The Personal Life of David Livingstone: Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His FamilyBlaikie, William Garden
Religion
The Personal Life of David Livingstone: Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His Family
Blaikie, William Garden
Livingstone, David, 1813-1873
Livingstone then returned to Chonuane, finished the erection of a school
there, and setting systematic instruction fairly in operation under Paul
and his son, Isaac, again went eastward, accompanied this time by Mrs.
Livingstone and their infant son, Robert Moffat[25]--all the three being
in indifferent health. Mebalwe, the catechist, was also with them.
Taking a different route, they came on another Bakhatla tribe, whose
country abounded in metallic ores, and who, besides cultivating their
fields, span cotton, smelted iron, copper, and tin, made an alloy of tin
and copper, and manufactured ornaments. Livingstone had constantly an
eye to the industries and commercial capabilities of the countries he
passed through. Social reform was certainly much needed here; for the
chief, though not twenty years of age, had already forty-eight wives and
twenty children. They heard of another tribe, said to excel all others
in manufacturing skill, and having the honorable distinction, "they had
never been known to kill any one." This lily among thorns they were
unable to visit. Three tribes of Bakhalaka whom they did visit were at
continual war.
[Footnote 25: He wrote to his father that he would have called him Neil,
if it had not been such an ugly name, and all the people would have
called him Ra-Neeley!]
Deriving his information from the Boers themselves, Livingstone learned
that they had taken possession of nearly all the fountains, so that the
natives lived in the country only by sufferance. The chiefs were
compelled to furnish the emigrants with as much free labor as they
required. This was in return for the privilege of living in the country
of the Boers! The absence of law left the natives open to innumerable
wrongs which the better-disposed of the emigrants lamented, but could
not prevent. Livingstone found that the forcible seizure of cattle was a
common occurrence, but another custom was even worse. When at war, the
Dutch forced natives to assist them, and sent them before them into
battle, to encounter the battle-axes of their opponents, while the Dutch
fired in safety at their enemies over the heads of their native allies.
Of course all the disasters of the war fell on the natives; the Dutch
had only the glory and the spoil. Such treatment of the natives burned
into the very soul of Livingstone. He was specially distressed at the
purpose expressed to pick a quarrel with Sechéle, for whatever the
emigrants might say of other tribes, they could not but admit that the
Bechuanas had been always an honest and peaceable people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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