Boer History1834 at the Cape of Good Hope: D’Urban, Emancipation, Waterboer, and the Sixth War
D’Urban’s Installation, Herschel, and the Two Councils — January–April 1834
Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Francis Wade still held the castle when this year opened. He had taken the oaths on the 10th of August 1833, after Lieutenant-General Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole sailed in La Belle Alliance. The man named to succeed Cole was Major-General Sir Benjamin D’Urban, then governor of Demerara on the South American coast. He could not leave at once, so Wade sat through the last months of 1833 as acting governor. From the 1st of January of this year Mr. E. G. Stanley abolished the commissioner-generalship for the eastern districts. Captain Andries Stockenstrom was to retire on a pension of 300 pounds a year. After he had sailed in March 1833, Captain Duncan Campbell had been told to act; Stanley’s order ended the office itself. That is why January opened with a military secretary in the castle and no commissioner-general in the east: not because a new war had been declared, but because Cole had gone home and London had struck the eastern office off the list. [3] [4]
On the 16th of January the ship Mount Stuart Elphinstone arrived in Table Bay, bringing Sir Benjamin, Lady, and Miss D’Urban, and the astronomer Sir John Herschel, with his lady, son, and two daughters. The same day the new governor took the oaths of office. He was the first of the English governors at the Cape without powerful family connections. His father was a commoner. He had served through the peninsular war as commander of a division of cavalry in the Anglo-Lusitanian legion, and since Napoleon’s fall had been employed chiefly in the West Indies. In 1815 he was made a knight commander of the Bath, and in February 1831 he received the civil appointment of governor of Demerara. When sent to the Cape his military rank was only that of a major-general. London sent him to do three things: cut the civil establishments until revenue met expenditure and left a balance toward the public debt; change the system of dealing with the Xhosa, and try conciliation by alliances with the chiefs; and carry out the emancipation of the slaves under the imperial act of 28 August 1833. He came believing, as many in England then did, that coloured people were harshly treated by the Europeans, and that a better relationship with the border tribes could be brought about by kindness and confidence. For a time he placed full confidence in the opinions of Dr. Philip. The oaths mattered because the castle now answered to a major-general from Demerara who had not yet seen the Fish, and because the three instructions from Stanley would govern every later quarrel of the year. [3] [4]
On the 12th of January St. Mary’s church was opened at Port Elizabeth for the English episcopalians. The town then contained 1200 residents. On the 20th of January a meeting in the commercial exchange at Capetown resolved to request the imperial government to acknowledge the settlement at Natal; a petition with 192 names was forwarded a few months later. At the beginning of this year a large section of the eastern people, agitating for a strong government near the Xhosa border, sent Mr. Thomas Philipps as a delegate to England with petitions to both houses of parliament. There was not even a commissioner-general left to answer them in the east. The January meetings mattered because Port Elizabeth now had an English church of its own, and because Natal and a separate eastern government were being asked for in London while the new governor was still unpacking in Capetown. [3] [3]
The Cape still had no elected house. Letters patent of the 23rd of October 1833 had created a legislative council and an executive council to take the place of the old council of advice; neither had yet sat. The legislative council was to consist of not less than 10 nor more than 12 members exclusive of the governor. The military officer next in rank, the secretary to government, the treasurer-general, the auditor-general, and the attorney-general were to have seats by virtue of their offices. The other members were to be selected by the governor from the inhabitants, and were to hold office during residence and good behaviour, unless disallowed by the secretary of state within 2 years. The governor and 6 members formed a quorum. Draft ordinances were to be published in the Gazette at least 3 weeks before discussion. An executive council of the next military officer, the secretary, the treasurer-general, and the attorney-general was created at the same time; the governor was to take its advice in questions of administration, but was not obliged to follow it. The new charter of justice of 16 June 1832 had been acted upon as far as the reduction of the judges was concerned; it was not otherwise observed until the 1st of March of this year, when it superseded the first charter. On the 25th of February Messrs. Pieter Laurens Cloete, John Bardwell Ebden, Michiel van Breda, Charles Stuart Pillans, and Jacobus Johannes du Toit were gazetted as the first unofficial members. The gazette mattered because the letters patent of October 1833 were no longer paper: five colonists now had named seats beside the officials. [3]
