Chapter VI: The Dutch in Africa

Although, as will be seen in a succeeding chapter, British seamen
were the first adventurers of other nationalities to follow the
Portuguese in the exploration of the African coasts, the Dutch, as
settlers and colonists, are almost entitled to rank chronologically
next to the Portuguese and Spanish. The Dutch made their first
trading voyage to the Guinea Coast in 1595, 16 years after throwing
off the yoke of Spain. On the plea of warring with the Spanish
Empire, which then included Portugal, they displaced the latter
power at various places along the West coast of Africa—at Arguin, at
Goree (off Dakar, purchased from the natives 1621), Elmina (1637),
and at Saõ Paulo de Loanda about the same time; while they three
times threatened Moçambique on the East coast (1604, 1607, 1662),
and possessed themselves of the island of Mauritius (1598), which
had been a place of call for Portuguese ships. Mauritius, discovered
in 1505 by the Portuguese sea-captain, Mascarenhas (after whom the
“Mascarene” Islands—the Mauritius-Réunion-Rodriguez groups—have been
named), was uninhabited at the time and possessed enormous
quantities of a large and monstrous ground fruit-pigeon, the Dodo,
which the Dutch sailors and their imported herds of swine
exterminated in the course of about a hundred years. On the West
coast of Africa, besides supplanting the Portuguese, the Dutch
established themselves strongly on the Gold Coast by means of 16 new
forts of their own[86], in most cases alongside British settlements,
which were regarded by the Dutch with the keenest jealousy.

Dutch hold on the Gold Coast was responsible for an enormous
increase of the Slave Trade between West Africa and America and is
the reason why such a large proportion of the United States, West
Indian, and Guiana negroes are of Ashanti (Coromanti, Kormantyn) and
Fanti descent; as is evident from their folk-lore, legends and the
linguistic evidence of their dialects. The Dutch were not loath to
mingle their blood with that of the Gold Coast negroes; and their
long occupancy of these forts produced an impression in the shape of
a race of Dutch half-castes, which endures to this day, and
furnishes useful employés to the British Government in many minor
capacities. But after the abolition of the slave trade Dutch
commerce with the Guinea Coast began to wane, and their political
influence disappeared also; so that by 1872 the last of the Dutch
ports had been transferred to Great Britain in return for the
cession on our part of rights we possessed over Sumatra. Meantime
Dutch trade had begun to take firm hold over the Congo and Angola
Coast; and it is possible that, had the cession of the Gold Coast
forts been delayed a few years longer, it would never have been
made, for Holland possesses a considerable trade with Africa, and
there has been a strong feeling of regret in the Netherlands for
some time past at the exclusion of that country’s flag from the
African continent.

But a far more important colonization than a foothold on the
Slave-trade Coast was made indirectly for Holland in the middle of
the 17th century; the Dutch East India Company, desirous of making
the Cape of Good Hope something more than a port of call, which
might fall into the hands of Portugal, France, England, or any other
rival, decided to occupy that important station. The Dutch had taken
possession of St Helena in 1645; but a Dutch ship having been
wrecked at Table Bay in 1648, the crew landed, and encamped where
Cape Town now stands. Here they were obliged to live for five
months, until picked up by other Dutch ships; but during this period
they sowed and reaped grain, and obtained plenty of meat from the
natives, with whom they were on good terms. The favourable report
they gave of this country on their return to Holland decided the
Dutch Company, after years of hesitation, to take possession of
Table Bay. An expedition was sent out under Jan van Riebeek, a
ship’s surgeon, who had already visited South Africa. The three
ships of Van Riebeek’s expedition reached Table Bay on the 6th of
April, 1652[87].

At different periods in the early part of the 16th century the Dutch
had consolidated their sea-going ventures into two great chartered
companies—the Dutch Company of the West Indies, and the Dutch
Company of the East Indies. The West Indian Company took over all
the settlements on the West Coast of Africa, and had the monopoly of
trade or rule along all the Atlantic Coast of tropical America. The
East India Company was to possess the like monopoly from the Pacific
Coast of South America across the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good
Hope. The head-quarters of the East India Company, where their
Governor-General and Council were established, was at Batavia, in
the island of Java. It was not at first intended to establish
anything like a colony in South Africa—merely a secure place of call
for the ships engaged in the East Indian trade. But circumstances
proved too strong for this modest reserve. The inevitable quarrel
arose between the Dutch garrison at Table Bay and the surrounding
Hottentots. At the time of the Dutch settlement of the Cape all the
south-west corner of Africa was inhabited only and sparsely by
Hottentots and Bushmen; the prolific Bantu Negroes not coming nearer
to the Dutch than the vicinity of Algoa Bay. A little war occurred
with the Hottentots in 1659, as a result of which the Dutch first
won by fighting, and subsequently bought, a small coast strip of
land from Saldanha Bay on the north to False Bay on the south, thus
securing the peninsula which terminates at the Cape of Good Hope.
French sailing vessels were in the habit of calling at Saldanha Bay;
and in 1666 and 1670 desultory attempts were made by the French to
establish a footing there. Holland also about this time was
alternately at war with England or France or both powers. Therefore
the Dutch resolved to build forts more capable of resisting European
attack than those which were sufficient to defend the colony against
Hottentots. Still, in spite of occasional unprovoked hostilities on
the part of the Dutch, they were left in undisturbed possession of
the Cape of Good Hope for more than a hundred years. The English had
St Helena as a place of call (which they took from the Dutch in
1655); and the French had settlements in Madagascar and at
Mauritius, where they succeeded a former Dutch occupation. On the
other hand, the officials of the Dutch Company were instructed to
show civility to all comers without undue generosity; they might
supply them with water for their ships, but they were to give as
little as possible in the way of provisions and ships’ stores. It
was to the interest of both France and England that some European
settlement should exist at the Cape of Good Hope for the refreshment
of vessels and the refuge of storm-driven ships. After several
attempts, which continued down to 1673, to dispossess the English of
St Helena, the Dutch finally surrendered the island to them. They
had also in 1598 taken the Island of Mauritius, and commenced a
definite occupation in 1640. But this island was abandoned in 1710,
and became soon afterwards a French possession. So that the French
at Mauritius on the one hand (and also on the Island of Bourbon, now
called Réunion) and the English on the other at St Helena, had
places of call where they could break the long voyage to and from
India, and were therefore content to leave the Dutch East India
Company in full possession of South Africa.

