Boer History1841 in South Africa: Napier, Smith, Faku, and the Umgazi Camp
Palmer, Jenkins, Garner, and Faku’s Letter of the 5th of January — January 1841
On the 1st of January the Wesleyan missionaries Samuel Palmer, Thomas Jenkins, and William H. Garner assembled at the residence of Faku on the Umzimhlava and stayed until the 5th. Faku was the paramount Pondo chief. His people sat on both sides of the Umzimvubu, south of the Natal farms and north of the Cape frontier. In December 1840 a Natal commando of 260 under Andries Pretorius and Hendrik Stephanus Lombard had struck the Baca kraals of Ncapayi. Faku had been glad of an enemy’s loss and afraid that the same blow might fall on him. By this date he took his course with white people from the missionaries. He sent to Buntingville and asked Jenkins to come. The three days on the Umzimhlava were spent deciding what to put in writing to the Cape. [3] [4] [7]
A letter went to Sir George Thomas Napier, then on the colonial border, dated the 5th of January 1841. Napier was governor of the Cape. The letter asked that Faku be taken under his protection. It said the chief, in great fear of the emigrant farmers, was about to leave the eastern side of the Umzimvubu, but claimed the whole country from that river to the Umzimkulu. On the paper stood the marks of Faku, Damasi, and Bangasili, and the signatures as witnesses of Palmer, Jenkins, and Garner. The claim mattered because the farmers held the same stretch by the treaty between Dingane and Retief, and because a British post planted on the Umgazi would sit on the road from the Fish to Port Natal. [3] [4]
The farmers’ account was different. They said there had been no other than friendly relations with Faku since they first reached Natal. When the Ncapayi commando came near his country, Pretorius sent 3 burghers to say that no blow was meant against him, and to ask him to the camp to confirm the peace. Faku excused himself on the ground of ill-health, and added that there was no need for the meeting, as they had been friends all along. After the letter of the 5th he crossed the Umzimvubu again and went back to the old Pondo kraal on the Umgazi, a few miles west of that river. At the time of the missionaries’ visit he had been on the Umzimhlava, a few miles east of it. The two stories mattered because Napier had to choose which one would move troops. [4] [7]
Early in January Napier received from William Shaw, then at Peddie, hundreds of miles from the alleged attack, a letter of a most disquieting nature. According to this the Boers had made a wanton attack on the Amabaca under Ncapayi, then living on the upper waters of the Umzimvubu. Shaw’s information had come from Garner, Palmer, and Jenkins. Garner’s letter of the 23rd of December 1840 had spoken of rumours that the Boers were at Faku’s place and intending to attack Ncapayi. The three had left Buntingville on the 30th of December, found Faku in dread, continued into Ncapayi’s country, found most of the kraals deserted, and after 2 days heard from the chief himself that before daylight one morning the Boers, with the followers of Fodo, had attacked his people, killing 26 men, 10 women, and 4 children, taking many women and children as prisoners, and driving off the cattle of 62 kraals and about 2000 sheep and goats. Ncapayi asked Garner to write that he also might receive protection. Whether the December blow was morally justifiable or not, Napier was convinced that British interests in South Africa were imperilled: anything that pressed the tribes down upon the Cape Colony increased the danger of war on the Fish. That is why a missionary letter written on the Umzimhlava could put a camp on the Umgazi before the volksraad’s terms of the 14th had even been read in Capetown. [3] [4]
The Volksraad’s Terms of the 14th of January, and Smith from Fort Peddie — January 1841
On the 14th of January the volksraad at Pietermaritzburg, in answer to a request of the governor, set out the terms it wanted with England. They asked that the Queen’s government acknowledge their settlement as a free and independent state under the name of the Republic of Port Natal, and treat that republic as an ally. In a war between Britain and any other power the republic was to be viewed as neutral. British merchandise, except wines, strong liquors, and other articles prejudicial to the republic, was not to pay higher imposts than the goods of other countries. The republic agreed not to make any hostile movement against any tribe living between the boundaries of Natal and the colony without first giving notice to the governor or his representative, except when first attacked or when it was necessary without loss of time to pursue and capture robbers. It bound itself not to aid the enemies of Great Britain nor to permit any of their vessels to enter the harbour; not to enter into the slave trade; not to increase its boundaries to the detriment of adjacent tribes; and generally to live on friendly terms with the British government and keep peace with surrounding nations. Reciprocal customs were to stand at the same rates as in the colony, wines and spirits taxed differently and higher; civilisation and Christianising of the natives were to be encouraged, and no slavery allowed. The letter mattered because it asked for two things at once — independence and a commercial ally’s privileges — after Lord John Russell had, on the 18th of June 1840, already given Napier discretion to reoccupy the port, and after L. Badenhorst and J. J. Burger had, on the 4th of September, asked to be declared a free people. [4] [7]
