T3T i9ooa iMM' W:M " 'Vi ... •v .■ ■>' V ■* '- ■-. I i^}^A a''^':**/..? ^i»Hi ■m: '^■^^ Uti'V S^''"^' 1 } I THE \ i ^ I SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLICS, | vs. GREAT BRITAIN. "®x fiQhi witlx meje, ov Xjctsc thij Ian tie, ^o hctUx tcrmes may bejc." — Remains of Ancient Poetry. It I i I i J I I I i 1 By a True American. New York, 1900. Jj i SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLICS. vs. GREAT BRITAIN. SiUs^^jLn^ J C^ckn-J F'«TJtA"rv«S»Cfc: *'0A Civilization! in Thy pure name Bequeath! d are lawless acts, like these, by Fame; Beneath Religion' s veil, transpiercing Thine, The evil lustre of such black deeds shine. Blush / blasphem'd Goddess, that malignant Man Mars with low Crime Thy vast progressive plan." — Civilization and the Indian, 1891 By a True American. New York, 1900. /f Ko ,~^^i& DEDICATED io l^e cats§e of LIBGRTY. "TTtieTe is a spirit, -ooiOT'kiiig in ttie -world, Iii'k.e to a silent, s-abterranean lire; Yet eirer and anon some monaroli liurl'd fi-gTaast and pale, attests its leariul ire." —Hill. "OTa il tliere 1)6 on tlvis eartlily spliere fi. l)Oon, an oliering, Iveairen liolds dear, Tis tlie last liljation lAilierty dra^^rs "From tlie lieart tliat bleeds and brealLa in Her oause.'» —Moore. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/southafricanrepuOOslee THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLICS, vs. GREAT BRITAIN. ** Or Jighte with mee, or lose thy lande, No better terTnes may bee.'^ — Remains of Ancient Poetry. By a True American. New York, 1900. t\rh 0' Hbbenba. A LAST APPEAL FOR A SUFFERING PEOPLE. "Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, A. breath can maka them as a hreath hath made, Jiut a bold 'peasantry ; thdlr country' s pride, 'Whdn once destroyed, can never be sxippMed .'''' Since April, when the preceding matter was sent to press, events hare been momentous in the history of the Conquest of South Africa; to the dishonor and humiliation of an acquiescent world. The armies of patriotism and 2:)rinciple have bee a forced from iDosition after position, impregnable in vast natural frontal strength but yet un- tenable, simply because the immense forces of oppression andi^iracy would have been able in every case to surround and isolate or starve out any de- fenders of their country imitating Cronje in his rash bnt admirably hero- ic stand. All, however,, is not yet lost and had the United States a true- hearted representative Executive and Congress at its helui wishful to vin- dicate its olden policy, or any of the other great Powers ef the world, a ru- ler endowed with a spark of the chivalry of a Gustavus Adolphus or the all-daring courage of a Catharina of Thuringia braving an Alva, Britain Avould not, even at this late hour, be j)ermitted to crush out the lives and liberty of an irreplaceable people in, as her minion Roberts arrogantly declares, "settling this affair in her own way." But the nations, sordidly engrossed in promoting their commercial pros- perity, corruptly bought over by England, or fearfully craving present peace at whatever future cost, have remained supinely inert, criminally in- different to one of the gravest issues of the age; even the colonies of the infamous spoiler who could have so greatly aided the Boers while securing their own freedom, have foolishly sacrificed oneof the greatest opportuni- ties that could ever j^resent itself for their improval. And the eloquent speeches and stirring essays born of the enlightened and far-seeing minds amongst us have fallen for the most part like seed on barren soil, leaving few visible traces of vitality as evinced by the actions of those in whose souls they were meant to germinate. This conclusively demonstrates that the self-same, much-decried, Brute Force actuating the barbarian Goth, Vandal and Hun of yore, still rules supreme over the so-called civilized peoples of the present day, and that Thought, as expressed by the Voice and the Pen is palsied before the up. lifted Sword. Must we then reverse the eloquent maxim aptly placed in the mouth of Richelieu by the gifted Bulwer? For the present, perhaps, yes!; In the future, we trust, no! "Thought is mighty and will prevail," but its labors, though herculean, are unseen and slow, while the years that come and go, fraught with events we, in our brief existence, deem moment- ous; are but as one star in the boundless universe or a single animalcule in the mile-deep ocean; exhaustless, incalculable, infinite! It has required hundreds of years for the evolution of a middle class out of the ignorant masses constituting serfdom, centuries" on centuries to abolish slavery even amongst the most advanced peoples, and ages and ages, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, nay millions, to bring life upon our planet to what it is today. Geology has proved this latter. Geology that waged its long and bitter struggle against the fanatic bigotry of Religion with the mute, significant testimony of the layer of the rock, tlie ring of the redwood^ the growth of the dragon-tree, the annual blue deposits of the mud of the Nile, and the vast but inconceivably gradual evaporation of the Stassfurt in- land sea; Geology that, triumphing over its insensate opponent, is adopted ^y its former foe today! though it values not its ado2yter. Let those who despair of any great eventual improvement of our kind, re- flect on this and think of the generations after generations doubtless to » uc- ceed ours for unimaginable ages, and hope! But though Nature would seem to design, in this instance of the Boers, the present suppression of Liberty, there is no reason we should view this apathetically as indifferent, impotent, onlookers. We should strive to our utmost to expedite that upliftment of Truth and Justice which is undoubt- edly ultimately certain though probably slow; else are we lesser partners in this guilt. "===Hear this trnth snbllme, He who permits oppression, shares the crime." In this, I firmly believe, we are free agents; desjDite the assertions of some ultra-fatalists who support a theory that there is a subtle, ineluctable force cr civilizing poii^er, oj^erating undeviatingly in all nature for the ultimate per- fectment of the world,regardless of the incidental sufferings of one or more individuals or nations, that human resistance cannot check nor alter howev- er greatly it may be incited by occasional vagaries in the procedure of that power appealing to its sense cf injustice or awakening its compassion. And considering the progress made by the British in subjugating the Af- rikanders, pretty prompt action raiust be taken if Man and not Time is to be the chief factor in their enfranchisement, — as one or the other surely will. Roberts has taken Pretoria, over-run the Transvaal, (the magnanimity of the Boers in sparing the Johannesburg mines and machinery has apparently passed for nothing — in a war for freedom against an unscrupulous aggress- or there is such a thing as being over conscientous), crowded Botha and his patriotic followers into the rugged mountains of the north and east, and forced the aged and ailing, but indomitable. President of the South African Republic to seek a temporary refuge in Portugal's possessions. It is extraordinary that the subservience of the Portuguese to Great Brit- ain ; manifested by their basely permitting on a flimsy pretext, the easy pas- sage of Carrington's troops through what should have been neutral territory, did not induce them to surrender the illustrious old refugee to British sav- agery; probably England dreaded the effect on popular sentiment almost certain to ensue if the venerable Keuger was made the victim of such an infamous transaction. But these predictable successes of the unenviable Roberts are brightened by no real glamour of military glory, on the contrary each new victory re- dounds to the added shame of the man and the nation vindictively warrino- against Liberty and Right with forces outnumbering the Boer armies near- ly twelve to one. Think of it! 'Tis an anaconda crushing a rabbit; a bull- terrier worrying a rat! And yet, "wonderful strategy," "magniiicent mar- ches," "complete victories," is trumpeted of Roberts the leader of hosts, that can Only justly pertain to the leader of an equal or inferior command; un der such conditions, and such only, exists true army generalship and is dis- played real military strategy ! With the redundant facilities at his disposal, every advantage this man gains is merely a natural consequence of his power to envelope his victims by sheer length and strength of line; every reverse, of which he has had not a few to report, prefaced with "regrets," is an inexcusable ignominy. He knows neither how to accept defeat with complacency, nor how to sus- tain victories, (such as they are), with becoming moderation; a characteristic of the people whose mercenaries he directs. Behold, already, how "civixized" Britain follows up her triumphs! It is Jeffries' assizes! it is Ireland's exj^iation for "rebellions!" it is India's Sepoy Mutiny severities! it is SlacIiter's Nek executions! again rehearsed afte^- the same cruel, relentless fashion as of old. ' The trials for treason in the Cape Colony, the burning of over a hundred Boer farms to terrorize the patriotically inclined, or on the discovery of bur- ied arms, or in revenge for suspected relief afforded their distressed country- men; the deportation of thousands of young and old of a devoted jjeople, (like the Siberian exiles that this same hypocritical' canting England that is now committing these atrocious crimes against Humanity and Nature, in- -veighad so bitterly against "barbarous Russia" for tearing from their homes and kindred and exposing to the rigors of an ungenial clime), to the hot un- healthy island of Ceylon; Ceylon where Arabi, Egypt's Kosciusco, yet lan- guishes in fretful age and broken spirit after a captivity of eighteen years! a noble victim, like NAPOLEOjsr, to illusive trust in the empty name of Eng- lish HONOR.) : and to the barren rock of St. Helena, lest they rejoin the yet heroically resisting remnants of the armies of the republics; the needless, hasty, heartless execution of Lieut. Cordua for breakage of his parole and •'attempt to abduct the pigmy-souled British commander; the pitiless sway of martial law hurriedly proclaimed over the yet imperfectly stolen territory by that bandit-general, who now bids fair to emulate there the horrors of a "Thirty Years War, horrors retrograding the progress of Germany upwards of a century: perhaps posing as a new Tilly or a second Wallenstein in rap- ine and brutality, blackening with ruins and strewing with corj^ses the once smiling and jirosperous republic of the Vaal ; — all combine to show that Eng- land moves hopelessly on in the identical old deepening ruts of the same dis- graceful road she has travelled for hundreds of years and that she is as in- cajjable of magnanimity and moderation as she is of recognizing th3 common principles of Justice as demonstrated in the admitted rights of property or upheld by the usual rulings of international law. It has been urged in defence of Roberts that he is but executing his duty I deny it ! The soldier of today must no longer be the automaton of yore, enlisted blindly to fight, country right or wrong; country alway_ ' He owes a higher duty to PRINCIPLE; he has, or should have been, educated to use his reason and that reason tells him, if he HxVS been educa- '^Y.ii ARIGHT, that his sole utility, nay glory, lies not in blind obedience to un- just or oppressive authority., but in resisting aggression, or maintain, ing order sanctioned by just Law, Unfortunately, in some respects, for true civilization, a soldiery must still 'be retained by even the most progressive commonwealths while even one tribe more barbaric than another, remams on the face of the globe, "or while the ambition for power characterizing an Alexander, the political cravings giv- ing rise to such a creature as a Chamberlain, and the lust for wealth that ren ders possible a monstrosity typified by a Rothschild, is deliberately instill- ed into, or permitted to develop uncurbed in, the minds of our children. The most valuable and enlightened citizen of any country, is he who boldly refuses to be drafted for a soldier In an unrighteous war; — were there very many such admirable men, Civilization would re- ceive a new imj^etus and crimes against society, like those now being perpe- trated in South Africa and the Philippines, Avould be rendered impossible. And our own pitiable country, the silent partner of England in this lawless annexation of a second, but worthier, Poland; what shall be said of it ? led astray by the ignis fatuus oi territorial conquest in the ravaged Philippines, and who knows but perhaps also eventually lured into deplorable schemes tending towards empire, which not one of the great ancient nations has survi- ved ; in persecuted China ? — ^oppressing annexed, but disenfranchised, Porto Rico", — delaying liberty long promised to "emancipated" Cuba, — and shoot- ing down here, on. her own "free" soil, on slight occasion, her ill-remu- nerated, ignored and wealth-enslaved citizens; witness Cour