Boer History1839 in South Africa: Jervis at Fort Victoria, Pietermaritzburg, Panda, and Normanby
Jervis at Fort Victoria, Landman at the Bay, and Charters Overland — January 1839
On the 9th of January Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius reached the Tugela with a herd of about 4000 cattle taken on the return from Zululand. He was coming back from the campaign of December 1838: on the 16th of that month he had held the Blood river against Dingane, after the massacre of Pieter Retief in February and the blow at Weenen. At the river he learned that Major Samuel Charters had landed at Port Natal on the 3rd of December, proclaimed martial law within 2 miles of high-water mark, and seized the powder in Maynard’s stone store, John Owen Smith’s wooden building, and the emigrants’ own magazine. Charters had named the stockade at the Point Fort Victoria. The seizure mattered because without powder the farmers could not follow Dingane north of the Tugela, which was exactly what the Cape government wanted while London still treated them as British subjects. [3] [4]
On the 14th Carel Pieter Landman arrived at the bay with the Volksraad’s answer. Peace could not come until Dingane restored the property still held. After crossing the colonial boundary the farmers no longer considered themselves amenable to British authority, though they wished to remain in harmony with it. They held Natal by the paper marked for Retief in February 1838. Landman was received cordially and spoke at length, but he went back without the ammunition. Charters had written that as soon as a willingness to act under the Crown appeared, the means of defence would not be withheld, but that while war was carried into Dingane’s country no additional means of offence would be supplied. The Volksraad would not bind itself not to cross the Tugela. That is why the powder stayed in British hands through the first months of the year: London would arm a subject community, not an independent commando. [3] [4] [7]
Close to the port three camps stood. One, of about 25 or 30 families under L. Badenhorst, was near the head of the inlet. A second, rather larger, was at the Umlazi; the third, of about 15 families, was 10 or 12 miles beyond, both under Andries de Jager and Jacobus Uys. Charters held a commission under the Cape of Good Hope punishment bill, the statute by which British courts claimed to try subjects for crimes committed beyond the colonial line. He summoned a farmer accused of assault; the man declined to attend, saying he was a member of an independent community and responsible only to the landdrost appointed by the volksraad. Sir George Thomas Napier judged it inexpedient to press the matter. Thus began and ended the attempt to exercise judicial authority over the emigrants at Natal. Without instructions from the secretary of state, which were repeatedly solicited but not sent, the governor could do no more than inform them on every opportunity that they were still regarded as British subjects. [3] [7]
On the 20th of January Charters left Natal overland for Capetown, leaving Captain Henry Jervis of the 72nd in command of 86 highlanders, 12 royal artillery with 3 guns on the sandhills, and the wattle-and-daub barracks inside the mangrove palisades. He travelled through Pondoland and the Transkei with 3 officers, 2 civil servants, Theophilus Shepstone, and one of Faku’s amapakati who had come to thank the major for a kind message. He reached Grahamstown on the 27th of February. At Faku’s place he explained the Natal situation in sittings of not more than 5 minutes and advised the Pondo chief to have nothing to do with the Boers, who were in their present position contrary to the authority of the Crown. At Buntingville he learnt that the Wesleyan reverend William Jenkins had sent a message to Faku, as coming from the governor, that his boundaries would be guaranteed as far as the Umzimkulu and that in case of violation by the Boers he might apply for military aid. Charters, who had seen every paper through the governor’s office, reported the statement as a wilful misrepresentation. The farmers had no intention of interfering with Pondoland, but the paper from Ungungunhlovu named the Umzimvubu, and a guaranteed line to the Umzimkulu would have set a struggle between those two rivers. That is why Charters went overland instead of by sea: Napier needed a soldier’s report on Faku and on whether a highland company at the inlet could turn the waggons back. [3] [4]
In January the Volksraad took steps for a township at Durban. A resolution to the same effect had been passed by the English settlers on the bay in 1835. Streets were now laid out and the limits of the town fixed. The great majority of the emigrants still lived in lagers along the Tugela, the Klip, the Bushman, and the Umgeni; the country had been too unsettled for many farms. Charters, passing the encampments on his overland road, found a few families tolerably comfortable, but generally squalid poverty, and a spirit of dislike to English sway remarkably dominant among the women, who rejected with scorn the idea of returning to the colony. If any of the men began to droop, the women urged them on. Jervis, left in charge, was favourably disposed toward the emigrants and did his best, early in the year, to make Dingane agree to peace. The township at the bay mattered because a street plan was a claim to stay, not a camp waiting for orders from Capetown. [4] [7]
Pietermaritzburg Founded, the Volksraad of Twenty-four, and Dingane’s Cattle — February–June 1839
