Boer History1817 at the Cape of Good Hope: Somerset in the East, the Kat River Conference, and the Amsterdam
Hart at the Somerset Farm — January 1817
Lord Charles Henry Somerset governed the Cape from the 6th of April 1814. He was a tory lieutenant-general, not a man to sit as a mere patron, and this year the question on his table was whether a government farm at the Boschberg could feed the eastern posts now that the first superintendent had asked to be relieved. Dr. Mackrill had named the place the Somerset farm and had tried tobacco there. The tobacco trial came to nothing. As a means of furnishing meal and oat-hay to the troops the establishment succeeded, especially after Robert Hart succeeded him in January. What hung on that change was not another landing in Table Bay but whether the Fish posts would still eat if the farm stopped pretending to be an experimental estate and became what the garrison needed: a store. [3]
The tract at the Boschberg had been taken in Van Plettenberg’s time by Willem Prinsloo, then divided into two loan places occupied by farmers named Triegard and Bester. Those leases were cancelled. Mackrill, a botanist who introduced buchu to medical men in England though every Cape housewife already kept a supply, was given labourers and appliances and told to carry out the governor’s design. Magazines were then built in which grain purchased from farmers in the district could be stored with that grown upon the place; cattle were purchased and kept to be sent away as required. The establishment thus became a commissariat depot as well as an agricultural farm. Under Hart there was no pretence of making it anything else than an adjunct to the commissariat: it monopolised the military market. Farmers who had sold direct to the troops at better prices refused to sell to the farm; government answered on 3 October 1816 that it would supply the frontier from its own farm as far as resources allowed, and that anyone who threw obstacles in the agent’s way would face the severest penalties. Hart inherited that monopoly. [3] [4]
Mackrill’s last appearance in the colonial records is a memorial of March in which he asked for salary from the 1st of September 1814 to the 31st of December 1816 — 2 years and 4 months in establishing and superintending the Somerset Estate at 2000 rixdollars a year, total due to the memorialist 4666 rixdollars 5 skillings and 2 stivers. The soldiers detached to the farm for its protection had, in the previous year, refused farm labour. Captain Andrews at Van Aardt’s told Mackrill he could not punish men for misconduct in a civil capacity: they had been sent to protect the place, not to plough it. By April 1816 Mackrill wrote that all the influence he formerly possessed over the soldiery had vanished and every man did as he pleased. He asked to be relieved and named Hart as a fit successor. Hart was one of the first to obtain small grants in Grahamstown; he ran the Boschberg as a store that bought grain, held cattle, and billed the military. The farm was financed by the colonial government while supplies to the troops were paid for by the home government, so profits moved from London to the Cape treasury in a way the Lords of the Treasury did not see. [4]
34 horses were sent from England this year for the governor. 11 died at sea and 2 just after landing. He sold 19 at different times at prices ranging from 1400 to 10000 rixdollars, reaching a total of 107350 rixdollars — about 8051 pounds. The average cost of each horse, including passage and grooms, was 350 pounds, or 11900 pounds for the lot, so the transaction stood at a loss of some 3848 pounds. William Hollett, master of the Duke of Marlborough, took 8 horses from England in the hope of selling them at the Cape. 7 died at sea. The total cost was 1345 pounds. He sold the survivor to Dirk Cloete of Stellenbosch for 100 pounds, a loss of 1245 pounds. The governor’s aim remained what it had been since he took the oaths: that the colony should produce strong well-formed horses in sufficient numbers for the army in India. The public funds could not buy as many high-class breeding animals as he wanted, so he imported many at his own expense. That is why a loss on 34 animals still sat inside the same policy that wanted the Boschberg to feed the posts: improvement, in his view, had to come from the governor’s hand. [3] [4]
Somerset Leaves for the East — 27 January 1817
Outrages on the Uitenhage and Graaff-Reinet line, and the failure of earlier attempts to keep order, decided the governor to see the east himself. Gaika was the man the colony treated as first chief west of the Kei, though many of the captains under that name did not obey him. His chief interpreter, Nootka (also Nutka), still came frequently to Grahamstown and the posts with a few cattle or horses which Gaika had obtained from thieves and sent back as testimony of good faith. It was noticed that after these visits stock soon disappeared from the places he had passed through. Suspicion arose that the expeditions were as much observation as restitution. On the 19th of January 1816 the two sons of Pieter Brits near the Baviaans’ River were murdered, and a Khoikhoi woman with her baby speared; the east had not grown quieter since. That is why a governor who had not yet ridden the Fish in person chose January to go. [4]
