First off, congratulations to Gcina Mhlophe who is DStv’s content Creator podcaster of the year — I was so happy to shortlisted and incredibly happy for her. Gcina’s African Storytelling podcast is ground breaking please look out for it on all podcast platforms. And a big shout out to all the other finalists, I was amazed at just how many people in South Africa are making a living out of creating their own content, their own stories. Things sure have changed in the media space! Back to 1852. Planet earth had seen quite a few interesting events in that year. Henry Wells and William Fargo put a few dollars together and launched Wells Fargo and Company, in Boston Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Smith And Wesson the firearms manufacturer was founded, and the Taiping Rebellion in China was gaining momentum,. The British parliament passed the New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852 which granted the colony self-government — something the settlers in South Africa had been trying to achieve for the Cape. The First Yale Harvard boat race was held in 1852, and French engineer Henri Giffard made the the inaugural airship trip taking off in Paris and flying to Trappes, Leo Tolstoy published his first book called Childhood in 1852, then a deadly tsunami triggered by an earthquake killed thousands in Banda in the Dutch East Indies, what we know as Indonesia. This is where the echoes of history could be heard more than 150 years later when one of the deadliest tsunami’s ever recorded slammed into Banda Aceh province on Boxing Day of 2004 — killing 228 000 people. Geology is a swine and geological history definitely repeats itself. There is no doubt that at some point in the future, Banda Aceh will be struck by another massive earthquake, and tsunami. In 1852, France opened the doors to the dreaded Devil’s Island penal colony made famous by Steve McQueen in the movie Papillon in 1973. And 1973 was three years before 1976, when a postulation made in 1852 was eventually proven true. Amazingly, this postulation, or problem, is at the heart of our lives today. Let me explain how an apparently obscure event that took place in October 1852 led to a host of technical developments in the 20th Century — and continues to drive innovation today - and it has a South African link. University College of London student Francis Guthrie studying under the much admired mathematician Augustus De Morgan postulated the question of proving mathematically that no more than four colours would be needed to provide separate tones to shapes that bordered each other on a map. He thought about maps a lot because he also studied botany and ended up earning a Bachelor of Arts and became a lawyer. Guthrie’s postulation almost flippant in its apparent ludicrousness, was far more complex than it sounded. Don’t roll your eyes just yet, hang in there. What appears simple eluded geniuses of maths for a century and a half. Even Minkowski who was Einstein’s mathematics instructors had a go and gave up - after dismissing previous attempts as the work of second class mathematicians. Little did the world know, but Guthrie had created a question that would revolutionise computer theory amongst other things like improving sports scheduling, sorting out mobile phone frequency allocation and is the basis of how AI works. Of course, just to add a twist in the tail, there’s a South African connection. Now back to the maps of 1852 which had just been marked with the newest independent state of the Transvaal in various colours. Next door neighbours of the Transvaal took note. One was Moshoeshoe of the Basotho. Another was Mzilikazi of the amaNdebele, and Mpande of the amaZulu. Simultaneously, a cry went up around the British Empire amongst settlers demanding self-government, New Zealand was not going to be alone in the moves towards proportional representation of some sort.

This is episode 192 and what a packed episode it is! The Sand River Convention and the Battle of the Berea await. The former created a new state called the Zuid Afrikaans Republiek and the latter reinforced the Basotho power under Moshoeshoe which would ultimately lead to the kingdom of Lesotho being born. Two events that too place at the book ends of 1852 - the Convention signed in January, and the Battle of the Berea in December - left their indelible marks on South African history. The decision by the British government to sign a Convention with the Boers of the Transvaal was the result of two local officials, William Samuel Hogge and Charles Mostyn Owen. Because the 8th frontier war against the amaXhosa was going so badly, it was imperative for the British to deal with other possible threats. When they had reached Bloemfontein in November 1851, Hogge and Owen were assailed by conspiracy and tales of intrigue, some of which I explained last episode. Hogge was the senior of the two, and realised pretty quickly that the biggest problem was the annexation of the Orange River Sovereignty by Harry Smith. The Governor, said Hogge in a letter, was either “deceived or deceived himself in supposing that the majority of the white people here ever desired British authority to be extended over them…” That was the last thing the Boers wanted. He also realised that the other challenge to any authority in the Orange River Sovereignty was the chaos between different groups of people and involvement of various British officials in these conflicts.We’re dealing with 1852, January. There were two centres of power at this point, one around Andries Pretorius and the other around Hendrick Potgieter. The main cause of conflict was Potgieter’s belief that his position of Commandant-General of the Voortrekkers was a post for life. Pretorius and his adherents feared the concentration of military power in one man’s hand and Potgieter’s adherents believed Pretorius had an insatiable power lust. Each of these two believed they were entitled to be numero uno, Nommer een, die generaal, and each believed the other was kortbroek, not substantial enough to equal themselves. Eventually the convention was set for January 16th 1852 at Venter’s Farm near the junction of the Cool Spruit, the Coal Spruit, and Sand River. Here the Boer delegates gathered, as the enigmatic forgerer Van Der Kolff fled, with Pretorius and his 300 followers. IT is with some amazement then folks, that this crucial gathering, this fundemental moment in south Africa, lasted just a day. One day — and that one day changed the history of the country.

First off, some news! This series has been selected as one of the five finalists for the DStv Content Creators podcast of the year awards which is taking place on October 12th 2024. I feel completely out of place folks - a kind of imposter syndrome - finalists include the hugely successful series called True Crime South Africa with the glorious Nicole Engelbrecht and African Story Magic with magnificent Gcina Mhlophe. I had to rub my eyes when I received the email and immediately thought it was a nasty bit of malware that had crept into my system — but after a follow up call from the organisers I realised it was true. So thanks to all of my listeners for helping promote this podcast series — I owe you all a great deal. With that shameless self promotion out of the way, back to the real world of South Africa mid-19th Century. Momentous moves were afoot. The vicious 8th Frontier war was still bubbling away in the eastern Cape as Andries Stockenstrom set off from his farm under the Amatholas. The old man of the frontier had decided to travel to London to lobby politicians there and the ruling elite concerning self-government for South Africa. Journalist John Fairbairn joined him in the mission. For the settlers back on the frontier, Stockenstrom was both loved and hated. He was respected as an elder who had survived all the frontier Wars, but now colonists were taking aim at the former administrator of the Albany region, and the Zuurveld. Every single farm had been burned down by the amaXhosa in the district, but they’d left Stockenstrom’s home alone. The amaNqgika people were faithfully adhering to their old chief’s promise to Stockenstrom that he would not be attacked — even in the throes of this dreadful war. Stockenstrom had set off at the end of 1851, but when he returned from his political mission, he was greeted by a smouldering wreck that used to be his magnificent home on his farm called Maasstrom. It was a shock from which he did not recover. At first he thought it was the amaXhosa who burned his home but then the truth emerged, which shocked him all the more. It was deliberately burned down by a British officer and his patrol — who had been instigated by Grahamstown Journal Editor Robert Godlonton. To the north, in the mountains along the Caledon Valley, Moshoeshoe had been building his base of power and was trying to keep out of the British way. Major Warden as you know, was based in Bloemfontein with a company of British troops, and the Major had been skirmishing with Moshoeshoe’s allies along the southern flank of the Orange River, the border with British Kaffraria. While the British were being kept busy in the 8th Frontier War, Andries Pretorius had been in touch with Major Warden and with Moshoeshoe. Emissaries from Moshoeshoe had visited Pretorius a few times to ask for the Boers to join the Basotho in an uprising against the British - particularly after Warden’s repeated attempts to subjugate the Basotho King. While this was going on, a separate group of Boers decided to take the matter into their own hands and rode to Thaba Bosiu, where they negotiated their own Peace Treaty with Moshoeshoe. They didn’t tell Pretorius, and he was angry. Once again the fractured nature of the Voortrekkers was highlighted. Moshoeshoe realised this, but took the emissaries at face value when they said they’d avoid conflict with the Basotho and other groups. Pretorius who was in Mooi River, was angry about this matter because he had been trying to stabilise the trekker relationship with the British. Here were Vermaak and Linde doing their own thing, clearly a threat to Major Warden - so the following day — 4th September — Pretorius wrote to Warden expressing a commitment to a lasting Peace with the British.

Episode 190 is about the ocean, and a staggering event. The sinking of the HMS Birkenhead off Gansbaai, south of Cape Town - and event which led to the famous phrase women and children first in maritime lore. All of course also linked to the fierce 8th Frontier War of South Africa because there were hundreds of troops on board this ship when it went down - it is believed 445 drowned or were killed by sharks. The chronicle of what happened is riveting. The terrifying ordeal for the survivors of this ship became part of the mid-nineteenth century Victorian consciousness. The sinking of the Birkenhead also remains one of the greatest maritime disasters off South Africa's coast. But the fact that every one of the women and children aboard survived the wreck owing to the gallantry and discipline of the men on board has been immortalised in maritime lore. The soldiers of the British Army regiments, and the sailors and marines under Captain Robert Salmond, jeopardised their own chances of survival by putting the 'women and children first’. It stems from the ongoing 8th Frontier War I’ve been covering now for a couple of episodes. The British fighting the amaxhosa were in need of reinforcements, particularly the 74th highland Regiment which had already borne the brunt of the fighting along the Amatola ridges and valleys. Mount Misery had caused hundreds of casualties. In many ways, The Birkenhead was also a symbol of the age of innovation, she was one of the first iron-hulled ships ever built for the Royal Navy and was converted into a troop ship. As she was being laid down the Navy switched it’s main propulsion to propellor from paddle wheels, so the vessel ended up converted from frigate to troop carrier. The Birkenhead was among the early attempts to marry sail and steam and rigged as a brigantine with two masts, a third being added later. She was powered by two 564 horsepower steam engines from Forrester & Co that drove a pair the 6-metre paddle wheels. . As part of her conversion to a troopship in 1851, a forecastle and poop deck were added to increase her accommodation, and a third mast was added, to change her sail plan to a barquentine. Although she never served as a warship, she was faster and more comfortable than any of the wooden sail-driven troopships of the time, making the trip from the Cape in 37 days in October 1850. However, it was a journey HMS Birkenhead would make for the last time in January 1852. Under command of Captain Robert Salmond, it steamed to Portsmith in the first week of January to pick up troops from ten different regiments, including the 2nd and the 74th. On the 5th January she sailed across the Irish Sea to Queenstown and picked up officers wives and children. All told there were 479 soldiers on board and more than 50 women and children, as well as a crew of 125. That was a total of 693 people stuffed into an iron hull less than 64 metres long and just over eleven metres wide - about the width of a tennis court. Even though she was thought of as well built, the early iron used in shipbuilding was quite brittle and tore easily compared to iron of later ships. Upon arrival at Simons Bay, most of the civilians disembarked, leaving only seven women and 13 children on board. Fuel, food and nine horses and forage were loaded along with more passengers, then HMS Birkenhead set sail again at 18h00 on the 25th February, heading for Algoa Bay and East London. Captain Salmond made a few hasty calculations and sailed close to the the coast heading south east towards Cape Agulhas. Time was of the essence, but two factors transpired against the ship. One was the compasses were registering small errors making navigation tricky, and the other was a strong south-east current was sweeping into Walker Bay and carrying the ship closer to shore than the crew realised. The were heading towards Danger Point, and the rocks.

1851 it is, and the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. It was the first in a series of World's Fairs, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century. Famous people of the time attended the Great Exhibition, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Michael Faraday, Samuel Colt, writers like Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray. Schweppes was the official sponsor. The Great Exhibition was a celebration of modern industrial technology and design - mainly for the British who were trying to show how through tech, the world would be a better place - leading the nations in innovations so to speak. Six million people, equivalent to a third of the entire population of Britain at the time, visited the Great Exhibition, averaging over 42 000 visitors a day, sometimes topping 100 000. Thomas Cook managed the travel arrangements for the Exhibition, and made the equivalent of 33.2 million pounds in today’s cash - or 186 000 pounds back in 1851, and promptly used the money to found the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum, as well as the Natural History Museum. Inventor Frederick Bakewell demonstrated a precurser to something that we know as a Fax Machine. The New Zealand exhibit was well liked, featuring Maori crafts such as flax baskets, carved wooden objects, eel traps, mats, fish hooks and the scourge of the British army in Kiwiland, their hand clubs. A couple of conservative politicians let it be known they were not happy about the Exhibition, saying visitors would turn into a revolutionary mob. Considering that Karl Marx was part of the visitors - perhaps not unsurprisingly. But did Karl Marx use the services of Thomas Cook? Not exactly a question destined for a dissertation. This Exhibition went on to become a symbol of the Victorian Era. Meanwhile … a serious War in one of its colonies, the Cape was more than disquietening - it appeared this war was more a Victorian error. AS in mistake. amaNgqika chief Maqoma was causing Harry Smith sleepness nights, and Colonel Fordyce and his colleagues were fighting for their lives along the Amathola mountains. The Waterkloof ridges — in a place to the west of Fort Beaufort — was where the Khoekhoe and coloured marksmen made their greatest impact. The ex-Cape Mounted Rifles members amongst the rebels had other uses. They understood the British bugle calls, having been trained by the British, further exasperating men like Henry Somerset and Colonel Fordyce. The amaXhosa and Khoekhoe rebels were also much more organised than in previous wars against the invaders. They targeted the Messengers reading updates from British commanders intended for Grahamstown and been reading the reports, and some of the rebels were actually being supplied directly from Grahamstown itself. Then Henry seemed to receive an injection of spine - of determination. On November 6th 1851 he massed two large columns, one under Colonel Fordyce, and the other led by Colonel Michel. Unbeknownest to him, this was to be Fordyce’s last mission. Michel’s column had to advance up the Waterkloof aka Mount Misery, while Fordyce’s column would wait above, on the summit. Michel would drive the rebels up the mountain, Fordyce would trap them and voila! Victory. It didn’t quite work that way.

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.

This is episode 187 - it’s 1851. Time to take stock of what’s going on across southern Africa which as you know was in the throes of the 8th Frontier War. A significant war. After that we’ll return to Thomas Stubbs who had turned himself into a useful night raider and was about to show the British how to fight in the Albany thickets. To the north, in the mountains of the BaSotho people, King Moshoeshoe the first was not idle in early 1851and his patience with his own kith and kin as well as with the Boers and the British had worn out. When word of Mlanjeni the prophet reached the BaSotho - and how his new message of salvation through a mixture of Christianity and amaXhosa religion had resonated with so many, Moshoeshoe kept a clear head. He had allowed the French missionaries and Casalis in particular to operate within his kingdom and trusted the man in black, but now the exuberant revival of traditional customs and rituals and warfare began to sweep through LeSotho — a millenarian moment. Mlanjeni’s reputation caused a relapse among the BaSotho converts, led by a local diviner called Mantsopa who began to build a formiddable reputation as a soothsayer. She could predict victories in war it was said, and in 1850 and 1851 the revivalist movement grew more powerful. Moshoeshoe was always cautious when to came to religion, as you’ll hear when we return over the coming episodes to the mountain kingdom. Mlanjeni’s reputation caused a relapse among the BaSotho converts, led by a local diviner called Mantsopa who began to build a formiddable reputation as a soothsayer. She could predict victories in war it was said, and in 1850 and 1851 the revivalist movement grew more powerful. Moshoeshoe was always cautious when to came to religion, as you’ll hear when we return over the coming episodes to the mountain kingdom. Moshoeshoe took note of this reaction and how the racial and political message was deeply felt by his people. And yet he continued to attend French missionary Casalis’ church services out of good faith, and ensured that the missionaries were protected. He also reinforced to all that he was a man of his word. This is the really incredible thing, whereas most others around him were quite ready to go on some terminal quest to kill all the invaders, he was first and foremost, a realist. This all began to come to a head as the 8th Frontier war exploded when the British officials in the Orange River Sovereignty demanded restitution for cattle raiding. And now it’s time to return to the story of Thomas Stubbs. His part in this epic drama is seemingly insignificant, and yet it is more important at second glance. What, would you say, could really be important about a small-scale import export trading rebel who was a part-time saddle artisan from Albany ? A man who’s father Henry made money trading illegally with the amaXhosa? As I mentioned in passing last episode, in some ways, Stubbs set off a series of what became known as special force tactics in the British Army. He wasn’t alone in the period, the British Army was coming up regularly against unconventional soldiers experts in their own bush and veld. In India, Canada, Australia, the middle East. But what was really important about Thomas Stubbs was how he approached tactical issues in the bush. The entire British military experiment in the mid-19th Century was all about seeing what was going on— marching around — bugles, classic red tunics, polished buttons flashing in the midday sun where they’d strut about. You know the saying, no-one goes out in the midday sun except mad dogs and Englishmen.

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. So 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.

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.

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 Smioth who was besieged there - out although his dispatch riders had failed to pierce the amaXhosa warrior perimeter the previous night. Somerset was in his sixties, and quite a sight he was. Large handlebar moustache, 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 (“ES-kuh-lus"), 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 this 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.

Shots fired! We’re with the amaXhosa under Maqoma and Sandile, and the British soldiers under Lieutenanat Colonel George Mackinnon, fighting on the steep cliffs of Boma Pass. When the firing began, one of the companies of 73rd Regiment had just entered the pass and it’s Captain JC Gawler explained later about the confusion. Last episode we heard all about the long column of British troops strung out more than two kilometers up this pass, and how Mackinnon, along with the Xhosa police fighting alongside the British and the Coloured Cape Mountain Rifles had emerged at the top. Bugles were blasting off below, sounding the advance call, but the British troops were not sure what that meant - either run up the slopes, or turn to fight their attackers. What was even more bizarre in spite of the volleys going off and the sounds of Xhosa muskets echoing off the rocky cliffs, Mackinnon refused to believe that his column was being attacked. This was supposed to be a show of force said Governor Harry Smith, not a real attempt at arresting Sandile the Ngqika chief. Major John Jarvis Bisset managed to convince the lieutenant Colonel the Xhosa were in fact attacking — Mackinnon regarded the amaXhosa as savages who couldn’t properly organise a fight of this sort. He’d also convinced himself that Maqoma and others who’d been hell bent on war were being ignored by the amaXhosa chiefs, a very bad miscalculation. His hesitation some say was actually caused by shock, then having to accept the truth. Only the very best commanders and leaders are able to quickly rally themselves in a time of crisis and I’m afraid Mackinnon was not one of those. Bisset was, however, and he appeared to take over matters to some extent. It was his duty he said to plunge back down the gorge to take command of the ragged column and Mackinnon agreed. But a quick word about Tiyo. He’d been the first black minister to be ordained overseas, and overseas happened to be Scotland. He’d married a Scots Woman, and been the first to translate an English classic into isiXhosa. And which classic? Pilgrims’ Progresss. The firsts continue- his eldlest son was the first black doctor in the Cape, his second eldest son Johna Henderson Soga is revered as the first amaXhosa historian. Third son was a vet. All his sons were educated in Scotland. But that was in the future. Right now, Tiyo had made his way back to Keiskamma Hoek with his Scots bride, aged 21. As the lovebirds disembarked from their voyage in Port Elizabeth, a settler shouted they were “the shame of Scotland”.

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 the period of the utilitarian liberal, not of the democrat, it’s 1850 and in the Cape, a newly ninted constitution had been drafted by the attorney general, William Porter. This was based on a nonracial qualified franchise - all adult males who had occupied property worth at least twenty five pounds for a year were eligible to vote. Porter had toiled on the draft of this document for the also newly minted Governor, Sir Harry Smith, who sent it to London. Porter later in 1850 had a complete change of heart as utilitarian liberals tend to do, he denounced the option of univesal suffrage — at least for men of all colours — as threatening to the colony with its in his words, “communism, socialisms, and red republicanism which had caused so much mischief in France….” There had been an attempted major communist revolution in France in 1848, which spilled over into other parts of western Europe including the land that would become known as Germany. This horrified utilitarians everywhere, no less so in the Cape Colony. As the ship bearing Smith’s new constitution headed north, another was heading south and crossed each other somewhere out there on the wild untamed ocean. It was a dispatch from Colonial Secretary Earl Grey who proposed sending Irish convicts to the Cape. Smith announced this proposal to the horrified residents of Cape Town and immediately aroused a storm of agitation against the Governor. The settlers had been considering representative government for some time and this suggestion of Irish convicts arriving backfired — driving many more of the moderate thinkers into the arms of those who were agitating for some form of independent governance. The colonists regarded the Irish as a threat to their respectability and citizens used the concept as a weapon to attaack the oligarchy that ran the Cape at the time. It was a legislative council, nominated by Governors not elected by the people so it had been tainted constantly by allegations of corruption, nepotism, and a host of other maladies associated with power wielded too long by men who were mostly too greedy. The convicts duly arrived on a ship called Neptune, but they were refused entry to Cape Town, and the men sat in chains in Simon’s Bay for five months. Eventually in 1850 the ship was ordered to sail away. One of the main antagonists in this crazy story was a man called John Montagu. He had been alarmed by how the Irish convict idea had radicalised even his mild-mannered friends, and so he demanded that Smith reimpose some kind of authority and stop this movement towards representative government. Montagu argued that the whole idea was anti-English, not what the British should be supporting, so Smith delayed the implementation. But what was going on was very very interesting. The hullabaloo had revealed two very distinct political movements inside the Cape. One was conservative, pro-English and pro-British government, led by Montagu, joined by the big merchants of Cape Town. They were also joined by the Eastern Cape settlers led by their flag bearer, Grahamstown Journal Editor and land speculator Robert Godlonton. Another powerful figure joined this conservative echelon, and that was the newly arrived Anglican Bishop, Robert Gray. A newspaper called the Cape Monitor was launched in October 1850 by these conservatives. The second political movement were the radicals, both British and Afrikaner, led by John Fairbairn, Christoffel Brand, Francis William Reitz and Andries Stockenstrom. They regarded the conservatives as a corrupt bunch of nepotists, an oligarchy, but they were divided by what to do about frontier policy. Fairbairn used his newspaper the South African Advertiser to defend the rights of blacks, while Brand preferred to defend the rights of the Dutch descendents against the oppression of old-English money elites. Stockenstrom had his own varied approach to both.

This is episode 175 - and we’re back in the Cape circa 1849 and thereabouts. Before we dive into the latest incidents and events, let’s take a look at what was going on globally as everything is connected. In France, citizens are able to use postage stamps for the very first time, a series called Ceres, which is also a place in the Western Cape. The Austrian Army invades Hungary entering the countries two capitals, which back in 1849 were called Buda and Pest. Next door, Romanian paramilitaries laid into Hungarian civilians, killing 600 in what we’d call ethnic cleansing. The second Anglo-Sikh war was on the go in India, and the British suffered a defeat at the Battle of Tooele, while across the ocean in Canada, the Colony of Vancouver Island was established. This is important because that’s where one of my ancestors eloped later in the 19th Century for the metropolis that was Beaufort West. Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded her M.D, thus becoming the first women doctor in the United States, and the Corn Laws were officially repealed by the UK Parliament. These were tariffs and trade resctrictions on imported food — including all grains like Barley, wheat and oats. I mention this because the repeal spelled the death knell to British mercantilism — skewing the value of land in the UK, raised food prices there artificially, and hampered the growth of manufacturing. The Great Famine of Ireland between 1845 and 1852 had also revealed a real need to produce alternative food supplies through imports. It was this change that led to free trade finally being ushered into Britain — and of course this created opportunities for Southern African farmers. It’s also the year the first Kennedy arrives in America, a refugee of the Irish Famine. More prosaic perhaps, in New York on a cold February day, President James Knox Polk became the first president to have his photograph taken, while Minnesota became a formal US territory and the settlement of Fort Worth in Texas is founded. In July, a slave revolt at the Charleston Workhouse breaks out led by Nicholas Kelly, but plantation owners manage to suppress the revolt and hang 3 of the leaders including Kelly. Later in September, African-American abolitionist and hero Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery. And importantly for our story, Sir Benjamin D’Urban, after whom Durban in KZN is named and one of the Governors of the Cape, died in Montreal, Canada. Back to the Cape, because the anger at Harry Smith’s new policies were curing, nay, ripening, stewing, brewing amongst the amaXhosa. Arriving in the Eastern Cape, Harry was committed to reinstating the D’Urban system with which he had been associated - and which Lord Glenelg back in the colonial office has rejected. But now Earl Grey was in the colonial hot seat back home and he gave the thumbs up. Smith set to work sorting out the administration, appointing members of the settler elite to official positions including Richard Southey as his personal secretary. AS a close colleague of Grahamstown Journal Editor and rabid anti-Xhosa Robert Godlonton, he was chosen for his anti-black bias. If you remember how Smith had arrived, placing his foot on amaXhosa chief Maqoma’s neck, and his new edicts including the creation of British Caffraria — the previously known ceded territory —you can imagine how he was regarded further east. What is not common knowledge these days is that there was great demand for children under the age of ten to work in the Western Cape. Of course, this was not a proper labour environment, and the shift meant that these young boys and girls, and their mothers and fathers, were being turned into indentured labourers. This was a free market situation of the amaXhosa being able to hawk their labour for a fair price. Many were told they would be paid a wage, only to find that the terms of contract were vague, they were now receiving unspecified promises and the fabric of rural life based on marriage and female

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 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.

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.

This is episode 165 — and the atmosphere in Xhosaland was ablaze with indignation. A Mr Holliday had complained in Fort Beaufort that an imaDange man called Tsili had stolen his axe, and if you recall last episode, Tsili had been arrested then freed while under military escort by Tola a headman who lived nearby. Tola had hacked off a prisoners hand to free Tsili from his shackles, the prisoner was thrown into a nearby river and died. The British demanded Tstili and Tola be handed over but imiDange chief Nkosi Bhotomane refused. Rharhabe chief Sandile was approached but he’d had enough of the English authorities, and refused to hand over the two. This was ostensibly what set off the War of the Axe, or the War of the Bounday as the amaXhosa called it. Maitland declared war on April 1st 1846 and lieutenant Governor John Hare launched their preemptive strike into Xhosaland. It took almost two weeks to assemble the troops while the Governor issued orders for all missionaries to leave emaXhoseni. Many white traders had already been killed by this time, the rest scattered from Xhosa territory. On the 11th April Colonel Somerset led three columns across the Great Fish River, then the Keiskamma. He was heading towards Sandile’s Great Place alongside Burnshill — the abandoned Glasgow missionary society’s station on the slopes of the Amathola mountains. That’s east of where the town of Alice is today. The British were advancing in classic British style, 125 wagons each drawn by 24 oxen, a five kilometer long column of men. The Dragoons were mounted on their heavy chargers, dressed in red tunics and their blue forage caps, the Cape Mounted Rifles on their smaller Boer ponies, dressed in green tunics and brown breeches, blending into the countryside. The infantry marched behind, dressed in scarlet jackets with white cross belts and white trousers and their cylindrical hats, called Albert Shakos that tapered to protect against the sun. You can imagine the scene, hundreds of troops on horseback and marching, the dust lifted off the trail, and very soon, the infantry began to discard their thick red coats. These soldiers began this war dressed like they dressed for a European battle, by the end, they would all look very different. They replaced these Albert Shakos with forage caps, or large Boer hats, they ditched their heavy backpacks for much lighter knapsacks, and they put away their leather collars. Somerset was pleasantly surprised to find no amaXhosa warrior in his way as his force arrived at Burnshill. After setting up camp there and leaving the wagons under Major John Gibson, he marched off into the Amathole valley on the 16th April, leading 500 men. Watching him were thousands of amaNGqika warriors, many armed with muskets. They began peppering the British with heavy albeit inaccurate fire. Maqoma was a highly experienced commander and recognized the British had a major weakness. Their baggage train. It was under his prompting that the other Xhosa commanders agreed to strike the wagons rather than aiming at the infantry. IN the late afternoon of the 16th as Somerset was toiling in the Amathola valley the Xhosa made their move.

This is episode 164. Remember when we left off we’d been hearing about the squad of Royal engineers who’d crossed into amaXhosa territory over the Tyhume River in January 1846. They were led by Lieutenant J Stokes — this small team of five were surveying land for the site of the new fort. Little did they know that their crossing of Block Drift into Ngqika country was a small initial skirmish that was going to lead to war. Some say war was coming anyway, however their blatant trespass definitely applied the amaXhosa chief’s minds as you’re going to hear. They’d crossed over from the Ceded Territory where forts were allowed, into Xhosa territory where forts definitely weren’t and why they did this has been debated. Conservative preacher Henry Calderwood if you remember had also been shocked by the news and wrote a letter warning the Cape Governor of this umbrage. Chief Mgolombane Sandile of the Rharhabe was under pressure from other chiefs, and his young warriors. Sandile had been thrown into his role almost a decade earlier and faced crises after crises. His older brother Maqoma despised him, no worse, hated him and mainly for his superior rank. Sandile however, was no fool, his speeches that have been written down prove he was an agile thinker and he determined policy only through consultation with another brother, Anta and a wise counsellor, Thyala. The latter lived near Sandile at the Burns Hill mission. There was an obvious and steady march to war once more on the Eastern Cape frontier. Sandile decided to go and visit the engineers himself to see what they were up to. A lot has been made of this visit — that he arrived with a full war party and was aggressive. It so happened that shortly before he set off, he’d received a letter from the English administrator of the Ceded Territory, Charles Lennox Stretch who was based in Fort Beaufort. It was a letter of complaint about cattle theft and about an incident where Sandile had slapped an trader who’d insulted him, then taken goods from his shop. Sandile sent his reply saying that both the Governor of the Cape Sir Peregrine Maitland and Stretch were rascals, and that the traders were under his feet as chief and he’d do what he liked with them, and those who complained about cattle theft should shut up. It was in this dark mood that Sandile arrived at Block Drift — at the site of the proposed fort. The five British soldiers in the survey camp were shaken by his attitude, and Lieutenant Stokes sent an urgent message to Fort Beaufort for reinforcements. A darkness seemed to hang over the region through that February, the traditional month of thunderstorms which cracked open the skies, and mirrored the sentiment of both amaXhosa and settler. This year was dry, despite these flashing storms, little rain had fallen increasing the sense of foreboding. For the amaXhosa, this constant threat of an invasion of their land appeared to be attached to genocidal intent. The land rooted their ways and the settlers had made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with the Xhosa culture, their ancient way of life was anathema to these new arrivals. As with other areas of the globe, the immigrants were encroaching not only on territory, but on the very idea of autochthonous survival.

This is episode 163, the year, 1845. New Cape Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland had shown he was a man of action — as a veteran of the Peninsular Campaign against Napoleon you’d expect that, particularly as he fought at Waterloo. This new man of action governor had some doubts about a few things here in sunny South Africa. He doubted the effectiveness of Andries Stockenstrom’s Eastern Cape Ceded territory system for a start. He would sort that he thought with the introduction of a new system which was actually an old system. More about that later. Maitland also doubted the effectiveness of two other treaties signed by his predecessor Sir George Napier with Griqua leader Adam Kok the third and King Moshoeshoe the First of the Basotho. But we need to turn south, back to the Eastern Cape Frontier. The 1840s were a high point of settler power in the Eastern Cape and wool was driving development. As the state expanded, pressure grew on the Ceded Territory, between the Fish and Keiskamma Rivers. It was also a time of reinforcing both the military forts around the frontier, and the communication systems. Starting in the mid-1830s, the British had extended their forts and signalling systems. They had been caught off-guard by the amaXhosa who’d raided the Eastern Cape without warning at the start of the Sixth Frontier War and it was imperative they improve their communication. After the frontier war of 1835-6, the planning of the system of frontier defence fell on the Royal engineers including Lieutenant-Colonel Griffith George Lewis and Captain WFD Jervois, as well as a civilian employee of the War Office, Henry L Hall. Lewis commanded the Royal Engineers in the colony at the time. He repeatedly expressed his frustration at the tardiness of the British government in allocating funds for the effective defence of the frontier districts. These funds of course were squeezed out of the British taxpayer, so the political leadership would not always release investments of this sort immediately. Lewis was one of those folks we come across every now and again, someone who seems to understand the big picture and the need for action. He wrote extensively on frontier defence policy, and complained that for years after the close of the war no clear decisions had been taken on how funds were to be utilised. His warnings like those of Sir John Hare the lieutenant Governor of the Eastern Cape were not being heeded. Jervois built the stockades at Peddie, Trompetter’s Drift, Double Drift and fort Brown, all found in the frontier districts of the Eastern Cape. Jervois would end up in the Channel Islands by the way, and designed and built a whole series of fortifications that were to become famous during the Second world War. The imperial government also approved of Lewis’s scheme for ‘signal towers’, and new roads and bridges to improve communications between these forts and the headquarters at Grahamstown where new barracks were to be built on the old Drostdy Ground. Lewis had been instrumental in building a series of towers to improve communications with Fort Beaufort and Fort Peddie, starting from Fort Selwyn in Grahamstown. The survey to establish suitable points on which to erect the stations was done by Henry Hall, stationed in the Eastern Cape in the period 1842–1858. Robert Godlonton had decided that his Grahamstown Journal was going to up the ante once more when it came to both the Kat River settlement where the khoekhoe lived, and the Ceded Territory. Appropriating the language of civilisation, Godlonton wrote in the journal that “…Colonisation would be then synonymous with civilisation, and the natives instead of being depressed or destroyed, would be raised from their wretched grovelling condition and participate in all the advantages which civilised government is calculated to bestow.” The fact that the amaXhosa people did not regard themselves as in a grovelling condition was utterly ignored by Godlonton.

This is episode 162. First, some housekeeping. A huge thank you to all my supporters, the podcast just passed 1.3 million listens, so there’s a large number of folks out there who’ve found this series useful. I’m so delighted that our crazy tale here on the southern tip of Africa has resonated with so many people. The response has utterly stunned me, thinking when I started that being so battered by headwinds as we are at the moment, cynicism would sink the show. But it’s the opposite. To all the hundreds of listeners sending emails over the last 24 months, your personal stories and responses are all noted and stored. There’s a treasure trove of stuff which I’m going to try and use where appropriate. If you’d like to contact me please send a mail to [email protected] Or head off to my site desmondlatham.blog there’s a contact form there and a newsletter sign-up. And now back to the mid-1840s. When we left off, Moshoeshoe and Adam Kok had signed a Treaty with the Cape Governor which gave them formal power over their territory. And as you know if you listened to episode 161, the definition of exactly what was their territory was somewhat hazy. By now the BaTlokwa, the Koranna and the Voortrekkers amongst others, had taken issue with this treaty, saying Moshoeshoe and Kok had no control over their people. There was a flourishing trade across the Orange, tying Cape Towns like Beaufort West, Graaff-Reinet and Grahamstown were directly linked to the settlements to the north by these trade routes. The Griqua received their gunpowder from these towns and sold their cattle and ivory there for example. The Orange River was a significant challenge, at this stage there was no bridge or ferry and when it flooded, weeks could pass before wagons could cross. The British presence was concentrated in Colesberg where the civil commissioner with the wonderfully memorable name of Fleetwood Rawstone served for 21 years. He was subordinate to the Lieutenant Governor of the eastern Province held through the crucial years of the 1840s by Lieutenant Colonel Hare who lived in Grahamstown. After the return of Jan Mocke, Jan Kock and the Modder River Boers from Natal, life became more difficult for the British commissioner. The Treaty signed between the Griqua and the Cape Colony in 1843 was supposed to bring permanent peace to the Transorangia region but was predicated on the fact that the Griqua were supposed to pacify the Boers. The Boers totally rejected that premise. In November 1844, the Boers had enough and a commando was assembled under Jan Kock which rode to Philippolis, where a Griqua commando had been also been assembled and awaited their arrival. A Mexican standoff developed. It’s defined as a confrontation where no strategy exists that allows either party to achieve victory. Just as an aside, the cliché of a Mexican standoff is best known in Westerns, and probably the most memorable would be Sergio Leone’s 1966 Classic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Governor Maitland was deep in thought back in the Cape. He’d quickly assessed the rising tension across the Orange, as well as in the eastern Cape. He was another Peninsular war vet, commanding a Brigade at the Battle of Waterloo. Maitland had been part of the army that defeated Napoleon and his bravery during that Battle had brought him a formal vote of thanks from the British House of Commons.

This is episode 161 — and what’s this I hear? The sound of wind whipping and howling through the mountain recesses, snow-capped mountains, where the rivers have torn deep ravines in the geography, terraphysics scraping rocks, rushing waters plunging from the escarpment into the eastern cape and free state, foaming and roiling. It must be the home of the BaSotho. Many South Africans make the fatal mistake of thinking that Lesotho is such a small place, reliant on its big neighbour, it is basically another province of the RSA. My friends, harbouring that misconception will get you in deep trouble. Its not size that matters, its pure unbridled pride. Moshoeshoe and his descendents have fought long and hard for independence, albeit in a nation surrounded by a single other nation. By the mid-1940s, Moshoeshoe had turned to the British authorities and their policies were more favourable to him than those of the Boers. The British at least at this point showed no sign of coveting his land, nor had they ill-treated his people, unlike the amaXhosa to the south. Moshoeshoe was being kept up to date about diplomatic events by the influential Frency missionary, Eugene Casalis. By 1843 the Paris missionaries had realised that the biggest threat to Moshoeshoe and his Basotho were not the English, despite the bad blood between the French and the English, but the trekboers. This is important because the Boers didn’t see the Basotho as original owners of the land, they say the owners as San. In the years of discussions, letters, meetings, official notes, logs, missionary biographies, it became obvious that to the Boers, the San being the original owners, meant that the Basotho couldn’t really own the land at all. Basotho national existence began in the midst of what we’d call settler colonialism as well as the intra-African wars between rulers like Mzilikazi, Mantatisi, Shaka. It’s remarkable because this is one of the African states that grew out of a response to invasions by brown, black and white. Sotho oral tradition speaks of the royal family line of Bakoena Ba Mokoteli — which forms the totemic core of Basotho aristocracy, and existed way before these invasions. Casalis and his colleagues became Moshoeshoe’s external voice, writing his communications, and despite their patriotism as Frenchmen, they regarded the British in the Cape as their allies. The reason is simple. France had zero interests in southern Africa by now, so this decision to sidle up to the Brits in Cape Town was not a contradiction. By 1844 treaties with Adam Kok and Moshoeshoe were concluded, with the eye-catching line in both agreements where each undertook to be “the faithful Friend and Ally of the colony…” This was not regarded as a valid claim by the trekboers. Nor Moshoeshoe’s implacable enemy, Sekonyela of the Batlokwa people among others.

This is episode 160 and we’re breathing the spicy smells of the semi-desert, and taking in the exotic and wonderous scenary of the Richtersveld, Namaqualand, and the stunning area around south westn Free State in the 840s. Last episode we heard about the period 1840-1843 in the southern Caledon River valley, and how the Voortrekkers like Jan Mocke were flowing into land that Moshoeshoe of the BaSotho believed was his. That was setting up a classic situation where land was the core of the ension. A lot of what we’re looking at today is centred on a town largely forgotten these days, Philippolis. If you drive along the N1 between Bloemfontein and Colesburg, turn off at Trompsburg and head south west along the R717 for around 45 kilometres. It’s not far from the Orange River, and it’s history is certainly chequered. It’s also the home town of writer and intellectual Laurens van Der Post and former Springbok Rugby player Adriaan Strauss. On the 22nd October, 1842, the country beyond the Orange River to the north-east of the Cape Colony was proclaimed British Territory and the sphere of operations of the Cape British military garrison was considerably enlarged. The emigrant Boers based in this region reacted with anger, it was Adam Kok the second the Griqualand leader who had requested protection from the British because of the increased numbers of trekkers in his vicinity. Between 1826 when Kok arrived and the 1840, Kok had managed to get along with the Boers, but the Great Trek had changed everything. The London Missionary Society had founded Philippolis in 1823 as a mission station serving the local Griqua people, named after the man you heard about last episode, Dr John Philip, who was the superintendent of the Society from 1819 to 1849. Adam Kok II settled in Philippolis with his people in 1826 and became the protector of the mission station, on condition that he promised to protect the San against the aggression of the Boers. Kok was supposed to promote peace in the region, at least that was the brief from the London Missionary Society. Instead, carnage ensued as the Griqua used Philippolis as a base for a number of deadly commandos against the San people - virtually wiping them out in the area. Ironically, the Griqua worked with Boers to conduct their raids. This violated the agreement made between the London Missionary Society and Adam Kok II and eventually the San were driven out of the area. When the Voortrekkers began showing up nearby at Colesberg which was one of the main jumping off points of the Great Trek and tension grew between the trekkers and the Griqua. 1844 - like 2024 - was a leap year. And coming up was a momentous moment. In May 24 1844 the first electrical telegram was sent by Samuel Morse from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to the B&O Railroad "outer depot" in Baltimore, saying "What hath God wrought”. Considering that the telegram and later the radio led to television and then social media, perhaps we should all wonder What Hath God wrought. In June of 1844 the Young Men’s Christian Association was formed, the YMCA, setting off a chain of events culminating in the song of the same name by the Village People. History is not all skop skiet and donder. Back on the dusty flatlands around Philippolis, Adam Kok and the Boers were blissfully unaware of the significance of all of these births and deaths across the Atlantic Ocean. Further south, in the Cape, the newly created road boards were hard at work as I mentioned, building new routes out of Cape Town, connecting the Colony to the most important port in the southern hemisphere. By this point, there were steamships operating between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, which oftened called in at Mossel Bay. Other ships began flocking in huge numbers to a bunch of islands off Namaqualand .. the Great Guano Rush had started at the end of 1843 and really got going in 1844. It was discovered that vast deposits of guano on uninhabited island.

This is episode 159. If we take out a map of south Africa and reconsider the regions, it will become quite apparent that the main demarcation is geographical, geological, the main points of reference are the rivers and the mountains, the desert and semi-desert, the good soils and the bad. Take a look at a map of the region to the south west of the Drakensberg, for its this area way down to the Orange River and extending towards the Kalahari and the Richtersveld that we’re going to focus on in this episode. There is a direct correlation between the British seizing Natal from the Boers, and the effect on the Basotho, the Griqua, the baTlokwa amongst others. The Voortrekkers who refused to take an oath of allegiance to the British Queen Victoria trekked back up over the Drakensberg. And it was the vast majority. Some of these would head north, some south west. Most headed back south were not going to where they began, the Cape Colony, but to try and negotiate or seize land between the Cape and Natal. This was not empty land and I’m going to explain what happened after 1843, after the English flag began to flutter from the Fort in Durban. Slow as wagon travel was, the speed with which the Boers had spread themselves across so much of southern Africa in such a short time had taken everyone by surprise - it had taken six years. The Cape Governors were totally unprepared for this migration. Their narrative had been that these Europeans would find inland Africa far too unforgiving and then return to the Cape where they’d settle down and pay their taxes. When they left in the late 1830s, Cape Governor Sir Benjamin D’urban was anxious, his successor Sir George Napier was even more so. The Boers trundled into the interior and directly into the seething hinterland, shattered as it had been by Mzilikazi, Shaka, the BaTlokwa, and of course, the Griqua and Bastard raiders who travelled like Boers, on horses, with hats and guns. It’s hard for many to fathom these days in the 21st Century, post-apartheid, in a land so riven by what seems to be race-based antagonisms, that back in 1843 by far the most caustic, acrimonious, begrudging and irreconcilable emotions were those felt by the Boers against the British. Their anti-British sentiments were fixed although on an individual basis, the two people seemed to get along. When deserting British soldiers appeared in their midst, Boer mothers and fathers were not averse to their daughters marrying these men. The Boers began to concentrate on the high Veld and across the orange, but for many, the crucial state was Natal. They had gained bloody victories over the amaZulu here, Blood River was their covenant, a lasting affirmation of God’s great plan for the Boers, part of their Exodus narrative, his support of them in smiting the Philistines, the heathens, their dark enemies. Jan Mocke was one of these men on the extreme edge of this sentiment. What had emerged to startle the British, was the power of the voices of Boer Women. They had seen the resistance of their husbands weakening, they’d heard the disparate arguments, the egos where their men had come to blows after a couple of brandies, and told British offiicals to their faces that they’d walk out of Natal Barefoot across the Drakensberg if necessary to die in freedom. As Noel Mostert points out, the Boer women, like amaXhosa women who’d also been busy stiffening their men’s spines, were force that could never be ignored. They were active, demanding and the handmaidens to their history.

