The Zulus and Matabele: Warrior Nations

by Glen Lyndon Dodds

  They arrived on the southern fringe of Mzilikazi’s realm in late May and were brought before the king at Mosega in early June. Smith was allowed to explore the Matabele kingdom and country to the north, while Moffat stayed with Mzilikazi and discussed the prospect of letting American missionaries preach among the Matabele. Permission was granted, whereupon Moffat set off for Kuruman in early August.

  After completing his explorations, Smith returned to Mzilikazi and then set off for the Cape, accompanied by Matabele emissaries whom Mzilikazi had delegated to represent him before the Governor of Cape Colony. They arrived at Cape Town in late January 1836—having completed the final stage of the journey by sea from Port Elizabeth—and were entertained for six weeks, with every effort being made by their hosts to impress upon them the full might and sophistication of Europeans.

  On 3 March, the head of the delegation, Mncumbathe, and Governor Sir Benjamin D’Urban signed a treaty of general friendship. Thereafter, in June, the Matabele emissaries reported to Mzilikazi, having been joined en route home at Kuruman by members of an American missionary party which had already begun to set up a mission at Mosega, having arrived in Mzilikazi’s kingdom earlier in the year.

  In or about early August 1836, several parties of Boers made their way across the Vaal without having sought Mzilikazi’s permission. Some were intent on hunting, but others, led by Hendrik Potgieter and Sarel Cilliers, were migrants who had forsaken Cape Colony in search of a new homeland and were among the vanguard of a movement discussed in Chapter 2 and known to history as the Great Trek.

  In mid-August, Mzilikazi responded by sending an impi of some 500 men towards the Vaal. It came across a number of undefended camps and attacked them. In one or two cases, the Boers had received a few moments’ warning and were able to mount a successful defence. For the most part, however, the camps were overwhelmed and about 50 of the whites, and an unknown number of their non-white servants, perished. Matabele also figured among the slain. During the short campaign, Mzilikazi’s warriors seized more than a thousand head of cattle, together with horses, oxen and a number of wagons.

  The clashes occurred while Potgieter and Cilliers were reconnoitring country to the northeast. Upon returning, they gathered their followers together beside the upper Rhenoster River (south of the Vaal) and awaited developments.

  On 9 October, Mzilikazi assembled an impi and ordered its commander, Kaliphi, to move against the Boers. The first major battle between members of the Great Trek and Africans was about to begin. But before discussing matters further, something should be said about the Matabele war machine.

  Mzilikazi’s army

  Mzilikazi’s army consisted of age-based amabutho—regiments commanded by izinduna appointed by him—and were resident in military homesteads. Every few years, youths who had reached the age of military service were called together and formed into a regiment. In due course, when the warriors were in their mid-30s, they were granted permission to marry and would henceforth serve as a reserve.

  The strength of the regiments was substantially below that of their Zulu counterparts, and probably only numbered between 200 and 400 warriors. Initially, only Nguni were incorporated into the amabutho, but during Mzilikazi’s years in the Transvaal, Sotho were enrolled in the Matabele army. Moreover, when called upon, contingents of Sotho warriors were provided by their vassal chiefs to fight alongside Mzilikazi’s regiments.

  In 1835, Smith declared that if Mzilikazi ‘were called upon to muster every man he has in his country, he could not produce 4,000’, whereas William Cornwallis Harris (who visited Mzilikazi the following year) stated: ‘His standing army of warriors of his own tribe exceeds five thousand men, but numbers of the conquered nations swell his followers to a large amount.’ Indeed, it is sometimes said that Mzilikazi could call upon some 20,000 warriors if he so desired, but this is no doubt an inflated figure. For one thing, disease, most notably smallpox, had recently taken a heavy toll of the Matabele and Mzilikazi’s subject peoples. All in all, it is reasonable to conclude that he never commanded more than several thousand warriors, and that Matabele forces frequently numbered hundreds rather than thousands.

