Assegais, Drums & Dragoons by Willem Steenkamp

Author:Willem Steenkamp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

With the submission of the Prinsloo party the stage appeared set for orderly government of the former VOC settlement, and the British were careful, at least in the first phase, not to rock the boat too much. They made certain administrative and other changes, and people of colour were given greater protection by the local courts (in theory, anyway – like the VOC, which had had the same approach to non-whites, the British did not possess adequate means to enforce the measure), but they did not depart from the VOC style of government. In the end, the take-over did not, in fact, alter the local social or military situation in any real sense.

They did not, for example, take any steps to abolish slavery or even forbid the importation of slaves; as Giliomee says: ‘There is no evidence that the British … concerned themselves about the plight of the slaves in any particular way.’16 For example, Lord Macartney,17 who became Governor of the Cape in May 1797, made his priorities quite plain in a letter to the Secretary for War, Henry Dundas:

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