Chapter 7 in the Series WHO STOLE THE LAND?
—The period 1816 to 1836 represents a defining chapter in the history of Southern Africa. It covered one of the most calamitous and horrific upheavals ever suffered by Mankind. It scattered people almost to the very equator and changed the face of Southern Africa. It unleashed a savage brutality and a reduction in the stature and condition of Mankind such as had never been seen before, nor since. It is unsurpassed in the annals of history of this planet for its extreme horror and direct human violence. The disregard for human life was total and absolute.
Under the Black ANC Government of South Africa in this century, it has become customary to suggest that what we are about to describe never even happened. I leave the reader the evidence to decide. As author, I trust the map at the end of the chapter will ultimately provide the requisite clarity on what the northern interior of South Africa looked like before the 1836-1838 Great Trek of the Afrikaner put an end to the two greatest powers behind the Mfecane, Dingane and Mzilikazi. That great exodus from the Cape Colony will be the subject of our next chapter.
While there are many sources covering the specifics of the Mfecane inside South Africa from the points of view of individual nations or parties, we shall rely in very broad terms on the excellent paper1 by Dr. Peter Becker from 1968. To this we shall add some further evidence, as and where required.
We shall approach the subject as follows: First we shall discuss Shaka’s nature and martial culture. Then we turn to his efforts to clear Natal to the north of his home, then to the south, and then we shall proceed to the westward over the mountains and follow the destructive careers of four different groups that he directly or indirectly dislodged. This forms the historic backbone of the Mfecane.
♦ Shaka ka Senzangakhona
The image below shows senior Zulu men at a celebration in 2016 in Durban in honour of King Senzangakhona, father of Shaka. Click on the image to see the address delivered by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, whose great grandfather, Mnyamana, led the Zulu forces against the British in 1879. One cannot help but have respect for these men with their faith in their lineage and tradition. Over and above this, Buthelezi is a political moderate, as things go in Africa. But, there is another side to this Zulu coin, and this chapter is about that other side.
In the early 1820s, there were at least three white men in the camp of amaZulu King Shaka, being Henry Fynn, John Farewell and Nathaniel Isaacs, the last of whom described Shaka’s government as follows2
“He finally succeeded in forming a sort of “Zulucratical” government, if I may so term it, for I do not know anything resembling it either in ancient or modern history, a form that defies both description and detail for it cannot be comprehended or digested: such a one as gives protection to no living creature; that puts the subject at the mercy of a despotic king, whose nod may consign him to death, innocent or guilty, and compel the father to murder his innocent and unoffending child, force brother to execute brother, and the husband to impale his wife.“
Isaacs describes3 how Shaka could, at his whim, have anyone executed by any person standing nearby, even father or son, and how he would then send men to destroy the victim’s home and family. He controlled his people by means of abject terror. He created hutted residential corrals (called kraals in South Africa) for young boys to prepare them for the military. These boys were then encouraged to beat boys who were not yet committed to these kraals until they too joined. They were formed into regiments and accompanied trained warriors in war. In summary, Isaacs says:4
“The world has heard of monsters. Rome had her Nero; the Huns their Attila, and Syracuse her Dionysius; the East has likewise produced her tyrants; but for ferocity Chaka has exceeded them all; he has outstripped in sanguinary executions all who have gone before him, and in any country.”
To this, he finally adds5,
“He had an insatiable thirst for the blood of his subjects and indulged in it with inhuman joy. Nothing within the power of man could restrain him from his propensities. He was a monster, a compound of vice and ferocity without one virtue to redeem his name from that infamy to which history will consign it.”
By way of illustration of Shaka’s bloodlust, here is Henry Fynn’s account6 of Shaka’s campaign against the remnants of the amaNdwande in Northern Natal, whom he suspected of an assassination attempt in which he had been wounded while Fynn was there:
“The shrieks now became terrific. The remnant of the enemy’s army sought shelter in an adjoining wood out of which they were soon driven. Then began a slaughter of the women and children. They were all put to death. […] The numbers of the hostile tribe including women and children could not have been less than 40,000.[…] Early next morning Chaka arrived and each regiment, previous to its inspection by him, had picked out its cowards and put them to death.[…]
Having washed, they appear before the king when thanks or praise are the last thing they have to expect, censure being loudly expressed on account of something that had not been done as it should have been, and they get well off if one or two chiefs and a few dozen soldiers are not struck off the army list by being put to death.[…]
During the afternoon, a woman and a child of the defeated tribe, the latter aged about ten years, were brought before the king and he made every enquiry respecting Sikunyana: what had been his plans when he heard of the intended attack; and what was the general feeling as to its result. To induce her to set aside all fear, he gave her some beer and a dish of beef which she ate while giving all the information she was possessed of. When her recital was finished, both mother and child were sentenced to instant death.”
Lieut. Francis Farewell7, the man who sought land in Natal from Shaka, says :
“History perhaps does not furnish an instance of a more despotic and cruel monster than Chaka. His subjects fall at his word, he is acknowledged to be the most powerful ruler for many hundred miles. He came to the throne after the death of his father; his elder brother should have succeeded, but through some treachery on his part he got him put to death and it therefore devolved upon Chaka.”
This is the mutually independent testimony of men who lived with Shaka (left); men who tended Shaka’s own wounds when he survived the above assassination attempt. Do not be fooled by latter-day attempts re-cast Shaka as a virtuous civil leader. The references have been provided above; just read them. It really is that simple; one merely needs to have a DESIRE for the truth. This is not television; this is not Hollywood; this is the real thing, and it is vastly more frightening.
While it is hopefully evident that I have huge respect for the Zulu people and their leaders, the fact is that the man who welded them together as a people was a bloodthirsty tyrannical monster who thrived on spilling the blood of his own people and of others. And this was the monstrous entity at the epicentre of the Mfecane, the source of the human hurricane that devastated all about him. The events surrounding the death of Shaka’s mother, as witnessed by Fynn8 , may give the reader a clearer grasp of Shaka, the man himself.
1. Shaka’s Northern Campaign
In northern Natal, east of the Buffalo, south of the Mfolozi and north of the Tugela Rivers, Shaka managed to unite a number of smaller tribes with his amaZulu, including the Mthethwa people of his former mentor, Dingiswayo. In April 1818, against all odds, he beat off an attack by the all-powerful and closely-related amaNdwandwe under Zwide at the Battle of Gqokli Hill, near the present town of Ulundi (below). Jeff Berry, an American, put together a superb piece of work9 about that battle.