In February a number estimated at about 2000 persons of all ages congregated at a pleasant place known as the Bushman’s Rand or Stinkhout Berg, where gardens already bore witness to the fertility of the soil and river water was at hand. On the 15th of February regulations and instructions were issued: every proprietor of an erf was bound, within 2 months, to sow it with the best grain and plants, surround it with a sod wall or palisade, and to build, though not within the two months, a house in such a position as to form with others the straight line of a street. Erven were offered at no greater price than 5 rixdollars each, in full satisfaction of all rates for the next 5 years, together with a proportionate part of the cost of irrigation. A company of relatives might take a whole block of 10. On these conditions 300 erven were taken up quickly. In naming the place it was desired to honour Retief and Gerrit Maritz; it was therefore called Pieter Mauritz Burg, afterwards Pietermaritzburg. In March the township was established as such, the old name changed so as to do honour to Maritz as well as Retief, and the capital of the settlement was fixed there, where the Volksraad now held its meetings. Weenen as a village was still to wait. A capital with numbered erven mattered because it turned a lager on the Bushman’s Rand into a seat of government the British post at the Point could not ignore. [3] [4] [7]
The form of government was democratic in the extreme. The supreme power was the Volksraad, a council of 24 members whose ages had to be between 25 and 60, elected by the votes of all men over 21. Statutory meetings were held on the first Mondays of January, April, June, and October. At each meeting a chairman was elected who took the title of president for the ensuing 3 months and associated with himself a small number as the Commissie Raad. The Volksraad made and ratified treaties, enacted laws, and appointed and dismissed public servants. Any of the public had the right to attend, speak — and that volubly — as well as vote. Potgieter’s people west of the Berg kept an adjunct raad at Potchefstroom and Winburg, loosely connected with Natal. Independent parties between the Orange and the Vet recognised neither. Between the soldiers and the people there was very good feeling: Jervis complained of some of the 72nd deserting, changing their names, and marrying the Boer lasses. There was the most resolute determination to refuse to be regarded as British subjects, rather to abandon the country than submit again. That is why a council of 24 at Pietermaritzburg, not the highland captain at Fort Victoria, made the law the camps would obey. [4] [7]
Jervis obtained a messenger from Henry Ogle and invited Dingane to send delegates to Natal. The Zulu chief had lost about 10000 men in all the engagements, but his army was still large, and he was quite ready to enter into an arrangement which would keep a watch over the emigrants. He sent delegates with 316 horses. On the 26th of March they met Pretorius and other leading emigrants close to the fort, in presence of Jervis, and were told that the farmers would consent to peace if Dingane would confirm the cession made to Retief, restore the cattle and other property taken, make good the damage, and agree that Zulus crossing the Tugela southward and white people crossing it northward should be shot. The delegates professed to consider the conditions fair, but said Dingane’s approval was necessary. His answer, forwarded to Jervis, was that the other property would be given back if they would send for it. Badenhorst had the message taken on to Pietermaritzburg. Pretorius, with 330 burghers, formed a lager at the junction of the Mooi with the Tugela. The meeting at the fort mattered because Jervis wanted a paper that would keep Natal quiet without another commando, and Pretorius wanted the stolen herds before he would call the war finished. [3] [7]
On the 24th of May 334 mounted men under Pretorius assembled about four hours from the Tugela. Ogle was to have gone on to Dingane, but he was looked upon with suspicion and sent back to the new township, where he was arrested and imprisoned for 3 days for travelling without a pass from Pretorius. William Cowie took his place, with J. A. van Niekerk and J. P. Roscher. The large body remained near the Tugela; Cowie with 3 others reached Dingane’s new place, about 400 yards from the burnt Ungungunhlovu, on the 27th. The chief was jubilant in a soldier’s coat. He sent back 1300 head of horned cattle, about 400 sheep, 52 guns, and 43 saddles, delivered at the camp on the 7th of June. Pretorius then informed 2 petty captains that the losses still due were estimated at 19300 head, but part might be paid in ivory. They affixed their marks to the conditions. The men who next to the king should have ratified the treaty — especially Tambuza — did not come; they were said to have been the chief instigators of the murders and afraid to trust themselves among the farmers. A mark from petty captains was not a king’s seal: that is why the cattle that came in June did not close the account. [3] [4] [7]
Other evidence of how the people still sat in waggons was a fire which broke out in the evening of the 3rd of June in one of the camps near Maritzburg, in which 9 individuals lost their lives, 10 others were severely injured, and the waggons and household effects of 29 families were utterly destroyed, the principal damage caused by the explosion of gunpowder stored in different waggons. On the 30th of June 2 messengers arrived at Maritzburg from Dingane. They brought no ivory. The volksraad, ascertaining that they were persons of no rank — one Dingane’s beer brewer, the other a gardener — declined to confer further than to direct them to inform their master that he must send some of his chief captains within 12 days, otherwise they would treat with him no longer. On several occasions afterwards messengers arrived, but they did nothing else than deliver compliments, make promises, and apologise for mistakes, until it became evident that Dingane’s only object was to ascertain whether the farmers kept in lager or were dispersing over the country. Piet Kemp, a youth of the Congella camp, wounded a native in the hand over a horse on the road to the Lower Umlaas; Jervis summoned him under the punishment bill; the father refused to allow the son to appear. On the 12th of April Napier wrote to Glenelg that the council was unanimously of opinion it would be highly improper to run the risk of bloodshed by seizing the accused, as it would be impossible to bring culprit and witnesses to the colony to be tried. On the 12th of June Jervis offered to release the powder if the Volksraad would sign a declaration that it would be used for defensive purposes only; the offer was not taken on those terms. The fire, the beer brewer, and the untried youth all said the same thing: the camps were still a people on the move, and the captain at the Point could neither try them nor disarm them. [3] [4]
