Boer History1859 in South Africa: Grey, Wynyard, Federation, Boshof, and the Vocalist
The First Sod of the 31st of March, Andrews of the 12th of April, and the Hospital at Green Point — Colony 1859
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 1859 was the gap the Indian mutiny had left in the garrison. Until the 59th arrived from China in a debilitated condition in January, 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. Grey had taken the responsibility of adding to the frontier armed and mounted police; parliament afterwards approved. In April the 45th left for England, and the second battalion of the 13th arrived from England. The thin garrison mattered because the confiscated locations east of the Kei still had to be held, and because a colonial police and volunteer bands were what remained once the regular battalions had gone to Hindostan. [3]
Diagrams of land held under individual titles had been found to disagree. A commission appointed to report upon the unit of land measure found that 1,000 Rhynland — or Cape — feet were equal to 1,033 English standard feet. An act passed in this year made the Rhynland foot, with that ratio, the unit of land measure in the colony. The ratio mattered because every farm diagram in the colony was drawn in Cape feet, and a survey that mixed the two scales would throw titles into dispute. [3]
On the 31st of March Grey turned the first sod of the Capetown-to-Wellington railway with the usual ceremony. The directors of the Capetown Railway and Dock Company had signed the contract on the 5th of October 1858 to construct and work the line through Stellenbosch and the Paarl — 63½ miles, or 102 kilometres — under a 6 per cent guarantee on a cost not exceeding £500,000, the rails 56½ inches, or 143.5 centimetres, apart. Navvies and tools had been sent out as soon as they could be obtained, and the formation of the road had begun. The sod mattered because the Cape had no navigable river and no canal, and in a drought a journey of any length was extremely difficult: iron communication was the only cheap way to move wool and grain from the interior to the roadstead. [3]
Table Bay remained an object in which Grey took a very warm interest. Winter gales had wrecked numerous ships with little or no loss of life, and in summer as in winter vessels were frequently detained for many days because cargo could not be landed when strong winds were blowing. John Scott Tucker became civil engineer for the colony in January. The imperial government had declined to advance a million without interest for Captain James Vetch’s piers. Parliament in 1858 had therefore resolved that harbour works should be constructed by the colony gradually as funds could be raised, and the government consulted John Coode. At Coode’s request, on the 12th of April Arthur Thomas Andrews was appointed resident engineer. He made a careful survey of the bay and ascertained the direction and force of the currents, so that Coode could draw the plan from his reports. Andrews’s appointment mattered because the breakwater that would later make Table Bay a safe port could not be designed until the currents were measured, and because London would not advance the million Vetch had asked for. [3]
Three more lighthouses were in course of erection on the colonial coast: one on the Cape of Good Hope, one on the hill at Port Elizabeth, and one on the Roman rock in Simon’s Bay, intended to replace the old lightship. Seats of magistracy were being provided with courthouses and prisons; several rivers were being bridged; much was being done to improve the roads. In this year the building of the new Somerset hospital, in an excellent open position at Green Point, a suburb of Capetown, was commenced. Revenue stood at £463,179 against £402,669 in 1858 and £404,240 in 1857; customs at £262,801 against £260,322; wool at £1,199,490 against £1,014,173; the whole export at £1,818,080 against £1,651,662. The figures mattered because the hospital, the bridges, and the first railway sod were paid from a revenue that had risen by more than £60,000 in a year, and because wool — not wine — was what filled the Cape treasury. [3]
The Vocalist of the 23rd of January, the John and Lucy of the 9th of October, and 6,343 — Colony 1859
On the 8th of January 126 individuals arrived at Capetown from Rotterdam under the Dutch child-and-family scheme that Beelaerts van Blokland had opened in 1856. They followed the 103 from Amsterdam of the 13th of June 1858 and the 40 of the 8th of July. The immigration act of 1857 remained in force under William Field in England, with depots at Capetown and Port Elizabeth. The act gave a free passage to gardeners, shepherds, farm servants, and mechanics of good character, under 45 unless accompanied by stalwart families, who had worked for wages and had never received parish aid. In this year more immigrants arrived in South Africa than in any preceding year since the first European settlement. The Dutch arrivals mattered because the colony still wanted labour for public works and farms, and because Field’s British ships were not the only stream filling the depots. [3]
On the 23rd of January the Vocalist brought to Port Elizabeth 420 individuals. On the 19th of May the Aurifera brought to Capetown 236; on the 28th of the same month the New Great Britain brought to Port Elizabeth 221; on the 27th of June the Bride brought to Capetown 259; on the 8th of July the Shah Jehan brought to Port Elizabeth 288; on the 26th of July the Burlington brought to Capetown 267. The Vocalist mattered because Port Elizabeth was the wool port, and because 420 people landing there in January were the first British transport of the heaviest year. [3]
