Boer History1849 in South Africa: Smith, the Neptune, the Anti-Convict Pledge, and Warden’s Line
The Memorials of the 1st of January, the Light at Agulhas, and Aliwal North — January–May 1849
Sir Harry Smith was governor. He had taken the oaths on the 1st of December 1847. Memorials against the landing of transported felons, signed across the colony, left Capetown for England on the 1st of January. Earl Grey had written on the 7th of August 1848 that he would not send convicts unless a prevalent opinion in the colony favoured the measure. That word was published by notice on the 14th of November. Colonists hoped the matter was closed. It was not. On the 21st of March the Commercial Advertiser at Capetown reprinted an English paper of the 30th of December: a ship with convicts from the model prison at Pentonville was on her way to Bermuda, there to take in others for the Cape. The memorials mattered because Grey’s own sentence had made colonial opinion the test, and because a newspaper reprint in March showed that test was already being broken at sea. [3] [4]
During the Irish potato famine, men convicted of agrarian offences had been transported to Bermuda. The transport Neptune, of 643 tons register, sailed from Woolwich on the 8th of February with 300 convicts, under orders to go to Bermuda and there to be replaced by others for the Cape. She reached Bermuda on the 5th of April and left on the 22nd with 286 of those who were said to have been improved by their stay — among them John Mitchel. On the 15th of February Grey told the House of Lords that the Cape, from the dispersion of its people over an immense district, afforded peculiar facilities for the disposal of convicts, and that after an extraordinary grant of more than 1 million pounds for the war of 1846 the mother country was entitled to require the service. Orders had been given for 250 Bermuda convicts recommended for good conduct. The colony had refused that service before. In 1841 a scheme for Indian military prisoners on Robben Island was dropped after Sir George Napier’s remonstrance. In March 1842 Lord Stanley’s proposal of 50 convict boys was abandoned in November of the same year. Vineyards that had lain untilled in 1842 rather than take convict labour were not more willing now that those difficulties were past. The sailing mattered because 286 men already at sea made Grey’s “prevalent opinion” a dead letter, and because Mitchel’s name told every reader that political prisoners as well as famine offenders were on the list. [3] [4] [4]
On the 1st of March the light at Cape Agulhas was shown at last: a steady white light of the first order, 131 feet above the sea, the lanterns made in France. The hard road over the Cape flats was already open in sections. Mr John Montagu’s pass, opened on the 18th of January 1848, still stood as the substitute for Cradock’s kloof. Writing to Grey on the 9th of September Smith spoke of “the gigantic work on the once awful pass of Cradock’s Kloof, an undertaking which would do honour to a great nation, instead of a mere dependency of the British Crown.” Along those mountain stations the colonial convicts of Montagu’s system still worked in gangs of 80 or 100, distant from any township. In 5 years 1559 offenders had been under the new restraint, of whom 979 had been discharged, many with shortened sentences, and they had earned £1452 8s. 8½d. for good conduct. Those were colonial prisoners on the passes, not transported felons from Bermuda. The light and the gangs mattered because a first-order lantern at Agulhas was the colony’s own work, and because the whole year’s quarrel was the difference between Montagu’s road prisoners and Grey’s exiles. [3] [4]
In May Mr John Centlivres Chase was instructed to select a more suitable magisterial centre than Burghersdorp, which, though the geographical centre of Albert, had not met with approval as a seat of court. A situation on the left bank of the Orange was chosen, and on the 12th of May the inhabitants from far and near assembled and watched the laying of a foundation stone with offerings of African corn, wine, and oil. The place was named Aliwal North in honour of Smith, the hero of Aliwal. On the 5th of July Smith proclaimed the boundaries of the new district, and the Kraai river people gained the objects of their petitions. At Burghersdorp itself, on the 27th of May, the reverend John Murray was installed as first resident minister, Mr Taylor of Cradock having acted as consulent until that day. The stone mattered because Albert, annexed in January 1848, still needed a court the farmers would use, and because a name taken from Smith’s Indian victory was how the Orange bank was tied to the governor who sat in Capetown. [3] [3] [4]
In the Tyumie the military village of Woburn, after free rations were stopped, had dwindled by March to 24 men. Between the Keiskama and the Kei, as far as could be seen, everything still worked smoothly. By the 1st of January 43 licences of £50 each had been issued to traders, who sold British goods on which 5 per cent ad valorem duty had been paid, as well as 12 per cent on beads and buttons, and it had been possible to spend £1220 on roads and bridges. During the year 619 men from the clans went into the colony for work. 15 mission stations stood in the province: Wesleyans 3, Free Church of Scotland 3, London Missionary Society 3, Berlin Society 2, United Presbyterian Church of Scotland 3, Moravians 1. Attendance at divine service was 1492; at school 833. Lovedale and Mount Coke received grants of £100 a year for the training of teachers. King William’s Town, which at the beginning of the year had consisted of only a few huts, was growing into a township. The Ngqika regarded the apparent settlement as a truce, and the Amatola was still in their hands; but that was not yet this year’s war. On the 25th of May, at Montreal, at the age of 72, Sir Benjamin D’Urban died in the discharge of his duty. An obelisk was raised to his memory by the officers who had served under him. He had left the Cape after the war of 1835 and had taken the North American command. The colony that had subscribed a service of silver plate at his recall now heard of his death in the same weeks that Chase laid the stone at Aliwal North and the Neptune was already at sea from Bermuda. The licences and D’Urban’s death mattered because 43 traders and 24 men at Woburn were the peace Smith still claimed between the Keiskama and the Kei, and because the governor of 1835 died while another convict ship was coming to the coast he had once held. [3] [3] [4] [4]
Fairbairn’s Pledge of the 5th of April, the Parade of the 19th of May, and the Council of June — March–July 1849
