Chapter II: Foreword

This is the history, briefly told, of the great Dutch-English feud in South Africa, up to the beginning of the Africanders’ second war of independence with Great Britain, which opened on the 11th of October, 1899.

In writing these pages I have not felt conscious of being in controversy with any one. If I had been susceptible to influences that create prejudice, nearly three centuries of American descent from purely Anglo-Saxon progenitors with no admixture of any other blood would have predisposed me to magnify everything in this long feud that exemplified the prowess and the honor of that race, and to minify in the telling whatever faults it had committed. It will be for such readers of my work as are conversant with the ultimate authorities on the subject treated of to judge how far I have succeeded or failed in presenting a “plain, unvarnished” tale.

I acknowledge, with much gratitude, indebtedness for data to the following distinguished writers:

Canon W. J. Little, M.A., author of “South Africa”; George McCall Theal, M.A., Official Historiographer and sometime Keeper of the Archives at Cape Town; Professor James Bryce, author of “Impressions of South Africa,” “The American Commonwealth,” etc.; F. Reginald Statham, author of “South Africa as It Is”; Olive Schreiner, author of “The South African Question”; the British Blue Books and other sources of reliable information.

THE AUTHOR.

THE AFRICANDERS.