TREATMENT OF NATIVES BY BOERS. 29 



ever, who have fled from English law on various pretexts, 

 and have been joined by English deserters and every other 

 variety of bad character in their distant localities, are 

 unfortunately of a very different stamp. The great ob- 

 jection many of the Boers had, and still have, to English 

 law, is that it makes no distinction between black men 

 and white. They felt aggrieved by their supposed losses 

 in the emancipation of their Hottentot slaves, and deter- 

 mined to erect themselves into a republic, in which they 

 might pursue, without molestation, the "proper treatment 

 of the blacks." It is almost needless to add that the 

 " proper treatment" has always contained in it the essen- 

 tial element of slavery, namely, compulsory unpaid labor. 



One section of this body, under the late Mr. Hendrick 

 Potgeiter, penetrated the interior as far as the Cashan 

 Mountains, whence a Zulu or Caffre chief, named Mosili- 

 katze, had been expelled by the well-known Caffre Din- 

 gaan j* and a glad welcome was given them by the Be- 

 chuana tribes, who had just escaped the hard sway of that 

 cruel chieftain. They came with the prestige of white 

 men and deliverers; but the Bechuanas soon found, as 

 they expressed it, " that Mosilikatze was cruel to his 

 enemies, and kind to those he conquered; but that the 

 Boers destroyed their enemies, and made slaves of their 

 friends." The tribes who still retain the semblance of 

 independence are forced to perform all the labor of the 

 fields, such as manuring the land, weeding, reaping, building, 



* Dingaan was the brother and successor of Chaka, the most cruel and 

 bloodthirsty tyrant that ever disgraced the soil of Africa. He had formed 

 his tribe into a military organization and ravaged all the neighboring 

 tribes; but his horrible cruelties to his own subjects led to a revolt, 

 headed by Dingaan and Umslungani, his two elder brothers, who first 

 attacked him with spears, wounding him in the back. Chaka was en- 

 veloped in a blanket, which he cast off and fled. He was overtaken and 

 again wounded. Falling at the feet of his pursuers, he besought them in 

 the most abject terms to let him live, that he might be their slave ; but ho 



was instantly speared to death. — Am. Ed 



3* 



