by Peires, Jeff
The removal or dispersion of all tribes, chieftaincies, or congregations of natives; such individuals amongst them who may have claims, or who may appear eligible or willing, to be located in the same manner as Europeans; all others to be placed in apprenticeship, or to take service, or to go beyond the colonial boundary.9
This was the solution adopted by Sir George Grey.
Commissioner Brownlee was the first official to consider the possible consequences of the unchecked destruction of food supplies, and it was at his suggestion that the colonial authorities began to buy up the unwanted corn of the believers. Magistrate Reeve of Middledrift, a district afflicted by cattle-killing prophecies for a full year before Nongqawuse, was the first official to think of sending the hungry believers to fill the huge gaps in the Cape labour market.10 But it was Governor Grey who thought of making labour the essential exchange for famine relief, and it was Grey who first perceived in their gross magnitude the enormous potential advantages which the Colony might gain from the Cattle-Killing.
Instead of nothing but dangers resulting from the [Xhosa] having during the excitement killed their cattle and made away with their food, we can draw very great permanent advantages from the circumstance, which may be made a stepping stone for the future settlement of the country.11
The Cattle-Killing did not change Grey’s objectives, which were first stated as early as 1855. He still wanted to break the power of the chiefs and end the political threat on the Eastern Frontier. He still wanted the Xhosa to become ‘useful servants, consumers of our goods, contributors to our revenue’. He still wanted Xhosaland settled by a substantial white population. But the Cattle-Killing enabled him to bring about these changes immediately, totally, and without hope of a resurrection.
The Xhosa nation was to be broken up entirely. It was to lose its home and its culture, it was to be scattered to the furthest reaches of the Colony, and it was never to go back again.
They must be widely dispersed over the Colony and … thus brought under the charitable influence of individual employers [so that] they will become a settled and valuable rural population attached to their employers and homes, and … trained to habits of industry and imbued with Christian principles.12
The essential instrument for bringing about this desired end was already available in a circular issued by Maclean in November 1856, which instructed the magistrates to inform the chiefs that they were ready to find work in the Colony for any Xhosa who wanted it.13 Magistrates were empowered to issue rations to Xhosa contracting for labour in the Colony, but nothing was said of giving food to anyone else. Maclean subsequently claimed that his instructions provided for a more general relief of the destitute, but at the time magistrates were clearly given to understand that they were entitled to ration only those Xhosa who registered as labourers.14 ‘Unless they apply for work or aid, we cannot help them,’ wrote Brownlee.15 On 9 June, Maclean instructed the magistrates to issue food to children ‘for a limited period … on condition of their being willing to take employment’, but as if afraid of the consequences of his own generosity, he qualified this concession the very next day.
It is not intended that all the young are to be supplied with food, as this would only bring for Government support the whole of the children of [Xhosa]land to whom it would be impossible to furnish relief, and whose relief in this way would only prevent the grown up members from supporting their families by labour … While relief is given to the really destitute, it is not afforded in such a way as will bring unnecesary burden on the Government, or tend to increase the idleness of the able-bodied, or check the immigration for service in the Colony.16
Maclean used the term ‘really destitute’ in the particular sense acquired in the workhouses of England; not destitute of all possessions, but destitute through bodily weakness even of the ability to travel and work. As soon as a man’s health had recovered, he was no longer destitute, and could therefore be sent off to work in the Colony. For willingness to work per se was not good enough – the Xhosa must be willing to work in the Colony. For this reason, Maclean declined to provide Chief Sandile with seedcorn.
Those who have money must purchase, those who have not must work. I cannot authorise the issue of seed unless in exceptional cases – Everything is being done by Government in meeting the wants of the people, the destitute are fed, and labour is provided for all who are able or willing to work … I will find employment for all who wish it in the Colony.17
In August 1857, the Attorney General of British Kaffraria devised a form of agreement to be entered into by Xhosa agreeing to be sent into the Colony for service. It is worth quoting in full:
I the undersigned a [Xhosa] of …… of the kraal …… hereby of my own free will undertake to proceed to any part of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and in such fashion and in such manner and mode as I shall be ordered by the Chief Commissioner, and I further undertake faithfully and truly to perform such contract of service as the Resident Magistrate of …… [the district to which sent] shall enter into on my behalf, it being understood that such contract shall not exceed the term of three or five years from the day of agreement entered into on my behalf and that he will fix at his discretion the wages and food to be allowed me during the continuance of the said contract to which I willingly consent.18
