Little doubt exists as to the continued practice of slavery amongst the Boers--in Natal before 1846, in the Orange Free State up to recent years, and in the Transvaal at the present time. There was, in the earlier period, a state of absolute lawlessness amongst the Boers themselves, combined with constant war, or raids, upon surrounding tribes. Kaffirs were shot down in cold blood, beaten at pleasure, their families burned out of their little huts and their children, or the most promising of them, taken away as "apprentices" for a given period--the euphemistic expression for a condition of permanent enslavery. Of course the natives retaliated when they could, and during the first thirty years of the Boer migration and history--1836 to 1866--the state of affairs was lamentable. It was estimated in 1869 that six thousand child-slaves were in the Transvaal as the much-prized booty of casual raids upon different tribes. And this despite the clause in the Sand River Convention forbidding, and promising to prevent, anything of the kind. During these years agitation in England against these practices of the Boers was incessant, and local protests from missionaries and others at the Cape and in Natal equally so. Papers in 1868 were laid before the Natal Legislature describing many accredited instances even at that late date, and three years before, Mr. W. Martin had laid before the Government of that Colony a detailed statement of his own experiences across the Vaal in this connection. The Lieutenant-Governor (Mr. John Maclean, C.B.) transmitted the documents to Cape Town, and the High Commissioner intimated that while he believed there was much of truth in the charges, yet it would be practically impossible to intervene successfully without being prepared to use force. A Resolution of protest against this view was at once passed by the Legislature, of which the following is an extract: "That the traffic is a direct breach of the Treaty entered into with Her Majesty's Commissioners, is an outrage upon humanity and civilization, and is an aggravation of the traffic which Her Majesty's Government has so long sought to suppress upon the east coast. That so long as this traffic in children is suffered to exist there can be little hope for the progress of civilization amongst the native tribes in the Transvaal Republic, while the prevalence of such practices in the immediate neighborhood of independent and colonial tribes has a most pernicious and injurious effect, and tends to lower the position and influence of the white race. That it is impossible for the High Commissioner, living as he does so far from the scene of those atrocities, to judge clearly and fully their character and tendencies." [Sidenote: Livingstone Reports on Slave Trade]