The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1899-11-11
ANOTHER VERSION OF THE CAUSE
OF THE TROUBLE.

Il - 81
4 Hundred Years Of strife Between
the Dutch and English In south
Africa Which Has just Culmina-
ted i'm What Promises to He Their
Last War-More or, Less Ancient
History supplemented by the
Record Of the Past Years Nego-
Rightly to understand the. present stu
alton IN the Transvaal the history Of
S:.uth Africa since its occupation by the
British should be taken into considera .
tien. The. first white men to make SET
torrents in the Cape were the Dutch.
They went there in the seventeenth cen-
+ tury, and were joined by the English in
*1i!5, The British government captured
the territory by force of arms in 1906 and
-the Caps of Good Hope became definitely
q colony Of the British crown in 1914.
I The white population then consisted
largely Of men of Dutch descent, though
with considerable adm;Sturei OF Hugue-
not blood. English immigration followed
British sovereignty. and In 1920 not less
than four thousand British colonists ar
rived at the Cape. 81 ~
Meanwhile the Beers. as the Dutch
settlers were called, resented the auto
cratic rule of the British, and were es,e-
.cially jncensed at the interference made
with their right to enslave the negro
races The ;enlancipa Of slavery in
the colony in 1S345Was the cause of tile
Great Trek, Or exodus, of 1886, which
led to the formation Of Natal, the Orange
Free State and the Transvaal. One griev-
+ si1ee Of the Boers, according to the his
tOrian of the New York Tribune, was that
when slavery was abolished the slave
oW ners received as compens alton orders
on London which they We're com:ellcl
TO cash on the spot at :ruinous rates, prac-
tieaIly impoVerlshing them Another
was that by order of the government they
were obliged to surrender certain valua-
bic lands on the lei river, which had
been annexed. In rage and disgust the
no. began to go forth and east into
across the yaal river were practically UNI
r,olested by the English They we're,
however, still claimed as British SUBJECTS,
and ION Aug. 81, 1916, the governor of the
colony issued proclamation to that cf-
feet. ss
In 1S4e, after quelling native uprising
beyond the Orange river, the Cape gov
eminent formally annexed the territory
between the Orange and the Vaal under
staesna Of the Orange River Sovereign
~. 70 accomplish this pacifica ton the
government. became involved in aeon
f1ict with the Beers Of the Orange district
mo were joined by the farmers from
beyond the Vaal under the redoubtahle
Andreis Fretorius
A KafHr war being then In progress,
PretOr1uS took advantage of the predica-
ment of the British and proposed a per
1manent pacific settlement" and ON Jan.
1852, received from the Crown Offices
guarantee that the farmers north Of
!, the Vaal had .the right to- manage their
own affairs and to govern themselves ac-
cording to their own laws, without any
interference on the part of the British
government. = Two years later at a con-
vention signed at Bloemfontein, Great
Britain also repud;ated sovereignty over
the Orange territory.
Such was the origin Of these two Boer
states, together containing about four
thousand adult males Under enlightened
governments the Orange Free State pros-
Dered. Such was not the case in the
Transvaal, for within it's borders there
were at least four so~called republic. each
claiming sovereign power. Finally one
Of these rose above the others, and in
1868 the Yolksraad passed the "Gronwet,"
or fundamental law, which is still no.
minally the constitution of the country.
But It was not until 1864 that all the
Beers north of the Vaal agreed to re-
cognize M. W. Pretorius, son of Andres,
as head of the state The white popula-
ton then numbered about thirty thousand.
Wars with The large native population
were frequent, the Beers refused to pay
taxes, their paper money was worth about
country was going from had to worse
In 1876 matters came to crisis, which
led to Sthe Intervention of the British
government in Transvaal affairs. and
finally to the annexation of that state on
April II, 1877. 1t came about in this
way. The weakened and disorganized re-
anublfc was hemmed In nv Kaffirs on. tha
only in DANGER of extermfnation itself.
but, by failing to repel the common foe
If white men, became a menace to every
civilized community in South Africa.
1t was then that the British govern
ment sent Sir Theophilus Shepstone as q
special commissioner to territories adj.
tt,ining the colony nf Natal, to inn,lire
into the recent disturbances Ha was en-
powered .in certain events to exercise
the Jurisdiction Of her ma iestv over ss,,ch
territories or some of them" On his ar
rival at Pretoria he explained to The
executive council OF the Transyaal that
his mission was to confer with the gov
eminent and people of the Transvaal with
the object Of initiating a new state of
things which would guarantees security for
the future After three months inquiry
the commissioner became convinced that
4 he nn1v method 81 .affac+uall,, hrirsi,a
safety ia the Beers and Of nrntecfine
british interests ~, otl,ar colonfos uas
Inv 5annaxinsr 81 IN 1.reat Rritain nd 10
issued a proclarnation to that eject. The
majority Of the people readily accepted
annaYation 40 affnrdino nrotoetinn q oa;nat
savage foes that threatened them wifi,
sannihilation. Of the executive council