“WHITE KAFFIR’S” LIFE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 365, 28 May 1928, Page 7

“WHITE KAFFIR’S” LIFE

SHUNNED BY HIS OWN PEOPLE FERVID APPEAL TO JUDGE ' White men who lose caste and turn ! native are not uncommon, especially ! in the South Sea Islands, but there is ■ no known parallel for the case of a ' white man who has just been before : a South African court, says a writer I in a London paper. • Adopted by natives when he was I only three months old, he has lived j his 50 years of life among natives and j as a native; in fact, he is now a native ! in everything but colour. He took unto himself a black wife, but a law was recently enacted making it a crime for a white man to cohabit with a black woman, and Abraham Pelser, the man in question, was arrested, tried and convicted. I His story, told in mitigation of sen- ! tence, was dramatic and pathetic. At the age of three months he was left ' an orphan, and came under the care | of natives, -who treated him kindly and ! brought him up as one of themselves. ! His playmates were native children; he never went to school, and could neither read nor write; all his associates were black. Pelser took part in the Anglo-Boer War, and as a rebel was captured and condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and after serving two years he was released. On his return from Ceylon he went back to his native friends and associates. Later a white farmer hired j him, and in his spare time taught him I to "read the Bible. ! Pelser became a wanderer, but j everywhere he was regarded by white | people as an outcast who lived with ! natives. He never had a chance to better his position. White girls shunned him, calling him a “White Kaffir.” lu 1925 he married a native woman.

paying IS head of cattle for her. “I wanted a mate/* cried Pelser passion- ; ately. “White women wanted nothj ing to do with me, so I took this 5 woman, who has become a good wife ' to me, looks after me, and does all a • wife can do and more. I love her, and pray you have mercy, my lord, and do not separate us. Must our child grow up as I did? I want to school it; I i want to stay with its mother.” The woman also declared her Jove for Pelser, and asked for mercy for him. The judge was obviously in ; sympathy with the man and woman, I and postponed the case in order to j consult his brother judges. Subsequently, he advised Pelser to ! get some advice and legalise his position in some way. Pelser, who was ; liable to imprisonment for four years, was sentenced to 14 days’ hard labour. The woman was detained till the ris- , ing of the court.