Boer History1832 at the Cape of Good Hope: Cole, the New Charter, Two Thousand Slaveholders, and Maqoma
The January Memorial for a Legislative Assembly — January 1832
Lieutenant-General Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole was in his fourth Cape year. He had taken the oaths on the 9th of September 1828, after a passage from Mauritius in HMS Tweed. The Cape still had no elected house. Internal law sat with a governor appointed by the crown and a council of advice. Colonists were disposed to think that if they could obtain a representative assembly, many of the evils which pressed upon them would be removed. That is why a paper went north in January: not because a war had opened on the Fish, but because Cape Town wanted laws made here, by men who lived here. [3]
Early in 1827 a petition for such a form of government, signed by 1600 persons, had been sent to England. On the 8th of June 1827 Mr. Baring presented it to the house of commons. After a discussion that showed it would not be warmly supported, it was ordered to lie upon the table, and there was an end to it. Three years later it was followed by another to the same effect, presented to the commons by Lord Milton on the 24th of May 1830. Sir George Murray, then secretary of state for the colonies, opposed it at once. In his view it would set Dutch and English colonists at variance, and would attempt by legislation to oppress the slaves and the Khoikhoi. His remarks decided the petition’s fate. [3]
The next appeal was to the king in council. On the 16th of July 1831 a public meeting was held in the hall of the commercial exchange at Capetown, when it was decided to draw up a memorial, praying that the king might be pleased to commit the administration of the internal affairs of the colony to a governor appointed by the crown, an executive council chosen by him with the sanction of the crown, and a legislative assembly composed of representatives elected by the inhabitants. Cole forwarded that memorial to Viscount Goderich on the 6th of January 1832. No immediate action was taken upon it in this year. The paper mattered because the Cape was still a crown colony under a soldier-governor, and because Goderich was the same minister who, on the 26th of May 1831, had shut Dutch farmers out of the ceded ground between the Fish and the Keiskama. English remained the official language of the offices. The courts sat as they had sat since the 1st of January 1828. [3]
Crown Lands at Auction and the New Charter — May–June 1832
Under Cole’s system the settlement of the border had been effected by grants between the Winterberg and the junction of the Koonap and Fish, free of charge or rent, to about 100 individuals selected indiscriminately from the families of old colonists and recent British settlers, no other distinction than that of personal qualification being regarded, and with slave labour prohibited. A farm of the ordinary size of 3000 morgen was to have at least 4 able-bodied European men upon it. Goderich’s despatch of the 26th of May 1831 put a stop to it: Dutch farmers were to be excluded from the ceded territory; English settlers and Khoikhoi might be located there, but the ground was to be sold, not given. Those instructions were followed in August 1831 by others that no crown lands in any part of the colony were to be alienated except by sale at public auction, and that one of the conditions of the sale should be the exclusion of slave labour. Cole tried to induce the secretary of state to reconsider. He failed. Consequently, on the 17th of May 1832 a notice was issued that thereafter crown lands would not be given out on quitrent, but would be measured and offered for sale by public auction, after an upset price had been placed upon them. The notice mattered because a farm on the Koonap was no longer a free grant to a man who would sit on it with a musket; it was a lot at auction, with no slave labour in the conditions. [3]
Expense was being cut in the civil list as well as on the border. Mr. P. B. Borcherds, civil commissioner and resident magistrate of the Cape, after more than 30 years’ service, was reduced from 800 pounds to 500, and had the former district of Simonstown added to his care. He was relieved of trying police cases in Capetown, which duty was added to that of the superintendent, the baron De Lorentz, who was reduced from 700 pounds to 600. Mr. Crozier, the postmaster-general, after 27 years’ service, was reduced from 600 pounds to 400. The cuts mattered because the colony’s ordinary bills were still being met by drawing on paper money created as capital for the bank, and because a cheaper civil list was the same policy that now put crown land up at auction instead of giving it away. [3]
The supreme court also underwent changes in which a decrease of expense was kept in view, though the primary object was greater efficiency. On the 16th of June 1832 a new charter of justice was issued, which in a measure superseded the charter that had received the royal assent on the 24th of August 1827. By it the judges were reduced to 3 in number, and their restriction to barristers or advocates was removed. By the terms of the first charter they had been appointed by letters patent under the great seal; now their commissions were drawn up under the public seal of the colony in pursuance of warrants under the king’s sign manual. The patronage of the court was transferred from the chief justice to the governor. Two judges were to form a quorum, and in case of difference of opinion judgment was to be suspended until all 3 could be present. In civil cases an appeal to the privy council could be made when the matter in dispute was of the value of 500 pounds. The orphan chamber was abolished, and its duties were transferred to the master of the supreme court. [3] [4]
