Boer History1862 in South Africa: Wodehouse, Jan Letele, Philippolis, and Kruger
Wodehouse of the 15th of January, 12 Days, and Fitzpatrick of February — Colony 1862
Sir Philip Wodehouse arrived at Capetown on the 15th of January and assumed office as governor of the Cape Colony and Her Majesty’s high commissioner in South Africa. He succeeded Sir George Grey, who had fallen ill at King William’s Town and by September 1861 had left the country. Grey’s second term had been bound by the duke of Newcastle’s condition that he would not resume British authority over the Orange Free State. The Table Bay dock voted in the session of 1861 still sat inside John Coode’s plan, under Arthur Thomas Andrews. The Port Elizabeth light still showed from the 1st of June 1861; the Roman rock light from the 16th of September 1861. The arrival mattered because the high commissioner’s first work was no longer Grey’s eye on Moshesh, but a new man’s letters on a border Grey had held and a dock Grey had begun. [3] [3]
12 days later Wodehouse wrote letters which show that Basuto affairs had taken much of his attention in the interval. To Moshesh he said that a commission was about to proceed to the Lesuto to ascertain his views and wishes respecting his and his people’s relationship to the colony. To President M. W. Pretorius he wrote in terms of strong remonstrance and emphatic warning. The disturbances, he said, were caused by Jan Letele, but the responsibility rested with the Free State government that had not compelled him to live in an orderly manner. If his depredations were not suppressed, the British authorities would be compelled to set aside the existing treaties and make new arrangements for the preservation of the peace of the country. Pretorius replied, explaining the action of the Free State government, asserting that Letele’s raids were only retaliations upon Poshuli, and stating his intention of appealing to Her Majesty if the treaties were set aside. The intercourse between Wodehouse and the president was unfriendly from the first. The letters mattered because the high commissioner, 12 days in, put the Caledon quarrel on Bloemfontein and not on Thaba Bosigo, and because Pretorius answered that he would appeal to the Queen if the treaties of 1852 and 1854 were torn up. [3]
Before the close of the month Joseph M. Orpen and John Burnet were appointed a commission to visit Moshesh and obtain information as to what he really wanted, the language of his letters being too vague to be understood. From the 11th to the 21st of February they held conferences with him and the leading men of his tribe at Thaba Bosigo, and ascertained that what the chief desired was merely that a diplomatic agent of the British government should be stationed with him, and that the high commissioner should recognise his ownership of the land below the mountains on which Nehemiah was living, which he claimed as having been ceded to him by the Pondo chief Faku. He did not propose to part with any authority over his people, but desired to be under the shield of England in order to extend that authority over a larger area. As regards the land below the Drakensberg, Wodehouse refused to admit Faku’s right to cede it to the Basuto, but on the 13th of May he wrote to Moshesh that he would not disturb Nehemiah there as long as that individual conducted himself as a faithful friend of the British government. Nehemiah was not satisfied with this promise, and on the 27th of November wrote to the governor, thanking him for permission to occupy the land, and requesting that he might be supplied with a chart of it. The conferences mattered because Moshesh asked for a British shield without giving up a chief’s authority, and because Wodehouse would not treat Faku’s cession as a title. [3]
The secretary of state took Moshesh’s desire to have a British agent resident with him into favourable consideration, and on the 5th of June wrote to the high commissioner approving of such an arrangement, if the services of a trustworthy and judicious person could be obtained. But the governor professed to find a difficulty in the selection of a suitable officer, and the project was never carried out. Pretorius and the government secretary were later charged to ascertain from Wodehouse the cause of the unfriendly language towards the Free State used in his correspondence and in his speech at the opening of the Cape parliament. The reduced immigration vote of £25,000, cut in 1860 after drought, oidium, and smallpox, still filled the depots that corresponded with William Field in London. The agent that London approved on the 5th of June was never posted at Thaba Bosigo. That refusal mattered because Moshesh had asked for a British officer at his side, and because Wodehouse left the mountain without one. [3] [3]