For the year ending the 5th of January 1841 5 vessels had entered Capetown from Natal and 3 had gone out to that place. The total value of the exports was £1078 13s. 8d., made up of butter 4905 lbs, curiosities, hides and skins 1065 lbs, horns, ivory 4648 lbs at £586 5s., pumpkins, seeds and bulbs, tallow 1702 lbs, and wood 2849 lbs. Port Natal had an apothecary, a hatter, and three naturalists: Wahlberg, Adulphe Delegorgue, and Dr Krause. The country the farmers claimed was still the triangle of the Tugela, the coast, and the Drakensberg and Umzimvubu meeting at the river’s mouth. Three magisterial and ecclesiastical districts stood at Pietermaritzburg, Weenen, and Port Natal. A volksraad of 24 met on the first Monday of January, April, July, and October; 12 members made a quorum; a chairman chosen at each session took the title of president and with a commissie raad carried on the government for the next 3 months. The civil list was still under £500. The landdrost and the clergyman of Maritzburg were each paid £100 a year; the secretary of the volksraad £75; each of the landdrosts of Port Natal and of Weenen £37 10s.; the port captain, collector of customs, and entire police establishment cost less than £100. Every burgher of full age who had settled before the beginning of 1840 was entitled to 2 farms of 3000 morgen and one erf; each lad above 15 to one farm and one erf. That was the house whose independence the letter of the 14th asked the Queen to name. [3] [4]
On the 18th of June 1840 Russell had sent Napier authority to use his discretion as to reoccupying Port Natal with a military force, or not. Napier would have sent troops months before, only that he believed they would be resisted, and it would therefore be imprudent to employ fewer than 300 men, a number which — as he wrote to Russell on the 20th of September — under the unsettled and irritated state of the farmers on the eastern frontier, occasioned by the constant plunder of their cattle and horses, he did not feel justified in detaching, as it would endanger the safety of the colony. He now resolved to form a military post in Faku’s country, where it would serve the double purpose of preventing another attack by the emigrant farmers upon a tribe south of Natal, and of placing the Xhosa between two fires. A few hours after receiving the letter from the missionaries his orders were issued. That is why the camp went to the Umgazi and not yet to the Point: Napier would not thin the Fish line by 300 men, but he would plant a smaller column on Faku’s river as the thin end of the same wedge. [3]
On the 28th of January 1841 Captain Thomas Charlton Smith of the 27th left Fort Peddie at the head of two companies of his own regiment, 50 men of the Cape mounted rifles under Captain H. D. Warden, a lieutenant and 8 men of the royal artillery, and a lieutenant and 4 men of the royal engineers. He had with him a train of 54 transport waggons, and was accompanied by several men later well known in South Africa, among them Bisset, then an ensign in the Cape mounted rifles, Lieutenant Charles Somerset of the same regiment, and Charles F. Potgieter, then a commissariat clerk. One return put the artillery and engineers together as 2 officers and 12 men. No difficulty was met on the march to the Umgazi river, where Smith formed a camp. According to his instructions he was to protect Faku and Ncapayi against the aggressions of emigrant British subjects as well as to act as a deterrent to the clans in whose rear he would be stationed; he was to take no part in purely native quarrels; he was also to obtain all possible information regarding the Natal Boers, but was not to enter into any political discussion with them. Warden, who marched with the 50 rifles, would later sit as British resident in the Orange Free State. The column mattered because a British camp on the Umgazi was a day’s argument that the Queen still named the emigrants her subjects, and because the same road would carry Smith to the Point in the next year. [3] [4] [7]
The Umgazi Camp, Napier’s January Letters, and the Volksraad of the 7th of April — January–April 1841
