Do they know, that when these holy and victorious men have thus conquered all the difficulties they calculated upon, and seen, by God’s blessing, the savage reclaimed, the idolater convinced, the wilderness turned into a garden, and arts, commerce, and refined life rising around them, a more terrible enemy has appeared in the shape of European, and chiefly English corruption? That out of that England—whence they had carried such beneficent gifts, such magnificent powers of good—have come pouring swarms of lawless vagabonds worse than the Spaniards, and worse than the Buccaneers of old, and have threatened all their works with destruction? Do they know that in South Africa, where Smidt, Vanderkemp, Philip, Read, Kay and others, have done such wonders, and raised the Hottentot, once pronounced the lowest of the human species, and the Caffre, not long since styled the most savage, into the most faithful Christians and most respectable men; and in those beautiful islands that Ellis and Williams have described in such paradisiacal colours, that roving crews of white men are carrying everywhere the most horrible demoralization, that every shape of European crime is by them exhibited to the astonished people—murder, debauchery, the most lawless violence in person and property; and that the liquid fire which, from many a gin-shop in our own great towns, burns out the industry, the providence, the moral sense, and the life of thousands of our own people, is there poured abroad by these monsters with the same fatal effect? Whoever does not know this, is ignorant of one of the most fearful and gigantic evils which beset the course of human improvement, and render abortive a vast amount of the funds so liberally supplied, and the labours so nobly undergone, in the cause of Christianity. Whoever does not know this, should moreover refer to the Parliamentary Report of 1837, on the Aboriginal Tribes.
The limits which I have devoted to a brief history of the treatment of these tribes by the European nations have been heavily pressed upon by the immense mass of our crimes and cruelties, and I must now necessarily make a hasty march across the scenes here alluded to; but enough will be seen to arouse astonishment, and indicate the necessity of counter-agencies of the most impulsive kind.
The Dutch have been applauded by various historians for the justice and mildness which they manifested towards the natives of their Cape colony. This may have been the case at their first entrance in 1652, and until they had purchased a certain quantity of land for their new settlement with a few bottles of brandy and some toys. It was their commercial policy, in the language of the old school of traders, to “first creep and then go.” It was in the same assumed mildness that they insinuated themselves into the spice islands of India. Nothing, however, is more certain than that in about a century they had possessed themselves of all the Hottentot territories, and reduced the Hottentots themselves to a state of the most abject servitude. The Parliamentary Report just alluded to, describes the first governor, Van Riebeck, in the very first year of the settlement, looking over the mud-walls of his fortress on “the cattle of the natives, and wondering at the ways of Providence that could bestow such very fine gifts on heathens.” It also presents us with two very characteristic extracts from his journal at this moment.
“December 13th, 1652.—To-day the Hottentots came with thousands of cattle and sheep close to our fort, so that their cattle nearly mixed with ours. We feel vexed to see so many fine head of cattle, and not to be able to buy to any considerable extent. If it had been indeed allowed, we had opportunity to-day to deprive them of 10,000 head, which, however, if we obtain orders to that effect, can be done at any time, and even more conveniently, because they will have greater confidence in us. With 150 men, 10,000 or 11,000 head of black cattle might be obtained without danger of losing one man; and many savages might be taken without resistance, in order to be sent as slaves to India, as they still always come to us unarmed.
“December 18.—To-day the Hottentots came again with thousands of cattle close to the fort. If no further trade is to be expected with them, what would it matter much to take at once 6,000 or 8,000 beasts from them? There is opportunity enough for it, as they are not strong in number, and very timid; and since not more than two or three men often graze a thousand cattle close to our cannon, who might be easily cut off, and as we perceive they place very great confidence in us, we allure them still with show of friendship to make them the more confident. It is vexatious to see so much cattle, so necessary for the refreshment of the Honourable Company’s ships, of which it is not every day that any can be obtained by friendly trade.”
It is sufficiently clear that no nice scruples of conscience withheld Governor Van Riebeck from laying hand on 10 or 11,000 cattle, or blowing a few of the keepers away with his cannons.
The system of oppression, adds the Report, thus began, never slackened till the Hottentot nation were cut off, and the small remnant left were reduced to abject bondage. From all the accounts we have seen respecting the Hottentot population, it could not have been less than 200,000, but at present they are said to be only 32,000 in number.
In 1702 the Governor and Council stated their inability to restrain the plunderings and outrages of the colonists upon the natives, on the plea that such an act would implicate and ruin half the colony; and in 1798, Barrow, in his Travels in Southern Africa, thus describes their condition:—“Some of their villages might have been expected to remain in this remote and not very populous part of the colony. Not one, however, was to be found. There is not, in fact, in the whole district of Graaff Reynet, a single horde of independent Hottentots, and perhaps not a score of individuals who are not actually in the service of the Dutch. These weak people—the most helpless, and, in their present condition, perhaps the most wretched of the human race,—duped out of their possessions, their country, and their liberty, have entailed upon their miserable offspring a state of existence to which that of slavery might bear the comparison of happiness. It is a condition, however, not likely to continue to a very remote posterity. Their numbers, of late years, have been rapidly on the decline. It has generally been observed, that where Europeans have colonized, the less civilized nations have always dwindled away, and at length totally disappeared.... There is scarcely an instance of cruelty said to have been committed against the slaves in the West Indian islands, that could not find a parallel from the Dutch farmers towards the Hottentots in their service. Beating and cutting with thongs of the sea-cow (hippopotamus), or rhinoceros, are only gentle punishments; though those sort of whips, which they call sjambocs, are most horrid instruments, being tough, pliant, and heavy almost as lead. Firing small shot into the legs and thighs of a Hottentot is a punishment not unknown to some of the monsters who inhabit the neighbourhood of Camtoos. By a resolution of the old government, a boor was allowed to claim as his property, till the age of twenty-five, all the children of the Hottentots to whom he had given in their infancy a morsel of meat. At the expiration of this period, the odds are two to one that the slave is not emancipated; but should he be fortunate enough to escape at this period, the best part of his life has been spent in a profitless servitude, and he is turned adrift without any thing he can call his own, except the sheep-skin on his back.”