Many of the whites quarreled with their ministers because they persisted in teaching Christianity to the people held to be accursed—by their masters. The Dutch term Zendeling, originally signifying “missionary,” was turned into an epithet of reproach, bearing the new interpretation of a petty artisan and pedlar, who, under pretense of instructing the natives, wandered [[127]]about prosecuting a secular business for gain—a man to be despised and shunned.
Instances are not wanting in the records of this period to show that the spirit and practice of some Africanders were as set forth above. Mr. Holden, in the appendix to his “History of Natal,” quotes from a friend of the enslaved blacks as follows:
“As to slavery, in spite of the treaty with the Assistant Commissioner, two Kaffir boys have this very week been sold here—the one for a hundred rix-dollars to a Boer, and the other for a hundred and fifty rix-dollars to a dealer at Rustenburg. Last month, also, two were sold to Messrs. S. and G. Maritz, traders of Natal, and were immediately ‘booked’ (ingeboekt) with the Landdrost of Potchefstroom for twenty-five years each! Is this according to treaty? If not, why does not Governor Cathcart interfere by force, if reasoning be unavailing? For, without some force, I see little prospect of the natives being saved from utter and universal slavery.”
Mr. Holden also quotes from the “Grahamstown Journal” of September 24, 1853, the following significant incident:
“We are credibly informed that, in a private interview with Sir G. R. Clark, one of the most [[128]]respectable and loyal Boers, resident on a confiscated farm in the most disaffected district, ‘inter alias res,’ plainly told Sir George that he had some twenty or thirty Bushman children on his place; and that if government withdrew he must sell them, as, if he did not do so, other persons would come and take them, and sell them. The reply, as stated to us, was to the effect, ‘You have been too long a good subject to lead me to think you would do such a thing now.’ To this the answer was, ‘I have been a good subject; but if government will make me a rascal, I cannot help it’ ”
These testimonies coming from separate and widely distant sources, and giving the particulars of direct and positive slavery practiced under another name, leave no reasonable doubt that the spirit of the compact between the British government and the Africanders was being violated.
It has been thought that the account of the same matter given by Mr. Theal, in his “South Africa,” puts an entirely different aspect on the practice of “apprenticeship.”
“At this time,” he writes (1857), “complaints were beginning to be heard that the practice of transferring apprentices, or selling indentures, was becoming frequent. It was rumored also [[129]]that several lawless individuals were engaged in obtaining black children from neighboring tribes, and disposing of them under the name of apprentices. How many such cases occurred cannot be stated with any pretension to accuracy, but the number was not great. The condition of the country made it almost impossible to detain any one capable of performing service longer than he chose to remain with a white master, so that even if the farmers in general had been inclined to become slaveholders, they could not carry such inclinations into practice. The acts of a few of the most unruly individuals in the country might, however, endanger the peace and even the independence of the republic. The president, therefore, on the 29th of September, 1857, issued a proclamation pointing out that the sale or barter of black children was forbidden by the recently adopted constitution, and prohibiting transfers of apprenticeships, except when made before landdrosts.”
Treating of a later period (1864–65), he returns to this matter, saying:
“A subject that was much discussed in Europe, as well as in South Africa, during this period was the existence of slavery in the republic. Charges against the burghers of reducing [[130]]weak and helpless blacks to a condition of servitude were numerous and boldly stated on one side, and were indignantly denied on the other. That the laws were clearly against slavery goes for nothing, because in a time of anarchy law is a dead letter. There is overwhelming evidence that blacks were transferred openly from one individual to another, and there are the strongest assertions from men of undoubted integrity that there was no slavery. To people in Europe it seemed impossible that both should be true, and the opinion was generally held that the farmers of the interior of South Africa were certainly slave-holders.
“Since 1877 much concerning this matter that was previously doubtful has been set at rest. On the 12th of April of that year the South African republic was proclaimed British territory, and when, soon afterward, investigation was made, not a single slave was set free, because there was not one in the country. In the very heart of the territory kraals of blacks were found in as prosperous a condition as in any part of South Africa. It was ascertained that these blacks had always lived in peace with the white inhabitants, and that they had no complaints to make. Quite as strong was the evidence afforded by the number [[131]]of the Bantu. In 1877 there were, at the lowest estimate, six times as many black people living in a state of semi-independence within the borders of the South African Republic as there had been on the same ground forty years before. Surely these people would not have moved in if the character of the burghers was such as most Englishmen believed it to be. A statement of actual facts is thus much more likely now to gain credence abroad than would have been the case in 1864.
“The individuals who were termed slaves by the missionary party were termed apprentices by the farmers. The great majority—probably nineteen out of every twenty—were children who had been made prisoners in the wars which the tribes were continually waging with each other. In olden days it had been the custom for the conquering tribe to put all the conquered to death, except the girls and a few boys who could be made useful as carriers. More recently they had become less inhuman, from having found out that for smaller children they could obtain beads and other merchandise.
“With a number of tribes bordering on the republic ready to sell their captives, with the Betshuana everywhere prepared to dispose of the [[132]]children of their hereditary slaves, a few adventurous Europeans were found willing to embark in the odious traffic. Wagon loads of children were brought into the republic, where they were apprenticed for a term of years to the first holder, and the deeds of apprenticeship could afterward be transferred before a landdrost. This was the slavery of the South African Republic. Its equivalent was to be found a few years earlier in the Cape colony, when negroes taken in slave-ships were apprenticed to individuals. There would have been danger in the system if the demand for apprentices had been greater. In that case the tribes might have attacked each other purposely to obtain captives for sale. But the demand was very limited, for the service of a raw black apprentice was of no great value. A herd boy might be worth something more than his food, clothing, and a few head of cattle which were given him when his apprenticeship expired; but no other class of raw native was.
“It is an open question whether it was better that these children should remain with the destroyers of their parents, and according to chance grow up either as slaves or as adopted members of the conquering tribe; or that they should serve ten or fifteen years as apprentices to white people, [[133]]acquire some of the habits of European life, and then settle down as freemen with a little property. It was answered in 1864, and will be answered to-day according to the bias of the individual.”