The Africanders

by Le Roy Hooker

While the conference on union was in progress there arrived, on the 11th of June, a letter [[142]]from Sir George Grey announcing that in case an agreement to unite the two republics were concluded, the conventions of 1852 and 1854—guaranteeing their separate independence—would no longer be considered binding by Great Britain. Undoubtedly this action evinced a desire, not to say a determination, that the Free State should find safety not by union with the sister republic to the north, but by coming again under British sovereignty and forming one of a group of colonies to be united in a great British Dominion in South Africa. The negotiations for union were dropped on the receipt of Sir George’s letter, and both parties resolved to appoint commissioners to confer with him after peace with the Basutos should be arranged.

It was not until the 20th of August that Sir George Grey arrived at Bloemfontein to act as mediator between Moshesh and the Free State. While preliminaries were being discussed the governor received urgent dispatches from London ordering him to send all available troops to India, where the Sepoy rebellion was raging. It became, therefore, a matter of supreme importance to establish peace between the Free State and the Basutos at once—for not a soldier could safely be spared until that was accomplished. [[143]]On the 29th of September the treaty was completed and signed. It settled a new frontier for the Free State next to Basutoland, and bound Moshesh to either punish marauders of his people himself, or consent that the Free State authorities should do so.

This peace lasted only seven years. In 1865 new troubles arose leading to a renewal of war between the Free State and Moshesh. Again the governor of Cape Colony acted as mediator, but his decisions were rejected by the Basutos, and new hostilities began. This time, by a heroic effort made in 1868, the whites defeated and scattered the Basutos with great slaughter, and were at the point of utterly breaking their power, when the always politic Moshesh appealed to the British High Commissioner at the Cape to take his people under British protection.

The commissioner doubtless considered the interests of Cape Colony which, in the event of a dispersion of the Basutos, might be overrun by the fugitives, and suffer injury thereby. And it is evident that he was unwilling that the Free State should strengthen itself, beyond the necessity of ever seeking readmission to the British dominions, by the annexation of Basutoland. So, looking to the safety of the old colony, and to the [[144]]hope of some day adding thereto the Orange Free State, the commissioner took the defeated Basutos under the wing of the imperial government and declared them British subjects.

The Free State was allowed to retain a considerable area of good land which it had conquered on the north side of the Caledon River, but the adjustment reached was anything but satisfactory. The British had now established their authority to the south of the republic all the way from Cape Colony to Natal, and, thus, had extinguished a second time the persistent Africander hope of extending their territory to the sea. Thus, in 1869, recommenced the British advance toward the interior.

Another momentous step towards enlarging the sphere of British influence was taken almost immediately. Diamonds were discovered in 1869, in a district lying between the Modder and the Vaal rivers, where the present town of Kimberley stands. Within a few months thousands of diggers and speculators from all parts of South Africa, Europe, America, and from some parts of Asia, thronged into the region and transformed it into a place of surpassing value and interest. The question of ownership was raised at once. The Orange Free State claimed it. The Transvaal [[145]]Republic claimed it. It was claimed by Nicholas Waterboer, a Griqua captain, son of old Andries Waterboer; his claim being based on an abortive treaty made with the elder Waterboer in 1834, when, at Doctor Philip’s suggestion, the attempt was made to interpose between the old colony and the northern populations a line of three native states under British protection. And it was claimed by a native Batlapin chief.

Three of these claimant—the Transvaal Republic, Nicholas Waterboer for the Griquas, and the Batlapin chief for his clan—agreed to settle the conflict by arbitration, naming the governor of Natal as arbitrator. The governor promptly awarded the disputed ownership to Nicholas Waterboer the Griqua, who as promptly placed himself under the British government, which, with equal promptitude, constituted the district a crown colony under the name of Griqualand. The Orange Free State, not having been a party to the arbitration, protested, and was afterwards sustained by the decision of a British court, which found that Waterboer’s claim to the territory was null and void. But the colony had been constituted and the British flag unfurled over it before the finding of the court could stay proceedings. [[146]]

Without admitting or denying the Free State’s contention, the British government obtained a quitclaim title for a money consideration. It was represented that a district so difficult to keep in order, because of the transient and turbulent character of the population, should be under the control of a more vigorous government than that of the Free State. Finally, the British offered and the Free State authorities accepted, £90,000 in settlement of any claim the republic might have to the territory of Griqualand.

The incident closed with the payment and acceptance, in 1876, of the price agreed upon. But the Africanders of the Free State had the feeling at the time—and it never ceased to rankle in their breasts—that they had been made the victims of sharp practice; that the diamond-bearing territory had been rushed into the possession of the British and made a crown colony without giving them a fair opportunity to prove their claim to it; and that, while the price offered and paid was a tacit recognition of the validity of their claim, it was so infinitesimal in proportion to the rights conveyed as to imply that in British practice not only is possession nine points in ten of the law but that it also justifies the holder in keeping back nine parts out of ten of the value. [[147]]

Nor was this the only British grievance complained of at this time by the Free State. The project of uniting the two republics for greater strength and mutual safety had been vetoed for no apparent reason than to keep them weak so that they might the sooner become willing to re-enter the British dominions in South Africa. And the British High Commissioner at the Cape had taken the vanquished Basutos and their territory under imperial protection at the moment when the victorious Free State was about to reduce them to permanent submission, and to extend its territory to the sea—again interposing the arm of Great Britain to prevent the strengthening of the republic by its proposed acquisition of Basutoland and the gaining of a seaport at the mouth of the St. John River.