The announcement of the 21st of March left the Cape peninsula some days before it could decide what to do. The commissioners of the Capetown municipality wrote on the 28th of March to Montagu, asking what information had been received from England. On the 4th of April they were answered that there had been no official information, but that the governor had received an instruction from London which left no doubt on his mind that a number of exiles might shortly be expected. On the suggestion of Mr John Fairbairn, editor of the Commercial Advertiser, a pledge was drawn up and placed in the Commercial Exchange for signature, dated Capetown, 5th of April 1849. The undersigned inhabitants, having heard that in violation of Grey’s pledge the colony was to be converted into a penal settlement, declared and solemnly promised to each other that they would not employ in any capacity, or receive on any terms into their establishments, any one of the convicted felons ordered to be transported to their shores under the designation of “Exiles” or convicts holding tickets of leave. They called upon the governor, in the discretionary power with which the governor of every distant colony is virtually invested, to prohibit and prevent the landing at any port or place within the colony of any such convicted felons, and to convey to the queen the grief, shame, and indignation with which this breach of faith had filled every loyal heart. The pledge mattered because Fairbairn’s paper had broken the news, and because a signature in the Exchange was how the peninsula meant to starve a landing before a ship arrived. [3] [4]
As intelligence came in from the country districts it became known that the European inhabitants practically to a man were united on this question. During April and May no fewer than 44 petitions reached Capetown from municipalities, churches, and congregations — Dutch Reformed, Anglican, Lutheran, Wesleyan, Congregational, Roman Catholic, Malay priests, the Kat River Independent congregation, and 158 Khoikhoi among them — signed by thousands. At Grahamstown and Fort Beaufort elaborate platforms draped in funeral black were erected in the public squares. Delegates from all quarters were sent to Capetown, where on the 19th of May over 5000 men assembled on the grand parade and without a single dissentient voice declared themselves opposed to the reception of convicts. A committee — termed the Anti-Convict Association — with Mr John Bardwell Ebden as its chairman, was elected to direct the movement, and a new and more stringent pledge was adopted: the undersigned would not employ or knowingly admit into their establishments or houses, work with or for, or associate with, any convicted felon sent to the colony under sentence of transportation, and would discountenance and drop connection with any person who might assist in landing, supporting, or employing such convicted felons. A great meeting was held at Malmesbury, and when it was over the whole assembly, with the Dutch clergyman at its head, proceeded to the church and committed its cause to God. On the 24th of May Smith sent Grey a despatch covering petitions with 8000 signatures, and recalled that he had made it publicly known the measure was not to be forced if the colonists did not require that species of labour. The parade mattered because 5000 men on one square, and 44 petitions behind them, were the “prevalent opinion” Grey had asked for, and because Ebden’s stricter pledge now reached anyone who fed a convict. [3] [4]
On the 15th of June a message was sent by the governor to the legislative council, then in session, announcing that on the preceding evening he had received despatches from Grey containing instructions for the reception of the convicts from Bermuda, which it would be his duty to carry out. The military secretary entered the council chamber and handed to the secretary to government a minute that the Order in Council had arrived and that the queen had commanded that 300 ticketed exiles were to be received. Every member of the council was opposed to the measure, and it was known that the governor personally objected to it as strongly as the colonists. Mr Ebden started up horror-stricken. The attorney-general gave as his opinion that no course was open to the governor but to obey. It was hoped that Smith would take the responsibility of suspending the Order; this he declined to do, and in consequence lost for a time a good deal of his popularity. On the 11th of July, however, he stated his intention of keeping the convicts in the ship after her arrival until further instructions concerning their disposal should be received from Grey. A delegation from the Association had had the temerity to tell him that he must suspend publication of the Order; he answered that he had had 44 years of experience in obeying orders, and that to do as he was asked was to go into rebellion. The council sitting mattered because the Order of 4 September 1848 was now on the table as a command, and because Smith’s 44 years were why a governor who hated the measure would still not stop the ship. [3] [4]
Petitions to the queen, to parliament, and to the people of England now poured in from all parts of the country. Many justices of the peace and fieldcornets resigned their offices, with a view of creating a deadlock in the government. Messrs Hamilton Ross, John Bardwell Ebden, Henry Cloete, and William Matthew Harries, unofficial members of the legislative council, resigned their seats with the same object. Messrs Abraham de Smidt, Pieter Laurens Cloete, and Jacob Letterstedt, to whom the governor offered 3 of the vacant places, declined to accept them; those who later took seats found their names burnt in effigy on the parade and their windows smashed, and themselves came “under the pledge.” Only Mr William Cock of the east refused to resign, and sailed from Capetown with legs of mutton dangling from the masts of his coaster to show that he was not to be starved. The different banks and insurance offices published notices that they would transact no business whatever with any person who employed a convict. The owners of hire houses in Capetown advertised to the same effect. The bakers refused to tender for supplies of biscuit needed by the commissariat, for fear it might be used to feed convicts. A fund to indemnify the governor for any expense in sending the convict ship away amounted by the 30th of June to £3550 in Capetown and £503 at Port Elizabeth. Smith made no further attempt to fill the vacant seats until the convict question should be settled: the government was at a standstill, and the estimates for the next year could not be passed. The resignations mattered because a council without unofficial members could not pass ordinances, and because Cock’s mutton on the masts was how one eastern member showed that the pledge would not starve him. [3] [4]