In the annexed territory a supreme court was not established until February of this year, when Mr. Justice Fitzpatrick arrived from England and assumed duty as sole judge. Trial by jury was established in criminal cases that came before this court. Simeon Jacobs was appointed attorney-general, Captain — afterwards Sir — Charles Mills sheriff, and Richard Giddy master. Further, a registry of deeds was created, and a surveyor-general was appointed. This was all the machinery of administration in the province as long as it remained a separate dependency of the crown, but it was ample for the requirements of the inhabitants, and it did not press heavily upon their resources. Such enactments of the Cape parliament as the governor considered would be beneficial were proclaimed as law, so that uniformity was preserved. [3]
Letters patent of the 7th of March 1860 had defined the boundaries and settled the form of government. Grey had promulgated them on the 26th of October 1860 and had appointed Lieutenant-Colonel John Maclean lieutenant-governor. The province remained a distinct and separate government, administered by the governor and commander-in-chief of the Cape Colony, with a lieutenant-governor or a governor’s deputy in his absence. It was divided into 2 districts, King William’s Town and East London. The magistrates, Captain Richard Taylor in the former and Matthew Jennings in the latter, continued their duties. 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. February of this year therefore put a judge, a jury, an attorney-general, a sheriff, and a master on a territory that had sat magistrates and a lieutenant-governor without a supreme court. The court mattered because the annexed territory was still a separate dependency, and because Wodehouse now held both the Cape oaths and the power to proclaim colonial law there. [3]
Poshuli of the 3rd of January, Orpen of February, and Foley — Orange Free State 1862
In the early days of this year the district between the Orange and the lower Caledon was convulsed by disturbances more serious than any which had previously taken place. On the night of the 3rd of January 2 of Poshuli’s captains, with Moshesh’s concurrence, crossed the boundary and attacked Jan Letele’s clan, killed several of his people, set fire to his kraals, and drove off the whole of his cattle. Letele was a Free State subject whose retainers had long plundered Poshuli and other Basuto of Moshesh in times of truce as well as of peace. The farmers in the neighbourhood were in great alarm, and abandoning their homesteads, they went into laager as fast as possible. A despatch was sent with all haste to the president at Bloemfontein. Pretorius at once proceeded to Smithfield, where he found men gathering in arms from the country far and near. Jan Letele was threatening immediate retaliation, in which case a general inroad could hardly be prevented. Already this vagabond was driving the partisans of Moshesh from the mission station of Beersheba. The traders were hurrying from the Lesuto, believing their lives to be in danger. The night mattered because a Free State subject’s kraals were burned from the Basuto side of a line the treaty of 1858 had confirmed, and because burghers at Smithfield were ready for a war Pretorius had not called. [3]
At that time Orpen, who had long since left the service of the Free State, was residing at Beersheba. He was known throughout South Africa as a warm partisan of Moshesh, and an enthusiastic advocate of what he held to be Basuto interests. For some years his influence at Thaba Bosigo was greater than that of any other white man, not even excepting the old missionaries, with whose views regarding the tribe he was in full accord. On this occasion he resolved to prevent a war, if possible, with which object he hastened to Moshesh’s residence. The chief himself was not desirous of pushing the matter further, for he was always anxious to make it appear that his opponents were the first to break the peace, and in this instance it was clear he could not do so. Orpen advised him to attach his seal to a letter to the president, proposing a friendly settlement, and promising to restrain his followers from attacking Letele; and to forward it by 2 members of his own family, who should remain with Pretorius as pledges of his sincerity. To this Moshesh agreed. His son Tsekelo and a young man of Letsie’s household were sent as hostages, and their arrival at the president’s headquarters was followed by an immediate cessation of the excitement that had up to that moment prevailed. Orpen’s ride mattered because the same partisan who spoke for Moshesh also stopped a commando at Smithfield, and because Tsekelo’s presence was the pledge Bloemfontein would take. [3]