This is episode 158 and we’re taking an epic regional tour into the along the Limpopo River to meet with the Venda and other groups of folks who hail from the province we now call Limpopo. Thanks to listener Mushe for the suggestion. By the mid-fifteenth century Shona-speaking immigrants from Zimbabwe settled across the Limpopo River and interacted with the local Sotho inhabitants. As a result of this interaction, Shona and Sotho led to what is now regarded as a common Venda identity by the mid-sixteenth century. Venda-speaking people live mainly in the Soutpansberg area and southern Zimbabwe, but they also once lived in south-western Mozambique and north-eastern Botswana. Venda grammar and phonology is similar to Shona, particularly western Shona and Venda vocabulary has its greatest equivalent in Sotho. Phonology is the branch of linguistics that deals with systems of sounds within a language or between different languages. According to most ethnographers it is not only the Venda language, but also certain customs, such as the domba pre-marital school, that distinguish them from surrounding Shona, Sotho-Tswana and Tsonga communities. First a quick refresh. We heard in one of earlier podcasts about the Mapungubwe kingdom which lasted until the 13th Century - following which Shona speaking people’s moved southwards into the Soutpansberg region over the centuries. Archaeologists have established that by the fourteenth century, or the late Mapungubwe period and what is known as and the Moloko, the early post Mapungubwe kingdoms emerged in northern Transvaal. This is where the forebears of the Venda come in. Zimbabwean ceramics help a lot here, they were produced by Shona speakers and their fourteenth century distribution demarcated the Shona trading empire centred around Great Zimbabwe. The rulers at Great Zimbabwe controlled most of the country between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers until smaller trading states broke away in the fifteenth century. I’ve covered this in great detail in Episodes 5, 6 and 7 if you want to refresh memories. We also know that trade between these early kingdoms and the east coast was established, goods like gold, ivory, and copper were traded with Arabic and Portuguese merchants. The Venda were directly impacted by this trade, along with another unique group called the Lemba who are directly related to ancestors who actually traded all the way from Yemen in the Middle East. More about them in a few minutes. Ceramics help us piece together the past more effectively, the period of Shona and Sotho interaction eventually involved into more than a mere overlap of these ceramic styles, because for the first time different stylistic elements appeared on the same vessels. These Letaba pots have also been unearthed in the eastern Transvaal or Limpopo Province as its now known. It is interesting that these ceramics are still produced today, these Letaba pots and ceramics are made by the Venda, the Tsonga, the Ndebele, but anthropologists and historians believe the style itself is distinctly Venda in character. The Venda kingdom pretty much stretched from the Limpopo River in the north to the Olifants and Ngwenya River, or Crocodile River, in the south, but by the time Louis Trichardt rode through their land in 1836, the great Venda empire had almost vanished, torn up by external threats — damaged by the amaNdebele and even amaZulu raiders. The second group who could be found in this territory are the Lemba. They remain one of the self-defining groups of the region who have a stunning origin story. I am going to tread quite carefully here because there’s science and then there’s oral tradition. As you’ll hear, the Lemba believe they are related to the lost Tribes of Israel, and have recently demanded that they be recognized as such. Their narrative and origin story links them to the Middle East and the Judaism and there is DNA evidence to back them up.

This is episode 157 - where Dick King and Ndongeni ka Xoki ride to out of Durban carrying a dispatch from besieged British commander, Captain Smith, surrounded by Boers, in real danger. On the 24th May 1842 King and ka Xoki snuck out of the Port Natal region heading to Grahamstown in the south. That was a thousand kilometre journey which was going to take 10 days. Averaging 100 kilometres a day on a horse was some feat. Ndongeni Ndongeni Ka Xoki had already given King his Zulu nickname -Mlamulankunzi which loosely translated means a peacemaker among bulls. This was regarded as a mark of respect and admiration and there’s a lot to admire about King as well as Ka Xoki. They had agreed to take a dispatch to Lieutenant Governor Colonel Hare in Grahamstown for Captain Thomas Smith who’d been shamed by the Boers at the Battle of Congella which I covered last episode. King was young and adventurous, he was an elephant hunter and a trader and came to South Africa as an 1820 Settler at the age of six. He was a frontiersman and an excellent rider who could and did turn his hand to anything it seems. Ndongeni ka Xoki had worked for King for a few years by this time. There’s also been a great deal of hooplah, disinformation and propaganda about King’s ride. The popular view of Dick King over the decades has been moulded by the Durban public memorial - it is an equestrian statue on the Esplanade - now Margaret Mcadi Avenue. The main Dick King statue presents the sole figure of King as the heroic if exhausted rider, but there is a missing Ndongeni on his horse. Protestors who defaced the statue in 2015 of course had no idea about that, they were throwing paint at all colonial era artefacts - equal opportunity statue painters. It was midday on the 24th June when Boer lookouts spotted a schooner called the Conch rounding the Bluff and sailing into the bay. It was a trading ship not a war ship, so the boers relaxed. They shouldn’t have, because the wily and wicked English had a surprise up their sleeves. Crouching below decks were 100 Grenadiers of the 27th Regiment under command of Captain Durnford, a few others were on deck but dressed in civilians clothes. Trickery and deceit — how very English.

When we left off last episode, Captain Thomas Smith and two companies of the 27th Inniskilling Regiment, an 18 pounder that had just arrived by ship, two six pounder field guns, a small section of the Royal Artillery, a hand full of Royal Engineers, Sappers and miners, along with a company of Cape Mountain Rifles had formed their laager at level area to then north of Durban CBD today - where the Old Fort can be seen. Just a note - the 27th Inniskilling were an Irish infantry regiment of the British army, formed in 1689 so they’d been around the block so to speak. Boer commander Andries Pretorius had called his men to where he’d setup camp at Congella and by the time this battle commenced, there’d be more than 200 ready to face Smith’s professional soldiers. The British were hopelessly optimistic in their plans as you’re going to hear. Some of the English traders left at Port Natal, Henry Ogle for example, had warned Captain Smith that his force was somewhat underwhelming and that the Boers were not to be taken lightly. Smith unfortunately had no choice but to impose himself. He’d marched to Durban from Umgazi, and the last orders he’d received from Cape Governor Sir George Napier was to secure the bay for the British Empire. I’ve already explained that back in England, the Secretary for War and the Colonies Lord Stanley had changed his mind and ordered Smith back to base but his letter was going to arrive woefully too late. Captain Smith was aware of the Boer capacity to fight in bush, so he ordered his men to march along the beachfront. A stunning full moon was shining, causing the waves to fluoresce. Anyone who’s marched on a beach knows that its very difficult, made worse by the horses and of course, dragging the three guns along - while they were obviously now clearly visible to anyone lurking in the bush on the dunes. It was low tide, so the going was good at first as the hard sand made things a little easier. The British also deployed a howitzer on a long boat from the Mazeppa which was how folks made difficult trip between ships at anchor in Durban Bay and across the dangerous sandbar to the beach. Smith was hoping that the longboat could row to the beach at high tide to offload the howitzer — but that was seven hours away. There were a lot of what if’s that dogged Smith’s plan as you can see. Pretorius had also given strict orders that no Boer should fire until the British troops were within 100 metres of the camp. The burghers waited until at Pretoriu’s command, five shots rang out. An ox at each of the three gun carriages was shot dead by the sharpshooters only a few metres away in the bush. That wasn’t all, Lieutenant Wyatt and a private of the Inniskilling regiment were both shot in the head and killed instantly. Pandemonium broke out in the British ranks. The surviving oxen panicked, but were now dragging the gun and a dead ox with them, while the canon were actually pointed away from the Boer laager so couldn’t even be brought to bear and fired. The British in their redcoats dived onto the sand, firing back into the darkness. The soldiers were caught in the full moon light which back in these days of zero light pollution, was like a flare in the sky. The English were in big trouble.

Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham - it’s episode 155 and the Cape economy is growing in leaps and bounds. The years between 1840 and 1843 were a fascinating mix of economic development and military endeavour. We will be returning to the arrival in Port Natal aka Durban of Captain Smith and his 263 men and unfortunately, there’s going to be fisticuffs, bullets, death and traitorous acts. But it is true that the most significant development in South Africa after 1835 was the expansion of agricultural production. Luckily for us, an organisation called eGSSA, founded in 2004, is the virtual branch of the Genealogical Society of South Africa, and provides a virtual home for everyone from the beginner to the most advanced family historian. And buried in their digital archives are digitalised copies of the Cape Frontier Times, a publication that began it’s life in Grahamstown in 1840. In between notices about births, marriages and deaths, that are known by old school editors as hatches, matches and dispatches, is a great deal of material about money, commodities, the economy. Americans had also just discovered what was known as Cape Gum. This weeps from a tree known as Acacia Karoo or the Karoo thorn, or if you’re into Latin, the Vachellia karroo. What was going on as well was the genesis of an African peasant producer of agricultural goods — and these producers of food would become very important as our story progresses through the 19th Century. Moving along. You heard last episode how Cape Governor, Sir George Napier, the one-armed veteran of the peninsular wars against Napoleon, had signed an order for Captain Thomas Smith and his 263 to march to Port Natal, and seize the valuable port for the British. That of course, was going to be opposed by the Boers. Adding fuel to the propaganda fire apart from the Volksraads decision in Pietermaritzburg to kick amaZulu out of southern Natal and the midlands, was the sudden an unexpected arrival in Port Natal of an American ship called the Levant.

This is episode 154 and the amaBhaca people under chief Ncapayi have just raided the Boers along the upper Bushman’s river and near their new town of Weenen. Joining the Bhaca were the San raiders you heard about in episode 152. The area around the Umzimvubu River had been unstable ever since the amaBhaca fled to the region during Shaka’s time, and the amaBhaca now lived west of the amaPondo who were ruled by chief Faku ka Ngqungqushe. It’s important to note that both the amaMpondo and the amaBhaca used to live further north in Natal before Shaka’s fractious wars began and led to the movement of the people known as the Mfecane. The amaPondo did not trust the amaBhaca, calling them thieves. The arrival of the Boers in Natal meant they had a powerful new possible ally — but they quickly learned that the Boers were not to be trusted either as you’re going to hear in this episode. Faku regularly communicated with the Voortrekkers, and now that the amaBhaca had made the fatal decision to steal more than 700 head of cattle from the trekkers near Weenen, along with 50 horses, the Volksraad in Pietermaritzburg had had enough. They met in November and ordered Andries Pretorius and commandant Hendrik Stephanus Lombard to lead a commando of 260 Boers to extract maximum revenge from the amaBhaca. Chief Fodo of the Nlangwini who lived between the Bhaca and the Boers had also been raided, so he and about a hundred of the Nlangwini warriors joined the Boer commando seeking their own form of restitution. In the ensuing attack, 26 men, ten women and four children were killed, and the boers seized 3 000 cattle as well as 2 000 sheep. The numbers have been contested over the years, but the fact that women and children died was confirmed. However, it was their decision to seize at least 17 of the amaBhaca children they said had been orphaned in the attack that was going to lead to a great deal of interest by the anti-slavery lobby in the Cape — and in England. Chief Faku wrote a letter around this time to Governor Sir George Napier, expressing his fear that he would be next, that the Boers were seizing livestock and children willy nilly south of the Umzimvubu River, and that matters could not continue and begged to be placed under the protection of the British Government. on August 2nd 1841, the Raad took the rather unwise decision to force all these amaZulu squatters off the farms. It went further, ruling that none had any right to claim any part of Natal at all. They should be removed, resolved the Volksraad, to the tract of land between the Umtamvuna River and the Umzimvubu River. ON the surface, this appeared to be a reasonable suggestion, the land is excellent here, enough water and good soils. However, no-one had bothered to ask the local African clans what they thought of this basically, forced removal and furthermore, someone already lived there. On August 21st, Lord John Russell instructed the Governor to make arrangements for the reoccupying of Port Natal. This is where Captain Smith would make his appearance and the coming march overland to Port Natal was going to be arduous indeed.

1840 was a leap year, and in November David Livingstone had left Britain for Africa. His story of exploration and commitment is extraordinary. While he would go on to become better known for his attempts at finding the source of the Nile River in east Africa, it was his formative phase of life at mission stations in southern Africa that we’re interested in. Born on 19 March 1813 in Blantyre, Scotland, he was the second of seven children and employed at the age of ten in the towns’ cotton mill. This was way before rules about these things, and this ten year-old worked twelve hours days as a piecer, who’s job it was to lay broken cotton threads on the spinning machines. He was drawn to the teachings of local evangelist, Thomas Burke. He studied medicine, and then was ordained as a minister of the church at the Charing Cross Medical School. A chance meeting with south African Scots missionary Robert Moffat in London was to change his life. Moffat was running the London Missionary Society’s station at Kuruman, and Livingstone asked him if he “would do for Africa” as in survive. “I said he would” Moffat wrote later, “if he would not go to an old station, but would advance to unoccupied ground, specifying the vast plain to the north where I had sometimes seen in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary had ever been…” Forgive my pathetic attempt at a Scots accent. Young David Livingstone was going to take that to heart over the next few decades and would become known as the greatest missionary in Africa, even though the truth is he converted only one person to Christianity. He left England for the Cape in November 1840, and spent most of his time on board studying Dutch and seTswana. Joining him on board was someone else we’re going to hear quite a bit about in coming episodes, another LMS missionary called William Ross. You know how everything connects one way or another. So we have Livingstone and Ross sailing to southern Africa - imbued with the concepts of evangelical christianity with it’s core message Influenced by revivalistic teachings in the United States, Livingstone entirely accepted the proposition put by Charles Finney, Professor of Theology at Oberlin College, Ohio, that "the Holy Spirit is open to all who ask it". For Livingstone, this meant a release from the fear of eternal damnation. And being an earnest young man, he felt that folks should hear about this. Initially he wanted to go to China, but the looming first Opium War led to the London Missionary Society directors deciding southern Africa was safer. Livingstone and Ross landed in Simon’s Bay in March 1841 after a stop off in Brazil. Livingstone stayed at Dr Philip’s home in Cape Town. Philip spoke quite a bit about how he believed in the policy that all people were equal before God and the law and Livingstone believed that too. Clearly then Livingstone was not going to be welcomed by the Boers and British settlers most of whom by now definitely did not believe this message. Livingstone sailed up the coast to Algoa Bay in May and then he took a two month ox-wagon trek along with William Ross to the Kuruman Mission. There he immersed himself in Tswana life and trekked more than a thousand kilometres to Mabotse in modern day Botswana which is near Zeerust. The Boers in Pietermaritzburg had gone through a combination of good and bad. In 1839 more than half a dozen people had died when a candle tipped over in one of the houses there, burning down 13. The blaze was made worse by the gunpowder stores in most of the houses, and the fire was so intense, it set fire to nearby wagons. Hendrick Potgieter based on the high veld had still not reconciled with Andries Pretorius - but things were about to change.

This is episode 152, we’re going to dig into a story that is not often told — the amaTola San raiders of the Drakensberg. They emerged by the end of the third decade of the 19th Century as a result of a mish-mash of forces at play on the veld. And what a remarkable story this is so hold onto your horses! Literally as it would appear. What has been re-discovered recently is the identification of a plethora of mounted frontier raiding groups and how these had impacted the interior of Southern Africa, and in particular, the mountains north-east of the Cape Colony. Certain frontier raiding groups often referred to simply as ‘Bushmen’ were really comprised of members from many formerly distinct ethnicities, and included the progeny from subsequent inter-marriage. Cultural and ethnic mixing, the advent of the horse, the increased access to guns and ammunition, and the need for identity to adapt to these changes, resulted in a volatile mix indeed. There were freed slaves, Khoesan, San, and English soldiers who’d gone AWOL, as well as descendants of former VOC soldiers who were Swedish, German, Swiss, and Dutch. There’s a correlation here with the American Frontier experience, where men and sometimes women, armed with muskets, bows, and spears, wearing feathered headgear or wide-brimmed trekboer hats and riding horses, raided their neighbours for cattle and horses or exchanged these valuable resources for corn, tobacco, dogs and alcohol, much like other nineteenth century frontiers. There the roaming bandits were the Jumanos, the Lakota, the Metis, all became seminal in the B-grade Western movies of the 1950s. South Africa’s bandits and raiders were arraigned across a large area, but perhaps the most interesting were those living in the amaTola mountains, a mixture of people who were on the fringes of society. Because horses were only introduced to the Drakensberg in the 1830s and production of hunter-gatherer rock art in that region had almost entirely ceased by the 1880s, horse paintings are comparatively tightly pinpointed in time, unlike virtually all other categories of images in southern African rock art. San paintings of this time reveal quite an astonishing fact, these people had a mixed material culture, the paintings who San and others who were not San working together, carrying firearms, riding horses with their dogs running alongside, carrying spears and bows, and importantly, dancing their trance dances. The area I’m addressing lies between the Mzimvubu River and the Tina River, across the central Drakensburg in other words, across both sides of the escarpment, stretching from Giants Castle in modern Kwa-Zulu Natal to Mount Fletcher in the Eastern Cape and Matsaile inside Lesotho. Glancing at a map, and tracing folks living in this area in 1840 you’d find the Voortrekkers arraigned inland from Port Natal, around Pietermaritzburg, and up to the headwaters of the Umgeni, the Mooi River and Bushman’s River just below Giant’s Castle. From here the San Raiders controlled the landscape, along the ridges of the Drakensberg south westerly to Mount Fletcher, in the slopes above the Senqu River or the headwaters of the Orange Riverif you prefer. This overlooked where the Bhaca lived, south east of them, the amaMpondo, further south the Mpondomise, then further the amaThembu, to their east and south the amaXhosa could be found and to their south, the English settlers in Albany. I hope you can feel the proximity of these amaTola raiders because everyone in these areas were somewhat fearful of the gangs of men on horses. The San raiders were based in that mountain redoubt between Giant’s Castle and Mount Fletcher and they were surrounded by enemies but also prospective allies. This mountain redoubt was getting a bad name, and soon would be identified on maps from the 1840s onwards as nomansland.

This is episode 152, we’re going to dig into a story that is not often told — the amaTola San raiders of the Drakensberg. They emerged by the end of the third decade of the 19th Century as a result of a mish-mash of forces at play on the veld. And what a remarkable story this is so hold onto your horses! Literally as it would appear. What has been re-discovered recently is the identification of a plethora of mounted frontier raiding groups and how these had impacted the interior of Southern Africa, and in particular, the mountains north-east of the Cape Colony. Certain frontier raiding groups often referred to simply as ‘Bushmen’ were really comprised of members from many formerly distinct ethnicities, and included the progeny from subsequent inter-marriage. Cultural and ethnic mixing, the advent of the horse, the increased access to guns and ammunition, and the need for identity to adapt to these changes, resulted in a volatile mix indeed. There were freed slaves, Khoesan, San, and English soldiers who’d gone AWOL, as well as descendants of former VOC soldiers who were Swedish, German, Swiss, and Dutch. There’s a correlation here with the American Frontier experience, where men and sometimes women, armed with muskets, bows, and spears, wearing feathered headgear or wide-brimmed trekboer hats and riding horses, raided their neighbours for cattle and horses or exchanged these valuable resources for corn, tobacco, dogs and alcohol, much like other nineteenth century frontiers. There the roaming bandits were the Jumanos, the Lakota, the Metis, all became seminal in the B-grade Western movies of the 1950s. South Africa’s bandits and raiders were arraigned across a large area, but perhaps the most interesting were those living in the amaTola mountains, a mixture of people who were on the fringes of society. Because horses were only introduced to the Drakensberg in the 1830s and production of hunter-gatherer rock art in that region had almost entirely ceased by the 1880s, horse paintings are comparatively tightly pinpointed in time, unlike virtually all other categories of images in southern African rock art. San paintings of this time reveal quite an astonishing fact, these people had a mixed material culture, the paintings who San and others who were not San working together, carrying firearms, riding horses with their dogs running alongside, carrying spears and bows, and importantly, dancing their trance dances. The area I’m addressing lies between the Mzimvubu River and the Tina River, across the central Drakensburg in other words, across both sides of the escarpment, stretching from Giants Castle in modern Kwa-Zulu Natal to Mount Fletcher in the Eastern Cape and Matsaile inside Lesotho. Glancing at a map, and tracing folks living in this area in 1840 you’d find the Voortrekkers arraigned inland from Port Natal, around Pietermaritzburg, and up to the headwaters of the Umgeni, the Mooi River and Bushman’s River just below Giant’s Castle. From here the San Raiders controlled the landscape, along the ridges of the Drakensberg south westerly to Mount Fletcher, in the slopes above the Senqu River or the headwaters of the Orange Riverif you prefer. This overlooked where the Bhaca lived, south east of them, the amaMpondo, further south the Mpondomise, then further the amaThembu, to their east and south the amaXhosa could be found and to their south, the English settlers in Albany. I hope you can feel the proximity of these amaTola raiders because everyone in these areas were somewhat fearful of the gangs of men on horses. The San raiders were based in that mountain redoubt between Giant’s Castle and Mount Fletcher and they were surrounded by enemies but also prospective allies. This mountain redoubt was getting a bad name, and soon would be identified on maps from the 1840s onwards as nomansland.

Episode 151 and we’re into the 1840s - and its time to analyse some issues. One is education, the other, roads. Given our crisis in education these days, its perhaps another of our historical ironies that state funded schooling was offered by 1839 and 1840 in the Cape, something that was unparalleled at the time except for Prussia and a handful of New England states in America. No-where else in the world at the time could state funded free education be found. Yes, you heard that right, South Africa was an early adopter of free education. Another growing phenomenon at this moment was the building of roads, something that was sorely required in a region as vas as southern Africa. After the Sixth Frontier war of 1834-5, municipal government began to develop, and a new Legislative Council was struggling to make sense of the existing political system. All members of the council were appointed by the Governor, and only gained the right to alter the Charters of Justice, or the law, in 1844. Christoffel Brand, editor of die Zuid Afrikaan, and Robert Godlonton editor of the Grahamstown journal, both talked of an elective assembly. Godlonton added that he preferred to see the Eastern Cape achieve independence from the Cape. These erstwhile journalists were merely repeating conversations that were taking place across the British Empire in the fourth decade of the 19th Century. In Australia for example, the 1840s were years of conflict, as British settlers increasingly moved out away from towns seeking new farmland, First Nations fought back and resisted this expansion. Violence ensued. Squatters, who leased large pastoral lands from the colonial governments in New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria and into Queensland and South Australia, increasingly gained political and economic influence. They became wealthy off the land leased at low rates, stocking them with thousands of sheep, with their fleeces sold into the British market. Many squatters, with time and money, stood for election to parliament to set the laws and rules in their favour. Wool was also going to become the Cape’s main resource shortly. The gloom of the trekkers leaving the province had been replaced by an economic upturn — the Cape Colony finances were in a much healthier condition than they had been ten years earlier. Governor D’Urban, who’d left for home, had earlier launched a campaign to simplify the fiscal system and by 1840 the campaign had begun to bear fruit. The collection of taxes by Colonial Secretary John Montagu resulted in the Cape finally wiping off its public debt and re-paying the British government in full. Customs revenues were rising, the slave compensation fund had helped, and the delivery of stores during the Sixth Frontier war bolstered imports, while exports grew. Wine farms had experienced a drop in sales starting in 1825, but wool had largely replaced this commodity. Merino sheep had been acclimatised in Albany district around Grahamstown just before the war of 1834, and suddenly there was a lot of money to be made farming these animals for their wool. Within ten years, by the 1850s, wool would outstrip all other Cape exports put together. Just like in Australia. To his credit, Sir George Napier wanted to improve this situation and following a report prepared by Colonial Secretary John Bell for his predecessor D’Urban, Napier turned to a fascinating man called Sir John Herschel. He was a famous astronomer, who was collaborating with Thomas Maclear, the Cape Astronomer Royal at the private observatory at Claremont near Cape Town. And this of course, is why we call Observatory Observatory. Loved by the students, loathed by their parents, a place of excellent entertainment to this day, Obs is a seminal party centre, characterised by the smell of cannabis on Lower Main Street. Sir John Herschel had a cunning plan. He began to develop a system that bore his name, whereby two classes of schools were recognised.

For those who’ve lasted the journey thus far, thank you for listening. The number of downloads is approaching 1 and a quarter million, which by itself is quite a shock. Adding to the selfserving histrionics, Episode one of this series has just made to Spotify’s fourth most listened to podcast in South Africa for 2023. More gasps of disbelief. When I began this enterprise in February 2021 it was a giant leap into a possible abyss, a leap into the unknown, and possibly a foray into catastrophe. One person’s historian is another person’s spin doctor you could say. As 2024 beckons, I need to mention that my site, desmondlatham.blog has a donation panel. The hosting services are not free and so far I’ve tried to avoid mentioning moolah — its base and depraved. However, debasing and depraving is required as the cost of all of this has to be covered some how. So you’ll see a donate button on desmondlatham.blog, click on there and there’s a Paypal QR code on the page. If you’d prefer to EFT or something, send me an email at [email protected]. With that slightly odious begging bowl moment out of the way, back to our tale. We’re going to hear about Dingana’s death, It’s late January 1840, and word reached the Voortrekker BeesKommando that Dingana had been defeated at amaQongqo, he was on the run. Although commandant Andries Pretorius believed this was true, the Boers wanted to follow up on the amaZulu King’s defeat to deal with the remnants of his army. AS you know, Ndlela kaSompiti the general had paid for the defeat with his life, Dingana had him killed but the surviving army was still out there, on the flat lands west of the Lebombo Mountains. But by throwing Ndlela’s body out for the wild dogs, the jackals, the hyenas and the vultures, Dingana had broken the tradition of burying respected elders and royalty. Many of his own followers took exception to this act and realised that his behaviour belied his weakness, so more decided to throw in their lot with Mpande kaSenzangkhona. On 3rd February, 220 Boers detached from the BeesKommando for a quick recon towards the Pongolo river after being informed that Dingana’s general Nongalaza was chasing Ndlela’s shattered impi south. Maybe they’d catch these warriors in a pincer, there were reportedly around 3000 still alive and unhurt — at least 2000 others had either died or were wounded and no longer a threat. Hundreds of warriors were indeed in the vicinity, heading back home towards the Mfolozi from the Pongola River, but this was summer and summers are often characterised by thick mist in the valleys. It was under cover of this mist belt that that warriors managed to avoid the Boers, hiding in the kloofs and caves and inside the dense riverine bush. A small group of men and women were caught in a cave, the men were killed, the women seized. Then 250 burghers were mounted up in a larger commando and headed north east from the White Mfolozi to the Pongola river to join up with Nongalaza’s amaZulu. They met up with Nongalaza on the 5th February, who told them that Dingana had made it across the Pongola River and was fleeing into amaSwazi country with a few close adherents and his mother and some sisters. He was headed towards the Lubombo Mountains. Now anyone who has travelled here will know of the Ghost mountain, the combination of blunt hills and thick sub-tropical bush, the sandy trails and possibly, the ghostly stories. When he realised that Nongalaza’s men had turned around, he stopped with his retinue at a small hilll south of the Lubombo Mountains called Hlathikhulu. Peering at these mountains in February 1840 was Dingana, who took stock as he settled in to a makeshift royal residence on the forested slopes. His isigodlo was put in place and he named this eSankoleni, a place of seclusion, the secluded spot. This was his last place, and instead of seclusion, it was going to be a place of execution.

This is episode 149 and Mpande kaSenzangakhona and the Boers are going after Dingana. We’re entering the 1840s where momentous events would continue to shape South Africa’s future. After Shaka’s death in 1828 his half-brother and murderer, Dingana, was supposed to usher in stability. Instead, Dingana embroiled the AmaZulu in one war after another, trying to defeat Mzilikazi of the amaNdebele, fightign the baTlokwa, the amaSwazi, the Boers, and now, his own Royal line. By ordering Mpande’s assassination, he had set off a chain of events that was going to boomerang on him and the coming Zulu Civil War had been in the offing for some time. He’d also set off his own demise by failing to kill Mpande, who then fled across the Thukela River with over 17 000 adherents and about 35 000 cattle. Mpande had met Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius and negotiated with the Voortrekkers as the man they now called “The Reigning Prince of the Emigrant Zulus”. A Boer deputation of 28 men under the leadership of F Roos had visited him at his homestead not far from Port Natal in October 1839, where he offered to pay them the cattle owed by Dingana, over 19 300, and ceded the bay of St Lucia to the Boers. Mpande also promised not to undertake any military activity without Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius’ knowledge. Then as if to reinforce his power, he turned a blind eye to the killing of a much feared induna called Mpangazitha kaMncumbatha who was of the amaNdwandwe. Zwide’s people. Mpangazitha had become an influential and brutal induna operating alongside Dingana, and one day he was killed in full view of the trekkers. This shocked the visiting Boers, who watched as the induna was dragged, then beaten by successive men armed with fighting sticks, his blue robe spattered with blood as he was bludgeoned to death. Mpande later said he didn’t order this killing, Mpangazitha had brought it on himself by his bullyboy tactics — the other induna just had enough of this egotistical man who’d committed a long list of human rights abuses against other people’s over the past decade. Live by the sword, die by the knobkerrie I guess. By Christmas, however, the British were gone from the garrison at Port Natal, Captain Jervis had sailed away with the British administration now mistakenly of the belief that the violence in Natal had dissipated. Then Dingana sent a famous message to the Boers in Pietermaritzburg by the end of 1839, trying to discredit Mpande. “He is not a man…” the messengers said “…he has turned away his face, he is a woman. He was useless to Dingana his master, and he will be of no use to you. Do not trust him, for his face may turn again…” Coming from a man as pernicious as Dingana was rather hypocritical. Ndlela’s impi on paper at least, looked the better of the two. Dingana had pulled together the top notch amabutho, the iziNyosi, the uDlambedlu, the imVoko which had remnants of the umKulutshane regiment. They’d been joined by the uKhokhoti, who’d also been at the Battle of Blood River/Ncome. Mpande’s general Nongalaza led amabutho like the imiHaye who’d joined up with remnants of the imVoko who’d switched sides as well as the uZwangendaba who were a bit like a mercenary division drawn from the homesteads called the umLambongwenya, uDukuza and isiKlebhe. Mpande’s army included the veterans iziMpohlo, formed during Shaka’s time, these were older men, scarred in battle and seeking one more victory before they’d retire to their imizi. Not only were Mpande’s men feeling more optimistic, they knew that somewhere to their west the Voortrekkers were heading their way. Between these two organisations, most warriors fighting for Mpande were convinced they were going to win. The canny Mpande had pulled off a diplomatic move of note. Had he waited for the Boers to arrive, he would have lost face — by striking first he was waging war without the muskets and the horses.

This is episode 148 and there’re negotiations afoot between Dingana and the Voortrekkers, at the behest of Captain Henry Jervis who led the small detachment of British troops based at Port Natal. Their role was to stabilise the Natal region after a year of extreme violence, the Voortrekkers and the AmaZulu king Dingana were fighting tooth and nail. Jervis as you heard was one of the characters in our history that crop up here and there and are able to act as neutral arbitrators between different factions. Gambusha the trusted inceku sent by Dinanga had arrived at the British camp on 23 February 1839 and said that the AmaZulu were on the brink of ruin and would accept any terms that Jervis would propose. Gambusha also asked for the British to consider allying themselves with the AmaZulu to oppose the Voortrekker expansion, Dingana wanted British protection. Jervis could not do this, saying that his role was to act as a go-between and could not take sides. Gambusha took that message back to the Zulu king. On the 23rd March two inceku called Gikwana and Gungwana returned to Port Natal with 300 of the Boer horses they had captured in the year of fighting as a sign of good faith. Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius then arrived as you heard, calling himself the “Grand Commandant of the Right Worshipful the representative assembly of the South African Society at Natal.” Had business cards been a thing back in 1839 that title wouldn’t fit on one side. Nevertheless, peace talks were now underway. Eventually the terms were agreed — that Dingana would return all the muskets, horses, sheep and 19,300 cattle he’d taken from the trekkers and allow them to live unmolested south of the Thukela River. IN turn, the Boers would assist the Zulu should they come under attack. It was also agreed that from now on, all AmaZulu emissaries who crossed the Thukela River should carry a white flag indicating who they were, and that those found without this pass would be shot on sight. Pretorius also demanded that Dingana should send a messenger directly to him in Pietermaritzburg when they were ready to hand over the cattle and other goods. The British were to be left out of future meetings. The problem for Dingana, is that he was now trying to carve out new territory that was in the name of the Swazi king Sobhuza the First. And the reason why it was a problem was the Swazi could fight like the amaZulu. And yet, Dingana was also using Pretorius’ final demand as part of his political strategy, because when men married, they would have to be given land for their homesteads. By occupying vast tracts of Swazi land, Dingana would also be reinforcing his own political power, colonising new vistas for the Zulu. There was another reason why Dingana was focusing on the amaSwazi, a people whom the AmaZulu looked down on. Attacking them would be part of an ihlambo, a washing of the spears, a purification ceremony bathed in blood marking the end of the period of mourning set off by the humiliation of being defeated by the Boers. This washing of the spears would mean the evil spirits that caused the defeat, the umnyama, the evil influence, would be pushed away into the territory of the foe.The Swazi now faced a amaZulu invasion which began in the winter of 1839, a far more threatening action than any of the previous raids. This was an attack of colonial occupation by four Amabutho, the umBelebele, the uNomdayana, umKulutshane and the imVoko. Klwana kaNgqengele led these regiments, a man from one of the most powerful chiefly houses, the Buthelezi. It was Mpande kaSenzangakhona who was going to change the equation. Dingana’s half-brother had been in hiding after another attempt on his life by the capricious Zulu king, and in September 1839 he had fled across the Thukela River with 17 000 people, and 25 000 head of cattle.

Cape Town was burgeoning — and trade was starting to pick up. There was also a paradox, the real effects of the emancipation of slaves back in 1834 was only really felt in 1838 because it was in that year the 38 000 slaves were finally allowed to leave their masters. The abolition of slavery led to the creation of several private commercial banks, which then offered cheap credit to wage-labour employers. The British parliament allocated £20 million as compensation for those who had previously owned slaves and were now stripped on their erstwhile ‘property’ in inverted comma’s — to be shared out across it’s territories. Of the twenty million, £1,247 000 was allocated to the Cape. Though a certain proportion of this money got stuck in Great Britain in the hands of agents as we’ve heard in previous episodes, the amount that arrived in the Cape Colony, mainly in 1836–37, quintupled the sum of money in circulation. This in turn caused a raising of prices, it was inflationary, and also led to increased labour costs. Some of the money was invested in new banks, as well as providing capital to build new houses around the Cape. One of these was the Eastern Province Bank which launched in 1838 in Grahamstown - which went on to become Barclay’s Bank, and during the sanctions period of apartheid, it morphed into First National Bank. Compensated emancipation at the Cape was a major social rupture, ending as it did 182 years of legal slavery, changing the legal status of these 38 000 people. The slave-like apprenticeship period that followed emancipation in 1834 had now expired. Khoi, and other members of the free black community continued to work mostly in farm employment, although a few became market gardeners or joined the small but growing artisanal class in the villages of the Western Cape.’ Emancipation at the Cape freed slaves into the category "free black," which encompassed all people of colour native to the Western Cape: "Hottentots" was the colonial term for the Khoi and "Bushmen" the colonial term for the San, "Bastards" were those who had a white father, Khoi mother and "Bastard Hottentots" were those who had a slave father and Khoi mother. By the time of emancipation, the slave population of the Western Cape was predominantly creole, including descendants of slaves brought from the west and east coasts of Africa, Madagascar, India, and the Dutch East Indies, and children born of a slave mother and a free father. The close cultural and social relations between Khoisan and slaves and the incorporation of the Khoisan into the Cape colonial economy, also contributed to the heterogeneous culture of the rural poor at this stage. The introduction of "prize negroes," who had been "rescued" from other nations' slave ships by the British and brought to the Cape from 1808 to 1815 and then again in the 1830s to remedy the labor shortage in the Western Cape, also served to increase the polyglot nature of the rural poor of the Western Cape. This diversity of geographical and cultural origins affected the emergence of an official racial terminology to cover all of these groups to simplify matters. Thus while the category of "free black" continued to be used into the 1840s in government correspondence regarding labor legislation. But from 1837 the statistical Blue Books began listing people of Khoi and San descent, free blacks, “prize negroes," and freed people under the category “Coloured." The slave owners were a leisure class and now slaves were free, it was the start of the fourth decade of the 19th Century. The slaves had the skills, the leisure class, did not, and now this leisure class really needed the new banks. So the abolition of slavery resulted in the liquidation of at substantial portion of the capital that had been invested in the individuals who were enslaved.

Cape Town was burgeoning — and trade was starting to pick up. There was also a paradox, the real effects of the emancipation of slaves back in 1834 was only really felt in 1838 because it was in that year the 38 000 slaves were finally allowed to leave their masters. The abolition of slavery led to the creation of several private commercial banks, which then offered cheap credit to wage-labour employers. The British parliament allocated £20 million as compensation for those who had previously owned slaves and were now stripped on their erstwhile ‘property’ in inverted comma’s — to be shared out across it’s territories. Of the twenty million, £1,247 000 was allocated to the Cape. Though a certain proportion of this money got stuck in Great Britain in the hands of agents as we’ve heard in previous episodes, the amount that arrived in the Cape Colony, mainly in 1836–37, quintupled the sum of money in circulation. This in turn caused a raising of prices, it was inflationary, and also led to increased labour costs. Some of the money was invested in new banks, as well as providing capital to build new houses around the Cape. One of these was the Eastern Province Bank which launched in 1838 in Grahamstown - which went on to become Barclay’s Bank, and during the sanctions period of apartheid, it morphed into First National Bank. Compensated emancipation at the Cape was a major social rupture, ending as it did 182 years of legal slavery, changing the legal status of these 38 000 people. The slave-like apprenticeship period that followed emancipation in 1834 had now expired. Khoi, and other members of the free black community continued to work mostly in farm employment, although a few became market gardeners or joined the small but growing artisanal class in the villages of the Western Cape.’ Emancipation at the Cape freed slaves into the category "free black," which encompassed all people of colour native to the Western Cape: "Hottentots" was the colonial term for the Khoi and "Bushmen" the colonial term for the San, "Bastards" were those who had a white father, Khoi mother and "Bastard Hottentots" were those who had a slave father and Khoi mother. By the time of emancipation, the slave population of the Western Cape was predominantly creole, including descendants of slaves brought from the west and east coasts of Africa, Madagascar, India, and the Dutch East Indies, and children born of a slave mother and a free father. The close cultural and social relations between Khoisan and slaves and the incorporation of the Khoisan into the Cape colonial economy, also contributed to the heterogeneous culture of the rural poor at this stage. The introduction of "prize negroes," who had been "rescued" from other nations' slave ships by the British and brought to the Cape from 1808 to 1815 and then again in the 1830s to remedy the labor shortage in the Western Cape, also served to increase the polyglot nature of the rural poor of the Western Cape. This diversity of geographical and cultural origins affected the emergence of an official racial terminology to cover all of these groups to simplify matters. Thus while the category of "free black" continued to be used into the 1840s in government correspondence regarding labor legislation. But from 1837 the statistical Blue Books began listing people of Khoi and San descent, free blacks, “prize negroes," and freed people under the category “Coloured." The slave owners were a leisure class and now slaves were free, it was the start of the fourth decade of the 19th Century. The slaves had the skills, the leisure class, did not, and now this leisure class really needed the new banks. So the abolition of slavery resulted in the liquidation of at substantial portion of the capital that had been invested in the individuals who were enslaved.

Andries Pretorius had won a major encounter with the Zulu army, which was now in full retreat and the way to emGungungundlovu was wide open. A day after the Battle on the 17th December 1838, Commandant General Pretorius had two Zulu captives brought before him. According to Voortrekker records, he gave them a piece of white calico with his name written on it in black ink, and told them to take it to Dingana. They should inform the king that the trekkers were approaching and that he should sue for peace, and to send messengers back to start negotiations and they should carry this cloth. Ndlela kaSompisi the general had ordered messengers on ahead of the Amabutho who were now force marching back to the east, to the Great Place. The izinceku advisors rushed back warning Dingana that he should evacuate his beloved emGungundlovu as the Voortrekkers were on their way — his army had suffered a terrible defeat. Msiyana kaMhlana who led the imVoko Amabutho regiment had told the izinceku that the king should make for the south side of the drift across the white Mfolozi, to a place called emVokweni. IT was one of his larger homesteads, and gave him the option to make a loop north if pursued. It was a day later that another messenger hurried up to Dingana and told him as he hunkered down at emVokweni that Pretorius and his WenKommando had arrived at the Mhlatuze River, and was about to cross. The Zulu king ordered that his beloved emGungundlovu be raised to the ground, along with two other large amaKhanda nearby. On the morning of the 20th they saw emGungundlovu in the distance, wreathed in smoke, much of it still burning. It was a vast complex, the fire would burn for days. About half an hours ride away, they stopped once more and formed a laager near the place of death, KwaMatiwane. At that point they were unaware that the bones of their comrades were lying in the open only a short distance away. The trekkers began to loot what they could from the smoky ruins of Dingana’s great place, and there was a great deal that had survived the fire. First however, they were determined to find out where the colleagues lay. One of the men found Retief’s leather briefcase and peered inside. This is where the story is disputed by some historians because the Boers pulled out a document, the treaty apparently ceding Natal to the trekkers. I have explained how this document is of historical interest, but utterly irrelevant in the debate about land in Natal. Dingana as you know by now, had signed it to pacify Retief, to lull him into his final meeting where the Zulu king had managed to convince the Boers to leave their guns outside, only to be murdered. It was a chance discovery on Christmas Day that almost brought calamity to this WenKommando. Pretorius was suffering from the wound he’d received at the Battle of Blood river, but was alert enough to interrogate a man who’d been discovered hiding close to their camp at emGungundlovu. This was no ordinary man however, he was a decoy. Bongoza kaMefu of the Ngongoma people had realised that the trekkers were after the king’s cattle, and their determination to seize the property booty of this entire campaign could be their undoing. Bongoza approached Dingana and suggested a plan to lure the Kommando onto the thornbush veld around the White Mfolozi, where they’d be susceptible to ambush. Nzobo kaSompithi who had rejoined the king’s main retinue agreed.

