Boer History1858 in South Africa: Grey, Boshof, Moshesh, Aliwal North, and the German Ships
The Gipsey Bride of the 12th of May, 2,901 Horses, and the Contract of the 5th of October — Colony 1858
Sir George Grey still held both chairs: governor of the Cape Colony and high commissioner for the territories beyond it. He had taken the oaths on the 5th of December 1854. What pressed him in 1858 was not a new war on the Kei but a war in India. The mutiny that the Megaera had announced on the 12th of June 1857 was still eating battalions. Grey’s standing order from London was to give India every man and horse that could be spared. That is why, before May, 2,901 horses and 104 mules had been collected and forwarded, and why he partly dismounted the Cape regiment to do it. The horses mattered because a cavalry army in Hindostan could not be remounted from England in time, and because every animal taken from the Cape left the frontier thinner. [3]
As word kept coming that India still wanted troops, more regiments left as soon as ships could take them. In March the 73rd sailed; in April one wing of the second battalion of the 60th; in July the second battalion of the 12th; in October the 31st, which had only arrived from England in July; in November the rest of the 60th. After those sailings South Africa held only the first battalion of the 2nd, the united battalions of the 45th, and the 85th, one wing of which was in Natal, until later relief. Grey took the responsibility of adding to the frontier armed and mounted police, and parliament afterwards approved. The police increase mattered because the regular battalions that had held the Kei since the cattle-killing were now on the Indian Ocean, and a mounted colonial force was what remained to keep the confiscated locations. [3]
In January a civil commissioner and resident magistrate was appointed for Bedford and for Hopetown, and in April for Knysna, from funds voted in 1857 for 3 new divisions. The board of examiners — the precursor of a university — had been planned by E. B. Watermeyer, James Rose Innes, and Langham Dale in the report of the 8th of December 1857. An act on that plan was introduced in the session of this year and passed by both chambers. It provided for 7 examiners whose certificates were to be recognised as equivalent to those of a university, and without which no one could thereafter practise in various professions in the colony. The act mattered because a colony that was sending its battalions to India was still laying down the civil machinery of a university, and because professional practice at the Cape would now rest on a colonial certificate rather than on a degree from overseas. [3]
On the 5th of October the directors of the Capetown Railway and Dock Company signed a contract to construct and work the line from Capetown through Stellenbosch and the Paarl to Wellington, 63½ miles, under the 6 per cent guarantee on a cost not exceeding £500,000 voted in 1857. The government could buy the line after 20 years. In the session of this year parliament, the imperial government having declined to advance a million without interest for Vetch’s piers, resolved that harbour works in Table Bay should be built by the colony gradually as funds could be raised. The government then consulted John Coode. Revenue stood at £402,669 against £404,240 in 1857; wool at £1,014,173 against £1,160,499; the whole export at £1,651,662 against £1,833,700. The contract and Coode’s appointment mattered because the Cape was committing itself to a guaranteed railway and to a harbour it would have to pay for itself, in a year when wool and total exports both fell. [3]
On the 13th of June 103 individuals arrived at Capetown from Amsterdam under the Dutch child-and-family scheme that Beelaerts van Blokland had opened in 1856; they were followed on the 8th of July by 40 others. The immigration act of 1857 was now in force under William Field in England, with depots at Capetown and Port Elizabeth. The first ship under that system was the Gipsey Bride, which brought to Capetown on the 12th of May 515 men, women, and children, selected principally in Dumfriesshire. On the 6th of July the Aurifera brought to Port Elizabeth 227; on the 23rd of the same month the Indian Queen 403 English immigrants; on the 11th of September the Edward Oliver brought to Capetown 473 mixed Scotch and English. In this year parliament resolved that any resident could have relatives or friends brought out free of charge. The cost to government of an adult passage was from £13 10s. to £15 10s.; a loan at 6 per cent was authorised if the revenue had no surplus. The ships mattered because the cattle-killing had emptied Xhosa labour from the farms, and because a free-passage system was now the colony’s chosen way to replace it with British families. [3]
Kreli of the 25th of February, the Legion of the 31st of March, and Umhala of the 28th of October — Annexed Territory 1858
The annexed territory east of the Keiskamma was still living on the wreck of the cattle-killing of 1856–57. Xhosa prophets had told the people to destroy their cattle and grain so that the dead would rise and the Europeans would be swept into the sea. When the appointed day failed, famine followed. The imperial grant for the province was cut down without previous notice from £40,000 to £20,000, and there were no local resources from which the deficiency could be made good. Grey was compelled to draw bills upon England for the feeding of the famished and for the forwarding of those arrested when trying to steal — in 1857 alone 1,413 had been sent by sea to Capetown — which the treasury, not being prepared, found inconvenient to meet. From the blow of 1857 the Xhosa tribe needed many years to recover. The power of the chiefs and of their Tembu allies was broken by their own act. The cut mattered because Grey was being asked to hold a starving province on half the grant, with the battalions that had policed it already under orders for India. [3]
