The history of the northern republic, known as the South African Republic, or Transvaal, while resembling that of the Free State in many points, yet differs from it largely in others.
When later we enter into a detailed consideration of the different states and communities into which South Africa is divided, we shall closely examine its history and structure; for the moment it is enough to glance rapidly at its past record, merely to understand the position of the Boer in South Africa to-day.
The story of the foundation of this state is perhaps the most epic and unique of all the pages of human history during the last centuries, but for the present it is enough to note the main facts. In 1795, the British first conquered the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch East India Company. The Stadholder, who had fled from Holland to England when the French Army entered the Dutch provinces, acquiesced in this, but the South African people were not consulted. In accordance with the Treaty of Amiens, Great Britain in 1803 restored the Cape to the Batavian Republic, but a few months later European war broke out afresh. In 1806 Great Britain again conquered it, and held it till 1814, when the King of the Netherlands formally ceded it to her in return for six millions pounds sterling. The King was urgently in need of money, and as Great Britain would not restore the Cape under any circumstances he was glad to get the six million pounds. The people of Africa were not consulted in regard to this cession either. It was made without their knowledge or consent. Since 1814, Great Britain has her possession of the Cape Colony, a period now of above eighty-six years.
The conditions under which the English Government took possession of the land were exceedingly propitious. The bulk of the inhabitants, severed already for a century from Europe, cared little if at all which European power it was that victualled its fleets and held official rule at Table Bay, if their rights of free internal action were but left untouched. The Dutch East India Company, though probably not worse than other commercial companies, had the peculiar incapacity inherent in all such bodies for the wise governing of a free people, and had so alienated the hearts of the South Africans that they had already risen against it. There was no prejudice against the English as such, and had a tolerable amount of tact, sympathy and judgment been evinced in dealing with the early inhabitants of the land, there need have been no white race problem in South Africa to-day.
The English Government in the early days appears to have been not unfortunate in some of the persons who were sent out to represent it at the Cape. In such individuals as General Dundas, the Earl of Cadogan, and Sir John Cradock, England had not merely well-intentioned servants, but men of tact and judgment. But she was not always to be so fortunate.
We English are a peculiar people. More often than most other races, and in this point resembling the Jews, we tend frequently to run to extremes of contradictory vice and virtue. Exactly as the Jewish race tends to incarnate itself on the one hand in a Moses, an Isaiah, or a Spinoza, so far removed from all material and personal ambitions and desires, and on the other hand in the grasping money-lender and millionaire; as it is now manifest in a Christ and then in a Judas Iscariot, so we English appear to manifest among our folk the extremes of self-sacrificing humanity, magnanimity, and heroism, and of sordid all-grasping self-seeking. In South Africa we have had our Livingstones and our George Greys, and our Porters, men, who, across the arid wastes of political and public life, shed the perfume of large and generous individualities; men, the mere consciousness of a national relation with whom is rightly a matter of pride to an English South African's heart; while, on the other hand, our race has here manifested in certain of its representatives as much of low ambition, and merciless greed, as it has been the unfortunate province of any individuals of any race ever to exhibit.
But between these extremes has lain the bulk of our ordinary officials and citizens of English descent, with the blended vices and virtues of our people; and generally possessed of the one quality which seems to be the mark of our average Englishman. With a great deal of loyalty toward our own race and a great deal of desire for freedom and independence for ourselves, and a passion for carrying out our own methods, we have also a tendency to understand very little of other races and individuals, as less important and justifiable, and far less virtuous, than our own. This is perhaps more or less characteristic of all Teutonic peoples as compared with Celtic; but it appears certainly more marked in our own English division than in any other. This disposition has its advantages. We are not easily influenced for evil or for good; if we do not learn readily, we do not soon give up that which we have learned; it yields to us a great stability; and as long as, whether as individuals or as a race, we remain on our own soil and among our own native surroundings, though it may make life a little narrow, and somewhat hard, its disadvantages are not serious or vital. But the moment we are placed in close juxtaposition with other races, or enter foreign lands, more especially as rulers or controllers, then that which was an innoxious venial defect becomes a serious, it may be even a deadly, deficiency.
In certain of our rulers this quality has manifested itself powerfully, and has led to the most enormous and catastrophic effects. Among such men was Lord Charles Somerset. While he was an energetic man of unusual ability, as far as can be judged across the uncertain historical shadows of seventy years (we are far from accepting as proved all the charges of extortion and corruption made against him); it was yet during his rule that one of the most disastrous mistakes made during England's rule in South Africa took place; and, in truth, his rule in South Africa may be said to have been one long blunder.
Gracious and obliging to those who submitted absolutely to his own will, he was a man oppressive and overbearing to all who resisted his own views. Devoid of imagination and wide human sympathies, he, in common with certain later representatives of England in South Africa, failed entirely to understand the nature of the people he came to govern, the land they lived in, or the conditions evoked by the unique combination of land and people; and the results of his rule were evil for South Africa, and yet more disastrous for England.