  A Matabele warrior in the 1830s, by William Cornwallis Harris. ©MuseumAfrica

  Of the warriors, Moffat wrote in 1829:

  The appearance of his men in full dress was much like the dress of a regiment of Highlanders, colour excepted. A great number of strings or strips of skin, with the fur twisted, hung like a kilt around the middle, reaching to the knees. Similar tails adorn the arms and neck, while the head is decorated with a profusion of feathers. In the centre of the forehead a long blue feather stands, like a cockade. Each regiment has its own peculiar mode of adorning the head, as well as the colour of the shields.

  The headdresses incorporated the Zulu headband, but otherwise differed in that they employed feathers of birds not found in Zululand, although senior men, like their Zulu counterparts, sported crane feathers. Moreover, Cornwallis Harris noted in 1836 that some warriors, when fully dressed, wore capes of cows’ tails around the shoulders.

  Amabutho were armed with stabbing and throwing spears. Initially, no doubt, the stabbing spears were similar or identical to those employed by Zulu warriors but sooner or later a shorter variant was used. Knobkerries, too, were carried by some warriors. Shields were comparable to those of Zulu regiments and were made of ox-hide and were oval in shape. Junior regiments had predominantly black shields, whereas those of senior regiments were white.

  The Battle of Vechtkop

  According to the American missionaries preaching in Mzilikazi’s kingdom, the impi sent against the Voortrekkers on 9 October 1836 numbered some 3,000 men, a third of whom were non-Nguni servants and camp followers. In marked contrast, Voortrekker estimates put the number of Matabele higher, some 5,000-6,000 warriors, while a biographer of Sarel Cilliers goes even further, stating that the Matabele were 9,000 strong, ‘scattered over the plain like ants.’ Understandably, Rasmussen favours the contemporary estimate of the missionaries, which is no doubt much closer to the truth, though perhaps slightly on the conservative side.

  Mzilikazi perhaps viewed the campaign as vitally important in defensive terms. Alternatively, it is possible that he was primarily interested in seizing Voortrekker livestock prior to abandoning the Marico Valley area, for Smith and the Mosega missionaries stated respectively that he was fearful of the threat of white settlement and the possibility of further Zulu aggression.

  In due course (a letter published in the Grahamstown Journal of 29 December 1836 says that the Boers heard that the impi was approaching on 17 October), the alarm was raised in the trekker camp on hearing that the Matabele were drawing near, having marched southwest some 175 miles in about a week. Subsequently, and likely on the morning of 19 October, Cilliers conducted a service in the absence of a minister, and then, intent on parleying, rode out of a hastily formed laager towards the Matabele. He did so accompanied by Potgieter, 33 other Boers and an African interpreter.

  They reportedly received a terse reply from a Matabele spokesman: ‘Mzilikazi alone issues commands, we are his servants, we do his behests, we are not here to discuss or argue, we are here to kill you.’ But according to D.F. Kruger, who was present, before Potgieter could attempt to negotiate, a nervous Boer loosed off a shot towards the Matabele ranks. What is certain is that the warriors eventually rose to their feet with a shout and charged. A running fight developed, lasting several hours, as the Boers fell back, stopping to fire as they did so. ‘I fired sixteen shots on the enemy before we reached the laager,’ Cilliers recalled, ‘rarely missing and killing two to three with one shot.’ Back at the camp, after riding through the opened gap which was quickly reclosed, they hurriedly dismounted and manned their battle stations.

  The impi found their opponents drawn up in a strong defensive position below a low ridge that was subsequently christened by the Boers Vechtkop, ‘Ba
ttle Hill’. The laager consisted of some 50 wagons tightly chained and lashed together, with the gaps between filled with thornbush. Within the ring was an inner shelter, protected by ox-hides to stop flung spears, where the children and wounded could be housed. There were only about 35 adult men, but they could rely on the support of their womenfolk who had spent their time casting lead balls which they had sewn into little bags to serve as buckshot. The laager was too small to accommodate the trekkers’ livestock, other than their horses.

  The pursuing Matabele did not immediately press home an attack. Instead, they sat down outside gunshot range to rest and await instructions from Kaliphi. Minutes passed, but nothing happened. The minutes turned into hours—still no attack was launched. However, during this period a detachment of Matabele was sent to round up the Boer livestock. Some beasts were brought up and slaughtered, the meat distributed to the impi and eaten raw. The warriors also occupied the time sharpening their spears on stones.

