South Africa and the Boer-British War, Volume I: Comprising a History of South Africa and its people, including the war of 1899 and 1900Halstead, Murat
History
South Africa and the Boer-British War, Volume I: Comprising a History of South Africa and its people, including the war of 1899 and 1900
Halstead, Murat
South African War, 1899-1902
was revived and guided by the established Colonial principles of the
time. In the matter of representative institutions and commercial
regulations the Dutch of the conquered Colony were treated neither
better nor worse than the Loyalists of Upper Canada, the French of
Lower Canada, or white subjects in the East and West Indies. As
was really necessary in a community so cut off from European
civilization, so inert in an intellectual connection and so morosely
ignorant of constitutional freedom, Lord Caledon governed with much
strictness and even autocracy; but with boundless personal
generosity and amiability.
[Sidenote: The Fourth Kaffir War]
What is termed the fourth Kaffir war was
fought with the Kosas in 1812, and this time, under the command
of Lieut.-Colonel John Graham, the result was eminently satisfactory
to the Europeans concerned. In the preceding year
Sir John Cradock had become Governor, and he
also proved himself a man of high character. Under
his rule autocracy was again given its best form and application.
[Sidenote: Finally Ceded to Great Britain]
Meanwhile, events in Europe were tending towards the final
triumph of British arms and diplomacy and subsidies over the
tremendous military power of Napoleon. Holland, once freed from
French domination, overthrew the peculiar republican system which
Napoleon had established, and accepted, in 1813, the Prince of
Orange--who for eighteen years had been living in England in
exile--as its ruler. An agreement was at once made with him by
the British Government, and, in return for a payment of $30,000,000,
Cape Colony and some Dutch Provinces in South America were
formally and finally ceded to Great Britain by a
Convention signed at London in August, 1814. In
this way the Dutch of the Cape became British subjects.
Not through a conquest preceded, as in the case of French
Canada, by a century of continuous conflict or a rivalry which was
as keen as war, but through the medium of an almost peaceful
annexation succeeded by a friendly purchase of territory and
ratification of the annexation on the part of their Mother-land. Had
the character of the Boers not been so peculiar and exceptional,
there was consequently every ground for the hope of eventual
contentment under British rule and of assimilation with the developing
life of the Empire during the ensuing century. There was no
inherited legacy of civil war or racial hatred. The Mother-lands of
England and Holland had fought with each other, it is true, but more
often they had stood side by side in Europe for the cause of religious
and popular freedom.
[Sidenote: A Period Tending to Racial Co-operation]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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