Oom Paul's People / A Narrative of the British-Boer Troubles in South Africa, with a History of the Boers, the Country, and Its Institutions

by Howard Clemens Hillegas

The farmers who left Cape Colony in 1835 and 1836 in different parties and after various vicissitudes settled across the Vaal were less than sixteen thousand in number, and were scattered over a large area of territory. The nature of the country and the enmity of the leaders of the parties prevented a close union among them, although a legislative assembly, called a "Volksraad," was established after much disorder. The four principal "trekking" parties had sought four of the most fertile spots in the newly discovered territory, and established the villages of Utrecht, Lydenburg, Potchefstrom, and Zoutpansberg.

When the Volksraad was found to be inadequate to meet the requirements of the situation these villages were transformed into republics, each with a government independent of the others. The government of the limited areas of land occupied by the four republics was fairly successful, but the surrounding territory became a practical no-man's-land, where roamed the worst criminals of the country and hundreds of detached bands of marauding natives.

The Boers imposed a labour tax upon all the natives who lived in the territory claimed by the four republics, and for a period of ten years the taxes were paid without a murmur. About that time, however, the native tribes had recovered from the great losses inflicted upon them by the emigrant farmers, and they were numerous enough to make an armed resistance to the demands of the governments. White women and children were massacred and property was destroyed at every opportunity.

For purposes of self-preservation the four republics decided to unite the governments under one head, and, after many disputes and disorders, succeeded, in May, 1864, in forming a single republic, with Marthinus Wessel Pretorius as President, and Paul Kruger as commandant-general of the army.

Ten months after the organization of the republic the Barampula tribe and a number of lawless Europeans rebelled against the authority of the Government, and Kruger was obliged to attempt their subjugation. Owing to a lack of ammunition and funds, he failed to end the rebellion, and as a result the Boers were compelled to withdraw from a large part of the territory they had occupied. Up to this time the Boers had not been interfered with by the Government of Cape Colony, but another tribal rebellion that followed the Barampula disturbance led to the establishment of a court of arbitration, in which the English governor of Natal figured as umpire.

The result of the arbitration was that the rebellious tribes were awarded their independence, and that a large part of the Boers' territory was taken from them. The emigrant farmers who had settled the country maintained that President Pretorius was responsible for the loss of territory and compelled him to resign, after which the Rev. Thomas François Burgers, a shrewd but just clergyman-lawyer, was elected head of the republic. Burgers believed that the republic was destined to become a power of world-wide magnitude, and instantly used his position to attain that object. He went to Holland to secure money, immigrants, and teachers for the state schools. He secured half a million dollars with which to build a railroad from his seat of government to Delagoa Bay, and sent the railway material to Lourenzo Marques, where the rust is eating it to-day.

When Burgers returned to Pretoria, the capital of the republic, he found that Chief Secoceni, of the big Bapedi tribe, had defied the power of his Government, and was murdering the white immigrants in cold blood. Burgers led his army in person to punish Secoceni, and captured one of the native strongholds, but was so badly defeated afterward that his soldiers became disheartened and decided to return to their homes.

Heavy war taxes were levied, and when the farmers were unable to pay them the Government was impotent to conduct its ordinary affairs, much less quell the rebellion of the natives. The Boers were divided among themselves on the subject of further procedure, and a civil war was imminent. The British Government, hearing of the condition of the republic's affairs, sent Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had held a minor office at Natal, to Pretoria with almost limitless powers. He called upon President Burgers and stated to him that his mission was to annex the country to England, and gave as his reasons for such a proceeding the excuse that the unsettled condition of the native races demanded it.

Burgers pointed out to Shepstone that the native races had not harmed the English colonies, and that a new constitution, modelled after that of America, with a standing police force of two hundred mounted men, would put an end to all the republic's troubles with the natives. Shepstone, however, had the moral support of a small party of Boers who were dissatisfied with Burgers' administration, and on April 12, 1877, declared the republic a possession of the British Empire. Burgers retired from the presidency under protest, and Shepstone established a form of government that for a short time proved acceptable to many of the Boers. He renamed the country Transvaal, and added a considerable military force.

But the Boers were not accustomed to foreign interference in their affairs, and twice sent deputations to England to have the government of the country returned to their own hands. Paul Kruger was a member of both deputations, which showed ample proof that the annexation was made without the consent of the majority of the Boers, but the English Colonial Office refused to withdraw the British flag from the Transvaal.