Philippolis in the Transorangia (the present day Free State province). The old Griqua kaptyn Adam Kok II abandoned his original capital at Griquatown in about 1819 because he could not abide missionary discipline. Kok’s people led a wandering life for several years until they reconciled with the missionaries in 1827 and established another capital at Philippolis, named after the missionary superintendent, Dr John Philip.
Southern Transorangia (as the Free State was then called) was in 1840 politically dominated by the Griqua captaincy of Adam Kok III at Philippolis. He had come to power in 1837. By 1838 a raad, or council, had produced a code of laws with field-cornets in each division acting as officials of the raad.
Relations between the Griqua captaincies at Philippolis, Campbell and Griquatown had been strained due to the interference of Dr John Philip, a superintendent of the London Missionary Society and the Griquas’ missionary patron. Philip favoured Andries Waterboer as supreme head of the Griqua, based in Griquatown, lying 200 kilometres to the northwest on the other side of the Orange River. However, in 1837 Waterboer and Adam Kok signed a treaty of mutual protection and collaboration between their respective councils. The Griqua enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity.
Fearing that the Boers in the area would destroy the independence of the Griqua captaincies and of the Sotho under Moshoeshoe, Philip persuaded the Governor Sir George Napier to sign treaties in 1843 with Waterboer and Kok and the Sotho chief, Moshoeshoe, in which they agreed to help preserve peace and security. But treaties could not protect Griqua autonomy or prevent the Griqua captains from alienating more and more land to whites.
Sir George Napier
Neither the trekboers nor the Voortrekkers immediately challenged the formal Griqua or Sotho authority over them that the treaties implied. They did not object to asking Moshoeshoe’s permission to settle on his land, nor to his overall authority. They were willing, at first, to deal with Kok and Waterboer on a basis of equality. In 1844 Hendrik Potgieter – the Voortrekker leader who as ‘head commandant’ claimed control of the Voortrekkers between Potchefstroom and Winburg – offered a treaty to Kok. ‘We are emigrants,’ Potgieter wrote, ‘[who] . . . together with you dwell in the same strange land and we desire to be regarded as neither more nor less than your fellow-emigrants, inhabiting the country, enjoying the same privileges with you. It is by no means the intention of the Head Commandant and his Council to bring any native chief under their laws and authority but to leave each one to exercise his own authority.’
But both trekboers and Voortrekkers protested when the Griqua authority arrested whites, and they had far more firepower than Kok and Waterboer, whose support in Cape Town was dwindling. The Cape government had lost faith in the treaties and Philip’s political influence was on the wane. The Griqua were determined to remain on good terms with both the British and their missionaries, and as far as possible with the Boers. This was an untenable situation. For example, Adam Kok III handed over a group of Boers wanted by the British authorities for murder in 1845, prompting conflict with the Boers. The Griqua also complained of cattle theft by the Boers.
Sir Peregrine Maitland
In 1845 Governor of the Cape Sir Peregrine Maitland appointed a British Resident in Transorangia. The Boers could now rent land from the Griqua under strict conditions. This and the emigration of a number of disgruntled Boers temporarily eased the tension. But British policy was not constant. Sir Harry Smith, who became governor of the Cape in December 1847, was of a quite different temperament from his predecessors, Sir George Napier and Sir Peregrine Maitland. Not content with doubling the size of the Cape within two months after his arrival, he set his sights on Transorangia as well. He intervened with Adam Kok in the name of the Afrikaners settled in Griqua territory, as the following remarkable scene described by Kok himself demonstrates:
Adam Kok: I am satisfied with the treaty of Sir Peregrine Maitland which has been approved by Her Majesty the Queen. Upon this His Excellency exclaimed in a passion, Treaty is nonsense – Damn the treaty. And taking off his glasses he dashed them on the table. Southey, His Excellency cried, tell him I am Governor General. I shall hang the black fellow on this beam. Tell him, Southey, to leave the room immediately.
The Afrikaners were not much better treated. Smith promised them that Great Britain would not annexe their territory unless 80% of them were in favour. They were not, but Smith went ahead and annexed it anyway. Andries Pretorius approached Moshoeshoe to form a common front against British imperialism but Moshoeshoe was hesitant. Pretorius’s reputed words to Moshoeshoe have a prophetic ring: ‘You don’t know the English. They are an odd people. Remember my word. You will repent for having joined them.’ Smith made short work of the Afrikaners at Boomplaats (1848) and in 1849 Moshoeshoe was bullied into accepting an unfavourable boundary known as the Warden Line.
Smith was now the master of 2.5 million acres of Transorangia land, which he gave away to no more than 139 English friends – only 40 of whom actually lived on their properties. This speculator’s paradise was known as the Orange River Sovereignty. It lasted only six years. The British government became disillusioned with Sir Harry and – after the Sotho defeated the British at Berea in 1852 – frightened of Moshoeshoe. The few British settlers were expendable and, by the Bloemfontein Convention of 1854, the Imperial government ceded Transorangia to the Afrikaners under the name of the Orange Free State.
