Afspillet
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We’re into an extremely tough time in our past, 1851, and about to hear about the struggle for control of an area of the Amatolas that the Boers had named Waterkloof - better known by local amaXhosa as Mtontsi. It was a case of jungle warfare as you’re going to hear.
The area of operation was only 40 square kilometers and yet it remained out of Britains control for most of the 8th Frontier War.
If you have an old steam driven hard copy map of the area, or can fire up your trusty digital device of choice, go to Google maps and focus on the area between the Kat and Koenap Rivers, to the west of the town of kwaMaqoma which used to be known as Fort Beaufort. Just to add a bit of post-modern spice here, nearby Cookhouse wind Farm is one of the largest in South Africa on the high ridge east of the Great Fish River.
The Waterkloof itself is a deep, narrow valley, six kilometres long, bounded by the Kroomie Heights to the south and to the north by a second series of majestic ridges falling away to a rolling plateau. Running roughly south-east and open at its western side, it comes to a head in a high, grassy tableland fringed with bushes and gigantic trees. To the east, this tableland falls away into another deep, heavily-forested gorge, known as Fuller's Hoek.
It was in this gorge, in a gigantic overhanging cave of a type that proliferates in the area, that amaNqika chief Maqoma had his headquarters.
The plateau is linked to the Kroomie by a narrow ridge and where this joins the plateau is a 'horseshoe-shaped flat', approximately a square kilometre in area and fringed by towering forests. In due course it would be named 'Mount Misery' by the British troops who fought in or near there.
In the mountain fastnesses above, there are two reserves today - Mpofu and Fort Fordyce. Here you’ll still find the Chacma baboon, black wildebeest on the escarpment, blue duiker, mountain reedbuck. If you’re lucky you’ll spot the Cape Parrot, and eagles, while the playful Knysna Loeries abound. The Caracal is the largest predator there these days, but in the past leopards would stalk here - eating a snack of rock dassie.
By February 1851 the bitterness of the 8th Frontier War was becoming more evident with descriptions of British troops being captured and tortured to death by the amaXhosa. Settlers and regular troops marched through the Thyumie valley in February in revenge, burning everything and carrying a flag which had the word “Extermination” emblazoned for all the see.
Governor Sir Harry Smith had advocated extermination of the amaXhosa and the Khoekhoe in letters and conversations - he was panikcing besieged in King Williams Town and chaos was the order of the day - the governor was lashing out. No quarter was being given by either side - man against man.
Somerset was stung into action. On 7th September he sent a large patrol into the Waterkloof, 600 men from the 74th Highland Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Fordyce.
The man who was to give both his name and his life to these mountains. -
Cape Governor Harry Smith had made his escape from Fort Cox to King Williams’ Town, and was now hoping for help in the form of 3000 Zulu warriors.
The British had mucked things up on the frontier, and most of their old allies the Khoekhoe of the Kat River Settlement had decided to rise up, along with the amaXhosa.
The Boers were also not in any mood to send help, in fact, the destabilisation was in their favour, it drew English troops away from the transOrangia Region.
Mlanjeni the prophet had told the Xhosa that this was the time to drive the English into the sea - and Maqoma the amaRharhabe chief of the amaNhlambe was all to ready to do just that.
It was new Year, 1851.
In a few days, the Taiping Rebellion - or Civil War as some call it - would begin in China. And like the uprising in the Cape, a man who claimed super powers was behind this war in Asia. Hong Xiuquan was an ethnic Hakka man who claimed to be related to Jesus Christ and was trying to convert the local Han people to his syncretic version of Christianity.
Xiuquan was trying to overthrow the Qing dynasty and the Taiping rebels were hell bent on should I say, heaven bent on upending the entire country’s social order. Eventually the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom based in Nanjing managed to seize a significant portion of southern China. It was to become the bloodiest war of the 19th Century, lasting 14 years.
Back on the eastern Cape frontier, the settlers were facing the amaXhosa rage and fury, frustration that had built up over generations burst into the 8th Frontier War. Maqoma had warned the errant missionary George Brown that a war was coming of cruelty never seen before in southern AFrica.
Some called it the first war of colour, a general war of the races. The Kat River people rebelled, some Khoekhoe soldiers rebelled, some of the famous Cape Mounted Rifles men mutinied, the amaThembu people under Maphasa, so important to Xhosa tradition, joined the Xhosa. amaNhlambe chief Siyolo, the best soldier amongst the amaXhosa, had cut off the road between King WilliamsTown and Grahamstown.
And yet, in this frontier war it wasn’t just black versus white - oh no. As you’ll hear, Black South Africans fought for the British, and there were incidents of British soldiers who mutinied and joined the amaXhosa. amaNgqika men upset at how they’d been treated by their own countrymen worked for the colonists in this war, not the mention the amaMfengu people who the amaXhosa regarded as illegal immigrants on their land - there was no love lost between these two either.
To merely describe this war as blacks versus whites is to commit historical incongruity.
Sandile met with Maqoma in the first days of 1851 in order to work out a series of offensive moves against the British. Hermanus Matroos, who you met last episode was leading a powerful battalion sized group of amaXhosa and Khoesan fighters. Willem Uithaalder, former Cape Mounted Rifles cavalryman, was also fighting the British — his knowledge about how to go about focusing attacks was key. -
Episode 186 it is - we’re taking a closer look at theological suppositions, ecclesiastical superstitions, magic and myth.
Some housekeeping - first thanks to John for taking the time to send a note regarding ecclesiastical and to Mphuthumi for your message about Nkosi Maqoma - I’ll get hold of your book, The Broken River Tent published in 2017.
In this episode we’re going to plunge into a sea of mystery because we’re going to investigate the incredibly diverse history of situations where people believe they can turn bullets into water - or where traditional methods were deployed to deflect incoming projectiles.
These are widely held beliefs which surface in popular ‘millenarian’ movements – usually
uprisings against colonial conditions.
You’ve heard how Mlanjeni’s philosophy had motivated so many to take up arms against the invaders, his message of salvation had spread throughout the Cape. amaXhosa and other people felt it resonated with personally, so they gravitated towards the prophet. amaXhosa chiefs like Maqoma and the paramount Sandile realised that Mlanjeni had the power of persuasion and visited the prophet.
But they weren’t alone because by the mid-nineteenth century, charismatic men and women like Mlanjeni of the amaXhosa had taken to mixing Christianity and animist faiths to create a new way to deal with colonisation. This is a classic process in social structures. The old ways were failing — how could assegai’s beat artillery?
Turn to enchantment, wizadry, spellcraft, mysticism. The missionaries had closely interwoven their Christian message with western civilisation, diametrically opposed to traditionalism. So prophets like Mlanjeni seized part of their narrative, the salvation message, and merged it rather than opposed it using traditional views to distinguish themselves from the missionaries, to coopt the power so to speak.
