Boer History1810 at the Cape of Good Hope: Dragoons at Algoa Bay, Mauritius, and Halloran Banished
The Oxford at Algoa Bay — 20 January 1810
Du Pré Alexander, second earl of Caledon, still sat as civilian governor when 1810 opened. He took the oaths on the 22nd of May 1807, aged 29, under the form used when Lord Macartney governed: no council, and heads of departments sent from England. 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. In 1809 he had sent Lieutenant-colonel Richard Collins to report. Collins came back with the same answer the landdrosts were still writing in January: soldiers were needed if the line was to be held at all. [3] [4]
Toward the close of 1809 that pressure passed the point at which fieldcornets could still pretend to keep a line. Ndlambe, told to stay beyond the Sundays, moved hundreds to the junction of the two Fish rivers near Commadagga and turned 6 farmers out. In December 5 Khoikhoi herds were murdered within a few hours’ ride of the drostdy of Uitenhage, and all the cattle they were tending 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. Two petty chiefs under Ndlambe were moving in small parties of 10 and 12 into the Zwartberg; the Tarka was filling from the east, though the people there told Landdrost Andries Stockenstrom they meant to go beyond the Orange. Stockenstrom wrote the colonial secretary on the 4th of January 1810 that the inhabitants of Zwagershoek and Buffel’s Kloof had no rest night or day, that they were continually in search of stolen cattle, and that they were wearied out and their horses knocked up. That letter is why the next ship into Algoa Bay carried dragoons and not another commissioner. [4]
Both Stockenstrom and Jacob Glen Cuyler had told Caledon they could not hold the line without soldiers. The appeal was so far heeded that the transport Oxford arrived in Algoa Bay on the 20th of January with a company of the 21st Light Dragoons under Captain Evatt and a body of the Cape Corps under Major Lyster and Captains Fraser and D. Macdougall. The greater portion of the force went at once to Bruintjes Hooghte. Ndlambe, hearing of the approach, abandoned the new kraal and went back to the Bushman’s River. It was hoped that the presence of the men would restore confidence and keep those who were preparing to abandon their homes. What hung on the landing was not a war: Caledon still meant the soldiers to awe, not to drive. [4]
A circular from Uitenhage on the 25th told every fieldcornet why the men had come. His Excellency had been pleased to send an additional force for the protection of persons and property, without any present intention of commencing hostilities. The dragoons under Evatt would be posted at Bruintjes Hooghte. They had come dismounted, though with every other appointment complete, and government had ordered 60 rixdollars — 4 pounds 10 shillings — for each horse to mount them. That sum, from the prices horses then fetched, might appear inadequate. Cuyler asked the fieldcornets to impress upon their people the heavy expense of defending the colony, and that a man with a second horse ought to part with him at the highest price government could give. Fieldcornets on the east side of the Sundays were ordered to make their reports of depredations thereafter to Evatt as they had hitherto made them to the landdrost. The request was complied with. In a short time the dragoons were furnished with horses at the government price. [4]
With that assistance Cuyler’s first measure was to replace by soldiers the farmers who had for some time been posted on guard at temporary outposts. Accompanied by Evatt and 35 men of the Cape Regiment he toured the Coega and Zandfontein and other parts of Uitenhage believed to be affording cover to thieves. Having stationed pickets, the two officers went on to Bruintjes Hooghte, where the dragoons had arrived. To acquaint Evatt with the country they took 10 soldiers and 10 farmers along the Fish into the Zuurveld, thence across to the Kareiga, a little beyond which they met Ndlambe and found him, as usual, ready with excuses and fair promises. A short distance farther Evatt left to return to Bruintjes Hooghte. Cuyler with 7 men had not gone far toward the village when they were met by a body of Xhosa to whom the landdrost must have been well known. They showed every sign of hostility and so insulted and threatened him that he deemed it dangerous to proceed. One of the escort was sent after Evatt. On the dragoons’ approach the hostile party dispersed, and the drostdy was reached in safety. The gleam of hope that had come with the Oxford did not survive the discovery that the soldiers were to awe ill-doers by their mere presence and to be passive spectators of robbery and violence. [4]
Zuurveld Abandoned — April–June 1810
Finding that whatever they did the military remained inactive, the Xhosa soon treated the new force with contempt and became worse than before. Threats from fieldcornets and farmers they had long ceased to regard. The great difficulty of retaining live stock, the continual commando or patrol, and the ever-present danger had made farming almost an impossibility. The choice of either continuing to endure all this or leaving the country was thrust upon the white inhabitants. They mostly chose the latter. Preparations for abandoning Eastern Province homes were at this time commenced in many parts. In April the farmers of Bruintjes Hooghte brought their condition before Caledon in a petition sent to Cuyler for transmission to Capetown. The petition mattered because it asked, in writing, for the war Caledon still would not order. [4]
