Boer History1840 in South Africa: Pretorius, Panda, Tambusa, and Weenen
Pretorius into Zululand, Forty Thousand Cattle, and the 4th of January — January 1840
On the 4th of January the volksraad at Pietermaritzburg directed Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius to march into Zululand, to demand the 40000 head of horned cattle still marked against Dingane, and if they were not given, to take them by force. Pretorius was commandant-general of the Natal emigrants. On the 16th of December 1838 he had held the Blood river against Dingane, after the massacre of Pieter Retief at Ungungunhlovu on the 6th of February and the blow at Weenen on the 17th. Dingane had bound himself to restore cattle and to pay an indemnity for the widows; months had passed, and neither the indemnity nor the captured herds had come. Zulu spies had been seen near the camps. That is why the volksraad would not wait another season: the 72nd highlanders had embarked from Fort Victoria on the 24th of December 1839, the tricolour stood over the fort, and the powder Major Samuel Charters had seized was back in Pretorius’s hands without a promise not to cross the Tugela. [3] [4] [7]
In November and December 1839 Pretorius and his commandants had lagered 265 men on the Tugela. In January some 70 burghers from west of the mountains under Andries Spies came in as volunteers. Further reinforcements raised the white force to about 400. Panda’s fighting men under Nongalaza and Sapusa numbered between 4000 and 6000; a contingent of some 600 under Matawaan and Joob joined as well. Dingane’s available force was still counted at about 10000. Pretorius’s instructions ran to 22 articles: the officers of the native allies were to take their orders from him; women, children, and unarmed men were to be spared; the Zulu auxiliaries were to be held to the same rule. Panda himself was to ride with the white column. He was Dingane’s elder brother, who in September 1839 had crossed the Tugela with his adherents and asked the farmers for protection against the king who had already killed so many of Shaka’s old captains. The alliance mattered because Pretorius could not put 400 burghers against 10000 Zulu without a Zulu army of his own, and because Panda in the white camp was also a hostage against treachery on the coastal road. [3] [4] [7]
Ten days later the columns moved. The Natal divisions met at the Tugela Spruit on the 18th of January and halted until the 21st, when Spies came in over the Berg. One return put the force then at 308 armed Boers, about 60 Khoikhoi, and 400 black servants, with 600 horses, 700 oxen, and 50 waggons. Panda rode with Pretorius; Nongalaza took the coastal route with the allied army, to co-operate later in surrounding Dingane. A French traveller, Adulphe Delegorgue, went with the expedition throughout. Every precaution against treachery was taken: Panda was kept in the white camp as security; the allied column marched in a parallel line at some distance; a fixed lager of earth and thorn was made each day, garrisoned by a small detachment, on which the commando could fall back. The farmers had seen Retief walk unarmed into Ungungunhlovu. That is why the parallel line and the daily thorn kraal were not parade-ground fuss: they were the price of riding with a Zulu prince against a Zulu king. [3] [4] [7]
The banks of the Upper Tugela were left on the 21st of January. The Buffalo was not crossed before the 29th: heavy rain in the mountains had swollen the drift, and in places the oxen had to swim. That evening the camp was formed on the Blood river, at the ground of the 16th of December 1838. The commando then went down the valley of the White Umvolosi toward Dingane’s new head kraal near Ungungunhlovu, which was reached on the 31st and found deserted. During the advance several prisoners were taken, and to the astonishment of Panda’s followers they were released — once after a mountain had been occupied with difficulty. The allied Zulus could not see why enemies taken at such cost should be turned loose. Pretorius’s 22 articles had said that unarmed men were to be spared. The empty kraal on the 31st showed that Dingane already knew the commando was in the country, and that the next business would not be a cattle count at the gate. [3] [7]
Tambusa and Kombazana, Nongalaza’s Battle, and Panda Installed — 30 January–14 February 1840
Dingane’s spies had made the commando known. Two officers immediately under him, whose advice he frequently sought, were Tambusa and Umthlela. Dingane now sent Tambusa to renew negotiations for peace. Upon his arrival he and his servant Kombazana were made prisoners. One account has Tambusa coming with 200 head of cattle as a token of friendship, taken near the Tugela about the time the commando assembled, put in irons, and compelled to march with the column. Another has two Zulus appearing at the encampment as emissaries, Tambusa admitting that he and Kombazana had been sent to obtain information as to the dispositions of the burghers. Either way they were not received as envoys. They were brought to trial before a court martial. The distinction mattered because an envoy might have named terms for the unpaid herd; a spy, in the farmers’ reading, was the same class of man who had sat at Ungungunhlovu while Retief’s party was killed. [3] [4] [7]
