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1 05 028 THEY WERE SOUTH AFRICANS By John Bond CAPE TOWN OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON NEW YORK 4 Oxford University Press, Amen House, London, E.G. GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI ACCRA SINGAPORE First published November 1956 Second impression May 1957 Third impression November 1957 $ PRINTED IN THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA BY THE RUSTICA PRESS, PTY., LTD., WYNBERG, CAPE To the friends and companions of my youth at Grey High School, Port Elizabeth, and Rhodes University, Grahams- town, ivho taught me what I know and cherish about the English-speaking South Africans, this book is affectionately dedicated. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book would not have been possible without the help and kindness of many people, 'who may not entirely agree with the views it expresses. I am greatly indebted to Mr D. H. Ollemans and the Argus Printing and Publishing Company, of which he is managing director, for granting me the generous allocation of leave without which it could never have been completed. At a critical moment Mr John Fotheringham's intervention proved decisive. And how can I forget the kindness with which Dr Killie Campbell gave me the freedom of her rich library of Africana at Durban for three months, and the helpfulness of her staff, especially Miss Mignon Herring. The Johannesburg Public Library gave me unstinted help, for which I am particularly indebted to Miss J. Ogilvie of the Africana section and her assistants. Professor A. Keppel Jones and Dr Edgar Brookes of Pietermaritzburg, Mr F. R. Paver of Hill- crest, and Mr T. C. Robertson and Mr Cecil Witherow of Johannesburg gave me valuable assistance. Mr Horace Flather, editor of The Star, and Miss Gladys Dickson and Mr Henry Howell of the South African Broadcasting Corporation brought me into touch, by commissioning articles and broadcasts, with correspondents who supplied valuable family information. I owe to Miss Dickson also the title of this book, which she devised for the broadcast talks. Mr Norman Herd ofJohannes- burg made important suggestions. Among many whom there is not space to name separately I cannot omit the help I have received from my own family, not least my father and mother and my sister Margaret. Above all I am indebted to the unfailing support of my wife. Without her this book might never have been begun and would certainly never have been finished. I wish to thank Miss Una Long for permission to quote from also her Index to authors of unofficial, privately-owned manuscripts', the following publishers for permission to quote from the works named: The Press and Times Daniel Epworth (Life of Lindley, by Edwin W. Messrs Macmillan and Ltd Smith) ; Co., (Memoirs of Cole, edited Maud and SirLowry by Lowry Cole, Stephen Gwynn) ; Messrs Maskew Miller Ltd, Cape Town (History of the South African College, by W. Ritchie); and Messrs Shuter and Shooter Ltd, Pietermaritzburg (Diary of Henry Francis Fynn, edited by Stuart and Malcolm). vin CONTENTS Acknowledgements page vii I The Unknown People I II The First of Them All 7 III The First of the Assegais 16 Saved a IV They Country . 24 V The Redcoats Bear the Brunt 3 5 VI Breaking into the North 46 VII First into the Transvaal 58 VHI A Master Trekker 68 DC To the Source of the Congo 79 X Trekkers of the Sea 86 XI Romance of a Great Port 94 XQ Throwing Open the Windows 102 XIII The Master Hand of Bain no XIV If the Salt Lose Its Savour 117 XV South Africa's First College 126 XVI The Discovery of Afrikaans 138 XVH He Founded the Schools 146 XVIH Pioneers 159 XDC The Makers of Railways 170 XX Hex River Pass and Drakensberg 178 XI Politicians 188 XXII The Men They Were 197 Epilogue 209 Historical Sources 212 Index 218 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS facing page Grahamstown a few years after the battle of 1819. From George Thompson, Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa (1827) 34 The birth of Algoa Bay. Wooden blockhouse built by British and troops in 1799. From Samuel Daniell, African Scenery Animals (1804) . -34 The 74th Highlanders storming the Amatola Heights on 16 June 1851. From W. R. King, Campaigning in Kaffirland (1853) 35 Anderson and his party trekking across the Karroo towards the Orange River in 1811. From William Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa (1822) . 50 Klaar Water in 1811, showing Anderson's church of reeds. From William Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa (1822) . 50 Bechuana tribesmen (circa 1800). From Samuel Daniell, African 1 Scenery and Animals (1804) . 5 'In the twinkling of an eye ... the Korannas had loaded their movable huts on oxen and the whole village had fled west.' This engraving by Samuel Daniell shows how easily this Animals might have been done. From African Scenery and (1804) ....... 