to me the abandonment of the province of Adelaide and cast on me the responsibility of all the consequent disasters you predict. I am perfectly ready to take upon myself the sole and exclusive responsibility on this occasion."
It is difficult to find language sufficiently strong to stigmatize the base perfidy and fatuous incompetency of the Glenelg policy. A colony is acquired and its people exchange allegiance for protection; later on 5000 British emigrants are placed in its frontier districts. The savages in and beyond the borders of this country are numerically far superior to our own subjects, and systematically send in plundering bands who devastate the country and impoverish the farmers. It is these savages who make war, and in defence it is at last absolutely necessary either to repel the invaders or to abandon the country. The case, let it be remembered, is not one of emigrants seizing a country and then applying for protection. It is the British Government which established its sovereignty first and sent its emigrants afterwards. With immense exertion, and at the cost of much blood and treasure, the savage tide is pushed back—and then Lord Glenelg deliberately makes it flow again over the conquered country, perfidiously becomes the ally and friend of the savages and creates a cruel necessity—no other than that of doing the work over again in the bloody wars of 1845 and 1852. There is scarcely anything in history to form a parallel to this gross injustice and perfidy. Yet at the present moment a large party of fanatical "philanthropists" in England are crying out for a repetition of the same policy in Natal. The tide will be pushed back to Cetywayo's kraal, but we must abandon the country after we conquer it. The Zulu King made the war, and it is as purely one of righteous self-defence as any ever waged in the world; yet we are told that the colonists provoked it and are responsible for it! Sir Bartle Frere is to be converted into Sir Benjamin D'Urban! and a new edition of the Glenelg policy must be adopted by her Majesty's Government!—April 25, 1879.
III.
Lord Glenelg emphatically stated that the Kafirs had perfect justification for the war of 1835, and this affirmation was the foundation of his entire policy. He identified himself with the pseudo-philanthropists who looked upon the white inhabitants of the Eastern districts as usurpers and persecutors. The ideas of 1836 remain substantially the ideas of 1879, the only difference being that the venue is changed and that the tide of savagery has been pushed further eastward. The settlers of 1820 were placed by the British Government on the frontier of the Cape Colony, and on their part and that of their descendants there was certainly no usurpation, while it positively seems to be the result of monomania to speak of their having persecuted the Kafirs. The incontestable facts of history prove exactly the opposite: it was the Kafirs that harassed and persecuted them. A comparatively small, struggling, and sparsely settled community was persistently tormented and impoverished by most cruel thefts and constant aggressions, which at last culminated in wars of defence most disastrous to the farmers and the principal portion of the settlers. The stock, dwellings, etc., of the poor border population destroyed in the war of 1835 alone were valued at upwards of £280,000! This was a cruel, terrible infliction on those poor settlers, but it was not considered enough by the Exeter Hall party. Christianity was blasphemed by a policy of the grossest injustice adopted in its name. Those who were bound by every tie of justice—putting aside charity—to defend their own countrymen turned against them most virulently, and did everything in their power to cause the re-enactment of the bloody scenes in which British settlers in this distant land had suffered so much.
In Mr. Godlonton's "Case for the Colonists" there is abundant proof of the facts already adduced. The Kafirs were the aggressors and the colonists the sufferers. Gross injustice, faithlessness, rapine, and fraud—or in other words, savagery—had to be grappled with, repelled, and conquered in the Cape Colony, and the pseudo-philanthropists of England, headed by Lord Glenelg, did everything in their power to aid and assist the latter cause. Perhaps the most clear proof of the error of the British policy on which we are now animadverting may be found in the evidence of one of Lord Glenelg's chosen men and champions. Sir George Napier was sent out specially to reverse the policy of Sir Benjamin D'Urban. In answer to a Port Elizabeth address, he said, "I decidedly tell you that I accepted the government of this colony in the conviction that the former system, as regarded our Kafir neighbours, was erroneous; and I am come out here, agreeing in, and determined to support, the system of policy pursued by the Lieutenant-Governor of these districts (Captain Stockenstrom) in accordance with the instructions which his Honour and myself have received from her Majesty's Secretary of State (Lord Glenelg)." Nothing can be clearer than this, or more decided; but when Sir George Napier learnt the facts of the case, the mist of prejudice dropped from his eyes. Most fortunately, this officer was an honest man, and dared to give his testimony in favour of the truth in spite of his employers in England. He found that the policy he had been directed to carry out "shocked one's natural sense of justice" (these are his own words), and that he had been completely duped and deceived. Referring to the aggressions of the Kafirs, Sir George Napier says, "It would not be just to pass over the fact that while much loss has been sustained by the colonists, as stated in the official returns, I am not aware, except in one instance—and that one of no importance—that any aggression has been committed by the border colonists against the persons or property of the neighbouring tribes." It was at Port Elizabeth, and in the month of October, 1840, that Sir George Napier forcibly admitted that the Glenelg treaties "seem to shock our sense of natural justice, and to be unsupported by any considerations of sound policy." Speaking subsequently to a gathering of the Slambie and Congo tribes of Kafirs at Fort Peddie, his Excellency said, "You have sustained no bad treatment on the part of the colonists, and I now appeal to you whether the colonists have not kept their part of the treaties ever since they were made? I ask if there has been a single act of injustice of which you have any reason to complain on the part of the Government and the colonists? You will answer, None. I therefore appeal to you for justice towards the colonists." In fact, Sir George Napier was forced to thoroughly change his opinions, and it is unnecessary to multiply proofs of this well-known fact. Would to God that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, or even Sir Charles Dilke, could come out to South Africa and report to the Home Government so as to avert the awful catastrophe of surrendering conquered Zululand to Cetywayo! This would be a suicide greater in extent and more terrible even in its consequences than the surrender of the province of Queen Adelaide by Lord Glenelg. But surely if the world had been searched no more reliable man than Sir Bartle Frere could have been chosen. He is a most upright, wise, and experienced administrator; the friend of her Majesty the Queen, and himself distinguished for all the qualities which make men respected and trusted. He belongs to the "Aborigines' Protection Society," and is in all respects above suspicion, yet his most positive assurances weigh lightly in the balance against the monomania existing among certain classes in Europe, that savages must be right and colonists invariably wrong. It is a bitter reflection that Zulu savagery finds its best allies among the very people from whom we spring, and that the most deadly enemies of the white people of South Africa are literally "those of their own household."