d' Alene, Home- stead and Lattimer, (perhaps more of Pennsylvania before the present miner's strike is permanently settled !) amongst a dozen similar shameful instances, in all of which murder is committed under the cloak of law and the mur- derers go free. What shall be said of our rulers who support Great Britain morally? of our ca^^italists who lend her aid financially f Morally support, because they have neglected, for t\\Q first time since our birth as a Republic, to offer in- tervention, or even pass a resolution expressing sympathy with, a heroic peor pie, whose youth and age are being offered up as inestimable sacrifices at the shrine of Liberty. — because the Boer envoys sent to invoke our friendly ofiices and welcomed by the populace at large, have been as slightingly re- ceived by the anglophile Administration as well could be in the face of un- mistakeable public sentiment, and their causec oolly abandoned to the ten- der mercies of Great Britain ! Financially aided, because we have subsidi- LizED England, even as England subsidized Germany prior to the infamous Polish partition ! by loaning 'money to her on herhonds. A Republic ponrf= ing its treasure into the coffers of a Monarchy! SHAME ! But this is not all, Americans! teue Americans! one of whom I am proud to be, tremble at what alarmingly impends over you! Every bond of Great Brit- ain's purchased with your gold; every mine of your precious metal bought or invested in by English eapital, (Hays-Hammond, the treacherous raider, is now at work for intriguing Werner, Beit and Co. in the West) ; every acre of land indirectly acquired by the wealthy speculators of the United King- doiu; every daughter of your false citizens prostituted to the owners of British estates and titles to gratify a most un-American ambition; forges an- other ponderous link in the already weighty chain that will aventually load and bow and bind you down to England's tyrannic will, more surely than the efforts of all her armies, were they ever so great. Rouse yourselves! Cast it off before it paralyzes your energies with the tolerance of custom; before it is securely riveted to the pillars of alliance; reform your corrupted government before it is too late, invest in no more English securities, gradually dispose of such as have already, unhappi- ly, been acquired, decry instead of lauding inter-raarriages with lords and earls, cease longing for "American vice-queens;" and hereafter lend your hearty assistance where it is justly due: TO REPUBLICS INSTEAD OF flONARCHIES; realizing that England is not, nor ever can be, the true friend of our country while she adheres to the institutions of the latter class of governments. Do not suffer your better judgement to be misled by interested and plot- ting journalists. Place no reliance whatever in the Press of the country; the Chinese "massacre" reports, it issued so circumstantially, ought to have afford ed you a significant indication of its unreliability: with a few brilliant excep" tions, its vast majority is for trade, not patriotism, and many of its editors suppress emrything possible in the form of free spp,ech or enlightened opinion^ that they either judge conflicts with their own treasured belief, or apprehend endangers political or financial prosperity, viewed with their narrow vision, or from their selfish standpoint; and failing otherwise to obscure Truth, mis- represent its facts, or else load it with ridicule, that potent agent for suppres- sion that never answered, nor can answer, one argument. This giant of good, perverted to a geni of evil, has said that when Pre- toria fell the war should have ceased : ( so should, then, have ours when Phil- adelphia received Lord Howe in 1776, or when Washington was evacuated in haste by our Administration in 1814.); — that Botha, Viljoen, Delary and De Wet's guerilla warfare is needless effusion of blood for a hopeless object; [ forgetful(?) that our gallant Marion and dashing Sumter kept a live the patriotic ardor of the Carolinas long after the regular army had been shattered, and until Greene arrived to succor and to triumph ! — forget- ful of Washington's declararation to Col Reed, uttered during the most gloomy period of our own Revolution, that, if necessary, he would cross the Alleo-hanies and try what might be accomjMshed by a Predatory war.] A WAR FOR FREEDOM NEVER ENDS. The spark of Liberty may temporarily languish, but it blazes forth again in flame when agitation re-enlivens it, like the whirled fire-stick of the Aus- tralian, enkindling all contiguous to it with its glorious glow. Who dares to say the strife for liberty in eitiier Poland or Ireland is extinct? It slum- bers even as fire in the midst of tow, unnoticed ; breathe on it and all is flame. And so will it be with the Transvaal and the Free State, unless England proceeding with unparalleled diabolism, is able to deport or destroy their entire populations; an annihilation not even Westermann's devastating columns found it possible to effect in blood-deluged La Vendee. WoRKiNGMEN OF AMERICA ! Laborers with hand or brain in honest ways^ ye who are the People and, though you prove it not, the Rulers; ye who quietly let others usurp your authority who fail to execute your wishes ; it remains to be seen whether or not you will sanction this iniquitous injustice jeopardizing all Liberty, yours as well as that of the unhappy Boers!, by your consenting silence. Will you support the unrepublican at- titude of the man you are falsely supposed to have elected to the highest of- fice in the land ? Will you permit this vacillating puppet, cringing to wealJh and dancing to the tune of Commerce,* actuated by the to him irresistible impulses of opulent trade-worshippers, sunk in debasing sloughs of luxury, * Commerce! Atany sacrifice- by any baseness I-does it not force us to exclaim with HesiOD; " Fools! not to know liow far an liumble lot Exceeds abundance by injustice got." Commerce is one of the fairest of the handmaidens attendant on benignant Peace : fostered by wisdom and courted with virtue, she is apotent civillzer of, and an inestimable blessing to, man in his present state, but enjoyed to excess; pursued without that due regard to Princi- ple essential in all the undertakings of life ; she induces a slow decay of every manly attribute AND BECOMES THE DEADLY BANE OF AN ERST PROSPERING COMMUNITY- Long ago this was recognized. Lycurgus' iron currency prohibited it in Lacedaemon, Campan. ella slights it in his "City of the Sun", as does More in his "Utopia," and Charles Johnstone in "Chrysal, (1760. ch. 3. ), declares- "That though trade adds to the wealth, yet too eager a pur- suit of it, even with the greatest success, diminishes the strength of a nation. The real STRENGTH OF A NATION CONSISTS in the prevalence of DISINTERESTED SPIRIT, --- whereas THE SPIRIT OF COMMERCE CENTRES ALL IN SELF, discouraging and despising as folly EVERY THOUGHT THAT DOES KOT TEND THAT WAY.^"" WE HAVE NOT LEARNT THE FATEFUL LESSON OF THE AGES YEt! and anglicized parvenues aping aristocracy and seeking to found it here, in this once equal Republic, — this would-be emperor-president, a slave to Ae rich, an autocrat to the poor, hanging like a pitiful, toddling, weakling to the skirts of Britannia and lowering our once great nation down to the wretch* ed level of a mere colony of Great Britain! — will you permit, I ask, this de- generate from the illustrious Washin^gton and the high-minded Madison, backed by his venal Cabinet and Senate, ( the latter a body which sholud never have been instituted, nor now allowed to exist, in mimicry of the House of Lords.); to pose in despotic role, to destroy our venerated Constitution to tear away the last shreds of o-ur once prized equality, and to cover us all with eifaceless shame by his unpatriotic and unrepublican acts ? In your hands lies the remedy. Exert your long dormant power ! De- monstrate that justice, patriotism, manhood, are not extinct among us. There are many ways in which to essay accomplishing this peaoeablt. Hold mass meetings contemning the present ruinous policy. Pass resolu- tions favoring Boer liberty. Address a monster petition to Congress. Or, bestof all, administer that scathing rebuke the Ballot, rightly used, alone can convey to the low-minded office grasper and his place hunting creatures. Elect the most hoxest man available without regard to party, but to Prin= ciple. Believe not in "Mc Kinley and prosperity," his vaunted "prosperity" is as. the deported ex-dynamiter, banished from the shores of what he hoped would prove a haven of refuge, said to his companion, who invoked the Stat- ue of Liberty gracing our harbor, on quitting our coast: "It's hollow Jim ! " Elect any but the man whose vacillation, whose leaning toward combinations of capital menacing to *he community, and whose tradesman's spirit, alloying autocratic ambition, we know so well. Four more years of Mc Kinley will go far towards destroying all we have so long upheld with honor to ourselves with justice to others and with respect from the world. Bryan may not per- form all he promises ; the Democratic party harbors corruption as well as the Republican ; but the prijstciples his party has put forward, resolving them- selves into the simple sentence: "We w^ish to kemaijst free people;" are the subjects to be considered and not, altogether, the man or the par= ty; whether or not either fail to carry out the principles they advocate, after Election, need not be considered now; a remedy can be provided for that la- ter, should they prove false to their pledges to the people ! But if all your efforts fail, and fail they unfortunately may, Woekingmek on whom we base our fervent hopes of Liberty, there is a final appeal. to which, if made hy you in concert, there can be no successful resistance! Glean what that is from this; Patrician Rome felt its potency when her plebeian masses sought the Sacred Hill; the Spanish despots of Naples fell before it when the despised lazzaroni rose as one man and placed the bumble fisherman in the vice regal seat.; England bowed to it when the tyrannic Charles saw hi.3 cavalier armies routed by the f-hop-keeping Ironsides of Cromwell; the wanton noblesse of France laid their haughty and friv- olous heads on the ensanguined block at its ineluctible will, Avhen the abus- ed sans culottes of the last century discovered their terrible might; and the anglicized, the imperialistic, the would-be enslaving, directors" of a policy subversive of our long-cherished principles, contemned by the undegenerate- ly reflective amongst us, and militating against Liberty, not only in a dis- tant quarter of the globe, but here ;' shall also feel it and fall before it and perish by it, if they hearken not to warning; if you still possess the noble spirit animating your gallant, all-sacrificing sires; who offered up health, wealth and life on the hallowed foundation-stone of this glor- ious republic, that they might transmit to you the precious heritao-e of FREEDOM ! "^ "IF THIS BE TREASON, HAKE THE MOST OF IT." ye real enemies of our country! People of the Ignited States tlie question is left with you; the ayes and noes on it! Shall Ave permit tlie fall of two republics because our inordinate lust for Commerce prompts us to elect a man Avho will extend to them no recognition ? Shall England rule us and the world, by her arms, her wealth and her insidious inter-unions, combined ? or shall a fi- nal check be given to her intolerable arrogance and pitiless piracy? Shall the first years of the new century, so near at hand, behold our youth following everywhere the beat of the drum to the conquest of weaker lands? May Right forbid! Vote, therefore, for anyone but Mc. Kinley. Disregard the abominable dictation and threatenings of em- ployers. Proceed Avith caution, and moderation, but decision. NO EMPTY WORDS, NO VACILLATION OR HESITATION. Hct! S^i^gs^^sSessj^ansBSPPf THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AFRICA, vs. GREAT BRITAIN. ^ Just pvzsznintwn trt thz facts at issuz, pxzcz£iz& tr^ nn Kppz^l t0 tfeje "^^vX^'s :pfe0|yXje, in ttije txamje of l^jejcjesstt^f as wjeXI as ^umatxit^, to xrindijcatje tfxzix jcXaim to ©iwiXixa^ tlow at ottjcje atxd ef f jejctixrjeXy. Lovers of Freedom ! friends of Progress ! advocates of Universal Right ! throughout the entire thinking world, — on this, the closing year of the nineteenth century^ impends the shadow of a great, A terrible CRIME. A crime perpetrated against the aggregate of humanity ; for its far-reaching consequences will be ultimately manifested in a more serious blow at liberty and national privileges in every clime than it has hitherto been the misfortune of the cosmopolitan to observe and deplore — a crime unparalleled in the sombre history of this distressful globe and approxi- mated only by the indefensible Peruvian and Mexican Conquests, subju- gations, though of a cruel race, disgracing even a period over three centuries removed ; a crime that onlv instant, united and, perhaps, forcible action can assuredly avert. This crime is the political extinction of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State by the monarchial power of Great Britain ; — the utter absorption