Boer History1863 in South Africa: Wodehouse, Venter, Rouxville, and Viljoen
Wodehouse, Faku’s Line, and Somerset Street — Colony 1863
Sir Philip Wodehouse still governed the Cape Colony and still held Her Majesty’s high commission in South Africa. He had arrived at Capetown on the 15th of January 1862, succeeding Sir George Grey, who had fallen ill at King William’s Town and by September 1861 had left the country. Grey’s second term had been bound by the duke of Newcastle’s condition that he would not resume British authority over the Orange Free State. Wodehouse inherited that limit. The Table Bay dock voted in the session of 1861 was still unfinished inside John Coode’s plan, under Arthur Thomas Andrews. The Port Elizabeth light still showed from the 1st of June 1861; the Roman rock light from the 16th of September 1861. In the annexed territory Mr. Justice Fitzpatrick still sat as sole judge, with trial by jury in criminal cases. The castle year mattered because the high commissioner who had written to Moshesh and to Pretorius 12 days after taking the oaths was still the man who could point out a Free State border, or refuse to draw a map. [3]
The imperial authorities remained opposed to any enlargement of the Cape Colony or any increase of England’s responsibilities in South Africa. Faku, the Pondo chief, had offered to cede the land between the Drakensberg and a line from the Umtata to the Umzimkulu, on condition that the Cape government exercise rule over it. The line he named is the south-eastern boundary of later Griqualand East, excluding the district of Mount Ayliff. He had for years tried in vain to reduce those in the treaty state who would not submit, and the offer was a way to hand some of them to the colony while he crushed or absorbed the rest. Sir Walter Currie went carefully along the line and reported that the clans on the upper side were anxious to be taken under protection, so as to be freed from attacks by the Pondos. London would not take the land. The Maitland treaty was henceforth read as applying only to the country between the sea and the line Faku had named. That refusal mattered in 1863 because Nehemiah, a son of Moshesh, would claim that Her Majesty had formally ceded Nomansland to him, and because Wodehouse would have no colonial enlargement with which to answer that claim. [3]
In Grahamstown the staging and gallows still went up outside the jail in Somerset Street as occasion required. Before 1838 criminals had been hanged in the open street on the outskirts of the town, near where the railway station later stood. After that date the ceremony was performed outside the jail, the staging and gallows being erected when they were wanted. Those public warnings to evil-doers, for such they were intended to be, were discontinued after this year. On the Drostdy ground European soldiers were still flogged in public. A wooden triangle about 7 or 8 feet high was fixed a little in front of the Drostdy House. The cat was dipped in salt water, given 3 flourishes in the air, and brought down on a naked back. The normal number of lashes was 39 — 40 save 1 — though in many cases the number far exceeded this. The bleeding back was then washed with the same salt water. Drumming out of the army was less brutal: buttons and ornaments cut partly through, pulled off in a hollow square, and the Rogues’ March to the entrance of the ground, with parting kicks at the gate. The last calendar on which the Somerset Street gallows stood as a colonial warning was this one. [4]
Kok of January at Mount Currie, Nehemiah of the 8th of June, and the 4th of August — Nomansland 1863
After the ground in possession of private individuals had been sold, Adam Kok’s clan, numbering about 3,000 souls, including a good many blacks of different tribes who had recently joined them, moved off in a body toward their new home. Grey had offered them Nomansland, east of the Drakensberg, after the Philippolis country between the Riet and the Orange was sold. On the 26th of December 1861 Kok and his council, through their agent Henry Harvey, had signed a document ceding all unappropriated land and the sovereign rights over their possessions north of the Orange to the Free State for £4,000. It was not until January of this year that the clan arrived at Mount Currie, close to the later village of Kokstad. The interval had been spent on the border of the Lesuto, where overtures were made to Kok to occupy the new country as a vassal of Moshesh. When he rejected those advances, Poshuli’s followers began to plunder him. He had hardly been in his new home a month when he was obliged to write to the high commissioner complaining of Nehemiah. The object of the Basuto chiefs was to compel the Griquas to become Moshesh’s subjects or to leave the country. The arrival mattered because 3,000 people who had sold Philippolis now sat on land Moshesh wanted as a vassal holding, and because Wodehouse, not Grey, would have to answer the complaint. [3]
On the 8th of June Nehemiah again wrote to the high commissioner asking for a chart of the district, and stating that “Moshesh was satisfied on account of Her Majesty’s Government having formally ceded the territory to his son.” Almost simultaneously Wodehouse received a letter from Adam Kok informing him that Nehemiah had incited several of the petty chiefs on Faku’s border to attack him, and that Poshuli had crossed over to share in the plunder. Reports from the colonial officers on the frontier left no doubt of the correctness of Kok’s statement. The high commissioner determined not to interfere, but to let the disputing parties fight their quarrel out. The letters mattered because Nehemiah treated a British cession as already granted, and because Kok’s report, confirmed from the frontier, was answered by a decision to stand aside. [3]
