Boer History1847 in South Africa: Pottinger, Sandile, Pato, and Smith at the Kei
The Kei of January, Maitland Recalled, and Pottinger of the 27th — January–February 1847
Sir Peregrine Maitland was still in the field. The war that opened with Kleintje’s axe on the 16th of March 1846 was not closed. Pato still held the country between the lower Gonubie and the Kei. On the 27th of December 1846 the whole force assembled at the site of Fort Warden. Lieutenant-colonel Van der Meulen of the 73rd, with 600 men, marched toward the nearest ford as a feint. In the night Captain George Napier of the Cape mounted rifles crossed 9 miles farther down with a division of equal strength, and Colonel Henry Somerset left with the cavalry to sweep round by the Gonubie to the sea. On the 30th those divisions came back with droves of cattle, but Pato, though seen, got away. The feint mattered because the scouts were watching the nearest drift, and because a war that could not catch Pato west of the Kei was not a war that Maitland could call finished. [3] [4]
On the 1st of January the whole force went on to Butterworth. Kreli refused the demand of 15000 head, so Somerset turned toward the coast and in the Manubi forest, about 18 miles east of the Kei mouth, and along the Qora, took a considerable number of cattle. A patrol along the Tsomo also met with some success. A strong guard stayed at the Fort Warden camp to protect the wagons and the cattle already taken. Incessant rain fell in the first two weeks of January: it added discomfort, but it was no obstacle until the columns had to recross. A few days later the army returned to King William’s Town with 10000 head. The Fingos were brought from Butterworth and located in the valley of the Gaga and about the abandoned post Victoria, west of the Tyumie. The cattle mattered because Kreli’s refusal left the Gcaleka still unpaid, and because 10000 head in British hands did not bring Pato in. [3] [4]
The loss on the Kei movement was 17 men, among them three officers — Captain Gibson of the rifle brigade, Dr Howell of the same regiment, and Lieutenant Chetwynd of the 73rd. They were galloping in advance of a patrol and, with two Khoikhoi soldiers, were surrounded on the border of a thicket and killed. The bodies, frightfully mutilated, were recovered the following day. 2 of the rifle brigade were wounded, and 2 of the Khoikhoi. The deaths mattered because a patrol that outran its support could still be cut off in thicket, even after 10000 cattle had been taken, and because the war was still killing officers while London was already naming a successor. [3] [3] [4]
On the 6th of January, at Butterworth, Maitland received a despatch from Earl Grey, dated the 16th of September 1846, announcing that Sir Henry Pottinger had been appointed to succeed him as governor, and that, as that officer did not hold a commission in the national army, Lieutenant-general Sir George Frederick Berkeley had been selected as commander of the forces. No fault was found with any of Maitland’s measures: the only reason assigned for his removal was his advanced age. He had just been promoted to the rank of general. On the following morning he directed Somerset to assume command until Berkeley’s arrival, and left for Capetown to meet his successor. On the 13th of January, as he passed through Grahamstown, he issued a proclamation abolishing martial law in the colony, as he believed the war was practically over. Embarking in Algoa Bay in the steamer Thunderbolt, he reached Simonstown on the 19th. The recall mattered because Grey was sending a China diplomat to settle a frontier that Maitland thought already quiet, and because abolishing martial law while Pato was still out told the eastern districts that the old man was going home before the guns were stacked. [3] [3]
On the 27th of January Pottinger and Berkeley arrived in Table Bay in the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s steamship Haddington, which had left Southampton on the 5th of December. The same afternoon the new governor took the oaths of office. He was an officer of the East India Company, born in 1789 at Mount Pottinger in the county of Down. He went to India as a cadet at 14, explored between India and Persia with Captain Christie in 1810–1811, and in 1842 signed the China peace by which Hong Kong was ceded. The Commons voted him a pension of 1500 pounds a year without a dissentient voice. He came as governor and as “high commissioner for the settling and adjustment of the affairs of the territories in Southern Africa adjacent or contiguous to the eastern and north-eastern frontier,” with Mr Richard Woosnam as his secretary. His family did not accompany him. Grey’s instructions of the 2nd of November 1846 told him that treaties with the Xhosa had failed, that British authority must be established in at least part of the country east of the old line, and that a British officer resident there must be supreme in civil as well as military matters. That brief is why a China plenipotentiary, not a Cape soldier, was sent to finish Maitland’s war. Pottinger left Capetown on the 10th of February and Simon’s Town on the 11th in H.M.S. President, reached Port Elizabeth on the 19th, and Grahamstown on the 28th, and at once opened an inquiry into the state of the frontier. Maitland, with his family, sailed in the Wellesley on the 23rd of February. The eastern districts thanked him for what he had done: his office had been no sinecure, and the native troubles on the north-east and the east had kept him long from Capetown. [3] [4] [4]
Alice, the Buffalo Posts, and the Trade Ban of the 31st of March