Pretorius received Moshesh’s overtures with great satisfaction. He replied that he found much to blame on the part of Letele, and that he had placed an officer in charge of this chief, who would not in future be permitted to cross the border. He announced his intention of appointing a commission to investigate the causes of the disturbances, and invited the great chief’s co-operation. The commission consisted of Messrs. Charles Sirr Orpen, Robert Finlay, Pieter Wessels, Jan Olivier, Job Harvey, and A. Swanepoel. After taking evidence during a fortnight, on the 5th of February they sent in a report, which was most damaging to Jan Letele. The robberies from the Basuto of Moshesh committed by his retainers were proved to exceed in value those committed by the Basuto of Moshesh from him. A number of degraded white men were found to be mixed up in these proceedings. They encouraged robbers on both sides by acting as disposers of stolen property, diverting to themselves the larger portion of the ill-gotten gains. The commission recommended as the only effectual remedy the removal of Jan Letele’s people from the border, the allotment of ample lands elsewhere for their maintenance, and the establishment of a powerful police. But this implied resources in men and money which the Free State had not then at its command. The report mattered because it put more theft on Letele than on Moshesh, and because the remedy it named — removal and a strong police — was larger than Bloemfontein’s purse. [3]
What was possible to be done in that direction by a community so small, so jealous of its rulers, and so averse to taxation, was attempted. A few policemen were engaged, and an officer — Daniel Foley by name — was appointed with the title of superintendent, to endeavour to exercise some control over the blacks between the Orange and the Caledon. Jan Letele never fully recovered from the losses he sustained on this occasion. After the ruin of Jan Letele by Poshuli in January, that part of the country remained for some years in a condition of comparative peace. The scene of strife henceforth was confined to the territory on the north forming the districts of Winburg and Harrismith. Foley’s few policemen were what the Free State could put on the Caledon after the report of the 5th of February. Wodehouse’s first letters had put the responsibility on Bloemfontein; Foley was the force that answer could raise. [3]
February therefore sat 2 commissions on the same mountain. The Free State’s 6 had taken evidence during a fortnight and had reported on the 5th; Wodehouse’s 2 had held conferences from the 11th to the 21st. One asked what had caused the night of the 3rd of January; the other asked what Moshesh wanted of England. Letele’s ruin was already written; Nehemiah’s claim below the Drakensberg was not. Tsekelo and the young man of Letsie’s household sat as hostages at Pretorius’s headquarters while Orpen — the same partisan who had gone up after the raid — sat again at Thaba Bosigo with Burnet for the high commissioner. The south-western border then sat Foley; the mountain sat a request for a British agent and a claim to Nomansland that Wodehouse would not admit Faku had power to cede. [3]
Van Iddekinge of the 22nd of April, Edenburg of the 24th of February, and the Bank of the 19th of June — Orange Free State 1862
On the 26th of December 1861 Adam Kok and his council, through their agent Henry Harvey, signed a document whereby all the unappropriated land, together with the sovereign rights over the whole of their possessions north of the Orange, were ceded to the Free State, in consideration of a payment of £4,000 sterling. This purchase gave the Free State a great accession of strength, and it solved a question that had been a cause of irritation for 20 years. In the next session of the volksraad it was resolved that a special justice of the peace should be stationed at Philippolis, and that the landdrost of Fauresmith should hold a court there once a month. But the president was authorised, in case this arrangement should not be found satisfactory, to station a landdrost there, and form a new district. This was the course adopted by Pretorius, and on the 22nd of April of this year J. F. van Iddekinge was appointed first landdrost of the new district of Philippolis. 6 months later he was succeeded by Frederik K. Hohne. The appointment mattered because the £4,000 of December had bought the unappropriated land and the sovereign rights, and because April put a court of the republic on the village Kok had sold. [3]
The Free State, therefore, at this date was divided into the districts of Winburg, Bloemfontein, Smithfield, Harrismith, Fauresmith, Boshof, Kroonstad, Bethulie, Jacobsdal, and Philippolis — 10 in all. Bethulie and Jacobsdal were subsequently for a short time made sub-districts, for the sake of economy; but this arrangement was merely temporary. Jacobsdal had been named in February 1861 south of Boshof; Bethulie had been declared a district on the 15th of February 1860; Reddersburg had taken its name in February 1861 and Beyer had come from Holland in November. Philippolis now sat a landdrost of its own. The map mattered because the republic that could not raise a powerful police after Foley’s appointment could still add a tenth district on land bought from a Griqua captain. [3]
