One of the things most keenly felt by the colonists was the arming of Hottentots and placing them under English officers as soldiers in control of the country. The Hottentots are an interesting, lively and volatile, brave little race, now nearly extinct. They were, except the Bushmen, the most primitive of African peoples; and anyone who has lived in countries where primitive dark races are found side by side with white men will recognize at once how much bitterness will be evoked by this proceeding, and how cruel is the result in the long run to the primitive races themselves who are so used. Were England to-morrow to conquer the United States, and to organize and drill the American negroes for the purpose of keeping down the white races, not merely would the whole American population rise to a man, but it would be the most cowardly and cruel, though indirect, way of assisting in the destruction of the negro.
From a small beginning in 1815 rose an occurrence which has set an uncleansable mark on the history of South Africa, and which, through South Africa, may perhaps ultimately react on other streams of life.
In the Baviaans River Valley, on what was then the extreme northern frontier of the Colony, lived a farmer called Frederick Bezuidenhout, a man who had always been opposed to the resignation of the Colony to the British Government, which had now finally supplanted the Government of Holland for nine years. He was summoned to appear before the landdrost of Graaff Reinet for striking a Hottentot, and he refused to obey the summons. A corps of Hottentot soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Rousseau was sent to arrest him. They went up the wild and beautiful valley of the Baviaans River, till they arrived at Bezuidenhout's farm near the banks of the stream. Bezuidenhout and one of his servants stationed themselves behind the stone wall of the sheep-kraal near the house. When ordered to surrender in the name of George the Third, King of England, he refused to do so, and fired his gun, but no one was touched. He then retired to the house and slipped out at the back before the Hottentots could capture him, and climbed into a krantz, or precipice, across the river, accompanied by one of his native servants.