Pato, Kobe, and Toyise were still openly at war, and had full possession of the country between the lower Buffalo and the Kei. Kreli had not surrendered the cattle demanded of him. The other chiefs professed submission, but few of them were in earnest. Bands of marauders were prowling about Albany and Somerset, where most of the farmers were still in lager or in the villages. Maitland, believing the war nearly over, had abolished martial law, permitted most of the burghers and levies to return to their homes, and sent the 90th to Port Elizabeth in order that it might embark for England. To make up for that loss he had done little more than order 100 Xhosa to be enrolled as policemen and stationed close to Mr Henry Calderwood’s office, at a place to which the name Alice was then given in honour of the queen’s second daughter. The ground thereabouts had been granted provisionally by D’Urban to Andrew Geddes Bain and restored to the Xhosa under the Stockenstrom treaties. Captain C. L. Stretch, the late diplomatic agent, laid claim to it as a gift of the Gaika chiefs. The governor refused the claim as valid, but allowed him to retain the house he had built and granted him title deeds to 40 acres about it. On the 20th of January Lieutenant David Davies, late of the 90th, was appointed superintendent of the police then being raised, and became the first European resident in Alice. Alice mattered because a police post named for a princess was being asked to hold a frontier from which the 90th was about to sail, and because Calderwood’s office, not a chain of forts, was what Maitland had left behind him. [3] [3]
The new governor countermanded the order for the 90th to embark, made great efforts to collect a large body of Khoikhoi, and appealed to the colonists to furnish 700 or 800 volunteers to meet at Fort Peddie on the 18th of March, promising not to detain them longer than a month. Lieutenant Charles Forsyth of the royal navy was sent to inspect the mouth of the Buffalo and report upon it, as Berkeley desired to form a chain of posts along that stream. As those still in open hostility were known to be well supplied with ammunition, which Pottinger was convinced they obtained from registered people who procured it from secret traders, on the 31st of March he issued a proclamation forbidding traffic of every kind with any of the people then or recently in arms against the colony. Persons caught trading with them were to be considered as in treasonable intercourse with the enemy, for which they could be tried by court-martial and shot if found guilty. The ban mattered because powder was still crossing a line that registration was supposed to have closed, and because a governor who could not catch Pato could at least try to starve his pouches. [3]
The number of burghers who assembled at Fort Peddie was not so great as the governor desired, but with them and the Cape mounted rifles Somerset undertook to drive Pato’s adherents from the country between the lower Keiskama and Buffalo, to which they had returned. A few recently stolen cattle were recovered, but the enemy was not met with in force. Every movement of Somerset’s party was closely watched. On the 3rd of April a small patrol was surprised near the mouth of the Buffalo, and two burghers from Albany — Blakemore and Pester — were killed. Seeing that nothing was likely to result, on the 11th of April the burghers disbanded without authority, claiming that they had left their homes early in March on condition of not being detained longer than a month. The troops in the colony mustered 5470 rank and file, and Berkeley was authorised to add 400 men to the Cape mounted rifles. Captain Hogg was busy raising a large irregular force of Khoikhoi. The governor increased the Xhosa police under Davies to 200 men, with 4 junior officers, 10 sergeants, and 8 corporals, one-fourth of the whole being mounted. From Fort Peddie on the 3rd and 10th of April he also called for exact returns of every person not in the regular forces who was drawing rations, clothing, or pay. The disbanding mattered because a month’s volunteer could not hold the Buffalo mouth, and because 5470 regulars still had no reliable burgher wing once the harvest and the farms pulled the men home. [3] [4]
On the 22nd of May the Hindostan arrived in Table Bay from Calcutta, bound to London, with 129 men of the 62nd returning home. They were quartered in the barracks, and on the 2nd of July their number was made up to four companies from another detachment of the same regiment which arrived from Calcutta in the Duke of Wellington. These soldiers were never sent to the frontier, but remained as a reserve in Capetown until the close of the war. Forsyth’s report being favourable, a strong body of troops was moved to the line of the Buffalo. On the western side of the mouth a wing of the 73rd under Van der Meulen was stationed, and a fort — afterwards named Glamorgan — was built. 11 miles higher up Somerset formed a camp. 6 miles beyond was a smaller camp under Lieutenant Need of the rifle brigade, whose name the site still bears. Another post was at Fort Murray, which was rebuilt, and the largest of all was King William’s Town, where Lieutenant-colonel Buller of the rifle brigade was in command. The chain mattered because a river that could take stores from the sea could pin Pato between the Buffalo and the Kei, which the Fish line of 1819 had never done. [3]
On the 28th of April the barque Frederick Huth arrived at the mouth of the Buffalo with stores, which were landed without accident, and thereafter that port was used to supply the troops at the advanced posts. It was found to afford greater facilities than Waterloo Bay for conveying goods from ships to the shore: once within the bar, boats were perfectly sheltered. Still the roadstead was dangerous. On the 17th of October a surfboat was overturned, when 7 men were drowned, and a few hours later the schooner Ghika was driven ashore and the 12 men on board were all lost. The Thunderbolt, the first steam ship-of-war on the station, struck on Cape Recife on the 3rd of February and was so much damaged that it was necessary to run her on the beach below Port Elizabeth, where she became a total wreck. She was quickly replaced by the Rosamond, so that communication between Table Bay and the mouth of the Buffalo was tolerably certain and rapid. The wrecks mattered because a new supply port was useless if the steamer that tied it to Table Bay could break on Recife, and because 19 men lost on one October day showed that the Buffalo bar was still a gamble. [3]
Sandile’s Goats of June, the Patrol at Burnshill, and the Rebel Call of August
