Boer History1809 at the Cape of Good Hope: Collins’s Tour, the November Proclamation, and the December Earthquake
Collins Leaves Graaff Reinet — 23 January 1809
Du Pré Alexander, second earl of Caledon, sat as civilian governor when 1809 opened. He took the oaths on the 22nd of May 1807, aged 29, under the form used when Lord Macartney governed: no council, heads of departments sent from England, and the salaries of 1797. The hardest part of that chair was the eastern frontier. Xhosa clans occupied the Zuurveld inside the colonial line, and farmers there could not get stolen cattle back under rules that allowed firing only in self-defence. Caledon would not order a war until he knew the ground. He told Viscount Castlereagh that any measure taken without a previous knowledge of the actual state of affairs might lead him into error. That is why he sent a soldier as a commissioner before he sent a commando. [3] [4]
The officer chosen was Lieutenant-colonel Richard Collins of the 83rd. In 1808 Caledon used him on the north-west among horse-sickness and drought. In 1809 the same man was sent to explore north-east of the colony and to learn the condition of the different branches of the Xhosa tribe. To give him weight in a character known to the people, and to let him assemble farmers if the law’s ordinary reach failed, Caledon named him His Majesty’s commissioner for Uitenhage and Graaff Reinet, with power to issue any instructions there that he might consider necessary. On the way to Graaff Reinet he met, at the farm of Samuel De Beer in the Kweek Valley, a youth, Andries Stockenstrom junior, bound for the drostdy as clerk to his father. Collins invited him as Dutch interpreter and secretary. The offer was accepted. The commission needed a Dutch voice because the farmers who would ride with him, and the landdrosts who would have to carry out his orders, still worked in Dutch. [3] [4]
On the 23rd of January 1809 the expedition left Graaff Reinet. The party was Collins, Dr Cowdery of the 83rd, Stockenstrom junior, the usual waggon equipage, and attendants. The first object was the lonely country along the Orange. The course was directed toward the Voor Sneeuwberg. Continuing north, they reached Wolve Kop, the residence of the field-commandant Johannes van der Walt, on the 25th. 30 farmers who had assembled on hearing of Collins’s coming joined there. Leaving on the 27th, a journey of 15 miles brought them to Carolus Poort and thence to the farm of one Venter. Pushing on until the 31st, they reached the Orange somewhere in the vicinity of Norval’s Pont. Rain that had fallen previously made a crossing impossible. A few San were met, on friendly terms with the farmers, even taking care of the oxen. Hippopotami infested the river and gave sport. The party traced the stream upward along the bank they could use. [3] [4]
On the 3rd of February a river of considerable size poured its waters into the Orange from the opposite bank. None of the farmers present knew its name. Collins named it the Caledon in honour of the governor. Two days later they crossed a stream believed to be the same that at its source the Tarka farmers called the Stormbergspruit, so no name was given to it. On the 7th they came to another considerable stream flowing from the south into the Orange. Collins named it the Grey, in honour of Lieutenant-General G. H. Grey; it is now the Kraai. They could not find a ford, so they kept up its left bank for a short distance and then turned toward the Tarka. In the previously unknown country through which they had travelled there were no inhabitants except a few San and a little party of Xhosa of the Imidange clan under the petty captain Dlela, who had wandered away from the rest of their people. Beyond San paintings in caves, no sign of human life was met in those Stormberg parts. [3] [4]
Passing near where Sterkstroom later stood, they reached the first house they had seen in three weeks: Schaap Kraal, a little north of Tarkastad, occupied by a burgher named Labuscagne. Twee Tafel Berg was passed on the 19th. Collins, believing no white man had yet visited the Great Winterberg, ascended its granite crown, then crossed the Baviaan’s River to the fieldcornet at Zwager’s Hoek. Van der Walt and the burghers broke off, so a halt was needed for another escort. The landdrost of Graaff Reinet joined. At Schaap Kraal 30 farmers with waggons and guides were waiting. What hung on the January–February ride was a map the castle did not yet have: two rivers named, an empty Stormberg, and an escort large enough to take a commissioner across the colonial boundary without looking like a raid. [4]
Booku, Hintsa, and the White Fugitives — March 1809