The undersigned had perceived with great concern the approaching ruin of the country. They were not only robbed of their cattle; the worst was the murdering of slaves and Khoikhoi. In the month of March 4 slaves and 4 Khoikhoi of different sexes had been murdered and at least 500 head of cattle stolen. They asked that the letter, with a communication from Cuyler, go to His Excellency as soon as possible. They had had proof of a favourable disposition by the sending of troops, for which they were thankful. They now saw no possibility of being longer able to inhabit these districts unless the Xhosa were driven back to their own territory, and they hoped the inhabitants of the land would be called up, the danger being such as to require it. The names were Gabriel Stolz, B. J. de Klerk, Wil. Nel, L. J. Nel, W. d. v. Veywer, P. M. Bester, J. M. Klopper, P. B. Botha, G. D. Geere, and C. Engelbrecht. [4]
The Zuurveld farmers dispensed with the preliminary formality of giving notice of their intention to move. In the month of April 1810 almost every farm east of Uitenhage was abandoned, the people moving into the sub-districts of Graaff Reinet. As the places were vacated, Xhosa seem to have visited them and set fire to the thatch roofs of the houses and everything else that would burn. Two of the Zuurveld farms abandoned at this time later became names on another map. One was the loan place of Lucas Meyer called De Rietfontein, on which Grahamstown was afterwards established. The other, called Noutoe, was occupied by De Lange, and is now Table Farm, about 7 miles from that later village. The retreat created a commotion in Graaff Reinet. Bad as it was to live anywhere in the east at this time, it was far worse to be in the districts immediately contiguous to those in occupation by Xhosa; and as the southernmost parts of Uitenhage practically became Xhosa country, the inhabitants of Graaff Reinet who had had the advantage of their situation now found themselves on the immediate frontier. [4]
Landdrost Stockenstrom used every means in his power to prevent the movement. Promises of protection and compensation for losses were made, and, these failing, the inhabitants were threatened that if they left their loan places the leases would be cancelled and would not be renewed. In the parts more distant from Xhosa country these measures were successful. In the exposed district of Bruintjes Hooghte, Captain Evatt wrote on the 17th of May that on account of depredations hourly committed the Boers of that district had decided to remain no longer in it, and that he had not succeeded in prevailing upon them to reconsider. The return of the depredations in the district of Uitenhage for the quarter ending 30 June 1810 showed that 577 cattle had been stolen, of which 184 were recovered; 7 horses, 2 of them recovered; and 7 Khoikhoi herds killed. The figures did not include 177 cattle stolen in the Riet River district. [4]
Caledon was not ignorant of the increasing commotion in the east, but he was reluctant to sanction any extreme measure. A Xhosa war once entered upon would have to be followed up vigorously, leaving no doubt as to ultimate subjugation, or else it would end in completely ruining the settlers and jeopardising the whole colony. At length, in May 1810, he approved of what Cuyler had long advocated: that the invaders should be confronted with a formidable force and driven back beyond the Fish. It was suggested that this force should consist of from 700 to 800 men, made up of regular soldiers, the Cape Regiment, and Boers, with two or three field-pieces; that the village of Uitenhage should become a military post; and that quarters should be built there for one captain, three sub-officers, and 100 men, the men then living in reed houses of their own construction. During this year, however, nothing came of these proposals, and events were allowed to shape themselves uncontrolled by high authority. That is why the Oxford men still sat as spectators while the farms east of Uitenhage emptied. [4]
Emboldened by their successes, and having gauged the disinclination of those who should have checked them, the Xhosa took no pains to conceal their readiness to resist force with force. Lieutenant A. Bogle, writing from his camp at the Coega to Captain Macdougall on the 29th of May, said he had been the day before at the kraals, where he met with the greatest insults; they came out and attempted to surround his party, asked if he came there to fight, and said that before they would leave the ground they now occupied they would fight until every man’s throat was cut. They were assembling in great numbers. It also became obvious that even the precaution of concealing stolen cattle was disregarded. Instead of being sent beyond the Fish or into more wooded parts, they were retained at the kraals of the thieves, and open defiance was shown to those who went to recapture them. Recovery involved more and more danger, and more often than not the pursuers, seeing their cattle in Xhosa hands, had to return without them. [4]