On the 2nd of April the first session was opened. All the unofficial members were present, and also Wade as military officer next in rank, Mr. Jan Godlieb Brink, Mr. Joachim Willem Stoll, Mr. Pieter Gerhard Brink, and Mr. Anthony Oliphant. As the governor entered the council room, a military band played the national anthem, and a salute was fired from the Imhof battery. The debates were at first held with closed doors, an abstract being published; in October each member might admit one friend and each newspaper one reporter. On the 8th of October a large public meeting in Capetown resolved to send another petition to the king for a representative assembly. Such a council by no means satisfied the colonists. The April sitting mattered because the Cape now had two named councils instead of a council of advice, and because the doors that opened with a salute still shut out an elected house. [3]
Appraisement, Apprenticeship, and the First of December — March–December 1834
The slavery act of the 28th of August 1833 had fixed the Cape’s day as the 1st of December of this year. After that date slavery was to cease. All slaves over 6 years of age were then to become apprentices to their former masters, either for 4 or 6 years, but if for 6 years they were not to be required to work more than 45 hours a week. Special magistrates were to have exclusive jurisdiction in cases between apprentices and employers, except matters under the supreme and circuit courts. The sum of 20000000 pounds sterling was voted to compensate owners in 19 slave colonies, the share of each to be determined by average prices during the 8 years preceding the 31st of December 1830. There was a general impression that the money would meet the whole, or nearly the whole, value of the slaves, and that a vagrant act would be passed before the day of final emancipation. Wade had been able to report favourably upon the reception which the act met. That is why March opened with appraisers rather than with cash: not because the Cape had refused the act, but because London had promised purchase and had not yet sent a figure for this colony. [3]
On the 26th of March the governor appointed Messrs. P. M. Brink, E. Christian, W. Gadney, D. J. Kuys, H. A. Sandenberg, and J. J. L. Smuts assistant commissioners of compensation, and the appraisement of the slaves commenced. They were divided into classes, and the average value of an individual of each class was ascertained from sales in the period defined in the act. A few objections were made by persons who thought it unfair that their slaves should be put on an equality with those disposed of at forced sales; in general the plan was regarded as the safest that could be adopted. The first meeting of the Cape committee was held on the 13th of May, with D’Urban as chairman, the attorney-general, and the same gentlemen; some months elapsed before appraisers visited the farms. The appointments mattered because a price had to be written against each name before London would say what share of the 20000000 pounds the Cape would receive, and because that share would be paid in London, not over a table in Table Bay. [3] [4]
On the 30th of November there were in the colony 39021 slaves, of whom 21613 were males and 17408 were females. 5731 were under 6 years of age. Of the whole number, 3276 were aged, infirm, or otherwise unfit for work, and were regarded as having no pecuniary value. A few weeks later, when the appraisement rolls were finally completed, it was ascertained that to meet the value of the remaining 35745, 3041290 pounds and 6 shillings would be required. The returns of the commissioners of compensation in this year put the total number at 38427, valued at 2824224 pounds 7 shillings and 9 pence, an average of 73 pounds 9 shillings and 11 pence. Of some 36000, 56 per cent were owned in the Cape and Stellenbosch districts, 28 per cent in Worcester, Swellendam, and George, and only 16 per cent in Beaufort and the eastern frontier districts of Graaff-Reinet, Somerset, Albany, and Uitenhage. The money compensation did not arrive from England. Returns from all parts of the empire were as yet incomplete in London. The November count mattered because the farms that held most of the slaves sat in the west, and because the east that would later send waggons north owned comparatively few. [3] [4] [7]
Monday, the 1st of December, was the day when slavery ceased in the Cape Colony. Contrary to the fears of many there was no disorder of any kind. In most of the churches throughout the country thanksgiving services were held in the morning, and in the towns and villages the afternoon was generally devoted to festivity. The people who had been slaves were, on the whole, not enthusiastic upon becoming apprentices; the European philanthropic party was jubilant. Grahamstown, almost entirely a non-slave-holding community, made the occasion one of especial rejoicing. A service of thanksgiving was held in St. George’s church at 11 o’clock, when the reverend J. Heavyside preached to a densely packed congregation of all denominations. In the afternoon a public meeting formed an auxiliary branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society, to extend religious instruction to the newly freed. In the evening there was a monster tea meeting in the new Shaw Hall, where a tableau showed Britannia liberating the slaves while she was ruling the waves. The Monday mattered because the statute book now said slave no longer, and because the same hall that seated a tableau on the 1st would, before the month was out, fill with women driven from the Fish. [3] [4]
An ordinance regulating details was before the legislative council, and though not published until the 5th of January 1835, it was acted upon as if already law. All the late slaves were declared to be non-predial, and those over 6 years of age to be apprentices to their former owners for 4 years. The hours during which they were required to labour were fixed on a sliding scale according to the seasons, so that in the year they should average 10 and one-sixth daily, sacred and holidays excepted. Eight half-pay officers had arrived from England as special magistrates; 6 more were selected by the governor; for this purpose only the colony was divided into 14 districts. During this December the Cape Trade Society entertained serious misgivings: no steps had been taken for a final settlement at the time of emancipation, and the sums would be payable only in London. Distrust arose, as so many of the slaves were heavily mortgaged. On the 8th of September a vagrancy ordinance was read a third time by a majority of the council, the governor, the acting secretary, the attorney-general, and Ebden forming the minority. D’Urban gave as his reasons that several clauses would be regarded in England with apprehension, and that existing laws were sufficient; as yet he had not been beyond the Cape peninsula. After the ordinance was passed he declined to sign it, but transmitted it to the secretary of state to be laid before the king. The September refusal mattered because many owners had expected a vagrant act before the 1st of December, and because the 1st therefore put on the table thanksgiving in the churches, 4 years of apprenticeship, 14 special magistrates, and a compensation that had not left England. [3] [4] [7]
Boers beyond the Line: O’Reilly, Trichardt, and the Vaal — 1834
The disposition to go beyond the boundaries with slaves showed itself at the beginning of this year. In answer to a letter from the secretary to government, in which the eastern magistrates were asked to keep government acquainted with any excitement or expressions of discontent on the part of the Boers, Mr. O’Reilly, the resident justice of the peace at Cradock, reported on the 24th of February that there was considerable ferment in his district and that farmers with slaves were leaving the colony. To stop this, all the magistrates along the frontier were instructed to make known that whoever takes or sends a slave over the frontier line would, under the statute of the 5th of George IV, cap. 113, be guilty of a felony and incur the penalty of transportation, and that the governor was determined to cause the law to be carried into effect. The government was not entirely successful. The Cradock letter mattered because emancipation was still 9 months off, and because a farmer who walked a slave over the line could be transported for it. [4]
About May, Louis Triegardt (Trichardt), Adriaan de Lange, Frans van Aardt, Hans van der Merwe, Sybrand van Dyk, with others to the number of about 30 families, trekked from the colony, probably from Albany, and got as far as the junction of the White and Zwart Kei rivers. They had all their slaves with them; Triegardt had 10, 7 men and 3 women. One of these escaped and ran back to the colony, and thus the action became known. According to the uncorroborated evidence of this slave, Triegardt had expressed his intention of making his way to Natal so as to get as far as possible from the English and thus prevent the loss of their slaves; further, that he had behaved well to his slaves in the colony, but became very harsh upon trek. As soon as this was known to the civil commissioner in Grahamstown, Captain A. B. Armstrong, with a detachment of the Cape mounted rifles, was sent after these people. His approach caused considerable panic and a disposition to offer resistance; some boasted of their intention to keep their slaves in spite of the governor. Armstrong, anxious to refrain from irritating them, left them where he found them but brought away 14 slaves, who were given the option of remaining under the protection of government or going into service with the inhabitants; they chose the latter. He added that great allowance might be made for them, as they had large stocks of cattle and sheep and had been compelled to migrate, either from the drought or from not having any fixed place of abode. The May trek mattered because a statute that made a slave over the line a felony now had a patrol to match it, and because 14 people walked back with Armstrong while the families sat on the Kei. [4]
The families must soon have returned, for not only did a state of war soon render the existence of Europeans in those parts an impossibility, but on the 20th of November the missionary John Ayliff wrote from Butterworth that the Dutch farmers residing in the unoccupied country north of that station, having heard that upon their return they would subject themselves to transportation for 7 years, and being destitute of provisions, begged to know what they were to do, as they were now anxious to enter the colony to supply themselves with corn. They stated that necessity drove them to seek pastures, and that before they left they gave regular information to the authorities. During this same November the missionary at Philippolis, Mr. Kolbe, gave information that 1120 Boer families with 200 slaves had migrated to the north of Kok’s country. This is probably an exaggeration; there seems to be no other record than Kolbe’s letter, and it is scarcely likely that 3000 individuals could have crossed without the magistrates at Graaff-Reinet or Beaufort West becoming aware of it, though Boers did go in that direction with slaves. The November letters mattered because the Kei party was asking how to come home without 7 years’ transportation, and because 1120 families on the Orange was a rumour the drostdies could not confirm. [4]
