Boer History1860 in South Africa: Grey, Prince Alfred, Pretorius, Lydenburg, and the Forte
The Forte of the 4th of July, Wynyard to the 4th, and the Museum of the 1st of April — Colony 1860
Lieutenant-General Robert Henry Wynyard still held the Cape in trust. He had taken the administration on the 20th of August 1859, the day Sir George Grey transferred it and left for England. Wynyard had succeeded Sir James Jackson as lieutenant-governor and commander of the forces on the 20th of May 1859. An acting officer cannot begin large schemes. He keeps the machinery in the groove in which he finds it. What this year had to settle was whether Grey would come back at all, and on what terms. [3]
The colony was now assisting greatly in its own defence. Grey had wanted to relieve Great Britain of military expenditure as much as possible, and he had therefore encouraged volunteer bands. 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, and was an efficient body of light cavalry. The men who held their farms under military tenure on the frontier and in British Kaffraria were also a defensive force. Since 1854 no military operations in the country had been conducted except by colonists and at the cost of the colonial treasury. The volunteers and the police mattered because the regular battalions were still being moved about the empire, and because the confiscated locations east of the Kei still had to be held. [3]
Still, in this year Great Britain maintained in South Africa 5 battalions of troops, including the Cape mounted rifles, then nearly 1,000 strong. In April 1859 the 45th had left for England, and in March of this year the first battalion of the 2nd sailed for China. In April 1859 the second battalion of the 13th had arrived from England, and in February the second battalion of the 10th from Ireland. These, with the 59th and the 85th, were in garrison in Capetown and in posts on the frontier, in British Kaffraria, and Natal. Altogether these 4 infantry battalions mustered about 3,250 rank and file. There were also a few engineers and artillerymen, stationed at the principal posts. [3]
Grey found on his arrival in England that the ministry, the opposition, and the people generally were inflexibly opposed to any extension of the empire. They listened patiently to his arguments in favour of the union of South Africa under the British flag, but refused to be convinced. He favoured responsible parliamentary government for the colony. Though his grandest views were thwarted, there was still much that he could do in South Africa, and it was a land that he loved. He abandoned what he saw was impossible of accomplishment, and consented to return as governor and high commissioner on the condition laid down by the duke of Newcastle: that he felt himself sufficiently free and uncompromised with the Cape parliament and the inhabitants of the Orange Free State 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. The condition mattered because Grey’s speech of 17 March 1859 had asked the Cape houses to consider a federation London had forbidden, and because that speech had cost him the chair. [3]
On the 4th of July he arrived in Simon’s Bay again in the frigate Forte, and was received with the warmest acclamations of welcome by all classes of the people. Wynyard’s acting term closed on that day. Grey was again governor of the Cape Colony and high commissioner for the territories beyond it, but not free to resume British authority over the Free State. [3]
On the 1st of April, while Wynyard still held the groove, the museum was opened to the public in the northern wing of the large building at the foot of the gardens. Parliament had provided that building at Grey’s instigation. It was intended at first for the library in one wing and the museum, taxidermist’s rooms, and curator’s residence in the other. The first stone had been laid on the 17th of November 1857. The trustees named in the act were Rawson W. Rawson, Thomas Maclear, and Ludovic Pappe. The opening mattered because the colony was now paying for its own public buildings, and because the same botanist who sat as a trustee would, later in this year, have to tell the winefarmers what to do with the oidium. [3]
Prince Alfred of the 17th of September, the Slip of August, and the Light of the 1st of May — Colony 1860
The improvement of Table Bay as a port for shipping had been 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 had become civil engineer for the colony in January 1859. 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 1859 Arthur Thomas Andrews had been 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. The survey mattered because London would not lend a million, and because a wall in the wrong current would only move the wrecks, not stop them. [3]
