Sidelights
to Blood
on the Path- a saga of the founding of South Africa 100 years ago. (published by Springbok Press. All rights reserved)
BOOK TWO - 1886-1902
- Great
African Chiefs
- Unlicensed sale of white women
- World's lightest heavyweight champ
- ‘Yokeskei’ River
- Hard hearts of gold
- Jameson Raid reverberations
- Why Cetshweyo did not invade Natal
- Official despatch on Commando
Great
African Chiefs
Chief Langalibalele of the Hlubi tribe in Zululand
was arrested in 1873 on the orders of Sir Theopholis Shepstone because the guns
brought back from the diamond mines by Hlubi trabesmen had not been registered.
Although it was considered a minor statutory infringement, committed by many,
his tribe was forcibly dispersed and the tribal land appropriated. It was a
flagrantly unjust move, even if the intention was a Natal move to make an
example of him in the interests of stricter gun control. It appears more likely
that “justice” was meted out in order to take control of labour in his tribal
area. He fled to Basutoland, but was
handed over for a summary trial, considered grossly illegal, and sentenced to
life banishment. The tribe rebelled and were subdued after 200 men were killed.
Merriman and Sprigg in the Cape Parliament
protested at a move to place Langalibalele on Robben Island. They were
over-ruled, but British sentiment made Natal retract its sentence and
Langalibalele returned home – a hero with supposed powerful muti that
had set him free.
His legend had no
merit, however, and the authorities ensured that the little power he once
possessed, was nullified. Langalibalele’s
arrest marked the beginning of an imperial move to consolidate and/or control
all Boer and independent native territories in the north.
Chief Sekhukhune.
Theophilus Shepstone annexed the Transvaal ZA Republiek in
1887, and sent in a massive force,
including Swazi regiments, to defeat the Pedi under Chief Sekhukhune
immediately thereafter.
Chief Cetshwayo.
The British invaded Cetshwayo’s Zuluand two years after the
Pedi were subdued on the borders of the Boer Republic.
Chief Moshoeshoe , in the mountain kingdom of
‘Basutoland’ was never defeated in war in his lifetime. But ‘The Gun War’ launched to control Basotho use of explosive weapons, finally also brought his kingdom under the
aegis of the British Crown. Even the
Griquas, who were granted their own East Griqualand home in the 1860s, found
themselves reporting to a British
Resident in the late 1870s.
It was a jingoistic
era in which British colonialism, left to a small clique of ambitious men,
reached its lowest point.
See Chapter 13 et al of Blood on the Path
Unlicensed sale of white women
The ‘record amount of three thousand pounds’ for the
purchase of a naked woman in the Black Cat is documented, and is a
commentary on many things about human nature, not least being a discernable and
apparently universal pattern of behaviour in remote and lawless mining camps.
From Alaska to Columbia, from Australia to Africa there were diamond, gold, oil
and other get-rich places where development followed roughly the same pattern
over the past two centuries: ‘The camp’ would grow from canvas and canteens to
hotel saloons and brothels; from individual prospectors to company prospectuses;
from wild optimism to gloomy pessimism as the excitement of the gamble faded.
Once the wealth was controlled, as with the rubber barons in Manaus on the
Amazon, law and order then improved and a veneer of respectability – even
sophisticated culture - was imposed.
This pattern of behaviour was evident in Kimberley in 1864,
while Johannesburg’s mining camp in 1886 was an uncanny repetition of Kimberley
– though it grew and changed at twice the speed.
Louis Cohen the colourful, amusing and libellous author of Reminiscences
of Kimberley and More Reminiscences of Johannesburg recallsseveral
bar-room incidents in the cities of diamonds and gold. They included the
following event in Kimberley in the early days, which Cohen reported thus:
“She was offered for sale – not
for life of course. As she stood upon a champagne case she beamed on all. Bidding
began at five pounds,and
ultimately the erring one was knocked down, after keen and heated competition
to Mr John Swaebe for twenty-five pounds, and three cases of champagne. With a soul on fire Johnny departed with his
bargain, to the envy and disappointment of many of his rivals. Now, Johnny had a framed canvas abode across
the road, and to this humble dwelling he escorted his bride. But after half an hour had elapsed, ‘the
boys’ got round the tent and carried it bodily away, thus exposing to view the
amorous pair – and the honeymoon was over.”
For the sake of his
credibility Lewis Cohen always named names in his accounts, inviting some
serious libel suits. His veracity
appears to have withstood these tests.
See Chapter 14 of Blood
on the Path
Pocket-sized “Heavyweight Champ”
J R Couper’s famous fights are
described by Louis Cohen, in More Reminiscences of Johannesburg. Couper looked like a child beside the
biggest of his opponents, and the opponents’ supporters sometimes could hardly
take the champion seriously, said Cohen.
