Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South AfricaMatthews, J. W. (Josiah Wright)
History
Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South Africa
Matthews, J. W. (Josiah Wright)
Diamond mines and mining -- South Africa; South Africa -- Description and travel
The recollections of Isandhlwana, Zhlobane and Ulundi make one’s blood
run cold; but terrible as this war was, the cruelty and wickedness of
having brought it about, could time prove it to have been unnecessary,
cannot compare, in my mind, with the cruelty and wickedness of the
disastrous Zulu settlement by Sir Garnet Wolseley and the after neglect
of the Zulu nation by the English government. It was “adding insult to
injury” to place these people under petty chiefs, and the whole nation
became demoralized. They _would_ have respected their conquered king
even if he had had to accede to all the demands of the ultimatum and to
owe allegiance to the English government, and they _could_ have accepted
a conquering power more especially when that power was the marvelous
English. This latter disposition is what they naturally would have
expected. But to place them under petty chiefs was just to set them
again at the old game of one chief “eating up” another until one became
supreme. When at last Cetywayo was restored it was simple cruelty not to
have established him firmly and protected him from all danger. Sad
indeed would Bishop Colenso have been had he lived to see the
restoration of Cetywayo for which he worked so earnestly. It was poor
“justice” that left the king, having destroyed his power, to the mercy
of his enemies, and to die very shortly from poison or a broken heart!
No one could have expected Cetywayo to resume his old footing among his
people through any love they bore him. What does any native chief ever
do to make himself beloved? The Zulus possess a dog-like fidelity toward
their chiefs, and they may be proud of their conquests, but when we
consider that Cetywayo could hold his position by the utmost severity
only, ruling by fear rather than love, we cannot be surprised that his
restoration without support was an utter failure. Even upon Cetywayo’s
death it would not have been too late for England to annex the Zulus and
accept a noble mission. With the natural fidelity of the Zulus, how easy
a matter, with firm, kind rule, to gain their love as well!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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