On the 3rd of August the Coldstream brought to Port Elizabeth 258; on the 23rd of September the Lord Raglan brought to Capetown 273; on the 9th of October the Chatham brought to Port Elizabeth 239; on the 27th of October the Matilda Atheling brought to Capetown 285; on the 16th of November the Bermondsey brought to Port Elizabeth 230; on the 16th of December the Jalawar brought to Capetown 221; on the 22nd the Ceres brought to Capetown 200; on the 25th the Ascendant brought to Port Elizabeth 251. In addition, a good many persons who preferred to pay a portion of their passage money and proceed in the mail steamers rather than in the emigrant ships were assisted with £10 for each adult, so that altogether during 1858 and this year 6,343 British immigrants in the prime of life, consisting of almost equal numbers of each sex, were introduced under the system into the Cape Colony. Some arrived with extravagant ideas of the wealth they would rapidly acquire, and at first were greatly disappointed; a few, notwithstanding all the care that was taken, were unfit to make good colonists; but the great majority throve, and a striking proof was given in the numerous applications to have relatives and friends in England and Scotland sent out in the same manner. The cost to government of an adult passage remained from £13 10s. to £15 10s. The 6,343 mattered because the colony paid the passages from revenue and from a six-per-cent loan, and because the applications for relatives showed that the system was filling farms and workshops rather than filling the depots with failures. [3]
Only one mishap occurred in the transport of all these people and their effects. On the 4th of September the ship John and Lucy left Liverpool with 406 emigrants bound to Table Bay, and on the 9th of October struck on a reef of rocks about 35 miles from Rio Grande on the coast of Brazil. The shore was 10 or 11 miles distant, but every one on board was safely landed, as well as their effects, provisions, and sails to make temporary shelters. 6 days later a steamer arrived from Rio Grande and returned with 272 of the shipwrecked people; on the 19th the British consul arrived with 2 small steamers and took the others away. From Rio Grande they were all forwarded to Pernambuco, where they arrived on the 23rd. There the American barque Ceres was chartered, and in her 200 reached Capetown on the 22nd of December. The others were still on the water at the year’s close; they arrived safely in the steamer Stanley on the 14th of January 1860. The wreck mattered because it was the only loss in a year of 14 British immigrant ships, and because 200 of the 406 still reached Table Bay before Christmas. [3]
The Fifth of October, Oidium of October, and the Chavonnes Hospital of the 24th of January — Colony 1859
In this year drought of unusual severity prevailed in the greater part of the colony, and in the eastern districts especially was so prolonged that even traffic in many places was suspended and agricultural industry entirely ceased. Wednesday, the 5th of October, was set apart and generally observed as a day of humiliation and prayer for seasonable rain. Later in the summer fine showers fell in some parts, but in many places there were no crops that year, and food rose to very high prices. A plague too appeared in the eastern districts for the first time in the xanthium spinosum, or burr-weed, which had been known for several years in the neighbourhood of Simonstown, but nowhere else in the colony. This noxious plant throve where everything else was perishing, spread with amazing rapidity, and threatened the sheepfarmers with heavy loss unless it could be destroyed. Under these circumstances the immigration board at Port Elizabeth began to apprehend that the eastern province could not absorb as many people in future years as were then arriving, and recommended that a smaller number should be sent out gradually until matters improved. The day of humiliation mattered because the same eastern districts that were landing the Vocalist and the Shah Jehan now had no crops and a weed that clung to wool, and because the board that received the immigrants was the first to ask Field to send fewer. [3]
In the west a great disaster overtook a large and important section of the community at this time. The vines had always been subject to rust, and occasionally the vintage was much affected by its ravages, but from other diseases they had hitherto been exempt. In October the oidium made its appearance and spread quickly from vineyard to vineyard. Various remedies were suggested by Dr. Pappe, the colonial botanist, but were of no avail in checking the scourge, though sulphur was found efficacious in destroying it where it could be applied. So the ravages of the oidium went on increasing, and threatened to extirpate the vine in the colony until powdered sulphur in large quantities and a simple apparatus for applying it to the foliage and fruit enabled the winefarmers to overcome the scourge. Wine had stood at £159,492 in the year’s export against £121,268 in 1858; the fungus now stood over the next vintage. The oidium mattered because wine was still the west’s staple after wool, and because Pappe’s first remedies failed until sulphur could be imported in bulk and dusted on the leaves. [3]