As soon as his crops were gathered, Sandile assumed an attitude which plainly indicated that he was ready to resume hostilities. He was again regarded by the British authorities as the principal chief of the Gaikas, for Pottinger’s views differed in important respects from Maitland’s. Each determined to extend the colonial boundary to the Keiskama and Tyumie, and to place the territory between those streams and the Kei under the queen as a dependency to be occupied almost exclusively by Bantu. There their agreement ceased. Maitland had proposed to fill the land between the Keiskama and the old border with coloured people only, drawn from the colony and accustomed to colonial law. Pottinger believed that would be nothing else than making another settlement like Stockenstrom, a home of an idle people who on the least disaster would be thrown upon the government for support, and he intended to mix Europeans, colonial blacks, and Fingos upon the ground. Maitland would not recognise chieftainship at all, except in the person of the Tembu Umtirara; Pottinger regarded the chiefs as heads of the clans and intended to govern through them. No proclamation had yet been issued extending British authority east of the Keiskama, but all the registered people — Sandile among them — had agreed to become British subjects. While Maitland remained, Sandile was treated as an ordinary man; under Pottinger the chief was informed that he would be held responsible for the good conduct of his people, though he would not be allowed to punish on charges of witchcraft, and that certain vile and obscene practices were prohibited. He was then in possession of his old kraals in and along the Amatola fastnesses. The difference mattered because a chief who had been told he was nobody under Maitland was now told he would answer for every goat, and because the Amatola, which Calderwood had persuaded Maitland to leave in Gaika hands after the truce of November 1846, was again a fortress rather than a location. [3] [4]
A large portion of the territory west of the Indwe was thinly occupied by some Khoikhoi, Fingos, and other coloured people from the colony, who had moved into it some years before under Mr Joseph Read, son of the missionary at the Kat river. To give a show of right to their occupation, these people set up as a chief a Bushman named Madoor, one of 10 or 12 of that race still in existence there, and called themselves Bushmen and his subjects. Their claim was quite as good as Umtirara’s, and they had sided with the colony during the war, whereas his professions of friendship were not to be depended upon. Kreli also claimed a large part of the same ground. The occupation mattered because three titles — Read’s people, Umtirara, and Kreli — were already arguing over land that Pottinger had not yet proclaimed, and because a war that was supposed to be about Sandile’s goats was also about who would sit west of the Indwe when the guns stopped. [3]
Early in June 14 goats were stolen from the Kat river and traced to one of Sandile’s kraals. Calderwood required of the chief the restitution of the stolen property, a fine of 3 head of cattle, and the surrender of the thief. Sandile confiscated the property of the thief and his friends, but complied only to the extent of restoring 12 of the goats. The governor then resolved to have the chief arrested, or, failing that, to seize his cattle. Davies was despatched with two officers and 74 men of the Xhosa police, assisted by 100 men of the 45th, 50 dragoons, 15 Cape mounted riflemen, and 20 Fingos, under Captain Moultrie of the 45th. On reaching Sandile’s kraal near Burnshill it was found that the chief had fled, so 2 horses and 39 head of cattle were taken. The police moved toward a hill close by, upon which some Xhosa were seen, when 800 or 1000 well-armed men made their appearance, among whom Sandile himself was recognised. Other bodies were fast assembling, so that the patrol considered it necessary to retreat. The Xhosa followed nearly to Block Drift, firing from a distance, by which 2 men of the patrol were killed and 4 were wounded. After some days Sandile sent 21 head of cattle to Calderwood as a peace offering, but the governor decided that matters could only be settled by the chief’s absolute submission or by war. The goats mattered because 14 animals were being asked to test whether a registered chief would still answer a commissioner, and because a patrol that had to run from Burnshill to Block Drift had already answered that question. [3]
The season was favourable for military operations: the country was covered with abundance of grass. Large quantities of stores were sent to the front, the troops were arranged to prevent an invasion of the colony, cattle near the border were driven westward, and then the governor directed Calderwood to demand from Sandile 200 guns and the surrender of the thief who stole the goats. On the 18th of August Mr Alexander McDiarmid of the Glasgow society, and two of the Xhosa police, were sent to Sandile to make this demand. McDiarmid was selected because he had been in that part of the country ever since the birth of the chief, and was not only intimately acquainted with him but deeply interested in his welfare. Sandile was not at his kraal. The governor’s demand was clearly explained to his mother Sutu and his brother Anta, coupled with McDiarmid’s earnest advice that he should comply. As was anticipated, Sandile treated the message with disdain, so on the 27th of August Pottinger proclaimed him a rebel, and called out the burghers to aid in attacking him, offering them all the cattle they could seize in his district. Very few burghers responded. They regarded an attack upon Sandile under the circumstances as perfectly useless, because other chiefs who had registered themselves as British subjects would profess to be neutral, but would really take care of his cattle and give him all the help in their power. They also looked upon the Xhosa police as in reality spies. The proclamation mattered because 200 guns was a demand no chief in the Amatola could meet without stripping his following, and because a rebel call that the burghers would not answer left Berkeley to do the work with regulars and levies. [3]