  The Boer men kept busy cleaning out their guns. Furthermore, they knelt in prayer with their friends and families, imploring God for deliverance. Tension mounted. After several hours, the suspense became unbearable and, according to some sources, a certain Koos Potgieter tied a red kerchief to a whip and waved it at the Matabele. They responded with a concerted hissing sound before dividing in to two or three groups—perhaps they had already done so—and charged towards the laager from different directions, thunderously drumming their spears against their shields.

  The Battle of Vechtköp by Heinrich Egersdorfer. ©MuseumAfrica

  When the warriors were about 30 yards from the wagons, the trekkers opened fire. Many of the densely packed Matabele were cut down (one of the Voortrekkers claimed to have killed nine men with a single shot), but the rest kept on, vaulting where necessary over fallen colleagues. Within seconds, the foremost warriors reached the laager and began shaking and rattling the wagons, determined to find a way in.

  Meanwhile, the Boers were working furiously. Men and boys capable of bearing arms were firing at point-blank range into the swarming warriors, while the women loaded and reloaded the guns. A cloud of dust and smoke enveloped many of the participants: the noise was deafening. Mrs Abraham Swanepoel, saw a black hand groping towards her from the far side of the defences and chopped it off with an axe. No warrior managed to penetrate the laager. The force of the Matabele attack soon began to die away as they fell back to regroup.

  Mzilikazi’s men now decided upon a change of tactics. Perhaps they would have more success if, when charging, they paused to throw spears over the wagons? Hence they came forward again, and threw over 1,000 assegais into the laager. It proved a vain attempt, nonetheless, and in a short time the dispirited warriors gave up and began returning home. None of the sources written close to the date of the engagement suggests that the battle lasted longer than fifteen minutes. Indeed, the American missionaries declared that it was of even shorter duration, a mere two or three minutes, though this is hard to credit.

  The withdrawing impi took the trekkers’ captured livestock with them, several thousand cattle and some 40,000-50,000 sheep, as well as the wagon oxen.

  Eventually, and perhaps a day or two later, mounted Voortrekkers re-emerged from the laager and set off in pursuit, intent on retaking their lost stock. Some stragglers from the impi were intercepted and killed, but none of the seized animals was recaptured.

  About 150 Matabele dead were found around the laager. Others, of course, had either died in the running fight preceding the assault on the Boer position, or would subsequently do so from wounds sustained. Hence it is sometimes maintained that Matabele losses likely totalled around 500 dead, but this seems too high. In contrast, only two of the trekkers were killed, although about fourteen others, including females, had been seriously wounded.

  The Matabele were shocked by the number of warriors who had perished during the campaign. Dr A.E. Wilson, one of the American missionaries, wrote, on 17 April 1837:

  When the army of the Zoolahs returned, there was nothing but lamentation heard in the land for weeks on account of those slain in battle. A good many of those with whom we were acquainted, from the neighbouring towns, were killed; numbers returned home wounded; some applied to me for surgical aid.

  When news of the battle spread, some reacted by blaming the Boers for what had transpired. For example, the 7 February 1837 issue of the Commercial Advertiser (a paper with a liberal-philanthropic stance), asserted that their victory had been ‘illegal violence and murder.’

  Boer and Zulu aggression

  By early November 1836, Potgieter’s and Cillier’s party had fallen back to the Modder River where other Voortrekker groups were continuously arriving from Cape Colony.

  Potgieter and one of the new arrivals, Gert Maritz, soon began planning a retaliatory strike against Mzilikazi. In January 1837, they set off from Thaba Nchu, where they had assembled a commando numbering 107 Boers, about 40 Griqua and a handful of Korana, as well as over 60 Tswana, mostly Rolong who had been dispossessed of their land by the Matabele. The Tswana were on foot, generally lacked guns, and were viewed as minor participants in the venture by the Afrikaners.

