The fact that the Zulu language, in the slightly modified form known as Sindebele, survived (it has persisted to this day as the speech of the Matabele nation), strengthens the possibility that the Nguni element among Mzilikazi’s followers was not as numerically negligible as is sometimes supposed. Children generally learn the speech of their mothers, and if almost all the womenfolk were Sotho, it would be reasonable to suppose that Zulu would sooner or later have died out or at least been significantly modified.
Interestingly, the name ‘Matabele’ is an Anglicised version of a Sotho word, ‘Matebele’, which was evidently used as a blanket term by the Sotho when referring to ‘strangers from the east’ such as the Khumalos who had made their way on to the highveld from the coastal belt. In due course, the nation founded by Mzilikazi adopted the name in its Nguni form of ‘Amandebele’, although most modern scholars use the root ‘Ndebele’ instead. In Mzilikazi’s day, however, his people used other names to describe themselves, such as Khumalo or Zulu.
Mzilikazi migrates again
In late 1825, when many of Mzilikazi’s regiments were conducting a major raid, apparently against the Ngwaketse, one of the most powerful and prosperous Tswana peoples whose territory lay about 150 miles to the northwest, Mzilikazi was himself attacked. An able Sotho chief, the Taung leader Molitsane, whose territory lay to the southwest of Mzilikazi’s, allied himself with mounted raiders who possessed firearms. These were Griqua (half-breeds who lived in a twilight zone on the borders of European settlement) and Korana from along the northern fringes of Cape Colony. Molitsane and his allies raided outlying Matabele cattle posts south of the Vaal. Upon the return of his regiments, Mzilikazi retaliated, recapturing some of the livestock and temporarily forcing Molitsane to flee. But it was not long before the Matabele were subjected to further cattle raiding by Molitsane and the Griqua and Korana, acting in concert or separately. Indeed, in 1835 a senior Matabele official called Mncumbathe told a British explorer, Dr Andrew Smith, that while living ‘on the Liqua’ (an Nguni name for the Vaal) the Matabele were subjected to at least seven such assaults.
The raids were no doubt primarily responsible for Mzilikazi’s decision to leave the Vaal settlements in search of a new home. He evidently moved off in mid-1827, heading north. The Matabele crossed the Magaliesberg Mountains and entered a territory occupied by Sotho chiefdoms that had been weakened by a succession of recent invaders and factionalism. Some of the inhabitants submitted—others were killed or fled—and it was here, on and beneath the fertile northern slopes of the Magaliesberg in central Transvaal, that Mzilikazi once again put down roots.
The most important settlements were centred on the region around the upper Aaipes and upper Oori Rivers. His warriors soon recommenced raiding, and most of the operations were conducted against Sotho groups to the west. Furthermore, as a precautionary measure, Mzilikazi deliberately created a buffer-zone between the Vaal and the Magaliesberg range by clearing away all settlements, thereby rendering an assault from that direction more difficult. ‘I had to keep open veld around me,’ Mzilikazi reportedly told an Afrikaner hunter in the 1860s.
Mzilikazi certainly had reason to be wary. This was brought home forcefully in July 1828 when he was subjected to a combined assault. Molitsane had resumed raiding Matabele outposts and had provoked a major punitive response. He thus enlisted the support of a Korana leader called Jan Bloem. The latter assembled a several hundred-strong commando comprising Griqua and Korana horsemen and Sotho-Tswana warriors, joined forces with Molitsane, and moved rapidly against Matabele cattle posts on the northern slopes of the Magaliesberg Mountains. Little resistance was encountered, for Mzilikazi’s main units were away conducting a raid of their own. Hence some 3,000 cattle and a few women were seized by the raiders, who then began retracing their steps.
