Article: 16833 of soc.culture.african
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
From: svpillay@crs4.it (Kanthan Pillay)
Subject: South Africa for beginners: Chapter 1
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 14:38:20 GMT
	  _______________________________________
		 South Africa for Beginners
 
	  Copyright 1986, 1993 by Srikanthan V. Pillay
	  Permission is granted for unlimited free
	  distribution via UseNet. Commercial redistribution
	  in either electronic or printed form without
	  written permission from the author is expressly
	  forbidden.
	  _______________________________________
 
			  CHAPTER 1
		    WHO WAS HERE FIRST?
		    ___________________
Bantu Education and most South African government propaganda
has claimed for many years that the country was "empty" when
the first white people(1) arrived. It is true - as the South
African government  says -  that the  Bantu people  migrated
downward into  the country from  central Africa,   but South
Africa was by no means an unpeopled paradise which Europeans
were the first to lay claim to.
   When Portuguese explorer Bartholomew Diaz rounded what he
called the "Cape of Storms" in  1487,  the land to the North
and East  of Table  Bay had  been occupied  for hundreds  of
years by  the Khoikhoi,  and for  thousands of years  by the
San.[1] Archaeological evidence shows a  San presence in the
Cape as much as 30,000 years ago,  with the Khoikhoi follow-
ing later. The San and the Khoikhoi were the people referred
to by white settlers as "Bushmen" and "Hottentots" and today
are referred to by scholars under the name "Khoisan".
    The Khoisan  shared languages  that were  very similar  -
characterized by the distinctive "click" sound.  What mainly
distinguished the Khoikhoi from the  San was that the former
were pastoralists,  herders of cattle who developed communi-
ties and political structures around  this activity ;  while
the latter were hunter-gatherers,  using  bows and arrows to
make a living off of the environment. There were not a large
number of Khoisan  - estimates place the  number of Khoikhoi
in the southwestern Cape at  about 50,000 people.   However,
if one looks at a map  of South African climatic conditions,
one can see  that a larger number would  have severely taxed
the resources of the little fertile land in the area.
Donald Denoon and Balam Nyeko, in their book Southern Africa
					     _______________
since 1800,  point  out that the complexity  of climatic and
__________
geographical variations in Southern Africa meant that culti-
vators and pastoralists had to be highly skilled in agricul-
tural technique in order to survive. In the case of the San,
a possibly higher  level of expertise was  needed to benefit
from the hunting and fishing needed for survival.
   When the Europeans began to  make regular visits to South
Africa in the 1590s,  South Africa was inhabited by the fol-
lowing people:
*   San
    ___
*   Khoikhoi
    ________
*   Bantu:  These were agricultural specialists who occupied
    _____
    the land to the east and north-east of the Cape.   Bantu
    people were primarily
*   Nguni including the Xhosa and the Zulu while the
    _____               _____         ____
*   Shona  to the  north formed  the focus  of the  region's
    _____
    economy, being the prime consumers with crops, good pas-
    tures, and alluvial gold for external trade.
Interraction  took place  between all  these communities  as
they were all  mobile in some form or the  other:  the Nguni
travelled to  seek out  seasonally enriched  pastoral lands;
the Khoisan travelled because they  were nomadic hunters and
pastoralists. As each of the communities was inherently spe-
cialized,  a degree of cooperation  was the norm,  not total
isolation.[2]
---------------------
(1) As  a personal  preference,  I  use  "white people"  and
    "black  people"  over  the   more  common  "whites"  and
    "blacks", after all, we are human beings first, and skin
    colour  is merely  one  way  of differentiating  between
    human beings.  Referring to human  beings as "blacks" or
    "whites" somehow undermines their humanity.