This is episode 145 - we’re joining the AmaZulu and the Voortrekkers at the apocalyptic clash on the River Ncome, which was soon renamed Blood River. This battle has seared its way into South African consciousness — it is so symbolic that its reference frames modern politics. Just when someone comes along and pooh poohs Blood River’s importance, events conspire against them. And so, to the matter at hand. We join the two forces preparing for battle on the evening of 15th December 1838, the amaButho arraigned in their units below the Mkhonjane Mountain east of the Ncome, and the 464 Voortrekker men waiting inside their 64 wagons. Joining them was Alexander Biggar the Port Natal trader and 60 black levies, Biggar wanted revenge for the death of his son Robert killed by the AmaZulu at the Battle of Thukela. Also at hand were Robert Joyce and Edward Parker, aiding Voortrekker commander Andries Pretorius as intelligence officers. Both were fluent in Zulu and had already passed on vital information to Pretorius about Prince Mpande who had to flee into exile. Dingane had tried to have his half-brother assassinated - the paranoid Zulu king thought Mpande was planning to oust him as he had done to his half-brother, Shaka. The scene was set folks for this seminal battle at a picturesque place. The laager had been drawn up in an oval shape on the western bank of the Ncome river, to its south was a deep donga about fifty meters away that had been scoured by rain, and this ran into the Ncome with banks that were over two meters high. While AmaZulu warriors could hide in this donga, it really worked in the trekkers favour because it broke up the ground - they could not charge the wagons but had to clamber over the trenchlike ledge and were then easy pickings for the Boer sharpshooters. The Eastern side of the laager faced the Ncome River - about 80 meters away and this was regarded as even more difficult to assault. The River bank was muddy, and covered in reeds, making the approach almost impossible to achieve with any speed. Almost half a kilometer upstream, this river broadened into a marsh dotted with deep pools and crossing at that point would be almost impossible. Downstream from the laager was a very deep hippo pool or seekoeigat as it was known, so deep that the Boers couldn’t feel its bottom with their long whipstocks. No AmaZulu warrior would be crossing there either. More than half a kilometer downstream was a well used drift, and south east of the Ncome was a broad open plain dotted with small marshes and pools, and further south east lies the Shogane ridge, more than a kilometer away. It was summer, and the rains had come. The river was flooding which was to further complicate the AmaZulu assault. On the other side of the River, near Mthonjane mountain, Zulu commander Ndlela kaSompisi and his two IC Nzobo were finalising their plans on the night of 15th December 1838. IT was well before dawn on the 16th December that Ndlela ordered his warriors to rise and prepare.

This is episode 144 and a momentous event is about to take place. One that will shape Boer Zulu relations for centuries to come. The Battle of Blood River - or Ncome River - is etched in the consciousness of South Africans. While the gory details are not contested, its historical significance has been seized on by different political factions since the 16th December 1838. The day itself is a public holiday which we now call the Day of Reconciliation. Before that it was known as Dingane’s Day or the Day of the Covenant, or the Day of the Vow. Anything thought of as a covenant or a vow comes with baggage. Gert Maritz had died at the age of 41 on 23 September - suffering from dropsy, heart disease and half of the Voortrekkers had setup a second laager across the Little Thukela River, fearful of leaving their fort in case another Zulu army bushwhacked them. They had sent a deputation to elicit support from other trekkers in the transOrangia region, and in the highveld along the Vaal River. Only Karel Landman remained as a senior leader in Natal, but help was on its way in the form of a man who was half dragoon, part brigand, mostly hero. And that was Andries Pretorius. He was born in Graaff-Reinet and his family had prospered, owning several farms around the frontier town. He was fifth generation southern African, his ancestors dated back all the way to the early Dutch settlement in Table Bay. His ancestor, Johannes Pretorius was the son of Reverend Wessel Schulte of the Netherlands. Schulte had been a theology student at the University of Leiden when he changed his name to the Latin form of Schulte and therefore became Wesselius Praetorius, with an ae, then later Pretorius. His deep connection with Africa leant weight to his other important characteristics, an imposing man, tall and imbued with a captivating personality to boot. He was a skilled commander of men, adept at the irregular nature of frontier warfare.There was a lot of movement at the end of 1838, because not only had the British soldiers arrived in Port Natal and Pretorius’ kommando had headed off to Dingane, but Prince Mpande was on the run from his half-brother Dingane as well. He wasn’t alone - Mpande was joined by an estimated 17 000 of his followers after Dingane had made moves to assassinate his half-brother he regarded as an increasing threat to his rule. Dingane’s actions followed the defeat of his army by the trekkers at Veglaer, weakening his power in the eyes of his subjects. On 6 December 1838, 10 days before the Battle of Blood River, Pretorius and his commando including Alexander Biggar as translator had a meeting with friendly Zulu chiefs at Danskraal, so named for the Zulu dancing that took place in the Zulu kraal that the Trekker commando visited. It was during this relatively friendly occasion that important information was passed along, and now Pretorius became aware of Prince Mpande’s new refugee status, an important character in the coming power play. It was immediately apparent to Pretorius that the Zulu king was in a more precarious position than he had been a few months earlier.

This is episode 143 and we’re back in Cape Town, it’s late 1838, our new British Governor Sir George Napier is in the hot seat and he’s already regretting taking up the position. He was trying to make Andries Stockenstrom’s eastern Cape Treaty System a success and this was not an easy task. Napier’s main pressure however was financial. Before he left Britain, the Colonial office had made it clear that they would not accept another war in the Eastern Cape. IT had cost the government dearly, 14 years after the English settlers landed the British were forced to defend their subjects during the the Sixth Frontier War. Hundreds of soldiers and their material had cost tens of thousands of pounds. The cost of the colonies was a major factor in the government's financial difficulties. The British Empire was vast and expensive to administer — someone had to pay for the upkeep of the colonial military, the infrastructure, and the salaries of colonial officials. In the period of 1834-1838, the British government spent an average of £12 million per year on the colonies. This represented a significant portion of the government's budget - in 1837 for example the government spent £12 million on the colonies plus £15 million on the army. According to the Hansard archive of the House of Commons, the British government's budget in 1838 was £51,524,110 with the largest categories of expenditure the army, navy, and interest on debt. These categories accounted for over 70% of the total budget. The cost of the colonies had a number of consequences for British politics. Lobby groups were — and remain — a powerful force in British politics, and they opposed any policies that would increase the cost of the colonies, while helping the maintain a system that was dominated by the aristocracy. Overall, the cost of the colonies was a major factor in the British government's financial difficulties and it also had a significant impact on British politics and the economy in the period of 1834-1838. The British national debt grew significantly in the period from the £796 million to £829 million or 4.2%. On the other hand, Britain was benefiting from the colonial access to raw materials, such as cotton, sugar, and timber. These were used to support British industries, particularly textiles manufacturing and shipbuilding. Of course, the colonies created new markets for manufactured goods which actually help boost the economy and create jobs as well. For investors, the entrepreneurs and connected royalty, it was an opportunity to earn large returns from these seized territories by building infrastructure, developing new industries, and starting new ventures. The strategic importance of its colonies also helped England maintain its global power and influence. For example, Gibraltar was a key naval base that helped England to control the Mediterranean Sea, India was also a key strategic asset, as it helped England to maintain its power and influence in Asia and Cape Town remained a strategic asset on its main supply routes to the far east. It’s time to cast our eyes further afield, as we do in this series just to understand how southern African events were often part of a much broader scope. This was the period of burgeoning colonial expansion globally and those who lived on the land before the arrival of European settlers were fighting for their survival. Early settlers could also begin to take advantage of iron based tools being manufactured in Britain - particularly ploughs. There were many examples. Cast iron ploughs for example which were inexpensive to produce although they were relatively brittle.

This is episode 142. It would be remiss of me not to say Congratulations Bokke on a gritty win over the All Blacks to become world champions for a record fourth time. With that said, picture the scene. We are standing on the western slopes of the Drakensberg, looking out across the Caledon Valley. The rivers we see here flow westward, into the Atlantic Ocean. Far to the south east lie the villages of the amaThembu on the slopes of the mountains that are now part of the Transkei. This is a follow up episode of a sort from episode 141, because last week we spoke about the Orange River, and the Caledon River is a tributary of the Orange. It rises in the Drakensberg, on the Lesotho–South Africa border, and flows generally southwest, forming most of the boundary between Lesotho and Free State province. The Caledon flows through southeastern Free State to join the Orange River near Bethulie after a course of 480 km. Its valley has one of the greatest temperature ranges in South Africa and is an excellent place to grow maize or other grains. But in April 1835 Moshoeshoe was eyeing the equally verdant land to his south, amaThembu land and led a powerful and large expedition of more than 700 men along with a hundred pack-oxen loaded with food south easterly over the Maloti mountains towards these people. At first his raid went according to plan, he seized a rich booty of cattle. The amaThembu were also facing raids from the other direction, the British who were conducting their Sixth Frontier War so they were in a rather invidious position. Moshoeshoe was blooding his sons Letsie and Molapo in battle. They had become restless back at his Morija headquarters and their frustration grew when Moshoeshoe denied them permission to attack the Kora who’d setup camp nearby. As the Basotho withdrew after the raid, they were ambushed by the amaThembu and lost most of their livestock. Worse, Moshoeshoe’s brother Makhabane was killed and he suffered heavy casualties. Moshoeshoe would never again send another full-scale expedition into amaXhosa or amaThembu territory. This change of strategy was fully supported by the missionaries who had begun living with Moshoeshoe’s people. What followed would be a remarkable partnership which is still hotly debated today and the interests of the missionaries would be further expanded or extended by the interests of the Basotho leader. Another interesting change was taking place for the people of this mountain territory, driven by missionaries both the French and the English. This is because the religion of the 19th-century Sotho speakers was defined chiefly by its outward manifestation, the signs on the land, the animals, things going on that you can hear, smell, touch, see. Religion, as the Sotho term ‘borapeli’ illustrates, was what people did and not what they believed. This is a fundamental foundational difference that stymied the first missionaries at first. The translation of molimo as God inaugurated a new era where there was a fixation on linear progression in an age of evolutionary thinking, where Protestantism was the theology. How did Molimo interlink with Tlatla-Mochilo? For the missionaries, this was an immense philosophical wrestling match. This is where Tsapi, a man described as Moshoeshoe’s advisor and diviner re-enters our story for a moment. Thanks to one of my listeners who is a descendent of Tsapi by the name of Seanaphoka for providing some more background. Tsapi was actually the first son of the Bafokeng Tribal Chief Seephephe. Tsapi had a sister called Mabela, who was Moshoeshoe’s first wife and as Queen Consort she took the name MmaMohato. Tsapi became Advisor and Senior Council member of Moshoeshoe.

Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham. This is episode 141. First a little admin - a big thank you to for tuning in. This series has passed one million listens, the response has been staggering. When I began planning the history of South Africa podcast three years ago, it was literally a step into the deep end of audio production. Nothing can truly prepare you for such an enterprise — and this is a solo job. It’s me, the hundreds of books collected over decades, the journals, the papers, the travel, the experience and you, the listener. So without resorting to too much grandiose baloney, let me just say thank you. Without your support and wonderful emails and messages, this would have been an awful lot harder. With that little detour out of the way, back to our story for this week. We need to switch our gaze back to the northern Cape, circa 1838 and 9, and spend time discussing what was going on along the Orange River that in many ways is similar to the Nile and the Niger Rivers. The Orange River is smaller, but it also flows through an extremely arid zone like the Nile and the Niger, and like those waterways, it is a lifeline for animal and human life over a large area. It was towards this riparian zone that the colonists were expanding, and ahead of them the Khoe, the Oorlam, the !Kora. Then the Voortrekkers left in their hundreds, the flood turning to thousands, they weakened the Cape frontier substantially because it was a loss of military power. This happened as the trekkers themselves destabilised the interior of the country, and the British administration feared that they’d face dispossessed Africans who would become a nightmare as they entered the Cape, economic and war refugees. Examples were the amaMfengu who had fled the Mfecane, now they faced more destabilisation as hundreds of men riding horses and carrying guns made their way out of the Cape. By this time in the colony, most of previous Governor Benjamin D’Urban’s comprehensive programme of reforms had been accomplished, including the establishment of a Legislative Council, the introduction of a Revised charter of Justice, emancipation of the slaves and the beginnings of municipal government so that the locals could manage themselves. As we continue with the series, that narrative of haste will be our companion. When we look at the goings on, we must extend our gaze beyond the borders, most of which are merely lines on maps. Regions are tied together through the shared use of water and other resources. In this episode we’re going to look north, and try to understand the link between the people of the Cape, and the people of Namibia. Two people in particular. The San and the Oorlam and their relationship with the Orange River. Between 1800 and 1839 the San had been virtually exterminated as a people. They had stood in the way of the first trekboers through the turn of the century, and the expansion could only continue into the welcoming environment of the eastern transOrangia region after the San of the Sneeuberg had been pacified. This had been both a violent and a subtle and insidious practice, including gift giving, mainly alcohol. Even peaceful trekkers had undermined the San resistance by pure dint of infiltration into their territory. Once the colonists had established themselves beyond the Sneeuberg, the San were unable to prevent the destruction of their lifestyle. It was a similar story for the Khoekhoe. Those who were not killed or captured retreated deep into the deserts or the inhospital areas of Bushmansland so that they could survive. The !Kora were various clans who lived in a fluid situation in the interior of the country, and anyone who chose a raiding, roving mode of existence were likely to be called Koranna regardless of their ancestry. But they had made excellent use of two major introductions into South Africa. The Gun and the horse.

Ten thousand Zulu warriors had appeared at GatsLaager, the headquarters of the Voortrekkers under the brow of the Drakensberg, sent by Dingana and led by Ndlela kaSompiti. In South African history and general memory there are major confrontations which are part of modern consciousness. These would be things like the Zulu defeat of the British at Isandlhwana, the Anglo Boer War, and in the 20th Century, the Border Wars, and the ANC and PAC struggles against Apartheid. However, this battle of Gatslaager — the laager that would be renamed Vegslaaier or fighting laager, is one of the most important that has been forgotten in the annals of time. So it was ten am and swarming down from the hills to the east of the Gatslaager were the experienced and mostly married warriors, the creme de la creme, the most feared. The laager was protected on the east side by the Bushman’s River which was flooding, and if you glanced at a map, the laager was south west of where the town of Escourt is today. Ndlela then issued the command to halt, and the Amabutho stopped well out of range of the Voortrekkers Sannas on open ground to the north and west. He formed his troops up in their classic three tiers, the chest and two horns, taking his time. Inside the laager, Erasmus Smit the predikant and the Volk fell on their knees and prayed. “May he grant us the victory, if we have to fight … strengthen our hearts…” Seventy five Voortrekker men, and a handful of the more hardy women and boys, were now facing the full might of the Zulu army, an army of 10 000. It seemed a hopeless cause. But there were a few things in the Voortrekker’s favour. The flooding Bushman’s River for one. Another was the approaches had been setup so the Amabutho had no place to take cover as they assaulted the wagons. The Boers also had a canon. Meanwhile, Far far away to the north, Mzilikazi Khumalo of the amaNdebele had turned into a violent refugee after being defeated by a force of Boers, Griqua and Barolong in November 1837 at eGabeni. Mzilikazi himself had escaped the attackers by pure chance, he’d gone north in the face of threats by Bapedi-Balaka ruler, Mapela. It wasn’t just the Boers and the Griqua, the Barolong, the Bakwena, and the baTlokwa who were raiding in the highveld and down in what now is modern day Botswana. The amaNdebele had a violent relationship with Batswana.

This is episode 139 and the Grand Army of Natal has marched over the Thukela River to attack the imizi of Ndondakusuka. And if you’re following, you’ll know that a large Zulu army is camped to the north of Ndondakusuka, led by Mpande Senzangakhona. We’re getting straight down to business, its the 17th April 1838 and after crossing the mighty Thukela, the Grand Army surrounded Ndondakusuka. This first engagement was short and sharp. Virtually all the inhabitants, mainly women and children, were killed, and the village was burned to the ground. The Grand army commanders, Robert Biggar and John Cane, failed to take much notice of the scant number of warriors that seemed to be defending this valuable umizi. As I mentioned in Episode 138, it was home to one of Dingana’s most feared warriors, Zulu kaNogandaya who’s experience as a commander stretched back to before Shaka. He was actually on top of a nearby hill watching his home burn to the ground and his people being slaughtered. He was joined by Mpande and the other commanders doing what they always did, viewing the battle from a high point so they could direct their men. The Grand Army of Natal had fallen into Mpande’s trap. 7000 Zulu warriors were ready to go, and on Mpande’s orders, the amabutho began advancing southwards in two columns, then deployed in the classic two horns and a chest formation. Down at Ndondakusuka, the Grand Army was milling about, pillaging what they could find, particularly the cattle. They still did not know what was coming towards them through the Zululand bush. The isifuba or central section was aiming straight at the Grand Army as the invisible two horns or izimpondo approached on either side. There were 18 English, alongside them 30 Khoesan hunters, joined by 400 Africans all armed with muskets standing around Ndondakusuka. In addition, there were 2400 African warriors fighting armed with spears and shields fighting with the white traders against the Zulu. All of them had a bone to pick with the AmaZulu, and the feeling was mutual. The Zulu amabutho were moving quickly through the broken ground out of sight of anyone in Ndondakusuka which had been built la short distance from the Thukela River. So the Grand Army was now in a real predicament because their escape route was growing narrower by the second. The survivors ran back to Durban. Some had managed to make it to where they’d left their horses, and rode into the port that very night, bloodied and cowed. The residents panicked when they saw this bedraggled Grand Army stagger into town, because they knew as sure as the sun would rise from the east that close behind these defeated men was Mpande’s warriors. But by pure chance, a ship called the Comet had anchored in the bay on 29th March, it had sailed from Delagoa Bay after its captain William Haddon had fallen sick and needed to recuperate. Most of the residents and missionaries and their families boarded the vessel, while some citizens remained on shore. More Grand Army stragglers arrived over the next two days, all reporting that the Zulu army was indeed close behind. And so, back to the main group of Trekkers. Their headquarters however remained at Modderlaager, mud laager, which was a very unpleasant place now. It was overpopulated, it stank, disease had spread. It was also not in the best place to defend against an enemy attack. Landman decided to shift the laager to another spot further along the Bushman’s river or the Mtshezi River, to Gatslaager, or hole laager. The trekkers were aware they would probably come under attack again and increased their patrols, searching in particular for Zulu spies. They captured dozens of men, who were interrogated and most were summarily executed, shot and then left on the veld. Most of these were innocent bystanders but the Voortrekkers weren’t considering justice, only survival.

The world was undergoing some other major changes — including the climate. Explosive volcanic eruptions late in the 1790s had led to vast quantities of dust being thrown in the stratosphere and this had a short term effect on temperatures around the world. Nowhere on earth was safe — in southern Africa for example it had exacerbated droughts for most of the first three decades of the 19th Century. The fact that the Voortrekkers were being rained on in 1838 was something of a return to normal after the long dry. According to scientists, the most sustained period of stratospheric dust was between 1807 and 1830, precisely at the period dominated by Shaka and then Dingana in the eastern part of southern Africa. There is a very close link between history and climate. In the northern hemisphere, records were tumbling. Unlike southern Africa there were summers of continuous rain up north, grain harvests failed completely in Germany, France and the British isles. When Tamboro exploded in Indonesia in 1815, it spread ash far and wide — and has now being blamed on what was being experienced by the northern hemisphere. A dust veil swept over the north, and distorted the normal wind patterns. In the Eastern Cape, the drought patterns had complicated British Settler lives between 1821 and 1823 — a searing drought which drove most of the new farmers off their land — to become more embroiled in hunting and commerce. Tree ring analysis shows how precipitously the climatic variation affected Zululand in particular in the first two decades of the 19th Century. While this was not the main reason that the powerhouses of the AmaZulu became so centralised, it was all part of the cause of the social and political changes. By the 1830s the introduction of new farming techniques around Port Natal or what was now being called Durban was a revolution — I’ve mentioned this in earlier podcasts and for good reason. Crop cultivation had increased and surpluses were reported — the growth of the large black peasant society in Natal during the first half of the 19th Century was a significant event. Dingana was outraged by how the former refugees that had fled his rule had apparently appeared to be prefer to live around the Port than return to Zululand. The fact that he had taken to burning down the umizi of chieftans he didn’t like didn’t help his cause either. So the English traders who were now taking up arms against him weren’t just an irritation, they were becoming a centre of power that threatened the Zulu king’s power ethos. While the Boers were considering their next moves, planning to conquer Dingana, the British further south were facing a conundrum. If they left the Voortrekkers to do what they wanted, there was every chance that the interior of southern Africa would become more unstable rather than less. Some may find this difficult to comprehend, but back in the late 1830s the expansion of the trekkers throughout the interior was thought of as a threat not a stabilising factor by the English authorities. They didn’t see it as christians subduing the heathens, rather as unrestrained expansionism by a group of people that were not under their control. Another major event shook the eastern Cape in 1838, Andries Stockenstrom was going to resign — for the second time after he’d taken off back home to Sweden in the previous decade. As Stockenstrom bade his eastern frontier adieu, he was replaced by a military man called Colonel John Hare who arrived in 1838 with a kind of defeatist attitude, and was almost immediately out of his depth. He relied on information from two sources who were like yin and yang. These two chaos-ridden forces were Charles Lennox Stretch and John Mitford Bowker. Meanwhile, the English traders in Durban were planning was an attack on Dingana’s umizi for a second time, their first had gone so well and they were supposed to be coordinating their military manoeuvres with the Boers.

The world was undergoing some other major changes — including the climate. Explosive volcanic eruptions late in the 1790s had led to vast quantities of dust being thrown in the stratosphere and this had a short term effect on temperatures around the world. Nowhere on earth was safe — in southern Africa for example it had exacerbated droughts for most of the first three decades of the 19th Century. The fact that the Voortrekkers were being rained on in 1838 was something of a return to normal after the long dry. According to scientists, the most sustained period of stratospheric dust was between 1807 and 1830, precisely at the period dominated by Shaka and then Dingana in the eastern part of southern Africa. There is a very close link between history and climate. In the northern hemisphere, records were tumbling. Unlike southern Africa there were summers of continuous rain up north, grain harvests failed completely in Germany, France and the British isles. When Tamboro exploded in Indonesia in 1815, it spread ash far and wide — and has now being blamed on what was being experienced by the northern hemisphere. A dust veil swept over the north, and distorted the normal wind patterns. In the Eastern Cape, the drought patterns had complicated British Settler lives between 1821 and 1823 — a searing drought which drove most of the new farmers off their land — to become more embroiled in hunting and commerce. Tree ring analysis shows how precipitously the climatic variation affected Zululand in particular in the first two decades of the 19th Century. While this was not the main reason that the powerhouses of the AmaZulu became so centralised, it was all part of the cause of the social and political changes. By the 1830s the introduction of new farming techniques around Port Natal or what was now being called Durban was a revolution — I’ve mentioned this in earlier podcasts and for good reason. Crop cultivation had increased and surpluses were reported — the growth of the large black peasant society in Natal during the first half of the 19th Century was a significant event. Dingana was outraged by how the former refugees that had fled his rule had apparently appeared to be prefer to live around the Port than return to Zululand. The fact that he had taken to burning down the umizi of chieftans he didn’t like didn’t help his cause either. So the English traders who were now taking up arms against him weren’t just an irritation, they were becoming a centre of power that threatened the Zulu king’s power ethos. While the Boers were considering their next moves, planning to conquer Dingana, the British further south were facing a conundrum. If they left the Voortrekkers to do what they wanted, there was every chance that the interior of southern Africa would become more unstable rather than less. Some may find this difficult to comprehend, but back in the late 1830s the expansion of the trekkers throughout the interior was thought of as a threat not a stabilising factor by the English authorities. They didn’t see it as christians subduing the heathens, rather as unrestrained expansionism by a group of people that were not under their control. Another major event shook the eastern Cape in 1838, Andries Stockenstrom was going to resign — for the second time after he’d taken off back home to Sweden in the previous decade. As Stockenstrom bade his eastern frontier adieu, he was replaced by a military man called Colonel John Hare who arrived in 1838 with a kind of defeatist attitude, and was almost immediately out of his depth. He relied on information from two sources who were like yin and yang. These two chaos-ridden forces were Charles Lennox Stretch and John Mitford Bowker. Meanwhile, the English traders in Durban were planning was an attack on Dingana’s umizi for a second time, their first had gone so well and they were supposed to be coordinating their military manoeuvres with the Boers.

It’s been a harrowing few months in southern Africa back in 1838. All manner of change has rolled in across the veld, there are worlds colliding, roiling, like thunderclouds, seething and churning. And almost allegorical, because lightning from real storms had already killed Boer horses and Zulu warriors in separate incidents as they fought each other. When the settlers in the Cape heard about Piet Retief’s fate followed shortly afterwards by news of the massacres of hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Bloukrans, Bushmans Rivers, many nodded knowingly. The stories of the AmaZulu military prowess had circulated for decades, Shaka first, then Dingana. Many of the Cape citizens had feared for the Voortrekkers, and now their fate seemed to be sealed. The Capenaars said the Voortrekkers had been warned but thought of themselves as immune, protected by God, deterministically predisposed to rule supreme over their fellow black man. Weenen had sent shock waves of existentialism through the Voortrekker consciousness. An immense year, this, 1838 —. Queen Victoria of Britain was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London - and Dingana had referred to the new Queen in his comments to the missionaries before he killed Retief. Alfred Vail and Samuel Morse made the first successful demonstration of the electric telegraph in front of the world - and Morse code was launched which is still in use today. It’s April 1838 and in United Kingdom, the principle of the People’s Charter was drawn up, a charter which called for universal suffrage, for the right of women to vote. It would be a century before that happened of course. Meanwhile, as these technical and social innovations were being cooked up, at Doornkop and Modderlaager, below the brooding Drakensberg, the Voortrekkers were aching for revenge. By now Andries Potgieter had arrived with his posse, joining Piet Uys and his smaller group, and they had contacted the English traders in Durban with a view to conduct a co-ordinated attack on Dingane along two fronts. Ultimately it was decided that the Boers should move out on April 5th and 347 men were to ride in two divisions, with division a symbolic description of this force. They were quite divided and were not going to act in concert in the coming commando which was eventually nicknamed "Die Vlugkommando" for all the wrong reasons.

This is episode 136 — the Zulu army has fallen on the Voortrekkers along the Bloukrans and Bushman’s rivers, close to where Escourt and Ladysmith are to be found today, but right now it’s February 17th 1838. The tributaries of these rivers were renamed Groot and Klein Moordspruit because of the bloody events of that time. By the morning of the 17th most of the families camped along these streams and rivers were dead. Within a few hours the right horn and the centre sections of the army had overrun the outlying Voortrekker camps, now the left horn prepared to assault Gerrit Maritz’s laager. The Zulu army on the left flank initially approached the Viljoen camp, and Gert and Karel Viljoen, Gert Combrink, Izak Bezuidenhout, Meneer Schutte and Strydom, rode out to confront the attackers in an attempt to protect their families. Acting like plovers, the decoys split up in full view of the Zulu warriors, Gert and Izak riding towards the Bezuidenhout camp, and the others towards Englebrecht and Bothma camp. They were looting anything of value as they went, and as I mentioned at the end of last episode, their discipline was slipping. The left horn now rounded on Gerrt Maritz’s laager, which was heavily defended unlike the other trekker camps, and he threw back the first attack. Many narratives of the future were being created about this defence, campfire stories of stoic action, including one where Martiz’s ten year old son armed himself with a pistol and fired on the Zulu while his mother and other women carried ammunition back and forth while still in their dressing gowns. The Boers gathered back at Doornkop and revenge was on their lips. The sounds of weeping filled the air and for the next few days, outlying trekkers staggered towards this safe centre. The Voortrekkers had lost more than 600 of their people. IT was the biggest calamity to befall any of the settler parties by a long way — a significant event in the story of South Africa. The place where the main massacres took place is marked today by the town of Weenen, Place of Weeping. 110 trekker men had died, including the 60 at kwaMatiwane, 56 women were dead, but shockingly it was the number of children wiped out — 185 that really was an abomination and embittered the Boers. The AmaZulu did not fight like the amaXhosa they realised too late. For centuries they’d lived alongside the Xhosa, sometimes within their kraals, and never had they witnessed such cold blooded killing of infants and women. Then there were 250 coloured and Khoesan servants also speared to death by the Zulu — everywhere gore splattered the landscape — the Boers had lost one tenth of their population, and one-sixth of their men. The Zulu had killed everyone and everything, cats, dogs, even the chickens. However, in making a surprise attack, Dingana and his advisors had totally underestimated the Trekker’s fighting spirit and their grit, even when facing odds of 30 or 40 to one. They had discovered that even when at a disadvantage, the Boers provided a sting. So it was with some irony that the first to respond to the Zulu attack on the Voortrekkers were the English who rode out from Durban.

As you heard, Piet Retief and 100 Boers and Khoesan agterryes had been killed by Dingana on the 6th February 1838. Missionary Owen watched the killings through his telescope until he couldn’t take it any more and collapsed in shock. The Zulu king was not done, he’d ordered his amabutho warriors to seek and destroy the Voortrekkers who’d camped along the rivers below the Drakensberg where they’d arrived in large numbers expecting Retief’s negotiations to have ended well. Retief had thought so too, particularly after he’d returned Dingana’s cattle rustled by Sekhonyela of the baTlokwa. About a thousand wagons had descended the passes, and the Zulu were determined the Voortrekkers were not going to remain on the land they’d invaded. The vultures, wild dogs, and hyenas, jackals began to feed on the bodies strewn about kwaMatiwane near emGungungdlovu where Retief’s men had met their grisly end, while Owen and his family trembled with fear nearby. Were they going to be next they wondered. Dingana had sent a message as Retief was killed saying their were safe, but who believed the AmaZulu leader about anything? Meanwhile, some of the warriors were going through the Boers baggage and inspecting the muskets that had been piled outside the main gate. Puffs of dust appeared from the south, and from there two horseman and their small travel party appeared at emGungundlovu. Talk about bad timing. It was James Brownlee who was a very young translator and a trainee missionary, and the American Henry Venables. They had picked a particularly bad time to ride up to Dingana’s Great Place. From a Zulu perspective, Dingana’s orders for his amabutho to kill the Voortrekkers was a matter of business as usual, this was the normal way of things when a chief was disgraced and executed. His family and adherents would be bumped off, or “eaten up” to use the Zulu phrase, so that there would be none alive to avenge the king. The Voortrekker livestock would be seized and the king would redistribute these beasts amongst his amabutho, exactly as the Boers had been doing amongst their Kommando members after the raids on Mzilikazi. And like the Boer raids on Mzilikazi, very few women or children were to be spared by Zulu warriors. The Zulu army of about 5000 crossed a famous river at a famous point, the Mzinyathi or Buffalo River near Rorke’s Drift. How ironic that 42 years later, the very same crossing would see English soldiers fleeing from Cetswayo’s warriors after the Battle of Isandhlwana hunted across this very same Drift. So the 5000 warriors marched along the Helpmekaar heights towards the Thukela River close to the confluence with the Bloukrans through the second week of February 1838. By now most of the trekkers had scattered through this territory, in little family encampments of three or four wagons over a large area. Only a few had taken the English traders warning seriously and established defensible wagon laagers. Most did not, they just outspanned where they were and began enjoying the fruits of the veld. Many of these had headed off on hunts, leaving their families alone with their Khoesan servants, and to them, the AmaZulu warriors were going to do what the amaNdebele had done in August 1836. Fall upon the wagons and kill everyone they could find.

This is episode 135 - and its going to be a massacre. It is also crucial as you’ve heard that we dig deep into the events because today there’s a huge debate about what I’m going to explain next, what documents still exist about what happened, and who owns what when it comes to land in South Africa. Specifically, land in KwaZulu Natal. What exactly did Dingane agree to sell to Piet Retief? Why did he agree to do this when he had told the missionaries and his own people that he wouldn’t part with land at all? It’s incredible to think that this one year, 1838, has sparked so much discussion — and that people today quote one fact after another to back up their political position on this matter. So to the story at hand. Piet Retief had struggled to hold the Voortrekkers together when he’d arrived back at the main trekker encampment at Doornkop. Piet Uys had arrived from the Highveld on the 15th December 1837, having heard that Retief’s visit to the AmaZulu king had gone well and he brought news of just how decisively amaNdebele chief Mzilikazi had been dealt with. Uys was also reclaiming his leadership role over the Voortrekkers of Natal which didn’t go down well with Retief. Gerrit Maritz was his usual refereeing self interjecting between the two, and Uys agreed on the 19th December and after four days of argument to take the oath of the constitution to support Retief’s vision, but only after he consulted with his Volk, his followers. These followers were on their way down the Drakensberg. It one of the life’s ironies that by the time he arrived back in Natal on the 24th January 1838, Uys had completely changed his tune. IT was on that date that he dictated a letter to Governor D’Urban back in Cape Town to the effect that he was now totally against Retief’s “sinister designs…” — and I’m quoting directly. Sinister designs? Over what? Retief it appeared and as we know was true, was planning to launch an independent state in Natal and Uys in what could be called a giant stab in the back, wrote to the British governor that he and his Volk were actually reaffirming their loyalty to the Crown. The English crown. Retief of course was heading to the upper reaches of the Caledon valley on a quest ordered by Dingana to retrieve cattle stolen by the baTlokwa from the amaHlubi. By inference, Dingana wanted Sekhonyela to pay for his transgressions and the Boers believed he was testing their somewhat flimsy relationship. Retief believed that the goodwill that would be generated by returning the cattle would lead to Dingana handing over some of that precious land controlled by the AmaZulu king. He wrote a letter to Dingana informing the Zulu king of the successful raid on his enemy, the baTlokwa. By now, Dingana had almost gone into shock about something else. On the 2nd January he’d been informed by Owen the missionary about Mzilikazi’s fate and the utter thrashing he’d received at eGaneni, how his people had fractured and the erstwhile leader of the Khumalo clan had fled across the Limpopo River. Another enemy, dispatched by the Boers, the Zulu had failed to defeat this man, but not the boers. IT was the 25th January when the Trekkers gathered and prayed for protection, then a few days later, the party of 100 rode out with the cattle, and the 15 Zulu attendants including two indunas. Piet Retief wrote his last letter to his wife on the trail to emGungungdlovu. “I was deeply affected at the time of my departure … It was in no way that I feared for my undertaking to go to the king but I was full of grief that I must again live through the unbearable dissension in our Society, and that made me feel that God’s kindness would turn to wrath…”

It’s a hot day in northern Zululand, in the Mfolozi River valley, where Dingane’s capital emGungungudlovu was situated. When Piet Retief first met the Zulu king, he failed the grasp the extent to which this man’s authority was was based in what historian John Laband calls a combination of mystical ritual and naked power politics. That Dingane was a despot is clear but what was less understood was that his people allowed him to be so — that he could only make major decisions about political strategy with the input of important men and sometimes women, of the kingdom. The small inner sanctum of power, the umkhandlu, was a council that included the abantwana, the princes of the royal house. Alongside these aristocrats were the izinduna, state officials that were appointed as commanders of the Amabutho regiments, some ruled over entire districts and administered justice in the king’s name. Anyone was free to become an induna, unlike the umkhandlu, but only after members of the aristocracy were unavailable to take up that position. Because these induna were appointed, they had more to lose and did the king’s will more amenably. Even so, one of these induna was going to balk when Dingane ordered him to kill Piet Retief and his small party of men that had been negotiating land in the first week of November 1837. More about that at the end of this episode. Dingane’s main induna was Ndlela kaSompiti, his other was Nzobo kaSobadli, and both of these induna were of royal blood - linked to the royal house. Oddly enough, the physical proof of their position was the permission to grow long fingernails. Men of high status grew their nails, particularly thumbnails, longer than an inch and a half as a sign that they did not have to do manual labour, they were freed from having to hold hoes or wield implements. They also wore another symbol of power, the ingXotha, a massive and heavy brass armlet that reached from elbow to wrist and looked a bit like an ancient Greek arm shield. When Piet Retief arrived at emGungundlovu on the evening of 5th November 1837 they would not have noticed these emblems. The Zulu men were essentially semi-naked, only the ornaments, arm bracelets, beads, brass, worn below the knee and around ankles, bands of beads slung over the shoulder, indicated power. You had to look closely to be certain. It so happened that Dingane was fully aware of who had done the rustling but he wanted Retief to pass a test. The Boer leader must embark on a quest, the Zulu king demanded the amaBunu prove themselves to him. The baTlokwa it so happened had been rustling for the last two years anyway, this was not a recent phenomenon. So far, Sikhonyela had refused to send any of the cows back, and had insulted Dingane saying “Tell that impubescent boy that if he wants to be circumcised, let him come and I’ll circumcise him…” The Zulu custom of circumcision had been stopped in Shaka’s time as you know, but the baTlokwa continued with this rite of passage. The baTlokwa lived on the upper reaches of the Caledon Valley, around more than 300 kilometers from where Dingane lived. Retief knew that Dingane knew the real criminals were not him, but also realised it was an opportunity to demonstrate beyond doubt the good faith of the Boers and that Dingane was demanding proof of goodwill beyond mere words or little signed documents.

Just a quick thank you to AJL, as well as Jacque and Nkosinathi for your kind comments and emails - this series is nothing without my wonderful audience. Gangans — which is Khoesan for thank you. Voortrekker leader Piet Retief knew that he had to negotiate for any land in Natal with the Zulu king Dingane. So with that in mind, he left his family on the top of the escarpment as you heard at the end of last episode, taking four of the wagons and a small party of 15 men over the side of the Drakensburg by way of what we now call Retief’s Pass in October 1837. He was still hopeful that Gerrit Maritz would join up with him so he loitered for a while at the base of the Drakensburg. Realising after almost two weeks that it was a futile to continue to delay, he turned for Port Natal, or what was now called Durban. The first negotiations he needed to conduct were not with the AmaZulu, but the fractious and rebellious Durban traders. If any land was going to be seconded to the Voortrekkers, he needed to clear any plans with the semi-desperate crew living around the fledgling port. It took 90 hours to ride from the base of the Drakensburg mountains to Durban - and the exhausted group of trekkers rode into the harbour town on 20th October. Like other visitors, Retief was shocked to note that there were “53 Englishmen, no white women, only black ones…” Dingane was also acutely aware that in military matters, he was in a somewhat weakened position. All the reports he’d heard about the British and how they’d defeated the amaXhosa with their firearms and horses had shaken the Zulu king. He’d also heard about the attack on Mosega, and was about to hear about how Potgieter and Uys had driven Mzilikazi from eGabeni forever. Back in Cape Town, British officials were growing concerned. They heard about the amaNdebele’s fate, and how the Voortrekkers were now heading to Natal. Instead of stabilising things, the Boers appeared to be causing one war after another. Shortly afterwards the Boers saddled up for a much more difficult mission - to approach Dingane to try and get the king’s permission to settle within his land. They couldn’t just ride in, first they sent a message to one of the most important characters of this part of our story, a missionary called Reverend Francis Owen of the Church Missionary Society. Important because he was going to be an eyewitness to brutal events. Owen and his wife were not alone at emGungundlovu. His sister was there too, and an interpreter, an artisan builder and mechanic Richard Hulley, Hulley’s wife and three children as well as Jane Williams, his Khoesan servant. They’d rolled up to Dingane’s great place in the second week of October 1837. This less than a month before Retief was going to show up.

Just a quick thank you to AJL, as well as Jacque and Nkosinathi for your kind comments and emails - this series is nothing without my wonderful audience. Gangans — which is Khoesan for thank you. Voortrekker leader Piet Retief knew that he had to negotiate for any land in Natal with the Zulu king Dingane. So with that in mind, he left his family on the top of the escarpment as you heard at the end of last episode, taking four of the wagons and a small party of 15 men over the side of the Drakensburg by way of what we now call Retief’s Pass in October 1837. He was still hopeful that Gerrit Maritz would join up with him so he loitered for a while at the base of the Drakensburg. Realising after almost two weeks that it was a futile to continue to delay, he turned for Port Natal, or what was now called Durban. The first negotiations he needed to conduct were not with the AmaZulu, but the fractious and rebellious Durban traders. If any land was going to be seconded to the Voortrekkers, he needed to clear any plans with the semi-desperate crew living around the fledgling port. It took 90 hours to ride from the base of the Drakensburg mountains to Durban - and the exhausted group of trekkers rode into the harbour town on 20th October. Like other visitors, Retief was shocked to note that there were “53 Englishmen, no white women, only black ones…” Dingane was also acutely aware that in military matters, he was in a somewhat weakened position. All the reports he’d heard about the British and how they’d defeated the amaXhosa with their firearms and horses had shaken the Zulu king. He’d also heard about the attack on Mosega, and was about to hear about how Potgieter and Uys had driven Mzilikazi from eGabeni forever. Back in Cape Town, British officials were growing concerned. They heard about the amaNdebele’s fate, and how the Voortrekkers were now heading to Natal. Instead of stabilising things, the Boers appeared to be causing one war after another. Shortly afterwards the Boers saddled up for a much more difficult mission - to approach Dingane to try and get the king’s permission to settle within his land. They couldn’t just ride in, first they sent a message to one of the most important characters of this part of our story, a missionary called Reverend Francis Owen of the Church Missionary Society. Important because he was going to be an eyewitness to brutal events. Owen and his wife were not alone at emGungundlovu. His sister was there too, and an interpreter, an artisan builder and mechanic Richard Hulley, Hulley’s wife and three children as well as Jane Williams, his Khoesan servant. They’d rolled up to Dingane’s great place in the second week of October 1837. This less than a month before Retief was going to show up.

Mzilikazi Khumalo was trying to piece together his shattered amaNdebele after the attack on Mosega in early 1837 by the Boers and their allies the Griqua and Rolong. Then in midyear, he’d been attacked again by Dingana’s impis — he’d managed to survive that invasion but things were looking very bad as he hunkered down in his imizi of eGabeni in the Marico area of what is now north west province. Across southern Africa, movers and shakers were moving and shaking. By now, Durban was a busy place. Dingana was vacillating about its future. Trader John Cane who was well ensconced inside Zulu life managed to negotiate with Dingana to allow the traders some latitude — to remain for now — with assistance from Gardiner despite his invidious position. If you remember, Dingana had told Qadi chief Dube to bring him poles for his palisade, although some Zulu oral tradition says Dingana killed Dube for dancing better than him, but either way there’s no disputing what was now an open clash between the Zulu king and the white traders. Dingana had demanded the Qadi refugees be sent back across the Tugela River, the traders refused and then began to fortify Durban. The crisis now brought into sharp relief the role of ex-military men like Alexander Biggar. The former captain and paymaster of the 85th regiment had been cashiered from the British Army in 1819 following a scandal - he basically misappropriated regimental funds and was stripped of his rank. Dingana’s threats reminded Biggar of Nxele the wardoctor and the amaXhosa, and being military minded, he realised this threat provided him with a perfect opportunity. He was elected as commandant of the Port Natal Volunteers, and organised local men, black and white, into a body of troops, and appointed captains to oversee this group. OF course he appointed his son, Robert, as well as John Cane and Henry Ogle as Captains, and this so-called army began to fortify Durban stockade. Not done, Biggar issued a proclamation in May 1837 calling on the inhabitants of Durban to hold themselves ready in cheerful obedience to his orders. In the third quarter of 1837, Potgieter and Retief were making their way to the edge of the escarpment with the Voortrekkers, from where they were going to split. Retief was going to make his way down the Drakensburg to Natal, and Potgieter was going to turn inland — staying on the high ground. The Voortrekkers were still plodding their way along the Sand River heading in a north easterly direction, and taking note of the empty plains which Mzilikazi had purposefully used as a buffer zone. On the 1st September 1837 they camped near where the town of Senekal is today, then continued east passed where the modern town of Paul Roux lies. Then they arrived at the edge of the escarpment, near Warden in the Free State. While Maritz and Potgieter disagreed, they agreed on one thing, and that was the need to destroy the amaNdebele, determined to evicerate the threat from the Marico region and to claim back their cattle still held by Mzilikazi. They were also obsessing about something else. Maritz and Potgieter wanted to recover the thee very young Liebenberg children who had been seized by the amaNdebele warriors after they were found hiding in the camp overrun by the the year before during the battles along the Vaal. Sara, Anna Maria and Christiaan. .