That plan was laid before parliament in this year, with the necessary specifications and estimates of cost, and being approved of, £200,000 was voted to commence the construction of the breakwater. The work was then begun under Andrews’s supervision, the first stones being tipped by Prince Alfred, who was then on a visit to the colony, on the 17th of September. What had been a winter graveyard of hulls and a summer delay of cargoes was at last to have a wall against which the sea would spend itself. The vote mattered because wool at £1,446,510 still had to reach a roadstead that a north-wester could close for days. [3]
Strenuous efforts were also being made to improve some of the other ports of the colony. A company was constructing a landing wharf and a patent slip in Simon’s Bay, which was ready for use in August, and was afterwards of much service for repairing small vessels. Port Elizabeth had thriven greatly, as the bulk of the wool, hides, and skins, not only from the colony itself but from the country beyond the Orange, was shipped there to be sent to England. A breakwater was projected to run out into the bay, constructed of iron-wood piles obtained in the forests at the Knysna and Plettenberg’s Bay, driven in and bound together as a frame and afterwards filled with stone. That work’s later disappointment belongs to another calendar. The slip mattered because Simon’s Bay was the navy’s anchorage, and because a small vessel that could not be repaired there had to wait for a dock that did not yet exist. [3]
Ever since the arrival of the British settlers of 1820 efforts had been made to create a flourishing port at the mouth of the Kowie river, but never with much success. On the 12th of October 1855 Port Frances had been declared open for direct commerce with any part of the world, as previously only coasting vessels had frequented it. Mainly through the exertions of William Cock, an association called the Kowie Harbour Improvement Company had been formed, which raised a capital in instalments of £6,250 each, and power to borrow equal amounts on the security of the government was given to it. This company engaged William Manning, who in April 1857 had commenced to construct embankments with a view of increasing the depth of water on the bar. Fingo labourers were employed at low wages, and for some time success was anticipated, but the effort ended as all similar preceding endeavours had done. In honour of the visit of Prince Alfred in this year the place became known as Port Alfred: a second attempt to utilise the natural advantages of the Kowie, shifting the mouth of the river, with breakwaters, river walls, wharves, and warehouses. The renaming mattered because the Kowie was the Albany settlers’ own harbour, and because a name from the Queen’s son was meant to keep London’s eye on a bar that still silted up. [3] [4]
Three more lighthouses were in course of erection on the colonial coast: one on the Cape of Good Hope, from which a brilliant revolving light was first exhibited on the 1st of May; one on the hill at Port Elizabeth; and one on the Roman rock in Simon’s Bay, intended to replace the old lightship. Other public works of an important nature were being carried out at this time. The seats of magistracy were being provided with suitable courthouses and prisons. Several rivers were being bridged, and much was being done to improve the roads. The new Somerset hospital, begun in 1859 in an excellent open position at Green Point, a suburb of Capetown, was still rising. The light of the 1st of May mattered because Table Bay’s winter wrecks had been a matter of darkness as well as of wind, and because a revolving light on the Cape itself was the first of the three that this year actually showed. [3]
The Stanley of the 14th of January, Six Transports, and 267 — Colony 1860
Only one mishap had occurred in the transport of the British immigrants of 1858 and 1859. On the 4th of September 1859 the John and Lucy had left Liverpool with 406 emigrants bound to Table Bay, and on the 9th of October had struck on a reef about 35 miles from Rio Grande on the coast of Brazil. Every one on board had been safely landed. 200 had reached Capetown in the American barque Ceres on the 22nd of December 1859. The others arrived safely in the steamer Stanley on the 14th of January. During these years every mail steamer that arrived at Capetown brought passengers of the professional and commercial classes to make homes for themselves and their children in South Africa, though their number was not very large. The landing mattered because the John and Lucy was the only wreck in a system that had already put 6,343 British immigrants into the colony, and because the remainder still had to be housed from a drought year. [3]