An ordinance of the governor in council, dated the 6th of May 1831, had provided that ignorance of the English language was not to disqualify persons from being jurors, and had made all free men — except certain officials — between 21 and 60 years of age, who possessed land of the annual value of 1 pound 17 shillings and 6 pence, or paid taxes to the amount of 20 shillings in the country and 80 shillings in the Cape district, liable to serve. The new charter of justice confirmed this principle. Though this charter was acted upon as far as the reduction of the number of judges was concerned, by the removal of Mr. Justice Burton to the supreme court of New South Wales in November 1832, it was not otherwise observed until the 1st of March 1834. What hung on June was not another landdrost on the Fish. It was a court of 3 on paper, a governor who now named the court’s officers, an orphan chamber folded into the master’s office, a jury that still need not speak English, and a charter that, except for Burton’s ship, did not yet sit. [3]
The Slave Books, the Meeting Ordinance, and Two Thousand Owners — February–September 1832
On the 2nd of February 1830 an order in council had been issued to amend and bring into one law the various enactments concerning slaves in the colonies subject to the legislative authority of the king in council, which were Trinidad, Berbice, Demerara, St. Lucia, the Cape of Good Hope, and Mauritius. It had been published in Capetown on the 12th of August 1830. The twenty-sixth clause required that a punishment record book should be kept by each slave proprietor, and that it should be submitted twice in every year to the protector. Cole had written to Goderich that the slaveholders were unanimous in their determination to suffer the penalties of the law rather than comply with the book, and that if he must compel the observance a larger military force than was then in South Africa would be required. On the 11th of April 1831 Stellenbosch had hissed the books and broken windows, and Mr. Faure had been deprived. The book mattered in 1832 because the order still sat, the garrison was still too small to force it, and London was about to add hours and entry to the same file. [3] [4]
On the 6th of February 1832 a supplementary order in council was issued, relieving slaveholders, except those living in Capetown and Grahamstown or within 20 miles of those places, from keeping punishment record books. This order was received in the colony with another of the 2nd of November 1831, and both were published to come in force on the 28th of August. The order of the 2nd of November limited the hours of slave labour to 9 daily, prohibited the employment of slaves between 6 in the evening and 6 in the morning, and gave protectors and assistant protectors judicial and police powers with the right to enter upon estates and into slave dwellings at any time, with other clauses almost equally destructive of the owners’ authority. The excitement was now so great that Cole considered it necessary to prevent the people assembling to discuss matters. The February paper therefore spared most farms the book, and left Capetown and Grahamstown — and everyone within 20 miles of them — still bound to it, while the November hours and the protectors’ right of entry were timed to sit from the end of August. [3] [7]
On the 6th of June 1832 he published an ordinance for the prevention and suppression of meetings whereby the peace and good order of the colony might be endangered. It was to be in force for 1 year only. It was issued as an ordinance of the governor in council, though 3 members voted against it and only 2 in its favour. At the same time the governor issued a proclamation, reserving to himself the full and entire power lawfully vested in him to remove from the settlement any person whose continuance therein should be deemed by him to be prejudicial to the peace, good order, and security thereof, and declaring that he would not hesitate to give full and immediate effect to that power in any case where he should see fit to exercise the same. The ordinance was ratified by the imperial authorities, but Goderich instructed the governor to take the most convenient opportunity at an early date to revoke the proclamation, as far at least as respected the removal of British subjects. As if the existing law of 1824 with reference to public meetings were not sufficient, Cole had found it necessary to issue more explicit injunctions in order to prevent united action of the slave owners. The ordinance mattered because a council of advice had gagged meetings by 3 votes to 2, and because the secretary of state would not let a Cape governor ship British subjects out of the colony on his own word. [3] [4]
When the first ebullition of feeling subsided, the governor gave his consent to a public meeting being held, and on the 17th of September 1832 about 2000 slaveholders came together in Capetown. Mr. Michiel van Breda was elected chairman. The utmost order was observed throughout the proceedings, though speeches were made and resolutions unanimously carried to the effect that many of the clauses of the order in council were not only unjust in principle but inapplicable to the condition of the colony, and could not be carried out. The meeting resolved that if an elective legislative assembly were granted to the Cape, so that laws adapted to the country could be made, they would willingly cooperate not only in the improvement of the condition of the slaves, but in the abolition of slavery itself. The whole of the assembled slaveholders then marched from the commercial exchange up Grave-street, and halted in the open space in front of government house. Van Breda and Advocate Henry Cloete were deputed to make known their resolutions and to confer with Cole, who had previously consented to receive them. These gentlemen informed the governor that the slaveholders were prepared to suffer the penalties of the law, but they could not obey it, and they entreated that the operation of the order in council, which they regarded as iniquitous, might be suspended. The governor answered that it was beyond his power to comply with their wishes. A document was then drawn up and generally signed, in which the slaveholders declared that they could not obey the obnoxious provisions of the order in council, and protested against the disastrous consequences that must arise from an attempt to enforce them. The march mattered because 2000 names on a protest did not suspend a king’s order, and because Cole, who had gagged meetings in June, still could not lift what the king in council had written. [3] [4] [7]
Meantime the movement for the total abolition of slavery in all British colonies, which began with the formation of the Anti-Slavery Society in this year, assumed a magnitude which augured well for the success of the object in view. From every part of the country the outcry against slavery became louder, and men and women of all ranks and religious denominations threw in their lots. Not until the general election of this year, when pledges to vote against slavery were demanded from candidates for parliament, could the house of commons be induced to take more than a passing interest in the question. Mr. T. F. Buxton, who had given himself up entirely to the cause, was enabled to bring forward a motion which resulted in the appointment of a parliamentary committee to collect evidence and investigate the whole subject. This committee worked from the 1st of June until the 11th of August 1832, and then had not dealt with anything like all the matters which were brought before it. They came to the conclusion that slavery was an evil for which there was no remedy but extirpation, and that extirpation would be safe. Buxton, unlike so many of his followers, did not permit his sympathy for the blacks to run counter to his common sense, and thus he gave great offence to the over-enthusiastic abolitionists by advocating that the extirpation should be compatible with the safety of all classes. Nothing further was done during this year. In Capetown and other towns and villages a society had been founded to purchase the freedom of young girls; the slow and gradual working of these methods of liberation did not satisfy the philanthropists in England, who were meanwhile themselves doing nothing else for the slaves than passing, year after year, a mass of legislative enactments providing restrictions and penalties for the owners. What hung on the London committee was not a Cape statute. It was a finding that slavery had no remedy but extirpation, reached while Cole still could not suspend the hours and the books that were to sit from the 28th of August. [4] [7]
Stuurman, Dingane, and Moselekatse — August–September 1832
For some time past the northern border of the colony had been subject to the ravages of a band who had their stronghold on the islands in the Orange river between Olivenhoutdrift and the great falls. For about 70 miles the river spreads over a flat varying from 1 to 7 or 8 miles broad, filled with dense thickets, cut up into a multitude of islands, many of considerable size, some of which can only be reached by crossing 4 or 5 rapid unfordable torrents. At the beginning of the century these islands had been the retreat of the robber captain Afrikaner; his son Jonker continued a marauder, but his ravages being chiefly directed against the Herero he was almost lost sight of in the Cape Colony. Between him and the occupants of the islands in 1830 there was no connection whatever. The leader of the later robber band was a Khoikhoi named Stuurman, who had in earlier years been connected with one of the Griqua settlements. His followers were chiefly Koranas and Griquas, but among them were several fugitive slaves and desperadoes of mixed blood. He was perfectly indifferent as to whom he robbed, for he attacked indiscriminately the Batlhaping in the north, the farmers of the colony in the south, and the Griquas under Andries Waterboer in the east. His custom was to send out parties of 50 to 70 men, well mounted and armed, who appeared suddenly where they were not expected, and slaughtered all who attempted to prevent their driving away the cattle. In one year there were more than 30 reports from the civil commissioner of Graaff-Reinet detailing their atrocities. [3]
In August 1832 a strong party made a sudden raid into the Nieuwveld, and found several graziers with their families and cattle near Slangfontein. They drove off all the stock and murdered three colonists named Faber, Van der Merwe, and Steenkamp, as also Van der Merwe’s wife. A commando of farmers, under the civil commissioner Van Ryneveld, followed them as soon as possible, but found them so well prepared for defence that after a harassing campaign of 6 weeks, during which the colonists underwent the severest hardships and privations, the commando was obliged to return unsuccessful. Along the whole of the extensive northern border there was not a single soldier or a policeman, and there was no possibility of furnishing a defensive force of any kind. To meet the ordinary expenditure of the colony, paper money created as capital for the bank was being drawn upon year after year, so that there were no means of affording assistance to the farmers who were exposed to Stuurman’s depredations. The raid mattered because four graves at Slangfontein were all the northern border had to show for a government that could not put one policeman on the islands. [3]
The Griquas were in a very unstable condition. Adam Kok had his headquarters at Philippolis, the London society’s station founded by the reverend Dr. John Philip in the present district of that name. He was then getting an old and feeble man, and though he was as well disposed to the colonial government as he could be, he was in a large measure ruled by his son-in-law Hendrick Hendrickse, a wild and violent individual; thus Kok’s influence on the side of order was not great. His people oscillated between obedience to him and ignoring him in order to join the Koranas under Abraham Kruger in their predatory expeditions. The Koranas were a nomadic and marauding people, the chief cattle thieves and the worst enemies of the inoffensive Betshuana, whom they continually robbed in order to supply the traders from the colony with the cattle which they exchanged for gunpowder and brandy. In some cases these traders followed up the Koranas and then bartered for cattle they must have known had been stolen. Kok, in a letter to Mr. Ryneveld of the 20th of February 1832, said that if the traders were forbidden to traffic in stolen cattle, depredations would cease. On one occasion he took from a party of traders a number of cattle they had obtained in this way and gave them back to their rightful owners, the despoiled Betshuana. The letter mattered because a Griqua captain at Philippolis was asking the civil commissioner of Graaff-Reinet to stop colonial powder and brandy, and because Stuurman’s islands sat on the same river. [4]
After these marauders came Moselekatse at the head of the Matabele. In 1830–31 he had fallen upon the Bangwaketsi and nearly exterminated them; the destruction of the Bahurutsi and Bakwena had followed next. In September 1832 Dingane sent an army against Moselekatse, which succeeded in crossing the open country without being discovered, and made a sudden attack. Although taken by surprise, the Matabele fought desperately, and at length the assailants were beaten off with a loss of 3 entire regiments. But this circumstance was a proof to Moselekatse that he could still be reached by the Zulus without much difficulty, and, fearing that he might again be attacked, he moved his headquarters to Mosiga, where the Bahurutsi had formerly their chief kraal. From that position he sent his warriors against the Barolong. Some of these fled to the desert, where they became Balala; part of one clan, with Matlabe its young chief, was incorporated with the Matabele; Gontse and Tawane with a few followers fled southward. In the country of the Bahurutsi, Bangwaketsi, Bakwena, and Barolong there was now no other master than Moselekatse and the lions. A trader named Whittle travelled in this year from Grahamstown to the Limpopo where its course is to the northwest beyond the Magaliesberg. The shift mattered because three Zulu regiments left on the veld were enough to move a Matabele headquarters, and because the highveld north of the Vaal now had one master. [3] [3]
Somerset, Maqoma, and Philip among the Chiefs — 1832
Tyali had been permitted to occupy lands at the Mankazana on sufferance; he had always played a double part, and continued threats of expulsion had had little or no effect. In this year Lieutenant-Colonel Somerset, who had always been indulgent towards Maqoma, allowed him with a few followers to cross the boundary for the purpose of grazing their numerous cattle, as the grass in their own country was scanty and insufficient. He did not return. His people followed him little by little until the whole clan was again in the forbidden land. As far as Maqoma himself was concerned, there was no ground for complaint: field-cornets and others testified to his good conduct as instanced by his restoration of cattle in cases where it was certain that the theft had been committed by any of his people. But his people, situated so near to Tyali’s, joined them in their forays. Somerset wrote to Captain Duncan Campbell from the Tyumie on the 17th of January 1832 that there seemed to be very considerable excitement throughout the whole Xhosa territory in consequence of the murder of the Thembu chief Powana, and that from what he had ascertained it was not a point which would be allowed to remain at rest; all this led to further inroads upon the colony by the fugitive Thembu. The leave mattered because a grazing permit for a few followers became a clan west of the Tyumie, and because Powana’s blood, not a new Fish-river war, was what Somerset reported from that river in January. [3] [4]