On the 3rd of March the expedition crossed the colonial boundary. The route lay along the northern side of the Amatola mountains to the Kabusi, and thence to the White or Great Kei, which they passed just below the junction of that stream. The whole of the country traversed was quite uninhabited, though then generally regarded as San country. To avoid giving offence, messengers were sent forward on the 12th to Hintsa, paramount chief of the Xhosa, to acquaint him with the object of the visit and to obtain permission to cross into his country. On the 14th a favourable reply was received. It was thought inadvisable to pass through crowds with the large following of waggons and armed burghers, so a small party on horseback, chiefly the officials, 12 in number, crossed the Kei. The burgher escort remained to take charge of the waggons. The courtesy mattered because Hintsa was the man whose word, if he gave it, could send white fugitives and runaway slaves back to the colony, or shelter them east of the Kei. [3] [4]
The country immediately beyond the Kei was, comparatively speaking, thickly inhabited. Vast herds of fine cattle and flocks of goats — but no sheep — were at all times visible, and large patches of Xhosa corn were growing. After a three hours’ ride, causing much curiosity among those they met, Collins arrived at the kraal of Buku, right-hand son of Kawuta and chief councillor of Hintsa, chief of a large section of the Gcaleka. Friendly overtures were made with beads, buttons, and the usual trinkets. Buku ordered a bullock to be killed. He was about 24, tall, smeared with ochre, wearing a leopard-skin kaross, copper wire on one wrist, beads at an ear and an ankle. Asked about Hintsa’s rank as compared with Gaika and Ndlambe, he lifted his arms and said that Hintsa was the first man among the amaXhosa, and that when Gaika and Ndlambe wanted fat they sent to him for it. The day being too far advanced, a hut about 14 feet in diameter was placed at the visitors’ disposal for the night. [3] [4]
A six hours’ ride the next morning brought them to Hintsa. His kraal was in sight of the sea, about midway between the Kei and Bashee. A few years previously he had lived on the right bank of the Kei; after a quarrel with Gaika he kept east of that river. He was on good terms with the Thembu under Vusani, then a minor, his mother having been a sister of Daba, Vusani’s father. The Thembu lived near the sea between the Bashee and Umtata; one small clan under a petty captain named Tshatshu occupied a kraal only a few miles east of the Tsomo. In accordance with what seemed the custom when important strangers visited a prominent chief, Hintsa was said to be away hunting and would not return for some days. It was believed he was lurking in the immediate vicinity to be assured that nothing was to be feared. The party was nevertheless hospitably treated. [3] [4]
One object of travelling so far was to learn whether white fugitives were taking refuge there, and to enlist Hintsa’s help in recovering them. Instead of delaying until the chief’s return, the horsemen moved toward the sea-shore and found huts near the beach. One of the first people encountered was a white man, scantily clothed in ragged European dress, greatly alarmed, speaking Dutch with an accent that left little doubt of his nationality. He was Henry McDaniel, born in County Clare, who had deserted from the 8th Dragoons shortly after that regiment’s arrival in Capetown during the former British occupation. Having made his way into Xhosa country, he had been kindly treated by Hintsa and had taken Xhosa customs and wives. Associated with him was a burgher named Lochenberg, who had fled thither after the earlier political troubles of the colony. A pardon for all past offences was offered on condition of returning. The offer was apparently accepted. Next morning, when the party was prepared to return to Hintsa’s place, these men with their wives and children had fled. Messengers with reassuring promises were sent after them without success. Some runaway slaves were also found. They said cruelty had compelled them to desert. On promise of the landdrost’s protection they consented to return, but did not do so. [3] [4]
When the party again arrived, Hintsa himself was there — said to have returned from his hunt that morning. He was tall and stout, though younger than Buku, and his manner distrustful, looking anywhere, when spoken to, but at the person who addressed him. He was on friendly terms with Gaika and Ndlambe so long as they kept at a distance; asked whether he would object to their residing nearer, separated by the Kei, he answered unhesitatingly that should they approach so near he would risk everything in endeavouring to drive them back. He did not entertain the same objection to Cungwa, who was no blood relation as the other two were. On the whole he manifested friendliness toward the colony. He promised to assist in sending back exiles and in preventing others from taking refuge in his country. He furnished guides to the mouth of the Kei, as Collins wished to see that part; the guides, perhaps misunderstanding, conducted them back to the drift where the burghers had been left with the waggons. The travellers went no farther than Hintsa’s kraal. What hung on the visit was not a treaty. It was the proof that the paramount chief east of the Kei would not have Gaika or Ndlambe as neighbours, and that the white men living on his coast would not walk back into a British court. [3] [4]