On the 4th of July a monster public meeting was held in Capetown outside the Commercial Exchange in the Heerengracht. Notwithstanding the cold and rainy day, some thousands of people, many of them from distances, stood for over 6 hours listening to 23 speakers. All the 10 resolutions were passed unanimously. That proposed by advocate Watermeyer and seconded by Mr J. Stein declared that Smith’s refusal to suspend the Order proved that the government of the colony as at present administered was wholly at variance with the just and inalienable rights of British subjects. Fairbairn proposed a most cordial vote of thanks to Mr C. B. Adderley for his advocacy in the House of Commons, where he moved an address praying that the colony might be spared the disgrace of being made a receptacle for convicted criminals, and then withdrew the motion on an understanding that remonstrance would be considered. The commissioners and wardmasters of the municipality voted £100 to purchase a piece of plate as a testimony of their gratitude. The result of the meeting was a petition to the governor dated the 9th of July and signed by 292 people, representing the perilous state into which the country had been plunged by proclaiming it a penal settlement. On the 4th of September the Association resolved that no contract of any description should be entered into for the supply of anything to the military, naval, or civil departments until the Order in Council was rescinded. A sub-committee called the Vigilance Committee was stationed at Simonstown to spy on all suspected of infringing the pledge. In the east Mr Robert Godlonton led a more moderate party, which would wait upon the petitions and the governor’s appeals before starving the services; but should Grey insist, the east would resist to the last. The Heerengracht mattered because 23 speakers in the rain made the refusal to suspend the Order a constitutional question, and because Adderley’s plate was how Capetown thanked a man in the Commons who had not yet stopped the ship. [4]
The Neptune of the 19th of September, the Closed Shops, and the Riot of the 15th of October — September–December 1849
She had sailed from Bermuda on the 22nd of April, but owing to sickness among the prisoners had been detained some time at Pernambuco, which port she left on the 11th of August, and anchored in Simon’s Bay at ten o’clock in the evening of the 19th of September. She had 282 convicts on board, with 2 officers and 47 rank and file of the 91st regiment as guards. Before midnight a deputation from the Association was on its way to Simonstown. At daybreak on the 20th the sounding of the fire-alarm gong of the town house, followed by the tolling of the bells of the English, Dutch, and Lutheran churches, announced to the inhabitants of Capetown that the Neptune had arrived in South African waters. The information was sent as rapidly as possible to the most distant parts of the colony, where it was received as if it had been a report of the outbreak of plague. At an early hour an excited crowd poured into Greenmarket square, in which the old town house stands, and there waited till after midday the governor’s reply to a letter that the commissioners of the municipality had addressed to him from the Town Hall, almost demanding that the Neptune should be instantly ordered away. Smith answered that to do this was beyond his power: it was his intention, in the discretion reposed in him by law, not to relieve the surgeon-superintendent of his charge pending the receipt of replies to the several despatches addressed to the secretary of state, which might reasonably be expected in a month or 6 weeks; in the meantime the Neptune would ride at anchor in Simon’s Bay as in the case of any other ship. He expressed deep regret at the tone and style of the communication. The anchorage mattered because 282 men in Simon’s Bay were no longer a rumour from Bermuda, and because Smith’s month or 6 weeks was the only delay a governor who would not suspend the Order could still grant. [3] [4]
Next morning a monster meeting was held, when a letter written by Ebden as chairman of the Association was approved of. In it the governor was informed that the words of the pledge, to drop connection with any person who should assist in supporting convicted felons, included all departments of the government by, or through, or under the authority of which, supplies of any kind might be conveyed to the Neptune, until that vessel’s destination should be changed. Whatever Grey’s future instructions might be, the inhabitants had resolved that the convicts should not be admitted into this community. By the governor’s orders no one was allowed to land from the ship — and indeed had any one ventured to do so he must have perished of hunger or have committed some act to be sent to prison — but to the urgent entreaties of the colonists that she should be sent away, Smith replied that if he were to do so the further detention of the prisoners on board would be illegal, and consequently his duty to the imperial authorities would not admit of his acting in accordance with their wishes. On the 22nd he distributed a long printed notice: it pained him to perceive that the common cause was being endangered by demands which no government could concede and supported by threats to which no government could submit; while in Simon’s Bay the convicts were legally confined, but once outside the confines of the colony without proper authority they would be illegally confined. The notice mattered because the pledge now named every commissariat wagon, and because Smith’s legal point was that a ship sent away without orders would turn prisoners into men held without warrant. [3] [4]
On the 10th of October 12 individuals — Messrs Benjamin Norden, B. Alexander, Jacob Letterstedt, Edward J. Hanbury, Richard Clarence, Esau Harrington, Adriaan Beck, S. Osler, C. Stadler, Paul Bester, Jan Thuynsma, and Captain Robert Stanford — who were suspected of furnishing the government departments with provisions were denounced in the press, and were at once ostracised from society by their fellow citizens. An innkeeper even who furnished Captain Stanford with a meal found his house at once abandoned, and was obliged to close his business. A considerable sum of money was subscribed by wealthy persons to indemnify those who should sustain pecuniary loss by adhering faithfully to the pledge, but this did not meet such cases as that of a contractor who broke with the naval establishment rather than come under the pledge. On the 11th of October the Association resolved that the whole of the stores and shops in the peninsula should be closed to every one but known customers, and that all intercourse with the government should be suspended. This was immediately done, and much of the business ordinarily carried on ceased entirely. The governor announced that he would use force, if necessary, to prevent the troops and civil servants from being starved, but he managed to obtain supplies without having recourse to extreme measures, chiefly through the agency of Captain Stanford of Caledon. Capetown remained like a city on the sabbath, with its ordinary occupations suspended. The closed shops mattered because 12 names in the press were how the pledge was enforced, and because Stanford of Caledon was how Smith still fed the garrison without calling out the troops. [3]
