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Land Chiefs Mining
South Africa's North West Province Since 1840
By Andrew Manson, Bernard K Mbenga Wits University Press
Copyright © 2014 Andrew Manson and Bernard K Mbenga
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-86814-992-6
CHAPTER 1
'The dog of the Boers'? Moiloa II of the baHurutshe
INTRODUCTION
We know a lot more nowadays about important chiefly personalities in the history of the baTswana in South Africa. Luka Jantjie – despite initially placing faith in British justice and European religion – found his people subject to colonial laws, and his country overrun by white colonists. In order to defend shrinking independence and constant land alienation he resorted to a final desperate act of military defiance in 1897. Montshiwa, similarly, fought for a quarter of a century to protect his territory in the Molopo region from the ambitions of white mercenaries, as did Mankurwane of the baTlhaping further south near Vryburg. Both finally opted for British protection, despite the significant loss of autonomy that this meant. The career of Mokgatle Thethe of the baFokeng near Rustenburg has now also been revealed. As the 'founding father' of the baFokeng, he formed a close association with Paul Kruger, later president of the South African Republic. This enabled him to buy a much needed measure of independence and to embark on a programme of extensive land acquisition which was later to form the basis for baFokeng material security and, later, mineral wealth. To preserve their land, their independence and ethnic unity, these men resorted to tactics ranging from outright resistance to accommodation with the colonising forces – but they lived in difficult and complex times, and to view them as mere collaborators (as has been the case with Mokgatle) would be an oversimplification.
Our focus, though, is on a kgosi who has not received full recognition for the role he played in reconstituting and laying the foundations for the continued security of his society. In many respects Moiloa's career mirrors that of other nineteenth-century Tswana leaders. It also reflects some of the key features of the experiences of African communities from the mid-1840s to the turn of the century. Reconstructing his life means also examining crucial external forces and institutions such as the missionaries, the local Boers who had moved onto the western highveld from 1838, state officials of the South African Republic, and Tswana neighbours.
Introduction
In 1800 the baHurutshe lived about twenty kilometres north of the present-day town of Zeerust in the wider Marico district. Archaeological evidence reveals that they had been in this locality for close to half a century. How far back we can trace the baHurutshe as an identifiable community calling themselves by that name is a moot point; probably, as with all Tswana merafe, there had been almost constant fission, breakaways, regroupings and new arrivals so that the composition of the baHurutshe was constantly changing. They certainly were one of the larger factions of what has been termed 'lineage-clusters' (people related by common descent) in the western bushveld. For periods before 1800 they enjoyed privileged status among the local residents, though this preeminence was probably not continuous. What is more certain is that they were engulfed in a series of localised intra-baTswana conflicts from about 1790 to 1820, when they were attacked by new raiders from the south.
THE 'TSWANA WARS' AND THE DIFAQANE
The difaqane has been translated variously as 'the crushing' and 'the time of troubles'. Prior to the 1970s, it was generally thought that these changes derived from the growth of the Zulu kingdom under Shaka in the south-east, and that the changes occurred from the end of the eighteenth century up to the 1820s. Such views were later challenged and, as a consequence, modified. The impact of the Zulu on their neighbours has been questioned and the geographic focus of the process has been widened to include the interior of South Africa (in particular the baTswana of the western highveld), and the beginning of the mfecane has been extended back from about the 1790s to the mid-eighteenth century.
Earlier accounts and versions focused on events in the territory from the Thukela River to Delagoa Bay in the south-east. It was noted that from about 1780 certain African chiefdoms expanded in size and power, whereas weaker ones were displaced or incorporated. In response, most chiefdoms looked to bolster their military capabilities, and by 1818 two dominant forces had emerged: the Ndwandwe under Zwide in northern Zululand and the Mthethwa under Dingiswayo further south. Among Dingiswayo's allies were the Zulu, whose leader, Shaka, had been installed by Dingiswayo. The Zulu subsequently established a powerful state. To avoid the growing conflict, several local leaders took their followers out of the Zululand region, across the Drakensberg and north to the present-day Swaziland/Delagoa Bay region, and west onto the central highveld. From the perspective of the baTswana on the western highveld, the most important of these leaders was Mzilikazi of the Khumalo, who led his followers out of present-day KwaZulu-Natal because he may have crossed swords with Shaka (as old-style historians have suggested) or because he simply sought a more peaceful and secure home for his followers.
The next obvious question asked by historians was why there should have been such a relatively sudden spate of upheavals and political realignments. Various ideas have been propounded: overpopulation, the effect of climate changes caused by drought, environmental degradation and competition for good pastures were among those put forward in the 1960s. In the next decade, the effect of the entry of new trade goods and the competition created for control of this trade, coupled with European demand for ivory, gold and slaves, were propagated as reasons for the sudden shift to more extreme military measures and organisation. In the 1980s, a group of historians led by Julian Cobbing, building on earlier ideas of Martin Legassick, shifted the debate away from the Zulu and other African communities to advance the idea that the 'time of troubles' was caused by expeditions and raiding parties who wanted to seize labour and slaves from Africans living in the interior. These were inspired, organised and conducted by whites (or colonial surrogates such as the Griqua and Kora) living at the Cape or in Portuguese Mozambique. While the evidence for such activities has not been consistently convincing, these scholars have reminded us that there were other actors apart from the Nguni states that were exerting significant influence on the affairs of South Africa's interior regions several decades before formal colonisation.