An ancient philosophy rooted in a world view now threatened by a new industrial powerhouse alter itself, took hold of the strengths of the invader and mixed the message.
Missionaries had preached salvation and many of these millenarian movements used part of the story of the Bible, exodus, the crucifixion, Christ rising from the dead, combined with their own ancient myths and legends, to create a really potent new doctine that made sense.
This is all linked to what anthropoligists and psychologists call Cognate epistemology. It was identified as something that occured between southern African hunters, herders and farmers, San Khoe and bantu speakers. Cross-cultural convictions emerge amongst people who share a common landscape.
Cognate epistemology is the study of knowledge—how we know what we know — exploring questions like "What is knowledge?" and "How do we acquire this knowledge?”
I am by no means denegrating those who believe this. Because another way of thinking about cognate epistemology is how folks like to dive deeply into that pool of disinformation called X and or WhatsApp, sharing social media bilge. The very idea of an influencer itself, correlates almost exactly with those who seek cognate connectivity — advertisers also deploy this concept constantly.
So go tell your favourite influencer on TikTok that they’re indulging in Cognate Epistemology.
When Fort Hare was attacked at 9am on the morning of 21st January 1851, six thousand warriors were yelling Bolowana as they descended on the fortified post. This was going to be the most decisive event of the 8th Frontier War and amaXhosa chief Sandile knew it. -
This is episode 184 and we’re picking up our story on old year’s eve 1850. Last episode, we heard how Cape Governor Harry Smith was holed up in Fort Cox, and the amaXhosa were in control of most of British Kaffraria - the 8th Frontier War was in full flow.
There were fears amongst the settlers that the war would spread as far as the Cape Colony, and the five thousand British troops stationed in southern Africa were spread as far as across the Orange River. What was also unclear was what was going on across the Kei, had the Gcaleka and Paramount chief Sandile decided to join in with Maqoma and Mlonjeni?
Also unclear was the situation in all the villages and towns, and what about the amaGqunukhwebe - were they going to remain neutral?
Missionary George Brown was still searching for his wife Janet and their infant — he didn’t know yet that she’d was on her way to Fort White and was safe. When we left off, Brown had been accosted close to his mission station at Iqibira, where Chief Maqoma who led the rebellion demanded he answer questions. We had also met Maqoma’s main translator who historians believe was Hermanus Matroos although he never formally introduced himself to Brown.
The reason why we’ve spent some time talking about Matroos is because he had convinced many in the Kat River Settlement Khoekhoe to join the uprising against the British. One raid too many by the redcoats into the Kat River, following years of being bad mouthed by the English Settlers led by the odious editor of the Grahamstown Journal Robert Godlonton, had pushed the Khoekhoe over the edge.
Mlanjeni the prophet had preached that an uprising against the British would succeed and so far he appeared to be 100 percent correct.
It was Sunday 29th December and on that very day, Colonel Henry Somerset — commanding officer of the frontier forces and commanding officer of the Cape Mounted Rifles, was on his horse heading towards Fort Cox.
He was trying to save Governor Sir Harry Smith who was besieged there - out although his dispatch riders had failed to pierce the amaXhosa warrior perimeter the previous night. Somerset was in his 60s, and quite a sight he was. Large handlebar moustache, was dapper in dress, but regularly almost useless in his actions.
This was the man upon which the entire British response dangled. Somerset’s father was Lord Charles, who had returned home after his stint as Governor of the Cape between 1814 and 1826 and died in 1837 at the age of 63.
His men loved him because he preferred sending them to the beach with a band than into the bracken with a rifle. By now he was seen as the beau ideal of a cavalry officer of the old regime.
One trooper wrote that he was
“…a fine looking old man, a regular Vieux d’Afrique…”
Or "Old Man of Africa"
And to make things worse, the defeat of the 91st was not the only bad news on Sunday 29th December 1850 — Somerset was to hear that Hermanus Matroos had convinced his fellow Khoekhoe and coloured brethren in the Kat River Settlement to join the amaXhosa uprising.
Attention turned quite swiftly to the Khoekhoe men of the Cape Mounted Rifles where some had already joined the Xhosa war. -
Episode 183 it is, and we’re going to take stock as we enter 1851.
In war, truth is the first casualty. It’s a military maxim attributed to Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy. Aeschylus actually fought in the front lines against the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC.
We don’t know much about the rest of his life, but we do know that his work called 'Persians' which was financed by Pericles was such a success that he was invited to Sicily by Hieron of Syracuse to restage the play.
His life bridged the Archaic and Classical ages. Considered even by the ancients to be difficult and old-fashioned, Aeschylus was also quite innovative in the structures, personnel, and even subjects of his 89 plays, of which we have only seven.
Later, in In 1758 the famous lexicographer Samuel Johnson penned a short item in “The Idler" which included the following statement ..
‘
“Among the calamities of War may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.”
Credulity. A willingness to believe whatever is dished up. The lovers of social media are infected by a disease called credulity. In this series I have endeavoured to avoid relying on credulity by constantly referring to original sources, documents, oral history, cross-referencing where I can.
There is nothing more important than deploying verification. Credulity is the tendency to be too ready to believe that something is real or true, often without sufficient evidence or critical examination. It refers to a person's inclination to accept claims or assertions with little skepticism or questioning.
Southern African history is full of credulity being punctured by reality. Most politicians make a living out of abusing credulity.
With that melodromatic introduction, let us dive into the deep pool of tangibility regarding Mlanjeni’s War, the 8th Frontier War which broke out on Christmas day 1850. The military villages along the Thyumie River were gone, burned down, dozens of British soldiers were dead, killed in Boma Pass or killed in their military villages named Auckland, Juanasburg and Woburn.
In the mountains above Thyumie River, missionary Niven and his family had walked out of Keiskamma hoek and straight into a party of amaXhosa warriors. It is true that respected Rharhabe chief Ngqika had declared the missionaries and their homes protected, but that was twenty years ago and the respected chief was long gone.
Into our story steps one of the most remarkable characters we’ve heard about thus far, a man called Hermanus Matroos.
Brown was to remark later later that Matroos
“… spoke English more precisely than I have ever heard any other native do…”
Hermanus Matroos, otherwise known as Ngxukumeshe enters our tale, a large and imposing man, broad shouldered, powerful. Hermanus means army man, warrior, brave warrior and comes from the German, Herman. Matroos means sailor. And Ngxukumeshe means in the vanguard - at the front. These names fit the man, a warrior born of a slave sailor, a man who was always at the front of everything. -
Welcome to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham, this is episode 182.
182 is a triangular number meaning it can be arranged in an equilateral triangle — specifically it is the 13th triangle number because 13x4 Divided by 2 is 182.
And it’s a death triangle that the British were facing now - facing amaXhosa prophecy, a blazing hot environment not conducive to their warfare, and the amaXhosa chiefs who were stacking up against the invaders.