The first of the Voortrekkers, under Carel Johannes Trichard and Hans van Rensburg, after having crossed the Orange early in this year, remained for a short time a little distance north of that stream. Here they hired pasturage for their cattle from the Bushmen and Griquas whom they found in occupation of the soil. The English traveller Bain, visiting the region in this year, found farmers there, and that they gave the Bastards some cattle in exchange for the use of pasture lands and water rights. The pioneers then moved further northwards. It was February of this year before they reached the Vaal river. Among any 100 white inhabitants of Albany or Somerset, barely a single one could be found who had owned slaves; the combined parties of the Trichards and Van Rensburgs who had left before the date of emancipation possessed none. The February arrival mattered because the first waggons on the Vaal were not a slave column out of Stellenbosch, but graziers from the east who had crossed the Orange while Wade still sat in the castle. [7]
Winter on the Border, Kleinhaus, and D’Urban’s Warning — March–November 1834
During the winter of this year the eastern border was in the condition often described as worse than open war: actual war during nominal peace. Cattle-lifting from the farmers of Albany and Somerset was carried on to an extent seldom equalled in previous years, and a very small proportion of what was stolen could be recovered. D’Urban, however, was still of opinion that the people who were giving so much trouble could be induced by conciliation and kindness to live as good neighbours. Although he was unable to visit the eastern border during this year, he managed to initiate the new policy devised by the secretary of state. He was instructed to cultivate an acquaintance with the chiefs by stationing prudent and intelligent men among them as agents, and for this purpose was allowed to expend a sum not exceeding 600 pounds a year. Shortly after his arrival he caused an official notification to be made to the several Xhosa chiefs that he intended to visit the border as soon as his duties would allow him to leave Capetown, and that he would then enter into the most friendly arrangements with them. Instructions were sent to the officers on the frontier prohibiting the employment of force; military patrols could follow the traces of robbers, but were not to use their arms except for purposes of defence. In September and October the robberies almost ceased, owing to messages that he was disposed to enter into arrangements of great advantage to them. The chiefs were led to believe that a large portion of the unoccupied land west of the Tyumie and the Keiskama would be given to them. Two months’ waiting exhausted their patience, and in November thefts were renewed; Tyali’s people were particularly active, and also caused annoyance by entering the ceded territory and making kraals there. The troops were worn out in driving them back, for as soon as a patrol retired, those expelled returned over the boundary. The soldiers were not allowed to fire upon them, and no blood was shed in these wearisome operations. The winter mattered because Stanley’s 600 pounds and a promised visit were the policy, and because D’Urban, busy with retrenchment and the new councils, never left the peninsula to make the visit. [3] [3]
Scarcely had D’Urban been in the colony 4 months when the depredations drew from him a measure which savoured neither of conciliation nor alliance. The numerous reports shocked the governor and changed his opinions on border life. “They have been very painful reading to me,” he wrote to Lieutenant-Colonel Somerset on the 6th of June; a complete and effectual reformation in the system of relations with the tribes on the borders had become absolutely necessary. He authorised Somerset to convey to the chiefs, with special admonition to Tyali and Maqoma, fair warning that he would hold them responsible for the atrocities of their people, and that if they forced him to take measures for their punishment, he would not do it by halves. His Majesty’s unoffending subjects living within the proper boundary must be protected; if the Xhosa persisted in marauding and especially armed, they must be treated like other banditti, who get themselves shot in the act of theft, plunder, and housebreaking. The June letter mattered because the governor who had arrived to make alliances was now telling Somerset that a thief in the act might be shot, and because Maqoma and Tyali were named in the warning. [4]