Another, though minor, cause of the burghers declining to take the field was the excitement throughout the colony with regard to an action brought by the wagon driver Smith against Lieutenant-colonel Lindsay for causing him to be flogged. The colonists believed that upon the issue of this case their safety from outrage depended. It came first before the circuit court at Grahamstown on the 5th of April, was then transferred to the supreme court in Capetown, and was finally decided by the circuit court at Uitenhage on the 28th of September. In the criminal charge for assault the judge summed up in favour of the accused, on the ground that under martial law he was justified, and further that legal proceedings against him were prevented by an ordinance recently enacted for indemnifying all persons for acts performed in furtherance of military duty during the war. The jury, however, brought in a verdict of guilty, but no punishment followed: Lindsay was merely bound over under a penalty of 50 pounds to appear when summoned to have sentence passed upon him. A civil action for 1000 pounds damages was dismissed by the judge with costs against Smith. Another case of a similar nature brought against Lieutenant Bethune of the 91st was then withdrawn. Owing to these causes only about 200 burghers mustered upon the governor’s call. The verdict mattered because a colony that would not see a wagon driver flogged under martial law was also a colony that would not ride for Pottinger while that case was still open. [3] [3]
Fort Hare, the Amatola of September, and Sandile’s Surrender of October
With those 200 burghers, the Khoikhoi levies under Hogg and Sutton, a band of Fingos, and as many regular soldiers as could be drawn from the forts, Berkeley commenced operations against Sandile. His plan was to have three depots of supply along the line of the Amatola, from which patrols in light marching order, carrying a week’s provisions, could harass Sandile’s adherents and allow them no rest. The first of these depots was on the eastern bank of the Tyumie, where an enclosure of earthen banks and palisades had been made by Maitland’s order and named by him Fort Hare. The troops previously quartered in tents and in the Lovedale mission buildings on the opposite side of the river were now moved into wattle and daub buildings within the enclosure, and a large quantity of provisions and munitions was stored there. Between this station and Waterloo Bay there was a good road. The second depot was on the Debe river, at Fort White, rebuilt in the same style as Fort Hare. Being the centre of the line, Berkeley made this post his headquarters for the time being. The third, on the extreme left of the line, was at King William’s Town, within reach of the mouth of the Buffalo for supplies. On the other side of the Amatola range a depot was formed at Shiloh, on the Klipplaats river, from which Sutton, with a large irregular force principally of Khoikhoi, was directed to prevent the enemy’s escape over the Bontebok flats. The depots mattered because a chief who could hide in the Amatola could not be starved from one camp, and because Fort Hare, named in December 1846 for the dying lieutenant-governor, was now the western hinge of a hunt. [3]
Calderwood now moved the people under Kona, Botumane, Xoxo, and Stokwe into the Tyumie basin and the valley of the Gaga, to be out of the way while operations were conducted against Sandile. Kona was the eldest son of Makoma, and was then the head of his father’s clan, as Pottinger had sent the elder chief with his own consent to Port Elizabeth. Makoma took with him 9 men, 26 women, and 52 children, as his family and attendants, all of whom were maintained by the government. Xoxo was acting as regent of the people of the late chief Tyali, during the minority of Oba and Fini. Anta joined his brother Sandile. The remaining chiefs — Umhala, Siwani, Siyolo, Toyise, Sonto, Tola, Jan Tshatshu, and Tabayi the son of Umkayi — were allowed to remain on the locations where they were placed when they were registered, as the ground they were occupying was out of the field of hostilities. The removals mattered because registered clans sitting in the Tyumie could shelter Sandile’s cattle while professing neutrality, and because sending Makoma to Port Elizabeth with 87 mouths on government rations was cheaper than leaving him in the mountains as a second Sandile. [3]
On the 19th of September three patrols in light marching order left the respective depots, and at daylight on the following morning entered the Amatola fastnesses at different points. They consisted in all of about 2000 men, and were commanded by Somerset, Buller of the rifle brigade, and Lieutenant-colonel Campbell of the second battalion of the 91st. At the same time Berkeley sent out parties of cavalry from Fort White to scour the open country along the line of operations. Very few men and still fewer cattle were seen. Sandile and Anta with many of their warriors were there, but lay concealed among the crags and thickets, and were not discovered. The remainder of their followers were dispersed among the registered people, and were carefully tending the cattle on ground beyond the defined area of hostilities. When this was subsequently discovered, the registered first claimed the cattle on the plea of having acted as allies in taking them from the hostile chiefs; and when this failed, they made a great deal of their pretended adherence to engagements by giving up some of the least valuable animals. All that the forces could accomplish in the Amatola was to destroy the huts and prevent the Xhosa from settling anywhere, but as the system of patrolling was continued without intermission Sandile and Anta soon grew weary of it. The patrols mattered because 2000 men could burn huts and still miss the chief, and because cattle parked on registered ground were the real magazine of the Amatola. [3]
In less than a month Sandile sent messengers to King William’s Town to say that he was starving and was ready to give himself up on a guarantee that his life would be spared. This assurance being sent, on the 19th of October he and Anta with their counsellors and 80 followers surrendered to Buller, who was then patrolling in Keiskama Hoek. Sandile stated that he had been hiding among the crags on the Wolf river, and that on one occasion he narrowly missed being discovered by a rifleman. He recognised an officer who on another occasion was so near that he could distinguish his features. Sandile, Anta, and 12 of the principal counsellors were committed to the charge of an escort under Captain Bisset of the Cape mounted rifles. On the 24th of October they arrived at Grahamstown, where they were placed in detention as prisoners of war. The surrender mattered because a chief who would not give 200 guns in August would give himself in October once the patrols left him no kraal, and because Grahamstown now held the man the Peddie treaties of 1845 had treated as the peace. [3]
