‘Frontier agitator’
by Mike Oettle
SOUTH AFRICAN
history books reserve some of their harshest words for three men, and often do
not even mention their Christian names: Van der Kemp, Read and Philip. These
three London Missionary Society[1] (LMS) officials are seen as being at the heart of all the troubles that, in the eyes of frontier farmers like the 1820 Settlers and those who would become Voortrekkers, came out of the missionary settlements.
First I put the spotlight on Dr Johannes Theodorus van der Kemp, founder of Bethelsdorp. Now it is the turn of his assistant, James Read (born 3 December 1777).
Unfortunately Read does not get away with an untarnished reputation, and was often severely criticised, even by his colleague Dr John Philip. Indeed, hardly anyone has a good word for him, and it would be nice to find even one author who finds redeeming qualities in him. Perhaps his greatest disadvantage was his lack of an education, for his occupation was that of carpenter, and it is unclear what training he received for his work as a missionary.
Perhaps the one thing that makes him more disliked than anyone else is that Read was the first white missionary at the Cape to take a wife from outside the white community: on 29 June 1803 he married a Khoikhoi (“Hottentot”) woman named Sarah (died 1849). She was to bear him several children, of whom three sons and five daughters were alive when James himself died.
The
advantage, in Read’s eyes, of taking a brown wife was that he would identify
himself with the community he was working in; the disadvantage was that he
immediately lost all respectability in the eyes of white colonial society,
both officials and farmers. Read clearly felt identification to be more
important.
James was born at Abridge, in Essex, and was accepted by the LMS at the age of 20. His first missionary posting resulted in his being captured by a French privateer off Brazil, and he underwent further training before being posted to the Cape in 1800. He worked for a short while at Wagen Makers Vallei (now Wellington) and then joined Dr Van der Kemp at Graaff-Reinet, teaching at the Khoikhoi settlement at the town and accompanying him on his third journey into the Xhosa country in 1801. When in 1802 Van der Kemp and the Khoikhoi settlers had to flee to Algoa Bay, Read was in the party that settled under Van der Kemp at Botha’s Plaats, somewhere on the Kragga Kamma road, and in 1803 was granted Bethelsdorp.
In 1808 and again in 1811 Read wrote to the LMS, complaining of mistreatment of Khoikhoi at the hands of Boer farmers. He claimed that over 100 murders had taken place around Bethelsdorp, and challenged William Wilberforce to take action. This Wilberforce did, and pressure was put on Governor Sir John Cradock, who had incidentally already ordered the first circuit court at the Cape. Unfortunately Van der Kemp died in 1811, and when the court sat in Uitenhage it was Read who had to present evidence. Not nearly as skilled as Van der Kemp, Read was unable to produce sufficient evidence – in the face of massive pressure against witnesses from their employers, and the threat of punishment for “frivolous” charges – to satisfy the court, and although one murderer was convicted, his sentence was commuted. He did obtain some convictions for assault, although most of the accused went free.
Another consequence of Van der Kemp’s death was that Read, who had been nominated to succeed him, insisted that someone be sent from Britain to take over. Dr George Thom filled the doctor’s shoes.
At the 1817 LMS synod in Cape Town, Read was accused of a number of irregularities, and an investigation was ordered. Dr John Philip arrived in the country in February 1819 to probe the allegations, and condemned the rosy accounts of Bethelsdorp that Read had sent to Britain.
However, Read had in 1816 already left the colony to work among the Thlaphing Tswana people. He visited them at Dithakong (also called [Old] Lithako), now in Botswana, but induced them to move with him to New Lattakoo (Lithako), a settlement he founded near Kuruman. It appeared, however, that his popularity among the Thlaping was due to the gifts he gave them.
Philip forced him to return to Bethelsdorp in 1820. For the next nine years, Read worked at Bethelsdorp and at Theopolis,[2] as the mission artisan and schoolmaster.
Read and his son James (born 1811)
were still to play a significant role on the Cape’s eastern frontier, and I
return to them in this article.