When we left off, the British column under Lieutenant Colonel George Mackinnon was trying to make it back to Fort White having been whipped by the amaXhosa in the Boma Pass. It’s important to note that all 12 British killed in that ambush were shot.
Previously in the first seven Frontier Wars, most soldiers were stabbed by amaXhosa wielding assegais, but now the boot was on the other foot. And yet in the coming months of war, the Xhosa would use their trusty assegai’s to good effect as you’re going to hear.
It was Boxing Day 1850, a year in which the transportation of British convicts to Western Australia had begun just as it was being phased out in other parts of that territory. In June 1850 Former Twice-Served British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel fell off his horse and died.
Mayer Lehman sailed from Germany to join his two brothers in the United States, who were running a dry-goods business, a pre-cursor to the doomed Lehman Brothers bank which collapsed in 2007 and took the world’s economy with it.
Also in the United States, Edward Ralph May delivered a speech to the Indiana legislature where he called for African-Americans to be given the right to vote. This was a period when slavery was still legal in the U.S., ten years before the civil War.
In southern Africa, Mackinnon’s men had been shot at through Christmas by Sandile’s warriors who were imbued with Prophet Mlanjeni’s magic - and now the troops were trying to escape what looked like certain doom. They’d bivouacked overnight at the Uniondale mission station at Keiskamma Hoek.
It hadn’t helped that Mackinnon stuck to his original orders like a limpet to a rock. Governor Sir Harry Smith had ordered that the men should march with firearms unloaded to avoid any accidents, and despite the fact that a large army of amaXhosa were now tailing the British as they were force marched to Fort White, the muskets remained unloaded.
In nearby Woburnin for example, homes had been built at Ngqika’s warrior son Thyali’s grave. As you’ve heard the ex-British soldiers living there had opened up and desecrated the grave. For the Ngqika line of the Rharhabe - this military village would be their first main target.
The amaNgqika had watched the vets till their land, they lived cheek by jowel. The land that had recently been their forefathers.
The little river between Woburn and the amaNgqika was easy to cross except when in full spate, and a large amaXhosa army crossed the river on Christmas Day 1850, and laid waste to Woburn which they attacked at nine in the morning.
Sixteen ex-soldiers farmed here some with families, and they were overrun in less than an hour - the women and children spared, the men speared or shot.
The nearby military village of Auckland was attacked at two in the afternoon, it lay in a a bowl at the head of the Thyumie River valley and this was a trap from which none of the soldiers would escape. There was no clear view down into the valley which meant they had no idea what was taking place they could not see the smoke from Woburn and the little village of Juanasberg.
When a Khoekhoe woman struggled up the path on Christmas morning and told the inhabitants of Auckland she had spotted smoke from the other villages, she was ignored.
Across the other side of the Amatola mountains, the British troops who’d managed to make it out of Boma Passthen marched off from Keiskamma hoek heading to Fort White, were suffering in the mid-summer heat. -
Episode 180 it is then so let’s get cracking.
Or crackling, which was the atmosphere in late 1850 as Xhosaland and British Kaffraria was seized by the exploits of prophet Mlanjeni.
He’d combined world views, his messianic emergence shook the land as far away as Cape Town.
AS a sickly young man from near King Williams Town, he’d disappeared to work in the Cape Colony and returned in 1850 claiming to have been living under the sea. Not quite Sponge Bob because unlike that loveable kids character, Mlanjeni said it was during his stint underwater that God spoke to him.
You’ll remember how I explained that Mlanjeni took to sitting in pools in nearby rivers and streams, the water lapping against his face as he sat deep in thought.
At first he seemed to be in sync with the missionaries and the Governor Harry Smith, saying the amaXhosa should abandon witchcraft, avoid raiding settler cattle and so on. However his message morphed as I explained, and very soon he was exorting his numerous adherents to stop burning the wood of gum trees — an invasive species — he believed the exotic tree symbolised white influence.
Word spread, and some began saying that Mlanjeni had miraculous powers, he could light his pipe from the sun, he wore his face on one cheek so he could spot witches and paralyse them.
When the missionaries heard that he was also saying that he could heal the sick, give sight to the blind, to make the mute speak and the lame walk. He refused to accept gifts, and the chiefs and commoners streamed to his home. Then the British tried to arrest him and he disappeared, thus growing more power in the eyes of his adherents.
We need to focus on these religious matters, so a quick return to the men in black.
The missionaries were in a spot. Robert Niven of the United Presbyterian Church was holding forth in Keiskamma hoekDown the road was a man who you could say was taking his position as missionary into the missionary position.
George Brown lived on the plains below the Amatolas, not far from the Thyumi valley, arriving in early 1849. At first people noted how he had a kind and manly appearance. But very soon, however, the manly appearance took on a reverential lust — a scandalous man as you’ll hear.
But first, he seduced the young Janet Chalmers, William Chalmers daughter, and John Forbes Cumming hated him so much for this act, that the two men spoke only through letters. Brown was forced to marry Janet Chalmers in August 1850, five months pregnant.Harry Smith by now was on the frontier, and Sandile’s mother Sutu who was Ngqika’s widow, went to the Thyumi mission station on 9th December to speak with him. She asked why the English wanted another war. Smith said that the chiefs were not paying fines and she warned
“You have taken away all my power, you take away the power of the chiefs, and then you find fault with us for not keeping the people in order…”
Christmas Eve was the date selecte by Harry Smith as the day his intimidatory force as Noel Mostert Called it, up the Boma Pass into the Amatola mountains. It was exactly sixteen years to the day of the outbreak of the Frontier War of 1834. -
This is episode 179 and the prophet Mlanjeni is about to emerge. His story is one of the phenomenal tales of our land, he joined an already fairly long list of colonial era fighters who imbued their struggle against encroaching settlers with a combination of christian salvation ethos and a narrative full of amaXhosa ancient mystery and magic.
If you recall last episode, Mlanjeni had been calling all local spiritual leaders to his home, where they were to pass between two poles that had been cleansed and purified.
After this other rank and file amaXhosa were being called to be cleansed by Mlanjeni from his — village amongst the Ndlambe people — a people who were now being administered by Commissioner John Maclean.
As you heard last episode Maclean had written a brief message to Governor Harry Smith about the rising excitement amongst the amaXhosa about Umlanjeni’s prophecies. It was Messianic paradigm, eventually morphing into the a mythos about the triumphant resurrection of the ancestors who were going to drive the English back into the sea.
This message has been repeated since.
So let’s take a much closer look at Prophet Umlanjeni. What made him tick?
By the time he was a youth of 18, he had begun to fast regularly in the manner of all other messianic messengers like Moses or Mohammed — a process guaranteed to lead to hallucination. Without going too far into the weeds here, those who go on hunger strike or fast extensively report there is an incredible psychological impact.