During the last year of Pretorius’s tenure of office the Free State had not made much advance in wealth or in population. Still, there were a few events denoting progress. On the 24th of February of this year the first building lots of the church village of Edenburg in the district of Fauresmith were sold. On the 19th of June of the same year the Bloemfontein bank was established. This was quickly followed by a local bank in Fauresmith, and this again was succeeded by branches of the Standard bank at Bloemfontein, Fauresmith, and Smithfield. Edenburg sat on the Fauresmith road; the bank sat in Bloemfontein from the 19th of June; Philippolis sat Van Iddekinge from the 22nd of April. The lots and the bank mattered because a republic too poor for a strong police could still sell church erven and open a bank in the capital. [3]
On the 14th of February the volksraad of the Orange Free State declared that the upper Vaal river was the boundary with the South African Republic, and appointed a commission to erect a beacon at the source of that stream. At the same time a guarantee was given that the rights of individuals in the district of Wakkerstroom would not be disturbed. The northern republic claimed the Klip river from its source to its junction with the Vaal — the stream running through Zeekoevlei — as the line to which the convention of 1852 applied. In June 1854 a Free State commission to Rustenburg had made no objection. On the 25th of April 1860 J. H. Grobbelaar had issued a proclamation defining the Klip river as the boundary, and a commission from Bloemfontein had even proposed that both volksraads approve that stream. The declaration of the 14th of February therefore reopened a line Bloemfontein had once let stand, and it is why Pretorius and Allison later asked Wodehouse to arbitrate between the Klip and the Likwa, or upper Vaal. The district remained in fact a portion of the northern state. [3]
Adam Kok, by a notice published in the Friend of the Free State of the 26th of December of this year, denied that the territory north of the Vaal — known as the Campbell grounds — was included in his sale, although there was no reserve whatever in the document passed by his agent, and the people of that district had moved away with him. Cornelis Kok of Campbell had some time before his death formally ceded his chieftainship to his nephew Adam Kok, who for several years was undisputed head of the Campbell people and their territory. The Free State government maintained that this ground was included in the sale; David Arnot, agent for the captain Nicholas Waterboer, asserted that it was not, and that his client was its rightful owner. Like all the Griqua captains, Cornelis Kok had laid claim to a tract of country 20 times as great as he had any use for. There was no treaty with him, but Sir Harry Smith and the Sovereignty government had applied exactly the same principle to him as to Adam Kok: individual proprietorship between the lower Vaal and the Modder, sovereign rights confined to the territory beyond the Vaal. This was the condition of matters when the republic came into existence, and it had remained so ever since. Kok’s notice of the 26th of December therefore opened a dispute the £4,000 of the year before had been meant to close. [3]
Coffee of the 17th of March, Pretorius and Allison of July, and the Line — Orange Free State 1862
In March of this year the volksraad appointed a commission, consisting of 3 of its members — Messrs. J. J. Venter, J. Klopper, and J. Schutte — to proceed to Thaba Bosigo and remonstrate with Moshesh. They were to demand that the murderers of a young man named Philip Venter should be given up for trial by the Free State courts, in conformity with the sixth clause of the treaty of 1858. The murder had taken place in the district of Winburg in November 1861, and a son of Moshesh’s brother Mohali was implicated in it. Next the commission was to propose that Moshesh should cede to the Free State a small piece of land in compensation for the cattle stolen by his people. And lastly, they were to request Moshesh to send some of his principal men with them to inspect the northern line, that no one might be able thereafter to say he was unacquainted with it. In September 1861 Van Soelen had heard Moshesh refuse a boundary and refuse a mixed court at Ha-bo’ Khotso. March now put 3 members of the raad on the mountain with a murder, a cession, and a line. The mission mattered because the sixth clause of Aliwal North required surrender of the men charged with Venter’s murder, and because the Warden line was the boundary the Sovereignty had drawn and the treaty of 1858 had confirmed. [3]
