CAPE COLONY AND SOUTH AFRICA. 



113 



jority of the Yolks Committee, an advisory 

 body established before the arrival of Mr 

 Mackenzie. The administrator and other ex- 

 ecutive officers took a thorough-going African- 

 der view. When Mackenzie, with the sanc- 

 tion of the Volks Committee, summoned Van 

 Niekirk to Taungs, Mankoroane's capital, to 

 take the oath of allegiance, he answered, July 

 7th, that he would under no circumstances 

 accept office under the Queen. The executive 

 officers then disbanded the Volks Committee, 

 warned Mr. Mackenzie against interfering with 

 the Republic of Stellaland, and called upon the 

 burghers to hold themselves in readiness for 

 military action. Mackenzie proceeded to Vry- 

 burg, the capital of Stellaland, and attempted 

 to establish the protectorate over the heads 

 of the government officers and the Boer party. 

 He took away the ensign of the republic, and 

 hoisted the British flag. It was immediately 

 torn down. He employed military force to 

 maintain his authority. The community was 

 plunged into anarchy. Mackenzie requested 

 of the High Commissioner an armed force to 

 support his action in Stellaland and Goshen, 

 and received permission to raise one hundred 

 frontier police, of which number he recruited 

 thirty or forty in Griqualand and Stellaland. 

 The Boer party also prepared for hostile ac- 

 tion. At this point the British authorities 

 gave way to the earnest representations of the 

 Transvaal Government and the ministry at the 

 Cape, and recalled Mackenzie in the beginning 

 of August. Mr. Rhodes, a member of the late 

 Colonial Cabinet, was appointed his successor, 

 with the title of Special Commissioner, and 

 Capt. Bower was placed in command of the 

 police. They drew down the English flag, 

 restored the Stellaland colors to Van Niekirk, 

 disbanded the burgher police, withdrew all the 

 armed forces, and left the people to themselves. 

 Soon after Van Niekirk entered the town at 

 the head of a military force, hoisted the Stel- 

 laland flag, and imprisoned those who had been 

 foremost in welcoming the English rule. Mr. 

 Rhodes subsequently persuaded the burghers 

 to suspend hostilities pending the annexation 

 of Stellaland by the Cape Government. 



Events in Goshenland. Montsioa, a few days 

 before the arrival of Mackenzie in Bechuana- 

 land, fell upon the Boer farmers who had set- 

 tled in his country and drove them all out, 

 taking their cattle and burning their houses. 

 They numbered about forty individuals. Across 

 the border, at Rooi-Grond, in the Transvaal 

 section of Goshen, they formed a military 

 organization under the command of Nicholas 

 Gey. Volunteers were openly recruited in the 

 Transvaal. When the British authorities re- 

 monstrated with the Transvaal Government, a 

 proclamation was issued, but no active meas- 

 ures were taken to suppress the commands. 

 Mackenzie then visited the Goshenites at Rooi- 

 Grond and proposed to take the place under 

 British protection, but they refused to treat 

 with him. He concluded a treaty with Mont- 

 TOL. xxiv. 8 A 



sioa May 20th. On the 13th of June the 

 Rooi-Grond volunteers, or freebooters, as they 

 are termed in English reports, made their first 

 attack on Montsioa's kraal. On the 31st of 

 July Montsioa's cattle, which the Boers had 

 captured a few days before, were paraded in 

 front of his town as a ruse to draw out his 

 fighting-men. While his 'whole force were in 

 pursuit of the party with the cattle, the main 

 body of the Boers, over 200 in number, fell upon 

 their flank, killing 100 and losing 30 of their 

 own men. In this fight Christopher Bethells, 

 the officer in command of the police which 

 Mackenzie had sent to re-enforce Montsioa, was 

 killed. According to the report accepted in 

 England, he was murdered after he was wound- 

 ed in action. The Boers had destroyed Mont- 

 sioa's capital, captured all his cattle, and slain 

 most of his warriors. The aged chief was will- 

 ing to treat for peace, and accepted the over- 

 tures of an unofficial agent of the Transvaal 

 Government. The commands took the Brit- 

 ish Assistant Commissioner Wright prisoner 

 under cover of a flag of truce, but afterward 

 released him. Vice-President Joubert arrived 

 at Rooi-Grond and concluded a formal treaty 

 with Montsioa, taking him under the protec- 

 tion of the South African Republic. The vol- 

 unteers portioned out among themselves the 

 best part of his lands. President Kriiger no- 

 tified the British Government that in the in- 

 terests of humanity, and to stop the border 

 fighting, the South African Republic had con- 

 cluded, subject to their approval, a treaty with 

 Montsioa and the Republic of Goshen, estab- 

 lishing a protectorate over them. After a cor- 

 respondence with Sir Hercules Robinson, Lord 

 Derby sent a dispatch in the beginning of Oc- 

 tober to the Cape authorities, asking them to 

 call upon the South African Republic to annul 

 its action. Thereupon the proclamation of the 

 protectorate was withdrawn. 



Expedition to Bechuanaland. When the British 

 Parliament met in the fall, the Goshenites were 

 in possession of all the Baralong country, the 

 Stellaland people had repudiated British pro- 

 tection, and the trade-route was practically 

 controlled by the Transvaal. The Cape min- 

 istry had strongly disapproved the high-hand- 

 ed proceedings of Mr. Mackenzie, and when 

 asked to contribute the 5,000 a year, prom- 

 ised by Sir Thomas Scanlen, their half of the 

 expenses of the protectorate, answered that 

 they would have no part in a course of action 

 likely to bring about a race-quarrel between 

 the English and the Dutch in South Africa. 

 The British Government, in their entire. South 

 African policy, were solicitous above every- 

 thing to have the approval of public opinion 

 among the Dutch population of the Cape. The 

 German annexations in that part of Africa, and 

 the cordial feeling recently developed between 

 Germany and the Transvaal, spurred the Eng- 

 lish Government to take a firm and vigorous 

 course in the Bechuanaland question, and to 

 compose their other differences with the Trans- 