Fasting beyond 72 hours for example causes a deficiency in nutrients, muscles begin to break down, dizziness and dehydration occur. As the prophet continues to fast, hallucinations can be extreme, as electrolyte imbalances trigger brain malfunction leading to delirium.
IT was in this delirius state the Umlanjeni found his happy place. And as psychologists will tell you, those with preexisting mental conditions should not fast beyond what is accepted as healthy.
When Mlanjeni called his people to the two poles for cleansing, he could barely walk he was so frail from his fastidious fasting. It was 18th August 1850 when Maclean first heard about this wardoctor, who at this point merely appeared to be a somewhat misguided youngster with pre-existing mental conditions.
Mlanjeni, like the previous wardoctor Nxele, had lived in the Cape Colony and heard the messages of Christianity and Islam. When he returned to the Ndlambe people living near the Amatola mountains, people say he had changed. His family said he took to sitting in a nearby river, in the still waters of a pool, sitting here in water up to his neck, musing on the world, refusing to eat.
He said he was talking to the spirit world, to his ancestors and he was infused with divine powers, endowed with the capacity to relay the messages from the ancients to the amaXhosa. He was told he had to purify his people, and the way he was going to do this was similar to War Doctor Nxele, also known as Makana.
He said the ubuthi was the root cause of all amaXhosa suffering, linked to disease and death, and he declared “Let us cast it away, and come to me to be cleansed…”
Normally, a grandiose claim of this sort from a troubled youth would have been ignored, but the amaXhosa across the Cape were ripe and ready for such a message. Their leaders had failed them, the traditional ways had failed them, and here was a messiah, preaching in a manner that was uplifting.
And a succession of British blunders were to take place which exacerbated the situation. -
The mid-nineteenth Century was like the calm before the storm with the discovery of diamonds a decade away, and then the wars between the Boers and Brits, and the Brits and amaZulu a glimmer in the imperial eye.
Moshoeshoe was gaining power amongst the Basotho, and to the east, Mpande continued to dream of crushing the amaSwazi.
But to the South on Christmas Day 1850, another frontier war in a long and bitter series between the Cape colony and the amaXhosa erupted in the wake of the witchcraft eradication processes enforced by Governor Harry Smith.
I spent much of last episode explaining the religious and social ethos and differences between the empire and missionaries on one side, and the amaXhosa and their spiritual leaders on the other.
Mlanjeni one of these spiritual leaders was the driver of this attempt by the amaXhosa to throw off the yoke of the empire. Andries Stockenstrom had been warning the British for some time that their tone-deaf and blunt attempts at destroying the power of the amaXhosa chiefs was not just chafing the people of British Kaffraria, but becoming dangerous.
Smith had been compelled to maintain a heavy force of patrols in this territory to enforce the removals of the amaXhosa from land now allocated to English farmers and dislodge those who’d returned to places from which they’d already been driven.
It was like the very definition of madness. The British authorities were repeating exactly what they’d done to the Xhosa before the Seventh Frontier War of 1846 and 1847.
Since then they’d been very busy.
The British had laid out an extensive series of roads and forts, centred on King Williams’ Town which was the main pivot for this grid of power in and around the Amatola mountains. The town was about 22 kilometers south of the base of these picturesque peaks, on the banks of the Buffalo River which provided protection against assault from the high ground.
It was the Boma Pass down to the Keiskamma River that troubled the British soldiers most, it also extended upwards into the Amatola mountains behind the Fort to a point known as Keiskamma Hoek — the source of the Keiskamma where another mission station called Uniondale was located. This is not to be confused with the town of Uniondale in the Karoo.
After looking out from Keiskamma Hoek, taking in the scenic views, swept up in the wonder of the beauty of this region, you’d climb back on your intrepid pony and head back down the trail past Fort Cox and Burnshill, towards Fort White, and then onwards another 30 kilometers or so to Fort Hare.
Many military historians have fixated on the British propensity to forget what they’d learned in previous wars, it was a kind of disease of the age, which would become a pandemic during the Anglo-Boer War, then a catastrophic forgetfulness by the First World War.
The Khoekhoe were now extremely angry at the British authorities for messing around with the Kat River Settlement agreements, and the Boers had been embittered by Harry Smith’s unilateral annexation of the TransOrangia region. This grew into a seething hatred when Smith had a young Boer called Thomas Dreyer executed.
With so many Boers gone in the Great Trek, the British had to rely on the Khoekhoe and unfortunately for the people of the Kat River, the people now being called the coloured people, opprobrium and malice were heaped upon them. Who needs enemies when the British treated their friends like this? -
We’re plunging into the developments of the 1850s now and this is episode 177.
In numerology the digits 1 and 7 are significant,1 represents new beginnings and leadership, while 7 is often associated with spirituality and introspection.
So it’s no mistake this this episode probes spirituality and introspection - and leadership.
Not that I necessarily ascribe to the tenets of numerology, but its a useful way into a sensitive subject.
By mid-19th Century, most of the game of the Cape, from the north, the east to the south, had been shot out. The amaXhosa had been driven across the Fish River in 1812, out of the Kat River Valley in 1829, then right past the Keiskamma River in 1847.
None of the land they lived on west of the Kei was secure, no longer did the sons of the chiefs leave their dad’s homesteads to seek out their own virgin territory because there was none left.
In the old days, when a man died his hometead was burned down and vacated where as now and the new cattle enclosure was built back to back with the old one. Dwellings were clustered closer together, and not everyone lived near a river unlike the century before.
This was change, and now drought took on calamatous forms. Before the people could move to water now they were stuck on the landscape. So it was not surprising that given the pressures of people and animals, the first great cattle lungsickness to be registered in this region followed hard on the land losses of 1850 to 1853.
The amaXhosa men were now labouring for the very people who had supplanted them, deprived of their means of subsistence and independence. Many amaXhosa had worked for the farmers and settlers before this time, and contrary to most reports, many were quite happy to do so because they earned cash, and left when they felt like it.
The standard of living on these farms determined how long the workers remained at least until this period of our history. The option of leaving at their own discretion eroded rapidly as the access to cattle as wealth eroded. The smaller Xhosaland could no longer support the population. Even within Xhosaland the men and women were now unconsciously working for the settlers by growing forage they sold to the farms, and then making some money to buy textiles and pots and pans.
Here is the crux of the contradiction in colonialism. That the people who bought the clothing preferred to buy this clothing than manufacture their skin karosses of yore, and yet, by doing so, they were becoming dependent on the cash they made from their labour.
As colonial intervention increased, a seachange in Xhosa politics took place. The petty rivalries of the various chiefs was encouraged by some of colonial officials, the divide and rule precursor and the new governor Sir Harry Smith was particularly active in his attempts to divide the royal line of the amaXhosa and the commoners.