The commissioners proceeded to Thaba Bosigo, and after some delay Moshesh fixed 9 o’clock on the morning of the 17th of March for an interview. Punctually to the time appointed they were at his door, when the great chief sent them word they must wait till he had finished drinking his coffee, and then took no further notice of them or their messages. Mortified by the insult, but preserving their dignity as well as they could, the commissioners sent to Moshesh to say that they were about to leave the mountain, and would remain at its foot till the next day; if he wished to speak to them he must follow. On their way down they met Masupha, who asked them to return, which they promised to do if Moshesh would send for them. After a while a messenger came and invited them to go back. They complied, and in the afternoon met Moshesh and his councillors, to whom they made known the objects of their mission. No reply was given that day. Several interviews took place subsequently, but though at the last Moshesh assumed a friendly tone, he would do nothing satisfactory. He declined to surrender the men charged with murdering Venter, but said he was willing to make the family of the murdered man some compensation in cattle, according to native custom. As for the northern boundary, he entirely ignored it. Who made it, he asked, and what right had they to define it? It was not his act, and he did not feel bound by it. The coffee mattered because a volksraad deputation was kept at the door of a chief who then denied both the court and the line the treaty of 1858 had named. [3]
The volksraad then determined to appeal to the high commissioner. The president, Pretorius, and the government secretary, Joseph Allison, were requested to proceed to Capetown, and were charged (a) to endeavour to obtain from the government of the Cape Colony a share of the customs duties levied at the ports on goods brought into the country; (b) to ascertain from Wodehouse the cause of the unfriendly language towards the Free State used in his correspondence and in his speech at the opening of the Cape parliament; (c) to supply full information concerning the conduct of the Free State and of Moshesh; (d) to request the governor to send a commission to point out the line between the Europeans and the people of Moshesh fixed by the Sovereignty government, and confirmed in the treaty of 1858 as the boundary of the Lesuto; and (e) to request the governor to act as arbitrator between the Free State and the South African Republic in the matter of the boundary line between them, as one republic claimed the Klip river, and the other the Likwa, or upper Vaal, as the dividing line. When this intelligence was conveyed to Moshesh he caused a letter to be written to the president, in which he stated that he was sending his brother Moperi and his son George to be present at the erection of beacons along the line. Some commissioners on the part of the Free State were thereupon appointed, but they were so thoroughly convinced that Moshesh was not in earnest that they failed to appear at Winburg at the appointed time. This gave the great chief an opportunity to assert that it was not he, but the Free State, that was putting obstacles in the way, though in his next letter he admitted that Moperi and George had only been sent to see the line and report to him, that he might thereafter approve or disapprove of it. The 5 charges mattered because Bloemfontein now asked Capetown for customs, for an explanation of Wodehouse’s speech, for a pointed Warden line, and for an award on the Klip and the Likwa. [3]
In July of this year Pretorius and Allison arrived in Capetown. They failed to obtain a share of the customs duties, and were unable to induce Wodehouse to arbitrate on the disputed boundary between the 2 republics. With regard to their case with Moshesh they laid a mass of documentary evidence before the high commissioner. They asserted that all the farms for 15 miles on the Free State side of the Warden line were at that time occupied by Basuto, and they requested his Excellency to send a commission to point out to Moshesh the boundary as defined by Sir Harry Smith during the British occupation. Wodehouse consented, provided both parties would bind themselves to accept his definition of the line, and he wrote to Moshesh to ascertain if he was willing to do so. The great chief would not give a direct refusal, but sought some pretext for evasion, that he might at least gain time to push his people farther forward. His answer was, therefore, that he would prefer to have the boundary settled by direct negotiation between himself and the Free State, but failing that he would agree to the appointment of a commission by the governor. While this correspondence between the high commissioner and Moshesh was going on, the Free State authorities were writing the most urgent letters entreating his Excellency to use all haste in interfering, as otherwise the condition of affairs must lead to war. At the beginning of November they first learned Moshesh’s plans for gaining time, and immediately appointed another commission, more with the object of proving that they were doing all that was possible to preserve peace than with any hope of arranging matters. The Capetown mission mattered because Wodehouse would define the line only if both sides bound themselves, and because Moshesh’s preference for direct negotiation was the delay in which Basuto families moved farther onto the Winburg farms. [3]
