Lecture 7

Forced migrations #2

The Mfecane (1822-1836) and the Great Trek (1836) took place in the first half of the 19th century.

The Mfecane produced massive migration of the black populations from the epicentre of the ethnic cleansing, namely Zululand.

1836-1837 The Great Trek

The Great Trek is the major event in the history of the Afrikaner people.

The arrival of the 1820 English Settlers in the Cape and the effects of the Mfecane which increased pressure on the colonial front in the Eastern Cape, forced Afrikaner farmers to decide to look for new territory in the north.

The Great Trek was extensive migration of the White Afrikaner populations along the West of the Drakensberg Mountains up into what became the Transvaal Republic.

The Afrikaners who migrated northwards are called “Voortrekkers.”

The means of transport was the ox-wagon, drawn by a span of sixteen oxen.

The ox-wagon has become one of the emblems of Afrikaner nationalism.

The Voortrekkers moved slowly northwards up the western watershed of the Drakensberg Mountains.

The leaders of the various groups of Voortrekkers have become national heroes.

Voortrekker leaders like Uys, Maritz, Retief, Potgieter, van Rensburg and Trigardt are among the best known.

As the Voortrekkers progressed northwards, they created several Boer Republics in order to consolidate their territory.

During this consolidation, the South African Republic was formed.

The South African Republic came to be known popularly as the “Transvaal Republic.”

The Battle of Blood River (1838)

One of the best known Voortrekker leaders was Andries Pretorius (1798–1853)

In February 1838, the Voortrekker leader, Piet Retief, had been killed under the orders of the Zulu king Dingane.

On 16 December 1838, Pretorius’s commando of 470 Voortrekkers was attacked by over 10,000 Zulu impis in what today is KwaZulu Natal.

The Voortrekker commando killed 3,000 Zulu impis.

Andries Pretorius and two other Voortrekkers were slightly wounded.

The event has become known as the Battle of Blood River because the nearby Ncome River was said to have turned red from Zulu blood.

Until 1910, the day had been commemorated as Dingane’s Day, the Day of the Vow or the Day of the Covenant.

Today, with the end of apartheid, it is a public holiday (16th December) and is called the Day of Reconciliation.

Nongqawusa and the Xhosa cattle-killing (1857)

The eighth Xhosa War started in 1850 and ended in 1853.

The division of mindsets – accommodation or resistance - within the Xhosa nation was to take on a tragic significance during this war.

This division within the Xhosa nation was to take on a tragic significance following the eighth Xhosa War which started in 1850 and ended in 1853.

In 1805, the British had annexed Cape Colony.

The Governors of Cape Colony in the years preceding 1857 were Sir Harry Smith (1847-1852), General Sir George Cathcart (1852-1854), Charles Henry Darling (acting) (1854), and Sir George Grey (1854-1861).

In 1852 the Honorary George Cathcart replaced Sir Harry Smith as the governor of Cape colony.

At this time, the Xhosa people were under the chieftainship of Sarhili (Kreli), Hintsa’s son.

Cathcart attacked the Xhosa, taking their cattle and driving them back over the Kei river.

Their lands were given to White farmers.

Then, in 1854, Sir George Grey was appointed Governor of Cape Colony.

Sir George Grey was already an acknowledged tormentor of the Maoris in New Zealand and his unusual, psychological methods of administration of indigenous peoples under his control was known to the British government.

This was the time when the Xhosa felt most oppressed.

The lack of land meant that many people were starving and many of the cattle were dying.

The desperate situation led to a national tragedy.

The main protagonist in this tragedy was a 16-year-old Xhosa girl called Nongqawusa.

Nongqawusa was the daughter or niece of Mhlakaza, one of King Sarhili’s councillors.

In the Spring of 1856, the legend says she went to the Gxarha River to fetch water.

While she was at the river’s edge, several apparitions appeared in front of her, one at a time, whose voices spoke of the impending disaster approaching the Xhosa nation.

The voices declared that she was the person chosen to avert a national catastrophe. (cf. Jeanne d'Arc)

Nongqawusa is told that the Xhosa nation must sacrifice all their cattle.

In this way, as Makana the prophet had predicted, the White enemy would be swept into the sea.

Nongqawusa returns to the village and tells her father of her apocalyptic vision.

Nongqawusa presents her vision as a fulfilment of Makana's prophecy - as a means by which the long-standing schism in the Xhosa nation will be ended and the Xhosa nation unified once and for all.

At the time, the Xhosa nation is suffering misery, poverty, starvation and a deep collctive depression and loss of self-esteem.

The Xhosa nation is desperate.

The White settlers are carrying out continual raids on their homes and livestock.

Mhlakaza, Nongqawusa's father and a tribal councillor, explains the dilemma to his people.

He says: "We can neither move the tribe north, nor west, nor east, nor into the sea in the south. ... the tribe is suffocating." (Matshoba)

Given these circumstances, Nongqawusa's words seem like a revelation to him.

He tells the people that Nongqawusa said that she had seen a vision which had told her that if all the cattle were slaughtered the prophecy of Makana would come true and the White colonisers would be driven into the sea.

Chief Sarhili (Kreli) and his councillors believe Nongqawusa; 200,000 cattle are sacrificed and widespread famine follows.

20,000 people out of the population of 100,000 living between the Fish River and the Kei River die, a fifth of the total Xhosa population.

Those farmers who survive are forced to abandon their farms and offer themselves as cheap labour to the White settler farmers.

When they try to return to their land, they find their lands occupied by White farmers.

Following this disaster, Chief Sarhili is forced even further back across the Kei River and the Xhosa nation is sandwiched between the British and the Pondo.

The Xhosa nation was to recover from this tragedy only in 1994 after Nelson Mandela, a Xhosa-speaking Thembu, had walked out of prison a free man and had been elected President of South Africa.

Incidentally, Thabo Mbeki is also a Xhosa.

The Xhosa cattle-killing brought the Xhosa nation to its knees.

Soon after, in 1877, the ninth and final Xhosa War broke out, but in fact it was the cattle-killing - the national suicide of the Xhosa - which really marked the end of Xhosa resistance to White expansionism in the Cape.

The subjugation of the Xhosa was to last from 1878 to 1994, 116 years of oppression under White European colonialism and neocolonialism.

As for Nongqawusa, she lived the rest of her life in exile in Pondoland where she died in 1928 at the age of 88.

Then, in 1867, a small girl picked up a diamond on the banks of the Orange River.

From this moment onwards, the nature of the European colonisation of Southern Africa had been changed forever.

Variations on the story of Nongqawusa - Nongqawu