Hermanns Matroos, aka Ngxnknmeshe:

a life on the border

ROBERT ROSS
Leiden University

Figure 1: Hennanus Matroos acting as interpreter for the British anny on a visit
to the amaThembu, Black Kei, 1839, sketch by Captain Henry Butler.
Courtesy of MuseuMAfricA
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

Hennanus Matroos, also known as Ngxukumeshe,1 was born, probably in

the last decade of the eighteenth century, presumably somewhere in western
Xhosaland. 2 He died on 7 January 1851, shot dead in the streets of Fort Beaufort
while leading an abortive attack on the town at the beginning of what came to be
known as Mlanjeni's war. He lived his life in the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury on the increasingly well-defined border between the Cape Colony and
Xhosaland, and he was a well-known and increasingly important figure in the
exceedingly complicated politics of warfare, land, labour and identity which
characterised the western frontier of Xhosaland throughout this period.
By those who establish them, borders are generally meant to separate one
piece of territory from another. However, there are always opportunities for those
who are able to operate on both sides of a border, at least as long as they can
enjoy the tolerance, witting or otherwise, of those who might have the power to
seal the border. For most of his life, Hennanus was able to play the complicated
political games which this entailed with consummate success, exploiting the
chances given by his position as an interpreter. As a consequence he was able to
set himself up as a Xhosa chief - though he had no royal blood - under colonial

I. My thanks to Andrew Bank. Carolyn Hamilton, Alan Lester, Fiona Vernal and the audience at the East London confer·
ence for comments on an earlier ven;ion of this paper.
2. He was said to be 56 in 1851. Robert Godlonton and Edward Irving, Narrative of the Ka/ir War, 1850·1851·1852
(reprinted Cape Town: C. Stroik, 1962), 142.

47
 patronage and within the colony. The indications are that he pursued goals with-
in, primarily, a Xhosa value system, and that the Xhosa in general realised what
he was doing and tolerated it. The British, on the other hand, generally did not
understand him, and to the extent that they did, they could no longer tolerate
him. This was eventually to lead to Hermanus's death.
Hermanus's career is surprisingly well documented, but that very docu-
mentation is necessarily problematic. The contemporary information about
Hermanus and his settlement all derives from Europeans, and in particular from
colonial officials. 3 This has the consequence, normal enough in African (and
indeed much European) history, that those things which he was careful to con-
ceal from the Europeans can only be known on the basis of surmises, whether by
contemporaries or later historians. Both may be wrong, as both may be based on
premises which are not acceptable to other analysts. Indeed, Hermanus himself
was well aware of the advantages of being culturally incomprehensible. He pros-
pered because he understood the Xhosa better than any Englishman, and perhaps
the British better than any Xhosa. This allowed him to create the space within
which he could operate, but, for historians, it makes the reconstruction of his life
peculiarly problematic. He did not live within anyone cultural idiom, but, as a
professional interpreter, he lived by translating from one to the other, and by
exploiting the one for the other. His biography, which I will attempt to present
here, is driven by that continual straddling between the colonial and the Xhosa
worlds, even though, I would argue, for the man himself the Xhosa world and its
values were paramount.
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

This straddling had indeed begun before his birth. His father had been a
slave in the Colony,4 but had managed flee to the Xhosa, escape being sent back,
as occasionally happened when Xhosa leaders wished to bargain with the
colonists, married a Xhosa woman of the amaJwara clan, and became a subject
of Nqeno of the Gqunukwebe. In his youthful years, Hermanus learnt Dutch,
perhaps from his father and certainly while working on a farm in Zwager's Hoek
near Somerset East, which he did for some years. No explanation was ever given
for this course of action, and apparently none was every needed. During this
period he learnt to speak Dutch 'with the fluency and accent' of the Khoikhoi, as
well as to drive wagons and to act as a general farm servant. 5 At this stage he
acquired the name, Hermanus Matroos, by which he was primarily known to the
colonists. Later in his life, he could also speak a certain amount of English,
although the only recorded sentences of his testify to a thick accent, or at least an

