White Negroes

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 62, 4 June 1927, Page 12

White Negroes

A GRIM STORY LOST WOMEN OF GROSVENOR One of the most poignant tragedies in the history of the sea is still being perpetuated among the native villages of Pondoland, in South-East Africa, according to a Danish ethnologist, Herr C. Redsted Pederson, who has been making investigations there. He has found numbers of sad-eyed, curiously aloof, pale-skinned negroes in the hinterland of the point on the rocky coast where, 145 years ago, the homebound East Indiaman, Grosvenor, was wrecked. All the several English gentlewomen on board were seized by the fierce blacks and borne captive into the interior, when the men had been killed. Not one ever returned to civilisation. Colonel Gordon, trekking up the coast some years afterward, was told, by some natives, of a white lady with a black baby, over which she frequently wept, living with a chief up-country. He sent a message that he would have her rescued should she so desire, but no reply came back, and the authorities were unable to trace her. The Dutch declared that several of the ladies, some of whom belong to well-known English county families, could have obtained their freedom some years later, when Dutch rule had raised white prestige among the blacks, but that bonds of affection for their growing children, and dread of the humiliation of reappearing in the world of whites, deterred them. The features of these “white” negroes are much more refined and regular than those of their comrades. Some of them are so pale brown that they might be mistaken, for Arabs or South Europeans. Their manners are noticeably more restrained than those of the blacks among whom they dwell, but they realise that the taint has gone too far for them to hope ever to be received back, as racial equals, even into the humblest community of whites. Tragedy of the Grosvenor The Grosvenor sailed from India in 1782, with a valuable cargo of bullion and Eastern wares. She carried a number of passengers, including Government officials, merchants, and Army officers, with their wives and children. She made a good crossing of the Indian Ocean, but ran into a hurricane off the Cape. Failing to make headway, she changed her course, and sought shelter under the lea of the East Coast of Africa. Five-and-twenty miles north of St. John, she crashed on to the rocks. No lives were lost, but the passengers and crew, about 135 persons in all, found themselves in a serious predicament. They were very short of food and water, and in wild country infested with blood-thirsty savages. A council of war was held and plans agreed upon. The men were divided into two groups. One went south along the coast, to summon help from the first white settlement it should encounter. The other convoyed the women and children inland, in search of a defensible spot, where food and water should be obtainable. The terrible story of the fate of the main group of this 'second party will probably never be told, unless, some day, the hidden journal of a survivor of the massacre should happen to be found, perhaps buried in a bottle, perhap lying in a cave among the crags of a baboon-haunted mountain, by the side of the bones of one of its members. Great hardships were encountered by the party that went down the coast. Raw shellfish and foetid meat hacked from the carcases of stranded whales formed most of their food, and foul waters from stagnant pools and warm, muddy rivers their drink. Several times they were attacked by the blacks. Some were killed, and many died of wounds and disease. Too Latel One hundred and seventeen , days after the start from the scene of the wreck, four haggard survivors, in tattered rags of clothing, came staggering into the Dutch fort on the site of the modern city of Port Elizabeth, and revealed the fate of the Grosvenor — all the rest were dead. At once the commandant sent riders off on the first stage of the posting route to Capetown, with a message to the governor, who speedily dispatched an expeditionary force of 400 armed Dutchmen, Englishmen, and Hottentots, to the rescue of the party guarding the women and children. Three months the little army ranged to and fro in difficult country, but without being able to locate them. It did find, however, a party of persons who had become separated from the main group before disaster overtook the latter. Three of these persons were English sailors, two were Indian “ayahs” (maids), and seven were Lascars (Indian sailors). With these survivors, the force returned to Capetown, to refit. It returned in August and managed to locate the sunken ship. The only trace of the lost party of survivors, however, was the discovery that one of the ship’s cooks had been captured by native tribesmen, and had died in captivity from smallpox.