The Government of the Netherlands East India Company was thoroughly
despotic. It was administered by a Chamber of 17 directors at
Amsterdam, with deputies at Batavia. The Commandant at the Cape, who
was under the orders of Amsterdam and Batavia alternately and might
be overruled by any officer of superior rank who called at his
station in passing, was the slave of the Company and had to carry
out its orders implicitly. He was advised in his local legislation
by an executive council, consisting of a number of officers who
assisted him in the administration, and legislating by means of
proclamations and orders-in-council without any representation of
popular opinion among the colonists, who, however, in time were
allowed to elect members of the Council of Justice or High Court.

After the first three years’ hesitation, strenuous efforts were
directed to the development of agriculture, especially the
cultivation of grain. Wheat was sown in suitable localities, and
vines and willows were planted by the banks of streams on the
hillsides at the back of Cape Town. Nevertheless the colonists were
terribly hampered by restrictions, which made them almost slaves to
the Company. White labour proving expensive and somewhat rebellious,
an attempt was made to introduce negro slaves from Angola and
Moçambique, but they were not a success as field labourers. The
Dutch therefore turned towards Madagascar, and above all, to the
Malay Archipelago; and from the latter especially workers were
introduced who have in time grown into a separate population of
Muhammadan freemen of considerable prosperity[88]. As Dutch
immigrants still held back from settling the Cape with an abundant
population (owing to the greed and despotic meddlesomeness of the
Company), it became more and more necessary to introduce black
labour; and in the first half of the 18th century many negro slaves
were imported from the Gold Coast and from Moçambique. The Cape
became a slave-worked colony, but on the whole the slaves were
treated with kindness; their children were sent to school, and some
attempt was made to introduce Christianity amongst them. The people
really to be pitied, however, were not the imported slaves, but the
Hottentots, who had become a nation of serfs to the Dutch farmers,
and whose numbers began greatly to diminish under the influence of
drink and syphilis, and through their being driven away from the
fertile, well-watered lands back into the inhospitable deserts. In
1682, after the colony had been established 30 years, a census
showed a total of 663 Dutch settlers, of whom 162 were under age or
children. For about the same period few if any attempts were made to
explore the country 100 miles from Cape Town; but the coast from
Little Namakwaland on the west to Zululand on the east had been
examined by the end of the 17th century. Indeed the Bay of Natal was
purchased by a representative of the Netherlands Company in 1689;
but the ship bringing back the purchase deed was lost, and no
further attempt was made to push the claim. In 1684 the first export
of grain to the Indies took place, and in 1688 some Cape wine was
sent to Ceylon. In 1685 and in subsequent years representations were
made to the directors in Amsterdam that the colony consisted mainly
of bachelors, and that good marriageable girls should be sent out.
The result of this appeal was that in 1687 many of the free Burghers
(namely, persons more or less independent of the Company) had been
furnished with wives; and they and their families amounted to nearly
600, in addition to 439 other Europeans, who were mainly employés of
the Company.

In 1685, Louis XIV unwittingly dealt a fearful blow to France in the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which resulted in thousands of
French Protestants emigrating to other countries where they might
enjoy freedom of religion. The Protestant Dutch sympathized with the
homeless Huguenots; and the Netherlands Company decided to give free
passages and grants of land to a number of these refugees. By 1689
nearly 200 French emigrants had been landed at the Cape and settled
in the mountain country behind Cape Town. Here, however, they were
not allowed to form a separate community. They were scattered
amongst the Dutch settlers, their children were taught Dutch, and in
a few years they were thoroughly absorbed in the Dutch community;
though they have left ineffaceable traces of their presence in the
many French surnames to be met with amongst the South African Dutch
at the present day (always pronounced however in the Dutch way), and
in the dark eyes, dark hair, and handsome features so often seen in
the best-looking type of Boer. Handsomer men and women than are some
of the Afrikanders it would be impossible to meet with; but this
personal beauty is usually traceable to Huguenot ancestry. The
French settlers taught the Dutch improved methods of growing corn
and wine, and altogether more scientific agriculture. Towards the
latter end of the 17th century the Dutch introduced the oak tree
into the Cape Peninsula and the suburbs of Cape Town, where it is
now such a handsome and prominent feature. All this time the
Hottentots gave almost no trouble. They were employed here and there
as servants; but they attempted no insurrection against the European
settlers, though they quarrelled very much amongst themselves. In
1713 large numbers of them were exterminated by an epidemic of
smallpox. The Dutch had not yet come into contact with the so-called
Kaffirs[89].

Towards the middle of the 18th century the Dutch Company ceased to
prosper, suffering from French and English competition. Already, at
the beginning of the 18th century, its oppressive rule, and the
abuse of power on the part of its governors, who used its authority
and its servants to enrich themselves, resulted in an uprising
amongst the settlers; and although some of these were arrested,
imprisoned, and exiled, the Company gave some redress to their
grievances by forbidding its officials in future to own land or to
trade. Even before this the Company had found it necessary to place
a special official, answering to an Auditor-General and an
independent judge combined, alongside the Commandant or Governor,
directly responsible to the Directors and independent of the
Governor’s authority; but this institution only led to quarrels and
divided loyalty. Amongst the governors there were some able and
upright men; and special mention may be made of Governor Tulbagh,
who ruled without reproach and with great ability for twenty years
(1751-71)[90].