Here was a remarkable redefinition of ‘free will’ and ‘willing consent’. The willing volunteers in question were literally starving to death. The only way they could get food was to give themselves bodily into the hands of the Chief Commissioner, who could send them wherever he liked to do any sort of work at any wage for any length of time not exceeding five years. Only the five-year limit distinguished this from actual slavery, and, as Grey’s private secretary pointed out to Maclean, the five-year limit did not apply to juveniles.19
With the martial law apparatus in British Kaffraria hard at work pumping Xhosa into the Colony, Grey introduced a battery of laws into the Cape Parliament to ensure their smooth disposal. The Kaffir Pass Act effectively prevented any Xhosa from seeking work in the Colony on their own initiative, and forced them to submit to the slave-like contracts imposed in British Kaffraria.20 The Kaffir Employment Act provided for the registration of contracts between employer and Xhosa. Once the contract expired, the Xhosa had 14 days to find a new contract or leave the Colony. A further Act ‘for preventing Colonial Fingoes … being mistaken for Kaffirs and thereby harassed’ forced the loyal Mfengu to carry ‘certificates of citizenship’, which were, in effect, nothing but a perpetual pass. Another act forbade settlers to abduct children from Xhosaland, which must have pleased the Colonial Office in London but did nothing to hinder Grey’s campaign to ‘apprentice’ Xhosa children to the Western Cape far from homes and parents.21
By the end of June 1857, 13 137 Xhosa had been sent into the Colony as labourers under these regulations.22 This might seem like a large number, but it had barely begun to relieve the desire of the colonists for cheap labour. These first refugees were eagerly snapped up for the Eastern Province by farmers who arrived at the magistracies, asking for servants by the thousand and taking them away in waggonloads.23 As late as the end of July, Commissioner Maclean in King William’s Town informed the Central Road Board that he could send them no labourers as there were too many farmers clamouring on the spot. No labourers whatsoever had yet reached the western districts.24 in November 1857, the Colonial Secretary in Cape Town was still complaining that the Western Province had received only the ‘refuse’ – the ‘aged and infirm’ of Xhosaland, and ‘it is time we should come in for our share of the cream’.25
The continuing colonial demand for labour encouraged independent agents such as Piet Loots, the representative of the ‘distressed farmers of Murraysburg’, to set up as dealers in human flesh, collecting starving Xhosa from their homes and selling them to farmers at £1 to £5 a head.26 The most successful of these agents was James Hart, junior,
who placed the following standing order with Maclean.
I require as many as can be procured without limit to number – all of them in the first plan to be registered to me. One thing is much required and that is some thirty (30) young boys and girls for the residents in the town of Graaff Reinet … I should be glad to get the boys and girls separately registered to avoid further disputes; I mean separate from their parents.27
Grey instructed Maclean to refrain from interfering in Hart’s activities ‘as they tended to disperse the [Xhosa] in the interior of the Colony’, drawing the line only when Hart staged auctions of his recruits at Graaff-Reinet and Beaufort West. By that time 711 Xhosa had passed through his hands.
Grey’s attempts to recruit Xhosa soldiers for service during the Indian Mutiny were not as successful. Although the Governor originally hoped to enlist several detachments of 500 or 600 men each, and although he offered recruiters 7/6 per head, the Xhosa refused in horror to cross the sea, and many ran away if the topic was even mentioned. Hundreds of starving men deserted their jobs on the public works in June 1858 for fear that they might be entrapped into the British regiments, and even Major Gawler’s loyal police declined to follow him to the transKei for fear that his secret intention was to convey them to India.28
1 Church Chronicle (Grahamstown), Vol. 4 (1883), p.61.
2 Crowther (1981), pp.18, 25. It has not been possible for me to obtain all the relevant literature on English Poor Relief. I have found the following useful, though stronger on exposition than analysis: Finer (1952), Poynter (1969), Crowther (1981).
3 Poynter (1969), pp.42, 119.
4 Poynter (1969), p.136; Crowther (1981), p.43.
5 Finer (1952), p.47.
6 Finer (1952), p.25; Crowther (1981), p.21; J Bronowski and B Mazlish, The Western Intellectual Tradition (Harmondsworth, 1963), p.496.
7 Minutes and Proceedings of Cape of Good Hope Legislative Council on Law of Master and Servant (Cape Town, 1848), p.22; R Godlonton, quoted in Kirk (1980), p.233.
8 House of Assembly Debates, 18 July 1854; Graaff-Reinet Herald, 14 June 1854; Grahamstown Journal, 5 Aug. 1854.
9 Cape of Good Hope, Votes and Proceedings, Select Committee on Frontier Defence (1855), p.v.
10 BK 70 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 2 Aug. 1856; F Reeve-J Maclean, 15 Oct. 1856.
11 Quoted in Rutherford (1961), p.355.
12 Government notice published in the Grahamstown Journal, 5 Sept. 1857.
13 GH 8/30 J Maclean-Magistrates, 7 Nov. 1856.
14 GH 8/30 J Maclean-Magistrates, 7 Nov. 1856. A similar circular was issued in March 1857, BK 406 J Maclean-Magistrates, 10 March 1857. Maclean referred in subsequent correspondence to an order of his, dated 20 Sept. 1856, authorising the issue of rations. I have not been able to find a copy of this order, either in Maclean’s dispatch book (BK 406), or in the volume of his circulars to magistrates (BK 114), or enclosed in his dispatches to Grey. Whatever instructions Maclean may have issued on that date, he did not do much by way of disseminating them.