This condition of things evoked a spirit of lawlessness. On the 15th of October there was a good deal of rioting in Capetown, and several persons were assaulted. Late in the evening some 12 or 13 black men who had been temporarily thrown out of employment by the cessation of business, led by a couple of disguised white men, attacked the residence of Mr John Fairbairn at Sea Point. Fairbairn was the secretary and one of the most active members of the Association, and as such was regarded by the unemployed as the cause of their being without anything to do. He received some severe injuries, and his house was utterly wrecked before his neighbours could gather to his assistance, when the rioters withdrew. Most of them had been recognised, and were afterwards arrested and brought to trial on the charge of housebreaking, theft, and assault with intent to commit murder. They were found guilty, but escaped punishment, owing to the discovery that one of the jurymen had personated his brother who had been summoned. Money was raised by subscription, and the unemployed were provided for, so that there was no longer a fear of riots and disorder. In December came a repetition of an earlier assurance by Grey that there was no intention of sending any more convicts to the Cape, but the colonists did not relax their vigilance for a moment, nor waver in their determination that not one should be landed if they could prevent it. The Neptune still rode in Simon’s Bay at the year’s close, her surgeon-superintendent still in charge, her 282 still unlanded. The riot mattered because the secretary of the Association was the man the closed shops had put out of work, and because a juryman in the wrong brother’s place left the wreck of Sea Point unpunished while the ship still waited. [3]
Towards the end of the year the Association found itself faced with the demands of those who had been fined for breaches of contract and of those whose businesses had suffered under the pledge. Mr Jacob Letterstedt brought an action against the reverend G. Morgan, J. Fairbairn, T. Sutherland, J. H. van Renen, and Olof M. Bergh, the 5 leading members of the Association, for £5000 for damage done to his property and injury to his trade. The case came before Sir John Wylde and Messrs Menzies and Musgrave in the supreme court on the 14th of December. At the commencement of the proceedings the defendants, by their counsel, protested against the case being tried by Wylde and Menzies on the ground that those 2 judges had given extra-judicial opinions on the question of law raised by the plaintiff, and the hearing terminated before Letterstedt’s action could be dealt with. Even Ebden, the erstwhile chairman, had by then ceased his connection with the Association and had to threaten his former colleagues with legal proceedings after wheat sold by him was resold to the government. The pledge had not compelled the governor to act in the illegal manner it advocated; it had caused the ruin, partial or complete, of some whose livelihood depended upon the markets it closed. The action mattered because £5000 against the Association’s own leaders was the cost of a pledge that still had not moved the ship, and because Ebden under that same pledge showed how the closed market could turn on its chairman. [4]
Warden’s Stone of the 6th of January, the Council of the 14th of March, and Harrismith of May — January–July 1849
North of the Orange the year opened with a church. Towards the close of 1848 the synodical commission had sent a second deputation to the emigrant farmers — Dr William Robertson of Swellendam and the reverend Philip Edward Faure of Wynberg — who organised consistories at Smithfield, at the place which later became known as Harrismith, and at Bloemfontein, where on the 6th of January the foundation stone of a church was laid in their presence by Major Henry Douglas Warden. Warden was the officer Smith had left to hold the country between the Orange and the Vaal after Boomplaats. On the 12th of March the reverend Andrew Murray, junior, was appointed minister of Bloemfontein and consulent of the other congregations. Already schools had been established at Bloemfontein, Winburg, and Smithfield. Through the medium of the synod the governor was endeavouring to obtain from Holland clergymen and teachers for the still vacant places. On the same date the British resident was relieved of the duties of civil commissioner and resident magistrate of Bloemfontein, and Mr Charles Urquhart Stuart was appointed to perform them. The stone mattered because a sovereignty proclaimed on the 3rd of February 1848 still had no parish of its own at Bloemfontein, and because Stuart’s bench freed Warden to act as resident over the whole territory rather than as magistrate of one village. [3] [3]
On the 14th of March regulations for the government of the Sovereignty were proclaimed by Smith, to come in force on the last of that month. A legislative council was created, consisting of the British resident, the 4 magistrates, and 2 unofficial members for each district, nominated by the high commissioner from among the landowners of the district, to retain their seats for 3 years. The council was to meet once a year at Bloemfontein, with open doors, and had power to frame laws binding upon all persons in those parts of the Sovereignty which were not reserves for coloured people and all persons in the reserves who were not subjects of chiefs. The high commissioner was to have a veto on all laws. The various chiefs were left in full exercise of power over their people within the reserves. Hitherto persons charged with serious offences had been sent to Colesberg for trial; a high criminal court was now created for the Sovereignty, to consist of 3 of the magistrates sitting together. Commandant Hendrik Potgieter had not accepted the office tendered to him by Smith. The commission which had acted as landdrost of the district of Vaal River was therefore replaced by Mr Paul Bester, who was appointed civil commissioner and resident magistrate. The seat of his court was fixed at a place then called Vrededorp, but which received the name Harrismith on the 16th of May, when building lots for a village were first sold. On the 14th of March also Mr William Porter furnished a long opinion on the legality of the annexation of the 3rd of February 1848: the high commissioner’s commission did not, he conceived, refer to any such measure as establishing sovereignty, and the governor’s commission conferred no authority for creating a distinct settlement. The regulations mattered because a council at Bloemfontein was how Smith meant to turn last year’s proclamation into a government, and because Porter’s opinion on the same day said that government had been built without a legal warrant. [3] [4]