On the 4th of August Wodehouse wrote to Nehemiah declining to furnish a map, and denying that the country had ever been ceded to him by Her Majesty’s Government, and then he left matters to take their course. All through this year the quarrel continued, without either side gaining an advantage. Kok held Mount Currie. Nehemiah held his claim and his robber bands. Poshuli crossed when there was plunder. The chart of the 8th of June was refused; the cession was denied. The high commissioner who would not set the Free State treaties aside would not draw a map for Moshesh’s son either. That refusal mattered because Nomansland remained a fight between Griqua and Basuto without a British line on paper, on the same imperial ground that had declined Faku’s offer. [3]
Pretorius of the 14th of January, Thaba Bosigo of the 2nd of March, and the 15th of April — Orange Free State 1863
On the 28th of November 1862 the Free State secretary had written to Moshesh that a commission — C. von Brandis, landdrost of Winburg, W. G. Every, J. Schutte, and R. du Toit — had been appointed to settle the boundary with his representatives, and that Von Brandis could arrange the time of meeting. No reply came before the 1st of January. Then, by Moshesh’s instructions, the reverend Mr. Jousse wrote to Von Brandis that “the Basuto were busy in their gardens, and had no time to spare for anything else at the moment.” During the summer of 1862–63 the Basuto were in violent excitement: men who professed communication with the spirit world were exhorting the people to reject the missionaries, and Moshesh himself was encouraging old rites and customs that in some places had partly fallen into disuse. Along the Winburg farms Basuto parties damaged gardens and reservoirs; in one case a farmer named Fouche shot a Mosuto, and the next day a party murdered the farmer’s son, and on neither side could any punishment be inflicted. The gardens letter mattered because it was the answer to a boundary commission already named, and because Pretorius would have to take that delay to the high commissioner. [3]
On the 14th of January President M. W. Pretorius again addressed Sir Philip Wodehouse, informing him of Moshesh’s insincerity, and urging him to appoint a commission. The letter caused the high commissioner to press upon Moshesh the necessity of arranging matters amicably, which he once more promised to do. Again, therefore, the Free State government appointed a commission — Messrs. Venter, De Villiers, Schutte, and Naude — who proceeded to Thaba Bosigo, and there, on the 2nd of March, were joined by a few men of no rank or position in the tribe, whom Moshesh sent to report the proceedings. To these people every beacon along the line was shown, and they then returned to their chief. On the 9th of April Moshesh wrote to the high commissioner that the line shown to his delegates cut off a considerable number of villages inhabited by Basuto, adding that he trusted the government of the Free State would not insist upon it, and asking for advice. The beacons mattered because the Warden line was walked in front of Moshesh’s own messengers, and because his answer of the 9th was not a mark on that line but an appeal to Wodehouse not to enforce it. [3]
At this stage Pretorius retired from the presidency of the Free State. On the 1st of October 1862 he had tendered his resignation to the volksraad, assigning as his reason that he desired to return to the South African Republic and endeavour to restore concord to that country, which was then politically in a deplorable condition. The volksraad had replied that his services could not be dispensed with at that juncture, and had requested him not to press the matter until the ordinary session in February following. On the 5th of March he again tendered his resignation, but was requested by the volksraad to withdraw it; and a resolution was adopted granting him leave of absence. He proceeded to Potchefstroom, where a sore domestic bereavement awaited him. On the 20th of March his only son died, being the tenth child that he had lost, and he was then left with but one daughter. On the 15th of April he sent a final letter of resignation to the state secretary. The letter mattered because Bloemfontein’s president of 8 February 1860 now chose Potchefstroom’s quarrel over Moshesh’s beacons, and because the Free State would need an acting head until a regular election could be held. [3]
Venter of the 20th of June, Beersheba of June, and Brand named — Orange Free State 1863