Upon being told by Napier that he was sending troops to protect Faku, the volksraad caused a letter to be written, justifying the attack upon the Bacas, and denying that the Pondo chief was in any danger from them, as they were on the most friendly terms with him and had interchanged professions of peace and goodwill while their commando was in the field against Ncapayi. Many men in Natal felt that a great blunder had been committed; party feeling, always violent, became more violent still. While this was in progress the Boers at first knew nothing of any communication concerning the Ncapayi affair having been made to the governor. Very shortly after they had sent off the long letter of the 14th of January, the volksraad received a despatch from Napier dated the 5th of January. In it the governor expressed deep regret at the intelligence of the attack on Ncapayi which he had received through “that most excellent and respectable body, the Wesleyan missionaries.” He doubted the correctness of it and refused to believe that men calling themselves Christians could be guilty of such cruelty and oppression. But if, unhappily, it should prove to be true, he warned them that such wanton and unprovoked attacks would compel the British government to adopt such measures as would effectually prevent their recurrence. The date of that despatch is why the 14th of January and the 5th crossed in the post: Napier was writing regret on the same day Faku’s marks were being put on the Umzimhlava letter, and the volksraad was still offering terms as if the only question on the table were independence. [3] [4]
That despatch was followed by another, dated the 27th of January, in which he informed them that he had received, from Shaw, confirmation of all he had heard, and that, for the protection of Faku, “that faithful ally of the government,” a military post was being stationed in his country. It is a fair question whether this prompt action was due entirely to solicitude for Faku and Ncapayi, or whether he was not also impressed with the danger to the colonial frontier likely to arise from Boer trouble with the eastern natives. The point had not escaped the Boers themselves: many had been disinclined to take part in the commando on the ground that they were likely to come into conflict with the colonial authorities. Bearing in mind the governor’s decided opinion on the expediency of annexing Natal, this formation of a military post at the Umgazi might prove the thin end of the wedge. In the expedition against Ncapayi the burghers under Lombard had, after the Baca clan had been scattered from their kraal on the Tsitsa, found several children wandering about on the veld without food. The commando had taken them back to Pietermaritzburg, given them food, and provided for them by apprenticing them to white settlers — 17 children whose parents were ascertained to be dead, kept to be apprenticed until they should be of age. That apprenticeship was now another weapon in the correspondence, because philanthropists in the colony called it slavery, and because Russell’s cabinet had made the slave trade the one article on which no Natal republic would be heard. [3] [4] [7]
These two letters drew from the volksraad an able and lengthy answer, dated the 7th of April 1841. After expressing surprise at the governor characterising their proceedings as groundless and unprovoked before he had heard both sides, they gave their reasons for believing that Ncapayi was all he was said to be, and expressed their readiness to submit their case to the general laws of equity and justice. They showed that their relations with Faku had always been those of friends, and found it difficult to understand how Faku could have seen reason to request protection against an attack from them, unless it was furnished to him by the missionaries or some other person. Finally they could assure His Excellency that neither Ncapayi nor Faku, nor anyone else, need fear the slightest offence from them, if they would only let them alone. The letter was signed by J. Prinsloo as president and Burger as secretary. Prinsloo, Joachim by his full name, was the man who now sat in Badenhorst’s chair. The April letter mattered because it was the farmers’ first full defence of the December commando, and because Napier would not answer the terms of the 14th of January until June, and would then demand the Queen’s oath before any further talk. [4]
In May of this year Aldin Grout removed from the Umlazi to Zululand and commenced mission work in the centre of some large kraals on the Umhlatusi. Panda viewed the mission with no friendly eye, as he took offence at Grout’s doctrine, and feared that such teaching would weaken his authority. At Pietermaritzburg Daniel Lindley still preached, taught, baptised, confirmed, and married, and still made the journeys over the Drakensberg to Winburg and Potchefstroom. During the years 1841, 1842, and 1843 he would perform in all these districts 1383 baptisms, 573 confirmations, and 97 marriages; the count began in this year. Five centres, each with its consistory, deacons and elders, stood at Port Natal, Pietermaritzburg, Weenen, Winburg, and Potchefstroom; only in Pietermaritzburg was there a place of worship built according to the vow before the Blood river. Grout on the Umhlatusi and Lindley on the waggon-track mattered because the republic whose civil list was under £500 still had no Dutch Reformed clergyman fit for duty, and because Panda’s fear of the mission would later open a different quarrel in Zululand. [3] [4]
Napier’s 10th of June, the August Location, and Prinsloo’s 11th of October — June–October 1841
