Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/852

818 KAFFRARIA Government. The Kaffres were completely routed in 1818 by a force under Lieutenant-Colonel Brereton. They rallied, however, and a great force suddenly poured into the colony in the early part of 1819, sweeping at first everything before them. On April 22 the prophet-chief, Makanna, attacked Grahamstown, which was garrisoned by a mere handful of troops, under Colonel Wiltshire. Assistance arrived, however, and the Kaffres were defeated with great slaughter. The principal chiefs were outlawed, the country between Koonap Kat and the Great Fish river was added to the colony, and that between the latter river and the Keiskamma de clared to be neutral territory ; on this some of the Kaffres were allowed to settle. Final peace, however, was far from being secured. One tribe or another was almost constantly on the move, causing disturbances in which the colonists could not but suffer. In 1828 the chief Ngqika or Gaika died, and during the minority of his infant son Sandili, the government of the tribe, now called Gaikas, devolved on Macomo, his elder half-brother, who had been per mitted to occupy the valleys of the Kat river. On account of an attack on the Ama-Tembu Kaffres, he was removed from the settle ment, as was also his brother Tyali (1833). Permitted to return, they were removed again, and this vacillating treatment had no doubt something to do with the next war. On December 11, 1834, another brother of Macomo, a chief of high rank, was killed while resisting a commando party. This set the whole of the Kaffre tribes in a blaze. Under Macomo, Tyali, and Xexo a force of 10,000 fighting men swept across the frontier, spread over the country, pillaged and burned the homesteads, and murdered the farmers and all who dared to resist. The fighting power of the colony was at the time scanty, but all available forces were mustered, under Colonel (afterwards Sir Harry) Smith, who reached Grahamstown on January 6, 1835, six days after news of the rising reached Cape Town. The enemy s territory was invaded, and after nine months fighting the Kaffres were completely subdued, and a new treaty of peace concluded (September 17). By this treaty all the country as far as the river Kei was acknowledged to be British, and its inhabitants declared British subjects. A site for the seat of government was selected, and named King William s Town. All this, however, was undone by the home Government, the secretary of state for the colonies at the time being Lord Glenelg. A policy of conciliation and mildness towards the Kaffres was adopted, a policy distasteful to the colonists, although laudable efforts seem to have been made to carry it out. The next war, known as the " War of the Axe," arose from the murder of a Hottentot, to whom an old Kaffre thief was manacled while being conveyed to Grahams- town for trial for stealing an axe. The escort was attacked by a party of Kaffres and the Hottentot killed. The surrender of the murderer was refused, and war was declared on March 11, 1846. The Gaikas were the chief tribe engaged in the war, assisted during the course of it by the Tambookies. After some reverses the Kaffres were signally defeated on June 7 by General Somerset on the Gwangu, a few miles from Fort Peddie. Still the war went on, till at length Sandili, the chief of the Gaikas, surrendered, as also gradually did the other chiefs ; and by the beginning of 1848 the Kaffres were again subdued, after twenty-one months fighting. The country was declared under British rule, and was formed into the division of Victoria East and British Kaffraria, between the new colonial boundary and the Kei river, the latter reserved for occupation by the Kaffres. The peace, however, was not to last long. About October 1850 it was reported that the Kaffres were preparing for war. Sir Harry Smith proceeded to the frontier, and summoned Sandili and the other chiefs to an interview. Sandili refused obedience ; upon which,at an assembly of other chiefs, the governor declared him deposed from his chiefship, and appointed an English man, Mr Brownlee, a magistrate, to be chief of the Gaika tribe. This measure is said to have been the immediate cause of the ensuing outbreak ; but there is no doubt that the Kaffres had already determined on war. On the 24th of December Colonel Mackinnon, being sent with a small force to capture Sandili, was attacked in a narrow defile by a large body of Kaffres, and com pelled to retreat with some loss. This was the signal for a general rising of the Gaika tribe. The settlers in the military villages, assembled in fancied security to celebrate Christmas day, were surprised by the treacherous foe, many of them murdered, and their houses given to the flames. Other disasters followed in quick succession. A small patrol of military was cut off to a man. The greater part of the Kaffre police deserted, many of them carrying off their arms and accoutrements. Flushed with success, the Kaffres in immense force surrounded and attacked Fort Cox, where the governor was with an inconsiderable force. His situation was truly critical. More than one unsuccessful attempt was made to relieve him ; but his dauntless spirit was equal to the occasion. At the head of one hundred and fifty mounted riflemen, accompanied by Colonel Mackinnon, he dashed out of the fort, and, through a heavy fire of the enemy, rode to King William s Town, a distance of 12 miles. Meantime, a new enemy appeared. A large number of the Kat river Hottentots, who had in former wars been firm allies of the British, rose in rebellion. This revolt was followed by that of the Hottentots at other missionary stations ; and part of the Hottentots of the Cape Mounted Rifles followed their example. We have only space to state the general results of the war. After