by Peires, Jeff
Another to suffer from Maclean’s indifference to unbelievers was Kona, Maqoma’s Right-Hand (second-ranking) son. Unlike his father or his senior brother Namba, Kona was an unbeliever. Although he had once been the centre of a celebrated witchcraft case, Kona had recently spent a great deal of time with his brother Ned, who was the interpreter at Dr Fitzgerald’s Native Hospital, and had been deeply impressed by the power of Western medical science. Kona’s conversion was, one would think, just the sort of thing Grey had been aiming at when he set up his hospital to demonstrate the superiority of European civilisation. When the rains began in late September, Kona found himself virtually isolated in Maqoma’s chiefdom and cultivating in spite of his father’s orders. His mother was so angry at this that she left him. By November he was desperate to get out of Maqoma’s country and move to some safe place under the colonial government. A former superintendent of the Kaffir Police offered Kona a place on his farm. Alternatively, he could have joined Kama who, hard pressed by Mate and the believers in his chiefdom, would have been glad to receive him. Even Kama’s magistrate thought this was a good idea. But Maclean, supported by Grey, refused Kona’s application because he thought it might be a trick of old Maqoma to sneak back to his former country. It would set a bad precedent. Kona had not been as badly persecuted as he made out. Dr Fitzgerald protested against the decision and offered Kona his own house, but was told that he did not understand politics and should mind his own business. It took another two months before Maclean became sufficiently convinced of the genuineness of Kona’s predicament to permit him to take temporary refuge near Fort Murray.19
The small group of unbelievers in Sandile’s territory attempted to retain the nominal support of the chief by cultivating his gardens and maintaining a presence at his Great Place. But Sandile was under pressure, especially from Maqoma.
Are you a chief [Maqoma asked Sandile] and led by black men? Who are Tyala, Xokwana, Umnxamisa and Umqhati that they should cultivate against the order of [Sarhili] and Umhlakaza, and induce you to do the same? What other chief has been likewise led? Show your authority and put these men to death, and discontinue your cultivation.20
When Sandile’s resistance to the Cattle-Killing finally collapsed on 29 January, the position of the amagogotya became completely untenable. Namba’s messengers demanded that Sandile chase the unbelievers from his Great Place and kill them if they continued to argue with him. Sandile formally expelled all unbelievers in early February, and compelled the steadfastly unbelieving brothers, Xokwana and Norhwana, to kill their cattle. They were married to his sisters and, he said, ‘though they had no regard for their own safety and welfare, he did not see why they should lead his sisters to destruction’.21
Commissioner Brownlee urged Maclean to allow the estimated 150-200 unbelievers (out of nearly 7 000 men in Sandile’s chiefdom) to settle temporarily in the Crown Reserve. But Maclean was having none of it. If he helped Brownlee’s unbelievers, he would have to help others elsewhere as well. They should join Chief Anta. On 12 February, the fourth of the last eight days, the desperate unbelievers came to Brownlee for the government response. Deeply ashamed of his superior’s reaction, Brownlee was forced by the rules of the service to put the best face on his instructions that he possibly could. He told the unbelievers that they still had a duty to Sandile, even though he had cast them off. They should stay in his district so that he could join them if he changed his mind. The unbelievers had no choice but to agree under protest. They asked if the government could not clear a space for them somewhere, but Brownlee could promise them nothing.22
For a brief moment after the Great Disappointment, it seemed as if Sandile might rally to the unbelievers, but his resolve soon crumbled in the face of continued pressure from Maqoma and Mhala. The unbelievers begged for permission to establish an armed camp in a natural stronghold protected on three sides by the winding Kubusi River. Unfortunately, this was situated in the Crown Reserve. Brownlee supported them to the best of his ability. ‘In their present position they cannot [hold their ground]. We weaken our own cause by refusing support and assistance to those who have so manfully resisted the delusion.’ Governor Grey, now returned to King William’s Town, gave the decided negative himself.23