From uwvax!uwm.edu!caen!batcomputer!ghost.dsi.unimi.it!crs4.it!crs4.it!svpillay Fri Jul  2 07:35:46 CDT 1993
Article: 16834 of soc.culture.african
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Path: uwvax!uwm.edu!caen!batcomputer!ghost.dsi.unimi.it!crs4.it!crs4.it!svpillay
From: svpillay@crs4.it (Kanthan Pillay)
Subject: South Africa for beginners: Chapter 2
Originator: daemon@crs4gw.crs4.it
Sender: news@crs4.it (USENET News System)
Message-ID: <199306301338.AA25442@crs4gw.crs4.it>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 14:38:58 GMT
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Lines: 156


	  _______________________________________
		 South Africa for Beginners
 
	  Copyright 1986, 1993 by Srikanthan V. Pillay
	  Permission is granted for unlimited free
	  distribution via UseNet. Commercial redistribution
	  in either electronic or printed form without
	  written permission from the author is expressly
	  forbidden.
	  _______________________________________
 
			  CHAPTER 2
		 THE BEGINNINGS OF CONQUEST
		 __________________________
European influence  in Southern  Africa came  later than  in
most parts of the world. The initial European "discovery" of
South Africa was by the Portuguese,  who were already impos-
ing imperialist control on other parts of the world,  but as
a nation ,the Portuguese were small  in number and could not
afford to colonize,  preferring to wrest control of existing
economic structures.  Since the Khoisan were nomadic and not
governed by a central political authority,  it was difficult
for  the Portuguese  to  establish the  type  of "top  down"
political control that was possible  in more formally struc-
tured societies.  When a bartering dispute between the Khoi-
san and visiting Portuguese sailors  in 1520 resulted in the
death of Portuguese soldiers including a Viceroy, the Portu-
guese briefly retaliated,  but could  not afford to mount an
extended military campaign against the highly skilled Khoik-
hoi and San fighters.[3]
   By 1590, European ships - mainly English and Dutch - were
putting in  regularly at Table Bay  en route from  Europe to
the  West Indies.   As Richard  Elphick  and V.C.   Malherbe
explain:
     The land near Table Bay was an ideal stop-over for
     the tired and  sick crews of these  ships,  for it
     offered a benign  climate and a regular  supply of
     fresh water.  Moreover, local Khoikhoi were will-
     ing to supply large quantities of beef and mutton,
     a boon  to sailors  who had  been eating  salty or
     rancid pork for months.[4]
Why were  the Khoikhoi  willing to  trade their  most valued
possessions? The Europeans offered three products - tobacco,
copper, and iron - which were previously either unobtainable
(tobacco)  or  available only in  small quantities  from the
interior  (copper and  iron).  The  Khoikhoi had  previously
smoked a mild variety of dagga (marijuana) and started smok-
ing tobacco as  a substitute.(2)  A trade  network in copper
emerged among the Khoikhoi and continued for many years even
after colonization began.
   It took the Netherlands East India Company (VOC)  to fig-
ure out that if a refreshment station were to be established
at  the Cape  to  provide for  passing  ships,  the  initial
expense in establishing  such a facility would  be offset by
long-term  gains in  their  productivity  (and therefore  in
profits).   So,  in 1652 the company  founded such a post at
Table Bay. The immediate priority of this refreshment facil-
ty was to regularise the trade  with the Khoikhoi which pro-
vided the supplies essential to passing ships. Since the VOC
could not afford a war with the Khoikhoi, the first command-
er of the refreshment station,  Jan van Riebeeck,  was under
strict  orders to  treat the  Khoikhoi as  free people  with
respect and consideration;  they were not to be conquered or
enslaved.  Initially,  the arrangement seemed to work,  with
Van Riebeeck entertaining Khoikhoi  delegates at the company
fort.[5]
   The Khoikhoi  were unwilling  to provide  enough meat  to
cater  to  the  ever-increasing demand  of  the  Company  in
exchange for  items that  were relatively  less valuable  to
Khoikhoi society.  Nor  were they willing to  forgo the open
pastures to  provide a labour  supply to the  Company.  Five
years after  Van Riebeeck's landing,  Dutch  ships deposited
the first slaves on South African shores - Malay people from