Panda and some of his officers were allowed to take part. Panda acted as prosecutor and as accuser. He attributed the massacres of the emigrants to the advice given to Dingane by Tambusa, and accused the chief prisoner of many other enormities. Tambusa, finding himself in the hands of those determined on his death, acted with calmness and dignity. He did not deny the truth of Panda’s assertions, but said he was not there to defend himself: he had come as an envoy from a great chief to arrange terms of peace. He scorned to ask mercy for himself, but demanded the release of his servant, who was obliged to obey any orders given to him. Kombazana displayed equal pride by refusing to be separated from his master even in death. They were both condemned. When the sentence was pronounced, Pretorius spoke to them of God, the Almighty master before whose judgment seat they must soon appear, and besought them to pray for pardon while yet there was time. Tambusa answered that he had but one master; that it was his duty to remain faithful to Dingane to the last moment of his life; and that if he did this the great chief of whom Pretorius spoke could not fail to be satisfied with his conduct. [3] [4] [7]
A few hours later on the same day, the 31st of January, the condemned men were led to execution. They were manacled together, and both were perfectly naked. Two farmers from a distance of 60 paces fired at them. Kombazana was killed instantly. Tambusa fell with a ball in his body, though he was not mortally wounded. Rising immediately, he again stood erect, manacled to the still quivering corpse of his servant, and faced the executioners with an undaunted eye. The second discharge followed speedily, and he rose no more. In the volksraad Pretorius was afterwards accused of having exceeded the authority entrusted to him by creating a tribunal with power of life and death. His partisans were so strong that after a time the charge was allowed to drop. The accusation mattered because a republic that still hoped London would name it a free people had just shot a man who claimed to be an envoy, and the volksraad of 24 had not voted the sentence. [3] [4]
Immediately after this event a messenger from Nongalaza brought word that on the preceding day, the 30th of January, he had fought a great battle with Dingane’s army led by Umthlela — Salela in another return — and had won a complete victory. At the commencement Dingane’s army was superior in number, but during the action a body of his troops went over to Panda’s side and turned the scale. Those who were faithful stood their ground. The two best regiments of Dingane perished: the Black and White Shields, the veterans who had won their plumes under Shaka, preferred to die rather than show their backs to the traitors who had deserted their cause. Umthlela placed himself at the head of the reserve and went into the hottest part of the field, where he was pierced through the heart with an assegai. Still the issue of the day was doubtful, when the cry echoed along Nongalaza’s ranks: “The Boers are coming.” It was not so, but the belief answered Nongalaza’s purpose. The remnant gave way in their fear of those horsemen who had power to deal out death without meeting it themselves. A bushy country favoured their escape. The terror which the Zulu name had inspired for 20 years was a thing of the past. That is why a shout, not a charge, finished the battle: Blood river had taught Dingane’s regiments what mounted burghers could do, and Nongalaza used the lesson without waiting for Pretorius to arrive. [3] [4] [7]
Dingane fled northward to the border of the Swazi country, where he built a kraal in a secluded position. There he was soon afterwards assassinated by a Swazi who stole upon him unawares. Those who had adhered to him then tendered their submission to Panda. Pretorius with some 250 horsemen followed in pursuit; Nongalaza and Sapusa made wide detours toward the Pongola. On the 8th the horsemen reached that river and learned that Dingane had crossed 5 days previously. Horse-sickness was raging; it was thought inadvisable to go further. After the decisive engagement an enormous booty in cattle fell to the conquerors. About 40000 head were delivered to Pretorius and subsequently distributed among the emigrants in proportion to their losses. One return has 31000 taken on the White Umvolosi, 14000 given at the Klip river on the 24th to the farmers from beyond the Berg, and 22000 brought to Pietermaritzburg. The numbers mattered because the 40000 of the 4th of January had been the unpaid price of Retief and Weenen, and because the Berg men under Spies had to be paid before they recrossed the mountains. [3] [4] [7]