On the 27th of January he left Capetown, accompanied by his two daughters, the colonial secretary Colonel Bird, Thomas Sheridan, and Dr. James Barry. The party travelled overland through Swellendam and the Lange Kloof into Uitenhage, then, to learn the disturbed area, into Albany and, as near as the impenetrable bush would permit, along the Fish from its mouth up to Kruger’s Post. In a report to Earl Bathurst dated the 24th of April the governor described Albany as a succession of parks from the Bushman’s to the Great Fish, well favoured by nature, well adapted to cultivation and peculiarly fitted for cattle — but of 145 families established there, 90 had been forced in the last 18 months to abandon their dwellings, and terror was so general that the remainder would shortly fly. An earlier count of those who had taken Cradock’s Zuurveld offer of the 28th of January 1814 put the number at 105 families, of whom 90 were gone, and 3600 cattle stolen within 18 months. The two returns sit together: 105 who took the quitrent offer, 145 found established when the governor rode the district; 90 gone on either counting. The Zuurveld was the old name for the Albany country between the Bushman’s and the Fish, offered on cheap quitrent so that a denser white population would hold the line; the 1817 ride showed that the offer had not held the people. [3] [4]
The Somerset farm was reached on the 27th of March — the 29th in another return. From that place the governor issued instructions to the landdrost, deputy landdrost, and heemraden of Uitenhage, requiring them to use every endeavour to induce the former occupants of land in the Zuurveld to return, and offering grants to others on tenure of personal residence and a very low quitrent after 10 years’ occupation. The landdrost was authorised, without direct reference to government, to grant places free of all expense of measurement and title-deeds, and to remit the rents for the first 10 years. He sent word to all the border captains to meet him and try to come to a friendly arrangement, assuring them that his sole aim was to preserve peace. Joseph Williams was told to inform Gaika of the intended visit and to assure him of friendly intentions. Williams had opened a station on the Kat in June 1816, about a mile and a half above the later site of Fort Beaufort and about 15 miles from where Gaika was then living. The invitation mattered because the colony meant to treat with Gaika alone, and a missionary on the Kat was the nearest man who could carry a message without looking like a patrol. [3] [4]
Kat River Conference — 2 April 1817
Preparations were in progress for a ceremonial entry across the Fish, whereby it was hoped to overawe Gaika and the other captains with a sense of the power of the colony. The military force under Colonel Jacob Glen Cuyler consisted of 100 dragoons, detachments of the 83rd, 72nd and Cape regiment, and a small detachment of artillery with 2 field-pieces. In addition 350 armed and mounted burghers from the two districts stood under Andries Stockenstrom. Cuyler was the American in British service who sat as landdrost of Uitenhage and commandant at Fort Frederick; Stockenstrom was the young landdrost of Graaff-Reinet whose father had been killed on the frontier in 1811. The combined forces met at Van Aardt’s post on the 29th of March; on the 30th the cavalcade crossed the Fish and marched as far as the Kagaberg for the first night. The next day they halted on the Kroome; on the 1st of April they formed camp on open ground along the Kat, about a mile above the later site of Fort Beaufort, near Williams’s station. [3] [4]
At Williams’s place it transpired that Gaika, instigated by Ndlambe and other captains, had become reluctant to meet the governor: a rumour had been spread that the object was to seize him for the 1811 killing of Stockenstrom’s father. Major Fraser twice went to him. On the first visit he dispelled the fears and told Gaika he might bring as many followers as he liked. That evening a deputation of 4 arrived at the camp to say Gaika would come whenever it should be convenient. The next morning they returned: he had altered his mind, and by the advice of other captains would not meet the governor. Fraser went again and brought him in, in great distress and dread. The difficulty mattered because the whole arrangement the governor wanted — one chief to answer for the line — collapsed if that chief would not sit down in front of the guns. [3] [4]
Troops and burghers formed three sides of a square, the 2 guns left and right, the governor’s marquee open in the centre so that the conference should be as public as possible. About one in the afternoon of the 2nd of April Gaika came to the opposite bank of the Kat with a numerous escort. A second hesitation took place: many of his people were alarmed at the troops and left their captains to fly to the hills. A guard of about 300, well armed with assegais, formed a square about him, and it was necessary to renew the assurances of his safety before he would cross. The two landdrosts, both known to him, and Fraser went to him. They crossed together and walked arm in arm with Gaika and Ndlambe to the marquee. His son Maqoma was with him, and a good many petty captains and councillors of his clan. Ndlambe sat next him, then Botumane, Nqeno, Jalusa and others in a semicircle in front of the governor. Habana, one of the worst of the robbers, was conspicuously absent. [3] [4]
