Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/57

Rh 1st, The Dutch, partly by so-called contracts, partly by force, gradually deprived the Hottentots of their country. 2d, They reduced to slavery a large part of that unfor tunate people whom they did not destroy. 3d, They intro duced a number of Malays and negroes as slaves. 4th, They established that narrow and tyrannical system of policy which they adopted in other colonies, prescrib ing to ths farmers the nature of the crops they were to grow, demanding from them a large part of their produce, and harassing them with other exactions tending to dis courage industry and enterprize. There is no doubt that to this mischievous policy is due the origin of those un settled habits, that dislike to orderly government, and that desire to escape from its control, which characterize a considerable part of the so-called Dutch boers of the present day, -qualities utterly at variance with the character of the Dutch in their native country, which were strongly manifested at the Cape, long before they came under British rule and under those influences to which some exclusively attribute the insubordination of those men. The attempts of the boers to escape from the Dutch power, and so form an independent government beyond the borders of the colony, especially in the district since called Graaf-Reinet, are strikingly similar to their proceedings at a later date under the British Government. 5th, The Gamtoos Paver formed the boundary between the Hottentot and Kaffre laces, and was early adopted by the Dutch as their eastern limit, out about the year 1740 they began to pass this river, and came into collision with the Kaffres, and in 1780 they extended their frontier to the Great Fish River. In 1795 the colonists, having imbibed the revolutionary principles then prevailing in Europe, attempted to throw off the yoke of the Dutch, upon which the British sent a fleet to support the authority of the Prince of Orange, and took possession of the country in his name As, however, it was evident that Holland would not be able to hold it, and that at a general peace it would be made over to England, it was ruled by British governors till the year 1302, when, at the peace of Amiens, it was again restored to Holland. In 1806, on the renewal of the war, it was again taken by the British under Sir David Baird, and has since remained in their possession, having been finally ceded by the king of the Netherlands at the peace of 1815. At this time the limit of the colony was formed by the Grsat Fish River and the line of the mountains south of Bush- manland to the Buffels River and the Atlantic, the area being about 120,000 square miles, and the population little over 60,000. A summary may be given of the chief events which have taken place since 1806.

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