Civilization Helping the Natives
There are various groups of this widely scattered race. They include the Amakosa, with whom the Cape Colonists so early came into conflict along the Fish River frontier, and who afterwards became known as Tembus and Pondos; the Amazulu of Natal and Zululand; the Swazis, the Matabele and the Amatongas; the Bechuanas, who are subdivided into Bamangwato, the Basutos, the Barolongs, and the Barotze; the Makalakos of Mashonaland. The speech and habits of these people are sufficiently similar to denote a common racial origin and to stamp them as a distinct type. As a race they are very prolific, and in this respect present a marked contrast to the primeval natives of America or Polynesia. The approach of civilization, instead of killing them off, has surrounded them with safety, bound them to a more or less peaceful life, and thus prevented the strife which at one time changed the central part of South Africa from the home of a teeming population into an almost lonely and empty wilderness. The result of this régime of peaceful power is that their numbers all over South Africa are increasing at a rate which, in itself, creates a serious problem for the future and resembles the rapid advance of the population amongst the myriad races of Hindostan under the gentle rule of Great Britain. Dr. Theal states[[1]] that "the Bantu population in South Africa from the Limpopo to the sea has trebled itself by natural increase alone within fifty years," and he goes on to add that even this is asserting "what must be far below the real rate of growth." In 1879, for instance, there were 319,000 Kaffirs in Natal as against 455,000 in 1891; while in Cape Colony between 1875 and 1891 the natives increased from 483,000 to 1,150,000. Roughly speaking, the native population of all South Africa south of the Zambesi was, in 1893, about five millions.
[[1]] Theal, History of the Republics.
Vain to Avoid Interference
Of this population Great Britain controls more than one-half. About a million and a half are in the Portuguese possessions, a hundred thousand in the German Protectorate, seven hundred thousand in the Transvaal, and something over a hundred thousand in the Free State. Since the time, in the early fifties, when Earl Grey was at the Colonial Office, and the proposed abandonment of the Orange River region was announced, he added in his despatch to the Governor: "That done, no war in future, 'however sanguinary,' between the different tribes and communities which will be left in a state of independence beyond the Colonial boundary are to be considered as affording ground for your interference." In this vain effort to avoid further responsibility beyond the outer marches of the Cape Lord Grey was certainly logical. But, like the Manchester School in this respect—although he did not adhere very closely to its general views—he bore a striking resemblance to Mrs. Partington, in the familiar pages of Punch, sweeping back the ocean tide with a broom. He believed that, with utterly inadequate military resources at the Cape and with absolute indifference at home, it was useless to try to control a vast region where the majority of the white settlers were opposed to Great Britain and the masses of the natives strongly hostile. But he overlooked the impossibility of maintaining a stable frontier amid the shifting sands of a savage population, and he forgot that justice had to be done, as between native and native and often as between white man and native, if Great Britain was to fulfill her mission and do her duty. Neither of these ends could be accomplished without strife or expansion. As time passed, and amid all the countless mutations of South African policy, this inevitable advance of the British border and gradual incorporation of native tribes went on. In 1865 British Kaffraria, with its 78,000 natives, was annexed to the Cape, and then Basutoland, with (in 1893) some 218,000 natives, was brought under British control. Following this came Griqualand West, with its 30,000 natives; British Bechuanaland, with some 50,000; Khama's Country, or the Bechuanaland Protectorate, with over 100,000; Zululand, with its 140,000; Pondoland, with 200,000, and Tongaland, with 80,000; and finally Rhodesia, or British Mashonaland, with a quarter of a million Matabele and Mashonas.
Expansion Inevitable
Earl Grey's despatch was, in fact, only a passing phase of the many-sided British policy toward the native territories. Every now and then, however, this principle of non-extension and non-responsibility, so far as the Kaffirs were concerned, continued to come into practice—as in the previous case of Lord Glenelg and the Kosas. Instances in point may be mentioned such as the giving up of part of Zululand and much of Swaziland to the Transvaal, the earlier and prolonged refusal to annex the Kosa country, afterwards known as Kaffraria, the hesitating and lingering policy over Bechuanaland and the refusal to annex Damaraland and Namaqaland at a period when no objection would have been raised by anyone, and a region covering 300,000 square miles and, with the Providential exception of Walfisch Bay, guarding the entire western coast, might have become British instead of German territory. There were three causes—all connected, directly or indirectly, with the natives and the native question—for the ultimate and inevitable expansion. The first was the determination of the British people to suppress and prevent slavery. This produced emancipation in Cape Colony, and partially caused the Great Trek of the Boers. The second was the intensity of Dutch arrogance, the frequency of Dutch oppression and a continuous Dutch policy of aggression, in connection with native tribes. The third was the impossibility of holding frontiers intact against uncivilized races, and the natural wish of missionaries to extend British influence and through it the power of Christianity. The second and third causes worked together in some measure and may be seen controlling or modifying many complicated conditions.
Slavery
Little doubt exists as to the continued practice of slavery amongst the Boers—in Natal before 1846, in the Orange Free State up to recent years, and in the Transvaal at the present time. There was, in the earlier period, a state of absolute lawlessness amongst the Boers themselves, combined with constant war, or raids, upon surrounding tribes. Kaffirs were shot down in cold blood, beaten at pleasure, their families burned out of their little huts and their children, or the most promising of them, taken away as "apprentices" for a given period—the euphemistic expression for a condition of permanent enslavery. Of course the natives retaliated when they could, and during the first thirty years of the Boer migration and history—1836 to 1866—the state of affairs was lamentable. It was estimated in 1869 that six thousand child-slaves were in the Transvaal as the much-prized booty of casual raids upon different tribes. And this despite the clause in the Sand River Convention forbidding, and promising to prevent, anything of the kind. During these years agitation in England against these practices of the Boers was incessant, and local protests from missionaries and others at the Cape and in Natal equally so. Papers in 1868 were laid before the Natal Legislature describing many accredited instances even at that late date, and three years before, Mr. W. Martin had laid before the Government of that Colony a detailed statement of his own experiences across the Vaal in this connection. The Lieutenant-Governor (Mr. John Maclean, C.B.) transmitted the documents to Cape Town, and the High Commissioner intimated that while he believed there was much of truth in the charges, yet it would be practically impossible to intervene successfully without being prepared to use force. A Resolution of protest against this view was at once passed by the Legislature, of which the following is an extract:
"That the traffic is a direct breach of the Treaty entered into with Her Majesty's Commissioners, is an outrage upon humanity and civilization, and is an aggravation of the traffic which Her Majesty's Government has so long sought to suppress upon the east coast. That so long as this traffic in children is suffered to exist there can be little hope for the progress of civilization amongst the native tribes in the Transvaal Republic, while the prevalence of such practices in the immediate neighborhood of independent and colonial tribes has a most pernicious and injurious effect, and tends to lower the position and influence of the white race. That it is impossible for the High Commissioner, living as he does so far from the scene of those atrocities, to judge clearly and fully their character and tendencies."