such contingencies as the relative density ofthe white and the black popula-
tions and the energy of the veldkornets and the African chiefs.73
The Africans living in chiefdoms and kingdoms around the periphery of
the republics were subjected to intermittent
attacks by commandos.
Quickly appreciating the value of firearms, they made great efforts to arm
themselves. Many traders made handsome profits by supplying arms in
defiance of republican and colonial laws. The republican Afrikaners tried
to stop this illegal trade by punishing gunrunners severely.In an episode
that became notorious, a Transvaal commando once destroyed the proper-
ty of David Livingstone, the missionary and explorer, when Livingstone
was absent from his mission station, on the grounds that he had been
arming the Kwena chief Sechele or repairing his guns.Z"The mob that
ousted ]osias Hoffman, the first president of the Orange FreeState, in 1855
did so because he had given the Lesotho king Moshoeshoe a small keg of
gunpowder as a diplomatic gesture.i" But the trade continued; in fact,
traders could not transport sufficient arms to the African territories to
meet the demand. The shortfall was met by Africans traveling to the Cape
Colony or Natal, working there for white people for several months, and