Years later (1911) Cohen wrote of
one of Couper’s early fights:
“After losing the toss for position, Couper,
with the sun in his eyes, came bounding up to his gigantic opponent for the
first round. After fiddling around
Master Joe (Coverwell) for a short time, the latter aimed two or three blows at
Couper which struck the air most accurately.
Quick as a flash, then the little man sprang forward, and, hitting
Coverwell in the right peeper, knocked him down clean as a whistle. It was a
most tremendous blow, at once closing that optic, and I shall never forget the
look of amazement and concern expressed on Coverwell’s face as he slowly faced
gallant Jimmy for the second round. Triumph and victory sparkled in Couper’s
eyes as he eagerly advanced to meet his antagonist. Some good footwork, a feint, and then he slammed the big ‘un in
the other organ of vision, and felled him like a log. It was all over.
Coverwell was quite blind.”
Cohen said he liked Couper the moment he met him and all the
time he knew him.
“Courageous, honest, truthful and noble-minded. He
held a commission in the Navy, I believe. Poor Jimmy, I don’t believe he ever
had an enemy, and it is sad to think he should have had such an unhappy end.”
Couper may have failed as a
novelist and died unhappily – but he gained immortality as a sportsman and was
possibly the only pocket-sized pugilist recognised as “world heavyweight
champion”. See Chapter 15 in Blood on the Path
The‘Yokeskei’ River
Francis Dormer, 1880’s editor of The Star’s near-drowning
in the ‘Yokeskei’ (Jukskei) River is a reminder that the champion in London of
J. X. Merriman’s causes - ex-journalist, ex-soldier and politician Winston
Churchill – may have been unjustly mocked for his claim that he swam the
neighbouring Apies River later to escape his Boer captors. In time the Apies was channelled, and most
Transvaal rivers became streams or dry beds in winter. There is little doubt
that ‘the wisdom’ of hindsight - suggesting that Churchill lied and must have
waded ankle deep through it - is wrong. A hundred years ago the Apies, like the
Jukskei, was capable of becoming a serious, life-threatening temporary hazard.
(More than a
century after Winston Churchill’s exploits in the Boer War - the army pistol
that he carried at the time was auctioned in Londonin 1995 for 105,000 sterling!)
See Chapter
15
Hard hearts of
gold
John and Josie Dale Lace were not only the most elegant, but also among
the more generous of the Randlords of the 1890s. They gave great effort and
much of their own money to numerous local charities.
They were indeed a handsome
couple. He - the handsomest and one of the richest men in town; she - who bathed in milk with 15 white maids in
attendance and rode a gilt coach hauled by zebras.
The couple lived life to the full, generously sharing it with rich and
poor.. What is seldom mentioned is the uncharitable reaction of Johannesburg
society when the Dale Laces suddenly lost everything they owned.
Dale Lace, who played a brave and honourable role in
the Jameson Raid as a volunteer despatch rider trying to make contact between
Jameson and the ‘Plotters’ before tragedy struck, later resigned from the Rand
Club because he could no longer afford it, and the couple gave up their
landmark home and went to live in one of the poorest suburbs. As far as is
known, neither their friends in society nor business colleagues in the Rand Club
where he was the most popular member, lifted a finger to help them. The Dale Laces disappeared from the social
scene and died in penury. Their memory did not manage to dent the city’s image
of itself possessing ‘a heart of gold’. See Chapter 19
Jameson Raid
reverberations
The Cape and Westminster Inquiries into the Jameson Raid,
produced some heat, but little light – which was the cunning intention of
Joseph Chamberlain’s Colonial Office.
While Cecil Rhodes’s reputation was ruined, Lord Salisbury’s British
Government, and Chamberlain and his
Colonial Office officials who had vicariously connived in the ill-conceived and
illegal action were exonerated. Jameson
emerged scot-free, to become a Cape Prime Minister.
Nevertheless the parliamentary
hearings, and Rhodes’s inevitable fall, provided the necessary gravitas to
a ridiculous and dangerous little affair. The gravitas was appropriate,
because the ill-feeling provoked by the Raid led directly to the Anglo-Boer
War, and helped create paralysing race tensions for decades to come.
On January 3, 1896 the Imperial
Chancellor of Germany sent a telegram to President Kruger reading: Joy over
the defeat of the Englishmen is universal.
It is claimed by one
historian that this changed world history by estranging Britain and
Germany. Whether this claim is accurate
or not, the notorious telegram in no way affected the English and German
communities in Johannesburg, for representatives of both were among the Raid’s
conspirators – and members of the Rand Club. The difference between these
mining men was the English left to fight, and the Germans stayed to drink in
the Rand Club. See Chapters 20 and 21
Why Cetshwayo did not invade Natal
It is extraordinary to see the
high standard of detached analysis and reporting of war as far back as 1879,
despite the long distances and crude communication systems. (The same cannot be
said about the reporting of politics at the time. It was always partisan).
