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Publications & Reports

Bleek disbelievingly reports the repulsion of Free State Burghers at Thaba Bosiu, Moshesh's fortress-like Mountian of the Night. He relays that the Burgher Commando made a powerful impression that will situate them well during peace negotiations. The former Basuto territory held by burghers must be colonised immediately by those most deserving. Bleek dissonantly underscores the Basotho's "present humiliation" as necessitating their reasonable terms and that the threat of meting out the adjacent country ("Lesuto") is compelling. A frontier police force would best secure the porous border. The threat of starvation would impinge the Basuto morale, so the aristocracy's punishment should not extend to their proletariat subjects, who should be allowed home upon continued good behaviour and surrender of arms. The Basuto families settled on these farms will become the burghers' agricultural workforce, and the presence of family might "guarantee [...] their peaceful tenure". The non-racial justice of a civilised government offers a less anarchic and more peaceful, predictable alternative. The newfound prosperity of the Fingoes (amaMfengu) proves this, surpassing their "former masters" (the amaXhosa?).

Printed newsprint glued on paper

31/08/1865

Two cut out columns of newsprint text, positioned vertically parallel, pasted onto a plus-sized A4 unlined sheet with visible warping. No title was subsequently handwritten onto the mount/paper backing.

An original cutting of a Victorian article (no printed thematic title included in the cut out) by WHI Bleek. Published in Het Volksblad on Thursday, August 31st, 1865. Bleek, or Het Volksblad's editiorial team, inconsistently use both "Thaba Bossion" and "Thaba Bosigo" as alternative spelling for Thaba Bosiu (which may be a mere mispelling or incorrect reading of his scrawled script). His use of "conceding peace to [Moshesh]" seems out of step with his previous language when describing the Basotho. "Drakensbergen" arguably employs the now archaic "-en" Germanic plural suffix pre-standardisation (of Afrikaans [identified as "Afrikaans koine" by 1850]) (Carstens & Bosman, 2024: 180; Hamans & Hock, 2024: 180).