Of less importance than either drought or oidium, but still not without some influence, was an outbreak of the smallpox that had begun in September 1858. In Capetown the disease had prevailed to such an extent that it became necessary to open a special hospital at the Chavonnes battery, but in the course of the summer it died out, and on the 24th of January the hospital was closed. During the winter, however, the disease appeared in several of the country districts and caused much alarm, though its ravages were small when compared with those of former years. Owing to drought, oidium, and smallpox it was decided to limit state-aided immigration for a time. The closed hospital mattered because Capetown could shut the battery in January, yet the winter recurrence in the country, piled on empty barns and a sick vintage, was enough to cut the vote that had brought the Vocalist. [3]
The Seventeenth of March, Lytton of the 4th of June, and Wynyard of the 20th of August — Colony 1859
South Africa was now under 5 distinct governments, each in a position to pursue a policy different from that of all the others. Grey looked at the Cape Colony, the Orange Free State, Natal, and British Kaffraria, and judged that circumstances in operation in this year would have made the union of at least those 4 particularly easy; the northern republic might have held aloof at first. Between the Kei and the Bashee the land was then almost unoccupied, as was the wide plateau at the foot of the Kathlamba from the Indwe to Natal; but there was a great fear of expansion in England, and no enlargement of colonial boundaries was possible. Federation of the existing states was a different thing: it would not add to the imperial burden, and it might diminish military expenditure. He brought the subject before the Cape parliament when he opened the session on the 17th of March. The opening mattered because Grey was asking the Cape houses to consider a common government for the several portions of South Africa, with full local action left to the provinces on their own prosperity, while they acted under a federal government on points that concerned the general safety. [3]
He had received from the government of the Orange Free State a request that he would ascertain whether the Cape parliament would be inclined to promote a federal union with that state, and whether it would appoint a commission to meet a deputation chosen by the Free State government to agree upon preliminary terms. The volksraad had on the 7th of December 1858 resolved that a union or alliance with the Cape Colony, whether on the basis of federation or otherwise, was desirable, and had requested the president to correspond with the governor in order to learn whether the Cape parliament would show itself disposed, and whether the colonial government would receive a commission from the Free State, at some town in the eastern province if practicable. Grey had informed Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton of that resolution on the 22nd of December 1858. He now invited the houses to consider the whole question. There had been correspondence with Lytton concerning the union under a common government of the different British possessions, in which the governor had been asked for his opinion; the members of the executive council had concurred and advised him to act as he did. On the other hand, in reply to a request for instructions as to what answer he should give if application were made by the inhabitants of the Orange Free State for union with the Cape Colony under a federal form, Lytton on the 5th of November 1858 had directed him to state that he could say nothing without previous instructions from her Majesty’s government. The two despatches mattered because Grey treated the Free State’s request as the missing piece of a British federation, while Lytton had told him to say nothing about taking the Free State back under the Crown. [3]
To the despatch of the 22nd of December he received a reply dated the 11th of February that her Majesty’s government were not prepared to depart from the settled policy of their predecessors by advising the resumption of British sovereignty in any shape over the Orange Free State. When this despatch was received Grey recognised for the first time that federation such as he had proposed was absolutely prohibited, and he at once informed the houses that her Majesty’s government refused to consent to the resumption of dominion over the Free State. The subject then dropped. The February letter mattered because the Bloemfontein convention of 1854 had taken the British flag down from the Queen’s fort, and because London would not put it back even as a federal province. [3]