  Maritz’s section of the commando left Thaba Nchu on 3 January 1837, followed the next day by Potgieter. On the 13th, they joined forces at a crossing of the Vaal where they left their wagons. Then, instead of heading directly towards their target, they skirted west, moving faster than previously, before turning towards the Mosega basin and approaching the Matabele from the direction of Kuruman, intent on taking them by surprise.

  Their approach went undetected and at dawn on 17 January they fell upon the southernmost Matabele settlements in the basin. The American missionaries found themselves ‘in the midst of a slaughter’:

  The Boers attacked and destroyed thirteen, some say fifteen, kraals. Few of the men belonging to them escaped, and many of the women were either shot down or killed with assegais. We have no means of ascertaining how many lives were destroyed. We suppose from two to four hundred.

  However, other sources indicate that perhaps as many as 500 Matabele perished.

  At midday the commando headed off the way it had come, taking some 6,000-7,000 cattle, and having lost only two of its members, both of them Rolong. As they headed south, they were accompanied by the missionaries who had decided that it was prudent to leave Mzilikazi’s kingdom.

  Mzilikazi soon had fresh cause for concern. In mid-1837 he was hit again by a Zulu impi sent by Dingane. After searching for the Matabele in their former territory beside the Magaliesbergs, the Zulus made their way towards the Mosega basin. They arrived in about late June only to find no Matabele, for the survivors of the Boer raid had abandoned the valley and moved north towards Gabeni and the lower reaches of the Marico.

  Hence the Zulus followed the signs of flight and one section of the impi (which had divided in two) clashed with Mzilikazi’s warriors on, or near, the Pilanesberg Mountains east of Gabeni. Ferocious fighting occurred and the outcome seems to have been inconclusive. Meanwhile, the other section of the invading army had rounded up thousands of cattle and large numbers of sheep. The whole force then began heading back towards Zululand. Some of the livestock were recaptured when the Matabele gave chase, but even so, when the impi arrived in Zululand in early September it was able to present Dingane with the greatest booty of his reign.

  Mzilikazi’s troubles were still not over. Within months, he was struck by a large allied commando of Griqua, Korana and Tswana, which appears to have killed more of his people and carried off additional cattle.

  In early November, Matabele fortunes deteriorated even further. They were attacked by a Boer commando numbering some 360 Afrikaners under Potgieter and a new arrival, Piet Uys, and accompanied by a small force of Rolong. The commando entered the Mosega basin and pressed on north in search of the Matabele, who had concentrated their settlements around the lower Marico River. On
Saturday, 4 November, the commando attacked the first Matabele settlements they came across, having once again taken Mzilikazi’s people by surprise, which reflects badly on his intelligence system. Matabele who resisted were gunned down. Others fled and were pursued. One settlement after another was attacked and the inhabitants killed or ejected as the commando continued north in a running battle that is said to have lasted for nine days and ended on the 12th when the Boers halted some 25 miles north of Gabeni.

  The trekkers claimed to have killed approximately 3,000 Matabele without loss to themselves. But as Rasmussen aptly comments, the assertion that around that number of Matabele perished is

  almost certainly exaggerated. The Voortrekkers probably spent more time collecting Ndebele livestock than they did actually fighting. Ndebele resolve to defend their territory must have been already shattered. By November they were on the threshold of leaving the Transvaal anyway, and it seems unlikely they would have risked further losses of men in what they must have recognised as a futile resistance.

  Strong oral tradition among the Matabele credits Moffat with having previously advised Mzilikazi to abandon the Marico district and migrate northward to present-day Zimbabwe to avert conflict with the Voortrekkers. Indeed, some versions go so far as to maintain that, following the Boer commando of late 1837, Moffat actually guided the Matabele north. The traditions have usually been viewed with scepticism by historians, partly because Moffat had never travelled in the area and because his son, John Smith Moffat, thought it most unlikely that his father acted in such a manner. In contrast, Richard Brown comments that ‘it is highly likely that the oral tradition contains a core of truth.’ Among other things, he cites the existence among Moffat’s papers of the draft of an interesting pseudonymous letter written in Moffat’s own hand to a missionary journal in February 1853. It includes the following observation: