This action, with some others of a like nature, brought about the second contact of Boer and Briton, the subject to be treated in the next chapter. [[87]]
CHAPTER V.
SECOND CONTACT OF AFRICANDER AND BRITON—IN NATAL.
The British authorities at Cape Colony suffered the Africanders to go forth in peace on their Great Trek in search of isolation and independence. But the light of succeeding events shows that, without formally announcing it at first, the government held that the Africanders, go where they might, were to be considered British subjects, and that any territory they might occupy would become British territory by virtue of such occupancy.
About the time when the Republic of Natalia was being organized by the Africanders a small detachment of British troops which had been landed at Port Natal was withdrawn. This was construed by the emigrants as an abandonment by the British government of all claim to the country.
It soon became evident, however, that the proceedings of the new settlers in Natal were [[88]]narrowly watched by the authorities at the Cape, and that some of the measures taken were looked upon with serious displeasure. The expulsion of the Kaffirs, and an attempt to force them into a territory already occupied by another tribe, were condemned as being likely to provoke further disorder and conflict. And then, the Cape government, since the Great Trek, had asserted over and over again its right to control the Africanders in any region they might occupy, as subjects of the British crown. Their action in establishing a new and independent white state on the coast was viewed with alarm; for it would certainly affect trade with the interior tribes, and it might create a local rival to Britain’s maritime supremacy within what had been considered her own borders. Besides, the colonial government held that it was the natural guardian and protector of the natives, and the attack of the Africanders on the Kaffirs living in near neighborhood to the eastern borders of the Cape settlements was regarded as an insolent aggression which ought to be resented and checked.
PRESIDENT STEYN, ORANGE FREE STATE.
The Africanders, on the other hand, denied that the Cape government had any authority over them. The British government, they averred, was territorial and had no authority outside [[89]]the region hitherto formally claimed by the British crown. And they had trekked out of the territory to which Great Britain had laid claim purposely to be a separate, free and independent people. England’s thirty million dollars had purchased such territorial rights and public improvements in South Africa as were formerly possessed by the Netherlands, but her money had not bought people.