by Peires, Jeff
That part of Grey’s proclamation permitting farmers and unbelievers to shoot in defence of property deterred but did not entirely stop Xhosa raiders desperate with hunger. Some starving Xhosa caught stealing pumpkins and green maize wearily invited the farmers to go ahead and shoot. Certain farmers were quite willing to do so, and one transport contractor actually boasted that he had shot nine Xhosa in three trips through British Kaffraria. The number of Xhosa dead through Grey’s licence to kill is hard to calculate, though one hopes it was not very large. The proclamation of 3 March 1857 was finally withdrawn early in September the following year. Even the King William’s Town Gazette acknowledged that it had rendered life in British Kaffraria very cheap.16
1 King William’s Town Gazette, 7 March 1857.
2 King William’s Town Gazette, 28 March 1857.
3 King William’s Town Gazette, 21 March 1857.
4 GH 8/31 J Maclean-J Jackson, 27 April 1857.
5 BK 14 H Barrington-J Maclean, 24 April 1857.
6 BK 14 H Barrington-J Maclean, 11 Jan. 1859, 14, 25, 30 April 1858.
7 BK 14 H Barrington-J Maclean, 30 April 1857; GH 8/31 Schedule 441 Circular to Magistrates, 28 April 1857.
8 CO 715 Statement of Holo.
9 GH 8/31 Schedule 436, 23 April 1857.
10 GH 8/32 J Maclean-H Barrington, 2 June 1857.
11 BK 14 H Barrington-J Maclean, 6 June 1857.
12 King William’s Town Gazette, 14 March 1857.
13 GH 8/31 Schedule 436, 23 April 1857.
14 Grahamstown Journal, 23 Jan. 1858.
15 GH 8/50 F Pinckney-J Maclean, 8 Nov. 1857; MIC 172/2, Reel 8, Cory Library, USPG Archives, Journal of W Greenstock, 6 April 1857; 2 Sept., 23 Oct. 1858; Cape Argus, 14 March 1857.
16 Cape Argus, 13 March 1858; King William’s Town Gazette, 11 Sept. 1858.
3. THE CLEAR SWEEP
In contrast to the harshness with which they treated the ordinary commoner believers, Grey and Maclean still held back from a frontal assault on the chiefs. But, once again, events played into their hands, and the chiefs themselves provided the openings which led to their eventual destruction. The catalyst was the Ngqika chief, Maqoma.
It will be remembered that the old warrior and his Great Son, Namba, had been foremost in spreading the message of the Cattle-Killing in the Ngqika district. They actively promoted the movement long after the Great Disappointment in February 1857, and Namba paid a personal visit to the Gxarha in April.1 But though the chiefs still continued hopeful, many of their followers had abandoned belief in the prophecies, and were pouring out of the district to save their lives and what was left of their property. Maqoma’s neighbour Bhotomane, who had killed every head of cattle he possessed, watched them leave with sad tolerance. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘the people are dying before our eyes. We have nothing to give them. Let them go where they can get meat.’2
But this was not Maqoma’s way. Early in March he confiscated the property of one of his men who was trying to take three cows and three goats out of his district. ‘I know the fines I promised to give [the government],’ he told his magistrate. ‘This is not one of them.’ Maclean forced him to retract by suspending his salary which was all he had to live on. This did not stop Maqoma dunning his remaining subjects or restrain him from urging on the Cattle-Killing during the movement’s last flicker in May-June 1857, but when that too failed Maqoma was desolate. Drink had always been his foe, and he now spent all the money he could get at the taverns opened for the German Legion in Stutterheim. He came home so drunk from his binges that he could hardly move for several days after, and eventually Maclean ordered the tavern keepers to stop selling the chief liquor.3
Meanwhile, in early July, a party of men from Maqoma’s district surprised and killed the informer Fusani, who had betrayed a number of people to Gawler’s police, including the daring thief Nqono and a man named Qoqola, who had died shortly after being released from custody. Fusani had long been unpopular in Maqoma’s country.4 He was, in fact, a Ngqika Xhosa who had been fined by Maqoma and Sandile about six months prior to the Cattle-Killing for incest with his widowed cousin. Nongqawuse had specifically denounced ‘fornications’ as a type of witchcraft and declared that widows, being wives of the dead, should not be touched by other men. Unbeliever, fornicator, informer and murderer – Fusani virtually stank of evil. Maqoma must have approved the raid, but there is no evidence that he ordered the premeditated murder of Fusani, as even Maclean recognised. ‘In all Gawler’s charges against Macomo,’ he informed Grey, ‘no proof could be produced of his participation in Fusani’s murder.’5 Maclean was, however, convinced that the chief’s erratic behaviour would soon present the government with a clearer case for disciplining him.