During the last year of Pretorius’s tenure of office the Free State had not made much advance in wealth or in population. Still, there were a few events denoting progress. On the 24th of February 1862 the first building lots of the church village of Edenburg in the district of Fauresmith had been sold. On the 19th of June of that year the Bloemfontein bank had been established. This had been quickly followed by a local bank in Fauresmith, and this again by branches of the Standard bank at Bloemfontein, Fauresmith, and Smithfield. In June of this year the Paris Evangelical Society sold to some farmers the mission station of Beersheba as it had been reduced in size by the treaty of 1858. The reverend Mr. Rolland removed to a new station called Poortje, within the border of the Lesuto. The price for which Beersheba was sold was £6,000. Thus, one after another, the reserves of the Sovereignty days were disappearing, and the complications which they caused were passing away. The sale mattered because a mission ground that had sat between farmer and Basuto since the Sovereignty was now farm land bought for £6,000, and because Rolland’s new station lay inside the Lesuto, not inside the Free State. [3]
On receipt of Pretorius’s letter of the 15th of April, Mr. Allison called the volksraad together in extraordinary session. The members assembled on the 17th of June, and on the 20th appointed Mr. Jacobus Johannes Venter acting president until a regular election should take place. For the next 7 months Venter was at the head of the state. The volksraad decided to recommend only one candidate to the electors, and from several whose names were brought forward chose for that purpose Advocate John Henry Brand, a gentleman of the highest standing at the bar of the supreme court of the Cape Colony, and whose moral and intellectual worth was recognised throughout South Africa. The 5th of November was fixed as the day of election. The sitting mattered because Bloemfontein, having lost Pretorius to the northern republic, put a Cape advocate’s name on a Free State ballot rather than keep an acting burgher as the recommended head. [3]
In May a deputation, consisting of Messrs. Job Harvey, W. G. Every, P. Greyling, and J. Olivier, had been sent to Moshesh, to endeavour to induce him to recall his people, who were trespassing. The deputation met the great chief with his principal men at Morija, and on the 28th a public conference took place. Moshesh refused either to recognise the line or recall his people. He would not even promise to punish thieves as long, he said, as Jan Letele was protected by the Europeans. Nothing whatever was settled; but on the following day Moshesh proposed that another commission should be sent, in order that he might point out where he wished the boundary to be. Jan Letele never fully recovered from the losses he had sustained in the February commission of 1862. In this year he was invited to remove to the northern part of the state, where he was offered an ample tract of excellent land; but he declined the proposal. In the course of the next 2 years a good many of his followers, finding that he was no longer the lucky robber captain he had formerly been, abandoned him and went over to one or other of Moshesh’s vassals. He and a little band of adherents remained behind to be a source of constant anxiety to the Free State government. Morija mattered because Moshesh would not mark the Warden line while Letele sat under Free State protection, and because Letele, offered northern land, would not move. [3]
Among the residents along the Basuto border there were some individuals who regarded either the incorporation of the country with the Cape Colony or a federal union as the only means now left for getting rid of their troubles. Moshesh, they said, was so powerful that by themselves they could not deal with him, and the Free State was therefore obliged to submit to his exactions. The matter was brought by memorial before the volksraad which met in June, when a discussion took place in which the wretched condition of the petitioners was recognised, and a resolution was adopted that the legislature would not rest until the border was secure. But the only means that the members could devise was to empower the acting president to arrange with Moshesh to allow the Free State to pay regular salaries to the border chiefs for the suppression of robbery, and to give special rewards for the delivery of thieves and stolen stock — which proved utterly useless. Then followed another letter to the high commissioner, and again another, imploring his intervention. All had been done, said the state authorities, that was in their power to bring Moshesh to reason, but without avail. After this, Landdrost Van Soelen was sent to ascertain from Moshesh and Letsie whether the intruders could be forcibly expelled without those chiefs taking their part, to which Moshesh replied significantly that he was their ruler. And even while Van Soelen was talking, Sophonia, with 1,000 men at his back, was hunting far beyond the border and defying the farmers. The memorial mattered because the raad could invent only salaries to Moshesh’s border captains, and because 1,000 men hunting past the line was the answer Van Soelen got while he asked whether expulsion was possible. [3]
On the 27th of August the high commissioner wrote to Moshesh that, in conformity with the second article of the treaty of Aliwal North, he was willing to appoint commissioners “for the purpose of marking out so much of the boundary line described in the first article of that treaty as lay to the northward of Jammerberg Drift; but before doing so wished to receive the chief’s assurance that he would be prepared to carry out their award.” Moshesh now saw that he must do something, or the high commissioner would be offended. He therefore, after creating as many delays as he could, consented to Venter’s proposal that they should meet personally with a view to coming to a friendly arrangement. The letter mattered because Wodehouse at last offered to mark the Aliwal North line north of Jammerberg Drift, and because Moshesh’s consent was to a meeting with Venter, not yet to an award he would carry out. [3]
