Native Life in South Africa Part 28

[a] 56. Shepherd's Bush, P.S.A. [b] Rev. W. G. Davis [c] Wesleyan Church, Shepherd's Bush [d] Mr. S. T. Plaatje

[a] 57. Stockton United [b] Mr. W. Weigh.e.l.l [c] Baptist Tabernacle, Stockton-on-Tees [d] Mr. S. T. Plaatje

[a] 58. Wembley Brotherhood [b] Mr. H. W. Hagger [c] Union Hall, Wembley [d] Mr. S. T. Plaatje

[a] 59. Watford Men's Own [b] Mr. A. G. Baker [c] Beechen Grove, Ch. Watford, Hertfords.h.i.+re [d] Mr. S. T. Plaatje

[a] 60. Clerkenwell Men's Own [b] Mr. R. G. Pursaill [c] Peel Inst.i.tute, Clerkenwell Green [d] Mr. S. T. Plaatje

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In addition to the Brotherhoods and P.S.A.'s, we are indebted to the Sisterhoods, Adult Schools and several Church bodies who gave us many occasions to speak, the response to our message being most gratifying.

Chapter XIX Armed Natives in the South African War

Oh, where is he, the simple fool, Who says that wars are over?

What b.l.o.o.d.y portent flashes there, Across the Straits of Dover?

Nine hundred thousand slaves in arms May seek to bring us under But England lives and still will live, For we'll crush the despot yonder.

Are we ready, Britons all, To answer foes with thunder?

Arm, arm, arm!

The Gallant Bakhatla Tribe

When Bechua.n.a.land was invaded by the Republican forces at the outbreak of the Boer War, the British Police Force in the Bechua.n.a.land Protectorate, finding themselves hopelessly isolated in that far-away region, decided to evacuate Gaberones and effect a junction with Colonel Plumer's force which was then coming south from Rhodesia.

The British Commissioner, before leaving Gaberones, advised the Native Chiefs of the Southern Protectorate to make the best terms possible with the invaders until the Transvaal Republic was conquered by the advancing British Army.

Chief Lentsue of the Bakhatla, acting entirely on his own responsibility, sent his brother Segale with a message to the Dutch Commandant, reminding him that the war was a white man's war, and asking him at the same time not to traverse his territory with armed Boers; he also added that any invasion of his territory would be resisted with all the means at his disposal. Naturally, this message was treated with the contempt that a Boer would habitually treat any frankness on the part of a "Kafir", and the Boers, in utter disregard of this warning, invaded Bakhatla territory.

Chief Lentsue was not in a position to attack the Boers at the beginning of the invasion. He had the men but hardly enough ammunition to last for a whole day, so he had to bide his time, scheming the while to secure an a.r.s.enal. The Dutch contempt for Lentsue's threats advanced by 100 per cent when they overran his outer villages on two occasions and he failed to offer any resistance, but they had not calculated that his Intelligence Department and War Office were hard at work in order that his threat to the Boers might not come to naught.

Accordingly on a certain day a convoy of huge buck-wagons, each drawn by sixteen African bullocks, carrying ammunition to the Dutch troops in Bechua.n.a.land, meandered its way slowly in the direction of the Marico River, escorted by a squadron of mounted Burghers. All of a sudden they were surprised and disconcerted by a fusillade of musketry, and the situation grew in gravity from the fact that whichever way the members of the convoy scampered, they appeared to be running from the frying-pan into the fire.

The ruse was swift and successful, indeed so successful that the train of ammunition and provision wagons proceeded on its way to Lentsue's town, Mochudi, but under a different escort.

What had happened was this: The sub-chief Segale, who has since been known as Lentsue's fighting general, had closely watched the movements of the Dutch and studied their plans, till he was able to antic.i.p.ate the coming of this convoy and to waylay it.

He captured enough ammunition in this and succeeding attacks to enable the Chief Lentsue to arm his men. Thus they repulsed two invasions of the Boers, followed the enemy into his territory, and came home with numbers of head of cattle, and Lentsue's territory was never again invaded by the Boers.