Winburg Farms, the Hunting Parties, and the 28th of November — Orange Free State 1862
Wherever there was vacant land in the districts of Winburg and Harrismith small parties of Basuto settled on it, and as soon as they had got a foothold they commenced to encroach on the occupied farms. There was no police to check them. They did not go as warriors, but as settlers, taking their families with them, and professing that nothing was farther from their thoughts than hostilities with the farmers. Now and then, however, a murder was committed, and thefts of stock became alarmingly frequent. Grey, of whose penetrating eye Moshesh had always stood in awe, had left South Africa. The Basuto were supplied with as many rifles and as much ammunition as they required, and though they had not succeeded in an attempt which they made to manufacture cannon, they had been able to procure several serviceable field-pieces. With all the neighbouring tribes of any consequence they were on terms of close friendship. Van Soelen in September 1861 had heard Moshesh refuse a boundary and refuse the mixed court; the coffee of the 17th of March had shown the same mind; the farms 15 miles inside the Warden line now sat Basuto families instead of the burghers who held the titles. The settlement mattered because it was occupation without a declared war, and because Foley’s few policemen sat the Caledon, not Winburg and Harrismith. [3]
Moshesh now increased his efforts to push back Europeans. Great hunting parties were sent far into the Free State, with instructions to drive the game through the farmers’ flocks and herds and past their very doors. These parties polluted the water in the reservoirs, damaged the gardens, and insulted and terrified the owners of the ground. In several instances farmers were driven from their homes by violence. A small police force had been raised, but it was too weak to be of any use, and there were no funds to employ more men. In the Lesuto public meetings were held, at which the best methods of driving back the farmers were openly discussed, and arrangements for further advances were made. The lawless condition of the disturbed districts cannot be better exemplified than by the following circumstance. On one occasion an exasperated farmer named Fouche shot a Mosuto. The next day a party of Basuto went and murdered the farmer’s son in retaliation. And on neither side could any punishment be inflicted. The hunts mattered because they were a method of emptying farms without a commando, and because Fouche’s shot and the son’s murder sat outside any court Moshesh would recognise or Bloemfontein could reach. [3]
During the summer of this year the Basuto generally were in a state of violent excitement, for in addition to the effort to enlarge their territory, a movement of a religious nature was taking place. Certain individuals who professed to have communication with the spirit-world were exhorting the people to reject the teaching of the missionaries, and were everywhere being listened to with attention. Moshesh himself was encouraging the introduction anew of old rites and customs, which in some places had partly fallen into disuse. The utterances of the revivalists showed in a grotesque manner the effect on the whole mass of the people which Christian teaching during 30 years had in modifying the ancient Bantu creed. To their fathers God had been a shadowy being, with unknown attributes, residing in the bowels of the earth. One of these revivalists, who professed to have had direct communication with the Great Being, now found him above in the skies, though another met him below. He had now become in their ideas a Great Chief, the road to whose residence was not a narrow path, as the missionaries declared it to be, but a broad highway constantly full of crowds of people. He was a polygamist, they asserted; Jesus was his son by one wife, the Holy Spirit by another. And yet the spirits of the dead chiefs of the segments of their tribe were the sole objects of their prayers and sacrifices, without any inquiry as to whether the God thus depicted was one of them or not. The excitement mattered because it ran with the push onto the Winburg farms, and because Moshesh was restoring old rites at the same time as he ignored the northern line. [3]