This was not working. He’d try to ban lobola, he’d tried to usurp the power of the chiefs, but the commoners did not buy into the British plan. It was such a cynical move that the commoners despite little access to power, preferred their chiefs and an age of proper resistance to colonialism began.
This is the period that saw the rise of leaders who would be recalled all the way through the struggle period during apartheid, names like Hintsa, Sarhili, Ndlambe, Chungwa, Maqoma, Tyhali and Sandile.
As I’ve pointed out through this series, the grafting of two types of cosmology together, the ancient African legends and power ethos, with a salvation tale through the story of the cross, featured throughout our history of connection. -
This is episode 174.
First off, a big thank you to all the folks who’ve supported me and for sharing so many personal stories of your ancestry. Particularly Jane who is a font of knowledge about the Williams family, and John who’s been communicating about the Transkei.
Please also sign up for the weekly newsletter by heading off to desmondlatham.blog - you can also email me from that site.
When we left off episode 173, King Mswati the first was running out of patience with his elder brother Somcuba. Voortrekker leader Hendrick Potgieter had also left the area north of the Swazi territory, settling in the Zoutpansberg. It was his last trek.
He’d signed a treaty with Bapedi chief Sekwati, which had precluded any proper agreement with the other Voortrekkers around Lydenburg. With Potgieter gone, however, things were about to change.
We need to swing back across the vast land to the region south of the Vaal River because dramatic events were taking place in 1848 - clashes between the British empire and the trekkers. By now, the area between the Orange and the Vaal was an imbroglio, elements of every type of society that existed in southern Africa for millennia could be found scattered across the region.
Hunters and gatherers, pastoralists, farmers, San, Khoesan, Khoekhoe, BaSotho, Afrikaners, Boers, mixed race Griqua and Koranna, and British settlers could be found here. In some cases different combinations of these peoples lived together cheek by jowel, many combinations of cultures, languages and political systems. A classic frontier situation, with intermingling and very little structured relationship charactersing the mingling. Some of the San, Khoekhoe and even Basotho were now incorporated as servants of the Boers, and each of those groups were divided into rival political commuties.
Bands of San still hunted through this area, despite attempts to eradicate them, a kind of ethnic cleansing you’ve heard about. In the south east, on either side of the Caledon River, rival Sotho states existed, under Moshoeshoe, Moletsane, Sikonyela, and Moroka — each of these had their own tame missionary living alongside as an insurance policy against each other and the British and Boers.
By 1848 the new Governor of the Cape, Sir Harry Smith, had begun to experiment with British expansionism that he’d observed in India, assuming British culture and traditions, the empire’s institutions, were superior to all other. Smith loved to oversimplify complex problems, and the made him a natural expansionist and a man likely to make big mistakes. Within two months of arriving in Cape Town in December 1847, he had extended the frontiers of the Cape Colony to the Orange River in the arid north west of the Cape. This was between the area known as Ramah and the Atlantic Ocean. He’d annexed the land between the Keiskamma River and the Kraai River Basin in the east, booted out the amaXhosa, and annexed two contiguous areas as seperate British colonies — British Caffraria between the Keiskamma and the Kei River, and a second area that became known as the Orange River Sovereignty between the Orange and Vaal Rivers. Pretorius was so incensed that he began fanning the flames of anti-British opposition, or probably to be more accurate, anti-Smith opposition. This resentment boiled over in July 1848 when Pretorius with commandants Stander, Kock and Mocke led a powerful force of 200 Transvalers and about 800 Free Staters along with a 3 pounder artillery gun into Bloemfontein. The preamble to the Battle of Boomplaats had begun. -
This is episode 173 and we’re in what was called the north eastern transvaal, modern day Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
Last we heard how Hendrick Potgieter’s Voortrekkers had camped at a new town they named Ohrigstad in 1845, after leaving the are around Potchefstroom. Potgieter wanted to move further away from the British, and he sought a new port to replace Durban which had been annexed by the English.
The area around Ohrigstad had a major drawback, apart from the fact it was already populated by the Bapedi. The lowlands were rife with malaria. Within a few weeks of arriving in the rainy season of 1845, men women and children began dying. The trekkers realised they had to move once more so families packed up their wagons and trekked to higher ground 50 kilometers south.
The named the new town Lydenburg and established a new Republic named after the town. The Boers were gathered across the Vaal now, deep into the lowveld, spreading out across southern Africa. They had congregated around towns like Winburg, Potchefstroom, Ohrigstad, Lydenburg.
Local African chieftans had to decide how they were going to face this arrival, was it a threat or opportunity? Later it would obviously become clear that the boers arrival was a threat, but this wasn’t the case at first in spite of modern assumptions. They were new power brokers, thinly spread, a minority on the ground and the Bapedi Chief Sekwati quickly came to the conclusion that the trekkers were an opportunity rather than threat.
So when Hendrick Potgieter and his trekkers rolled onto the landscape, a meeting was arranged between the Boer leader and the Bapedi chief. On the 5th July 1845 a Vredenstractaat was signed - a treaty - which granted the Boers the land east of the Steelpoort River. As I pointed out last episode, many of the Boers who had trekked with Potgieter took exception to this treaty. They said he was acting dictatorially, and wanted more of a say in how these treaties were being signed.
King Mswati of the Swazi’s who lived south east of this region was aware of what was going on. The Boers understood that he also laid claim to the Steelpoort, and had been fighting constantly with Sekwati about who had the right to this region. Mswati met with this group of disatissfied Boers, and told them that the Bapedi were his subjects, he’d defeated them.
The Boers under Potgieter and the second group who regarded themselves as independent of Potgieter’s actions continued to settle on Bapedi land and friction developed. The Bapedi took a liking to the Boer cattle, and raids escalated quite quickly into full-blown attacks between the two groups on the veld. Sekwati had heard about the Boers and Mswati’s recent talks, so naturally he was suspicious of their motives.
The Bapedi king encouraged the raiding of Boer cattle so by 1846 bad faith seemed to imbue all negotiations. Then an incident occurred that escalated matters. According to the Bapedi annals, the Boers complained that in joint Boer-Bapedi hunting parties the Bapedi had taken more than their allotted share of game. The Boer annals report something much more violent.
That was the Bapedi raid on a Boer laager at Strydpoort, just south of modern day Polokwane. The trekkers were particularly angry because the Bapedi raided the laager on a day that most of the men were away hunting with a section of Bapedi, leaving the women alone. It was the women who fought off the attackers. There are poignant stories told by trekkers who survived how the women were knocked flat on their backs every time they fired these huge heavy muskets, leaving them bruised and battered but unbowed.
There is further intrigue. The Trekkers had no idea about who owned which bit of land, they naturally assumed that Mswati was the overlord considering his people’s military social structure, similar to the amaZulu who by now, they knew well. What followed was intrigue, mystery, myth and of course, war. -
This is episode 172 and we’re galloping back to cover the effect of the Boers 33 Articles, approved by the Volksraad on April 9th 1844, and thus installing the little Republic of Potchefstroom.
