The South-African crisis - pagina 21

THE SOUTH-AFRICAN

17

CRISIS.

They numbered 40,000 and representing an

in 1834.

average value of two thousand francs per head formed

most of the colonists the chief part of their small The Parliament of London which had possessions. for

promised compensation ought to have paid 80,000,000 but for

trancs,

Cape

the

allowed

it

only a million

and a quarter pounds sterling and stipulated that

it

should be payable, not at the Cape, but inLonden, a stipulation

which had the

effect of

compelling the Boers to

sell

their awards to English agents for a third ot their value.

who owned,

Consequently a small farmer received

.slaves

give

only

4600

dozen francs

of 24,000. means of paying workmen, the Boers were then compelled to

Destitute of the

instead their

compensation

as

say, a

up the greater part of their

whilst the

lands-,

liberated slaves, dying of famine, took to vagabondage, stole the cattle of the colonists,

in their homes.

them abandoned

Widows all

and even attacked them

Many

especially suffered.

ot

they possessed and went to seek

refuge in their families.

The

police, too

few in number,

were powerless to repress the lawlessness, notably on the frontier, so that tolerable.

Add

to

missionaries of the

the

became

state of affairs

in-

this that at the instigation of the

Clapham

sect in

London

-')

all

the

courts, all the magistrates, took the part of the natives

against the Boers.

The roles were inverted the negroes :

bullied the colonists while the latter humiliated before

their former slaves scarcely dared

lift

up their heads.

But exasperation soon brought matters to a

The ^)

crisis

culminated in 1835

Chase, p. 335.

— 38

in

what

is

crisis.

histori-

Deze tekst is geautomatiseerd gemaakt en kan nog fouten bevatten. Digibron werkt voortdurend aan correctie. Klik voor het origineel door naar de pdf. Voor opmerkingen, vragen, informatie: contact.

Op Digibron -en alle daarin opgenomen content- is het databankrecht van toepassing. Gebruiksvoorwaarden. Data protection law applies to Digibron and the content of this database. Terms of use.

Printen