The Africanders

by Le Roy Hooker

THE AFRICANDERS’ SECOND TREK TO THE NORTH.

The purview intended to be given in these pages requires that we now look back to Natal, and to the condition and movements of the Africanders living in that region after it became British territory. As has been stated in chapter V., the English took forcible possession of Natal in 1843. Two years later it was made a dependency of the older colony at the Cape; in 1856 it was constituted a separate colony, and so remains to this day.

A small minority of the Africanders—about five hundred families—being greatly attached to the homes they had founded in that most attractive part of South Africa, reconciled themselves to the British administration and remained. But the majority, including all the fiercer and more restless spirits, took their families and goods, their flocks and herds, and once more trekked in [[115]]search of independence. Their course lay northwestward across the mountains to the elevated plateaus of the Orange River district and the Transvaal.

Very reluctantly the Africanders abandoned sunny and fruitful Natal, and the one hold they had ever gained of a part of the coast. But a goodly land and access to the sea, to be of great value in their esteem, must be associated with freedom to govern themselves and to deal with the native population as an inferior and servile race not entitled to civil equality with the whites.

The Africander love of independence, and their reasonable objection to be civilly on a level with the ignorant and savage blacks, command respect and admiration; but their treatment of the natives, where unrestrained by British rule, was anything but creditable. They may be excused for many wars with Bushmen and Kaffirs, for their very lives depended on either reducing these to submission or driving them to a safe distance from the white settlements. But the enslaving of men and women, and, later, of children under the subterfuge of apprenticeship for a term of years, cannot be justified; it was monstrously incompatible with the insistent demand for personal freedom for themselves so conspicuous [[116]]in the Africander race. The one extenuating circumstance is the fact that, leading an isolated life, they were slower than other civilized peoples in catching the spirit of the age—a spirit that makes for freedom, and a growing betterment in the condition of every man.

The exodus of Natal Africanders between 1843 and 1848 encouraged an immense influx of Kaffirs, who repopulated the country so plentifully that the proportion of blacks to whites has been as ten to one ever since.

The emigrants who settled north of the Vaal, both those of the Great Trek and those from Natal who began to join them in 1843, were rude and uneducated as compared to their brethren of the Orange River region. The northern group had less of English blood in their veins, and because of distance and difficulty of communication they were not at all affected by intercourse with the more cultured people of Cape Colony.

Lacking the upward lead that contact with a progressive civilization would have given, there took place a marked degeneration of character in these more northern emigrants. Their love of independence was developed into a spirit of faction and dissension among themselves. Their lionlike bravery was perverted into a too great [[117]]readiness to fight on the smallest provocation, and a disposition to prey upon their weaker native neighbors. Through a desire to enlarge their grazing lands they became greedy as to territory, and were almost constantly engaged in bloody strife with the native occupants of the regions they insisted on annexing.

The almost patriarchal mode of life they followed had the effect of segregating them into family groups widely separated from one another, largely exempted from any control of magistrates and law courts, and susceptible to family feuds and bitter personal rivalries between faction leaders. This absence of efficient control was a cause of further evil in encouraging an influx of unprincipled adventurers from other parts of South Africa. These went about through the more unsettled parts and along the border, cheating and often violently illtreating the natives to the great peril of peace both in the Transvaal and in the contiguous British provinces. As an example of the turmoil in which the people lived and participated, the following account is introduced of an Africander expedition under Acting Commandant-General Scholtz against Secheli, chief of the Baquaines, a tribe of Zulus. It also covers the incident of the plundering of Doctor [[118]]Livingstone’s house by the force under General Scholtz.

The matter of complaint was that the Baquaines had been constantly disturbing the country by thefts and threatenings, and that they were sheltering a turbulent chief named Mosolele. In order to punish and reduce them to obedience a commando was sent against them. After some petty encounters with scouts the Africander force drew near to Secheli’s town, in the direction of the Great Lake, on the 25th of August, 1852. Two days’ further march brought them so near that the Africander scouts discovered and reported that Secheli was making every preparation for defense.