On the 5th of May the secretary of state informed the governor that he had just received a copy of the speech at the opening of parliament, and had read with great surprise and regret that passage which contained an invitation to consider the propriety of a federal union with the Orange Free State and still further to appoint a commission to meet a deputation from that state. Without loss of time he felt bound to express the disapproval of her Majesty’s government, but reserved till the next mail his final decision. On the 4th of June that decision was announced. Grey was informed that he had placed her Majesty’s government in England, as well as the local government under his charge, in a position of extreme embarrassment and difficulty. The Cape parliament was then fully acquainted with the fact that a course of policy which he had sedulously recommended in his opening speech was one which the crown had been distinctly advised by its ministers then in office not to adopt. It was for her Majesty’s government alone to determine whether steps should be taken towards annexing or reannexing extensive regions then under independent governments. They had come, with great and painful reluctance, to the conclusion that he had so far compromised them and endangered the success of that policy which they deemed right that his continuance in the administration of the government of the Cape could be no longer of service to public interests. 2 other instances of his acting upon his own responsibility — the introduction of German immigrants and financial arrangements in British Kaffraria — were also alluded to. The recall mattered because Grey had asked the Cape parliament to consider a union London had forbidden, and because the German ships and the Kaffrarian bills were cited as proof that he spent imperial money without waiting for orders. [3]
The feeling throughout South Africa when this became known was one not alone of deep regret, but of general consternation. English and Dutch colonists, and those among the coloured people capable of giving expression to their feelings, joined in petitions to the queen that she would be pleased to restore the governor. On the 18th of June, a fortnight after the despatch removing Grey was written, the earl of Derby was succeeded as prime minister by Lord Palmerston, and the duke of Newcastle became secretary of state for the colonies. Newcastle announced that he agreed with Lytton in strong disapproval of the governor’s conduct, not only in respect of federation, but also of the introduction of German immigrants and the expenditure incurred in British Kaffraria. But he bore in mind that Grey was in the midst of a great work for the coloured people and the establishment of peaceful relations, and the ministry was ready to continue him in office upon the condition that he felt himself sufficiently free and uncompromised with the Cape parliament and the inhabitants of the Orange Free State to be able personally to carry into effect the policy of her Majesty’s government, which was entirely opposed to those measures tending to the resumption of authority over that state. This despatch was written on the 4th of August, but before it could reach South Africa Grey was on his way to England. Newcastle’s condition mattered because restoration was offered only if Grey would himself refuse the federation he had recommended on the 17th of March, and because the letter arrived after he had left. [3]
On the 20th of August he transferred the administration to Lieutenant-General Robert Henry Wynyard, who 3 months before — on the 20th of May — had succeeded Sir James Jackson as lieutenant-governor and commander of the forces, and on the following day he left South Africa. During Wynyard’s administration an officer acting only temporarily could not initiate any large schemes, and merely kept the machinery of government in motion in the groove in which he found it. The colony was now assisting greatly in its own defence. Grey had encouraged the formation of bands of volunteers, of which there were at this time over 20 enrolled, armed, and drilled in the principal towns and villages, mustering in all 1,300 men. The frontier armed and mounted police, a purely colonial force, mustered 600 men exclusive of officers. The men who held their farms under military tenure on the frontier and in British Kaffraria were also an excellent defensive force. Altogether 4 infantry battalions mustered about 3,250 rank and file, with a few engineers and artillerymen at the principal posts. The transfer mattered because the chair passed to a soldier who could not start a federation or a harbour, and because 1,300 volunteers and 600 police were what the colony could put in the field once Grey had gone. [3]
The Johan Caesar of the 7th of January, East London of the 9th of July, and the Census of the 31st of December — Annexed Territory 1859
Under the agreement of the 24th of August 1857 with William Berg as agent for Johan Caesar Godeffroy & Son of Hamburg, 5 ships had been sent from Hamburg in 1858. They had been directed to call at Table Bay for orders: the Caesar Godeffroy on the 14th of June with 456; La Rochelle on the 11th of August with 485; the Wandrahm on the 17th of November with 421; the Wilhelmsburg on the 23rd of December with 680. The fifth, the Johan Caesar, arrived on the 7th of January with 273 immigrants of both sexes and all ages under 50. Only those who arrived in the first 2 ships had been located before the close of 1858, and of the others some had ground allotted to them on the western side of the Keiskamma, so that all did not become inhabitants of British Kaffraria. The Johan Caesar mattered because she closed the Godeffroy contract that London had ordered to stop, and because 273 more Germans landed after the high commissioner had been told that Kaffraria could not pay for them. [3]