In spite of licences and monopolies, tithes, taxes, and rents, the
Company could not pay its way in Cape Colony. In 1779, it was more
closely associated with the State in Holland by the appointment of
the Stadhouder (or Head of the State) as perpetual Chief Director.
With this change, the Company, partly supported by the State,
managed to continue the direction of its affairs; and there was
possibly some lessening of restrictions, which enabled settlers to
live further afield. Until the beginning of the 18th century a
standing order had forbidden trading between the settlers and the
natives; but this order being abolished, the farmers commenced to
buy cattle from the Hottentots, and the population became more
scattered. In leasing land to the farmers the Company laid down the
rule that clear spaces of three miles should intervene between one
homestead and the next; and this rule brought about a wider
distribution of European settlers than was contemplated in the
Company’s policy.

By the beginning of the 18th century the Dutch settlers had begun to
cross the mountains which lie behind the narrow belt of coast land
that forms a projection into the ocean on either side of the Cape of
Good Hope. Seventy years later the boundaries of Cape Colony on the
north and west were the Berg River and the Zwartebergen Mountains,
and on the east the Gamtoos River. A few years later the pioneers of
colonization had crossed the Berg River, and had established
themselves as far north as the Olifants River, so named because
earlier explorers had seen on its banks herds of hundreds of
elephants. The Orange River was first discovered in 1760; and in
1779 Captain Gordon, a Scotchman in the service of the Dutch
Company, had traced it for some distance down to its mouth, and had
named it after the head of the Dutch State. Hitherto, the Dutch
Government was confined to a narrow coast strip; but in 1785 the
district of Graaf Reinet[91] was formed, and the same name was given
to the village which formed its capital. Then the Dutch boundary
crept up to the Great Fish River, which rises far away to the north,
near the course of the Orange River. This Great Fish River remained
the easternmost boundary of the Colony in Dutch times. To the north
its limits were vague, and in one direction reached nearly to the
Orange River, beyond the second great range of South African
mountains—the Sneeubergen. But beyond the immediate limits of Cape
Colony the Dutch displayed some interest in the fate of South-East
Africa. They opened up a furtive and occasional trade with the
Portuguese coast of East Africa, which at first began for slaves
(numbers of Makua were brought from Moçambique to Cape Town), was
continued for tropical products, and, with many interruptions,
resulted in the establishment at the present day of important Dutch
commercial firms along the Mozambique coast. In 1720, after the
evacuation of Mauritius, an expedition was sent from Cape Colony to
Delagoa Bay, which, though claimed by the Portuguese, had been
abandoned by them at the beginning of the 18th century, so far as
actual occupation was concerned (see p. 110). A fort was built by
the Dutch which was named Lydzaamheid; and tentative explorations
were made in the direction of the Zambezi, from which gold dust was
procured. During ten years of occupation, however, the deaths from
fever were so numerous that the settlement was given up in 1730.

In 1770 the total European population in Cape Colony was nearly
10,000, of whom more than 8000 were free colonists, and the
remainder “servants” and employés of the Company. All this time,
although the prosperity of the Cape increased and its export of
wheat, wine, and live-stock progressed satisfactorily, the revenue
invariably failed to meet the expenditure; and, if other events had
not occurred, the Dutch Company must soon have been compelled by
bankruptcy to transfer the administration of the Cape to other
hands. But towards the close of the 18th century, the Dutch, too
weak to resist the influence of France and Russia, were showing
veiled hostility towards England, with the result that England—which
on the other hand was secretly longing to possess the Cape, owing to
the development of the British Empire in India—declared war against
the Netherlands at the end of 1780. In 1781 a British fleet under
Commodore Johnstone left England for the Cape of Good Hope with 3000
troops on board. Johnstone, however, from storms and other reasons
not so apparent, but possibly due to a certain indecision of mind,
delayed his fleet at Porto Praya, in the Cape Verde Islands; and
news of the expedition having been treacherously imparted to France
by persons in England who were in her pay, Admiral Suffren—one of
the greatest of sea-fighters—surprised the British fleet at the Cape
Verde Islands with a squadron of inferior strength, and gave it such
a sound drubbing that Johnstone was delayed for several months in
reaching Cape Town, where the French had preceded him, and had
landed sufficient men to make a British attack on Cape Town of
doubtful success. Johnstone therefore contented himself in a not
very creditable way with destroying the unarmed Dutch shipping in
the port, and then left Cape Town without effecting a landing. The
result was the garrisoning of Cape Town by a French regiment for two
more years, during which time however another attempt was made by
the British to seize the Cape, which was nearly successful. In the
course of this war, however, England apparently made up her mind
that the possession of the Cape of Good Hope and of Trinkomali in
Ceylon was necessary to the welfare of her Indian possessions, and
did not lose sight of this policy when the next legitimate
opportunity presented itself to make war upon Holland. On the other
hand, the French, though they withdrew their troops in 1783, were
equally alive to the importance of the Cape; and in the great duel
which was to take place between the two nations it is tolerably
certain that South Africa would never have remained in the hands of
the Dutch; if it had not become English it would have been taken and
kept by the French.

About this time the Dutch came into conflict with the Kafirs. This
vanguard of the great Bantu race had been invading southern Africa
almost concurrently with the white people. Coming from the
north-east and north they had—we may guess—crossed the Zambezi about
the 6th century of the Christian Era; and their invasion had brought
about the partial destruction and abandonment of the Sabaean and
Arab settlements in the gold-mining districts of south-east Africa.
The Semitic inhabitants of Zimbabwe and other mining centres had
been driven back to the coast at Sofala. The progress of the black
Bantu against the now more concentrated Hottentots and Bushmen was
then somewhat slower, delayed no doubt by natural obstacles, by the
desperate defence of the Hottentots, the tracts of waterless country
on the west, and internecine warfare amongst themselves. Overlying
the first three divisions of Bantu invaders there came down across
the Zambezi from the districts of Tanganyika the great Zulu race,
akin to the Bechuana-Basuto people who had preceded them, but less
mixed with Hottentot blood, and speaking a peculiar Bantu
language[92]. By the beginning of the 18th century this seventh
wave—as one may call it—of Bantu invasion had swept as far south as
the Great Kei River, and some years later had pushed the Hottentots
back to the Great Fish River. In 1778 they came into direct contact
with the Dutch; and the Governor of the Cape entered into an
agreement with the Kafir chiefs that the Great Fish River should be
the boundary between Dutch rule and Kafir settlement. Nevertheless,
this agreement was soon transgressed by the Kafirs, who commenced
raiding the Dutch settlers. In 1781 the first Kafir war ended
disastrously for the Bantu invaders, who were driven back for a time
to the Kei River. Eight years later they again invaded Cape Colony.
A policy of conciliation was adopted, which ended by the Kafirs
being allowed to settle on the Dutch side of the Great Fish River in
1789.

