Boer History1813 at the Cape of Good Hope: Circuit Verdicts, Quitrent, and Caledon Named
Zwartberg Church and School Tax — 1 January 1813
Sir John Francis Cradock governed the Cape without a council. He had taken the oaths on the 6th of September 1811, after Caledon sailed. On the 1st of January 1813 the church at the Zwartberg baths opened for public service. In February 1811 government bought the estate of J. Rademan and stationed the Dutch Reformed clergyman M. C. Vos there. A new congregation needed a building of its own. The baths sat far from the Swellendam drostdy, so a church on the spot was the first public mark of a settlement. Vos worked among white and coloured people and was esteemed by both. A few weeks after the opening, the deputy landdrost of Swellendam was stationed at the same place. There was still no clergyman at the drostdy of Uitenhage. In December 1812 the reverend T. Herold had been appointed to a new congregation at George. [3]
The same day a school tax, to be paid with the other dues at the annual opgaaf, came into force. Circuit judges reporting for 1812 told Cradock that in Graaff Reinet alone there were 3400 children, of whom not more than 100 had any chance of instruction, while the parents of at least 2000 could afford the expense. Except at the few drostdies and the houses of a few rich men, no sort of teaching for the young was to be had. Distant farms used discharged soldiers and other men who could get no other work, moving from place to place. The tax mattered because the Cape had no education department, and Cradock meant the opgaaf to pay for one. [3] [4]
In 1812 a Bible and School Commission was formed in Capetown of the clergymen of the Dutch reformed, Lutheran, and English episcopal congregations together with principal officials, supported by voluntary subscription. The Lutheran Frederick Hesse was secretary. The English minister Robert Jones was an active member. Schools for coloured children at Capetown, Stellenbosch, and Tulbagh, kept by missionaries of the London and South African societies, were aided as much as possible by the governor. A circular of April 1812 asked the landdrosts how instruction might be provided. The result was a school at each drostdy and at such out-stations as were found practicable, managed by a local committee of landdrost, clergymen, and elders, all under the School Commission in Capetown. [3] [4]
Teachers were to be church clerks and others found competent after examination by the Board. An annual allowance of 400 rixdollars — 30 pounds — together with half the school fees and a plot of ground for a garden, was to make the combined office independent and respectable. The places decided upon were Simon’s Town, Zwartberg, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Zwartland, Tulbagh, Swellendam, Graaff Reinet, Uitenhage, and George; shortly afterwards Roggeveld, Hantam, Langekloof, and Bruintjes Hoogte were added. Little success attended the regulations at first. Teachers of the desired standard could not be found; some who took up the work became discontented at the difficulty of getting their pay; in the more remote districts the teachers had to move from farm to farm; poorer inhabitants were obliged to employ their children as soon as they could tend cattle. Of all the places in the east, Grahamstown responded most satisfactorily, even at that early date taking the lead in educational matters. [4]
On the 22nd of January J. Knobel, late secretary of Uitenhage, was gazetted sworn surveyor. The appointment mattered for a colony about to force loan places onto surveyed diagrams, and for a military camp at the source of the Kowie that was still little more than a name. Early in the year Cradock applied for permission to resign the governorship. What hung on the opening day was a church at the baths, a tax on the opgaaf, and a surveyor’s commission — and a circuit still sitting at George when the year opened. [4]
Circuit Closes — 15 January 1813
The sitting later called black left Capetown on the 23rd of September 1812. Judges Lambert Christiaan Hendrik Strubberg and Pieter Laurens Cloete took George, Uitenhage, and Graaff Reinet. Two other judges sat at Swellendam and Tulbagh. The circuit existed because Caledon had been allowed, on the 16th of May 1811, to send members of the high court through the districts to try important cases and inspect landdrosts. This second sitting was different. London had sent a copy of a letter from Read of Bethelsdorp, who wrote that he and Vanderkemp knew of more than 100 cases where Khoikhoi had been murdered by white people in Uitenhage alone. The secretary of state ordered a thorough investigation. That is why an advocate, Gerard Beelaerts van Blokland, rode with the judges to prosecute the missionary cases, leaving the landdrosts to prosecute the rest. Landdrost Jacob Glen Cuyler had asked for that departure from the usual course, because his own honour was at stake. [3] [4] [7]
