History of South Africa podcast

This is episode 83 and Ndwandwe chief Zwide is on the run, being hunted down by Shaka after the defeat on the Mhlathuze. Zwide was sitting at his mother’s umuzi called eziKwitshini during the battle, awaiting word. And when it came it was not what he was expecting. As you heard in episode 82, the dust cloud signalling approaching warriors were not his victorious Ndwandwe, they were the revengeful...

This is episode 82 and we’re picking up the story from where we left off last Episode the Ndwandwe were chasing the AmaZulu down the Mhlathuze Valley, just north of the modern town of Eshowe, just south of Melmoth. And for those geopolitical folks, that’s just down the drag from Nkhandla. Most historians believe this battle took place in 1819, but some also think it may have been a year later. But...

This is episode 81 and we’re following the story of the AmaZulu, the Qwabe, the Mkhize, the Ndwandwe and the Mthethwa circa 1819. By this time, the Mkhize and the Qwabe along with many other smaller groups and clans had been pushed southwards by the aggression of the Ndwandwe, and troubles in the Swaziland area. Zihlando was already the Mkhize chieftan when Shaka took control of the Zulu and their...

Last episode we heard how the Xhosa wardoctor had failed in his attempt at chasing the colonials out of his territory – the Albany region, and now return to significant events in the north east – Zululand. By 1819 Shaka and Dingiswayo were holding sway in an area from the Thukela to the Black Mfolozi in Zululand, but Zwide of the Ndwandwe still controlled the land between the Mfolozi and the Phong...

This is episode 79. Nxele the Wardoctor and 10 000 warriors failed in their attempt at overrunning Grahamstown – now they’re on the run. Three of Ndlambe’s sons were among those killed during the battle, and some of Ngqika’s people had also fought alongside their compatriots despite the chief supposedly being an ally of the British. The surprise attack had tested the small British force, and while...

Trouble was not so much brewing as fermenting on the eastern Cape frontier as we heard last episode. The British were aware that Ndlambe and his wardoctor, Nxele, had gathered troops ready to invade the Albany region, the Zuurveld, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Wilshire, or Tiger Tom as he was known, had been dispatched from the Cape with reinforcements and he’d arrived in Grahamstown. Meanwhile,...

The period between 1816 and 1819 saw the level of conflict rise significantly across southern Africa – not only were the Zulu beginning their ascent to power in the east, but in the frontier district of the Cape, war was afoot. The seer, the man we’ve tracked for a few episodes, Nxele, was about to make his move and the repercussions of his actions reverberated across the subcontinent – and in som...

Things were beginning to move along the eastern Cape frontier, through the region known previously as the Zuurveld, the Albany district, with its rocky rivers and ravines, thorny bush covered recesses, rolling grasslands and magnificent mountains. The Great House of the amaGcaleka had sorted out its differences, these were the amaXhosa based east of the Kei River, and Hintsa had managed to take co...

It had taken twenty years from the initial British landing on the Cape for the occupation to become permanent. So by August 1814, following the first abdication of Napoleon, the Netherlands regained independence with the Prince Orange re-installed as sovereign. The British duly restored some of his colonies to him – but not the Cape. In 1803 Lord Nelson had said the Cape was not essential, but by...

It’s the second decade of the 19th Century - the trekboers as you heard last episode were alarmed by the British decision to drop loan farms – and using the quit-rent system to reinforce land ownership. Governor Somerset had arrived to take over the management of this new system, and to oversee the new Circuit Court process where justice was supposed to be provided for the long-suffering Khoe serv...

So, in 1817, Shaka had been forced to flee his home as Zwide’s Ndwandwe attacked repeatedly – and he found himself south of the Thukela. He needed to forge a stronger relationship with the people to the north, and in particular the Qwabe who were found south of Umhlatuzi river, near his mother’s clan, the Langeni. What doomed Phakathwayo was the fact that his older brothers were gumbling about the...

By the 1810s, Zwide had built a powerful centralized kingdom and reinforced this power using his extensive family. He also formed feared amabutho such as the amaPhela, the abaHlakabezi, and isiKwitshi and the amaNkaiya. Most of these were around before Shaka became king of the Zulus, and the Ndwandwe were so large that they split into semi-autonomous sections such as the Nxumalo, the Manqele and t...