Two examples of war reporting: The first involves James
Sivewright, an able and ambitious man whom Merriman later came to despise for
his dishonest administration under Rhodes – Sivewright’s dubious practices
caused an unbreachable rift between Merriman and Sivewright’s patron, Cecil
Rhodes. In their early years, however, when Sivewright was Chief Telegraph
Officer for the British Army in Natal, he wrote to Merriman immediately after
the battles of Isandhlwana and Rorke’s Drift:
. . . Although it would be little short of high treason, in
certain quarters, to say so, I don’t know which most to admire – the besiegers
or the besieged. The Zulus rushed up
time after time simply to be mowed down.
They seized the muzzles of H.M rifles when they projected from the
loopholes and tried hard to unscrew the bayonet: in some of the morning sorties
the expiring Zulus raised themselves and with their expiring efforts flung
their last assegais at the soldiers as they passed. Nor were our own men a whit behind. The wounded remained at their posts till from loss of blood they
fainted away, and several mortally wounded stuck by their guns till life was
extinct. We are told now that over
their frightful losses they [the Zulus] are so disheartened that they regard
their success as defeat.
Sivewright was
explaining why Cetshwayo hesitated to invade Natal.
Days later, far from the battle
zone, John X Merriman wrote a long, analytical letter about the cause of the
war to Goldwin Smith, Professor of History at Oxford and later University of
Toronto.
“ . . .There were three bodies, the Government of Natal, the
Transvaal Republic and the Zulu king . . . It was, in fact, a rude kind of
equilibrium . . . We annexed the Transvaal, and we converted the Zulus from
friends into enemies by espousing the Transvaal claims to land… Even then a
rupture might have been avoided, but unfortunately the Zulu army was looked
upon as the great stumbling-block on the way to (creating, for the British
empire,) another Dominium . . . The Zulu king’s destruction was determined on.
. . Now we have experienced a reverse unprecedented in South Africa and affairs
are at a complete standstill.”
King Cetshwayo had
in fact been supported in his post by Shepstone before Shepstone, as new
‘patron of the Transvaal Republic’, turned on him. When the Zulu king was
finally captured it led him to ask he Cape Governor: “How is it they crown me
in the morning and dethrone me in the afternoon?” See Chapter 22
On Commando
Smuts
reports to General Headquarters on his Commando raid – A summary of one of the
contemporaneous documents on which Blood on the Path is based]
General
Smuts’s dispatch reported to his seniors that that about 100 recruits for this
Commando were lost to heavy British patrols in the Orange Free State even
before they could join the campaign. Smuts Commando of 200 horsemen successfully
evaded patrols and crossed Orange River on 4th Sept. 1901. During his invasion of the Cape Colony more
than half his young recruits were killed, wounded or captured.
They fought against constantly changing fresh troops, killing
and wounding 372 and capturing 429 of the enemy, whom they disarmed and sent
back to British, usually naked. The
Boer guerrillas over-ran four British camps and captured one field-gun and
Maxim, many rifles and loads of ammunition,. They also captured on various
battlefields 1,136 horses and mules.
In two months
during 1901 the Commando traversed almost all the districts of the Cape Colony,
safely crossing the most dangerous mountains in view of the enemy, and by so
doing enabled Smuts to become acquainted with the military and political
situation of the Cape Colony.
Smuts reported: “With all discretion, I consider that this expedition
has been a great success, no matter how severe our losses… The feeling of my
burghers is strong, although they have, perhaps, suffered more heavily than any
other commando in this war, and they look forward hopefully to the future. They
are convinced that no force of the enemy, however strong, will be able to check
their progress until ‘Right triumphs over Might'.”
Among officers and men Smuts singled out for special mention was
Englishman Jack Baxter of Klerksdorp, whom he described as ‘a hero sans peur, sans reproche, who lost his way on the night of
the 12th October, and wandering from his commando was captured the following
day by Colonel Scobell. He was shot “immediately afterwards in a murderous way,
owing to some illegal Proclamation of Lord Kitchener's, for wearing khaki
uniform. According to the evidence of some soldiers his martyrdom has extorted
great sympathy and respect, even from the most inhuman of the enemy.” Smuts
said in this contemporaneous dispatch from somewhere within enemy lines that he
believed a number of his men who had been captured were shot for wearing enemy
clothing. But his commandos wore captured British tunics - not for spying purposes, he wrote - but
simply because they would otherwise have been compelled to go naked.
Guerrilla tactics, like civil war
without recognised rules, was creating lasting bitterness on both sides.