15 CH 8/32 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 17 June 1857.
16 BK 114 J Maclean-Magistrates, 9, 10 June 1857.
17 CH 8/32 Memo of conversation between the Chief Commissioner and Sandile, 11 Sept. 1857, enclosed in Schedule 493, 14 Sept. 1857.
18 GH 8/32 Enclosed in Schedule 47, 3 Aug. 1857.
19 GH 30/4 F Travers-J Maclean, 29 July 1857.
20 The Kaffir Pass Act was largely motivated by the large number of Xhosa who deserted the official parties and wandered off to find work on their own as soon as they were inside the Colony. In one case, only 17 out of an original 122 Xhosa arrived at their appointed destination (CO 2950 W Surmon-W Currie, 27 July 1857). Over-enthusiastic application of this law – for example, to children travelling with their parents – led to at least two cases of babies sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour. (Marginal note by R Rawson on R Southey-Col. Secretary, 29 Aug. 1857.)
21 Acts 23, 27, 24 and 22 of 1857; Grahamstown Journal, 13 June 1857.
22 GH 8/32 Schedule 483, August 1857.
23 BK 65 R Taylor-J Maclean, 9 June 1857, gives one application for 1 000 servants.
24 Grahamstown Journal, 11 July 1857; Cape Argus, 25 July 1857.
25 Acc 611/7 R Rawson-R Southey, 20 Nov. 1857.
26 Cape Argus, 1 April 1858.
27 Graaff-Reinet Herald, 28 Nov. 1857, 27 March 1858; Cape Argus, 1 April, 11 May 1858; GH 8/35 J Maclean-F Travers, 29 April 1858. Hart, naturally enough, denied that he was staging an auction – just arranging his commission.
28 BK 71 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 12 June 1858; BK 78 Information received from a native, 4 April 1858; Anglo-Germania, 1 Feb. 1858; King William’s Town Gazette, 27 Feb. 1858.
3. ENTER THE KAFFIR RELIEF COMMITTEE
The Kaffir Relief Committee was founded on the initiative of Henry Cotterill, the newly arrived Bishop of Grahamstown. In May 1857, he wrote to Grey offering the assistance of his diocese in providing relief in whatever manner the Governor might suggest. Grey gave the Bishop a polite brush-off, informing him that he would ask his magistrates to ensure that ‘none who cannot seek employment shall be allowed to perish from want’.1 Maclean declared that although ‘great distress and destitution’ did prevail, this was due to Xhosa laziness and the Xhosa chiefs.2 Nothing was done. When the Bishop toured Kaffraria late in June, he found conditions even worse than he had expected. This time, he did not make the mistake of asking the Governor’s permission first. The Kaffir Relief Committee was founded in King William’s Town on 17 July 1857 with all the publicity it could muster.
It was a highly respectable body, comprising most of what passed for high society in King William’s Town. Its president was the Bishop of Grahamstown. The vice-president was Richard Taylor, the resident magistrate. The 23 members included 5 merchants, 4 ministers of religion, 2 army officers, 2 lawyers, a hotelier and the master of the local grammar school. Six members were on the Provisional Committee of the Bank of British Kaffraria. Four were members of the Kaffrarian Agricultural Society. Three were stewards at a race meeting held the day the Committee was formed. Other members included Dr Fitzgerald, the superintendant of the Native Hospital, and Stair Douglas, a Mauritius official on sick leave, who acted as secretary. So fashionable was the Kaffir Relief Society when first it started that it had to have a special meeting to enrol new members anxious to join.3
Civilians, doctors and missionaries in British Kaffraria could not help noticing the starvation which local magistrates found so difficult to detect. Among Bhotomane’s people, where Magistrate Lucas could find ‘not one’ case of real want, the local missionary reported that ‘distress … is already great, and becoming daily more so. I have had many cases of parents wishing to give their children away so that they may be supported but owing to limited means cannot accept them.’ At Tshatshu’s location, where Magistrate Fielding likewise reported ‘not one case’, the missionary John Brownlee found ‘a number of children suffering want of food, and some cases of dysentery which must soon prove fatal’. Magistrate Ayliff noticed ‘no cases of great destitution’ in Toyise’s country, but Dr Wilmans found too many to report fully. He contented himself with mentioning ‘one whole family consisting of sons, father, grandfather and great-grandfather … all meagred to skeletons, unable to work for support, having before their eyes a dreadful death’.4 Catarrh, diarrhoea, headache and burning pains in the stomach were all common. Nor was it necessary to travel to the remote rural areas to witness the devastation.
Every day King Williams Town was thronged and its inhabitants distressed at the sight of emaciated living skeletons passing from house to house. Dead bodies were picked
up in different parts within and around the limits of the town, and scarcely a day passed over that [Xhosa] – men, women or children were not found in a dying state from starvation. My consulting room was every day surrounded with emaciated creatures craving food, having nothing to subsist on but roots and the bark of the mimosa, the smell of which appeared to issue from every part of the body, and to whom it would be a mockery to say, you must seek employment, or proceed on to the Colony.5
In July and August 1857, 99 persons died of starvation in the hospital itself.