Glenelg Retired, Normanby, Stockenstrom Deprived, and Eighteen Hundred on the Border — 1839
Upon his arrival in England Captain Andries Stockenstrom placed his resignation in Glenelg’s hands, but withdrew it when the secretary of state expressed entire confidence in him. Stockenstrom had been Glenelg’s man on the Fish: lieutenant-governor of the eastern districts from 1836, author of the treaties that treated Xhosa chiefs as independent parties after the Province of Queen Adelaide was given up, and the object of a special court of inquiry at Grahamstown in May 1838. It was arranged that he should return as lieutenant-governor with a salary increased from 1000 to 1500 pounds a year, when on the 8th of February Glenelg received an intimation from the premier that the ministry had resolved upon certain changes, in respect to which he had not been consulted, and that he must retire. There were other colonies besides the Cape that had been brought to the verge of ruin by his administration. Glenelg at once resigned, and on the 20th of the same month was succeeded by the marquess of Normanby, who had previously filled the posts of governor of Jamaica and viceroy of Ireland, and was therefore regarded as a man of experience. The new secretary would have permitted Stockenstrom to return, but matters soon came to his notice which made him hesitate. Napier completely exonerated Captain Campbell of Albany, who was allowed a pension of 200 pounds a year; Stockenstrom showed that he had obtained the farm Maasstrom, 10000 acres in the old ceded territory, from Sir Rufane Donkin in a perfectly honourable manner. Glenelg’s fall mattered at the Cape because the treaties on the Fish, the garrison at Natal, and Stockenstrom’s return all hung on whoever next held the seals in Downing Street. [3] [4]
During the investigation it was brought strongly to Normanby’s notice that Stockenstrom was exceedingly unpopular in South Africa. Charters, then in London, gave the secretary to understand that Napier considered Stockenstrom’s return objectionable, though it was subsequently shown that he had mistaken some expressions of the governor. The correspondence settled a doubt as to the prudence of forcing an unpopular administrator upon an irritated people. On the 31st of August Normanby informed Stockenstrom that he was deprived of office. The letter spoke of distrust and alienation toward him which had taken such deep root in the minds of a large proportion of the colonists as to deprive his services of the value which would otherwise belong to them. Confusion in other departments decided the ministers upon entrusting the colonies to the ablest member of their party. On the 3rd of September Lord John Russell became secretary of state for the colonies, and Normanby was transferred to the home department. The new secretary offered Stockenstrom the governorship of a West Indian island with a knighthood, which he declined, and asked for a pension of 1000 pounds a year; Russell then offered 700 pounds a year from the colonial revenue and a baronetcy, which he accepted. Colonel John Hare, who had assumed as acting lieutenant-governor on the 9th of August 1838, succeeded to the title, but the office ceased to be one of any importance. The administration was carried on by the governor as before 1836, the only difference being that instructions and reports now passed through a greater number of hands. That is why the eastern command after August was Hare’s title without Stockenstrom’s power: London would not send back a lieutenant-governor the towns had burnt bonfires against. [3] [4]
The imperial authorities complied with the governor’s request and in 1839 sent out the 25th regiment of foot and a wing of the 91st, which enabled him to station 1800 soldiers on the border; yet it was impossible to check thieving while the Xhosa were in possession of the jungles in the valley of the Fish. A battalion of the 91st arrived in April. The Cape mounted rifles — reduced in June to 6 companies each of 80 rank and file and placed under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Somerset — were so harassed with patrolling that some of the infantry of the line were furnished with horses to assist in the duty. It was all to little or no purpose. In 1839 the chief justice, Sir John Wylde, when on circuit sentenced 9 convicted cattle thieves to death, with a view to deterring others; the governor mitigated the sentence, knowing that public opinion in England would be horrified if it was carried into effect. The secretary of state approved of the mitigation. Hare sent a detachment to the Zwart Kei after the emigrant Tembu chiefs Mapasa and Diniso failed to restore stolen cattle they had promised Napier at Shiloh. Major Armstrong’s division was attacked and obliged to fire; 1 Tembu was killed; 450 cattle were taken from the fugitives and handed to the farmers in part compensation. The action had a decidedly good effect for a time; Maqoma also learned a lesson from it. More red coats on the Fish mattered because Napier had already called that line the worst that could have been adopted, and 1800 men still could not hold the jungles Glenelg’s treaties had left in Xhosa hands. [3] [4]