Rouxville of the 16th of November, Platberg of the 25th, and Brand of the 5th — Orange Free State 1863
On the 16th of November the first building lots of the village of Rouxville were sold. The farm Zuurbult in the Smithfield district had been purchased by a committee, and laid out as a church place in the usual manner. Edenburg had had its lots on the 24th of February 1862; Rouxville had them on the 16th of this November. Many South African villages began in that way: a church, then a clergyman and a schoolmaster, then elderly farmers, shopkeepers, and mechanics, and last a landdrost. The lots mattered because a new church village was being marked in Smithfield district while Moshesh was about to write a line that would cut Winburg and Harrismith in half. [3]
On the 25th of November the conference took place at Platberg, when there was a large gathering of subordinate chiefs and leading men. Moshesh rejected the Warden line, but proposed in writing a new boundary which would extend the Lesuto to the Vaal river and cut off from the Free State nearly half the districts of Winburg and Harrismith, including about 250 farms held under British titles. Such a proposal could not, of course, be entertained by Venter. The year closed with another appeal from the acting president to the high commissioner, to which a reply was made that his Excellency was ready to render assistance in concert with both parties. Platberg mattered because Moshesh’s written line was not a beacon adjustment but a claim to the Vaal, and because Wodehouse’s answer was still concert, not a line drawn without Moshesh. [3]
On the day appointed for the election of a president a great majority of the burghers voted in accordance with the recommendation of the volksraad. 3,450 votes in all were given. Of these, 2,276 were for Advocate Brand, 904 for Mr. J. J. Venter, 243 for Mr. T. H. Bowker, and 27 for Mr. J. Allison. Brand had the majority. The acting chair of the 20th of June still held the state at the close of the year; the oaths of the elected advocate had not yet been taken. The count mattered because the raad’s Cape candidate had 2,276 of 3,450, and because Venter, who had sat as acting president, still sat until Brand could be sworn. [3]
Adam Kok, by a notice published in the Friend of the Free State of the 26th of December 1862, had denied that the territory north of the Vaal — known as the Campbell grounds — was included in his sale of Philippolis, although there was no reserve whatever in the document passed by his agent, and the people of that district had moved away to Griqualand East with him. Cornelis Kok of Campbell had, some time before his death, formally ceded his chieftainship to his nephew Adam Kok, who for several years was undisputed head of the Campbell people and their territory. The Free State government maintained that this ground was included in the sale; Mr. David Arnot, agent for captain Nicholas Waterboer, asserted that it was not, and that his client was its rightful owner. His repudiation of the sale and Arnot’s claim came first before the volksraad in February of this year, when it was decided that a commission, consisting of the president and Messrs Van Soelen and F. Cloete, should meet a commission to be appointed by Waterboer and settle the matter amicably. This had not been effected, and Sir Philip Wodehouse was then requested to act as arbitrator. His Excellency consented. On the 21st of November Arnot inserted a notice in the Colesberg Advertiser that Waterboer’s eastern boundary was a line from Ramah on the Orange to David’s Graf at the junction of the Riet and Modder, and thence to Platberg on the Vaal — a claim to land which for 15 years had been in the peaceable occupation of the Sovereignty and Free State governments. The Free State government considered that claim so extravagant that no attempt was made to refute it. The Campbell grounds still sat unsettled when Rouxville’s lots were sold. [3]
In addition to the Dutch Reformed Church — the denomination to which the great majority of the inhabitants belonged — there was a branch of the Separatist Reformed Church, with a clergyman at Reddersburg. The Wesleyans had congregations and clergymen in a few of the villages, and the Church of England was represented by several congregations, with a staff of clergymen presided over by a bishop — the right reverend Edward Twells — who arrived in September. The number of churches in the Republic was rapidly increasing. In 1854, when British sovereignty was withdrawn, there had been only 2 clergymen in the whole country. Twells sat the English congregations from September; the Separatists still sat Reddersburg; the Dutch Reformed majority still waited a synod of its own. The arrival mattered because an English bishop now sat in a republic that in 1854 had had 2 clergymen, and because church villages such as Rouxville were being laid out faster than a Free State synod had yet been called. [3]
Schoeman of the 12th of January, the Flag of the 19th, and Van Rensburg of the 24th of October — South African Republic 1863
