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
"By emigrants we would be understood to imply not so much an exclusively
labouring population, as practical farmers possessed of small capital,
say 200 pounds to 500 pounds. Men of this class could bring out their
own labourers; and as an encouragement for them to do so, we should
recommend that they should receive an equivalent in land, to the amount
that they have necessarily expended in the outfit and passage of
themselves, families, and servants. An arrangement of this nature would
enable a man possessing capital to the extent we have mentioned, to
commence farming with advantage, the moment of his arrival in the
district; while, without it, the means of a most valuable class of
colonists would be swallowed up in expenses, and upon their landing
here, emigrants with limited capital, would find themselves very little
better off than before they left their native land.
"Could the fertility of the country and salubrity of its climate be
pointed out, together with advantages such as those we have mentioned,
we doubt not that numbers of the class we allude to, would be found
willing, and even anxious to avail themselves of the facilities which
this district in particular promises to emigrants.
"Any delay occurring in their obtaining suitable land immediately on
their arrival, would of course prove fatal to the success of the
undertaking. To obviate such a misfortune, we would recommend that a
considerable number of plots of ground be surveyed and ready for
selection by the emigrants, and that every facility be afforded them
immediately to obtain the spots thus chosen, either by public sale or
otherwise, as shall be deemed most advisable by his Honour the
Lieutenant-Governor.
"By a more extensive emigration than this appears to contemplate, or
rather by the simultaneous emigration of persons sufficient in number,
and suitable in character for forming communities of themselves, the
towns and villages might be peopled, and the adjacent lands brought
under cultivation. After a few of these shall be thus established, the
remaining intervals of country will speedily be filled up, and the more
so when each township shall be provided with its magistrate, minister of
religion, the requisite public buildings, and the means of defence.
"Most of the associations connected in the mind of an European with the
name of Kaffir, have been formed upon the represented bad character and
conduct of the nation so called, now engaged in a serious and expensive
war with the old Colony; and are consequently highly unfavourable to any
people bearing a name which, by common consent, attributes all the
cunning faithlessness of the savage, with an admixture of many of the
depravities of civilised life, to its bearer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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