In 1790 the Netherlands East India Company was practically bankrupt;
and in the following year (when it was computed that the European
population of the Cape numbered 14,600 persons, owning 17,000
slaves) the Dutch Governor was recalled to Europe, and the country
was for a year left in a state of administrative chaos, until two
Commissioners, sent out by the States General, arrived and took over
the government. But the next year these Commissioners went on to
Batavia; and the Burghers of the interior districts became so
dissatisfied with the mismanagement of affairs that they expelled
their magistrates and took the administration of their district into
their own hands, calling themselves “Nationals,” and becoming to
some degree infected with the spirit of the French Revolution.
Meantime, in the same year, 1793, the Dutch Government had joined
England and Prussia in making war upon France. Two years afterwards,
in 1795, the French troops occupied Holland, and turned it into the
Batavian Republic, a state in alliance with France. The Prince of
Orange, hereditary Stadhouder of the Netherlands, fled to England;
and in the spring of 1795 he authorized the British Government to
occupy Cape Colony on behalf of the States General in order to
obviate its seizure by the French. In June 1795 a British fleet
carrying troops commanded by General Craig arrived at False Bay. The
Dutch were not very willing to surrender Cape Town at the first
demand, even though the interior of the country was in revolt
against the Company. Both the officer administering the Company’s
Government and the dissatisfied Burghers sank their differences in
opposition to the landing of the British. The latter were anxious to
avoid hostilities, and therefore spent a month in negotiations; but
on the 14th of July the British forcibly occupied Simons Town, and
three weeks later drove the Dutch from a position they had taken up
near Cape Town. In September 3000 more troops arrived under General
Clarke, and in the middle of that month marched on Cape Town from
the south-east. A capitulation was finally arranged after an attack
and a defence which had been half-hearted. Thenceforth for eight
years the English occupied Cape Town and administered the adjoining
colony. At first their rule was military, just, and satisfactory;
afterwards, when a civilian governor was sent out, a system of
corruption and favouritism was introduced which caused much
dissatisfaction. The British also had made it known that they only
held the colony in trust for the Stadhouder; and this made the Dutch
settlers uncertain as to their allegiance. Meantime, however, the
British administration gave some satisfaction to the settlers by its
policy of free trade and open markets, and by certain reliefs in
taxation; also by the institution of a Burgher Senate of six
members. But the Boers of the interior remained for some time
recalcitrant. The Dutch, moreover, made an attempt to regain
possession of the Cape by dispatching a fleet of nine ships with
2000 men on board, which, however, was made to surrender at Saldanha
Bay by Admiral Elphinstone and General Craig without firing a shot.
Kafir raids recommenced; and the British having organized a
Hottentot corps of police, the other Hottentots who were serfs to
the Dutch rose in insurrection against their former masters. When in
1803 the British evacuated Cape Town, they did not leave the colony
in a sufficiently satisfactory condition to encourage the Dutch
settlers to opt for British rule. From 1803 to 1806 the Dutch
Government ruled Cape Colony as a colony, and not as the appendage
of a Chartered company, which had now disappeared. The Cape ceased
to be subordinate to Batavia, and possessed a Governor and Council
of its own. A check was placed on the importation of slaves, and
European immigration was encouraged. Postal communication and the
administration of justice were organized or improved. In fact, the
Commissioner-General De Mist and Governor Janssens, in the two years
and nine months of their rule, laid the foundations of an excellent
system of colonial government. But the march of events was too
strong for them. The great minister Pitt, in the summer of 1805,
secretly organized an expedition which should carry nearly 7000
troops to seize the Cape. In spite of delays and storms, this fleet
reached Table Bay at the beginning of January, 1806. Six British
regiments were landed 18 miles north of Cape Town. Governor Janssens
went out to meet them with such poor forces as he could gather
together—2000 in all against 4000 British. The result of course was
disastrous to the Dutch, whose soldiers mainly consisted of
half-hearted German mercenaries. On the 16th of January, Cape Town
surrendered; and after some futile resistance by Janssens in the
interior, a capitulation was signed on January 18, and Janssens and
the Dutch soldiers were sent back to the Netherlands by the British
Government.

By a Convention dated August 13, 1814, the Dutch Government with the
Prince of Orange at its head ceded Cape Colony and the American
possession of Demerara to Great Britain against the payment of
£6,000,000, which was made either by the actual tendering of money
to the Dutch Government, or the wiping off of Dutch debts.

On the other hand, the surrender of the Cape to Great Britain
induced the latter power to give back to Holland most of the Dutch
possessions in the East Indies, which we had seized and administered
during the Napoleonic wars. If Holland lost South Africa—which she
had only directly ruled for three years—she was enabled by the
British attitude of self-denial to build up an empire in the East
only second in wealth and population to the Asiatic dominions of
Great Britain.