Kreli, head of the tribe, had taken the leading part in the cattle-killing, and even in his greatest distress had not stopped inciting others. Grey had warned him that if he persisted he would be punished. He declined to take the warning, so Grey resolved to put it out of his power to do more harm. A strong detachment of the frontier armed and mounted police under Commandant Currie was sent over the Kei to expel him from the territory that had been the principal abode of his people for several generations. He was unable to resist, and during the night of the 25th of February with all his remaining people he crossed the Bashee into Bomvanaland, where the chief Moni gave him a small tract to live upon. The police kept possession of the district between the Kei and the Bashee. In March Nongqause, who had preserved her life by going across the Bashee, was handed over to Major Gawler by Moni, and was sent into the colony, where she afterwards lived, but beyond a brief statement to Colonel Maclean could never be induced to speak of the deeds in which she had played so prominent a part. Maclean in this year compiled a genealogy of the chiefs. The expulsion mattered because the Gcaleka country between the Kei and the Bashee was now a police holding, not a chief’s, and because the prophetess of the killing was in colonial hands. [3] [4]
Sandile was allowed to retain part of the location assigned by Sir George Cathcart, but his magistrate, from being a mere assessor, was now made supreme in judicial matters, and he continued to draw a monthly allowance. Makoma was already a prisoner of state on Robben Island. The Gunukwebe chief Pato arrived on the island on the 13th of March for an offence, and after his return found himself forgotten. The Ndlambe chief Umhala, who had been among the most active in carrying out Umhlakaza’s instructions, attempted with a few adherents to live by robbery, moving from place to place, until at length he was captured by a black policeman, tried, and sentenced to imprisonment on Robben Island, where he arrived on the 28th of October and was detained 5 years. The man who tracked him was Umjuza, son of Makana. The large tract assigned to Umhala by Cathcart was confiscated. Some of the people left upon it were removed beyond the Kei, and in August were located by Gawler on the right bank of the Bashee, 1,750 young and old, distributed among 8 kraals under the captains Smith, Sigidi, Stokwe, and Zabela. They and the Fingos at Butterworth were the only Bantu allowed to reside between the Kei and the Bashee. The island sentences and the confiscation mattered because the Ngqika and Ndlambe locations that Cathcart had left standing were now either under a magistrate’s court or empty ground for European farms. [3]
Partly to prevent the immediate dispersion of the German legion, and partly to strengthen the posts, Grey had kept the men enrolled and on full pay, which made them subject to the laws of war, until the 31st of March, when by peremptory instructions from England the pay was stopped. The legion had been brought out after the war of 1850–53 as a military settlement: the colonists had voted money on the understanding that the greater number would be married and accompanied by wives. The proportion of women had been so small that the soldiers could not be expected to become permanent settlers, and the experiment had disappointed the colony. Siwani of the Imidushane, who had set his face against the cattle-killing, saved his people and incorporated nearly a thousand fugitives. The Christian Gunukwebe chief Kama saw his clan grow from the smallest to the largest in the province. The stoppage of pay mattered because the legion, once the intended European spine of the annexed territory, was now unpaid and free to scatter — which is why Grey would later call a thousand of them back to the colours for India. [3]
Caesar Godeffroy of the 14th of June, Stanley of the 4th of May, and the Thousand of September — Annexed Territory 1858
To increase the European population of the annexed territory Grey had, on the 24th of August 1857, entered into an agreement with William Berg as agent for Johan Cesar Godeffroy & Son of Hamburg for the introduction of 4,000 German settlers. Debentures of £50,000 at 6 per cent for 10 years were to be issued. The charge was £12 10s. for a statute adult to East London. Each head of a family was to receive a building allotment free, 20 acres at £1 an acre, 5 acres for each child above 14, and 3 for each child between 10 and 14, repaid in fifths from the fourth to the eighth year without interest. Under those conditions Godeffroy & Son sent from Hamburg 5 ships, directed to call at Table Bay for orders. The contract mattered because Grey meant to plant German families on the confiscated Xhosa locations, so that the province would not depend on an unpaid legion or on a halved imperial grant. [3]
