CONDITION

OF THE

NATIVE TRIBES,

&c., &c.

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.-The Portuguese and Dutch visit the Cape.-State of the Natives-their Character.-Object of this Work.

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THE history of a people, ignorant of letters, and sessing no monuments of art, commences at the period when they are first visited by travellers or adventurers from more civilized communities, whose accounts have in most instances been coloured by their prejudices or their interests. An unknown language, manners and customs and a state of society the reverse of his own, of which he has perhaps never before read of an example, distract the first observer; and in every direction present insuperable obstacles to his inquiries, whilst his credulity is increased by the singularity of the facts which come under his observation. Meagre narratives, defective, or filled up with conjectures, seemingly adopted merely to surprise or amuse, are thus the chief materials out of which the first chapters of the history of most nations are composed. And if these were only unprofitable they might be passed over in silence; but as the character thus fixed

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upon barbarous tribes has too often been pleaded as a justification of the most oppressive and cruel treatment of them by the powerful strangers who came to settle in their country, it becomes the duty of succeeding writers to search into the origin and grounds of such representations with the utmost care and impartiality. We have examples where it has been held a sufficient reason for depriving a people of their lands and grazing grounds, that they had no houses or cultivated lands; and when thus reduced to want, they are speedily denounced and hunted down as robbers, or rather as beasts of prey. The connexion between the new and old inhabitants in such circumstances becomes nothing more than a reciprocity of injuries, and the growing colony presents on its borders an unbroken line of crimes and blood. Such is the picture of almost every new settlement in an uncivilized country; and the result has almost uniformly been either the extirpation of the original inhabitants, or their degradation to the condition of slaves or bondmen.

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To the melancholy list of instances by which this view is supported, I am about to add that of the Aborigines of Southern Africa ;—a people that in the course of less than a century were violently dispossessed of every portion of their territory, deprived of every means of improving their condition as individuals, and, under various pretexts, fixed by law in a state of hopeless bondage in the land of their forefathers. To give a faithful sketch of their past sufferings, and of their present condition, is my chief object. I shall, in every instance, lay my authority before the reader. Should the facts which I have to disclose give pain to individuals, I have only to say, that the correctness of my

statements is the only reply which the dignity of Truth permits me to offer. I dare not shrink either from the labour or the responsibility of bringing before the world, for its impartial decision, a series of wrongs and outrages inflicted on the innocent and defenceless. To have seen them, imposes upon me, as a sacred duty, the task of holding them up to the public eye; and, to use the words of Milton, "When God commands to take the trumpet, and blow a dolorous or jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say, or what he shall conceal."

When the Portuguese first visited the Cape of Good Hope, they found the inhabitants rich in cattle, living in a happy and comfortable manner, and possessed of sufficient spirit to repel aggression and to resent unjust treatment. From the slight intercourse held with them, chiefly for the purpose of procuring water and refreshments for their ships, they were led to entertain very favourable notions of the character of these natives. It was said, that they were remarkable for the excellence of their morals, that they kept the law of nations better than most civilized people, and that they were valiant in arms. Of this latter quality, they gave a memorable proof in the year 1510, when Francisco Almeida, first viceroy of the Portuguese in India, was defeated and killed in an obstinate engagement with the Hottentots, near the Salt River, in the neighbourhood of the place where Cape Town now stands. . When the Dutch took possession of the Cape, in 1652, the natives appear to have been much more numerous than they now are, and to have possessed large herds of cattle. And although some of the early writers who had visited the Cape previous to the

colonization of the Dutch, seem to have given exaggerated accounts of the number and wealth of this people, yet from documents to which I have had access, it is evident that the numbers and wealth of the Hottentots were very soon much diminished by their contiguity to their European neighbours. So rapid indeed was this diminution, occasioned by the trade carried on between them and the new settlers, that it arrested the attention of the government; and it appears from the minutes of an investigation before the governor, Van der Stell, in the commencement of the eighteenth century, that a single Hottentot village had been robbed of cattle by the colonists to the amount of two thousand head. It appears, also, from the returns made by the officers commanding the parties sent against the Bushmen, so late as the year 1770, that their villages frequently contained from one hundred to two hundred men; and these villages were, at that time, in the possession of cattle.

All the records of the colony, during the first fifty years of the Dutch occupation, which I have seen, agree in praising the virtues of the Hottentots; and such was the admiration extorted by these virtues from the colonists, that all the Hottentot tribes were distinguished by the appellation of "The good men." It is related, on the authority of Bogaert, that, during the whole of that period, the natives had never in one instance been detected in committing an act of theft on the property of the colonists. The first that took place happened in the year 1700, and the party who suffered by it had so high an opinion of the honesty of the Hottentots, that the blame was laid upon the slaves, and the real thief was not so much as suspected.

The article stolen was a waistcoat with silver buttons, and could not easily be concealed among savages. Accordingly, a short time after the affair had taken place, the waistcoat was found in the possession of a Hottentot, belonging to a kraal at a small distance from Cape Town. The discovery was no sooner made than the offender was seized by his countrymen, who brought him to town, and delivered him over to the magistrates. And so great a disgrace did they consider this act to their nation, that they demanded that he should be punished, as the only means of wiping off the stain his crime had fixed upon them; and not satisfied with his getting a severe flogging, they banished him from their village, as unworthy to live among them.

The injuries inflicted upon the Hottentots by the colonists must have had a deteriorating influence on their character, in the course of one hundred and fifty years, during which time they had been driven from the most fertile tracts of country, and deprived of that independence to which they were passionately attached; yet so much of the character ascribed to them by the early writers remained visible even at the time when Mr. Barrow travelled among them, that we hesitate not to receive, as accurate, descriptions that might otherwise have been thought too flattering. "A Hottentot," says this intelligent writer, " is capable of strong attachments; with a readiness to acknowledge, he possesses the mind to feel the force of a benevolent action. I never found that any little act of kindness or attention was thrown away upon a Hottentot; but, on the contrary, I have frequently had occasion to remark the joy that sparkled on his countenance whenever an

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