On the 10th of February Pretorius formally installed Panda as chief of the Zulus, but in vassalage to the volksraad, to which he promised fidelity. Panda agreed that he would not attack any tribe without the volksraad’s permission, that the enemies of that body should be his enemies, and that he would remain a faithful ally. It was arranged that he should remove his followers to the northern side of the Tugela, and that the ground on which he was to reside should be an appanage of the republic of Natal. To this end, on the 14th of February Pretorius issued a proclamation in the name of the volksraad, taking possession of the land between the Tugela and the Black Umvolosi from the Drakensberg to the sea, and declaring St. Lucia Bay and the coast southward to the mouth of the Umzimvubu to belong to the emigrants. The cost of the campaign was put at some 122600 rixdollars; as Dingane was gone, Panda was to regard the country as mortgaged for that sum. The proclamation was read with a salute of 21 guns, during which Panda is said to have been in great terror. Salvoes of musketry announced the return at the Tugela; there was much rejoicing in the encampments on the Bushman’s river, where the widows of 1838 were waiting. That is why the 14th of February named St. Lucia as well as the Black Umvolosi: a vassal king north of the Tugela was of little use if the republic could not also claim a port and a coast that London still treated as empty on the map. [3] [3] [4] [7]
Weenen Laid Out, the Civil List, and the Adjunct Raad — 1840
Free from apprehension of Zulu attack, the emigrants turned to farms and to a constitution. In January the volksraad formulated port regulations, appointed a harbour master who was also to act as pilot, and licensed burghers to own boats. The country claimed was a triangle whose base was the Tugela from the Berg to the sea, one side the coast, the other the Drakensberg and the Umzimvubu. Three ecclesiastical districts were named: Pietermaritzburg, Weenen, and Port Natal. The village of Weenen was laid out in 1840. The name had been taken from the massacre of the 17th of February 1838, when Dingane’s regiments struck the Bushman’s river camps. As in Maritzburg, the erven were parallelograms 150 by 450 feet, space for each family to have its own garden and orchard, while the public grounds were so large as to make the village the centre of an immense grazing farm. The commonage around Maritzburg was about 120 square miles. Every burgher of full age who had settled in Natal before the beginning of 1840 was entitled to 2 farms of 3000 morgen each and 1 erf in either of the villages; each lad above 15 to 1 farm and 1 erf; every head of a family arriving after that date to 1 farm free of payment. Weenen on the map mattered because a republic that had just installed a vassal king still needed towns, gardens, and a paper title that a later governor could not treat as a mere lager on the Tugela. [3] [4] [7]
The public revenue was derived from duties at the port — wines 30 shillings the aam, spirits 3 shillings a gallon, tobacco, timber, and wooden articles one-fourth of their value, all other merchandise 3 per cent — from port dues of 3 pence a ton, from a tax of 18 shillings yearly on every farm not exceeding 3000 morgen, from transfer dues of 2 per cent, and from fines of court. The civil list was unique in its smallness. The landdrost and the clergyman of Maritzburg were each paid at the rate of 100 pounds a year. The secretary of the volksraad received 75, and each of the landdrosts of Port Natal and of Weenen 37 pounds 10 shillings a year. The clergyman Erasmus Smit, whose health had completely failed, drew a yearly pension of 45 pounds. The port captain, collector of customs, and entire police establishment cost the republic less than 100 pounds a year. The total civil list was under 500 pounds. At Port Natal and at Weenen congregations were organised, each with its own elders and deacons, but neither had a resident clergyman. Daniel Lindley remained the resident clergyman of Maritzburg, and once every year he visited Port Natal and Weenen, and yearly also he went over the Drakensberg to hold services at Winburg and Potchefstroom. In June Aldin Grout returned to Natal and joined Dr. Adams at the Umlazi, where he devoted himself solely to the blacks. A civil list under 500 pounds mattered because Cape clergymen would still not cross the line, and a republic that paid its landdrosts in tens of pounds was claiming to be a state, not a commando. [3] [7]
The volksraad of 24 met at Maritzburg in regular session on the first Monday of each quarter. After recrossing the Drakensberg in 1838, Andries Hendrik Potgieter had taken up his residence on the Mooi river and established an independent government. There was no Bantu tribe near enough to disturb him: Moselekatse had fled so far that when in July a commando assembled to follow him up and endeavour to recover the captive children, the Matabele could not be found. In September a loose kind of alliance was formed between that government and the volksraad of Natal. The emigrants west of the Drakensberg were thenceforth under what they termed an adjunct raad of 12 members, claiming authority over the districts of Winburg and Potchefstroom. Winburg was defined as the whole country south of the Vaal from the Vet to the Drakensberg; Potchefstroom as all the country north of the Vaal conquered from Moselekatse, described in the articles between Pretorius and Potgieter as extending from the desert on the west to Rhenoster Poort on the east, and from the Vaal and the saltpan near Lithako on the south to the Zoutpansberg on the north. At Winburg and Potchefstroom there were landdrosts and church officers without clergymen, as at Weenen and Port Natal. The July hunt for Moselekatse mattered because the children taken in 1836 were still unaccounted for, and because a government that could not find the Matabele had no enemy left except the paper from Downing Street. [3] [7]