The first, the Caesar Godeffroy, arrived on the 14th of June with 456 immigrants; the second, La Rochelle, on the 11th of August with 485; the third, the Wandrahm, on the 17th of November with 421; the fourth, the Wilhelmsburg, on the 23rd of December with 680. Only those who arrived in the first two ships were located before the close of the year, and of the others some had ground allotted on the western side of the Keiskamma, so that all did not become inhabitants of the annexed territory. Frugal and industrious, they turned the ground with the spade, for they were too poor at first to purchase cattle and ploughs; chicory served for coffee, honey for sugar, pork and maize and vegetables for diet. The landings mattered because a German agricultural population was now on the ground east of the Keiskamma, in the very year London decided that no more of them should be sent. [3]
The system was not continued after this year. On the 4th of May Lord Stanley, who on the 26th of February had succeeded Labouchere, announced that it was to cease. He held that following the legion with a large additional number of German emigrants unfamiliar with English speech was of questionable policy, and remarked that the bonds nominally secured on the revenue of the territory must in fact depend on parliamentary aid from Great Britain, the annual deficiency being £40,000. Emigrants equal to 1,600 statute adults — 2,315 individuals who actually reached South Africa — were already under contract, and one transport was on the way. Stanley consented to allow these to be forwarded, and paid Godeffroy & Son £5,000 to cancel the contract for the remaining 2,400. Stanley’s despatch mattered because Grey’s German scheme stopped at the ships already at sea, and because the confiscated locations would not be filled to the 4,000 he had contracted for. [3]
Meantime intelligence from Bombay that more troops were urgently needed led Grey, acting under general instructions to give all possible assistance to India, to call 1,000 of the unmarried and most restless men of the legion back to their colours, and in September he sent them to Lord Elphinstone’s aid. It had become evident that these men would never make good settlers; they were already beginning to disperse. The census taken on the 31st of December showed the population of the annexed territory as 1,154 connected with the German legion, 2,994 other Europeans, and 38,559 Xhosa and Fingos. Imports through East London amounted to £144,925 against £258,014 in 1857; exports to £18,900 against £79,558, the falling off being the cessation of hides after the destruction of cattle. In this year Grey caused 302 farms of an average size of 1,500 acres each to be laid out in the confiscated locations, to be held under military tenure and a yearly quitrent of £2 for every 1,000 acres. The thousand, the census, and the farms mattered because the annexed territory’s European population was now a mix of unpaid legionaries, German families on the spade, and surveyed military farms — and because its trade had collapsed with the cattle. [3]
Boshof of the 25th of February, Letele of the 10th of March, and Beersheba of the 23rd — Orange Free State 1858
Across the Orange the Orange Free State was four years old. Britain had withdrawn on the 23rd of February 1854 by the Bloemfontein convention, leaving the farmers between the Orange and the Vaal to govern themselves. Jacobus Nicholas Boshof had been installed president on the 27th of August 1855. In February, when the volksraad assembled, the condition of the state was such as to cause grave anxiety. The trial and execution of an Englishman named Charles Leo Cox for the murder of his wife and two children were held by most of his countrymen to have been irregular, and the English party had become opponents of Boshof. The burghers who favoured union with the South African Republic formed a respectable minority, and they were likewise in opposition. There were thus three political parties. Weary of dissension, on the 25th of February Boshof tendered his resignation. The volksraad requested him to retain office, but he persisted, and on the following day his resignation was accepted. An executive commission of G. du Toit, E. R. Snyman, and J. J. Hoffman was installed at noon on the 1st of March. Under pressure of a large number of burghers, and on the entreaty of a considerable majority of the members, Boshof withdrew his resignation in the evening of the same day. The most violent of his opponents then declared the chair vacant; several members vacated their seats and retired to their homes. In the same month the volksraad resolved to establish a landdrost’s court at Boshof for the western inhabitants, and authorised the president to buy out Danser for £100. The resignation mattered because the Free State went into a Basuto crisis with its president barely restored and a minority already talking of union north of the Vaal. [3] [3]
While these wranglings were taking place, Moshesh was endeavouring to provoke the burghers to commence hostilities. The Warden line — the boundary drawn in 1849 by Major Warden when the country was still the Orange River Sovereignty, and later confirmed by Sir Harry Smith — was the Free State’s claim to a settled border. Moshesh did not treat it as closed. In answer to Boshof’s continued demands for the horses which he had bound himself to deliver, and of which he had sent in only 45, letters of the most frivolous nature were written. Hunting parties of from 300 to 500 armed and mounted men entered the Free State when and where they pleased. In Harrismith, Winburg, and Smithfield, farms held under English titles were taken possession of by petty captains, and when attempts were made to remove the intruders, Moshesh and Letsie claimed the right of interfering. Five days after Boshof’s warning that no further notice would be given, Moshesh’s brother Poshuli, with his own followers and some retainers of the Baphuthi chief Morosi, took forcible possession of one of the best farms in the Smithfield district, previously in the occupation of Jan de Winnaar. The petty chief Lebenya had previously seized several other farms and destroyed the buildings and orchards upon them. Letsie had assembled a large party of warriors. At the same time Molitsane and his Bataung were plundering Winburg, where 5 robbers were shot dead and 2 others and a farmer were wounded. The seizures mattered because a titled farm that a Basuto captain could occupy at will was not property the Free State could defend without war. [3]
By the 10th of March a tolerably strong commando was encamped on the border of the disturbed district, the president with several members of the volksraad and the landdrost of Smithfield. On that day came Jan Letele with a party of his followers and requested to be received as a subject. The enmity between the grandson of Motlomi and the family of Moshesh was so bitter that the council resolved to accede, though the acceptance proved a blunder, carrying with it the duty of protecting him thereafter. On the same afternoon a council of war, Boshof in the chair, decided to commence hostilities after 14 days unless Moshesh should acknowledge the Warden line and agree to make compensation for all thefts traced to his people. On the 11th the president sent an ultimatum of 4 questions, a reply to be at Bloemfontein before the executive council on the 19th: whether Poshuli and Lebenya would be forced within a month to pay damages; whether prompt measures would be taken against cattle-stealing and those captains removed from the boundary; whether the arrears of compensation for horses would be paid; whether the Warden line confirmed by Sir Harry Smith would be respected. Of the first three demands Moshesh took no notice; to the fourth he replied only after the date named. War against the Basuto was therefore proclaimed at Bloemfontein on the 19th of March. The proclamation mattered because an independent republic without a standing army was now at war with a mountain people who outnumbered its burghers many times over, and because Britain, having withdrawn in 1854, was not bound to send a soldier. [3]
The burghers had no soldiers, not even a body of police. They would take the field at their own expense, while their families were left without protection. Their enemy occupied a country which was one vast fortress; his force was to theirs as 12 or 15 to one. Some renegade whites had shown Moshesh’s people how to make gunpowder, which after the war commenced was found of inferior quality. Active hostilities commenced at the mission station of Beersheba on the 23rd of March. J. Sauer was directed with the burghers of his district to disarm the residents and drive out such as would not submit, lest a body of the enemy be left behind. Having ascertained that some Basuto from Elandsberg were on the way to join their friends, he sent a company forward to the ford of the Caledon; early in the morning the first skirmish of the war took place there, in which about 20 blacks were killed. Moeletsi had gone off in the night with all his followers capable of bearing arms, leaving women, children, and the feeble under the missionary Rolland. Sauer called upon the men of the station to surrender their arms; a Morolong named Mooi complied; the others declined; fire was opened, and about 30 were killed. The retainers of Mareka were driven from the station and their property confiscated; Mareka was made a prisoner and taken to Smithfield; Mooi was retained as a hostage. The only casualties of the burghers were 2 men slightly wounded. Beersheba mattered because the first blow of the war fell on a French mission, not on Thaba Bosigo, and because a station that had stood since 1836 was now a Free State military fact. [3]
Vechtkop of the 28th of March, Morija of April, and Thaba Bosigo of the 6th of May — Orange Free State 1858
The plan of campaign was to send two commandos into the Lesotho, one from the north, the other from the south, to meet before Thaba Bosigo and endeavour to carry that stronghold by storm. Thaba Bosigo was Moshesh’s mountain: precipices hundreds of feet high, a few steep pathways, and a garrison. Moshesh sent his cattle into distant mountain ravines, and gave orders to fight at every point of advantage, but when pressed close to fall back and draw the commandos after them. Commandant-General Hendrik Weber with the burghers of the southern portion and Jan Letele’s people marched first to Vechtkop, Poshuli’s headquarters. On the 28th of March Nehemiah and Poshuli were met there, and after an engagement retreated, leaving the villages of the latter to their fate; on the following day they were burnt. On the 30th the commando was at Mohali’s Hoek, where in an ambush it lost 16 men killed and wounded, but killed nearly four times as many Basuto as well as one renegade European, and captured a few hundred cattle. From Mohali’s Hoek it marched against Letsie, but the council of war resolved that it would be imprudent to attack him, and the commando fell back to Jammerberg Drift. Vechtkop and Mohali’s Hoek mattered because the southern column could burn villages and still not reach Thaba Bosigo, and because 16 burghers down, with families uncovered on the plains, was already a heavy Free State loss. [3]
The northern column was in two divisions under Commandants F. Senekal and W. J. Pretorius. On the 25th of March Moperi and Molitsane were defeated at Koranaberg by Pretorius. On the 12th, 13th, and 14th of April, at Cathcart’s Drift, this column had a series of engagements with the warriors of Molapo, Moperi, and Molitsane, who surrounded it and threatened to annihilate it with their overwhelming numbers. By this time it was known that the gunpowder manufactured by the Basuto was incapable of carrying a ball farther than 150 to 180 metres, so that the difference of number was more than compensated. The column forced its way out, but not before it had lost 17 men, killed and wounded. On the 25th the two columns effected a junction. Three days later Senekal was elected commandant-general in place of Weber, and an attack was made upon Letsie, who was posted with about 4,000 warriors on the heights close to his village, the mission station Morija. After some skirmishing Letsie gave way and retreated to Thaba Bosigo. The junction mattered because the Free State at last had one force in front of Letsie — and because 17 more burghers had been spent to get it there. [3]
The commando then took possession of Letsie’s village, when the burghers were horrified by finding portions of the corpses of some of their friends who had fallen at Mohali’s Hoek, brought there by Basuto priests to bewitch their opponents. Exasperated, they condemned the village to the same fate as Poshuli’s kraals, and spared only the church and the property of the missionary Maeder. The reverend Arbousset with his family and 6 English traders and mechanics left the place before the commando entered. Maeder, who remained at his house, suffered no molestation. The property of those who fled met with the same treatment as that of the Basuto. The French consul at Capetown requested Grey to protect his countrymen; the imperial government declined to interfere; the volksraad refused to recompense missionary or traders, but voted £100 to the Paris society to make good the damage its buildings had sustained. From Morija the forces marched to Thaba Bosigo, where they arrived on the 6th of May. A body of Basuto at the foot of the mountain made a show of resistance, but after skirmishing for 4 hours took to flight. The frowning precipices, hundreds of feet in height, were beyond the power of man to scale, and the few steep pathways were fortified and defended by a garrison amply provided with munitions. Morija and the mountain mattered because the Free State could burn a chief’s village and still not take the one stronghold that decided the war. [3]
During the fortnight preceding, rumours had reached the camps that the Basuto had invaded the Free State. It was known that on the 14th of April, while the northern column was fighting at Cathcart’s Drift, a body of light horsemen had spread over Winburg, swept off all the stock in its track, and left nothing but smouldering ruins. Intelligence now came that on the 26th of April the district of Smithfield had been pillaged and laid waste in a similar manner. With such tidings in their ears and an impregnable stronghold before their eyes, there came but one thought to the burghers, that of returning to their families. A council of war resolved to break up the commando; without an hour’s delay every man set off for his home. Even before this collapse Boshof had applied to President Marthinus Wessel Pretorius for assistance. On the 4th of May the volksraad of the northern state met at Potchefstroom, when 12 memorials from Free State burghers were read; a resolution was adopted that Pretorius and Commandant-General Schoeman should proceed to Bloemfontein and endeavour to restore peace, and that should Moshesh refuse reasonable terms the united countries would deal with him. On the 27th of April Boshof wrote to Grey asking for his intercession as a humane and Christian act. The Cape parliament was sitting; the legislative council unanimously approved friendly mediation; the assembly requested Grey to tender his services, but that if either party declined he should not take any step which might involve the colony. Grey tendered his services; Boshof and the executive gratefully accepted; Moshesh also agreed unconditionally. The collapse mattered because the Free State could not take Thaba Bosigo and could not protect Winburg and Smithfield at the same time, so the war passed from the commando to Grey’s mediation. [3]
Scheel Kobus of the 24th of May, the Stronghold of the 5th of July, and Mahura of the 18th of August — 1858
Before either the deputation from the South African Republic or Grey’s offer reached Bloemfontein the Free State forces had dissolved, and Boshof was compelled to make overtures to Moshesh for a suspension of hostilities. He asked whether the chief would receive a deputation, or consent to Pretorius arranging an armistice. Moshesh replied in a haughty and sarcastic manner, threw the blame of the war upon the Free State, accused the burghers of acting as barbarians, and stated that he had not yet begun to fight; but he consented to receive a deputation. L. J. Papenfus and W. G. Every were sent to Thaba Bosigo, and on the 1st of June an armistice was signed, under which all military operations were to be suspended until Grey should arrange the final terms, with no intercourse other than by official messengers in the interval. The armistice mattered because it froze a war the burghers had abandoned, and because it made Grey, not Pretorius, the man who would write the peace. [3]
