Boer History1850 in South Africa: Smith, the Neptune, Letters Patent, and Boomah Pass
The Neptune of the 21st of February, the Geyser, and Thanksgiving of the 8th of March — January–March 1850
Sir Harry Smith was governor. He had taken the oaths on the 1st of December 1847. The transport Neptune still rode in Simon’s Bay. No convict had been allowed to land. 282 men remained on board from the voyage that had anchored at ten o’clock on the 19th of September 1849. 100 of them had been moved to the dismantled hulk Seringapatam for room; the officers themselves were kept aboard. Dr Deas, the ship’s surgeon, had died of an epileptic fit on the 28th of September 1849 after the voyage and the refusal of stores. Commodore Wyvill of the Castor had slipped beef to the transport and had been put under the pledge for it. The Committee of Observation still watched the bay with telescopes. Meat, vegetables, and flour still reached the naval yard from farms across False Bay, from Benjamin Norden, from Jacob Letterstedt of Rondebosch, and from others the Association named pledge-breakers. Earl Grey’s December assurance that no more convicts would be sent had not relaxed the watch. The ship still in the bay mattered because Grey’s own word of 1848 had made colonial opinion the test, and because 282 unlanded men were that test, unanswered, when the year opened. [3] [4]
The Anti-Convict Association still had bills to pay. In March it needed at least another £1,000 to settle accounts, having raised about £2,400 in Capetown and the vicinity and £800 in the country districts, of which £500 had come from Port Elizabeth and Graaff-Reinet. The Association had resolved to indemnify men prevented by the pledge from fulfilling government contracts. Mr de Wet was paid £915 8s. 1d., with a further £1,000 acknowledged as his due. P. J. Truter received £429 19s. 3d. T. Sutherland was paid £361 14s. 6d. for damages and costs in Norden’s case. The shops of the peninsula had closed and opened again; the unemployed had been fed by subscription. The accounts mattered because the pledge of 5 April 1849 had not ended when the shops reopened: it still cost money in 1850 to keep 282 men from setting foot ashore. [4]
On the 13th of February the Glentanner answered the question that had been asked of every sail. Earl Grey sent two despatches in her: one dated the 30th of November, the other the 5th of December. Smith lost no time in making them public. The secretary of state instructed him to send the Neptune to Van Diemen’s Land, where the men on board were to receive a conditional pardon and be liberated. Her Majesty would be advised to revoke the Order in Council of the 4th of September 1848. Grey wrote that, had he known how strong the feeling at the Cape was, he would never have advised the measure; the men in the transport were Irish peasants who, under the famine, had committed depredations they would have no temptation to repeat out of Ireland. He also censured the governor for having announced that the convicts would not land and that the ship would be detained — then, in the second despatch, approved the course Smith had found it necessary to adopt. The Anti-Convict Association met the next day, put off mourning, and recorded that it was prepared to follow the same course again should any successor threaten a similar insult. The despatches mattered because 5 months of closed shops and a watched bay were answered by a ship’s orders, not by a landing, and because Grey’s revocation of the Order of 1848 was the point the memorials of 1 January 1849 had been written to win. [3] [4]
Preparations for departure began at once. The naval department put provisions aboard for the further voyage. £100 was subscribed in Capetown for distribution among the convicts on arrival. On the morning of the 21st of February, after just over 5 months’ detention, the Neptune moved from her moorings and was towed for some distance out of False Bay by the steamer Geyser before she disappeared toward Van Diemen’s Land. John Mitchel, writing in his jail journal, put the sailing on the 19th, with the wind full against them and the hawser from the war steamer fixed; the printed date of the colony’s release was the 21st. Capetown was illuminated that night. The streets filled with people congratulating each other that the colony had been saved from pollution. Friday, the 8th of March, was observed as a day of general thanksgiving. The municipality voted £100 to purchase a piece of plate for C. B. Adderley, and the principal street in the city, which for nearly 2 centuries had been called the Heeregracht, was given his name. Mitchel afterwards wrote applauding the Association for what it had done in defence of its honour. The sailing mattered because a transport that had sat in Simon’s Bay since September left without a man set ashore, and because the Cape named its main street for the member who had spoken that refusal in the Commons. [3] [4]
The Privy Council of January, Letters Patent of the 23rd of May, and the Council of the 6th of September — 1850
William Porter’s draft of the 29th of July 1848 had gone home with Smith’s papers. The lords of the committee of council for trade and foreign plantations studied them, and on the 19th of January drew up a report recommending a constitution more liberal than that possessed by any other British colony, with an elected legislative council as well as a house of assembly. Their object in proposing an elected rather than a nominated council was to create a body of real weight once it came to be overshadowed by an assembly chosen by the people. They recommended that letters patent should contain only the main provisions, and that the existing legislative council should pass ordinances, subject to the Queen’s approbation, for the subordinate arrangements. The report was laid before the queen in council on the 30th of January and approved. On the 23rd of May letters patent were issued providing that there should be an elected legislative council presided over by the chief justice, and an elected house of assembly; that the two houses might be dissolved by the governor at any time, or the house of assembly alone, but not the legislative council alone; and that all details should be arranged by the local legislature and submitted for approval or alteration. The patent mattered because the Cape was being offered 2 elected houses while its existing council still had empty seats, and because those empty seats were the first thing the patent required the colony to fill. [3] [4]