Unperturbed by the Theopolis investigation of the year before, Philip continued his course. In this year he was again among the Xhosa chiefs. This time he was accompanied by a Mr. Bruce, of the Honourable East India Company’s service, a gentleman who was on his way home from India and took the opportunity of spending a few weeks in the Cape Colony. Whether he arrived with views on native questions already formed, or whether it was a case of evil communications having corrupted good manners, it is not clear, but certain it is that he approved of the sentiments and methods of Philip. These two visited the Xhosa country together and interviewed the different chiefs on the dangerous topic of the ceded territory. Cole had been convinced the year before that Philip’s conversations had much to do with the outrageous conduct of the chiefs shortly afterwards, but he could produce no proof and so could take no official notice of them. The visit mattered because the ceded ground was the same strip Goderich had ordered sold, not given, and because a superintendent and an India Company passenger were talking to the chiefs about it while Somerset’s grazing leave filled the western bank. [4]
Hermanus, a deserter from Maqoma’s clan who, having some time previously given information concerning his chief to the British troops, was afraid to live beyond the Keiskama, had been allowed by Captain Andries Stockenstrom to reside where he liked in the colony rather than be sent back to certain death. He formed a kraal at the Blinkwater, about 10 miles from Fort Beaufort, and by this year was joined by a number of desperadoes who contributed their share of annoyance both to the Kat River Settlement and the colony. The nest was not cleared in this calendar. The reverend James Laing still sat for Glasgow. The Glasgow society still had one station near the source of the Tyumie, another at old Lovedale farther down the same river, a third at Burnshill on the Keiskama, and a fourth at Perie near one of the sources of the Buffalo. Read still sat at Philipton. Thomson still sat at the Kat at 200 pounds. What the frontier added this year was not another commando on the Mankazana but a grazing leave that became a clan, a letter from the Tyumie about Powana’s blood, a superintendent and an India Company passenger on the ceded ground, and a Blinkwater kraal that had grown a following. [3] [4]
Grahamstown, Port Frances, Wool, and the Library — March–November 1832
Nobly was the increasing importance of Grahamstown marked by the possession of a newspaper, but its pretence as a centre of commerce was to be marked by the erection of a building which should be a kind of stock exchange or bourse in the interest of trade. It was to be called the Commercial Hall, and might be used as a theatre, public assembly rooms, reading-room, or for any other public purpose consistent with the chief object in view. Major T. C. White was the leading spirit in this movement. A committee was formed in February 1832, when it was decided to raise a sum of 1500 pounds in shares of 50 rixdollars each for building purposes. Opinion seems to have been divided on the question as to whether the existing wants of the place called for such an institution: the erection of a jetty at Port Elizabeth or a lighthouse at Cape Recife were felt by some to be more useful objects on which to spend the money. The shares, however, were very readily taken up, and a petition was sent to the governor asking him to grant a portion of Erf No. 20 in High Street. On the 6th of April 1832 he acceded to this. The tender of Mr. George Gilbert for 20000 rixdollars was accepted. The foundation stone was not for this calendar. Other substantial public buildings which were erected at this time included the new Wesleyan chapel, now known as the Shaw Hall in Grahamstown, so named in honour of the reverend W. Shaw, which was built in this year, and the Wesleyan chapels in Salem and Bathurst and the episcopalian church at the last-mentioned place. The grant mattered because High Street now had an erf for a bourse, and because some of the same men who took the shares still wanted a jetty in the surf at Algoa Bay more than a hall. [4]
A curious feature about the establishment of the Bathurst church was that it was started partly as a kind of joint-stock company. 1000 pounds were required for the erection of the building; of this sum the colonial treasury gave 250 pounds, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 250, and the remaining 500 were raised in shares of 5 pounds each, the interest to the shareholders to be paid from the pew rents and offertories. A government ordinance was passed in June 1832 authorising this and containing regulations for the general management of the church. Shareholders had the first choice of pews, though they had to pay rent for them; the shares might be sold privately but not at public auction. One share gave one vote in the proceedings of the vestry. People of all religious denominations took an interest in the Bathurst church. Major Mitchell of the Royal Engineers designed the building, and the stone and brick work was carried out by Mr. Bradshaw of Bathurst, one of the 1820 settlers. Among the shareholders were Stockenstrom with 4 shares, and Robert Godlonton with 1. The ordinance mattered because a country church was being financed like a company, and because pew rent was to pay the interest on 5-pound shares. [4]
Grahamstown seems to have moved in the matter of a jetty at Port Elizabeth before Port Elizabeth itself. On the 12th of March 1832 a public meeting was held in the Freemason’s Tavern, when resolutions were passed that in consequence of the great inconvenience and considerable loss sustained by the present mode of landing goods at Port Elizabeth by surf-boats, as well as the delay to ships visiting the port and much damage to passengers getting on to the shore, a jetty be constructed; that as a sum of 4000 pounds would be required, a subscription list of shares of 25 pounds each be opened; that a premium of 50 pounds be offered for the best model of a suitable jetty; and that Captain Campbell, Major T. C. White, C. Maynard, W. R. Thomson, W. Cock, F. Stell, and E. Norden form the Grahamstown committee. The piles and the deck were not for this calendar. Private enterprise was not wanting on the road either. In this year the merchants of Grahamstown, alive to the necessity of a road down one of the high hills in the range which has to be crossed on the way to Port Elizabeth, undertook the construction of such a road. This is the Howison’s Poort road, so named after Alexander Howison, who was not only the prime mover in the enterprise but, for some years, the superintendent of the work. A sum of money was raised by public subscription in Grahamstown, and under Howison’s direction the work commenced. It progressed slowly in this calendar. The meeting mattered because Grahamstown voted 4000 pounds for a jetty 5 years before Port Elizabeth drove trial piles, and because the same merchants began a poort on the road to that bay. [4] [4]
The pleasant prospects of Port Frances were doomed. In 1831 the office of harbour-master had been abolished, and in this year instructions were received from the secretary of state for the immediate and entire abolition of the customs department, and the sale of the custom house and harbour-master’s house. Mr. Henry Nourse bought both on the 5th of November 1832: the former with nearly 4 morgen of land for 215 pounds, the latter with nearly 3 morgen for 36 pounds. The schoolmaster’s salary and the post contract were not yet withdrawn in this calendar. At Uitenhage, Pohl’s case, which had run since the drostdy contract, was not finally settled until this year, when he also was satisfied by an award on arbitration. In this year, when Pohl was finally settled with and 10 years after the house was commenced, the question as to what was to be done with it arose. Cole asked the civil commissioner to give his opinion as to the manner in which the building together with the lands attached to it might be used or disposed of to the greatest advantage to the government, suggesting that perhaps it might be worth while to spend some money on it in order to make it useful for some public purpose. It was proposed that the resident magistrate’s, civil commissioner’s, and other public offices should be housed there, as well as accommodation provided for the visiting circuit court. The inhabitants’ indignation and the petition against a house practically outside the town were not for this calendar. [4]
More than to any of the earlier experimenters the credit for the success of wool in the east is due to three half-pay English officers, Lieutenants Richard Daniell, Charles Griffith, and Thomas White. Daniell had come to this colony in 1820 as an immigrant independent of government aid, bringing a party of 15 individuals with him, and had obtained as a grant the farm Sweetmilk Fountain, not far from the Bushman’s river. After farming in the English manner and losing nearly everything he had brought to South Africa, he took again in 1827 to breeding merino sheep, and was so successful that at the beginning of this year he clipped 10000 pounds of fine wool. At this time his flock was the choicest in the eastern districts, and his rams, being carefully bred from the purest imported stock, brought higher prices than any others in the market. White’s stock from Table farm was afterwards considered second only to that of Daniell. Licensed traders in the east were on the whole a respectable class of people. By 1828 the imports of Albany had risen to 55201 pounds per annum, while the exports were 41290; for this year the corresponding figures were 112845 pounds and 86931 pounds respectively. [3] [4]
The South African public library had, after the gauging tax was repealed in December 1827 and after the rooms in the public buildings were required, been removed to a wing of the commercial exchange. On the 3rd of February 1830 an ordinance had substituted for the trustees appointed by the governor a committee of 9 persons to be chosen by yearly subscribers. From the government no aid was to be had. But the new committee pleaded so forcibly its right to compensation for the amount lent by the orphan chamber and expended in preparing rooms then used for the public service, that in this year 20 of the shares owned by the government in the commercial exchange were transferred to the library, and shortly afterwards a house and garden that had been occupied by the teacher of a government school were likewise made over to the committee to satisfy the claim. From that date the library depended upon subscriptions. What the east and the town built this year was not another jetty in the surf but a hall granted on an erf in High Street, a Wesleyan nave named for Shaw, a Bathurst church that sold pews as shares, a poort begun under Howison, two houses at Port Frances sold to Nourse, a drostdy Cole did not know what to do with, 10000 pounds of Daniell’s wool, Albany figures that had more than doubled since 1828, and 20 shares in the exchange for a library that the treasury would no longer rent. [3] [4]
