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 Newsgroups: soc.culture.african 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 Organization: CRS4, Center for Adv.Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia 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 Newsgroups: soc.culture.african 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 3 Originator: daemon@crs4gw.crs4.it Sender: news@crs4.it (USENET News System) Message-ID: <199306301339.AA25449@crs4gw.crs4.it> Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 14:39:30 GMT Organization: CRS4, Center for Adv.Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia 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 Newsgroups: soc.culture.african Path: 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 From: svpillay@crs4.it (Kanthan Pillay) Subject: South Africa for beginners: Chapter 4 Originator: daemon@crs4gw.crs4.it Sender: news@crs4.it (USENET News System) Message-ID: <199306301340.AA25465@crs4gw.crs4.it> Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 14:40:09 GMT Organization: CRS4, Center for Adv.Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia Lines: 155 _______________________________________ 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. From uwvax!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!scsing.switch.ch!univ-lyon1.fr!ghost.dsi.unimi.it!crs4.it!crs4.it!svpillay Fri Jul 2 07:36:44 CDT 1993 Article: 16842 of soc.culture.african Newsgroups: soc.culture.african Path: uwvax!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!scsing.switch.ch!univ-lyon1.fr!ghost.dsi.unimi.it!crs4.it!crs4.it!svpillay From: svpillay@crs4.it (Kanthan Pillay) Subject: South Africa for beginners: Chapter 5 and References Originator: daemon@crs4gw.crs4.it Sender: news@crs4.it (USENET News System) Message-ID: <199306301511.AA26291@crs4gw.crs4.it> Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 16:11:10 GMT Organization: CRS4, Center for Adv.Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia Lines: 165 _______________________________________ 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 -