Two years later, Shaka shattered the amaNdwandwe at the Battle of Mhlatuze River. Theal’s10 excellent research in the Portuguese records provides us with the consequences: two major groups of the defeated amaNdwandwe, one under Shoshangane and the other under Swangendaba, fled northward, east of the Lebombo Mountains, into Mozambique. The first group under Shoshangane would become known as the amaShangane. In Mozambique they were given the name aba’Gaza (oddly using the Sotho “aba-” prefix denoting “people”) and became the founders of the massive and powerful Gaza Empire. To this day, that part of Mozambique is known as Gaza.
Many of those overrun by the amaShangane were vha’Tsonga and this remains an issue to this day. The vha’Tsonga and amaShangane occupy the same general territory in South Africa today, but the uninformed should not dare confuse a Tsonga man with a Shangane. He would be looking for trouble and would be sharply corrected. Calling an Irishman an “Englishman” instead would be more appropriate.
The amaShangane would remain in control in Southern Mozambique from 1833 up to the 1850s, defeating the Portuguese in 1833 and merely tolerating their presence thereafter. They pushed their empire all the way up to the Save River and into what is now Zimbabwe, wiping out or subjugating all the tribes as they progressed. Nothing could stand against their Zulu style “Head of the Bull” war machine. David Livingstone reported11 that they were in control on the south Bank of the Zambezi River in the late 1850s and that they collected taxes/tribute (see image below) from the Portuguese:
“The Landeens or Zulus are lords of the right bank of the Zambesi; and the Portuguese, by paying this fighting tribe a pretty heavy annual tribute, practically admit this. Regularly every year come the Zulus in force to Senna and Shupanga for their accustomed tribute. The few wealthy merchants of Senna groan under the burden, for it falls chiefly on them.”
Livingstone produced the sketch below of the tax collecting event.
Theal explains12 how the second group under chief Swangendaba proceeded all the way up the west bank of Lake Nyassa between Malawi and Tanzania, after surviving an attack by Shoshangane. From there, they attacked other people in what is now Zambia and Tanzania, practically as far north as the Equator! In terms of distance, imagine events in the US state of Georgia impacting Ecuador in South America in the 1820s!
2. Shaka’s Southern Campaign
To clear any threats to his south, Shaka struck in that direction, chasing many tribes out of territories bordering on his favoured country north of the Tugela River (Zululand). He effectively denuded the country between the Tugela River and the Mzimvubu River (below) far to the south, creating a no-man’s-land that squashed various Nguni nations into one another between the Mzimvubu River and the Fish River in the south.
Becker (reference 1 above), describes the situation as follows,
“Between the years 1816 and 1828, Shaka’s army swept across what is today Zululand, Natal and Pondoland as far as the Umzimvubu river. The clans were decimated and subjugated and incorporated in the Zulu empire. And on each occasion when his regiments returned to barracks they assembled before their King at Bulawayo – the Place of Killing – or Gibixhegu, as Shaka’s most famous military kraal was to become known where they would bellow “Ngathi! Ngathi! By us! We are the victors!” Shaka would then scrutinize his warriors stabbing spears for by the number held point upwards he was able to judge how many of his warriors had killed at least one of the enemy in battle. Returning to his throne Shaka called upon each of the indunas [captains] in turn to describe the battles recently fought and to bring both heroes and cowards before him. He took pains to praise and reward all who had won distinction in battle, but he had cowards removed to the outskirts of Bulawayo, to the isiHlahla Samagwala, or Coward’s Bush, to be impaled or clubbed to death.”
By 1835, Shaka was in control from the Mzimvubu River northward. Gardiner, on his overland travel to Port Natal (later Durban) reached the Mzimvubu River in early January 1835. Gardiner records that, when he enquired about the country ahead across the river, Chief Faku of the amaPondo explained13 that the Zulu were an “angry people” and that Gardiner had better not enter that country.
Among the groups driven out of Natal by Shaka were the amaBhaca who ended up just south of the Mzimvubu among Faku’s amaMpondo. The Natal people who sought sanctuary further south with the isiXhosa speaking peoples became known as the “Fingoes”, the “wanderers” or “beggar people”. King Hintsa of the amaGcaleka Xhosa reduced them to slavery. Later, in 1835, Hintsa would infamously say about them14, “Are they not my dogs?”
Some concept of the state of the region devastated by Shaka can be gained from the description of the amaDungwe in that region15 in Lieutenant-Governor Scott’s later “Despatch No. 12” (Theophilus Shepstone was likely the author):
“…the tribes became so dispersed by fear of Chaka that, to protect themselves, they attacked every man his neighbour. Bands of men traversed the country in search of food. Where they found cultivation they, if strong enough, destroyed the cultivators and were in turn destroyed by stronger parties until, at length, to cultivate the soil was to ensure destruction. No tribe was strong enough to defend itself and cultivation ceased; famine reigned everywhere and destroyed thousands. First dogs were eaten; they did not last long. At length, Umdava of the Amadunge tribe commenced the eating of human beings and soon collected a band of men which became a scourge to the whole country. It happened that Boiya, the chief of the Amadunge, was so undefended that he was himself attacked and captured by cannibals and eaten by them, together with some of his tribe.”
Fynn16 described the situation in Natal as follows:
“The region devastated by the marauding chiefs exceeds the Cape Colony in extent. It is for the greater part quite void of inhabitants. Many of the inhabitants who escaped from the spear were left to perish by starvation. […]… In my first journey from Natal to the Umtata in 1824 I witnessed very awful scenes. Six thousand unhappy beings having scarcely a human appearance were scattered over this country feeding on every description of animal, and driven by their hungry craving in many instances to devour their fellows.”
3. Shaka Strikes Westward: The Dominos Fall
The amaSwazi, under King Sobhuza across the Pongola River, kept Shaka in check in the interior to the north and northwest, while the bitterly cold winter high ground to the direct west did not suit the subtropically oriented amaZulu. But that still left the amaHlubi in the grass country to his west and the amaNgwane, located on the White Mfolozi River (above) between Shaka and the amaSwazi. We also still have to discuss the Khumalo subgroup of the amaZulu. This group was led by a man named Mzilikazi who was, at least at this point, a loyal servant of Shaka. Mzilikazi was a grandson of Zwide of the amaNdwandwe above. It is Shaka’s relationships with these last three groups that would have tremendous effects across the Drakensberg to the west.
