The Land Wars by John Laband

Author:John Laband [John Laband]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

The Kat River Settlement and the Expulsion of the AmaXhosa from the Ceded Territory

THE VICTORS AND allies of convenience at the battle of Mbholompo soon fell out among themselves. The adherents of Hintsa and Ngubencuka came to blows over the division of the spoils, and all-out war between the amaGcaleka and the abaThembu was only narrowly averted thanks to the intervention of the missionaries and by Ngubencuka’s fortuitous death in 1830. His heir, Mtirara, was still a minor, and Fadana, who became the Thembu regent, was left in a weak position and was unwilling to try conclusions with Hintsa. Feeling vulnerable and isolated, Fadana withdrew his adherents from the coastal lands, and began looking to the British at the Cape for future protection.

Other abaThembu, meanwhile, were setting the frontier ablaze. The amaTshatshu, as we have seen, had taken refuge with Maqoma at the time of the Bhaca incursions in about 1825. Bawana, the Tshatshu chief, cannily forged ties with the Colony, welcoming a Moravian mission among his people and gaining the support of the burghers settled along the Baviaans River by paying them tribute. In late 1828 the amaTshatshu and the neighbouring and aggressive amaGcina Thembu under Mtyelela (also known as Galela) came to blows. Maqoma decided to have done with both the disruptive intruders on his patch. By driving them off he would deprive the Colony of regional allies, and capturing their cattle would make up for the stock he had lost to the recent colonial raids. On 24 January 1829 Maqoma attacked both Bawana’s and Mtyelela’s homesteads along the well-watered Koonap River and seized some 5 000 cattle. But Maqoma had not reckoned with the inconvenient fact that Bawana was an ally of the Colony. Moreover, the slaughter of amaTshatshu refugees in clear sight of the Baviaans River Boers further turned colonial sentiment against him, while the prospect of an influx of Thembu refugees caused alarm along the frontier.

Stockenström, the commissioner-general of the eastern districts, although tolerant and humane, determined that Maqoma must be punished in the interests of frontier security. In early February 1829 he persuaded the new governor, Lieutenant-General Sir Lowry Cole (yet another Peninsular veteran) that Maqoma and the amaJingqi must be expelled from the Kat River valley. To regularise this, on 17 April 1829 Cole declared that the Cape’s eastern border now ran officially along the Tyhume and Keiskamma Rivers. Colonel Somerset, cock-a-hoop after his victory at Mbholompo, gave Maqoma two months within which to return the herds he had captured and to leave the valley. Maqoma not unnaturally dragged his feet, and on 1 May 1829 Somerset led the CMR out of Fort Beaufort and despatched a Boer commando to the Koonap River. Between them they ravaged the whole district, burnt Ngcwenxa, Maqoma’s Great Place, and brought back 3 000 confiscated head of cattle to Fort Beaufort.

On 4 May many thousands of cowed amaJingqi left the Kat River valley under military escort for Ngqika’s domain, hundreds of women and children carrying great burdens on their heads.

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