The immediate cause seems to have been a case in which the farmer took the law into his own hands. William Kleinhaus lived in a wild part, miles from his nearest neighbour, in a small wattle-and-daub hut with a circular kraal of dry brushwood in front. Shortly after he had retired on the night of the 9th of March, about ten o’clock and a dark night, his dogs became uneasy. Taking a gun and showing no light, he crept to the back of the kraal, heard the brushwood gate drawn, and found two Xhosa fastening reims to the horns of oxen. He crept into the kraal; when they returned driving more oxen, a shot dropped one lifeless, and the next morning the body of the second was found at no great distance — 2 with one ball. The governor submitted to the full bench whether existing laws entitled frontier inhabitants to do what was necessary to prevent theft by housebreaking or of cattle, sheep, or goats discovered in the act. Chief Justice Wylde, with Menzies, Burton, and Kekewich, held that inhabitants, servants, inmates, or even strangers present were justified in killing any person discovered attempting to break into dwelling houses at night with intent to steal, or in the daytime with intent to rob, and in like manner any person theftuously carrying away cattle who then defends himself forcibly, or whom they cannot otherwise prevent from completing his crime. The March shot mattered because the bench now told a lonely farmer that a man taken in the kraal at night might lawfully be killed, and because D’Urban’s June warning sat on that opinion. [4]
The military force in South Africa consisted of 3 battalions of infantry, a few artillerymen and engineers, and the Cape mounted rifles. Of these, 2 battalions of infantry and a company of artillerymen were in garrison in Capetown and Simonstown. Distributed among 6 different posts on the frontier were the Cape mounted rifles, 247 officers and men, the 75th regiment of the line, 533 officers and men, and 55 artillerymen and engineers. Somerset’s headquarters were at Grahamstown, but a great portion of his time was spent in the saddle. Lieutenant-Colonel Richard England commanded the garrison there. The numbers mattered because the Fish was held by fewer than 900 soldiers and riflemen, while 2 battalions sat in the west, and because the man who would have to meet a crossing was a colonel in the saddle, not a governor in Capetown. [3]
On Sunday the 13th of July the store of the trader Purcell, situated on the Kei, was struck; the lives of the traders were threatened. Somerset, writing to government on the 2nd of May, said that in consequence of the pains lately taken by evil-disposed persons to instil into the minds of the chiefs the idea that they were oppressed, a feeling of hostility had been created that required to be seen to be understood. He attributed the depredations daily committed to this cause. At Fort Adelaide and in the district of Bathurst, women in European dress came ostensibly to visit friends at the posts and at Theopolis; Armstrong considered them spies, the same garment used by different individuals as a pass. Ordinance Ninety-Nine of the 6th of June 1833, and Macartney’s proclamation also, were disallowed from the 1st of August of this year, leaving the people without organisation when a commando was needed. The fieldcornets were powerless, for no one but the civil commissioner had a right to call together an armed force. The August disallowance mattered because the only law that had compelled burghers onto commando was dead, and because a crossing in December would find each farmer answering for himself. [3] [4]
Waterboer, Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth, and Wool — 1834
Toward the close of this year the reverend Peter Wright brought Andries Waterboer to Capetown, to be present at the festivities connected with the emancipation of the slaves, and there he won great favour by his correct conduct and sensible remarks at public meetings. Waterboer had been elected captain at Griquatown in 1820, after Barends and the Koks moved away. It was represented to D’Urban that if Waterboer’s people were supplied with guns and ammunition they might be of great service by driving Stuurman’s robber gang from the islands in the Orange. Waterboer and nearly all his followers were born in the colony, but there was no desire to regard them as British subjects; they wished to be independent. Under these circumstances, on the 11th of December the first formal written treaty entered into between the English authorities in South Africa and a native ruler was signed at Capetown. In it Waterboer engaged to be the faithful friend and ally of the colony, to preserve order in his territory, to restrain and punish any attempt to violate the peace of the colony by people living within his country, to seize and send back criminals or fugitives, to protect that portion of the colonial border opposite his own — namely from Kheis along the Orange to Ramah — against marauders from the interior, to assist in the recovery of property or the apprehending of banditti along that line, to give information of intended predatory or hostile attempts, and to cooperate in preserving peace and extending civilisation. The treaty mattered because the Orange now had a named ally paid in cash and muskets, and because the signature was put to paper in Capetown on the same week that signal fires were running from the Keiskama to the Bashee. [3]
On the other part, the governor engaged that a yearly stipend of 100 pounds sterling should be paid to Waterboer; that he should be supplied with 200 muskets and a reasonable quantity of ammunition as occasion might require; and that 50 pounds a year should be paid to the mission at Griquatown in aid of the school, especially for the instruction of the children in the English language. The confidential agent named in the treaty was Wright. In the treaty there was no definition of boundaries except that in the police clause. The terms mattered because 100 pounds and 200 muskets bought a patrol from Kheis to Ramah without making Waterboer’s people British subjects, and because a later dispute over Griqua ground would find no line in the 1834 paper except that police clause. [3] [3] [4]