of their devoted people, their great territory and their present abounding wealth ; tr say nothing of their incalculable future advantages ; into the immensity of an overswoUen and arrogant Empire, which has for centuries defied, threatened, intermeddled with, or enslaved the other countries of the world ; which has like a vast and ever- active maelstrom drawn down into its retentive depths all precious of Earth that opportunity could offer, influence entrap or force secure ; and which now by this determined embarkation on a new career of avowed conquest is on the threshold of gaining not only enormous additive territory and treasure, extensive new facilities for military communications and a wide field for future commerce and extension, but also A SURPASSINGLY INURED AND DISCIPLINED HOST OF VETERAN SOLDIERS with whom to prostrate the other nations at her feet, when further craving for power, further feebleness of opposition, and further opportunities for seizure, conjointly occur. The extinction of these Republics ; costing the expenditure of treasure beyond estimate, the irrestorable lives of thousands of brave men, and a destruction of property and retardal of social and commercial prosperity in South Africa transcending imagination, if permitted by those who can and should prevent it, will disgrace the Age, and involve every other NATION AS AN INFAMOUS ACCESSORY TO A DEED OF MOST EXECRABLE BARBARISM ! INTERVENE ! That sentiment which animates the souls of conscientious men to aid the weak individual of their species against the tyrannizing and brutal strong, should likewise urge nations to interpose in behalf of the mal- treated of their weaker class. And the outrage of those social obligations which bind the various divisions of the so-called civilized world together should rouse them as a unity to repress and correct the dangerous offender. An injury TO any ONE State or individual however small or WEAK, IS AN INJURY TO ALL THE OTHERS. Advancement has progressed too far to-day for this truth to be despised or neglected. It must be UPHELD ! It is not alone the question of the right (?) of a more powerful nation to coerce at will a weaker when it chooses rightly or wrongly to declare that its subjects resident within the latter' s confines are not enjoying their full entitlements, that is at issue ; but a far graver involvement : the CLAIM OF THAT INJURED StATE TO PROMPTLY RECEIVE, ON APPEAL, THE ARBITRAMENT OF ITS SISTER NATIONS AGAINST THE BRUTE FORCE OF ITS WOULD-BE DESTROYER, WHETHER THE LATTER ACQUIESCE OR NOT and further, the rights of a republic, however unprogressive its government may be, however contracted its policy may appear, above a MONARCHY which although pro/essmg- constitutionality, is nevertheless in its insular and colonial rule, an oligarchy of a certain pronounced and undeniable type. Consider this well ! Is it to be a precedent that any Government here- after assuming to believe the administration of another corrupt, or non- progressive, or a religious oligarchy {f), may step in and annexing the territories by force of arms, — take the reins of authority into their own hands ? And all other powers remain quiescent ? If so, farewell all liberty ! farewell all those long recognized rights hitherto interposing as a barrier between the feeble and the strong. Talk no more of Justice ; no more of progress ; no more of universal disarma- ment and peace amongst all the civilized (?) nations ; but revert at once to the brusque methods of the olden age, when the most dexterously wielded club was decisive argument in every dispute, and the largest and ablest army the most convincing title to dominion. Away with your Hague Conferences, mockeries of your real intent, — with your Codes of War, you dare not enforce when they are willfully violated by the strong, — with your International Rights, which you fear to uphold, lest forsooth, pet projects abort or commerce suffers ! All are outraged in this shameful war of Might on Right, this buccaneering raid for gold, this Conquistador inroad for dominion. Throw off the mask ! let the weaker fall before the stronger in society as with nations, for the principle is the same whether the burly ruffian garrotes or bludgeons his struggling yet help- less victim for his coveted purse or the over-powering armies of a robber- country shoot and shell into non-resistance the unaided forces of a relatively feeble State. Altiloquence ! ephuism ! cry those mean souls, content to grovel under any indignity and oppression to preserve their worldly prosperity ; those who read what I have written with sneering and ridicule, thinking thereby to repress enthusiasm and bury sentiment. With such, it is indeed ever, — ^^ repress enthusiasm, bury sentiment, allow nothing to interfere with the welfare of trade." Is this to be ? Is everything noble and natural in men or nations to be done away with, or concealed, that commerce may extend and fatten and fill its coffers albeit it tlourishes for slaves and dastards ? Alas ! then, for the world and its pretensions. They are naught ! Yet, even if such is the case, perhaps some emanations of Sentiment may stray from the obscurity of the oubliette to which Trade has consigned her. If so, (and may it providentially chance), let Columbia, above all the countries of Earth, concentrate upon them her attention, recognizing that it is to her, preeminently, all the world looks to terminate so unright- eous a strife, — precipitated by the intrigues of the low-minded but ambitious politician. Chamberlain, and the unscrupulous stock gambler, Rhodes, acting in collusion with the venal Government of Great Britain, and prosecuted avowedly for Empire, — for sordid gain ! For the power periling the South African Republics is the one whose best endeavors were used to stifle her in her birth, whose ill-concealed enmity has pursued her like a baffled blood-hound through the century, lurking in secret ever after each new failure in the hope of being able to destroy her by some successful attack at some moment of unguarded weakness or unsuspecting trust. For she is bound by everything sacred in ethics to requite the obliga- tions conferred upon her by Europe during the critical period from 1778 — 82, by now interposing to check the same tyrannic power which would then have crushed her own free aspirations and robbed the world of one of its mightiest factors in its process of gradual advancement, an advance- ment that will be unerringly measured by the outcome of this war. The precedent then set her, the priceless boon then conferred upon her by France, Russia, Holland and the rest. SHE CANNOT, MUST NOT, DISREGARD. She must act on the one, she must transmit and diffuse the other. It is said she is weak, she has no navy, her trade would be ruined. Vain evasions of imperative duty ! Review the past She was weak, her ships were few, her trade in peril when the first Revolution, (hallowed be its memory), called men to sink party-spirit, fortunes, life itself in the grand sacrifice for Liberty and Right, when 1812 demanded our energies to protect the privileges of our abused citizens on the seas, when the Civil War burst like a tempest on the land, when the " Maine'' was rent asunder in the harbor of Havana and Cuba cried for help from beneath the tread of oppression, but the men, the ships and the 8 money, and in several cases the aid of other nations, came; or rather were made to come ; as if by magic! And they will come now. Let this, or any other Power stand forth for RIGHT, for Principle, and it will not stand alone, nor find, at the crucial moment, its resources limited or wanting. Behold! the pessimists of yore are disconcerted, America is stronger to-day, its resources greater and its trade more flour- ishing than it has ever been since the confining shackles of Great Britain were stricken away from it forever. If Worldly Interest must be appealed to, to rouse the nations from their apathy, what more powerful arguments can be adduced, than by that potent factor ? The craving for dominion actuating this piratical inroad on the African Republics will not be satiated by that success. Who is not well aware of this ? France knows it, the geographical positions of Madagascar and the Soudan should be sufficient reminders, — Germany knows it, has she not Damara-land to keep her informed ? Bel- gium knows it, Rhodes' railroad may require part or all of the Congo. Free State. Portugal knows it: — Angola and Portuguese E. Africa would help round off British territory finely! Russia knows it; for then Abys. sinia will be threatened and the extension of India begin, (English are already in Beloochistan and Southern Persia), and lastly the United States knows it, for it will presage the immeasureable and menacing ascendancy of her old persecutor over her, promoted by her culpable indifference in the beginning to the cause of a people contesting under far more aggrava- ted circumstances for the same principles of liberty for which the BLOOD OF HER OWN SONS WAS SHED IN '76, and an incomputable dam- age to her trade both with what might have been a prospering and inde- pendent sister-republic, and with the East, for England, affirm what she will, has ever, in the light of History, proved herself a determined op- ponent of free commerce. Experience has taught us in this world's enlightening record that the best way to combat the overgrowth of any too rapidly expanding Power is to set up and protect other smaller but virile commonwealths in the vicin- ity of the greater, or of the colonies of the latter. In the South African Republics are two such States, amply sufficient, properly abetted, to bar England's schemes of empire in S. Africa forever. Nurture them! Strengthen them! And when two countries are warring, there is always an opportune moment, pregnant with great possibilities which, if not timely profited by, may never recur. Now is the time! NOW, or the favoring chance is lost, perhaps forever. Proposals of peace have been made by the aggrieved republics, have been contemptuously rejected, and followed by a concen- tration of forces preliminary to a grand advance through the Free State towards Pretoria, indicating a British resolve for dominion or extermination. Great Britain is mightily involved both financially and militarily, her vast resources are being taxed to the utmost, — her available home reserves for foreign service exhausted, — her best regiments garrisoning India and battling, or keeping open communications, in South Africa, — such an auspicious juncture is rare and calls for instant seizure. Now is the mo- ment. INTERVENE ! or the just reproaches, the scorn, the contempt, of the coming Ages, and the misfortunes of far greater wars of the near future than can pos- sibly ensue from interposition now, will inevitably befall and pursue ye who neglect to perform NOT A BENEFACTION but a DUTY ! not only to those, who twice abandoning their lands for the all glonous sake of Liberty, now contest for the same freedom fought for by the patriot of '76; to those who faced by the Kalahari desert on the north and the bayonets of the British on the south, know no third haven of refuge, (save in the succor of their brethren), and are prepared to die but not to yield, but a duty to THE WORLD. Be not deluded. This is no war for civilization as England at first averred it. The power that loosed against us the horrors of savage war- fare in 1776 and 181 2, that hung men before the faces of their wives in Cape Colony in 18 16, that blew Sepoys from her cannons in the 1850's, that has ground Ireland beneath the iron heel of power for centuries, that has massacred wretched natives all over the globe with Maxims and Catlings not for civilization but for Empire, that has suffocated the deluded fol- lowers of the Mahdi with lyddite fumes in the War of the Soudan and em- 10 ploys that poisonous explosive in warfare against a white race in S. Africa to-day in defiance of the rules laid down by civilized nations, that would have pressed the Hill tribes, (Goorkahs and Sihks), of India, nay, even the Zulus and Basutos' into service in her exterminating aggression of the present, had she not feared the overwhelming outcry of the world, — only mocks that sublime progress she blasphemeously invokes as her defence. Tt BEHOLD IN PARALLEL : THE PROFESSIONS VS. THE ACTS OF ENGLAND. The Professions. She is striving for toleration of Relig- ion. She is the cham- pion of pure govern- ment and destruc- tion of oligarchy. She is looking to the comfort and well being of her subjects in South Africa,. England has ever been forward in the cause of Liberty and the promotion of Peace. She wishes to es- tablish the rights of the Uttlanders and secure them ade- quate reiiresenta- tion. She desires to abol- ish Slavery at once and forever. She is concerned for the natives. She wishes to firO' mx)tefree trade. She is waging a war for Humanity. THEi A.CTS, Herself intolerant as long as a law exists which bars a Catholic from a single office in the realm. Pure government in India, In Ireland, in South Africa today! She has upheld, and is upholding, Turkey and Morocco two of the most pernicious despotisms and corrupt empires in