Lord Stanley had on the 4th of May 1858 announced that the German emigration was to cease, on the ground of questionable policy, of the annual deficiency of £40,000 in the finances of British Kaffraria, and of the £50,000 of bonds that must in fact depend on parliamentary aid from Great Britain. Emigrants equal in number to 1,600 statute adults — the 2,315 individuals who actually reached South Africa — had previously been engaged, and one of the transports was then on the way out. Stanley therefore consented to allow these to be forwarded, and paid Godeffroy & Son, who had incurred considerable expense in establishing agencies, £5,000 to cancel the contract for the remaining 2,400. In 1858 the high commissioner had caused 302 farms of an average size of 1,500 acres each to be laid out in the confiscated locations, offered to selected heads of families under military tenure and a yearly quitrent of £2 for every 1,000 acres. Early in this year the grantees — young Dutch and English farmers acquainted with the conditions of South African life — moved in and occupied the land. The occupation mattered because the cattle-killing of 1857 had emptied the locations, and because military tenure on 302 farms was Grey’s substitute for the battalions that had gone to India. [3]
At the opening of the session Grey referred to British Kaffraria with a view of relieving Great Britain of the burden of contributing towards the maintenance of its government. He requested parliament, whatever decision it might come to upon federation generally, to take an early opportunity of letting him know its desire with regard to the incorporation of the territory with the Cape Colony. The territory was constantly increasing in wealth and importance, and the number of its European population augmented with these, yet it was left without courts suited to its wants and without any form of government which possessed even the show of freedom, whilst the greater part of the customs duties on its imports were received by the Cape Colony. Should it not be incorporated, the port of East London would, under the letters patent constituting British Kaffraria a separate territory, fall within that dependency; if East London were constituted a free port, or if a low rate of customs duties were received there, the revenues of the Cape would suffer greatly, as it appeared impossible to establish customhouse points along a boundary line which could not be computed for that purpose at less than 190 miles in length. The parliament was not then desirous of the annexation of the territory, but was willing to give up the port of East London and lose the customs duties collected there, which were then a mere trifle. Accordingly, on the 9th of July the governor issued a proclamation restoring East London to British Kaffraria. This was confirmed by an order in council on the 29th of November, followed by letters patent on the 19th of December. The restoration mattered because a harbour in the middle of Kaffraria’s coast had been treated as a Cape port, and because the Cape houses would rather lose a trifle of customs than take on the territory’s courts and deficit. [3]
The customs duties were fixed by the high commissioner in another proclamation of the 9th of July. Goods coming from abroad were to pay the same duties as in the Cape Colony; the produce of the Cape Colony of every description was to be admitted duty free. Goods from abroad could be landed in the ports of the Cape Colony, placed in bonding warehouses there, and then shipped coastwise to East London, where the duty was to be paid; but if the original packages were broken the duty was to be paid in both places. This acted prejudicially to the port, as nearly all the trading establishments in the territory were dependent upon firms in Port Elizabeth, and much of the merchandise needed was in small quantities, usually sent overland to save payment of the double duty, there being no inland customhouse. In this year many of the Xhosa who had dispersed in 1857 returned to Kaffraria and took up their abode in the locations that remained. A census taken on the 31st of December showed the population to consist of 1,289 Europeans on the 302 farms, 1,494 German immigrants, 1,165 of the German legion, and 1,947 other Europeans — 5,895 whites in all — with 53,063 Xhosa and Fingos. There were then 13 mission stations in the province. Between the Kei and the Bashee the Bantu population on the same day consisted of 909 men, 1,206 women, and 3,139 children. The census mattered because it counted how far Grey’s German villages and military farms had filled the empty locations, and because 53,063 Xhosa and Fingos had come back into a territory that two years earlier had been emptied by the cattle-killing. [3]
Boshof of the 21st of February, Danser of £100, and Bethulie of the 8th of October — Orange Free State 1859
Moshesh had signed the treaty of Aliwal North on the 15th of October 1858 to avoid Grey’s displeasure, but as there was no force to compel him to observe it, he made no effort to carry out its provisions. The plundering of the border farmers went on as before. Hunting parties continued to traverse the Free State without asking permission from a landdrost, though Jacobus Nicholas Boshof offered to place every facility in their way if they would comply with a few simple regulations. Grey had seen, when arranging the terms, that Jan Letele’s presence on the frontier was a formidable obstacle to peace, and had proposed to give land in Nomansland to Letele and to Lehana. The plan was frustrated by Moshesh: before the close of 1858 Nehemiah was established with about 70 men on the western bank of the Umzimvubu, near the source of that river, and when in this year Lehana went to inspect the district he was deterred by the threats of Pondomisi chiefs acting in concert with Nehemiah. The frustration mattered because Aliwal North had promised Letele protection, and because a rival Basuto settlement beyond the mountains would have drawn disaffected subjects from Moshesh. [3]