The court sat at Uitenhage to the 3rd of December, then at George from the 17th of December to the 5th of January. More than 1/3 of the male inhabitants of the frontier districts capable of bearing arms were in garrison in the stockaded posts built to keep the Xhosa from returning to the Zuurveld after the clearing of 1812. Over 50 members of their families — male and female — were required to appear, and over 1000 witnesses — European, black, and Khoikhoi — were summoned. The whole country was in a state of commotion. When government took care not to overlook a single case where there might be the smallest foundation, only 17 murder cases figured on the lists; when it came to the trials, not a single one of those murder charges was proved. [3] [4] [7]
15 white men and 2 white women were severally charged with murder, and 13 white men and 2 white women with crimes of violence toward Khoikhoi or slaves. Of the murder charges, the cases of 2 men and 1 woman were referred to the full court in Capetown; those of 2 men were postponed until next session; 1 man was found guilty of assault; 1 woman and 10 men were acquitted. Of the charges of violence, the case of 1 man was referred to the landdrost, as the complainant did not appear; that of another man had to stand over until the next session for want of witnesses; 1 woman and 5 men were acquitted; 1 woman and 6 men were found guilty and sentenced to various punishments. There were also 19 cases against white people for recovery of wages, 2 for illegal detention of children, and 5 for illegal detention of cattle. The most serious of these were decided in favour of the defendants. [3] [4]
At George 2 cases called for the fullest investigation. Elizabeth Kampher, wife of Hendrik van Staden, and her son-in-law Ter Blanche were accused of excessive ill-treatment of a female Khoikhoi named Catharyn Stephen, aged 14 and a half — the girl said to have been pickled. 10 witnesses gave evidence that she had been stripped and laid on the kitchen floor and there held by 3 maids while Ter Blanche flogged her till the blood came. Her offence was taking a bowl of victuals before it was given to her. A Dr. van Colff testified to the severity of the wounds. Mrs. van Staden acknowledged that she had treated Catharyn too severely and requested a fatherly forgiveness. She was fined 50 rixdollars and condemned in 3/4 of the costs; Ter Blanche, who said he had not performed the flogging of his own accord but at his mother-in-law’s request, was fined 10 rixdollars and condemned in 1/4 of the costs. [4]
A far worse case was that of Pieter Hendrik Ferreira and his wife Martha, accused of causing the death of 2 slaves and 5 Khoikhoi and of great ill-treatment of 3 others. A very large number of witnesses were examined. Much of the evidence, though conflicting, was strongly confirmatory of the guilt of Martha Ferreira — known as Kwaade Martha for the severity with which she treated her servants, using in her fits of temper sticks, ox-yokes, pot-lids, and almost anything portable. After a long hearing the court found no grounds for action against the husband, but a bill of indictment by way of personal citation was found against the wife, and the landdrost was directed to summon the witnesses to whose testimony she had appealed before the court in Capetown. Johannes Kalitz and Willem Pretorius, called to account at Uitenhage for the death of a Khoikhoi named Gezwind, were acquitted after the death was proved accidental and the accusation rested upon the story of an unknown Xhosa. Jacobus Scheepers, accused of the murder of Jan Blaauw, saw the case terminate with a declaration that no grounds for an action existed, and that landdrost Cuyler had completely discharged his duty. [4]
It was nearly 4 months before the black circuit closed its session, and when on the 15th of January the judges reached Capetown again, the irritation in the eastern districts was still at its height. It was of no use telling the people that the trials had shown the missionaries to have been the dupes of idle storytellers. The extraordinary efforts made to search for cases and to conduct the prosecutions appeared in their eyes as a fixed determination on the part of the English authorities to punish them if by any means a pretext could be found. If it were not so, they asked, why were not charges made by them against Khoikhoi followed up in the same manner. From that time the missionaries of the London society were held by the frontier colonists to be slanderers and public enemies, whose statements were not to be regarded as worthy of attention. Here and there one or two of the missionaries in after years overcame this prejudice, but the expression London missionary society remained in use as denoting something inimical. [3] [7]
In their final report to Cradock the judges stated, referring to the cases brought forward by the missionaries of Bethelsdorp, that they appeared so devoid of truth that there were not even grounds sufficient to charge the accused with the costs of the investigations. If the informers had taken the trouble to go into a summary and impartial investigation of the different stories related to them, many of those complaints which had made such a noise as well in as without the colony must have been considered by themselves as existing in imagination only. Reporting on Bethelsdorp itself, they wrote that Vanderkemp had established such an overstrained principle of liberty that the natural state of the barbarians appeared there to supersede civilisation and social order; laziness and idleness, and consequently dirt and filth, grew there to perfection. Some of the Bethelsdorp Khoikhoi had in former times suffered injuries from some of the farmers; but there were also many at Bethelsdorp who had had a considerable part in plundering, robbing, setting fire to places, and even murdering the inhabitants. Cuyler was quite exonerated from the false charges brought against him. He had the satisfaction of seeing, in a despatch from Cradock to Lord Bathurst dated the 11th of August, that the governor experienced the greatest satisfaction in finding from universal testimony that the conduct of Major Cuyler of the Cape Corps, acting landdrost of Uitenhage, had been without reproach, and that the aspersions cast upon his character were entirely destitute of foundation. [4]
Frontier Posts, Depredations, and Grahamstown Planned — 1813
The hopes Cradock entertained at the end of the 1812 campaign — that on the recovery of the Zuurveld and the chain of posts the frontier farmers would be secure from predatory visits — were not realised. Almost before the burghers had returned to their homes, parties of Xhosa were again in the colony. In spite of outposts and continued patrols it was nearly impossible to prevent return. The Fish could be forded at almost all places. The dexterous approach of marauders and their ability to operate on the darkest nights rendered vigilance of little avail. Toward the end of 1812 they were gradually finding their way back to the old haunts, and the quarterly depredation returns indicated a revival of the old state of affairs. For the 3 months ending the 31st of December 1812, 42 cattle and 13 horses were stolen. For the first quarter of 1813, 172 cattle and 19 horses were stolen and 1 slave killed. For the second quarter, 101 cattle and 35 horses were taken and 2 slaves and 1 Khoikhoi murdered. For the third quarter, 64 cattle and 21 horses were stolen. For the 4 weeks ending the 20th of November, over 1000 head of cattle were taken from the farmers near the border and 5 Khoikhoi servants murdered. Those numbers are why Cradock decided later in the year to see the east himself. [4]
Grahamstown, which up to this time was little more than a name, consisted simply of the camp of the few officers and men of the Cape regiment who were not on outpost duty. Occupation by white inhabitants of the Zuurveld east of the Sundays had been one of Cradock’s first objects: lands offered to the first 50 applicants free of all rent for 10 years, and thereafter at a perpetual quitrent not exceeding half a skilling per morgen. The next step toward a town was to attract civilian settlers. Plots of land for building were suggested at small cost: 50 paces broad and 150 paces long, the applicants to pay 20 rixdollars to the district chest when the grants in full possession would be made out. On the 13th of September the governor approved an estimate of 12000 rixdollars — 900 pounds — for the necessary public buildings, and Colonel Cuyler closed with Von Buchenroder on those terms. The camp of June 1812 had been raised with a view to only a year’s occupation at most; it was still standing. Knobel’s gazette as sworn surveyor on the 22nd of January gave the colony a man who could in time lay out a street from the drostdy house, but the work of tracing lots belonged to the year that would follow. [4]
John Graham, after the Zuurveld campaign, spent a short time in Scotland. There he read Lord Selkirk’s small book on the origin and progress of poverty among the Highlanders. Impressed with those schemes, Graham advocated the sparsely populated Zuurveld as a field for indigent Highlanders. His views went in a long letter dated the 21st of May to H. Alexander, the Cape colonial secretary. Nothing then came of the suggestion. Cradock also tried, as early as 1813, to induce people to settle on the shores of Algoa Bay, then little more than Fort Frederick and a few military buildings, by offering plots at 30 rixdollars and an annual quitrent of 2 rixdollars. Nothing came of that either: the surrounding country was thinly peopled, and the time was against a town on the bay. [4]