Some of the articles and the fledgling laws and rules were going to crop up throughout the history of South Africa, all the way through to the time of apartheid, and even to the present.
If you recall, the Natal Boers and the Vaal Boers had been in dispute — largely because of the difference of opinion between their two leaders, Hendrick Potgieter on the highveld, and Andries Pretorius who had been based in Natal.
With the British declaring sovereignty over Natal, many Voortrekkers upped and offed, trekking back over the Drakensberg back to the transOrangia region, and up along the Vaal, while some ended up further north.
So we’re going to take a look at this period. In 1849 there was a temporary union between the communities north of the Vaal, who adopted what amounted to the basis of what was to become the Transvaal Constitution. This constitution continued until the foundation of the South African Republic — which was only repealed in 1901 when its provisions ceased to be applicable.
That is except for the application of the Roman-Dutch system of law. The thing to keep in mind was that the 33 Articles cannot be regarded as a formal constitution. For a start, there was no definition of various authorities in the State, and most of the 33 Articles were concerned with the procedure in the Courts.
When it came to matters of Government, even the most elementary kind, the Articles were silent. Each emergency that arose subsequent to it’s ratification in 1844 led to a rewriting of the Articles to cover for the gaps in how to manage the state. Even the Volksraad was referred to in the vaguest terms possible. Often when disputes arose, another constitution, that of the Winburg Boers, regulated the Articles.
Another character we’ve met pops up again. Johan Arnold Smellekamp - a citizen of the Netherlands. If you remember a previous podcast, he’d popped up in Natal and told the Volksraad in Pietermaritzburg that the Dutch Royal family was taking an active interest in the Voortrekkers.
He’d stretched the truth to say the least, and had many members of the Volksraad convinced that if they fought the English for Natal, the Dutch would come to their aid. Holland did not.
King William II rejected the proposed connection between the Netherlands and the Voortrekkers of Natal and before the year was out he apologised to White Hall for the affray caused by Smellekamp and his activities. That didn’t stop the self-aggrindising Smellekamp, who returned to Natal in 1843 but was refused entry into Port Natal by the British.
So he headed to Delagoa Bay instead, and after the creation of the 33 Articles in 1844 and the declaration of independence by the Potch Winburg republic by Hendrick Potgieter, Smellekamp popped up once again, riding into Potch that Winter.
This is where things get really interesting.
Partly owing to Smellekamp’s persuation, and partly driven by his own obsessions, Potgieter made the fateful decision to organise a new trek at the end of 1844, heading towards Delagoa Bay. After a few weeks they arrived at a site they called Blyde River. Happy River. Potgieter believed that this site was only three days ride from the sea. He was wrong. They setup a new settlement and promptly named it Andries-Ohrigstad. When Potgieter’s wagons rolled onto the hills of Ohrigstad of course, they were not empty of people — and this is again where the story gets more interesting — the plot thickens to a consistency of treacle. Because the people he met there were the baPedi, who’d been forced out of their ancestral land by the amaNdebele of Mzilikazi two decades earlier.
Take a look at a map and the location of iSWatini. By now it was being ruled by a very young King Mswati the First. -
This is episode 23 and its time to shift our attention away from the Dutch in the Cape to the amaXhosa.
At the turn of the 18th Century there were signs of increased conflict in the region as the Khoekhoe began to feel the pressures of the expanding Dutch settlements which spread out from the southern Cape.
The boundaries of the territory occupied by the Xhosa fluctuated considerably over time but in the years between 1700 and the mid 1800s they were limited to the area east of the Sunday’s River and West of the Mbashe River. They lived along the coastal strip which separates South Africa’s inland plateau from the Indian Ocean.
It’s an area of temperate grassland which yields a variety of crops such as maize, sorghum, tobacco and pumpkins. However the soils are shallow and better suited to stock farming rather than intensive agriculture. Rain falls in a succession of thunder storms through Summer – basically between October and February. The land is well drained by numerous short rivers which run from the escarpment down to the sea.
None of these is navigable for any great distance and the Xhosa have no taste for fish nor a tradition of building boats. There are no mineral deposits of any significance – those that exist are ironstone around the Tyhume and Kei Rivers. And yet they were and are a metal working people having traded metals with people further west and north for generations.
The landscape is incredibly varied – and these characteristics have led to diverse clan associations as we’ll see. It is very important to note that as a people, the Xhosa’s traditions stretch back far longer than the Zulu, their more powerful neighbours to the north.
To simplify things we identify four major groups of Xhosa in adjacent belts running parallel to the coast. IN the far north close to the mountains of the interior – the Drakensburg as well as a second tier of smaller ranges further south – few Xhosa settled. -
This is episode 171 and now its time to swing around southern Africa again, because as Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in Canterbury Tales in 1395, “Time and Tide wait for no man”.
It’s from the Prologue to the first story called the Clerk’s Tale and the story is imbued with what modern academics call masculine authoritarianism. It’s about women’s power actually, and insubordination — the plot dealing with a woman called Griselda who rises the highest position of hegemonic power. She becomes the honoured wife of a wealthy lord through utter submissiveness and essential silence.
To many modern folks, she represents a kind of prescriptive antifeminist propaganda — in other words — a very accurate description of the medieval period. Others say the strong and silent type is fundamentally insubordinate and deeply threatening to men and the concepts of power and male identity.
What is this I hear you ask, why is Zwangendaba part of the History of South Africa? Well, as we all know, lines drawn on maps are cartographical magic codes, and the real world has no place for smoke and mirrors.
Once again, we must go backwards to go forward. Zwangendaba was a King of a clan of the Nguni or Mungoni people who broke away from the Ndwandwe Kingdom alliance under King Zwide. After defeat of the Ndwandwe forces under his command by Shaka, Zwangendaba gathered his clan and fled their home near modern the town of Pongola. This dispersal was part of the movement of the people we call the Mfecane.
Remarkably, Zwangendaba led his people, who took on the name the "Jele", on a wandering migration of thousands of kilometres lasting more than thirty years. Their journey took them through the areas of what is now northern South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi to Tanzania. The Ngoni, originally a small royal clan that left Kwa-Zulu Natal, extended their dominion even further through present-day Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia when they fragmented into separate groups following Zwangendaba’s death. -
This is episode 170 and the sound you’re hearing is the cheering and the flaming hot emotion because Sir Harry Smith is back in town!
The town is Cape Town — Sir Harry won’t hang around there for too long, he as you know from the previous episode, has returned to South Africa to take up his new position as Governor of the Cape.
Sir Harry was the former civil commissioner of the de-annexed Province of Queen Adelaide in the Eastern Cape and in June 1840 he’d left Cape Town to take up a post as Adjutant-General in India. There is this incredibly long history of connection between India and South Africa, and people like Smith were part of that history.
