Historical Sketches.
He was descended from Cornelis Uys, who with his wife and three children migrated from Leyden in Holland as colonists at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the Dutch East India Company was sending to the Cape settlement as many industrious families accustomed to agriculture as it could obtain. Dirk, one of the three children of Cornelis, was born at Leyden, but grew up in South Africa, and in 1722 married Dina le Roux, daughter of a Huguenot refugee from Provence. The fifth child of this marriage, Cornelis Janse by name, in 1766 married Alida Maria Swart, and from this union eleven children were born, the second of whom, Jacobus Johannes by name, in 1793 married Susanna Margaretha Moolman. When grown up, this Jacobus Johannes Uys went to reside in Oliphants Hoek in what became later the district of Uitenhage, and there in 1797 his third child, Pieter Lavras, was born.[100]
Any one who will take the trouble to watch the career of South African students at European universities, say at Leyden or Edinburgh, will find that they occupy prominent places in their classes. The sons of men whose ancestors for many generations had received very little education from books on their farms are found intellectually able to compete in study with the sons of Europeans who have long enjoyed the greatest facilities for acquiring knowledge. This is a most hopeful sign for the future of South Africa. If with vastly increased knowledge our young men only adhere to the sterling virtues and strong confidence in God that characterised their ancestors, there need be no fear for this country in the time to come.
It is true that there are in South Africa many poor white people, some of whom seem to have lost both the power and the inclination to raise themselves in the social scale. But with education, industrial training, and opportunities to acquire property, the great majority of these would undoubtedly rise again, and the residue are at least more capable of improvement than the unemployables in a European city. In all countries of the world there are weak-minded people of different degrees of imbecility, but in South Africa the number of these is very small, and white men and women with criminal instincts are almost unknown. If an average be taken the old colonists need not fear a comparison of intellect with the inhabitants of any country in Europe.
Character of Pieter Uys.
Pieter Uys was of the best stamp of man to be found in South Africa. He had not the advantage of a university training or even of a good school education, but he had the capacity of drawing information from every source within his reach, and putting it to the best use. He could write a letter or draw up a document in clear and concise Cape Dutch, and he was acquainted with what was going on over the sea. His upright conduct, his religious convictions, and his kindly disposition caused him to be held in general esteem, not only by his Dutch-speaking neighbours, but by the English settlers of Albany, with whom he was brought into close contact during the Kaffir war of 1835.
When the farmers were temporarily released from duty in the field in order to get crops in the ground, he found himself so thwarted by the unruly conduct of the apprentices, late slaves and Betshuana refugees alike, that he addressed a memorial to the authorities, representing the insufficiency of the existing laws for their correction, and praying for the interference and protection of the government.[101] It was impossible for Sir Benjamin D’Urban to give him any relief, but even if it had been otherwise, he would probably have left the colony, for he had been charmed with the appearance of Natal, the almost uninhabited territory that he had visited in the preceding year.
Historical Sketches.
It is impossible to give even approximately the number of those who had left the Cape Colony before this time. The government called for returns from the civil commissioners of the different districts, and in July 1837 these officials reported that one thousand and sixty-seven persons had left and two hundred and sixty others were about to follow. But these numbers are certainly much too low, though the estimate of Mr. Uys given in his letter of the 7th of August is probably too large.
It was the intention of the party under Uys to proceed to Natal, but not to attempt to go through Kaffraria. He had found such difficulties in travelling there in 1834 that he thought a better road might be found by moving northward over the Orange river, and then seeking a pass through the Drakensbergen that would lead him to the beautiful land below. This was the route that he followed, and at the beginning of August 1837 he and his party were on the northern bank of the Great river, without having met with any accident on the way. On the 7th of that month he addressed a letter to Sir Benjamin D’Urban, of which a literal translation made for the governor’s use and preserved among his papers is given here in extenso: