“Since 1877 much concerning this matter that was previously doubtful has been set at rest. On the 12th of April of that year the South African republic was proclaimed British territory, and when, soon afterward, investigation was made, not a single slave was set free, because there was not one in the country. In the very heart of the territory kraals of blacks were found in as prosperous a condition as in any part of South Africa. It was ascertained that these blacks had always lived in peace with the white inhabitants, and that they had no complaints to make. Quite as strong was the evidence afforded by the number of the Bantu. In 1877 there were, at the lowest estimate, six times as many black people living in a state of semi-independence within the borders of the South African Republic as there had been on the same ground forty years before. Surely these people would not have moved in if the character of the burghers was such as most Englishmen believed it to be. A statement of actual facts is thus much more likely now to gain credence abroad than would have been the case in 1864. “The individuals who were termed slaves by the missionary party were termed apprentices by the farmers. The great majority—probably nineteen out of every twenty—were children who had been made prisoners in the wars which the tribes were continually waging with each other. In olden days it had been the custom for the conquering tribe to put all the conquered to death, except the girls and a few boys who could be made useful as carriers. More recently they had become less inhuman, from having found out that for smaller children they could obtain beads and other merchandise. “With a number of tribes bordering on the republic ready to sell their captives, with the Betshuana everywhere prepared to dispose of the children of their hereditary slaves, a few adventurous Europeans were found willing to embark in the odious traffic. Wagon loads of children were brought into the republic, where they were apprenticed for a term of years to the first holder, and the deeds of apprenticeship could afterward be transferred before a landdrost. This was the slavery of the South African Republic. Its equivalent was to be found a few years earlier in the Cape colony, when negroes taken in slave-ships were apprenticed to individuals. There would have been danger in the system if the demand for apprentices had been greater. In that case the tribes might have attacked each other purposely to obtain captives for sale. But the demand was very limited, for the service of a raw black apprentice was of no great value. A herd boy might be worth something more than his food, clothing, and a few head of cattle which were given him when his apprenticeship expired; but no other class of raw native was.