the known world ; and for what but her own selfish interests f For the fall of these would give her great European rivals way. Yet even so, were there wr^ large known gold fields in these two empires their stability might not be so assured I And herself an oligarchy, an aristocratic oligarchy. Very solicltious for thesel Meanwhile her poor subjects in India starve and are oppressed by thousands of fortune-hunting, office-seeking, English. Three hundreds of millions of money, it is said, are being ex- pended in the present war. But not much more than as many hundred of thousands are being distributed in the form of food among the perishing Hindoos most of whom would be enriched for life by the enormous sums paid out to destroy the lives of Boers in another continent. Nor has one de- termined effort been made to oust the horde of officials, petty or otherwise, preying on the vitals of that suffering land. She has been so energetic in the reverse direction that hardly a day of perfect peace has brightened the reign of Victoria. England has ever tried and is trying to put the world In chains Nay, she been the only nation to continuously persecute a man battling for his country' s freedom after assert- ing her supremacy. Witness Napoleon, Makanna, Cetewayo, Arabi, and a host of her own domestic and Irish patriots 1 The people of Ireland have long had more crying grievances than any Uitlander, have long had many rights denied them. The Coercion Act is still in force. The Irish are so feebly represented in Parliament, they can never hope to carry any measures for the rehabilitation of their country. So with India. Newspapers have been arbitrarily suppressed there, Editors imprisoned. The people have little voice. Even her own people lift their voices no higher than the Lower House. Only a short time ago the ' 'United Irishman' ' newspaper was raided and its issue confiscated by the police of Dublin because of articles obnoxious to the Crown. She did not make war on Russia or the United States to abolish it; sha began aiding the Secessionists I She does not eradicate it, (and bars the other nations from the attempt), from Turkey, and Morocco and Arabia today, she has not been careful to expel it from her own colonies. Ask Rhodes how he secured the labor for his Rhodesian mines 1 ' 'Natives who had no inclination to work, were hunted out to work in mines and not always well or justly treated there ' ' Younghusband (pro English, S. A. of T. 20s). This is but an instance, such could be multiplied. Think of Britain'.? coal mines of this period, and their child service 1 She has not proved any existing ' 'indenturing' ' in the S. A. Rep. worse than the liABOE THEEE. She has spilled more native blood than any nation of modem times in its aboriginal wars, and seized more territory from tribesmen than any other country on the face of this globe. Review past history for a refutation of this monstrous assertion. For no other than English ends I And with a poisonous agent in her warfare 1 Herself loud in outcry against dum-dum bullets, and the com. paratively harmless ' 'stink pots' ' of the recent Malay and Chinese pirates. Where was her zeal in the case of Dahomey where fearful annual sacri- fices were offered up, destroying thousands. Dahomey was left to French- men but the nearby gold coast seized 1 To make further comment would be as absurd as the statement it would controvert- 12 0t tlxje '^ozx ^oXonizs in MouXh ^fxxcn, inUx&pzxBK^i wltfe xzvxuths upon thzix txzuivxzut hvi '^UQlund, th& jclisadtratx^ tagjcs aixd Ixa^dsMpfs agattxst wHiclx ttueyf Ixawje stviwen, attjft tttjei« txonhXzs wittt tfejeiv aXijew vjesi^jents. *' Longfaest injuria, longae ambages " Vieqil, ^ntadl. 345. PRELUDE. The writer of this history of suffering and wrong, began it with an un- cased mind, but, — as the task progressed; as the arbitrary, unscrupulous and inhuman methods of England were unfolded to his view ; as each new injury appealed to his sympathy, as the heroic sacrifices of the unfortunate Boers for Freedom aroused his commiseration, — Httle by little, all that portion of his predilections till then retained by Britain was swept away and transferred, most heartily, to those she had for a century and more, per- secuted and oppressed. The data, operating upon his mind to the detri- ment of the English cause, are here presented to the reader. Who, possessed of a reasoning mind, can peruse what follows without experiencing the same final convictions, — who, that is animated by a gener- ous spirit and endowed with worthy sentiments, cannot but applaud the sturdy resistance offered by these valorous little States to a mighty em- pire of whose overwhelming resources they were primarily but too fully cognizant ? Careful study has been made of the entire subject, all obtainable litera- ture consulted, persons from South Africa conversed with, and the colon- ial poHcy and dealings of Great Britain with other nations in the past investigated to interpret arightly her present actions. Not one fact has been misstated, all is supported by authority, and that authority largely English, for the Boers have had no real historian of their own race, and we must read in the pages of the writers of the nation that is crushing them out of existence for the story of their wrongs. 13 6i6 — 605 B. C. Phoenicians in the service of Nechao said by Herodotus to have circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope. 15th Cent. CoviLHAM (Portuguese) mentions South Africa as known to India. 1493. (i486 and 1489 say others) Diego Cou. and Barth. Diaz (Por- tuguese) are the first Europeans to behold the Cape. The fury of the waves exciting mutiny amongst the crews, they neither double, nor land on, that headland. 1497. Vasco Di Gama, (Portuguese), doubles the Cape, is wounded by the Kaffirs in Helena Bay, discovers Natal. Later, other Portuguese attempt to settle with little lasting success. 1650-2. Van Riebeck, acting under the Dutch East India Co., perman- ently colonizes the country. He landed a small number of colonists, rough, hardy, lower-class people, who built a village on the slopes of Table Mt. More Dutch and some Poles, Swedes and Germans arrived from time to time. In the latter year the English fleet met and defeated the Dutch in Dover Channel in time of i)eace. 1686. From 170-180 French Huguenots flying from their own country on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, join the colony. These were absorbed into the Dutch colony ; part voluntarily, part forcibly ; and raised its social status greatly. The English have always alluded contemptuously to the low origin of the colony, apparently suppressing the fact that they have instituted much more ignoble settlements with convicts and thieves in Virginia, Australia, and Van Diemen's Land, —and endeavored to infuse a mixture of felon blood into this very colony in the 50' s, an attempt frustrated by the menaces of its people. Many of these first settlers were, as Olive Schekiner (i", A. Q. iSqq, iS), says " a brave, fearless folk with the blood of the old sea-kings in their veins * * * " resembling the English ' 'in a certain dogged persistence and unalienable, indestructible, air of per- sonal freedom.' ' They were ever ready to resent ' 'interference and external control.' ' KixoN (S of T preface IX) says : ' 'It should be remembered that most of the Boers come of a good stock.' ' During the whole of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the progress of Dutch commerce called forth the hate and jealousy of England and many wars resulted, transmit- ting racial dislike to generation after generation, and bearing bitter fruit to-day. 1780-85. Le Valliant, (French), explores the " Hottentot Country " from the Cape to Angola Bay and the Kalahari Desert. LiCHTKNSTEiN, (German), later, but far more thoroughly, followed in his footsteps(1802-5.) We hear nothing of English exploration until 1800-2. 1782. Dutch provinces recognize independence of United States. Eng- land seizes their East and West Indies. 1794-95. Revolutionary principles infect the Cape Dutch. Boers revolt against the Governor and throw off the yoke of Holland. At that time the Dutch did not claim all South Africa but only a small area of a fevt square miles around Cape Town. 14 1795- An English fleet is sent to support the authority of the Prince ot Orange. The Dutch Governor already without authority, yields up those he could not resist and cannot defend. Here we^ave the first advent of England upon the scene. Hitherto Portuguese, Dutch, French, (Jermans, Danes, Swedes, &c., hence the prior right of all. And that advent the result of fraud ! Holland was then under control of the armies of France, the Prince of Orange ; z. fugitive and deposed ruler ; had taken refuge in England, part of Holland was in arms against him and the greater portion cowed under the military rule of the invaders. It was at this favorable juncture that the Boers of the Cape, never much attached to & Government that had rarely troubled itself to assist or elevate them to any noteworthy extent and had ruled them most despotically, became inoculated with the revolutionary ideas of the French. Republic, rose against the Company and proclaimed themselves inde- pendent. The Prince of Orange is said to have requested the English to take the Cape in charge for him and subdue the malcontents, the British sent a fleet to ' 'support his authority.' ' An authority that no longer existed, an authority denied by the French, repudiated by a majority of the Dutch ! They arrived at the Cape, the Governor protested and made a nominal resistance, both availless and England took possession in the namb OF THE Prince of Obange, appointed a British Governor and held the colony by force on the assumption that Holland would not be able to retain it and on the conclusion of peace in Europe it would finally fall into English hands. And Holland was then at peace with England \ and Holland never desired England' s interference. But as McFarlane and.Thomson say (C. H. of E. iv 77) "our ministers speedily took measures for preventing the wealth of the Dutch colonies from flowing into Paris.' ' This needs no comment I After this seizure by illegal violence we hear no more of the "authority of the Prince ' ' Promises were liberally made to the new subjects ' 'one of the inducements held out was security in slave property, at the same time these officers, ' ' (of high rank in En&i land), ' 'warning the colonists that if France obtained possession she would liberate the slaves, as she had done in Martinique, thereby ruining this colony as she had ruined that island." Tujual, (I/, of B.) 1800-3 After the Peace of Amiens, England restores the Cape to Hol- land. This was under the Addington Ministry, 1806. An English fleet under Hope Popham and five thousand troops under Baird, make forcible conquest of the colony. Taking prompt advantage of the elevation of the weak Louis to the throne of Holland by Napoleon, the British reoccupied the Cape, making no excuses this time for the seizure. At tlus period the Dutch had annexed lands reaching as far North as the Great Fish River, (a stream rising in the southern slopes of the Snowy Mts. and flowing S. E. to a point on the E. coast about one hundred miles N. of Algoa Bay, lat. 33°), and extending as far W. as a point situated a little S. of the Orange River. And they numbered some twenty-seven thousand souls. Much is said about the cruelties of the Dutch to the natives in the conflicts during such annexation, but the same and more can be urged against the English in their dealings with India, Burmah, Egypt and Ashantee Caffi-aria and the Soudan, and in their early colonial struggles with our own Indians in this country. The use of the Dutch language is guaranteed to the Boers. Slavery is not interfered with, English slavers are alone permitted to bring negroes to the Cape and these are Bold to the Boers at very high prices. C, R. L. (1806-7-8, etc.) 1810-14. The British seize Sumatra, Molluca and all other East India possessions of the Dutch. 181 1. First Kaffir War. Many previous conflicts before it. Kaffirs driven across Fish River. The solicitude of the English for the welfare of the Zulus, and their horror of the Dutch attacks on the poor savages are now first emphasized in a striking manner 1 when their own well-being is menaced by the growing power of the native kings. 15 1810-14. Hottentot police established for the colony. Sale of grain re- stricted. Land tenure abolished. Members of a degraded colored race vested with such authority by the law ! Under the severe governors, (military martinets), apiwinted for the Cape, most of the English Historians of the Boers admit that many vmnecessarily harsh measures were enforced, (vide Theale, (H. of B.) Clabk (Tr.) Fitzpatriok, (T. T. F. W.) and Bkyoe, U of S. A.) ; Olive Scheeineb (S. A. Q.) and Joubebt {Let to V) have accentuated tneir denouncements. A farmer could onlv sell his grain at a certain price on which those who purchased it reai>ed enormous profits, — ^he was not protected sufficiently on his farm, but ran the risk of being driven from it, or killed by the Kaffir at any moment, (Here it may be said the English settlers were little better off.) When troops did recover his cattle they were sometimes sold at auction before his face by the soldiers as lawful prizes and he himself told he was fortunate in escaping punishment as causei of the disturbance. The abolishment of the Land tenure (1813) and a new system enforced, redemption of paper currency at thirty six-one hundredths its face value (! ) (1825) and laws regula- ting treatment of slaves, caused intense dissatisfaction, though the first of these measures was ultimately very beneficial. 