the colony of Java -to provide labour.  Slaves from Madagas-
car,  Mozambique,  and the East  Indies soon followed.   Van
Riebeeck  concluded that  company employees  could be  given
tracts of land to farm and  thereby offset the dependence on
Khoikhoi goodwill and  East Indian imports.  As  soon as the
first freeburghers (independent farmers)   began to farm the
      ____________
land east  of Table  Mountain,  the  Khoikhoi realized  that
their territory was being usurped. The most prominent of the
Khoikhoi leaders, Gogosoa, was unable to mobilize his people
to act against the incursion.  It took Doman - a man who had
worked as an  interpreter for the Company -  to organise the
resistance.  In May 1659,  Doman led an attack by the Khoik-
hoi, destroying most of the freeburgher farms and confiscat-
ing the bulk of the latter's sheep and cattle.  The freebur-
gers  took  refuge  in  a well  armed  stockade  with  their
remaining livestock.  Doman was seriously injured in a minor
clash on 19  July,  1959,  and shortly  after,  the Khoikhoi
resistance began  to drift apart  through inaction.   A year
after the war began,  the Khoikhoi  signed a treaty with the
company ending  the confrontation.  Under  the terms  of the
treaty, the Khoikhoi kept the cattle and sheep they had con-
fiscated, and paid no reparations to the company, but at the
same time,   agreed to recognize the  company's sovereignity
over the land  settled by the freeburgers.[6]  The agreement
would later  prove to be  the beginning  of the end  for the
Khoikhoi.
   The Company's initially conciliatory  approach to dealing
with the  Khoikhoi became increasingly arrogant.   From 1673
through 1676, the Company launched four punitive expeditions
against the most influential of  the Khoi leaders,  Gonnema,
humiliating him  and finally  forcing him  into a  treaty in
1677.  The Company set itself  up as adjudicator in supposed
disputes among the Khoikhoi.  All pretence that the Khoikhoi
were respected were  dropped,  and with the  installation of
Simon  van der  Stel  as governor,   a  practice of  company
approval of installation of new Khoikhoi chiefs was started.
   By the 1700s,   many of the Khoikhoi in  the Western Cape
had become dependent on the Company for their livelihood and
security. As the Khoikhoi were crushed politically, freebur-
ghers began to move outward. As land away from the immediate
vicinity became increasing infertile, the farms of the trek-
						       ____
boers were huge  - averaging 6000 acres  - further depriving
_____
the Khoikhoi of access to the land. Finally, in 1713, a vis-
iting fleet sent ashore dirty  laundry contaminated with the
smallpox virus.  Hundreds of colonizers and slaves died, but
the Khoikhoi seemed especially susceptible to smallpox, hav-
ing had no contact with the  virus previously.   Less than 1
in ten people among the Khoikhoi survived the epidemic.
   Meanwhile,  the  fortunes of  the VOC  were running  low.
French revolutionary  forces under Napoleon  threatened Hol-
land in 1793, and the British took occupation of the Cape in
1795 when the VOC collapsed.  In  1803,  the Cape was handed
back to the Dutch after the  signing of the treaty of Amiens
in 1802.   In 1806,  the British  reneged on the  treaty and
reoccupied the Cape.
   The new English  government brought with it  one progres-
sive aspect  - a  belief that  slavery should  be abolished.
This attitude did not go down well with the residents of the
Cape colony  (as it  now was called)   as they  had invested
heavily in slaves. When slavery was abolished in all British
colonies in 1808,  the Boers (farmers)  were rebellious.  As
slaves were set free throughout  the British Empire in 1834,
feelings among  the Boers peaked.   In 1835,   they gathered
together  their possessions  and set  off  for the  interior
where they hoped to be able to continue an independent exis-
tence and  keep as many slaves  as they wished.    What they
found is the subject of our next chapter.
---------------------
(2) In 1989,  the  United States Surgeon General  released a
    report showing  tobacco to  be far  more addictive  than
    marijuana,  placing tobacco at the  same level of addic-
    tiveness as heroin  and cocaine.  See The  Second Annual
					  __________________
    Drug Test for Members of  Congress by Pete Stark,  (U.S.
    __________________________________
    House of Representatives, 1989).