Away on the western border several petty chiefs, believing the time favourable for plunder, commenced to ravage the country. The San captain Scheel Kobus, son of Kausop, was the first. His location was part of a tract along the left bank of the Vaal from Platberg to the curve opposite the junction of the Hart, which Warden had set apart as a reserve for bands of Korana and San blood. Goliath Yzerbek’s Koranas and David Danser’s San had been mixed together without a dividing line; they had quarrelled ever since. In August 1857 Danser had offered to sell his rights for £75; the volksraad authorised the purchase, but he then held back; Goliath sold for £100 and moved off. In February of this year the volksraad authorised the president to buy out Danser for £100, and to offer the Berlin mission £100 for their station ground, so that the only part of the reserve left would be that occupied by Scheel Kobus; the negotiations had not been entered into when the Basuto war commenced. On the 24th of May, without any provocation, at the head of about 300 men Scheel Kobus made an inroad and swept off 200 head of horned cattle, 2,000 sheep, 73 horses, 4 waggons, and some other property. The raiders murdered a farmer, Zacharias Swanepoel, and wounded Roelof du Plooy and Jacobus Coetsee. They retreated to a fastness at the bend of the Vaal, fortified with ditches and trunks of trees. The raid mattered because the Basuto war had stripped the western farms of their men, and because a reserve Warden had drawn for San and Korana bands was now a base for plunder. [3]
Goliath Yzerbek joined the robber, as did Gasibone and Matlabane, captains of clans of the Batlapin, who had their kraals along the lower Hart and were not subjects of the South African Republic. Gasibone was of the great house of Mothibi, but Mahura at Taung was more powerful. On the 30th of May Gasibone and Matlabane made a raid, murdered two men named Lombard and Van Aswegen, brutally ill-treated three children and a woman, drove another woman and her children from their home, and retired with plunder. On the 8th of June the combined horde made a third inroad, murdered Jan Coetsee, and swept off stock. A body of farmers overtook them; a burgher named Jacob Diederikse was killed and two others were wounded, but the stock was retaken and some 20 of the raiders were shot. The horde then plundered farms on the other side of the river; an old burgher named Opperman was murdered, and his wife and granddaughter were carried away as captives by Matlabane. A commando of 240 burghers and 160 blacks — Fingos from Bloemfontein and the warriors of Danser, who declared himself the friend of the white man as soon as Goliath had joined Scheel Kobus — was got together under Hendrik Venter, with James Michael Howell, landdrost of Winburg. The third inroad mattered because the western war was no longer a San raid: Batlapin captains had joined, and two republics now had murdered farmers on the same river. [3]
On the 5th of July the commando attacked the robbers’ stronghold and hemmed the horde in so that escape was impossible. No Batlapin were there at the time. The place was taken by assault, with a loss of 1 man killed and 3 wounded on the side of the Europeans, and of 112 men killed on the side of the robbers. Among the dead were Scheel Kobus and his brother. 43 adult males and 50 women and children were taken prisoners. A wounded European, Albertus van der Westhuizen, was sent toward the village of Boshof in a waggon with an escort of 6 farmers and 9 blacks; on the way a party of Gasibone’s Batlapin was met, the escort fled, and Van der Westhuizen was cruelly murdered. 42 of the male prisoners were placed under Patrick O’Brien for the jail at Bloemfontein. On the 12th of July he reached Boshof; on the 14th he left, and when only a few kilometres from the village a party of 30 men with their faces veiled rode up and shot the prisoners as they ran. The perpetrators were never punished, though the outburst of indignation was general. The assault mattered because Scheel Kobus was dead and the Vaal fastness taken — and because the shooting of the prisoners on the 14th left a stain the republic could not try. [3]
North of the Vaal the South African Republic sent a burgher force under Commandant Paul Kruger against the marauders. Gasibone fled to Mahura, who had taken no part in the disturbances but was not disposed to abandon the head of his family. On the 5th of July Pretorius wrote to Mahura requesting the delivery of the robbers; on the 27th Kruger did the same, asking also as a proof of friendship that the two white women prisoners with Matlabane be sent out. On the 5th and again on the 7th of August Kruger wrote from his camp repeating the request. On the 7th of August the two white women were brought into the camp, their release having been effected by Edward Chapman, a trader at Kuruman. On the same day Kruger’s force was joined by 64 burghers from the Free State under Venter, and by Danser’s whole following. The Batlapin were then attacked; in a series of skirmishes from the 9th to the 13th they lost a large number of men. On the 13th Gasibone was killed; his head was cut off and sent to Mahura, the reason assigned being that otherwise the Batlapin would deny that he had fallen. Mahura immediately sent to ask for peace. With his counsellors an agreement was signed on the 18th of August that he should surrender all the property stolen in both republics and make good the costs of the commando within 3 months. The Batlapin loss of life was heavy, and 2,800 head of horned cattle, 4,000 sheep and goats, 65 horses, and 23 waggons were taken, a great part of it property stolen in the raids, restored to the owners or their heirs, the remainder divided among the commando. The agreement mattered because Mahura, who had not raided, was made to pay for Gasibone, and because Kruger’s August campaign closed the western war that Scheel Kobus had opened in May. [3]