In each of these districts, as in each of the three of Natal, there was a commandant who had power in case of war to call out all the burghers capable of bearing arms. Potgieter, who was over these again, was styled chief commandant. In Natal Pretorius was termed commandant-general. They all lived by farming as other burghers did, and received no salaries. Under the agreement of union the adjunct raad retained full and independent control in minor matters over Winburg and Potchefstroom, and had the right of sitting with the volksraad at Maritzburg whenever important subjects were considered. Between the Vet and the Orange several parties of emigrants still acted independently of either council. With all of them the form of government was merely probationary. They readily acknowledged that they knew nothing of the policies of other people, ancient or modern, except from bible history, and were only experimenting until they could work out a system adapted to their needs. That is why September’s adjunct raad was not a single republic: Potgieter would not sit under Pretorius for farm law, but both needed a joint voice if London ever asked who governed the country beyond the Orange. [3] [7]
Stockenstrom’s Return, Sandile’s Circumcision, and the 72nd Recalled — May–October 1840
On the 3rd of September 1839 Lord John Russell had become secretary of state for the colonies. He offered Captain Andries Stockenstrom the governorship of a West Indian island with a knighthood, which he declined, and asked for a pension of 1000 pounds a year. Russell then offered a pension of 700 pounds a year from the colonial revenue and a baronetcy of the united kingdom, which he accepted. On the 31st of May the late lieutenant-governor, now Sir Andries Stockenstrom, reached South Africa again, without any official status. Still sore from the loss of his office, he showed much resentment toward Sir George Thomas Napier, and involved himself in an acrimonious controversy with Judge Menzies, in which he was very severely worsted. Colonel Hare succeeded to the title of lieutenant-governor of the eastern districts, but the office ceased to be one of any importance. The administration was carried on by the governor as before 1836, the only difference being that instructions and reports now passed through a greater number of hands. Stockenstrom’s return mattered because the man who had written Glenelg’s frontier treaties was back as a private baronet, while the governor who had to live with those treaties was still in the castle. [3] [4]
In June, after a residence of over 11 years in South Africa, Colonel Harry Smith left to fill the office of adjutant-general of the army in India. He had received promotion only after Glenelg’s fall. Napier, who had been his friend for 33 years and had bled with him under Sir John Moore and Wellington, had recommended him as an extra aide-de-camp to the queen in order to silence the charge of barbarity Glenelg had made after the war of 1835. The departure mattered on the frontier because the officer who had governed Queen Adelaide was gone just as Sandile came of age and the Stockenstrom treaties were being written down as a failure. [3]
Early in the year Sandile, son of Sutu and legal heir of Gaika, was circumcised. He was a weakminded boy, and frail in body also, for one of his legs was withered. As is customary on such occasions, the event was celebrated with prolonged revelry by the people over whom he was about to become the head. Month after month dancing and feasting continued in all the glens of the Amatola, and he was the hero of the hour who brought the most and the fattest cattle from the pastures of Albany. Napier hardly knew what to do. With experience his views of the Glenelg system had become greatly changed, and on the 21st of September he informed the secretary of state that after a trial of 4 years the Stockenstrom treaties had utterly failed. Decisive action of some kind was needed, as delay was no longer possible without the risk, nay almost the certainty, of the plundered, harassed, and justly irritated farmers taking the law into their own hands and suddenly entering the Xhosa country with commandos to retake their cattle by force, if not to revenge by bloodshed all their wrongs. Sandile’s circumcision mattered because the heir of Gaika was now of age to put his mark to a treaty, and because the revelry in the Amatola was being fed from Albany herds the treaties had not protected. [3] [4]
Under the Stockenstrom treaties a farmer was obliged to employ armed herdsmen, otherwise he had no claim to aid from the government if his cattle were stolen. This condition acted like a premium upon murder. The Xhosa regarded the killing of the herdsmen as a clever performance, and within 4 years after the introduction of the system no fewer than 49 individuals thus lost their lives. In addition a trader named Charles Bezant had been murdered at Pato’s kraal on the 6th of July 1838. Thus 50 murders within 4 years were chargeable to the clans beyond the Fish, though the governor wrote that not a single act of injustice or infringement of the treaties had been committed toward those people by colonists. The difficulty of the situation was increased by the 72nd regiment being recalled to England in April. The governor dared not move a man from the frontier, so he kept there the 27th, the 75th, and a wing of the 91st, with the Cape mounted riflemen and some artillerymen and engineers, leaving the defence of the Cape peninsula to the 25th only. Three companies of the 91st were at St. Helena. That is why a highland regiment could leave in April and Napier still could not send a company to Natal: the Fish, not the Tugela, was the line he dared not thin. [3] [4]