From uwvax!uwm.edu!caen!batcomputer!ghost.dsi.unimi.it!crs4.it!crs4.it!svpillay Fri Jul  2 07:35:59 CDT 1993
Article: 16835 of soc.culture.african
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From: svpillay@crs4.it (Kanthan Pillay)
Subject: South Africa for beginners: Chapter 3
Originator: daemon@crs4gw.crs4.it
Sender: news@crs4.it (USENET News System)
Message-ID: <199306301339.AA25449@crs4gw.crs4.it>
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Lines: 129


	  _______________________________________
		 South Africa for Beginners
 
	  Copyright 1986, 1993 by Srikanthan V. Pillay
	  Permission is granted for unlimited free
	  distribution via UseNet. Commercial redistribution
	  in either electronic or printed form without
	  written permission from the author is expressly
	  forbidden.
	  _______________________________________
 
			  CHAPTER 3
	SHAKA, THE MFECANE, AND WHAT CAME AFTER. 
	________________________________________
	      WAS THIS A ZULU REVOLUTION?
	      __________________________
We must temporarily leave the Boers and their plans and turn
our attention across the country to  what is now Natal.   At
the turn of the 19th century,  the Nguni people were made up
of a number  of disparate clans or  tribes(3)  including the
Ngwane, the Zulu, the Mthethwa,  the Pondo,  the Tembu,  the
Xhosa, and the Gona.  Dingiswayo, chief of the Mthethwa, had
set up a standing army divided into age-regiments, each with
its own  uniforms and  colours,  and  incorporated conquered
tribes into his army as allies, rather than taking them into
slavery.   The  Zulu people - at  the time believed  to have
numbered about 2,000 - were one such tribe.   Dingiswayo had
taken a liking to Shaka,  the  illegitimate son of the chief
of the Zulu,   who had at his  father's encouragement joined
Dingiswayo's army.    From all  accounts,  Shaka  was highly
intelligent, extremely strong, and ambitious, earning a rep-
utation  as an  outstanding soldier.    When Shaka's  father
died,  Dingiswayo  supported Shaka in overthrowing  the lat-
ter's half-brother and natural heir to the chiefdom.[7]
   Dingiswayo's methods were refined by  Shaka.  He split up
the age-regiments by district. Warriors were ordered to live
in special camps under their  Induna (commanders),  and were
			      ______
not allowed  to marry before  turning 40.    The traditional
throwing spear was replaced by the short stabbing assegai or
iklwa as  the Zulu called  it (from  the sound it  made when
_____
pulled out  of the  enemy's body).    Shaka's soldiers  were
trained incessantly,  becoming so fit that they were able to
go into  battle after a day's  march of 50 miles.   The Zulu
tribe was being transformed into  a new strictly militarized
nation.  When Dingiswayo was killed in  an ambush by his old
enemy,  Zwide,  chief of the Ndwandwe,  Shaka emerged as the
undisputed successor.(4)   He reorganized the Mthethwa along
Zulu lines,   and adopted  a new  policy -  conquered tribes
would be destroyed  with their young men  becoming Zulu sol-
diers, their old people committed to forced labour, and exe-
cution for anyone of no use to his plans. Shaka declared the
Zulu dialect to be the official language.  The advisory role
of the old councils of chiefs and elders was done away with.
Shaka  occasionally took  advice from  his commanders,   but
ruled with absolute power.
   Having consolidated his  rule,  Shaka began to  look out-
ward.   His  first task was to  rid himself of  the Ndwandwe
threat which had claimed Dingiswayo's life. This he did in a
seven-week campaign which  culminated in the routing  of the
Ndwandwe forces;  with Zwide and some of his subjects escap-
ing and settling with some of his subjects on the upper NKo-
mati river where Zwide died in 1825.  Meanwhile,  in his ten
year reign, Shaka's army's overran Natal,  occupying it.  He
then turned his forces further  outwards,  in pursuit of the
clans that  had fled.   The Basotho  were forced to  pay him
regular tributes.  To  the north,  he did the  same with the
Swazi.  Then in  1828,  while Shaka's army  had crossed into
Delegoa Bay in pursuit of the Soshangane, he was murdered by
his half-brother Dingaan.
   The terrible reign of one  of Africa's mightiest warriors
had come to an end, but the effects of his campaigns were to
be felt for years to  come.   The shockwave that accompanied
Shaka's reign has  come to be called the  Mfecane.  The word
					  _______
can  be  roughly  translated  into  "forced  wanderings"  or
"crushing" but the translations does  no justice to what the
word came to  mean to Bantu speakers.    When Shaka defeated
the Ndwandwe,  they in turn attacked and routed the Hlubi on
the slopes of the Drakensberg.  The Hlubi attacked the Tlok-
wa.  When Shaka defeated Zwide's son Sekunyena in 1825,  the
Ndwandwe had to fight for new lands again, against the Hlubi
and the Tlokwa.  The Hlubi were defeated by the Ngwane after
a bitter five-day  battle.  When news of  the Ngwane victory
reached Shaka,  he sent his forces after them,  forcing them
south into  the Cape  Colony where they  were defeated  by a
combined force of Xhosa and white people on the banks of the
Mthatha River.  The Ngwane survivors  became servants of the
Xhosa, who called them Mfengu (beggars).[8]
		       ______
   Details of the effects of  the Mfecane are still unclear.
What has emerged is the following:
*   Almost the whole area from the  Orange River to the Low-
    veld was scorched.
*   Over the  ten-year period  of Shaka's  reign,  very  few
    crops were grown.
*   Many settlements were abandoned,  with their inhabitants
    having to seek survival as hunter-gatherers.
*   Many people resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.
So it  was that  when the Boers  crossed into  the interior,
they met with little or no  resistance and presumed the land
to be uninhabited,  as the  newly created black nations were
based in  the militarily secure  fringe areas  and mountains
rather than  the fertile  but vulnerable  open plains.   The
Basotho,  Swazi,  and Bapedi  had created mountain retreats.
The Tswana,  the Matabele,  and  the Nxaba placed themselves
well out  of reach of Shaka  - the Matebele or  Ndebele set-
tling in what is today Bulawayo in Zimbabwe.
---------------------
(3) These words are used guardedly  because of negative con-
    notations that are normally attached to them. Their con-
    text  here   follows  the  following   definitions  from
    Merriam-Webster's 7th Collegiate Dictionary:  "tribe: 2:
    a group of  persons having a common  character,  occupa-
    tion, or interest.", "clan: 2:  a group united by a com-
    mon interest or common characteristics."