The volksraad, though considering that the treaty was all to the advantage of Moshesh, approved of the acts of their commissioners and tendered their thanks to Grey. The farmers were not permitted to return to the Basuto side of the new boundary, and were compensated for their losses as far as possible by grants of land in the Beersheba district. The French mission society petitioned for a larger area than the 6,000 acres secured to it in the treaty, but the volksraad declined, and further resolved to protect the friendly headman Mooi there, and not permit him to be forced out by the pressure of Moeletsi’s Basuto. In February Boshof sent a deputation to Moshesh to represent to him that on account of the constant robberies and violence of the followers of Molitsane and Poshuli the farms along the Winburg and Caledon river borders were abandoned, and to urge him to act in conformity with the treaty. Schnehage and Meyer met with a friendly reception at Thaba Bosigo and from the chiefs along the route, but obtained no satisfactory reply from Moshesh, who merely desired that a meeting of Poshuli, Letele, Boshof, and himself should take place. The great chief, in turn, sent a deputation of 5 members to Bloemfontein, but when they had an interview with the volksraad they declared that they were without authority, having been merely instructed to listen. The February mission mattered because the eleventh clause of Aliwal North required Moshesh either to punish thieves himself or to allow the Free State to do so without a general war — and because a deputation that could only listen was not that clause. [3]
In despair of being able to overcome the difficulties in which the Republic was now involved, on the 21st of February Boshof again tendered his resignation. The volksraad earnestly requested him to continue in office, declaring their entire confidence in him, and expressing the opinion that his retirement would be most disastrous to the country. He, however, obtained 6 months’ leave of absence to visit Natal, and Esaias Rynier Snyman was appointed acting president. On the 25th of June Boshof sent a final letter of resignation from Natal, which the volksraad, at an extraordinary session held in September, was obliged to accept. Snyman was then requested to retain the acting appointment until an election could take place and the new president be installed. The volksraad recommended to the burghers only one person, Jacobus Johannes Venter, and decided that the election should be held on the 15th of December. Under the ordinance of 1856 the burghers could vote for any person who should receive a requisition signed by 25 qualified electors, provided such a requisition, with a reply accepting it, were published in the State Gazette 4 full weeks before the day of election. The recommendation of Venter therefore merely signified that he was the volksraad’s candidate. The resignation mattered because Boshof had been the man who asked Grey for Cape federation, and because an acting president with no force on the Caledon could not compel Moshesh to keep the beacons. [3]
During the time that Snyman was acting president there was sometimes a lull in the thefts on the Basuto border, but there never was any security for property in cattle. Meetings were held between representatives of both sides — one in May — without any good result. Moshesh said plainly that he would redress no wrongs until Jan Letele, who lost no opportunity of robbing his people, was compelled to give up the spoil or was placed under his jurisdiction. Snyman’s government could not in honour either surrender or abandon Letele, and it had no means of keeping him in order. The most important events at this time were accessions of territory. The location along the Vaal belonging to Goliath Yzerbek had been obtained by purchase, that of Scheel Kobus had been taken possession of after his defeat and death, and in this year that of David Danser was acquired by an agreement with his successor Jan Danser, in which that captain sold out and moved away for a payment of £100. Jan Bloem’s people had nearly abandoned their location. The Berlin society had again occupied Pniel, but the jurisdiction of the Free State was now unquestioned over the whole of the former Korana reserves, and the larger portion of the area was waste government land open for occupation by burghers. Danser’s £100 mattered because the Vaal locations that the Sovereignty had reserved for Korana captains now lay open as Free State farms, and because a republic that could not hold the Caledon could still buy the river. [3]