On the Gamtoos the location given by Jan Willem Janssens to David Stuurman and his people, occupied some years after the other reserves of 1803 had emptied, had from the first been 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. In 1810 he proceeded so far as to set the European authorities at defiance. Having given shelter to two runaways from contracts of service, whom he refused to surrender and prepared to protect by force, he was summoned to appear before the court of the landdrost, but did not obey. An armed party was then sent against him, and he was captured with some difficulty. He was tried by the high court of justice and sentenced to imprisonment for life, when the location was broken up. The capture mattered because it closed the last of the Khoikhoi locations Janssens had marked on the Gamtoos, at the same time as the Zuurveld farms themselves were emptying. [3]
In the village itself the year that emptied the Zuurveld still counted heads for a muster-roll. In 1810 461 male inhabitants between the ages of 15 and 45 were reported as capable of bearing arms in defence of the place. The increasing number of houses necessitated regulations for the preservation of the water-course and the distribution of the water. Inhabitants were held responsible for the repair of the road and water-course passing their dwellings; a man unable to do the work himself was obliged to pay someone else to do it, under an overseer. The drostdy house, begun under the Batavian grant of 12500 rixdollars, had been only a little more than half finished by January 1808; the secretary’s and messenger’s houses and the jail had not even been commenced, a small clay house doing duty for the last, from which a fairly sober prisoner might with little trouble liberate himself. By 1809 the inhabitants had moved for a church, willing to contribute and asking government assistance, and a tax of 1 rixdollar on each waggon-load of salt from the pan near the village had been proposed. The year of the Oxford thus found Uitenhage with a water-course to keep, a muster of 461, and almost no farms left east of it. [4]
Halloran, the Lodge, and the Bank — June–August 1810
On the 1st of January two western chairs changed without a shot. Daniel Johannes van Ryneveld, deputy landdrost at Jan Dissels Vlei since the farm’s opstal had been bought from S. van Reenen for 6000 rixdollars, gave way to Jan Hendrik Fischer. The same day Faure, landdrost of Swellendam, retired for old age and was succeeded by Petrus Stephanus Buissinne. Paper money, carefully fastened and sealed with the governor’s seal and that of the court of justice, was renewed 7 times in the twelve months that followed — more often than in any year since the second occupation. The courtyard of the castle still took the damaged notes to the fire: fiscal, deputy commissary-general, two members of the court of justice, and two of the burgher senate meeting at the revenue office until the work was done. The west that would not yet put 700 men across the Fish could still stamp notes in the castle seven times. [3] [4]
In a small society like that of Capetown at the beginning of the century, the acts of a single erratic individual were often enough to keep the whole community in turmoil. During the greater part of Caledon’s time the leading people of the place were frequently annoyed by anonymous letters, containing threats, criticisms of their conduct, and aspersion of their characters, without anyone suspecting the real author. There was as yet in the colony no clergyman of the English church except the military chaplains, the Reverend Dr Laurence Halloran and the Reverend E. E. Jones. The Dutch congregation lent their place of worship, and Halloran held service for the English residents every Sunday. He was a man past middle age, well educated, and possessed of considerable ability. He wrote poetry which was above the medium order of merit. But he was not a lovable man, and there was something even in his appearance that was unattractive. His disposition was quarrelsome, and his pulpit utterances were often galling. After a rupture with the government one Sunday he preached from the text Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works, and directed his remarks at the colonial secretary, Henry Alexander, the governor’s cousin. The sermon mattered because the only English pulpit in Capetown was now aimed at the governor’s own household. [3]
The Latin school in Capetown had been resuscitated by the commissioner De Mist, and the situation of rector being vacant, Halloran applied for it and obtained the appointment. He hoped to hold it without giving up the military chaplaincy, but on the very day that he commenced the duty — the 1st of June 1810 — he received from General Grey, whom he had annoyed, an order to remove to Simonstown, where a body of troops was stationed. This led to his resigning his appointment in the army, pending the pleasure of the king. A few weeks later Grey received several anonymous letters, in one of which there was a quotation in Greek that was recognised as Halloran’s ordinary handwriting. That recognition would wait until December for a court. June still had a rector in the Latin school and a chaplain who had put down his army place. [3]