The long-awaited storm broke on 12 March. A large party of believers headed by the Gcaleka chief Gunuza attacked the isolated homesteads of Pityi and Sam, two relatively powerless unbelievers. One of Pityi’s men was killed and all their cattle taken. A believer sent by Pityi to intercede on his behalf was told that the amathamba would return to kill the remainder of his men, and their cattle were but a provision on the road to attack the unbelievers Neku and Soga. Two days later, a large party of mounted horsemen attacked Neku’s place and Wartburg mission. Soga’s younger brother Ngcuka was killed defending the family herds. Neku and Soga fled by night to the rear of Dohne post in the Crown Reserve. There they were joined by other unbelievers who had suffered similar attacks. Backed once again by Commissioner Brownlee, they addressed an urgent appeal to the Governor:
Regardless of the orders of our chiefs and in opposition to the taunts and threats of our countrymen, we cultivated our fields and retained our cattle … Sandile and his believing councillors maintain that in pursuing the course we have, and from our constant intercourse with Brownlee, we are seeking their ruin and our promotion … We have already been called ‘traitors to our country’ … If the Governor refuses us, we will have to join Kama where we will at once lose our cattle by lungsickness, and having no crops to live on we and our families will be reduced to poverty and starvation …
Before taking a step which will involve us and our families in misery, we would again lay our earnest appeal before the Governor for a temporary asylum in the rear of the Post; we do not ask for land, and will quit this place as soon as the circumstances of the country admit … We are unable to return to our kraals to be plundered, and to become a derision to those whom we have opposed, and who have brought ruin upon the Tribe and who are now our bitter enemies.24
Chief Commissioner Maclean remained unmoved. He made the alleged crime of one unbeliever the excuse for the condemnation of all:
Is the man Soga now in the Reserve – one of those upon whose co-operation and support I am expected to rely – the same man who treacherously assisted in the massacre of the people in the military village of Woburn? I will not allow [Xhosa] to remain in the Crown Reserve. If the people alluded to will not take my advice by forming in front of the post – they can go to Kama’s location if that chief will admit them.
Greatly shamed, Brownlee was forced to evict them.
A similar scene was played out near the coast, where Magistrate Gawler was receiving messages from various minor chiefs declaring themselves amagogotya and begging the government to take care of them and tell them what to do. Chief Smith Mhala, Ndayi and other unbelievers came in a body to see him and to say that if the government was to help anybody, it should help them first. Mhala had called his council together to decide on a course of action and they were sure it would be war. Gawler urged them to concentrate their forces on the Qinira River, where he was trying to organise a police force for their protection. The unbelievers agreed although, as they pointed out, the believers were on the watch and would attack them as soon as they attempted to move their cattle. ‘Here’s an end to us non-believers,’ said Ndayi as the first news of fighting came in, ‘unless the government who gave us encouragement to hold out will help us.’25
For one brief and awful moment after the Great Disappointment, the believers had stared into the black hole of the future, and that was enough to show them that any hope was better than none. The latest excuse from the Gxarha and from the secondary oracle at the Mpongo River, that the new people had been delayed by their failure to decide which among their ranks had the seniority to rise first,26 was flimsy indeed but it was sufficient for a movement now fuelled by despair rather than hope. The
helpless state of the unbelievers – demoralised, disorganised and abandoned to their fate by the colonial government – laid them wide open to attack. Hungry Xhosaland teetered on the brink of a bloody civil war.
On 3 March 1857, Sir George Grey issued a proclamation declaring ‘that all persons caught attempting to commit, or having committed, robberies with arms in their hands, will when convicted with such offence, be punished with DEATH’.27 But so long as the Governor was unwilling to commit any troops to the defence of the unbelievers, so long was his proclamation a threat without teeth. It was Major John Cox Gawler, the magistrate with Mhala, who supplied the deficiency.
1 GH 8/31 Information communicated from across the Kei, 24 Feb. 1857.
2 CO 2949 J Warner-R Southey, 28 Feb. 1857; GH 8/31 Information communicated by a person from the Transkei, 24 Feb. 1857.
3 BK 71 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 21, 24 Feb. 1857.
4 BK 83 H Vigne-J Maclean, 17 Feb. 1857.
5 BK 71 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 11 March 1857. See also BK 89 Secret Information, 28 Feb. 1857.
6 CO 2949 J Warner-R Southey, 18 Feb. 1857; BK 71 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 21 Jan., 21 March 1856; Memorandum by H Vigne, n.d. [22 Feb.].