In February Shepstone succeeded Mr. J. M. Bowker as diplomatic agent with the Mfengu and Gqunukhwebe at Fort Peddie. A clan of the Imidange under a captain named Tola, whose kraals were between Fort Beaufort and the abandoned fort Willshire, prided themselves upon being the most expert stocklifters in the country; the farmers of Albany were wont to stigmatise him as the greatest scoundrel at large. The other chiefs assured Hare that they had no sympathy with him, and would punish him if he were not so strong. That chastisement was not this year’s work. What the year did on the Fish was to put more soldiers on a line the colonists could not cross, to keep the 72nd expecting orders for Europe, and to leave the treaties uninfringed by the colonists while 49 herdsmen in 4 years, plus Charles Bezant murdered at Pato’s kraal on the 6th of July 1838, made 50 deaths chargeable to the clans. In June the secretary of state wrote that the assistant commissioners of compensation in every other colony, including Mauritius, had closed their commissions, yet the Cape committee, now in its fifth year, had reported on little more than 100 claims in 6 months, with above 300 still to be forwarded, and 24913 pounds 6 shillings still available. The letter mattered because emancipation without paid compensation was still unfinished business in the western rooms while the eastern line lost cattle. [3] [4]
Measles in Capetown, Western Labour, and the Children’s Friend — 1839
The farmers of the western districts, left almost without servants by the termination of the apprenticeships on the 1st of December 1838, necessarily underwent much hardship; but they speedily learned to accommodate themselves to the new order of things. Many more than formerly turned their attention to the breeding of merino sheep, and the production of wool rapidly increased. The freed people were in this state when on the 20th of February the measles appeared in Capetown. For more than 30 years the colony had been free of that disease, and no one knew how it originated on this occasion, but very shortly it made its presence felt in an alarming manner. From that date to the 25th of March, a little over a month, there were in Capetown alone no less than 6655 cases with 51 deaths. Spreading through the country, it attacked especially the coloured people who were living amidst filth in stifling rooms. It broke out almost simultaneously in places far removed from one another and with little communication: Colesberg, Uitenhage, Port Elizabeth, and Grahamstown were badly attacked. In the Natal camps measles also broke out among the children, assumed a very virulent type, and carried off large numbers; of the adults many were ill with fever, and there was much poverty. Jervis, writing to Napier in July, said the measles had spread over the whole country and through all the camps, generally of a mild form, especially among the natives, but he had heard of 50 or 60 deaths at the Bushman’s Rand. Stores for the sick sent from the colony were refused admission to the harbour while the port remained closed. Dysentery was a prominent feature; the only treatment adopted was to maintain the patient’s strength, though chloride of lime was recommended. The epidemic mattered because the western farms had just lost their apprenticed labour, and a closed harbour at Natal kept hospital stores from the same camps that were laying out Pietermaritzburg. [3] [4] [7]
At this time the imperial government made such alterations in the duties on wines entering Great Britain as to place the Cape at a disadvantage in competition with France. Coupled with the scarcity of labour, this produced such an effect that the exportation of wine rapidly fell off. A scheme to use 8000 to 12000 pounds yearly from loans repaid to the government bank, to bring labourers from England on colonial guarantee, was declined by the imperial authorities until the public debt was paid off, Great Britain being responsible for the notes exchangeable for treasury bills. There was thus no state-aided emigration from Europe to the Cape at this time. A few families came of their own accord; 300 or 400 soldiers whose term had expired were allowed to take their discharge on the frontier; some English emigrants bound to Australia and New Zealand were wrecked in Table Bay and remained. Even the supply of juvenile immigrants received by means of the Children’s Friend Society came to an end in this year. Wine duties and a closed labour scheme mattered because merino wool was filling the gap left by wine and by the apprentices who had walked off the western farms. [3]
By a special ordinance about 750 children had been brought to South Africa, when an untoward event caused the enterprise to come to an end. A few lads of depraved habits eluded the directors’ vigilance. Letters which one of these boys wrote to his friends in London were made public and caused benevolent people there to suspect harsh treatment. The directors requested the secretary of state to appoint a special commission of inquiry, and Normanby instructed Napier to do so and forward a full report. The society also sent out Mrs. Bourhill, matron of one of its receiving establishments near London, to report upon the condition of the girls and to remain as superintendent of female immigrants. A boy named Trubshaw, one of 12 lads apprenticed to G. H. De Wet, a farmer near Stellenbosch, ran away and worked his passage to England. The commission found some instances of harsh conduct, the very worst of which was by an English officer afterwards dismissed from the queen’s service by a court-martial, but that in the vast majority of instances the apprentices were very well treated. De Wet was an exemplary master; the 11 remaining with him had not a word of complaint. According to their indentures a small sum ranging from 3 pence to 1 shilling a week was placed to the credit of each in a savings bank. The inquiry mattered because a London scandal, not a Cape shortage, shut the last organised supply of young hands after apprenticeship had ended. [3]