Gaika, Ndlambe, and Uitenhage — March–April 1809
Messengers were sent forward to Gaika. Retracing their path for some distance, the party turned off and took a pathless course over the upper reaches of the Nahoon and Buffalo, and experienced much difficulty in getting the waggons over rugged and thickly wooded country. Crossing the Keiskamma where it was but a small stream, probably a little north of Keiskamma Hoek, they arrived at the place where Gaika desired to meet them. The chief drew near in the centre of an irregular line of about a hundred men, who advanced with a slow pace and halted at 30 yards from the encampment. Gaika went forward and, with some of his amapakati, entered the colonel’s tent. Presents were handed over and examined with satisfaction. He offered no objection to fieldcornets visiting his territories to recapture deserters and runaway slaves. In reply to the statement that large numbers of his people visiting the colony to beg and steal had made the annoyance almost unbearable, he expressed regret that his people and the colonists could not meet as friends. He hoped the restriction as to begging might not apply to himself, as he was contemplating a friendly tour among the farmers for 20 head of cattle. He was about to add another wife, and that number had been demanded as lobola. He was told this could not be permitted, but that if he applied to the landdrost of Graaff Reinet the cattle should be supplied through an official channel. [3] [4]
Gaika at this time was very poor. Ndlambe’s inroad not long before had bereft him of all his cattle except 10 cows and a few oxen. Though nominally chief over all the Xhosa west of the Kei, he was one of the least powerful and exercised the smallest influence among the tribes. Asked whether fear of him prevented the Zuurveld chiefs from recrossing the Fish, he said that was merely a pretext, and that the Zuurveld answered their purpose so well they would never vacate it until compelled by superior force. Collins remained in camp two days. Gaika frequently returned, bringing forward some new topic of a frivolous character, obviously to beg. Acting on the promise, he visited Landdrost Stockenstrom at Graaff Reinet on the 26th of June and remained until the 4th of July. He was accompanied by a wife, two minor chiefs, and 42 other followers, all of whom had to be hospitably treated. Besides the 20 oxen he received two milch cows, clothes for himself and wife, necklaces, beads, looking-glasses, knives, handkerchiefs, and a hat with gold tassels and feathers. He further demanded iron pots, horns, and sundry other articles. The visit showed the castle what Gaika’s title was worth on the ground: a poor chief who could not move Ndlambe, and who would take cattle through an official door if the farmers’ doors were shut. [3] [4]
The most difficult remaining negotiation was with Ndlambe, the real cause of the native trouble on the Zuurveld. Gaika warned Collins that the proceeding was not without danger, and after the party had started sent a messenger with further confirmation. The direction taken, after leaving the Keiskamma, was along the base of the Amatola and Winterberg, crossing the Kat, Kroome, and Koonap to the Kaga near the Kagaberg. Turning south, the journey continued over the Fish River Rand to Commadagga. There the waggons were left in charge of some of the burghers, while the colonel with a small party of horsemen went on to the Zuurveld. Near the Little Fish 11 families of farmers, who shortly before had been obliged by Ndlambe’s people to leave their homes, were found collected together. They also expressed concern for the party’s safety. [4]
Passing the Zwarteberg and crossing the Zuurberg, probably a little east of later Alicedale, messengers were sent on to Ndlambe. Continuing south into the present district of Alexandria, they arrived at a temporary residence about 15 miles from the sea; his permanent residence was then about midway between the Bushman’s and Sunday’s rivers. The chief was away — in this case most certainly not from fear. Ndlambe at that date was the most powerful and richest of the Xhosa chiefs, and though not the paramount in name, he was so in fact. One of his sons went off immediately in search of his father and returned with him toward evening. The visitors had formed their small camp at some distance from the kraal. The fieldcornet Stolz was sent to invite Ndlambe to the camp fire. This was declined. The colonel had therefore to go to the chief’s own fire. Evening had advanced; the full moon lit a crowd standing around their seated monarch, a forest of upright assegais among the mimosa, and the party’s helplessness if it came to blows. [3] [4]