This is episode 130 and the Voortrekkers are moving inexorably towards Natal, where the Zulu king Dingana awaits. At about the same time and as you’ll hear next episode, a large Voortrekker commando of more than 360 Boers, Griqua and the Rolong warriors were going to gather with the intent of finishing off Mzilikazi Khumalo. The amaNdebele king had arrived back at Mosega in the Klein Marico valley, and had also just fended off an impi sent by Dingana. By now, the number of trekkers arriving at Thaba ‘Nchu area had increased to a few thousand, including a large party under Pieter Jacobs that had left the Beaufort West district. These were the remnants of the Slagter’s Nek rebellion, they were relatives of the Boers who’d been hanged 22 years earlier. I covered the Slagter’s Nek rebellion in episode 74, the bitter resentment about what the British had done had never been forgotten nor forgiven. And here was the result, dozens of families from Beaufort West and elsewhere, determined to escape the might of the British Empire in their little wagons, determined to seek freedom on the expansive veld, the deep African hinterland with all its mysteries and excitement. There was also Jacob de Klerk who’d left the Baviaan’s River district - 62 families in 30 wagons. Another important group were the 100 trekkers led by 72 year-old Jacobus Johannes Uys which had departed from the Uitenghage district in March 1837. The real leader of this group, however, was his son, Piet Uys. He’d befrended Louis Trichardt a few years before - and was called dynamic — energetic — charismatic. Uys had also visited Dingana two years before to sound out the Zulu king’s views on possibly granting land to the trekkers in Natal. Uys was well liked in the eastern Cape — and when he arrived in Grahamstown en route to the hinterland, a deputation of 1820 British settlers turned up to present him with a huge Bible bound in leather from Russia and inscribed with a stirring message that God would guide the Voortrekkers because the Volk had faith. By April 1837, Dingana was even more troubled by the Qadi people and specifically, their chief Dube kaSilwane. They inhabited a small territory to the north of the Tugela in the vicinity of where Kranskop is today. Dube was often referred to a peace-loving, but some say this was post ipso facto because a lot of men killed by Dingana were characterised as peace-loving. But just to explain further, Zulu oral history says that Dingana had Dube killed for no other reason than he excelled during a dancing competition in which the Zulu king was participating. Very ancient rule there. If you have a dancing king, don’t show off and make him look like an amateur. Bad career move. Uvezi, uNonyanda Mgabadeli goes the most famous izibongo zikaDingana, — Vezi Nonyanda, Mgabadeli means the Prancer and this is how the entire 430 line poem about Dingana starts.

We are trundling along late in 1837, and as you heard last week, Dingane was dabbling in cross border raids, or at least, cross Drakensburg raids, and had dealt Mzilikazi a penultimate blow. Coming soon towards the Ndebele, were the Boers intent on delivering a coup de grâce. Time to talk a bit aobut Daniel Lindley the American missionary who had been living at Mzilikazi’s main imizi Mosega in the Klein Marico valley, and who had left in a hurry along with the other missionaries after the Boer raiding party shot up the homestead. If anyone was qualified to attend to both amaNdebele and Boer mission needs it was Lindley. There is even a town named after him in the Free State which unlike so many others, has retained its name from its origin. Lindley actually became more famous administering to the Christian needs of the Boers in Natal — not the Free State — so the Free Stater’s named a town after him. Lindley had been brought up in the American west, he was a dead shot as well as a fearless horseman which made him quite a hit with the Boers of 1837. This was no soft little Englishman, oh no, this was a man of the plains. But he was also an ordained Presbyterian minister, and intellectually stringent. When Potgieter and Maritz returned from their raid on Mzilikazi in early 1837, they relied on Lindley’s skills with animals and his hardy attitude while they had very little time for the other two missionaries who appeared lost on the veld. Daniel Lindley was born in Pennsylvania alongside a tiny stream called Ten Mile Creek in August 1801. His father founded Ohio University, so its no surprise that the lad was quite an academic. Back in southern Africa, by the 1830s the political face of the region north of the Orange River and east of the Kalahari Desert was profoundly transformed. Farming communities in the early phase of these changes — say from 1760 onwards, were comprised of a few hundred chiefdoms, small fluid clans and tribes if you like, but by the 1830s there were three large centralised African kingdoms. The AmaZulu in the East, the abakwaGaza or the Gaza as they’re better known, in the north east and the amaNdebele in the west. But by the 1830s the Swazi were emerging once more as a power player on the veld. Just to remind ourselves, the kingdoms both centralised and less-centralised were characterised by three clear social divisions — and all were definitely not equal. At the top was the aristocracy consisting of the ruling family and a number of other families who were allowed into the rarified atmosphere of elitism through ties of descent, or political loyalty, or a combination of the two. And to the south, Port Natal had become an important stop over for many ships, British traders were interested in this little bay with its excellent products collected by traders who were subject to Dingane’s rule. The traders did not like being ruled by this Zulu king and were making plans to change up the power base of what was to become Natal.Speaking of the English, a Swede-Dutch mixed man was now back in the Cape running the Grahamstown and frontier districts. Andries Stockenstrom had sailed back from his temporary exile in Sweden, and was now the lieutenant governor of the eastern Cape. Lord Glenelg the Colonial Secretary was a liberal and wanted liberals to run the show in Southern Africa and Stockenstrom, despite being a Boer, was also a liberal. Stockenstrom was more in step with the thinking of the missionaries, not the settlers. This was to have repercussions for both the English administration and the 1820 English — and the Boers.

This is episode 128 and the bell is tolling for Mzilikazi Khumalo of the amaNdebele. We’ll also hear about the introduction of Maize by hunter-traders, and the relationship between Dingane and the Portuguese at Delagoa Bay. A compounding problem for Mzilikazi was how he’d treated the indigenous Sotho speaking people of the area north of the Vaal. He’d assimilated them into his system of control completely, rather using some as Hole, who were basically domestic and community menials — servants. Others who were overcome by his warriors were assigned to villages of their own where they herded cattle for him under traditional chiefs but under surveillance of an Ndebele regiment and sometimes, one of his wives. There were those allowed more freedom to pursue their lives automously but paid a tribute. All of this meant that they weren’t his allies, which also meant when the Boers rolled onto the veld, the Sotho viewed them Boers with antipathy, wary but not always as enemies. Mzilikazi had a community of 60 000 people — possibly 80 000 say historians, but only a tiny percentage of these were warriors, perhaps 4 000 in total at the apex of his power. Mzilikazi was, in a word, a despot. But a complicated despot. Mzilikazi demanded a strict adherence to Nguni and Khumalo traditions. Meanwhile, at Blesberg near Thaba ‘Nchu, the Voortrekkers had elected Piet Retief as the new governor and commandant general of the new Volksraad of April 1937. Potgieter had been replaced by Retief, but had no intention of relinquishing power. This is where the almost reverend Erasmus Smit enters our story once more. He met with Retief who told him that the following Sunday he would be formally inducted as the custodian of the Voortrekkers spiritual needs, he would become a full dominee. It would take place, said Retief, after Smit’s sermon. So on the Sunday Smit duly delivered his sermon then waited for the commander to make the announcement. Instead, and to his horror, members of the Volk stood up and shouted objections to his appointment. The humiliation complete, Retief cancelled the inauguration and poor meneer Smit retired to his wagon to quaff a few brandies no doubt. Shattered and disappointed, he was visited by Retief that night who said that they would eventually have to announce him as dominee, because the Voortrekkers were still relying on the Wesleyan missionaries and the American missionary Reverend Daniel Lindley for their marriages, baptisms and funerals. And speaking of the English, they were indeed beginning to view Port Natal with more interest. While Cape Town and Port Elizabeth remained far more important, the hunter traders at Port Natal nagged the governor to consider annexing Natal as a new colony. Their overriding motives were economic and traded hides, furs, Ivory, tallow, horns and plant oil and these folks were linked directly to the British financiers who put up the money for their exploration and their exploits. These hunter traders were the first external group or class of individuals to respond to economic opportunities and the political risks that lay in exploiting the natural wealth of Natal and Zululand. Most of the hunter-traders like Henry Francis Fynn had gone to far as to marry into Zulu society so valuable was this opportunity.

When I started this series off a couple of years ago, it was a dive into the deep end — although it was the sixth podcast series I’d launched — this was the biggest gamble. But the wonderful response I’ve received overall has been a big surprise, a motivator so thank you for your comments. I have a website … desmondlatham.blog, which is stuttering along and in the future, shall be more responsive as I incorporate some of the ideas sent through by listeners. Back to where we left off in episode 126 — as Gerrit Maritz and Hendrick Potgieter rolled south trying to get away from Mzilikazi’s Khumalo’s amaNdebele warriors after their audacious raid on his main homestead in the Klein Marico valley. The main target of their raid, Mzilikazi, along with the man known as Kaliphi his 2 IC, were 50 miles north of Marico when they raided and avoided death by Voortrekker musket. The returning party of trekkers were exultant, having dealt the amaNdebele a severe blow, 107 horsemen made their way back along with 58 Baralong footmen carrying shields and assegais herding 6 500 cattle and thousands of sheep, two ox-wagons with the three American missionaries, their two wives, and two young children. The commando trekked through the entire first night away from Mosego in the Klein Marico valley without taking a break. They rested for an hour at 11 :00 the next morning, then trekked on until late the following night. It was imperative for Maritz and Potgieter’s men to make it to the south side, so the trekkers built a raft of tree trunks to ferry the missionaries wagons across the river, everything was now wet, and just to add to their suffering, the drizzle turned to heavy rain. Wagons safely across, the commando stopped at Kommando Drift for a few days — it took that long to herd the remaining cattle across. Then just to celebrate, the burghers shot an ox to eat and hunted game to add to their meagre rations. A preliminary redistribution of the cattle was conducted at Kommando Drift with the Baralong, the Griqua and the Kora receiving their share of the spoils. The victorious raiders triumphant return was going well. The lion share of the raided livestock went to the trekkers, who began divvying up the loot at Blesberg. The Potgieter trek party believed they were owed a greater portion to compensate for the terrible losses at the Vaal River and Vegkop battles. As the bickering worsened, the demographics of this area began to change. A week or so after Potgieter trundled off to seek his fortune across the Vet River, something very important took place further south. On the 8th April 1837 Piet Retief crossed the Orange River leading a significant party of trekkers — 100 wagons with 120 men. Size matters folks, and when he heard about this, Maritz eagerly sought Retief’s support. He knew that Retief was respected, a man who had the ear of even the British back in the Cape. Retief was 57 years old and while not being young, was restless. Retief eventually published a memorable document on 22nd January 1837, his manifesto which functioned as a kind of declaration of independence for the Voortrekker farmers. It has echoed over the ages, and as we cover various political moments in the coming episodes, you’ll hear these echoes. Everything is connected.

The Voortrekkers had survived the trauma of the Battle of Vegkop, they had narrowly survived and as they huddled together in Thaga ‘Nchu a form of unity was required. These different Voortrekker parties under various leaders, Trichardt, Van Rensburg, Cilliers, Potgieter, Maritz, focused their minds on the main threat to their further expansion in southern Africa. Mzilikazi of the Khumalo. The man born in Zululand, the raider of many across southern Africa, he who had defeated numerous clans on the highveld, the Hurutshe, Barolong, Batlokwa. The BaSotho feared him, the BaTswana hated him. The external threat to the Voortrekkers suppressed internal divisions, but that wouldn’t be for very long. Gerrit Maritz had arrived in transOrangia with a huge trek party, 700 men women, children and servants. One hundred of these were Boer men - a relatively large company of soldiers if you take the firepower of the day into account. Gerrit Maritz was not your average trekboer, he was a wagon maker from Graaff-Reinet, prosperous, more middle class if you like than working farmer type. He was well educated compared to other Voortrekkers, and young - in this 30s. A large man, dwarfing most around him, his upper lip clean shaven as was the manner back in these days, but he sported a beard — noticeably darker than his tawny coloured hair. He also painted his wagon light blue, not the usual green adopted by most Voortrekkers which allowed them to blend a little better into the Veld — not for Maritz. He also dressed up, long coat, top hat, latest fashionable trousers. Maritz could crack a joke, but was also a pillar of the Dutch Reformed Church. He regarded the Doppers, the extremist arm of the trekboers, the most thin lipped and orthodox of the church members, with contempt. The amaXhosa had just done that against the English, and the amaNdebele were the new challenge to the Boers. The trekkers also were motivated by a more primordial need - revenge. The amaNdebele had killed their men, women and children. This could not go unpunished. They also wanted to recover their looted livestock and wagons thus sending a message throughout southern Africa like the ripples of a pebble in a pool — do not fight us, there will be a payment. So enter stage left, Erasmus Smit and his memorable wife Susanna. She was also living in Graaff-Reinet when her brother Gerrit suggested they trek out of the colony to escape the clutches of the evil English in 1836. She and Erasmus Smit joined the Maritz trek with her husband in a wagon on loan from her brother. As they travelled, Smit conducted church services three times on a Sunday, and on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. Erasmus was a lay preacher, he’d been trained by the Netherlands missionary Society between 1809 and 1829, but he was never formally inducted. Susanna his wife was the official who greeted churchgoers — the helpmeet as they were known. Susanna Smit wrote in her diary as the family departed for Thaba ‘Nchu “de Heere leide het Kroos der martelaren uit van onder Ingelsche verdrukking” — or The Lord led his progeny of martyrs away from English oppression. And its back to the Kommando we now return. A second section or detachment led by Gerrit Maritz left the following day, with the men wearing distinctive red ribbons around their hats. So who was in overall command? The Kommandant or the President? They were leading two different sections, companies if you like. Historians generally agree that it was Maritz, not Potgieter, who were the leaders although he didn’t have the military experience. As with everything African, leaders get to divvy up the spoils and treasure, so this question was going to emerge later in a pointed fashion. These 107 Voortrekkers, plus 100 auxiliaries, including 40 mounted Griquas under Pieter Dawids, were joined by 60 members of the Barolong tribe on foot led by chief Matlaba.

Last episode, we heard how the battle of Kopjeskraal near Parys had ended, where Mzilikazi’s second in command Kaliphi and his force of 500 men had been repulsed in a close fought affair. This was an important clash, pitting Andries Potgieter’s second in command and brother in law, Piet Botha against Kaliphi, who was responsible for the entire southern reaches of Mzilikazi’s territory. They had failed to overrun the Voortrekkers, but had decimated the Liebenberg party a few kilometers upriver, catching the small group unawares. That was also after destroying the Erasmus party and its wagons, although Petrus Erasmus and his son as well as Pieter Bekker made their escape. But Erasmus had no idea what had happened to his two others sons. They were missing. The other group that was virtually wiped out was the Liebenberg party was under command of Gotlieb Liebenberg senior, a 71 year old man, who’d left the Colesberg district seeking greener pastures. The trek party was made up of his wife, four sons and a daughter — all of whom were married — along with 21 children and a Scottish meester, or school master called MacDonald. Liebenberg’s trek had been overrun from a section of the amaNdebele, the boers desperately rushing to pull their wagons together as the warriors descended. The first inkling that the main Voortrekker party had of their fate was a disselboom that Botha’s laager had seen being dragged past by oxen as you heard last episode. Nkaliphi had sent a smaller force onwards to launch an assault on this little Boer party at the same time that he’d attacked the larger Kopjeskraal laager. All six of the Liebenberg men were killed, along with 12 of their Khoesan servants. Two of the women were killed and six of the 21 children. The others were saved by a miraculous intervention further strengthening the narrative about chosen people. Back at Mosega, near the Marico River, Mzilikazi was indeed planning a second major assault. He wanted the Boers crushed so that none would ever enter his country again, determined to eliminate what he correctly perceived as a real threat to his rule over this valuable land. He mobilised as many of his men as he could. Living with him were American missionaries Doctor Alexander Wilson, Daniel Lindley and Henry Venables. They had all been shocked when tye Ndebele returned with the Boers wagons and cattle, hearing that Stephanus Erasmus’ camp was destroyed and two of his children killed. They were even more horrified when they heard that Mzilikazi was sending thousands of his men back to finish the job. While some have said that he was to mobilise 6000 soldiers, historians believe the number was about 2000. Nkaliphi was placed in charge once more, and received strict instructions. All the Boer men and boys were to be killed, but all the women and girls were to be spared and brought back to Mosega, along with all the Voortrekkers herds of cattle and sheep. A classic amaNdebele raid, kill the possible threats, the men and boys, and bring the valuable women and girls to the king. This was the build up to the incredible Battle of Vegkop, where Mzilikazi's warriors were finally beaten in a major confrontation with the Voortrekkers. This was an historic battle, a seminal moment, it has resonated down the ages.

Last episode we ended with Hendrick Potgieter and Sarel Cilliers riding to try and find a route to Delagoa Bay, and meeting up with Louis Trichardt. If you remember, Potgieter had warned his followers camped the Sand Rivier not to cross the Vaal River into Mzilikazi’s territory, or they’d be attacked. We’ll come back to what happened when a small group decided to ignore his orders in a moment. Some explanation is required about what the difference is between a trekboer, and a Voortrekker. The drosters, or raiders, had preceded the Voortrekkers, and in many ways, they had scarred the landscape and warped the perception of folks who dressed in trousers and carried muskets. The frontiers mixed race groups that had pushed out of the Cape starting early in the 18th Century, more than one hundred years before the Voortrekkers, had ploughed into the people’s of inner southern Africa, and these same people were to become the agterryers of the Boers in the future. The Voortrekker Exodus was one of many early 19th Century treks out of the Cape by indigenous South Africans. There was a northern boundary and the Kora, Koranna, Griqua, basters and other mixed groups expanded this boundary, speaking an early form of Afrikaans, simplified Dutch, indigenised if you like. The Zulus and Ndebele, and others, who were going to face the new threat on the veld, did not have the long history of fighting the Dutch and the English and did not really understand how to avoid suicidal full frontal suicidal attacks on entrenched positions — they were machismo to the max — believing that a kind of furious sprint towards the enemy would overcome everything. The Boers had another system which was perfected on the open plains of southern Africa. They would ride out to within range of a large group of warriors, an ibutho, and fire on them while keeping a sharp eye out for possible outflanking manoeuvres. The warriors would persist in a massed frontal attack, and the Boers would ride in retreat in two ranks. The first would dismount, fire, remount and retire behind the next line of men who would repeat the action. They would load as they rode, some could do this in less than 20 seconds, or they would hand their rifles to their baster agterryers who would hand them their second musket, increasing the volume of fire. They would draw the enemy into the range of the rest of the Boers inside the laager, and these would open lay down a deadly fusillade, usually stalling the enemy’s assault and demoralising the attackers. Sensing victory, the an assault force inside the laager would ride out, routing the enemy. The Voortrekkers departed from these eastern and north eastern locales in more cohesive groups, bound by religion. The differences that emerged the factions, were group based on the leadership of individuals, whereas the trekboers of earlier times had been far more isolated, small nuclear families roaming the vastnesses, the Karoo, the scrublands, the men often taking Khoi and Khoisan mistresses or wives. The earlier frontiersmen were like hillbillies facing off against each other sometimes — squabbling with neighbours. The new moral code that imbued the Voortrekker way demanded conformity, it knitted the Groups together, and there would be no compromise or adaption of the Khoe or Xhosa way of life that had characterised earlier trekkers. Meanwhile, carnage.

Just a quick thank you to the folks at East coast Radio, Diane and DW, for promoting this podcast with listeners to that station, I’m honoured to have cracked the nod and been selected to be part of their ECR podcast platform. Also a big thank you to all the listeners who’ve reviewed this podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, it’s pushed the series into the top 20 or so at least according to Apple, and there’ve been close to 800 000 listens. With that slightly self-serving service announcement, back to the real world of the third decade in the 19th Century. Last episode we heard how Harry Smith was busy ridiculing the amaXhosa culture and religion, and planning to destroy their chiefs in order to ensure they would be pliable to the British government’s needs in the coming years. We’ll get back to Colonel Smith in future episodes. Moshoeshoe’s kingdom had taken shape, and to his north, the kingdom of the BaTlokwa, who were led by Sekhonyela, the son of MaNthatisi. While she had been regal, stately, and charming, he was equally tall, but was surly and aggressive where she had been tactful. He was a capable war leader however, and Moshoeshoe had never managed to defeat him - in fact he had forced the BaSotho leader to hand over Thaba Bosiu to him in 1824. In the continuous war between Moshoeshoe and Sekhonyela, the greatest treasure was the Caledon River Valley - a land of water, pasturage, and defensive buttes and other landscape strongholds. The Batlokwa ruled the upper valley, the north, and by 1835 Sekhonyela had emulated Moshoeshoe in forming alliances with the Drosters - the Griquas and other mixed race groups that were living along the western edge of his land. The Drosters had been repeatedly defeated by Mzilikazi and he stood menacingly in the path of the Trekkers pushing north across the Vaal River - a confrontation was unavoidable. It had been a remarkable journey for Mzilikazi from the area at the headwaters of the Black Mfolozi in north Western Zululand, up on the highveld to the Vaal River. As he roamed, he killed off all competitors, particularly members of his own family, similar to what Shaka and Dingane had done. He ran his kingdom as a Zulu, he also had age based regiments, he also forced his warriors to fight for him before they could marry, usually taking about 10 years, the unmarried men known as the amaJaha. The older men who were the members of the ibutho, had many wives and children, large herds, and took captives from war, who did the chores around the homestead, enslaved. By the early 1830s these Ndebele were happily ensconced north of the Magaliesburg mountains with its excellent water and pastures. And its warmer than other areas of the highveld, with its ridges covered in thick vegetation. Despite controlling territory all the way south of the Vaal and for hundreds of kilometers around this central point, Mzilikazi was paranoid about his safety. is diplomacy was specifically aimed at preventing others like the Drosters heading into his land from the Cape - and here he completely underestimated the Voortrekkers. They conformed to no treaty either, which is not what Mzilikazi had expected. Leading the most significant of these trek parties was Andries Hendrik Potgieter who was a farmer from the Cradock District who’d departed from his beloved Klein Karoo in December 1835. There were 49 armed men and teenage boys over 16, he led 50 wagons, and was joined by Charl or Sarel Cilliers as he became known, who lived near Colesberg. He had 25 adult men in his group, and included a ten year-old Paul Kruger as I’ve mentioned.

Let’s take another look at the push factors driving the Voortrekkers away from their frontier farms. Most had lived on the margins of society for generations, part of the first group of Dutch who began spreading out from the Peninsular in the 17th Century, developing an ethos of independence and a culture of self-reliance. They were naturally anti-establishment if you like, while being presented as ultra conservative in their religion. In modern terms this implies certain characteristics which I creates a classic misreading of who they were. Remember the first trekkers were not averse to marrying Khoekhoe and even amaXhosa women, it was only later that their conservatism morphed into a belief in racial separation. You know enough by now not to make the mistake of double-guessing our ancestors based on modern politics and society’s rules, the prism of the present is a social blindfold when it comes to perception. It gets the crude and raw politician of any epoch into a logic gridlock, an intellectual cul de sac. There was no doubt that the actions of Lord Glenelg when he took over the Colonial Office in 1835 exacerbated the Boers perceptions of the English. Remember how he’d met Andries Stockenstrom the Dutch Swede who had briefed him about how the Khoekhoe servants were treated in the Cape. Glenelg then overturned decisions to move the frontier to the Kei river, an action which marked him both as a blunderer and a misguided liberal. It is true that this story became the most deeply embedded consequence of the war in the colonial pysche, it was an imprint that never faded, it was bitterly mulled over for the next one hundred years, and it was also in an ironic mental shift, the moment that the English speaking settlers became African. They’d been thrown under the colonial bus by both their King and country. They suddenly realised that their homeland was no longer their friend, the political leadership of the British govenrment had turned them into aliens, they no longer recognized themselves as English. This would take another generation or two to play out, but folks, it was a moment. What we have to understand is that while this was going on in relation to the 1820 Settler stock, further north east, in Port Natal, the settlers there were very much in favour of the British government. They were two different sets of English speakers, which we kind of lump together. Interestingly enough, something like this was also going on in Canada and in Australia and New Zealand. The English speakers there were grappling with their own nationality. For the Boers, Glenelg’s decision was easier to cope with than for the 1820 Settlers — the Boers had never trusted the English so it was time to leave. The boers had always directed their own fate, while the 1820 settler was implacably tied to their countries foreign policy. The Boers were interested in land, but didn’t really care for Glenelg’s annexation of the province of Queen Adelaide - they’d still be vassals to the British empire there anyway.

Moshoeshoe’s elder sons were now at a site that was to be named Moriah, 24 miles south of Maseru, chosen by the two French missionaries Arbousset and Casalis for its beauty - and the fact that it was uninhabited. But before we return to what was going on there, we need to swing around southern Africa for a little update about what else was happening circa 1835 and 1836. The Voortrekkers were coming. Dingane was marauding - or more accurately - impis representing Dingane were marauding. Port Natal traders were conniving. The Koranna and the Griqua were expanding. The British were conquering. By now Moshoeshoe of the BaSotho was facing influx after influx, including word that more than 8 000 and possibly as many as 12 000 people mostly of the Rolong chief Moseme had arrived at Thaba Bosiu, his mountain redoubt. But there were also Griqua under Barend Barends amongst these, and Bastaards under Carolus Baatje. He welcomed these immigrants hoping for some protection against the Kora people, brigands who were operating with virtual impunity across the Orange River, predating on African groups as far as Ndebele territory along the Vaal. But the Kora heyday was over, by 1835 Moshoeshoe’s sons Letsie and Molapo were bent on proving their manhood and planned on attacked Kora villages seeking bigger herds and more women. Moshoeshoe got wind of the plan and stopped them, fearing they’d both die in the attempt. And yet, their attitude was a precursor to the Kora’s final comeuppance. Moshoeshoe was an expert at avoiding trouble if he could. He was going to need all his diplomatic skills because his territory was facing buffeting. At the beginning of 1836 as the Voortrekkers were beginning to appear and the Kora who had been strengthened by some Xhosa refugees from the Sixth Frontier War who’d scattered seeking a new home. These Xhosa settled at Qethoane under chief Mjaluza, joining the Kora people living along the Riet River - just west of where Kimberley is today. Soon Moshoeshoe was hearing reports that Mjaluza was demanding a kind of travel and protection toll from BaSotho trying to return to Lesotho from the Cape colony. Mjaluza was also seizing their cattle. A short while later he was informed two of his son Letsie’s councillors had been killed by Mjaluza. That was that for the bandit Xhosa chief. Rumbling along slowly, at 5 miles a day - about 8 kilometers on average, were two main leaders we heard about and will hear about again. Louis Trichardt and Lang Hans Janse van Rensburg passed Suikerbosrand which had been the scene of a recent battle between the Zulu and the Ndebele, then turned towards the Olifants River and descended down the valley through a mountain range they named Sekwati Poort after the Bapedi Chief Sekwadi. He welcomed the travellers, they were passing through after all and he had nothing to fear from the Boers. Travelling so closely however, was proving a problem for Van Rensburg and Trichardt. The Boer leadership had always been prone to infighting and their relationship was no different. The conflict was sparked over Trichardts advice, which as actually good advice in retrospect, that Van Rensburg should stop killing so many elephants. His wagons were now groaning with ivory, wiping out entire herds, and expending a vast quantity of gunpowder. He’d need that to fight off rampaging hordes said Trichardt.

We join Moshoeshoe just before the arrival of the trekkers, as he sought to build his political power once the Ngwane and other roving bands had been defeated. Mzilikazi was attacking the area which would become known as Lesotho, from his headquarters on the Apies River north of modern Pretoria. His regiments were praying on the Shona people across the Limpopo and all the way down to the southern Basotho throughout the mid 1820s into the 1830s. Moshoeshoe was at great pains to avoid fighting the Ndebele impis, and in 1828, he had delivered oxen to Mzilikazi with the message that “Moshesh salutes you, supposing that hunger has brought you into this country, he sends you these cattle, that you may eat them on your way home…” Later Moshoeshoe would send cattle to the British governor Sir George Cathcart in a similar attempt at placating a threatening power. That would not work out - but it did work with Mzilikazi, who did not send another attack on Moshoeshoe, although he continued predating on neighbour Sekhonyela. Mzilikazi had also found it easier to plunder the Shona across the Limpopo anyway. From 1831 the Ndebele chief was also defending himself from attacks by the Zulu because Dingane ordered his impis into the highveld at times. Of course, the Griqua to the south were also of some concern to Moshoeshoe, but the Kora were a much bigger problem. Nothing was quiet in this part of southern Africa in the third decade of the 19th Century. In June 1833, what we know as LeSotho came into being for the first time and their creation was observed by French missionaries who wrote down everything they saw. French Protestants reached Thaba Bosiu from Cape Town via Philippolis, and of these, Thomas Arbousset was probably the most eloquent. On the 29th June 1833 he wrote that Moshoeshoe, “… has a Roman head, an oval face, an aquiline nose .. a long chin, and a prominent forehead, his eye is lively, his speech animated, and his voice harsh….” Later Arbousset’s fellow missionary Eugene Casalis would jot down a few thoughts in his memoirs, and his notes were more exaggerated and flowery “…I felt at once that I had to do with a superior man, trained to think, to command others, and above all himself. ..” And thus, in1833 the two French missionaries arrived, Eugene Casalis and Thomas Arbousset, along with a third Frenchman called Constant Grosselin, Remarkably, because they were tough back in 1834, Arbousset was a Huegenot of only 23, and Casalis was just 20. Grosselin was 33, a Catholic who converted to Protestantism, a mason, a tough subordinate. Krotz the freed slave guided them to Thaba Bosiu and this is where the first proper descriptions were noted about the bones scattered on the veld — and they saw the signs of the devastation that had been visited up these people, it was clear that many battles had been fought along the Caledon valley.

The story of south Africa is incomplete without scrutinising the kingdom of Lesotho, not only because geographic location means the mountains are part of our tale, but also because the entire region is intertwined like lovers, or wrestlers, or snakes that are hell bent on eating each other. Sorry about the graphic description there, but by the time you’ve finished listening to this episode, I’m sure you’ll agree with the somewhat over the top analogy. We must step back in time, from where we left off last episode, 1835, beginning of 1836 just to understand who King Moshoeshoe was, and what he means today. During his dramatic youth, events among the northern Nguni people who lived below the mountain escarpment, were going to impact the people who we now called the Basotho. Before these sudden surges of people and the destruction caused by the Ndebele and the Ngwane, the people of the Caledon valley and into the hills above lived in small segmentary chiefdoms - where the chiefs made political decisions after consulting councillors and headmen. The wars of Zwide, Dingiswayo, Senzangakhona and Shaka, then Dingane after him, had profound repercussions throughout the entire region as you’ve heard. For some on the high veld, the effects were catastrophic, Matiwane of the Ngwane had fled north as Shaka expanded his control, leaving his home along the Umfolozi River and attacking the Hlubi, who lived at the source of the Tugela River on the highlands. Some of these defeated Hlubi made it to Hintsa as you’ve heard, and by 1835 had marched into the Albany District seeking refuge, and being used as labourers. Small world they say. It was into this fractured society that Moshoeshoe had been born. Isolated and conservative, their culture had been utterly disrupted. Fields were not being cultivated and entire ruling family lines had been destroyed, vanished into the African air. Virtually every MoSotho had been driven from their homes, subjected to suffering and deprivation, human remains littered the landscape - and would be found for another decade. Crunch Crunch went the oxwagons in 1836.

Hark! What sound breaks the inscrutable silence of the immense African veld? Dozens of wagons, which would become hundreds. Trundling along at about 5 miles a day, the Voortrekkers were leaving the Cape for their promised lands - albeit yet unidentified. This was a case of being pushed out at least in their minds - culturally, ideologically, fundamentally, they felt they did not belong in the Cape and the Karoo, they had been alienated in the land of their birth by the dreaded English. These initial trundling wagons were the first major parties of Boers under Andries Hendrik Potgieter and Charl Celliers - aka Sarel. We’re going to travel with these men and women, and also join African leaders like Moshoeshoe, Mzilikazi and Dingane, as they watched the approach of heavily armed and well organised settlers. Some of these regents saw the Boers as a threat, others as an opportunity. Andries Hendrik Potgieter was a resolute and single-minded farmer from the Cradock District in the Eastern Cape who had decided to leave with a group of extended family, neighbours and friends - 40 men and boys, about the same number of women and girls, more than a hundred Khoesan slaves all aboard more than 50 wagons. It was December 1835 when they crossed the Orange River, joined in a while by Charl Selliers’ trek party which included 25 men, attenuated by the arrival of Caspar Kruger’s small section - the one in which a very young Paul Kruger travelled. These two parties had crossed the Orange River separately, and it wasn’t a crossing for the faint hearted - the river was flooding and the horses and oxen swam to the northern bank as the wagons and the trekkers and their other goods managed to float across on rafts made of the willow trees that grow along the banks. As the women stepped onto the northern side, they began to sing hymns, here they were arriving on the hallowed land that they’d been hearing about for years. They had left the hated English behind, anything was better than that. More fuel was thrown on the fire of bitterness when word filtered through to the frontier Boers that the English had fibbed about the compensation that was going to be paid to former slave owners after emancipation - less than half of the 3.4 million pounds worldwide was now available, and the British had put a price of 73.9 shillings on each slave. 73.9 shillings and 11 pence to be precise. That’s about 10 rand in today’s currency - a lot of money in 1835 - but almost insulting isn’t it? Ten bucks for a human. The Boers thought so too - they regarded their slaves as far more valuable than a measly 73.9 shillings and 11 pence and were outraged. So no compensation for the war, then what of their slaves? Slavery was banned in December 1834 as you heard, and the slave owners were supposed to be compensated but here was London, reneging on another promise. The British government said that all compensation would only be paid out in England - and Glenelg rejected an appeal from the Cape that payments be made locally. How was that going to work, most of the Boers never travelled to Cape Town, let alone to London? They were brought to the Cape from the first days of the VOC back in 1652. Most were southeast Asian Catholic converts from the island of Ambon, and soon this phrase, Merdeka, came to mean any creole mixed race person, or free black. Just to add a layer of irony here because this is South African history, the first known Merdeka to the Cape was Anthony de Later van Japan who was actually from Japan, and eventually freed along with his wife Groot Cathrijn van Bengale. She was from a region of modern day Bangladesh. Anthony de Later van Japan’s foster parents were Japanese slave owners Johan van Nagasaki and Johanna van Hirado. Anthony it is thought was a child surrendered as debt bondage back in Japan.

There was a great exodus of some people, the movement of the people into the interior of South Africa - a moment that was going to reverberate all the way to the present. The Great Trek as its known had begun by mid-1835, and to be honest, was a medium sized Trek already. It had been a steady flow across the Orange River for decades, led by the trekboers, traders and hunters steadily rolling their wagons inland. They were following the trailblazers, the Kora, Bastaards, Oorlam, Kora. Some of the traders didn’t come back, and not because they died out there on the distant veld. Now, they liked what they saw along the Orange River, across the Klein and main Karoo, over the Drakensburg mountains all the way to Marico, pushing onwards through the Kalahari, into what is now southern Angola, across the Soutpansberg. This episode we’ll hear about the early travellers, the outliers, the adventurers, the dreamers. Humans are naturally motivated to see what’s over the next hill or river, to quench a curiosity thirst, to seek a greener grass. But first, we need to end this Sixth Frontier War, a guerrilla war where the British had been outfoxed across the Kei ravines and Amatola fastnesses by the amaXhosa. The Colonial Office was counting the cost and it was expensive to keep thousands of troops on the move, and to keep paying the Khoekhoe solders. 455 farms had been burned and the losses to the Colonial treasury was already 300 000 pounds, more than one hundred settlers and soldiers had died. Hundreds of xhosa warriors and civilians had been killed, thousands of head of cattle eaten by both sides as they relied on food on the hoof in these times of chaos. Hintsa’s son Sarhili was now Xhosa regent following the shooting of Hintsa. The unpleasant truth for Colonel Harry Smith to accept was that the British army and its auxiliaries were in a bad way. While the Xhosa continued to move about the territory, the British could not. Colonel Henry Somerset was swanning about in Grahamstown, well fed and clothed, but many frontier posts were running out of food and uniforms that had turned to rags. Provisioning was inadequate worsened by disorganisation.

April 1835 is passing swiftly, and still no sign of the 75 000 head of cattle demanded by the British of the amaXhosa - Hintsa remains a hostage of Benjamin D’Urban, although it was Colonel Harry Smith who was looking after the king, as well as his son Sarhili and the king’s brother Bhuru. D’Urban had summarily annexed the troublesome region around the Stormberg mountains and all the way to the Kraai River in the north where 150 Boer families lived - they were now automatically members of the empire. They did not want to be and many would join a Great Trek being planned out of the Cape Colony. D’Urban had also decided to annex the territory extending all the way to the Kei River for the British - and to allow the Mfengu to settle on some of this land as a buffer zone against the amaXhosa. By advancing the Cape Colony’s to the Kei, Sir Benjamin D’Urban was making himself responsible for a huge chunk of southern African territory. At the time, his decision was welcomed by all settlers as well as the military. The dark ravines of the Kei, these high redoubts where the amaXhosa had led the British army on a goose chase, were now within his control, so too the Amatola mountains, where Maqoma and Thyali the Xhosa chiefs had led him on a frustrating slow dance of frustration and angst. The folks who were much more uneasy about all of this was the British political establishment back home - wars cost money and the Frontier War was very expensive. The Mfengu were granted safe passage from Hintsa's TransKei into the Colony. Dozens of wagons trailed him, then came the 16 000 Mfengu on foot, driving 22 000 head of cattle and thousands more goats. Those sitting on the west bank of the Kei would have heard them first, because the mist was thick down along the river, and the Mfengu emerged from the cold dank whiteness, the dawn spectacle complete. Men ahead with the cattle, followed by the young boys who were shoeing the goats along, behind them the women and girls carrying their possessions on their heads - they crossed the river using long sticks to balance, and as they went they were singing a new song called Siya Emlungweni, “We are going to the land of the right people…” they sang, most believing they were going to be as independent as they had been before in northern Zululand before Zwide and Shaka’s violence drove them away almost two decades earlier. Watching this jaw-dropping scene was British officer, Captain James Alexander, who wrote that as far as he was concerned, “Nothing like this has been seen, perhaps, since the days of Moses…” Colonel Smith headed off eastwards with his men, and with Hintsa, the king was supposed to direct the British soldiers to where the Settlers cattle could be found. Of course he was going to do nothing of the sort. By daylight of the 12th May, Smith was beginning to smell a rat. Hintsa had been closely watched by the Corps of Guides, led by one of the more veld aware English settlers called George Southey - at one point another guide called Cesar Andrews had drawn his gun because Hintsa suddenly dismounted his horse and walked up a hill.

It's early 1835 and Cape Governor Benjamin D’urban an his 2000 men were winding their way through the AMatola mountains, searching for Maqoma and Thyali’s warriors. The going was tough albeit the scenery sublime. These glorious mountains were going to lead to one of the more inglorious moments in British military history. By early April 1835 the Boer commandos, Scots 72 highlanders, English settler corps, and the Cape Khoe regiment were trying to dislodge the amaXhosa from their mountain fastness. The strange army of men who distrusted each other, this marching formation of mutual suspicion, began to seize Xhosa cattle and raze their homesteads. Most of the engagements were unremarkable, the Xhosa refusing to stand and fight against overwhelming odds, the British troops becoming frustrated. IT was a stalemate broken here and there by bizarre incidents. Like the clash on April 7th where one of the Scots highlander officers emerged from battle with an assegai stuck out of his back. A soldiers remarked “There’s ane of them things sticken’ in ye, sir!” To his shock. Still, they believed the Xhosa were retreating eastwards to the Kei, towards their regent, Hintsa. In terms of their food and resources, the amaXhosa had suffered hugely, most of their cattle had been taken, they had very little food. What was anathema to the warriors had also been observed - the British had shot women and children. Unable to come to close quarter fighting, the men of the empire had resorted to opening fire on the homes and into the bushes indiscriminately, also firing their canon into the huts. This was not how the Xhosa fought a war. The amaxhosa were taking note about how the British treated women and children when fighting, and that was not good news for British women and children in the future. Colonel Harry Smith spurred his horse across the Kei River at Noon on the 15th April 1835. It was the first time that the British army or a colonial army had entered the country of Gcaleka and the first time that they'd aimed at their king, Hintsa. So in April 1835, the Mfengu chiefs approached Smith’s soldiers, and swore allegiance to the British, now and in the future. A remarkable event really.

We’re going to hear about a man called John Ayliff - a man who has gone down in the annals of South African history about as mixed as a box of smarties. His mission station at Butterworth across the Kei River had been a place of refuge for the Mfengu people - a mysterious group of refugees who had left northern Zululand during the times of Zwide - and over the next twenty years had been buffeted from place to place like the chosen people of Israel, finally arriving in the green rolling hills alongside Butterworth mission where they heard the biblical messages from men in black like Ayliff - and these resonated. Weren’t they of the same - these people who’d been kicked out of their land by the Zulu pharaoh and then sent from pillar to post, first into the hinterland through what we know as the Free State today, then down the side of the Basutho, finally wedged alongside Hintsa; of the Gcaleka. The amaXhosa chief gave them protection, thousands eventually settled, the Ngwane people had found their home. But things were unstable - next door in the Ceded territories, Albany, the former Zuurveld, along the Amatola’s, in the Kei River ravines, the British and the Rharhabe Xhosa were fighting the Sixth frontier war. The Mfengu however were in danger. It was ugly, in Grahamstown in March 1835. Military reinforcements had arrived, the Xhosa had retreated, the hotheads in the town became noisy, a powerful mixture of hatred, connivance and corruption. Ah yes, dear friends, that old South African tradition - now fully restored by our latest government. Corruption. It rolls off the tongue like a rolling blackout does it not? The settlers who had found their voice gathered and looked with decided laser like focus on the recently vacated Xhosa land, particularly the watered slopes of the Amatola Mountains. Holden Bowker wanted this land - and wrote later that “It was far superior to other parts .. far too good for such a race of runaways as the …blacks…” He used a pejorative term here. Even though they were on a war footing, the Grahamstonians decided to light their lamps, shining in the Eastern Cape dark as a sign of their confidence that the amaXhosa had been beaten. After many weeks of hesitation, Sir Benjamin D’Urban finally decided it was time to move into the Amatolas in force. You’ve heard how Colonel Smith had been bush there already, but it was this much bigger army that the British thought was required to finally subjugate the Xhosa. He arrived at the Base Camp of Fort Willshire on 28th March 1835, then the lumbering wagons rolled off towards the Amatolas on the 30th - his convoy stretching five miles which was quite mad because the Amatolas were only 20 miles away.