Yet, in an indirect fashion, Dutch Africa exists still, though the
flag of Holland no longer waves over any portion of African soil as
a ruling power. The old rivalry between the English and the Dutch,
which had begun almost as soon as the Dutch were a free people, and
competitors with us for the trade of the East and West Indies, had
created a feeling of enmity between the two races, which ought never
to have existed, seeing how nearly they are of the same stock, and
how closely allied in language, religion, and to some extent in
history—also how nearly matched they are in physical and mental
worth. Curiously enough, there is far greater affinity in thought
and character between the Scotch and the Dutch than between the
Dutch and the English. The same thriftiness, bordering at times on
parsimony, oddly combined with the largest-hearted hospitality, the
same tendency to strike a hard bargain, even to overreach in matters
of business, and the same dogged perseverance, characterize both
Dutch and Scotch; while in matters of religion, almost precisely the
same form of Protestant Christianity appeals to both; so much so,
that there is practically a fusion between the Dutch Reformed Church
and the Presbyterians. Had Scotchmen been sent out to administer
Cape Colony in its early days, it is probable that something like a
fusion of races might have taken place, and there would have been no
Dutch question to cause dissension in South African politics in the
19th century. The Scotch would have understood the Boer settlers and
their idiosyncracies, and would not have made fun of them or been so
deliberately unsympathetic as were some of the earlier English
governors. Slavery would have been abolished all the same, but it
would have been abolished more cautiously, in a way that would not
have left behind the sting of a grievance. But after Cape Colony had
been definitely ceded to Great Britain, its governors in the early
days were mostly Englishmen, who, though often able and just men,
were at little pains to understand the peculiarities of the Boer
character, and to conciliate these suspicious, uneducated farmers.
Another source of trouble was the influx of British missionaries,
who found much to condemn in the Dutch treatment of the natives,
which resembled that in vogue amongst Britons of the previous
century, before the spirit of philanthropy was abroad. Some of these
missionaries, it is true, were Scotchmen, though belonging to
Protestant sects of more distinctly English character. At any rate,
the missionaries no doubt had so much right on their side in
condemning the Boers for their conduct towards the natives, that
their feelings in this respect overcame their national affinity for
the Dutch. The Boer settler at no time showed that fiendish cruelty
to the natives he was dispossessing which was, and is, so terribly
characteristic of the Spanish colonization of Mexico or northern
South America, or of some of the English, French, and Portuguese
adventurers on the West coast of Africa in the 17th century; but he
was determined to make of the native a serf, and denied him the
rights of a man like unto himself. If the native revolted against
this attitude he was exterminated in a businesslike fashion; but if
he submitted, as did most of the Hottentots, he was treated with
patriarchal kindness and leniency. The Dutch settlers appear from
the first to have dissociated their dealings with the Hottentots
from their ordinary code of morals. It was not thought dishonest to
cheat them, not thought illegal to rob them, not thought immoral to
use their women as concubines. So entirely without scruples were the
Dutch on this last point, that whole races arose, and have since
become nations likely to survive and prosper, whose origin was the
illicit union of Dutch men and Hottentot women. These “bastards,” as
they were frankly called, were well treated by the Dutch; they were
not disowned, were usually converted to Christianity, and were
taught to lead a more or less civilized life and to talk the Dutch
language, which they speak in a corrupt form at the present day. In
short, the morals of the South African Dutch were the morals of the
Old Testament, as were those of Cromwell’s soldiers; and in this and
many other modes of thought the Dutch Afrikanders lived still in the
17th century, whereas the British missionaries were of the early
19th, in the red-hot glow of its as yet disillusioned and somewhat
frothy philanthropy. The Dutch settlers were denounced at Exeter
Hall and on every missionary platform; and the fact that many of the
accusations were true in great measure did not make them more
palatable to the accused.

As the Government policy at the Cape was for the first half of the
century greatly influenced by the missionary societies, the Dutch
with some justice regarded these attacks and recriminations as
directly emanating from the British Government, and hence withdrew
from or rebelled against our rule. The dissentient, dissatisfied
Boers began to trek away from the settled portion of Cape Colony
into the wilderness behind, where they might still lead the
pleasant, unfettered, patriarchal life they had grown to love. They
travelled beyond the Orange River, which had come to be the northern
limit of British influence, and, avoiding the deserts of
Bechuanaland, passed north-eastwards into the better-watered
territories now known as the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.
They also sought a way out towards the sea in what is now the colony
of Natal. Here they came into conflict first with the Kafirs and
Basuto on the west, and then with the Zulus on the east. The former
were to some extent under British protection; therefore the British
Government was ready to espouse their cause if they were unjustly
dealt with. The Zulus, on the other hand, were strong enough and
numerous enough to prevent a Boer settlement on their land.
Nevertheless, the Boer invasion of Natal from the north was at that
time a transgression into territory recently conquered and
depopulated by one of the most abominable shedders of blood that
ever arose amongst Negro tyrants—Chaka, the second[93] king of the
Zulus. This latter saw the danger, and lured the pioneers of the
Boers into a position where he was able to massacre them at his
ease. With splendid gallantry—one’s blood tingles with admiration as
one reads the record of it—the few remaining Boers mustered their
forces and avenged this dastardly murder by a drastic defeat of the
Zulus. But this was in the early forties, when British adventurers,
more or less discouraged or unencouraged by the Home Government, had
founded a coast settlement in Natal, on the site of what is now the
town of Durban. The usual shilly-shally on the part of the British
Government misled the Boers into thinking that they could maintain
themselves in Natal against our wishes. As they had further broken
an agreement with us by attacking the Basuto and the Kafirs, a
British force was despatched against them in 1842, which, after a
brief struggle, induced them to capitulate. Natal was then secured
as a British colony, and the Boers with bitter disappointment had to
seek their independent state to the north of the Orange River. But
here also they were followed up; and, had the Governor of the
Cape—Sir George Grey—been supported from Downing Street, the Orange
River sovereignty would never have become the Orange Free State, and
it is probable that even the territory beyond the Vaal River might
in like manner have been subjected to British control.