Still, comparing the colony in this year with 1819, signs of advancement were not wanting. The principal villages were now connected by regular weekly posts, the mails being conveyed in spring-carts driven from station to station at a pace of 6 or 7 miles an hour day and night. Grahamstown contained 600 houses and 3700 inhabitants exclusive of soldiers. It had 4 churches — English episcopal, Wesleyan, Independent, and Baptist — good schools, a commercial hall, a savings bank, a benefit club, a reading room, and a newspaper. The unfinished Commercial Hall, whose foundation-stone had been laid with masonic honours, had to be used in December as a temporary refuge for some of those driven from their homes. The Shaw Hall — so named in honour of the reverend William Shaw — built in 1832 and almost entirely rebuilt after fire in 1833, held the emancipation tea on the 1st of December. Port Elizabeth contained 1200 residents; the Independents had a place of worship there. In other parts of Albany there were 6 Wesleyan churches, an English episcopal church at Bathurst — nearly finished in December, when it too had to be used as a refuge until women and children could be escorted to Grahamstown — 8 or 9 cornmills, and several manufactories of waggons, leather, and tiles. The count mattered because Grahamstown of 3700 was now the east’s town, and because the halls and the Bathurst church would be filled in December with people who had left their farms, not with commerce. [3] [4]
The value of the wool exported from the East in this year was 3279 pounds. The Xhosa trade in ivory, hides, and gum had risen to about 40000 pounds per annum. Wheat from the Cape was declared on the London market equal, and in some respects superior, to the best English. In the west, Jan Frederik Reitz and Van Breda had proved merinos; in the east, Miles Bowker found in this year that turning wool into blankets with Bradshaw’s loom would not pay, and thereafter sold his wool to Allison in Grahamstown, who made hats with it. Lieutenants Richard Daniell of Sidbury and T. C. White had commenced fine-wool farming in 1827. There were other causes for uneasiness. The wine trade — the most important industry in the country — was in a state of rapid decline, and there was no prospect of its recovery. There was also the depression that is experienced everywhere when revenue falls short of expenditure, when taxation is severely felt, when debt is increasing, and when even the most necessary public works cannot be undertaken. The Berlin society, founded in 1824, sent 4 missionaries who arrived in this year and were speedily followed by others; the first station occupied was Beaufort West, but they soon spread among the Koranas, Batswana, and Xhosa in and beyond the colony. The foundation-stone of a church at Balfour, about 4 miles from Philipton, was laid on the 26th of June. The wool figure mattered because 3279 pounds from the East was still a small export beside 40000 pounds of ivory, hides, and gum, and because the wine that had been the west’s staple was falling while D’Urban was under orders to make revenue meet expenditure. [3] [4]
The Sixth War Opens — December 1834
Early in this year the paramount chief Hintsa must have known what was in the minds of Maqoma and Tyali. He was sending messages of goodwill through Pato and others, and pretending to be amicably disposed toward the colonial authorities, while the traders in his country about this time found their lives threatened. To these causes of the coming war was added the ferment that had sat in Xhosa country since Tyali’s expulsion from the Mankazana in September 1833. About the middle of November 4 horses were stolen from a farm on the Koonap, and the spoor was clearly traced by the owner to one of Eno’s kraals within the ceded territory. So clear was the spoor that Eno himself was obliged to admit it, and promised either to restore the stolen property or to make good the loss with horned cattle. The owner waited 5 days at the kraal, then reported the circumstance at Fort Willshire. In cases where theft was clearly traced and undisputed, compensation could be demanded, but ample opportunity was to be given to the chief before force should be used. The officer in command sent a message requiring restoration or cattle within 8 days, failing which a patrol would be sent. The November horses mattered because a traced spoor, not a declaration of war, was the paper on which the first December patrol would ride. [3] [4]
The notice was disregarded, so on the 2nd of December Ensign Robert Manners Sparks, with 4 farmers and 11 men of the Cape mounted rifles, left the fort to enforce the demand. It was not usual to entrust such duties to officers under the rank of lieutenants, but there was no one except an ensign available. Sparks, whose whole thoughts were expended in the study of mathematics, was one of the youngest officers in the corps, a good-natured but simple and awkward lad, quite incapable of commanding the respect of Xhosa. At the kraal an altercation ended by his seizing 40 head of inferior cattle, of about the market value of the stolen horses. There were very few men at home, but when the patrol was about 8 miles on the return a large body of warriors under Casa rushed suddenly from concealment. The ensign caused a volley to be fired over their heads, which checked them for an instant, though no one was hurt by it. Until their firearms could be reloaded, the farmers and soldiers