In 1833 the reverend Mr. Pellissier had led a Batlapin clan under the chief Lepui from the neighbourhood of Kuruman to the junction of the Caledon and the Orange, and had taken possession of the tract thereafter known as Bethulie. For nearly a quarter of a century hardly anything was heard of them except in mission reports; they took no part in any of the wars; Moshesh claimed no jurisdiction over them. This condition was terminated by a quarrel between the missionary and the chief. Each then claimed the ownership of the district. The people of Lepui with his sanction offered a large portion of their vacant land for sale, and when some farmers made purchases Pellissier protested. Notwithstanding his protests the sales were carried out. Pellissier then, on the 24th of January, offered the Free State government to cede the sovereignty of Bethulie to it on condition that the ground should remain a native reserve under control of the Paris Evangelical Society. This offer was declined, but 10 days later — the 2nd of February — Lepui made a formal application to Boshof to be taken with his subjects and territory under the laws and government of the Orange Free State. Owing to Boshof’s retirement several months elapsed without any steps being taken; but on the 8th of October Snyman entered into an arrangement with Lepui by which Bethulie became part of the Free State. In deference to Pellissier some concessions were made, and he was understood as giving his consent. The cession mattered because Bethulie sat at the junction of the Caledon and the Orange, outside Moshesh’s claim, and because a mission reserve was refused in January and a chief’s application was accepted in October. [3]
In the extreme north of the state another district was formed by cutting off a portion of Winburg. The new district was called Kroonstad. On the 30th of August the volksraad authorised the acting president to station a landdrost at the village of Kroonstad, where previously there had been a special justice of the peace. Willem Christiaan Peeters was appointed the first landdrost, and assumed duty on the 19th of November. 11 days later the residents of the new district, who were dissatisfied with the landdrost, rose against him and drove him away. So weak was the government at the time that it was unable to restore him. On the 31st of August the volksraad adopted a resolution to send a commission to the government of the South African Republic to endeavour to arrange terms either for union or alliance, which should afterwards be submitted to the people for approval. The party who regarded union with the South African Republic as the only solution of their difficulties with Moshesh rejected the candidate recommended by the volksraad and turned to Marthinus Wessel Pretorius. By the advice of his friends there he accepted the requisition, and upon his election by a majority of 1,282 votes against 310 divided among 4 other candidates, the Free State had chosen a president who still held the northern oaths. He had not yet taken the Bloemfontein oath. The election mattered because Venter was the raad’s man and Pretorius was the unionists’, and because a president who still sat at Potchefstroom could not take Bloemfontein’s chair without putting the conventions of 1852 and 1854 at risk. [3]
Postma of the 26th of April, Kock of the 8th of July, and Nazareth of October — 1859
Towards the close of 1858 a new controversy had arisen north of the Vaal. The same society in the Netherlands that had sent out Van der Hoff had sent another minister, Van Heiningen, who went to reside at Lydenburg, in favour of union with the synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Cape Colony, while Van der Hoff and his consistory were desirous of separation of church as well as state. With Van Heiningen had come Postma, previously minister of a congregation of the Separatist Reformed Church at Zwolle, who in November 1858 had become clergyman of Rustenburg, holding that hymns which were not paraphrases of Scripture were improper in public worship. With a view of trying to restore concord, the government convened a general church assembly, which met at Potchefstroom on the 26th of April and continued in session for 5 days. The 3 clergymen of the country north of the Vaal — Van der Hoff of Potchefstroom, Van Heiningen of Lydenburg, and Postma of Rustenburg — with the elders of their churches were present. In addition, Louw of Fauresmith and Hofmeyr of Colesberg had been invited to assist and took part in the proceedings. The assembly mattered because the twentieth article of the constitution named the Dutch Reformed Church as the state’s, and because three clergymen now stood for three answers: Cape synod, a republic church, and a Separatist refusal of hymns. [3]
The first question was whether the congregation represented by Postma and its elders was part of the Dutch Reformed Church. According to the twentieth article of the constitution that was the state church, and if Postma did not belong to it he could not be admitted as a clergyman. The assembly decided that its profession of faith agreed with that of the Dutch Reformed Church, and it therefore fulfilled the conditions of the twentieth article. As a basis of concord it was next resolved that each clergyman should be at liberty to use the hymns generally received, or not, according to the views of his congregation. To prevent further strife a majority resolved that no clergyman should be eligible to accept the call of a congregation in the South African Republic unless his credentials were confirmed by the Cape synod and he was approved of by the general church assembly. Lastly, Postma was recognised as clergyman of Rustenburg, under condition that the ministers of Potchefstroom and Lydenburg should from time to time visit that congregation. On the 1st of August Postma’s consistory notified that it rejected the resolutions adopted at Potchefstroom in April. It declared its determination to use in public worship only the psalms and paraphrases of Scripture which were put in rhyme in the Netherlands in 1773. It asserted that the confirmation of credentials of clergymen by the Cape synod was unnecessary, unsafe, even dangerous to an independent state, and it rejected entirely the interference of the clergymen of Potchefstroom and Lydenburg. From that date the Separatist Reformed Church existed as an independent body in the South African Republic. On the 13th of September the general assembly of the state church came together at Pretoria and unanimously resolved to unite with the Cape synod. The August notice mattered because a church that would not take Cape credentials, and would not sing hymns that were not psalms, had left the state church named in the constitution. [3]
