A West Pointer with the Boers /

by John Y. Fillmore Blake

As soon as peace was made in South Africa, the English with long faces and pleading tones, appealed to the Boers to forgive and forget, as there were no longer any reasons why they should live on unfriendly terms. Having robbed the Boers of their gold fields, destroyed more than 22,000 of their women and children, all their homes and property, and then endeavored to starve to death the whole population, she humbly begs them to forgive and forget. Yes, the Boers are sure to forgive and forget, but when?

The Eighty Years' War showed that the Dutch were the most determined fighters and the greatest lovers of liberty the world had ever known. Shortly after the conclusion of this war many of them went to South Africa and settled in Cape Colony. It was fight, fight and fight all the time for years, but, though they lost many of their women and children, yet they were determined and held their ground. Near the close of the 17th century many of the Huguenots driven from France also sought refuge in Cape Colony. The Boers of to-day are the descendants of those two races of people. This explains why they are such a determined race and such great lovers of liberty. The Dutch and French Huguenots, both being intensely religious, united, fought side by side during those fearful times and in the end became so intermixed that to-day there is not one individual Dutch or Huguenot family among the Boers.

After years of fighting the natives, wild beasts and starvation, they succeeded in establishing themselves in comfortable homes and converting a wilderness into a habitable, productive country.

Now the time was ripe for England to act and she fell upon them with her army and navy and deprived them of all their rights and liberties. They withstood English domineering for a few years, when many of them, driven to it, openly rebelled. The terrible murder scene at Slagter's Nek was the result. Here five men were hung in the presence of hundreds of men, women and children who had been driven to the scene at the point of English bayonets. When the five patriots were dropped, the scaffold broke and down all came, some half dead from choking, and all writhing in agony. The scaffold was partially repaired and all drawn up, so that they could die as horrible a death as possible. The Boers have never forgotten that awful day and that heartrending scene, and they never will.

During the recent war men, women and children were again forced to witness many such revolting scenes, and yet the English beg them to forgive and forget.

Back in the thirties, the English became so oppressive that life to the Boers was unendurable, so thousands of them banded together, left their dear old homes and all their property and started on the "Great Trek" to the unsettled country of Natal. Here again they had to contend with the savages, wild beasts and starvation. Hundreds of them were murdered, yet, in the end, they again established themselves in homes and made the wilderness bloom. No sooner were they comfortable, happy and in a flourishing condition than the English fell upon them again and drove them from the land. They now crossed the mountains and sought homes in the great deserts now known as the Transvaal and Free State. At last the English said they would no longer hound them and would allow them to live or die in the desert.

Again the Boers had to contend with the savages, wild beasts and starvation. Here they suffered terribly, hundreds of them died and hundreds of women and children were murdered by the savages. Yet they persevered and converted the desert into two of the richest and most flourishing little republics in the world. All this is as fresh as ever in the Boer memory, yet, after the late South African War, the English beg the Boers to forgive and forget.

Unfortunately for the Free State, as soon as she began to really flourish, the great diamond fields at Kimberly were discovered. Now England falls upon her, kills a lot of her people and, in the end, robs her of her diamond fields and establishes a little despotism in Kimberly. The diamond fields were alone cut off and annexed to Cape Colony, for there was nothing else in the Free State worth having as far as the English knew.

It is at Kimberly that the great "Compound System" was established and is still running in all its glory. Rhodes, Beit, Phillips and Barnato were the prime movers.

A large compound was built around the mines and all the employees locked within it. No employee can buy anything except from the Company and within that compound. On leaving the compound, the employees have to go through an ordeal that is simply beastly, because the Company fears that some of them may have swallowed a diamond. It requires a week to pass the last door and every one must swallow such purging drugs as the Company may command. The Compound is simply a little hell established by the civilized English.