Native Life in South Africa Part 30

When His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught visited Mafeking in 1906, he was touched by the grateful references which Chief Lekoko made to the benign rule of His Royal Highness's late ill.u.s.trious mother.

And he a.s.sured the a.s.sembled Natives, in the name of His late Majesty King Edward VII, that the death of their beloved Queen would "not alter their status in any manner whatsoever as His Majesty took the same deep interest in the welfare of the native population as the late Queen did." In view of this statement by His Royal Highness, Chief Lekoko congratulated his people on having had the honour of receiving "a.s.surances of Imperial protection, not from an Imperial official, but from the lips of His Majesty's own brother, and in the King's English,"

the Barolong felt that they were reclining on a veritable rock of ages.

Since the inauguration and meeting of the first Union Parliament, laws have been enacted which threaten to annul all this.

As far as the Barolongs are concerned, the Colonial Government is not the only aggressor.

In the early 'nineties a British Boundary Commission awarded the territory of Mokgomana to a northern tribe. The award caused great dissatisfaction amongst the Barolong; accordingly they sent a deputation to the High Commissioner about the award. It was only after they announced their unalterable intention to a.s.sert their claim to that territory by means of the sword, that the Imperial authorities, in the name of the Queen, re-considered the former decision, and that Sir Hamilton Goold Adams restored that land to the Barolong, under date March 11, 1896. But the Colonial Office, completely ignoring Sir Hamilton Goold Adams's signature on behalf of the Queen, and without referring the matter to the native inhabitants in any way, lately confiscated that territory and declared it the property of the Crown.

In consequence of this high-handed proceeding there is much bad blood among the Barolong.

It might be said in support of this act of the Colonial Office that strangers will not be settled in the territory, but Sir Garnet Wolseley once declared that "as long as the sun shines in the heavens, Zululand shall remain the property of the Zulus."

The sun is still shining in the heavens, and right up to the time of the outbreak of the European War in 1914, the Union Government were very busy cutting up Zululand and parcelling it out to white settlers under the Land Settlement Act of the Union (for white men only), parcels of land to survey which black taxpayers are forced to pay, but which under the Natives' Land Act no black man can buy; and what is true in regard to Zululand, British Kaffraria, East Griqualand and other native territories, is equally so in regard to Bechua.n.a.land.

Chapter XX The South African Races and the European War

Oh! the Battle-bow is strung, The Banner is outflung: From lowlands and from valley, From mountain-tops, they rally!

L. J. Coppin.

Africa is a land of prophets and prophetesses. In the course of our tour of observation on the ravages of the Land Act, we reached Vereeniging in August, 1913, and found the little village astir because the local pastor, Rev. S. H. Senamela, was returning from a certain funeral service. To many of the people of the place the event seemed to be a momentous one, affecting as it appeared more people than would be ordinarily the case. The person whose death and funeral caused all this stir was a black seeress of Vereeniging, of whom it was said that in her lifetime she prophesied the Anglo-Boer War and some such situation as that created by the Natives' Land Act. Before breathing her last, this interesting lady (whose sayings carried great weight among the surrounding native peasants and the Dutch neighbours on the farms of that neighbourhood) had, it was said, uttered her last prophecy. It was to the effect that a great war would take place in the near future, amongst the white peoples of the country, that there would be much bloodshed, but that the survivors would live very peacefully with the native population. We are sorry now that we did not care to listen to the whole story when it was related, and we very much wish that we had remained to interrogate the narrator as to whether the black population that would thus remain to share life with the white survivors in South Africa would be a contented one, or whether they would be living in chains, of which the thraldom of coming events appears to be casting its shadow before. But at the time it sounded parlous to think that anything could interrupt the calm of the tolerant British colonists and egg them against their Dutch rulers, who call them foreign adventurers.

Nor could we conceive of any reason why the Boers, who have now more freedom than they ever dreamt of possessing under their own flag, including the right to partially enslave the blacks, should suddenly rise up against the English, whose money and brains are ever at the beck and call of the Dutch!

Here, however, is the war, predicted by the late native seeress, and evidently we have to make the best of it.

The writer was in London at the end of July, 1914, when there were many disquieting reports about the activities of suffragettes, and when there were still more serious reports about the unlawful mobilization of volunteer armies in Ireland.

It was in this exciting period that attention was at once transferred from Ireland to the Continent of Europe. There it seemed that every moment was ticking to drive us towards the greatest war that the world ever saw. And though matters grew hourly more serious, it did not then occur to the writer, a stranger then of only six weeks in London, that after seeing the capital of the Empire under conditions of peace, he was soon to see it under a war cloud filled with all the horrors of the approaching war storm and all the signs of patriotic enthusiasm. We were about to see Mafeking over again, but through the biggest magnifying gla.s.s.