Formal compliments having been exchanged, Collins broached the usual topics. Ndlambe expressed regret at the general movement of the farmers to greater distances, and was anxious that they should return to their abandoned homesteads. He mentioned that he had been out hunting and, seeing the fear he caused, had desisted and returned. He was willing to discourage his people from going to beg among the farmers, but hoped that when he himself went they would receive orders to give him cattle. His demeanour was that of one who, conscious of his power, felt no need for compromise. “Where are you from now?” “Where are your waggons?” “What business took you to Hintsa?” “Did you get what you wanted?” “What took you to Gaika?” “Have all my people been sent from the Colony?” By these questions he obtained more satisfaction from the interview than he gave. Complaining of one of Ndlambe’s petty chiefs then roaming about the colony, Collins asked that he might be ordered to return. “Suppose he should refuse to obey me?” asked Ndlambe. “Well then,” said the colonel, “you must know how to treat a disobedient vassal.” “In this case, I shall do nothing,” replied the chief. As a counter-grievance he complained that two of his people who had gone “to take a walk” in the colony had a sheep given them by a farmer, and while they were eating it another farmer shot one of them. Collins promised to investigate, but said he suspected the sheep had been stolen. An inquiry eventually confirmed the suspicion. Finding no further advantage likely, some of the usual trinkets were presented, and Collins and his companions set off in the moonlight and travelled as far as the Sunday’s River, where they arrived the following morning. [3] [4]
Having crossed the river, their course was directed a short distance down the right bank until some kraals belonging to Cungwa were reached. This must have been a temporary residence; at that date his great place was about 10 miles east of the Sunday’s River and near the sea, at a spot in the present district of Alexandria known as Congo’s Kraal. On requesting to see Cungwa, he was said to be absent — gone to visit relations living near Ndlambe. The usual credit was given to this statement. It was far more probable that, if really absent, he was on a business tour in the more western parts of the colony. Without further delay the party continued, and after a five hours’ ride arrived at the drostdy at Uitenhage on the 3rd of April. There Collins issued an order interdicting intercourse of any kind between the white people and the Xhosa. He had ascertained, of Ndlambe and his son Umhala, that there was not the slightest intention on their part to leave the colony. The country from the Kei to the colonial boundary was without inhabitants except in the valleys of the upper Keiskamma and Kat. The order at Uitenhage was the commissioner’s first civil act after the ride: if Ndlambe would not go, the farms were not to treat with him as a neighbour. [3] [4]
Bethelsdorp and Collins’s Report — April–October 1809
The continued friction between the landdrost of Uitenhage and the missionary at Bethelsdorp formed a subject of inquiry. Bethelsdorp was the London Missionary Society station near Algoa Bay, gathered by Dr Vanderkemp after the location ordered on the Zwartkops in 1801. On the 6th of April, accompanied by the landdrosts of both Uitenhage and Graaff Reinet, Collins visited the Institution. It consisted of a collection of huts built of straw, reeds, and mud, no improvement on the squalid state in which it had been found six years before. Residing there were 639 Khoikhoi, of whom 66 were baptised and only 43 exercised any useful trade. They were being taught to read and write, but there was little evidence of attention to dress and personal cleanliness. The numbers in Vanderkemp’s own report at the time of the visit were 146 men, 211 women, 282 children — total 639 present; absent 113 men, 121 women, 106 children; total belonging to the place, 979. The land was not large enough for the population which nominally belonged to it, and the very poor supply of water permitted agriculture only on the smallest scale. It was a matter of surprise that the numerous cattle of the place found sufficient food in the scanty pasturage of the barren surroundings. [3] [4]
