WHITES AS SLAVES

Hokitika Guardian, 26 July 1930, Page 8

WHITES AS SLAVES

.STRANGE COLONY IN AFRICA. An astounding story of a community of white men and 'women, slaves of a black chief in the heart, of Africa, recently brought to ilie notice of the Government by a traveller, has .lust been corroborated by travellers who have returned front the Kalahari Desert. Although these whites, it has been ascertained, have been living in bondage for generations, the 1 fact, of thencaptivity and enslavement has by the merest c-hance reached the ears of civilisation. A terrific storm necessitated a traveller halting immediately at n village in the Kalahari Desert. .He was hospitably entertained by a chief, who astonished him by summoning to minister to his wants a n,umber of halfclothed miserable-looking whites 1 of both sexes. The chief, who happened to have been educated at an English, university, described them as his serfs. He had, he said, inherited them from his parents. He appeared uncertain as to How long his tribe had owned them, but told a circumstantial story which indicated that they were the descendants of a hand of early Dutch pioneers who had trekked into the Kalahari. i, : Disaster had overtaken them in the shape of disease, lions, and Bushmen. They were captured by a wandering tribe and became their property. Not the least interesting feature of this strange tale of darkest Africa is that the exiles refused to intermarry with the natives. “I endeavoured to speak with as many of them as I was able, and discovered. these white slaves to be mostly half-wits, or of. the lowest possible intelligence,” states the traveller. ‘‘No doubt extensive in-breeding lmd been responsible for their poor mentality. They boasted that they had iievor married blacks. “They were not at all dissatisfied with their lot. When subsequently the Government offered to settle them elsewhere among whites, they said that they would much prefer to stay wliere they were. “I spoke to them, about the Great War, and they declared that not a single rumour concerning it hud reached them. Only one man had heard of a railway. He believed that thousands of miles away some rods of irons had been placed on the desert, but he had no desire to see them or; a train as the journey was too difficult and hazardous.”