The conference was carried on by two interpreters: Stockenstrom turned English into Dutch; a second man Dutch into Xhosa. The governor said he had come to renew the friendship which formerly existed, spoke of the thefts and the injury the colony suffered, and asked Gaika to use his influence to prevent them. Gaika replied that the stealing went on without his knowledge or consent; he did all in his power to prevent it, but he had not the power to control the other captains. He had the name of first chief, but many, even of those present, considered themselves independent of him. He was told that the governors of the colony had always regarded him as the first chief, had never treated with any others, and intended to continue to act thus. Gaika was pleased to hear this and regretted there were not more present to hear it also. He promised to do all he could to stop the thefts, even to putting to death any whom he found guilty, and to collect stolen cattle and horses and send them back. That promise is why the colony later treated every failure on the line as Gaika’s failure: the conference had made him the only captain it would hear. [3] [4]
They agreed that persons from whom cattle were stolen might follow the spoor across the Fish; upon tracing it to a kraal, the people of that kraal should make good the damage — track it farther or give their own cattle in compensation, and obtain redress from the real thieves through their captain. This was afterwards known as the reprisal system. It was the ordinary Xhosa law of collective responsibility applied to the colonial boundary: a community answered for the acts of the people in it. It was further agreed that twice a year a party might go to Grahamstown to barter ivory, skins and other produce, remain 2 days, enter at De Bruin’s drift where there was a military post, keep the main road, and be provided with an escort. They were to have passes from Gaika, who would answer for their conduct on the road and at the fair. Gaika assented for himself; he could not answer for the other captains. In the end little came of the fairs. A badge was given which trading parties would be obliged to show; none would be allowed to pass without it. Williams was present throughout. The governor asked Gaika to protect him and to hear him in religion, but not to regard him as an agent of the colonial government or to use him as a means of communicating with the European authorities. His Excellency then presented a sack of presents and a beautiful grey horse. The sack held shoes, handkerchiefs, shawls, buttons, knives and tinder-boxes. Gaika could not wait to examine separately what was presented: the articles were no sooner in his hand than they were laid on the ground and his hand stretched out for more. It had been intended to invite the assembled captains to dine in the marquee and to fire the cannons for their amusement, but their anxiety to get to a distance frustrated those designs. Ndlambe made no open opposition; the governor afterwards asserted that he was a consenting party, but he did not express approval from a free heart. His fortunes were at a low ebb and he was obliged to conceal his sentiments; his hostility toward Gaika was as strong as ever. [3] [4]
Posts and Vereker — April 1817
Leaving Xhosa country, the governor returned to Somerset, thence to Graaff-Reinet for a few days, and through the Karoo back to Capetown, where he arrived on the 21st of April. He told the eastern inhabitants that the surest way of repressing depredations would not so much depend upon the military force stationed upon the frontier as upon their own exertions and confidence, which they would best evince by reoccupying as speedily as possible their deserted habitations in the vicinity of the Fish. The harassed life of those districts, and the complete failure of the measures hitherto pursued, did not lead them to place much reliance on that statement. Two lines of posts were nevertheless laid, more complete than any yet proposed. The principle recognised was that though it was impossible, even with large numbers of troops, to prevent Xhosa from gaining access to the colony, a cordon of posts within easy reach of one another, in a country adapted to signals by day and night, might prevent thieves from returning with booty. Cattle might still be taken; they would, on this theory, be retaken before they crossed the Fish. [4]