7 BK 70 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 2 Oct. 1856; GH 8/30 RE Robertson-J Maclean, 23 Nov. 1856; BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 14 Jan. 1857; GH 8/30 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 25 Dec. 1856.
8 BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 14 Jan. 1857.
9 BK 89 J Crouch-J Maclean, 3 Feb. 1857; BK 89 Memorandum by H Vigne, 25 Jan. 1857; GH 8/31 Information communicated, 8 Feb. 1857; BK 70 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 25 Dec. 1856; BK 71 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4 Feb. 1857.
10 GH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4 Jan. 1857.
11 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4 Jan. 1856; GH 8/32 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 23 May 1857; BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 20 June 1857; CO 3122 C Brownlee-J Warner, 24 Jan. 1867.
12 Brownlee (1916), p.134; BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 17 Nov. 1856; GH 8/30 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 7 Dec. 1856; BK 82 H Vigne-J Maclean, 1 Feb. 1856.
13 MIC 172/2, Reel 8, Cory Library, Journal of W Greenstock, 30 May 1859.
14 The Bulungwa incident will be fully covered in Ch. 4/3.
15 BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 7, 10, 21 Dec. 1856; 14 Jan. 1857.
16 GH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4 Jan. 1857.
17 GH 8/30 Schedule 372, 29 Dec. 1856; GH 8/31 Schedule 389, 2 Feb. 1857.
18 GH 8/49 Marginal note on R Tainton-J Maclean, 29 Dec. 1856.
19 GH 8/49 F Reeve-J Maclean, 9 Nov. 1856; GH 8/49 H Lucas-J Maclean, 8 Dec. 1856; GH 8/49 J Fitzgerald-J Maclean, n.d.; GH 8/49 D Davies-J Maclean, 26 Nov. 1856; GH 8/30 H Lucas-J Maclean, 22 Dec. 1856; GH 8/30 Schedule 370, 25 Dec. 1856.
20 GH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 15 Jan. 1857.
21 BK 71 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 4, 8 Feb. 1857.
22 GH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 5, 12 Feb. 1857; marginal note by Maclean, 6 Feb. 1857.
23 GH 8/31 C Brownlee-J Maclean, 1 March 1857; Brownlee (1916), p.152.
24 BK 71 C Brownlee-J Maclean 15, 21 March 1857, annotated by Maclean.
25 BK 81 J Gawler-J Maclean, 21, 24, 28 Feb., 1 March 1857; GH 8/50 J Gawler-J Maclean, 25 Feb. 1850; GH 8/31 J Gawler-J Maclean, 21 Feb. 1850; GH 8/31 Memorandum by H Vigne n.d. [22 Feb. 1857].
26 BK 89 Secret Information, 28 Feb. 1857.
27 King William’s Town Gazette, 17 March 1857.
4. THE HARD AND THE SOFT
We have referred so often to the existence of two parties in Xhosaland, the believers and the unbelievers, that we have begun to take them for granted. And yet there was more to the formation of the two groups – termed by the Xhosa, the amathamba (‘soft ones’ or believers) and the amagogotya (‘hard ones’ or unbelievers) – than the simple decision of an individual whether or not to believe in Nongqawuse’s prophecies. Most Xhosa did not personally visit the prophetess but depended on rumour and report from others. The information they received was ambiguous and contradictory. The individual had to weigh the accounts of those who had seen miracles against those which dismissed the prophecies as fraudulent. Even though the Xhosa King sided with the believers, the unbelievers included some of the most influential and far-sighted men in the kingdom. Given the conflicting nature of the information received, it seems fair enough to suggest that most people would have decided whether or not to slaughter on the basis of pre-existing attitudes. It is the purpose of this section to identify and assess what such predispositions might have been.
