South Africa, vol. II.

by Anthony Trollope

It would be thought that a colonizing nation like Great Britain,—now the only colonizing nation in existence,—should have a policy of colonization. The Americans of the United States have such a policy, though they do not colonize in our sense. They will not colonize at all beyond their own continent, so that all the citizens of their Republic may be brought into one homogeneous whole. The Spaniards and Dutch who have been great Colonists have a colonial policy,—which has ever consisted in getting what can be got for the mother country. Among ourselves, with all that we have done and all that we are doing, we do not yet know whether it is our intention to limit or to extend our colonial empire; we do not yet know whether we purpose to occupy other lands or to protect in their occupation those who now hold them; we do not yet know whether as a nation we wish our colonial dependants to remain always loyal to the British Crown or whether we desire to see them start for themselves as independent realms. All we do know is that with that general philanthropy and honesty without which a British Cabinet cannot now exist we want to do good and to avoid doing evil. But when we look back, and, taking even three liberal Colonial Secretaries, see the difference of opinion on colonial matters of such men as Lord Glenelg, Lord Grey, and Lord Granville, we have to own that our colonial policy must vacillate.

Are we to extend or are we not to extend our colonial empire? That was a question on which some years ago it did seem that our Statesmen had come to a decision. The task we had taken upon us was thought to be already more than enough for our strength, and we would not stretch our hands any further. If it might be practicable to get rid of some of the least useful of our operations it would be well to do so. That dream of a settled purpose has, however, been very rudely broken. The dreamers have never been able to act upon it as a policy. It will not be necessary to do more than name the Fiji Islands,—not the last but one of the last of our costly acquirements,—to show how unable the Colonial office at home has been to say, “so far will we go but no farther.” Had the Colonial office recognised it as a policy that wherever Englishmen settle themselves in sufficient numbers to make a disturbance if they be not governed, then government must go after them, then the Fiji Islands might have been accepted as a necessity. But there is no such policy even yet;—though the annexation of the Transvaal will go far to convince men that such must be our practice.

It is because of our vacillation in South Africa,—vacillation which has come from the varying convictions of varying Ministers and Governors,—that I say that the history of the Orange Free State will not be creditable to our discernment and statesmanship. Much heavier accusations have been brought against our Colonial office in reference to the same territory by Dutch, American, and by English censors. It has been said that we have been treacherous, tyrannical, and dishonest. To none of these charges do I think that the Colonial office is fairly subject; and though I cannot acquit every Governor of craft,—or perhaps of tyranny,—I think that there has on the whole been an anxious desire on the part of the emissaries from Downing Street to do their duty to their country. But there has been a want of settled purpose as to the nature and extent of the duties which fell upon England when she became mistress of the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.

There are some who think that we might have confined ourselves to Table Mountain and Simon’s Bay, drawing a rampart across the isthmus which divides the Cape from the mainland,—so as to have kept only a station for the protection of our East India intercourse. But as the Dutch whom we took upon ourselves to govern had already gone far inland when we arrived, that would hardly have been possible, and a restriction so selfish would have been contrary to our instincts. Others would have limited our power at various boundaries,—especially towards the East, where were the Kafir tribes, an evident source of coming trouble, should we meddle with them. The Orange river as a northern boundary did seem to offer a well-defined geographical limit, which would still allow us enormous scope for agricultural and pastoral energy within its southern banks and give sufficient room for every immigrant of whatever nation, and for every Africander who wished to live under British rule, to find a home within its borders.

But, as has been told before, the Dutch fled away across the Orange river as soon as they began to feel the nature of British rule. Then arose the question, which we have never yet been quite able to answer. When they went was it our duty to go after them,—not to hinder them from going but to govern them whither they went? Certainly not; we said, when they went only in such numbers as to cause us no disturbance by their removal. But how was it to be when they threatened, without any consent of ours, to erect a separate nationality on our borders? They tried it first in Natal, threatening us not only with the rivalry of their own proposed Republic, but with the hostile support of Holland. This was not to be allowed and we sent 250 men, very insufficiently, to put down the New Republic. We did, however, put it down at last.

But the Dutch were determined to go out from us. Our ways were not their ways. I am now speaking of a period nearly half a century back and of the following quarter of a century. Our philanthropy disgusted them, and was to their minds absolutely illogical,—not to be reconciled to that custom of our nation of landing here and there and taking the land away from the natives. The custom to them was good enough and seemed to be clearly the intention of God Almighty. It was the purpose of Providence that white men should use the land which was only wasted while in the possession of black men;—and, no doubt, the purpose of Providence also that black men should be made to work. But that attempt to strike down the Native with the right hand and to salve the wound with the left was to the Dutchman simply hypocritical. “Catch the nigger and make him work.” That was the Dutchman’s idea. “Certainly;—if you can agree about wages and other such matters,” said the British Authorities. “Wages,—with this Savage; with this something more but very little more than a monkey! Feed him, and perhaps baptize him; but at any rate get work out of him,” said the Dutchman. Of course the Dutchman was disgusted. And then the slaves had been manumitted. I will not go into all that again; but I think it must be intelligible that the British philanthropical system of government was an hypocritical abomination to the Dutchman who knew very well that in spite of his philanthropy the Englishman still kept taking the land;—land upon land.