On the 27th of June the names of the unofficial members of the first council were gazetted. They were Messrs Andries Jacobus Erwee, Willem Daniel Jacobs, Jacobus Theodorus Snyman, Hermanus Wessels, Gerrit Hendrik Meyer, Abraham Smit, Pieter Slabbert, and Cornelis Engelbrecht. The first meeting of the new legislative body took place on the 18th of July. The proceedings were unimportant, and closed on the 21st. In his report of the 2nd of February, at the conclusion of the war-tribute work, Mr Richard Southey told that in the imposition of fines he had been guided by the degree of guilt proved against each individual as well as by his ability to pay, and as the majority of the people were poor the greater number of fines were under 10 pounds. Those who had been actually in arms with Pretorius, besides being fined, were in the first place deprived of their guns; but as it was clear that they subsisted largely on the game they shot, the guns, on their taking the oath of allegiance, were returned to them. The grand total, including monies yet to be collected at that date, was £10812 9s. 8d. The council and the tribute mattered because 8 unofficial names gazetted in June were the burgher half of a parliament that sat 4 days, and because guns returned on an oath were how Southey collected £10812 without leaving the farms unarmed. [3] [4]
In the Caledon River district Mr J. O’Reilly had had to select a site for a town. At Waterval, about 45 minutes’ ride from the Caledon and half-way between the Bethulie and Bethesda mission stations, stood comparatively substantial buildings belonging to Messrs F. and H. Halse, with a farm of 4000 morgen. An agreement was made whereby the Halses should surrender the property together with £500 towards a church, in return for the right to sell the erven. Smith’s Town and Smith’s Dorp were proposed; Smithfield was chosen. The selection did not meet the approval of Mr F. Rex the surveyor, or of Major Warden, or of the surrounding farmers, who refused to attend a church built there. In their estimation there was a more eligible site at Riet Poort, about 10 miles to the north-east, with wood and water and a fertile soil. In May the change was made: the high commissioner sanctioned the purchase of Riet Poort as seat of the magistrate and church place of the district, and Rex was to lay out the town. A notice fixed the auction of erven for the 15th of August. On the 1st of November the first erven of the present village of Smithfield were sold. The district, though officially known as Caledon River, soon came to be commonly called after the village. Smithfield mattered because a magistracy that began in the Halse buildings still had to move 10 miles to get a church the farmers would enter, and because the name of Smith on the Caledon was how a district without a dorp acquired one. [3] [4]
Even before the lands were surveyed the right of the town’s existence was disputed by the Basuto of Moshesh. In June, when the surveyor with the land commission was engaged in marking off the boundary of the commonage and an adjacent farm, a party of 16, mounted and armed with knobkerries, galloped up and demanded to know what they were doing. When told that the land was being inspected and beaconed by command of the high commissioner, they asked whether it was also by command of Moshesh. They stated that they were Moshesh’s mouthpiece and forbade the commission to proceed; in further demonstration they destroyed the beacons already set up and scattered the stones about the veld. The civil commissioner asked whether this insult was directed against him personally or whether it was in defiance of the government. They answered: “It is Moshesh who insults the government.” The work was then stopped. In the Winburg district, farther from Moshesh, Mr T. J. Biddulph carried on his land commission without hindrance. By the 30th of September he had inspected 261 farms and assessed quit-rents to an annual value of £755. The scattered beacons mattered because a town named for Smith was being marked on ground Moshesh still claimed, and because 261 farms at Winburg showed that the quarrel was on the Caledon, not on every Sovereignty survey. [4]
Sikonyela of January, Moshesh’s Mark of the 1st of October, and the Warden Line of December — 1849
On the 2nd of January, 2 days after the high commissioner’s award of the 7th of December 1848 on the Putiatsana line between Moshesh and Sikonyela had been announced, a Batlokua army in 3 divisions, under Sikonyela himself, his brother Mota, and his son David, attacked the kraals of 2 petty Basuto captains, killed 23 men, and carried off some women and children as well as a large booty in cattle. Sikonyela seemed bent upon war, and said that nothing but the blood of a daughter of Moshesh could atone for the death of Mota’s wife. Moshesh appealed to the British resident, professed to be most anxious for peace, and asserted that he wanted no help to fight his battles if the British authorities would let him alone to deal with the Batlokua. Warden recommended that the award should be carried out by each party bringing to Mekuatling and there delivering to the Bataung chief Molitsane all cattle seized. Both chiefs professedly consented, but neither did anything else. Next the Batlokua fell upon the Bataung, and then the Koranas of Gert Taaibosch and a swarm of similar plunderers from the lower Vaal, under Jan Bloem, scenting plunder, joined Sikonyela. The raid mattered because Smith’s Putiatsana award was 2 days old when 23 men were killed, and because Warden’s only remedy was to name Mekuatling as a place to return cattle that nobody brought. [3]