Berkeley then moved forward to the Kei to carry out a similar plan against Kreli and Pato. He formed a camp at the Komgha, and then directed Somerset to search for Pato, who was known to be in that neighbourhood. By the governor’s order Captain John Maclean had recently sent a message to that chief, offering peace if he would tender submission and give up 5000 head of cattle; but he declined the terms. On the 30th of October Somerset found his adherents in possession of a mountain well adapted for defence, but drove them from it without much difficulty. The move mattered because Pato, not Sandile, was the man who had kept the war alive through the planting season, and because 5000 head was a price he would not yet pay while the Bashee still held the colonial herds. [3]
Komgha of November, Pato of the 19th of December, and Smith’s Proclamations
On the 13th of November five officers — Captain William Leinster York Baker, Lieutenant Clarevaulx Faunt, Ensign William Burnop, and Surgeon Neil Stewart Campbell, all of the 73rd, and Assistant-surgeon R. J. Loch of the 7th dragoon guards — lost their lives near the camp at the Komgha. For the purpose of inspecting the country they had ridden to the top of a hill which commanded a very extensive view, and were there cut off by a party of Gcaleka of the clan under Buku, Kreli’s uncle. For some time it was not known at the camp what had become of them, but on the following day their spoor was followed, when the mangled bodies were found. Their remains were interred at the Komgha. The deaths mattered because five officers on a view could still be cut off within sight of a British camp, and because the first news that would meet the next governor in Table Bay was already lying on that hill. [3]
For several weeks movements were constantly made up and down both banks of the Kei, in which 3000 or 4000 head of cattle were captured, and which allowed Pato and his followers no repose, though they managed to avoid meeting the troops. Some of their cattle were sent into Umhala’s location and were sheltered there, but the best of the herds which they had driven from the colony were in the valley of the Bashee. There the Gcaleka were determined to keep them, and Pato found not only that he could get no aid from Kreli, but that he would be prevented by that chief from escaping eastward. There was every indication that Kreli was ready to make his peace with the governor by seizing and surrendering the Gqunukhwebe captain. Under these circumstances, and being constantly harassed and without a place of even temporary refuge, on the 19th of December he sent two messengers to Somerset to ask if his life would be spared in case he surrendered. On being assured that it would, a few hours afterwards he and his attendants laid down their guns and became prisoners of war. No chief was then left west of the Kei who had not given in his submission. A notification from Pottinger had been sent to Kreli offering peace on condition of his acknowledging the Kei as the boundary of his territory, promising to conduct himself thereafter as a friend, and surrendering 10000 head of cattle; but the chief could not make up his mind to the last of these conditions. The surrender mattered because the man who had kept the war alive from the Gwanga to the planting season came in of his own accord once Kreli closed the Bashee, and because 10000 head still unpaid left the Gcaleka peace a paper, not a herd. [3] [4]
Just at this time the connection of Pottinger and Berkeley with South Africa ceased, and a new governor who possessed the entire confidence of the colonists arrived in the country. This was Sir Harry Smith, who as Colonel Smith had been the head of the province of Queen Adelaide under D’Urban. After more than 11 years in South Africa he had left in June 1840 to be adjutant-general of the army in India. On the 28th of January 1846 the division under his command had won the victory of Aliwal over the Sikhs. Upon the conclusion of that war he returned to England, where honours were conferred upon him, and no long time elapsed before he was appointed governor of the Cape Colony, high commissioner, and commander-in-chief of the forces. On the 1st of December the new governor and his lady arrived in Table Bay in the East India Company’s ship Vernon. The first intelligence that he received was of the death of the five officers near the Komgha. As the Vernon in the early morning was standing in she came abreast of a flagstaff at Seapoint, in the grounds of Mr Henry Solomon. In answer to the signal “What is the latest news?” Solomon gave information of that disaster. The appointment mattered because the man who had run Queen Adelaide in 1835 and 1836 was being sent back to do, with Grey’s consent, what Glenelg had undone, and because the Komgha dead were the first Cape fact he took in over the rail. [3] [4]
A few hours later Smith and his lady landed on the north jetty, at the foot of Bree-street, where the whole townspeople were assembled to meet him. Never had any one been received with such acclamations of welcome. Amidst the most hearty cheering, mingled with the roaring of cannon from the Imhoff battery, the governor passed through the streets, at every moment recognising and saluting old acquaintances, and remarking upon alterations made during the time he had been away. Immediately after his arrival at government house he took the oaths of office. That night the town was brilliantly illuminated, and the windows in a solitary house that was unlit were completely wrecked by the populace. On the 11th of December he embarked at Simon’s Bay in the Rosamond, and landing at Algoa Bay, reached Grahamstown on the 17th. Everywhere his reception was as warm as it had been in Capetown, for English and Dutch alike recognised in the brave and dashing, but generous and unselfish soldier, a man whose knowledge of frontier affairs would enable him to adjust matters there. On the 16th of December he had an interview with Pottinger at Lieutenant Daniell’s farm Sidbury Park. The late governor had remained on the frontier purposely to meet him and give him all the information possible. As soon as the meeting was over Pottinger hastened to Capetown to embark for Madras, of which presidency he had been appointed governor. Berkeley accompanied him as commander of the forces there. He had left Somerset with the army on the Kei, and waited in Grahamstown to transfer his duties. This was effected on the morning of the 17th of December, when Smith took command of the troops. The handover mattered because Pottinger’s year at the Cape was 10 months, and because the army on the Kei passed to a man the chiefs already knew before Pato had even come in. [3]