were almost helpless, and there can be little doubt that they would have been massacred if Stokwe, Eno’s son, had not ridden up at the critical moment and ordered the assailants back. About a mile from Fort Willshire, as Sparks was riding in the rear, a Xhosa sprang upon him from a small thicket and gave him a severe wound with an assegai; he was rescued by his men in time to save his life. Somerset then proceeded to the Gwanga with a strong escort, and on the evening of the 4th Eno arrived with a large armed following, having previously removed the women and cattle of his clan to the left bank of the Keiskama. Somerset managed matters so skilfully that Eno admitted he was in fault and expressed regret that an English officer had been wounded. Somerset demanded that Casa leave the ceded territory, and that Eno restore all the horses and 150 head of horned cattle recently stolen, or forfeit permission to reside west of the Keiskama. The next day Eno gave up 137 head of horned cattle and 13 horses. The patrol mattered because 40 inferior cattle and an assegai in an ensign’s side were the first blood of the war, and because Stokwe’s order, not Sparks’s volley, brought the patrol home. [3]
On the morning of the 10th of December Lieutenant William Sutton, of the 75th, was sent from Fort Beaufort with a sergeant and 12 men of the Cape mounted rifles to expel a party of Tyali’s followers from a kraal recently built on the ridge between the Mankazana and Gaga rivers, and to endeavour to obtain compensation for some horses belonging to officers at the fort that had been stolen and clearly traced to them. He found the intruders defiant. He managed, however, to burn their huts and to seize some oxen, which he informed them would be detained until the stolen horses were given up. The oxen were the personal property of Tyali, and according to Xhosa custom taking possession of the cattle of a chief is equivalent to a declaration of hostilities — a circumstance entirely unknown to any individual in the patrol. As soon as the soldiers set out to return, the Xhosa attempted to surround them, which was only prevented by a shot or two. A running skirmish was kept up to within a short distance of Fort Beaufort, when the sound of musketry brought out a relieving party. Night had already set in. One soldier and 2 horses were wounded, and the cattle had been retaken. On the other side 2 men were killed and 2 were wounded, one of the latter — Xoxo — being a brother of Tyali. His wound was a mere scratch, so slight that two days afterwards it could hardly be seen; but by the chiefs the drawing of the blood of a descendant of Tshawe was put forth as a very serious matter. During the night between the 11th and the 12th, signal fires blazing on every prominent hill between the Keiskama and the Bashee announced to all the warriors of the tribe that the time for gathering had arrived. Still the missionaries and traders had no thought that an invasion of the colony was about to take place. Several traders were ordered by the chiefs to leave Xhosa country, and they reported the circumstance to Somerset, but regarded it merely as a new form of the indignity to which for some time they had been subject. On the 18th of December Somerset wrote to the governor that he had not interfered with the orders of the chiefs, but had notified that if personal injury were inflicted on unprotected traders, he should immediately punish such conduct with severity. Indulgence and forbearance, he said, had been tried to their extreme limits; the result had been a more continuous system of depredations, and at length open defiance. The 10th mattered because Tyali’s oxen, not the scratch on Xoxo, were the declaration the patrol did not know it had made, and because the fires of the 11th called the tribe while Somerset still wrote of traders. [3]
On the 20th of December, while the Xhosa were massing along the border, an attempt was made by Maqoma and Tyali to entrap Somerset, who was then at the Kat river post. The reverend William Chalmers, missionary at the Tyumie, was desired by Tyali to write to the colonel, requesting him with 2 attendants to come over to the station, where the chief would meet him with the same number of councillors. After the letter was sent away the mission-house was surrounded by some hundreds of armed men, who lay in ambush until a reply was received, declining Tyali’s invitation. On the evening of Sunday the 21st of December a body of warriors, variously estimated from 12000 to 15000 in number, began to cross the border along its whole length from the Winterberg to the sea. Maqoma’s men, who were in advance, passed the Kat river just below Fort Beaufort. Tyali’s followers were next, and kept farther inland. Nearer the sea, warriors of the clans under Umhala, Siyolo, Botumane, and Eno, with many Gcaleka and Gqunukhwebe, crossed the Fish at various fords. In 10 or 12 days the whole of the open country was laid waste nearly as far west as the village of Uitenhage, and from the sea inland to the village of Somerset East. The women and children were permitted to escape with their lives, but every defenceless man encountered was murdered. The number of white men who thus perished was 22, by name Stephanus Buys, John Shaw, Robert Cramer, Thomas Mahony, H. W. Henderson, Alexander Forbes, Albert Kirkman, Jan Theodore Ferreira, Pieter de Jager, Nicholas van der Meulen, Frederik Silverhoorn, S. Turner, Newman, James Blakeway, Liebergeld, Carel Matthys, Willem Matthys, Cornelis