Mrs. Bourhill died in July, after sending home a report which might be termed enthusiastic regarding the condition of the girls. She expressed an earnest wish that many thousands of poor children then going to ruin in the great English cities could be placed in as good positions. Meantime it was ascertained in London that Trubshaw under another name had been twice convicted of petty theft before the society took him. Captain Brenton’s death was hastened by the opprobrium heaped upon him, and the mourners at his funeral were insulted by an angry mob. The committee in Capetown resigned, declaring that they would no longer expose themselves to the abuse of those persons in England who paid implicit belief to every foolish report to the discredit of the colony. Of the 98 individuals who had formed the first body of emigrants under Louis Trichardt and Jan van Rensburg, all had perished except 26 landed in Natal in destitution and 2 still more wretched living with the blacks. Their friends chartered the schooner Mazeppa for Delagoa Bay, and in July the remnant — Mrs. H. Botha and 5 children, Mrs. G. Scheepers and 5 children, Mrs. J. Pretorius and 2 children, 3 young men, and 7 orphan children — were landed in Natal. On the 20th of July the Mazeppa arrived in the bay; the survivors’ guns, the only remnant of their property, were taken from them though shortly afterwards returned, a want of sympathy the Volksraad did not forget. One young man, a son of Louis Trichardt, had gone to Mozambique in a Portuguese vessel before the schooner reached the bay. The landing mattered because a closed British harbour still claimed the right to disarm people who had come out of Delagoa fever, not out of Dingane’s kraals. [3] [4] [7]
Innes and the Schools, Four New Districts, Cock at the Kowie, and Moorrees at Riversdale — 1839
Upon Napier’s arrival he had found that D’Urban had contemplated a reform in public education, and that an exhaustive report upon the country schools had been prepared by Colonel Bell. The free schools established in 1822 were still open, though they had long ceased to maintain as high a position as in earlier years. In 1838 there were in the whole colony 23 village schools of that class. The South African college in Capetown was in receipt of 200 pounds a year from the treasury; the classes still met in the orphan house. In 1839 the governor’s promise of ground was carried out, when the site of the last government slave lodge and part of that where wild animals were once kept was transferred to the college. A sum of over 3000 pounds was on hand from the old Latin school fund; the government lent the directors another 2000 pounds from the prize negro fund at 4 per cent. Before 1839 about 2000 pounds a year was expended from the colonial treasury in aid of schools. The secretary of state having approved of the new system, it was put into working order as speedily as possible. He sanctioned 500 pounds a year, with travelling allowances, for a superintendent-general, and the maintenance of the headmasters of 12 principal schools, salaries from 150 to 300 pounds, with 30 pounds for house rent; the estimated total on these heads was 3460 pounds annually. The bible and school commission was replaced by a superintendent-general. On the 11th of May James Rose Innes, once schoolmaster of Uitenhage, was appointed superintendent-general of education, with a salary of 500 pounds a year and travelling expenses when on tours of inspection. On the 24th of May information concerning the whole of the new scheme was published in the Gazette. Two classes of schools were established in the chief centres of European population: elementary teachers at 100 pounds a year with a free house or 30 for rent, open without charge to every child of good behaviour; and, above these in the principal villages, classical schools with teachers of higher standing, most of them graduates of Scotch universities, at 150 pounds a year. The Dutch language was used as the medium where parents desired it. Religious instruction was given from the bible at a stated hour, but no child whose parents objected was required to attend at that time. A Normal School was to be started in Capetown to train teachers. The scheme mattered because the bible and school commission had run the free schools since 1822, and a single superintendent with a Gazette notice now answered for every government classroom in the colony. [3] [4]
On the 21st of July the reverend Jan Hendrik von Manger, long chairman of the bible and school commission, retired from active service as a clergyman, though he continued to take an interest in the schools. Sir John Herschel had returned to Europe in March 1838; at the governor’s request he selected 5 Scotch teachers from that country, but they were not yet in the colony when the year closed. He had set out what a sound system should do: form advantageous personal habits; store the mind with useful knowledge; enlarge its powers by connected thought; and form good citizens by teaching the relations of social and civil life. Napier, coming down nearer to the earth, advocated the diffusion of a correct knowledge of the English language among all ranks, while making Dutch part of the elementary course where it was required. Innes spent the months after his appointment visiting the schools throughout the colony and putting them in as good order as possible. An attempt to wreck the public schools by forcing all kinds of coloured children upon the teachers, which could only result in the exclusion of respectable European pupils, was a collision of two lines of thought; Innes had to decide it with tact, and the usefulness of the schools was preserved. The tours mattered because a scheme written in London still had to meet classrooms scattered from Stellenbosch to Grahamstown. [3] [4]