The effects of lungsickness
Wherever lungsickness travelled in Xhosaland, cattle-killing almost always followed. From Mossel Bay, where it landed, it travelled to Uitenhage (March 1854), Fort Beaufort (April 1854), King William’s Town (March 1855) and Butterworth in Sarhili’s country (January 1856). The Ngqika Xhosa, living far to the north of the waggon road, were the last to be affected.1
It was in the areas first attacked by lungsickness that the earliest prophecies exhorting cattle-killing were heard. By October 1855, there were five prophets operating in the districts of Chiefs Kama and Phatho, ordering the people not to cultivate and to slaughter their cattle. Across the Kei, the spread of lungsickness was directly linked to visions of Mlanjeni and prophecies of resurrection.2
Sarhili put more than 20 people to death for witchcraft or for breaking the quarantines established on the movement of cattle, but he could not check the spread of the disease. By 1856, it was reported that many cattle had died of lungsickness in the lower part of Sarhili’s country where Nongqawuse lived, and in April 1856 she began to prophesy. In that very month, lungsickness broke out among the homesteads bordering Sarhili’s own Great Place.3 It is small wonder, therefore, that the King was receptive to a prophecy which predicted that ‘a fresh stock of cattle free from lungsickness’ would arise.
Chief Sandile’s Ngqika Xhosa took strenuous precautions against lungsickness, burning the pasturage on their perimeter and forbidding the introduction of strange cattle to their district.4 Sandile received Sarhili’s orders to kill without enthusiasm, and Chief Commissioner Maclean reported that the Ngqika Xhosa generally remained indifferent to the prophecies, ‘the excitement being confined to those districts in which from the prevalence of the lungsickness the people have lost their wealth and chief means of subsistence’.5 Very few Ngqika killed their cattle during the early phase of the movement prior to the first failure of the prophecies on 15 August 1856. Unfortunately, we have no evidence on the crucial question of when lungsickness became general in the Ngqika district, but it is tempting to ascribe the increasing tempo of Ngqika cattle-killing after the second wave of prophecies (September 1856) to the slow spread of the disease. Important support for this hypothesis comes from the case of Chief Feni, who opposed the movement from its inception in May 1856 and right through the Great Disappointment of February 1857 until April 1857, when lungsickness broke out among his own cattle and he too began to slaughter despite the palpable failure of the prophecies.6 Conversely, lungsickness never reached the herds of Chief Anta high up in the Windvogelberg in the far north of the Ngqika location, and this probably explains why, alone of all the Xhosa chiefdoms, Anta’s entirely refused to participate in the Cattle-Killing.
Lungsickness was thus a necessary cause of the Xhosa Cattle-Killing. Where there was no lungsickness, the words of Nongqawuse fell on deaf ears. On the other hand, lungsickness is not a sufficient cause which completely explains the entire Cattle-Killing movement. The Cape Colony’s Mfengu allies suffered extensively from lungsickness with reported cattle losses of 90 per cent and more. Yet virtually all Mfengu, even those resident in Xhosaland under the orders of Xhosa chiefs, refused to kill their cattle.7 The Christian chief Kama opposed the movement,
even though their district had suffered heavily from the epidemic. Chief Toyise, resident near the centre of infection at King William’s Town, refused to kill and carried the majority of his people along with him, even though in their district ‘the lungsickness had made such ravages that but comparatively few [cattle] were left’.8 Clearly, lungsickness alone cannot account for the pattern of division between believer and unbeliever.
Attitudes to the Cape Colony
At first glance, it might seem that the Cattle-Killing was mainly supported by those hostile to the Cape Colony and mainly opposed by those well disposed towards it. Certainly, many of the leading believers had been in the forefront of the War of Mlanjeni, which had ended a mere three years previously. Sarhili, Sandile, Maqoma and other lesser chiefs had been strong fighters and now turned strong believers. Chief Mhala, another strong believer though outwardly neutral, had secretly aided the belligerents with supplies and refuge. Conversely, the unbelieving Mfengu and the majority of chiefs on the unbelieving side – Kama, Toyise, Siwani, Jali – were either allies or clients of the colonial government. But any attempt to equate attitudes towards the Cattle-Killing with attitudes towards the colonial government breaks down in a rash of exceptions. Chief Anta had shot one of his brothers to prevent him surrendering during the War of Mlanjeni and he had been deprived of his ancestral lands, yet he remained on the unbelieving side. Chief Sigidi, the leader of the Gcaleka Xhosa unbelievers in British Kaffraria, had openly defied his newly appointed magistrate just before the Cattle-Killing, and remained under threat of arrest throughout. On the other hand, Chief Phatho had protected colonial supply routes during the War of Mlanjeni to the great detriment of the Xhosa war effort. Yet he was a great believer in Nongqawuse.9