The two preceding governors had regarded the extension of the colonial boundary as a necessity, but had issued no proclamation concerning it, as the successive secretaries of state were opposed to any enlargement that could possibly be avoided. Smith acted promptly. On the 17th of December, a few hours after his arrival at Grahamstown, he proclaimed a new boundary for the colony: from the mouth of the Keiskama along the western bank of that stream to its junction with the Tyumie, thence along the western bank of the Tyumie to its northernmost source, thence along the summit of the Katberg range to the centre of Gaika’s Kop, thence to the nearest source of the Klipplaats, thence along the western bank of the Klipplaats to its junction with the Zwart Kei, thence along the western bank of the Zwart Kei to its junction with the Klaas Smit’s river, thence along the western bank of the Klaas Smit’s to its source in the Stormberg, thence across the Stormberg to the source of the Kraai, thence along the western bank of the Kraai to its junction with the Orange, and thence along the southern bank of the Orange to the Atlantic. A few days later intelligence was received of the surrender of Pato, which completed the apparent submission of the clans west of the Kei. The governor thereupon proceeded to King William’s Town, and on the day of his arrival there — the 23rd of December — in presence of the chiefs assembled for the purpose, he proclaimed the whole of the territory occupied by the Rarabe clans and part of that occupied by the emigrant Tembus under the queen’s sovereignty. It was bounded on the west by the new colonial border from the sea to the junction of the Klipplaats with the Zwart Kei, on the north-east by the Kei from that point to the sea, and on the south-east by the Indian ocean. This territory was not annexed to the Cape Colony, but was to be a distinct dependency of the crown, kept in reserve for the Xhosa people over whom the high commissioner was to be great chief. The line mattered because Grey had at last authorised what D’Urban had drawn in 1835, and because a dependency that was not the Cape could still put the queen between the Keiskama and the Kei without waiting for another despatch. [3] [3] [4]
Sandile and Anta, who were brought by the high commissioner from Grahamstown with him, were present with the other chiefs, but Makoma had not yet arrived from Port Elizabeth. The troops were drawn up in lines, and the Xhosa chiefs with some thousands of attendants were seated in a great hollow circle. Into this circle Smith rode with his staff, and read the proclamation. In order to impress the events of the day upon the minds of those present, he then called for a sergeant’s baton, which he termed the staff of war, and a wand with a brass head, which he termed the staff of peace. Calling the chiefs forward, he desired them to touch whichever they pleased, when each of course touched the staff of peace. After an address of some length upon their prospects if they behaved themselves and threats of what would happen if they did not, he required them to kiss his foot in token of submission. This they did also without hesitation. The ceremony concluded by the high commissioner shaking hands with all the chiefs, calling them his children, and presenting them with a herd of oxen to feast upon. Arrangements were immediately made for the government of the territory. Calderwood, previously Gaika commissioner, was provided with a different situation, and Lieutenant-colonel George Mackinnon was appointed commandant and chief commissioner, directed to reside in King William’s Town and to exercise control over the other officials. All correspondence with the high commissioner was to pass through him. The Xhosa police had been increased by Pottinger to 446 men, in two divisions under Davies and Mr Charles Mostyn Owen. The principal part of this force was stationed along the colonial border, to prevent cattle stealing. Maclean, previously Ndlambe commissioner, was directed to reside at Fort Wellington, a new military post. The circle mattered because a kiss of the foot and a brass wand were being asked to do the work that the Peddie paper and the November truce had not done, and because Mackinnon at King William’s Town was Grey’s resident officer in the flesh. [3]
Pretorius at Grahamstown, Panda’s Cession of the 7th of January, and the Klip River
In Natal the location commission of 1846 had recommended tracts for the exclusive use of the black people, and farms were now being issued on a yearly quitrent of 4 pounds. A considerable number of those farms were included in the locations, and their owners were compelled to abandon them and seek ground elsewhere, which they were informed would be given to them as compensation. Plots of good ground 6000 acres in extent, without European claimants or Xhosa squatters upon them, were not easily found on the central plateau, and many families were in great distress. Believing that there was no security for life or property in Natal, the whole of the Dutch farmers prepared to abandon the country; but before taking the final step they resolved to send one of their number to the Cape to lay their case before the governor. For this purpose they elected as a delegate Mr A. W. J. Pretorius, who had just been obliged to abandon his farm Welverdiend, about 6 miles from Maritzburg. He crossed the Drakensberg, and at Winburg was joined by Mr Jacobus Duplooy, chosen by the people of that district to accompany him and complain of the conduct toward them of the British resident in Adam Kok’s territory. The journey mattered because the location lines of 1846 were turning granted farms into waste paper, and because a man who had led at Blood River was now riding south to ask a China diplomat for ground. [3]