There had been no session of the legislative council for some time. 5 unofficial members had resigned in the anti-convict months, and other gentlemen to whom the seats were offered had declined them. Smith, by the advice of the executive council, on the 6th of May issued a notice requesting the divisional road and municipal boards throughout the colony to transmit the names of the 5 persons whom they wished to see appointed. It was equivalent to an appeal to the country — the only occasion on which the popular will was consulted before the elections to the first parliament — and the secretary of state did not express his approval of the proceeding. From the nominations of the boards, on the 23rd of July the governor appointed Christoffel Josephus Brand, who had 25 votes; Sir Andries Stockenstrom, who came next with 23; Francis William Reitz, with 21; John Fairbairn, with 19; and Robert Godlonton, who had 3 votes. William Cock was still a member. The unofficial element thus consisted of 2 Dutch colonists and 1 English resident in Capetown to represent the west, and 2 British settlers and 1 Dutch colonist to represent the east. The official element was wholly English. The appointments mattered because Godlonton’s 3 votes against J. H. Wicht’s 9 were the quarrel waiting when the council sat, and because the 4 men with the most board votes were the men the west expected to draft a parliament. [3] [4]
On the 6th of September the legislative council met. There were present the governor, who presided; the secretary to government, John Montagu; the auditor-general, William Hope; the collector of customs, William Field; the treasurer-general, Harry Rivers; the attorney-general, William Porter; and the 6 unofficial members. After the formal opening Smith read a minute informing them that one of the principal objects for which they had been called together was to pass an ordinance or ordinances for the government of the colony on liberal principles, with popular representation. Stockenstrom, Brand, Reitz, and Fairbairn then objected to Godlonton’s appointment, on the ground that 9 votes had been recorded for Wicht, 7 for J. J. Meintjes, and 4 for each of several others, whereas Godlonton had received only 3. The governor asserted that he could appoint any one he chose. Porter stated that he had advised the selection of Godlonton instead of Wicht in order that each of the provinces might have 3 representatives, and that the boards which had nominated him — one of them Grahamstown, without a dissentient voice — represented a greater number of individuals than Wicht would have done. The majority of votes was against the objectors, so they were obliged to submit. The sitting mattered because the letters patent of May still needed local ordinances, and because the first vote in the room was not on a franchise but on whether 3 eastern votes outranked 9 western ones. [3] [4]
The council went into committee, Montagu acting as chairman. Some details concerning the franchise and the house of assembly were agreed to, and then irreconcilable differences arose between the official members and Godlonton and Cock on one side, and Stockenstrom, Brand, Reitz, and Fairbairn on the other, regarding the qualifications for a seat in the upper house and the length of the term. The majority desired the qualification to be the possession of unencumbered landed property to the value of £2,000, and the term to be 10 years. The 4 in the minority, who wanted a much more democratic council, declared they would regard a chamber so constituted as nothing but an oligarchy. Montagu expressed the opinion that all the official members were bound to support any measure resolved upon by the executive council, whether they approved of it or not. In every division the 4 were outvoted. On the 20th of September drafts of ordinances and the estimates for the current year were brought on. The same 4 objected to any business being taken except the constitution ordinances, and upon a motion to proceed with the estimates being carried against them they resigned their seats. The council being thus made incompetent for want of a quorum, on the 23rd the governor appointed the 5 official members with Godlonton and Cock a commission to consider and report on the best form of a representative legislature. The resignations mattered because the men the boards had placed at the head of the list had walked out, and because a parliament promised in May could not be written by a council that no longer had a quorum. [3] [4]
Fairbairn’s Draft of October, the Four Resignations, and the Colour of the Upper House — September–December 1850