Piketberg, Natal, Colesberg, and Herschel — 1832
On the 1st of April 1832 the people of that part of the country about Piketberg sent a petition to the presbytery of the Cape asking that they might be formed into a congregation separate from Tulbagh and Clanwilliam. The presbytery recommended the request to government, and leave was given to take the preliminary steps. On the 18th of August, therefore, a meeting was held on the farm of Mr. J. Basson, when a committee was appointed to carry out the design. Elders, deacons, and a village named after the mountain were not for this calendar. Up to 1831 there had been no Dutch reformed church anywhere in the large and scattered district of Albany; in that year, in accordance with De Mist’s regulations, the civil commissioner in Grahamstown had selected the first elders and deacons. A church building of their own was not for this calendar. At Colesberg, encouraged by a government grant of some 18000 morgen including Coles Kop, the foundation stone of the church had been laid on the 29th of November 1830. By April 1832 14385 rixdollars — about 726 pounds — had been spent on the building, and at that date the church was finished and left broom clean. Somerset East was not so fortunate: it had no grant of lands which could be sold, and had therefore to resort to a loan. In this year, with the consent of government, a sum of money was borrowed in the hope that a church tax of 6 shillings on each quitrent and loan place would enable the consistory to liquidate the debt. The April finish mattered because Colesberg now had a nave on 18000 morgen, and because Somerset East had only a loan and a tax of 6 shillings. [3] [4]
The Roman Catholic communion had made a start during the administration of De Mist, but its career had been chequered and little progress had been made. In 1824 Mr. Scully, the only priest in South Africa, had left the country. In March 1826 the reverend Theodore Wagener had come and received a remuneration of 100 pounds per annum from the colonial treasury; in May 1827 he had been joined by the reverend T. Rushton. The labours of these two men were confined to Capetown, more especially to the soldiers in the garrison. On the 15th of May 1832 Wagener resigned in order to return to Europe, and Rushton succeeded to his salary. The eastern province still sat without a priest. In this year Sir John Herschel was in the colony. The resignation mattered because Capetown still had one priest paid 100 pounds from the treasury, and because Albany still had none. [3] [4]
An order in council of the 22nd of February 1832 repealed previous customs enactments and fixed the duty on British goods from British possessions anywhere except the East Indies at 3 per cent of the value. East Indian produce and goods from foreign countries were to pay 10 per cent. Ships belonging to countries in amity with Great Britain could convey to the colony any goods the growth, produce, or manufacture of their own countries, and could convey Cape produce to any part of the world, on the same terms as British ships. Hoops, staves, and casks used in the wine trade were to be free of duty. From 1806 to 1814 the colonial produce exported had been of the average value of 61491 pounds a year; from 1816 to 1826 it had averaged 198446 pounds, and thereafter it steadily rose. Wine still headed the list, though the duty of October 1831 at 2 shillings and 9 pence had begun to tell; hides and skins and wool were climbing. The February order mattered because the wine cask came in free, British goods paid 3 per cent, and the October wine duty in England was already cutting the article that still headed the Cape list. [3] [3]
At Natal the little community was not bound by any laws, except that some of its members were chiefs of parties of blacks and owned the supremacy of Dingane. These men exercised absolute power over the people under their protection. This condition of things, as well as that white men were in the habit of assisting Dingane in war, came to the knowledge of the imperial government, and on the 25th of May 1832 Goderich instructed Cole to send an officer to Natal to exercise authority over the Europeans there. But as he restricted the salary of the officer to a sum not exceeding 100 pounds a year, the governor was unable to carry out the instructions. The Fynns had left Buntingville on the 11th of August 1831 in company with Mr. James Collis, who had visited Natal in the preceding year and was now on his way from Grahamstown to establish himself as a trader at the port. Within the next year some 15 or 20 other Englishmen — among them the father and a younger brother of the Fynns — also made their way to Natal, and sought a living either as traders or elephant hunters. Isaacs never returned. The instruction mattered because Port Natal still sat under Dingane, and because 100 pounds would not buy an officer Cole could send. [3]