It’s early 1835 and globally, quite a few fascinating things are going on. For one, America’s National Debt was Zero dollars - for the first and last time in it’s history. It’s president Andrew Jackson survived an assassination attempt in January of that year, also the first but not the last. Mauritius had banned slavery on the 1st February 1835 as South Africa had done in December 1834. The British began their counter attacks on the Xhosa chiefs who’d invaded across the ceded territories, into the Cape, and wreaked so much havoc - the Sixth Frontier War was rumbling on. Another major event had been brewing for some time. The trekboers had been chafing under the rule of the English and each new law that was supposed to protect the Khoekhoe from abuse, then the ban on slavery, led to the Dutch decedents recoiling seeing these as actions designed to destroy their way of life. It was a litany of abuse as far as the Boers were concerned, including the horror of the Slagter’s Nek rebellion, the bungled hanging of the rebels, the use of English as the official language, they were under siege, it was all too much and these were the push factors. But there was the pull factor - those distant landscapes, those far-off mountains that seemed to beckon to the youngsters and those with adventure in mind - this beckoned towards adventurers like an African Medusa. The fact that the land was occupied was of secondary importance, and like Medusa, was imbued with malice and risk. By 1830 the echo of the hills yonder became an obsession for some of the trekboers. 1930 was also the year that the 19 year-old Karel Trichardt met with Hintsa between the Kei and Bashee rivers and asked him for land - and was awarded a 90 year lease on 101 square kilometers near the Kei River. This was not what the British had intended with their segregation of the Colony and the Xhosa areas across the Kei. Trichardt in particular was going to be a thorn in the English side.There were two of the three missionaries still operating amongst the Xhosa, but even these eventually fled. John Brownlee who was safe at his mission station on the Buffalo river, alongside Dyani Tshatshu’s Tinde people, found that they turned against him. Tshatshu himself came to Brownlee one night and said the Tinde were going to war against the British, calling on the missionary to join him. Brownlee said he could not, other missionaries heard about this in Grahamstown and sent wagons to get him out - he refused. He and his family were going to pay for his stubbornness.

The Sixth frontier war was ablaze and now Harry Smith was in Grahamstown rearranging the military furniture. He wasn’t there for long. As a man of action he was determined to chase down the amaXhosa who had begun to retire back east across the Fish River by the end of the first week of January 1835, driving thousands of cattle, sheep and horses before them. The dithering Colonel Somerset was busy trying to secure the road between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth, and by the end of the first week of January a separate force of 400 armed volunteers had raided Thyali’s Great Place and torched the entire homestead. Way beyond the Kei River, Hintsa glowered as he received reports of his amaXhosa chiefs and their successes against the settlers. For some time he had hesitated in taking up arms against the British and the trekboers who were inexorably moving towards him, but it was now time to make a choice. Hintsa had tried his best to stay out of the encroaching settler cross hairs - telling the British since they’d taken control of the Cape in the early 1800s that he wanted to be friends. He remained neutral during the quarrels between the Rharhabe Xhosa and the British, he’d stopped the Xhosa youngsters fighting against the British in 1819, only to see Nxele the Wardoctor attack Grahamstown. But he’d known for some time that the menace was approaching, land was the treasure and the approaching settlers wanted his land. Things weren’t a simple matter however - remember that he had hated Nqgika the Rharhabe regent and that had fractured a Xhosa response to the colonial expansion. But Now Nqgika was dead and Hintsa’s chiefs were calling for him to get more involved in this Frontier War. ON the other side, Harry Smith’s Peninsular buddy, Major William Cox of the 75 Regiment was leading the charge towards him. Hintsa was told of the destruction wrought on Thyali’s Great Place, his fortress had been torched. Kraals had been burned to within a mile of the missionaries station run by another William, a Chalmers this time. If you recall last episode, Chalmers had written letters in support of Maqoma and Thyali offering peace terms. These were promptly rejected by Harry Smith. This put the missionaries in a rather invidious position, they were now more associated with the colonial government than ever. When Chalmers worked up the courage and approached Maqoma with Harry Smith’s rejection of his peace plan, open hostility was the response. Thyali moved further into the Amatolas after his Great Place was torched, and Chalmers tried to get another message to the amaXhosa chief in what he described as the “lurking place”. Meanwhile, the amaXhosa wave that had washed across the frontier lost momentum. The energy sapping last three weeks had been driven by frustration and anger that had boiled over in the years of ignominy, and like all wars driven by revenge, when the emotion is sapped, the morale tends to wither. At first, Harry Smith was to counter attack in the classic tradition - trying to entice his enemy out of their lair, then defeating their army in one large scale full frontal battle. Smith planned open ground fighting making the warriors emerge from their mountain and thick bush retreats. But the amaXhosa had learned a thing or two about fighting the British and they weren’t going to be sucker punched like this.

ON December 21st 1834 at least ten thousand warriors under Maqoma and Thyali swept all before them as they raided deep into the Cape colony, across a wide front. Fort Beaufort and Fort Willshire were the main centre of British operations to the north of Grahamstown as the war began. Fort Beaufort was particularly strategic because of its proximity to the Kat River Settlement. The amaXhosa avoided attacking this Settlement but that was going to change. They were hoping that the Khoekhoe would rise up alongside the amaXhosa and defeat the settlers, but the Khoekhoe and the amaXhosa had a far longer tradition of competition over land and resources. This was far more deeply etched into the narrative of both people’s than the simple colour of skin debate. Smaller centres such as Bathurst and Salem closer to the coast were also coming under attack, situated between Grahamstown and the sea, or a possible escape route for the settlers and the Boers who could not keep fighting inland. When the British had established the 1820 Settlers, they had densely parcelled these farms together as a forward barriers against the Xhosa who may advance across the Fish River. And now the amaXhosa were advancing across the Fish River but over the last 14 years, the military presence and preparation here had dwindled and the settler unpreparedness for war was almost total. Betrand Bowker wrote scathingly of how the settlers of the Lower Albany region had “scarcely any guns and most of them who did, did not know how to shoot … just us brothers and a few others…” So it was on the sixth day that Sir Harry Smith galloped into town, his 600 mile epic ride at an end but his mission just beginning. When he’d passed a rider hurrying to Cape Town from the frontier, he read the letters and was horrified to read Somerset’s suggestions that Grahamstown be abandoned. When he arrived in that town on the evening of the 6th, he noted the chaotically arranged barricades and he thought it a helpless muddle. He was fresh enough to fight a battle, and his eyes were waspishly alert as Noel Mostert notes - what he saw struck him as ridiculous - so ridiculous that he almost burst out laughing as he rode through town such was the higgledy piggedly nature of the sandbags et al. He didn’t laugh out aloud because watching him were men and women - the settlers - who’d lost family members and who’d lost everything. The town was overcome with melancholy, with consternation. But what made Smith really angry was the unmilitary appearance of the settlers, who he said were “shuffling about like an Irish mob at a funeral…” their firearms slung about their bodies, swords stuffed into belts.

The Sixth Frontier war had started on 21st December 1834 and this would be a dirty affair - a calamity for the amaXhosa. When it began Hintsa the Xhosa regent did not join in, but something that was first called Maqoma’s war was eventually to be known as Hintsa’s war because of what happened to him. The amaxhosa were assaulting the frontier across a wide region from the Winterberg down to Algoa Bay. The English settlers fled to the towns of Bathurst, Grahamstown, Fort Beaufort, Salem. The Boers had setup laagers or entered the towns, the entire frontier was aflame. Governor D’Urban had left it too late to travel to the frontier to intelligence gather, and now there was a full-blown war on the go. The entirely unanticipated invasion of the Colony had unleashed widespread panic and confusion in the Albany, Somerset and Uitenhage districts and the amaxhosa had inflicted significant damage on the settlements. As you heard last episode, the missionaries were left alone by the rampaging Xhosa - who differentiated between an enemy and a friend. Back in Cape Town, Sir Benjamin D’Urban was in a panic of his own. It was at this moment that he turned to one of the most extraordinary men of the age, Colonel Henry George Wakelyn Smith. He'd fought with the Duke of Wellington in Spain where he met his wife who gave her name to Ladysmith. Juana Maria de lost Dolores de Leon was only 14 when he met her. Harry Smith was 24, and within two weeks they were married and basically from then on, she never left his side. I suppose you could say there was only a ten year age difference, but this was 1812. Juana, aka Lady Smith, travelled with Harry in the camps, from battle scene to battle scene, witnessing his fighting at close hand, each battle praying her beloved “Enrique” would emerge unscathed. And each battle he did indeed. Back on the frontier, the shock of the amaXhosa invasion had utterly popped the Settler smugness bubble. The fact that the amaXhosa were not intimidated by the empire and colonial power was frightening to men and women who were afraid of their own bureaucrats. The Settlers had been totally indifferent to the suffering of the amaXhosa on the frontier - and for that they were now paying a heavy price.

It’s December 1834 - the Second of December to be more precise. The British had just emancipated the slaves at the Cape, although real freedom was still some months off as the colonial office decreed that all should first work as apprentices to improve skills before they were set free. On the frontier, a sequence of unfortunate events were to take place which provided the spark that ignited a war. Albany Civil Commissioner in Grahamstown Captain Campbell was a man of the colonies, a settler with their interests at heart although ostensibly in the pay of the empire. Andries Stockenstrom who was one of the more astute frontier experts had left the Cape at the very moment that his deft touch was sorely needed when it came to the amaXhosa. Tensions had also been growing between the British officials of the Cape bureaucracy and settlers about how to treat the amaXhosa and Khoekhoe. The British thought they’d been quite clever over the past few months. They had restricted the flow of gunpowder to the frontier just in case the Boers became even more rambunctious about the coming emancipation - but all the British really managed by doing this is to reduce the colonists firepower on the eve of the Sixth Frontier War. The Cape authorities were trying to limit the supply of muskets and gunpowder to burghers on the frontier because they heard that many of these were supplying weapons to the amaXhosa. Which is true, but for every action there’s an equal reaction as you’re going to hear. Back in England, incidents and accidents, events and fires had shocked the nation and the small colony of the Cape was hardly on the radar of the ruling folks and the citizens. In October of 1834, the British Houses of Parliament or the Palace of Westminster as it was known, had been destroyed by fire - both the House of Commons and the House of Lords of the British Parliament had gone up in flame. Maqoma’s mother Notonto heard about the planned hostilities and walked the thirty kilometres from her house to her son’s to remonstrate and warn him against fighting the British. She had seen too many of her people dying in previous wars against the empire - but Maqoma was beyond reason.

A new Governor was in town, the Cape Sheriff, and he was another Peninsular Campaign Veteran called Sir Benjamin D’Urban. In July 1832 Frontier military commander Colonel Henry Somerset went on leave - his father the former governor Lord Charles had died in 1831 and Henry had to head back to the old country to sort out the extensive estate. Andries Stockenstrom, his nemesis, was also going to leave the frontier in 1833, first to London where he tried to lobby the government to give him more authority - and when the Colonial authorities refused - he sailed back to his ancestral land - Sweden. We should feel a pang of pity for Stockenstrom, his father had been assegai’d to death by the amaxhosa and his only son, an infant, had just died of illness in South Africa. The mental anguish had driven him away from his beloved frontier, and his adopted territory. Another character of the moment arrived in Grahamstown in July 1832 - Colonel Richard England. He was supposed to keep things sunning smoothly while Henry Somerset returned home. Colonel England was not going to run things smoothly, for he immediately stepped up the patrols following up on cattle rustled by the amaXhosa, and thus increased tension. As you know, these raids were supposed to be organised and focused, all they really did was commit the same crime in return - often rustling amaXhosa cattle from villages that had nothing to do with the theft. Their chiefs were first in line when patrols returned and had the most to lose from thieving - other chiefs further away knew this and used them as cover. The instability inland and along the coast was something to behold in the years between 1832 and 1835. South African history is cluttered with the the sound of bones being crunched by hyenas, eyeballs being feasted upon by vultures, and a cacophony of chaos. Forgive the histrionics, but I’m sure you’ll agree once you’ve heard what happened over the next five years. For those who would blame one side or another exclusively, there’s bad news. Everyone was involved in some kind of nefarious activity it was just a matter of the degree of nefariousness, or your support for one side or the many others. IN 1832 Mzilikazi sent an impi northwards, all the way across the Limpopo and into Shona territory in modern day Zimbabwe. The Zulu heard about this, and Dingane thought it an ideal moment to teach the former Khumalo chief a lesson. The Zulu Regent ordered Ndlela kaSompisi along with a large Zulu army to raid Mzilikazi’s territory centred on the Magaliesberg mountains west of Pretoria, at a place called Dinaneni - or Wonderboompoort as we call it today. During fierce fighting close to the Apies River, Ndlela took on Mzilikazi himself in a right royal battle. In November 1833, while Henry Somerset was away dealing with papa Charle’s will and trust, Colonel England arrived in Fort Beaufort to drive Maqoma and his people away from the Mankazana River, below the scenic Anatola mountains. England was more a colonial’s man - a fundamentalist if you like. A two year drought had placed more pressure on the settlers and the amaxhosa. Colonel England didn’t care - and another empire deployee called Colonel Thomas Wade appeared who made matters even worse.

The small settlement of Port Natal had hardly grown by 1830. Dingane had moved his ikhanda which he named uMgungundlovu to the eMakhosini valley, close to Singonyama or Lion hill, just south of the White Umfolozi River. The traders around Port Natal by now had mostly married Khoekhoe or AmaZulu women and were part of the Zulu landscape, but by 1834, colonial authorities were going to become far more interested in this part of southern Africa. By now Charles Maclean aka John Ross was in his late teens - he’d arrived as a 9 year-old, Thomas Halstead had arrived as a 14 year-old in 1825, also living close to the port was were John Cane, Nathanial Isaacs and Henry Ogle. Only one dwelling in the port looked vaguely European, the fort and none had what could be called furniture. Most of the structures were the Zulu beehive design, and the traders wore a combination of Zulu costumes and basic garments sewn from skins, with homemade straw hats. The whites had taken local wives or concubines, known as iziXebe, some had Khoisan wives and servants. The traders had paid lobola for the women, handing over goods and cattle to the bride’s father to pay him for his loss of labour in the family units because it was the women who did most of the work in AmaZulu society. Cape Governor Sir Lowry Cole received a report that the Americans had been trading with the Zulu and seemed to be the vanguard of a possible attempt at seizing this area for themselves. Cole wrote to the Colonial Office saying “how embarrassing such a neighbour might eventually prove…” to the Cape. So he turned to Scottish assistant Staff Surgeon at the Cape garrison, Dr Andrew Smith. There are few official expeditions in the history of South Africa about which less is known than that of Dr Andrew Smiths’ visit to Dingane in 1832. The real motive for the expedition was never outlined, and its a black hole in the South African Archives, as well as the Public Record Office in London. No official report exists. While this was causing some excitement, things were happening at a place called Knysna. The good Ship Knysna was built in the Knysna lagoon starting in 1826 when her keel was laid, and she sailed on her first voyage with a cargo of timber for Cape Town in July 1831. The Knsyna was still sailing around the English coast in 1873.

So here we are - 1830. Maqoma had been ejected from his beloved region below the Amatola mountains of the Eastern Cape, to be replaced by the new Khoekhoe dominated Kat River Settlement - a buffer zone for a buffer zone. It was a time of punitive patrols sent forth by the British to search for rustled cattle, across the Fish River, into amaXhosa territory. Known as the Patrol System, or the Reprisal System, based on the Spoor Law these all described a process where patrols would follow the tracks of stolen cattle. The military patrols were a combination of the British and Khoekhoe cavalry which would seize the same number of cows stolen from settlers farms from the first amaXhosa settlement they came across. Whether the people living within were guilty or not. The authorities supposition was that it was impossible that the people living in the kraal to be unaware as the rustled animals were led past their homes - so they were treated as accessories. The Kat River Settlement had not ended the turbulence along the frontier, because this reprisal system increased tension. The British believed they had no other choice because of the amaXhosa’s intransigence about the frontier, the 1820 settlers distrusted both the British officials and the amaXhosa, and the Khoekhoe. As I’ve mentioned, a frontier is a zone of intersection of cultures with those presuming to be the most developed culture alienating itself from the others. By June 1831, Andries Stockenstrom was firefighting along this frontier, while his nemesis, Colonel Henry Somerset, was setting the region aflame. Somerset began to blur the lines between a patrol and a commando which was to have repercussions for everyone on this frontier. Henry and Andries continued to quarrel about all of this - because the final sanction for any commando rested on Andries Stockenstrom’s shoulders, but Somerset had evaded this chain of command, this organogram, by bypassing Andries and appealing directly to the Governor Sir Lowry Cole. Henry was British, the Governor was British, Stockenstrom was a Swedish-Dutch Boer. You can see where this is going. AS I’ll explain next episode, affairs on the frontier were sinking even faster and deeper into a muddied scene of ignorance, brutality and reactive consequences as the gestures of what Noel Mostert calls “limited military minds” were to show. But now its time to leap back on our trusty trekboer pony, and ride to Port Natal where the traders were learning to deal with the new Zulu king, Dingane. The first traders who met Dingane were afraid of him. He had piercing eyes, keen and quick, nothing escaped him it appeared. Isaacs met him and said that he was quelled by the Zulu kings “piercing and penetrating eyes” which he rolled in moments of anger. Dingane’s Zulu accent was Qwabe, he spoke in the amalala style, the one that Shaka had joked about so much, calling himself Dingane, whereas the official pronounciation amongst Zulu perfectionists was Dingana. This is what his amantungwa purists would have said, Dingana - behind his back of course. Within a few months, the colonists were describing Dingane as weak, cruel, indolent, capricious, and even more prone to human blood than the monster Shaka.

Last we heard about the attack on the Ngwane at Mbholompo west of Umtata, and the destruction of Matiwane’s raiders - sending him home back to Zululand where he was killed by Dingane. After the 1828 battle, Hintsa of the Gcaleka line of the amaXhosa and Nqubencuka who was his rival, fell out spectacularly over the division of the spoils. They had gathered a booty of women, children and cattle. The British took about 70 children back to the Colony, but appeared to be disgusted when the amaThembu and Gcaleka amaXhosa seized civilians after for themselves. Not long after this, Hintsa’s Bomvana allies attacked two of Ngubencuka’s subordinate clans - and the amaThembu gave up their territory closer to the coast and moved further north. Enter Ngqika’s eldest son Maqoma - who will feature over the next quarter of a century of South Africa’s amazing history. He was around 30 years old when he emerged following his father’s death, and his military leadership was going to become legendary. The British afforded him the kind of respect that they’d later afford their Zulu enemies, he was to receive many verbal salutes over the next decade or two. On the frontier, he was regarded by all who met him as gallant and bold - although that didnt’ stop the Cape administration from evicting him from his land. By 1829 however, Maqoma like his father Ngqika, had taken to the bottle - and in particular - to brandy. He moved his Great Place nearer to Fort Beaufort because it had an excellent canteen, and his love of Cape Brandy became notorious. Andries Stockenstrom was the Commissioner-General of the entire frontier, and Colonel Henry Somerset was its military commandant, and technically subordinate to Stockenstrom. However, it was never properly communicated who was in charge of whom. Neither Stockenstrom nor Somerset could operate on the basis other than their own wilfull characters which was going to cause disruption along the Eastern Cape frontier.

South Africa’s history is peppered with chaos and warfare, perhaps more so than is apparent in the modern period. It is fairly difficult to explain how our past intermeshes with the present without focusing on moments of extreme violence, these incidents are part of our psychological make-up without most of us being aware of just how we were forged out of the sound of gunfire and the smell of blood. With that slightly theatrical introduction, let’s delve into one of these moments during the period of the Mfecane - a battle that has taken on various forms in the telling based on what your political persuasion may be. This is the battle of Mbholompo. The battle of what? many listeners would muse. Yes folks, this rumpled sounding clash, the word conjuring up images of wordplay, Mbholompo, has as its main player a man called Matiwane of the Ngwane. We have met him in passing but now we’ll spend time telling at his tale and he has some significant storytellers backing him up. One is Albert Hlongwane who published a book in 1938 called “history of Matiwane and the amaNgwane Tribe, as told by Mzebenzi to his Kinsman, Albert Hlongwane”. Landdrost of Albany, Major WB Dundas, was growing more concerned. Drawing on his experience he first led a commando against Matiwane which was to end in bloodshed - but his main reason to head off into the Transkei was to secure labourers for the settlers of Albany. The British soldiers and Khoekhoe gunmen were joined by the Thembu warriors who then moved east of Mbashe surrounding the Ngwane before dawn on the 27th August 1828.

Last episode we heard how Jan Bloem and Kora leader Haip had launched a raid on Mzilikazi’s Ndebele people arraigned along the southern reaches of the Vaal River in 1830 - and Mzilikazi’s bloody response where he not only recovered his cattle but killed 50 Kora. This was the first of a series of incidents which convinced Griqua captain Barend Barends to put together a massive commando and deal with the Ndebele once and for all. Barends is regarded as the founder of Griqualand, he settled north of the Orange River early in the 19th Century - and was the first Griqua to do this. He was also more adventurous than his fellow people, and was a profoundly focused Griqua nationalist. His spirit still moves the people of Griqualand today - it is a fiercely independent folk who live around Kuruman, to Upington, Kimberley. The land there is fierce as well - only the hardiest people can take the splendid isolation of the searing summer temperates and the freezing winds in winter. Barend Barends had left the Cape because he disliked the Dutch and the colonists generally - and he refused to cooperate with authorities when they demanded he hand back escaped slaves. He was far away from their centre of power - who was going to try and stop him? He became known as a protector of runaway slaves, a man whose name was whispered amongst the slave community of Cape Town, his towns a place for the so-called Hottentots to reach if they could across the barren Namaqua wastes - and past the unfriendly Dutch farms. Barends was also a staunch paternalist when it came to the Tswana around him presuming that his people were a cut above - he was condescending at times. And he was luke-warm about Jan Bloem’s first plan to raid Mzilikazi. Mzilikazi attacked Griqua hunting parties north of the Molopo River. Barends himself had hunted there, and he’d traded with the Hurutshe folk who by now had been turned into one of the Ndebele vassal peoples. Mzilikazi is also reported to have told Barend and his Griquas to steer clear of the Ndebele land which the Griqua had regarded as their ivory hunting grounds. This was not acceptable to the Griqua view of themselves as superiors to the Tswana, the Sotho, the Ndebele. By early 1831 Barend Barends began to talk in messianic terms - that he was sent by God to sweep Mzilikazi and his “gang of blood thirsty warriors from the fine pastures and glens of the Bakone country…” as Robert Moffat the missionary wrote in his book “Missionary Labours”. The Bakone country was the highveld just fyi. Barend said he wanted to emancipate the people of the region from Mzilikazi’s thrall. I’ll return to what Mzilikazi was up to by 1833 and it will be a story of blood, gore, pain and suffering, raiding, raping, pillaging and other inappropriate activities because now allow our gaze to swing south once more. Here the relationship between the missionaries, the amaXhosa and the settlers was growing more and more complex. The missionaries thought amaXhosa were living in sin and cursed by damnation, the amaXhosa thought the missionaries were borderline insane and I’ll explain why - although its nicely summed up by one young woman quoted by the Scots missionaries of the time. “I am young, and in health, I have a husband and we possess corn, and cattle and milk. Why should I not be happy? Why do I need more?” Such disregard for the soul horrified the poor missionaries, so did just about everything about the amaXhosa, their nudity, the circumcision dances, and missionaries reporting that their land “… is filled with fornication, whoredom, and all uncleanness, witchcraft, their doctors, polygamy, conversations full of frivolousness and filth…”

It’s time to delve deeply into the other Ndebele, then what happened when Mzilikazi arrived in the area known as the Trans Vaal - across the Vaal, with his hungry wolves. The development of the highveld to the late 1820s is quite a tale, with the first Tswana people made their way here by the 1100s, although much of the high ground was avoided. However, by the late 1600s, people had moved onto hilltop defensive locations through the region. Rooikrans for example, a small stone-walled Sotho, Tswana and Pedi site on the Waterberg plateau north west of the Witwatersrand. There was also a similar development at Bruma on the Linksfield Ridge right in the heart of Johannesburg. I used to walk up that slope from the back of my house and the original stone settlements had been frittered away by Boer and British defenders during the Anglo Boer war who used the 500 year-old Tswana stone to build Sangars and trenches. So over hundreds of years, the original peoples of the highveld moved about a great deal, sometimes living on hilltops, sometimes in the valleys depending on how politically stable it was. Oral tradition points out the Hurutshe founded the hill-top village of Chuenyane - also called Witkoppies, which is near Zeerust by the early 1500s. By the 17th Century, there was significant Tswana state growth in the west where it is warmer than around Johannesburg, with the rise of the Kwena and Kgatla dynasties, but these shattered in the 18th Century as trading power shifted north. If you’ve followed the series to this point, you’ll remember the descriptions of the trading routes from Delagoa Bay and how they criss-crossed central southern Africa. There were even traders who arrived here from the West Coast, modern day Angola. By the end of the 17th Century, the transvaal Ndebele began to emerge - and by the 18th Century they were regarded as a separate people by the Sotho, Tswana and Pedi speakers. They became known as the Matabele, and they lived on the steepest hills where they built fortifications around the Waterberg plateau. The southern Trans Vaal Ndebele were spread over the Witwatersrand high veld adjoining the Drakensberg, up to where Pretoria is today and they were in this region by the end of the 17th Century. They all trace their history to a man known as Busi, and the dating of this man is around 1630-1670. Busi’s son was called Tshwane, and that’s why we know Pretoria area today as Tshwane - because that was its first name. Oral stories are a bit more murky when it comes to the northern trans vaal Ndebele, who settled west of the Waterberg Plateau in the 1500s. Some headed further west across the Limpopo to the Tswapong hills in eastern Botswana. While they were migrating north west, the other transvaal Ndebele called the LAka aka, Langa, and the Hwaduba, remained behind in the WAterberg plateau. These people clung onto their linguistic identity, they spoke an Nguni language, whereas the others to the west became Tswana, Sotho, and Pedi speakers. One man by the name of Mogale refused to dilute his language, and it is his name that morphed into the Magaliesberg - that wonderful and imposing steep and craggy range of mountains the west of Johannesburg. The very phrase sounds Afrikaans - Magalies, but it is actually an early Ndebele word from the 1500s. By Mzilikazi’s time in the mid-1820s, there was significant jostling for territory and ascendancy around inland southern Africa. A series of small wars amongst the Tswana which have become known as the ivory and cattle and fur wars, and some known as the Wives wars, were on the go around this time.

Port Natal was steeped in fear and loathing in late 1828 follow in Shaka’s assassination on the 24th September 1828 which had thrown the traders into a panic. They anticipated that Shaka’s death would lead to a civil war, and that they’d be targeted in the coming political storm. Most fled their homesteads and clambered aboard the schooner Elizabeth and Susan to depart for Algoa Bay. On the 28th September, word was sent by Shaka’s murderers, his brothers Dingane and Mhlangana, that the traders were assured of friendship and protection - and Dingane in particular had asked them not to leave. However, the traders had seen what happened when the Zulu fought over succession, and understood the power of the regiments so they let caution eclipse valour and most sailed away on the Elizabeth and Susan on December 1st. They returned to Port Elizabeth, but not before Dingane’s messenger arrived - both he and Mhlangana sought the support of Cape officials and with that ringing in his ears, Francis Farewell scarpered. Meanwhile Shaka’s Bhalule imp was still away on campaign, so the abantwana wanted to avoid more conflict with the amaMpondo, the Bhaca, and other neighbours. If the colonists left, and without their powerful army, perhaps these other smaller nations would try and seize cattle or attack the outlying Zulu homesteads. Before he was murdered, Shaka had been raising an entirely new regiment of youths called the iziNyosi the bees - and Dingane and Mhlangana added weight to this young ibutho by forming another called uHlomendlini, the Home Guard. Dingane and Mhlangana began to circle each other like angry lions, mistrust and antagonism developing literally by the day. It had been all very well in killing Shaka, a bit like the moment Caesar was stabbed. Now what? Who is numero uno, and who isn’t? At first, they worked in concert, sending a joint force of the uHlomendlini and iziNyosi under Mbopha’s tight command to deal with Nandi’s other son and Shaka’s half brother - Ngwadi kaNgendeyana. It was in late November when this dispute was brought before the royal house and the nobles of the realm. The main interrogator was Ngqengelele kaMvulana, Shaka’s protege who’d been appointed induna of the Buthelezi people. Sitting near Ngqengelele was Noncoba, Shaka’s half-sister - Nandi’s daughter. Also present, and apparently the person who took control, was aunty Mnkabayi - Nandi’s sister. It is said by the oral storytellers that despite all these powerful men hanging about, it was Mnkabayi who really ran the show. It must have been quite a sight on that day because Mnkabayi arrived at this most symbolic of Zulu gatherings dressed as a man.

For my listeners who’ve lasted a century of podcasts, thank you folks! The series has far exceeded my expectation when it was launched I thought perhaps a few people would respond and that would be that. But no! This series has managed to climb 6 places on Apple’s South African podcast top 20, we’re at 16 on the hit parade and passed 500 000 listens! Sorry, this sounds self-serving, and probably is, it’s just so exciting to see how many people are interested in this unique place called South Africa, with its crazy paving history and characters that Edgar Allan Poe wouldn’t dream up in a thousand years. So with that self-important note - let’s head on back to 1828. Lord Charles Somerset’s perfidious tenure had ended, that period of post Napoleonic nepotism. In Liverpool, the centre of the trading world in the first half of the 19th Century, laissez-fire oceanic liberalism was raising its genteel bewigged head. The principle of free trade was growing. And in conjunction with this new economic free trade a new kind of radical liberalism was surging it was the time of a new philosophy of the rights of the human individual. This is no small matter, as Adam Smith would agree. You could argue that if it wasn’t for Doctor John Philip, with two p’s, one L and no S, South African history would be quite different. By the second half of the 1820s the majority of the Khoekhoe had no other employment than as farm labourers, mainly for the trekboers. Dr John had summed up the situation in the Cape and his grim memorandum had led to the establishment of a commission of inquiry. He was fighting for what he called “the emancipation of the wretched aborigines of South Africa…” If you remember an earlier podcast, Dr John Philip had single-handedly convinced Sir Rufane Donkin the acting governor to take action to protect the Khoekhoe labourers from abuse suffered on farms. Dr John had returned to England by mid-1820s, and was a force of nature, persuading the public there that they should enjoin him in the mission to ensure that all men and women living in southern Africa should be regarded as equal. Andries Stockenstrom was no longer the landdrost of Graaff-Reinet, the British had given him a new title. He was the Commissioner General of the frontier, and his new seat was in Uitenhage. This Afrikaner was one of two colonists appointed to the new Advisory Council which helped govern the colony. He was in his middle thirties and during Dr John Philip’s great trek around the Cape, they’d both spent many days arguing and debating about the rights of the Khoekhoe. And so it was, in April 1828, four months after being installed as Commissioner General, Stockenstrom sent a memorandum to Major General Bourke about the Khoekhoe, and recommended precisely what Dr John Philip had been suggesting. A law that would sweep away all restrictions on the Khoekhoin, and put them on an equal footing with the colonists. Gasp.

First we pick up the point where James Saunders King made his way back to Port Natal following his failed diplomacy on Shaka’s behalf – the result would be catastrophic for Shaka. It provided added incentive for Shaka’s enemies inside the Zulu to move against him, the members of the Royal house were conspiring to kill him and had been for at least four years. Remember in early 1828 Shaka had sent the impi to raid the amaMpondo in an attempt at wiping away the tears of his mother Nandi’s death, and also to keep his army on the move which is often the best option when there is treason in the wind. Once the army had returned from their raiding along the Umtata River, they had no break – Shaka sent them away once more, in the opposite direction. The failed embassy led by James Saunders King returned to Port Natal on 17th August 1828. Sothobe who was Shaka’s emissary bluntly laid the blame for the fiasco in the Cape on King, and Shaka was humiliated. King returned with Isaacs on two ships, the Helicon and the Elizabeth and Susan, and when they hove off Port Natal on 17th August 1828, King was pale and sick. Isaacs had to carry King to his residence at Mount Pleasant. On 19th August Isaacs broke open the boxes supposedly for Shaka which contained a few sheets of copper, a piece of red broadcloth, a few medicines, knives and trinkets. King had added a mirror or looking glass as it was known – and it was also an expensive luxury back in 1928. He also tossed in a few beads. When Isaacs arrived at kwaBulawayo with the presents, Shaka was contemptuous of the gifts and suspicious of the seals being broken. Shaka demanded that each gift be described, and when he was shown the ointments, Isaacs explained they were for healing wounds and the Zulu king exclaimed “do you think we are such scabby fellows as you are…” Later Shaka asked for the medicine that changed the colour of hair, the black oil, otherwise he was totally underwhelmed by the gifts. “…these are of no use to my subjects, they are not troubled with the disorders you mention, the best medicine for them is beef…” While all of this diplomacy was going on, the Zulu king had sent his army to Soshangane kaZikode of the Gaza Kingdom north of Delagoa Bay. This latest impi was going to take a very long trek, heading to the high ground 130 kilometers north west of Delagoa Bay. It overlooked the malaria and tsetse fly infested country of the bushveld around the Olifants .. the Lepelle River – which the Zulu called the Bhalule. This was to be known as the Bhalule expedition, and was Shaka’s last.

With the defeat of the Ndwandwe Shaka had moved to KwaDukuza near the Mvoti River, about 80km from Port Natal – a day and a half’s journey – or two if you were taking it fairly easy. It was a large ikhanda, containing about 1500 huts and accommodating around 3000 amabuthu warriors. The isigodlo where his women lived was vast, built on elevated ground overlooking the entire ikhanda it was 360 meters long and 35 meters wide and housed probably 200 women in about fifty huts. Each hut was of large and kept extremely neat and tidy as was the wont of the women of the king. They were arranged around a series of enclosures of different shapes, oval, circular, triangular – the floors hardened earth and compressed cow dung which turns a kind of dark green and smell’s fresh which is kind of hard for people to believe who’ve never lived in a home comprised of this material. The reason why it was so hard was the earth was from anthills squeezed together with dung – then dried and polished to a glass like consistency that shines like a mirror. It feels like marble, cool to the touch in the shade away from the blazing Zululand sun. It sets as hard as concrete. Shaka knew that the white traders at Port Natal offered him a form of protection and they represented a form of the future, as contradictory as this sounds to us today. He moved away from the north, away from where the Ndwandwe had predated, away from the Portuguese centre of Delagoa Bay, and closer to Grahamstown, which he knew about, also Port Elizabeth which had been described to him, and Cape Town which had been featuring in Zulu stories for some time. Along the Thukela, a few kilometers north of Mvoti, lived the Cele, and his favourite induna Magaye kaDibandlela. But something was bothering this Zulu king – it was the ongoing feud between the traders, King and Farewell which I mentioned last podcast. James King was also showing signs of illness. Farewell and King had by now become part of Shaka’s chiefdoms, he allowed them to develop their own herds, along with Ogle, and Fynn. This was how it was in Shaka’s time. He wanted to send a delegation of his induna to visit the British in the Cape and to discuss future ties.The timing, however, wasn’t great. That’s because it was only a few weeks after they were told of this diplomatic mission that Shaka’s mother Nandi died. This changed everything. She had been managing the zulu king’s domestic arrangements and was central in his life. She passed away in October 1827, although some report it was August – at eMkhindini umuzi which is part of the kwaBulawayo group of umuzi near Eshowe. It’s about five kilometers from the main homestead. Still, the important fact is not the exact spot, the what happened afterwards. Nandi was of the Langeni people, and the descendents have many stories of what he did afterwards. So too do the traders like Fynn and the youngers, Nathanial Isaacs. Each appears to try to outdo the other in the stories of murder and mayhem.

We kick off this episode with Henry Francis Fynn, the trader who’d made his home in Port Natal and was part of a group of Englishmen who’d fought with Shaka against Sikhunyane of the Ndwande. By 1826 Fynn had been living basically as a Zulu at Mpendwini, near the Mbokodwe stream which is close to Isipingo south of Durban. Last week I explained how Shaka had donated three herds of cattle to Fynn so he could set up his important Umuzi. One of the herds was payment for helping defeat the Ndwandwe. Fynn by now was given a Zulu name, Mbuyazi – which means long-tailed finch, a bird, of the bay. One of his praise songs was all about the Finch, a fiscal shrike, which is particularly vicious in how it hunts – by impaling insects on thorns. Fynn was Shaka’s favourite mercenary, a killer, and one of the few that Shaka allowed to kill people without his direct permission. Later Fynn’s descendents would become known as iziNkumbi, the locusts. By 1826 Fynn had four, possibly five, Zulu wives. We don’t know their names because these were never passed down in the usual Zulu oral tradition, not even his great wife. But we know quite about about his children. A son called Mpahlwa was born while Fynn was off fighting the NDwandwe, so he was conceived around December 1825. That was a few months after Fynn’s umuzi had been setup. He adopted the Zulu custom of living, and would send for one of his wives every night, who would come to his hut at nightfall. Only poor men would creep around at dusk to visit their wives. Fynn had thrown off all pretenses of living like a European – unlike some of the other traders such as Maclean the youngster, or Farewell. So by 1826, Shaka was watching these traders with their guns and ships carefully. In the same year, the Zulu king decided to move his entire main umuzi closer to Port Natal – building his new residency on the site of an Umuzi long abandoned by the Cele chieftan Dibhandlela. We’ll come back to what happened there next episode, right now lets swing to the north west deeper– because our old friend – who was actually still quite young by the name of, Mzilikazi of the Khumalo had been a very very busy young man. The remnants of Sikhuyane’s Ndwandwe, shattered by Shaka, joined up with him in the area around the upper reaches of the Vaal River by the end of 1826. The erosion of power of the Buhurutshe people was taking place, the Mzilikazi was also incorporating refugees from the Tswana and Sotho chiefdoms as the area to the south and West of the Vaal became more unstable. The Pedi had also been defeated earlier by Zwide’s Ndwandwe and now Mzilikazi was busy taking advantage of their defeat to raid their old stomping ground. The Khumalo people had become an agglomeration of their original clan from Zululand and the Tswana called them the Matabele – Nguni speakers called them the amaNdebele. amaNdebele means the Marauders. They were indeed, amaNdebele.

We’re dealing with the period 1826 to 1828 and southern Africa was a rich patchwork of expanding trekboers, Shaka setting up his empire in Zululand, the Khoe and basters traveling and raiding along the Orange River, and the amaNdebele on the move into the highveld. Of course 1826 was not a great year if you were Lord Charles Somerset, who was hastened home after his administration been scrutinized with an intense scrute, to quote Spike Milligan. Lord Bathurst had setup the Advisory Council in Cape Town, a kind of forerunner to a cabinet, and the days of the Governor merely printing his edicts as law were over. The council then approached a rather thorny problem of creating a separate council for the Eastern districts, the Eastern cape so to speak. But they held off for the meantime – at least until after slavery was abolished. The new lieutenant Governor replacing Somerset was Bourke who waved Lord Charles off in March 1826 to the relative peace at Brighton back in England. The need for a resident authority further east, along the frontier, was met in a while by a compromise. That was when Dutch speaking Andries Stockenstrom landdrost of Graaff-Reinet, was appointed Commissioner-General at Grahamstown, and was to report on all the affairs of the eastern districts .. including Beaufort West in the Karoo. Farewell along with Henry Francis Fynn Fynn who had taken a liking to Shaka. They spent months hunting elephants, and had bagged a fortune in ivory. Life was hard for the settlers here in the early days of Natal, but the rewards were vast. James Saunders King had rented the Mary, which he’d now managed to wreck, but he was not alone on that humid beach in October. Swimming alongside him were Nathanial Isaacs and Charles Rawden Maclean. Isaacs is an entire podcast series himself, and I said we’d be hearing a lot more from him and here he is. Nathanial Isaacs’ stories about Shaka would form the core narrative of the Shaka mythology, and some of his comments actually still appear in school text books. It’s been a long road to weed out this teenager’s overwritten memories from our consciousness. But he was quite an interesting chap nevertheless.

We’re going to join one of the biweekly market gatherings held at Fort Willshire in 1825 where amaXhosa, English settlers, trekboers and khoekhoe met to exchange goods. Then we bid Cape Governor Lord Charles Somerset adieu. The fair that had been established by Sir Rufane Donkin on the banks of the Keiskamma River was flourishing by 1825. Boxes of beads, brass goods, buttons, coils or wire, looking glasses alias spectacles, scissors, cotton textiles, European clothing and shoes, were exchanged for ivory, gum and cattle hides brought by the amaXhosa and khoekhoe. As the traders travelled to the fair, they would pass elephant that could still be seen roving in the area in great numbers, although the British settlers like the Boers before had taken to shooting these pachyderms down by the dozen so they could also benefit from selling ivory. The great herds were being shot out of the eastern Cape although they could be found until 1919. That’s when the government passed an extermination order and after the blood letting, elephants could only be found deep in the Knysna forests and in Addo. The settlers’ mouthpiece publication called the Grahamstown Journal was now publishing, edited by Robert Godlonton, and called for more English expansion into Xhosa country, and the complete subjugation and dispossession of the amaXhosa. They were also railing against a new Ordanance 9 issued by the British, which regulated the right of colonists to open fire on vagrants, trespassers, deserters and escaped convicts spotted on their land. The settlers were now uncertain about what was lawful if they tried to defend their farms – and the trekboers blamed the English – adding to the bitterness they already felt towards these red coated self serving high and mightier imperialists. Colonel Henry Somerset had served with the Cape Corps as their commander, and fought in the last stage of the Fifth Frontier War, but by 1823 he was installed as CIC of the entire eastern Front. You’ve heard how Governor Charles was facing criticism for his nepotism and spendthrift ways, so we are not surprised by what was going to happen next. The merchants were in his ear, do something, we can’t have these Kosas causing chaos.