While Molitsane and his people hurriedly returned home, his allies did so at a more leisurely pace. They paid heavily for their complacency when a hastily assembled Matabele force struck back. Andrew Smith was subsequently told what happened by Haip, a Korana chief. On the third night of the return journey, the Griqua and Korana feasted well into the hours of darkness upon some of the seized cattle, before settling down for what remained of the night. But then, when:
approaching day could just be faintly discerned and the revellers were buried in sleep, the Zooloos [Matabele] rushed to the charge, and . . . flight . . . was immediately resorted to by the attacked. In the confusion a few shots were fired; but . . . perhaps more the result of inadvertency than of any regular aim.
Haip managed to escape from the camp, only to find himself and many of the Tswana within a circle of Matabele warriors ‘placed from six to ten yards apart, and ready to destroy whoever might be found flying.’ Fortunately, he managed to evade the net when some of the warriors were distracted by other fugitives, but many of his colleagues did not live to tell the tale.
About a year later, Mzilikazi sent around 4,000 to 5,000 warriors, most of whom were non-Nguni vassals, to destroy Molitsane. Hearing of the impi’s approach, Molitsane abandoned his capital and retreated south beyond the Vaal. But the Matabele pressed on and caught up with the bulk of Molitsane’s people beside the Modder River and cut them to pieces.
Years later, in 1871, an Afrikaner who had visited the site the day after the Matabele had struck, told the Bloemhof Commission that he had ‘examined hundreds of bodies, all of which had been killed by assegais’ and that he had seen ‘no bodies of Moselikatse’s [Mzilikazi’s] people.’ Members of the Matabele impi itself, who sat before the commission, declared that all, or almost all, of the Taung had perished and that many cattle had been recaptured. But Molitsane himself had not been present when the Matabele struck, and in due course found sanctuary with the famous Sotho leader, Moshweshwe, of whom something will be said presently.
Europeans visit Mzilikazi
In early August 1829, shortly after Mzilikazi’s warriors had destroyed Molitsane’s people, two adventurous white traders from the Cape were permitted to visit Mzilikazi’s capital. He lavished gifts upon them and then, following their departure, sent envoys to make further contact with the outside world. They made their way south to Kuruman, a mission station run by an admirable Scotsman, Robert Moffat, who enjoyed a great deal of prestige among natives in the interior. According to Moffat, the envoys ‘were astonished and interested with almost everything they saw.’ Moffat provided them with a wagon and accompanied them on the return journey.
They set off on 9 November and arrived at a homestead where Mzilikazi was resident in December, bad weather having hampered their progress. Moffat relates that he was enthusiastically welcomed by Mzilikazi and that much ceremony was laid on for his benefit:
In order to make a display, the principal inhabitants of the neighbouring towns had been ordered to congregate at headquarters to give a public dance . . . . Hundreds might be seen descending to the town from all directions, men carrying their shields in full dress, and the women carrying supplies of pulse, milk and beans on their heads.
Moffat’s account continues:
Some thousand had collected on a smooth plain outside the town. The warriors were formed into a kind of circle, about three or four men deep. A number of war songs and national airs were sung, and one of these was composed for the occasion. Sometimes [Mzilikazi] took his stand in the centre, with a shield of lion skin, and a well-polished common butcher’s knife, which he had from me, in one hand, and which seemed to please him much, as its bright surface reflected the rays of the sun. He appeared to be chief musician, while all looked towards him and punctually imitated every motion he made in accordance with the music. To some of the tunes they danced manfully, while he looked on with apparent indescribable pleasure . . . the air echoed with [Mzilikazi’s] praises, his achievements, his power and his greatness, with the most extravagant epithets, such as King of the Heavens, King of Kings etc etc.
Moffat tells us something of
Mzilikazi’s appearance on this occasion. In common with all the married men, he was wearing a band of otter skin around his head. However, unlike his warriors—who, among other things, were sporting kilts of animal skins around their waists—he was adorned with small bunches of beads of different colours, while from each shoulder hung about fifteen pounds of beads (like two thick ropes), crossing over the breast and reaching to the feet. Moreover, ‘his head was adorned with the finest feathers, formed into a couple of small bunches.’