The secretary of state approved of Napier’s mitigation of the 9 death sentences Sir John Wylde had passed in 1839 on convicted cattle thieves. He issued instructions to try if a better arrangement could not be made with the chiefs, though the treaties were not to be abrogated until some other feasible system should be submitted for his consideration, and the clans must be dealt with as independent powers. With these instructions, on the 6th of October the governor left Capetown to visit the frontier for the second time, Lady Napier with him. Russell would not let him tear Glenelg’s paper up; he would let him rewrite the clauses if Sandile and the other captains would make their marks. That is why Napier went east in October: the 21st of September had told London the treaties had failed, and only a meeting with the chiefs could turn that despatch into a new rule of conduct. [3] [4]
Napier at Fort Beaufort, Lovedale, and the Modified Treaties — October–December 1840
On the 24th and 25th of November Napier had an interview with some 90 or 100 farmers at Fort Beaufort, when he heard their complaints and discussed measures of relief. On the 25th it was a great day in that village for another reason. The men of the 75th and the Cape Corps formed in open order down both sides of the main street; the band of the 75th, visiting Freemasons invited by Major Selwyn, Sir George and Lady Napier, Colonel Hare, and the staff of the garrison went down to the bank of the Kat. Lady Napier laid the foundation stone of the first bridge of any permanent character across any river in the frontier districts, and named it the Victoria bridge. The Fish at Fort Brown and the Kat at Fort Beaufort were to be spanned by substantial stone bridges on the queen’s road between Grahamstown and Fort Beaufort, made by military labour under Andrew Geddes Bain, its cost entirely defrayed from the military chest. Napier had directed in 1839 that the road was to be designated Queen’s road. The stone on the Kat mattered because a frontier that could not recover stolen cattle still needed a road the 75th could use, and because the military chest, not the colonial treasury, was paying for it. [3] [4]
Charles Lennox Stretch, who was in attendance, was then sent to the chiefs to propose certain alterations in the treaties, and to invite them to meet the governor on the 1st of December at a spot close by Lovedale mission station. On the day appointed, Sandile, Makoma, Tyali, Anta, Botumane, Eno, Tshatshu, and some others of less note, with about 4000 armed followers, gathered on the high ground above Stretch’s residence, hardly a musket shot from the classrooms of Lovedale, and there, after a long conference, at which all agreed that friendship should be renewed on account of Sandile having come of age, the chiefs consented to some very important modifications of the Stockenstrom treaties. The principal of these were that British subjects should be at liberty to enter the Xhosa country in pursuit of stolen cattle, provided they went unarmed and in small parties; that they need not be accompanied by Xhosa police; that it should not be necessary for farmers to maintain armed herdsmen; that persons from whom cattle were stolen could claim reasonable damages as well as restitution of their property; and that murderers of people in British territory should be surrendered by the chiefs to the colonial authorities. The armed herdsman clause had been the premium on murder. That is why the farmers cared more about going unarmed after a spoor, without a Xhosa policeman at the elbow, than about any new protestation of friendship for Sandile. [3]
To this effect on the 2nd of December the chiefs attached their marks to modified clauses of the Stockenstrom treaty, which were also duly signed by Napier, Hare, and the diplomatic agents. On the 29th of December precisely the same course was followed at Fort Peddie with the Mfengu chiefs Umhlambiso, Jokweni, Matomela, and Zibi, and the Gqunukhwebe chiefs Pato, Kama, and Kobe. On the 31st of December at Fort Peddie similar arrangements were made with the Ndlambe chiefs Umkayi, Umhala, Gasela, Siyolo, and Nonibe for her son Siwani. These changes were regarded with much satisfaction by the frontier colonists, though no one supposed that the chiefs had any intention of keeping their new engagements. But considering treaties of this kind merely as rules of conduct for white people, they found themselves much less hampered now by regulations which seemed to have been framed purposely to tempt robbers. The marks of the 2nd, the 29th, and the 31st of December did not restore the 49 herdsmen. They did tell a farmer that he need no longer keep an armed man with the cattle in order to have a claim, and that he might follow a spoor himself. That is why Lovedale and Peddie closed the frontier year: Russell had forbidden abrogation, Sandile had come of age, and Napier had rewritten the clauses the 21st of September had condemned. [3]
