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lines, with some prospect of permanence and stability, might have been formed. But a narrow, distrustful, grasping policy on the part of whatever faction might be dominant at the time invariably prevented the state from acquiring stability and security at any stage of its history.
The complications that ensued on the action of the Pretorius party subsequent to his resignation were interminable and complicated. Some of the new party were arraigned for treason and fined; and for several months there were two acting presidents and two rival governments within the Transvaal. At length Commandant Paul Kruger called out the burghers of his district and entered into the strife. Having driven Schoeman and his followers from Pretoria, Kruger invaded Potchefstroom, which, after a skirmish in which three men were killed and seven wounded, fell into his hands. He then pursued Schoeman, who doubled on his opponent and entered Potchefstroom. A temporary peace was no sooner secured than Commandant Jan Viljoen rose in revolt and engaged Kruger’s forces. Viljoen’s commando, with which Pretorius was in sympathy, was known as the Volksleger, or Army of the People. Kruger's force called itself the Staatsleger or Army of the State. Pretorius in 1863 resigned his Free State presidency and offering himself as mediator (not for the first time) succeeded at length in putting a period to the confused series of intestine quarrels. In January 1864 a conference, which lasted six days, was held between the parties and an agreement was reached. This was followed by a new election for president, and once more Pretorius was called upon to fill that office. Kruger was appointed commandant-general.
Civil strife for a time was at an end, but the injuries inflicted on the state were deep and lasting. The public funds were exhausted; taxes were impossible to collect; and the natives on the borders of the country and in the mountains of the north had thrown off all allegiance to the state. The prestige of the country was practically gone, not only with the world outside, but, what was of still more moment, with her neighbour the Free State, which felt that a federation with the Transvaal, which the Free State once had sought but which it now forswore, was an evil avoided and not an advantage lost. The Charge of Slavery against the Boers.A charge frequently laid at the door of the Boers, at that time and since, was that of enslaving the black races. This charge was not without some justification. It is true that laws prohibiting slavery were in existence, but the Boer who periodically took up arms against his own appointed government was not likely to be, nor was he, restrained by laws. Natives were openly transferred from one Boer to another, and the fact that they were described as apprentices by the farmers did not in the least alter the status of the native, who to all intents and purposes became the property of his master. These apprentices, mostly bought from slave traders when little children, formed, however, a very small proportion of the native population, and after some fifteen years’ servitude were usually allowed their freedom. Natives enjoying tribal government were not enslaved, but nothing could exceed in ferocity the measures taken to reduce recalcitrant tribes to submission. Education, as need hardly be said, was in the ’sixties at a very low ebb, and nothing approaching the standard of a high school existed. The private tutor was a good deal in demand, but his qualifications were of the slightest. An unsuccessful European carpenter or other mechanic, or even labourer, not infrequently occupied this position. At the various churches such elementary schools as existed were to be found, but they did not profess to teach more than a smattering of the three “R’s” and the principles of Christianity.
In 1865 an empty exchequer called for drastic measures, and the volksraad determined to endeavour to meet their liabilities and provide for further contingencies by the issue of notes. Paper money was thus introduced, and in a very short time fell to a considerable discount. Zoutpansberg Native Rising, 1865–8.In this same year the farmers of the Zoutpansberg district were driven into laagers by a native rising which they were unable to suppress. Schoemansdal, a village at the foot of the Zoutpansberg, was the most important settlement of the district, and the most advanced outpost in European occupation at that time in South Africa. It was just within the tropics, and was situated in a well-watered and beautiful country. It was used as a base by hunters and traders with the interior, and in its vicinity there gathered a number of settlers of European origin, many of them outcasts from Europe or Cape Colony. They earned the reputation of being the most lawless white inhabitants in the whole of South Africa. When called upon to go to the aid of this settlement, which in 1865–1866 was sore pressed by one of the mountain Bantu tribes known as the Baramapulana, the burghers of the southern Transvaal objected that the white inhabitants of that region were too lawless and reckless a body to merit their assistance. In 1867 Schoemansdal and a considerable portion of the district were abandoned on the advice of Commandant-general Paul Kruger, and Schoemansdal finally was burnt to ashes by a party of natives. It was not until 1869 that peace was patched up, and the settlement arrived at left the mountain tribes in practical independence. Meanwhile the public credit and finances of the Transvaal went from bad to worse. The paper notes already issued had been constituted by law legal tender for all debts, but in 1868 their power of actual purchase was only 30% compared with that of gold, and by 1870 it had fallen as low as 25%. Civil servants, who were paid in this depreciated scrip, suffered considerable distress. The revenue for 1869 was stated as £31,511; the expenditure at £30,836.
The discovery of gold at Tati led President Pretorius in April 1868 to issue a proclamation extending his territories on the west and north so as to embrace the goldfield and all Bechuanaland. Efforts to obtain a Seaport.The same proclamation extended Transvaal territory on the east so as to include part of Delagoa Bay. The eastern extension claimed by Pretorius was the sequel to endeavours made shortly before, on the initiative of a Scotsman, to develop trade along the rivers leading to Delagoa Bay. It was also in accord with the desire of the Transvaal Boers to obtain a seaport, a desire which had led them as early as 1860 to treat with the Zulus for the possession of St Lucia Bay. That effort had, however, failed. And now the proclamation of Pretorius was followed by protests on the part of the British high commissioner, Sir Philip Wodehouse, as well as on the part of the consul-general for Portugal in South Africa. The boundary on the east was settled by a treaty with Portugal in 1869, the Boers abandoning their claim to Delagoa Bay; that on the west was dealt with in 1871.
The Sand River Convention of 1852 had not defined the western border of the state, and the discovery of gold at Tati to the north-west, together with the discovery of diamonds on the Vaal in 1867, offered Pretorius every inducement to extend his boundary. Although to-day the great diamond mines are south of the Vaal River, the early discoveries of diamonds were made chiefly on the northern bank of the Vaal, near the site of the town now known as Barkly West. The Keate Award.This territory was claimed by the South African Republic, by Barolong and Batlapin Bechuanas, by Koranas, and also by David Arnot, on behalf of the Griqua captain, Nicholas Waterboer. To settle the boundary question an arbitration court was appointed consisting of a Transvaal landdrost, A. A. O’Reilly, on behalf of the South African Republic, and John Campbell on behalf of the other claimants, with Lieutenant-Governor Keate of Natal as referee. The judges disagreed, and the final decision, afterwards known as the Keate award, was given by the referee on the 17th of October 1871. The decision was in favour of Waterboer, who had, on the 25th of August 1870, before the appointment of the arbitration court, offered his territory to Great Britain, and it was understood by all the parties interested that that offer would be accepted. The award, admittedly just on the evidence before Keate, placed, however, outside the territory of the republic the Bloemhof district, in which district Boer farmers were settled, and over which the Pretoria government had for some years exercised jurisdiction. A few days after the publication of the Keate award Sir Henry Barkly, the British high commissioner, issued proclamations taking over Waterboer’s territory under the