In June, Andries Stockenstrom, deputy landdrost of Graaff Reinet since the 10th of June 1812, after first proposing Grootfontein near later Middelburg, decided upon the loan place of Piet van Heerden called Buffel’s Kloof, in Achter Sneeuwberg. It was fairly central, well watered, and had a good house and building material on the spot. Government bought it for 3500 rixdollars. When Cradock visited the east at the end of the year he approved the position and sanctioned 12000 rixdollars on the necessary public buildings. He was asked to allow the embryo town to take his name; the advertisement that did so belongs to January following. [4]
In spite of the troubles which beset the east in these early stages, there were indications of the prosperity which might be realised under more propitious circumstances. The census returns for 1813 showed that, notwithstanding depredations, there were more cattle in the district of Graaff Reinet than in any other, while in the case of sheep the number in Graaff Reinet — 1039473 — was greater than in all the other districts of the colony put together; the colonial total was 1783449. Graaff Reinet was by far the largest district and comprised nearly 1/3 of the colony. About this time an export trade in produce was commenced, chiefly with Mauritius. A firm of beef contractors, Pohl & Co., was established at Algoa Bay, from which place all the produce was shipped. At the end of 1812 250 sheep and no less than 32129 pounds of butter had been sent to Mauritius; in August 1813 the same firm shipped 2000 casks of salted beef to the same place. All this raised the question of a custom house at Algoa Bay, but nothing was done in that direction. Clearance of ships taking imports to Algoa Bay still had to be made at Capetown. [4]
As the state of affairs again became so grave, Cradock decided to visit the east and investigate matters for himself. Intercourse between colonist and Xhosa was at this time strictly forbidden, but could not be entirely prevented, as roving bands managed to elude the vigilance of the guards at the military posts and traversed the country either to steal or to beg. A large party in England asserted that the Europeans in South Africa were guilty of many cruelties toward the adherents of Ndlambe, both before and after the late war. A special object of the governor’s inquiry would be the conduct of the frontier farmers toward those who had been driven over the Fish. He had, in Colonel Vicars, a commissioner who recommended the complete cessation of all intercourse, and who acknowledged that from accumulated experience no faith whatever could be placed in treaties. [3] [4]
Quitrent — 6 August 1813
At this period, in conformity with the established law of nations, Great Britain professed to abstain from making any important changes in the colony, because on the conclusion of peace the country might be restored to its former owner. And yet the land tenure of the greater portion of the settled territory was altered in 1813. 5/6 of all the holdings in the colony were still loan places. When a man wanted a grazing run, he looked out for a good locality, set up a beacon, and sent a request to the government to be allowed to occupy it. A commission of 2 or 3 heemraden or fieldcornets inspected and reported whether a grant would interfere with anyone else’s rights and whether the applicant was a proper person. If the report was favourable, a lease was made out, the rent being alike in all instances 24 rixdollars a year. The size of the place was half an hour’s walk in every direction from the central beacon. The lease was for one year only, but by long custom it was regarded as renewed by the payment of the rent. The occupant could at any time dispose by sale of the buildings and improvements — the opstal — and the government, which received transfer dues on such sales, continued the lease to the purchaser. By the letter of the law the government could reclaim the ground at any time upon a year’s notice, but no instance of this kind had occurred unless the occupant was such a notoriously bad character that the people of his district wished to get rid of him. [3] [4]