The following image should give the reader an idea of the barrier that the Drakensberg, or Kathlamba (isiZulu:”barrier of spears”) represents to a subtropical people who usually go about half naked. The range runs like a solid wall southwest-to-northeast to the west of the Natal subtropics. The mountains are flat-topped and 11,000 feet high. Behind them, in their southern range, are massive tracts of very high and uninhabited land. There are passes over these mountains to the north of today’s Lesotho, where the range is lower and less formidable.
Eventually, Shaka attacked Matiwane’s amaNgwane. Matiwane tried to flee, but to the east and south were the amaZulu, to the north were the amaSwazi. The amaHlubi were between him and safety. So, around 1820 Matiwane attacked17 the amaHlubi, killing chief Bhungane and his Number One son. Many of the amaHlubi fled through Natal to the isiXhosa speaking world south of the Mzimvubu River (see further above). However, the portion of the amaHlubi under Mpangazitha, second son of chief Bhungane, elected to cross the mountains and ascend onto the Free State highland territory where they attacked Mantatisi’s ba’Tlokwa. In the interior, Mpangazitha would become known as “Pakalita”. Some distance and time behind him came Matiwane and his amaNgwane, all trying to escape Shaka, all hungry, all destitute, and all hell bent on getting hold of someone else’s cattle and food. Shaka’s reign of terror and desire to be surrounded by a no-man’s-land was about to start a catastrophic cascade of horror among the Sotho peoples of the interior.
Sidebar:
At this point we run the risk of getting completely lost in the details of who attacked whom and stole whose cattle, who then stole who else’s cattle, and who murdered whose brother to steal whose women, harvest, or land. In order to avoid this trap, we shall focus on the four major invading parties. This will require us to move backward and forward in time a few years. We describe these parties in an order that will clarify their domino effect and that will show their ever escalating impact. It is largely these four parties that will determine the demographics of South Africa outside the Cape Colony by 1836, which is when our next chapter starts.
♦ Mpangazitha of the amaHlubi
The otherwise fierce and militarily competent ba’Tlokwa were taken completely by surprise by Mpangazitha and put to flight. We shall soon return in time to follow their career as they morph into the Dread Mantatee Horde. After routing the ba’Tlokwa, Mpangazitha turned south along the Caledon River, followed soon after by Matiwane of the amaNgwane. Theal18 describes how a great battle was fought on the banks of the Caledon River in the later Free State between Mpangazitha’s amaHlubi and Matiwane’s amaNgwane. At this point, both groups were hundreds of kilometres from their own homelands. The amaHlubi and the amaNgwane fought up and down along the Caledon River, but in the end the amaHlubi were roundly defeated19 with great loss of life in 1825. In the last stand of the amaHlubi, Mpangazitha was killed near Mohales Hoek at the southwestern end of the present Lesotho. Most of the young Hlubi men were then taken to be carriers for the amaNgwane. Those who escaped this fate placed themselves under the protection of Moshesh of the ba’Sotho, who was systematically building a nation with a core of Sothos and a populace of refugees. Today this branch of the amaHlubi may still be found in the Herschel-Sterkspruit district of the East Cape, bordering Lesotho. Some of the amaHlubi were scattered among the Xhosa peoples and became part of the general “Fingo” refugee population east of the British Cape Colony. The side-effects of the Mfecane were starting to impact the Cape Colony.
♦ Matiwane of the amaNgwane
Matiwane, not content with the defeat of Mpangazitha, settled temporarily at the foot of the Western Drakensberg below Moshesh of the ba’Sotho, who had fled with his people from Butha Buthe onto the mountain fortress of Thaba Bosiu/Bosigo (below). Moshesh did what he could to maintain a semblance of peace between his ba’Sotho and Matiwane’s amaNgwane. Moshesh even swore fealty to Shaka in Natal in order to keep Matiwane in check. Naturally, a present of cattle went with this arrangement.
Shaka eventually sent an army over the Drakensberg to attack Matiwane, who was duly defeated. Matiwane first crossed20 the Orange River southward in 1825 and then again in force in 1827. This time he penetrated into the amaThembo country east of the Black Kei River. The amaThembo fled west across the Black Kei into the Cape Colony. At the same time, Shaka was attacking the amaPondo south of the Mzimvubu River. These two Nguni “Zulu” armies were converging near the Eastern Frontier of the Cape Colony. It was time for the Cape Colonial government to take action. They called out the Afrikaner Commandos, sent a British Force and a Khoi Force, and also obtained military support from the various Xhosa nations.
On 27 August 1829, this combined force attacked21 Matiwane near where Umtata is today, mistakenly believing it to be the Zulu Army. Shaka had actually meanwhile returned to Zululand. It made little difference, as Matiwane refused to parley with the British anyway. He was utterly defeated and his people scattered over the amaXhosa country as “Fingoes”. Matiwane, stripped of his army, fled with a few men hundreds of miles back to Zululand beyond the Tugela River. As fate would have it, Shaka had meanwhile been murdered22 by his equally despotic half-brother, Dingane, on 24 September 1828. Matiwane and his men were granted asylum by Dingane, who promptly murdered Matiwane on his hill of execution23. Dingane named the copse on that hill Kwa Matiwane, the “Place/Home of Matiwane”. Remember this, because it will enter our story in the next chapter. A few amaNgwane who survived this circular odyssey fled to the Swazi King, their closest kin, but that asylum also failed, and they then fled to the valley of the towering Mont-aux-Sources in the northern Drakensberg where they may still be found today in the 21st century.
The events described above are shown graphically on the the map below (click to enlarge). It should be pointed out that the various nations or tribes of people were typically under 100,000 in population. Furthermore, the locations shown are approximate. Some groups, such as the ba’Kwena, were spread more widely than others. The legend of the maps applies to the collection of three maps in this chapter, so that a particular map may not contain a specific legend item, for example “failed mission station”:
♦ The Dread Mantatee Horde
We now wind back the clock to the early 1820s when Mpangazitha attacked the ba’Tlokwa, as decribed above. The latter fled westward en masse to beyond the present Winburg (see the maps at the end of the chapter). The description below follows for the most part Ellenberger’s historic summary24. We shall add evidence as and when required.