On the 12th of January the special court should have opened its session at Pretoria. The tent of the 24th and 25th of November 1862 had named Mr. Walter Harding, or, failing his consent, Advocate H. A. L. Hamelberg, to preside over criminal charges from the disturbances, and had suspended the banishments and confiscations of October until that court sat. Instead of that, however, Schoeman with an armed force entrenched himself in the village, and declared that he would not submit to its decisions, as its members were his opponents. Kruger then, with a few burghers of his own district, marched to protect the court. He formed a camp at a little distance from Pretoria, and called upon the burghers everywhere throughout the Republic to join him and establish order. His appeal was responded to, and from all sides men gathered to his standard. Taking only 2 unarmed burghers with him, he entered Pretoria and announced that he did not wish to shed a drop of blood, but that he was determined to compel all persons to submit to the law. At this, Schoeman’s adherents began to waver, and they offered no resistance when Kruger placed a strong guard over the public offices. The 12th mattered because the court the tent had named was met by an entrenched camp, and because Kruger walked in with 2 unarmed men rather than open fire on Pretoria. [3]
On the 19th of January, during a heavy thunderstorm, Schoeman and his principal adherents fled from Pretoria, taking 2 cannon with them; and as soon as possible they crossed into the Free State. When he fled from Pretoria, he carried off the state flag. On the 20th of January the special court commenced its session. Both Harding and Hamelberg had declined to preside over it, so that it consisted merely of 3 landdrosts. Each case was decided by a jury of 12. S. Schoeman, C. F. Preller, and J. C. Steyn, who had all fled from the country, were found guilty of rebellion, were banished, and were sentenced to confiscation of their property. Schoeman’s son was banished. Several others had light sentences passed upon them, but a door of reconciliation was left open for all except the leading offenders. The thunderstorm mattered because the flag left Pretoria with the man the tent had meant to try, and because the court that sat on the 20th was 3 landdrosts and a jury, not Natal’s chief justice. [3]
The election for a president and a commandant-general took place shortly after the session of the special court was over. For a president only 714 votes in all were given. Of these 370 were for W. C. Janse van Rensburg, 247 for M. W. Pretorius, and 97 were scattered among several others. For a commandant-general only 486 votes were recorded. Of these, 308 were for S. J. Paul Kruger, 135 for Joseph van Dyk, and 43 were scattered. The first poll mattered because 714 votes were too few to settle a presidency after a year of two acting chairs, and because Kruger’s 308 of 486 for commandant-general was already a clearer majority than Van Rensburg’s for the chair. [3]
On the 20th of May the volksraad met at Pretoria. Van Rensburg, in announcing the result of the elections, stated that as so few votes had been given, the decision of the people had clearly not been ascertained. He therefore desired that a fresh election should take place. The volksraad coincided with this view, and passed a resolution that another election should be held, the voting papers to be sent by the landdrosts to the executive council on or before the 1st of October. Van Rensburg’s administration was directed to continue in office until the 12th of October, when the volksraad would meet again. Petitions were read from the Schoemans, father and son, praying that the sentences passed upon them by the special court might be mitigated. On the intercession of Pretorius, it was resolved that they could return to the South African Republic; but the father was declared incapable of holding any office, and was required to pay a fine of £500, and the son, who was restored to full burgher rights, was to pay £250. The sitting mattered because Van Rensburg himself asked for a second poll rather than claim 370 votes as a presidency, and because Pretorius, no longer Free State president, was still the man who could get the Schoemans a road home. [3]
At the appointed time the volksraad met again, when it was announced that in the districts of Potchefstroom, Lydenburg, Zoutpansberg, Rustenburg, Pretoria, Utrecht, and Middleburg, 1,106 votes had been given for Van Rensburg, and 1,065 for Pretorius. In Wakkerstroom the proceedings at the election had been very irregular, and many of the ballot papers from that district were thrown out. Kruger had been elected commandant-general by a clear majority. On the 24th of October Van Rensburg took the oath of office as president, but his opponents professed to believe that the ballot papers had been tampered with, and declined to recognise his government. 41 votes had separated the two names once Wakkerstroom had been set aside. The acting chair of April 1862 was now the sworn chair of the 24th of October, and the men who would not have it were already gathering. The oaths mattered because 1,106 against 1,065 was a presidency only if Wakkerstroom’s papers stayed out, and because Kruger’s commandant-generalship was the one office the second poll had not left in dispute. [3]
Viljoen of the 10th of December, Mapok of October, and Umzila at the Close — 1863