Port Natal and Delagoa Bay are far away from Cape Town and appeared even further in the early 1820s. The Cape Governor was inevitably more concerned with what lay immediately beyond the colonial frontiers than in these distant ports. Much of what concerned Lord Charles Somerset – and had concerned his predecessors – already lay along the frontiers. The colony had thrown out an ever increasing fringe of loose cannons, skirmishers, traders, trek-boers, escaped slaves, and even rebellious missionaries. The flood of missionaries turned into a tsunami by the mid-1820s, the London Missionary Society was already at work as you know, and by now they were established along both sides of the Orange River and into the eastern Frontier. The Moravians had arrived and were carving out new parishers even further east, while the Wesleyans were already amongst the far-distant amaPondo people. The Zulu had been raiding these people from Shaka’s centre of power as you know. There were a number of Scots from Glasgow who found living amongst the amaXhosa to their liking, and even missionaries from Germany showed up, particularly from Berlin, and they began living amongst the amaXhosa too. The Rhenish and Paris Evangelicals arrived too, one to work within the colony and the other headed north into Bechuanaland, and then to the Basutho. The LMS and Paris Evangelicals were moving along the first stage of what became known as the Missionary Road which led all the way from the Cape into Central Africa. By now the chiefdoms of the Caledon Valley and the open plains north of the Orange River had been squeezed between three expanding zones of instability and conflict. From the south and south west parties of Griqua, Kora and Boers were raiding for cattle and cheap labour. To the northwest, the rivalries of Batswana chiefdoms were spilling across the Vaal River. To the East, the fighting that had seen the AmaZulu and amaNdwandwe at war, as well as the amaMthethwa, had displaced groups as you’ve heard and some had headed across the Drakensberg. Then Lord Bathurst the Secretary of State set up an Advisory Council in Cape Town which consisted of the Governor, muttering under his bewigged breath, the Chief Justice, the colonial Secretary, the Officer commanding, the Deputy-Quartermaster-General, the Auditor General and the Treasurer. The Council was to deal with quite an interesting proposal, and this was allowing the Eastern Cape to be represented by their own council, by some kind of representative assembly. They fired the first round in what was to become a long-sustained but ultimately unsuccessful battle for separation by Eastern Capers.

Shaka met Henry Francis Fynn and Lieutenant Francis George Farewell in August 1824 and the traders were seeking his permission to live and work at Port Natal. Cape Governor Lord Charles Somerset had rejected Farewell’s request he annex the region, so that was the only option left for the traders. In episode 92 I explained how the amazulu reacted to Fynn and Farewell, how their horses in particular were a shock. The dress code was also a surprise, although their skin colour seemed less of a surprise. These Englishmen by now had been burnt brown by months in the African sun, so there was not much made of their skin colour by the oral history tellers, they were more interested in what the Europeans were wearing. And as you heard, Shaka was able to talk to these traders because of the amaXhosa convict Jacot Msimbithi who was translating. The only problem was, he was not very good at his job. Hlambamanzi as he was known to the Zulu, Swim the Seas, mangled English meaning. However Shaka immediately grasped a few important facts from Msimbithi as they conversed in isiZulu – which is similar to isiXhosa. Firstly, he knew that the traders carried guns and these weapons would be useful. The visitors were also part of a much broader trading powerhouse, Shaka understood that too. He had heard of the power of the British and wanted to approach the empire, he was not into going to war against them although from his comments, we know he believed his warriors would defeat British soldiers anyway. And yet, Shaka quickly realized that using the settlers guns, he could overcome some of the chiefdoms that were still refusing to Khonza him. He welcomed the traders, conferring on them the title of abakwethu, or people of our house, kinsmen, trusted and close confidents. Then someone tried to stab Shaka to death with a spear. He survived the assassination attempt. Farewell rushed to Shaka’s side upon hearing of the incident, along with the master of his sloop the Julia, a man by the name of WH Davis. Somehow, at this point, Farewell managed to convince the Zulu king to grant him a sale of land, which he wrote as “in full possession and perpetuity” for the sole use of Farewell and his heirs. It was signed by Shaka in a huge scrawl, dated both 7th and 8th of August 1824 – pre-dated in other words and witnessed by Hlambamanzi Msimbithi the translator advisor, Shaka’s uncle Mbikwana and two other high ranking members of his counsel. But did the document grant Farewell ownership or guardianship?

As years go, 1824 was one for the history books. Not that the others weren’t, but 1824 is a one of those seminal 12 months in southern Africa history. It was the year that Shaka’s main impi south had a disastrous campaign attempting to subjugate the Mpondo and despite their training and their military prowess, Shaka’s amabutho were not invincible. But more importantly, it was the year that English traders setup their base in Port Natal and immediately altered the social, military and political landscape. Shaka was busy in 1824 with both conquest and raiding. His impi’s however, did not do well in what you could call their away games. The further they were from their base which the more defective their logistics. And now Shaka had setup his main base on the Mahlabatini plain north of the uMhlathuze River – along the Mfolozi. Later the’d move south as we’ll hear, but in 1824 it was near modern day Ulundi. Supply lines for military endeavours are fundamental – Frederick the Great summed it up when he said an army marches on its stomach – or more accurately, he said it marches on its belly. And no it wasn’t Napoleon who said that. Once a chief was defeated, the amabutho had to remain in the field to quash any further resistance and that meant feeding the men. If Shaka wanted to conquer territories, then he needed a quick decisive battle, and that was his strategic intention. As his warriors ranged further, word got out that if you led them on a bit of a song and dance, they’d give up and go home quite quickly. He was also eyeing the trade with the outside world as a part of the growth of his power. He knew that Delagoa Bay was somewhat overtraded and too far away to service successfully, furthermore the Portuguese and their allies had tied up their routes inlands already. He could not expand Westwards because the Sotho people were too strong, and to the south, the Mpondo had cut off his access to the Cape. The Zulu King was acutely aware of the advantage of doing business with the English at the Cape, but accessing them was another matter. He had no ships. And so this is where we return to last episode, because the ships came to him. The Julia in which Henry Francis Fynn would arrive, the Salisbury of Commander King, and the Antelope under Lieutenant Francis George Farewell.

It’s the steamy coast of south east Africa 1824, Port Natal to be exact. It’s now called eThekweni from the Zulu word for port itheku, although some say it is actually from the word emateku meaning the one-testicled thing. It of course was not a port during pre-settler times and original and ancient local name for this bay was isiBubulungu – that was what locals called it in 1824 - isiBubulungu means membership. So I suppose we could call it eThekweni iNatali just for fun. To further complicate the nomenclature, Port Natal was not a port back in 1824, it was a bay with a swooping sandy beach and a dangerous bar across its entrance that produced huge standing waves. People have lived near this bay for more than 100 000 years, and the last people before the settlers arrived were pre-Zulu. Then in 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed up the coast from the south and called the whole coastline Natal which means Christmas in Portuguese. That’s because it was the Christmas period as he passed Natal trying to find the most direct route to the spice islands and India. Sailing back and forth along this part of the coast were traders. By 1824 ships such as the Leven, Barracouta and Cockburn were captained by Captain WFW Owen who had taken to the region. Others were Commodore Nourse, who was commander at Simon’s town and who’d headed off in 1822 in the Andromache to meet Owen. These were adventurers who wanted to make their names and fortune from this unique part of the world. Nourse’s brother Henry heard of their tales and being well off, decided to sponsor an upcoming business venture to Port Natal. By March 1823 Owen was back in Delagoa Bay and bumped into a ship called the Sincapore from Calcutta, and the Orange Grove owned by Henry Nourse. Owen’s crew began to die from malaria, and he left after press ganging 12 black crew from the nearby villages. It was a thousand kilometer trip to Port Elizabeth, when Owen met up with two more ships that are to feature in the story of Port Natal. One was the Jane, the other, the Salisbury. There is an island in Durban harbour which is called Salisbury island and named after this ship. The Salisbury’s captain was James Saunders King, a crucial character in our tale. These two, Farewell and King, formed a tight pair speculating on possible maritime business. They had bought a 400 ton ship called the Princess Charlotte, then sold it earning a profit. A third character in this part of our story – a man who was to marry into the Zulu clans and whose family now dominate part of KwaZulu Natal, Henry Francis Fynn, pops up. Fynn and Farewell chartered the Salisbury from King, and began to sail between Rio de Janeiro, the West Indies, Mauritius.

This is episode 90 and it is 1823. The small coastal harbour town of Port Elizabeth had been founded but it still had no proper jetties, no lighthouse, nor a breakwater. Passengers were forced to disembark precariously through the angry surf. The place was described as an “ugly, dirty, ill-scented, ill-built hamlet…” Resembling some said, the worse fishing villages on the English coast. It also was known as disorderly, drunken and a place of immorality. Further up the coast, two separate towns had been founded on the Kowie River, settlers on the west bank named their little hamlet Port Kowie, and those on the east called their equally small hamlet Port Frances after Governor Lord Charles Somerset’s daughter in law. These days we call it Port Alfred. Many settlers who remained in Albany were now trading deep into the interior beyond the boundaries of the colony and legally too. They bartered goods with the amaXhosa, cloth, iron utensils, beads, buttons and copper were exchanged for cattle hides, ivory and gum often at the weekly market held in Grahamstown. Monitoring all of this were the men of the Cape Regiment, the Khoekhoe or the Cape Mounted Rifles as they became known. Lord Charles wanted his eldest son Henry to take over as OC - nothing like a military command to accelerate your place in life he thought. As you know, Henry was not the sharpest tool in the Somerset shed and furthermore, he could not be a commander of a regiment without attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and he couldn’t be promoted immediately because Lieutenant colonel Fraser was in charge. However, Fraser was seriously ill and died in October 1823. Henry of course, was appointed commander although without the necessary rank. Nepotism, corruption, poor governance. Take your pick. By now as you know, Thomas Pringle, that Scots lad who’d been an editor in the UK then travelled to his farm in the Bruintjieshoogte with other Scots, had taken up his appointment at the SA Public Library. A man of letters, Pringle then invited a fellow Scot called John Fairbairn to help found a school to promote English language and literature in South Africa. It was to be known as the Classical and Commercial Academy, a bit like studying towards an MBA but partly in Latin. They were joined by a Dutch Reformed clergyman and educator called Abraham Faure. By January 1823 that Pringle and Faure applied for permission to publish a monthly periodical and promised to avoid “the discussion of all controversial or agitating topics…” Somerset refused the request, then wrote secretly to the Secretary of State Earl of Bathurst, calling Pringle an “arrant dissenter…” But the need for an independent voice in South Africa was obvious and George Greig who was to launch the SA Commercial Advertiser knew a good business idea when he saw one.

This is episode 89 and it’s the first years of the 1820s and we are still in Zululand. By now Shaka began concentrating his power in the area around Mahlabatini, to Qulusini, which is the area just north of the White Mfolozi River. That’s north of the town of Ulundi. After Zwide of the Ndwandwe was chased away, Shaka began developing a dense cluster of imizi in Mahlabatini under Mmama, Mnkabayi’s twin sister – and the largest of these was oSebeni near Nhlazatshe mountain. Most were previously Mthethwa homesteads including kwaKandisa, oNyangek kwaGuqu, Mdadasa and Nomdayana. I mentioned last episode that we need to attend to the various myths about Shaka’s sexuality. Most of the salacious myths are indeed, myths, and I’ll explain why. Some suggest he was gay, others that he couldn’t have sex, he was sexually disabled. We must attend to this part of the story because a whole phalanx of myth-making has developed based on misconceptions. Most Zulu oral story tellers and written evidence that Shaka had no children. I’m going to explain why. He had an isigodlo of several hundred women, yet never had a child – how come? This movement of people around Zululand was going to nudge others further afield. I mentioned the concept of the Difaqane or Mfecane last episode. This is a theory about what happened at precisely this time in Southern African history where it’s postulated that Shaka’s immense power and violence led to the scattering of clans and tribes away from his zulu powerhouse which in turn, disrupted other people’s further afield. That people were now moving more than they had been in preceding decades is uncontestedly true. But it’s disputed and quite virulently about why this happened. It's known as the Difaqane or Mfecane.

This is episode 88 it’s the period of 1821/1822 heading into a decade of disaster, drought, despondence and disorder. As we heard last episode, the 1820 Settlers were suffering the effect of a crops losses and pestilence. These years would also be characterised by an expanding Zulu empire, and trekboers leaving the Cape once the English emancipation laws took effect, and a general mass movement of people across the sub-continent. There are many theories about all of this. I’m going to stick to the facts as we know them rather than speculate on any main reason for what became known as the Difakane or Mfecane. There’s a propensity for historians to finger point about this decade, so I’ll explain each supposition as we go. But enough about esoterics, let’s get on with this episode. Something had arrived in the Cape as part of the 1820 Settlers fleet that had put the fear of God into Lord Charles Somerset, and he’d immediately banned the object in question. This of course was a printing press. Nothing strikes fear in a bureaucrat more than the public’s power to spread their own messages. Ask Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin if they are more afraid of Twitter than an F16 fighter jet and the answer will be She Dah and Dah respectively. Yes in other words. Just as an aside, isn’t it interesting that Dah is part of the word yes in both Russian and Mandarin? Makes it easier to agree with each other when they vote on the Security council I suppose. By 1821 Shaka had subjugated the major group the Qwabe and the Mkhize, and had just sent the Ndwandwe packing – Zwide had fled to the area of modern day Mpumalanga, at the headwaters of the Komati River. Back in Zululand, or more specifically, the area around the Umhlatuze to the black Mfolozi, and down to the Thugela, Shaka was now the major force in the region. It’s time to focus more specifically on what was going on socially behind this new power. Shaka had followed the ritual of a new king, and what an amazing process it was. We need to dig deep into this process to fully understood in its complexity to appreciate the fact that it is carried out to this day. And we hear about the crucial inkatha yezwe yakwa Zulu – a venerated object, a circular grass coil and the most important ritualised object in Zulu tradition.

This is episode 87 and it’s time to talk a bit about the terrifying power of San poison and then a quick revisit to the frontier of 1822 which of course is exactly two hundred years ago. As part of the picture of the past, at times when there’s a bit of a lull in the action so to speak, I’ll concentrate on aspects of historical themes or interesting titbits and today we’re looking into South Africa’s first people and specifically – their deadly poison arrows. All the way through these episodes, you have heard about how the amaXhosa, the Khoe and the Boers, then the British, exploited or subjugated the San – previously known as the Bushmen. We have enough DNA evidence to point to the fact that they were not only the first people of South Africa but given their DNA diversity, are the first people of planet earth. But this didn’t stop everyone from trying to either kill them, or co-opt them through the thousands of years that their lives have intersected with the lives of newer folks returning home so to speak. The San were particularly terrifying because they could manufacture various types of poison for use with their arrows. Based on the results obtained from various artefacts spanning historical, Later and Middle Stone Age phases particularly at sites along the cape coast archaeologists believe poisoned bone arrowheads may have been in use in southern Africa throughout the last 72,000 years. Its now time move refocus on to what was going on across southern Africa and the world in 1821 as we step back to assess matters. In the east, Shaka Zulu was starting to flex his imperial muscles as you know while in Cape Town, Lord Charles Somerset was back from his sabbatical and facing the ruin of most 1820 Settlers. But the newspapers were also obsessing about other matters at the end of 1821. Napoleon Bonaparte had died of stomach cancer in exile in St Helena. Europe was increasingly unstable as the agreements signed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 were coming apart.

This is episode 86 and we left off with things heating up along the Orange River after hearing about the arrival of the 1820 Settlers and back in Cape Town, there were more moves afoot. Governor Lord Charles Somerset was still on long-leave, on sabbatical if you like, leaving Sir Rufane Donkin in charge as Acting Governor. Perhaps he’d have been better off taking his holiday in sunny Southern Africa, because there was big trouble brewing for Somerset. There must be something about the Cape, or Cape Town, because he’d been indulging, shock, in corruption and nepotism. IT had become a favourite sport of the VOC Dutch officials for a couple of centuries, and Somerset while ostensibly reducing corruption, was playing fast and loose with ethics. Donkin was not Somerset. He was motivated and focused. That’s what happens when you’re a technocrat and you beloved wife has died. Donkin had barely decided to create the new town in Algoa Bay called Port Elizabeth after his departed wife, when he began to organize the colony. So naturally he peered closely at Somerset’s Cape Town lifestyle – he did what we’d now call a lifestyle audit – feared by contemporary politicians and for good reason – because like with contemporary politicians, Somerset had been a very naughty boy. Watching these changes with open mouths were the missionaries. They realised that Donkin was a new man, and particularly, the London Missionary Societies Doctor John Philip who recognized the acting governors’ anti-slavery philosophy. What Philip really wanted, more than the right to head east and try and prothelitise the amaXhosa which Somerset had rejected, but the right to head up the Orange River – or rather to send someone by the name of Robert Moffat up the Orange. Now folks, there are few names you need to remember in this vast saga of south African history, but this is one you really must remember. Moffat’s effect on the entire sub-continent cannot be underestimated as you’re going to hear. He’s forgotten these days, but after you hear the full story, you’ll probably agree his reach extends across the centuries like a religious bungee chord.

This is episode 85 and as we’ve heard, the English settlers have just arrived in the Albany district – the year is 1820. It had taken three months and now all 5000 new settlers were ensconced on their land. For these settlers, it was an epic of pathetic naiveté and makeshift survival. They would need to adapt or disappear. It was bewildering to most, they originated from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, survived the landing at Algoa Bay, and then they’d been driven to their farms on the frontier by ox wagon where they were left without so much as a helping hand. No effort was made to offer advice, and they were forbidden to approach the amaXhosa or Khoekhoe for help. Their sons were going to herd the livestock and till the fields, unlike the Boers who used Khoehoe and mixed race men and women to do their hard work. This landscape appeared perverse, waterless and yet vegetated. The wildlife was breathtaking, elephants would roam about beside thorn fences hastily erected. Thomas Pringle’s party had arrived at Bruintje’s Hoogte when after a few days, their first lion began to roar at midnight. The Scots poet and humanitarian Thomas Pringle who was shocked by how the Boers treated their Khoekhoe slaves initially, then seemed to approach the matter of race relations in a more philosophical bent. This is where Miles Bowker, remember the man descended from Elizabeth Bouchier who married Oliver Cromwell, this is where his family began to excel. The Bowkers turned rather rapidly into what some called “a tough lot…” survivors of the first order remoulding themselves into Africans.

Between December 1819 and the first quarter of 1820, 21 ships left England and Ireland bound for the Cape carrying five thousand men, women and children. The ships docked at Cape Town after weeks at sea to take on food and water, and for officials to come aboard. Settlers were not allowed to leave the ships, which then sailed onwards to anchor in Algoa Bay starting in April 1820. The rest would follow through to the end of July, the mid-winter in South Africa, and not the best time to land a ship on the coast. You can imagine the immigrants shock as they looked out over the bay from these vessels, because there was nothing in the way of settlements, just bush, and the landscape was alien – at least at first. The Eastern Cape is a remarkably beautiful area, but its rugged, full of succulants, dry, but when it rains, seemingly covered in vegetation. Who were these people, these 1820 settlers? The Colonial Office initially had instituted rigid conditions to ensure that those of sound character were shipped out. But these rules were broken almost immediately. Some were parties under the leadership of men of means and ability as you’ve heard, those who could take indentured servants, labourers and mechanics. The Colonial Office’s original idea of taking only agricultural men and women who’d been dispossessed of their land in Britain was poorly instituted. IT appeared that many of these farmers were not farmers at all, but artisans, tradesmen and mechanics, who’d changed CVs so to speak, they pretended to be men of the earth when they were really men of settlements. They had grand dreams of paradise, after all the Times and other newspapers had published glowing reports of this new land of milk and honey and would do anything to get out of Britain. Some parishes sought to unload their less productive citizens and falsified their skills on the resumes. Why did so many people want to escape from England at this time? Basically, it was hell back home. Riots, uprisings, land theft, economic decline, government oppression, it all tore at the fabric of British society and for many of these people escape to South Africa – or virtually anywhere for that matter – was better than staying at home. Ironic then that in the 21st Century, Africans are trying to make the reverse trip. Times change.

This is episode 83 and Ndwandwe chief Zwide is on the run, being hunted down by Shaka after the defeat on the Mhlathuze. Zwide was sitting at his mother’s umuzi called eziKwitshini during the battle, awaiting word. And when it came it was not what he was expecting. As you heard in episode 82, the dust cloud signalling approaching warriors were not his victorious Ndwandwe, they were the revengeful Zulu Mbelebele ibutho seeking to take full toll on Zwide for his decades long attacks south. Zwide managed to escape out of a door at the back of the isigodlo, and the Zulu impi rolled over the hill into his mother’s umuzi. There is a story about what they found inside the home of Ntombaze, a macabre jumble of things. First were the rings of brass and the brushes, then hanging on pegs at the back of her hut were human heads, ready for muti. IT shocked even the hardened Zulu warriors who set fire to her hut and the entire umuzi – but then they went further. IT is said that these men impaled all the children on posts, but were still not satiated. They wanted Zwide dead and tracked him north across the Black Mfolozi, but the trail went cold so the impi turned back. They seized all the cattle they could find and warned all Zwide’s Ndwandwe to throw down their spears and shields or be killed on the spot. Most obeyed and were immediately inducted into Shaka’s army, they had fought well he said. Shaka reinforced tradition after defeating Zwide by appointing what were known as the grand old ladies, amakhosikazi, to oversee the affairs of the amakhanda. The homes. They ordered men and women about, as the amakhosikazi still do. They were in charge of the women of the izigodlo and had to be convinced of matters before change was instituted. They were powerful figures who ensured the various rituals were followed, no taboos broken, marriage alliances were properly structured, food and other provisions were stored or collected. Shaka’s paternal Aunt springs to mind, Mnkabayi kaJama. She was instrumental in bringing Shaka to power, tall and imposing, she was called “the great she-elephant” or an isitubesikazi, a weighty woman who was actually literally a weighty woman. Not obese, but folks would call her bulky. In July 1819 the British House of Commons voted to sponsor a huge emigration scheme with the vast sum of 50 000 pounds. The idea was for one thousand families to be sent to the Cape – or to the Albany district of the Cape to be more accurate. It was a miserable time in England, these 1819 and 20s. The industrial revolution was in a transitional phase, men and women who’d expected better had found things worse. Lancashire had almost turned into another country, openly hostile to government and the upper classes, while the aged king George was slipping away in his chamber above the north terrace at Windsor. His imminent death representing the mood of the time.

This is episode 82 and we’re picking up the story from where we left off last Episode the Ndwandwe were chasing the AmaZulu down the Mhlathuze Valley, just north of the modern town of Eshowe, just south of Melmoth. And for those geopolitical folks, that’s just down the drag from Nkhandla. Most historians believe this battle took place in 1819, but some also think it may have been a year later. But the exact year is not as important than what this battle would herald. Zwide’s Ndwandwe were on the rampage, he’d sent his warriors from his main umuzi Ndweneni and they’d overrun the Zulu Centres of Mbelebeleni and esiKlebheni, and then driven the Zulu before them. The established Ndwandwe leader was sick and tired of this young upstart called Shaka of the little clan called the Zulu and was trying to teach him a lesson. Shaka had ample warning about this attack and moved his people before the NDwandwe arrived, then led his enemy on a wild goose chase to the south. The storytellers say that he ordered his warriors to create the impression that his main force was where it wasn’t – so to speak. There are stories that Shaka created the chest and horns attacking formation, but we know that Dingiswayo and even Senzangakhona used the direct attack followed by an outflanking technique. While much has been written and many many scribes have fallen over themselves talking about this chest and horns genius, Shaka only really used this horns and chest double flanking manoevre once in his entire history of battles and fights – and that was in 1826 in the Sikhunyane battle, which ended without a clear victor anyway. Once again, the real story is much more interesting and much more complex.

This is episode 81 and we’re following the story of the AmaZulu, the Qwabe, the Mkhize, the Ndwandwe and the Mthethwa circa 1819. By this time, the Mkhize and the Qwabe along with many other smaller groups and clans had been pushed southwards by the aggression of the Ndwandwe, and troubles in the Swaziland area. Zihlando was already the Mkhize chieftan when Shaka took control of the Zulu and their relationship would continue until Shaka was assassinated in 1828 – and Shaka referred to Zihlando as his younger brother his mnawe wami. Zihlando khonza’d Shaka, then was directed to fight Mtsholoza of the Nxamalala people, a small clan of folks who’d splintered and headed south. But the big fish awaited, Zwide’s Ndwandwe and Shaka knew that to take on such a powerful foe, he’d needed to build his forces carefully. I’ve mentioned that Dingiswayo’s death led to the severe instability across northern Zululand and its now time to get down amongst the weeds, to probe this era more comprehensively. Each month and each moment from now on has a bearing on the two centuries afterwards, as bizarre as this sounds. We live with the ramifications to this day in southern Africa and I’m going to explain why.

Last episode we heard how the Xhosa wardoctor had failed in his attempt at chasing the colonials out of his territory – the Albany region, and now return to significant events in the north east – Zululand. By 1819 Shaka and Dingiswayo were holding sway in an area from the Thukela to the Black Mfolozi in Zululand, but Zwide of the Ndwandwe still controlled the land between the Mfolozi and the Phongola Rivers. The landscape had changed radically over the past three hundred years as farmers cut and burned their way across the rolling hills and mountains. Vast tracts of forest and thornveld had been converted to grassland, altering the land to what it looks like today, although there was more bush around, particularly along the river valleys. But the point is human activity on the landscape had already mutated the veld, and yet there were still elephants around and other wild animals. The region from Phongola to the Thukela was criss-crossed and patched with human influences, scarred and thinned out from the axe-blade, the hoof, and the farm yard. This was a century before colonials arrived to farm the area. But the people of this land lived with and through nature in a manner that changed with the coming of commercial farming and the heavy use of firearms. Everything depended on the leaders’ capacity to feed and feed off cattle, wildlife and crops. The vegetation and terrain were paramount to everyone’s lives, the ideology and military system and marriage rituals were all shackled to the most important thing – the ability to generate enough food. We also hear about Sambela of the Mkhize who is described as an albino, and was quite small but made up for what were seen as deficiencies by his compatriots by being particularly wild and was feared as a fighter. There seems to have been something unhinged about Sambela, when he had his first teenage emission which indicates a boy has turned into a man, we would call this a wet dream I guess, he headed off with a gang of Mkhize youths and killed and ate 20 goats. Stories abound of this man breaking things, throwing around the pottery, and was called Uhlanya – ungovernable.

This is episode 79. Nxele the Wardoctor and 10 000 warriors failed in their attempt at overrunning Grahamstown – now they’re on the run. Three of Ndlambe’s sons were among those killed during the battle, and some of Ngqika’s people had also fought alongside their compatriots despite the chief supposedly being an ally of the British. The surprise attack had tested the small British force, and while greater battles await, Grahamstown is still one of the most significant in the entire period of the 19th Century in southern African history. Had Nxele succeeded, the frontier of South Africa may have been very different. As it was, the Cape Colony was about to experience a mass immigration of several thousand English speakers in a process we know as arrival of the1820 settlers, but that’s for a later podcast. Had Nxele thrown the British out of Grahamstown and the Albany district, these settlers may have headed off to America, Australia or New Zealand. Britain was in the throes of an economic slump after the Napoleonic wars and citizens were leaving the shores for the new world – and the ancient world of Africa. A few hundred would arrive in Cape Town and Algoa by December 1819, less than a year after the battle of Grahamstown. The colonists were afraid of another attack, they had to hunt down Ndlambe and Nxele, and so on 28th July 1819 a large commando of 2 300 including British soldiers and Boers under Stockenstrom, as well as the Khoekhoe of the Cape Regiment, rode out into the country between the Great Fish River and the Keiskamma.

Trouble was not so much brewing as fermenting on the eastern Cape frontier as we heard last episode. The British were aware that Ndlambe and his wardoctor, Nxele, had gathered troops ready to invade the Albany region, the Zuurveld, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Wilshire, or Tiger Tom as he was known, had been dispatched from the Cape with reinforcements and he’d arrived in Grahamstown. Meanwhile, in Graaff-Reinet, Landdrost Andries Stockenstrom had raised a large commando from amongst the Boers on the frontier. As you’re going to hear, they couldn’t help the people of Grahamstown, they were too far away. But It was shortly after this that the British were told that the Xhosa warriors appeared to have disappeared. What NXele and Ndlambe had done was to mass 10 000 men in the impenetrable Fish River ravines not far from Grahamstown in preparation for something truly audacious. Some say it was more like 6 000 warriors, but most historians believe it was more like 10 000 so we’re sticking with that number. Nothing quite like this had ever been attempted by the Xhosa. They’d attacked farms, burned crops, ambushed British patrols in the Albany thickets, raided cattle. But attacking an entire town was a novel tactic. No-one else but Nxele, or Makhanda as he was formally known, could have envisaged this – he also had broad support by now of most Xhosa, Ndlambe was behind him, so too Chungwa’s son Petho who was itching to avenge his father. Remember the old man was shot out of hand by Khoe and Boer commando troops in the previous war. Bygones are never bygones when you’re killing someone’s father.

The period between 1816 and 1819 saw the level of conflict rise significantly across southern Africa – not only were the Zulu beginning their ascent to power in the east, but in the frontier district of the Cape, war was afoot. The seer, the man we’ve tracked for a few episodes, Nxele, was about to make his move and the repercussions of his actions reverberated across the subcontinent – and in some ways – continues to reverberate. There is a direct line between Nxele, Ndlambe and our present political condition. As we cover this seemingly distant period in our history, you’ll begin to see these correlations. You know the profound truth of history – that people who forget history are doomed to repeat it. There is perhaps no more pertinent proof of that truism than what we’re going to hear over the next few episodes. One of the most important advisors to The Governor of the Cape Lord Charles Somerset at this time was also someone who was unusually interesting. Somerset’s wife had died soon after he arrived at the Cape, leaving him to look after their two daguthers and to his credit, he travelled with them rather than leaving them behind in Cape Town. Minding his health was the Governors official physician, Doctor James Barry who was by far the strangest personality in his official party. Barry had obtained a medical degree from Edinburgh University at the age of 15, a prodical child, then joined the army. He served in Malta, St Helena, and the West Indies as well as India amongst other locales. Doctor Barry eventually died in 1865 – and as his corpse was stripped and reclothed – it was found to everyone’s shock – that Doctor Barry was actually a woman.

Things were beginning to move along the eastern Cape frontier, through the region known previously as the Zuurveld, the Albany district, with its rocky rivers and ravines, thorny bush covered recesses, rolling grasslands and magnificent mountains. The Great House of the amaGcaleka had sorted out its differences, these were the amaXhosa based east of the Kei River, and Hintsa had managed to take control of clans who were drifting away. He did this by both guile and blood, for example Hintsa engineered the massacre of 17 councillors of the Ngqosini clan who had been tricked into joining a hunting expedition. Things weren’t all happiness and light in Xhosa country, however stunning the landscape appeared. Hintsa then looked westwards, and naturally his eyes alighted on the territory controlled by Ngqika, and Ngqika’s nephew and his opponent Ndlambe. It was time to take sides in their decades old dispute and Hintsa decided to support Ndlambe, basically because he hated Ngqika who had humiliated him in the past as he grew up. Hintsa decided that he’d humiliate Ngqika in turn, and recognized Ndlambe as the rightful ruler of the amaRharhabe branch of the amaXhosa. Ndlambe was also on the move, so to speak, he’d reconciled with his son Mdushane who’d been vacillating about whether he’d support his dad, or his uncle Ngqika. Uncle Ngqika was angered by Hintsa’s slight. A local war was brewing. It wasn’t the only man who’d come to appreciate Ndlambe’s rule – the other was an amaXhosa commoner called Nxele, who’d become known as a wardoctor. The past fifty years had seen the amaXhosa and the colonials clashing constantly, with the amaXhosa forced to watch their land being overrun by these strange people from across the sea. The amaXhosa began to seek supernatural help in their mission to reverse this loss. The problem was, amaXhosa ancient otherworldly forces appeared too weak to do the job, they needed a new and more diverse bit of magic, and along came Nxele and others who were to mould Christianity and amaXhosa animism in a unique new philosophy.

It had taken twenty years from the initial British landing on the Cape for the occupation to become permanent. So by August 1814, following the first abdication of Napoleon, the Netherlands regained independence with the Prince Orange re-installed as sovereign. The British duly restored some of his colonies to him – but not the Cape. In 1803 Lord Nelson had said the Cape was not essential, but by 1814 this had changed. The problem for the Cape was that colonies were supposed to balance their own budgets – and the British had tried to help this little African back-water by allowing Cape wine growers to import their product into Britain for free. By 1813 sales had risen, and eventually and something that you’d probably be surprised to hear, by the time of the 1820 settlers, 10 percent of all wine drunk in the UK came from the Cape. The big issue was most of this came from Crown lands, run on behalf of the government, not from independents. With such a vast territory, why were the cash receipts from the Cape so low? Sir John Cradock was busy reforming the loan farm system you heard about last episode which was supposed to lead to more productivity and sales as proper leases were signed. Cradock was replaced by Lord Charles Somerset who took up the mantle of this farm improvement campaign. He was a descendent of the Plantagenet kings, and had lived a comfortable life at a place called Badmington. Somerset had also proved that soldiering in drawing rooms was safer and more profitable than actually doing any fighting. Somerset travelled to the frontier to impose his policy of separation – and summoned Ngqika, Ndlambe, and lesser chiefs to meet him on the banks of the Kat River – the same place by the way that VOC governor Janssens had met Ngqika in 1802.

It’s the second decade of the 19th Century - the trekboers as you heard last episode were alarmed by the British decision to drop loan farms – and using the quit-rent system to reinforce land ownership. Governor Somerset had arrived to take over the management of this new system, and to oversee the new Circuit Court process where justice was supposed to be provided for the long-suffering Khoe servants and slaves of the farmers. It was that double change that drove some trekboers on the frontier to rebellion which forms the core of the Afrikaner-nationalist tradition and narrative to this day. The interference of the English, the escalation of human rights to include blacks, and the influence of religion in this saga cannot be underestimated. A handful of rebellious trekboers had approached the amaXhosa in 1814 then again in 1815 to join them in a plan to overthrow British rule on the frontier. IT was by all accounts, a ramshackle jumble of emotions rolled into a dilapidated strategy undermined by a confused motivatio. As Johannes Bezuidenhout, Henrick Prinsloo and others fomented the spirit of rebellion, authorities in the Cape were soon briefed about what was going on. It was impossible for this business to be kept secret, the trekboers were prone to panic, rumour and gossip and perhaps all three emotions were part of the blabbing that reached the authorities. Naturally, ringleader Hendrik Prinsloo was arrested. His sidekick, Johannes Bezuidenhout was on the lamb, still trying to motivate Xhosa leader Ngqika to join his rebellion and had sent another delegation to his Great Place, pleading for support and inviting the Xhosa to reenter the Zuurveld, the Albany region. The British finally were going to make an example of the frontier trekboers, They arrested five of the main ringleaders, including Hendrick Prinsloo, and they were sentenced to death by hanging. What was to follow was a dreadful scene that drives emotions to the present.

So, in 1817, Shaka had been forced to flee his home as Zwide’s Ndwandwe attacked repeatedly – and he found himself south of the Thukela. He needed to forge a stronger relationship with the people to the north, and in particular the Qwabe who were found south of Umhlatuzi river, near his mother’s clan, the Langeni. What doomed Phakathwayo was the fact that his older brothers were gumbling about their treatment – he’d scuffled with his brother Nomo – while their father Khondlo was still alive. Nomo was the heir designate, but Nomo’s mother was an Mthethwa, not a full-blooded Qwabe. The Qwabe powers that be thought this disqualified Nomo. He duly headed off to Dingiswayo of the Mthethwa for help, although their first impi was defeated by Phakathwayo. Shaka was lurking by now, and some Qwabe had crossed over to join him, recognizing a powerful man in the making I guess. One was Sophane kaMcinci and the other was Nqetho kaMcinci – both khonza’d Shaka just before Phakathwayo was to face his sternest test. Right now, we need to swing back to the Cape. We left off in 1812, with the British Governor Sir John Cradock having used the Boers to great effect and subdued the Albany amaXhosa. He had named the new town of Grahamstown after his military steamroller, Lieutenant colonel John Graham. Both men had happily sent the trekboers as their shock troops to rid the Albany thickets of the amaXhosa and rebellious Khoekhoe. Jacob Cuyler, the Uitenhage landdrost, had taken to appreciating the Boers hard life, and had changed his view from calling them “a set of vagabonds and murderers…” to embracing their world view.

By the 1810s, Zwide had built a powerful centralized kingdom and reinforced this power using his extensive family. He also formed feared amabutho such as the amaPhela, the abaHlakabezi, and isiKwitshi and the amaNkaiya. Most of these were around before Shaka became king of the Zulus, and the Ndwandwe were so large that they split into semi-autonomous sections such as the Nxumalo, the Manqele and the Phiseni. At first, Zwide concentrated has raids to the north, around modern day Iswatini. The Ndwande attacked Sobhuza of the Dlamini-Swazi north of the Phongolo River many times, but the 1815 attack was characterized by extreme violence. Sobhuza was forced to flee along with his umuzi and his people were almost destroyed. The description of the ill will makes little sense because Zwide had married off one of his daughters to Sobhuza. The Dlamini were already facing raids from the east, from closer to Delagoa Bay. The Ndwandwe were regarded as bandits and destabilized that part of southern Africa, then turned their attention further South. Zwide attacked the Khumalo people living between the Mkhuze and White Mfolozi rivers and eventually, Donda of the Khumalo was killed by Zwide. The year 1815 is seen as highly significant because it was then that Matiwane of the Ngwane was driven out of what he’d thought was a well-defended area between the Bivane River and Upper Mfolozi. Matiwane relaxed after some years of building his power base, including concluding an alliance with the Hlubi and then the Mthethwa. Out of the blue, Zwide dispatched his men and they fell upon the amaNgwane, driving them out of their homes. This moment is regarded as the first of many destabilizing events between the Thukela and the Ponghola that led to a movement of people across the country – the sub-continent, and migration epic oral storytelling. It’s called the Mfecane.

This is episode 71 and Shaka has just been installed as the Zulu regent in 1812. There is even debate about this as the year – some say it was more like 1816. However, I believe historian Dan Wylie’s earlier date is probably the right one – by the way 1812 is the same year that Napoleon advanced on Moscow in his disastrous Russian campaign. How dating worked in southern Africa prior to the use of the Gregorian calendar requires quite a bit of explanation. Folks have asked me how this all worked, how did the Khoekhoe or the Zulu keep track of important months. They didn’t really think in days as you’re going to hear. It's quite a story, and so let’s start with Traders Francis Farewell and Henry Francis Fynn. They fixed Shaka’s installation as Zulu chief happening in 1816 because once again we don’t really have a firm year if you anlayse this using the Zulu lunar calendar. Farewell and Fynn came to a different year, 1816, by counting the number of annual umkosi or first fruits ceremonies that Shaka was supposed to have officiated – which was 8 before the hunters arrived in 1824. Zulu oral tradition marked months peppered with important events – birth of a king, death of a king, a drought, a flood. And before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, the isuZulu calendar was mainly based on the cycles of the moon, like many cultures across the globe. Zulu months are dated from the appearance of the new moon – which means that months are 28 days long and there are 13 months in the year. The Zulu names of the months are usually derived from phenomena occurring in the natural world. Take the first month of the Zulu year which begins with the new moon of July, uNcwaba, which means glossy green or attractive – perhaps linked to the fact that the Zulu burn the veld on the mountains at that time, and the first shoots that appear after the burn are a deep green.In pre-modern society, the moon was also crucial.

This is episode 70 and we’re walking with Shaka. He spent the bulk of his early and teenage years in Zulu country, that area to the north of the Umhlatuzi, between the Langeni and the white Mfolozi rivers. Towards the end of his youth things became increasingly difficult for him, although the history is rather murky. There are hints in oral tradition as to what was going on, and specific events can only be covered in a tentative manner. The relationship between the Zulu and the Langeni people was complicated. Mgabhi the chief of the Langeni was independently minded, and Senzangakhona was trying to compete with him for the allegiance of others nearby, including the Mthethwa who were the power bloc in the region. There were also the Thuli to the north east, between the Langeni and the Mthethwa zone of control. Mghabi died in around 1795, Shaka’s uncle on his mothers side, Nxazonke took over as regent until one of Mgabhi’s sons’ came of age. Nxazonke appointed Mfundeko as the new chief but the majority of the Langeni preferred Makhedama, or at least, that’s according to Zulu oral tradition. It was Makhedama who’d been known as Shaka’s bully as a boy, and the story of how he apparently insulted Shaka continued. When Makhedama arrived to take up his position after living amongst the Xulu people, his attendant by the name of Nsindwane played a belittling game – this story is really an allegory folks because its highly unlikely that post-adolescents would have played this game called Stones in a Kraal. Given the inevitable Zulu oral tradition debate – this is what is likely to have happened. Senzangakhona was sent for by Dingiswayo and he showed up sometime after the Nkomo incident with his senior Zulu council Mudhli and the amakosikazi, his great wives. A hut was set apart for him, and he duly sat inside meeting with Dingiswayo. Then a large number of young men entered on a prearranged signal, and amongst them was Shaka.

This is episode 69 and we’re hunting the origins of Shaka. Throughout the area north of the Thukela River the main medium of exchange in terms of goods was no longer cattle by 1810 – it was beads. These glass objects manufactured in Europe had flowed through southern Africa starting in the first days of contact between Europe and Africa – way back in 1480s. More than 300 years later, these beads could be found in every corner of the continent. And one of those corners was Zululand. By the time of Shaka’s rise, starting in the second decade of the 19th Century, beads had become one the main medium of exchange paticularly when a man acquired a wife – lobolo, in conjunction with cattle. But beads were not the only trade item, things like copper and iron were mined locally and traded as well, while the people along the coast were expert at salvaging these metals from the numerous ship wrecks that dotted the Indian Ocean sands from north of Mozambique to Cape. Metals were directly linked to status. As you’ve heard in our earliest podcasts, African people were using iron and copper as ornaments – and the metals were worn by warriors as a sign of bravery. So trade with Europeans was therefore directly associated with the stratification of society from the earliest days with the most important members owning the most copper and brass, gold and even iron. However, there was not enough trade with Delagoa Bay to say with certainty that trade in these kinds of products alone drove the amaNdwandwe and the amaMthethwa, then the AmaZulu, to rise as powerful centralized kingdoms. Major trading emanated from Delagoa Bay, and the Dutch took advantage of this. Ivory was the main product, not slaves, with beads exchanged in return. Gold dust was also traded from far in the interior. Tsonga traders from around Delagoa Bay pitched up as far south as the Mfolozi River. Some made it 1500km into the interior!

We heard last episode how the fourth Frontier War of 1811/12 had been a short sharp affair and the anger bubbling away amongst amaXhosa leadership about the brutal emptying of the Albany district, so recently called the Zuurveld. We need to close a chapter here for a while to return to the incredible happenings further north east as Shaka began to impose himself along with Dingiswayo on the people of the region north of the amaThukela – that part of the country which goes by the name of Zululand. Before doing so, that commando which had been created to force the straggling amaXhosa out of the Albany district led by Lieutenant Colonel John Graham’s fellow Cape Regiment officer, Captain George Fraser. Cattle raiding was increasing sharply by the end of 1812 despite the amaXhosa being removed, or mostly removed, from the district, but the drought which really began to bite in 1813 had forced many back into the green pastures. The harsh landscape seemed to evince more brutality from both sides, a country thorny and unwelcome, prickly with succulents, stubby bush that tripped up the fleetest footed horse, dark moody ravines, rocky unproductive mountains, almost surly with looming geological sedimentary brows. By now, the Boers had developed a real fear about what the British intentions were in their land. Many believed that Governor Cradock had called them out simply to press them into military action, they were expendable in his English eyes. While the Khoekhoe, amaXhosa, English and Boer were slugging it out in the Cape, the powerful centralized kingdoms were beginning to build a name for themselves further north east. In the years between 1800 and 1810, there is a curious gap in the knowledge of what happened between the Thukela and Pongola river catchment areas. While we have a great deal of oral history before this period, and afterwards, the ten years saw a combination of world events affected documentary evidence output for this region.