(4) In Southern Africa since 1800,   Donald Denoon and Balam
       __________________________
    Nyeko  suggest that  Shaka  may  have collaborated  with
    Zwide to have  Dingiswayo killed.  I do not  go into the
    specificity of their claims  mainly because the veracity
    of their claim  would not contribute to  or detract from
    our understanding of the Mfecane.





From uwvax!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!caen!batcomputer!ghost.dsi.unimi.it!crs4.it!crs4.it!svpillay Fri Jul  2 07:36:12 CDT 1993
Article: 16836 of soc.culture.african
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From: svpillay@crs4.it (Kanthan Pillay)
Subject: South Africa for beginners: Chapter 4
Originator: daemon@crs4gw.crs4.it
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	  _______________________________________
		 South Africa for Beginners
 
	  Copyright 1986, 1993 by Srikanthan V. Pillay
	  Permission is granted for unlimited free
	  distribution via UseNet. Commercial redistribution
	  in either electronic or printed form without
	  written permission from the author is expressly
	  forbidden.
	  _______________________________________
 
			CHAPTER 4
      THE GREAT TREK - DOES FORTUNE FAVOUR THE BRAVE?
      _______________________________________________
Modern  Afrikaaner society  has written  its entire  history
around their  interpretation of  the events  that today  are
referred to as the Great Trek. The religious awe surrounding
		   __________
the Trek has  resulted in an inability on the  part of Afri-
kaaners to critically examine these events. We can, however,
sidestep government propaganda,  and  comment with some cer-
tainty as to some of the reasons for the Trek.
*   Boers used land extravagantly. We know that the farms of
    ______________________________
    the Trekboers averaged 6,000 acres in area. Boer society
    evolved with the idea that male  children - on coming of
    age - would seek out new farms to claim as their own. So
    all available land was swallowed up at an alarming rate.
*   The Boers  disliked the government.  First  the company,
    ___________________________________
    then the English colonial  government,  while taxing the
    Boers, did not have their interests at heart.
*   The Boers had  nothing to lose by  leaving.  Farming was
    ___________________________________________
    land-intensive with little or  no investment in develop-
    ment.  Whatever possessions the Boers had could be taken
    with them.
There were  more specific  problems that  actually triggered
the Trek.
*   The Abolition of Slavery  and other legislation granting
    ________________________________________________________
    greater rights to black people. Apart from the financial
    _______________________________
    drain as a result of emancipation,  Boers resented being
    placed on an equal footing with black people.
*   The new British system of  land-holding - which made the
    _______________________________________
    Boers pay higher rents for smaller farms - was resented.
*   The introduction of English as the official language was
    ____________________________________________________
    a sore point  for the Boers who  were already overwhelm-
    ingly illiterate.
*   Magistrates were now appointed instead of elected there-
    _________________________________________________
    by making the dispensing of "justice" less favourable to
    the Boers.
*   The Dutch rixdollar was replaced by the English pound as
    official currency.
About 14,000 Boers  are believed to have  emigrated from the
colony between 1836 and 1839.    They were united in purpose
but not  in spirit,   with parties  breaking into  different
directions upon crossing the Orange River. Most of the early
parties crossed the  Vaal River but were not  able to estab-
lish base.   In late 1836,   the party of  Andries Potgieter
returned south of Vaal to  Vegkop where they encountered the
Matebele.  Potgieter's party managed to  fend off the attack
of the Matebele  forces,  but lost their cattle  in the pro-
cess. They were saved from being stranded by the hospitality
of the Baralong  under Moroka.   Potgieter and  company were
soon joined by another party -  that of Gerrit Maritz - with
whom they launched an attack against the Matabele.  Mzilika-
zi, chief of the Matabele, was forced to withdraw his forces
