It enabled them to acquire land and other property. It exempted them
from any compulsory service to which other subjects of the Crown were
not liable, and from 'any hindrance, molestation, fine, imprisonment or
other punishment' not awarded to them after trial in due course of law,
'any custom or usage to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.' Among
other provisions it was stipulated that wages should no longer be paid
to them in liquor or tobacco, and that, in the event of a servant having
reasonable ground of complaint against his master for ill-usage, and not
being able to bear the expense of a summons, one should be issued to him
free of charge. By this ordinance a stop was put, as far as the law
could be enforced, to the bondage, other than admitted and legalized
slavery, by which through nearly two centuries the Dutch farmers and
others had oppressed the natives whom they had deprived of their
lands."[11]

The Boers who had trekked resented every attempt at interference with
them on the part of the Cape Government with a view to their acceptance
of such principles of British Government as are expressed above. Wearied
by its hopeless efforts to restore order among the emigrant farmers, the
British Government abandoned the task, and contented itself with the
arrangement made with Andries Pretorius, in 1852, called the Sand River
Convention. This Convention conceded to "the emigrant farmers beyond the
Vaal River" "the right to manage their own affairs and to govern
themselves, without any interference on the part of Her Majesty the
Queen's Government." It was stipulated, however, that "no slavery is or
shall be permitted or practised in the country to the north of the Vaal
River by the emigrant farmers." This stipulation has been made in every
succeeding Convention down to that of 1884. These Conventions have been
regularly agreed to and signed by successive Boer Leaders, and have been
as regularly and successively violated.