The municipality of Capetown now requested the 4 who had resigned, together with Wicht, to draft a constitution according to their views, to be taken to England by Stockenstrom and Fairbairn. It was hoped that, as they had received the highest number of votes from the municipal and road boards, they would be regarded as the true representatives of the colonists. The document they drew up provided for a house of assembly of 46 members chosen for 3 years by 22 electoral divisions — the 20 existing fiscal divisions and the city of Grahamstown, each returning 2, and the city of Capetown returning 4. Voting for that house was to be by word of mouth. There was to be a legislative council of 15 members elected for 4 years by the whole colony as one constituency, the elections by written papers containing any number of names not exceeding 15. Qualifications of members of the assembly were simply that they should be voters; those of members of the council were 30 years of age, residence of 3 years, and fixed property to the value of £1,000. Each house was to elect its own chairman. The secretary to government, the attorney-general, and the treasurer-general were to have the right of debate in both houses, but not of voting. The governor was not to dissolve the assembly without dissolving the council at the same time, and he was to call parliament at least once every year. The qualification of voters for both houses was 12 months’ occupation of property valued at or above £25. The draft mattered because £25 occupation and a 4-year council were the west’s answer to a £2,000 upper house, and because the men who wrote it were about to carry it to Downing Street as if they sat for the colony. [3]
On the 27th of October Fairbairn left Capetown for England with that draft and with numerous petitions in its favour. Stockenstrom, who was in delicate health and feared a European winter, did not sail in this calendar. On presenting himself at the colonial office Fairbairn was received as a private individual and distinctly informed that he could not be acknowledged in a representative character. He tried to press approval of the draft, without obtaining any other reply than that Smith would be instructed how to act. On the 30th of September the official members with Godlonton and Cock had drawn up the report the governor had required. In it the electoral franchise and the constitution of the house of assembly were the same as the other party proposed, but the legislative council was to consist of 15 members elected for 10 years, except that the 7 returned with the least number of votes at the first election should retire after 5 years. The qualification of a member they fixed at unencumbered landed property to the value of £2,000 or movable or mixed property to the value of £4,000, and he was required to be not under 30. They advised that this chamber should choose its own president, and they objected to its dissolution separately from that of the assembly. The voyage mattered because Fairbairn’s trunk held one parliament and Smith’s commission held another, and because Downing Street would not treat the editor of the Commercial Advertiser as a member for the Cape. [3] [4]
Even that council did not satisfy the whole of the gentlemen who signed the report. Montagu and Rivers agreed to it because they felt themselves unable to vote against a decision of the imperial authorities, but both drew up memoranda strongly favouring a council nominated for life by the crown. Montagu pointed to the party and race feeling of the preceding 2 years, and had come to the conclusion that the coloured people were in need of protection from the farming population, whose representatives in the assembly would be in a majority. Porter thought a nominated upper house would have been preferable, but was now impossible, as an elected one had been promised; he suggested that the western province as one constituency should return 8 members, and the eastern 7. Field desired that at least one-third of the upper house should consist of official members. Smith himself expressed to Grey a very strong opinion in accordance with this feeling. Godlonton and Cock, on their part, were not opposed to an elected council, but desired the separation of the eastern province, and protested against the seat of government remaining in Capetown if the colony continued to be one. The memoranda mattered because the fight over the upper house was not only about £2,000 and 10 years: it was about who would sit for coloured voters, and about whether Grahamstown would still take its laws from Capetown. [3]
Addresses wholly without precedent were sent to the governor from Albany, Salem, and Fort Beaufort — places which usually felt the first brunt of an inroad — thanking him for the unexampled quiet since he had assumed the management of the frontier. That quiet was already thinning. The addresses mattered because the eastern towns that asked for a separate government were the same towns that still thanked Smith for a peace the Gaika chiefs no longer treated as more than a truce. [4]
Warden’s Commando of January, the Friend of June, and Mekuatling of the 21st of September — Sovereignty 1850
Between the Orange and the Vaal the Sovereignty that Smith had proclaimed on the 3rd of February 1848 still sat on paper thicker than on the ground. The Warden line had been gazetted on the 18th of December 1849. Outside the reserves, wherever black occupants had been in actual possession on the 3rd of February 1848 their right was acknowledged, subject now to European magistrates, and no sale of their ground was to be considered legal unless made before the civil commissioner of the district. In January Dirk van Velden was appointed clergyman of Winburg. Ministers for the other congregations were not obtainable, and if they had been there were no funds with which to pay them. Andrew Murray and Van Velden were therefore obliged to act as consulents for Harrismith, Smithfield, and Riet River. Each district was now provided with a school. The revenue had not been as large as the high commissioner had estimated, and the expenditure had been greater. On the 10th of September an account by the Sovereignty treasurer showed that expenditure for civil purposes alone had exceeded revenue by £4,905, drawn as a loan from the Cape treasury with no possibility of paying it. On the 10th of June the first number of a weekly newspaper termed the Friend of the Sovereignty was issued at Bloemfontein by a branch of Godlonton and White of Grahamstown, printed partly in Dutch and partly in English. Henry Halse was appointed to the council on the 18th of August. The paper and the loan mattered because a clergyman at Winburg and a weekly at Bloemfontein were how a paper sovereignty tried to look like a government, while the Cape treasury already carried £4,905 it could not recover. [3] [3]