Drought of unusual severity had prevailed in 1859 in the greater part of the colony, and in the eastern districts especially had been so prolonged that even traffic in many places was suspended. The oidium had appeared in October of that year and spread from vineyard to vineyard. Sulphur was found efficacious in destroying it where it could be applied, and the ravages went on increasing until the importation of powdered sulphur in large quantities and the invention of a simple apparatus for applying it to the foliage and fruit enabled the winefarmers to overcome the scourge. Owing to drought, oidium, and the smallpox that had closed its Chavonnes hospital on the 24th of January 1859 and then appeared in the country districts, it was decided to limit state-aided immigration for a time, and the vote for that purpose was reduced in this year to £25,000. The cut mattered because empty barns and a vine disease could not absorb another year of 6,343 arrivals, and because Port Elizabeth’s immigration board had already asked that fewer people be sent until the rain returned. [3]
In this year only 6 transports arrived, three of which, the Maria Somes, the Wellington, and the Royal Charlie, brought to Capetown 675 individuals, and the other three, the Tudor, the John Masterton, and the Sedgemoor, conveyed 709 to Port Elizabeth. At this time also some immigrants of an excellent class were received from Northern Germany. Many industrious agricultural families, who were disappointed in not being sent to British Kaffraria, paid their passages from Hamburg to Capetown, and came out in little parties in cargo vessels. In this year 267 men, women, and children were thus added to the population of the colony. The six ships mattered because the vote of £25,000 was all the houses would still spend on a free passage, and because the Germans who paid their own way were the ones London would not put on the Kaffrarian books. [3]
A project of sending out indigent children from Holland to be apprenticed to farmers in the Cape Colony had been set on foot in 1856 by Beelaerts van Blokland. Arrangements were made with great care for the safety and welfare of the children. On the 16th of November 1856 73 boys and 20 girls had arrived at Capetown from Rotterdam; on the 13th of June 1858 103 from Amsterdam, followed on the 8th of July by 40 others; on the 8th of January 1859 126 from Rotterdam. In this year 163 arrived from Amsterdam. These consisted partly of children and partly of families, some of whom settled in the colony, and others moved northward to the republics. The Dutch arrivals mattered because they mixed with the rural population without a British free passage, and because some of them walked straight on to the Free State and the South African Republic. [3]
This increase of expenditure was made possible by the rapid growth of the revenue and of the exports, which also made it easy to borrow considerable sums. Revenue in this year stood at £499,052, against £463,179 in 1859 and £402,669 in 1858. Customs yielded £270,328; sales of land £54,046; stamps and licenses £31,580; transfer dues £46,860. Exports stood at £1,920,279, of which wool alone was £1,446,510, against wool of £1,199,490 and a total of £1,818,080 in 1859. Hides and skins were £164,282; wine had fallen to £81,509 from £159,492 in the year of the oidium’s first appearance; copper ore was £91,540. The figures mattered because a custom-house that could vote £200,000 for a breakwater could still find £25,000 for six transports, and because the wine column showed what the oidium had already cost. [3]
East London of the 7th of April, Maclean of the 26th of October, and the Buffalo Light of the 25th of August — Annexed Territory 1860
On the 9th of July 1859 Grey had issued a proclamation restoring East London to British Kaffraria. The Cape parliament was not then desirous of incorporating the territory, but was willing to give up the port and lose the customs duties collected there, which were then a mere trifle. This had been confirmed by an order in council on the 29th of November, followed by letters patent on the 19th of December 1859, which were promulgated by proclamation on the 7th of April. Thus the anomaly of a harbour in the centre of the coastline of one British dependency being regarded as belonging to another dependency was removed. 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. The restoration mattered because a harbour in the middle of Kaffraria’s coast had been treated as a Cape port, and because a double duty on broken packages drove the trade back onto the wagon road. [3]
On the 7th of March letters patent were issued at Westminster defining the boundaries of the province and settling the form of its government. British Kaffraria was declared to comprise the territory within the western bank of the Keiskamma from the sea upward to the junction of the Tyumie, the western bank of the Tyumie upward to its northernmost source, the Katberg, Amatola, and Kabusi range to the great northern road leading from East London to Queenstown, that road to the ridge which descends into the valley of the Dagana river at the north-eastern angle of the Windvogelberg, the ridge running in a north-easterly direction from that point to the Zwart Kei, and the centre of the Kei to its mouth. The remaining portion of the province as it had previously been was annexed to the Cape Colony. The province was to remain a distinct and separate government, which was to be administered, however, by the governor and commander-in-chief of the Cape Colony. To him alone authority was given to enact such laws as he might consider necessary, but in his absence a lieutenant-governor or a governor’s deputy was to carry on the administration. The letters patent mattered because they cut the old province down to the Keiskamma–Kei block, and because they left law-making in Grey’s hands alone, without a local parliament. [3]
