Chapter VIII: The Independent Africander and Slavery

It will be remembered that the conventions of 1852 and 1854, by which the absolute independence of the Africanders living beyond the Vaal River and of those resident in the Orange River district was guaranteed, bound them to renounce the practice of slavery. They did not find it easy, however, to keep either the letter or the spirit of that covenant. For generations both the men and the women had been accustomed to immunity from the more severe and disagreeable work of life. Twice had they trekked, largely to get away from British power because it would no longer tolerate slavery on British soil. But now they had accepted independent national life, and were in honor bound to carry out the stipulation of the treaties which guaranteed their independence, by liberating such slaves as they possessed and by acquiring no more. It is next in order, therefore, to consider the manner in which these obligations were carried out.

Whatever outward appearances there may have been of ceasing to enforce servitude from the blacks, there is indubitable evidence that little more than a change of name for it was effected—the thing went on. A new system of virtual slavery was invented and prevailed extensively under the plausible name of “apprenticeship,” and “registration” of prisoners taken in war with the natives; and it is to be feared that many predatory expeditions were undertaken chiefly to secure fresh victims for this new method of enforcing unpaid service—all of which was in flagrant violation of the treaties by which the republics were established and guaranteed independence.

The new system was defended by those who devised it and profited by it, as a benevolent institution, because it took the orphan children of the Kaffirs—for whom their own people made no provision—and apprenticed them to Africander masters for a limited period, to terminate in every case at twenty-one years of age. But when it is understood that in many cases the Kaffir bond-children had been made orphans by Africander bullets the benevolence of the institution becomes a vanishing quantity. And it is to be remembered, in judging of this matter, that these ignorant Kaffir apprentices had no means of knowing their own age, nor was there any one to speak and act for them when the proper time for their release from bondage came. The new system was slavery under a less repulsive name, and was so regarded by its victims.

It is only fair to the Africanders to trace their conduct in this matter back to the convictions and principles honestly held by them, and by which they justified to themselves their practices toward the natives. Almost without exception they were men of intense religiousness and devout regard for the Bible. It was a great misfortune to themselves and to the natives of South Africa that they found their standard of ethics, not in any of the moral precepts of the New Testament or the Old, but in their own deductions from scraps of Old Testament history which were never intended to furnish ideals and standards of virtue and righteousness for later generations. Thus, they looked upon the dark races about them as the yet “accursed” sons of Canaan the son of Ham, doomed by heaven to perpetual servitude to any people who might care to enslave them, because of the sin of their forefather, Ham. They seem to have forgotten, too easily, that the divine entail of evil consequences to follow certain sins was limited to “the third and fourth generation,” and insisted without warrant of any kind on bringing it over to and enforcing it upon the one hundred and thirtieth generation. Holding such views, they considered themselves as doing service to God when they inflicted the degradations, hardships and cruelties of slavery upon the offspring of Ham. It was their custom to meet for prayer before going on one of their forays, to implore the help and protection of the Almighty in what they were about to do; then they went forth heartened and emboldened by the conviction that the coming battle was the Lords, and to fall therein would be a sure passport to heaven. It would be untrue to say that all the Africanders were of this belief and practice, but undoubtedly the majority of them so believed and so acted.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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.”

After all, Mr. Theal’s account of it does not materially change the aspect of the system of enforced servitude that prevailed in the Africander communities after they became independent. These bond-children were either captured or bought from dealers in children; they were held under bill of sale and indenture; and they were sold from master to master by legal transfer of indenture before a magistrate.

Mr. Theal’s low estimate of the value of the services that could be rendered by raw black children, and of the limited demand for them, is not in harmony with his own statement that such children were brought into the republic in wagon loads, nor with the testimony, quoted by Mr. Holden, covering two specific cases wherein one Kaffir boy was sold for one hundred, and another for one hundred and fifty rix-dollars. And his averment that in 1877 the British authorities could not find a single slave to liberate in all the territory of the South African Republic is simply amusing when viewed in the light of what he states on the next page—that this system of enforced servitude under indentures that were legally merchantable “was the slavery of the South African Republic.” Undoubtedly; and, so far as is known, no other form of slavery was ever seriously charged against the Africanders after their independence was established. It is matter of surprise, however, that the British conscience of this period was not able to scent the malodor of slavery under the new form and title of “apprenticeship” which covered a marketable property-right in the human chattel.