South Africa and the Transvaal War (Vol. 1-8). Louis Creswicke

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      CAPE TOWN, DEVIL'S PEAK, TABLE MOUNTAIN, AND LION'S HEAD FROM TABLE BAY.

       Photo by Wilson, Aberdeen

      It may be remembered that one of the causes of the great Trek was the restoration of their province to Kaffirs, thereby according to the blacks an independence that was not enjoyed by the Boers. No astonishment, therefore, will be felt at the exasperation of the Boers when they found that the Cape Government had entered into treaties with the Griquas—treaties which seemed to them to promise more freedom to the savage than was accorded to themselves. Grievances of many kinds—some real and some ridiculous—continued daily to occur. Things serious and things trivial were liable to cause them equal indignation. According to Livingstone, the ignorant followers of Potgieter—who were posted at Magaliesberg, a thousand miles from the Cape—were moved to wrath merely by the arrival of Herschel's great telescope at the Cape Observatory! What right, said they, had the Government to erect that huge instrument at the Cape for the purpose of seeing what they were doing behind the Kashan mountains?

      But of just grievances they had several, and these Pretorius, as spokesman of his people, wished to lay before the Governor at the Cape. Sir Henry Pottinger, who occupied that post in 1847, unfortunately declined the interview; consequently affairs went from bad to worse. In the end of the year Sir Henry Smith arrived as Governor of the colony, and great things were expected of him. He knew the native races, he knew the Boers, and they both knew him. Pretorius, who was arranging a final emigration from Natal, was summoned to confer with the new Governor. Sir Henry wished to gauge the feelings of the farmers prior to issuing a proclamation (dated February 3, 1848), declaring the Queen's sovereignty over the whole country between the Orange and Vaal Rivers to eastward of the Quathlamba Mountains. According to Pretorius, the conference was an unsatisfactory one. He assured the Governor that his people would never consent to it. Sir Henry Smith nevertheless considered himself justified in taking the step, and the Home Government, whose policy it had been to consolidate the peaceful native States along the border, eventually coincided with his view.

      No sooner was the proclamation generally known than the horde of Pretorius' followers flew to arms. They swept southward, driving every British official beyond the Orange River. Major Warden, the Resident at Bloemfontein, where a British fort and garrison had been placed some two years before, was forced to capitulate.

      Sir Harry Smith, on becoming acquainted with the news, at once offered a thousand pounds for the arrest of Pretorius. He also began a march to the front. The Governor thought that he had but to come, see, and conquer; but he was mistaken. He had tough work before him. The Boers, about a thousand strong, had entrenched themselves in a formidable position. They were superior in point of numbers, horses, and guns to Sir Harry's forces; but he pursued his way, nothing daunted. He stormed the position, and, after a hard fight, scattered the enemy. They fled from Boomplaats, where the engagement had taken place, and hastened back across the Vaal to their native haunts. The date of the battle was the 29th of August 1848, and the father of President Kruger is said to have been the first man to fire a shot at the British on that occasion!

      After this period various dissensions arose in the Boer camp between Pretorius, who styled himself "Chief of the whole united emigrant force," and Potgieter, who looked upon himself somewhat in the light of a rival. While these worthies fell out Sir Harry Smith saw the annexation carried through, and the territory of the modern Free State was united to Cape Colony, under the title of the Orange River Sovereignty. The contumacious Boers took themselves off with their leader across the Vaal, and fresh European settlers came in and established themselves in the fertile plains that were deserted. For some time after this things prospered, and Sir Harry saw before him the prospect of a new self-governing Dutch colony, which would resemble and equal those of Natal and the Cape. But he reckoned without his host, and all that he had taken the trouble to do was ultimately undone. In 1852 the Government at home declared its policy to be the ultimate abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty. For this pusillanimous policy there were several reasons, the greatest being a fear of a Basuto rising and the trouble it would entail. The British Government therefore decided to maintain its rights over the Transvaal no further, and by the Sand River Convention, signed on the 17th of January 1852, the emigrant farmers beyond the Vaal River were given the right to manage their own affairs, subject only to the condition that they should neither permit nor encourage slavery.

      About this time commenced the threatened rise of the Basutos in the neighbourhood of the Orange River territory. The Basutos are a branch of the Bechuana race, who had been formed by their chiefs Motlume and Moshesh into a powerful nation, which could hold its own against Boer or Zulu. With this race the Home Government desired to have nothing to do, and the Colonial Office, viewing the political game as not worth the candle, definitely withdrew from the Orange River Sovereignty, leaving the Free State to come into being, and devise its own plans for overawing its enemies on the other side of the border. Accordingly, in 1854, Sir Harry Smith's programme of annexation was entirely wiped out, British sovereignty renounced, and the Orange Free State left to become a Republic and take care of itself!