Grey of the 20th of August, Aliwal North of the 29th of September, and Postma of November — 1858
On the 7th of June, a fortnight after Scheel Kobus’s first raid, Pretorius, accompanied by Kruger and about 20 other persons, arrived in Bloemfontein. On the same day the volksraad of the Free State met in extraordinary session. Along the Basuto border and far towards the centre of the state the burghers had been reduced to extreme poverty; murder, death in battle, and sickness had put half the inhabitants into mourning. Petitions in favour of union with the South African Republic, signed by 1,445 persons, were read. On the 11th of June a letter was received from Grey announcing that in case an agreement of union was concluded, the conventions of 1852 and 1854 — Sand River, which had recognised the independence of the farmers north of the Vaal, and Bloemfontein, which had recognised the Free State — would no longer be considered binding by Great Britain. After great diversity of opinion it was resolved that upon Grey’s arrival to arrange peace a deputation should confer with him; the South African Republic determined to send a deputation for the same purpose. Some cattle belonging to Transvaal burghers passing through the Free State having been seized, Kruger and M. G. Schoeman were sent by Pretorius to Moshesh; two Free State deputies accompanied them. On the 18th of June an agreement at Thaba Bosigo provided for the restoration of the cattle and the prevention of further thefts. Kruger then hastened to join the expedition against Gasibone. Grey’s letter mattered because union of the two republics, the remedy half the petitioners wanted, would cost them the British conventions that kept an open market in ammunition and forbade British treaties with the tribes on their borders. [3]
Grey was not able to leave Capetown until the end of July. On the 20th of August he reached Bloemfontein and arranged that the commissioners appointed by the volksraad should draw up their case in writing for a meeting with Moshesh. At Bloemfontein he received urgent despatches requiring him to send all the troops that could be spared immediately to India. To establish peace thus became a matter of the first importance: there were then very few soldiers in South Africa, and until peace was accomplished not a man could be missed. Moshesh’s success had caused restlessness among other tribes. Notwithstanding the truce of the 1st of June and the agreement of the 18th, thieving along the whole border was as rife as ever, houses were still being burnt far within the Free State, and great armed hunting parties traversed the country wherever they pleased. Jan Letele’s retainers lost no opportunity of lifting the stock of other Basuto, especially Poshuli’s. On the colonial border the superintendent of the Wittebergen reserve had required Morosi to remove his adherents to his own side of the Tees, and the Baphuthi chief was plundering the reserve in retaliation. The August visit mattered because Grey had to make a peace fast enough to release the last battalions for India, in a truce that was already being broken by theft. [3]
Grey rode from Bloemfontein to Thaba Bosigo and met Moshesh, desiring him to discuss his case with his sons, counsellors, and great vassals, and then to attend a meeting with the Free State commissioners at Aliwal North. Moshesh requested Beersheba instead; Grey assented, and the 15th of September was fixed. The governor then galloped to King William’s Town, put everything in order for moving the troops, and was back at Beersheba on the 14th. The Free State commissioners, 9 in number, were there; Moshesh was not. A blind boy who claimed communication with the spirit world had dreamed that evil would result from the chief’s going; Moshesh stayed at home, sending a letter that he was old and subject to headache, and a number of men among whom was not one of his sons or vassals of high rank. Grey went a second time and found the chief at Morija. Moshesh’s pretensions amounted practically to the extinction of the Free State; the commissioners of the republic were unwilling to make any concessions, and even maintained that as the war had been brought on by the Basuto they should pay the cost of it. Grey at length induced Moshesh to appoint commissioners with full power: Makwai, Job, and David Raliye. At Aliwal North Grey framed a document containing such conditions as he considered just, and on the 29th of September it was formally signed. The signature mattered because the peace was Grey’s text, not Moshesh’s mountain terms and not a Free State indemnity, and because a chief who would not come in person had still bound his house by commissioners. [3]