The Hope, Wellington, Innes’s Teachers, and Belle Ombre — 1840
On the 2nd of January Napier published a notice in the Gazette stating his confident trust that the reports of the commission of inquiry would effectually disabuse the public mind in England as to the general treatment and actual condition of the Children’s Friend apprentices, and recording his opinion that the directors in London as well as the commissioners on the spot deserved thanks instead of the unmerited reproach to which they had been subjected. The society tried to live down the bitter feeling against it, and after a time the committee in Capetown consented to resume its labours. In November the farm Belle Ombre, 422 acres in extent, a little beyond Wynberg, was purchased for 1750 pounds with a view to its being converted into an industrial and training school for the children until it could be seen which were fit to be apprenticed either to tradesmen or farmers. Popular prejudice in London was not to be overcome; what that would do to the society was not this year’s work. Though European immigrants were few, it was very different with blacks brought in by British cruisers from captured slave ships, condemned by a court of mixed commission, and apprenticed by the collector of customs for short periods — none under 19 years of age for farm work, by an order from England. Some 2000 or 3000 blacks maintained at St. Helena at imperial expense were forwarded to the Cape by order of Napier, and so great was the want of the farmers that they were not only eagerly inquired for, but there was no difficulty in raising money by subscription to defray the cost of their transport. Belle Ombre mattered because the Children’s Friend had been the scandal of 1839, and because a farm beyond Wynberg was the committee’s answer to a London that still would not believe the apprentices were well used. [3]
During the night of the 9th of March the French ship Lise, bound from Mauritius to Bordeaux with a valuable cargo, struck on Agulhas reef and went to pieces, when 20 lives were lost. Two days later the Cape of Good Hope steam navigation company’s coaster Hope, of 300 tons with two engines of 50 horse power each, was bound to Algoa Bay with 72 souls on board, including the crew, and was 76 hours out, when at half past two in the afternoon of the 11th of March, in a thick mist, she ran on a ridge of rocks about 200 yards from the shore 10 miles west of Cape St. Francis, while the captain thought he was 25 miles from land. Among her passengers were Advocates Ebden and Denyssen, Advocate William Hiddingh, and John Owen Smith. An attempt was made to lighten and float the vessel by staving in the heads of a number of brandy casks, but the spirits caught fire. There were only two small boats, and one of these got so damaged that it was useless. By half past seven in the evening a raft was made, and the women, children, most of the male passengers, and some of the crew — 41 souls in all — embarked on it. The mist had cleared; a heavy surf was breaking on a rocky coast; the raft was taken in tow by the remaining boat, and all on it got to land alive, though many were bruised and most were half naked. The boat was stove in against the rocks, but it was repaired next morning sufficiently to rescue the people still on the wreck. This was hardly accomplished when the Hope went to pieces. She had arrived in Table Bay on the 8th of December 1838 and had since plied regularly between Capetown and Port Elizabeth. The wreck mattered because the colony’s only steam coaster was gone, and because the same fog that hid Cape St. Francis also hid how thin the coasting service still was. [3]
On the 26th of March Napier, by a notice in the Gazette, named the new village in Waggonmakers’ Valley Wellington, after the committee had first asked for his own name, then for Blencowe in honour of Lady Napier’s father, and at last for any name he chose. They also asked for the reverend Andries Francois du Toit, a young clergyman on the way out from his studies in Holland. The governor complied, and on the 19th of June Du Toit was appointed first clergyman of Wellington. In April the presbytery of the Cape confirmed what had been done. The elders and deacons chosen were nominated by the civil commissioner, on the 22nd of June were appointed by the governor, and entered into office on the 26th of July, after which the duties of the committee ceased. Wellington on the map mattered because a valley that had tired of the long ride to the Paarl now had a name the governor would own, and a minister who had not come from the Cape clergy who still refused Natal. [3]
