A Century of Wrong | Page 9

have been formed of this occurrence
in other respects, it was at Slachter's Nek that the first bloodstained
beacon was erected which marks the boundary between Boer and
Briton in South Africa, and the eyes of posterity still glance back
shudderingly through the long vista of years at that tragedy of horror.
[Sidenote: The missionaries.]
This was, however, but the beginning. Under the cloak of religion
British administration continued to display its hate against our people
and nationality, and to conceal its self-seeking aims under cover of the
most exalted principles. The aid of religion was invoked to reinforce

the policy of oppression in order to deal a deeper and more fatal blow
to our self-respect. Emissaries of the London Missionary Society
slandered the Boers, and accused them of the most inhuman cruelties to
the natives. These libellous stories, endorsed as they were by the
British Government, found a ready ear amongst the English, and the
result was that under the pressure of powerful philanthropic opinion in
England our unfortunate people were more bitterly persecuted than ever,
and were finally compelled to defend themselves in courts of law
against the coarsest accusations and insults. But they emerged from the
ordeal triumphantly, and the records of the criminal courts of the Cape
Colony bear indisputable witness to the fact that there were no people
amongst the slave-owning classes of the world more humane than the
Africander Boers. Their treatment of the natives was based on the
theory that natives ought not to be considered as mature and fully
developed people, but that they were in reality children who had to be
won over to civilisation by just and rigid discipline; they hold the same
convictions on this subject to-day, and the enlightened opinion of the
civilised world is inclining more and more to the same conclusion. But
the fact that their case was a good one, and that it was triumphantly
decided in their favour in the law courts, did not serve to diminish, but
rather tended to sharpen, the feeling of injustice with which they had
been treated.
[Sidenote: Emancipation of the slaves.]
A livelier sense of wrong was quickened by the way in which the
emancipation of the slaves--in itself an excellent measure--was carried
out in the case of the Boers.
Our forefathers had become owners of slaves chiefly imported in
English ships and sold to us by Englishmen. The British Government
decided to abolish slavery. We had no objection to this, provided we
received adequate compensation.[4] Our slaves had been valued by
British officials at three millions, but of the twenty millions voted by
the Imperial Government for compensation, only one and a quarter
millions was destined for South Africa; and this sum was payable in
London. It was impossible for us to go there, so we were forced to sell

our rights to middlemen and agents for a mere song; and many of our
people were so overwhelmed by the difficulties placed in their way that
they took no steps whatever to receive their share of the compensation.
Greyheads and widows who had lived in ease and comfort went down
poverty-stricken to the grave, and gradually the hard fact was borne in
upon us that there was no such thing as Justice for us in England.
[Sidenote: Slavery at the Cape.]
Froude, the English historian, hits the right nail on the head when he
says:--
[5] "Slavery at the Cape had been rather domestic than predial; the
scandals of the West India plantations were unknown among them.
Because the Dutch are a deliberate and slow people, not given to
enthusiasm for new ideas, they fell into disgrace with us, where they
have ever since remained. The unfavourable impression of them
became a tradition of the English Press, and, unfortunately, of the
Colonial Office. We had treated them unfairly as well as unwisely, and
we never forgive those whom we have injured."
[Sidenote: The Glenelg policy.]
[6] But this was not all. When the English obtained possession of the
Cape Colony by convention, the Fish River formed the eastern
boundary. The Kaffirs raided the Colony from time to time, but
especially in 1834, when they murdered, plundered, and outraged the
helpless Colonists in an awful and almost indescribable manner. The
Governor was ultimately prevailed upon to free the strip of territory
beyond the Fish River from the raids of the Kaffirs, and this was done
by the aid of the Boers. But Lord Glenelg, the Colonial Secretary,
reversed this policy and restored the whole territory to the natives. He
maligned the Boers in even more forcible terms than the emissaries of
the London Missionary Society, and openly favoured the Kaffirs,
placing them on a higher pedestal than the Boers. The latter had
succeeded in rescuing their cattle from the Kaffirs,