Upon arriving in Grahamstown, where Pottinger was then residing, Pretorius and Duplooy repeatedly tried to obtain an interview with him, but without success. He declined to see them, or to take any notice whatever of their complaints. Pretorius then, on the 16th of October, wrote a long letter, which he addressed to the governor but caused to be published in the newspapers. In it he described the distress to which the emigrant farmers in Natal were reduced on account of the land which they claimed not having been given to them, and by the policy pursued toward the blacks, whom he estimated to be then not less than 100000 in number. A spur of the Zwartkops location had been run in between his farms Welverdiend and Rietvlei, respectively about 6 and 12 miles from Maritzburg, and thus these places, upon which there were improvements that he valued at 3000 pounds, were made worthless. 2 farms to which two of his sons had established their claims, and which had been allotted to them, had been subsequently taken from them to be included in a location. What had happened to his family had happened to others, so that in the whole district of Maritzburg there were then only 22 or 23 occupied farms. Pretorius waited anxiously for an answer, called on Woosnam three times during the next four days, and on the 19th of October asked in writing for the governor’s reasons for refusing an audience, postponing his departure until two in the afternoon of the next day. On the 21st of October Pottinger issued a notice, giving as reasons for not granting the interview the great pressure of other work, the length of time that would be needed for an investigation of their complaints, and his anticipated early departure from South Africa. The refusal mattered because Sandile was surrendering in the same week that Pretorius was being told there was no time, and because a published letter from a man the farmers still followed would not stay in Grahamstown. [3] [4]
Along the Klip river a different course had already been taken. A. T. Spies, Lodewijk de Jager, and Gert and Isaac van Niekerk had visited Panda. The Zulu king gave them permission to continue to occupy the lands they then held, and promised to protect them against the English, who were not to be allowed to cross the Tugela. When Spies reminded him that he had given all the country as far as the Umzinyati to Cloete, Panda swore by Chaka — the most solemn oath a Zulu could take — that Cloete or anyone else who said so, lied. Thus matters stood until December 1846, when the farmers visited him again. This time the delegation consisted of Spies, J. de Lange, and Piet Uijs as interpreter. They succeeded, on the 7th of January, in inducing Panda to sign an agreement, after it had been read and explained to him word by word, and he had declared that he understood it: that he ceded the country between the Umzinyati and the Tugela to the burghers as their legal and perpetual property, parted with at his free will, without the interference of anyone whomsoever, for the sum of 1000 rixdollars, payable in six months. Armed with this document, the farmers commenced the establishment of a Klip River government. Spies became commandant; his brother Abraham was chosen the officer with whom lands were to be registered; a marriage officer and a number of heemraden were also elected. The paper mattered because a Zulu king’s mark was being used to cut a district out of the colony West had proclaimed from Port Natal on the 4th of December 1845, and because 1000 rixdollars was cheaper than waiting for compensation that the location commission did not have. [4]
In May vague rumours of the proceedings reached Martin West, who sent messengers to Spies with a letter and copies of the letters patent constituting the colony of Natal. On the 25th of October a proclamation was issued having reference to the Klip River farmers. A number of farmers residing in Natal also sent a deputation, of which Cornelis van Rooyen was chairman, and obtained Panda’s consent to their occupying any portion of the land under the Drakensberg that was not used by his people. South of the Umkomanzi some small clans that had been dispersed in the wars of Tshaka now asked that British authority be extended to them. Among them were the Xesibes under Jojo, who complained of constant attacks by the Pondo chief Faku and stated that he had only 600 fighting men left. The Natal government had too much upon its hands already, and the request could not be entertained. The proclamation mattered because West could post letters patent on the Klip river and still not put farmers back on the locations, and because Jojo’s 600 men were being told that Natal, busy with its own locations, would not be their protector against Faku. [3] [3] [4]
Young of April, Burghersdorp, the Synod of October, and Potgieter North of the Limpopo
On the 2nd of February it was known at the Cape that Mr Henry Edward Fox Young — shortly afterwards Sir Henry — had been appointed to the vacant lieutenant-governorship of the eastern province. He had been for 12 years secretary to the governor of British Guiana. He arrived in Table Bay on the 9th of April in the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s iron paddle-wheel steamship Pottinger, of 1402 tons. The steaming time from Southampton, touching at Gibraltar, Ascension, and St Helena, exclusive of detentions, was 34 days and 3 hours. She had the most powerful engines then known to naval architects, and was considered the swiftest vessel afloat. Young was a modest man and disliked pomp: the secretary to government asked, on his behalf, that the magistrates at Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown receive him as a private gentleman and excuse him the customary public addresses. Unostentatiously he arrived in Port Elizabeth on the 20th of April, and turned his first attention to churches, schools, the jail, and other public buildings. In June he issued a circular to various individuals requesting them to furnish him with their opinions as to whether more liberal institutions should be granted to the eastern province. A mass of manuscript was collected, including correspondence with Pottinger, and after being printed was referred to England. On the 7th of July he issued a notice concerning locations for coloured people within the boundaries of eastern municipalities: they were to be within 1 or 2 miles of the centre of the town, divided into building and garden lots with regular streets; married blacks with recommendations were to be received as probationary settlers for 2 years; within that time they were to enclose their ground and erect houses at least 24 by 12 feet, when they could claim titles upon condition of giving one day’s work in a month for the general benefit, but they were not to sell the ground to Europeans without special sanction. Having received the appointment of lieutenant-governor of South Australia, he left Grahamstown for that country on the 4th of November, and the situation which he had held in the Cape Colony was not again filled. The office mattered because the eastern districts had petitioned for a strong head of their own, and because Young’s 7 months produced a printed mass on institutions and a municipal location rule, then a vacant chair once Smith was on the water. [3] [4]