On the 28th of November the state secretary wrote to Moshesh that a commission consisting of Messrs. C. von Brandis, landdrost of Winburg, W. G. Every, commandant of the police, J. Schutte, and R. du Toit had been appointed to co-operate with his representatives in settling the boundary, and that Von Brandis had been empowered to arrange the details and time of meeting with him. No reply to this communication was made before the year closed. On the 1st of October Pretorius had tendered his resignation to the volksraad, assigning as his reason that he desired to return to the South African Republic and endeavour to restore concord to that country, which was then politically in a deplorable condition. The volksraad in reply informed him that his services could not be dispensed with at that juncture, and requested him not to press the matter until the ordinary session. On the 30th of September he had obtained 2 months’ leave from the volksraad of the Free State purposely to visit the northern republic and endeavour to restore order. The Bloemfontein oath of the 8th of February 1860 therefore still sat on Pretorius at the close of this year, even as he crossed the Vaal toward Potchefstroom. The letter of the 28th of November mattered because it was the Free State’s last attempt in this year to get Moshesh to the beacons, and because it went unanswered while the president who had sworn at Bloemfontein was on leave to still a quarrel north of the Vaal. [3]
Van Rensburg of the 2nd of April, 2 Acting Chairs, and the Ballot of October — South African Republic 1862
At the close of 1861 all had been again quiet north of the Vaal. Schoeman’s dissolved raad had sat a couple of hours on the 14th of January 1861; the Potchefstroom committee had been fined on the 13th of February; Kruger had marched; Pretorius had chaired the 6; the commandants had disbanded their forces. Stephanus Schoeman still held the acting chair by the popular vote of October 1860, when more than 700 of 1,000 burghers had approved the Potchefstroom resolutions that set the old volksraad aside. The volksraad, elected according to the arrangement of late 1861, met at Pretoria on the 2nd of April of this year, and continued in session until the 26th of the same month. It decided to dismiss Schoeman, the members of the executive council, and the heads of departments. It appointed Willem C. Janse van Rensburg acting president until an election could take place, the ballot papers of which were to be sent in before the 13th of October, when it would hold another session. Further, it appointed provisionally J. H. Visagie state secretary, J. H. Valckenaar state attorney, M. J. Viljoen, D. Erasmus, and W. Coetzer members of the executive council, and Theunis Snyman commandant-general. The session mattered because the raad elected to close 1861’s quarrel dismissed the acting president who had called it into being, and because the ballot due before the 13th of October was the election that 2 chairs would then fight to stop or to hold. [3]
Acting President Schoeman refused to submit to this decision, and a strong party supported him. At Potchefstroom the landdrost, Jan Steyn, declared for him; and when Van Rensburg visited that village, he and the officers whom he tried to appoint were driven away. For several months there were 2 acting presidents and 2 rival governments in the South African Republic. Pretoria sat the raad’s choice; Potchefstroom sat Schoeman’s landdrost; the ballot papers due before the 13th of October sat uncollected while 2 chairs claimed the same constitution. The quiet of the close of 1861 had lasted only until April. The refusal mattered because the village that had made Schoeman acting president in October 1860 would not take the raad’s new names, and because a republic cannot collect a ballot while 2 executives issue orders from 2 towns. [3]
Van Rensburg had sat as acting commandant-general when Schoeman took the acting chair after the 1,000 votes of the Potchefstroom meeting. The raad of the 2nd of April now put him in the chair Schoeman would not leave. Schoeman had dissolved a raad on the 14th of January 1861 and had then acknowledged it; he had countenanced the fines of the 13th of February and had assembled an armed force under J. C. Steyn; Kruger had marched; Pretorius had chaired the 6; the year had closed in quiet. April of this year wrote the same quarrel in a new volksraad’s names: Van Rensburg, Visagie, Valckenaar, Viljoen, Erasmus, Coetzer, Snyman. Schoeman wrote it back in Steyn’s court at Potchefstroom. 2 acting chairs therefore sat the same constitution from April until Kruger put 800 to 1,000 men and 3 guns on the village in October. [3]