The treaty confirmed the Warden line between the Europeans and the Basuto on the north and west, but gave to Moshesh a large portion of the troubled district between the Caledon and the Orange. The new boundary was to be marked by the governor or by commissioners chosen by him. Each party was to withdraw its subjects to its own side without compensation, a reasonable time being allowed for the removal of crops and buildings. Beersheba was thereafter to form part of the Free State, but 6,000 acres surrounding the station were reserved for the French mission in full property. In the eleventh clause Moshesh was either to punish criminals under his paramount authority himself, or to allow the Free State to do so without a general war being the consequence. Remaining clauses provided for a public road between Hebron and Aliwal North, mutual extradition of criminals, restitution of stolen property, the responsibility of every chief for cattle whose spoor should be traced to his territory, the prohibition of hunting parties in any district of the Free State without previous permission from the landdrost, and the protection of Jan Letele and Moroko from molestation on account of having aided the Free State. Grey proceeded in person to see the new line marked with beacons; a few slight modifications were consented to where the conformation of the ground required them. Makwai was sent with the treaty to Moshesh for ratification; the great chief returned it without his signature, though in a letter he stated that he agreed to it. John Burnet was instructed to proceed to Thaba Bosigo. After long wavering, on the 15th of October Moshesh affixed his seal and mark, though with evident reluctance. The mark mattered because a treaty unsigned by Moshesh was only Grey’s paper, and because the eleventh clause — punish or allow punishment without a general war — was the test the next years would put to the mountain. [3]
In September, while the treaty was being arranged at Aliwal North, the Free State deputation conferred with Grey upon union of the republics. He informed them that the effect would be the annulling of the conventions. Great Britain would probably decline to enter into a new convention with the consolidated state, or, if she did, would refuse to insert the clause relative to having no treaties with native tribes, forbidding the supply of ammunition to them, and guaranteeing an open market in ammunition to the Europeans. In November the subject came on for discussion in the volksraad. The views of the members were diverse. Some were in favour of federation with the Cape Colony, which Boshof strongly advocated; others in favour of union with the South African Republic; others again advocated an offensive and defensive alliance with either the colony or the Republic. Numerously signed memorials were read in support of all these views. At that time it was still hoped by some that Moshesh would respect the treaty just concluded, and that Jan Letele could be kept in order. The November debate mattered because the Free State, four months after dissolving its commando, was already arguing whether Cape federation, Transvaal union, or a mere alliance was the only way to live beside Moshesh — and because Grey had told them that union would cost the conventions. [3]
Early in this year, when Moshesh was endeavouring to draw the Free State into war, the Bamapela, one of the clans that had risen in Zoutpansberg in 1854, took up arms again. The outbreak began by the murder of a party of Europeans and the seizure of their property. Commandant-General Schoeman called out a strong force; the marauders retired to a fortified hill. On the 14th of April Kruger’s division took the stronghold by storm. The enemy rolled large stones down upon the advancing force and kept up a heavy fire, so that a good many burghers were wounded, though only one — Philip Minnaar — was killed. With the capture of this hill the revolt was crushed; the Bamapela lost about 800 men. Zoutpansberg, after Schoeman had postponed the court from the 9th of November 1857 to the 15th of January of this year, was incorporated with the Republic, and Schoeman was acknowledged as commandant-general of the whole country. In February a coat of arms for the Republic was adopted by the volksraad: a waggon and a golden anchor on a silver shield, with an eagle above, on the right side an armed farmer of the period, and on the left side a lion. The storming mattered because a Zoutpansberg clan rose in the same months as the Basuto war, and because Kruger was in the field against Mapela in April before he rode against Gasibone in August. [3]
The laws relating to Bantu tribes within the territory underwent several changes. The sale of ammunition, formerly punishable by death or confiscation, was now a fine of £500, or imprisonment, or confiscation; traders were prohibited from having on their waggons more than 40 pounds of gunpowder and 80 pounds of lead; traffic in the indentures of coloured children was forbidden under a fine of £100 to £500; locations were thereafter to be assigned by landdrosts, not alienable, without munitions or horses, and liable to be called upon for aid in war. Persons of any creed could vote at elections, but only members of the Dutch Reformed Church were to be eligible to hold public offices; landdrosts were to be appointed by the executive council, rejectable within 2 months; field-cornets were limited to 5 years. Towards the close of the year Van Heiningen went to reside at Lydenburg, and in November Postma, sent out by the Separatist Reformed synod of the Netherlands, became clergyman of Rustenburg, holding that hymns which were not paraphrases of Scripture were improper in public worship. Van Heiningen and his consistory favoured union with the Cape synod; Van der Hoff and his consistory wanted church as well as state separate. Postma’s arrival mattered because three clergymen now stood for three answers — Cape synod, a republic church, and a Separatist refusal of hymns — and because the constitution named the Dutch Reformed Church as the state’s, so the hymn question was also a question of who could hold office. [3]