The Chief Commissioner was right. One of Maqoma’s wives, after repeated efforts to get away from him, fled into the Crown Reserve. Maqoma asked Lucas, his magistrate, for a pass to go and look for her, but he was refused. The chief was furious. ‘I am an aged chief and a great man,’ he said, ‘not inferior to Sandile and much abler to manage the [Xhosa] nation. Mr Lucas is a boy, and the Queen’s commission does not always bring with it knowledge and experience.’ On 8 August, returning drunk from one of the German villages, Maqoma slashed at Lucas with a sjambok. Maclean called him in, but found to his surprise that it was the chief who was delivering the reprimand. Maqoma declared that he had supposed Maclean had forgotten him, ‘considering that he was almost dead from hunger, his money having been stopped by the government, how could he have strength to visit Maclean, he was nobody, what could Maclean wish to see him about?’ Maqoma criticised Lucas and defended his seizure of unbelievers’ cattle. ‘He did not see what right the Government had to interfere in any of these cases, as none of them were connected with white people.’ He knew that the Queen and the government over the sea were still well disposed towards him. All the injustices he had suffered were the fault of the local officials in British Kaffraria.6
Still defiant and still without a pass, Maqoma rode into the Colony to look for his wife. He was arrested and thrown into jail in Alice to await Grey’s pleasure. Maclean was still unwilling to press ahead with charges connected to Fusani’s murder. There was too little evidence, it was too long after the event, it looked underhand to arrest a man thus far from home. It would upset the chiefs, he informed Grey, thus showing how far he still was from conceiving the scenario, long advocated by Gawler, of a British Kaffraria entirely without chiefs. But by now Grey was fully alert to the unique opportunity with which chance had presented him. On 17 September, he unambiguously ordered Maclean to try Maqoma for the Fusani murder. Ever the loyal servant, Maclean complied. He had been impressed by the lack of Xhosa reaction to Maqoma’s arrest. The other chiefs all recognised the recklessness of Maqoma’s conduct, and many must have blamed him for involving them in the disaster of the Cattle-Killing. The only talking point seemed to concern the fate of his salary.7
Gawler started picking up the men involved in the raid on Fusani, and Barrington started to prepare the evidence. The prosecution strategy was simple: get one or two of the raiders to be Crown witnesses and implicate Maqoma in return for immunity from prosecution. Of the four witnesses they had in mind, two escaped and one, Zazini, joined Maqoma in the dock rather than betray his chief. But in the end it did not matter. The trial was held at Fort Hare in front of a military court presided over by Colonel Pinckney, the magistrate of the Crown Reserve. The extent of Pinckney’s impartiality may be gauged from a letter he wrote to Maclean before the trial.
I shall be at Fort Hare as directed for the trial of that savage villain Macomo and his gang. Not as I go prejudiced against the man in this particular instance but the numerous charges you have sent against him, cunningly devised, he will be a fortunate fellow to clea
r away the whole. I am glad Mr Barrington will be there, and my friend Gawler will prove no doubt a terrible prosecutor on the part of Government.8
Maqoma never had a chance. Of the nine witnesses he called in his defence, only one appeared.9 There was no defence lawyer and the charges, as Pinckney had said, were ‘cunningly devised’. None of the government evidence remotely connected Maqoma with Fusani’s death, and one important Crown witness stated explicitly that both Maqoma and Zazini, the leader of the raiders, had categorically forbidden the killing of the informer.10 Even Colonel Pinckney was reluctantly forced to state that Maqoma was ‘quite innocent of Fusani’s death. The whole of the evidence acquits him of that crime.’ Nevertheless, Pinckney managed to find Maqoma guilty on three capital charges relating to the receipt of stolen goods which, he advised Maclean, ‘will enable you to keep him in durance vile for as long as you like’. Grey agreed:
The High Commissioner thinks that although Macomo has been acquitted of the murder of Fusani, he is morally responsible for that murder, committed by persons acting under his orders.11
Maqoma and the nine members of the raiding party were all sentenced to death, which Grey, in his infinite mercy, commuted to 20 years’ imprisonment. But that was only the beginning.