to Mashonaland in the north.   The Boers set up a new "capi-
tal" called Winburg.(5)
   In 1837, two parties of trekkers crossed into Natal. Piet
Retief and Jacobus Uys approached Dingaan asking for permis-
sion to start a settlement.  Dingaan had been warned against
allowing white  settlers access to  the land by  Xhosa refu-
gees,  but was indecisive about what course of action should
be followed.  Eventually,   he agreed to lease  to the Boers
land between the  the Tugela and Umzimkulu  rivers on condi-
tion that they recaptured cattle stolen by Sekonyela,  chief
of the Tlokwa.  When Retief returned with the cattle in tow,
Dingaan became even more aprehensive and suspicious.  No one
will know exactly what happened afterwards. What is clear is
that Retief's party were asked to leave their weapons outside
Dingaan's kraal. On entering the kraal, they were killed.
   In military terms,   Dingaan's killing of the  Boer party
could be considered to be shrewd politics, as the Zulu might
not have had  an easy time of an  open confrontation against
Boer guns.   At the same time, Dingaan was by no means close
to being the military genius Shaka had been. His decision to
send out troops to crush the  remainder of the Boer presence
to the  west,  where the rest  of Retief's party  had estab-
lished camp, was slow in coming; allowing the latter time to
seek refuge.  Similarly,   his attack which followed  on the
English settlement at Port Natal was ill-timed, allowing the
English to board a  ship in the bay.  As it  would turn out,
letting the remainder of the Boers  escape was a costly mis-
take. Regrouping under Andries Pretorius, the Boers gathered
at Blood River where they formed a laager - a makeshift fort
				   ______
created by lashing ox-wagons together  in a circle.  Flanked
by Blood River  on one side and  a ditch on the  other,  the
laager was ideally  placed for a siege.    An astute general
might have been content to starve the Boers into submission.
Dingaan instead chose to attack. The Zulu forces were almost
completely wiped  out without the loss  of a single  life on
the part of the Boers.
   Afrikaaner society today celebrates  that victory against
the Zulu people  as the Day of the Covenant  along with pro-
			___________________
moting the  myth that  Blood River saw  the crushing  of the
Zulu empire.  In reality, only a fraction of the Zulu forces
had been destroyed by the  Boers.  Dingaan attempted to sal-
vage the situation by burning down his own capital at Ulundi
and fleeing north,  possibly to regroup his forces.  At that
critical moment,   he - like  he had  done with Shaka  - was
betrayed by his own half-brother Mpande, who set up an alli-
ance with Pretorius  and drove Dingaan into  Swaziland where
he was killed by the Swazi.  Mpande was crowned ruler of the
Zulus with support from the Boers. The territory between the
Umzimvubu and Tugela Rivers was ceded to the Boers and black
people living in this region were ordered to leave.
   The Boers set up the Republic of Natalia in the territory
ceded to them by Mpande. Their control was not to last long.
In 1943, the British annexed Natal,  ruling it as a district
of the Cape Colony.   Most Boers  were not willing to accept
British rule yet again,  and so  pulled up roots and trekked
again into the Transvaal.  They  left behind the land fought
for at Blood River,  and a  Zulu nation which was relatively
intact -  Shaka's territory between  the Tugela  and Pongola
was almost  untouched.  Mpande ruled  in peace  and relative
prosperity for 32 years.
   In  1854,  the  British reorganized  their South  African
interests.  The expensive and unprofitable Orange River Sov-
ereignty was handed over to a  Boer government as the Orange
Free State,  and Natal was declared a separate Crown Colony.
The Boers  had been  granted recognition  of the  trans-Vaal
area as the South African  Republic in 1852,  which together
with the Orange Free State gave them control of some 415,000
square kilometres  of land.   The Boer  tribes had  achieved
their aim of independence from British rule, in the process,
defeating almost all black people they had encountered.
---------------------
(5) The use  of the  word "capital" should  be taken  with a
    pinch of salt.  Several capitals were established by the
    Boers in  several other places  as they  passed through.
    Potgieter himself set up four capitals in his wanderings
    across the country.