In January Major Warden called out a commando to clear the Caledon River district of San. A party of those marauders had recently presented themselves at the homestead of a farmer named Van Hansen; one demanded tobacco; upon the farmer refusing, they murdered him, his wife, 4 children, and 2 servants, and set fire to the house. The boundary laid down between this district and the Basuto reserve placed Vechtkop, the residence of Moshesh’s brother Poshuli, on the European side, so that he was considered under magisterial jurisdiction. He was believed to have instigated the murders, as he had taken many San under his protection; persons for whom warrants had been issued had been sheltered by him; when summoned he had declined to appear. Warden therefore fined him 50 oxen, and as he refused to pay, the commando was sent to seize his cattle. They were taken without resistance. Among them were 30 head at once sworn to as recently stolen from farmers, and a few others belonging to Mokatshane, father of Moshesh and Poshuli, then living at Thaba Bosigo. Moshesh termed the seizure of his father’s cattle an unjust and unfriendly act. With that exception the early months passed without noteworthy disturbances. Gert Taaibosch removed for a time with his horde from the district just allotted to him, so that there was one element of strife the less on the Basuto border. The fine mattered because Vechtkop sat on the European side of a line gazetted in December, and because cattle taken from Moshesh’s father were how that line first came back as a complaint from Thaba Bosigo. [3] [3]
In August Warden visited the district between the Modder and the Vaal. At Van Wyk’s Vlei, now Boshof, he heard loud complaints of robberies by a San captain named Kausop, who wandered about that part with about 200 souls and claimed the whole district as of higher rank than Danser, from whom D. S. Fourie had purchased 11 years before. Kausop was informed that his claim would not be admitted, but that as a resident he would be provided for. Smith approved, and Kausop was put in possession of a tract of 72 square miles along the Vaal. Adjoining on the upper side, 200 square miles had in the preceding year been allotted jointly to David Danser and Goliath Yzerbek — a mistake, for they began to quarrel almost at once. Warden estimated between them about 350 families. Adjoining Kausop on the lower side was a reserve allotted to Jan Bloem, head of a Korana horde. The Berlin mission’s station of Pniel stood on the southern bank; a few farmers who had been living there made no objection to resigning their land to the Koranas and receiving allotments farther back. Danser, hardly in possession, sold some farms in his location; the British resident declared the sales illegal and refused transfer. The reserves mattered because the Vaal farms were being cut into locations to bring Korana hordes within Pniel’s reach, and because a sale Warden would not transfer was how those locations first met a land market. [3] [3]
The calm did not last. Sikonyela’s people fell upon some clans of Bataung and Basuto and plundered them, and when the British resident called a meeting of chiefs the offender declined to attend. On the 1st of September Warden received the high commissioner’s authority to employ the military force at Bloemfontein and to call out a commando of farmers and coloured people to punish the Batlokua. The order came too late. On the 30th of August the Bataung attacked the mission station Umpukani, whose people they believed to be in alliance with Sikonyela, killed 20 persons, wounded many more, and swept off the cattle. 17 days later a combined military, burgher, and coloured force moved against Sikonyela, but upon the intercession of Moroko and Gert Taaibosch that chief was admitted to an interview, expressed contrition, and was merely adjudged to pay a fine of 300 head at some future day. As soon as this was settled, the Batlokua chief joined his forces to Warden’s, and together they proceeded against Molitsane for violating the sanctity of a mission station. At daybreak on the 21st of September the Bataung kraals at Mekuatling were attacked. Warden had about 100 soldiers, but only 35 farmers had answered his call. The coloured contingent was composed of Batlokua under Sikonyela, Barolong under Moroko, Koranas under Taaibosch, half-breeds under Carolus Baatje, and a number of Mfengu. The Bataung, taken by surprise, made but slight resistance: about 20 were killed, 3500 head of cattle were captured, with sheep, goats, and grain, and 10 waggons belonging to Koranas under Gert Lynx. The attacking party had 3 coloured men killed and 6 wounded. A large portion of the spoil was distributed among the people of Umpukani and the allies; the remainder was forwarded to Winburg and Bloemfontein to be sold. Mekuatling mattered because 35 farmers and 100 soldiers were all the resident could put in the field, and because a mission station’s cattle were recovered by using Sikonyela — the man Warden had just been ordered to punish. [3] [3]
The commando had hardly left Mekuatling when word was brought that the Barolong had been attacked and plundered. Morakabi, son of Molitsane, and Moseme, a petty Basuto captain, together fell upon Moroko’s outposts, killed several of his people, and swept off 3800 head of horned cattle and 800 horses. The cattle were driven across the Caledon, where they were received by Moshesh’s people. Warden gave Moroko the strongest assurance that the government would support him at whatever cost, and called upon Moshesh to restore the cattle. Negotiations followed which showed Moshesh personally desirous of maintaining peace, while his people were ready for war and averse to any concessions. The Barolong chief declined to enter into arrangements with Moshesh and looked to the British resident. At the year’s close those cattle had not come back. The raid mattered because 3800 cattle and 800 horses taken after Mekuatling turned Warden’s line into a claim on Moshesh, and because a chief who wanted peace could not return what his people had taken. [3] [3]