The baTswana were broadly affected by these developments at least two decades before the first 'raiders' arrived from Nguni land. Oral traditions point to 'general restlessness and instability' (sometimes called the 'Tswana wars') among the various merafefrom the late eighteenth century. These were caused by pressure on good pastures, raiding for cattle and the seizure of women as captives, and competition for control of trade items, especially ivory which was in great demand in the East.
The career of Moiloa II
Moiloa was born in about 1796 and would have been a young man when these conflicts broke out. By 1821 his father, Diutlwileng, had been killed, probably by raiders under Sebetwane of the Patsa-Fokeng. When the LMS missionary John Campbell visited the Hurutshe capital at Kaditshwene, he reported that a 'gloomy spiritlessness' pervaded the townspeople and that Hurutshe regiments (mephato) were patrolling the perimetres of Kaditshwene.Moiloa's uncle, Mokgatlhe, was acting as regent, but Campbell remarked on Moiloa's popularity, and predicted (correctly) that he might 'wrest control from [Mokgatlhe's] hands'. Between April and September 1823, further raids led to the abandonment of the town and the baHurutshe fled westwards to the hills of Mosega. However, a new threat was emerging. Mzilikazi's amaNdebele were now taking total control of the western highveld and expanding ever westwards. This forced Moiloa and Mokgathle to flee further southwards where they were found in a state of near destitution by a group of French missionaries of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, one of whom recorded that the baHurutshe, 'in the interval of a day, found themselves reduced to a diet of meagre roots'. The French missionaries put their number at a paltry 700 to 800 souls, compared to the 'thousands' they had encountered at Mosega, just west of modern-day Zeerust.
Though invited by the missionaries to join them, Moiloa and Mokgatlhe chose to move, in 1834, to a place called Modimong on the Harts River. Here they attached themselves to the Kora, an independent Khoekhoe community under David Mossweu. The baHurutshe under Mokgatlhe and Moiloa then joined an aggressive Kora/Griqua alliance to try and force Mzilikazi out of the Madikwe region; thus in 1834 a commando sent against Mzilikazi contained within its ranks a contingent of Hurutshe men under Moiloa, who returned with a few hundred cattle. This alliance was strengthened by the arrival of a trekker party under Andries Potgieter, who had left the Cape Colony in 1836. In January 1837 the two groups joined forces to drive the amaNdebele out of their military fortresses. Once the amaNdebele had left the western highveld, Moiloa was quick to appreciate the power of the trekkers, and personally visited Potgieter soon after their arrival to ask if he could resettle in the former Hurutshe homeland, to which Potgieter agreed – however, over a decade was to pass before the move was finally made.
There were several reasons for this lengthy delay. First, there was a possibility that the amaNdebele might return, and there was no way of knowing if the trekkers would settle once and for all in the western highveld or if they would continue to hold power in the region.
Second, there was a power struggle among the baHurutshe over the succession. Moiloa and Motlaadile were the sons of the deceased kgosi Sebogodi. Their older brother Menwe had died before their father, but Mokgatlhe their uncle then ruled the chiefdom as they were both minors at the time of Sebogodi's death. Mokgatlhe had in turn married Menwe's main wife and had 'raised up seed' on behalf of his dead nephew and fathered a son named Lentswe. Thus there was a three-way rivalry for power between Moiloa, Motlaadile and Lentswe and this jockeying for the chieftainship seemed to preoccupy Hurutshe politics for several years. The alliance between Moiloa and his uncle did not fall apart, despite Mokgathle's claiming of the right to leadership for his son Lentswe. Of the three men, however, Moiloa was the most politically astute, and grasped the realities of the time better than the others. He enlisted the aid of the militarised Griqua under their leader (or kaptyn) Waterboer, and requested his assistance in the relocation of the baHurutshe to the Madikwe region. Not only could the Griqua offer military support in times of need, but they could also provide other skills and services (for example literacy) which might stand the baHurutshe in good stead. Moiloa also approached Walter Inglis of the LMS in Griquatown in about 1838, and by all accounts the idea of a mission to the baHurutshe was discussed during this visit.
