With Rifle and Bayonet: A Story of the Boer War

by F. S. Brereton

“Later on, however, our forces returned once more and ousted the Dutch, setting up a government on the site which is now occupied by Cape Town. Naturally, many of the Dutch and French immigrants had become possessed of property, and had commenced to farm the land; and these stayed on under the new rule. In process of time they intermarried, and by the commencement of this century numbered about 75,000 souls all told. That is the origin of the present Boer nation. They are sprung from the union between Dutch and French settlers, who were the pioneers of Africa.

“Then the British immigrant arrived and sat down by the side of the Boers, and together, in perfect unity and good fellowship, they pushed farther into the country, fighting one long continuous fight against hordes of natives and against lions and other savage beasts. Every step they advanced had to be fought for; for, just as the Bed Indians in America have persistently resisted the onflow of strangers into their hunting-grounds, so have the natives of South Africa fought to resist the onward progress and invasion of the white settlers into the land which they considered theirs by right of birth.

“But now—to hark back for one moment to that time when England stepped in and took possession of the colony—a factor arose to upset the peace and general agreement of Boer and Briton. The fact that they had been handed over by their own government to the British, like so many sheep, had roused the fiercest anger amongst the Boers. And now this resentment was inflamed by the restraining hand which our government laid upon them with regard to the natives.

“Years before, the Boer settlers had become accustomed to slave labour, and as they pushed on into the country, natives were pressed into their service. And these they had punished as each man considered the case deserved. Probably because there was a plentiful supply of Kafirs and Hottentots our Boer friends had not stopped at whipping the poor fellows. They treated them with absolute brutality, even going to the length of taking their lives.

“Such barbarous doings awoke in England a storm of anger, for, thank God, our country has long been opposed to slavery. Freedom and equality has been our motto for many years, and we have sustained it at no small cost to ourselves.

“When the tales of Boer brutality became known to the folks at home, the indignation it caused resulted in the emancipation of all slaves, and from that date the ‘Baas’, as the master is called, and the native ‘boy’ had equal rights; and to injure one of them was a crime punishable by the same laws as hold good in England.

“You can imagine, my lads, what rage this new arrangement caused in the hearts of the Boers. For years they had been free to do as they chose, and now their slaves were theirs no longer, and the natives, who had been in their masters’ eyes like mere cattle, were now their equals in point of law, and were not to be ill-treated with impunity.

“This was too much for the Dutchmen. The very sight of an Englishman roused their anger and hate, and rather than be forced to live side by side with them and be governed by their laws, they struck out a line for themselves and trekked away north into the unexplored wilds. Taking their wives and children with them, and driving their flocks, they set out for the unknown, seeking isolation from the British, and a country they could call their own.

“Thousands joined in what is known as the ‘Great Trek of 1837’. Some of the more daring of them pushed on as far as the Vaal River, which, of course you know, is the southern boundary of the Transvaal, or South African Republic, as it is called nowadays. They paid dearly for their temerity, for the Zulus came down in swarms against them and massacred every one of them. But the staunch Boer, with his dogged pluck, in which he much resembles our countrymen, was not the man to be deterred by first failures. He pressed on, but in greater numbers and with more caution, and when the Zulus attacked again, beat them off and drove them out of the neighbouring country.

“Others of the Trekkers settled on the Zand River, in what is now the Orange Free State, while others pushed across the veldt, and finally crossed the passes of the Drakenberg Mountains and came to a halt in Natal.