South Africa -- Description and travel; South Africa -- History -- 1836-1909; South Africa -- History -- To 1836
Then came the fifth Kafir war, which of all these wars was the
bloodiest. It began in 1850, and seems to have been instigated by a
Kafir prophet. It would be impossible in a short sketch such as this to
give any individual interest to these struggles of the natives against
their invaders. Through them all we see an attempt, made at any rate by
the British rulers of the land, to bind these people by the joint
strength of treaties and good offices. “If you will only do as we bid
you, you shall be better off than ever you were. We will not hurt you,
and the land will be enough for both of us.” That is what we have said
all along with a clear intention of keeping our word. But it has been
necessary, if we were to live in the land at all, that we should bind
them to keep their word whether they did or did not understand what it
was to which they pledged themselves. Lord Glenelg’s theory required
that the British holders of the land should recognise and respect the
weakness of the Savage without using the strength of his own
civilization. Colonization in such a country on such terms is
impossible. He may have had abstract justice on his side. On that point
I say nothing here. But if so, and if Great Britain is bound to
reconcile her conduct to the rules which such justice requires, then she
must abandon the peculiar task which seems to have been allotted to her,
of peopling the world with a civilized race. In 1850 the fifth Kafir war
arose, and the inhabitants of one advanced military village after
another were murdered. This went on for nearly two years and a half, but
was at last suppressed by dint of hard fighting. It cost Great Britain
upwards of two millions of money, with the lives of about four hundred
fighting men. This was the last of the Kafir wars,--up to that of 1877,
if that is to be called a Kafir war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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