The LMS was in fact already preparing to receive the baHurutshe in the Madikwe district. In 1842, David Livingstone, famous later for his explorations in southern Africa, had established a station among the baKgatla ba Mmanaana at a place called Mabotsa, near present-day Gopane, and it was proposed that the baHurutshe be settled nearby, at Mangelo River, some five kilometres from the old town of Kaditshwene. Between April 1847 and September 1848 the baHurutshe under Mokgatlhe and Moiloa moved to this vicinity. They were finally home again. Their missionary, Walter Inglis, was delighted. He wrote to his superiors:
I am happy to say Moiloa, my old chief, has joined me with his people ... He was with me last Sabbath. It was by far the largest meeting [of the baHurutshe] I have ever had. It had been a great misfortune to me that the baHurutshe did not come on all at once. The whole question is an involved map of native politics. Now Moiloa has come the scattered villages will be gathered together. Moiloa ... will add weight and respectability to the mission.
By this time Mokgatlhe had allegedly fallen out with his son Lentswe, who went to join Montshiwa's baRolong; and Moiloa, who was now in his midforties, had taken effective control of the chiefdom. He was to enjoy a long and important reign.
Matters seem to have gone well for the first year. The Boers in the Transvaal were thinly spread and concentrated nearer to the settlement at Potchefstroom. Andries Potgieter had moved with his followers to the eastern Transvaal in 1845, and the other trekker parties were preoccupied with attempts to expel the British from the Orange River Sovereignty; however, after the defeat of the Boers by the British at the battle of Boomplaats in August 1848, they fled over the Vaal River and by early 1849 were beginning to encroach onto the land of the baHurutshe. Trouble was looming.
The Marico trekkers shared similar aims to the African people in that frontier zone. Both white and black societies wanted to settle on the land and gain control over land and labour, and both had just undergone periods of extreme disruption. One of the prominent trekkers, destined to play a significant role on the frontier, was Jan Viljoen. As a reward for serving under the forces of Pretorius in the battle of Boomplaats in 1848, he and a number of other trekkers received farms close to the Klein Marico River, some of them as large as 30 000 morgen. The trekkers who arrived some years later and who had not been rewarded with land grants were those who sought to gain land at the expense of local African chiefdoms such as the baHurutshe.
Thus the first problem confronting Moiloa was the encroachment of the Boers onto land that the baHurutshe considered theirs. In early June 1849 Rodger Edwards (who had joined Inglis) reported that a number of Boers 'had located at Mosega on the streams in the vicinity about twenty miles distant. Their future progress will be northwards.' Anticipating trouble, Edwards met with Potgieter and was assured by him that both the baHurutshe and the missionaries had nothing to worry about. But relations remained strained. By September, Edwards reported again that the trekkers were 'determined to occupy every available fountain and are resolved upon making chiefs and the people bow to their rule'. At the Manegelo River, Moiloa had received an order from the Boer authorities to provide labourers, and thought it more prudent to move away from the advancing Boers to Dinokana (place of many streams), about twelve kilometres away from them. With him were 1 500 followers and about fifty Griqua converts who had been 'given' to him by Andries Waterboer. Dinokana was a good site and remained the centre of Hurutshe settlement. The new mission station was called Mathebe and here Moiloa began the long and laborious task of reconstructing his morafe.
There were several advantages favouring Moiloa's baHurutshe. The first was that they had been promised land by Potgieter, and this location formed the basis of what became known later as the Hurutshe Reserve or Moiloa's Reserve. The grant was in return for Moiloa's assistance in providing men for the campaign against Mzilikazi in 1837. In 1865 the Volksraad (parliament) passed a resolution defining the reserve and adding to its original size. Later it was estimated at 125 584 morgen – the largest tract of land set aside for African occupation in the western Transvaal (the creation of the Hurutshe Reserve was unusual, for most Africans in the former western Transvaal at this time lived on privately owned land). The second advantage was that the number of Moiloa's followers increased as he was joined by many of the splinter groups that had gone their own way from 1823. These included two of his brothers, Motlaadile and Pule (though the latter's relationship to Moiloa is not absolutely clear) and his nephew Sethunya. In August 1850, Inglis reported the arrival of a party of baHurutshe in Dinokana from a 'town east of the Limpopo' [river]. By the early 1860s the population numbered about 8 000. They were probably not all 'pure' baHurutshe, but included the Griqua converts and a number of strangers (subordinates or auxiliaries) encountered during the years of exile and wandering south of the Molopo River.
An important event occurred during these years. Lentswe was killed in a skirmish with some Boers near Lotlakane, some sixty kilometres from Dinokana, in the territory of the raPulana baRolong. Lentswe's son, by rights, had a prior claim to the chieftainship, an issue that had complex and divisive implications later on. But his death meant that for the time being at least there was no effective opposition to Moiloa, as Lentswe's son Gopane was only about six years old. It was therefore futile for any opponents of Moiloa to try to manipulate succession laws to elevate a possible rival to power. Moiloa was the kgosi accepted by those who saw him as the rightful successor to Diuwitleng or by those who claimed Gopane as the rightful chief.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Land Chiefs Mining by Andrew Manson, Bernard K Mbenga. Copyright © 2014 Andrew Manson and Bernard K Mbenga. Excerpted by permission of Wits University Press.
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