1814-15. King of the Netherlands forced to cede Cape to England for ;^6,ooo,ooo. Comment on this, after what has been said of the previous transactions, is needless. 1816. Dutch East Indies restored in full to the Netherlands. " (Mar. 9). Slachters Nek executions (" Butchers Ridge.") Bezuidenhout, a farmer, whipped a Hottentot servant, and refusing to appear in Court therefor, was shot while resisting the military sent to seize him. He was defying justice, but the Boers believed as he did, concerning his rights and rose in arms. They were defeated and the leaders tried for treason. Five were hanged. Soldiers surrounded the place of execution in which the fbiends and wives of the condemned were com- pelled to behold the last agonies of those they loved 1 Four of the ropes broke and yet despite the clamor of the crowd for mercy at what they considered Divine interposition the fatal cords were again, and successfully, applied ! ' ' The Boers never forgot Slachters Nek, and it was one of the causes which lead to the Great Trek ' ' Nixon {S. of T.y 15.) " As no blood had actually been shed by any of the prisoners ' ' it was gener- ally supppsed that the Governor would use his power to prevent the penalty of death being inflicted." ' ' There was an opportunity for the English Government to secure the afiections of these people by granting to them the lives of the chief culprits, but Governor Charles Somerset did not avail himself of it. ' ' Theal (//. of B.) "The mistake made by Somerset in 1816 wsis as the mistake would have been by President Kruger if in 1896 Instead of exercising the large prerogative of mercy and humanity he had destroyed the handful of conspirators who attempted to destroy the State. O. Schbeineb (S::A. Q., 2q.) England made the fatal mistake of sending out martinets to rule a people whose fealty could only be won by kindness. The thirty-two men and women who witnessed the barbarous scene suffered banishment for life, imprisonment or fines. What horrible bar- barity in it all I But such, history shows, has ever been England' s methods in dealing with resistance to heb will. ' ' A vindication of the law harsh, unnecessary and unwise in its policy and truly terrible in its manner of fulfilment.' ' Fitzpatbick ( 7". T.f IV., 4.) 1819. Second Kaffir War. False Prophet Makanna attacks Grahams- town, repulsed with great slaughter. In both these wars, incited by English aggressions, the Kaffirs resisted with a courage and subtlety almost wonderful and with a ferocity bom of despair, the English slaughtered thousands and the flames of burning kraals in the invaded country con- sumed men and women alike in hundreds. By this, the English Colony was extended to the Keiskamma. 1822. Traders from the Cape first visit " Natal " ruled over by Tchaka. Tchaka was the terrible Zulu tyrant whose drilled and well armed impis carried con- quest and destruction through the native dominions of South Africa. Sometimee whole tiibes and his own reffimenis were pat to death by his orders. 16 1824. First settlement beyond the Orange River by Boers. Brifeh mfe^^'*^*^ ^^ ^°P^' °^ ^^"^'' P^tu'^age and part from a desire to escape ftom 1825. English language made compulsory in official documents £ras^d%S>de"/cifn^KS^^^^ (1828. Third Kaffir War. Kaffirs driven out of Kat Valley which Brit- ish settle with Hottentots. 1827. Abolishment of courts of land rost and heemraden. A measure not without benefits. 1834 (Dec.) Unprovoked inroad of Kaffirs upon the frontier settlements m which both English and Dutch, but mostly the latter, suffered horrible barbarities. treating the matter was wholly inconsiderate and unjust. Wenelg s method of 1835. Slavery abolished. Value of slaves three million pounds one million seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds appropriated to recompense the owners! Currency redeemed at thirty-six one- hundredths of face value ! pth^rToTi^Au^Sx 1st fhi^i col'^rS^^^^ ingthe ruin of manv farmers '' "tw ,^Li"i^ ^-^i-^^- 1^^^^'^® ^^^'^^ "entail- Treasury Bonds but £ot kSwtae the ^nh^P J?hoc?'"P''°?*f "^ '° ^^^^^ P^rt with EngUsh without'difficultyK trifle/' 5:hopkins(/^' ^P^^^l^^^^ secured these from them s^^rtl^rtolll tWhtSTo^^^ofTh^*^^"'^^^^^^ '^eing the offered toWproprietorrs^comBeiSatiL if th^^??T?A°^^ ^7 Parliament had been they could onfyd^ispose oftS^S^cSX^btTyS^u^l^^^ilTf^^ "°*^^™^ wouMrfand^dwf sXr'Tn^other Ta^f '^*''a*'i/°'^ *^ ?°f °^ "^t' Purchased laborers, they ioritv in numbers of Kaffirs Bechuanl^ Hot/pn'^^Vf ^^.'^^-J^^.""^^ °^ ^ ^^t ^'iper- for the master from the too nrnhS wi^n^V^^l- °*°*^' ^^-^ without any protection by law 1835-6. Fourth Kaffir War. Costing Great Britain £X, 000, 000. KaflTixs driven E. of Great Kei River. 17 1836. The Great Trek. Eight thousand — twelve thousand Boers, en- during terrible sufferings, emigrate from the Colony, issuing a declaration of grievances against the English and found new settle- ments, in Natal, England agrees not to disturb if slavery is not re- instituted. Theal (H. o/B.) shows the Boers were even then the ' 'champions of all the colonists for fair treatment. ' ' The English were generally passive not so the Boers, under in- justice, and now the patience of the latter was forever at an end. The ' ' last straw that broke the camel' s back ' ' had been cast upon the Dutch burden. Incensed by neglect, smarting under losses, exposed to violence from the KaflQrs against whom their powers of resistance had been weakened by the constant endeavor of Eng- land' s officials to deprive them of their arms and ammunition on the plea of ' ' protection to the poor natives ' ' unable to cultivate their farms by hiring labor, and oppressed by the harsh laws of the land ; thousands of Boers packed up their movables in their rude unwieldly carts and wagons, disposed of their farms at great sacrifices, (for there were few who cared to purchase and an immensity for sale), and with their wives and children shook the dust of English civilization from their feet, they fondly hoped forever, and journeyed into the unknown wilderness abounding with savage beasts and still more ferocious men. The story of this brave proud-hearted people is a marvel and has no parallel in history, ancient or modern, save in the single instance of the Messenians of Ira, who having been beseiged for eleven years in that city and betrayed at last by treacherjr, placed their women and children in their midst and passing through the ranks of their Spartan foes, (who opened them in admiration of their heroism), left their ruined country and settled in Arcadia, Rhegium and Zancle. But the Boers met with no friendly Arcadians and Rhegians I The reader of their trials exclaims with admiration, ' 'What will men not hazard for civil and religious freedom ? ' ' Their first parties, (about one hundred in all), were doomed to fearful endings,— the Boers say this was mainly due to the English depriving them of arms and powder, this while much exaggerated appears to be too true in many instances. One company under Van Rensbueg, trekked north beyond Zoutpansberg and was never heard of more. All ; men, women and little children, fell by famine and fever or the assegais of the Zulu 1 The other, led by Louis Tbiohhardt, went also north and from Zoutpansberg to Delagoa Bay. Their survivors were three women, nineteen children and four youths, Theal (,H. of B.) not a single grown man, Fitzpatrick ( T. T. of W. id). Larger preparations were made despite the loss of the pioneers. Before the middle of the year 1837 there were one thousand wagons between the Caledon and Vaal Rivers. Theal (^H. ofB.) The Gtovernor could not prevent it. Atty. Gen. Oliphant was appealed to, he replied it seemed impossible ' 'to prevent persons passing out of the colony by laws in force or by any that could be framed, ' ' and the Lieut. Gov. confirmed this in a reply to an address from the people of Uitenhage saying, "any such laws would be tyrannical and oppressive." England had learned something since the times of Charles I, who had not scrupled to procure an order of council for prevention of emigration to New England in 1638. Cromwell, Hampden and others were then detained ; an unjust act of despot- Ism followed by many other such, ultimately causing his ruin, (vide Mather, i.C.j.— Oldmixon, I. 42.— Hutchinson Hist, of Mass., i. j>2, etc. and Neal, i. 148, etc.) A former Gfovemor, B. D' Urban, wrote that ' '■persuasion and attention to their wants and necessities'''' would be the only means to stop the emigration. JouBERT, {Let to V.,) says the Boers ' ' were even followed by British officials beyond the Orange River to try and find out if there were not perhaps still one faithful slave with his master and if the Boers were not perhaps carrying a quantity of arms and ammunition along with them. Thanks to the kindness of those officials the Boers were advised of the object of their coming and were consequently enabled to conceal their guns and ammu- nition.' ' It not being possible to prevent their departure, it was still practicable to annoy and persecute them, and this was done. It Is even said the British incited the natives against them, but fortunately there is no proof of that. Peter Retief, (Boer leader) published a declaration (called the Boer Declaration of In- dependence) with 10 divisions, dated Grahamstown, January 22, 1837, in which he says : 1, they despair of saving the colony from the evils which threaten it from vagrants, 2, severe losses from the emancipation of slaves, 3, speaks of plunder from Kaffirs, 4, odium cast on the Boers under name of religion, 5, that they will uphold liberty and have no slav- ery wherever they go, 6, that they leave the colony to enjoy a quieter life, will molest no one, but defend themselves, 7, that they have framed laws and will punish all traitors amongst them, 8 that they will make known to the natives their desire to live in peace 18 amongBt them, 9 that they quit the colony under the full assurance that the English gov- ernment has nothing more to require of them and will allow them to govern themselves without interference in future, 10 and that they leave the land of their birth in which they have suffered enormous losses and continual vexation, with a firm reliance on God.— Part founded the Orange Fkee State ; (not then so called). On June 6th, 1837, at Wynburg, Ketief was made commandant, and the Volksraad founded. At the Vaal River a party of these devoted people met the impis of Moselekatse, the Zulu, marching from the far north to destroy them. At break of day the fierce and well- armed warriors burst upon their camps. A dozen to one 1 and taken by surprise 1 But the Boers fought with the indomitable resolution born of desperation, and drove off the Kafllrs without much loss to themselves, even rescuing some wounded women from their clutches. Moselekatse sent a more powerful army, telling his warriors not to appear before him again until all the Boers were dead. In the Boer camp less than forty were able to bear arms, but they laagered at Vecht Kop, fortified with branches of trees, and commending themselves to God, as is always their custom, poured so terrible and withering a fire upon the Kaffir army, that at last it fled, leaving hundreds of slain on the field. The Boer camp was in flames. Joubert, {Let to F), says that thinking they, (the Boers), had been con- sumed in their burning laager the inhabitants of Grahamstown kindled bonfires and re- joiced I But only eight of the brave defenders were killed and wounded. Maeocco, a native chief, actuated by pity, gave them oxen and supplies which enabled them to join others of their pieople in Natal, or Natalia as they named their infant colony. They made a treaty with Dingaan, (with whom then was said to be a missionary by the name of Owens), which he signed, granting them land, but having later on feasted Petee Retiep and seventy or eighty of his men, at one of the larger kraals, he treacherously massacred them all. Then his warriors fell upon the nearest laager; where were a few men and some six hundred women, aged persons, girls and children; and terrible was the result, for with steel and fire they destroyed all save a wretched few, a very few, who es- caped into the wilds among the more merciful lions and jackals, and after dreadful suffer- ings regained safety with others of their people. Two girls were taken from a pile of dead near the Blue Krantz River, who had each a score of deep assegai wounds and yet lived and recovered I Pages could be wrrtten on the horrors of this period. P. Uys, with two hundred men, rode against Dingaan, armed but with flintlocks I He and his little son and eight others were slain, the ammunition of the others gave out and they were forced to fly. Dingaan pursued soon after and met the desperate Boers at Weeneen on the Bosmans River, where they had laagered. A frightful battle of three days duration covered the field with Zulu dead and Dingaan' s warriors were scattered like chaff" before the hurricane. PEETORrus arrived with more Boers from the Cape and called all others he could together, and with four hundred— four hundred and fifty men invaded Dingaan' s country, met his army of ten thousand— thirteen thousand Zulus and defeated it with a loss of three thou- sand Kaffirs, crushing the power of that Zulu forever, on December 16, 1838. Previous to this, and even after it, the sufferings of the Boers were beyond belief. Their wives were violated before their dying eyes, their girls carried off", ravished or mutilated to the most horrible imaginable extent ; their children tortured and massacred ; and dozens perished by the loss of their herds and provisions or by being driven naked into the wil- derness a prey to wild beasts. The Boers did not dispossess the natives by force until the latter had horribly violated their treaty with them. 1839. Pietermaritzburg founded by Boers in Natalia. _ The Bechuanas and Korannas gradually dispersed, only the powerful Basutos in the impregnable Maluti Mountains being left. 1840. Gov. Napier proclaims that Boers have no right to Natalia. Wholly unjustifiable. 