But Downing Street for eighty years after the cession of the Cape of
Good Hope persistently mismanaged South African affairs, now blowing
hot with undue heat, now blowing cold, and nipping wise enterprise
in the bud. The action of the Governor was repudiated, and the Sand
River Convention unratified. In the most formal manner the Boers
north of the Orange River were accorded absolute independence,
subject to certain provisions about slavery; and the like privilege
had been previously accorded to those who had further trekked across
the Vaal River at a time when the Orange River State was likely to
become a British Colony. So, from 1852 and 1854 respectively[94],
the South African Dutch formed two states entirely independent of
British rule in their internal affairs, and very slightly in their
external relations. The Orange Free State, which contained a
considerable British element dating from the period of British
sovereignty, had latterly an uneventful career of steady
prosperity[95], due in large measure to the wisdom of its chief
magistrates. When the diamond fields were discovered on its borders
towards the end of the “sixties” it had some cause for complaint
against the British Government, since, taking advantage of the
undefined rights of a Grikwa (Bastard Hottentot) chief, the British
extended their rule over this arid territory north of the Orange
River, which was suddenly found to be worth untold millions of
pounds. But the amount of territory under dispute was relatively
small; and, if the British had transgressed their rightful
borderland to some slight degree, they atoned for it by paying the
Orange State an indemnity of £90,000. Great Britain also intervened
several times to prevent the warlike Basuto (who dwell in that
little African Switzerland between the Orange Free State and Natal)
either from raiding the Orange Free State, or from being themselves
raided and conquered by Boer reprisals. Eventually (1882)
Basutoland, whose affairs had been somewhat mismanaged by the Cape
Parliament, was taken under direct imperial control; and ever since
there has been a complete cessation of trouble in that quarter with
the Orange Free State.

The career of the Transvaal Republic was much less successful in its
early days. The territory was vaster, in many places not so healthy;
and the native population, especially in the eastern districts[96],
was turbulent, and strongly averse to accepting Boer rule. The
existence of gold, though occasionally hinted at by unheeded
pioneers, was unknown to the world at large, and absolutely ignored
by the Boers; there was little or no trade, and the European
population was scanty. By 1877 the condition of this state had
become so hopeless, with a bankrupt treasury and the menace of a
Zulu invasion, that it was annexed, somewhat abruptly, by the
Imperial representative, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. No doubt this
step was consonant with the enlightened policy then favoured by the
Imperial Government and subsequently by Sir Bartle Frere, who was to
become Governor of the Cape during the latter part of the late Earl
Carnarvon’s tenancy of the Colonial Office. Lord Carnarvon himself
was resolutely intent on carrying out in Africa south of the Zambezi
a scheme of federation similar to that which had in 1866
consolidated the Dominion of Canada. But the actual method by which
the Transvaal was taken over was not a well considered one; and
unhappily it was followed by the appointment of an officer to rule
over that country whose demeanour was wholly unsympathetic to the
Boer nature. At the end of 1880 the Boers revolted. After a short
military campaign, conspicuous for its utter lack of generalship on
the part of the English, and for the disastrous defeats inflicted on
our forces by the Boers at Lang’s Nek and Majuba Hill, the British
Government of the day (which a few months before had absolutely
refused the Boers’ appeal for the reversal of the annexation)
concluded a hurried armistice, and gave back (1881) its independence
to the Transvaal, subject to a vague suzerainty on the part of the
British Crown, and later on to a British veto which might be
exercised on treaties with foreign powers. The best plea that can be
urged on behalf of this surrender, which subsequent British
Governments have had such cause to regret, was the belief that a
stern prosecution of the war, and the eventual Boer defeat, would
lead to the uprising of the Dutch settlers in Cape Colony and the
intervention of the Orange Free State. It is doubtful whether there
was much foundation for this fear, or whether it would not have been
much easier at that time to settle British supremacy once and for
all over all Africa south of the Zambezi, even if it led to some
degree of internecine fighting; the more so as there would have been
no danger of European intervention at that date. But the chance was
let slip, and the Boers acquired an independence the more justly won
and the less easily disturbed since it was the result of their
sturdy valour.

The restraining conditions of the 1881 Convention were still further
attenuated by the London Convention of February 27, 1884, in which
with further fatuity the Government of the day accorded
unnecessarily to the Transvaal state the extravagant title of “The
South African Republic.” Perhaps this is the most remarkable act of
abnegation which has ever occurred in the history of the British
Empire; and it must have seemed to the inhabitants of British South
Africa like the admission of a rival ruling power into the British
sphere south of the Zambezi. By this 1884 Convention (worthless for
that purpose, as are all treaties and conventions when the force to
maintain them is not apparent) the geographical limits of the
Transvaal state were clearly defined, and the Boers engaged to keep
within them.

Encouraged by this diplomatic success, and the feeble manner in
which the Imperial Government had permitted them to carve out a
fresh state in the heart of Zululand, the Boers of the Transvaal now
determined to add Bechuanaland to their dominions; thus possibly to
cut off British expansion towards the Zambezi, and to make their
western frontier coincident with the natural limits of that
Protectorate which Germany had just established, north of the Orange
River. But public opinion in Great Britain was becoming intolerant
of any further sacrifices of British aspirations in South Africa or
of breaches of faith on the part of the Boers, and forced the
Government of the day to assert itself. A strong expedition was sent
out under Sir Charles Warren at the end of 1884, which finally
secured for Great Britain the Protectorate of Bechuanaland, and the
restraining of the Transvaal within its proper limits. Nevertheless,
in 1894 a fresh concession was made to that state by the withdrawal
of British opposition to its absorption of a little enclave of Zulu
country known as Swaziland. In excuse for the British Government it
must be pointed out that the Swazi chiefs had previously made over
to Transvaal subjects so many rights and concessions that any other
solution than the further cession of the administration was rendered
difficult under the existing conditions. [The detachment of
Swaziland as a small native state, administered by Imperial
officials, was effected in 1902.]

