D1.8.37: [Untitled]

D1.8.37: [Untitled]

Newspaper Clippings

Bleek writes that the Free State-Basuto dispute may amount to an undesirable war of races. In stating his refusal to assign blame to either side, he puzzlingly comments that the Free Staters should have expected friction with such a neighbouring polity. He alludes to the Basuto's failure to acknowledge the Free State as the more 'civilized' polity with superior arms after their last war. The Imperial Government's policy prevents the colonial government from exerting real influence on tribes beyond its border. It is not the Free Staters' fault that this vital task of native affairs has been left entirely to them. Should the Basutos win, contrary to popular opinion, it will open the floodgates for native wars across South Africa. It best serves the colonists' interests to make the Basutos submit to the control of a 'civilized' government. He contrasts the Basutos' non-bloodthirsty savagery with the chivalric warfare of burghers. He imagines that the Free Staters may think themselves bound by divine command to purge the Basutos as Canaanites were by the merciless old Israelites in the Pentateuch. The burghers must act correctively and not vengefully, upholding their higher morality. They must win the right to dictate peace and prove their authority more fair and righteous.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

20 July 1865

Two cut-out columns of printed newsprint mounted on foolscap folio (warped).

War (race), Basutos (savage), Free State (its neighbours), burghers (of the Free State)

Pressed clippings of Victorian current affairs opinion pieces by Wilhelm Bleek. Published in Het Volksblad on Thursday, July 20th, 1865.

Van de Sandt de Villiers & Co.