Moffat stayed for eight days and had several discussions with Mzilikazi, including debates on theological matters such as the origin of man and the Resurrection. Mzilikazi declared that he wished to live on peaceful terms with Europeans and that he wanted missionaries to settle among his people, though his tone suggested that he was more interested in the secular benefits such contact would bring. Moffat records, for instance, that the king ‘seemed anxious to have firearms.’ In short, as Richard Brown comments, Mzilikazi viewed Moffat as ‘“a chief of considerable power” who would be able to supply the Ndebele with guns and ammunition.’
Of Mzilikazi’s character and physique Moffat wrote:
Moselekatse is undoubtedly shrewd and observing, though in the course of conversation he often appears as if he were paying no attention whatever. From all I could learn from friends and foes, he is brave, and in seasons of real danger possesses great deliberation. He has evidently been in the wars, as some large scars give full proof . . . . In his person he is rather below the middle size, lusty, has rather a pleasing and soft countenance and is exceedingly affable in his manners. His voice is soft and feminine, and cheerfulness predominates in him . . . he might be taken for anything but a tyrant from his appearance, but for all that, it may be truly said of him he ‘dipped his sword in blood, and wrote his name on lands and cities desolate.’
Further bloodshed
One of the most famous Matabele campaigns of this period—although in reality it may have been a minor affair—probably occurred in the autumn of 1830 or 1831. An impi was sent against Sotho living south of the Vaal. The latter included the followers of a remarkable and humane individual in his mid-40s named Moshweshwe, who had emerged as a leader of considerable ability following the general collapse of the southern Sotho chiefdoms in the early 1820s and whose domain was centred on Thaba Bosiu, an outcrop rising some 400 feet in Lesotho.
Near the top of Thaba Bosiu were sandstone cliffs where a few passes gave access to the defensible summit, a well-watered flat area of under two square miles. Thaba Bosiu had already withstood a series of attacks, the most significant of these had occurred in 1827 when Matiwane and the Ngwane were repulsed. Moshweshwe’s defeat of the Nguni force had considerably increased his prestige and many survivors of the shattered Sotho chiefdoms had attached themselves to him.
Hearing of the approach of the Matabele, Moshweshwe gathered his people on his stronghold, which Mzilikazi’s warriors proceeded to attack. In 1861, Eugene Casalis, a French missionary who had entered Lesotho in 1833, recorded what happened:
Accustomed to victory, the Zulus [Matabele] advanced in serried ranks, not appearing to observe the masses of basalt, which came rolling down with a tremendous noise from the top of the mountain. But soon there was a general crush—an irresistible avalanche of stones, accompanied by a shower of javelins, sent back the assailants with more rapidity than they had advanced. The chiefs might be seen rallying with fugitives; and snatching away the plumes with which their heads were decorated, and trampling them under foot in rage, would lead their men again towards the formidable rampart. This desperate attempt succeeded no better than the former one. The blow was decisive.
Casalis further notes that as the Matabele withdrew, Moshweshwe sent them a gift of cattle as food to speed them on their way, believing that hunger had brought them into his country. Perhaps this was so, but it is worth noting that the gift is not mentioned by another source, Thomas Arbousset (who had arrived in Lesotho with Casalis) and whose account, dating from 1842, generally harmonises with that of Casalis. Arbousset has, however, a very different epilogue: the Matabele commander angrily burnt millet growing at the base of the mountain before heading off.
In June 1831, history repeated itself when Griqua-Korana horsemen and their Tswana allies moved against Mzilikazi again, led by an elderly Griqua chief named Barend Barends. The size of the combined force is uncertain—estimates vary greatly—but according to the most conservative figures, Barends had some 300 Griqua and Korana horsemen and several hundred Tswana allies. The invading force struck in mid-July, although Barends himself had decided to remain at a base camp and had thus delegated command to a trusted subordinate, perhaps a certain Gert Hooyman.