In Cradock’s opinion the faults of the system were many. First, it did not give absolute legal security of possession, and therefore he thought the occupants were discouraged from making improvements. Secondly, all farms, whether good or bad, paid the same rent. Thirdly, the boundaries were ill-defined, and disputes between neighbours were interminable concerning their limits and the right of grazing over the intermediate ground. Fourthly, loan places could not be divided among heirs. According to the law of the colony all the children shared equally in the inheritance of a dead parent; consequently when a man died, his farm — if a loan place — was necessarily sold, in order that the proceeds might be distributed. This system prevented the growth of that attachment to the soil which arises from long residence, and tended to scatter the population thinly over a vast area. On the 16th of October 1812 he issued a proclamation enforcing the prohibition of the extension of loan places which had been promulgated in 1732, and ordered holders to erect conspicuous beacons at the angles so that grants might be represented by diagrams and registered. That order is why Knobel’s gazette in January mattered: without surveyors, diagrams could not be made. [3] [4]
On the 6th of August a proclamation was issued which nominally permitted occupants of loan places to have their tenure converted into that of perpetual quitrent, but which really obliged them to do so by prohibiting alienation of any part of a loan place until it should be surveyed, and claiming for the government the right of resumption or of increasing the rent. There were 17 sections. No place was to exceed 3000 morgen — the legal extent of the original loan places — unless specially sanctioned by the governor in each case. The holder by this grant should obtain the right to hold the land hereditarily, to sell or otherwise alienate it. Government reserved mines of precious stones, gold, or silver; other mines of iron, lead, copper, tin, coals, slate, or limestone were to belong to the proprietor. The government also reserved the right to make and repair public roads, and to the use of materials for that purpose. The quitrent was to vary with the situation, fertility, and other favourable circumstances of the land, and could be fixed as high as 250 rixdollars a year. Each farm was to be properly surveyed at the expense of the occupant, and a diagram registered in the deeds office. All applications for conversion had to be made within 12 months from the date of the proclamation. [3] [4]
Cradock believed that by this alteration a great benefit was being conferred upon the colonists, for which they ought to be duly grateful. The preamble stated that the chief source of prosperity in the colony was agriculture, that success depended upon certainty of tenure, and that although loan leases might have been suitable to the early state of the colony, the loan tenure was now injurious to that certainty so essential to the happiness and the interest of the inhabitants. He felt the highest gratification in giving effect to these beneficent and paternal designs of His Majesty’s Government, and persuaded himself that the gratitude of the inhabitants would be equal to the value of the inestimable gift — a perfect title that enabled them to provide for their children and descendants, and granted them the high character and station of a real landowner. They would thereby abandon an unworthy tenure, unfitted to the growing prosperity of the colony, and only suited to the earliest and rudest institutions of the settlement. What hung on the 6th of August was not a courtesy to farmers. It was an attempt to turn a wartime occupation, still liable to be restored at a peace, into a colony of titled landowners paying a rent that could rise tenfold. [3] [4]
The farmers did not regard it in the same light. They looked upon the old system as giving all the security and advantages that they needed. Under it they could not indeed divide their farms among their children, as they were now enabled to do; but while vast tracts of land lay before them waste and unoccupied, they preferred that each child should receive a full-sized loan place rather than a portion of a quitrent farm. The increased rent and the costs of survey fairly frightened many of them. The loan-place rent had been only 24 rixdollars, or about 30 including the stamp for renewal; the new rent might be as high as 250. Then they were required to make deposits on account of the charges of inspection and survey, and as qualified surveyors were few and the country was large, years elapsed before the work could be completed. Meanwhile they remained in a condition of suspense, until the impression came to be general that the scheme was meant to defraud them rather than to increase their security. The delightful uncertainty of boundaries, with unmolested encroachment on the adjacent lands, was a charm which would be dissipated by the accurate and unsympathetic land surveyor. Resumption of a loan place by government was almost unknown; when it had taken place because the land was wanted for some public purpose, the holder was indemnified on such a scale as to lead to the idea that the land was bought — as in the purchase of the farm of Widow Scheepers for Uitenhage, and the similar case of Tulbagh. [3] [4]