The first line consisted of 11 posts on the banks of the Fish itself, except where dense bush ran some miles from the river. On the lower reaches the banks were thickly covered or so precipitous as to defy any attempt to get cattle across; on the upper reaches, in more open country, they would be better under the observation of patrols. Ascending from the mouth, the first post stood at the lower drift, about 8 miles from the sea — below that the river’s width and deep soft mud at low tide were a sufficient barrier. 4 miles farther, a two hours’ ride through the bush, was the upper drift, on open ground at the top of the hill on the colonial side, commanding a long stretch of river and the approaches to the opposite bank. Then, along the tortuous west-bending course: Hermanus Kraal; Koetzer’s drift; De Bruin’s drift; Wentzel Coetzee’s, later Carlisle Bridge; Junction drift near where the Little Fish joins the Great; the farms of Van der Merwe, De Lange and Paul Bester, about an hour’s ride apart; Van Aardt’s; Roode Waal; and Kruger’s, near Slachter’s Nek, not quite so far up as the Baviaans’ junction. That line was practically the eastern boundary of the colony. The posts were typically a square of stone loopholed walls, rough-hewn with mud mortar, rooms and stabling along the inside, an open space of 50 or 80 paces for parade. The upper drift and Van Aardt’s exceeded that simple type: the former with an outer wall and bastions, the latter a headquarters post usually under a captain. [4]
The second line lay more within the colony: Prinsloo’s (near the later Cookhouse), the Somerset farm, Grahamstown, Rietberg, Coerney, Sandflats, Rautenbach’s drift on the Bushman’s, Vermaak’s, Meyer’s, Addo drift on the Sundays, and Jacobus Oosthuisen’s — the most western. The total at all these posts was 1104 men: 42 officers and 1062 rank and file. Each post had men of the 21st Light Dragoons for the road and Cape-corps men to follow spoor. Patrols went out morning and evening. Any trace of cattle was followed to the first Xhosa kraal and compensation demanded according to the agreement with Gaika. To discourage violence, 5 rixdollars was offered for every prisoner taken to Uitenhage. From this year grants of land in the Fish–Kat country were given to burghers who had served in the field; later disputes dated British title in those regions from 1817. [4] [7]
Within a week of the governor’s return a marauding party tested the line. On the 28th of April — less than a month from the agreement — notice was given at Grahamstown that a party had driven off 19 oxen belonging to colonial Khoikhoi. They crossed the boundary and succeeded, in spite of the vigilance and signals of the first line, in driving the cattle over the Fish. Lieutenant Vereker of the 83rd, with 100 men, went in pursuit. The spoor was easily traced to Habana, nephew of Ndlambe, who had not attended the conference. This was the first occasion for acting on the reprisal system. Vereker seized 19 head from the kraal, demanded restitution of those stolen, and gave until the following morning. At daybreak the heights around him were covered in a hostile attitude; Habana sent a peremptory refusal. Vereker left with the cattle he had taken. He was followed but not molested until he reached a narrow pass in the valley of the Kat, where Habana’s people rushed with great impetuosity, shouting and hurling assegais, by which 3 soldiers were wounded. Vereker drew up and fired: 5 Xhosa killed, many wounded, the rest fled in every direction. He was not again molested, and brought the 19 back to Grahamstown, restoring them to those who had been plundered. The event showed that the April arrangement would not of itself prevent stocklifting: Habana had not sat at the Kat, and the first test of the spoor-law ended in a volley. [3] [4]
Gaika, however, professed to abide by the agreement, and on the 25th of May his interpreter Hendrik Nutka arrived at Grahamstown with 53 horses which he had recovered, and brought a promise of more. He also invited farmers to visit his country to pick out and regain colonial cattle accumulating there. That assistance was usually associated with expectations of presents not far short in value of the property recovered. The 53 horses were the first public proof, after Vereker’s fight, that Gaika still wanted to be seen as the man who sent stock back. [3] [4]
Garrison Cut — June–October 1817
Shortly after these occurrences the force in the colony was reduced, and it became necessary to weaken the frontier posts. The removal of the dragoons was a very serious loss: that description of soldier was well adapted for patrolling the open country. Financial depression in England, and adverse comment on the Cape establishment — the Morning Chronicle of the 19th of December 1816 had attacked the expense incurred for horses and sheep — produced orders, in June, to reduce the troops to a minimum. Almost before the Fish stations were properly established, the orders arrived. The 21st Light Dragoons were to be withdrawn and sent to India. The Royal African corps was sent out to take the place of the old Khoikhoi regiment, which was disbanded on the 24th of September. A mixed colonial corps was raised: one major (Fraser first), one captain, 5 subordinates; 78 cavalry and 169 infantry, Europeans and Khoikhoi — 247 rank and file in all — in place of the 800 of Cradock’s Cape regiment, a standing saving of 250000 rixdollars. One return of the mixed corps is 6 commissioned officers and 247 picked men enlisted on the same principle as European soldiers; another is the same 247 split 78 and 169 under 7 officers counting the major. The cut mattered because the April cordon had been designed for dragoons on the road and Cape-corps men on the spoor; June took both kinds of soldier away before the posts were used to the ground. [3] [4]