In August those who remained of the government slaves were confined to one wing of the lodge, and a portion of the space vacated was converted into chambers for the judges. Caledon had proposed in July 1807 that the government slaves be sold and the lodge converted into public offices. Under the Batavian administration the establishment had been greatly reduced; at that time it consisted of only 189 men, 73 women, and 23 children, some so old and infirm as to be unfit for severe labour, the cost of maintenance greater than the benefit derived. All the public offices were in the castle, where room was required for the military staff. The secretary of state modified the proposal so that the inmates were not put up to public auction; respectable people — especially military officers — were permitted to select slaves and remove them on payment of 30 pounds for each one, the governor’s permission in every instance being necessary. In this manner the number was slightly reduced, and August 1810 packed those who remained into one wing. The old slave lodge, greatly altered, was already on its way to becoming suites of offices. [3]
In June the loan bank’s capital was increased by 500000 rixdollars, stamped by the government for the purpose. In August 1808 the loan bank had been made also a bank of discount. The June issue of 1810 was paper created in the castle and signed into circulation. Before later years added another half-million for public buildings, the amount of paper money in circulation already stood high; the rate of exchange, as shown by tenders for treasury bills at the time of these issues, was from 2 shillings and 2 pence to 2 shillings and 6 pence for the rixdollar. From 1806 to 1810 the rixdollar was on the average worth 3 shillings and 6 pence. [3] [4]
The vacancies in the various churches were gradually filled as clergymen could be obtained. In Capetown the Reverend Messrs Fleck and Von Manger, and in Stellenbosch the Reverend Mr Borcherds, still ministered. After Aling’s death at Paarl on the 24th of April 1800 the congregation at Drakenstein was for nearly 7 years without other minister than a consulent; the post was then filled for only 6 months. Van der Spuy was transferred from Zwartland to Drakenstein in November 1806 and died there in March 1807. The church was then again without a resident clergyman until June 1810, when the Reverend Johan Wilhelm Ludwig Gebhard — Jean Guillaume Louis Gebhard, born at Mannheim in 1757, pastor of the Walloon Church of Norwich from the 14th of July 1805 after a certificate from Mercier of the French church in London, who had resigned that charge on the 1st of December 1809 — was stationed there, having just arrived from Europe. In March 1810 the Reverend M. C. Vos, who had recently returned from Europe, was stationed temporarily at Zwartland. [3] [8]
The whole question of land tenure in the colony was raised in the year 1810, during Caledon’s governorship, on account of a dispute which arose in connection with certain grazing lands claimed by the executors of one Laubscher, deceased. It was not clear by what right and title Laubscher had possessed the lands; an adverse decision was therefore given by the landdrost of the Cape district, before whom the case was brought. An appeal was made to the governor. This led to an investigation into not only the validity of all claims of a similar nature but also into the wider consideration of land tenure throughout the colony. It soon became evident that many landed possessions were held on tenures which would ill bear the investigation to which they must be subjected under a regular and efficient government. Caledon brought the matter before the notice of the Home government; it was referred to a committee of the Privy Council. Loan-place tenure, under which a tenant might be called upon to vacate on expiration of the lease, was already said to create a sense of insecurity which impeded improvement and restricted industry to immediate profits. Stockenstrom’s threat to cancel loan-place leases in the east sat on the same law as Laubscher’s grazing in the west. [4]
Upon the abolition of the oceanic slave trade the Cape Colony was made the receptacle for negroes rescued in the southern seas. British vessels detected with slaves on board, and slave ships belonging to nations at war with England captured by British cruisers, were sent to Table Bay to be condemned by a court of admiralty. The negroes were placed under the care of the collector of customs and, with the governor’s concurrence, apprenticed by him for 14 years to such persons as he approved of. Of the several prize negroes assigned to S. Murray there was one Jean Ellé, a native of Mauritius, rescued in 1810 from the French packet L’Hector by the English brig Racehorse. The west that stamped rixdollars and packed the lodge into one wing was already taking in prize people from the same ocean on which Bourbon and Mauritius still flew the French flag. [3] [4]
Bourbon and Mauritius — July–December 1810