Attempts had more than once been made to find a more favoured spot. In 1807 Caledon had authorised the landdrost of Swellendam, with a Mr Rex, to confer with Vanderkemp with a view to re-establishing the mission near Plettenberg’s Bay. They met at Rex’s house on the 13th of May 1808. Jackal’s Kraal was first offered, then two places on the Keurboom’s River; none met with approval. Vanderkemp petitioned that neighbouring farmers be dislodged and recompensed from the treasury. Caledon would not put the public to that expense, though he was anxious to promote the views if it could be done by the cession in loan of government land. That could not be done. From a political point of view the station’s proximity to country occupied by Xhosa was a constant source of suspicion. Xhosa frequented the Institution and mission Khoikhoi often visited them on errands not above suspicion. Vanderkemp applied, at the very time when steps were being taken to prevent intercourse, for permission for his people to carry on an open cattle trade with the Xhosa, and when refused considered this further harsh treatment. [3] [4]
The uncompromising attitude was shown in answers to Collins. Asked whether he would send to Uitenhage Khoikhoi whose services Major Cuyler required, Vanderkemp refused: to apprehend men as prisoners and force them to labour was no part of his duty. The Khoikhoi, he said, were a free people, and the colonists had no more right to force them to labour than to sell them as slaves. He would not call out Khoikhoi among the farmers — that was the landdrost’s paid duty — nor prohibit Xhosa from visiting, nor send those who came seeking instruction as prisoners to Uitenhage. His commission was to preach the Gospel to every creature who chose to hear him. The clash was not a quarrel about huts. Cuyler needed labour and a closed frontier; Vanderkemp would not turn a mission into a recruiting office. [4]
The result of the inspection was that Collins recommended that missionary institutions for the instruction of Khoikhoi should be limited to those already established by the Moravians, who had always done excellent work in a quiet manner and given the support due from every community to the government which protects it. He advised that the London missionaries should be confined to the San on the northern border, and that the people assembled at Bethelsdorp should be allowed the choice of retiring to a Moravian station or of going into service with colonists. In this same strain Caledon reported to Castlereagh on the 16th of October 1809. When Collins had made himself acquainted with Bethelsdorp and thus gained a fairly complete knowledge of the eastern province, he left the frontier and, journeying through the south-coast regions, returned to Capetown. In September 1809 the famous Hans Trompetter was arrested and sent as a prisoner to Capetown. Like David Stuurman, he was a man of influence among the Khoikhoi and had been one of the leaders in the rebellion of 1799. He afterwards became a convert at Bethelsdorp, but left, joined Ndlambe’s people, and assisted in raids upon the farmers. Having stolen a gun and some cattle, he was captured by the fieldcornet. About the same time the fieldcornet Erasmus discovered a large party of Khoikhoi who had been members of the Institution, but had left and joined the Xhosa for purposes of plunder. [3] [4]
As a practical result of the observations he had made, Collins in a lengthy report to Caledon, dated the 6th of August 1809, suggested a number of measures. Most of them had been proposed before by everyone who had undertaken to set the east in order. That the Xhosa should be compelled to return to their own country, and that all intercourse between them and the colonists should be scrupulously avoided, were among the oft-repeated suggestions. He pointed out that the weakness of the frontier was due chiefly to the very large extent of the farms and the consequent scattering of the population. A line of 100 miles did not present a resistance of more than one-third of that number of inhabitants. He advised that the Xhosa in the colony should be expelled by force, and that plots of land only 120 acres in extent should be offered to Europeans at a very low rent, so as to obtain a tolerably dense population in the Zuurveld. He recommended that the boundary farther north should be extended to the Koonap and the district thus annexed filled with colonists in the same manner; and that magistrates sit close to the boundary, so as to prevent intercourse and to maintain order. He suggested that settlers should be brought out from England to occupy, in small holdings, the land in the Zuurveld at the mouth of the Great Fish River. What hung on the August paper was a plan the governor could send to London: force on the Fish, small farms on the Zuurveld, and a magistrate on the line — not another tour. [3] [4]
