Islanders and the Boer

MMa&.ift?^-CT'.'.2 ISLANDERS AND i—BalM^M THE BOER WAR By Darin MacKinnon and Boyde Beck Britannia crowns her warrior sons with a victory laurel on this South African War service medal (with four bars), awarded to Charles H Hine, a late addition to the first Island contingent William N. Riggs William N. Riggs lfred Riggs joined the Charlottetown Charlottetown, Charlottetown, A. Engineers, a local militia unit, in Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island 1898. A store clerk by occupation, he had decided to join the ministry when Paardeberg, Feb. 23, 1900 Paardeberg, March 3, 1900 the South African War broke out. The combined pull of patriotism and adven- Dear Father: Dear Mr. Riggs: ture was irresistible. Riggs put off his studies, offered for, and considered I have no time to write a letter now, as the It is with feelings of the greatestsorrow and himself lucky to serve in, South Africa. mail goes in 5 minutes. We have had a big deepest sympathy that I write to you re- His first battle was Paardeberg. There, battle here at Paardeberg. We lost very garding the death of your dear son, Alfred. on 18 February 1900, he watched his heavily, casualties about 100, with 28 Words cannot express how I feel for your- friend Roland Taylor die. "Shot through killed and the rest wounded. Poor Roland self and your family in their great grief. It the heart," "didn't last a minute," "died Taylor was killed. He was shot through the will be a consolation to you to know that very peacefully," Riggs and others were heart, and died instantly. I was with him Alfred died in the very front of the fight, quick to assure Taylor's parents. Eight when he died, but he did not know me fighting heroically and meeting a true days later it was his turn. In the chill of when I got him to the stretcher. He was too soldier's death. His name will ever be re- the early morning hours, he took part in far gone when I got there. I did all I could membered by his comrades. Alfred was a Paardeberg's final stage, a night assault for him, but it was no use. He died very good boy. His death with that of Roland on an entrenched position. Alfred Riggs's peacefully. Fred Waye was wounded in the Taylor has cast a gloom over us all. Their adventure ended with three bullets to leg. Myself and the rest of the boys are well.fate may meet some more of us but whilst the head. He was just short of his 22nd We have the Boers cornered. I have the opportunity I must express my birthday. heartfelt sympathy for yourself and family Your loving son, in this time of sadness. Alf An Imperial Ideal Believe me, PS. I received a number of letters from In November 1899,32 Islanders had set friends at home which I will answer as sail for Africa. They were part of a 1000- soon as possible. We have not got the boxesYours most sympathetically, man contingent sent by Canada to help you sent as yet. Captain Weeks is all right William A. Weeks Great Britain crush the troublesome and doing all he can for us. Captain, RCR Transvaal and Orange Free State, two Boer republics in South Africa. The who taught that the country's history, and sense of belonging embodied in complex causes of the war probably did traditions, and best interests lay in forg- imperial ideology was a welcome suc- not trouble them much. They fought for ing stronger and stronger links with the cessor to the political humiliations and the same reasons young men have al- Mother Country. They did not consider economic hardship of the 1870s and '80s. ways fought: escape from boredom into their role in the Imperium a subservient The tenets of -imperialism pervaded adventure, hormones, romance as yet one. The Empire was characterized as society on all levels: political and cul- untutored by reality. But in this age and "John Bull and Sons." As the oldest of tural, educational and religious. By 1899 in this generation, they shared other Britain's Dominions, Canada was a sen- a whole generation of Islanders had been motives as well. Raised in a culture that ior partner in, and eventual heir to, the schooled in its values, biases, and loyal- considered militarism a virtue, they company. It was an attractive argument. ties. The maple leaf might have been fought to prove their country's virility Imperialism was an easy way for ayoung, their "emblem Dear," but the Union Jack and its loyalty to Great Britain. The Is- untried nation to play with world-scale was their flag. It went without saying landers left behind fought with them — power. Canadians expressed their na- that any war of Great Britain was their at least, vicariously — savouring the tionalism — their hopes for, and belief war as well. details