One of those to applaud Maqoma’s arrest was the Gqunukhwebe chief Phatho, who called Maqoma ‘one of the greatest rascals in [Xhosaland]’, hoping perhaps to imply that he, Phatho, was very different.12 But Phatho’s days were numbered. With the insignificant exception of his cousin Montawuli, all his people had gone wholeheartedly into the Cattle-Killing. Phatho, his brother Kobe, and his brother-in-law Stokwe had all been fervent believers. His Great Son Dilima had been a frequent visitor to the Gxarha, and had led the armed attacks on the unbelievers in March. His son Mate had raised the standard of the Cattle-Killing in Kama’s country, and had roused the majority of Kama’s nominal subjects to open defiance of their Christian chief. The Gqunukhwebe Xhosa had united under Phatho’s leadership to obstruct all the measures of Magistrate Vigne, who had been unable to make any headway against their policy of passive non-cooperation. The strategic significance of Phatho’s territory athwart British Kaffraria’s main highway between King William’s Town and East London was highlighted by the chief’s unwillingness to protect passing colonial travellers. Clearly, if any major changes were to be achieved in the state of British Kaffraria, Phatho, his close associates and all his people would have to go.
Phatho seems to have had little apprehension of the danger threatening him from the colonial state. In April 1857, he undertook a personal pilgrimage to Sarhili, who treated him with some coolness, killing only two goats for his sustenance and insisting on addressing him impersonally through a spokesman. He spent some time begging cattle in the district of his brother Kama, and clung hopefully to the final illusions of May-June 1857.13 Even after this disappointment, Phatho remained unwilling or unable to court the goodwill of the government, on which any hope of his future survival necessarily depended. The major sticking point was once again the security of goods passing along the highway, which provided too easy and tempting a target for the starving Xhosa. After several months of attempting to work with Phatho, Magistrate Vigne finally gave up. In early October, he sent the following letter to Maclean:
Of the dishonesty, duplicity and utter uselessness of Pato’s councillors or headmen … I have already written. They have been dismissed one by one for misconduct and although I know most of the people of the tribe I am at a loss to replace them. – Every one of the people told me plainly that they were glad to be dismissed …
They only used, I always found, their temporary authority as a means of beguiling me to believe any long plausible rigmarole story exculpatory of themselves and friends which they were too well aware I was unable to disprove – the police at my place only acted the part of spies and invariably backed the councillors in their lies … The almost total dearth of all information regarding the true state of things was well known to you, sir: Everything was either hid from me or so altered and added to that all hope of tracing out the perpetrators of any act was lost.14
When eventually Vigne was given permission to form his own police force on the Gawler model, this proved so effective that any help Phatho and Dilima might have been prepared to lend the colonial authorities was rendered entirely redundant. Phatho’s country was becoming increasingly attractive as a target area for white settlement. The Gqunukhwebe Xhosa had started killing their cattle a full year before the advent of Nongqawuse, they had been blasted by drought and lungsickness, and they had not planted for two seasons. As emigration and starvation took their toll, the country became increasingly denuded of population until only the chiefs and a few hangers-on remained to stake the Gqunukhwebe claim to their formerly extensive territory.