The privileges and benefits which were to be conferred were not received with enthusiasm. The year during which applications to become real landowners were to be made passed without any one such request being preferred. There was, in fact, scarcely a beginning in this respect during the few years immediately subsequent to the promulgation of the act. Cradock certainly issued 180 perpetual quitrent grants, but all were original and none of them loan-place conversions. In the mind of the Boer there was little to recommend the advantages of the new system when compared with those of the old. The “inestimable gift” of being enabled to subdivide a farm for the children seemed a poor substitute for the procedure under which children, when old enough, arranged matters for themselves and obtained whole and undivided loan places. Confidence did not consist in the certainty of any actual right, but only in the hope of meeting with that continued indulgence of government which as yet had been only rarely withdrawn, and even then with due compensation. Government committed itself further by receiving duty on sums paid for opstals that could not have been merely the value of a few wattle-and-daub buildings. [4]
Churches, Pacalt, Schutz, and the Wine Act — 1813
The vacancies in the various churches were gradually filled up, as clergymen could be obtained. In Capetown the reverend Messrs. Fleck and Von Manger, and in Stellenbosch the reverend Mr. Borcherds, still ministered. The reverend Mr. Ballot remained at Tulbagh. In Capetown the reverend Robert Jones, from October 1811, held English services in the building belonging to the Dutch congregation, there being as yet only 3 church edifices in the town: the Dutch reformed, the Lutheran, and the chapel in Long-street belonging to the South African missionary society, opened in March 1804. His salary was paid from the colonial treasury, on the same standing as the ministers of the Dutch reformed church. In 1813 a congregation of the English episcopal church was formed at Simonstown, and in September of that year the reverend George Hough became its first clergyman. That appointment mattered because the English congregation in Capetown had until then no counterpart at the naval station. [3]
The reverend Mr. Schutz remained clergyman of Swellendam for several years. He was of a quarrelsome disposition, and complaints of his conduct were frequently made to government. These were investigated, and Schutz was repeatedly reproved and warned until at length, in September 1813, the governor suspended him from duty for 2 years and ordered him to remove immediately from the district of Swellendam. The congregation was then left for some time without a clergyman. The order mattered because Swellendam was the district whose deputy seat at the Zwartberg baths was about to take a new name, and because a suspended pastor left that large congregation without a resident minister. [3]
The Moravians had as yet only the mission stations of Genadendal and Mamre. Within the colony, in 1812 a missionary had been stationed at Zuurbraak, a Khoikhoi reserve in the district of Swellendam, occupied by the remnant of the Attaqua. In 1813 another missionary went to reside at Hoogekraal, a reserve occupied by the remnant of the Outeniqua tribe, on the coast close to the drostdy of George. The first missionary there was the reverend Pacalt, a man whose good deeds were long had in remembrance in that part of the country, and who was highly esteemed by all classes of the inhabitants. After his death the station was named Pacaltsdorp. Beyond the colony the Bushman station at the Zak river had been abandoned, as had the one at the Kuruman; the stations among the half-breeds and Khoikhoi near the junction of the Orange and the Vaal remained. An attempt to found a station at Warm Bath in Great Namaqualand had been broken by the robber captain Afrikaner; the people had then settled at Pella, in Little Namaqualand, near the southern bank of the Orange. [3]
The reverend John Campbell, sent out to inspect the London society’s missions, visited the Batlapin in 1813. It was he who gave the name Griquas to the people of Adam Kok and Barend Barends, and Griquatown to the station at Klaarwater. From this place he travelled along the Orange river to Pella in Little Namaqualand, and thence through Kamiesberg to Capetown. The Batlapin principal kraal at Lithako contained about 5000 inhabitants under Mothibi. The missionaries Anderson, Kramer, and Janssen, of the London and Rotterdam societies, were residing with the Griquas. The names mattered because they gave a single label to mixed people collected near the junction of the Vaal and the Orange, and because Campbell’s tour was the inspection on which later grants to the London society would turn. [3]