1842. Natalia attacks Port Durban where English squatters have installed themselves on Dutch soil. The Boers are repulsed. The English refused to become part of the Dutch settlement. Shortly after the Boers abandoned Pietermaritzburg because : — 1843. England annexes Natalia for the " Peace of South Africa." Allowed unjustifiable, as the Boers had defeated Dingaan, its ruler, and were beginning to prosper. They had, however, set up Panda in Dingaan' s stead, the British weie 19 jealous and resolved to bar Boer progress in every way, right or wrong. The Boers offered little resistance, they had no cannon, (the English force under Gov. H. Smith was well-supplied, yet they repulsed it at the Congella River, but the Kafirs instigated by the English fell upon their farms and they succumbed.) They, then, began to trek beyond the Drakensberg Mountains, there ensued, ' ' a scene of misery such as I never saw before" (Gov. H. Smith) Pres. Peinsloo, protested, prior to his trek, in vain. ' ' We will not defy England' s power ' ' said he ' ' but we cannot tolerate that might should conquer right without having fought with all our forces.' ' A true Boer ! The Boers said this annexation was prompted by the fear that a free Republic would attract great emi- gration from the Cape. The English reason has been given. It was also intended, this year, to annex the Free State, but it did not seem to be worth the trouble and it was thought the population would perish in war with the natives ! 1845. Griquas appeal for aid against the Boers under treaty stipula- tions. British troops arrive and defeat the Boers. This must have been highly edifying to the Kaffirs ! To say nothing of its humanity or justice. 1846. Gaikas and Islambles overrun the Cape to Uitenhage inflicting great damage. Fifth Kaffir War. ' 'War of the Axe, ' ' a fierce and bloody war lighting the country with the flames of burning kraals, and deluging it vrith the blood of thousands of native men wometi and children, 1847-52, Troubles with missionaries and natives. The Boers burn Livingstone's house in 1852 and force him to leave the country. A vast accumulation of grievances against the missionaries had been storing up in the Dutch heart for more than thirty years. The missionary had acquired the most unen- viable reputation of a meddler with affairs outside his vocation, a misrepresenter of facts, a usurper of magisterial authority and a champion of the aborigines eve^i in their wrong doing. And credence was given by the Cape and Home authorities, in almost every instance, to these men. At their instance, in 1812, there had been hardly a family on the frontier some one of whom or its connections had not been cited as a criminal for attacks on the natives before the Circuit Court. And most of the cases found without true cause for trial I {JO. R. &» L.) This explains much of the animosity shown towards Livingstone, and his towards a portion of them. The Boers of the Cashan Mountains were denounced by him as a cruel cowardly people, those of the Cape, (under English rule), were honorable, peaceable and indus- trious. The Cashan Boers burned native towns, for the sake of capturing children for slaves, and cultivated their farms with unpaid labor, &c., &c., he tells us. These very Boers had previously destroyed the power of a terrible despot who had done infinitely worse than they ever did or could have done. The Boers say Livingstone instigated Sechele, the Bechuana, to murder tyxe first of their people slain by Bechuanas. He declares that chief acted only in self-defence, and sixty of his people were killed and two hundred en- slaved. Granted some of this is true, Livingstone was British, after him would come the traders, British, The Boers had had enough of that nation, they had reason for suspic- ion of anything English, they desired of all things, no English7)ien, and especially no missionary English. The Superintendent of the London Missionary Society was their indefatigable and pitiless opponent and all the benevolent associations unwittingly backed his accusations. All who joined the Boers were required to swear they were inot connected with any missionaries 1 1S48. Gov. Smith drives back the Kaffirs and annexes part of Caffraria. The reader will observe, that in all these wars with the aborigines the English are doing exactly what they contemned in the Boers. Boers resist English in the Free State, expel them from authority and under Pretorius declare themselves free, 20 i849- (Aug. 29) Battle of Boomplats ending in total defeat of the Boers. Annexation of the Free State. Many Boers now trekked to the north of the Vaal River where they founded Potchef- stroom and again endeavored to settle, on the soil which the generosity of the Portuguese had bestowed upon them. Some qualms of conscience must Save affected the English; as was evinced later on in 1852. 1851-52. Sixth Kaffir War. Gaika' s, Amaxosa and rebel Hottentots invaded the Cape. Gov. G. Grey repulsed them, assisted by a terrible famine which they brought upon themselves by killing nearly all their cattle and throwing away their corn at the behest of Umlangeni, a medicine man, who told them it would propitiate the spirits of the dead, and bring these forth in their cause. Thousands perished, the British mercilessly urged the war, and pretty well com- pleted what the famine had begun. 1852. Great Britain recognizes the Transvaal. Commissioners Hogg and Owens guaranteed the emigrant Boers north of the Vaal Elver the right of administering their own affairs and of governing according to their own laws without interference. Assuring them ; — that no extension shall be made by the British north of the Vaal, — that is the fervent wish of the British to maintain peace and free trade, — that anj' misunderstandings as to the Vaal River line shall be decided by a commission, and that all compacts with natives north of the Vaal are disavowed. 1853. M. W. Pretorius announced to be first president of "Holland African Rep." Death of his father (the first Pretorius), Andreas. 1854. (Feb. 4th.) Commissioner Clerk at Zand River resigns the Orange State Sovereignty and permits its people to frame their own Constitution. Existing treaties with natives being ignored ! A second reaction on the part of England 1 But why ? It had become too costly to protect them ! —it was difficult to maintain authority with dignity 1 —Besides the famine had broken the power of the Kaffirs ! (Why then was it difficult to maintain authority with dignity if the Boers were weak ?) What was the result of this enfranchisement : — The Free State became ' 'one of the most flourishing, peaceful and well-ordered provinces on the Earth.' ' At this time, four republics existed in the Transvaal territory the largest called the ' ' Holland African Republic, ' ' the others ' 'Lydenburg, " " Zoutpansburg ' ' and Utrecht. ' ' 1856. Missionaries expelled. Five stations broken up in a few years, Mackenzie, ("10 years North of Orange R.") 1857. Differences between Free State and Holland- African Rep. Ketjger and Pretorius enter the former with a small army. This is said to have been worse than Jameson's Raid. The forces faced each other but did not come to blows. Peace was made. The H. A. R. had claimed the Free State. New laws : Miners, ex- plorers and prospectors fined and English not allowed to own land. (Jeppes^ Almanac.) 1858. First mention of S. African Republic. 1859. Lydenburg federates with H. African Rep. Pretorius elected president of the Free State. i860. Complete fusion into " South African Rep." j;86?. 'Griquas cede their farms to Free State and depart to KafFraria. 1863. Fighting between Schoeman and Kruger in the S. A. Republic. A rebellion of Europeans and Africanders against Boers. Kruger defeated. Arbitra- tion from Natal invoked. English decide/or the rebels and give them Boer territory in the Transvaal. Boers submit. Comment on the justice of this arbitration is left to the reader 1 for Schoeman had rebelled against the Volksraad. 1866. Kaffraria annexed in toto to Cape Colony. In October of this year the first diamond was found to the north of the Vaal River, Some say it was not until April, 1869, and in the west of the Free State. 1867. Gold found at the Tati, and in and without Lydenburg, in the Transvaal. Rush ensues. Mohesh of the Basutos' vanquished by the Free State, cedes land to it. This aroused English jealousy and evoked pretty rapid action from the Cape govern- ment, which was resolutely set against all extension of territory by the Free State. 1868. Part of Basuto lands declared annexed to the Cape. Yet these had been conquered by the Orange Free State, as justly, and more so, than Eng- land had Kaffraria. 1869. Governor of Cape interferes in boundary dispute between Mohesh and the Free State. Thus the Orange Free State suffered ' ' by the unjust and unlawful British intervention after we had overcome an armed and barbarous black tribe on our eastern frontier.' ' (^Proclamation of President Steyn, iSgg.) 1870. Diamonds found plentifully. 1 87 1. The English seize the Diamond fields and call the territory con- taining them " Griqua-land West," (situated between the South African RepubHc and the Free State). The first Kimberley diamond was found this year, and the indications its discovery gave were not unheeded ! As to England' s conduct : ' ' Perhaps the most discreditable page in British Colonial History.' ' (Froude). ' ' Was not the trust assured them by the Convention abused when they were dispossessed of a stretch of country where the diamond fields were situated.' ' Joubert i^Lei to F.) I have read many English accounts of the Free State diflBiculties but find no justification of this amazing seizure put forward by any, it is passed over in silence by the many. Rhodes acquired these mines later under the Rothschilds. The English afterwards tacitly admitted an injustice by paying ninety thousand pound); to the Free State for the property. Ninety thousand pounds I Less than the value of dia- monds sometimes removed in one week! Ninety thousand pounds for a Golcondaof gems ! And not a vestige of title possible to be claimed in the seized territory by the English Government I Peetorius resigned this year and Burger was elected President of the Free State. 1875. Fingo land and No-Mans-land annexed as " E. Griqua-land" by Cape Colony. England says because of desire for protection expressed by the natives, (this is untrue), Boers declare because of a determined resolve to prevent the progress of the Republic. 1876. First Franchise law of the South African Republic. Acquiring landed property ; or one year' s residence ; constitutes a settler a burgher with full electoral powers. Note the liberality of this law, the discovery of enormous gold fields had not then taken place to endanger the safety of the Republic, it could therefore mani- fest its generous tendencies. 