In this year Commandant Jan Kock, whose name had been famous in the early days of the Sovereignty but who had since been almost forgotten, came into notice again. On the 8th of July he issued from Potchefstroom a proclamation in the name and by authority of Commandant-General Stephanus Schoeman, in which he announced to the inhabitants of that part of the Free State which lies between the Vet and Vaal rivers that the territory occupied by them once belonged to Hendrik Potgieter, that Schoeman was Potgieter’s successor, and that they could at any time claim protection from Schoeman. The proclamation was a revival of the old Winburg claim to be united with Potgieter’s party north of the Vaal, and an invitation to the burghers between the Vet and the Vaal to rebel against the Free State government. On the 13th of July H. Jeppe, acting state attorney, issued a protest against Kock’s proclamation as calculated to disturb the peace. Kock thereupon, on the 28th, published in the State Gazette a protest against Jeppe’s protest. Pretorius was at the time absent on a visit to Zululand, and H. S. Lombard was acting in his stead. He caused the whole issue of the State Gazette to be suppressed, and on the 2nd of August published a proclamation that the government would strictly adhere to articles 4 and 27 of the constitution and prosecute all who should disregard them. Article 4 forbade extension of territory except upon just principles when the interests of the Republic made it necessary; article 27 forbade any treaty or alliance with foreign powers except after the volksraad had been called together. Kock had numerous partisans, though they did not choose to rally round him on this occasion; he was brought to trial and fined £37 10s. for the attempt to disturb the peace of the country. The fine mattered because a proclamation in Schoeman’s name had invited Free State burghers to claim Transvaal protection, and because Lombard had to suppress the Gazette itself to stop the invitation. [3]
Early in this year the Lydenburg people considered favourably an invitation to reconciliation in ecclesiastical and political matters which the volksraad of the South African Republic had decided to send on the 11th of September 1857. The members of the executive councils of the two Republics had a meeting and arranged a basis of union. Pretorius then convened the volksraad, which met at Potchefstroom in special session on the 2nd of May. 14 members were present. They expressed gratification at the prospect of union, but instead of confirming the provisional agreement, instructed the executive to publish it in the Gazette in order that the opinion of the public at large might be expressed, and directed the president to bring the matter up again at the next ordinary session. Though the union was not legally completed, all public acts were henceforth based on the assumption that what remained to be done was only formal. Shortly after the close of the session Pretorius visited Zululand and had a friendly interview with the chief Panda. At Utrecht he established provisionally a court of landdrost and heemraden, and also at a place which thereafter took the name of Marthinus-Wessel-Stroom, the district of which it was the seat of magistracy being termed Wakkerstroom. In September the volksraad approved of these acts. The territory comprised in Wakkerstroom was south of the Vaal, and in theory once formed part of the Orange River Sovereignty, though no actual jurisdiction had been exercised over it; the Free State made no protest against the formation of the district in this year. Wakkerstroom mattered because a Transvaal magistracy south of the Vaal assumed a boundary the Free State did not then contest, and because Pretorius laid out a court in his own name while Lydenburg’s union still waited on the Gazette. [3]
In October the volksraad resolved to found a village on the watershed between Klipspruit and the highest eastern branch of the Olifants river. The resolution was carried into effect shortly afterwards. The village was called Nazareth. In 1857 Moffat of Kuruman had obtained Moselekatse’s consent to a mission; in this year the reverend John Moffat, with the reverend Messrs. Thomas and Sykes, formed a station at a place called Inyati, on the head waters of one of the streams which flow northward to the Zambesi. No professed converts to Christianity were made, and the old system of government — a pure military despotism — remained unchanged. The country to a great distance around had been almost depopulated by the soldiers of Moselekatse, who subsisted chiefly upon plunder. Nazareth and Inyati mattered because one was a republic village on the Olifants watershed and the other was the first London Society station among the Matabele, and because neither changed the military government that still lived on plunder north of the Limpopo. [3]