In addition to its ordinary policing duties, it was a para-military organisation, which saw active service in several campaigns and operations, including the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902).
The force was fully militarised in 1913 and transferred to the new South African Army as a mounted rifle regiment.
There were para-military mounted police forces in Griqualand West and the northern border districts.
"[2] However, in the case of any war or other emergency, the government could deploy them to assist with the defence of the colony, within or beyond its borders.
District 7 (HQ : Kimberley)[4] covered the major urban area of the diamond-mining province of Griqualand West.
Annual reports, tabled in Parliament, show that cases of assault, breaches of the peace, contraventions of laws and regulations, drunkenness, loitering, public nuisances, theft, trespassing and vagrancy were routine.
[9] In 1887, District 7's headquarters staff survived two attempts to poison them with arsenic, presumably to undermine law enforcement in Kimberley.
During the 1896–97 rinderpest epidemic, CP District 2 was ordered to ensure that infected livestock were killed.
Batswana leaders resisted the order, leading to armed conflict and a lengthy standoff in the Langberg mountains.
Units of CP District 2 were attached to the military Bechuanaland Field Force for the eight-month-long operation.
On 1 April 1904, the three districts were amalgamated under Robinson's command, and the CP was renamed Cape Mounted Police.
[25] In November 1906, an armed gang led by the Ferreira brothers entered the northern Cape from German South West Africa, with the object of stirring up anti-British rebellion.
[25] In September 1907, at the request of the government of German South West Africa, the CMP tracked down the Herero resistance leader Jacob Morenga, who had escaped to the Cape Colony and taken refuge in the Kalahari.
A CMP detachment under Major Heathfield Eliott, cornered Morenga near Witpan, and killed him in the ensuing shootout.
[27] When the Cape Colony was incorporated into the new Union of South Africa in May 1910, the CMP and the UPDs were placed under the control of the new national ministry of justice.