On the 8th of July 1810 the island of Bourbon was wrested from the French by an English expedition sent from India. The Cape’s sea-road to India had for years had those two French islands sitting on it; privateers out of Port Louis had taken colonial ships, and the castle had lived with the knowledge that a French squadron could still use the Mascarenes as a base. The officers who had taken Bourbon then resolved to attack the more important island of Mauritius, and as the force at their disposal was insufficient they requested assistance from the Cape. That request is why two Cape regiments, and not Cuyler’s 700 men for the Fish, would sail from Table Bay in October. [3]
The same year named Janssens again on that ocean. When Napoleon placed his brother Louis on the newly created throne of the Netherlands in 1810, the last Dutch governor of the Cape was sent to the so-called possessions east of the Isle de France — the former Dutch East Indies — as governor-general. His first wife, Anna Barbara, daughter of Colonel Henri Balneavis, died in the same year. The castle at the Cape no longer flew his flag. The man who had signed Papendorp was now a name on another ocean; the civilian who sat in his place still had to answer Stockenstrom from Graaff Reinet and Cuyler from Uitenhage, and still had no council to share the answering. [9]
Caledon sent the 72nd and 87th regiments to aid in the operations. These troops left Table Bay on the 25th of October. The 72nd had been at the Cape since Baird’s arrival in 1806; its removal to Mauritius in 1810 took a garrison that had sat the second occupation from the castle to an island still to be taken. Cuyler’s formidable force remained a suggestion on paper; the 72nd and 87th sailed. [3]
On the 4th of December Mauritius came into possession of the English by capitulation. A British force partly sent from the Cape Colony took the island from the French on that day. Prize negroes such as Jean Ellé had already been pulled out of French packets in the same waters; the capitulation put the island itself under the flag that flew on the castle. The Cape’s part in the year of islands was two regiments out of Table Bay on the 25th of October and a capitulation read in December. Ndlambe was still in the Zuurveld when the news of Port Louis could have reached Uitenhage. [3]
Read Summoned — 21 September 1810
While Evatt sat Bruintjes Hooghte and the 72nd still waited in Table Bay, a letter from England cast severe reflection on conduct in the interior districts. The colonial secretary lost no time in bringing it before Cuyler, landdrost of the district concerned. In a letter dated the 21st of September 1810 he said the statement casting so severe a reflection made it essential to come at the truth by every possible means. His Excellency therefore desired that Mr Read be summoned and the fullest information taken from him on oath touching the matters alluded to in his letter. Cuyler was probably not so surprised as the officials in the west had been. He was accustomed to the insinuations and vague charges of the missionaries who accused him of ill-treating the natives and of abuses of his office by refusing to listen to complaints. Of all this he had taken little notice, as there was nothing definite on which to form a charge. He regarded it as the result of their displeasure at his compelling some of the Bethelsdorp Khoikhoi to take their share from time to time in the public works. Now that there was something definite and specific, he lost no time in commencing the investigation. What hung on the oath was whether charges written for England would stand when named in Uitenhage. [4]
The first witness examined was Read himself. With reference to the “three horrid murders” of Oersen and his wife and child, of which “we have lately been assured,” Read did not know who the murderer was or even when it took place, beyond that it occurred some 6 years previously when the country was in a state of war. The “savage boor” who threatened to cut out the woman’s eyes was Ignatius Muller. This was all he knew about it, and had been obtained in idle gossip with two Khoikhoi at Bethelsdorp, Willem Valtyn, his wife’s cousin, and Jantje Michels. The Khoikhoi girl who had been “pickled” was the daughter of one Uithaalder, and the deed was said to have been committed by a farmer named Rensburg, living in the Lange Kloof. Read could not then state “crimes of a more horrid nature” as mentioned in his letter to England, but could if he had his book which was then at home. [4]
Re-examined 6 days later, when he had had an opportunity of finding the said book, he produced it with much reluctance and would not allow it to go out of his hands. He said the information in it referred only to the years 1802 and 1803, when the country was in a state of disturbance, and acknowledged that the greater part of his information on these matters had been derived from Valtyn and Michels. Willem Valtyn stated that he had heard of the murder of Oersen from another Khoikhoi named Hermanus, who had died 2 years before this investigation. Beyond a small tobacco transaction he had not known Hermanus personally. He knew nothing about Oersen except that he was a waggon-driver. He denied ever mentioning anything about this to Read. He knew a Khoikhoi of the name of Uithaalder, but had never heard that his daughter had been ill-treated by her master, or in fact did not know of any Khoikhoi being ill-used by the inhabitants. [4]