5i The Rev. John Campbell in his garb as an African explorer. 82 From Campbell, Travels in South Africa (1815) Henry Francis Fynn. From a sketch by I'Ons . .82 a sketch attributed Boer outspan in the Karroo (circa 1830). From Bell . to Charles ...... 83 William Cock's harbour at Port Alfred. From T. W. Bowler, The Kafir Wars and the British Settlers in South Africa (1864) 98 a in Durban harbour from Congella. From painting (circa 1850) the possession of Dr Killie Campbell of Durban . 99 The Montagu Pass shortly after White completed it in 1849. From a sketch by a contemporary artist, in W. A. Newman, Memoir ofJohn Montagu (1855) . 114 facing page Stone bridge over the Kat River between Grahamstown and Fort Beaufort, built by Andrew Geddes Bain. From T. W. Bowler, The Kafir Wars and the British Settlers in South Africa (1864.) ...... 115 John Montagu. He combined prison reform, with road- building. From W. A. Newman, Memoir ofJohn Montagu (1855) ....... 130 William Shaw, chaplain of the 1820 Settlers. From Memoir of The Rev. William Shaw (1874) . .130 John Fairbairn. From a print of 1850 in the possession of Fairbairn . Mr John of Pretoria . .131 James Rose Innes, first superintendent of education. From W. Ritchie, History of the South African College (Maskew Miller, 1918) . .131 The treeless homestead of a Cape sheep farmer, 1811. Note the (fat-tailed) sheep, and the store-room and the kitchen separated from die house. From William Burchell, Travels in the Interior Southern of Africa (1822) . 162 An early 1820 Settler homestead, ThornhilTs farm near the mouth of the Kowie River. From George Thompson, Travels and Adventures in Southern . Africa (iS2$ . 162 an hunt in During elephant Mashonaland (circa 1864) Henry Hartley makes the first modern discovery of payable gold in Southern Africa an ancient gold-mine. From a painting Thomas Baines . by . .163 Sir John Molteno, first Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. From P. A. Molteno, Life and Times of Sir John Charles Molteno (1900) ...... 178 Sir John Robinson, first Prime Minister of Natal. From a in the photograph possession of his daughters, Miss Sybil and Miss Charlotte . Robinson of Durban . .178 Xhosas and Hottentots attacking the besieged village of Whittle- sea, where Commandant Webster won distinction in the war of Umlanjeni. From R. Godlonton and E. Irving, A Narrative the of Kafir War 0/1850-51 (1852) . 179 xu 'I have neither Voortrekker nor blood in " Huguenot my veins, and the South African spirit", as understood by those who extol it, implies a view of the Native question which I cannot share. But I am proud to be a South African and I claim to stand on the same national footing as if my forebears had landed with van Riebeeck or followed Piet R_etief over the Drakensberg/ Sir James Rose limes in his Autobiography CHAPTER ONE THE UNKNOWN PEOPLE unknown people inhabit South Africa. They are not the Afrikaners, about whom a great deal has been written, A in several are not the Bushmen, the languages. They Hottentots, the Malays, the Cape Coloured, the amaXhosa, the Zulu, the Basuto their histories are known, their customs described. They are not even the South African Indians, about whom the United Nations have heard so much, and from whose has ever unpopular ranks emerged the greatest figure that stepped from South Africa on to the stage of the world Mahatma Gandhi. These unknown people are the English-speaking South Africans. They number more than a million today and trace their beginnings back to 1795. Yet no history ofthem has ever been written. They are one of the smallest English-speaking peoples smaller even than the New Zealanders, whose national history started half a century later, and far smaller than the Australians, whose begin- nings came likewise at the close of the eighteenth century. an Yet the English-speaking South Africans have exerted influence out of all proportion to their numbers. They have never yet formed so much as ten per cent of the total population a of their country. But with their arrival in the shank of Africa creative stimulus stirred in one of the remotest and wildest countries in the world. The stranded nucleus of older settlers from western Europe felt a powerful and disturbing reinforcement. For at least a century these newcomers with their descendants and the succeeding "waves of immigrants British, German, Dutch, Jewish, Greek, and Scandinavian who joined them, African That is played the most creative role in South history. the one reason why their own story has never been written, only races that touched story of the immense activity among all they the civilized West off. Even today, they stand so much closer to THEY WERE SOUTH AFRICANS any other national group in South Africa, that visitors from Europe or American take them for granted.