of every march and battle through in, future greatness — through their extensive newspaper reports and letters membership in the Empire. from the front. An Imperial War The now-obscure battles of the Boer War have importance far beyond their The war that brewed up in 1899 was in a contemporary political impact. In their chronic trouble spot for Great Britain. own time, they were viewed as a test of The British had two colonies in South nationhood and the highest expression Africa: Cape Colony and Natal. Prior to of an imperial theology. For modern the 1860s, they had considered "the historians, they serve as an indication of Cape" as a vital link in the sea routes to how deep that current of imperialism India and the Pacific. When they chal- ran in Canadian society. lenged for control of the area in the early Imperialism was a complex, often vola- 19th century, the British came up against tile ideology that brought out some of a resident European population. Descen- the best and the worst in Victorian soci- dants of 17th-century Dutch, French, ety. In simplest terms, 19th-century and Belgian settlers, the Boers were a imperialism meant the creation of em- farming people who had colonized the pire: the acquisition of territory by west- Cape when nobody else — except, of ern nations through force, discovery, or course, the resident African populations diplomacy. A generation earlier, secure — wanted it. Profoundly fundamental- in its domination of world trade, Britain ist, they considered themselves God- had cast off many of its colonies in a fit of sent to populate and dominate South economy. But by the close of the 19th Africa. They resented the British intru- century, the imperial mood was waxing sion in general and Britain's anti-slavery again. Its critics saw British imperialism activism in particular. as little more than an attempt to consoli- By the 1830s, the more extreme Boers date Great Britain's strategic and politi- had had enough. Abandoning the Cape cal power. They charged that the British to the British, several hundred Boer had conjured up an imperial ideology in families migrated north and east into the response to the growing power of rivals interior in what came to be known as the like Germany and the United States, two "Great Trek." After a series of bloody among many nations intent on empire- wars with the local African tribes, which building. sealed in blood their claim to the new Its adherents, however, saw imperial- land, the "Trekkers" carved out two re- ism as nothing less "than the greatest publics for themselves: the Transvaal vehicle for good yet developed by man- and the Orange Free State. kind." They spoke of "the white man's The frictions between English and burden," the obligation to bring civiliza- Victoria Regina et Imperatrix. From. Boer re-asserted themselves towards the tion and Christianity to the primitive A. T. Mahany The War in South Africa end of the century in a tangle of political peoples of the world. They maintained (1900). bickering that flared briefly into open that Great Britain was the architect of war in 1880-81. Its legacy was continued the greatest period of peace and pros- distrust and the memory of a stinging perity since the Pax Romana, and that, It could be argued that Prince Edward defeat for British arms at Majuba Hill in with the aid of her Empire, she would Island in particular took great comfort in February 1881. While construction of continue this work into the next century. this sense of empire. In the 1860s Island- the Suez Canal had altered South Africa's Most Canadians — at least, most ers had actually suggested the creation strategic importance by providing a more yl/^fo-Canadians — held the latter view- of an "Imperial Parliament," with partici- direct route to India, the region's signifi- point. In the 1880s and '90s there rose in pation by all of the colonies, as an alter- cance was greatly magnified by the dis- Canada a convincing group of ideologues native to Confederation. The confidence covery of the world's richest diamond and gold fields in the Transvaal. Before they got it. It drew its pretext from human Island's only French-languag newspaper, long, the Transvaal was inundated by rights, had its pivot in economic inter- L'Impartial. "All of the English newspa- mostly-British emigrants — Uitlanders ests, and found its spiritual justification pers that make such a fuss in favour of — seeking their fortunes, and by the in imperialism. war are in the hands of fools." mid- 1890s, ownership of the major dia- The reaction in Canada and on the In Ottawa, Prime Minister Wilfrid Lau- mond and gold mines was concentrated Island was two-fold.

Load more