Page:Colonization and Christianity.djvu/440

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424
COLONIZATION

deeds, kept by a resident at so late a period as from 1806 to 1811, which consisted of forty-four pages of such crimes and cruelties, which were too horrible to describe. Such as we found them when the Cape finally became our possession, such they remained till 1828, when Dr. Philip published his "Researches in South Africa," which laying open this scene of barbarities, Mr. Fowell Buxton gave notice of a motion on the subject in Parliament. Sir George Murray, then Colonial Secretary, however, most honourably acceded to Mr. Buxton's proposition before such motion was submitted, and an Order in Council was accordingly issued, directing that the Hottentots should be admitted to all the rights, and placed on the same footing as the rest of his Majesty's free subjects in the colony. This transaction is highly honourable to the English government, and the result has been such as to shew the wisdom of such liberal measures. But before proceeding to notice the effect of this change upon the Hottentots, let us select as a specimen of the treatment they were subject to, even under our rule, the destruction of the last independent Hottentot kraal, as related by Pringle.

"Among the principal leaders of the Hottentot insurgents in their wars with the boors, were three brothers of the name of Stuurman. The manly bearing of Klaas, one of these brothers, is commemorated by Mr. Barrow, who was with the English General Vandeleur, near Algoa Bay, when this Hottentot chief came, with a large body of his countrymen, to claim the protection of the British." "We had little doubt," says Mr. Barrow, "that the greater number of the Hottentot men who were assembled at