The governor did not reply to the volksraad’s letter of the 14th of January until the 10th of June, when he wrote that he could not enter into any negotiation or further communication with them until they distinctly acknowledged their full and entire allegiance to the queen of England, and further declared their willingness to obey the lawful authority of the British government. With reference to the April letter he expressed his gratification at the Boers disclaiming all intention of molesting native tribes. All these actions met with the approval of the home government. Russell was able to write, on the 17th of April, that he was commanded to signify to the governor Her Majesty’s gracious approbation of all his proceedings, and further, on the 26th of June, in answer to the Boer proposals of the 14th of January, that the emigrant farmers must be informed that the Queen cannot acknowledge a portion of her own subjects as an independent republic. The June letters mattered because they closed the door Badenhorst had opened in September 1840: there would be no Republic of Port Natal under that name, and no further talk until the Queen’s oath was taken. [3] [4] [7]
On the 8th of June the governor informed Russell that the farmers had no intention to disturb the tranquillity of the country, and that according to information he had received from Captain Smith, in consequence of troops having been stationed at the Umgazi, all the emigrants except one had left Port Natal and had gone to Pietermaritzburg; there should, therefore, be no difficulty in re-occupying Port Natal. The imperial ministry was still desirous not to enlarge the possessions and responsibilities of England in South Africa, and withheld from the governor authority for taking action of any kind, except to station a garrison again at Port Natal to control the trade, if he thought that by so doing the emigrants would be induced in time to return to the Cape Colony. In answer to the June report Russell, on the 21st of August, instructed the governor to make arrangements for taking that place, to occupy the harbour in such a manner as to command it, but not to interfere with the emigrant farmers unless the troops or friendly tribes were attacked. Smith’s report that all but one had left the port is why Russell could order the harbour occupied without yet ordering a war: Downing Street still wanted a garrison to control the trade, not a conquest of Maritzburg. [3] [4]
After the farmers settled in Natal, several thousand Bantu refugees of different tribes had moved in, and the few natives who had survived the Zulu invasions had crept out of the forests in which they had concealed themselves. There was every likelihood of these people giving trouble if they were allowed to take possession of land wherever they pleased. A meeting was therefore held on the 2nd of August, when it was decided that these refugees should be segregated in a part of the country at the greatest possible distance from the farms. The region chosen was the country lying between the Umtamvuna and Umzimvubu rivers — eastern Pondoland in fact. This country the Boers claimed in virtue of the treaty between Dingane and Retief. In that district the blacks were to be left pretty much to themselves, but an officer of the emigrant government was to be stationed with them to exercise general control, for they were to be regarded as subjects of the republic; resident commandants were to be stationed among them. Except those who might choose either to return to Zululand or to take service, they were to be collected so as to effect a separation between them and the Europeans. The resolution could not be acted upon at once, as some months were required to make the necessary arrangements. Nothing of this came to pass in the year. [3] [4] [7]
Napier, apprehensive as he was of a Boer republic so near the Cape Colony, was still more so of thousands of impoverished natives, the mixed clans of Natal, being crowded into a region so near the arena of continual strife between Faku and Ncapayi. The Tembus in the environs of the present Umtata were often the objects of attack by one or the other. With a vastly increased native population in the country proposed, it might be expected that the wave of unrest would travel to the Gcalekas at Butterworth, then to the Gaikas, and thus make the colonial frontier less secure than it already was. In Faku’s letter of the 5th of January the chief had claimed the land in which the Boers proposed to locate the Natal refugees. Whether he realised his proprietorship to it before that date — when Jenkins acted as his adviser — is doubtful. That he did not know it was his in October 1839 is clear from the message he sent to Captain Jervis asking permission to occupy the portion between the Umtentu and the Umtamvuna. It was very convenient at this juncture to regard it as Faku’s. That is why an August location that was never filled became, by December, one of the two grounds named in a proclamation of reoccupation: Napier could call the removal unjust and illegal only if the ground between the Umtamvuna and the Umzimvubu was Faku’s, and Faku’s mark of the 5th of January was the paper that said it was. [4]
On the 3rd of September the governor communicated to the volksraad, in terms of his instructions, that Her Majesty had desired him to inform the emigrant farmers that she could not acknowledge a portion of her own subjects as an independent republic, but that on their receiving a military force from the colony, their trade would be placed on the footing of that of a British possession; and further, that on receipt of an expression of their readiness to comply with the Queen’s commands, the governor would be prepared to recommend to Her Majesty the adoption of such measures, in regard to the settlement of their lands, as should be proposed by the council and found to be based on justice and expediency. To this letter a reply was received, dated the 11th of October and signed by Prinsloo as president and Burger as secretary, in which the governor was informed that the emigrant farmers declined to be considered British subjects, and that they would not consent to Her Majesty’s proposal to receive a military force, as they had not asked for it and had no need of it for their protection. They claimed that being Dutch South Africans by birth — Hollandsche Afrikanen — having quitted Her Majesty’s territories and having acted ever since as an independent people, they were no longer British subjects. They had obtained by lawful means the land now inhabited by them, and it had never at any time been a British colony or province. The October letter is why Napier made no further reply of his own: Russell’s order of the 21st of August was already on the water, and the next word from Government House would be a proclamation. [3] [4] [7]
The Levant, Russell’s 21st of August, and the Proclamation of the 2nd of December — August–December 1841
There was yet another cause of irritation. In August 1841 an American trading brig named the Levant arrived at Port Natal, crossed the bar in safety, and discharged a quantity of merchandise which her supercargo offered for sale. There was so little money and such a small quantity of ivory and hides on hand that the amount of trade done was very trifling. The fact, however, was established that a port was open through which the commerce of the interior might eventually pass, and the merchants of the Cape Colony raised a cry of danger. At Durban some Capetown merchants had built quite an important trading establishment. The town was growing; both here and at Pietermaritzburg recent arrivals from the colony had settled in considerable numbers. The Levant was spoken of as the first harbinger of a new commercial pathway to the interior of Africa. Its arrival caused a flutter among those who had the ear of Government House, and who held that British dominion could not tolerate a free harbour. The brig mattered because Russell’s 21st of August told Napier to command the harbour, and because a foreign keel over the bar was the one proof Capetown merchants needed that Natal trade might slip the colony’s customs. [3] [7]
To the letter of the 11th of October from the volksraad no reply was made, as shortly after its receipt Napier received Russell’s despatch of the 21st of August. In accordance with those instructions, on the 2nd of December he issued a proclamation. After stating the emigrants’ claim to be considered an independent people and the resolution of the volksraad to locate the blacks on the ground between the Umtamvuna and Umzimvubu rivers, which country, he affirmed, formed part of the territories of Faku, and that from such an unjust and illegal proceeding there was reason to apprehend that warfare and bloodshed would be occasioned, he declared that the queen would not recognise the emigrants as an independent people, nor permit them to form themselves into an independent state, and that he should resume military occupation of Port Natal by sending thither without delay a detachment of Her Majesty’s forces. Finally he warned all British subjects, including the emigrants, of the consequences of resisting either Her Majesty’s troops or the exercise of Her Majesty’s authority. He warned particularly those who, after the 18th of January 1806, had been born within the colony of parents who owed allegiance, that they could not by removal divest themselves of that allegiance. Papendorp had been signed on that January day in 1806; the warning of the 2nd of December was that a child born in the colony after the second British occupation remained a British subject on the Tugela. [3] [4] [7]
To carry this proclamation into effect, Captain Lonsdale of the 27th was instructed to march from the colonial frontier to reinforce Smith at the Umgazi with 108 men of his own regiment, and 17 engineers, Cape mounted riflemen, and artillerymen, and to take two field-pieces. Smith was directed upon the arrival of this reinforcement to leave a guard at the Umgazi camp, and to move on to Port Natal himself with 222 of the 27th, 17 artillerymen with three guns, 6 engineers, and 18 Cape mounted riflemen. Instructions as to his intercourse with the emigrants may be briefly summed up: pledge the government to nothing until Her Majesty’s pleasure is known; do not interfere with the emigrants; treat them courteously, but call them constantly Her Majesty’s subjects; protect all from attack, black and white, and see that peace is kept. Upon receipt of these instructions, and while awaiting Lonsdale’s arrival, Smith opened communication with some English residents at Durban, by whom he was informed of the condition of affairs there and promised assistance. Several emigrants also forwarded assurances that they were weary of the constant strife between the different sections of the community, and would welcome his arrival with troops as the only means of relief from anarchy. These letters and messages were secretly forwarded to and fro by native runners supplied by Henry Ogle, who was then living on the Umkomanzi, about 30 miles south of the port. Lonsdale’s actual march onto the Umgazi road, and Smith’s move from that camp to the Point, were not this year’s work. The orders of December are why the next year opened with waggons, not with another letter from Prinsloo. [3] [4]
Innes’s Teachers, the Kowie Mouth, and Uitenhage’s Board — 1841
The college classes in Capetown had still met in the orphan house, but the governor had promised to make a grant to the directors of part of the great garden in Table Valley for a suitable building. In 1839 that promise was carried out, when the ground on which the last government slave lodge was standing and part of that where wild animals were once kept was transferred to the college. A sum of over £8000 was on hand from the old Latin school fund, and could be used for building; the government lent the directors other £2000 from the prize negro fund, for which 4 per cent yearly interest was to be paid. By these means a commencement was made with the building now in use, into which the classes were moved in 1841. The move mattered because the South African college was the one place in the colony where work above the primary schools was done, and because the same year that put Smith on the Umgazi put the college out of the orphan house and onto the garden ground. [3]
James Rose Innes, who had gone to Great Britain in May 1840 to observe the latest methods of education and to procure more teachers, had the degree of doctor of laws conferred upon him by the university of Aberdeen, and in March 1841 reached the colony again. He brought with him Messrs John Paterson, John M‘Naughton, Patrick Black, George Bremner, and Joseph Reid, who were stationed at Port Elizabeth, Wynberg, Worcester, Paarl, and Somerset East. They agreed to general appointments on the school establishment at fixed salaries of not less than £100 a year, and were willing to have the posts assigned by competitive examination. George Cromar, another teacher engaged by Innes, followed shortly afterwards, and was stationed at George, Thomas Paterson being transferred to Graaff-Reinet. The finances of the colony would not allow of the establishment of a larger number of high schools at this time, but as the revenue improved they were increased. Innes’s salary as superintendent-general of education remained £500 a year and travelling expenses when on tours of inspection. After visiting the schools throughout the colony and putting them in as good order as possible, he had in 1840 shown what tact and conciliation could do to keep the usefulness of the schools. The five Scotchmen of March mattered because the Herschel system still needed teachers the colony could not train, and because Port Elizabeth, Wynberg, Worcester, Paarl, and Somerset East were the next towns after Grahamstown, Uitenhage, Stellenbosch, and George to receive a master from that list. [3] [4]
On the eastern coast William Cock, with an expert, commenced his deviation of the course of the river. He employed about 300 Khoikhoi under the more immediate superintendence of a Mr Gradwell. The work was almost entirely that of shifting sand, a very large quantity of which had to be removed from a sandhill through which the river was to pass, and also depositing it in the shallow lagoons more inland, thus reclaiming much of that land. In the course of a few months a straight channel was dug to the sea shore, starting from the place where the river turned to the east. On the morning of Sunday, the 7th of February 1841, Cock — and many visitors — had the satisfaction of seeing the Kowie for the first time flow into the sea through an opening on the western side of the estuary. The banks were constructed with loose stones and bush and the whole solidified with sand, a seemingly frail barrier, yet it stood even when projected as piers into the sea at the mouth. There were soon 8 feet of water at low tide on the bar. In March the first ship went in and out safely, but in November the first of the many troubles began. A small schooner, the Sophia, sailed in with all dignity, but in going out a few days afterwards her rudder was unshipped by touching a sandbank near the eastern projection of stone and bush, and a strong wind blowing she drifted to the eastward and was driven on the beach. Cock’s new mouth mattered because Algoa Bay still had no easy western harbour for the Albany farms, and because 8 feet at low tide in February did not save the Sophia in November. [4]
