The decision of the Commissioners in the question of the Keate Award,
which next came under their consideration, appears to have been a
judicious one, being founded on the very careful Report of Colonel
Moysey, R.E., who had been for many months collecting information on the
spot. The Keate Award Territory is a region lying to the south-west
of the Transvaal, and was, like many other districts in that country,
originally in the possession of natives, of the Baralong and Batlapin
tribes. Individual Boers having, however, _more suo_ taken possession
of tracts of land in the district, difficulties speedily arose
between their Government and the native chiefs, and in 1871 Mr. Keate,
Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, was by mutual consent called in to
arbitrate on the matter. His decision was entirely in favour of the
natives, and was accordingly promptly and characteristically repudiated
by the Boer Volksraad. From that time till the rebellion the question
remained unsettled, and was indeed a very thorny one to deal with.
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