On the 26th of October a proclamation was issued by Grey, in which these letters patent were promulgated and declared to be in force from that day. At the same time Lieutenant-Colonel John Maclean, previously chief commissioner, was appointed lieutenant-governor. The province was divided into two districts, named King-Williamstown and East London. The magistrates, Captain Richard Taylor in the former, and Matthew Jennings in the latter, continued to exercise their duties, Jennings being also collector of customs. With each Bantu clan of importance there was a European official acting as a magistrate, and in civil cases deciding according to Bantu law, but the chiefs were endeavouring secretly to recover as much authority as was possible. Such enactments of the Cape parliament as Grey considered would be beneficial were proclaimed by him as law, so that uniformity was preserved. Maclean’s chair mattered because the territory still had no supreme court and no municipal government, and because a lieutenant-governor on the spot was what Grey needed once he himself sat again at the castle. [3]
The postal service was carried on by the military authorities, the mails — open, however, to all — being conveyed from place to place by soldiers of the Cape corps. The surf boats in which goods were conveyed to and from ships lying in the roadstead off East London were owned by the imperial government, and were maintained primarily for military purposes, though their use was permitted to persons engaged in commerce. A lighthouse had been constructed on the western point at the mouth of the Buffalo, from which a steady white light was first exhibited on the 25th of August. The great northern road was connected with the village of East London by a pontoon capable of conveying heavily laden waggons and their teams across. On the eastern bank, where a town would later stand, there were then only 6 small buildings, though the place was dignified with the name of the village of Panmure. The Buffalo light mattered because East London was now a Kaffrarian port in law, and because a roadstead without a light was still a winter risk for the surf boats. [3]
The road from Panmure ran at no great distance from the Buffalo, passed the German settlement of Cambridge with its well cultivated fields, the military post of Fort Jackson some distance farther on, Potsdam — another neat and thriving German settlement — a little on the left, Berlin, where the population was small, and Breidbach, with charming gardens in its vicinity, before it reached King-Williamstown, the seat of the administration, then a straggling place not yet under municipal government. This was the headquarters of the troops in the province, and here were the commissariat stores and workshops where the waggons used in the mule trains were made and repaired. Its finest building was the large Grey hospital, and the next most imposing structure was the English episcopal church. There were also Roman catholic and Wesleyan churches, and the presbyterians and Lutherans were building places of worship. On the outskirts of the town was the London society’s mission station, where Brownlee still carried on his work. The places of business were chiefly offshoots of establishments at Port Elizabeth, but already it was beginning to be evident that King-Williamstown would become the emporium of the trade of the Transkeian territories as far as the Umzimvubu. A newspaper — the King-Williamstown Gazette — was published here, but as yet there was no public library or other place of entertainment than an amateur theatre. 13 mission stations stood in the province, with branch stations and schools, the missionaries no longer subject to the caprices of the chiefs. The town mattered because it was the seat of Maclean’s government, and because the German villages along the Buffalo were what remained of Grey’s attempt to put a European population between the Keiskamma and the Kei. [3]
Pretorius of the 8th of February, Bethulie of the 15th, and Bethlehem of the 3rd of March — Orange Free State 1860