On the 23rd of January an ordinance was issued creating 4 new magisterial districts: Wynberg, Malmesbury, Paarl, and Caledon. Under the emancipation act, in 1834 the same areas had been provided with special magistrates, whose duties were confined to looking after the interests of the apprentices. When apprenticeship ceased, the governor considered it advisable to retain those 4 officers as resident magistrates for all purposes. The legislative council concurred, and the secretary of state confirmed the ordinance. Major George Longmore then became resident magistrate of Wynberg, Major Henry Piers of Paarl, Captain John Montgomery Hill of Malmesbury, and Major James Barnes of Caledon. On the 5th of February a proclamation required the word district to be used officially for the area under a resident magistrate, and the word division for the area under a civil commissioner. An institution in existence from the early days of the colony — the matrimonial court — was swept away by an order in council on the 7th of September. The four new districts mattered because the special magistrates of emancipation were turned into ordinary magistrates once the apprentices were free, and the western countryside needed courts for everyone, not only for the formerly enslaved. [3]
The Eastern Province bank, with a capital of 40000 pounds in 1600 shares, commenced business in Grahamstown on the 1st of January; the Eastern Province fire and life assurance company, with a capital of 20000 pounds in 400 shares, commenced there on the 2nd of September. On the 16th of March Anthony Oliphant left the Cape for Ceylon, and Advocate William Musgrave acted for the next 6 months. On the 16th of September William Porter arrived and took over the duty. Great efforts to improve Port Frances were made by William Cock, who maintained that the mouth of the Kowie could be made one of the best harbours in the world. On the 27th of November an ordinance was issued to enable him and his partner George Hodgskin to improve the port and to levy fees for a specified period upon goods landed or shipped there. Cock then set to work to construct training walls of wattled timber banked behind with sand. Partners hesitated and withdrew; Cock, with considerable private means, went on. In May Major Michell was in England, and with Napier’s concurrence urged the secretary of state to permit the construction by convict labour of good roads over Cradock’s pass near George and up Mosterd’s hoek; as he was also urging lighthouses on Recife, Agulhas, and Good Hope, the secretary came to regard him as an enthusiast bent upon squandering money, and declined. On the 8th of April the earl of Caledon died suddenly at Caledon Hall in the county of Tyrone, in the 62nd year of his age. On the 6th of July Lord Howden, formerly Sir John Cradock, who had held the castle from 1811 to 1814 and had driven the Xhosa from the Zuurveld, died in England, leaving one son. Banks in Grahamstown and a private ordinance at the Kowie mattered because the eastern province was trying to fund its own harbour and credit while Michell’s mountain roads were refused in London. [3] [4] [4]
The reverend Hubertus Adriaan Moorrees commenced his duties on the 19th of May as first clergyman of the new parish of Riversdale, a name given by government notice on the 30th of August 1838 in honour of Harry Rivers of Swellendam. On the 2nd of April the reverend John Pears became the first resident clergyman of another new congregation. In May the first consistory of Bredasdorp was formed; in June that of Riversdale. In 1839 a church building was erected at Waggonmakers’ Valley and the Groenberg; the committee asked the governor to name the village, but their first letters arrived a little too late, and the name was not yet in the Gazette when the year closed. Sidbury’s English church, toward whose cost 735 pounds had been raised by voluntary contributions and 200 given by the S.P.C.K., with a remaining debt of 338, was opened for service; on the 5th of January Napier forwarded to Glenelg a petition signed by 250 people asking a stipend for a permanent clergyman. On the 23rd of January an ordinance authorised a vestry and churchwardens for St. George’s, Grahamstown — the first step toward loosening English church control, as there were then only 3 colonial chaplains in the whole eastern province: Heavyside at Grahamstown, McCleland at Port Elizabeth, and Barrow at Bathurst. On the 22nd of January Napier wrote that he could not move against the reverend Robert Shand of Tulbagh without violating the principles laid down for his guidance, and that he desired not to intermeddle with spiritual matters. New parishes at Riversdale and Bredasdorp mattered because the western congregations were multiplying faster than Capetown could name them, while Grahamstown’s vestry was the first crack in a church still run by 3 colonial chaplains. [3] [4]
Panda across the Tugela, Lindley in Natal, and Fourie beyond the Orange — September–December 1839