In June the British resident had a conference with the contending chiefs, at which terms of peace were arranged by all parties agreeing to restore their plunder. Moshesh kept his promise fairly well, by giving up about 1200 head of cattle, but Molitsane only surrendered 300 out of 4000 head, and Sikonyela delivered nothing. The cattle were hardly out of Moshesh’s hands when Sikonyela, who in the meantime had received further reinforcements of Koranas and had been joined by a few Mfengu, swooped down upon some Bataung and Basuto kraals, killed 34 individuals, and drove off the stock. Following up his success, he attacked and burned Molitsane’s own kraal, seized the grain, and turned the women and children off in a destitute condition. It was midwinter, and the weather was so stormy and bitterly cold that numbers of the wretched creatures perished before shelter could be reached. Moshesh immediately called upon the British resident to restore order. Without a strong military force no man could have done this, and Warden’s only expedient was to call another meeting of the chiefs, guaranteeing safe conduct and promising that any one causing a breach of the peace during their absence should be visited with certain and most severe punishment. A few days later he received a letter from the high commissioner stating that it was evident Moshesh was acting dishonestly, that he must be humbled, and that a coalition of all the other chiefs should be formed against him. The midwinter raid mattered because 1200 head given up by Moshesh bought no peace, and because Smith’s letter telling Warden to humble Moshesh named the wrong aggressor after Sikonyela had burned Molitsane’s kraal. [3] [3]
With those instructions as a guide, the British resident presided over a meeting of chiefs at Bloemfontein on the 27th of August. Moshesh did not attend, but he sent 2 of his most trusted counsellors to represent him, and professed to be willing to make concessions to obtain peace. Moroko, Molitsane, Adam Kok, and Carolus Baatje were present, but neither Sikonyela nor Gert Taaibosch took any notice of the invitation. The boundary question was almost the only one discussed. Moshesh was blamed for not having withdrawn his people from beyond the line fixed between him and Sikonyela, and the coalition which was desired was formed. On the very day of the meeting Sikonyela and Gert Taaibosch fell upon some Basuto and Bataung kraals and plundered them; but though Moshesh and Molitsane appealed to the British resident to keep the promise made in his notice, he did nothing more than write to the offenders exhorting them not to break the peace again, to which letter they paid not the slightest attention. The Bloemfontein meeting mattered because a coalition against Moshesh was formed in his absence, and because the raid of the same day showed that Sikonyela did not need a letter from Warden in order to ride. [3]
Such was the condition of affairs when Warden invited Moshesh to meet him at Beersheba and arrange a boundary between the Caledon River district and Basutoland. The chief was given to understand that if he would comply the Batlokua and Koranas would be restrained from further aggressions, and he would be regarded as a faithful friend of the English government; but if he refused, all the petty chiefs in the land, Molitsane only excepted, were prepared to join the European forces against him. Moshesh did not meet the British resident at Beersheba, but he sent his son Letsie and one of his counsellors. Letsie was informed of the boundary decided upon, and was asked to give his consent to it. He replied that his consent would be like that of a dog dragged by a riem round its neck. On behalf of Moshesh he proposed a line from the junction of Kornet Spruit with the Orange to the western extremity of the Koesberg; Warden declined to entertain it. With the consequences of refusal thus brought clearly before him, Moshesh affixed his mark to a letter, dated the 1st of October, agreeing to the proposed limits of the Lesuto. He begged that his people on the European side should not be driven from their pastures or otherwise ill-treated, and pointed out that the kraals cut off from his jurisdiction were more than 100 in number. He further requested that boundaries should be made for the mission stations Beersheba and Hebron, and that they should be connected with the Lesuto by a passage at least 2 miles in width. The French missionaries, called to witness the signature, immediately addressed a letter to Smith drawing attention to the manner in which the chief’s consent was obtained, and pointing out an alteration that would preserve to the Basuto 60 or 70 kraals now cut off. The mark mattered because Letsie’s riem was the consent Warden obtained, and because more than 100 kraals west of the new line were the price Moshesh paid to stop a coalition he had not asked for. [3]
Warden promised that the Basuto in the Caledon River district should receive the same protection as Europeans, and that they should hold their lands in the same manner. He anticipated that within a twelvemonth most of them would have sold their ground to white men and would have removed to the reserve occupied by their tribe. The line was approved of before the 31st of October, as may be seen in the reply to the French missionaries, but it was not until the 18th of December that it was established by formal notice. It cut off a very large part of the Lesuto as defined by the Napier treaty, but much of this was never in the occupation of the Basuto people. As soon as this boundary had been settled, Warden directed his attention to the country occupied by the various clans farther north. In October and November he laid down lines defining the reserves allotted to Sikonyela, Gert Taaibosch, Molitsane, Carolus Baatje, and Moroko, and informed these chiefs that all coloured people living within those bounds were thereafter to be subject to their jurisdiction. The district of Thaba Ntshu, where Moroko had been living since 1833, was set apart as a reserve for his section of the Barolong. On the 18th of December a notice was published by order of the high commissioner confirming the lines thus laid down between the native reserves and the portion of the Sovereignty set apart for European occupation. The defect of the system was want of power to enforce it. Smith made it a condition of holding a farm that every able-bodied man upon it should be liable to military service in aid of the queen and her allies whenever called upon by the British resident or the magistrates. But almost to a man the European inhabitants of the Sovereignty were opposed to this principle: as far as the outer line between themselves and the reserves was concerned they were quite willing to protect it, but they maintained that it was neither their duty nor their interest to fight Moshesh’s battles against Sikonyela, or Sikonyela’s against Moshesh. The gazette mattered because the Warden line of the 18th of December named farms and reserves on paper, and because farmers who would hold the outer line would not ride as allies in a quarrel between those two chiefs. [3] [3]
Byrne’s Wanderer of the 16th of May, West of the 1st of August, and Langalibalele of December — Natal 1849