On the 11th of May 1839 James Rose Innes had been appointed superintendent-general of education at 500 pounds a year. After visiting the schools throughout the colony and putting them in as good order as possible, in May he proceeded to Great Britain to observe the latest methods and to procure more teachers. The degree of doctor of laws was conferred upon him by the university of Aberdeen. Sir John Herschel, who had returned to Europe in March 1838, selected five Scotch teachers — Francis Tudhope, John Gibson, Humphrey McLachlan, Thomas Paterson, and Thomas Buchanan — who were sent out by Russell and arrived in July. Buchanan took charge of the normal school in Capetown; the others were stationed in the order of their names at Grahamstown, Uitenhage, Stellenbosch, and George. An attempt to wreck the public schools was made in some places by a few individuals who desired to force all kinds of coloured children upon the teachers, which could only result in the exclusion of respectable European pupils. The words white and coloured could not be used in the school regulations, as public opinion in England would not tolerate it. The terms decently clothed and of good deportment, however, could offend only a few persons, and by means of them and a judicious exercise of tact Innes preserved the usefulness of the schools. That is why five Scotchmen in July were not a small matter: Herschel had picked them, Russell had sent them, and Innes needed teachers who could keep a classroom that London would still call open. [3]
On the 26th of June Russell directed that the collector of customs should be a member of both the legislative and executive councils, the military officer next in rank to the governor holding also the appointment of lieutenant-governor and residing in Grahamstown. On the 3rd of March Capetown was created a municipality by a special ordinance; in September the old burgher watch-house in Greenmarket-square, which since 1828 had been used as the magistrate’s court and offices, was transferred to the elected commissioners, who then entered upon their duties. The first secretary of the municipality was Advocate Pieter Jan Denyssen. The village of Riebeek East was founded in this year. In April the consistory purchased the farm Mooimeisjesfontein, which had once belonged to Pieter Retief, with the object of laying out a village upon it and building a church; John Pears was already the resident clergyman from the 2nd of April 1839. A few months later the name Mooimeisjesfontein was changed to Riebeek East. The village of Piketberg also was founded. At the close of 1839 or beginning of this year Dr. John W. L. Scholtz became the first resident clergyman there, on the farm Grootfontein granted to the consistory on the 31st of December 1835. His salary was not yet paid from the public treasury. Riebeek East on Retief’s old farm mattered because the Winterberg commandant who had died at Ungungunhlovu still had a name on a Cape title, while Piketberg’s first minister was paid by the consistory, not by Russell. [3]
Sir Thomas Maclear, astronomer royal at the Cape, began in this year, with an able staff of assistants, the verification and extension of De la Caille’s arc of the meridian — work that would occupy him until 1848. Instructions of both Russell and, later, Stanley were to pay off the colonial debt before proposing any expenditure that could be avoided. Wherever government farms had been leased, as at Groenekloof, the occupants were permitted to become proprietors by paying 15 years’ rent at once, and several public buildings were sold. The money thus obtained, as also the private fund of the orphan chamber, was devoted to the same object. Great efforts to improve Port Frances continued under William Cock, who maintained that the mouth of the Kowie could be made one of the best harbours in the world. Partners had hesitated and withdrawn; Cock, undaunted and apparently of considerable private means, went on. On the 10th of April — the twentieth anniversary of the landing of the first British settlers on the same spot — the foundation stone of the inshore portion of Thornhill’s jetty in Algoa Bay was laid with much ceremony by William Lloyd. On the 6th of April the foundation stone of the Independent Chapel in Hill Street, Grahamstown, was laid. In this year Dr. Ambrose George Campbell started a small newspaper, called the Echo, in opposition to the Grahamstown Journal. Maclear’s arc, Cock’s mouth, and Lloyd’s stone were the same year’s work as Belle Ombre: a colony told to pay its debt still measured the earth, dug a harbour, and laid a jetty on the anniversary of 1820. [3] [3] [4] [4]
Badenhorst to Napier, and the Commando against Ncapayi — September–December 1840
The details of the Natal administration having been settled, the volksraad deemed it advisable to enter into correspondence with the governor with a view of obtaining recognition of their independence. Napier, a large party in South Africa, and an influential association in London of which Abraham Borradaile was chairman and Saxe Bannister secretary, had long been urging the imperial government to take possession of Natal for colonisation purposes, but the ministry was unwilling to increase England’s responsibilities. Russell declared that he was not in principle adverse to the extension of colonies, unless where occupation would cause flagrant injustice, cruel wars, and protracted misery, or require a large expenditure without prospect of adequate compensation. These considerations made him hesitate to give his sanction to the colonisation of Natal. On the 18th of June, however, he instructed the governor to send a detachment of soldiers to resume possession of the port; and on the 5th of September he wrote that he was favourable to