Zorn’s Drostdy and Cuyler’s Appeal — March–July 1809
By Caledon the number of magistrates was increased, as in his view the districts were too large for proper supervision. On the 1st of February 1808 a portion of Stellenbosch had been cut off and added to Tulbagh, with a deputy landdrost at Jan-Dissel’s-Vlei. On the 31st of March 1809 the court of commissioners for petty cases in the Cape district was abolished, and a court of landdrost and 6 heemraden was created, so as to bring the system of administering justice into uniformity with other parts of the colony. A distinction, however, was made between Capetown, Simonstown, and the remainder of the district. In Simonstown a deputy fiscal was stationed, who held a court for the trial of petty cases, and the landdrost and heemraden had no judicial authority, but performed municipal duties and the duties of a matrimonial court. In Capetown the landdrost and heemraden succeeded to the duties of the court of commissioners for petty cases and the matrimonial court, but had no other authority, the burgher senate being charged with municipal duties. In Capetown was included the suburb Papendorp. In all other parts of the old Cape district the landdrost and heemraden had the same powers and duties assigned to them as similar boards elsewhere. J. Zorn was appointed first landdrost. The Cape district had been the exception: town commissioners instead of a country drostdy. Zorn’s appointment closed that gap. [3]
At Uitenhage Jacob Glen Cuyler sat as landdrost and commandant. Farmers were forbidden either to employ Xhosa or to hold any communications whatever with them. In case of any visiting a farm and remaining more than an hour, the fact had to be reported immediately under a penalty of Rds. 500 for neglecting to do so. The chance of recovering stolen cattle was small: the time occupied by the fieldcornet in riding from farm to farm to collect a commando was more than sufficient to allow the spoil to be got into a place of safety, and perhaps into regions which the regulations prohibited the pursuing party from entering. The existing laws, not allowing Xhosa to be fired at but in self-defence, did not and could not protect the property of the farmers. On the 4th of July 1809 Cuyler wrote to the colonial secretary and earnestly entreated that more forcible measures might be taken to protect the unfortunate colonists. The Xhosa, he said, committed their outrages with confidence and impunity and defied the feeble attempts made to take them alive. He almost began to dread that in a short time the farmers’ affection would be estranged from His Majesty’s government. The letter reached a governor who still sat without a council, and whose own commissioner had not yet filed the August report. [4]
In England, in the same year, considerable indignation was created by the contents of a letter which had been transmitted to the London Missionary Society by James Read, Vanderkemp’s chief assistant. It appeared in No. 20 of the Society’s Transactions, dated Bethelsdorp, the 30th of August 1808. It ran that the poor Khoikhoi continued to be a suffering and oppressed people — not by the government at the Cape; on the contrary, their pacific and liberal conduct was highly to be praised — and that if the government knew of the horrid crimes committed in the distant districts, measures would be taken to restrain them. A poor Khoikhoi, the letter said, had come to Bethelsdorp who had been kept 25 years in service. The printing of that letter in 1809 did not alter Caledon’s November regulations. It did fix in English missionary circles a picture of the eastern farms against which the governor’s own commissioner had ridden. [4]
At Drakenstein the pulpit that Reverend Aling had left on the 24th of April 1800 still stood without a settled minister through 1809. For about seven years after his death the congregation was without a minister; the post was then filled for only six months. On the 1st of December 1809 Jean Guillaume Louis Gebhard resigned the Walloon church at Norwich. He had been born at Mannheim in 1757 and had gone over to England from Heidelberg. The Cape vacancy was still open when the year closed. A Macartney government could name a Cape-district landdrost in March; it could not put a man into an old French pulpit in the west by December. [8]
Caledon’s Proclamation — 1 November 1809