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From: svpillay@crs4.it (Kanthan Pillay)
Subject: South Africa for beginners: Chapter 5 and References
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	  _______________________________________
		 South Africa for Beginners
 
	  Copyright 1986, 1993 by Srikanthan V. Pillay
	  Permission is granted for unlimited free
	  distribution via UseNet. Commercial redistribution
	  in either electronic or printed form without
	  written permission from the author is expressly
	  forbidden.
	  _______________________________________
 
		  CHAPTER 5
	   COULD THERE HAVE BEEN A BLACK VICTORY?
	   ______________________________________
For a black  person,  South African history  is a depressing
picture.  While not lacking in bravery, leadership, and mil-
itary organization,  even the mighty  Zulu empire was almost
effortlessly  humbled by  the  colonizers and  imperialists.
What becomes clear  on looking back at these  events is that
astute political  leadership was absent.  Few  black leaders
       _________
were able to analyse and exploit the strengths and weakness-
es of the Boers and the British.  The single "success story"
in this  struggle against  European theft  of the  land from
South Africa's people is that  of Mosheshwe,  founder of the
Basotho nation.
   Mosheshwe came from a small  clan called the Kwena living
to the east of the Caledon River.   When the Mfecane struck,
Mosheshwe led a group of his people away from a Tlokwa raid-
ing party  to a flat-topped mountain  about 50 miles  to the
south.  Reaching the top in the darkness, they named it Tha-
							___
ba Bosigo for "mountain at  night".  As a military position,
_________
the mountain was ideally suited for defense, having abundant
supplies of water and adequate grazing.  Three narrow passes
up its  sides provided the only  access to the top  - passes
which could be  easily controlled by the  large armies which
Mosheshwe began to develop.  The threat of attack by Shaka's
forces was  prempted by Mosheshwe  by paying tribute  to the
Zulu leader,  thereby diverting his  attention to the Tlokwa
instead.   Victories against an Ngwane attack and a Matebele
siege enhanced  Mosheshwe's standing  and people  flocked to
place themselves under his  protection.   Mosheshwe was rev-
ered as a king,  and his people became known as Basotho (the
						_______  ___
Sotho).  Mosheshwe's reign was benign.   In a land otherwise
dominated by autocratic chiefdoms, Mosheshwe chose to govern
by consensus rather than by decree, holding mass meetings to
discuss matters of importance with all his people.
   When in 1830,  Adam Kok III and the Griqua people crossed
Mosheshwe's  territory undefeated,   Mosheshwe realized  how
ineffective traditional  African tactics  were against  sol-
diers on horseback with guns. The Basotho began to stockpile
arms and acquire horses,   and trained themselves in the use
of those weapons.  In 1832, Mosheshwe encountered Boers, and
in exchange  for some cattle,   allowed them access  to some
Basotho land.  What  soon became clear was  that while Mosh-
eshwe meant  that the Boers could  use the land,   the Boers
				   ___
thought that they owned the land. When the Boers confiscated
		  _____
Basotho cattle  which wandered  onto "boer  territory",  the
Basotho retaliated with raids against the Boers.
   Mosheshwe was unwilling to retaliate directly against the
Boers.  Seeing an opportunity to affect the balance, he per-
suaded the English to take on the Boers and demarcate terri-
torial lines.  The English,  after some hesitation,  did so,
annexing the land between the Orange and the Vaal, which for
six years became the Orange River sovereignity.  The English
then drew  a boundary across  this territory  separating the
Boers from  the Basotho,  but  the line favoured  the Boers.
Mosheshwe protested to  the British,  who were  unwilling to
change it,  so the Basotho people chose to ignore the bound-
ary.  This upset the British,  who sent in troops to enforce
the boundary. They were crushed by the Basotho, who set them