Most Matabele warriors were absent beyond the Limpopo River, well to the north, and so the commando easily rounded up several thousand cattle and seized some women, before setting off southward. They moved slowly and, having failed to appoint sentries, succumbed to an attack shortly before dawn after Mzilikazi sent a rapidly assembled force in pursuit. Many of the raiders, including a significant number of Griqua, were killed in the confused fighting—some of the Griqua reportedly shot one another in the dark—and the captured livestock were retaken. After the battle, the Matabele killed their opponents’ mounts and burned a substantial quantity of seized firearms.
In mid 1832, Mzilikazi was attacked yet again. His adversaries were those he feared the most—Zulus. A large Zulu army under Ndlela kaSompisi was sent against him by Dingane, who was aware of how prosperous Mzilikazi had become and no doubt wished to relieve him of his large herds of cattle. It was the first time such a force had been sent against Mzilikazi since his flight from Zululand—it is often said, erroneously, that the invasion had been preceded by one in 1830, a misapprehension partly due to a lapse of memory on the part of Henry Fynn many years later when writing up his ‘Diary.’ After travelling some 300 miles, the Zulus fell upon the Matabele, having been augmented en route by Sotho enemies of Mzilikazi. They took their opponents by surprise, and it seems that many of Mzilikazi’s fighting men were occupied elsewhere.
Unfortunately, evidence relating to the campaign is largely confused and contradictory. Nonetheless, it appears that after attacking from the southeast, the Zulus swept through a number of homesteads around the upper reaches of the Oori tributaries before encountering strong resistance. A fierce battle was fought near the source of the Sand River and both sides evidently suffered severe losses. For instance, the Matabele induna Mncumbathe told Andrew Smith in 1835 that ‘many were killed on both sides so that they could not number them.’ On the whole, it appears that the battle ended indecisively. Certainly, the Zulus headed home with fewer cattle than Dingane had expected and he thus had a number of officers executed.
Migration to the Marico Valley
In early August 1832, almost immediately after the withdrawal of the Zulu impi, Mzilikazi sent three bodies of warriors west against Sotho-Tswana peoples such as the Rolong, killing many of them and putting the survivors to flight. Mzilikazi thus made himself master of the Marico Valley and proceeded to migrate with his people the hundred miles or so to that territory. He had evidently decided to move west before the Zulu assault had occurred, and it had no doubt brought the matter to a head. The majority of the new settlements and military posts thus established appear to have been located along the upper reaches of the river, such as in the Mosega basin, while throughout the new Matabele domain were the homesteads of Tswana who had elected to submit to Mzilikazi’s rule.
In 1835 (a year after the Matabele had successfully dealt with another Griqua-Korana commando), Dr Andrew Smith explored the kingdom, and noted that Mzilikazi’s posts were
placed with considerable regularity. His own kraal [Gabeni] is nearly in the centre of his country, and then his principal soldiers are placed round him in posts not very distant from each other and no one of them more than an hour’s walk from his kraal. At these posts
his best cattle and those for breeding are kept.
The least desirable cattle were located in a ring of outposts. Smith estimated that over two-thirds of Mzilikazi’s people were of Sotho-Tswana origin, the rest coastal Nguni.
After establishing themselves in their new homeland in the closing months of 1832, the Matabele recommenced raiding, although evidently on a reduced scale in comparison with previous years. They deliberately depopulated territory between themselves and the Vaal, thus once again creating a buffer zone, rightly believing that the greatest threat to their security lay to the south.
While living in the Marico Valley, Mzilikazi increased his contacts with whites. Individuals who wished to enter his kingdom were able to approach him through Moffat, who acted as an intermediary and with whom he communicated regularly through messengers. In 1835, as noted, Andrew Smith visited Mzilikazi’s kingdom. He was the leader of a scientific party from the Cape, and Moffat, who accompanied the group, had secured permission for them to visit the king’s court.
The Zulus and Matabele: Warrior Nations Page 21