Pine of the 19th of April, Byrne’s Ships, and Cotton of the Year — Natal 1850
At Port Natal Martin West had died on the 1st of August 1849. Edmond French Boys had acted from the 2nd of August. On the 19th of April Benjamin Chilley Campbell Pine assumed duty. The Wanderer had landed Byrne’s first people on the 16th of May 1849; Langalibalele had been shown his beacons on the 1st of December. The hut tax of 7 shillings, collected at the close of 1849 on 25232 huts, had brought £8,831 4s. without difficulty. In this year an unusual number of ships arrived from Great Britain with immigrants under Joseph Charles Byrne’s scheme and with goods upon which duty was paid. Land was allotted by John Moreland, Byrne’s agent; much of it was unfit for agriculture. To encourage the people the lieutenant-governor gave to each adult 25 acres additional, and to each child 6 acres and a quarter, still it was only with difficulty that they could make a living on those little plots. All who could obtain other employment did so. Cotton was the chief allurement Byrne had held out. In this one year about 6½ tons were gathered. Pine’s landing mattered because the new lieutenant-governor took a district whose settlers were already leaving the plots they had come for, and because 6½ tons of cotton were the year’s whole return on that allurement. [3]
The year’s receipts at Natal were swollen by those ships and by land sales. Customs duties in 1850 were £11,200 2s.; the hut tax £9,251 2s. 9d.; land sales £11,273 11s. 4d. The garrison at this time consisted of the 45th regiment, 617 officers and men, 34 Cape mounted riflemen, 22 artillerymen, and 17 engineers. The press was active for the number of readers. The Natal Independent commenced at Maritzburg in January. Outlying villages were beginning to spring up: Pinetown, 13 miles from Durban on the road to Maritzburg; Verulam, on the Umhloti; Richmond, on the Ilovo. On the 4th of November an ordinance of 23 June 1849, providing an appeal from the chiefs to the lieutenant-governor and executive council and allowing officers to control the administration of justice according to Bantu law, was published as confirmed. On the same day L. E. Mesham, George Ringler Thomson, G. R. Peppercorn, and James Cleghorn were appointed native magistrates of the Inanda, Umzinyati, Impafana, and Umvoti locations. From this time the lieutenant-governor in dealings with the black population was entitled the supreme chief, and the diplomatic agent was termed his mouthpiece. The 4th of November mattered because Bantu law became an appealable system with European magistrates on that day, and because Pine’s villages on the road were how Byrne’s people tried to live off plots that would not plough. [3]
When intelligence was received of the rebellion on the eastern frontier in December there was a general flight from lonely farms, and business of all kinds was suspended for several weeks. Among other precautions the government thought it prudent to disband the Xhosa police, through fear of their rising. Faku still sat under Maitland’s treaty of the 7th of October 1844 as paramount along Natal’s south-western border, and the Natal government maintained that he was bound to prevent stock-lifting there — a pressure that sat heavily upon him, because the upper terrace between the Umzimkulu and the Umtata was of little use to him and yet was counted his. Cattle given up by Faku to Walter Harding after San robberies were in excess of the number required, and in November Pine returned 600 head to the chief. The panic mattered because news from the Keiskama emptied farms that cotton had not filled, and because 600 cattle sent back to Faku were how Natal tried to keep a Pondo treaty it could not police. [3] [3]
To the black man Natal was still like a country under protection: his laws and customs were not interfered with, and he was under no necessity to labour. When the hut tax came round, the sale of an ox or a few bags of maize sufficed to meet the charge upon several families. An influx of refugees from beyond the Tugela and the Umzinyati went on; the government restored to Panda any cattle that the fugitives brought and that he sent to claim, but the people themselves were allowed to remain. Langalibalele’s Hlubi still sat at the sources of the Bushman’s river, where they had been placed on the 1st of December 1849 to check San descents from the mountains behind. That expectation was at first only partly realised, but the robberies were thereafter less frequent than before. Cotton seemed to thrive as well as in the Southern States of America, and great hopes were entertained that it would furnish occupation and the means of purchasing foreign goods. Experience soon showed that the clans could not be depended upon to furnish hands in the picking season. It was found that the plant throve best a few miles from the coast, and that in certain places it was subject to damage from a small fly; but the great difficulty — want of reliable labour at the one season that mattered — already stood between the 6½ tons of this year and any lasting staple. Sugar cane plants had been introduced from Mauritius in 1847 by Edmund Moreland, who had observed how luxuriantly the sweet cane of the clans grew; that experiment had not yet yielded its first commercial sugar. The crop mattered because 6½ tons gathered without pickers at the right week were not a staple, and because cane from 1847 still sat in the ground while Byrne’s people looked for other work. [3]
Umlanjeni of Winter, Sandile Deposed on the 30th of October, and the Meeting that Failed — 1850
