The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-07-01
KING OF THE N|GGERS"
Once a Butte Officer. Now a
South African Potentate.
STORY OF Mr.. CREECH
A Few Years Ago He Was q Local Dep
uty Sheriff-At the Present Time He
Is Pretty Nearly q Bigger Man
Than Old Dom Paul Kruger.

There are few people in Butte who
do not remember Roland Creech, who
vas a deputy sheriff under Mr.. Lloyd
for two or three years and was in the
United States marshal's office also for
two years. He was n of the most
daring young men in Butte. afraid of
nothing, and could ride a horse equal
to any one. He was as strong as an
OK, an athlete in every sense of the
word.
Mr.. .Creech went to South Africa a
few years ago. and by all is
doing well. He is styled the king of
the Niggers." The following article by
Allen Sangree in the Portland Oregon
ian will be read here with interest:
After Cecil Rhodes and Dom Paul
Kruger, the most interesting character
in South Africa is an American cowboy.
His name is Roland II. Creech. Before
emigrating to johannesburg. he lived
at Butte. Mont. m as a product Of the
wild and woolly West he is a concrete
type.
Though a resident of South Africa
but five years, it is no exaggeration to
say that Creech is now dividing honors
with the great English pioneer in the
matter of developing the lower end of
the Dark Continent.
No Piihit biii io'
critical positions. No newspapers oun
his praises. He is not famous. He may
not figure in history.
But from the Zambesi to the Orange
river, over the breadth of Africa. he is
known as King of the Niggers,' and
when Cecil Rhodes visits the province
of Mozambique or Eastern Mashona-
land. he stays not with the wealthy
English merchants of the government
officials, but i'm the modest abode of Ro-
land Creech, wherever that may chance
to be.
"Sir Alfred Miner. governor of Cape
Colony. n Queen Victoria's represen-
tative in South Africa. made an official
tour of the country last fall. The writ
er was present in Umtali, a small town
of Mozambique, when his excellency
n suite arrived there.
THE object of his visit to that remote
place was to meet Mr.. Rhodes. The
ex-premier was discovered slipping
brandy and soda with the cowboy, and
he preferred to continue that pas
time TO attending the governors recep-
ton.
MIR. Rhodes intense fancy for Mr..
Creech is attributed to the latter's
ab~ruptness. his utter Indifference to all
conventionalities and TO his valor as
a worker. Creech treats the man who
holds the destinies of half a continent
in his hands with very little more con-
u liidh lHt DldNhts Oh MS
Basutos.
Rhodes likes this reckless independ-
ence. At the same time he knows that
this American chap will build a rail-
road or erect a telegraph line in less
time and with greater skill than any
Englishman he a get.
Then. too, Creech seems to be the
only man in a great radius of country
who can get the blacks in hand.
obtaining blacks to work in the
mines and to develop the country has
now become a serious question. In
some parts IL is impossible to get them.
Creech is the only man, so far as the
writer observed, who has no difficulty
to procure them. Almost every native
met with in East Africa. when asked
for whom he was working, would
proudly reply, Boss Creech.'"
they seem to regard him with awe
because of his marvellous luency in
languages. In a few years this unedu-
Gated cowboy has become so proficient
in the Zulu, Mashona, Matabele, Ba-
suto. Bechuana and other dialects that
he can speak them better than the ma
tive. ] have heard him talk to a Zulu
so rapidly hat the black could not fol-
lon.
They also like him because he is fair
and generous. When a boy wishes to
quit work n go back to his tribe for
a few months, he generally departs
with a present. When the boy returns
he brings with him a dozen friends. In
this way the force is constantly re-
cruited.
The boss also resorts to many
ruses to make the BOYS work. Just
now he is constructing a telegraph line
from Umtali to Tete, on the Zambesi.
DIR. Jameson had to give up this Job
on account of the heat.
When the men funk entirely Creech
puts a couple of bottles of brandy
about a mile in advance and
that the men who reach that point first
get the prize. The telegraph line is
rapidly approaching Tete.
He also protects his boys, and on
several occasions he has numerically
thrashed white men who abused one of
them. This is almost unprecedented in
South Africa, where the treatment of
the blacks by the English and the Beers
exceeds in brutality any that was ever
visited on a Georgia negro in the slave
days.
1t is related of President Kruger him
self that he once treked across country
for two whole days with a Kafr boy
under his wagon, hands and feet tied
to either axle.
South Africa is being opened up now
from the south and east. Buluwayo,
the most important town in Central
South Africa, has just been connected
with Cape Town by railroad. Sails
bury. the town of next Importance, ly-
ing 200 miles further east. is to have
an outlet at Beira, East Africa. Creech,
under Rhodes direction, is completing
a railway between these two points.
That part of Africa is said to b. the
most deathly district I'm the world, ow-
ing to its fiat. sandy nature and the
equatorial heat. Few persons can
stand the climate. and English pioneers
who have survived the Jungles of India
and the SHOWS of British America sue
cumb here.
A few hours suffice for the deadly
fever to do its work. The mortality is
awful. On Oct. Is. last year, the writer
saw 10 men carried out of the Beach
batal at r. ira Vxbo had pona m naC IL