At length Commandant Paul Kruger resolved to put an end to this anarchy. The volksraad had appointed Theunis Snyman, of Pretoria, commandant-general; but this officer volunteered to serve under Kruger. So also did Joseph van Dyk, commandant-general of Lydenburg. Having driven Schoeman and his adherents from Pretoria, Kruger turned toward Potchefstroom, where Steyn still sat for the acting chair the raad had dismissed. The April session had named Van Rensburg, Visagie, Valckenaar, and Snyman; Schoeman had kept a party and a village; Kruger now put burghers under one command. On the 13th of September 1859 the general assembly of the state church had come together at Pretoria and unanimously resolved to unite with the Cape synod. In this year, owing to a decision of the supreme court of the Cape Colony, no clergymen or elders from territories beyond the colonial boundary could have seats in the colonial synod. The republic that sat 2 acting chairs therefore also sat a church union the Cape court had closed against it. Kruger’s resolve mattered because Snyman and Van Dyk would serve under the commandant of Rustenburg, and because Pretoria was cleared before the guns were turned on Potchefstroom. [3]
Kruger of the 7th of October, the Sortie of the 9th, and the Tent of November — 1862
On the 7th of October Commandant Kruger, with a force of between 800 and 1,000 men, and 3 pieces of artillery, invested Potchefstroom. Schoeman held the village with between 300 and 400 men and 1 cannon. Fire was opened from Kruger’s battery, but as the object was only to frighten Schoeman into submission, the guns were so directed that during 2 days of what the villagers were pleased to call “the bombardment,” the only damage done was to the gables of a few houses. On the 9th, Schoeman, who was not wanting in courage, made a sudden sortie, in hope of capturing Kruger’s artillery. Instead of this, however, he was driven back with the loss of his own cannon, and with 1 man killed and himself and 7 others wounded. Kruger’s loss was 2 men wounded. This event disheartened Schoeman’s partisans, and that night he and his principal adherents fled into the Free State. Pretorius, who on the 30th of September had obtained 2 months’ leave from the volksraad of the Free State purposely to visit the northern republic and endeavour to restore order, had arrived at Potchefstroom the day after the investment commenced. Not being able to obtain a suspension of hostilities, he accompanied the fugitives over the Vaal. The investment mattered because the acting chair the raad had dismissed chose a sortie rather than a ballot, and because the president of the Free State, on leave to restore concord, could not stop the guns and left with the beaten party. [3]
On the 10th of October Commandant Kruger took possession of Potchefstroom. The council of war issued a proclamation banishing Stephanus Schoeman and the landdrost Steyn from the South African Republic; and Schoeman’s principal adherents were fined, Jan Kock, among others, being sentenced to confiscation of all his property. Kruger then with his whole force marched to Klip river, where it was reported that Schoeman was collecting his adherents again. He left Potchefstroom unprotected. Upon this, Schoeman fairly doubled upon his opponent, for he returned to Potchefstroom and took possession of the village. Some 800 men rallied round him there. Kruger hastened back, and the 2 commandoes were ready to fall upon each other when Pretorius interposed. The acting chair the raad had dismissed had lost a cannon on the 9th, lost the village on the 10th, and sat it again once Kruger had marched to the Klip. The double mattered because banishment and confiscation issued from a council of war that then left the village empty, and because 800 men were enough to take it back before a second fight could be fought. [3]
Kruger having consented to a discussion of matters, a tent was pitched midway between the 2 camps, and on the 24th and 25th of November the negotiations were held. Schoeman entrusted his case to Pretorius, and Commandant D. C. Uys, Commandant Paul Kruger, and Mr. S. T. Prinsloo appeared on the other side. They agreed that all sentences of banishment, confiscation, and fines should be suspended, that an election of a president and of a commandant-general should take place as soon as order was restored, that in the meantime the administration appointed by the volksraad should remain in office, and that all criminal charges connected with the disturbances should be submitted to a court created for the purpose, over which Mr. Walter Harding, chief justice of Natal, or, failing his consent, Advocate H. A. L. Hamelberg, of Bloemfontein, was to be requested to preside. The burghers then dispersed. Van Rensburg’s acting chair, named in April, therefore still sat at the close of the year, with the sentences of October suspended and an election promised once order was restored. The tent mattered because Pretorius, who held Bloemfontein and not Pretoria, was still the man both camps would take as spokesman, and because the raad’s administration remained in office without the banishments of the 10th of October being carried out. [3]