Among the marks of a year that was not only a war, 4 banks opened. On the 1st of January the Port Elizabeth bank opened with a capital of 40000 pounds. During Pottinger’s short tenure the Frontier Commercial and Agricultural bank opened in Grahamstown on the 15th of June with a capital of 75000 pounds; the Union bank opened in Capetown on the 17th of July with a capital of 150000 pounds; and the Western Province bank opened at the Paarl on the 2nd of August with a capital of 20000 pounds. In the legislative council Mr William Cock of Port Frances was sworn on the 26th of October as Advocate Cloete’s successor, the first unofficial member selected from the eastern districts. Pottinger offered another seat to Dr Atherstone, district surgeon of Albany, who declined to resign his civil appointment. Mr Michie van Breda died on the 12th of August, and Mr Pieter Voltelen van der Byl took the oaths on the 11th of September. At this time there were 6 official members, exclusive of the governor, against 5 unofficial members, the senior military officer in the Capetown garrison having been added by the secretary of state on the 1st of October 1846. The banks mattered because capital was being subscribed in Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown while the Amatola was still being patrolled, and because Cock’s seat was the first eastern voice in a council that the east had long called a Capetown room. [3]
On the 18th of January a regularly appointed consistory held its first meeting at Burghersdorp, and the committee which had given the place that democratic name was dissolved. On the 16th of March a number of erven were disposed of. Mr Taylor of Cradock acted as consulent. The site was a narrow valley between bare steep hills, exposed to great heat in summer, and without room for much expansion; but its founders’ principal design was to secure a convenient centre for establishing a church. On the same 18th of January the schooner Ann, chartered by traders from Algoa Bay for the newly opened mouth of the Umzimvubu, anchored in the offing. The traders and some sailors went in two boats to look for the channel, but were overturned in the surf and 10 men were drowned. The Ann then returned to Algoa Bay. Notwithstanding this disaster, and the wreck of the schooner Conch on the 7th of November — fortunately without loss of life — the mouth of the river continued to be used by small craft, and became better known as Port St John’s than as Rosebud Bay. The greatest drawback was not the difficulty of landing, but of communicating with the back country, owing to the ruggedness of the land near the coast and the absence of anything like a wagon road. Burghersdorp mattered because a church on the Stormberg spruit was how farmers on a refused annexation still marked a town, and because 10 dead in the Umzimvubu surf were the price of a port that still had no wagon road. [3]
In October the synod of the Dutch Reformed church, then in session in Capetown, resolved to send a commission to visit the emigrants north of the Orange. For this purpose the reverend Mr Murray, minister of Graaff-Reinet, and the reverend Mr Albertyn, minister of Prince Albert, with Messrs Pienaar and De Wit, elders of Richmond and Victoria West, were appointed. The reverend Daniel Lindley of Maritzburg had formerly held occasional services at Potchefstroom and Winburg; otherwise the emigrants had been without clerical guidance for 12 years, though lay services had constantly been kept up. Marriages had been performed before the civil courts. Baptisms had been deferred since Lindley’s last tour, when over 500 children were brought to him. During these years it had not been possible to have schools, and the most that parents could do was to teach their children to spell out with difficulty the easier passages of the bible — the one volume from which the generation that grew up in the wandering derived its history, geography, and science. The commission mattered because 12 years without a resident minister had left baptisms stacked and children reading one book, and because a synod in Capetown was now naming men to ride after a people the locations had helped to push north. [3]
In June Commandant Hendrik Potgieter led another expedition against Moselekatse. After a weary march the Matabele were found a long way north of the Limpopo, and 1600 head of cattle were seized at an outpost. But during the same day Moselekatse’s warriors appeared in such force that the commando was compelled to retire. Their horses were nearly worn out, so that they were unable to bring away the captured cattle. In January of this year the Zulus attacked the Swazis, when Potgieter, though not assisting either, used his influence in the interests of peace. On the 20th of December Mr Richard Southey was appointed secretary to the high commissioner. Along the main road from Capetown to Grahamstown, Montagu’s convict stations still worked the mountain passes in gangs of 80 or 100, distant from any township; the Cradock pass in the Outeniqua remained the stretch he most favoured. The Roman Catholic communion, long a small presence, had clergy at work: the reverend T. Murphy in one charge, the reverend G. Corcoran at Port Elizabeth, and the reverend P. Hartigan at Uitenhage. The Limpopo raid mattered because 1600 cattle taken and then dropped showed that Moselekatse was still too strong north of the river for a tired commando, and because Southey’s appointment on the 20th put a new secretary beside a governor who had just made himself great chief at King William’s Town. [3] [3] [3] [4]