The party in the Free State who regarded union with the South African Republic as the only solution of their difficulties with Moshesh had rejected the candidate for the presidency recommended by the volksraad, and turned to Marthinus Wessel Pretorius as their natural leader. Pretorius was already president north of the Vaal. He was the son of the emigrant leader who had broken the Zulu power at Blood River. By the advice of his friends there he had accepted the requisition, and upon his election on the 15th of December 1859 by a majority of 1,282 votes against 310 divided among four other candidates, he applied to the volksraad which met at Potchefstroom on the 2nd of February for six months’ leave of absence. This being granted, he at once left for Bloemfontein. On the 8th of February he took the oath as president of the Free State, stipulating, however, that his term of office should be undefined, though not longer than the 5 years mentioned in the constitution. The oath mattered because one man now sat in both republican chairs, and because the Free State hoped he would bring the northern commandos south against Moshesh without cancelling the conventions with Britain. [3]
At this time a large majority of the inhabitants of the three independent territories — the South African Republic, the Republic of Lydenburg, and the Orange Free State — were in favour of union, either under a federal government or by the formation of a single state with one volksraad and one executive. There was nothing to prevent the two former uniting or not, as they pleased, but there was a serious obstacle in the way of the Orange Free State joining the others. In September 1858, when the treaty with the Basuto was being arranged at Aliwal North, the Free State deputation had conferred with Grey upon this matter. He had 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. Grey’s warning mattered because the Sand River and Bloemfontein conventions were what kept British officers out of the republics, and because an open ammunition market was what a small white population needed if Moshesh remained armed. [3]
On the 9th of February, the day following that on which Pretorius became president of the Free State, the volksraad resolved to submit the question of union to the direct vote of the people, and if a majority should be found to favour it, to apply to the British government for information as to the terms of a new convention. This resolution was carried out, with the result that in the whole state 1,076 votes were given for union and 104 against. The volksraad then resolved that this result should be communicated to the government of the South African Republic, and that a commission, consisting of J. J. Venter, J. N. Uys, and J. Klopper, should proceed to Potchefstroom and confer with the authorities there. The conference took place with the executive council of the South African Republic, then consisting of J. H. Grobbelaar, acting president during the absence of Pretorius, S. Schoeman, commandant-general, J. H. Struben, state secretary, and W. Janse van Rensburg, unofficial member. Pretorius was present by general request. The executive council of the South African Republic held that the Sand River convention must be preserved inviolate. If that could be done and a single state be formed they would be very glad, otherwise a friendly alliance was all that they were prepared for. With this, the efforts to bring about the union of the Republics may be said to have ceased, although the unionist party long hoped that Pretorius would devise some plan. The vote of 1,076 to 104 mattered because the Free State had spoken, and because the northern executive would not pay for union with the Sand River convention. [3]
On the 8th of October 1859 Acting President Snyman had entered into an arrangement with Lepui by which Bethulie became part of the Free State. After its ratification by the volksraad on the 13th of February, Pellissier protested against it, complained to Grey, and even urged the French consul in Capetown to interfere to prevent any portion of the district being occupied by white people; but all to no purpose. Private rights remained intact, and even the unoccupied ground was still considered the property of the clan. The territory was in a good position, and numerous farmers from the Cape Colony were ready to purchase ground in it. The clan divided into two sections, the larger of which, under Lepui’s son Koro, moved away to Basutoland. Moshesh gladly received the new-comers, and gave them ground to live upon at Korokoro. In a few months the whole of the district of Bethulie, excepting only about 25,000 morgen round the French mission station, was sold, and in occupation of European farmers. The executive council then allotted 10,000 morgen of what remained to the Paris Evangelical Society, including the gardens and ground on which the mission buildings were erected. Pellissier’s protest mattered because a French station that had sat quietly at the Caledon–Orange junction for a quarter of a century was now a Free State district, and because Moshesh gained Koro’s people at Korokoro. [3]