Umpande, or Panda as he was usually termed by Europeans, one of the younger sons of Senzangakona, entered into a conspiracy against Dingane about 4 months before the departure of the troops. He was a half-brother of the Zulu king, far inferior in ability to either Shaka or Dingane, and he became the instrument by which a divided nation asked the farmers for protection. A great number of the incorporated Zulus — remnants of tribes that had come under Shaka as the only means of saving themselves — were ready to rally round any leader who could give them reasonable hope of deliverance from incessant bloodshed. The induna Nongalaza, in command of the district along the northern bank of the Tugela, declared for Panda, and they joined him. Dingane fell upon Sapusa’s kraal with 4 regiments and, according to Panda’s later statement, lost half his fighting force; messengers ordered Panda to come to his assistance, but Panda saw the trap and refused to move. The rebel chief, with a large following, then crossed the Tugela and sent 3 messengers to Landdrost Roos at the port to ask protection from the Europeans. These messengers arrived on the 14th of September and stated that Panda was accompanied by Nongalaza, by Sotobe who had been sent by Shaka to the Cape with Mr. King in 1828, and by 6 other great indunas. The emigrants at first regarded Panda with suspicion. Commandant Hans de Lange, guarding the frontier with a small patrol, met him after the crossing. The crossing mattered because a Zulu prince south of the Tugela, asking Boer protection, offered Pretorius a way to finish Dingane without waiting for Jervis’s powder. [3] [4] [7]
Large numbers of Zulus, with their women and cattle, continued to cross to the southern banks, and it became evident that the nation was divided into two hostile camps. On the 15th of October Panda sought and gained an interview with the Volksraad at Pietermaritzburg. The Boers were satisfied with his bona fides, entered into negotiations, and formed an alliance. He was permitted to remain temporarily in Natal and, by authority of the Volksraad, was to be installed as reigning prince of the emigrant Zulus, but in vassalage to the farmers. He undertook, once placed upon Dingane’s throne, to pay the debt of cattle still owing; it was understood on both sides that the first clause was a mere matter of form, and he therefore paid about 2000 head at once. He was not to engage in hostilities with neighbouring tribes without the Volksraad’s consent, and was always to spare the lives of women and children in war. Jervis counselled against the move, seeing no reason to place any more confidence in Panda than in Dingane. The alliance mattered because a highland captain at the Point could not stop it, and because the cattle still marked against Dingane were now promised by his rival. [3] [4] [7]
The ceremony took place on the 26th of October. Authorised by the Volksraad, Landdrost F. Roos organised an expedition of 28 men and 13 waggons, among them the French naturalist Adulphe Delegorgue, Heemraad Servaas van Breda, Commandant Fourie, Fieldcornet Jan Meyer, Dr. Krause, and Messrs. Morwood and G. Kemp. They crossed the Umgeni and on the 25th came in sight of the thousands of cattle and large collection of huts on the Tongati, about 30 miles north of the port. With the shade of Retief still haunting them there was little sleep; they lay by their loaded weapons with their horses’ reins upon their arms. Early next morning, in van Breda’s large tent, Panda sat upon the right of Roos. Delegorgue described him as a man of majestic bearing, enfolded in an ample cloak in Roman fashion, a brilliant black eye deep set, a high forehead, a large mouth often smiling with the smile which means “I understand.” He was installed reigning prince of the emigrant Zulus until, with the farmers’ assistance, he should be placed upon Dingane’s throne as full king. He was to put a stop to all punishment of witchcraft by death. The captains were told they were held responsible for his life and safety. Scarcely had the delegates retired when screams showed a vast concourse beating to death Pangazoaga, one of the 3 honoured captains, known as Dingane’s agent. Panda reproved them in the presence of the white men; their countenances indicated entire approval of the crime. The next day the Boers left, taking 378 head as an instalment; Panda also sent a present of 101 cattle to the commission for distribution among families who had suffered. An artillery salute was fired when the proclamation had been read. The beating of Pangazoaga in front of the tent mattered because it showed what vassalage to Pietermaritzburg did not yet control: a Zulu crowd still killed as Dingane’s people killed. [4] [7]
In the winter the reverend Daniel Lindley, one of the American missionaries whom the farmers under Maritz and Potgieter had found at Mosega in 1837, settled in Natal. Finding that the emigrants had established congregations in all 3 of their townships, but could prevail on no minister of the Dutch Reformed Church of the Cape to come and reside among them, he took upon himself the duties of their clergyman. He lived at Pietermaritzburg and travelled from there not only to Durban and Weenen but also on the other side of the mountains, to Winburg and Potchefstroom, to preach to the 5 congregations, to visit their sick, and to do what he could to educate their children. Erasmus Smit, whose health had completely failed, drew a yearly pension of 45 pounds; the port captain, collector of customs, and the landdrosts received small stipends; the commandant-general, the commandants, the fieldcornets, and the members of the Volksraad had no salaries whatever. In 1839 Dr. Adams and Lindley, two of the American party, were again on Natal ground after the Zulu disturbances of the previous year. Lindley in the pulpit mattered because Cape clergymen would not cross the line, and a republic that would not take Jervis’s law still wanted a minister for its sick and its children. [3] [7]