Ever since the decision had been taken to prosecute Maqoma, the colonial authorities had been looking round for evidence against the other chiefs.15 They had been looking for Qasana ever since his attack on Bulungwa in March, and Brownlee had Sandile’s brother Xhoxho tried for horse theft in mid-October. By November, Maclean was sure that he had cases against Phatho, Dilima and Stokwe. ‘Your Excellency may be satisfied I will not allow myself to be hurried into any adventure,’ he reassured the Governor. ‘In the present state of the country a few police may do anything without resistance.’ And so they could. On 25 December, in a letter to Maclean beginning ‘a Merry Christmas to you and yours’, Major Gawler suggested a ‘clear sweep’ of all the guilty chiefs. Maclean was cautious, but by the end of January 1858, Phatho and his sons Dilima, Mate and Mpafa, together with Chiefs Qasana, Tola and Xhoxho, were all in prison.16
No one anticipated that one of Grey’s courts might find the chiefs innocent, but an unexpected hitch occurred when Phatho and Mpafa went on trial for possessing stolen horses. The trial was initially delayed when Phatho’s brother Kama inconveniently arrested the thieves who had actually committed the theft. Since Grey’s entire plan for the settlement of whites in British Kaffraria depended on getting Phatho out of the way, the chief was accordingly charged with being an accessory after the fact. But another unexpected obstacle then raised its head in the form of Magistrate Vigne. No one had suffered more at Phatho’s hands than Vigne, who had been systematically blocked, tricked, deceived and made to appear a fool in the eyes of his brother magistrates. But, for all that, Vigne could not swallow the worst excesses of drumhead law. He had objected to some of the practices of Gawler’s police, and on one occasion he had even declined to issue a sufficiently strong statement against four Xhosa whom Maclean badly wanted to transport on suspicion alone.17 At Phatho’s trial, he let slip some information in evidence which showed quite clearly that Phatho and Mpafa had not realised that the horses in question were stolen. Even the special court was left with no option but to acquit the two chiefs. Maclean was furious and ordered an immediate retrial at which Vigne was asked some slightly different questions and the prisoners were duly found guilty. In the teeth of strong objections from the Cape Attorney General, Grey insisted on the guilty verdict. The ‘technical informality’ of the second ‘guilty’ trial did not invalidate it, the Governor wrote. After all, the ‘natives’ could not very well be allowed to ‘claim every technical advantage which would be awarded to a British subject’. Phatho and Mpafa were transported for five years.18
Of the chiefs who had strongly promoted the Cattle-Killing, only four still remained at liberty: Chief Bhotomane, who was over 80 years old; Stokwe, who hid out a full 15 months in the Fish River bush with the police on his tail the whole time;19 Maqoma’s son Namba; and the greatest prize of all, Chief Mhala, the Wildcat.
1 BK 89 Secret Information, 4 May 1857.
2 MS 8172 J Ross-J Laing, 17 March 1857.
3 GH 8/31 H Lucas-J Maclean, 7 March 1857; BK 82 H Lucas-J Maclean, 21 April, 30 May 1857; GH 8/32 H Lucas-J Maclean, 12 July 1857.
4 BK 82 H Lucas-J Maclean, 14 July 1856.
5 GH 8/50 J Maclean-G Grey, 31 Aug. 1857; GH 8/32 Schedule 474, 23 July 1857.
6 Cape Argus, 16 Sept. 1857; BK 82 H Lucas-J Maclean, 8, 25 Aug. 1857; BK 82 Minutes of a conversation, 12 Aug. 1857.
7 BK 82 J Maclean-G Grey, 31 Aug. 1857; GH 8/32 J Maclean-F Pinckney, 24 Aug. 1857; GH 30/4 G Grey-J Maclean, 17 Sept. 1857; GH 20/2/1 J Maclean-G Grey, 7 Sept. 1857; GH 8/50 J Maclean-G Grey, 17, 24 Sept. 1857.
8 GH 8/50 F Pinckney-J Maclean, 8 Nov. 1857.
9 BK 82 Certificate by R Southey, 4 Nov. 1857.
10 Cape Parliamentary Paper, G 4 of 1858, ‘Proceedings and findings of the court … and sentence … upon Macomo and other Kafirs’.
11 Ibid., p.2; GH 20/2/1 F Pinckney-J Maclean, 20 Nov. 1857.