free devoid of clothes and weapons.
   Mosheshwe expected  a retaliation,  and began  to prepare
for it.  In 1852, Sir George Cathcart marched on the Basotho
with the intention of teaching Mosheshwe a lesson . Instead,
he suffered a humiliating defeat at the battle of Berea.  As
Cathcart found  himself with 38  dead and many  wounded,  he
waited for  Mosheshwe's well-organized  army to  deliver the
death stroke. Instead, he received a letter from Mosheshwe:
     Excellencies -  You have  today fought  against my
     people and  taken possession of many  cattle.  You
     have thereby achieved the  objective which you had
     in mind,  which was to obtain compensation for the
     Boers.  I pray  you to content yourself  with what
     you have  taken.  I  beg peace  of you.   You have
     revealed your might. You have chastised me. Let it
     be enough I pray you,  and  may I cease to be con-
     sidered an enemy of the Queen.[9]
Glad of the opportunity to save face, Cathcart withdrew. The
British promised  neutrality in  their dealings  between the
Basotho and the Boers. The Boers promptly resumed their con-
flict with  Mosheshwe sending  forces against  him in  1858.
Mosheshwe retaliated by sending his  men silently around the
Boer force deep  into the Free State to  recover stolen cat-
tle.  The Boers realized too late their mistake and returned
defeated and poorer. In 1866, the Boers attacked again, this
time attempting  to starve  the Basotho  into submission  by
reducing the surrounding agricultural  land into submission.
Mosheshwe's forces  held out,   but were  forced to  ask the
British for help.
   Mosheshwe,  in his foresight,  understood that incorpora-
tion into the Cape Colony would spell the end of his people.
The  only  possible  solution lay  in  the  territory  being
annexed  by the  Crown,   not  the Colony.   He  accordingly
appealed to the British to  incorporate Basotholand into the
British Empire.  In 1868, faced with Boer governments in the
South African Republic  and the Orange Free  State that were
growing increasingly strong, and realizing the importance of
acquiring the Basotho  as allies instead of  opponents,  the
British  agreed  to Mosheshwe's  request.   Basotholand  was
declared a protectorate  of the British Empire,   placing it
out of reach  of the colonial government and the  Boers as a
potential possession.
   Mosheshwe was nearly 80 at the time.  He had lost much of
the best land,  but had managed  to hold his people together
amidst forces that were devastating  the rest of the subcon-
tinent, and indeed, the world. Two years later, he died.
   Even today,  with the benefit of hindsight,  it is diffi-
cult to fault  Mosheshwe's astuteness in grappling  with the
forces engulfing his  nation.  It is due to  his wisdom that
the country of Lesotho now exists, surrounded and manipulat-
ed politically and economically by South Africa, but a still
a proudly independent people.

	       MAJOR REFERENCES
			   
[1] Richard Elphick and Herman Giliomee, Editors,  The Shap-
						   ________
    ing of South African  society,  1652-1840 (Wesleyan Uni-
    _________________________________________
    versity Press, 1989), p. 3.
[2] Donald Denoon  and Balam  Nyeko,  Southern  Africa since
				      ______________________
    1800 (Longman, 1984), pp.  1-13.
    ____
[3] The "brass cannon incident" is  described by Peter Kolbe
    in Cape of Good Hope (Johnson Reprint, 1968).
       _________________
[4] Elphick, Shaping, p.8.
	     _______
[5] Elphick, Shaping, p.11.
	     _______
[6] Elphick, Shaping, p.12.
	     _______
[7] Christopher  Danziger,   A  History  of  Southern  Afri-
			     ______________________________
    ca,(Oxford University Press, 1983), p.36.
    __
[8] Danziger, A History..., pp.37-39.
	      ____________
[9] Text from picture reproduced  in Peder Gouwenius,  Power
						       _____
    to the People!   South Africa in Struggle:   A Pictorial
    ________________________________________________________
    History, (Zed Press, London, 1981).
    _______
			   - 26 -