This isolated action of the Bakhatla Chief and people in a remote corner of the Empire, on the boundaries of the late Boer Republic, had its moral and material value. The Boers, who virtually owned the whole of Bechua.n.a.land to the south, except Mafeking town, found that it would pay them better to adopt a friendlier att.i.tude towards the other Bechuana tribes. Thereby a Dutch Field Cornet p.r.o.nounced all the Bechuana Chiefs as the original Afrikanders -- with the exception of Lentsue of the Bakhatla, and Montsioa of the Barolong in Mafeking. These two chiefs, the Field Cornet said, were traitors to their country as they had joined the foreign Rooineks against their black and white fellow Afrikander. But the armed Burghers ceased to help themselves to native property, and the Government's huge compensation bill at the end of the War became less formidable in consequence. Furthermore, the task of that unacknowledged hero -- the native dispatch runner -- became so appreciably easier that an almost regular bi-weekly communication was maintained between headquarters at the Cape and the siege garrison at Mafeking, for the native runners after crawling through the lines of the investing Boers, under cover of the night, could move through the peasant villages with much less danger of detection by Boer patrols.

But it must be confessed that Chief Lentsue's defensive activities were wholly illegal, inasmuch as the Boers, although they had declared war against Lentsue's sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria, were not at war with him.

It was defined, by an uncanny white man's mode of reasoning, that the war was a white man's business in which the blacks should take no part beyond merely suffering its effects. The Natives' retort to this declaration was in the words of a Sechuana proverb, viz., "You cannot sever the jawbones from the head and expect to keep those parts alive separately." It was this principle, we presume, that guided Lentsue's action. Still from the standpoint of white South Africa, the Chief's operations were a purely filibustering adventure; and while it seemed difficult to indict Lentsue on any definite charge, some of his men were arrested for having taken part in a cattle-raiding expedition in Transvaal in the course of which they shot and killed a German subject of the Transvaal Republic.

These men were tried at Pretoria after peace was declared, and three of them were sentenced to death. All through the trial the Chief stood by his men, who pleaded justification. He accompanied them in the first instance to Pretoria, and afterwards paid for their defence at the trial, and it was evident that he took the verdict and sentence very much to heart.

If the verdict strained the loyalty of the Bakhatla, it had the effect of satisfying the Boers across the Bechuana border, in the Western Transvaal, who had to live down the sad memory of a victory gained by a black chief over their white army and of their purposes thereby.

From a Dutch point of view nothing could be more humiliating than that black men should have gained such a signal success over them, and they are constantly crying out for the repression of Lentsue and his "proud" Kafirs. The Boers' demand that the Union authorities should make the thraldom of the Natives more effective, forgetting that the armed forces of the Boers when left to themselves during the temporary British evacuation of Bechua.n.a.land were unable to do it.

Notwithstanding this fact, the newspapers, especially the Rand Sunday Press, seem always to have open s.p.a.ces for rancorous appeals to colour prejudice, perhaps because such appeals, despite their inherent danger, suit the colonial taste. Preceding the introduction of the Natives' Land Act, the clamour of a section of the colonists and most of the Transvaal Boers for more restrictive measures towards the blacks was accompanied at one of its stages by alarming reports of "Native disaffection", "Bakhatla insolence", and similar inflammatory headlines. One Sunday morning it was actually announced in the Sunday Press of Johannesburg that the Bakhatla had actually opened fire on the Union Police and were the first to draw blood. Our own inquiries proved that the British Protectorate, in and around Lentsue's territory, where the Bakhatla dwell, was abnormally quiet. All that had happened was that two Dutch policemen had unlawfully crossed into Bechua.n.a.land with firearms; that the Natives had disarmed them and taken them to their chief, who in turn handed them over to the British authorities at Gaberones, where they were tried and sentenced.

It is not suggested that Sunday papers in giving publicity to disturbing reports lend their s.p.a.ce to what they know to be untrue; but the fact remains that, right or wrong, their editorials seem ever ready to fan the glowing embers of colour prejudice into a blaze; and after arousing in this manner a most acute race feeling, the editors, upon discovering their mistake, if such it was, did not even trouble to tell their readers that they had unwittingly published exaggerated accounts -- since after a fair trial before the British tribunal at Gaberones, the offending Union Police were fined 50 Pounds.