22 1877. (April 12). T. Shepstone annexes the South African Re- public, despite protests of President and people. Lanyon made administrator. British writers say the government acquiesced in the annexation ; (there is no record to that effect); that the government was in anarchy and chaos; that the KaflSrs would have destroyed the people. Nevertheless it must be said at this time most all the native tribes had been subdued by the Boers, who had kept them under for forty years ! True Sec- cocoENi and Cetewayo menaced them without, but the latter menaced the British as well. How much more generous would it have been to have placed the English forces at the disposal of the afflicted Republic without exacting any hard conditions. We lead an infant by the hand to aid it to walk, we do not restrain or beat it. But England has not shown herself capable of much magnanimity in her past history. She took advant- age of a defeat of the Boers by Seccocoeni, and of their financial bankruptcy, to further her ambitious ends, she chose to consider the Transvaal in anarchy, when she, herself had been the prime cause of that slight disorganization, and History has recorded her shame on its imperishable pages. About this period the Transvaal had been endeavoring to run a railroad to Delagoa Bay and this embroiling them with the Kaffirs is said to have menaced the welfare of the Eng- lish Colonies, and called for Interposition. The Republic then owed two hundred and fifteen thousand pounds, the Boers who were contented lived far apart, the party of disorder, (largely foreign), in compact commu- nities. These latter, says Aylwaed, refused to pay their taxes, treated laws with con- tempt, and called for foreign intervention instigated by English influence. Then came Shepstone as "adviser," "friend, "—his presence instantly created suspicion,— and well it might I "No chaos or anarchy" (says Aylwaed) "reigned except in the gold fields, and even there the law vindicated itself without bloodshed.' ' But the English declared it chaos and anarchy. Shepstone awaited the favorable moment, and when troops were near the border, announced annexation, in defiance of the protest'of the President, without the stated authorization of the Home Grovemment, and in ignoral of the will of the vast majority of the people. * • Nothing but annexation can save the State ' ' he wrote to Robert Herbert. It apwars from many records and historical occurrences that the English were very anxious now to save the State for themselves after leaving no means untried to ruin its people. The Gov- ernment accepted relief and pay, and I am informed from Boer sources that Kruger really did take office under the English, but they did not assent to Shepstone' s act. While many of the Boers had ill treated the natives, and, under the dubious term ap- prenticeship, really sold some as slaves, it is evidently unjust to charge this to all, but only those turbulent and cruel characters, (denizens of all communities, and plentifully met with in our own land, witness New Orleans, Frankfort, and many parts of the South and West to-day), who followed their own brutal tendencies regardless of all laws, natural or human. Two deputations of whom Kruger was a member were sent to England to protest against this annexation. They were denied the opportunity to present their case I Bartle Frere. (J/. L. of B. P.) tardily visiting Pretoria in 1879 ; (after having prom- ised immediate attention), says (April 14), ' 'I have been shown the stubborness of a determination to be content with nothing else ' ' (than the undoing of the act of annexa- tion) ' ' for which I was not prepared by the testimony of officials who had been longer in the country. ' ' But he believes ' ' these malcontents do not constitute a majority of the Boer farmers." How did ithai)pen then, these malcontents afterwards received such hearty support? The Blue Book in6.\ca.tQS that this High Commissioner had been pre- paring a scheme of conquest in S. A. unknown to Hicks Beach 1 (c, 2220, p. 13b, et seq.) Carter, IN of B. JV„) has best explained the willingness of some of the Boers, per- haps indeed of the government party, for annexation. "The natural aversion of the people to English rule was overcome for the moment by their greater aversion to being wiped off the face of the Transvaal by the blacks." Very possible. But who incited these ' ' blacks. ' ' Look into the secret records of the colony. There is the answer. The English. ' Colenso says, (N. L.) ' 'The sly underhand way in which the Transvaal has been annexed appears to me unworthy of the British name. ' ' And so it must seem to every fair minded student of the facts, —Shepstone comes as an adviser, he remains as an usurper ! Again and again it had been officially announced that Great Britain would not enlarge her possessions in South Africa. Theal {St ofS. A. igd). Undoubtedly, signatures forged or falsely procured were appended to the petition for annexation, many witnesses attested this under oath. 23 1877-80. Tonga-land accepts British protectorate. 7th KafiEar War in 1877. The Boers had attempted to annex Tongarland but the English induced the Queen of it to accept their protection. The Cetewayo war was long and bloody. Cetewayo was made prisoner by the British and exiled. 1879-1880. Dec. 13, '79, Boers call a Provisional Government, (Kruger, Pretorius and Joubert,) to office at Paardekraal and rise inarms for liberty. A second Bezuidenhout was despotically treated at Potchefstroom, his friends flew to arms. A conflict followed at Potchefstroom, (Dec. 15-16), — Anstetjthees surrendered with his English force at Bronkhorst Spruit, (Dec. 20),— Colley was defeated at Laing' s Nek, (Jan. 28),— fought a doubtful battle at Ingogo, (Feb. 8),— and was killed at Majuba, (on Feb. 27),— English accounts say that five hundred and fifty to seven hundred soldiers were present under Colley at Majuba Hill and five hundred— one thousand Boers opposed them and that two hundred of the latter stormed the hill in the face of trained troops (driving half the force, that were not killed or taken, from it) protected by the fire of their comrades. The Boers say, but seventy of their one hundred and fifty- four hun- dred men formed the storming party and that but one hundred— two hundred of the British escaped . FiTZPATKicK, (T. T. of W., ) tells us ' 'the Boers displayed the finest fighting qualities' ' and ' ' the generalship of Nicholas Smit, ' ' (who led the forlorn hope), ' ' was of the highest order, —the cleverness of the attack beyond praise." During the war Col. Winslow held Potchefstroom with two hundred and thirteen men ; and Capt. AUCHINLEK defended Rustenburg with seventy men driving the Boers repeated- ly from their trenches though they numbered several hundreds. Much IS said of Ceonje's, (the Boer commandant), treachery in keeping Winslow in ignorance of an armistice until he surrendered, and it appears incontrovertible. But there are not wanting British ofiicers who have deceived their enemy very similarly, nay, who have acted as treacherously as towards Col. Ledyard, for instance, though of course, their conduct is only an ofiset to, and not a justification of, his course. It is by its past, as well as its present, history we must adjudicate the charges made against a nation. And it is the duty of a historian to adhere to plain pacts, conceal NOTHING through INTEREST OR PARTIALITY, AND DIRECT HIS READERS' ATTENTION TO THE shortcomings OF THOSE WHOSE ACTS HE RECORDS. He who docs Otherwise, is a bane to posterity and deserving of its curses, and this has been recognized in the elaboration of this narrative of events. When we read of Green, (who had received a pass to leave Lydenburg in Jan., 1880, stopped at the fort held by the English on his way, was called to the Boer camp to clear his conduct and was shot through the head during the parley (Nixon, S. of T. sji,) FiTZPATRiCK, T. T. of W. 42, — of Capt. Elliot, T. T. of W. 33, (escorted prisoner to the border of the Free State and shot in the cart, in which he was crossing a " drift " at the river, by his escort), — of trooper Black, ibid zgo, (a Jameson scout, tied while wounded and then beaten, finally let ride for his life and shot while so doing),— of harsh and savage treatment of the natives,— of cruelties to prisoners,— with all of which English accounts are rife ; we must not allow ourselves to forget that bygone injuries and pre- Tailing or recent war, foster all the evil passions of man, and aggravate violent and revengeful natures to transcend all law in the spirit of retaliation. Thus after the surrender of Fort Cornwallis, an American shot CoL. Grieeson of the British in cold blood and was never brought to justice despite an offered reward. And the Tories, during the same Revolution were shown scant justice or mercy at our hands ; the cruelties of Rawdon, Tarleton, Kn3rphausen, Ferguson, Tryon and many other leaders of the British army, being such as to arouse such vengeful feelings to the utmost. Recall the deliberate shooting of Mrs. Caldwell at Connecticut Farms in 1780, (Bart- LETT, H. of A. m. I. 4S7), only one of many crimes. Who can forget the story of the butchery at Wyoming, (vide ""Hist, of Wyoming^'') where British regulars under Butler withdrew after the capitulation of the fort, leaving the hapless people to the Indians ;— or the true tales told of our captive countrymen in prison hulks whose skeletons bleached on Long Island's shores ;— or the letter of Franklin, {July 7, 1782:) that mentions the British as arming savages against us and encouraging them to vxax- d&r, paying for over 2000 scalps or the horror of Fort Griswold, Conn., where, in 1781, CoL. Ledyaed and 100 soldiers, were massacred by the English, the sword of the brave American being thrust through his breast by the officer to whom he tendered it in surrender. 24 Nor have we to revert to the eighteenth century, the present hundred years is as replete with enormities. Frenchtown in 1813 where Col. Peoctob acted similarly by his p-isoners, as Butler at Wyoming,— the fiendish retaliations of the Sepoy Mutiny for which no nation professing to be civilized can maintain excuse,— the brutalities of the Irish "pacifications" and evictions, and the never fully published barbarities of the Afghan, Indian, Ashantee and Zulu wars, (cruelties lost sight of, perhaps condoned, because committed on dark races I), will serve as ample vouchers for the truth of what I have asserted. Inquire into, as I have done, which has the longer list of atrocities ; England, taking only a century and a quarter of her existence, or the Boer republic with -L\& entire history of but one /^(Z// that period ? and then acknowledge, as you must, that compared with the former a halo of humanity glows about the latter. Mapoch, chief of a Zulu tribe near Middleburg, collected a commando to relieve Lydenburg in this war, (Nixon S. of T. 302), and in other ways made himself obnoxious to the Boers. They did not forget it. 1881. Gladstone, in August, appointed the Pretoria Convention. Right of Boer COMPLETE self-government conceded. British rights to appoint a resident ; to move troops through Trans- vaal Territory in time of war, or on apprehension of war ; and to control external relations of the State, reserved. This partial restoral of the Transvaal's rights was an act of justice in the face of opposi- tion that will ever brighten the fame of Gladstone. But even he dared not make en- tire restitution then. As Reitz has said ' ' such magnanimity would have been entirely beyond the possibilities of the British Colonial Office." This was the only deed ever done by Mr. Gladstone which the English and American press, -with cordial unanimity, declared enhanced the prestige of England as a State so confident of its giant strength that it deemed it ignoble to use it like a giant. Wilson (Z. &> Times of V., 11., 619.) Keugek promised to Evelyn Wood and Robinson at this convention that British sub- jects should be on the same footing as the burghers and they should have equal privi- leges so far as burgher rights were concerned except that perhaps some slight difference might be made in the case of a young person just come into the country. Fitzpatrick (T. T.of W.3bs) Seccocoeni reinstated by the British, but is killed by Mampoee who had been put in his stead by Wolse'Ley after the war-* The Boers declare this murder and try to seize Mampoee who is sheltered by Mapoch. 1882. Second Franchise Law. A foreigner may be enfranchised after five years residence. War against Mapoch by Boers. The war was urged by the S. A. Rep. with vigor, the Cape Government supplied them with artillery and the Boers drove Mapoch into natural fortifications, largely caverns where he resisted them for nine months. It was then that Genbeal Eeasmus blew up cavern after cavern with djoiamite. This was the subject of debate in the Commons of England but the Earl of Derby said he did not believe dynamite to be worse than gun- powder. It certainly is not poisonous like lyddite I Starvation forced Mapoch to sur- render, he was imprisoned for life, Mampoer hanged, and his tribe indentured for five years among the Boer farms. The [British resident said at fthe time ' ' if the natives were ill-treated they could easily run away.' ' {Eng. Blue Book C, 3841, bi.) In 1882, Mankaeoane ; aBechuana chief who had offered to help the English in the Boer War of 1881, and, with Montsiwe, was encouraged by the former ; made war on Massaou and another chief of the same tribe, the Boers joined the latter, and the British, not protecting the people of Mankaroane he was forced to sue for peace, and give the Boers a grant of land and agree that a boundary line be beaconed off between his land and Massaou' s, and Kruger was to umpire. This the British would not permit and the treaty fell through. Then, Massaou was induced to cede his territories to the South African Republic, immediately the British again interfered and characterized the cession as an infraction of the Pretoria Convention. The Boers then first appropriated Manka- roane 's land and called it "Stella land" with Freetown as capital, —then Montsiwe' s in October, seven-tenths of whose holdings they seized and called ' ' Land of Goshen ' ' This roused the missionary societies, to save the natives. Yet the British had appro- priated far more land in former wars than the Boers efver are accused of doing 1 In 1883 Keugeb was elected President of South African Republic. 