In 1809 a radical change was made in the legal position of the Khoikhoi within the colony. The theory of the Dutch law was that they were a free and independent people, entitled to govern themselves and to come and go when and where they liked except upon private property. Their personal liberty had never been interfered with, except in the instance of children of Khoikhoi mothers and slave fathers, born and reared upon farms, who could be claimed as apprentices upon reaching the age of 18 months; and in the instance of a small number of both sexes who lived in a disreputable manner on the Cape flats and in the outskirts of the town, who were placed under strict surveillance by a resolution of the council of policy on the 29th of June 1787. They were regarded as subject to the colonial courts only in cases where the interests of white people were affected. They paid no taxes, and could not be called out for public services as white men were. [3]
That was the theory. In point of fact tribal government of the Khoikhoi had long since ceased to exist within the colonial boundaries. There were still plots of land reserved for their use, and at each reserve a captain acknowledged by the European authorities, but he had really little or no power over his people. The great majority were of their own accord living with farmers, and regarded the poorest white man with much greater respect than they regarded the hereditary chiefs of their own race. Thus it became a necessity for the European courts to take cognisance of such crimes as murder and assault committed by one Khoikhoi against another not on a reserve; but in general petty offences among themselves went altogether unpunished. This system was very objectionable to the British administration from 1795 to 1803, but no attempt was then made to alter it. To Janssens it seemed natural enough, and in his agreement with Klaas Stuurman he marked his approval of it. Caledon resolved to do away with it entirely. The November paper was not a new war on the Fish. It was the civilian governor’s attempt to put people without chiefs under the same courts, taxes, and service as other inhabitants. [3] [4]
On the 1st of November 1809 he issued a proclamation which removed all vestiges of chieftainship from the Khoikhoi in the colony, and restrained those people from wandering about at will — the regulations later called the Magna Charta of the Hottentots. The preamble asserts a necessity that Khoikhoi, in the same manner as other inhabitants, should be subject to proper regularity in regard to their places of abode and occupations, and that they should find encouragement for preferring to enter service rather than lead an indolent life, by which they were rendered useless to themselves and the community at large. Every Khoikhoi in the different districts, in the same manner as other inhabitants, was to have a fixed place of abode; an entry thereof was to be made in the office of the fiscal or the respective landdrosts; and no Khoikhoi should change his residence from one district to another without a certificate from the fiscal or the landdrost of the district from which he was removing, which certificate he was to exhibit to the fiscal or the landdrost of the district where he intended to settle, for the purpose of having it registered. Every Khoikhoi who neglected this regulation was to be considered a vagabond, and be treated accordingly. [3] [4] [7]
All contracts of service for a month or a longer period were to be made in writing before the fiscal, a landdrost, or a fieldcornet, and a copy was to be registered. In case of this not being done, the Khoikhoi could claim the benefit of the engagement, but the employer had no ground for action. Any inhabitant taking a Khoikhoi into his service for a month or longer had, with the Khoikhoi, to appear before the landdrost and sign, in triplicate, a document containing all the details of the agreement. The agreement expired on the last day of the time stipulated. The servant was then free to depart with his wife, children, all his cattle and other property. If the master in any way prevented this he was liable to a fine of Rds. 100. The wages agreed upon had to be paid strictly at the periods mentioned. In case it was found at the expiration of the term that the Khoikhoi had incurred debt to a greater amount than the wages due, the master could not on that account make any further claim on his services. He could, however, prosecute for debt before the board of landdrost and heemraden, who, finding the claim founded, condemned the Khoikhoi to the payment, and left the plaintiff to carry the condemnation into effect ordinario modo. The written contract was the protection against a debt that never ended: the master could sue for money, but he could not keep the servant past the last day of the term. [3] [4]