It was natural that the Dutchman should go across the Orange River, and natural too that the English governor should not quite know how to treat him when he had gone. But it would have been well if some certain policy of treatment could have been adopted. Many think that had we not interfered with him in Natal, had we never established what was called an Orange River Sovereignty subject to British rule, a Dutch-speaking nation would have been formed between our Cape Colony and the swarming native tribes, which would have been a protecting barrier for us and have ensured the security of our Colony. I myself do not agree with this. I think that a Dutch Republic if strong enough for this, stretching from the confluence of the Vaal and Orange rivers down to the shores of Natal would have been a neighbour more difficult to deal with than Kafir tribes. My opinion on such a subject goes for very little;—and there would at any rate have been a policy. Or, when we had after much hesitation forbidden the Dutch to form a Republic in Natal and had declared that country to be one among Her Majesty’s possessions, we might have clung to the South African theory which was then promulgated. In that case we should have recognized the necessity of treating those wandering warlike patriarchs as British subjects and have acknowledged to ourselves that whither they went thither we must go after them. This, too, would have been a policy. But this we have not done. At first we went after them. Then we abandoned them. And now that they are altogether out of our hands in the Free State we are hankering after them again. It is impossible not to see that the ideas as to Colonial extension entertained by the late Duke of Newcastle are altogether different from those held by Lord Carnarvon;—and that the Colonial office lacks traditions.

In some respects the history of the Orange Free State has been similar to that of the Transvaal. Its fate has been very different,—a difference which has resulted partly from the characters of the men employed, partly from their external circumstances in regard to the native tribes which have been near to them. Mr. Boshof and Mr. Brand have been very superior as Statesmen to Mr. Pretorius and Mr. Burgers, and the Basutos under Moshesh their Chief,—though they almost succeeded in destroying the Orange Republic,—were at last less dangerous, at any rate very much less numerous, than Cetywayo and the Zulus.

The Dutch when they first crossed the Orange River asked whether they might go, and were then told that the law offered no impediment. “I am not aware,” said Lieutenant Governor Stockenstrom in answer to a deputation which appealed to him on the subject, “of any law which prevents 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.” That was in 1835. It was in 1837 that the migration across the river really began, when many of the wanderers first found their way down to Natal. Some however settled directly across the Orange River, where however they soon fell into difficulties requiring government. While there was fighting with hostile tribes far north across the Vaal, and while Dingaan was endeavouring to exterminate the white men in Natal, the farmers across the Orange quarrelled in a milder way with the bastard Hottentots and Griquas whom they found there. But there were many troubles. When the Dutch declared themselves to be supreme,—in reference to the Natives rather than the British,—there came a British judge across the river, who happened then to be on circuit in the neighbourhood, and told them that they were all British subjects. But his assertion was very soon repudiated by the Governor, Sir George Napier,—for at that time the idea was prevalent at the Colonial office that England’s hands should be stretched no further. This, however, did not stand long, and the next Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, found himself compelled by growing troubles to exercise authority across the rivers. He did not take possession of the country, but established a resident at the little town of Bloemfontein. The resident was to keep the peace between the Dutch and the various tribes;—but had no commission to govern the country. The British had found it impossible to allow the Dutch to drive the Natives from their land,—and equally impossible to allow the Natives to slaughter the Dutch. But yet we were very loth to declare the country British territory.

It was in 1848 that Sir Harry Smith, who was then in Natal, whither he had gone intending if possible to conciliate the Dutch would-be Republicans in that country, at last found himself compelled to claim for the mother country sovereignty over the region between the Orange and the Vaal rivers, and this proclamation he had to support by arms. Pretorius, who had become the leader of the Dutch in Natal, and who on account of personal slights to himself was peculiarly hostile to the English, came over the Drakenburg mountains, and put himself at the head of his countrymen between the rivers. He gathered together an army,—a commando, as it was then called in South African language,—and coming near to Bloemfontein ordered Major Warden, the British Resident, to move himself off into the Cape Colony south of the river with all that he had about him of soldiers and officials. This the Major did, and then Pretorius prepared himself to encounter with his Boers the offended majesty of Great Britain in arms. The reader will perhaps remember that the Dutch had done the same thing in Natal,—and had at first been successful.