Historical booklet details Jameson Raid and defends actions of reform movement

The booklet Jameson’s Heroic Charge, A True Story; A complete Vindication of The Reform Movement, published shortly after the abortive Jameson Raid, is one of the lots on offer at the James Findlay collectable books and maps online auction (www.jellyfishtree.com).

The publisher “respectfully” dedicates the work to the political prisoners arrested during the raid “in affectionate remembrance of the days and years gone by and the strongest hopes for the years before”.

The publisher said the need for such a booklet was urgent at a time of “… surging mass vituperative abuse, with the Boer element seeking to besmirch the heroic name Dr Leander Jameson. It will be as well … to give a true and graphic history of the Jameson Ride [sic]”, the publisher said.

Accounts of atrocities Boers allegedly committed when they crossed into Bechuanaland (Botswana) are recorded by the booklet to justify the raid.

“He [President Paul Kruger] and his caste are unto this day the plague of this country under the aegis of the Vierkleur,” the booklet says.

“When considering these dark deeds, it could be decided that Dr Jameson’s so-called ‘iniquitous filibustering’ was justified,” it adds.

The booklet insists freedom is an Uitlander’s right and “we must walk on the road that leads to Liberty; come Life, come Death, let our cry be Liberty!”.

The publication criticises government corruption with regard to concessions and monopolies, especially that of the dynamite concession which earned Edouard Lippert £600,000 a year.

LAND FOR MINING

Another sticking point was the refusal to proclaim more land for mining. There were gripes about forts being built at Pretoria and Johannesburg. “Why?” the booklet asks, “should the government keep us in subjection to unjust laws by the power of the sword?” What the Uitlanders wanted was an independent republic, but the government “point-blank refused to accede to our prayers”.

Explaining the reasons for the failure of the Jameson Raid was more difficult.

Jameson, it was claimed, had promised to come to the aid of Johannesburg if the Boers threatened to attack and “on no other pretence whatever”.

Yarns spread by the government about startling documents, bloody complots and Frank Rhodes’s hellish villainy are dismissed as “devilish imaginations of a low cur”. That pamphlets publicising these untruths were being circulated months before the trial “was an outrage of common decency and the author of such shameful conduct was worthy of tar and feathers”.

The booklet claims the Kruger government sent a false letter and telegram to Jameson telling him “to hurry up, the Boers are playing old Harry in Johannesburg”.

The author questions who sent that letter and telegram, adamant it was not the Reform Committee who, on the contrary, “were dumbfounded” when they received the news that Jameson had crossed the Transvaal border.

Apparently he launched the raid in spite of Rhodes’s telegram urging him to “halt the flotation”. John Hays Hammond had wired Rhodes to stop the raid. The Times correspondent Col Francis Younghusband went to see Rhodes at Groote Schuur telling him the Reform Committee was not ready and that “the risers would not rise”. Rhodes undertook to advise Jameson to postpone the raid.

Charles Leonard, who founded the pro-Uitlander Transvaal National Union, travelled to Cape Town where he begged Rhodes to delay the raid. Rhodes promised to instruct Jameson immediately to desist.

Meanwhile Jameson, described by historians as a competent doctor but not a talented leader, had assembled his troopers and read a letter purported to be an appeal from the Reform Committee in Johannesburg. The telegram that followed urgently asked him “to come to the rescue of Johannesburg”.

The letter said the English majority were about to be attacked by the Boers. “Thousands of unarmed women and children will be at the mercy of well-armed Boers.”

LETTER DATED LATER

The Illustrated History of South Africa, edited by Dougie Oates, says the undated letter informed Jameson the Uitlanders were ready to stage the uprising. The letter would be dated later to give the impression of a frantic last-minute appeal.

The raiders crossed the border and travelled 190 miles (300km) in two days. Another blunder followed with the cutting of the telegraph wires. Being the festive season, the troopers given the task of cutting the telegraph wires were drunk and cut a strand of a farm fence instead.

Hence Rhodes’s last coded message, “Veterinary surgeon has left for Johannesburg with some very good horse flesh” was picked up by loyal postmasters en route and delivered to government officials.

As a result, Kruger was the first to know about the imminent raid — and Jameson rode into a well-laid trap.

Rhodes’s message was presumably sent to the Reform Committee, thus implicating Rhodes in the raid, who then seemingly did try to stop Jameson going ahead with the plan.