Native Life in South Africa [120]
Western Transvaal, who had to live down the sad memory of a victory gained by a black chief over their white army and of their purposes thereby. From a Dutch point of view nothing could be more humiliating than that black men should have gained such a signal success over them, and they are constantly crying out for the repression of Lentsue and his "proud" Kafirs. The Boers' demand that the Union authorities should make the thraldom of the Natives more effective, forgetting that the armed forces of the Boers when left to themselves during the temporary British evacuation of Bechuanaland were unable to do it. Notwithstanding this fact, the newspapers, especially the Rand Sunday Press, seem always to have open spaces for rancorous appeals to colour prejudice, perhaps because such appeals, despite their inherent danger, suit the colonial taste. Preceding the introduction of the Natives' Land Act, the clamour of a section of the colonists and most of the Transvaal Boers for more restrictive measures towards the blacks was accompanied at one of its stages by alarming reports of "Native disaffection", "Bakhatla insolence", and similar inflammatory headlines. One Sunday morning it was actually announced in the Sunday Press of Johannesburg that the Bakhatla had actually opened fire on the Union Police and were the first to draw blood. Our own inquiries proved that the British Protectorate, in and around Lentsue's territory, where the Bakhatla dwell, was abnormally quiet. All that had happened was that two Dutch policemen had unlawfully crossed into Bechuanaland with firearms; that the Natives had disarmed them and taken them to their chief, who in turn handed them over to the British authorities at Gaberones, where they were tried and sentenced.
It is not suggested that Sunday papers in giving publicity to disturbing reports lend their space to what they know to be untrue; but the fact remains that, right or wrong, their editorials seem ever ready to fan the glowing embers of colour prejudice into a blaze; and after arousing in this manner a most acute race feeling, the editors, upon discovering their mistake, if such it was, did not even trouble to tell their readers that they had unwittingly published exaggerated accounts -- since after a fair trial before the British tribunal at Gaberones, the offending Union Police were fined 50 Pounds. The fact is that while under the quasi-Republican laws of the Transvaal a native policeman dare not lay his "black hands" on a "lily-white" criminal, even if he caught him in the very act of breaking the law: in British Bechuanaland, "there shall be no difference in the eye of the law between a man with a white skin and a man with a black skin, and the one shall be as much entitled to the protection of the law as the other," and so in spite of scaremongers' ravings to the contrary, Chief Lentsue proved himself once more on the side of the law of his Empire.
Go mokong-kong ko Tipereri, Go mokong-kong gole; Go mokong-kong ko Tipereri, Go mosetsana montle. Dumela, Pikadili, Sala, Lester-skuer, Tsela ea Kgalagadi, Tipereri, Pelo ea me e koo. "Tipperary" in Rolong.
The Barolong and the War
The Barolong and other native tribes near Mafeking were keenly interested in the negotiations that preceded the Boer War. The chiefs continually received information regarding the mobilization of the Boer forces across the border. This was conveyed to the Magistrate of Mafeking with requests for arms for purpose of defence. The Magistrate replied each time with confident assurances that the Boers would never cross the boundary into British territory. The Transvaal boundary is only ten or twelve miles from the magistracy. The assurances of the Magistrate made the Natives rather restive; the result was that a deputation of Barolong chiefs had a dramatic interview with the Magistrate, at which the writer acted as interpreter. The chiefs told the Magistrate that they feared he knew very little about war if he thought that
It is not suggested that Sunday papers in giving publicity to disturbing reports lend their space to what they know to be untrue; but the fact remains that, right or wrong, their editorials seem ever ready to fan the glowing embers of colour prejudice into a blaze; and after arousing in this manner a most acute race feeling, the editors, upon discovering their mistake, if such it was, did not even trouble to tell their readers that they had unwittingly published exaggerated accounts -- since after a fair trial before the British tribunal at Gaberones, the offending Union Police were fined 50 Pounds. The fact is that while under the quasi-Republican laws of the Transvaal a native policeman dare not lay his "black hands" on a "lily-white" criminal, even if he caught him in the very act of breaking the law: in British Bechuanaland, "there shall be no difference in the eye of the law between a man with a white skin and a man with a black skin, and the one shall be as much entitled to the protection of the law as the other," and so in spite of scaremongers' ravings to the contrary, Chief Lentsue proved himself once more on the side of the law of his Empire.
Go mokong-kong ko Tipereri, Go mokong-kong gole; Go mokong-kong ko Tipereri, Go mosetsana montle. Dumela, Pikadili, Sala, Lester-skuer, Tsela ea Kgalagadi, Tipereri, Pelo ea me e koo. "Tipperary" in Rolong.
The Barolong and the War
The Barolong and other native tribes near Mafeking were keenly interested in the negotiations that preceded the Boer War. The chiefs continually received information regarding the mobilization of the Boer forces across the border. This was conveyed to the Magistrate of Mafeking with requests for arms for purpose of defence. The Magistrate replied each time with confident assurances that the Boers would never cross the boundary into British territory. The Transvaal boundary is only ten or twelve miles from the magistracy. The assurances of the Magistrate made the Natives rather restive; the result was that a deputation of Barolong chiefs had a dramatic interview with the Magistrate, at which the writer acted as interpreter. The chiefs told the Magistrate that they feared he knew very little about war if he thought that