On the 15th of February the volksraad declared Bethulie a district of the Orange Free State, with rights of representation and a landdrost’s court of its own. J. F. van Iddekinge was appointed its first landdrost. Later in the same year Lepui exchanged the 15,000 morgen of land remaining in his possession for a location in the district of Smithfield. This ground was then divided into four farms and building lots for a village, with a commonage of 6,000 morgen. As soon as possible after his assumption of office, Pretorius proceeded to Kroonstad, where the burghers had recently been in rebellion owing to the appointment of a very unpopular man as landdrost. His reception was most cordial, for the district was occupied by the staunchest adherents of the unionist party. He left there Lodewyk J. Papenfus as provisional landdrost, and the volksraad during its next session confirmed the appointment. On the 3rd of March the first building lots were sold in the present village of Bethlehem: Paul Naude, Daniel Malan, and Jan Muller, three residents in the neighbourhood, combined and purchased the farm Pretorius Kloof, with a view of establishing a church upon it. Their plan was carried out, the necessary buildings being erected in the following year by means of funds obtained by the sale of plots of ground and by subscription. Bethlehem mattered because a church on Pretorius Kloof was how a Free State village usually began, and because the northern district that had driven out its landdrost now had Papenfus in the chair with Pretorius’s name on it. [3]
Wonderkop of May, the Twentieth of June, and Moshesh at Aliwal North — Orange Free State 1860
Many Free State burghers who were not disposed to join the South African Republic, or who were indifferent to that project, had voted for the new president because he was the son of the famous emigrant leader who had broken the Zulu power, and because he had the reputation of considerable ability in dealing with coloured tribes. His strength lay in his disposition to conciliate, but he lacked the firmness necessary to a leader in troublous times. Meetings had been held between representatives of both sides — one in May 1859, another in January — 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 had not in honour been able either to surrender or abandon him, and it had had no means of keeping him in order. Letele mattered because he sat on the Free State side of a line Moshesh did not keep, and because a president who could not police one subject could not police a border. [3]
Next the president arranged to have a personal conference with Moshesh. The meeting took place during the first five days of May, at Wonderkop, in the district of Winburg, and was made an occasion of festivity as well as of diplomatic intercourse. Moshesh came attended by his sons, vassals, and a body-guard of 6,000 horsemen; Pretorius, to show his confidence in the great chief, would not permit more than 20 farmers to accompany him. Long speeches were made in the most friendly manner by the chief and his leading vassals, who acknowledged that their existence as a powerful tribe was due to the white people. Pretorius proposed to “Old Father Moshesh,” as he termed him, to establish a combined European and Basuto tribunal on the border for the trial of thieves, and to support it with a body of Basuto police. To this the chief at once assented. It was agreed that the court should be stationed at Merumetsu, which place should thenceforth lose its old name, and be called on this account Ha-bo’ Khotso, the Abode of Peace. A treaty to this effect was drawn up and signed on the 14th of May. Thereafter the principal men on both sides dined together, when complimentary toasts were drunk, and Moshesh’s educated sons sang English songs. The following morning the president reviewed the Basuto cavalry, and witnessed a grand dance, in which Moshesh himself took part. The meeting then broke up, and the farmers returned to their homes elated with hope that their troubles with the Basuto were at last at an end. Wonderkop mattered because a mixed court at Merumetsu was Pretorius’s substitute for a commando, and because 6,000 horsemen against 20 farmers showed who still held the Caledon. [3]
In a very few weeks that hope was lost. After the war of 1858, Poshuli had constituted himself the patron of such San as remained between the lower Caledon and the Orange, and furnished them with horses and guns, upon condition of receiving a portion of their plunder. He allowed them to live on his mountain, Vechtkop, which by the treaty of 1858 had become part of the Lesuto. There they served him as spies and sentinels. The depredations of these robbers were frequently brought to the notice of Moshesh, whose reply was always that the San were not his subjects, and that the white people were at liberty to follow them up and punish them in his territories. In March a party of burghers accordingly pursued them, but found that to attack them was to attack Poshuli also, and that there was no possibility of capturing them while under Basuto protection. This was one of the questions brought forward at Wonderkop, when Moshesh undertook to have them removed from Vechtkop within 10 days. He did not keep his engagement. The ten-day promise mattered because Vechtkop had been Free State ground until Aliwal North moved the line, and because a mixed court at Merumetsu was worthless if Poshuli’s mountain still armed the raiders. [3]