During 1848 and 1849 as far as could be seen everything had worked smoothly between the Keiskama and the Kei, but the Gaikas regarded the settlement as a mere truce. The military force was not strong enough to overawe them. The sympathy of the police raised from the clans was with their countrymen. The Gaikas still held the Amatola. The attempt to suppress punishment of persons accused by diviners of dealing in sorcery, and the denunciation of those diviners as criminals, kept the whole body of the people in a state of constant alarm: the chiefs lost the principal source of their revenue, and the people — especially those possessing property — believed that the new government, by preventing the punishment of supposed malevolent persons, was wantonly exposing them to destruction. Addresses from Albany, Salem, and Fort Beaufort still spoke of unexampled quiet. In the winter of this year the frontier colonists were forced to another belief. At the instigation of the Gaika chiefs, or at least with their concurrence, an individual who claimed supernatural power was busy preparing their people for war. His name was Umlanjeni, of Umkye’s tribe. The chiefs patronised him; the people gave credit to his predictions of superhuman aid in driving the white man into the sea, and believed that certain charms would prevent musket balls from hurting them and would cause cattle to follow wherever they chose to lead. Farmers saw their servants returning to the clans at his call. Umlanjeni mattered because a truce that Albany still called quiet was being preached away in the Amatola, and because a charm against musket balls was how the Gaika chiefs prepared a war they had not yet named. [3] [4]
Captain Maclean, resident with the Ndlambe at Fort Murray, reported the prophet on the 18th of August. He summoned Umkye, Umlanjeni, and the prophet’s father Kala. Umkye alone obeyed, and stated that Umlanjeni was doing much good by preaching against witchcraft — the abolition of which the English so strongly inculcated. Maclean was not satisfied. A company of the second division of the Xhosa police was sent; Kala was arrested and taken to Fort Murray; Umlanjeni, a young man found so ill and emaciated that he could not be moved, was given 5 days to remove to near Umkye’s kraal by the Mount Coke mission. The order was ignored. When the police visited again, Umlanjeni had disappeared: he had no definite abode, concealed himself in the bush at night, and was warned by spies. There was nothing definite against him — no evidence that he had excited the people to war — though it was clear he had unsettled their minds. He was directing all bewitching material to be destroyed. Some said he was really Makana, who had never died. Kreli’s people, Fynn reported, were dispossessing themselves of poisonous roots and charms. Then came an extraordinary and general desertion of employment. Servants left without waiting for wages. Farmers in the early morning found the cattle kraals unopened and the huts empty. Domestic servants failed to appear. When asked, some would give no other answer than that they were going to their own country. Homes were abandoned; stock was driven west; laager life commenced again. The desertion mattered because men who would not wait for wages were not going home for a holiday, and because a prophet Maclean could not arrest had already emptied the kraals on the colonial side. [4]
Colonel Mackinnon instructed the commissioners — Charles Brownlee for the Gaikas and Maclean for the Ndlambe — to assemble their chiefs and warn them against Umlanjeni. He did not think it advisable to attempt a general meeting at King William’s Town. The meetings took place on the 11th of October. At Fort Murray Maclean met Pato, Cobus, Toise, Jan Tshatshu, Umhala, Siyolo, Siwani, and Umkye. Brownlee met Sandile with his brother Anta, Maqoma, Xoxo, Tola, and Namba, with about 150 councillors. Speaking in Xhosa, Brownlee accused them of having sent messages to servants in the colony, ridiculed their faith in the impostor, and told them another war would strip them of remaining country and authority. Sandile’s reply was that it was believed the soldiers were to come to seize the chiefs, but they themselves did not intend to make war: they had neither corn in their pits nor seed in the ground — men who fight must eat. When news of the east reached the west, the executive council met on the 14th of October and decided that Smith should leave for the frontier. He left Capetown on the 15th and sent an invitation to the chiefs to meet him on the 26th at King William’s Town. Passing through the territories of Pato and Umhala he found everything quiet. The summons mattered because Sandile had already told Brownlee that men who fight must eat, and because the governor who took that as a truce was riding east to a meeting the Gaika chiefs did not mean to attend. [3] [4]
On the day appointed not a single Gaika chief of any importance was present, and many of the others also failed to attend. The important Ndlambe and Gqunukhwebe chiefs came with hundreds of followers; of the Gaikas only Xoxo and Tola appeared. Sandile and Anta refused the summons. Sandile stated afterwards that he feared he would be made a prisoner. Only a few captains of inferior rank appeared, with petty bands of attendants, 340 individuals in all. Smith, standing in the centre of the circle with Mackinnon and staff, warned them against the madman Umlanjeni, reprobated Sandile for his absence, and would hear no excuse of that conduct. This was regarded as equivalent to a direct defiance. On the 30th of October he issued a proclamation deposing Sandile from his position as head of the Gaika clans and appointing Brownlee in his stead. Then, as no rising actually took place, the governor, after making a few trifling arrangements, returned to Capetown. The official deposition had not the slightest effect upon a single Xhosa. Brownlee was born and brought up among them, a son of the first missionary at the Tyumie, conversant with their language as with English or Dutch, large