Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed | Page 3

Billion Blignaut Bisseux Delporte Du prez Du Toit De la Bey Durand
Davel De Langue Duvenage Fourie Fouché Grove Hugo Jourdan
Lombard Le Roux Roux Lagrange Labuscaque Maré Marais Malan
Malraison Maynard Malherbe De Meillon De Marillac Matthée Naudé
Nortier Rousseau Taillard Theron Terblanche De Villiers Fortier
Lindeque Vervier Vercueil Basson Pinard Duvenage Celliers de Clercq
Leclercq Devinare
Men of the best French stock, noted for honour, energy and
perseverance, rather than recant their Protestant faith, abandoned
seigneurial homes, high positions and lucrative callings to carve out
fresh careers, and even to become humble farmers wherever they found
asylums and tolerance, men who became very valuable accessions to
the nations who received them and a correspondingly significant loss to
France. To those two main elements were added sparse accessions from

other nations at later intervals, and also a strain of aboriginal blood, of
which a more or less faint tinge is still discernible in some families, an
admixture which many deplore and others consider as most serviceable,
supplying a subtle piquancy for perfecting the general stock.
The early Cape Governors aimed at the prompt assimilation of those
French people with their own colonists--to make Dutchmen of them.
Among other drastic enactments to enforce that object, no other
language but Dutch was permitted to be used in public of pain of
corporal punishment. Not a few noble Frenchmen were subjected to
that indignity for inadvertent breaches of that draconian law, but, as
conscientious observers of biblical commands which enjoin subjection
to all governmental rule, they willingly submitted and obeyed.
Intermarriages with their Dutch fellow-colonists further promoted
assimilation into one cohesive community. At the same time the
Huguenot faith was transmitted to their descendants, and had a marked
influence in sustaining common religious fervour and consistency.
They did not look for a reward or compensation for the sacrifices
endured, for the sake of faith, by those refugees, though a gracious
providence, as the sequel showed, held in store a most ample
restitution--magnificent heirlooms for their later descendants,
heirlooms which are now unhappily staked in this present war.
In 1814 a payment of six millions sterling received by the Prince of
Orange closed the transfer of the Dutch Cape settlement to Great
Britain. Immigration of English settlers followed and the area of the
colony soon largely extended. As under the Dutch _régime_, the
practice of slavery had continued until its abolition in 1833 by the
ransom payable by the English Government to the owners of slaves.
The Boer colonists deeply resented that act, and especially the next to
impracticable condition which provided that payments could only be
received in England instead of on the spot. Many were cheated of all
their emancipation money by their appointed proxies or agents, or else
had to submit to exorbitant charges and commissions; a great number
voluntarily renounced all in disgust.
By that time the existence had become known of promising tracts of
country lying north of the Orange River beyond the confines of the
British colonies, and a large number of Boers combined with the
intention of establishing an independent community northwards free

from British restraint.
The British authorities appeared at that time not to fully realize that that
movement was rife with future dangers and complications to their own
colonial interests, that it meant the creation of a nucleus of a people
openly averse to the English, and who would independently carry out
practices in near proximity, especially in dealing with aborigines,
which would seriously compromise them and become a standing
menace against peaceful expansion and civilization.
It was, on the other hand, anticipated that the movement could only end
in disaster, the people being too few to make a successful stand against
the numerous hostile Kaffir tribes. The Government, therefore,
refrained from preventive measures, and confined its efforts to
discouraging the emigration and to reconcile the malcontents. Those
efforts, however, proved fruitless; the people held to their project with
resolute fearlessness and self-confidence, and were even content to
sacrifice their farms and homesteads, their sale being in some cases
forbidden by special enactment.
The terms of "Boer" and "Boer nation" do not convey or mean anything
disparaging, rather the contrary. Boer simply means farmer, as a rule
the proprietor of a farm of about 3,000 to 10,000 acres, who combines
stock-breeding with a variety of other farming enterprises as well,
according to the soil and locality. As a national designation, the term
"Boer" conveys the distinction from the recently arrived Dutchman,
who is called "Hollander." Hollanders, again, delight of late to claim
the Boer nation as their kith and kin, but prefer to ignore the existence
of the French Huguenot factor.
The great "trek," with families and movables, as the emigration
movement is called, occurred in 1836; some families started even
before, and other contingents followed