the confusion caused by the sudden outbreak had subsided, and due preparations were made, Sir Harry Smith and his gallant force soon turned the tide of war against the Kaffres. The Amatola mountains were stormed ; and the paramount chief Kreli, who all along covertly assisted the Gaikas, was severely punished. In April 1852 Sir Harry Smith was recalled, and was succeeded by Lieutenant- General Cathcart. Kreli was again attacked, and reduced to sub mission. The Amatolas were finally cleared of Kaffres, and small forts erected among them to prevent their inoccupation. It was not till March 23, 1853, that martial law was revoked, and the most sanguinary of Kaffre wars brought to a conclusion, with a loss of many hundred British soldiers. Shortly after, British Kaffraria was erected into a crown colony, which it remained till 1865, when it was incorporated with the Cape Colony. After a peace of twenty-five years, once more, in 1877, the Kaffres (of Kaffraria Proper) interrupted the progress of the country and caused considerable destruction and distress. In September of that year the hereditary enmity between the Fingoes and Gcalekas broke out into open hostility, the Government taking the part of the former, who were under its protection. At first the Gcalekas were driven beyond the Bashee ; but collecting in force again they recrossed, and got the Gaikas to join them about the end of December. After several months the governor called in the aid of the imperial troops, and soon effectually broke up and defeated the rebels. The war with the Zulu Kaffres will be described under ZULULAND. See Theal s Compendium of the History and Geography of South Africa, 1878; Silver s Handbook to South Africa, 1880; the General Directory and Guide- Book to the Cape of Good Hope and its Dependencies, and other year-books and blue-books; Keith Johnston s Africa, 1878 ; Stanford s large map of the Cape of Good Hope and neighbouring territories, 1876 ; The Colonies, and The Colonies and India (passim); Blacks, Boers, and British, by F. R. Statham, 1881; Hall s South African Geography, 1806; The Story of Missions in South-East Africa, by Rev. W. Shaw, 1866 ; Chase and Wilmot s History of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 1871; Anthony Trollope s South Africa, 1878. (J. S. K.) The Kaffres. The Kaffres, or Kafirs, a large South African race, form ethnically a well-marked variety of the Negro type, and linguistically a dis tinct branch of the Bantu family. There are no general or collective national names, and the various tribal divisions are mostly desig nated by those of distinguished historical or legendary chief s, founders of dynasties or hereditary chieftaincies. The name Kafir (a form which in popular usage designates the African race less frequently than the inhabitants of Kafiristan in Persia) is that applied by Mahometans to all who reject the faith of Islam. It was thus current along the east coast of Africa at the arrival of the Portuguese, and passed from them to the Dutch and English, and recently even to the natives themselves under the form Kafula, as in the expression ba-ng ama Kafula-iijc, they are only Kafirs. Of this race there are two main divisions, jointly occupying the south east corner of the continent from the Lower Limpopo to the Great Fish river north and south, and from the escarpments of the central plateau to the Indian Ocean west and east. They thus impinge southwards on the Hottentot domain, westwards on the kindred Basuto and Bechuana nations, northwards on the Tekezas, Makuas, and others also of kindred stock occupying the region stretching from the Limpopo to the Zambesi and even beyond it to Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. Politically the Kaffre domain comprises the Portuguese possessions skirting Delagoa Bay, the semi-inde pendent Zulu territory, the colony of Natal, and the ancient territory of Zanguana, which included that part of Cape Colony till recently known as British and Independent Kaffraria. Of the two branches, each split up into a multiplicity of tribal divisions, the representative nations are the Ama-Zulus in the north, and the Ama-Xosas, Ama-Tembu, and Ama-Mpondas or Kaffres Proper in the south, whence the compound term Zulu-Kaffre now commonly applied in a collective sense to the whole race. Intermediate between the two were the Ama-Lala or Balala of Natal, where they are still represented by the Ama-Ncolosi, and several broken Ama- Zulu tribes now collectively known to the Kaffres as Ama-Fengu, i.e., "poor" or "needy" people, from fenguza, to seek service. 1 1 The Ama-Fengus are regarded both by the Ama-Zulus and Ama-Xosas a.s slaves or out-castes, without any right to the freedom and privileges of true-born Kaifres. They are met with everywhere, not only in Fingoland between the Great Kei and Bashee rivers south of the Ama-Xosa territory, but also in Natal, Xululand, and north of it, as well as in the highlands of the interior. Yet they ca scarcely be said to have any recognized territory of their own, and but for the intervention of the British they would have long ago been everywhere reduced to a state of serfdom by the dominant tribes. Those who were driven out of Zululand early in the present century fell into the hands of the Gcalekas, from whom they were delivered in 1835 by Sir Benjamin D Urban, ar.d by him removed to the Fort Peddie district between the Fish and Keiskamma rivers. Any tribes which become broken and mixed would probably be regarded as Ama- Fengus by the other Kaffres. Hence the multiplicity of clans, such as the Ama- Bele, Aba-Sembotwcni, Ama-Zizi, Ama-Kuze, Aba-Sekunene, Ama-Ntokaze, Ama-Tetyeni, Aba-Shwawa, &c., all of whom are collectively grouped as Ama- Fengu. Their position may be compared with that of the Laconian Helots, or the low-caste tribes of India.