Talk:Andries Pretorius

Untitled
The word "treacherously" was removed as PoV. It should instead be replaced by something like "in a ruse that involved false assurances of saftey" (pretty much objective treachery) that is more informative, by somebody who knows what the facutal basis is. We can't tell if it was PoV, but it is unencyclopedic when thrown out w/o any background.

On the other hand, did the king have the fatal weapon in his hand, as the article states? Or is it merely established that it was done on his orders? Ordering a murder is murder, but ordering a killing is not killing.

Probably the whole article needs cleanup. --Jerzy·t 22:00, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Umm, I have subsequently replaced the text with something that should be more neutral ("under treacherous circumstances"), although this could be bettered. However, I don't agree with your addition of the whole "article cleanup" notice -- I think that its standard is already higher than most articles to which said notice gets applied.  If you have some specific points you'd like addressed, please feel free to mention it, but otherwise I will probably remove the notice after having gone through the article again. Dewet 22:41, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

--Cfogge (talk) 05:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC) May I suggest that the word "treacherously" is exactly the appropriate, correct and most descriptive adjective in the English language to describe what Dingane did. There are two documented eyewitness reports, both from British parties. As such, they'd have had little reason to be biased towards Retief. If anyone wants to make the effort to read the statement by William Wood on the events of that day, I would suggest that the person would be truly hard put to conceive of any event in known human history that was more treacherous :

Statements respecting Dingaan King of the Zulus,with some particulars relating to the massacres of Messrs. Retief and Biggar. By William Wood, Interpreter to Dingaan, Cape Town: Published by Collard & Co., 24, Heerengracht. 1840 William Wood Report

--Cfogge (talk) 06:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC) As regards the matter of Livingstone, it needs to be pointed out that in his “Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa” he says quite clearly “I received the credit of having taught the tribe to kill Boers”. Livingstone was not the innocent party that many would like to believe him to have been. Those are, after all, his very own words. Livingstone, as a member of the London Missionary Society, hated the Afrikaners. But the LMS had utterly destroyed life for the Afrikaners in the East Cape. The feeling was therefore entirely mutual. To see the consequences of the actions of the LMS, you are invited to read Emigration of the Dutch Farmers form the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, by the Hon. Henry Cloete (1852). There are two sides to any story.

The word "slavery" here is heavily "loaded" and does not belong in this article. The article could just as well have said that Pretorius "took people captive".

Quotes
Does anyone know where I can find speeches, letters or any primary source BY pretorius?