To walk along Oxford Street of an afternoon and see the mult.i.tudes of well-dressed women pouring into the streets from the underground stations (the "Tube" and the "Met", as they are called in the vernacular), round Charing Cross and Piccadilly, and see them walking up and down the thoroughfares and looking at the wares displayed in the dazzling shop windows; or to come down Bishopsgate of a morning and see the stupendous swarms of white men rushing to and fro along the pavements of Threadneedle Street, crowding the motor-buses round the Mansion House, St. Paul's and Ludgate Circus -- yet all this throng so well regulated by the City Police that n.o.body seems to be in the other's way -- the disproportion of men and women in the East and West respectively forming a partial segregation between the s.e.xes: to see these myriads of humanity gave one the impression that if the Garden of Eden (whose whereabouts has not yet been defined) was not actually in London, then some very fertile human germ imported from the Garden must have been planted somewhere in the vicinity of Trafalgar Square, or the Elephant and Castle.

These great ma.s.ses of people when the war broke out were swept over, as already indicated, by a wave of patriotism, and sections of them reinforced by a regular inflow from the provinces, and foreign tourists -- Americans, Scandinavians, Orientals and Colonials -- rushing back from the danger zone on the Continent, stranded in London with their pockets bulging with useless credit notes, all these joined the buzzing groups in Fleet Street in scanning the latest telegrams posted at the windows of the newspaper offices, or, going to Hyde Park, they listened to the open-air speeches delivered there.

In this gamut of personalities and nationalities there were, at first, faint murmurs by some of the English against their country joining the strife and in favour of her remaining neutral and leaving the Continentals to "stew in their own juice". But when German seamen laid mines in the English Channel, and capped their deeds by sinking the 'Amphion' and the 'Pathfinder', with hundreds of officers and men, the "protestants" found that their efforts were out of date and that their arguments could have held water in the good old days, before the declaration of war, but not after. For the silent determination of the London crowds, of both s.e.xes and all colours, was so emphatic that one could almost read it in their thoughts, and see it, as it were, percolating through every fibre of their systems.

If the weaker races of the world -- (and which race is weaker than the coloured?) -- are ever to enjoy rest, then the great Powers must avenge the violation of the neutrality of Belgium.

Early in August, we left London to visit the Scottish capital, and as far as the swiftness of the North British Railway would allow a glimpse, the country towns and villages of the north appeared to be swarming with Territorials in khaki. A painful sight at some of the stations was the number of restive horses forced into the railway trucks by troopers -- beautiful, well-fed animals whose sleek appearance showed that they were unaccustomed to the rough life to which the Tommies were leading them. Further, it was sad to think that these n.o.ble creatures by their size were to be rendered easy targets for the marksmen of the enemy's forces, and that they would in addition be subjected to the severity of inclement weather conditions, to which they likewise were unaccustomed.

At Edinburgh, the Cameron Highlanders marched along some of the streets in their battalions, flinging the Highland kilt like the plaited reeds of so many thousands of Bojale* girls. Handsome young Scotchmen, all of them, and it was shocking to think that these fine young fellows in the flower of their youth were going to be fired at with a set purpose to kill them as if they were a flock of springbuck on a South African veld.

Surely it is time that civilization evolved a less brutal and less savage form of warfare! On Sunday evening we attended divine service at St. Giles's Cathedral, and the critical political situation permeated the entire service. This feeling was not lessened by the announcement that one of the gallant boys who sank with the 'Amphion'

was a son of one of the sidesmen of St. Giles's. It was war as unmistakable as it was grim.

-- * Bechuana circ.u.mcision rites.

After the declaration of war between Great Britain and Germany, the Irish tension at once died away. The self-const.i.tuted opposing armies of Dublin and Belfast, or rather Ireland and Ulster, came forward and offered themselves and their arms to the Imperial authorities. They were anxious to proceed at once to the Continent and a.s.sert British prestige on the battlefield; the suffragettes likewise at the outbreak of the war declared a truce and offered their humble services to the Empire.

"More power to their hatpins!" But how about South Africa, the baby-member of the British family? Where does she come in?

Within a week after the outbreak, Mr. Harcourt sent the following dispatch to the Governors-General of Canada, Australia and New Zealand: --

== Please communicate to your Ministers the following message from His Majesty and publish: "I desire to express to my people of the overseas Dominions with what appreciation and pride I have received the messages from their respective Governments during the past few days.

The spontaneous a.s.surance of their fullest support recalls to me the generous self-sacrificing help given by them in the past to the Mother Country. I shall be strengthened in the discharge of the great responsibilities which rest upon me by the confident belief that in this time of trial my Empire will stand united, calm, resolute, trusting in G.o.d. -- George R.I."

More offers of men and money came from the Dominions; and when such well-deserved Royal encomiums are showered on the already laurelled heads of other dominions, a self-respecting South African like ourselves walked the streets with a drooping head.

And when our kinsmen in West Africa under the leadership of British officers, annexed German Togoland rather early in the campaign, we found these questions reverting in our thoughts: What is our Government doing? When is it going to move? Surely our Prime Minister, who is also Minister of Native Affairs, should now postpone the constant pampering of the back-velders, hang colour prejudice for a more peaceful time, call out the loyal legions -- British, Boer, and Black -- and annex German South Africa without delay!

As a British General and Minister of Native Affairs, he should himself lead the black contingents and leave the whites to be led by their regular officers.