Graham’s war in the Eastern Cape had sent the amaXhosa hurrying eastwards over the Great Fish River, with Ndlambe settling near where East London is today. Not surprisingly, however, the 1812 explusions caused an increase in cattle raiding rather than more stability because the power of the chiefs had been removed from the area. While the British were putting their faith into the Rharhabe chief Ngqika, he was now a weak leader and no longer appeared to represent the views of the amaXhosa. By now, the local ladndrost Cuyler and all British officials had preconceived notions of good Ngqika, bad Ndlambe to put it simply. They were going to be obstinate in their dislike of the latter despite his repeated attempts at making a separate peace with the Colony. The war of 1811 and 12 was brief but of unprecedented ferocity. The amaXhosa chiefs request to stay on until the summer crops were fully harvested was deliberately turned down “We chose the season of corn being on the ground…” said Graham. In the years immediately following 1812, political leadership passed from the hands of the chiefs into the hands of prophet-figures. As we know from contemporary politics, popularists are bit like prophets, they lead with a simple message and have enablers that spread the message. It was now the time of wardoctors – traditional medicine men and some women. These wardoctors were ancient, they’d been credited over time with the ability to turn spears into water, and the people were searching for a solution to the colonists guns.

This is episode 66 – it’s late 1811 and Sir John Cradock has just dispatched Lieutenant Colonel John Graham into the eastern Cape frontier to rid the Zuurveld of the amaXhosa. Cradock suffered from none of his predecessors inhibition against taking military action. This did not reflect a change of policy in London – in fact, far from it. As you’ll hear next podcast he was subsequently reprimanded by the government and sharply reminded that his main aim was to keep all the troops available for the defence of Cape Town. But the colonists applauded him, along with Major Jacob Cuyler the Uitenhage landdrost. As you heard last episode, by December Graham had assembled 167 light dragoons, 221 infantry of the line, 431 men of the Cape Regiment and a detachment of Royal Artillery. His troops were joined by 450 mounter burgher volunteers on commando and about 500 of their agteryers. Anders Stockenstrom, the landdrost of Graaff-Reinet, had been posted north of the Zuurveld with the trekboers, just beyond the Zuurveld proper, in order to defend Bruintje’s Hoogte and its farms. When he received Graham’s message on the night of 27th, he questioned the wisdom of concentrating all the British firepower on the thickets.

This is episode 65 and we’ll spend time with the amaXhosa, and hear about Lieutenant Colonel John Graham. I mentioned last episode that he was going to introduce what he would call a proper degree of terror in the Zuurveld where the British adopted an ethnic cleansing campaign in 1811 and 1812. All the important players in this terrible drama have been met – Jacob Cuyler the Uitenhage landdrost, Governor Cradock, Ngqika, Ndlambe, Chungwa of the Gqunukhwebe, Stockenstrom of Graaff-Reinet. So when Cradock, who’d been dispatched to southern Africa after being removed as commander of the English forces in the Spanish Peninsular, decided to launch his own military excursion, he believed the might of the European musket and military would easily overcome the amaXhosa. It was now a matter of selecting someone to bring what he called “the horrible savages” to order. Jacob Cuyler was first on the list as the landdrost in the Zuurveld, and a former military man himself. He had experience of the area and was initially thought of as the likely candidate to lead an operation of this kind. Instead, Cradock selected Lieutenant Colonel John Graham. The Governor had only been in the Cape for three weeks and wanted to personally brief the officer involved – and was also aware of the propensity for the colonials on the frontier to default to cattle raiding instead of conducting a proper war. Because he was in a rush and there would have been no time to head off to Uitenhage, or to have Cuyler come to Cape Town for a briefing, that meant John Graham got the job. Between 1793 and 1811, Chungwa had managed to negotiate the thorny relationship with three different colonial governments, and with the trekboers. In the 1780s Chungwa and his father Tshaka had firmly established the area between the Fish and the Sunday’s Rivers as Gqunukhwebe territory. Just for orientation, the Sunday’s River flows into Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth, or Gqeberha as we call it today.

This is episode 64 and we’ve rejoined Lieutenant colonel Richard Collins and Governor Caledon in Cape Town. If you remember last episode we heard about Collins’ military intelligence gathering trip to the eastern Frontier.He’d returned with two main ideas about what to do about the amaXhosa still living in the Zuurveld. His report of 6th August 1809 is another one of those key moments in South African history. In response, Caledons first initiative was to setup a mechanism to regulate the employment of the Khoekhoe labour force called the Hottentot Proclamation of November 1809. The Caledon Code as it became known decreed that work-contracts had to be drawn up before a magistrate, thus according the Khoekhoe some form of legal protection from exploitation. But this was negated almost immediately by the fine print – that the Khoekhoe had to register a fixed place of abode which forbid their movement without a certificate issued by a landdrost. The pass system’s first proper installation was at hand. This meant the Khoekhoe had to live and work on farms which meant they could no longer live the life they’d been used to roaming about on the landscape which they’d done for thousands of years. However, Caledon was loathe to enforce Collin’s second proposal. In the interest of preserving peace in the eastern districts, all future contact between colonists and amaXhosa would be prevented by expelling all amaXhosa beyond the Fish River. And he went further. As some former VOC and British officials had suggested, he wanted a rigid boundary backed up by powerful fortifications along the river. Lord Caledon’s response was negative -but he had also resigned. And now, at this crucial juncture, a new Governor arrived. Lieutenant-General Sir John Cradock with one D disembarked in Cape Town on 5th September 1811. It took him only three weeks to declare war on the amaXhosa. He was a man of action, a military man, and he was being advised by fellow soldiers.

Last episode we spent some time back in Zululand hearing about the amaMthethwa, the amaNdwandwe, the amaHlubi, the amaQwabe and that tiny little chiefdom called the amaZulu. They were largely irrelevant in the history of South Africa at the time, until Zwide’s amaNdwandwe began pushing southwards into Mthethwa territory. Then Dingiswayo’s amaMthethwa needed to bolster their flank and that’s when the AmaZulu became much more important. We’ll also return to the Cape where Governor Caledon was going to send a military man into the frontier to collect intelligence. First, it’s time to feel the ancients, smell the south eastern coastal regions of the Zulu once more, my homeland. By the time of Shaka’s emergence as a teenager, the area was covered with thousands of scattered imizi, looking like circular villages if seen from the air, dotted through the countryside. Each married man or umnumzane lived in each of these umuzi with his two or three wives and children. A man of extreme wealth may have up to a dozen wives, and the umuzi would look more like a large compound with a dozen or more huts. The changes coming which we’ll hear about in future podcasts were under way before Shaka, but he put the finishing touches on the system. This was to gain control of the self-sufficient imizi by regulating marriage. IN Zulu society, an adult man could not free himself from his father’s umuzi and head off to establish his own homestead without marriage. In October 1808, the Jij rebellion or “she” rebellion, broke out when the enslaved people of the Cape rose up. It wasn’t all slaves and Khoe involved, there were two Irishmen who joined the uprising. Meanwhile the Fish River was the key to security so Governor Caledon sent 33 year-old lieutenant colonel Richard Collins to spy on the amaXhosa.

We’re hustling towards the year 1807. If you remember last episode, we heard that the young Shaka had grown up in amaZulu chief Senzangakona’s house – the Zulu chief – but by 1802 he’d fled. By the early 1800s only about 2000 people were part of the AmaZulu and they lived between the upper Umhlatuzi and white Umfolozi Rivers. Remember that Shaka who was Senzangakona’s illegitimate son, was showing signs of being a troublemaker, at least that’s the view of oral historians, and by now the future amaZulu king was in his late teens. Senzangakona planned to kill him, but he got wind of the plan and fled to Jobe kaKayi who was a well known nkosi of the Mthethwa. While he languished at Jobe’s kraal, Shaka knew that the accepted route to power for all men was honour in battle, this increased his attractiveness to women, his standing in society, and as a child who’d lived a constant life of what was seen as his mother’s dishonour, he was motivated to set the record straight. He’d been living with his mother Nandi in the Mhlathuze Valley where the Langeni people resided – close to where I lived as a child by the way. Here, growing up fatherless, traditional story tellers recount how Shaka was the victim of humiliation and cruel treatment by the Langeni children, The rivalry between the amaMthethwa and the amaNdwandwe under Zwide was notorious. Then to make matters worse, the countryside was riven by the Great Famine in 1802 known as the Madlantule. We’re still hovering around the first decade of the 19th Century, and a great deal was going on back along the Cape frontiers. So let’s head back to the Zuurveld. In 1809 Ngqika took the egregious misstep that changed the balance of power among the Xhosa chiefdoms of the frontier.

This is episode 61 and the English are back in Cape Town. This was a momentous moment for southern Africa. Gone was the VOC and its chaos, in its place a world superpower had arrived and it was going to exploit the region in various ways over the next century. This led much later in the 19th Century to what became known as the Scramble for Africa. In January 1807 David Baird who’d seized the Cape made the great mistake of sending an expedition under Brigadier General Beresford and Commodore Sir Home Popham against Buenos Aires without the approval of the authorities in England. As soon as this became known, Baird was court-martialled and hustled back to Britain handing over the reigns of power to Irish Peer, Du prez Alexander, second Earl of Caledon. While the Governors were playing 19th Century musical chairs, in the eastern Cape at Uitenhague the new landdrost Jacob Cuyler was beginning to improse himself. As an embittered loyalist who’d been forced to flee his homeland of America during the revolution, he was going to seek conflict immediately with the missionaries at Bethelsdorp On November 1st 1808, Caledon offered a compromise in dealing with the issue of labour, and the Khoekhoe. It offered the Khoekhoe the full protection of the law,and at the same time, tried to satisfy the demand for labour. From that date onwards, Khoekhoe employed by farmers had to be given written contracts that stipulated their wages. Caledon’s law, which became a kind of Magna Carta for the Khoekhoe, stipulated further that the contract had to be for a year, and farm workers could not be forced to stay on longer because of debt or because of any other subterfuge. As with all laws, however, there was a catch. The Khoekhoe at the same time had to stop wandering around like their ancestors and settle down. Their nomadic lifestyle, shattered already by the arrival of colonialism, was now prescribed.

Its January 1806 and the British have dispatched a fleet of 61 vessels to Cape Town under the charge of Commodore Home Popham to seize the port. As you’ve heard that was after the war between England and France reignited in 1805 after a the briefest of lulls. On the 2nd October 1805 Admiral Nelson overcame the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar and his victory helped put some of the fears of an invasion of England to rest. But this meant Cape Town and other colonial backwaters faced more ambitious projects Seven thousand troops were going to be deposited on the shores of the Peninsular. The fleet had arrived off Losperd’s Bay, now called Melkbosstrand, twenty five kilometers north west of Cape Town. The wild Atlantic surf was heavy and 36 members of the Highland brigade drowned that morning when their boat capsized – leading to a quote from Captain Graham last episode where he said all went down singing. Perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration – they were probably screaming for help but Graham is infamous for his histrionics as you’ll hear. The British troops were armed with muskets and their usual regimental colours, including feathers, plumes and pompoms. Waiting for them was Dutch Governor Janssens and he was not welcoming. He had 1700 troops – 1258 of them regulars but his problem was all were unreliable. Erratic displays of courage had been the bane of the VOC Governors lives for 200 years already so no surprise there. Meanwhile, the missionaries James Read and Johannes van der Kemp were made aware of the arrival of a new master. At first, the two thought of it as an act of God in their favour, and just in time.

The Batavians trying to setup a formal long-term administration that was rooted inside the Cape rather than in Europe. Unfortunately, their tenure was to be short. International events were conspiring to upset this plan – with the renewal of the war between the English and the French – old enemies with a propensity for blood-letting. While the Cape was safe from immediate attack by the English until 1805, the effect of a world war could not be escaped. Some would feel the effects less than others, and these some were living in the area we now call Zululand. It’s not generally well-known but African monarchy of various forms is an ancient institution in the continent. There were the Negus of Ethiopia, the Kyabazinga of Busoga, the Mwenemutapa of Mutapa whom we’ve heard about already, the Ngwenyana of Swaziland, the mubongo of Matamba, the ngola of Ndongo, the alafin of Oyo, abosu of Dahomey, the emir of Ilorin, the sarki of Kano, the sultan of Sokoto, the bey of Tunis. Mostly male, often the societies would be led by a woman of exceptional power despite the patriarchies. Power was localized, in the form of chiefs. A paramount chief ruled more widely although those on the periphery of his power would likely vascillate more than those in the centre. The most powerful of these leaders would be called King, ruling over a large territory in a centralized state and commanding an army. For the Zulu, King Goodwill Zwelethini who passed away in 2021 was only the eighth Zulu monarch since the Kingdom formally began in 1816. By the standards of the amaXhosa, they are newcomers on the southern African power bloc. Senzangakhona was the father of Shaka, and his father was Jama, and his great-grandfather was Ndaba. Before Ndaba, oral tradition takes over from oral history as John Laband points out and various royal genealogies surface.

For on 18th May 1803, ten days after Janssens had reached Algoa Bay on his long journey overland to the frontier from Cape Town, Malta in the Mediterranean became a flashpoint. This little island was the first step on a Mediterranean passage from Europe to India as far as both Napoleon and the British were concerned. Under the Treaty of Amiens, Britain undertook to hand Malta back to the Knights of St John, who had ruled it before Napoleon and the British began fighting over it. But then the British had a change of heart as they watched Napoleon continue to consolidate control over Europe - the Batavian Republic was virtually his vassal state. English Prime Minister Pitt had vacillated over the Cape’s return to the Dutch, now he was convinced it had been a mistake as war clouds gathered once more. As Historian Eric Walker notes, the period of direct rule by the Batavian Republic is one of the more tantalizing in South African history. Some regard it as the dawn of a golden age, all too soon overcast by the second coming of the British. The reason is pretty simple. The Batavians wanted the Cape to be a permanent place of itself so to speak – rather than a thing dangling at the end of a colonial master.

Last episode we dealt with the arrival of the new representatives of the Batavian Republic who’d come to take over the Cape Colony from the British. While the British received commissioner-General Jacob Abraham Uitenhage de Mist who was a brilliant organizer and administrator, things did not go well at first. de Mist was to install a new administration then hand over to a new governor called Lieutenant-General Jan Wilhelm Janssens once the new executive and judicial machinery were in place. So the idea was for the British to hand over power formally on the evening of 31st December 1803 so that the Dutch would begin their Batavian Republic rule on the 1st January 1803. As both sets of officials dined together on New Years’ Eve, a British ship hove into view and anchored. Then an urgent message was sent ashore. British governor Dundas was told to defer the transfer of ownership of the Cape until further notice. These orders had sailed from England on 17th October, a week after the Dutch officials had left Holland for Cape Town. By 18th April 1803 a Dutch military force arrived by sea at Algoa Bay to take over Fort Frederick, while Governor Janssens rode out to the Fort all the way from Cape Town. He eventually arrived at Algoa Bay on 8th May well versed by now in some of the settler narratives. The position on the frontier had changed completely compared to 50 years earlier. Now large groups of Rarabe amaXhosa were in the Zuurveld particularly those following Ndlambe. He had well and truly split from his nephew Ngqika and their difference of opinion was violent. For the trekboers and other settlers, Ndlambe was a major problem because he was regarded as the best amaXhosa military leader and now he was living west of the Fish River. Remember the main aims for all colonial governments since the first trekkers arrived in the eastern Cape was to remove all amaXhosa from the Zuurveld.

Last episode we heard about Doctor Somerville’s expedition to Dithakong which was interesting but a failure in terms of its main aim. That was to secure cattle – he came back with only around 160 or so when the Cape needed a few hundred at least. Also on the move was the London Missionary Society’s Johannes Theodorus van der Kemp – remember him? He had arrived in Graaff-Reinet in May 1801 joined by James Read replacing poor Edmonds who had a nervous breakdown while at Ngqika’s Great Place. After the barren prothelytising disappointments of the Zuurveld, Graaff-Reinet offered something new. The village and its outskirts were packed with Khoekhoe seeking protection from the Boers and the Khoesan bandits and who responded eagerly to the van der Kemp’s preaching. ON hand was commissioner Maynier – encouraging and helping them. Staring at all of this and aghast, were the Boers of the region. It was a seething hotbed of trekboer resistance to British rule. Maynier’s principal task was to restore stability along the frontier. This meant getting the fugitive Boers back on their farms and reviving the economy so that they could supply meat to the Cape. Unfortunately for the Khoekhoe, it also meant convincing them to go back and work for the trekboers. To help balance things and motivate the Khoe, Maynier opened an employment register where wages were written down for the first time. Cases of ill-treatment of workers were also listed and there was recourse to the law. It’s easy enough to criticize this treatment, what about the Khoe abused by the Boers you’d ask? Were they not to receive justice? Ndlambe was on the lamb after escaping from Ngqika’s Great Place in February 1800 and had reunited with his adherent in the Zuurveld. He was reestablishing his power at the same time but it was hard work. Chungwa of the amaGqunukhwebe was resisting his advances both metaphorically and physically.

Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast, with me your host Des Latham - this episode 55. We’ll follow Doctor William Somerville on his way home from the expedition you heard about last episode and there’s a lot of action. First we’ll spend time with the Scots doctor as he spent time at Dithakong, that Great Tswana city of the Tlhaping. They had entered Griqua country By November 21st and made their way towards Dithakong cautiously. First they sent a guide ahead “…the inform the Horde of the Briquas of our arrival and to invite them to come to our encampment… The whole fate of our expedition depending upon the impression that our messenger should make upon his countrymen…” They waited anxiously. Remember this long and arduous trip was ostensibly to buy cattle from the Griqua and the Tswana and so far all they had found was drought. Things were not looking very good. On the evening of the 21st November 1801 the messenger returned with information that the Chief would see them. But not before the people had fled as the messenger was wearing western clothes. That tells you something – the people who’d visited in European outfits were usually raiding or pillaging. Eventually, on the 6th May 1802, Somerville and Truter’s six wagons made it back to Cape Town after seven months spent traveling slowly across the vast southern African semi-desert of the northern Cape.

World events has once again conspired to interrupt the flow of events in southern Africa by the early 1800s. The British were going to withdraw from the Cape of Good Hope and their move began far away in Ireland. As part of the price for Irish agreement to parliamentary union with Britain in 1800, Prime Minister William Pitt had promised to liberate Roman Catholics from the restrictions of their civil liberties imposed since the 16th Century . Three hundred years of English yoke through Protestantism was seen through a very religious and nationalist lens in Ireland. The future of the Cape was in great doubt. Lord Nelson was one of those voicing his opinion that the Peninsular was of no real use. Back in sunny Southern Africa circa 1800, great powers were beginning to emerge across the landscape. And extremely sunny it was in 1800 because parts of southern Africa were gripped by a terrible drought. Across the northern regions of the Cape, the Namaqualand and along the Orange River, the Afrikaander gang led by Khoesan leader Jonker Afrikaander was going village to village, homestead to homestead, and plundering as they went. The severe dought meant that the Boer commando’s couldn’t operate effectively so it increased banditry across the frontiers. But it also meant that the groups of Khoe and Khoesan who’d been trying to disentangle themselves from both the trekboers and the British, and even the local Tswana people, were forced to operate along the great river. The expedition also found it very difficult to locate water. What they did find record was signs of anarchy caused by both the drought and the Afrikaander groups who’d descended on the Griqua and Tswana – wiping out villages as they went. I have the diary of William Somerville who jointly led the expedition with chief commissioner PJ Truter – and an interesting 200 or so pages it is.

This episode we return to the eastern coastal region of what would become Zululand – but first we’ll cover the trekboers quick getaway in the Zuurveld. It’s crazy town time at Ngqika’s Great Place after Ndlambe his uncle makes off westwards and the Khoe in the area decide it’s time to fight the trekboers once more. By the end of 1800 Coenraad de Buys had convinced all trekboers and the missionary Van Der Kemp it was time to leave the amaXhosa king’s /Great Place before he killed them all. Ngqika’s vascillations between were unnerving and so when de Buys suggested they all leave through a cunning plan he had devised, Van Der Kemp was ready to go. The reason is not too difficult to fathom. In more than a year of prothelitising, Van der Kemp had managed a scant conversion of five Khoekhoe women and their children. Not one amaXhosa had converted to Christianity, furthermore, van Der Kemp had been forbidden to preach to the amaXhosa. And the Boers living in the Great Place were also no help – in fact while his back was turned some were helping themselves to his property and were caught doing this. However, it’s time to leave our intrepid missionary and to head back north eastwards, to what would become known as Zululand. Up to 1800 the situation on the coastal section and the plateau had been radically transformed and this transformation would accelerate over the coming years. There were three overlapping phases of change taking place starting from the last quarter of the 18th Century and running through until after 1870 with the British Zulu wars dominating events in the latter period.

We’re heading into a new and most momentous century – the 1800s. When we left off last episode, Ngqika was still trying to decide what to do about the missionaries camping near his Great Place – somewhere east of King Williamstown and south of Hogsback today. The British had managed to stabilize the Eastern Cape at the end of 1799 but this was a false peace as you’re going to hear. Coenraad de Buys the giant Trekboer was still living with Ngqika and muttering sweet horribles into his ear about the English, the trekboers of Graaff-Reinet were deep in their cups of resentment. The amaXhosa in the Zuurveld, Chungwa of the amaGnunukhwebe for example, were smiling smugly having apparently secured their rights to the grasses of the Eastern Cape west of the Fish River from the British much to the chagrin of the local trekboers. Ngqika’s lethal impulses were growing more difficult to gauge and the missionaries were becoming more afraid by the day. They truly believed they would not make it out of the Great Place alive. De Buys too realized that he was in immediate danger. But the cunning man had a few tricks left after Ngqika’s chief councillor arrived with the news that the king would no longer admit de Buys to his presence.

So this war was set off by the blunt British instrument called Packenham Vandeleur as we heard in Episode 50. The Zuurveld farmers were now in a defenceless state since their supply of powder and lead had been stopped by the British who were trying to stymie the Graaff-Reinet trekboer rebels. Some Khoe and Bastaard were also fighting with the amaXhosa who had been confronted by Vandeleur on the Sunday’s River. To use a more modern and yet English phrase, everything had gone pear shaped. By now 29 settlers had been killed by the amaxhosa and Khoe uprising, the survivors were on the run towards the Gamtoos River where Jeffrey’s Bay is today. As for Vandeleur, he had lost the initiative and was pinned down with 200 troops in his camp near the Swartkops River just north of Port Elizabeth stroke Gqbetha. He’d built a large starshaped earthwork to repel the amaXhosa attacks and his men were running short of provisions. The ships in Algoa Bay had left, so he was stranded. Then the war ended - and no-one except Chungwa of the amaGqunukhwebe got what they wanted in the Zuurveld. So he naturally responded by co-operating with the British colonial authorities in trying to police the region against cattle thieves whether Khoe or amaXhosa. Or he collaborated to use a loaded 20th Century phrase much loved by the bourgeois guerrilla chic. Meanwhile the LMS missionaries had arrived at Ngqika’s Great Place close to the Thyume and Keiskamma Rivers in September 1799. That would be South of Hogsback and East of Fort Beaufort today. However their reception was not a good one.

This is episode 50 and the British have mobilized the dragoons to end a trekboer uprising in Graaff-Reinet. That will spark what is known as the Third Frontier War. But first we'll have a quick look at a powerful party that arrived in 1799 that was going to change everything on the frontier. The Missionaries. The idea started earlier, on November 4th 1794, when a small group gathered in Baker’s Coffee House, Change Alley, London. The outcome of this gathering was the London Missionary Society which was formed to “attend the funeral of bigotry and propagate the gospel among the heathen…” It was to be of no particular religious denomination and launched as an umbrella organization which would be left to “the minds of the Persons whom God may call .. to assume for themselves such form of Church government as to them shall appear most agreeable to the word of God…” These people would be hated by the colonists eventually as you’re going to hear. Then the trekboers in the Zuurveld – the eastern Cape - rebelled once more in 1799 – with the elderly Adriaan van Jaarsveld freed from British captivity by the rebels as he was dragged back to Cape town to face a trial for fraud. But the British did manage to cobble together a detachment of Dragoons as you know which was shipped to Algoa Bay and ordered to crush this uprising of around 200 trekboers. The grandly named Brigadier-General Thomas Packenham Vandeleur landed on the scenic shores of Algoa Bay along with his blue-jacketed dragoons and fifty "Hottentot" Corps soldiers dressed in the finest British military tunics.

This is episode 49 and Khoe and Oorlam Afrikaaner uprising of 1799. Keep in mind at this point in South African history, Afrikaaners are the mixed race band of former Khoe, mixed race, slaves and Namaqua living in the northern Hantam and at times, raiding Namaqualand. When we left off last episode things were sliding towards war as the settlers of the Hantam and the Khoe were thrown into chaos. This episode we’ll hear also pick up the story further east in the Zuurveld where Coenraad de Buys who’d taken to living amongst the Khoe and basters. His fortunes had been mixed but changed after 1795 when Xhosa chief Ngqika who’d recently defeated his uncle Ndlambe, decided he must acquire a white advisor to help him obtain guns and horses. 1799 was a momentous year in Southern Africa history as you’re going to hear because not only did the Khoe rise up and the Boers, further north the proto-Zulu groups of the Mthethwa and Ndwandwe were also growing their power quickly.

This is episode 48 and we’re following the sagas of the Visagies and others in the Hantam, that rough and ready part of the northern Cape. This chaotic land had spawned another by the name of Petrus Pienaar of the Afrikaaners. Regarded as one of the most influential men of the frontier, Pienaar emerged as the spokesman of the Hantammers. He was closely linked to the Afrikaaner Oorlams from at least the 1780s and was capable of incredible feats of physical endurance even by the standards of the day. In 1790 he wrote a letter to the Landdrost of Stellenbosch outlining the crisis in the Hantam and suggesting solutions. Some of these would be what we now call .. a final solution particularly when it came to the San. He wanted more firearms and ammunition delivered to the local Interestingly, Pienaar wanted the mixed people – those who were known as the Bastaards and as he said “both baptised and unbaptised” – to be supplied with firearms along with the farmers. Meanwhile the authorities in the Cape launched what would eventually become a settler tradition in South Africa – the passbook system. It meant carrying a pass, or Inboek as it was known in the 1790s, where Khoesan and Bastaards entering the Cape had to carry this document, and were prohibited buying arms from the trekboers. Ironically, Klaas Afrikaaner was soon registered as a Hottentot Corps as a Khoikhoi chief in 1793. This will come as a surprise of struggle political experts, who view Klaas as a kind of forerunner of the ANC and SWAPO in Namibia. He actually was a collaborationist – along with his followers which will disappoint fundamentalists across the race divide. SWAPO saw Klaas Afrikaaner as a proto-Namibian nationalist, resisting white power, but it was his descendants who would be synonymous as colonial resisters in the 19th and 20th Century. Right now they were collaborators - but not for long.

This is episode 47 and we are concentrating on a mysterious and contradicted part of southern Africa, the Hantam. We’re also going to meet a German sailor who’d deserted and ran away to the Orange River in the 1780s by the name of Jan Bloem. He worked as an overseer, a Knecht, at Sandfontein farm owned by Petrus Pienaar. Groups of white hunters were also now resident in the area to the south of the Orange by this stage and we’ve already heard about how the Kora, the Griqua and the Oorlams had begun moving into areas dominated by the Great Namaqua. Now we’re going to drill down into examples of how lives intersected particularly about the important trekboer Adriaan van Jijl of the Hantam. This district derived its name from the solitary mountain at the northwestern edge of the Onder Roggeveld. To the south west lay the Bokkeveld Mountains, to the north west Namaqualand. And between Hantam Mountain and the Orange River which lay due north were miles of Bushmanland. Today’s modern town of Calvinia is just south of Hantams Piek.By 1790 the complaints of white inhabitants in the Bokkeveld became a chorus – alarmingly groups of Khoekhoe were trekking to and from the Orange River with herds and flocks of livestock in search of good grazing. The trekboers in these areas watched with misgiving and it must have been nerve wracking watch these large groups of people appear on the land with their even larger herds. We'll also hear about Elsie Visagie had trekked from the Orange River to Cape Town with a few Khoe servants as companions in 1791 – it’s almost 900 kilometres - but the folks were tough back in the day. She had some cattle and two wagon loads of products. When Elsie Visagie was ordered to Stellenbosch to give evidence in connection with raids her husband had apparently carried out, she ended up under house arrest.

This is episode 46 and it’s about Namaqualand, the Oorlam Afrikaaners and the Griquas But first a note about the British occupation. We know that they arrived in 1795, defeated the Dutch forces and then attempted to take control of events on the frontiers. As the Dutch had found, this was not an easy undertaking. The new Governor Sir George Yonge had replaced the acting Governor Macartney and Yonge was a stiff formal Englishman. But he was also a man of ideas and experimented with farming, and believe it or not, vaccinations. The smallpox epidemic earlier in the 18th Century had decimated the Khoekhoe and white population and he didn’t want a return of the dreaded disease. Many on the frontier took issue with both his farm experiments and his vaccination campaign – yes folks, there were anti-vaxxers around 220 years ago. We heard about the Einiqua, the Korana and the people first called the Bastaards who were to become the Griqua. As the 18th Century progressed, the frontier began to close on the latter people, even in Namaqualand that zone between the mountains and the sea west of Bushmanland. These fugitives began to form themselves in different groups of what were initially called drosters. This is a word from the Dutch word Drossen, to run away or desert. They became the symbol of the Cape frontier and their influence on the local Einiqua, the Khoisan societies, was considerable. They were mostly disruptive, disturbing an ancient equilibrium. One of the most influential of the Oorlam groups by the end of the 18th Century was the Griqua who were descended from the remnants of the original Grigriqua Khoekhoe. The founding father of the Griqua Khoekhoe was Adam Kok the First, who is believed to have been a freed slave. The last group I’ll mention this episode were far more malevolent and far less welcome at least as far as the Cape authorities were concerned. They were known as the Afrikaaners.

This is episode 45 and it’s time to turn our attention to Namaqualand. This is an area which is not spoken of very often, the wild northern frontier where bandits rode oxen and escaped slaves, white ex-soldiers and black clans joined forces – or fought each other. The brigands and Badlands here are exotic to say the least as you’re going to hear. Folks fixate on the tales from the eastern Cape frontier for good reason that’s true. And yet, much of the rich history of southern Africa encompasses the Orange River and its tributaries as well as the Namaqualand, the Karoo, the mystical and mythical geography lending beauty to what was an extraordinarily dangerous period in the last quarter of the 18th Century. As you know by now, the area known as the Namaqualand was generally referred as the home of the Little Namaqua or Klein Namaqua. Great Namaqualand was the home of the Great Namaqua and was across the Orange River – today known as Namaland. The first Europeans to settle in Namaqualand arrived in the 1750s – but before them ivory and other hunters had passed through regularly. By February and March of 1750, Jan Overholster, Jan Meyer and Jan Venter had registered loan farms here which they called Lieliefontein and Groene Rivier. One of the dialects of the Einiqua was spoken by the people of the Namynkoa who lived along the rivers – their riverine lifestyle made them distinct from the other people of the region although they were pastoralists who ate fish and river shellfish amongst other foods. Most other Khoe away from the River were purely pastoralists. Further east, heading deeper into the interior, lived the Korana groups who could be found in the vicinity of Kheis. They were the Kouringeis or Little Korana, otherwise known as the Hootstanders or Proud People. But a hundred years earlier in 1779 trekboers who had arrived in Namaqualand were married to local Khoe women and this union created another group - the "Bastaards".

This is episode 44 and we continue to travel about the Zuurveld and beyond with Englishman John Barrow. Remember he’d arrived in Graaff-Reinet with landdrost FR Bressler and their entry into the mud and daub village marked the restoration of Cape control after an interval of two and a half years. That was late 1797. Because they were accompanied by a small group of Dragoon light cavalry, the message was clear. Authority is back. But the trekboers and particularly the giant Coenraad de Buys were in no mood to hear that message. The eastern frontier of the Cape colony in 1797 was a confused and distracted region – war with the San and the Xhosa had been followed by the Boers’ own revolution and then the British had arrived. The turmoil of these events had been compounded by the Xhosa civil war which led to the settlers becoming involved in their internal bickering. And watching all of this in turn was Ngqika’s mother, Queen Nojoli. Her influence must not be underestimated as she was fully involved in these negotiations and the diplomacy because Barrow gave her exactly the same gifts he gave Ngqika. Within a year of this visit, trekboer Coenraad de Buys would be living at Ngqika’s Great Place, married to Queen Nojoli and exerting an influence on both her and her son. Buys as we’ve seen had a long relationship with the Xhosa’s on the frontier, his familiarity goes back to some time.

This is episode 43 and we’re dealing with the arrival of the English at the Cape. As you know, the Peninsular had become more important in the eyes of the English as they fought a lengthy war against France at the end of the 18th Century – a war that was to continue through until Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815. The British would occupy the Cape twice of course and when they arrived in 1795 the region was convulsed by disorder on the frontiers. The Khoekhoe rose up twice in conjunction with the amaXhosa as we’re going to hear, while the frontier settlers were already in revolt by the time the British arrived. Lady Anne Barnard had accompanied her husband – Macartney’s colonial secretary Andrew Barnard to the Cape. Also present on behalf of George Third was John Barrow – a man who was to have a significant effect on the South Africa and world affairs. He was described as extremely intelligent, an amateur scientist, naturalist, geographer, a man of the enlightenment if there ever was one. He’d already revealed great gifts of intelligence gathering during his time in China and would now be called on to collect more intelligence on the frontier of South Africa.

This is episode 42 and the English have just seized the Cape. Remember at the time they were in a world war with the French and revolutionary fervour had swept the world with its populist refrain, its’ berets of southern France and Liberte Equalite Fraternite narrative. This had swept the globe – all the way to Graaff-Reinet in the upper Zuurveld on the Cape frontier where the trekboers were motivated to throw off the corrupt yoke of the VOC – and then in turn, the new English rule. As we heard last episode, Major General Craig had ensconsed himself in Cape Town as the military governor and was about to take action against the Boers in Graaff-Reinet when intelligence reports indicated in January 1796 that the Batavians and their French allies were fitting out an expedition to retake Cape Town. As you’ve also heard, the British sent a strong naval and infantry force to the Cape and by July 1796 there were 8 400 troops stationed there with another 1000 on their way. There were now fourteen warships patrolling the seaways around the Cape. So the Batavian squadron of eight warships and a cargo vessel took five months to sail to the Cape because its commander, Rear Admiral Engelbertus Lucas had to evade British patrols. On the 6th August 1796 he anchored in Saldanha Bay on the west coast north of Cape Town. Lucas had anticipated support from a French squadron but they had decided to bypass mainland Africa and head straight to the Isle de France – or Mauritius as we know it today. By the 1790s a powerful farmer by the name of Jacob Van Reenen had built his fortune in landholdings, meat trade and the production and sale of alcohol. On his death in 1793, Jacob left a number of sons, all of whom rose to prominence in Cape society. One son called Dirk, built the largest and most successful wine businesses there, while two others sons, Jacobus Gijsbert and Sebastiaan, went into the lucrative meat merchanting business.

This is episode 41 and we’re dealing with two main things – firstly the shift in power amongst the Xhosa at the end of the 18th Century, then the arrival of the English in South Africa. Remember we’ve been focusing on the Zuurveld as the trekboers and the amaXhosa both expanded their interest in the region. The fate of these contending parties would remain undecided for twenty years and for the amXhosa, it was their fractured politics that weakened them precisely at the moment their greatest threat appeared. The indecisive Second Frontier War had left Ndlambe the most powerful Xhosa chief in the west but he couldn’t seize ultimate control of the Zuurveld – the trekboers were returning to their farms razed during the war. Although they did not return in the same numbers initially, the tension was set to rise once more. In 1795 Ngqika turned 17 and he immediately took action against his uncle Ndlambe who as we know had been ruling on his behalf until he came of age. Ngqika was not to be trifled with although young. He was ambitious and pretty ruthless as you’re going to hear. As the tension rose amongst the amaXhosa groups, it wasn’t long before a mini civil war broke out. Upheavals far away in the world were going to have a major impact on this sleepy little southern African backwater shortly. The first attempts by the British at seizing the Cape failed miserably back in 1781 as we’ve heard with the brilliant but obese French commander Bailli de Suffren defeating the English fleet at the Cape Verde Islands. The British had no real interest in the Cape as such during this phase, they wanted the ports and the refreshment stations. There was no idea of colonizing this somewhat dangerous part of the world. The major strategic aim was to hold the Cape to prevent it from being seized by the French to use as a naval base as part of the crucial logistics route to and from India and China.

This is episode 40 and we’re dealing with the Second Frontier War. The Zuurveld Boers were indignant at the reluctance of the distant government of the Cape to come to their aid as the amaGqunukhwebe swept onto their farms. Remember Xhosa king Ndlambe was trying to bring them to heel and had ordered the amaGqunukhwebe and Langa’s amaMbalu to move westwards across the Fish River. Instead the amaGqunukhwebe headed in the opposite direction to get away from the Xhosa kings warriors. Graaff-Reinet’s new landdrost Honoratus Maynier was prompted to act. He was well educated and fluent in several languages, and was also highly aware of suffering and injustice that had been metered out to the San and the Khoe in particular. Much has been written about Maynier over the years – mostly bad. However he was probably ahead of his time in quite a few areas – specifically human rights. The trekboers were trying to convince him to mobilise forces to fight the amaGqunukhwebe and he was resisting, in addition to be highly sceptical of most reports of theft and losses. Maynier kept telling farmers who visited his Drosdy mud and daub building in Graaff-Reinet that it was inadvisable to oppose force by force – it would merely bring the Xhosa down on the farms. So Field Cornet Barend Lindeque decided to take action himself and put together a commando without the VOC or Maynier’s permission. Lindeque approached Xhosa chief Ndlambe and suggested they work together to rid the Zuurveld of the amaGqunukhwebe. Of course the Xhosa king was only too happy to work with the trekboers. It served his interests. The deal was struck and on 18th May 1793 the first action of what was to become known as the Second Frontier War was recorded. In the Cape, the Dutch East india company was also unable to assist – it was falling apart at that stage, the VOC empire was collapsing.

This is episode 39 and we’re going to meet one of the country’s most incredible characters who’s activities on the frontier in the late 1700s were to be forgotten. Coenraad de Buys was probably one of the most African of all trekboers as you’re going to hear and the saga of his life was written out of text books long before apartheid. That was because he married Khoe and Xhosa women and lived amongst both people quite comfortably. At the same time he was still a trekboer as you’ll hear. He was also the original rebel, an ex-soldier who was nearly 7 feet tall. Coenraad de Buys is the most legendary, rougher, dominating and ruthless of all rebels, his presence on the frontier of the Cape colony dominated twenty years of South African history and he also as I said last episode symbolizes a lost route of Afrikaner history. In the gallery of traditional Afrikaner heroes, de Buys has no place. He is merely a footnote in most writings including modern revisionist texts because he fits neither the race-obsessed romantic colonial historian nor the race-obsessed Pan-Africanist historians of the 21st century. The first Frontier War had ended in 1781 with the belief that Adriaan van Jaarsveld who we met last episode had expelled the Gqunukhwebe and Mbalu from the Zuurveld. But these people moved back through the 1780s – and in fact it was doubtful that Tshaka’s Gqunukhwebe had ever left they just moved away from the commando led by van Jaarsveld, then returned almost immediately after it disbanded. The Gqunukhwebe believed they had a right to the territory – and at this point mother nature conspired to increase resource pressure. A major drought took place in the mid-1780s and many more Xhosa began appearing in the Zuurveld pastures. In 1789 for example, one description by an explorer spoke of 16 000 cattle on one Xhosa farm alone, inhabited by several thousand Xhosa people.

This is episode 38 and we’re focusing on the first war between the isiXhosa and the settlers which took place in 1781. Rharhabe had proposed an alliance between himself and the Colony – in return for Boer assistance against the imiDange clan who he had represented as rebels. Rharhabe framed the conversation as offering “friendship and peace upon a permanent footing” which spoke the settler language. Local strongman Adriaan van Jaarsveld had responded positively, but then Rharhabe missed another important meeting. Meanwhile Rharhabe’s implacable enemy and uncle, Ndlambe, had found a Boer ally in Barend Lindeque who was a lieutenant in the commando. Friction is endemic in frontier situations and neither the Xhosa nor colonists were going to be innocent in the coming conflicts. You could take the stance modern politicians take that the colonists were outsiders and therefore always to blame – but that would be somewhat historically ill-informed. The Boers feared the weight of Xhosa numbes and resented being pestered for presents by the roving bands of Xhosa men – they also had been given permission by Rharhabe to use pastures and yet Xhosa clans not aligned to Rharhabe would occupy these lands.

This is episode 37 and we’re continuing the saga of late 18th Century Xhosa kingdoms. By late in the 18th Century, the Zuurveld was home to small groups of San, some khoekhoe chieftans, several Xhosa chiefdoms and the trekboers. They were mixing up together in a fairly confined territory and jostled each other increasingly angrily to secure the summer and winter grazing. While the San weren’t particularly interested in the grazing as they did not keep livestock, the pressure on the land was increasing. Cultural ignorance concerning each others understanding of the nature of land ownership made things worse. Colonists had a sense of private property and they were spreading across the territory using the concept of Leningsplaatsen – loan farms – that we’ve heard about. For the trekboer, the leningsplaatsen was not a shared space – it belonged to a single person or investors and had defined boundaries which could be mapped. In contrast, the amaXhosa saw land as communal property with its usage to be allocated by a chief. Where the cattle-owning parties saw their herds and flocks as their capital assets and indication of wealth and power, the temptation was to supplement their livestock through raiding or violence. And Governor Van Plettenberg decided he'd take a trip to the Zuurveld along the Great Fish River to see how things were going between the Dutch settlers and the amaXhosa.

This is episode 36 and its time to return to Xhosaland. Before we do that, let’s step back a little and consider the effect of action beyond Africa that was having an influence on the continent, particularly the southern reaches. Adam Smith may have been somewhat bemused, as American historian Noel Mostert writes in his book frontiers, to find that the very year in which his masterwork was published saw the start of a struggle on the seas that rested on his own declared twin pillars of global destiny – America and the Cape of Good Hope. The American colonies were in the process of being lost to Britain as Smith published his work – and a wider war was buffeting the seas. The Cape had been drawn into the American War of Independence which changed the destiny of Southern Africa. It’s not well remembered these days, but as America’s early history is interwoven with South Africa’s. As all of this was taking place on the high seas, the colonists in the Cape found themselves at war on two fronts with two different groups of people. The Xhosa and the San. As the Dutch East India company feebly tried to stop trekboers from advancing beyond the Gamtoos river near Algoa Bay, a true frontier had developed from 1770 onwards. It was a loose, ill-defined area along the south east coast and the Dutch colonists had now hit a human barrier that stopped their freedom of movement. That barrier was the Xhosa people.

This is episode 35 and we’re going to focus on the forerunners of the Zulu – the Mthethwa and Ndwandwe, the Qwabe and how they emerged in the region between the Tugela and Pongola rivers in northern KwaZulu Natal or what became known as Zululand. By the first few centuries AD the migrations of farmers moving into the area between the Drakensburg, the Mzimkhulu river south of modern Durban and up to Pondoland took place. There had been a steady growth of farmers here until the first phase of the development of more powerful kingdoms. The second phase saw the people there divide into numbers small patriarchal clans which lived alongside each other in relative peace although there were many minor incidents. The third phase began with the rise of the Zulu Kingdom by around 1810. I’ll get to the third phase in future podcasts. The fourth phase of course was the arrival of the British traders from the Cape – and from the sea. The Ndwandwe lived In the area around Nongoma in 1780s and 90s while to the south, between the modern town of Empangeni and straddling the black Mfolozi to the north lived the Mthethwa. To their west lived the Qwabe – and those were the ancestors of the people I grew up with in the Nkwalini valley on the Umhlatuzi. As the struggle for dominance grew at the end of the 18th Century, it corresponded with the expansion of the major groups like the Mthethwa, Ndwandwe and the Qwabe – then later the Zulu into a variety of grazing types.

This is episode 34 and we’re going to take a close look at what was going on in the region bounded by the Orange River, the Kalahari Desert and the Indian Ocean. This is where the Zulu emerged but the story is not the simple tale most of us know about Shaka. As with other areas we’ve investigated, the popular narrative over time is not always an accurate reflection of real history. This will become very apparent particularly as we unearth facts about the period between 1760 and 1800. It’s fairly recently in historical research that we’ve come to understand what was going on – earlier historians tended to pay very little attention to the decades before 1810 and the emergence of Shaka’s Zulu. Before then the Zulu were a tiny clan washing around in a much bigger pool of tribes and clans. An important feature we all agree on now is that the upheavals of the early 1800s were not all about Shaka, it was caused partly by the increasing interaction between European commercial and colonial expansion and indigenous communities, as well as the expansion of Zulu and Ndebele and other warlike people. Traders and settler numbers rose swiftly as we’re going to hear. Trading and raiding was always part of the southern African landscape, hundreds of years before Jan van Riebeeck setup shop in 1652. The processes of reorganisation and expansion of increasingly centralized kingdoms can be tracked to this time. While these changes were taking place between the Drakensberg and Indian Ocean, they were also happening among the Tswana speaking societies on the south eastern fringes of the Kalahari Desert. I’ve outlined the most important clans in the last podcast – don’t forget these – they were the Bafokeng, Bahurutshe, Bakgatla, Bakwena, Bangwaketse, Barolong and Bathlaping.

This is episode 33 and we’re focusing on the Cape after spending last episode partly in Xhosaland. By 1771 the inn on the sea – the town in Table Bay – was being referred to as Cape Town for the first time by travellers. It appears there was not even a formal process, just the town at the foot of the mountain emerged over the preceding 120 years and by 1772 there were approximately 7000 people living there. Four thousand whites including 1700 sailors, and 2000 free blacks and slaves. Part of this episode is going to be viewed through the eyes of botanist and Scots gardener and explorer Francis Masson who journeyed through the Cape three times. He arrived in October 1772 to find the acting governor was Joachim van Plettenberg. The newly appointed governor, Pieter van Rheede van Oudshoorn, had died at sea on the way out from Amsterdam. And right there are the men whose surnames would be two future towns – Plettenberg bay and Oudtshoorn. 1772 was an important year because that’s when foreign shipping numbers increased significantly because of the American War of Independence which I mentioned last episode. French ships in particular were sailing through the bay regularly because they were supporting the American rebels who were fighting the British. Cape Town was already known as a pretty and orderly locale, it’s layout admired by most who visited.

This is episode 32 and we’re swinging back to the Cape frontier through the last few decades of the 18th Century. I am going to thoroughly probe this period because so many crucial things were unfolding across southern Africa such as the development of new centralized powerful kingdoms in the East, the acceleration of land occupation by the trekboers and the first real clashes between the isiXhosa and settlers. That is far too much to chew on in just one episode I’m sure you’ll agree. First we need to step back and take a wide-angle view of the region. By the mid-1700s the eastern Cape frontier was a vaguely defined area east of the Gamtoos river. This is where black South African’s speaking a Bantu language first encountered white settlers as distinct from traders and missionaries. It was also here that policies which have had a profound influence on southern Africa were first formulated and applied. It was also a cultural frontier between warring states and had many characteristics of frontiers elsewhere across the world at that time. One of course was in north America

This is episode 31 and we’ll now take a broader look at what was going on across southern Africa after a few episodes peering closely at the northern Cape. We’ll also take a closer look at how the Cape government was expanding. Sleeping giants were to awaken by the last quarter of the 18th Century, with the emergence and expansion of a number of increasingly centralized chiefdoms in the region between the northern and central Drakensberg and the Indian Ocean. A similar process was taking place at pretty much the same time among the Tswana-speaking societies on the southeastern fringes of the Kalahari Desert. There is not much documented evidence from this region which makes the telling of the story slightly more difficult. But as we’ve heard over the course of this series already, the wonders of archaeology have begun to paint a scientific picture – and historians have pieced together some of the emerging states of this time. We also hear about the growing role of the Dutch Reformed Church. The experience of VOC political institutions particularly the local government, formed part of this heritage. But the strongest unifying institution both emotionally and intellectually, was provided by the Dutch Reformed Church. The doctrine of this church was primitive Calvinism as embodied in the Heidelberg catechism and the decrees of the synod of Dort. Its emphasis was on the old testament and the doctrine was heavily weighted towards the concept of predestination. This particularly suited the colonial whites struggling to survive in a tough environment and accustomed from birth to treating nonwhites as slaves or serfs, and more often than not, enemies.

This is episode 30 and we’re covering the mid-18th Century, including tales of shipwrecked sailors, the art of making amasi and dealing with the amatakati or witches. We’ve heard much about the developments in the north of the Cape, the bokkeveld and the Roodezand up to 1740. Now we’ll swing our gaze to observe what was going on at the same time in the Eastern Cape frontier. It’s vaguely defined at least at this time as the area lying east of the Gamtoos River. This is important because its here that black South Africans speaking a Bantu language first encountered white settlers as distinct from traders or even missionaries. The Nguni people however had a much longer connection with Europeans. Survivors of shipwrecks starting around 1554 lived amongst the Xhosa until they met survivors from other wrecks or from expeditions sent to find them. Many of these former sailors refused to return home. They were living as Thembu or Xhosa and had found the lifestyle to their liking. For example in 1705 an expedition sent to Natal to look for timber found an Englishman living with African wives there who was so well satisfied that two of the crew actually deserted to join him instead of the other way around. Two other men who survived from an early 18th Century wreck on the Mpondo Coast became progenitors of the clan still known as the Lungu – short for Abelungu in other words, the white clan. A girl wrecked with them later married Mpondo chief Xwabiso. Her daughter in turn was met by explorer Jacob van Reenen in 1790. By then she was an old woman. But she wasn’t the only European woman who’d been saved by locals as we’ll hear. And if you consider the statistics regarding shipwrecks off the South African coast as a whole you’ll begin to understand how these first contacts between Nguni and European developed.

This is episode 29 and we’re dealing with the pacification of the Khoisan in 1739. The Bushman War of that year had broken out as we’ve heard over repeated incursions into Khoi territory by settlers who’d abused the hospitality of Captain Gal of the Great Namaqua – then shot him and eight of his family for good measure before driving off most of his cattle. This was the last straw for Khoi who rose up and began burning Dutch farms along the Olifant’s River. Not to be confused with the Olifants River in the far north of the country – Limpopo province – in fact the Olifants flows through the Kruger Park. No, our Olifants is in the Cape. The Olifants here rises in the Winterhoek Mountains near modern day Ceres and flows northwesterly through a deep valley that widens downstream near Clanwilliam and drains into the Atlantic ocean. Remember last week we heard that the Frenchman and company deserter Estienne Barbier had been hiding out in this area protected by various frontier’s folk as he tried to instigate a settler uprising against the VOC. Ranged against him were men of the company including the powerful owner of many farms, Kruywagen. The latter had been hunting Barbier and trying to pacify the Khoi at the same time and when his commando returned to Stellenbosch at the end of May 1739, Barbier was still on the run. The Governor had declared Barbier enemy number one and placed a bounty on his head – dead or alive. The northern frontier zone was unstable but the major military operation required to end the fighting would only begin in Spring. In the meantime the pressure on trying to maintain some kind of semblance of law and order fell on the shoulders of the various veldkorporaals like Barend Lubbe. He was in charge of the Olifant’s River and was instructed to make sure he did not antagonize the “Hottentot Pokkebaas Claas” or any other peaceful Khoi.

This is episode 28, the Bushman War of 1739. Last episode we heard about the growing number of clashes reported in the run up to this full-scale war that did not last long – but extended in a great arc from the Piketberg in the north-west to the valley of the Langeberg in the south-east. It was the most extensive war between the settlers and the Khoisan since Van Riebeeck had arrived in 1652. Settlers were chased out of almost 60 cattle stations and farms, and more importantly, the stated aim of the Khoisan was to drive the Dutch out of their land and possibly – out of South Africa. More alarmingly, some of the Khoisan raiders were armed with muskets instead of their spears and bows and arrows. Many of the Khoisan leaders were also former servants of the Dutch farmers – which made for a particularly bitter confrontation as you’ll hear. The alarm bells rang back in Stellenbosch when they heard a notorious settler trouble-maker had arrived in the northern frontier zone – the deserter and former Company sergeant, Estienne Barbier. Frontier farmers joined him as he called for a rural rebellion against the VOC, and social banditry accelerated. The Boers on the frontier now began lashing out at all Khoi nearby. This was not going to end happily for anyone

This is episode 27 and we’re dealing with the period in the first half of 1700 – give or take a decade. Last episode we heard how the TrekBoer economy had developed and a new farmer had emerged on the landscape called the Boer. The descendents of Dutch and French immigrants were beginning to expand their footprint across southern Africa and of course the repercussions were enormous. Remember last episode we heard the minister of the Church at Drakenstein Petrus van Arkel who had written an extraordinary letter to Governor De Charonnes based in Cape Town. The minister had been shocked by a report he’d just received about the actions of a settler raiding party which made it all the way to Algoa Bay in the Eastern Cape and they had been particularly brutal in their treatment of the Khoi. A party of 70 barterers – or as the Minister pointed out – murderers and robbers – had taken 200 rixdollars worth of goods with them when they setout from Stellenbosch and headed to the Gonakkens as the Dutch called them – the Gonaqua near present day Qeberga or Port Elizabeth. The tribe was massacred and all their cattle and sheep were carried off. The Gonaqua who survived followed the Dutch raiding party and begged to be killed or taken captive as they were going to starve to death without their animals. Van Arkel back in Drakenstein was briefed by the shocked Khoi from the Peninsular who had joined the raiding expedition not realizing it was going to be a murdering expedition.

As we heard last episode, the direction of trekker expansion was largely a function of the nature of the terrain, along with the availability of water and the quality of pasture. What was to take place through the 18th century was a steady growth of loan farms that extended northwards along rivers and eastwards between mountain ranges, or following the coastal lowlands. The main areas settled before 1720 included the country north of the Berg River around the Piketberg, and to the east of the Hottentots Hollands mountains. Trekboers arrived along the Oliphants River Valley about the same time, along with the upper Breede River and adjacent valleys and river basins. Like the isiXhosa far to the north east, it was the streams and rivers that determined trekboer settlement. These two people were going to bump into each other shortly. The Dutch settlers pushed eastwards into the coastal areas south of the Langeberg Mountains, then by the 1730s the trekboers were entering the Little Karoo and Swellendam which was settled in 1745. To the north, the Dutch speaking livestock farmers crossed the arid plain between the Cape Mountains and the Roggeveld escarpment in 1745 and occupied the most accessible portions of the interior plateau. They then headed mainly north or northeasterly into the Hantamsberg which was settled in the 1750s and the Nieuveld in the 1760s. By the 1760s trekkers were spreading along the summer rainfall area leading to farms being established in the good sites of the Cambedo including Graaff-Reinet. During the 1770s trekboers occupied the areas to the north and east of the Sneeuberg Mountains, along the southeast of the country behind Bruintjes Hoogte. By the 1770s the VOC was trying to stop colonists from expanding further east of the Gamtoos River - but trekboers had already taken out loan farms beyond this dividing line.

This is episode 25 and we’re following the early history of the Xhosa. They were about to come into direct contact with the Dutch expanding from the Cape Peninsular. Remember last episode we heard about the growing bizarre behaviour by Gcaleka who was one of Phalo’s sons – and his propensity to believe himself a diviner. That was after he escaped drowning in the musical sounding Ngxingxolo River. Phalo died in 1775 – but Gcaleka who became chief died only three years later. I was going to cover the infighting between Gcaleka and his brother Rharhabe but will leave that for a little later. We’re following the years of history here in a timeline format and I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves. Just a few comments about the Xhosa social system which is going to have a bearing on our story as the Trek Boers came up against their clans. The matrix of Xhosa political and social organization was the small village led by the homestead-head. He and sometimes she, was drawn into wider relationships partly through membership of a patrilineage. His brothers, their father and his brothers, their grandfather and his brothers and so on for four or five generations to the earliest ancestor remembered by all these lineages. So it was an extension of time and space where it was father and his sons, and their uncles and their sons, uncles and their nephews, elder brothers and younger brothers. The elevation of the amaTshawe to the position of royal clan did not alter these existing linealogies, the chiefs still referred to each other as older brother or umkhuluwa or younger brother known as umninawa. The king was known as inkosi enkhulu which literally meant big chief, but also means the chief who is the eldest son. With that, its time to head back south to the expanding Dutch settlement in the Cape of the early 1700s. We’ll return to the Xhosa soon.

This is episode 24, the Foundation of the Xhosa Kingdom, the heroes Tshawe and Phalo. I’ve made use of a number of books and documents in the series so far, but Jeff Perez’s House of Phalo is probably my favourite source material mainly because he lectured me at Rhodes University in the mid-1980s. His book on the Xhosa is still the go-to research document and I’m leaning quite heavily on the work for this episode. Let’s take ourselves back to Xhosa pre-history, that time in early oral tradition where myths and legends are difficult to separate from reality. The Xhosa people of today think of themselves as being the common descendents of a great hero named Xhosa who lived many hundreds of years ago. Some believe he was the son of Mnguni who gave the name to the Nguni language – and brothers of other kingdoms such as the pre-Zulu Ndwandwe or Mthethwa, as well as the Swazi, or the Zulu themselves. The word Xhosa is a Khoi word meaning ‘Angry Men’ and Vete who is the main historian of the nearby Mpondomise people believes they were named by the amaThembu. Remember we met the amaThembu last episode, the people who lived on the boundaries of the Xhosa and were regarded as poorer because their land was less fertile. The earliest historical occurrance specific to the Xhosa was the installation of the amaTshawe as the royal family – and the story of Tshawe is probably the best-known of all Xhosa traditions. John Soga wrote about this in his work South Eastern Bantu which is a highly respected original document outlining the people of Xhosaland.

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 22 and we’re dealing with a number of things. First is the arrival in the Cape of an influential Muslim Cleric called Sheik Yusufs al-Taj al-Khwalwari al-Maqasari who was to have a major impact on the colony. We’ll also hear about what was going on across southern Africa in the first two decades of the 18th Century – a time of major change which set the tone for the expansion of colonialism for the next two hundred years. Shayk Yusufs was exiled to the Cape from his home in Java in 1694 and was settled at Zandvlier on the False Bay Coast along with fifty of his followers. The VOC officials were highly aware of his influence and attempts were made to isolate him from the mass of the Cape population but these failed. Van der Stel owned a private estate, Vergelegen, which was the foundation of the present day Somerset West and its wine route. He granted himself the in 1700 and he spent much of the VOC resources on its development. This allowed him an unfair advantage and led to strained relationships with the local “free burghers” as you’ve heard. His unilateral actions determining who could participate in the monopoly of wine and meat and eventually triggered a revolt amongst the farmers led by a man called Adam Tas. He was born in Amsterdam and arrived in the Cape in 1697 as a freeburgher to take up quarters with his uncle, Henning Husing. Unlike most burghers, he was well educated and his diary – albeit carefully edited by the VOC later – provides interesting reading. So in 1714 a momentous decision was taken to permit loan farming or LENINGPLAAT to develop east of the mountains. For a small fee, a farmer was given the use of at least 6000 acres on which to graze his cattle for a specific period of time. This was ideal for stock farmers who could lease two such farms and then leave one to lie fallow.

This is episode 21 and we’re probing the growth of Nguni societies – as well as the terrible smallpox epidemic of 1713. First a note about historical records. As I’ve mentioned the use of archaeological surveys and oral history along with specific tools used such as pottery and metal artifacts provides quite a bit of detail about the history of the Nguni and Sotho as well as the Tswana in South Africa. However, the oral history comes with an obvious warning. And nowhere is that more important than along the Eastern seaboard – the future home of the Zulu. After the development of Zulu power in early 1800, oral historians were pressurized to tell the story from the point of view of what had been a tiny clan before Shaka came along in the early 19th Century. This narrative cleansing if you like expunged a great deal of the knowledge traditional societies had developed over hundreds of years. I’m mentioning this now because that’s unlike other parts of South Africa – the Xhosa for example, the Sotho, Tswana and Venda whose individual clan narratives are still largely intact. Compounding this truth decay Nguni archaeology in KwaZulu Natal is also less well known that Tswana and Sotho. This is the result of difficulty in locating early Nguni settlements as well as the Zulu state’s revisionist oral history. Then a terrible disease made its way ashore in 1713 borne by a visiting fleet of VOC ships that anchored in Table Bay. It sent its linen ashore to be washed by company slaves in Cape Town. The laundry bore a smallpox virus which was to rage throughout that year, killing hundreds of Europeans and slaves. It’s impact on the Khoe was catastrophic.

This is episode 20 and the expansion of settlers from the Cape is gaining pace. At the same time, the Xhosa to the north are experiencing political upheavals, while further north, the Nguni speaking farmers have spread into the Free State and Transvaal highlands – now known as Gauteng. The decline of the Khoekhoe chiefs and the increasingly coercive nature of the trade took place at the same time as another major development in the Cape. This was the intensification of labour relations between the Khoe and the Colony. Ever since van Riebeeck’s time, some Khoekhoe had worked in the colony as cook’s assistants, domestics, building labourers and dispatch runners amongst other jobs. Europeans did not hire Khoekhoe as herders or shepherds before 1670 because they feared the theft of their livestock – and then only under close supervision. However the rapid expansion into Stellenbosch and Drakenstein we heard last episode meant the Dutch and Huguenot farmers needed more labour. There weren’t enough slaves so naturally as the Khoe lost their land and grazing rights, they took up more of these positions as workers. According to the census of 1690, there was one slave in the Bay area of the Cape for every nine cattle tended and for every bushel of seed sown. Compare that to Drakenstein and Stellenbosch where there was one slave for every 63 cattle and twenty bushels of seed sown. The Khoekhoe were now experiencing a rapid decline in their wealth and security and responded in large numbers to the new farms and their requirements. The Dutch official Van Rheede whom we met last episode wrote a scathing note to the colonists about the children of slaves – and by 1700 three quarters of these children had white fathers. He said the children of slaves – dusky skinned, blonde haired and even blue eyed – should receive the same education as other children. The Freeburgers were shocked and disagreed.

This is episode 19 and we’re looking at the years between 1679 and 1700 and developments in both the Cape and the interior of the sub-continent. Last episode we heard how new Governor Simon van der Stel who arrived in 1679 began a rapid expansionist policy in the Cape, including building two new towns – Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. The last two decades of the 17th Century and the first two of the eighteenth are regarded as the most important in the early history of South Africa – at least with regard to colonization. After 1707 the VOC effort at peopling the country slowed significantly. It was the fear of the British then the French that had driven the Dutch to make a decision to increase settlers in the Cape between the 1660s and the turn of the century. Ultimately and ironically, considering the Dutch/French War, salvation really came indirectly from France. There had long been French speaking Walloons in the United Provinces of Holland who had fled from the Spanish terror at the end of the sixteenth century. These refugees were now being joined by the Huguenots who had abandoned France. That was in response King Louis XIVs severe view of anyone who had a reformed faith Naturally after years of failing to attract large numbers of settlers to the Cape, the Heeren Seventeen regarded the Huguenots as a pool of possible immigrants to exploit. Some of the Frenchmen knew how to make wine, brandy and vinegar. Things were moving in the Cape. By 1689 van der Stel had occasion to meet a sailor shipwrecked in terra de Natal. Captain W Knyff of the Dutch East India company managed to make his way back to the Peninsular after living amongst the people in the region for a year. He told van der Stel that the people who helped him were peaceable and obliging. Two other sailors had already been living amongst the people who known as the Xhosa.

This is episode 18 and we’re focusing on the 1670s through to the 1680s where a whole lot was going on in the south of Africa. Let me first start with race relations. South Africans probably have no idea that the man who launched the most aggressive drive to expand into Africa was not born in Europe – he was born in Mauritius of Dutch and Indian stock. Had he been born after apartheid’s firm grasp fixed South African in a race-based laws after 1948 he would have been classified coloured. The man who ran the first version of our country would have been denied the right to vote and forced to take second-class trains. And yet he introduced colonialism in South Africa in its full stark reality. History. Got to love it in all its irony. He arrived with his six children, but not his wife. She refused to make the trip so he was not only a coloured governor, he was also single parent. Van der Stel was to found a South African dynasty, casting off his links to the motherland. More than a thousand miles away to the north another process which had started hundreds of years before was also to prove significant and we need to return to this part of Southern Africa for an update. From the fourteenth century, Shona and Sotho speakers were in close proximity in the Soutpansburg close to the Limpopo River. The Venda people were emerging from the Singo – an offshoot of the Shona. There’s a lot of debate between archaeologists and traditionalists around this story where Venda oral history speaks of the Singo Capital Dzata.

This is episode 17 and we’re dealing with the second Khoe-Dutch war of 1673 which dealt the Peninsular tribe known as the Cochoqua a terminal blow. The growing population at the Cape meant both the colonisers and the passing fleets needed to be well fed with fresh produce. The colonial programme was created to foster farming to supply the station’s needs – and it was the expanding use of arable land and fresh water that went along with it that further exacerbated the conflict with the indigenous peoples. By the early 1670s the colonial government was convinced the Gonnema had begun to instigate a series of attacks on Europeans. In some of these cases, clans who were answerable to Gonnema assaulted farmers. In others, the much feared San hunters who were also under Gonnema’s sway ambushed and killed Dutch hunters who had begun to penetrate their territories.

This is episode 16 and its about de Kaap and the Peninsular in the 1660s. As we’ve heard, the trading with the Khoe at the Cape is not going as well as the Dutch hoped and Jan Van Riebeeck the fort commander had decided to lay out his formal frontier albeit a tiny start to what would become a major immigration. And it would start with a tree called the Bitter Almond which considering what was to happen to the Khoe over the next century, is a pretty accurate name. But first, some domestic news. Remember van Riebeeck had arrived in 1652 with his whole family – his wife Maria de la Quellerie was a relatively strong person of 22 when she landed on the shores of Table Bay as one of the six European women joining the 80 odd men. The other five were all married to various officials living at the Fort. Maria and Jan had arrived with a child of their own as well as two orphaned nieces. She was sickly and pregnant almost every year while at the Cape – having one miscarriage after another. The van Riebeeck’s had arrived with a son and two adopted daughters but their attempt at having a fourth child appeared to be doomed. Living with the van Riebeecks was a really interesting Khoe woman called Krotoa. As Patric Mellet points out in his work, the lie of 1652, Krotoa was a key figure in the struggle between the Khoe and the Dutch. From various descriptions, Krotoa is likely to have been fathered by a European traveler with her Khoe mother who left Krotoa’s upbringing to her brother Autshumao. Basically her mother disowned her it appears but that didn’t stop the youngster from developing into quite a force at the Dutch fort.

This is episode 15 and we’re looking at the first Khoe-Dutch war of 1659-1660. Up to now the relationship between the Dutch and the various Khoe tribes on the Cape Flats has been rife and filled with chaos. Things as you’ll hear, are not going to improve or settle down. By January 1659, Doman one of the Khoe translators we heard about last week had become disillusioned about Dutch aims in the Cape. He’d seen the VOC in action after a trip to the Far East, to the Dutch capital Batavia and was impressed by their organizational capacity and power. But now, back home, he was aware that the KHoe people were no longer able to fully control their futures. And he was angry with Jan van Riebeeck for taking three Khoe chiefs hostage as the Dutch tried to force the Khoe to bring their escape slaves back. And worse, the Europeans had begun to show signs of settling in for the long haul – after all the first tranche of free burghers had just been given their 28 hectare plots around modern day Rondebosch and between the Liesbeeck and Salt Rivers which was prime Khoe grazing land. Now it was out of bounds to people who had seen generations use the same land. A census in December 1658 had revealed that the company was farming over 300 hectares of Cape Peninsular land. Stock thefts begin to take place in earnest in January 1659 – and the freeburghers were the victims to a large extent. They had started farming as we’ve heard in 1657 and the Khoe focused on their small herds as there was not much that the Dutch could do in their little isolated farms. The Khoekhoe for their part said the land was their mother and the Dutch were raping their land.

This is episode 14 and the first settlers are about to make their way out of the Dutch fort at the Cape after being allocated land to plant their gardens. This action which Jan Van Riebeeck took in 1657 was to have reverberations which are still being felt across the southern African region – and beyond. It must be remembered that the VOC did not envisage colonization as an end to itself. It merely wished to substitute limited private farming for state production in order to reduce expenditure. So far we’ve heard how the VOC company commander at the Cape of Good Hope had managed to grow his vegetables and fruit, but was not able to secure enough head of cattle from the Khoekhoe despite his constant trading and badgering. The Khoe for their part had realized that the Dutch were not going to go away and had begun to show signs of more aggression – particularly in 1655 and 1656 with groups of Khoe setting up their shelters close to the VOC fort. By January 1657 van Riebeeck was visited by Harry the Strandloper who had become a significant player in the Cape, along with a local Khoe chief they called The Fat Captain. His name was Gogosoa and he was paramount chief of the Gorachouqua and Goringhaicona. More about him in a while. He represented a group of Khoe living where Salt River is today – and both were unhappy about what they heard when they received information that the Dutch were going to allow freeburghers to own land. They were opposed to the idea of freemen, of Dutch settlers permitted to own their own land around the fort. Van Riebeeck explained that there was enough room for all and that all would benefit from the corn and tobacco grown on these new farms. This did not placate the Khoekhoe who argued their case and then left.

This is episode 13 and we’re covering the period between 1652 and 1657. These five years saw the establishment of the Dutch’s refreshment station at the Cape and the increasing frustration of Jan van Riebeeck who commanded the small group of sailors and soldiers who were trying to build a garden to feed the passing VOC fleets. Last episode I explained how the Dutch were facing a problem in terms of communication. No-one in the little fortress could speak Khoekhoe and they were relying on Khoe translators. What the Dutch did not properly understand for quite a while is just how fractured the Khoe were as a people who functioned as small clans and often at war with each other. As we will hear over coming podcasts, Khoe hierarchy was a fleeting thing based on economic power and not laws of succession. By December 1652 the group of Khoe van Riebeeck called “The Saldanhas” had migrated back to their grazing lands along the base of Table Mountain – where Kirstenbosch, Constantia and the Steenberg is today. He wrote that “…the country is covered with cattle and sheep as grass…” These Saldanhas or Chochoquas were obviously different people compared to the Strandlopers as the Dutch called the small clan living along the Cape Town beach. “there is nothing degenerate in the proud Saldanhas…” he wrote “they have all the traditional courtesy of the cattle-keeper…” As far as van Riebeeck was concerned, they were unlike the non-cattle keeping Soaqua or San he was to meet.

This is episode 12 and we’re at the point where Jan van Riebeeck and 88 men and women had setup the refreshment station to provide fruit, vegetables and meat to passing VOC fleets. As we heard last episode, the fort would take a year to complete. The Dutch had arrived in the Cape at precisely the wrong time, it was Autumn and the Mediterranean climate meant the coming winter would be cold and wet. Worse, the Khoekhoe had left their settlements on the Cape Flats heading up the east coast to areas which were more sheltered for the winter and van Riebeeck’s men suffered as meat was not available. They were reduced to eating penguins, seals and birds of different kinds to stay alive. So by eight months and despite Jan van Riebeeck’s determination being tested, earth works had been built, gardens were laid out and seeds had been sown – and he’d even managed to harvest the first vegetables. This was rather deceptive, because when the first large Dutch fleet passed by in March 1653, the ships themselves were obliged to contribute several tons of rice, together with salted meat and biscuit to the hungry garrison. And yet, some fresh meat was made available for the fleet along with fresh vegetables. That by itself was quite an achievement. The Khoekhoe had largely left the Cape flats for winter so locating cattle to buy had been a big problem. Soon things improved as the Khoekhoe returned by December 1652 and were happy to trade their animals for tobacco and copper. “the Saldanha’s seek to show us all the friendship they can..” wrote van Riebeeck on December 8th. But the Khoekhoe moved on a few days later and the Dutch fort commander seemed to forget his orders as he began to consider other ways to obtain cattle.

This is episode 11 and it’s all about Jan van Riebeeck arrival in 1652 and the amaXhosa/KhoeKhoe relationship. South Africa’s modern community is a melting pot of people and part of that melting story started when the Dutch company the VOC decided to build a refreshment station in Table Bay. But it took quite some time to convince the Heeren 17 to agree to this plan. Van Riebeeck’s landing was also extremely well documented – the logs he kept and those maintained by the VOC is a vast repository of the past. We need to talk a little about van Riebeeck. I mentioned a few things last episode, but now we must understand the short, fiery and energetic person more completely. He was lionised as the man who had vision leading the arrival of Europeans who came to live in south Africa – but the tale is not as it seems. The real distinction for running a proper colony fell to later men such as Simon van der Stel and Hendryk van Rheede whereas van Riebeeck never wanted to remain in Africa. In the mid-1600s the amaXhosa were still living in the vicinity of the Mbashe River in the modern Transkei and were going through a process of major segmentation as several chiefdoms hived off from the paramountcy. Some of their history was noted in 1554 after Portuguese ship São Bento ran aground at the mouth of the Mbhashe River.

The Dutch have eclipsed the Portuguese Far East maritime trade and are looking to exploit the Indies as effectively as possible. Back in Southern Africa, the KhoeKhoe have no idea what this century will bring which includes the beginning of the destruction of their way of life in Table Bay as the first colonists arrive. Despite the English and the Dutch now beginning to use Table Bay as a stop off point, St Helena was still the preferred route to the Indies for most of the 17th Century. As I explained previously, the currents off the African West Coast were treacherous, and the Portuguese had experienced a few disasters in southern Africa as they tried to enslave locals. By 1620 the number of European ships anchoring in the shadow of Table Mountain had increased, but had not reached the flood of vessels that would characterize the period after the first colony setup by the Dutch VOC official, Jan van Riebeek in 1652.

IT was only in 1610 that the Dutch discovered the advantages of sailing east from the Cape before swinging north to reach the hub of their trading network in Java. As a result, contacts between the Khoekhoe and the Europeans steadily increased particularly around Table Bay. In the first half of the 17th Century a regular system of trade developed between the Khoekhoe of the southwestern Cape and the visiting sailors. It boiled down, if you excuse the pun, to sheep and cattle exchanged for metals initially iron, but then brass and copper. The Khoekhoe as we heard last episode were not interested in the baubels and trinkets dished up by would-be traders earlier and the Europeans learned very swiftly to trade valuable goods for valuable foods. Unlike the farmers of eastern southern Africa, the Khoekhoe could not manufacture iron themselves but knew how to smelt metal. The Tswana/Sotho and Nguni were already mining and smelting iron but in essence the KhoeKhoe remained what is known as stone age people. This is not an insult, its how historians refer to the use of technology. The Khoekhoe knew full well how valuable iron was an were using iron hoes, weapons and other metals extensively. They didn’t need to figure out how to mine iron and other metals because there was so much trade in the product already that existed with iron goods flowing into Khoekhoe society before Europeans arrived from the farmers who knew how to grind and crush rock, extract the metals, then using bellows and charcoal to generate the heat required to melt the ore. The Dutch meanwhile begin controlling Indian Ocean trade through their VOC company. They were also importing a new product called Coffee from the Dutch factory at Mocha on the tip of the Arabian peninsular and tea from Formosa or Taiwan as we know it today.

So by the early 1500s Portugal controlled the major ports along northern Mozambique and into modern day Kenya all the way up to Mombasa. However, they did not seek to take over the land so to speak – at least at first. The idea was to build fortified ports so that they could enhance trade with those inland without resorting to boots on the ground. At the same time, Great Zimbabwe had passed into history and the western parts of Zimbabwe were now controlling the trade routes between Southern Africa and the Indian ocean ports. Meanwhile to the south, Sotho and Tswana speakers had pushed into the mixed Bushveld habitats that lie against the grasslands of the Highveld. At this time, dry stone walling starts to be used to mark essential settlement boundaries, reaching the southern shores of the Vaal river and the Free State by the early 1600s. Oral history has helped us a great deal as the Sotho and Tswana storytelling means we know that the people who moved here came from Botswana of today, and founded a core Tswana identity in the areas of present-day Rustenburg and Marico by the late 1400s. There is an elaborate Tswana creation myth involving a leader called Matsieng who is said to have emerged from holes in the earth. This is now believed to be related to the origin of the Tswana northeast of capital of Botswana Gaborone where there are rock cavities and sumps in the riverbeds. Once again Geology and landscape plays its part in our history. Meanwhile, the last year of the fifteenth and through the sixteenth century, South Africa’s contacts with the outside world took on new forms.

We heard last episode how Portuguese explorer Bartolemeu Dias had rounded the Cape and landed at Mossel Bay in November 1488. He was the first person to sail around the continent to the South and his journey revolutionized commerce in Europe – and southern Africa. Dias dropped anchor in Mossell bay and as his men filled their water barrels, they were approached by Khoe herders who were nearby. There appears to have been some sort of confrontation, stones were thrown, and when the Portuguese fired back with a cross bow, one of the Khoe herders had been killed. This was an ominous sign for future relationships. The first contact between Europeans and traditional Khoe herders ended in violence. It is not clear exactly what set this off but neither group could speak the other’s language which didn’t help. Dias sailed onwards to Algoa Bay, then satisfied he’d rounded the tip of Africa, sailed home again passing Cape point and the future location of Cape Town on the way back. As he journed home and just beyond the southern tip of Africa, Dias’ ships were hit by gale force winds and a major storm – so naturally he gave the Cape the name “Cabo de Todos los Tormentos” or Cape of Storms. When he returned to Portugal King Joåo was delighted to hear about the route, but not exactly pleased with the name - but he had a good eye for public relations and ordered it changed to “Cabo de Båo Esperanza” or Cape of Good Hope – a name which remains in use to this day. I ended last episode by explaining how name changes are a natural human compulsion and King Joao was no different.

As we heard last episode Mapungubwe emerged from the increased trade between central south Africa and the East Coast seaboard including ivory, skins and eventually, gold around 1000AD. Unlike areas of Africa further north and north west, slave trade did not impact this region for a number of reasons. The main is distance. Each mile further south from the main Arabian, Asian and European – then American centers of slavery meant was a threat to the survival of those unfortunate souls seized as slaves by intermediaries. So Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe were not crucial in the trade of humans over the centuries, their power lay in goods rather than people. We heard too how by the start of the eleventh century Mapungubwe culture had shifted from the Complex Cattle Pattern where each settlement featured a large cattle kraal in the centre – to something very different. The spatial expression of status and the greater social distance between elite and commoner was expressed through the trade and storage of valuable products that replaced cattle as items regarded as most important. While ivory had been traded for hundreds of years, gold became extremely important to the Mapungubwe people. Gold plated rhino statuettes, a bowl and scepter have been found in the grave or what we think was a royal cemetery on the Mapungubwe main settlement hilltop. In more modern Shona ethnography, the black rhino is a symbol of political power and leadership so there is some speculation that the golden rhino found in the grave pointed to an important burial site. These royal burial sites are also smothered in some thing else … thousands of gold and glass trade beads By 1000AD the first Tsotho/Tswana people and Nguni arrive - the latter following a course along the KwaZulu Natal coast.

The distinction between the eastern and well-watered part of the country with summer rainfall and good soils, and the more arid western region with its mainly winter rainfall is critical to understanding the spread of domesticated grains and livestock. Pastoralists who farmed cereals are called Agro-pastoralists and these people preferred the Eastern region with its higher rainfall. Sheep and later cattle herding pastoralists favoured the west initially. This is one of separation points in South African history because the western people never did manage to manufacture their own iron-implements they merely bartered these when required. They exchanged iron products from the Tswana and Sotho as well as the isiXhosa who were able to manufacture iron implements and weapons. Then cattle arrived in the Cape and it looks like these came from the north east with early Tswana and Bantu pastoralists. This migration accelerated along with the increased size of settlements around 1000 years ago. Remember by this time, people living in the latter part of the first millennium had already been trading constantly with the entrepots to the East, the Indian ocean ports, for generations. This trade intensified after 1000AD first with Swahili-speakers based along the seaboard from modern Mozambique and north along the East African coast where Arab and other merchants would ply their trade from Zanzibar – through to the Red Sea. The coastlines of East Africa as far South as Madagascar and of west Africa as far south as Sierra Leone were known to the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans. The East African coast had a string of Hindu settlements hundreds of years before the Christian era. Until the 4th Century AD, the Sabaean kingdom of Southern Arabia controlled the east coast of Africa.

This is episode 4 and we’re at the point where the first farmers arrived in Southern Africa 2000 years ago. AS we now know, prior to this event, there was broad cultural continuity in the hunter-gatherer groups going back another 10 000 years at least. The movement of farmers into the eastern summer rainfall areas in the first one thousand years AD took place as the climate stabilised. The ancestors of these first farmers domesticated sorghum and millet in the Sahel north of the equator and then brought their new skills southwards as they migrated. When Bantu-speaking people arrived in southern Africa they integrated at times with the local population– the San and Khoe. This is proven by the incorporation of the hunter-gatherer clicks in both Zulu and Xhosa. You don’t assimilate parts of foreign languages without adopting something of the culture. We heard last episode how important pottery has been in tracking what happened and when. On the basis of the style of pottery, three separate streams of movement into South Africa have been investigated. They’re known as the Phillipson’s Chifumbase Complex and is the research into deposits of shards of pottery that represent migrating people traveling and living from place to place on the landscape. Two of the streams have a common origin in East Africa known as the Urewe Tradition. The least controversial of the three is called the Kwale Branch linked to two distinct phases. One was the Silverleaves which dates between 250 AD to 430AD and the second, the Mzonjani between 420AD to 580AD. The pioneer phase involving these agriculturalists was centred on the coastal plains of southern Africa and many were found in present day KwaZulu Natal particularly around the Tugela River.

This episode we’re moving forward into the early stone age as it’s known and much of our story covers the period after the last ice age which ended 10 000 years ago. Prior to this the oceans had subsided as ice covered much of the world – leading to the coastline along the Indian and Atlantic seaboard of South Africa moving around one hundred kilometers out to sea beyond today’s beaches. That poses a challenge as we investigate origins of man and woman on the sub-continent. Much of the archaeological evidence is now under hundreds of feet of sea water way offshore. We do have some material inland, as well as the shellfish middens that began to appear much later in the record which allows us to piece together an increasingly accurate picture of what was going on. South Africa’s prehistory has been divided into a series of phases based on broad patterns of technology. The primary distinction is between a reliance on chipped and flaked stone implements which is referred to as the Stone Age which begins with the peolithic period 2.5 million years ago – that’s the early stone age. The middle stone age starts 150 000 years ago and ends around 30 000 BC, while the late stone age ends 2000 years ago. That is when new people arrived in South Africa who had the ability to smelt iron weapons and tools – the Iron Age had arrived with these farmers from central Africa. The first peoples of the region predated both the San and Khoe and of course we have no clear idea of their language. But we do have Mitocondrial DNA evidence and cultural artifacts. First, let’s consider Hunter-gatherers who foraged along the seashore for shells and fish, and cooked seafood over fire -the original people of this land. As there are a lot of hollowed caves along the South Eastern coastline of South Africa, many were extended and improved by the people living in them.

This is episode 2 and we’re continue our geostrophic tour around the beautiful landscape of Southern Africa after a brief geology excursion in episode 1. Like the rest of Africa south of the Sahara, the landscape features a dominant high central plateau surrounded by coastal lowlands. Any glance at a proper map will show you that. One of the more prominent features is the Great Escarpment between KwaZulu Natal and Lesotho otherwise known as the Drakensburg. That was caused by lava flows which are more resistant to weathering than conglomerates or sandstone. Most of this lava has eroded away but a small patch remains and covers much of Lesotho today. This mountainous area has a major part to play in our story, although these days South African’s are pretty disparaging about the tiny mountain kingdom. Some regard it as the tenth province. That would be an historical mistake although Lesotho is utterly dependent on South Africa for its income – but that wasn’t always the case. Consider what happened when the Boers first arrived at Basotho King Moshoeshoe’s door. The trekkers were escaping from British rule in the 1830s. The Boers bartered meat and other goods for grain from the Sotho. At that point migrating Dutch were not very good at planting or growing grains in sustainable volumes but much better at livestock management. They were more like the Khoekhoe and San – less like the Xhosa and Zulu. This fact will sit most uncomfortably with those who believe some races are somehow genetically predisposed to be more effective farmers than others. The Lesotho mountains were eroded in the south West by tributaries of the Orange River which drain the highlands away from the escarpment, making it rugged and particularly scenic landscape as the rivers head off to the Atlantic Ocean. These mountains can rise to ten thousand feet with the highest peak of Thabana Ntlenyana at 11 500 feet.

This is episode one of what is going to be a fairly lengthy series which by could extend over more than three years as we burrow deeply into a truly unique part of planet earth. Each podcast will take around 20 minutes and at times I’ll be drawing on guests to provide expertise. Just a note of thanks to one of the most unique and informed people I’ve ever met – apart from my wife of course!! Through the academic year of 2000 and 2001 I was fortunate to attend a series of lectures at Harvard University delivered by the remarkable Professor John Stilgoe who is the Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape Development. Just to give you some idea about how erudite and informed he is – John was the youngest tenured professor ever at Harvard at age 24. His understanding of historical connections through a broad array of sources and his factual precision was life-changing. I dedicate this series to John Stilgoe thank you for those 2 hour lecturers that kept me enthralled with your sophisticated idiosyncratic presentation style and facts which remain with me for the rest of my life. So to the topic – In this episode will begin with pre-history where we understand that humans are merely a recent layer of mammal on top of ancient rocky outcrops. Parts of South Africa feature some of the oldest rocks you will find anywhere on the planet. And the oldest rocks bequeath the greatest wealth and southern Africa is especially well endowed. 2 billion years ago volcanic spasms squeezed magma through the crust and laid it down – an island of solid rock 400 kilometers long and 10 kilometres thick. It was one piece. This is crucial to understand what treasures it containes and have been tapped by Africans and then Europeans.