Jantje Michels, sworn, said he knew Oersen. He had been a member of Piet van Rooyen’s commando during the rebellion of 1802. While they were in camp at the Zwartkops, Oersen was brought in by Khoikhoi spies, and with him were his wife and child. While Michels was sitting by the fire cooking his master’s food, a Khoikhoi, Klaas Meyer, came into the camp cleaning his knife. When asked what he had been doing with it, he said that he had cut the throat of Oersen’s child, and that his brother Paul had done the same to Oersen’s wife. Oersen himself, he said, had been shot. Michels denied having told Read about this, though on one occasion he was talking to Valtyn about it and Read happened to be near. Wildschut gave evidence that he had been ordered to join Van der Walt’s commando in 1802, and that on one occasion he with 7 others had been sent from their camp at the Winterhoek to the Zwartkops. On the evening of their arrival a Khoikhoi named Matross arrived with a horse which he said had belonged to a rover called Oersen. Oersen had been discovered by a party of armed farmers while killing a stolen ox, and fled with his wife who had a child upon her back. They were fired at and all killed, one shot killing both the woman and the child. Wildschut had never spoken on this matter to the missionaries. [4]
Ignatius Muller said he was with Van Rooyen’s commando in 1802 and had 68 men under his command. He remembered that one evening, when they were in camp, he heard a shot fired and saw a patrol returning. On inquiry he learnt that a woman and child had been shot while endeavouring to escape from the patrol. He had never known Oersen or his wife. Uithaalder in evidence said that before he joined Bethelsdorp he had been in service with Gerrit Lindaque at Winterhoek, and that he had left his daughter Catharyn in the same service. He had heard from his wife and from another Khoikhoi that his daughter had been beaten with a thong until she could not stand and that salt had been rubbed into the wounds on her back. He himself had never received any wages during the whole time of his service, but he had not complained to the landdrost. Read had said Rensburg of the Lange Kloof. [4]
Read, in further support of his position, put in two documents containing 13 other charges against various inhabitants, one of them a new version of the Oersen affair. As they referred to remote periods and to people who were no longer residing in the district, Cuyler did not enter into them. In the whole of his examination he confined himself to the cases mentioned in Read’s letter to England, though the intention of government was that a complete investigation into cruelty to and oppression of the Khoikhoi should have been made. The investigation, unsatisfactory and incomplete as it was, served to show the great care necessary in placing any reliance upon the statements of the Bethelsdorp missionaries. The “three horrid murders” of which “we have lately been assured” turned out to be founded upon a circumstance which had happened at a time of war by a party proceeding against combined Xhosa and Khoikhoi under the sanction of government, 6 years before the letter was written. Caledon, on receipt of Cuyler’s report, was dissatisfied. There had been no inquiry into the greater number of cases, and in those dealt with evidence had not been taken from people still living who must have known something — some of Muller’s 68, Klaas Meyer and his brother Paul, and others. On the 27th of November Caledon brought the whole question before the fiscal for his opinion and advice. Cuyler’s report had gone in on the 25th of October. The fiscal’s written opinion — that Vanderkemp and Read should be examined before commissioners of the court of justice — was not given until February 1811. [4]
Dedo, Cungwa, and Ndlambe — October–November 1810
In November an instructive object-lesson illustrating the ability to resist attack and retain spoil was furnished by a party of farmers under the field-commandant Stolz. They were intent on recapturing 14 head of marked cattle which had been traced to the kraal of one of Ndlambe’s petty chiefs named Dedo. On Dedo refusing to restore them, a messenger was sent to report the matter to Ndlambe. That chief sent his son to hear the case. Dedo, however, still refused and used threatening language to Stolz. Withdrawing to a distance and forming a temporary camp, as was usual on such occasions, the party waited until a reinforcement of 28 more farmers arrived under the fieldcornet Nel. An attempt was then made to recapture the cattle, when Dedo’s people rushed forward with assegais. The Boers were ordered to dismount and to get ready to fire, but they desisted on the interposition of Ndlambe’s son. Dedo then delivered up 7 head. It was determined, however, to regain all 14. On the following day 20 more farmers arrived, having been sent by Cuyler as soon as the news reached him. Preparations were being made to recover the remaining 7, when Dedo and all his people came forward with shields and assegais and presented so warlike an array that Ndlambe’s son advised the Boers to retire with what they had unless they were prepared for a serious fight. They acted upon this advice and thus gave further proof of Xhosa strength. [4]