At the beginning of August, a special meeting of the South African Native Congress was called at Bloemfontein, first to express its disappointment at the cold reception given to the native deputation by the Imperial Government; and secondly, to express its thanks to the British public for the kind reception given to the deputation; and thirdly, to devise ways and means for the deputation to tour the United Kingdom on a mission, revealing to the British people the manner in which the Colonial Government discharges its trust to the coloured people.

Many of the delegates to the Congress had travelled long distances by rail and road, but on their arrival at Bloemfontein it was only to learn that war had broken out between Great Britain and Germany.

Hence the Native Congress, in view of the situation, resolving itself at once into a patriotic demonstration, decided to hang up native grievances against the South African Parliament till a better time and to tender the authorities every a.s.sistance.

Mr. Dube, the president of the Congress, who had just returned from England in time for the conference, proceeded direct to Pretoria with the Executive, to lay at the feet of the Government this offer of service made by the Native Congress. Offers of service poured into the administrative capital from native chiefs and people in all parts of the country. Magistrates who held meetings in their districts on the instructions of the Government to explain the situation to the Natives received similar offers. And besides all these, offers of service also came from the Zulu chiefs and headmen, from Chief Dalindyebo of the Tembus, Marelana of the Pondos, and from Griffiths of Basutoland.

In Bechua.n.a.land, the veteran Chief Khama and other Bechuana chiefs offered the services of native warriors as scouts in German South West Africa, and the Swazi princes offered a Swazi impi, besides undertaking to help in any other manner, as they did in the campaign against Sekukuni in the 'seventies. The members of the native deputation in England were longing to catch the first steamer back to South Africa to join their countrymen and proceed to the front. But while all these offers were gratefully acknowledged, none were definitely accepted. Surely there must be something wrong.

Is it that the wretched South African colour prejudice is exerting itself even in these critical times?

At Pretoria, Captain W. Allan King, the popular Native Commissioner of the Pretoria District, held a meeting of Transvaal Natives, which amongst others was attended by His Worship the Mayor of the Union capital; and there again native offers of service were tendered.

Mr. Makgatho, the chairman, in his denial of the report that appeared in the newspapers to the effect that "South Africa could not take the field as she had a native menace to watch", voiced the prevailing feeling of the Natives. Captain King, however, a.s.sured the Natives that no such slanders were uttered by the Government.

He further reminded them that the Imperial Government was face to face with the biggest struggle that ever took place since the foundation of the world; and that there would be fighting on land, in the air, on the water and under the water.

He urged the Natives to go to work as usual and see to it that there was no slackening of industries. He also made a plea for the abiding respect of the Natives to the German missionaries of the Transvaal, having regard to what those good men had done in bygone years for the evangelization of the Natives of that Province.

How little did any one dream at the time that he was thus pleading for others, that Captain King would be among the victims of the war; and that he would fall, not from a German bullet, but from one fired by one of the Dutch traitors, in a brisk fight to quell the recent Boer rebellion.

Ku mugama e Tipperary, E malandalahla; Ku mugama e Tipperary, Kwe sona standwa sam.

Bhota, Piccadilly, Sala, Leicester Square, Kude le-le-le, e Tipperary 'Ntliziyo yam ikona.

"Tipperary" in Xosa.

White men wrote to the newspapers that as France, our great Ally, was using Native African troops, there could be no objection against England doing the same -- as if England had rejected the a.s.sistance of her coloured subjects pending a decision by France.

A well-known Natal campaigner wrote to the authorities offering to raise a crack Zulu regiment composed of men who had formerly fought for the old flag against their own people.

He said he felt certain that those Zulus could give as good an account of themselves against any regiment in the field as any force yet mobilized; but there was no definite acceptance of these offers by the Government. The native uncertainty that arose from this att.i.tude of the South African Government went on until October, when our colleagues of the native deputation returned home from England and threw themselves into the vortex of the martial enthusiasm that was then sweeping through the country, and as no offers were accepted by the Government, Dr. Rubusana made to it the following further offer: --

== The Right Hon. the Minister of Native Affairs, Pretoria, Transvaal.

Sir, -- Coming as I do so near from the scene of operations in Europe, I feel that something more practical than mere lip-loyalty is required from those who boast of the fact that they are British subjects, and are loyal to the British Crown, more especially during this present crisis.

That being so, I am prepared to raise, if you deem it necessary, a native levy of 5,000 able-bodied men to proceed to German South-West Africa, provided the Government is prepared to fully equip this force for the front.

I should, of course, be prepared to accompany them.

I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, W. B. Rubusana.

== Reply.

Union of South Africa, Department of Defence, Pretoria.

November 2, 1914.

Sir, -- With reference to your letter of the 20th ultimo, I am directed to state that the Union Government greatly appreciates the loyal sentiments which are being expressed by the native citizens of the Union.

I am, however, to refer you to the provisions of Section 7 of the South Africa Defence Act, 1912, and to state that the Government does not desire to avail itself of the services, in a combatant capacity, of citizens not of European descent in the present hostilities.

Apart from other considerations the present war is one which has its origin among the white people of Europe and the Government are anxious to avoid the employment of its native citizens in a warfare against whites.