On the 25th of June the colony still had 4341 troops; by the 25th of October 2744. In September the 83rd went to Ceylon and most of the artillery with them. The 60th of the line arrived to relieve a much larger infantry force. The first of these regiments was entirely, and the last partly, composed of captured deserters and men convicted of petty offences, so that little reliance could be placed upon them. About 400 constituted the Royal African corps; the others were drafted into the 1st battalion of the 60th. On the 20th of June the first batch of 161 deserters arrived in Simon’s Bay in the transport Lloyds. Before they could be landed a detachment of the 48th had to go on board to guard them: they had formed a plot to seize the vessel and get away in her. The Royal African corps was sent to the eastern frontier and distributed among the Fish posts. Desertions from the posts became frequent; some went armed into Xhosa country. Prison accommodation was taxed to the utmost. [3] [4]
In October three privates — Michael Ryan, Henry John and James Gilbert — stationed at De Bruin’s drift were sent to escort James Connor and William Ryley, prisoners, to Grahamstown. On the road the two prisoners attacked the escort, disabling and disarming Gilbert and John and compelling Ryan to join them. The three travelled toward Algoa Bay through Assegai Bush and Rautenbach’s drift, stole a sheep, rested in the bush near Cradock Place, stopped and plundered a waggon at dusk, sold some of the articles to Khoikhoi, and with the money repaired to a canteen on the Algoa–Zwartkops road. After paying for some drink and demanding more without pay, Connor took a gun, fired at the keeper and killed him. The place was ransacked; even clothing on the body was taken. Farmers and Khoikhoi came in pursuit. Ryley was shot dead on the spot. In another exploit men of the 60th plundered casks to the extent of 157 gallons of rum. Writing to Bathurst, the governor said that sending this class of man to the frontier had not only overset all the measures adopted for the pacification of that quarter, but had caused such terror in the interior that, so far from being able to induce settlers to repair to these fertile districts, even those who remained were taking measures for abandoning a country where their lives and property were in imminent danger, not only from their old enemies but more so from those placed there for their protection. [4]
The most daring seizure was of a trading vessel, the Elizabeth, lying off Robben Island and taking in a cargo of oil. Some of the 60th stationed there as a guard to the convicts released the prisoners in their charge, associated some of them with themselves, put off in a small boat on the night of the 10th of November, and boarded her. About midnight the captain, who was below, attempted to ascend, was fired at, and had the cabin door closed upon him with two sentries until morning. A convict named Coogan, who had formerly served in the navy, assumed command, ordered the cable cut and the sails set. The captain and crew were given the long-boat, a bucket of water and a few pounds of bread, and pushed off for the Cape shore. In September the farm of Pieter Retief was specially selected: 34 head taken and a Khoikhoi herd stabbed to death with assegais; then 16 more, with a large number from other farmers; finally the remainder of his stock driven off and his house and kraals burnt. Retief was a frontier farmer in Albany; the raid showed that the weakened posts could not cover a place the thieves had chosen. [4]
Far from the Fish, the Conqueror arrived in Simon’s Bay in June with Captain Josias Cloete and some of the soldiers from Tristan da Cunha, but as she had not accommodation for all, a party was left behind. The islands had been occupied from the Cape in 1816 so that they should not be used as a base for the rescue of Napoleon from St Helena. The governor took the responsibility of delaying the completion of the abandonment until further instructions, and in the course of a few months received authority to keep a party of occupation there, the cost to be borne by the revenue of the Cape Colony. In the same year Benjamin Moodie, with the concurrence of the imperial authorities, agreed with some 200 Scotch mechanics — young unmarried artisans collected from Edinburgh and its vicinity — to apprentice themselves to him for 3 years. Each man had to pay 30 pounds and sign an agreement; in return a free passage was provided and maintenance until the contract expired. They left Leith and arrived in Swellendam, where a large grant had been made to Moodie. Demand for their labour was so great that he sold as many of the indentures as he cared to part with, chiefly to the mechanics themselves, at from 40 or 50 to 60 pounds each. Passage money had cost him 20 pounds a man. In the more populous parts of the western province a mechanic could get 40 rixdollars and an ordinary labourer 25 rixdollars a month with board and lodging; that is why Moodie could sell the indentures at a profit. In the same year some 700 or 800 time-expired soldiers and sailors were discharged in South Africa and readily found employment. On the 8th of December the governor said that within the past 15 months nearly 800 permanent passes had been issued by the colonial secretary to persons of that description. Before 1817 the number of British-born subjects who settled in South Africa was not large, and hardly any were to be found beyond the Cape peninsula; Moodie’s artisans and the discharged men were the first body of that size. [3] [4]
