Willem Adriaan Van Der Stel, and Other Historical Sketches

by George McCall Theal

Progress of Emigration.

The second party to leave the colony was under the leadership of Andries Hendrik Potgieter, and consisted of farmers whose religious tendencies were towards the separatist—equivalent to the Scottish Covenanter—section of the church. They migrated chiefly from the Tarka. A full account of their wanderings and actions, of their sufferings from the Matabele and their heroic conduct until Moselekatse was compelled to flee northward to the territory now called Rhodesia, together with the adventures of the party from Colesberg under Carel Cilliers that joined them is given in my History of South Africa, and it is unnecessary to repeat it here.

The third party was under the leadership of Gerrit Marthinus Maritz, and went from the neighbourhood of Graaff-Reinet. It was much larger than the one under Potgieter. On the 2nd of December 1836 these parties, who were then in the neighbourhood of Thaba Ntshu, attempted to establish a government and elected a court of justice, with Maritz as landdrost or president. Various small parties and even single families now arrived, and joined either Potgieter or Maritz according to the section of the church that they preferred.

The next large party was headed by Pieter Retief, and went from the Winterberg. On the 17th of April 1837 a meeting of the emigrants was held in the camp of Maritz,[98] when Pieter Retief was elected administrative head, but he was not then installed in office, as the section under Potgieter took no part in the proceedings, and the others hoped that they might be induced to join in course of time. Potgieter and Maritz had quarrelled, and from this time forward harmony among the emigrants was rarely seen.

Historical Sketches.

On the 6th of June 1837 Mr. Retief was formally installed in office as governor and commandant-general, a volksraad of six members was elected and entrusted with full legislative power, and a provisional constitution of nine articles was adopted. Whether these proceedings were not premature may be open to doubt. The number of emigrants north of the Orange was then not very great, many more were known to be on their way, and for these few to exercise the power of modelling the future government and appointing the chief executive officer seemed unjustifiable to most of those who arrived afterwards. There was no question as to the ability of Pieter Retief and his fitness for the highest office, but that he should be appointed to it by a section of the community and the others be required simply to concur was regarded as a grievance.

Mr. Retief’s first proceeding proved him to be a man of tact. He actually succeeded in inducing Hendrik Potgieter, the representative of the separatist or Covenanter section of the church, to meet in a friendly manner Gerrit Maritz, the representative of the larger section of the church,[99] a man accused by his opponents of ambitious views and not very conciliatory in demeanour. It is true that these men had once fought side by side, when Maritz generously assisted the other to recover the spoil taken by the Matabele in August 1836 in their murderous onslaughts on the camps north of the Vaal, but the constitution of mind of the Covenanter seems to differ from that of other men so much as to make concord difficult except under unusual circumstances. It need not be asked whether his views are more or less praiseworthy than those of his neighbours, but it must be admitted that as a rule he looks upon most matters from a different standpoint. And so the good feeling between the two leaders brought about by Mr. Retief was only temporary, and from the first Potgieter resolutely declined to give in his adherence to the political faction led by Maritz.

Progress of Emigration.

The fifth large party arrived at Thaba Ntshu at this time. It was under the leadership of Mr. Pieter Jacobs, and went from the district of Beaufort West, being composed largely of families connected with the Slachter’s Nek insurrection. These people joined the adherents of Retief and Maritz, though they continued to form a separate camp.

Next to cross the Orange was a large party from Oliphants Hoek, under the leadership of Pieter Lavras Uys, though his father, Jacobus Johannes Uys, was nominally its head. The old man was nearly seventy years of age, and the party was entirely composed of his immediate descendants and connections by marriage. It is of Pieter Lavras Uys, and the part he took in the emigration, that the remainder of this paper will deal, the information being largely drawn from the documents contained in the D’Urban collection.