the settlement of Natal as a British colony, but not prepared to expend large sums of money to conquer the territory from the emigrant farmers. He desired therefore that they should be conciliated, and that for this purpose a president and council should be appointed by the governor from among themselves, and be entrusted with civil authority. When these despatches arrived the aspect of affairs on the eastern frontier was such that the governor dared not withdraw a single company, and as he feared that military occupation of Port Natal would be resisted, he felt himself obliged to temporise. That is why Russell could order a detachment in June and still have no flag at the Point in December: the 27th and the 75th were holding the Fish, and Napier would not thin that line to pick a quarrel with Pretorius. [3] [4] [7]
Matters were in this condition when on the 4th of September L. Badenhorst, then president, and J. J. Burger, secretary of the volksraad, wrote to Napier, informing him that they had established peace with the surrounding tribes, and asking through him that the queen might be graciously pleased to acknowledge and declare them a free and independent people. They proposed to send two commissioners to Capetown to treat for “an acknowledgment of their independence, with the rights of British subjects.” Napier replied on the 2nd of November, asking for an explicit statement of the terms on which they were disposed to treat, but without making any promises or admissions. What those terms would be was not this year’s work. The letter of the 4th of September mattered because it asked for two things at once — independence and the rights of British subjects — and because Russell’s 5th of September, which they had not seen, was already offering them a president of the governor’s choosing instead of a yes. [3] [7]
At the close of the year the Pondo tribe under Faku was in a much more prosperous condition than it had been at any time since 1823. The crops of 1838 and 1839 had been so scanty that the sufferings from famine were spoken of as indescribable; this season the gardens yielded abundance. The tribe had enjoyed 3 years of protection from the fear of Zulu inroads. Still it was doubtful which was the more powerful, Faku or Ncapayi. Fighting between them was renewed in April, when Faku sent to Maritzburg to ask the farmers to allow him to receive assistance from the Hlangweni chief Fodo, living under their jurisdiction on land south of the Umzimkulu. Nombewu, Fodo’s father, had been attacked and killed by the Bacas under Ncapayi; thus there was a bitter feud which Faku wished to turn to account. Faku’s April message mattered because a Pondo harvest did not settle who owned the Umzimvubu, and because a chief under the volksraad’s hand was being asked to fight a Baca quarrel on the republic’s southern doorstep. [3] [7]
While affairs were in this condition a number of cattle were stolen from various farmers in Natal. The spoors were traced to the rugged country along the Umzimvubu occupied by Ncapayi’s people, and it was ascertained that although the principal plunderers were Bushmen, the Bacas were implicated in many of the thefts. A discussion took place in the volksraad. Some were for making such an example of Ncapayi that no one in his direction would dare to molest the emigrants again. Others counselled a close alliance with Faku, and the punishment of the robbers through him. Moderate men like Boshof and Landman saw clearly that an attack upon any tribe on their southern border, without the concurrence of the Cape government, would be resented by the colony as endangering the peace of its frontier. The party of violence, however, was the more numerous, and while the negotiations were being carried on which they hoped would terminate in the acknowledgment of their independence, 260 men assembled to punish Ncapayi. This force was under Pretorius, but Hendrik Stephanus Lombard took the most active part in the operations. On the march it was joined by Fodo and his men. Arriving at the Baca kraals very early one morning in December, the burghers attacked the inhabitants and drove them from their kraals without any loss on the part of the assailants. According to the information supplied by Ncapayi to the missionaries, 26 men, 10 women, and 4 children were killed on his side, and the horned cattle belonging to 62 families, together with about 2000 sheep and goats, were driven off. Lombard’s account is that the spoil was 3000 head of horned cattle, among which were some of those that had been stolen from the farmers. The sheep and goats were taken by Fodo’s people, as also were the women and children; but as soon as it was known that these had been made captive, the farmers liberated them and allowed them to return, except 17 children whose parents were ascertained to be dead, who were kept to be apprenticed until they should be of age. Faku’s satisfaction on hearing of his enemy’s loss was blended with fear that he also might some day meet with the same fate. That is why 260 went south while Badenhorst was still waiting for a yes: the spoors ran to Ncapayi, Faku wanted Fodo, Boshof and Landman could not carry the volksraad, and a blow on the Umzimvubu was the one act most likely to bring Napier’s next letter in a different tone. [3] [4]