Others of course are people like Gandhi, but that’s a story for further down the road.
Smith was courageous, whatever other faults he may have had, and was involved in a sensational victory at the Battle of Aliwal in India on 28 January 1846 during the first Anglo-Sikh War.
That victory led to a promotion to Major General, and he was offered an accepted a baronetcy. The British parliament formally thanked Smith, and then returned to England where the extremely bloated ego he’d developed over the past few decades was further fluffed up.
While in England he’d spent a lot of time with the Duke of Wellington who’d defeated Napoleon, and with the Duke’s support, he convinced the British government that the festering sore of the Eastern Cape of South Africa could be healed.
This expensive disaster after disaster he said could be resolved quickly, and even more importantly, cheaply.
When he returned to England in 1847, Harry Smith was treated like royalty, greeted at Southampton by artillery salutes, church bells rang, thousands of people cheered him, a special train was laid on to take him to London, where he received the freedom of the Guildhall.
He dined with Queen Victoria, and was pretty much the first authentic military hero of the Victorian era. Waterloo was 30 years earlier, a long way off, and there’d been very little military glory since.
Thus, Wellington whispered in the ears of the powerful, and that is how Harry Smith was appointed the new Governor of the Cape, strategically important but infuriatingly complex.
All settlers agreed, the Queen had made a perfect appointment. As we’re going to hear, this was going to be possibly her worst appointment anywhere up to then. All the hero worship was going straight to this little man’s head. He was short, so by little I mean horizontally challenged.
Doing the hard work of making sense of negotiations were the translators. These were men, black and white, who had a vast influence on our history. Smith said to Sandile that he should leave Grahamstown and go to his people, whereupon the translators claim Sandile said “No — I will stay today near you, my former and best friend…”
Historians believe these exchanges were embroidered, altered, and added to the misunderstandings. Many of the translators were sons of missionaries, or settlers who’d grown up speaking amaXhosa fluently. But they fed Smith what he wanted to hear.
The very same translators had been at work when Sandile was taken into Grahamstown to be placed under house arrest so you can see that their editorialising was having an effect on history. -
First off, a big thank you to those listeners who’ve been sending me emails, a great deal of useful information emerges from our discussions which always improves the quality of this podcast, specifically thanks to John for sending me your book and to Doctor Nkosi for the contact in eSwatini.
When we left off in episode 168, pressure was being exerted on the Kat River Settlement by the new Governor, Sir Henry Pottinger.
A quick revisit. The Kat River Settlement came into being in I829 after a clash on the eastern border when the authorities of the Cape Colony expelled amaXhosa from land around the source of the Kat River.
To prevent them from re-occupying the area when the soldiers withdrew, the colonial government decided to settle it with English settlers and Khoekhoe and bastaards. Andries Stockenstrom who was then the Commissioner General of the eastern districts, wanted to intersperse the two races and give them equal quantities of land. But his superiors insisted on placing the khoe in the most exposed military positions, then gave the Khoe smaller land-grants than the English settlers received.
What is really fascinating is how many types of people lived in this small area — people who differentiated themselves based on their ancestry. The party at the confluence of the Kat and Mankanzana Rivers for example belonged to that class of mixed race South Africans known to the colonists as 'Bastaards', who had adopted Dutch clothing, religion, technology and language, and did not associate themselves with their Khoi heritage.
In May 1847 Governor Sir Henry Pottinger appoint a bankrupt farmer and a man who was known as a great hater of the Khoekhoe to oversee the Kat River Settlement. Thomas Jarvis Biddulph was appointed magistrate and immediately there were issues. Andries Stockenstrom said Biddulph’s moral character “could not bear scrutiny” and the new magistrate launched into a series of verbal and physical attacks on the Khoekhoe living along the Kat River and Blinkwater.
He called them “a lazy set of paupers” and said that they would be better served working as labourers for the English settlers and the Boers. Just to reinforce his view, Biddulph pulled a tax stunt — increasing their tax from eighteen pence to six shillings. From eighteen cents to sixty cents. How about that for a tax hike, that’s 43 percent. If you tried that these days, the scratching sound of matches would be heard across the land.
This historic site didn’t have long to go before it would be eviscerated by colonial jealousy. Even the former supporters, the missionaries, appeared to lose faith. One of the most ardent was Henry Calderwood. His idealism had evaporated — living on the frontier had shattered his liberal attitudes, and now he seemed to swap one obsession for another.
One of the things that had driven Pottinger up the wall was the fact that the amaNgqika had continued to insist that they were at peace without admitting that they had been defeated, and by Sandile’s refusal to resume negotiations. On the 7th August 1847 Sandile’ had been formally declared a rebel.
Then the whole situation worsened, and fast. Pottinger resorted to proclaiming that the amaMfengu, the Boers and the Khoekhoe who fought with his regular soldiers could seize whatever they liked from the amaXhosa. The full-scale invasion of the Amathola’s began again on the 29th September 1847, and every grain pit was emptied, every single animal seized. -
This is episode 168 and the world by the middle of the 19th Century was shifting gear, changing rapidly. Southern Africa was caught in the currents of world history and within a few years with the discovery of Diamonds, was going to be very much in the current of world economics.
Not that the Cape had not been crucial since the days of the Dutch East India Company, the VOR.
As you heard last episode, the British government has fallen, Robert Peel had resigned on 19 June 1846, in the wake of political divisions that followed the repeal of the Corn Laws. The imposition of import duties on foreign corn had been attacked for making bread expensive. And yet, the Laws were more than a concession to farmers and landowners — they were also the symbol of a barrier against free trade.
Ah yes, the logic and philosophy of lassaiz faire capitalism.
The repeal of these laws and the change going on must not be underestimated. We forget these things, so long ago, at our peril. For we have similar debates going on today, globally.
In 1846, the repeal of the laws took place in the midst of the great Irish Famine, which led to so many Irishmen and women fleeing their homeland for America — where they changed that country forever too.
While the financiers muttered about all the advantages of free trade, they of course made sure to leave out one country in their calculations.
India.
This was always the exception.
Still, the financiers were pontificating about how the empire itself was sort of redundant, and as everyone glanced around for the good and the bad, many found themselves wondering about southern Africa.
This region assumed a pivotal role inside British politics, as it was going to do for the next 150 years. You see, the whole of South Africa was the embodiment of wasteful expenditure without a discernable return on commercial investment. It was a total liability except for the Cape of Good Hope with its strategically important naval base which allowed the British to cover the South Atlantic and the approaches to the Indian Ocean.
Into the political breach strode a man who arrived with Lord John Russell’s administration, and he was the third Earl Grey, who took over from William Gladstone as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.