On the 20th of June these robbers, with some of Poshuli’s Basuto, attacked and plundered a farmhouse during the absence of the head of the family, murdered a boy, and severely wounded two women and three children, the only other occupants. Pretorius immediately mustered a patrol, and followed the robbers to Vechtkop, where 6 of them were shot; but the remainder escaped with the greater portion of the booty. The president then requested Moshesh to cause the stolen property to be restored and the murderers of the boy to be given up to the Free State authorities for trial, and also to inflict upon Poshuli such punishment as his crime deserved. The great chief paid but little regard to this request, so it became evident to the burghers that the prospect of tranquillity which the Wonderkop conference gave for a moment would not be realised. The 20th of June mattered because a murdered boy on a Free State farm was the test of the 14 May treaty, and because Pretorius’s patrol could shoot six men on Vechtkop and still not get Poshuli from Moshesh. [3]
In August Prince Alfred, when on a tour through South Africa, was waited upon by Moshesh at Aliwal North. The great chief was accompanied by 25 of his captains and an escort of 300 men. To the prince he professed the most unbounded loyalty, and he did not hesitate to declare that in all his troubles he had been faithful in his allegiance to the Queen. In somewhat vague language he asked that he might be restored to the position he occupied under the Napier treaty. This request, made by Moshesh to the colonial government, sometimes in one form sometimes in another, meant merely a desire on his part for such a relationship between the governor and himself as existed between him and one of his great vassals: that he should be countenanced and patronised, without being subjected to control in the administration of the affairs of his tribe. The settlement of Nehemiah in Nomansland brought the Basuto into collision with the section of the Pondomisi tribe under Umbali, between whom and Faku, the ally of Moshesh, there was a long-standing feud. In this year hostilities broke out, but the operations were on a very petty scale. Aliwal North mattered because Moshesh used the Queen’s son as a witness to a loyalty Grey would not convert into a protectorate, and because Nehemiah’s camp on the Umzimvubu was already drawing Pondomisi fire. [3]
Pretoria of the 3rd of April, Grobbelaar of June, and Potchefstroom of the 8th of October — 1860
There was a party, principally residents in the district of Potchefstroom, opposed to the union of Lydenburg with the South African Republic. They used no other arguments, however, than those which originated in the old quarrel between the adherents of Andries Pretorius and Hendrik Potgieter, and they were in a decided minority. On the 3rd of April representatives of the two Republics met at Pretoria. There were present 15 members of the volksraad of the districts Potchefstroom, Rustenburg, Pretoria, and Zoutpansberg, forming the South African Republic, and 12 members of the volksraad of the districts Lydenburg and Utrecht, forming the Republic of Lydenburg. On the following day the articles of union were ratified. The constitution, flag, and coat of arms of the South African Republic were adopted by the united state. The districts forming the Republic of Lydenburg retained a council to make purely local laws, but such laws were to be submitted for the approval of the executive council and the volksraad. They were to be entitled to choose 2 members of the executive council, and to be represented in the volksraad by 9 members. Their church was not to be forced into uniformity with the others. They were to retain their own commandant-general for a time. Pretoria was chosen as the seat of government, and the heads of departments were to be stationed there within 2 months. One of the articles of agreement rescinded the sentence of banishment passed by the landdrost of Potchefstroom against J. A. Smellekamp in July 1854, and required the fine of £37 10s., imposed by the volksraad in June of that year, to be repaid to him. The 4th of April mattered because Lydenburg, independent since December 1856, sat again under one flag, and because Pretoria, founded in 1855, became the capital of the united state while Pretorius himself was south of the Vaal. [3]
Hostility to Pretorius was clearly exhibited by the volksraad immediately after the union with Lydenburg. A resolution was carried that he must perform no duties north of the Vaal during the six months; in other words, that he must not interfere in any way with matters there, and that on the expiration of his leave he must give an account of his proceedings. Schubart, the state secretary, was dismissed for having accompanied him to Bloemfontein, and Struben was appointed to that office. After Pretorius’s departure from Potchefstroom, and particularly after the union with Lydenburg, the opinions of many people north of the Vaal underwent a change. The old enmity of the Lydenburg faction had a great deal to do with it. They began to argue that union would confer much greater advantages on the Free State than on them, and spoke of Moshesh as if he was the only chief whose power was to be feared. The ban mattered because a president on six months’ leave could not sit in two chairs if the northern raad forbade him the northern one, and because Lydenburg’s members were now inside that raad. [3]