Two new congregations of the Dutch reformed church were formed. In March the reverend Cornelis Mol, who had just returned from studying in Europe, was stationed at Uitenhage; in June the reverend John Evans, previously a missionary of the London society, was stationed at Cradock. The Lutheran and English episcopal churches remained as in 1814. 87 slaves were manumitted in the colony in this year, against 35 in the year before. In the year after the April 1816 registration proclamation the governor established a school for all the government slave children above 6 years of age: at 12 they would be apprenticed, and at the expiration of their apprenticeship all should be emancipated, so that government might set an example. He wrote as much to Bathurst on the 19th of December. Returns of slaves for the Cape and Simonstown had been required by the 31st of March, afterwards extended to the 1st of September; for the other districts, by the end of the year — failing which the owner was regarded as having manumitted them. Infants whose births were not registered within 6 months were free. A penalty of 100 rixdollars was imposed upon all who should neglect to notify each case of manumission, death, inheritance, or change of property; certificates of sale were required on stamps of 5 rixdollars, with an additional fee of like amount toward the registry. [3] [4]
Early in 1817 the leper asylum Hemel en Aarde was established in the present division of Caledon. Nothing had yet been done for people afflicted with leprosy, scattered over the colony but chiefly in the fishing hamlets along the coast, most of them coloured, some unable to do anything for themselves. The asylum was thrown open to all, but no one was compelled to enter it. In a short time about 100 coloured people were admitted, and were provided with sufficient food and clothing of a coarse kind, better than they had been accustomed to before. The cost did not exceed about 1300 pounds yearly. In May the ship-of-war Voyager visited the Knysna; Captain Wallis reported very favourably of the inlet. The admiral on the station was confident that the place could be turned to good account for building ships for the royal navy, because of the timber in the forests close by. A large brig was put on the stocks as an experiment. The hull before launching was accidentally destroyed by fire, and the expense was so much greater than anticipated that the project was abandoned. The port was thereafter frequented only by vessels employed in conveying timber to Capetown. At Grahamstown, Buchenroder had been given until the 10th of June to finish the tronk and messenger’s house; at that date he had done nothing further, the Drostdy House was not commenced, and government paid on valuation for what had been done and took the contract from him. [3] [4]
Shortly before, a traffic in San children had been brought before government and stopped. San bands, compelled to move in search of food, had often been driven to abandon the very young children for whom they could not provide. In many cases those children had been adopted by European inhabitants and reared as servants; sometimes the parents were given food or other presents. The practice degenerated to raids beyond the frontier to capture children and sell them in the colony. As soon as Stockenstrom had well-authenticated cases, he brought the matter before government on the 5th of May. On the 8th of August the governor issued a proclamation: any person encouraging, by purchase or by promise, San or other people beyond the frontier to give up their own children, or procuring children by plunder, depredation or fraud, would be considered guilty of man-stealing and punished accordingly, under a penalty of 200 rixdollars where an inhabitant received a child without cause to believe it necessary for the child’s safety. Unless in the case of imminent danger to the life of the child, no inhabitant, without the knowledge of the nearest fieldcornet, was to take, receive, or give any gratuity for a child. Regulations on the lines of those for the hire of Khoikhoi then permitted inhabitants to employ and bring up San children. After this the evil practice seems to have come to an end. [4]
Nel and Ndlambe — November–December 1817