The fact is that while under the quasi-Republican laws of the Transvaal a native policeman dare not lay his "black hands" on a "lily-white" criminal, even if he caught him in the very act of breaking the law: in British Bechua.n.a.land, "there shall be no difference in the eye of the law between a man with a white skin and a man with a black skin, and the one shall be as much ent.i.tled to the protection of the law as the other," and so in spite of scaremongers' ravings to the contrary, Chief Lentsue proved himself once more on the side of the law of his Empire.

Go mokong-kong ko Tipereri, Go mokong-kong gole; Go mokong-kong ko Tipereri, Go mosetsana montle.

Dumela, Pikadili, Sala, Lester-skuer, Tsela ea Kgalagadi, Tipereri, Pelo ea me e koo.

"Tipperary" in Rolong.

The Barolong and the War

The Barolong and other native tribes near Mafeking were keenly interested in the negotiations that preceded the Boer War. The chiefs continually received information regarding the mobilization of the Boer forces across the border. This was conveyed to the Magistrate of Mafeking with requests for arms for purpose of defence. The Magistrate replied each time with confident a.s.surances that the Boers would never cross the boundary into British territory.

The Transvaal boundary is only ten or twelve miles from the magistracy.

The a.s.surances of the Magistrate made the Natives rather restive; the result was that a deputation of Barolong chiefs had a dramatic interview with the Magistrate, at which the writer acted as interpreter.

The chiefs told the Magistrate that they feared he knew very little about war if he thought that belligerents would respect one another's boundaries.

He replied in true South African style, that it was a white man's war, and that if the enemy came, Her Majesty's white troops would do all the fighting and protect the territories of the chiefs.

We remember how the chief Montsioa and his counsellor Joshua Molema went round the Magistrate's chair and crouching behind him said: "Let us say, for the sake of argument, that your a.s.surances are genuine, and that when the trouble begins we hide behind your back like this, and, rifle in hand, you do all the fighting because you are white; let us say, further, that some Dutchmen appear on the scene and they outnumber and shoot you: what would be our course of action then?

Are we to run home, put on skirts and hoist the white flag?"

Chief Motshegare pulled off his coat, undid his s.h.i.+rt front and baring his shoulder and showing an old bullet scar, received in the Boer-Barolong war prior to the British occupation of Bechua.n.a.land, he said: "Until you can satisfy me that Her Majesty's white troops are impervious to bullets, I am going to defend my own wife and children.

I have got my rifle at home and all I want is ammunition."

The Magistrate duly communicated the proceedings to Capetown, but the reply from headquarters was so mild and rea.s.suring that one could almost think that it referred to an impending Parliamentary election rather than to a b.l.o.o.d.y war. But the subsequent rapid developments of events showed that the Natives of Mafeking were in advance and that those at headquarters were far behind the times. In a short time after the interview of the chiefs with the Magistrate, the Boers, following the terms of their ultimatum, crossed the border between the Cape and Transvaal, cut the lines of communication north and south of Mafeking and, before any arms could reach this quarter, Mafeking (a little village on the banks of the Molopo) was surrounded, with Montsioastad, a town of 5,000 native inhabitants.

The population of these places was largely increased by refugees, both white and black, from outside the town, and also from the Transvaal.

At this time of the investment General Cronje sent verbal messages to the chief advising him not to mix himself and his people in a white man's quarrel. This view of General Cronje's was, at the beginning of the siege, in accord with local white sentiment.

The European inhabitants of the besieged town had a repugnance to the idea of armed Natives shooting at a white enemy; but the businesslike method of General Cronje in effecting the investment had a sobering effect upon the whole of the beleaguered garrison; the Dutch 100-pounder Cruesot especially thundered some sense into them and completely altered their views.

