AFRICANWARSAND WHITEINVADERS
(peoples' council) of twenty-four men, with legislative, executive, and judi-
cial authority. The Volksraad in turn appointed a military commandant
and sketched out a scheme of local administration
under landdrosts,
heemraden, and veldkornets, as in the Cape Colony before the British
innovations. That, however, remained a blueprint rather than a reality. The
embryonic Natal Republic lacked capital and administrative personnel
and was hampered by further quarrels among would-be leaders.
In the emigrants' efforts at statemaking, one crucial issue went without
question: they limited citizenship to the members of their community of
Dutch-speaking people of European descent who had quit the Cape Colo-
ny to found an independent state. 4 7 Other people of European origin were
to be treated with suspicion, but if they gave proof of their loyalty a few
might safely be absorbed. Their community, however, was not a complete
society. It was the dominant part of a society that included servants of
African, Asian, and mixed descent. Those they assumed to be of a separate
species. Indeed, they often referred to them as skepsels (creatures) rather
than mense (people). That was what custom prescribed, self-interest de-