On the 25th of April Grobbelaar, then acting president, issued a proclamation defining the Klip river as the boundary, and a commission which was sent from Bloemfontein to confer with him and the executive council made no opposition, but even proposed that the boundary question should be brought before the volksraads of both countries with a view of Klip river being approved of. The territory comprised in the district of 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 had made no protest against the formation of the district in 1859. In June Grobbelaar appointed a commission to arrange with the Zulus for the erection of beacons along the boundary, and to acknowledge Cetewayo as heir to the chieftainship. The commission was also to endeavour to obtain a cession of land around St. Lucia Bay, and of a roadway to that port. A seaport had always been ardently desired by the people of the Republic. The commission consisted of Nicholas Smuts, landdrost of Utrecht, Andries Spies, Cornelis van Rooyen, Pieter Lavras Uys, and W. H. Uys. It took no immediate action in the matters here named, but it continued for some time to be the recognised authority on the border for dealing with the Zulus. The June commission mattered because a republic without a port still looked at St. Lucia, and because acknowledging Cetewayo as Panda’s heir was a way of treating with the son who already held the Zulu army. [3]
The leave would expire on the 2nd of August. On the 28th of July the volksraad of the Free State resolved to send a commission to Pretoria to ask for an extension of the term, as the services of Pretorius could not then be dispensed with. They desired more time to devise a plan of union. They gave the president three months’ leave from the Free State, and on the same day he left for Potchefstroom. On the 10th of September the volksraad of the South African Republic met at Pretoria. Cornelis Potgieter, landdrost of Lydenburg, was its leading spirit. The Free State commission was present, but met with a cooler reception than had been anticipated. Pretorius appeared, in conformity with the resolution passed in April, and offered to make a statement. It was provided in the constitution that the president, during his tenure of office, should follow no other occupation. The volksraad took advantage of this, decided that it was illegal for anyone to be president of the South African Republic and of the Orange Free State at the same time, and called upon Pretorius to resign one office or the other. There was a warm controversy, at the close of which Pretorius resigned the office of president of the South African Republic. Grobbelaar, who had been acting president since the 2nd of February, was requested by the volksraad to continue in office. The 10th of September mattered because the dual presidency ended in Pretoria, not in Bloemfontein, and because Lydenburg’s landdrost was the man who forced the choice. [3]
The partisans of Pretorius hereupon resolved to resist. A mass meeting was held at Potchefstroom on the 8th and 9th of October. Pretorius was there, and with him was his former adversary Schoeman, who now professed to be one of his staunchest adherents. The meeting resolved almost unanimously that the volksraad no longer enjoyed its confidence and must be held as having ceased to exist; that Pretorius should remain president of the South African Republic, and have a year’s leave of absence in order to bring about union with the Free State; that Schoeman should act as president during the absence of Pretorius, and Grobbelaar be dismissed; that Struben should be dismissed as state secretary, and Schubart be restored to that office; and that before the return of Pretorius to resume his duties a new volksraad should be elected. A committee of five — D. Steyn, Preller, Lombard, Spruyt, and Bodenstein — was appointed to see these resolutions carried out. The electors were appealed to, but the voting was so arranged that only 1,000 burghers recorded their opinions. Of these, more than 700 approved of the resolutions of the Potchefstroom meeting. Thereupon Schoeman assumed duty as acting president, Willem Janse van Rensburg became acting commandant-general, and Philip Coetzer of Lydenburg a member of the executive council. Civil strife in the South African Republic had commenced in September. Potchefstroom mattered because a meeting of 1,000 burghers set aside a volksraad, and because Schoeman, once Pretorius’s adversary, now sat in Grobbelaar’s chair with a year’s leave still promised to the man who had just resigned. [3]