To protect the Khoikhoi against cajolery into excessive debt, the nature and value of supplies were, at the time of the supply, to be notified to the fieldcornet and a memorandum kept. No wine, brandy, or other spirituous liquors were to be regarded as necessaries, and no expense on that account was to be considered. In cases of ill-usage the Khoikhoi was empowered to lodge a complaint against his master, who, if the charge were substantiated, might be fined any sum between Rds. 10 and Rds. 50. In worse cases, where mutilation or any serious injury was done, whereby disablement for any length of time resulted, the landdrost prosecuted according to the common law of the colony. The Khoikhoi, on the other hand, was liable to personal correction by the tronk master should the charge be without foundation. Lastly, every Khoikhoi going about the country, either on the service of his master or other lawful business, was required to be furnished with a pass from his commanding officer if he was in the military service, or his employer, or the magistrate of the district, under penalty of being considered and treated as a vagabond. All persons were empowered to demand a pass from any Khoikhoi who appeared on their farms, and in case of his not being provided with one, to deliver him up to a fieldcornet, landdrost, or fiscal. From this date Khoikhoi in every case were regarded as subject to the colonial courts of law, to taxation, and to be called upon to perform public services. [3] [4] [7]
The locations assigned by Janssens to people of this race had in no instance answered their purpose. Not a family of those sent from Rietvlei in 1803 remained upon the ground allotted to them. After 1806, therefore, the ground was not spoken of or regarded as reserves for their use. The location given to David Stuurman and his people on the Gamtoos was occupied some years longer, but from the first it was a public nuisance. Stuurman, whose disposition was violent, harboured Xhosa there, and made his kraal a place of refuge for idlers and bad characters. He entered into an agreement with Cungwa which was to all intents and purposes an offensive and defensive treaty against the colony. That kraal still stood in 1809. Caledon’s November paper took the remaining vestiges of chieftainship off the colonial Khoikhoi and put a registered abode, a written hire, and a pass in their place. Between 1809 and 1828 those enactments remained in force. What hung on the 1st of November was not a new reserve. It was colonial law in place of a captain who no longer governed. [3] [7]
Earthquake and December Murders — December 1809
On the 4th of December 1809 several distinct shocks of an earthquake were felt in Capetown, and caused considerable damage to many houses. Anonymous letters, containing threats, criticisms, and aspersions, had kept leading people of Capetown in turmoil during the greater part of Caledon’s government. The shocks of December did not name their author. They did crack walls in the same month that the eastern farms lost herds and a household. [3]
Toward the end of 1809 the growing audacity of the Zuurveld Xhosa became more than usually marked, and for a time it seemed as if they had actually commenced a combined attack upon the colony. In December of that year 5 Khoikhoi herds were murdered within a few hours’ ride of the drostdy of Uitenhage, and all the cattle they were tending were driven off. At Bruintjes Hooghte, in the same month, a farmer named Isaac Joubert, 5 Khoikhoi men, 2 Khoikhoi girls, and 2 slaves were killed. Ndlambe, realising the freedom of action which the feeble administration conferred upon him, no longer observed his promise to remain beyond the Sunday’s River, but moved with hundreds of his followers and formed a kraal at the junction of the two Fish rivers near Commadagga, ousting from their homes 6 farmers of that district. When ordered to return by Cuyler, he refused. Collins in April had reported that Ndlambe had not the slightest intention of leaving the colony. December showed what that intention looked like on the ground. [4]
At the same time two petty chiefs under Ndlambe, also with a large number of followers, were moving in small parties of 10 and 12 into the Zwartberg regions. In the more northern parts, the country about the Tarka was being invaded by large hordes, which were gradually moving to the west, though Landdrost Stockenstrom was told when he visited them that their object was to migrate to the country beyond the Orange. Pursuits of stolen cattle became more continuous; absences from home, involving the exposure of women and children to danger during the dark nights, became longer; and the difficulty of regaining what had been lost increased. The restrictions that forbade firing except in self-defence, and that forbade farmers to employ or even to speak with Xhosa remaining more than an hour, still stood. Collins’s August report had named expulsion, 120-acre plots, the Koonap, and magistrates on the line. Caledon’s November paper had named a pass. December named 5 herds within hours of Uitenhage and a household at Bruintjes Hooghte. What hung on those deaths was the proof that a commissioner and a code had not yet named a peace on the Zuurveld. [4]