As they went, the ba’Tlokwa destroyed all in their way. Led by the inhuman Mantatisi and her murderous son Sekonyela, the ba’Tlokwa metastisized into the Dread Mantatee Horde; something akin to a bloodthirsty, starving, cannibal locust plague. Their reputation preceded them. Entire nations fled upon just hearing the word “Mantatee”. Here was an entirely new form of human existence: an entire Sotho-speaking nation with a long-standing tradition of fighting, now on the move—man, woman and child, old and young, with whatever inadequate cattle they had. As they proceeded, they left behind a trail of destruction and dead bodies. And along with those were left the old and the wounded and the infirm to degenerate into cannibalism or fall prey to wild animals. One ba’Fokeng group overrun, displaced, and possibly (see below) absorbed by Mantatisi was led by Sebetwane, whom we shall meet again below.
Beyond the future Winburg, Mantatisi swung the Mantatee Horde south, back down the Caledon River, where they clashed with Moshesh’s ba’Sotho. His mountain fastness proved impregnable. She then ranged south down the Caledon River until she was eventually stopped by the Orange River in flood25. She then moved back north, fighting, killing, plundering and destroying as she went.
Sidebar:
There has been in recent times some dispute as to whether the Horde in the following several paragraphs was indeed the Mantatee under Mantatisi. Those attacked at the time by this Horde certainly believed them to be the Mantatee. However, since the term “Mantatee” had by 1823 already become used for different Sotho/Tswana groups, the question is, WHICH “Mantatee” were attacking? In their zeal to trash the history as reported by 19th and 20th century historians and in their desperate desire to replace it with a “politically correct” one, some have gone so far as to suggest that what follows never even happened. I suggest the reader decides for him-/herself after reading the report by Moffat below. If this “Horde” were NOT Mantatisi’s, then it lessens the historical burden on Mantatisi, but it more strongly illustrates the general distruction wrought by, and general disregard for life on the part of, the Sotho peoples, particularly as regards their much less warlike Tswana relatives.
Near the northern limits of Moshesh’s stronghold, the Horde (whichever horde it may be) struck out to the northwest. According to Ellenberger they found the country of the ba’Taung north of the Vet River in the later Free State already deserted26. Crossing the Vaal River, they clashed with the ba’Rolong of Siffunello (shown as “Rolong*” on the maps above and below) on 18 January 1823, precipitating the latter into retreat. It was in the midst of this retreat that the ba’Rolong met the Wesleyan (Methodist) missionary Rev. Samuel Broadbent, who then helped the ba’Rolong by setting up a mission station at Makwassie, just north of the Vaal River and 200 miles southwest of the present Johannesburg. Broadbent describes27 the drama of meeting the ba’Rolong in their flight.
“…we saw clouds of dust ascend into the air, then heard the lowing of hundreds of cattle, bleating of flocks of sheep and goats, driven by a mixed multitude of men, women, and children, accompanied by a host of armed warriors—These were a part of the tribe of Bechuanas, the Barolongs, to whom we were journeying.”
Broadbent also describes28 the cannabalistic disaster in the wake of the Mantatee Horde:
“… I was surprised to behold a fire, at which two females were occupied in cooking, while a man was laid, apparently asleep, near them… Upon going near the fire, however, we found them employed in cooking the leg of a human being! We were now satisfied of this being a part of the retreating enemy, a division of whom had evidently rested in this place on the preceding day.
“…before our departure, I returned to the wretched beings near the wood, and now observed the skeleton of a full grown man, part of the body of another, a leg and an arm having been cut off; the head was opened, and, the bowels being drawn out, the internal part of the body was exposed to view. One of the women was roasting part of the leg upon the coals, and the other was engaged with the man in eating with savage greediness the portion which had just been cooked. I was sick at the sight and felt what I cannot describe, especially on seeing the man break the bones of the deceased with a stone, and suck them with apparent delight.”
When the Horde reached the Tswana peoples on the Marico River, the ba’Tswana either fell or gave way until the invaders came up against the ba’Ngwaketse, who stopped them. The attackers then simply turned south and worked their way through the various ba’Tswana groups, heading for the most southern ones. The surviving ba’Tswana fled westward into the margins of the Kalahari desert country. However, the Ba’Tlhaping, being the southernmost ba’Tswana people, were now under the ministry of Robert Moffat, missionary of the London Missionary Society, and later to be father-in-law of David Livingstone. The mission station (below) was created in 1815 at New Litakoo29, which would later become Kuruman. Some thirty miles northeast was (Old) Litakoo, more properly called Dithakong. It is here that the Horde was to be stopped.
Moffat, fully believing the attacking Horde to be specifically the dreaded Mantatee Horde, rode for military help to the mixed-descent Griquas further south under the leadership of Waterboer, given that the London Mission had a station there as well.
Comment by the author:
The fact that a British missionary actually went to fetch an army bears some pondering here. Moffat’s London Missionary Society (LMS) always had convoluted values, and where they went, the British Army was sure to follow anyway.
It took some days for Waterboer’s Griqua, equipped with horses and muskets, to get to the Ba’Tlhaping. They stopped the Horde of some 40-50,000 dead in its tracks at Dithakong. They were lucky in that only a portion of the enemy force engaged in the battle. We let Robert Moffat (below) relate the event30:
“…the enemy commenced their terrible howl, and at once discharged their clubs and javelins. Their black dismal appearance, and savage fury, with their hoarse and stentorian voices, were calculated to daunt; and the Griquas, on their first attack, wisely retreated to a short distance, and again drew up. Waterboer, the chief, commenced firing, and leveled one of their warriors to the ground; several more instantly shared the same fate. […] Though they beheld with astonishment the dead, and the stricken warriors writhing in the dust, they looked with lion-like fierceness at the horsemen, and yelled vengeance, violently wrenching the weapons from the hands of their dying companions, to supply those they had discharged at their antagonists.
“Soon after the battle commenced, the Bechuanas [the ba’Tlhaping Tswana – Moffat’s congregation] came up, and united in playing on the enemy with poisoned arrows, but they were soon driven back; half a dozen of the fierce Mantatees made the whole body scamper off in wild disorder. After two hours and a half’s combat, the Griquas, finding their ammunition fast diminishing, at the almost certain risk of loss of life, began to storm; when the enemy gave way, taking a westerly direction. …[…]… At this moment an awful scene was presented to the view. The undulating country around was covered with warriors, all in motion, so that it was difficult to say who were enemies or who were friends. Clouds of dust were rising from the immense masses who, appeared flying with terror, or pursuing with fear. To the alarming confusion was added the bellowing of oxen, the vociferations of the yet un-vanquished warriors, mingled with the groans of the dying, and the widows’ piercing wail, and the cries from infant voices.
“…information was brought that the half of their forces, under Chuane were reposing in the town, within sound of the guns, perfectly regardless of the fate of the other division, under the command of Karaganye…[…]… When both parties were united, they set fire to all parts of the town, and appeared to be taking their departure, proceeding in an immense body towards the north. If their number may be calculated by the space of ground occupied by the entire body, it must have amounted to upwards of forty thousand.
[Based on the passage immediately above, Eldredge31 quite credibly explains that the attackers were in fact the displaced ba’Fokeng under Sebetwane, the ba’Phuting under Tsowane, and the ba’Hlakwana under Nkarahanye (see “Chuane” and “Karaganye” above).]
“As soon as they retired from the spot where they had been encamped, the Bechuanas, [Moffat’s “Christianised” flock], like voracious wolves, began to plunder and despatch the wounded men, and to butcher the women and children with their spears and war-axes…[…]… There were several instances of wounded men being surrounded by fifty Bechuanas, but it was not till life was almost extinct that a single one would allow himself to be conquered. I saw more than one instance of a man fighting boldly, with ten or twelve spears and arrows fixed in his body…[…]…not one of our number was killed, and only one slightly wounded. One Bechuana lost his life while too eagerly seeking for plunder. The slain of the enemy was between four and five hundred.”
Despite the defining battle, the word “Mantatee”, whether applicable to the Horde attacking Dithakong or not, still inspired abject terror in the ba’Tlhaping who had just participated in the defeat of the Horde. In the words of Moffat32:
“A woman who had the day before but scarcely escaped the deadly weapons of the enemy, ran the whole night and on reaching the threshold of one of the houses, fainted with fatigue, and fell to the ground. On recovering, the first words she articulated were, “The Mantatees!” This went through the thousands like an electric shock.”
Mantatisi, whether the attacking Horde at Dithakong be hers or not, eventually settled on the mountain fortress of Yoalaboholo33 to the north of the present Lesotho. The overwhelming power of the Dread Mantatee Horde had been broken and her son Sekonyela was now in command. In this way, the north of “Basutoland” became “Sekonyela country” and the south remained “Moshesh country”. The two would pursue a low key cattle-rustling war for at least two decades and each would acquire missionaries to write eloquently in their favour. Rev. Eugène Casalis of the Paris Mission settled with Moshesh in 1833, loyally serving Moshesh for many years, essentially acting as his Secretary of Foreign (White) Affairs, frustrating the British no little. Rev. James Allison of the Weslyan (Methodist) Mission settled at Imperani in 1834, serving Sekonyela.
Far to the north, Sebetwane, the Sotho chief whom we met at the start of the Mantatee story, eventually fought his way through all the Tswana peoples along the eastern fringe of what is now Botswana to settle in what is now Zambia, beyond the Zambesi River. There, his people became the powerful ma’Kololo. David Livingstone reports that Sebetwane’s people actually became part of the Mantatee Horde, to be defeated by the Griqua at Dithakong (see above) and that he ONLY THEN went north34. He had the benefit of hearing that directly from Sebetwane. Livingstone also knew very well that his friend Sebetwane sold Black people into slavery35.
With the Sotho peoples chased into the Drakensberg Mountains and the various Tswana peoples north of the Ba’Tlhaping scattered into the fringes of the Kalahari Desert, one would think that the worst had happened. However, up to this point, their tormentors had come, destroyed, and had left. The Sotho in their mountains could largely survive Nguni onslaughts, but the Tswana people of the Western Transvaal (now the Northwest Province) and the Ba’Pedi North Sotho of the Central Transvaal interior (now the Limpopo Province) were completely exposed to the next onslaught. It would be the final death blow meted out to them as part of the Mfecane.
♦ Mzilikazi and the Matabele
In June 1822, Mzilikazi (below), the leader of the Khumalo subgroup under Shaka’s sovereignty, fell out with his master and fled with his followers into the country north of the Vaal River. Initially he formed an alliance with the Ndzundza portion of the amaNdebele, an Nguni people who had been living beyond the Vaal River for some centuries. At the time, their headquarters was near the present Middelburg. From there, they jointly raided the ba’Pedi (North Sothos) and practically completely destroyed their settlements. Mzilikazi killed five of ba’Pedi king Thulare’s nine sons, so that one remaining son, Sekwati, fled with a body of ba’Pedi to the safety of the ba’Venda country far to the north, near the Soutpansberg. Some sources claim they fled past the Soutpansberg.
Mzilikazi then settled on the Vaal River, but in mid-1827 he moved north to warmer climes in the area west of the present Pretoria. He created a first military strongpoint on the Apies River in what are now the northern subtropical suburbs of Pretoria. Then he swept through the Magaliesberg via Kommandonek near the present Hartbeespoort Dam, creating a strongpoint there. In his third move, he set himself up near present-day Rustenburg and massacred the remaining ba’Fokeng Tswana groups in the area. By 1829, his kingdom stretched from the Vaal River in the south to the Limpopo River northwest of today’s Thabazimbi. Most of the ba’Tswana settlements were desolate.
In late 1829, Mzilikazi invited Robert Moffat of the London Missionary Society’s station near Kuruman to meet him. Moffat’s journey gives us the opportunity to see the devastation wreaked by the “Horde” and the fear inspired by Mzilikazi.
Moffat set off with a party of senior Matabele delegates, following essentially the route of today’s N14 highway to around the present Vryburg and then that of the N18 to Mafeking/Mahikeng on the Molopo River, from where he went to Zeerust, then Mosega, capital of the ba’Hurutshe36. According to Moffat, they had been reduced by the Horde (he says “Mantatee”) to surviving on game, roots and berries. Their assailants had taken all their cattle and they were living in abject terror that the next scourge, Mzilikazi, might target them, as indeed he later did.
From Mosega/Zeerust they appear to have followed a route north of the present N4 highway, because this route took them directly to the vicinity of Boshoek on the present R565. Near here, Moffat happened on a unique phenomenon: a remnant group of terrified ba’Fokeng hiding in tree houses built in a single giant ficus tree37. He thought they were “baKone” (ba’Kwena), but Tswana specialists such as Bammann insist that they were ba’Fokeng38. Moffat describes them as having been reduced to subsisting on bowls of locusts. Bamman states about the ba’Fokeng39,
After the complete collapse of the tribe, following the murderous attacks of Mzilikazi, there remained a number of survivors. They were scattered to the four winds. They had no contact with one another.
Bammann further explains that a local ba’Fokeng chief, Mokgatle, after the defeat of his people by Mzilikazi in 1828, somehow hid out in a cave in the mountains now named after him by the later White Trekkers, the Magaliesberg.
Beyond the point of the fig tree, the Moffat party was travelling down the “inside”/northern & eastern side of the curved Kashan Mountains, the Magaliesberg. They passed many ruins of the homes of the ba’Kwena people. The segment of Moffat’s book addressing this subject is striking. He describes the desolation that had been made of the country40:
Nothing now remained but dilapidated walls, heaps of stones, and rubbish, mingled with human skulls, which, to a contemplative mind, told their ghastly tale. These are now the abodes of reptiles and beasts of prey. Occasionally a large stone-fold might be seen occupied by the cattle of the Matabele, who had caused the land thus to mourn.
A ba’Kwena servant of Mzilikazi’s ambassadors described41 for Moffat what had happened to his people at the hand of Mzilikazi at this place:
“The clash of shields was the signal of triumph. Our people fled with their cattle to the top of yonder mount. The Matabele entered the town with the roar of the lion; they pillaged and fired the houses, speared the mothers, and cast their infants to the flames. The sun went down. The victors emerged from the smoking plain and pursued their course, surrounding the base of yonder hill. They slaughtered cattle, they danced and sang till the dawn of day; they ascended and killed till their hands were weary of the spear. Stooping to the ground on which we stood, he took up a little dust in his hand, blowing it off and holding out his naked palm, he added: ‘That is all that remains of the great chief of the blue coloured cattle’.”
Moffat eventually arrived at Mzilikazi’s actual capital, which was then at the place now called Kommandonek. Even today a nearby crossing of the mountain is known as Silkaatsnek (Eng: Mzilikazi’s “neck” – referring in Afrikaans to a saddle between two mountain peaks). This is located where a significant river passes through the Magaliesberg, 20 miles west of the centre of the South African capital of Pretoria.
As they would do so often in future, a missionary from the London Society was about to establish a friendship with a murderous despot (Moffat with Mzilikazi, Owen with Dingane) or with slave traders (Livingstone with Sebetewane and Tipu Tip). Mzilikazi would decree that those who would approach him in friendship had to do so from the direction of Kuruman where he considered the missionary Robert Moffat the “King” of Kuruman.
Moffat, however, leaves us with a description of the execution of a proud Matabele warrior in his own presence42:
“He was led forth, a man walking on each side. My eye followed him till he reached the top of a precipice, over which he was precipitated into the deep pool of the river beneath, where the crocodiles, accustomed to such meals, were yawning to devour him ere he could reach the bottom!”
Today, the river aptly bears the name Crocodile River and the Hartebeestpoort Dam is located in the fateful execution gorge where this river passes through the Magaliesberg.
Moffat was obviously extremely upset by all this. A few pages later he describes the Matabele approach to warfare and the consequences for those defeated43:
“The Matabele were not satisfied with simply capturing cattle; nothing less than the entire subjugation, or destruction of the vanquished, could quench their insatiable thirst for power. Thus when they conquered a town, the terrified inhabitants were driven in a mass to the outskirts, when the parents and all the married women were slaughtered on the spot. Such as dared to be brave in the defence of their town, their wives, and their children, are reserved for a still more terrible death; dry grass, saturated with fat, is tied round their naked bodies, and then set on fire. The youths and girls are loaded as beasts of burden with the spoils of the town, to be marched to the homes of their victors. If the town be in an isolated position, the helpless infants are either left to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by beasts of prey…[…] Should a suspicion arise in the savage bosom that these helpless innocents may fall into the hands of friends, they will prevent this by collecting them into a fold, and after raising over them a pile of brushwood, apply the flaming torch to it, when the town, but lately the scene of mirth, becomes a heap of ashes.”
That Dingane was the threat uppermost in Mzilikazi’s mind, is quite clear from Moffat’s description of his departure from the Matabele capital at Kommandonek. After Moffat had, at great peril to himself, lectured the savage king on the subject of his wars and all his killing44, Mzilikazi’s last words to Moffat were,
“Pray to your God to keep me from the power of Dingaan”
He was right to worry. The very next spring, around September 1830, Dingane sent his army to attack Mzilikazi. But the Matabele king knew the tactics of the Zulu. When the Zulu finally retreated, they had lost three regiments. Possibly precipitated thereto by the clash with Dingane, Mzilikazi turned his attentions to the west and attacked the various Tswana nations to his West. By the early 1830s, Mzilikazi had driven the various Tswana people either southwest toward the ba’Tlhaping near Kuruman, west into the fringes of the Kalahari Desert in the present Botswana, or further northwest into what is now Botswana. He had displaced the North Sotho ba’Pedi out of the Central Transvaal and north through the Strydpoort Mountains onto the high plain of Pietersburg, now politically renamed to Polokwane. Having scattered the Ba’Hurutshe, he set up home at their old capital of Mosega near the Zeerust of today. This is where he would be in 1836 when our next chapter, dedicated to the Great Trek, commences.
Mzilikazi had essentially denuded the Highveld Prairie of South Africa and the Southern, Western, and Central Transvaal of Black people, leaving some scattered remnants of hugely displaced people. He now had his no-man’s-land buffer against his Nguni rival, Dingane. In fact, Ellenberger tells us that Mzilikazi’s attacks ranged as far north as the ma’Shona45 people in the east of what is today Zimbabwe. As history was to have it, Mzilikazi would eventually move to Zimbabwe. The animosity between Matabele and Mashona would remain to the 21st century, when Robert Mugabe, a Shona man and favourite of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, would instigate the massacre of some 40,000 Matabele.