Grey was a free trader, imbued with the spirit of the elixhir of cash, the medicine of dosh, and imperial matters were the third Earl Grey’s passionate interest. He was a technocrat with a mission, and wrote a book where he pointed out that the great object of possessing colonies was to also possess a monopoly over the commerce.
Grey turned his gaze to Sir Peregrine Maitland. The governor was 70, and the stress of the Seventh Frontier War had turned him into an octagenarian. A younger man was needed. Someone who could sign up young amaXhosa and turned them into Sepoys, and they’d police their own people.
This is where another colonial springs into our view, a man who was called a violent-tempered martinet, greedy and ambitious. Sir Henry Pottinger. He’d spent most of his life in the East, and had just retired as the first Governor of Hong Kong.
He’d secured Britain’s commerce with that vast country called China, and when he sailed home in 1846, he’d been received as a hero. He’d been given a handsome pension for life and was telling all and sundry he hoped to become the governor of Bombay, which we now call Mumbai.
The last thing he wanted was to be sent to South Africa. So when Grey met with Sir Henry, the latter bluntly refused the Cape Governorship. Eventually, Grey was forced to cough up a vast salary of ten thousand pounds a year and promised that the Cape Town post was temporary.
Pottinger was to last ten months in South Africa. It’s thought too that his governoship, which was often like a hurricane of unsparing ill-will and excoriation, was also the most significant of the first half of the 19th Century. -
This is episode 167 and the British army is clumping along towards the Amathola fastnesses, the deep ravines and steep riverine environment not the most ideal for an army that dragged everything around on wagons.
Leading this army were officers steeped in the traditions of empire, and marching under their command were men from across Great Britain and beyond. They were poor, some with debts to pay back home, many were recruited from the haunts of dissipation and inebriation as historian Noel Mostert notes one officer saying in a somewhat sneering tone.
But that’s a bit harsh, because when we read the journals of these soldiers, they’re full of character and intelligence, adventurers of their time whatever your political view. Half of these British soldiers were actually from Scotland and Ireland, they weren’t even English.
It was the officers who’d neered at the colonials, openly, and it was the officers who symbolised the rotten core of this empire with it’s rampant class lunacy. It was only on rare occasions that rank and file soldiers made it to the heady ranks of the officer corps, and promotion was painfully slow. The officer class was notorious - it took the Crimean War before the British Army was dragged into the 19th Century. Up to the Seventh Frontier War it functioned as it had for hundreds of years — a place where the chinless wonders of the Empire could seek fame and fortune while retaining their artificial edifice of class.
Then there was the South African bush which was a frightening experience for the British soldiers, it’s alien succulents a bizarre sight for the British. At night, as they soldiers lay in this bush, they could not light their pipes or a fire. At the first sign of a glimmer, the amaXhosa would open fire from several directions and while their aim was not good, the British didn’t take a chance and spent most of their time in their camp lying down out of sight.
Sir Peregrine Maitland’s large army mobilised in June 1846, and lumbered into the Amathola’s looking for Rharhabe chief Sandile. They were also trying to corner Phato of the Gqunukhwebe closer to the ocean, along with Mhala of the Ndlambe — both were lurking somewhere between the Keiskamma and Kei Rivers. Colonel Henry Somerset swept the coastal regions, as Colonel Hare and Andries Stockenstrom scouted the Amatholas.
On the 11th August 1846 Maitland made his decision.
This was an exact copy of the decision made by Harry Smith in the previous Frontier War, who told then Governor Sir Benjamin D’Urban that a strike across the Kei River was required — a decisive strike.
That’s because Harry Smith was a man of action, fully believing in the power of power.
In the previous war, the Sixth Frontier War of 1834 to 1836, Smith wanted to strike Hintsa. That highly regarded amaXhosa chief had been killed by the very same Smith. Now here was Hintsa’s heir and his son, Sarhili, facing another British veteran of the war against Napoleon. -
The Seventh Frontier war has burst into flame, and across the Ceded Territory and down into the land around Port Elizabeth amaXhosa warriors are on the warpath, the British have been forced into the defensive.
If you remember, Sir Peregrine Maitland declared war on the amaXhosa chief Mgolombane Sandile Ngqika on 1st April 1846 — but the eastern Xhosa, the Gcaleka under Sarhili, had remained out of the latest war - at least for now.
The amaXhosa have notched up two major victories against the British, one in the Amatola mountains where Sandile ambushed Gibson’s column, destroyed over 60 wagons then attacked a second wagon train from Grahamstown on its way to Fort Peddie with supplies which lay just over sixty east.
More than 40 wagons were destroyed in the second attack, and the English cavalry and infantry were forced to shelter inside Fort Peddie with it’s 8 sided earth walls. Phato of the Gqunukhwebe had been particularly successful — but the amaXhosa were going to commit a cardinal error in warfare.
Allow hotheaded soldiers to dictate tactics.
On the 28th Mary 1846 the largest amaXhosa army in the Eastern Cape since the failed attempt at taking Grahamstown in 1819 surrounded Fort Peddie. The warriors hadn’t needed much convincing, because the British were now torching every single amaXhosa homestead they came across.
The fort was a strategic target. It developed from a frontier post established in 1835 and named Fort Peddie, named after Lieutenant-Colonel John Peddie who led the 72nd Highlanders against the Xhosa in the Sixth Frontier War.
Eight thousand men from every clan from chieftans west of the Kei River had joined forces and at midday they launched their attack on the strong defensive position. Fort Peddie had been regarded as a relatively safe outpost, surrounded by the resettled amaMfengu people, as well the Gqunukhwebe who had been allies of the British. But no more, Gqunukhwebe chief Phato had switched sides and he was eyeing the amaMfengu for special attention.
As the tension rose in the fort, and awaiting the inevitable amaXhosa assault, a terrible incident was recorded which further damaged the British soldier’s honour.
It was 26th May and Lindsay unleashed his rage up on a young colonial boy .. a wagon driver .. who had refused to go out and cut wood in fear of the surrounding amaXhosa.
In what can only be called a shocking display of bombastic lunacy, Lindsay had this young teen tied to his wagon and was then subjected to 25 lashes. This after the child changed his mind and said he would go out into the bush, preferring to take his chances with the amaXhosa than the lash. Too late said Lindsay, it’s the lash for you.
Ten days after the Peddie assault, Siyolo and Mhala moved towards the Fish River crossing points separately. There was enough British ammunition at the strong points on both sides to replenish the amaXhosa’s gunpowder barrels.
Henry Somerset, yes the very same man we met so many episodes ago, was leading a force of cavalry nearby. They’d been sweeping the countryside, and came across the tracks of Mhala’s army, after a short skirmish the amaXhosa disappeared. But soon the cavalry came across the soldiers of Siyolo, Mhala’s nephew. Caught in the open along the Gwangqa River. The amaXhosa were to suffer a major defeat. - Vis mere