This is episode 71 and Shaka has just been installed as the Zulu regent in 1812. There is even debate about this as the year – some say it was more like 1816. However, I believe historian Dan Wylie’s earlier date is probably the right one – by the way 1812 is the same year that Napoleon advanced on Moscow in his disastrous Russian campaign. How dating worked in southern Africa prior to the use of...

This is episode 70 and we’re walking with Shaka. He spent the bulk of his early and teenage years in Zulu country, that area to the north of the Umhlatuzi, between the Langeni and the white Mfolozi rivers. Towards the end of his youth things became increasingly difficult for him, although the history is rather murky. There are hints in oral tradition as to what was going on, and specific events ca...

This is episode 69 and we’re hunting the origins of Shaka. Throughout the area north of the Thukela River the main medium of exchange in terms of goods was no longer cattle by 1810 – it was beads. These glass objects manufactured in Europe had flowed through southern Africa starting in the first days of contact between Europe and Africa – way back in 1480s. More than 300 years later, these beads c...

We heard last episode how the fourth Frontier War of 1811/12 had been a short sharp affair and the anger bubbling away amongst amaXhosa leadership about the brutal emptying of the Albany district, so recently called the Zuurveld. We need to close a chapter here for a while to return to the incredible happenings further north east as Shaka began to impose himself along with Dingiswayo on the people...

Graham’s war in the Eastern Cape had sent the amaXhosa hurrying eastwards over the Great Fish River, with Ndlambe settling near where East London is today. Not surprisingly, however, the 1812 explusions caused an increase in cattle raiding rather than more stability because the power of the chiefs had been removed from the area. While the British were putting their faith into the Rharhabe chief Ng...

This is episode 66 – it’s late 1811 and Sir John Cradock has just dispatched Lieutenant Colonel John Graham into the eastern Cape frontier to rid the Zuurveld of the amaXhosa. Cradock suffered from none of his predecessors inhibition against taking military action. This did not reflect a change of policy in London – in fact, far from it. As you’ll hear next podcast he was subsequently reprimanded...

This is episode 65 and we’ll spend time with the amaXhosa, and hear about Lieutenant Colonel John Graham. I mentioned last episode that he was going to introduce what he would call a proper degree of terror in the Zuurveld where the British adopted an ethnic cleansing campaign in 1811 and 1812. All the important players in this terrible drama have been met – Jacob Cuyler the Uitenhage landdrost, G...

This is episode 64 and we’ve rejoined Lieutenant colonel Richard Collins and Governor Caledon in Cape Town. If you remember last episode we heard about Collins’ military intelligence gathering trip to the eastern Frontier. He’d returned with two main ideas about what to do about the amaXhosa still living in the Zuurveld. His report of 6th August 1809 is another one of those key moments in South Af...

Last episode we spent some time back in Zululand hearing about the amaMthethwa, the amaNdwandwe, the amaHlubi, the amaQwabe and that tiny little chiefdom called the amaZulu. They were largely irrelevant in the history of South Africa at the time, until Zwide’s amaNdwandwe began pushing southwards into Mthethwa territory. Then Dingiswayo’s amaMthethwa needed to bolster their flank and that’s when t...

We’re hustling towards the year 1807. If you remember last episode, we heard that the young Shaka had grown up in amaZulu chief Senzangakona’s house – the Zulu chief – but by 1802 he’d fled. By the early 1800s only about 2000 people were part of the AmaZulu and they lived between the upper Umhlatuzi and white Umfolozi Rivers. Remember that Shaka who was Senzangakona’s illegitimate son, was showing...

This is episode 61 and the English are back in Cape Town. This was a momentous moment for southern Africa. Gone was the VOC and its chaos, in its place a world superpower had arrived and it was going to exploit the region in various ways over the next century. This led much later in the 19th Century to what became known as the Scramble for Africa. In January 1807 David Baird who’d seized the Cape...

Its January 1806 and the British have dispatched a fleet of 61 vessels to Cape Town under the charge of Commodore Home Popham to seize the port. As you’ve heard that was after the war between England and France reignited in 1805 after a the briefest of lulls. On the 2nd October 1805 Admiral Nelson overcame the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar and his victory helped put some of the f...

The Batavians trying to setup a formal long-term administration that was rooted inside the Cape rather than in Europe. Unfortunately, their tenure was to be short. International events were conspiring to upset this plan – with the renewal of the war between the English and the French – old enemies with a propensity for blood-letting. While the Cape was safe from immediate attack by the English unt...