Talk:Andries Stockenström
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[edit] Copyvio
Those Duminy quotes will have to go, or be extensively rewritten: the de Kock and Krüger Dictionary of South African Biography is 1970s - well within copyright. Text for redraft appended. Tearlach 19:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
A H Duminy, in the Dictionary of South African Biography, writes:
“In May 1815 Lord Charles Somerset, on the recommendation of his predecessors the Earl of Caledon and Sir John Cradock, appointed S. landdrost of the district of Graaff-Reinet. Thus, at the age of twenty-two, he became the chief instrument of British policy in this vast frontier district whose inhabitants had scarcely experienced effective government, and which bordered on the Bushmen and Griquas to the north, and on the Bantu to the east. It was his responsibility not only to regulate relations between the colonists and the border tribes, but to implement the policies of the British authorities. These included, in particular, the substitution of perpetual quit-rent land tenure for the existing loan-place system; the provision of educational facitilies; and the extension of the protection law to the Hottentots and other coloured inhabitants. The difficulties involved were demonstrated by the Slagtersnek rebellion, which occurred in November 1815 (shortly after S.’s appointment) when he helped significantly to dissuade the colonists from joining the projected rebellion and to bring the rebels to peace.
“In 1817 the ‘commando system’, which had operated on the frontier and which depended on the civil authority of the landdrost, who could authorize armed expeditions across the frontier to retake stolen stock, was replaced with the ‘reprisals system’. In terms of this new system, of which S. remained an outspoken critic, burgher patrols were to be accompanied by a military detachment and were entitled to demand compensation from the kraal to which the spoor of stolen cattle had been traced, whether or not the stolen stock was found there, leaving the Xhosa to find the guilty and claim their cattle back from them.”
Duminy writes:
“Throughout his administrative career Stockenström accepted the broad principles of good government, but remained a fearless critic of many of the absurdities of policies framed in Cape Town or in London, and of the extravagant claims of the London Missionary Society. Thus, on the north-eastern frontier, with which he was concerned as a landdrost, a commissioner-general and then as a lieutenant-governor, he would not prohibit the crossing of the frontier by colonists in times of drought, but urged that the frontier should be extended to prevent the encroachment of one race upon the territory of another. He supported the introduction of ordinance 50 of 1828, some of the provisions of which he had helped to formulate, but insisted that it should be accompanied by a law against vagrancy.”
Duminy comments:
“Although it was intended that he should be the senior civil authority in the east, his precise powers as commissioner-general were very loosely defined. There was confusion, particularly because his subordinates were still to correspond directly with the colonial secretary in Cape Town. Stockenström’s precise relationship with the military was also ambiguous because, although he was empowered to call out a burgher force, this was to be commanded by a military officer, should one be present. In view of the open enmity of Col. Henry Somerset, who continued to support the reprisals system (which had been suspended by Bourke in 1826) there was little likelihood of the commissioner-generalship proving a success.”
Duminy writes:
“Stockenström’s system is usually described as the treaty system, but treaties were in fact a feature of most frontier systems. The distinguishing feature was rather the attempt to apply strict principles of international law to frontier relations. In accordance with these the crossing of the frontier by armed parties from either side was prohibited, and colonists who were able to prove that their stock had been stolen and taken across the frontier were obliged to rely on the chiefs to return it. It is possible that these provisions were at Glenelg’s insistence as they did not comply with Stockenström’s earlier reliance on the commando system, although chiefs guilty of breaking the treaties which were signed in December 1836 could, of course, be dealt with on a war footing. Otherwise, Stockenström’s regulations relating to the guarding of cattle and the immediate pursuit of stolen stock were identical to those which he had introduced after 1828.”