25 A commission was sent by each Government to Mankaroane, but witli little results, the Enelish representative Butherfoord i^Blue Book34-St>, 56.) reported a "lamentable state of affairs as regarded that chief and his friends, their country being appropriated by the white people precisely in whatever locality and to what extent they pleased, " " im- munity from interference in the shape of some powerful factor from outside will daily add to the wrongful acquisition of land and property until an uninhabitable desert or the sea is reached.' ' ' ' The only peace that will be made will be continually progression, subjugation or extinction." Would not this also apply to British methods. The Boer's agents did not succeed in inducing the chief to sign a demand for a protectorate. The Missionaries agitated for the natives. This led to a Boer deputation being sent to England to express dissatisfaction with the Convention of Pretoria. Gladstone said : ' 'We reserved a title as against the Boers of the Transvaal to support the natives." (March 16 '83 ) The Earl of Derby declared :— he did not see "how any one could desire to establish another Ireland in South Africa" (June 16) as must result if the Gfovemment sent an armed force to protect the natives by conquering the Transvaal. The commissioners waited on this Earl, objected to the Convention in its entirety as unsuited to their country, and declared it had only been agreed to under compulsion, and that the Secretary for the colonies had agreed to reconsider it after its working had been tested. Finally a large portion of the territories of Massaou and Moshette was given to the Boers;— but the entire absorption of Bechuana laud denied them; a protectorate over that being assumed by the British. 1884. Railway concessions by S. A. Rep. to Holland and German cor- porations. Delagoa Bay R. R. Called by Fitzpatrick ' ' an iniquitous bond on the prosperity of the the State" {,T. T.f tV., 62,) Had the English secured it how different would it have been represented I Keuger says he gave it to Holland because that country helped his when his was poor. 1884. London Convention recognizes S. A. Rep. No mention of SUZERAINTY and only the approval of treaties with nations other than the Free State reserved by Great Britain. (July.) In this year the Transvaal set up Dinizulu in Zululand and seized the territory, upsetting Wolseleys Gtovernment, but the British intervened, restored two-thirds the ter- ritory and again cut the Boers off from the sea. LONDON CONVENTION IN BRIEF. Article 1. Defines Boundary. 2. Commissioners to regulate it and prevent encroach- ment. 3. British Consul may be appointed. 4. No treaty with any other nation or tribe than the Free State without Queen's approval. 6 & 6, Liability of S. A. Rep. for prior debt and likewise for £, 2, 500.000. Interest at three and one-half per cent. 7. Continued enjoyment of property by all persons who held it subsequent to 1881. 8. No Slavery to be tolerated. 9. Complete freedom of religion. 10. British graves to be cared for. 11. Grants of lands outside the boundaries invalid. 12. Independence of Swazis. 13. No higher duties on goods from England than from other countries, nor prohibition on goods without similar extension of such to those of other countries. 14. All persons may enter, travel and reside in the S. A. Rep., hire, &c., carry on commerce, and ' ' not be subject in respect of their persons or property or in respect of their commerce or industry to any taxes whether general or local, other than those which are or may be imposed upon citizens of the said republic' ' 15. Exemption of all persons domiciled after 1881 and registered a a year after from military service. 16. Extradition. 17. Payment of debts in same cur- rency contracted. 18. Grants of land, &c., made between 1877 & 1881 valid. 19. Confirm- ation of assurances given to natives at the Pretoria Pitso. Of their rights to buy land, seek the law courts, leave the country, &c. 20. Convention to be ratified within six months by the Volksraad. 1885. Discoveries of rich Gold fields in South of S. A. Republic. 1886-7. Barberton gold fields draw ten to twelve thousand foreigners to the Transvaal before close of 1887. Dynamite monopoly. Reform AGITATION FIRST BEGINS. FRANCHISE QUESTION AGITATED. This year the celebrated Sheba mine was opened, There now poured into the S. A. Republic a motley stream of foreigners all athirst for gold. Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Hindoostanese, Jews ; came flocking in but most of all English. Ten to twelve thousand traders, miners, prospectors and speculators came in less than a year. 26 Transvaal Reform Umon was instituted and was received with great disfavor by the Government of the Republic. Project for S. Africa confederation oSposed by Kruger onB^^£^°tl™^*''™°'^°P^^- ?^l&* °^ *'°,^ ™^^ *o manufacture explosives and sell them at SOW over the pnce of import, they really being imported. It was cancelled by the Raad but revived as a Government monoply. It takes ^£600, 000 from the Rand mines annu- ally involving much bribery. >*""u. Indefensible, but is there nothing in the way of monoply in Great Britain and the U S., and do foreign powers interfere to reform these abuses f ""o s, causes sum i.^-^^T?l^^^^^?.*^®^®i?'^*'"iy?^®^*^^^P^'^io., 167). Provided England ' ' sees her subjects have fair play the Uitlanders may well be left to work out their own salvation in their own way ' ' {ibid. 170). Stickney (T. T. O. 78). " The condition of public affairs in Johannesburg at the time of the raid was far superior to that in many mining camps in the U. S." < • •. " Prior to this raid no attempt had been made by any considerable body of men in Johannesburg for any substantial reform in the existing laws or in the existing administration of these laws.' ' At no time since the gold fields were opened have any large number of the people agi- tated for any great alteration in the laws except in such as relate to taxation, they have mostly admitted the Transvaal regulations to be as good as could be expected under ex- isting conditions. Let us contrast England and the Transvaal in a few governmental and social aspects: In the former there is still that environment of caste and regard to class and wealth so pernicious to true progress, not so in the latter, there are found few class divisions, few jealousies, the nation is a unit, the rule popular, and therein lies their wonderful Btrength, for as Bryce, \A. C. ii. 602, 1897), says, " A united people is doubly strong when it is democratic, for then the force of each individual swells the collective force of the Govt., encourages it, and relieves it from internal embarrassments." The Boers have a popular President whom every man, woman and child has access to more freely than in the U. S. He has at times overruled the Raad but his " influence over the Raad and over the people always great when danger threatens the State * • ' tends to diminish in peaceful times" Younghusband, (5. ^. £>/ T'.j-o). In peace he cannot carry out his wishes, the Boers then tolerate not the least that savors of autocracy. There is no tendency to make a hereditary-Presidency, or a permanent Raad. Every male citizen over sixteen maj vote, their Representatives are paid, and must.act as their constituencies will. 30 Petitions may be addressed by the people to the Raad and must be considered if only a half dozen sig7t thetn. Moreover, they through that body may remove a President as was done in the case of Pretorius (1871). There is a definite, written, Constitution, as in the U. S., frequently amended by the Raad, Foreigners not burg-hers. largely hold ju- dicial and executive offices. {O. Ps. P.,—T. T.of W.,—S. A.ofT.~etc.) Every man ; farmers, Volksraaders, judges. President, all ; nay, the very women and girls have fought when the struggle for existence against natives or English rendered military co-operation imperative, the army was the people, high and low, the people were then as those of Macauley's Rome. " Roman was for Roman and all were for the State." ^ ^ ^, ^ Two-thirds of the Raad in 1897 Dore battle scars, and even m 1899, hardly a Boer family was to be found of which some one or more of its females had not been wounded or slain in war. The continual recur- rence of such strife would have bound the people in the coils of a military despotism had not the inherent craving for freedom, paramount in the nature of every Boer, acted as an effectual offset. Very peace loving and pastoral in their tendencies, they care little for war, trade, mining or like pursuits, they are in the main nomadic agriculturalists. i^H. ofB.,-r. T. f W.,—S. A.0fT.,-O. Fs. P.-et al). All this tends to obliterate dis- tmction, accordingly we find no blooded, wealthy or elite class, but each individual having rights equal to another's and the same chance to prosper 1 How different in England ! how backward there I A Norman-Hanoverian aristocracy surrounded by glitter and show, a prerogatived, isolated monarch shut up in a close shell of pride," a blue-blooded hereditary Upper House ! True, the power of the Crown has been greatly curtailed. It can no longer dominate Parliament, as of old, by procuring the election of members; the reforms of 1832 largely abolished that .- %%\\\ peers to an in- definite extent can be created by its order, and thus it can powerfully influence the Legis- lative bodies if it choses. Any measure could thus be carried through the Lords. Such has been done {.vide Brougham, Hi, 304). It can appoint most of the Judges and innu- merable other ofacials. It has a veto on all the legislation of the Lords and Commons, and possesses the sole prerogative of peace or war. The Commons may impeach, but NOT try it. There is no written constitution to delimit its power (Dean, Hist. Civiliz. jSjg, V. 46g), even to Magna Charta there was no guarantee but foece. The great power limiting the monarchy lies in the fact that taxes can be voted only by the voice of the Commons, acknowledged in 1407 (Gtjizot, Repres. Govt., si4)- Petitions have no consideration if emanating from the few, and no legal status. Listen to the claims of the Uitlanders. ' ' We are the vast majority, —own one-half the land, —nine-tenths the property ; yet have no voice. Taxation imposed on us without representation, wholly inequitable taxation, (because, it is levied on the people in much greater amount than is required for Government) and class taxation, (or taxation by selec- tion), and the necessities of life are unduly burdened. The right to trial by jury of our peers is denied us, our lives are in daily danger, we cannot hire labor reasonably. The Dutch language is alone used, and we cannot properly educate our children, ' ' [see Fitz- PATBiCK (r. T. of W.) Hammond, {A. W. P. in. A. R.) King, " Colonial records and letters " (C. R. L.) Theal's " Hist, of Boers,'''' (H. of B.) Nixon " Story of the Transvaal," 1885, (S. of T.) FiTZPATEiCK's " The Transvaal from Within " 1900, (T. T. f W.) Beyce " Impressions of S. Africa" (I. of S. A.) Joubeet " Letter to Victoria June 15, '99 " (Let. to V.) Cloete " Story of Great Boer Trek," (S. of G. B. T.> J. King '■'■fameson's Raid" London, 1896, (Js. R.) J. Hopkins " Forum " Dec. 1899, (F.) Claeke's " Transvaal,'' ' (Tr.) Cartee, T. F. " Narrative of Boer War^ ' (N. of B. W.> Stead " Review of Reviews ' ' Nov. 1899, 593, (R. of R.) Maetineatj " Life of Bar tie Frere ' ' (M. L. of B. F.) Bishop COLENSO " Natal letters ' ' (N. L.) J. A. HoBSON " War in S. Africa,'"' 1900, (W. S. A.) YOTJNGHUSBAND " South Africa of To-day," London, 1899, (8. A. of T.) Aylward' s works and letters (Aylward.) Mes. Hammond " A Womans Part in a Revolution, " (A. W. P. in A. R.) P. BiGELOW " White man's Africa, " (W. M. A.) Beyce's ^^ Story of South Africa," (&. of S.A.) " " American Commonwealth,'''' 1897. (A. C,) Auos Dean '■'■ History of Civilization," 'i vol., 1869. Consul at Pretoria " Oom Paul's People," (O. P's P.) And various letters, state documents, records, histories of United States, England, et al, — encylopedias,— (aggregating some forty works), &c. Newspaper despatches, I have rarely referred to, recognizing their uncertainty, but have gone back to authentic records as much as possible. 37 ^iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Ill iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!iiiiiiiiiiiiiinii| I!l!l!lllllllllllllllllllllllllllinilllllllllllllinillllll!lllllinillll!lil!llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!illlllllll!lllllllllli^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proci Neutralizing agent; Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: June 2003 PreservationTechnologi ;-ivj^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 010 652 628 A .'■■'■-i', ".%{.-;