In this year a stream of immigration for the first time began to set in from Great Britain to Natal. Joseph Charles Byrne, who had visited Natal in 1843 and 1844, made a tour through England delivering addresses upon the great capabilities of the district, and succeeded in creating a desire among many people to try their fortunes in it. He then made an arrangement with the imperial government, based upon the principle that the proceeds of public land sales were to be devoted to the introduction of suitable settlers. He was to deposit money in the Bank of England, in sums of not less than £1000 at a time, to the credit of the emigration commissioners, Messrs T. W. C. Murdoch and C. A. Wood, whose approval of the emigrants he should send out was required, as well as of the accommodation on board ship and provisions on the passage. He was to purchase crown land in Natal, which was to be put up to auction at an upset price of 4 shillings an acre, a rate fixed by the secretary of state in 1847. For every settler over 14 years of age whom he should introduce he was to receive on such purchases a refund of £10 from his deposit, and for every child under 14 a refund of £5 — 50 acres for an adult and 25 for a child, free of payment. He then arranged with the owners of cargo vessels to take steerage passengers to Natal at low fares, and offered as an inducement to emigrants 20 acres of ground to each adult and 5 acres to each child. Numbers of mechanics, farm labourers, and townspeople accepted his offer and paid their passage money, which was only £10 for an adult and half that sum for a child. The first of these immigrants left London in the brig Wanderer on the 22nd of January and landed at Durban on the 16th of May. They were speedily followed by others from London, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Liverpool, and Glasgow. On their arrival they found that no plots of ground had been surveyed or even selected. The landing mattered because Byrne’s £10 passage was how Natal first drew a stream from Britain, and because 20 acres promised in England were not yet marked on the ground at Durban. [3] [4]
Martin Thomas West died on the 1st of August. He had assumed duty on the 4th of December 1845 and had held the district through the years of the location commission, the land grants, and the first municipal boards. Lieutenant-Colonel Edmond French Boys acted from the 2nd of August. In the locations the Bantu had of necessity been left to themselves; a large proportion were without chiefs, the ruling families of the tribes to which they had once belonged having been utterly exterminated, so they could not enter into hostile combinations, and their dread of Panda was so strong that there was no danger of their uniting so long as nothing was done to give them a common grievance. At the time there were not many missionaries in the district, but shortly the field was occupied by 14 Americans, 3 of the Berlin society, and 2 Wesleyans. In this condition the blacks remained until this year, when the European element having become stronger, the government more consolidated, and the preliminary work of opening up the country more advanced, it was considered that some authority could with safety be exercised over them. West’s death mattered because the lieutenant-governor who had landed in 1845 did not live to see Byrne’s people on their plots, and because Boys from the 2nd of August was how Natal was held until a successor could be named. [3]
In instructions issued by the queen in council, dated the 8th of March 1848, the lieutenant-governor was directed to make known that in assuming the sovereignty her Majesty had not interfered with or abrogated any law, custom, or usage previously prevailing among the native inhabitants, except so far as the same might be repugnant to the general principles of humanity recognised throughout the whole civilised world, nor had interfered with the power which those laws vested in the chiefs; but that in all transactions between themselves the said natives were to administer justice towards each other as they had been used to do in former times, the queen reserving full power to amend the laws as might be found practicable. The officials in Natal without exception considered these instructions objectionable, as they desired the introduction of a system that would bring the blacks under the same laws as the Europeans at an early date. The members of the executive council went so far as to advise the suspension of the publication of the order until a statement of their views could be received in England, and West actually did withhold making it public until the 21st of June, when he felt he could no longer delay carrying out a positive order. And so the laws and customs of the clans, with the authority of the chiefs, were legalised in Natal. To modify this policy as much as it was now in their power to do, on the 23rd of June an ordinance was passed provisionally by the legislative council, providing that there should be an appeal from the decisions of the chiefs to the lieutenant-governor and the executive council, and that officers might be appointed to control, revise, and direct the administration of justice according to Bantu law. From this time forward the lieutenant-governor in dealings with the blacks was entitled the supreme chief, and the diplomatic agent was termed his mouthpiece. The publication mattered because an order of March 1848 was kept in the drawer until the 21st of June, and because the ordinance of the 23rd was Natal’s way of putting an appeal over the chiefs it had just been ordered to leave standing. [3]
At the close of the year an effort was first made to obtain a contribution towards the revenue from the blacks. A tax of 7 shillings a year was levied upon each hut, and to the gratification of the government Mr Theophilus Shepstone, who visited the locations and outlying kraals for the purpose, was able to collect it in money or in cattle without any difficulty. It was paid on 25232 huts, and amounted to £8831 4s. All this time an influx of refugees from beyond the Tugela and the Umzinyati was going on. The government discouraged it as much as possible, and restored to Panda any cattle that the fugitives brought with them and that he sent to claim, but the people themselves were allowed to remain. The most notable of these was a section of the Hlubi tribe under the chief Langalibalele, which had fled from Zululand in 1848 to escape annihilation by Panda. After long consideration it was decided to give the Hlubis a tract of land by themselves at the sources of the Bushman’s river, and on the 1st of December the boundaries of a location were pointed out to them by Mr James Michael Howell, acting for Shepstone. This situation was selected because some San, whose haunts were in the mountains behind, were in the habit of making predatory incursions into Natal and robbing the farmers on the uplands of cattle, and it was believed that the Hlubis could check these depredations much more easily than Europeans. The tax and the location mattered because 7 shillings on 25232 huts was the first native revenue Natal took in money or cattle, and because Langalibalele at the Bushman’s river was placed as a guard against San raids, not as a guest. [3]