The Barolong youth had his baptism of fire on October 25, 1899, when General Cronje tried to storm the garrison by effecting an entry through the native village. He poured a deafening hail of nickel into the native village. The Natives who were concealed behind the outer walls of Montsioastad waited with their rifles in the loopholes, according to Captain Marsh's instructions, till the Boers were quite near to them, then returned the fire with satisfactory results.

After this encounter the whites, for the first time, regretted that there were not any arms in the place with which to arm all the Natives.

As this attack was unmistakably severe and a Red Cross wagon moved around the Boer lines in the afternoon, it was feared that the native casualties were heavy, and medical aid was offered by the white section of the garrison. But all were agreeably surprised to find that beyond slight damages to the housetops there were no casualties among the Barolongs. The following was the only injury: A sh.e.l.l burst in front of Chief Lekoko as he was engaged in repelling the Boer attack, but no fragments of it touched him.

One piece of sh.e.l.l, however, struck a rock and a splinter of the rock grazed his temple. At best only a few rounds of ammunition could be handed out to those of the Barolongs who used their own rifles, and it is doubtful if so little ammunition was ever more economically used, and used to greater advantage.

The investment of Mafeking was so effective that only certain Natives could crawl through the Boer lines at night.

Throughout the seven months of the siege only one white man managed, under the guidance of two Natives, to pa.s.s into the village.

All the dispatches which came into and out of Mafeking were carried by Barolong runners. Before the Boers moved their stock into the far interior of the Transvaal, the Barolongs continually went out and raided Boer cattle and brought them into the besieged garrison.

Often the raiders had to fight their way back, but sometimes as they returned with the cattle in the night the Dutch sentries preferred to leave them alone.

The result was that General Snyman, who commanded the besiegers after General Cronje went south, issued a general order authorizing the shooting dead of "any one coming in or out of Mafeking", armed or unarmed.

At his village called Modimola, ten miles outside the beleaguered garrison, there lived Chief Saane, uncle of the Mafeking chief.

Being apparently harmless he was not for some months molested by the Boers.

Later, however, they rightly suspected him of supplying the garrison with information. They then took him and his followers to Rietfontein, where they placed him under surveillance, but Chief Saane proved even more useful in captivity than in liberty. He used the seemingly inoffensive young men of Rietfontein, to glean all first-hand information from the Boers, who still had command of the lines of communication.

Then he sent the news in verbal messages to his nephew, the paramount chief in the siege, who in turn communicated it to Her Majesty's officers in command. By means of this self-const.i.tuted intelligence bureau the garrison learnt of the surrender of Cronje -- a happy consummation of the battle of Paardeberg -- shortly after the good news reached their besiegers; and when official confirmation came from the Cape, more than a week later, Chief Saane's messengers were there again with fresh news of the surrender of Bloemfontein. This news, as might be well supposed, was glad tidings to the besieged people.

They were in fact the truths that King Solomon thus sets forth: "As cold water is to the weary soul, so is good news from a far country,"

for, in those days, before the invention of aeroplanes and Marconigrams, no country in this wide world was further than a besieged garrison.

Among the first civilian bodies raised in Mafeking for purposes of garrison defence was the "Cape Boy Contingent", a company of mixed cla.s.ses in varying degrees of complexions.

Sergt.-Major Taylor, a coloured bricklayer, who led the contingent and directed the crack snipers of that company, was killed during the fourth month of the siege, by a fragment of a huge sh.e.l.l in the outer trenches.

His funeral was attended by General Baden-Powell and other staff officers, and was probably the only funeral of a coloured person in the South African war that was accorded such distinguished military attendance.

The language of the Cape coloured or mixed people is the same as that of the Boers, viz., the Cape Dutch. At times during the siege our advance lines and those of the Boers used to be less than 100 yards apart, and when the wily snipers of both sides saw nothing to snipe at, they used to exchange pleasantries at the expense of one another, from the safety of their entrenchments. Sometimes these wordy compliments made the opponents decidedly "chummy", to borrow a trench phrase.

In that mood, they would now and again wax derisive or become amusing, bespeaking the fates of one another or the eventual outcome of the war.