Soon after the conclusion of the London Convention of 1884, the vast
wealth in gold, which for more than ten years back had been asserted
by uneducated pioneers, and denied by mining experts, began to be
made known. The development of the marvellous Witwatersrand brought
about the foundation of Johannesburg, and directed to the Transvaal
an enormous influx of outsiders, mainly English, at any rate mainly
British subjects, though many of them were Jews from England, or
from France and Germany, who had become naturalized British
subjects[97]. Mines were also opened in the east and in the north of
the Transvaal. On the other hand, to counteract the influence of
this British element, the Transvaal Government had almost ever since
its establishment in 1881 been strengthening the Dutch element by
inviting the settlement of Hollanders from the Netherlands, who were
employed in its Government offices, in its schools, its churches,
and on the construction of its railways. These natives of Holland
showed themselves very hostile to British influence; and through
their efforts a great deal of sympathy with the South African Dutch
was aroused in Holland and Germany. On the other hand, the
Outlanders, who settled round Johannesburg and other mining centres
and who soon came to outnumber the Boer element in the Transvaal
population to the extent of five to one, became dissatisfied with
their position under the Boer Government, who ruled them
autocratically, without giving them any voice in the administration
or in the spending of the heavy taxes levied on their industries. It
should be noted that the Boer Government had attempted to wall
itself in from contact with the surrounding British and Portuguese
states by an exceedingly high tariff of import duties, which
rendered many articles of necessity or luxury extremely expensive,
and made civilized life five times dearer than in the adjoining Cape
Colony. It was again the contrast between the very end of the 19th
century and the manners, customs, language, and puritanical religion
of the 17th century.

To some extent this recalcitrant attitude of the Boers was condemned
and deprecated by their much more enlightened brethren, the Cape
Dutch. In time, probably, these latter might have encouraged and
supported the intervention of the Imperial Government in securing
fair terms to the Outlanders; and as these fair terms must have
given the Outlanders a preponderating voice in the Government, the
Transvaal might have been brought within the South African
Federation under the British ægis. But the Right Hon. Cecil John
Rhodes, then Prime Minister of the Cape and Managing Director of the
British South Africa Chartered Company, saw in this discontent at
Johannesburg the means and excuse for his personal intervention in
the Transvaal. He hurried on the movement, and even carried it
beyond the limits indicated by the more disinterested Reformers. The
administrator of the Chartered Company’s territories, Dr Jameson,
invaded the Transvaal (Dec. 29, 1895) with a small force of between
500 and 600 mounted police, and endeavoured to reach Johannesburg,
the centre of unrest, with a half-avowed intention of subsequently
marching on Pretoria, and upsetting the Boer Government. But the
Boer forces intercepted Dr Jameson at Doornkop before he could reach
Johannesburg; and after an engagement in which a few of his men were
killed, and when further progress would have meant annihilation, he
surrendered. The High Commissioner of South Africa hurried to
Johannesburg; Dr Jameson and his officers were handed over to the
British Government to be dealt with, and afterwards underwent a
short term of imprisonment. On the other hand, the reformers of
Johannesburg were treated by the Pretoria Courts with inexcusable
harshness, seeing that they had not taken an active part in Dr
Jameson’s inroad, and had surrendered their city to the Boer
Government. Enormous fines, amounting eventually to nearly half a
million sterling, were inflicted on them, after a somewhat burlesque
trial in which they were condemned to death, only to be subsequently
imprisoned or expelled. For the time being this wanton aggression on
the part of Mr Rhodes alienated all sympathy with the grievances of
the Outlanders, and provoked strong expressions of opinion in
certain European states, who, until they were assured that the
British Government was dissociated with Mr Rhodes’ scheme, were not
unnaturally prone to imagine that their own territories in Africa
might some day be exposed to a British raid. The immediate outcome,
therefore, of this ill-advised action on the part of the Cape
Premier (though that official was admittedly actuated by the same
desire which has inspired some British statesmen, to bring about the
Britannicizing of all Africa south of the Zambezi) was the
strengthening and intensifying of the separatist character of the
two Dutch republics still existing in South Africa. The Orange Free
State concluded (1896) an offensive and defensive alliance with the
South African Republic (Transvaal); and enormous quantities of arms,
ammunition, and modern artillery were imported into Dutch South
Africa _via_ Lourenço Marquez (Delagoa Bay) and the new railway[98].
It was believed that eventually war must break out with Great
Britain, but that probably one or more European powers would
intervene and attack Great Britain, thus paralysing her striking
force in South Africa; that the Cape Dutch would rise and contribute
a quota of 30,000 men to the 80,000 to 90,000 of the Boer States; in
short that the future of South Africa lay with the Dutch element.
War was declared on Great Britain on October 11, 1899. Amazing
victories at first fell to the Boer generals, but Europe did not
intervene, nor did more than 8000 Cape Dutch join their Boer
brothers. The tide of victory having turned in favour of the
British, Bloemfontein, Pretoria and Komatipoort (the frontier
station of the Delagoa Bay railway) were occupied between May and
September 1900. President Kruger fled to Holland, and the two
republics were annexed to British South Africa. Though the war did
not end till the peace of Vereeniging in May, 1902, the last year of
the nineteenth century saw the extinction of any independent Dutch
State in Africa. Yet soon after the conclusion of this peace
responsible government was once more granted to the reconstituted
states of the Orange River and the Transvaal in 1906-7. The
last-named, however, was deprived of Swaziland and of its province
of northern Zululand, which last was added to Natal. The Union of
South Africa (Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal and Natal)
followed in 1910; and the first Prime Minister of Dutch and
English-speaking South Africa was General Louis Botha, a leading
general of the disbanded Boer army. These brave, sturdy Boers have
played a great part in Africa, a part of which, Holland—the country
which first colonized South Africa—may well be proud. The South
African Dutch are so near to our own blood and tongue, and history,
that we may, without any more sting of bitterness than that with
which we recall the revolt of the American Colonies, take pride in
their achievements and smile grimly at the stout blows they have
dealt us in their own defence.