Engelbrecht, John Brown, Philip Whittaker, Samuel Webber, and F. Dougal. Some were surprised without an opportunity of resistance, others treacherously struck down when confiding in promises of safety, others again fell after a desperate struggle. Meantime all the trading stations in Xhosa country were pillaged. Ten traders — Edwards, Kent, Budding, Cane, Robert Rogers, George Iles, James Warren, William Hogg, John Stamford, and Robert Hodges — thus perished. An instance of marked humanity must be recorded. There was a Xhosa named Sitamba in the service of Thomas Mahony at the clay pits near the Fish. When the men were murdered, Mrs. Mahony escaped with one child; Sitamba took the other, a boy of about 3 years, carried him all the way to Grahamstown, and delivered him safely to his relatives there. The Sunday evening mattered because 12000 to 15000 crossed from the Winterberg to the sea 20 days after emancipation, and because 22 colonists and 10 traders were dead before the year closed. [3] [4]
Fortunately, intelligence of the invasion spread very rapidly, and most of the farmers had time for flight with their families to the towns and villages. The disallowance of Ordinance Ninety-Nine left the people without organisation in this time of need. The fieldcornets were powerless, for no one but the civil commissioner had a right to call together an armed force, and thus each individual was obliged to rely on his own resources alone. To Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage, Theopolis, Salem, Bathurst, Grahamstown, and Somerset East, whichever place was nearest, the fugitives made their way as best they could. Grahamstown, being the centre of a thickly populated district, was soon crowded with destitute people. St. George’s church was turned into a watch-house and an asylum for destitute women and children. Some of the adjacent houses were also occupied by fugitives, and the streets leading to them were barricaded. Every man who had a gun was performing military service; ammunition was very scarce. Bathurst was in a bad position for defence. On the 29th of December the village was abandoned, and its inhabitants with the refugees who had taken shelter there removed to Grahamstown under protection of an escort. Somerset, unable to check the invasion and fearing that communication between the posts might be cut off, abandoned the 3 farthest in advance. The garrison of Fort Willshire fell back to Fort Beaufort; the garrison of the Gwalana post was sent to hold a hill commanding the lower ford of the Fish; the garrison of the Kat river post was removed to a very strong position which received the name Fort Adelaide. On the 31st of December all the country as far west as the vicinity of Uitenhage, with the exception of the 3 posts named, lay open. Christmas Day in Grahamstown was not a day of general peace. The last days mattered because Ordinance 99 was dead, Bathurst was empty, three forts had been given up, and the open country to Uitenhage had no garrison left on it. [3] [7]
Uys at Natal and Andrew Smith — 1834
In this year Natal was visited by a party of farmers from the Cape Colony, who were desirous of ascertaining by personal observation whether the reports concerning its beauty and fertility were correct or not. Among them was Mr. Pieter Uys. They travelled through Xhosa country with 14 waggons, and after inspecting the bay, where they met with a very friendly reception from the European residents, they thoroughly explored the uplands. The luxuriant pasturage and well-watered soil charmed them exceedingly. Having satisfied themselves as to its capabilities, they returned to the colony to find that the Xhosa had laid waste the eastern districts during their absence. The inspection mattered because a farmer from Uitenhage had now seen the bay and the uplands with his own eyes, and because the road home ran through a country that was no longer at peace. [3]
The Europeans at Port Natal were few, and they sat at the pleasure of Dingane, who had succeeded Tshaka after the assassination of the 23rd of September 1828. In June the Europeans at the port came to suspect hostile intentions on his part, and they all fled over the Umzimkulu. It turned out that their alarm was due to a mistake; and Dingane, to restore confidence, withdrew his soldiers from the country south of the Tugela for 35 or 40 miles upwards from the sea. The Europeans then returned, but in September Henry Fynn and William Fynn abandoned the district, and shortly afterwards both of them took service under the Cape government. The June flight mattered because the bay’s white residents still lived only as long as Dingane chose, and because two of the oldest English names at Natal left it before Uys’s waggons had finished their look at the grass. [3]
Dr. Andrew Smith went there on a visit in this year, and in his account of his journey wrote that as characteristic of Dingane’s system of proceeding, when he was at his kraal he saw portions of the bodies of 11 of his own wives whom he had only a few days previously put to death merely for having uttered words that happened to annoy him. Smith was an army surgeon who travelled as an explorer; his visit put a European witness inside Dingane’s kraal in the same year that Uys walked the uplands and the Fynns took Cape pay. The kraal mattered because anyone who thought of sitting at Natal now knew that the Zulu king killed inside his own household, and that the grass Uys admired still answered to that king. [3] [7]