On the 11th of April the Natal Fire Assurance and Trust Company was established with a capital of £10000. It acted as a bank also, and as it enjoyed unlimited confidence its funds were found sufficient for all purposes for a time. The total revenue received in the district in this year was £14329 2s. 5d., against £9267 12s. 4d. in 1848 and £6557 18s. 2d. in 1847. Ivory remained the principal article exported, obtained by traders from the country beyond the border; some of the wool, butter, and hides came from beyond the Drakensberg. The Natal Witness, first issued at Maritzburg in March 1846, still served the town. Natal was endeavouring to start and develop a cotton industry and to encourage the arrival of the necessary settlers; Byrne’s first shipload was the beginning of that encouragement, even if the plots were not yet on the ground. The revenue mattered because £14329 in a year that also took £8831 in hut tax showed a district beginning to pay, and because a fire office of £10000 was Natal’s first bank. [3]
Derde Poort of the 23rd of May, Porter’s Draft, and Livingstone at Ngami — 1849
North of the Vaal, by an assembly of delegates of the different parties which met at Derde Poort on the 23rd of May and agreed upon union, the code of laws usually termed the Thirty-Three Articles — drawn up and adopted by the volksraad at Potchefstroom on the 9th of April 1844, shortly before the removal of that party to the districts of Lydenburg and Zoutpansberg — was adopted and termed a constitution. In point of fact the arrangement then made did not lead to consolidation, so that the majority of the people of Potchefstroom and Rustenburg practically accepted no more of the thirty-three articles than pleased them. These considered the enactments of the volksraad in Natal, made before their removal from that country, as binding upon them still; while the people of Lydenburg and Zoutpansberg repudiated such enactments. The spirit of Pretorius was still rampant in the Sovereignty though Pretorius himself was over the Vaal; some even declared that they preferred the rule of Moshesh. The collection of the tribute, the reinstatement of magistrates, and the council of March were small matters in comparison with the settlement of peace among the tribes. Derde Poort mattered because a constitution of 33 articles adopted on paper still left Potchefstroom and Lydenburg under different laws, and because farmers south of the Vaal who preferred Moshesh were saying what they thought of Warden’s council. [3] [3] [4]
After the Neptune filled the peninsula, the public mind could not turn again to the problem which had long been in agitation, namely that of obtaining a representative government for the Cape Colony. Porter’s draft had gone home with Smith’s despatch of the 29th of July 1848. Grey took time to consider it. Not until the 12th of February of this year did he answer, but the nature of that answer was hopeful. On the previous 31st of January the draft constitution with its accompanying documents had been referred to the Lords of the Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations for their consideration and report. That body was to take its year; by December it had not yet read a report. On the 20th of March Grey wrote that the people of the Cape were distinctly to understand that a British force would not be maintained in the colony for the purpose of defending them against incursions from the native tribes on the frontier: the seat of government and one or 2 principal posts would continue to be garrisoned, and in the event of an attack from a civilised power protection would not be withheld, but it would be incumbent on the colonists to provide for their own security against their neighbours. The Capetown municipality, on the strength of an earlier warning of that kind, cried still louder for some share in the government of the country and for the final abolition of the council “called Legislative.” The 4 unofficial members’ resignations in the convict months, and the vacant seats that could not be filled, left that council without the means of passing ordinances or estimates. Representative government was thus hindered not only by distance and by Downing Street’s deliberation, but by the very Association that had shown the colonists could act as one people. The referral mattered because Porter’s draft of July 1848 still sat with Trade and Plantations through this whole year, and because Grey’s warning of the 20th of March told the Cape it would have to garrison its own frontier if it wanted a parliament. [4]
In August Dr David Livingstone, with Messrs Murray and Oswell, reached the great Lake Ngami. They left the mission station of Kolobeng on the 1st of June and on the 4th of July arrived at a large river. Following this along its bank for about 300 miles, they reached and discovered the lake. A missionary at Eberfield in the Damara country had collected information from the inhabitants and made a map on which the lake was shown where it was afterwards found to be. The discovery gave a new incentive to traders and to those enthusiastic in geographical research; a thoroughfare through the country occupied by the Transvaal farmers was therefore of the first importance. Ngami mattered because a lake 300 miles downriver from the 4th of July opened a road through Boer country, and because Derde Poort’s union of the 23rd of May now sat across that road. [4]
On the 3rd of December there landed at Port Elizabeth, in furtherance of the educational scheme of Bishop Aidan Devereux, 3 more priests, 7 nuns, and 7 others of lesser rank, among the nuns Sister Marie-Gertrude — Amelia de Henningsen — afterwards known as Notre Mère. The eastern vicariate, established by papal bull in 1847, thus received the workers Devereux had gone to Europe to obtain. The reverend G. Corcoran worked at Port Elizabeth and the reverend P. Hartigan at Uitenhage. In the west the Anglican see of Grey, and in the Sovereignty the church stone of January and Murray of March, stood as the year’s other ecclesiastical marks. Between the Keiskama and the Kei the burnt mission stations had been rebuilt. The landing mattered because 3 priests and 7 nuns at Algoa Bay were how the eastern vicariate of 1847 at last received its teachers, and because Notre Mère’s arrival was the year’s last reinforcement on a coast that still refused to land the Neptune. [4] [4]