Commandant Jan Viljoen, of the Marikwa, raised the standard of revolt on this occasion. On the 10th of December he entered Potchefstroom at the head of an armed force, dismissed the officials, and replaced them with others of his own selection. His force termed itself the Volksleger, the Army of the People. Commandant-General Kruger called out 150 men to suppress the rebellion, not knowing that Viljoen’s force was as strong as it was afterwards found to be. With this little commando, called the Staatsleger, or Army of the State, he proceeded to Potchefstroom, and encamped outside the village. Then for the first time he became aware of the numbers against him. There were 300 men in Potchefstroom, and Viljoen with a still stronger force appeared in the rear and cut off his retreat. The 10th mattered because the village Kruger had taken in October 1862 was now held in the name of the people against the chair sworn on the 24th of October, and because 150 men were not enough once 300 sat inside and a stronger commando sat behind. [3]
Kruger then sent to Viljoen to propose that they two, with 2 others selected from each side, should go through the Republic, call a meeting at each centre of population, and hold another election for a president, binding themselves to abide by the issue. This proposal was rejected. A patrol from the state army was surrounded and obliged to surrender, when Kruger, seeing the hopelessness of his position, retired across the Vaal, taking with him only an officer named Carel Eloff. Some of his men managed to disperse in different directions, but most of them were obliged to surrender. The elder Schoeman now arrived at Potchefstroom in expectation of being called to the head of the volksleger, but was disappointed. His wife was with him, and she handed over the state flag, which had been in her keeping since her husband’s flight from Pretoria. The rejection mattered because Kruger offered a third poll rather than fight in the rear, and because the flag that had left in the thunderstorm of the 19th of January came back in a wife’s hands and not onto Schoeman’s staff. [3]
On the 23rd of December the volksleger left Potchefstroom and marched towards Pretoria. Before its arrival at this place, the officials fled to Rustenburg, so others were installed by Commandant Viljoen. From Pretoria the volksleger marched towards Rustenburg, but learning on the way that Commandant-General Kruger had returned and was collecting his forces there, Viljoen formed a strong camp where the road crosses the Limpopo river. From 800 to 900 men rallied round Kruger. The year closed with the Army of the People on the Limpopo and the Army of the State gathering at Rustenburg. The march mattered because Pretoria’s officials would not wait for Viljoen, and because the fight that would decide Van Rensburg’s oaths was already forming on the Limpopo road, not in the volksraad. [3]
Two clans in the district of Lydenburg had taken up arms, and for many months the white residents there had been living in laagers. One of these clans, which was under a chief called by the Europeans Mapok, had been notorious for cattle-lifting ever since 1853. The other was under a chief named Malewu. In October of this year Mapok attacked the principal laager, but was driven back with heavy loss. A patrol of 60 men under Field-cornet Daniel Erasmus fell in with a large party of the enemy on a plain, and killed 130, at a cost of 2 farmers wounded; but with these exceptions the advantages were all on the side of the clans. They had possession of the whole of the outlying farms, and had destroyed all the houses and orchards. In December a force was sent from Pretoria against them, but was recalled before doing anything, owing to the revolt of Commandant Viljoen. The laagers still sat in Lydenburg when the volksleger sat the Limpopo. October mattered because 60 men could kill 130 on a plain and still lose the farms, and because Viljoen’s December rising pulled the Pretoria force back before Mapok and Malewu were reduced. [3]
East and north-east of Zoutpansberg the Matshangana, a tribe that had its origin in the flight of a horde from the neighbourhood of St. Lucia Bay in the time of the Zulu conquests, sat under Umzila. The tribe was — and always had been — absolutely independent of the South African Republic. Umzila himself had once been a subject of the Emigrant Farmers. In 1858, while his father, Manukusa, was still alive, he had quarrelled with one of his brothers, and had been obliged to flee. He had retired to Zoutpansberg, and had sought protection from Albasini, by whom a location had been given to him close to Ramapulana’s kraals. While residing there, his father had died, and his brother had become head of the tribe. Hearing that his brother was not popular, in 1861 Umzila had left Zoutpansberg and proceeded to Delagoa Bay, where he obtained such assistance from the Portuguese government as enabled him to destroy his rival and make himself chief of the Matshangana, though as a vassal of the authorities at Lourenço Marques. It needed some time to establish himself firmly, but by the end of this year all opposition to his authority had ceased. The close mattered because a chief who had once taken a Zoutpansberg location now sat east of the republic as a Portuguese vassal, with no rival left inside the tribe, while Kruger and Viljoen faced each other on the Limpopo. [3]