-----

Footnote 86:

Their “capital” was at Elmina; they held—when in full vigour—Fort
Nassau (built before they took Elmina from the Portuguese),
Kormantin, Secondee, Takorari, Accra, Cape Coast Castle,
Vredenburg, Chama, Batenstein, Dikjeschop (Insuma), Fort Elise
Carthage (Ankobra), Apollonia, Dixcove, Axim, Prince’s Fort near
Cape Three-points, Fort Wibsen, and Pokquesoe. Before the
abolition of the slave trade, Dutch Guinea was very prosperous. It
was governed by a subsidized Chartered Company—the Dutch West
India Co.—under the control of the States General; and the local
government consisted of a Governor-General at Elmina, a chief
Factor (or trader), a chief Fiscal (or accountant-general), an
under-fiscal (or auditor) and a large staff of factors,
accountants, secretaries, clerks and assistant clerks. There was a
chaplain; there were Dutch soldiers under Dutch officers who
garrisoned the forts. After the wars of the French Revolution the
Dutch Government took over the management of these establishments
on the Gold Coast.

Footnote 87:

As Sir Charles Lucas points out in his _Historical Geography of
the British Colonies_, “164 years after Bartolomeu Diaz had
sighted the Cape of Good Hope.”

Footnote 88:

The “Cape Malays.”

Footnote 89:

It will be no doubt remembered that this word is derived from the
Arab word “unbeliever.” The Arabs of south-east Africa applied
this term to the Negroes around their settlements. The Portuguese
took it up from the Arabs, and the Dutch and English from the
Portuguese.

Footnote 90:

Tulbagh deserves special remembrance not only from his
geographical explorations, but from the fact that he was the first
person to send specimens of the giraffe to Europe.

Footnote 91:

Named after Van de Graaf, who was Governor at the time. “Reinet”
means in Dutch “a goat’s beard,” but I have not been able to
discover why this term should have been added to the name of the
Governor.

Footnote 92:

Nevertheless, by their final and more complete contact with the
Hottentots and Bushmen the Zulu-Kafirs adopted three of the
Hottentot clicks; whereas earlier invaders—Karanga, Bechuana, and
Herero—though adopting a few Hottentot terms, kept clear of
Hottentot phonetics, and use no clicks to this day. The Zulu-Kafir
language, divided into four dialects—X̓osa-Kafir, Zulu and Swazi
(all three closely related), and Tonga or Ronga of the Delagoa Bay
district, is on the whole most nearly related to the East African
Bantu groups, with some affinities with Central African Bantu. But
it has no near relations and has developed a very peculiar
vocabulary, as though it had been isolated for centuries.

Footnote 93:

If Dingiswayo, his master, can be regarded as the first.
Dingiswayo was rather the paramount chief of a Kafir
confederation, of which the Zulu tribe was a member. Chaka was the
younger son of a Zulu chief, but was eventually elected chief in
his father’s place and then succeeded to the paramount sway of
Dingiswayo. Racially and linguistically there is very little
difference between Zulus and Kafirs.

Footnote 94:

The Sand River Convention, recognizing the independence of the
Transvaal, was signed in January, 1852; the Bloemfontein
Convention, which loosed the Orange Free State from British
control, was signed in February, 1854. In 1858, Sir George Grey
laid before the Cape Parliament proposals from the Orange Free
State for reunion in a South African Federation, and was recalled
by the Home Government for advocating this policy.

Footnote 95:

For the first few years of its existence it had much fighting with
the Basuto.

Footnote 96:

Zulus under Msilikazi and Swazis in the east; Bechuana tribes in
the west and north.

Footnote 97:

The part played by the Jews in the development of South Africa has
been as remarkable as their share in the settlement and civilizing
of North Africa, of the West Indies and the Guianas, of Australia
and New Zealand. Between 1840 and 1850 a number of Jewish business
houses were founded or became prominent in Cape Colony and Natal.
They started the guano collecting off the S.W. coast, the mohair,
wool, hides, sealskin and whale oil industries, and
sugar-planting. Notable among such were the De Pass and Mosenthal
firms. The De Passes came (I believe) from Gibraltar, and followed
to the Cape of Good Hope the first consignments of British troops.
The protection given by the British Government to Spanish-speaking
Jews at Gibraltar from the early part of the 18th century onwards
was well rewarded by a great increase of British commerce and
political power in the Mediterranean. The Mosenthals were
attracted to South Africa by the importation of German troops and
German colonists. Already in the early sixties members of the firm
of Lilienfeld were established in the Orange Free State and
hastened to develop the diamond mining industry of the future
Kimberley district. The part played by Alfred Beit (of a Hamburg
Christian-Jewish family), by the Lipperts, the Honourable Simeon
Jacobs, Sir Sigismund Neumann, Sir Lionel Phillips, Sir George
Albu, Sir David Harris, Senator Samuel Marks, Professor Alfred
Mosely, by the Mendelssohns, Rabinowitzes, and Rapaports, in South
African finance, politics, industry, education, law, and
philanthropic work has been a considerable one; and recent South
African history, either in the Boer states or in the British
colonies and protectorates, cannot be written in detail without an
allusion to their names, their achievements, their intentions,
influence, mistakes, and dogged, persevering belief in the
resources and splendid future of Cis- or Trans-Zambezian Africa.
This was a region in earlier days so unpromising to the eye and on
the surface that it needed the Semitic _flair_ for gold and
precious stones—the same mysterious divination which led the
Sabaeans (I am sure) to Zimbabwe, the Phoenicians to Spain, and
the Arabs to the Ashanti hinterland—to induce that persistent
opening-up of Grikwaland, Orangia, inner Cape Colony, the
Transvaal and Rhodesia, which has by the first decade of the 20th
century laid the foundations of another United States in the
southern quarter of Africa.

Footnote 98:

This Delagoa Bay railway was made by a group of British and
American concessionaires, headed by Colonel Edward M^cMurdo, an
American, between 1887 and 1889. In the following year it was
arbitrarily seized by the Portuguese Government on an unfair
quibble. The Portuguese then completed the line farther inland
until it joined the Netherlands Railway Co.’s line to Pretoria,
thus giving the South African Republic a means of access to the
sea independent of British control. The wrong inflicted on the
Delagoa Bay Railway Company went to arbitration in Switzerland,
1889; and the case was decided after 11 years’ deliberations in
favour of the Company, to whom the Portuguese paid £978,000 in
compensation.