The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in KaffirlandWard, Mrs.
History
The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in Kaffirland
Ward, Mrs.
South Africa -- History -- Frontier Wars, 1811-1878
Umhala was once told he could not be permitted to marry a Christian
Kaffir girl, as he had eleven wives already. After repeated messages
and munificent offers of cattle, etc, on his part he pressed his suit by
saying, "his wives knew not the white man's God; he desired to have a
Christian wife, that she might teach him!" He did not succeed, however,
with the lady. "We know," said a Kaffir to a missionary, "that what you
tell us is for our good. We feel it must be so, because you bid us be
kind to one another, and to be neither thieves nor liars. You bid our
children be dutiful, our wives obedient, our neighbours peaceful; but
when you tell us to abide with our old wives, and take no more young
ones, then the teacher's words are no longer good, and our ears are deaf
to them."
A Kaffir prisoner, having been six months in the Graham's Town gaol, was
tried at the assizes in April, 1847, and acquitted of the crime of which
he had been accused. Before leaving the box, he was observed speaking
to one of the officers of the court. "What is he saying?" asked the
Judge. "He wishes to know," replied the functionary, "why he has been
so long in prison, and afterwards brought here, as he has committed no
crime."
The Keiskama River was proclaimed the immediate boundary of the Colony;
and between this and the Kei lies what "shall be called and known as
British Kaffiraria," to be held by the Kaffirs "under such rules and
regulations as Her Majesty's High Commissioner, or other Representative,
who shall be the Great Chief of the whole of the said territory, shall
deem best calculated to promote the civilisation, conversion to
Christianity, and general enlightenment of the benighted beings subject
to her rule."
In order "to define and fix a certain line of boundary, that no dispute
or disaffection might hereafter arise among the people on a question of
right or occupation," the lands appropriated to the different chiefs of
their tribes received English names. The "Great Place" of Sandilla is
now called York; the country allotted to the Amabala people, under
Stock, Lincolnshire. The location of the Amagunuquebes, under Palo, son
of Gasella, is named Bedfordshire; and Umhala's district, with the
I'Slambies, Cambridgeshire; another portion of the I'Slambies, under
Tois, are settled "within the limits of the county of Sussex." Tois's
own place is to be called Goodwood. The Tambookies, under Umtikaka
[Note 2.] and Mapassa, are to be located to the north of Yorkshire and
Sussex; and the various villages which are to be established within the
limits of British Kaffiraria have yet to be defined.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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