The map below (click to enlarge) shows the events described above. In the interest of clarity on this map, the results of the previous map are treated as given and only the careers of the “Horde” and of the Matabele are shown, along with some of the migrations of a few chiefs important to the next chapter. We do not show the individual campaigns of Mzilikazi as they are too numerous and far-reaching to depict without cluttering the map. So, for example, his campaign in what is now Zimbabwe is not shown.
♦ The post-Mfecane State of the Country North of the Cape Colony
It is the advent of Mzilikazi near the Vaal River that drove the Rev. Archbell, the man sent to replace Broadbent at the Makwassie mission station, to lead the ba’Rolong under Moroko, son of Sifunello, to relocate to Thaba’Nchu in the present Eastern Free State in December 1833. This placed them hundreds of miles away from any other Tswana people and hundreds of miles from their original home. This relocation places them as recent immigrants where we shall meet them in 1836 in the next chapter during the Great Trek.
The French Rev. Pellissier obtained from the London Missionary Society a patch of ground at the confluence of the Caledon and Orange Rivers that would later become the town of Bethulie. Here he led a group of displaced ba’Tlhaping under a chief named Lepui46. They had survived the Mantatee, but Mzilikazi was another matter altogether. He was a conquerer and he stayed to oppress people or drive them out.
The ba’Taung, originally from the region of the Riet River, south of the present Witbank, had moved and held out north of the Vet River. However, after the trials and tribulations of the Mantatee period, they were set upon by Mzilikazi and then Koranna Khoi raiders. They were led by Makwana and his brother, Molitsane. As the French missionary, Thomas Arbouosset, put it47 about Makwana,
“This good man is rich in land but is poor both in goods and in talents, and consequently he is but ill obeyed, being indeed known, as they say, by his misfortunes alone.”
The French missionaries went to investigate the area where these ba’Taung were and advised them to remove to Moshesh for protection. After great and eloquent speeches by, among others, Makwana, most of the ba’Taung leaders moved. However, old chief Makwana ultimately could not bring himself to trade his independence for safety. So, he and a few of his people remained on the Kool Spruit (E: Coal Stream), a tributary of the Sand River, itself a tributary of the Vet River than runs into the Vaal River. The reader can consult the French Missionary, Eugène Casalis, who was there48 for all the speeches. He comments that,
“These prophetic words were not to be realised concerning poor Makoana. In spite of the promises he had made in such fine language, he feared to lose a measure of his independence by approaching Moshesh and preferred vegetating in a country almost uninhabited. Moletsane, wiser than he, did not hesitate to accept the shelter offered to his tribe. He established himself near Mekuatling, with some thousands of Bataungs,…”
It is here, on the Kool Spruit, that the White Trekkers were to find Makwana in 1836 in our next chapter, having at his tenuous command the otherwise deserted country between the Vet and Vaal Rivers. His was now the only Black group without a British or French Missionary between the Orange and Vaal rivers.
Rev. Casalis records how his demoralised colleague, Rev. Lemue, wrote49 from Kuruman on the state of matters in what would one day be Western Transvaal and the far Northern Cape (what is today called the Northwest Province),
“Africa is ringing with the diabolical exploits of the Matebeles: the Barolongs are defeated; the Bakuenas are dispersed; the Baharutsis have taken flight; while the blood of the other tribes is hardly cold”
We have already seen Moffat’s description of the devastation north of the Vaal River. However, Rev. Casalis personally wrote50 what can rightly be considered the epitaph on “Black Civilisation” in the interior of what is now South Africa after the Mfecane had run its course across that world by the mid early 1830s:
“That which struck us most particularly on arriving was the solitary and desolate aspect of the country. Vainly did our eyes wander in search of the hamlets, the groups of labourers so naturally associated in the mind with the idea of a fertile and variegated soil. Human bones whitening in the sun and rain appeared on all sides, and more than once we were obliged to turn out of our way in order that the wheels of our waggon might not pass over these sad remains.”
In case anyone thinks this devastation was confined to where Casalis (southeast) and Moffat (northwest) were travelling, we can ask Casalis’ French colleague, Thomas Arbousset51, who was crossing the eastern drainage headwaters of the Vaal River far to the northeast:
“There is nothing in this place to enliven the fancy. They are the fields of the dead; and Ezekiel himself would have groaned in spirit had he seen with his own eyes these fields covered with human bones.”
Further south, near Koeneng, not far from the present Ficksburg, but still much further north than Casalis, Arbousset lamented52,
“In the neighbourhood there is a number of deserted kraals, and, everywhere around, the ground is covered with human bones, and skulls, and broken pots, and such like remains.”
And when these French Men of God wrote these words around 1833, the devastation on the part of the Matabele was as yet far from over.
One last event needs to be recorded. In early 1836, a group of American missionaries, among them David Lindley of the Rocky River parish in Ohio, set up operations with Mzilikazi after Robert Moffat had recommended them to the Matabele king. The relationship was uneasy, at best, and the Americans never really had an opportunity to minister to this prospective “flock”. They would find themselves at the heart of the drama about to unfold later that year.
Our final map (click to enlarge) removes all the arrows and campaigns and seeks to show the condition of things north of the Orange River and in Natal at the end of the Mfecane in early 1836.
It is into this world covered in human skeletons and beset by cannibals that the unhappy frontiersmen of the British-run Cape Colony would roll with their families on their lumbering ox-wagons in 1836. It would follow on the ill-considered conduct of the British Colonial Office and its incompetent boss, Lord Glenelg, who was ultimately fired. His disastrous actions were based on the outrageously warped and one-sided testimony by the London Missionary Society (LMS) in London, a city where the suffering Frontiersmen had absolutely zero representation and only enemies.
—Harry Booyens
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Ackowledgement: I need to acknowledge additional research, critical reading and editing of this work by Dr. Jeanne Helen Basson, who, besides bearing many other burdens, is also my wife.
1. P. Becker, A comparative study of strategy in bantu tribal warfare during the 19th century, (1968), Military History Journal Vol. 1 No. 3 (1968), The South African Military History Society. Becker has a unique stature in South Africa, being made a “father of the Crown Prince of the Zulu People” and named “Pathfinder” by the Swazi Queen mother.
2. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), p.171; N. Isaacs document: History of Chaka. The “Annals” is a compendium of original documents and letters of and by key personages relating to the history of the Colony of Natal and thereby a superb source of original information.
3. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), pp.172-173; N. Isaacs: History of Chaka
4. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), p.175; N. Isaacs: History of Chaka
5. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), p.183, N. Isaacs: History of Chaka
6. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), pp.89-90, H. Fynn: Chaka: Campaign against Sikonyana, King of the Endwandwe
7. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), p.93, F. Farewell, Lt.: Character of Chaka
8. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), p.91, H. Fynn: Death of Chaka’s Mother
9. J. Berry, Obscure Battles: Gqokli Hill 1818, Accessed 21 November 2018.
10. G. McCall Theal, The Beginning of South African History, (1902), pp.439-440; Theal is much criticized these days for his politically incorrect language and views by today’s standards, but he did most of his work in the late 19th and very early 20th centuries, and if I am to treat each man as a product of his time, then I should extend that courtesy also to Theal. Until such time as other researchers bring me the volume and calibre of work he did, I proceed with his facts while avoiding his overt prejudices.
11. David Livingstone, Narrative of an expedition to the Zambesi and its tributaries, (1865), p.30
12. G. McCall Theal, History of South Africa [1795-1834], (1891), P.439
13. Allen Gardiner, Narrative of a Journey to the Zoolu Country in South Africa: Undertaken in 1835, (1836), p.14; Allen Gardiner would be the cause of the treacherous mass murder of Afrikaners at the capital of the Zulu King three years later. His efforts in Natal would fail and he would eventually die in Patagonia, waiting for relief that never came.
14. D. C. F. Moodie, History of the battles and adventures of the British, the Boers and the Zulus in Southern Africa Vol.1, (1888), p.313; The “Personal reminiscences” of Caesar Andrews, Secretary to the Burgher Forces under Col. Harry Smith of the British Army
15. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), p.132, Lieutenant-Governor Scott’s despatch No. 12, 1760-1828 Inhabitants of the territory (now the colony of Natal), during the time of Jobe, father of Dingiswayo, before extermination of native tribes by Chaka: Section 13. Tribe of Amadungwe
16. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), p.69, H. Fynn: Occurrences among the Natives
17. G. McCall Theal, History of South Africa [1795-1834], (1891), P.301
18. G. McCall Theal, History of South Africa [1795-1834], (1891), P.307
19. D. Fred Ellenberger, History of the Basuto, Ancient and Modern, (1912), p.170. This is one of the most authoritative texts on the history of the ba’Sotho.
20. Msebenzi, History of Matiwane and the Amangwane tribe, (1938), Edited by N. J. van Warmelo, p.235. Cape Colonial Records. This is a fascinating recollection by Msebenzi (born 1850), a much respected elder of the amaNgwane and son of Matiwane’s second son, Macingwane.
21. G. McCall Theal, History of South Africa [1795-1834], (1891), p.309
22. John Bird, The Annals of Natal Vol.1, (1888), p.96, H. Fynn: Death of Mr. King – Death of Chaka – 1828
23. Msebenzi, History of Matiwane and the Amangwane tribe, (1938), Edited by N. J. van Warmelo, (1938) p.6.
24. D. Fred. Ellenberger, History of the Basotho, ancient and modern, (1912), pp. 124-127; 134-142.
25. D. Fred. Ellenberger, History of the Basotho, ancient and modern, (1912), pp.134
26. D. Fred. Ellenberger, History of the Basotho, ancient and modern, (1912), pp.135
27. Rev. Samuel Broadbent, A Narrative of the first introduction of Christianity amongst the Barolong Tribe of the Bechuanas in South Africa, (1865), p.28
28. Rev. Samuel Broadbent, A Narrative of the first introduction of Christianity amongst the Barolong Tribe of the Bechuanas in South Africa, (1865), pp.70-71
29. Charles Williams, The missionary gazetteer; comprising a geographical and statistical account of the various stations of the Church, London, Moravian, Wesleyan, Baptist, and American, missionary societies, (1828), p.311
30. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, (1842), pp. 358-362
31. Elizabeth A. Eldredge, Sources of Conflict in Southern Africa c.1800-1830: The ‘Mefecane’ reconsidered, a paper within a compilation titled The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History, edited by Carolyn and Thomas N. Hamilton (1995), jointly published by the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Natal, p.141.
32. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, (1842), p.365
33. D. Fred. Ellenberger, History of the Basotho, ancient and modern, (1912), p.150
34. David Livingstone, Missionary travels and researches in South Africa, (1857), p.84
35. David Livingstone, Missionary travels and researches in South Africa, (1857), pp.91-92
36. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, (1842), p.516
37. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, (1842), p.519
38. Heinrich Bammann, The Bafokeng, (2014), Translated by Klaudia Ringelmann into English from the German original which bears the full title “Die Bafokeng – Geschichte und Kultur, Erziehung und Kultur (traditionelle und christliche) aus der Sicht der esrten drei Hermannsburger Missionare bis 1940“, p.18
39. Heinrich Bammann, The Bafokeng, (2014), Translated by Klaudia Ringelmann, p.22
40. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, (1842), p.525
41. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, (1842), p. 528
42. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, (1842), pp. 541-542
43. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, (1842), p. 555
44. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, (1842), p. 557
45. D. Fred. Ellenberger, History of the Basotho, ancient and modern, (1912), p.207
46. G. McCall Theal, History of South Africa since 1795, Vol.4 (1908), p.81
47. Thomas Arbousset and F. Daumas, Narrative of an Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, (1842); translated by John Croumbie Brown (1852 – London edition), p.301
48. Eugène Casalis, The Basutos: Or, Twenty-three Years in South Africa, (1861), pp.76-77
49. Eugène Casalis, The Basutos: Or, Twenty-three Years in South Africa, (1861), p.5
50. Eugène Casalis, The Basutos: Or, Twenty-three Years in South Africa, (1861), p.13
51. Thomas Arbousset and F. Daumas, Narrative of an Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, (1842); translated by John Croumbie Brown (1852 – London edition), p.186
52. Thomas Arbousset and F. Daumas, Narrative of an Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, (1842); translated by John Croumbie Brown (1852 – London edition), p.74
AmaBhulu 