North of the Orange, after the elder Adam Kok took possession of the territory, the farmers on crossing the Great river found the choicest pasturage claimed. A large tract adjoining Kok’s line on the east was purchased in this year by David Stephanus Fourie from the Korana captain David Danser, but only the crudest kind of measurement had been used to determine the positions of the farms. If a farm was believed to be west of the unmarked line from the junction of the Riet and Modder to Platberg on the Vaal, Europeans who fancied to live in a region so desolate bought it from Cornelis Kok, but did not thereby come under that captain’s government. The highest estimate of the Bantu population between the Umzimvubu and the Tugela — including the greater part of Natal, eastern Pondoland, and a large portion of what later became Griqualand East — stood in this year at under 10000 souls. Passing over the mountains, in the eastern part of the present Orange Free State and Basutoland, the highest estimate was 50000. From 1836 to the last day of this year rather over 98 per cent of those who left the whole colony had gone from Beaufort, Graaff-Reinet, Somerset, Albany, and Uitenhage — the part exposed to the marauding hordes — where on the 30th of November 1834 there had been 6333 slaves, or 16 per cent of the entire number. From Worcester, Swellendam, and George the emigrants were a little less than 2 per cent of the whole. The movement of masses after 1836 was not the old gradual expansion of men without farms applying for the nearest unoccupied land on the border. Fourie’s paper from Danser mattered because an unmarked line north of the Orange was already producing two titles to the same grass, while 98 per cent of the waggons still came from the districts that had faced the Fish. [3] [3]
Normanby’s Despatch, the Flag at Fort Victoria, and the 24th of December — 1839
The emigrants were agitated by a rumour that a large body of English colonists would shortly be landed at Natal with the object of overturning their government. Their fears were groundless. On the 30th of April Normanby wrote to Napier, approving of the temporary occupation of Port Natal for the purpose of preventing the introduction of munitions of war and checking the desire of emigration from the Cape Colony, but announcing his agreement to the fullest extent in the views of his immediate predecessor as to the impolicy of extending the dominions of the British crown in Southern Africa. The 72nd was expecting orders to embark for Europe, and the governor therefore made up his mind to withdraw the garrison from Fort Victoria and to leave the emigrants entirely to themselves. His own opinion, often repeated and urgently pressed, was that Natal should be constituted a British colony; but the reiterated expression by Glenelg and Normanby of their merely temporary and conditional approval, their observations on the expense, and the apparently fixed determination not to extend colonial possessions, decided him. Writing in September he acknowledged that in so far as the military occupation had been expected to impede the supply of munitions it had been a failure, as the farmers were so amply supplied before they left the colony; neither had it checked emigration, for new-comers had continued to arrive throughout the year; and the presence of so small a body of troops was of little avail in protecting the natives. That is why a secretary who would not annex still approved a post that had already failed at its own objects: the flag at the Point was to come down because London would not pay for another acre. [3] [4] [7]
The first rumour which reached them was that a Mr. Bannister was forming a British colony in Natal. The Volksraad met, and Pretorius wrote to Jervis on the 31st of July that no person would be allowed to settle in Natal unless he acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Volksraad. In October there was more ground for alarm. In England a company known as the Natal Association had been formed; Normanby had been interviewed with a view to a Commons committee; the earl of Ripon presented to the Lords a petition from certain Liverpool merchants. The proceedings, published in the Colonial Gazette for the 15th of June and taken over by the Grahamstown Journal of the 3rd of October, were misinterpreted as meaning that Natal had been sold to English emigrants who might soon arrive. To be prepared, a burgher guard of 40 or 50 men was permanently stationed near Jervis’s encampment. On the 11th of November the Volksraad issued a proclamation: should foreign emigrants land in the bay without previously obtaining the Volksraad’s consent, such emigrants would be regarded as enemies of the state; if they were landed under so strong a military force as to make resistance impossible, the farmers would retreat to the woods, mountains, and ravines, and neither ask for nor give quarter until they had recovered what was lawfully theirs. The proclamation mattered because Normanby’s April letter had not yet reached the camps as a fact they could trust, and a Liverpool petition looked, from Pietermaritzburg, like another Charters at the Point. [4] [7]
A transport was sent for the troops, and on the 24th of December all embarked and set sail for Capetown. The Union Jack having been hauled down from the port flag-staff, the tricolour of the republic was hoisted. The arms, ammunition, and stores which had been seized were now given up to Pretorius unconditionally. On the 25th the emigrants hoisted their flag over the fort which Jervis had built, and proclaimed the re-establishment of the government of the South African Association of Port Natal at the bay. Salutes of artillery were fired from the cannons which had done service against the Zulus on the Bushman’s river, and there were public rejoicings at Durban and at Pietermaritzburg. In November and December Pretorius and his commandants were engaged in active preparations for the coming campaign: a commando of 265 men was lagered on the Tugela. Dingane’s debt of some 40000 head still sat unpaid; Panda’s adherents under Nongalaza were counted by the thousand; the British force at the Point was gone. The powder that Charters had seized in December 1838 went back without a promise not to cross the river. That is why the year closed with highlanders at sea and a tricolour over Fort Victoria: Glenelg and Normanby had refused another colony, Jervis’s company had stopped neither powder nor waggons, and the campaign that would take the rest of Dingane’s herds was not this year’s work. [3] [4] [7]