On the 2nd of July the imperial parliament reduced the customs duty on Cape wines from 43 pounds 1 shilling to 14 pounds 7 shillings, and the excise duty to 17 pounds 10 shillings, the tun of 252 gallons. This gave a great impetus to the planting and enlargement of vineyards, the effect of which was not felt, however, until later years. No wine was permitted to be exported unless certified to be of good quality by an officer termed the winetaster, first appointed in 1811. The regulation had as its object to improve the quality of Cape wines and thus to remove the bad reputation which they had in Europe, but it did not answer that purpose: after several years’ experience it was found that the ordinary wines were actually inferior to those produced before the appointment of a taster. The act of 1813 remained in force for 12 years, the most flourishing period that South African winefarmers have ever known. What hung on the July act was not a local ordinance. It was a wartime preference in the British market, offered while France was still the enemy. [3]
For revenue purposes, after the 8th of July a duty of 3 per cent of the value was levied on British goods imported in British ships, now the only merchandise, except Indian produce, admitted into the country. English merchants, being apprehensive that at any time peace might be concluded and the colony again be restored to the Netherlands, made no effort to extend the Cape trade, and only sufficient goods were imported to meet the most pressing demands. By the 21st of January, 22 slave ships had called at the Cape since the 21st of November 1808. Few slaves were landed, except where a ship was wrecked or abandoned in pecuniary difficulties; in those cases the slaves became prize negroes. Caledon’s board of inquiry in 1808, before which every slave holder had to explain how he came by each slave under a penalty of 500 rixdollars, had sat every day for 6 weeks and remained a deterrent. [3] [4]
Cradock’s Tour — 18 October 1813
Early in the year Cradock applied for permission to resign. On the 13th of October Bathurst replied that the Prince Regent had accepted the resignation, expressed his high sense of the services Cradock had rendered during his term of office, and regretted that he had found it necessary to withdraw from the inhabitants a superintendence in which he had shown so much assiduity, judgment, and ability, uniformly exercised with a view to their advancement in happiness and prosperity. 5 days later, on the 18th of October, the governor left Capetown to make a tour through the colony, and as he visited the most distant parts he would be absent until January following. A successor was already in view. Lord Charles Henry Somerset was appointed by royal commission dated the 2nd of November — “Our Trusty and Well-beloved Charles Henry Somerset Esquire, commonly called Lord Charles Henry Somerset.” The new governor would not reach Table Bay until the next calendar year. The tour mattered because Cradock was leaving, the east was again under plunder, and a party in England still charged the frontier farmers with cruelty toward Ndlambe’s people. [3] [4]
He arrived at Assegai Bush, near the later village of Sidbury, on the 27th of November. Having learnt of the extent of the depredations during that month, he immediately issued orders to Vicars to adopt stringent measures. Vicars was instructed to communicate with Gaika and other chiefs and to explain to them afresh that the object alone was to preserve the boundaries of the colony. Cradock wrote that Vicars was to act with the small force under his orders in the most vigorous manner in his power, and to try to do something, as far as prudence would permit, that would prove that His Majesty’s Government could no longer be trifled with, and that it would not suffer the prosperity of the whole province, and indeed of the entire colony, to be destroyed. [4]