in person and an athlete; they regarded him almost as one of themselves. But a European cannot occupy the place in their religion that the hereditary ruler holds. Smith had scarcely reached the seat of government when he received accounts which caused him to hasten back at the head of all the troops available. Sandile had taken up his residence in a thicket at the Rabula, in the wild forest land along the head waters of the Keiskama. As he would not appear at King William’s Town, on the 20th of December he and his equally refractory brother Anta were outlawed. The attempt to substitute a European for a chief was abandoned, and the government of the 2 clans was entrusted to Sutu, great widow of Gaika, with the title of regent, and a body of counsellors supposed to be attached to the European interest. The deposition mattered because naming Brownlee on paper did not move a man in the Amatola, and because the governor who had left thinking the meeting enough had to turn around and outlaw the chief he had already deposed. [3] [4]
Boomah Pass of the 24th of December, Christmas at Woburn and Auckland, and Smith’s Dash from Fort Cox — December 1850
At daylight in the morning of the 24th of December a column of troops 700 strong, consisting of detachments of the 6th, 45th, and 73rd regiments of foot and of the Cape mounted rifles, left Fort Cox on the Keiskama and proceeded up the river. The patrol was commanded by Mackinnon and was accompanied by a large party of the Xhosa police. The objects were, first, to arrest the deposed chiefs or drive them from their lurking place, second, to dispel the fears of the farmers by making what was expected to be a peaceful march through the wildest part of the country. Up to this moment the governor did not believe that the clans had any intention of beginning another war. So deceived was he that the infantry were not permitted to load their muskets, lest some untoward accident should take place if Xhosa were met with. The police, whose treachery he did not suspect, knew the particulars of the expedition and the line of march long enough before they set out to communicate the information to their countrymen. After proceeding some miles along the footpaths, in the course of the morning the patrol reached the Boomah pass, a rugged defile between precipitous bush-covered ridges, so narrow that the horsemen could not move two abreast. Some Xhosa were seen on the hills, but as yet no shot had been fired. The police entered the pass first, then the Cape corps, and afterwards the infantry. Just as the last horseman was through, an attack was made upon the line by thousands lying in ambush behind rocks and in thickets. Sandile himself, who, owing to one of his legs being withered, never personally took part in an engagement, had just left the place with 2 of his counsellors. The troops charged into the thickets and fought their way through with a loss of 23 killed and as many wounded. That night they rested in the open air at Keiskama Hoek, with their muskets at their sides, and next day they made a circuit to Fort White, a post several miles to the eastward of Fort Cox. On the way, at the Debe Nek, they found the remains of 15 men of the 45th, stripped and horribly mutilated: a small patrol had been surprised, and every man put to death without mercy. In this manner the eighth frontier war commenced. Before midnight of the 24th it was known to all the clans west of the Kei, by the signal fires that flashed the information from peak to peak. The pass mattered because 700 men marched with unloaded muskets into a defile the police had already described, and because 23 killed there and 15 at the Debe Nek were how a “peaceful march” became a war. [3] [4]
Another massacre took place on Christmas day. The Gaikas were particularly embittered against the military settlers on the western bank of the Tyumie, because those people were occupying what had once been their favourite lands. Ill feeling had also been caused by the impounding of cattle trespassing on gardens: the kraals of Oba, son of Tyali, were on the eastern side of the valley, and his herds frequently crossed, when they were driven to the pound. Another cause of enmity was the removal by some soldiers of a pot from the grave of Tyali, regarded as sacrilege. The defenceless state of the military villages was the principal cause of their male inhabitants being doomed. Some time previous much uneasiness had been felt, but the authorities had asserted so positively there was no cause for alarm that the villagers had allowed their fears to subside. On Christmas morning a patrol of 3 men of the Cape corps was sent from Fort Hare to warn the people that war had commenced; the message was too late. About nine o’clock a horde of warriors armed with guns and assegais appeared at Woburn, the central village. The officer in charge, Stacey by name, with 13 or 14 followers made a gallant resistance, but in a few minutes every man was killed. The cottages were set on fire, after which a party was detached to destroy Juanasburg, while the remainder proceeded toward Auckland. Woburn faced Juanasburg 4 or 5 miles farther down, built on a plateau commanding an extensive view, so that the residents, seeing the smoke, became alarmed, and as soon as the warriors appeared most of them fled and reached Alice in safety. 3 men, however, were overtaken and murdered. The village was given to the flames. Woburn mattered because the military villages sat on Gaika garden land the settlers had been told was safe, and because a warning from Fort Hare arrived after Stacey and his 13 or 14 were already dead. [3] [4]