Gaika appeared to be acting up to the promises made at the Kat. On the 2nd of August a modest request went to Fraser through Williams: tinder-boxes, beads very fine, brass plates and wire, an axe and iron, tiger skins, buttons such as you wear, corn for seed and garden seed and dogs, and money that he might purchase such things as he wanted from the Boers. In answer the governor sent him a horse, 50 sheep and 50 goats, together with brass wire and plates. He also sent 12 ornamental gorgets, one of which was to be worn as a token or pass when going into the colony. Conformable to the Kat agreement, no Xhosa was to cross the Fish without such a pass, and Gaika was held responsible for the good conduct of the wearer. The gorgets were the April badge made metal: a captain who could not control the other clans was still the only man the colony would issue a pass through. [3] [4]
Advantage was taken of Gaika’s invitation to search his country for stolen cattle. In November commandants Nel and Muller, with 16 burghers, set out. They were well received by Gaika, who gave them every facility. Ndlambe, on the other hand, peremptorily refused to allow any such procedure among his people. He disapproved of Gaika’s action and determined to resist Nel and his party. Although 9 colonial horses were recognised in his own kraal, he told the commandant that he should have neither horses nor cattle, and added that the Xhosa were a nation as well as the English. Having visited a number of petty captains, the party returned to the colony with 83 cattle and 1 horse. Gaika’s people were forsaking him and going over to Ndlambe, whose policy was more to their liking. The 9 horses in Ndlambe’s kraal were the test of the April spoor-law: if the kraal that held colonial stock would not give it up, the treaty had no force except where Gaika still sat. [4]
As soon as the governor heard of the result of Nel’s expedition, he issued to Fraser, on the 5th of December, instructions to collect a force, or commando, for the purpose of visiting Ndlambe and demanding the colonial property in his possession, or, in the event of refusal, enforcing the Kat River agreement by seizing Xhosa cattle equivalent to the number of colonial cattle seen in the kraals. The greatest forbearance was enjoined. Special care was to be taken that the steps should not be mingled with any feeling of retaliation; kraals and cultivated grounds were not to be destroyed; all humanity practicable was to be used. In case of resistance every endeavour was to be used to secure Ndlambe’s person and bring him prisoner into the colony, but no undue severity: every comfort and convenience and every mark of kind treatment consistent with the perfect security of his person should be afforded him, and he should be kept until Gaika should regain his lost influence and be able to restrain the marauding dispositions of his followers. Gaika was first communicated with and assurances of friendship accompanied by presents were sent to him. He was informed that the force about to cross the boundary was solely to enforce compliance on the part of Ndlambe with the public treaty at the Kat, and that he and his people would not be interfered with. The order went out on a frontier whose posts had been weakened and whose force had been cut to 2744. What hung on the 5th of December was whether the April conference still bound anyone but Gaika. [4]
The Amsterdam — 16 December 1817
The Dutch ship-of-war Amsterdam was dismasted at sea, but her crew managed to get her into Algoa Bay, which port she reached on the 16th of December in a sinking condition. She had only one small boat left, and in that a lady with her two children and the ship’s papers of importance were sent on shore under charge of Lieutenant Aspeling. Every moment it was feared that the vessel would go down. There were still 220 men, all told, on board, so Captain Hofmeyer, as the only chance of saving their lives, ran the ship ashore as soon as he could. A little before dusk she struck on the beach about halfway between the mouths of the Zwartkops and the Koega, and 217 men got safely to land. 3 were drowned. In the night between the 19th and the 20th the wreck broke up, but hardly anything drifted on the beach. The officers and men were left with nothing but the scanty clothing they had on, and were in great distress until the landdrost of Uitenhage and some officers from Fort Frederick arrived and made such arrangements for their accommodation as were possible. The plain adjoining the scene of the wreck has ever since been known as the Amsterdam flats. Fort Frederick was the British post at Algoa Bay; the landdrost of Uitenhage was Cuyler, the same officer who had marched to the Kat in April. They could house a shipwrecked Dutch crew on the flats; they could not put the 21st Light Dragoons back on the Fish. [3]
On the 18th of December the governor wrote to Bathurst a letter which can scarcely be regarded as optimistic, and which remained, for those in Britain who talked of comfort and affluence in South Africa, the only official statement concerning the country in this calendar. Two days after a Dutch man-of-war struck between the Zwartkops and the Koega, that was the view from the castle: not a prospectus, and not a promise that the Fish would stay quiet. [4]