In October Cungwa, with most of his people and cattle, crossed the Sundays with the intention of forming a kraal nearer to Uitenhage. When Cuyler objected, Cungwa offered as an excuse his desire to be nearer to the doctor on account of his ill-health. There may have been some truth in this statement, for he had for some time been suffering from disease, and moreover he was an old man. This was reported to the colonial secretary on the 4th of October. On this same date in the previous year a similar report of Cungwa’s inroad had been made; on that occasion the chief had stated that his move was on account of the health of his cattle. When he was ordered to return to his own place he promised to do so in 2 days, but after 5 days longer he had made no move; he then sent 3 messengers to Cuyler with an ox as a present. This was refused and returned. Cungwa took offence and sent word that the ox was sent as payment for the grass, but, said Cuyler, now that he found that the landdrost would not take payment or allow him to remain, he said he would not remove. Shortly afterwards, however, he did return to his old kraal in the Alexandria district. [4]
Among the Xhosa there was probably only one who viewed with concern this gradual increase of disorder, and that one was Ndlambe. With the shrewdness that was so characteristic of him he realised that there must be some limit, however remote, to the suffering the government would permit the frontier to endure, and that the nearer that limit was approached the greater was his danger of being driven from the fertile country of the present districts of Lower Albany and Bathurst, a situation which he greatly valued. He therefore adopted a policy of conciliation toward the white man far more productive of the ends in view than that pursued by the white man toward the black. Instead of the defiance shown by subordinate chiefs, Ndlambe listened to complaints and made a show of attempting to assist the farmers in the recovery of their property, usually succeeding to the extent of returning to them about 1 per cent, having taken the precaution to see that the remaining 99 per cent were in safe hiding. [4]
An example of these tactics was his procedure in connection with a theft of 2 horses from a farmer named Du Plessis. They were traced to a kraal of one of Ndlambe’s people but could not be found. The Boers then proceeded to Ndlambe himself and reported the affair. The chief, having expressed great displeasure at hearing so many reports of theft by his people, immediately sent off 4 Xhosa to look out for the lost horses. One of the messengers shortly returned saying he had seen them. The farmers wished to ride off instantly to recover them, but Ndlambe would not permit this. He said he would send for them himself as they would be sure to be hidden if white men came after them. The farmers waited 2 days, and as there seemed to be very little probability of the horses being brought back, they gave up the matter. These same Boers also made application to Ndlambe for the payment of 2 slaves who had escaped to his people and had been killed by his orders. He answered most confidently that the landdrost would pardon him, or if he did not, he could easily go round among the inhabitants and beg the required number of cattle to pay whatever was demanded as fine. [4]
Captain Evatt, writing to Cuyler on the 24th of November 1810, said that since his last letter he had paid a visit to Ndlambe, who as usual laughed at everything and received a few presents with seemingly great indifference. The chief purport of the mission was to learn how far his intentions were bent on a move, and by giving him, in return for an ox he had some time ago sent, a few things to induce him to give up some of what had been taken. The visit sat in the same month as Stolz’s 7 head from Dedo and Cungwa’s return to Alexandria. The Oxford had been in Algoa Bay since January. Ndlambe still laughed. [4]
Halloran Banished — 10 December 1810
A few weeks after the 1st of June, General Grey received several anonymous letters, in one of which there was a quotation in Greek that was recognised as the ordinary handwriting of Halloran. This was reported to the governor, who ordered him to be brought to trial for the offence. He was charged before the high court of justice with writing, composing, and publishing infamous libels against General Grey. For some time he refused to plead, as he denied the competency of a Dutch court to try a man holding an appointment in the British army until the resignation of that appointment was accepted by the king. This availed him nothing. The plea mattered because Halloran had put down the army place on the day he took the Latin school, and the court that sat on him was still the Dutch high court of the colony, not a British court-martial. [3]
Upon being found guilty, on the 10th of December 1810 he was condemned to be banished for ever from the colony and to pay the costs of the prosecution. Further, for offensive and slanderous expressions to the court, he was sentenced to pay a small fine and to be detained in the public prison until he could be sent out of the country. The sentence was confirmed by the court of appeal for criminal cases, and it was carried into effect by Halloran being confined in prison for 5 weeks and then being sent home in a man-of-war. Mauritius had capitulated 6 days before the high court named banishment. The rector who had taken the Latin school on the 1st of June left the colony as a prisoner of that court, not as a chaplain of Grey’s. [3]