At the head of the valley, in an amphitheatre formed by the Amatola, lay Auckland. The site was beautiful and bad for defence: mountains almost too steep to be scaled behind and on each side, a low ridge in front shutting out the view, so secluded that the villagers could not see the smoke of Woburn. No danger was apprehended by the doomed people, who were not at their usual work in the forest or in the fields, as it was Christmas day. When the Xhosa made their appearance no alarm was felt; they had often visited the village in large parties before. Their leader, Xayimpi, a counsellor and captain under Oba, was very well known. He sat down and began to ask for things in the usual manner. His followers spread themselves about without causing suspicion. A Khoikhoi woman arrived a little later and stated that as she was coming over the ridge she saw thick smoke rising from Woburn; still no one imagined what had caused it. Farquhar Munro, acting superintendent, chatted a little with Xayimpi through an interpreter, then left him talking to one of the residents’ wives. All, whites and blacks, were in the open air on that clear sunny day. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when Xayimpi sprang to his feet, threw off his kaross, and whistled shrilly. The attackers instantly fell upon the defenceless people and murdered the greater number of the men. The others managed to get their muskets and some ammunition, and with the women and children rushed to a dilapidated building, once intended to be a fort, where they defended themselves until three o’clock the following afternoon. Then their ammunition failed. The women and children, after being stripped nearly naked, were allowed to leave; the men were cruelly murdered. The village, after being plundered, was given to the flames. In all, on the Keiskama and the Tyumie, 84 lives were sacrificed during the first 3 days of the insurrection. Auckland mattered because a whistle at two o’clock on Christmas Day ended a village that could not see Woburn’s smoke, and because 84 dead in 3 days were the opening bill of the war Smith had not believed would come. [3]
On the western side of the valley, a couple of miles from Woburn, was the mission station Gwali, occupied by the reverend Mr Cumming — the oldest station among the Xhosa, founded in 1820 by Brownlee for the colonial government. After its formation Gaika had promised that it should be considered a sanctuary. On Christmas day the reverend Mr Niven arrived there with his family, also 5 European men, and the 3 soldiers of the Cape corps who had been sent up the valley in the morning with the notice of danger. 2 of the men were naked when they reached the station, having been stripped but not otherwise injured. On the following day the women and children from Auckland, some 30 in number, reached the place nearly naked, in great distress of mind, and half famished, having been over 30 hours without food. Once there, they were safe, and were sheltered by the missionary until they could leave without danger. At the time of these occurrences Smith was at Fort Cox, which was immediately besieged by the whole power of the enemy. On the 29th Colonel Somerset, with 200 men of the 91st and the Cape corps, together with a party of Mfengu, attempted to relieve the governor, but failed. After proceeding some 6 or 7 miles from Fort Hare he encountered such numbers that he considered it necessary to retreat; when falling back the patrol was vigorously pressed, and 2 officers and 20 men were killed. If a party of the 45th had not been sent out to their relief, the whole of the rear guard would probably have been cut to pieces. On the 30th his Excellency resolved to liberate himself. At the head of 250 Cape mounted riflemen he made a dash through the enemy and succeeded in reaching King William’s Town in safety. The dash mattered because Fort Cox could not be relieved from Fort Hare, and because 250 rifles were how the governor who had deposed Sandile on paper cut his way out of a fort the Gaikas had closed. [3] [4]
Many of the Xhosa police had by this time deserted and gone over to their countrymen with their arms and their horses. Those who accompanied Mackinnon on the 24th would have done so at the Boomah pass, it was believed, if their wives and children had not been at Fort Cox at the time. 2 days later 90 of them deserted in a body, and these were followed by all the others, except 50 belonging to friendly clans who remained faithful throughout. Then followed a raid into the colony. Again the frontier districts were overrun and laid waste, the farmers compelled to flee for their lives, leaving all they could not carry away to be destroyed. The principal clans in arms were the Gaikas under Sandile, Maqoma, Anta, and Oba; the Imidange under Tola; the Amambala under Stokwe; and a few of the Imidushane under Siyolo. Those that remained faithful were the Gqunukhwebe under Pato and Kama, the Ndlambe clan under Umkayi, and the Imidushane under Siwani: Pato kept the main road near East London open and furnished escorts for waggon trains; Kama was of great assistance in the defence of Whittlesea; Umkayi brought slaughter cattle from Fort Peddie to King William’s Town; Siwani conveyed the mails over the same line when it was closed to the ordinary posts. Umhala professed to be sitting still, but many of his people were with the Gaikas; Smith fined him 1000 head. Tshatshu undertook to keep open the road between King William’s Town and Fort Murray. Kreli’s Gcaleka were aiders and abettors of the insurgents. The Thembu were divided: Nonesi, great widow of Vusani, moved eastward to the Bashee and took no part; the emigrant Thembu under Mapasa sided with the rebels. The Mfengu without exception fought on the British side. That none of the clans along the coast took an active part was mainly owing to Maclean’s conduct with the Ndlambe. By 1850 the Gqunukhwebe under the line of Kwane numbered about 15000 and occupied the coast country from the mouth of the Fish almost up to the mouth of the Buffalo. The desertion mattered because 90 police leaving in a body took arms and horses with them, and because the roads that stayed open in the last days of December stayed open only where Pato, Kama, Umkayi, and Siwani chose to hold them. [3] [4]