Beaufort West had been the first place to take advantage of the ordinance of the 15th of August 1836 authorising the creation of municipal boards in the towns and villages of the colony. Grahamstown, George, Somerset East, and Cradock had followed. Uitenhage followed in 1841. The making and repairing of streets, the abatement of nuisances, and other matters relating to well-ordered town life had been nobody’s business; the opgaaf went into the treasury, and from that source all monies for local necessaries had to be obtained. A special ordinance was still necessary to apply the general measure to any particular town; Uitenhage now took upon itself the management of its own affairs. Labour remained the colony’s open wound. The unofficial member J. B. Ebden strongly urged expenditure upon immigration. Napier, although he admitted there was a general want of labour in the colony, did not believe that the majority of the inhabitants were in favour of £12000 per annum being spent upon emigration to the detriment of all the public works. The government, he averred, could not be carried on with this drain upon its revenue; evidence of this, he thought, was to be found in the fact that it had taken 6 months to collect a thousand names. He drew a gloomy picture of the disappointment of those who left comfortable England and the sound of their parish church bell to come to a country where all would be so strange, even the language of their employers. On the 10th of July 1841, in order to support the Capetown petition, another deputation from the Cape Trades Association waited upon Russell in London. The great disproportion between the extent of the country and its population — aggravated by the departure of the Dutch farmers — was pointed out, and the grant of the £12000 from the quitrent revenue was urged. Private enterprise was nonetheless meeting with success. The numbers of emigrants arriving at Port Elizabeth, given by Mr Dunsterville the port captain, were 55 in 1841. Uitenhage’s board and Dunsterville’s 55 mattered because the same colony that would not detach 300 men from the Fish still had to pave its own streets and find hands for its own farms, and because Napier’s £12000 objection was the figure the Trades Association took to Russell on the 10th of July. [4] [4]
Tawane over the Vaal, Donkin’s Death, and Robben Island — 1841
Sometime in 1841 the Barolong captains Gontse, Tawane, and Matlabe moved from Thaba Ntshu northward over the Vaal, and never again returned. The exact date of their removal cannot be given. Andries Hendrik Potgieter was then at the Mooi river, and to him they applied for ground on which to live. The adjunct raad of 12, formed in September 1840 for Winburg and Potchefstroom, still claimed the country south of the Vaal from the Vet to the Drakensberg, and north of the Vaal the land conquered from Moselekatse. Between the Vet and the Orange several parties of emigrants still acted independently of either council. Tawane’s asking mattered because Thaba Ntshu had been the Barolong refuge under Moroko since the Matabele wars, and because a tract assigned by Potgieter north of the Vaal would tie those captains to the Potchefstroom commandant rather than to the Wesleyan station they were leaving. [3]
On the 1st of May 1841 Sir Rufane Shawe Donkin died at Southampton. A long and cruel illness had been attended by great mental depression, and during temporary insanity he killed himself. He was the man who had named the Bay town for his wife Elizabeth, and who had sat in the castle in the years when the 1820 settlers were put on the Zuurveld. While Napier was governor, three men who had previously held the same office ended their days: the earl of Caledon on the 8th of April 1839, Donkin on this 1st of May, and Sir Lowry Cole on the 4th of October 1842. Donkin’s death mattered in this year because Port Elizabeth still carried his wife’s name, and because the acting governor of 1820 was gone before the harbour he had named took Dunsterville’s 55 of 1841. [3]
In Capetown it was proposed, in this same year, that soldiers who had been sentenced in India to long terms of imprisonment should be sent to Robben Island and then, having expiated their wickedness on that solitary spot, should be liberated on the mainland in the hope that they would have become reformed characters and good citizens. Petitions against this procedure from the inhabitants of Capetown to the Queen and both Houses of Parliament had their due effect, and the peccant soldiers found homes elsewhere. The first attempt at a Cape penal settlement thus ended on the table of this year, not on the island. The petitions mattered because Robben Island still lay in sight of Table Bay, and because a later ministry would try juvenile offenders in 1842 and convicts for a breakwater after that; the refusal of 1841 was the first of those noes. [4]