The whole of the burgher force from Graaff Reinet and Uitenhage was again called out. On the 30th of November — within 2 days after most of them had received their orders, and in the case of many much less — all had assembled at the Baviaan’s River ready to proceed beyond the Fish. The Graaff Reinet burghers were led by Andries Stockenstrom; the command of the whole force was under Major Fraser, as Vicars, on whom this duty devolved, met with an accident and was compelled to remain at Van Aardt’s post. The boundary was crossed on the 2nd of December. The parts of the country contiguous to the border, known to have been inhabited a few days before, were found deserted; the Xhosa, probably by means of their spies, had become aware of what was in progress. On the evening of the 3rd the force encamped on the Kromme river. 7 Xhosa who were driving a large number of cattle approached the camp. Fraser ordered them to go to Gaika and the other chiefs and to tell them that he demanded immediate restoration of the stolen cattle and horses. Although they promised to do so, they drove their cattle into the woody fastnesses and gave no indication of obeying. [4]
During the next day the march was continued to the mountainous country at the source of the Kat. 7 other armed Xhosa were met with. Fraser at first gave orders to fire at them, but as they approached of their own accord, and seemed unaware of any such intention, the order was countermanded. They were taken prisoners; their assegais having been taken from them, they were made to accompany the force in order that they might witness the proceedings and, on liberation, communicate to others the object of such expeditions. 6 were eventually liberated; 1 escaped, and it was believed was shot in doing so. The commando did not proceed farther than the Kat and the Mancazana, as Fraser was afraid of exceeding his orders. In the forests of those parts a large number of cattle, which had been driven there for safety, was found. Between 2000 and 3000 were driven forth, and from them 140 marked colonial cattle were picked out. With these the force returned to the colony, having accomplished next to nothing. [4]
In the extended tour Cradock visited many out-of-the-way places in order to gain an insight into the actual condition of the frontier. From Assegai Bush he went to Lombard’s Post, near the later village of Southwell, and thence across the Kowie as far as the mouth of the Great Fish. Returning, he came into Grahamstown — still the camp and the walls of a tronk — about the 3rd of December, then spent about a week at Uitenhage, and went on to Graaff Reinet. A special object remained the conduct of the frontier farmers toward those driven over the Fish. From the survey he was greatly impressed with the difficulties of life in the east. He decided, when he was in Graaff Reinet, to augment the Cape Regiment to its original strength of 800 rank and file — that is, to add 200 men — because the Khoikhoi of that corps had shown themselves the troops best adapted to the woody tracts that skirted the Fish. His return to Capetown would not fall in calendar 1813. While Caledon and Cradock were governors, 500000 rixdollars were expended upon public buildings within the colony. [3] [4]
In the wild country near the source of the Baviaan’s River, almost upon the Xhosa frontier, lived Frederick Cornelius Bezuidenhout. A Khoikhoi servant named Booy ran from him more than once. Stockenstrom mediated and persuaded Booy to return. About 2 months later Booy ran again to Graaff Reinet and complained that he could not get the wages due to him. Bezuidenhout was called before the board of landdrost and heemraden. He did not attend, but wrote a respectful letter dated the 28th of June explaining the trouble Booy was causing and saying he could not leave home because he had nobody with him except his son. No notice seems to have been taken of the written defence, and the matter was again terminated satisfactorily. Booy’s contract then expired; he freely hired himself for another year, then ran again. On the 20th of November Bezuidenhout wrote once more, asking that Booy be sent with the fieldcornet to fetch his goods, and adding that he could not endure riding so far — he was said to be suffering from gout and had been seen on crutches. Booy did not return. He went to Grahamstown and enlisted in the Cape Corps. Adjustment of his affairs was put aside for a time by the troubles with the Xhosa and the commando that occupied attention at the end of 1813. The letters mattered because a wage dispute left hanging on the Baviaan’s River was the seed of later resistance to a summons. [4]
Caledon Named — 31 December 1813
On the 31st of December Cradock named the residence of the deputy landdrost of Swellendam Caledon, in honour of the late governor. The church at the Zwartberg baths had opened on the first day of the same year; Vos was stationed there; the deputy landdrost sat a few weeks after the opening. The baths had been a hot-spring estate bought from Rademan in February 1811. The name now given to the seat made that congregation and that deputy court a village on the map, and tied it to the earl who had authorised circuit courts and then gone home. [3]
Cradock was still in the east when the year closed. The deputy seat at the baths now carried the late governor’s name. [3]