3. Hermanus had few contacts with the missionaries, the other main source of information on the Frontier in the mid-nine-
teenth century, primarily because his interest in the main message which they propagated was. at best. minimal, and as a
result he could not evince their sympathy.
4. I no longer believe, as I did when I wrote Cape o/Torments: Slavery and Resistance in South Africa (London: Routledge,
1982),87, that Hermanus was himself the absconder - although later Xhosa tradition has him as such. He seems to me to
have been too much a Xhosa not to have been brought up as one, whatever else he may have been brought up as.
Moreover. he would have been running considerable risks in his dealings with the Colony which began before the eman-
cipation of slaves. There is never any suggestion of an owner wanting to reclaim him. For the Xhosa tradition. See
Resurgam. 'Somana Hlanganse: Late headman of Kentani', Umteteli wa Bantu, 4 Aug. 1923; Nzulu Lwazi [pseudonym
for S.E.K. Mqhayil. 'UNgqika'. Umteteli wa Bantu, 20 April 1932.1 owe both these references to Jeff Peires, for which
many thanks.
5. J. Read, The Kat River Settlement in 1851 (Cape Town: A.S. Robertson, 1852), \3.

48
 inability to pronounce interdental fricatives ('th'), not uncommon in those who
have not been brought up speaking the language, but perhaps exaggerated for
comic effect by the English reporter. 6
His stay in colonial society, as a farm labourer, was not permanent. He
was able to make use of his connections to the Xhosa to escape from the quasi-
bondage in which farmers in much of the Eastern Cape held their labourers. He
thus returned to the Xhosa, and was initiated, and acquired the name
Ngxukumeshe - 'he who is in the vanguard'. He then went to live with Ngqika,
who could well make use of his talents, which were much more than merely lin-
guistic. Most of those who met him, later, were impressed by him. James Read
Junior commented on his 'shrewdness and tact'; a commission under the chair-
manship of Robert Godlonton, to which I will return, noted his reputation for
'personal bravery and activity' as well as, again, for his shrewdness. Lieutenant-
Colonel Napier, who met him in 1847, commented on the pleasure which
Hermanus's conversation gave him. None of these men had any particular reason
to approve of Hermanus, and indeed both Read and Godlonton many to condemn
him. He clearly became a man well able to impress those who met him, as well
as being a physically imposing individuaP

Interpreter

At least from 1819 onwards, Hermanus was employed as an interpreter in

the dealings between Ngqika and other Xhosa, on the one hand, and the colony,
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

in particular the British military, on the other. He was for instance one of those
sent by Ngqika to request the help of the British in the conflict with Ndlambe
which led up the Battle of Grahamstown. During that conflict he was used as an
interpreter by Colonel Henry Somerset, beginning a relationship which would
last for more than thirty years and which seems, on perfunctory evidence, to have
been the friendship of two men whose outlook on life was in many ways remark-
ably similar. s From then on, he moved between the British and the Xhosa with
regularity and a degree of ease. The British at times thought they were employ-
ing him, and eventually they naturalised him as a British subject; Ngqika and his
successors elevated him to the status of mpakati, or councillor, a status which his
descendants held into the twentieth century.9 Where his true loyalties lay is diffi-

6. Godlonton and Irving, Narrative, 144. I assume that Noel Mostert (Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa's Creation and
the Tragedy of the Xhosa People (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992, 1051)) is mistaken in his claim that the man whom the
Rev. George Brown met at the beginning of Mlanjeni's war and who spoke perfect English, though disguised by much
clay, was Hermanus. By 1851 there were many Xhosa with a good command of English, who might also have wanted to
conceal their identity from a Scottish missionary. However it is not impossible that Hermanus could have been concert-
ing with Maqoma on their further plans when Brown met them both on 28 Dec. 1850, and thus could have been the man
who spoke English 'more precisely than I have ever heard any other native do.'
7. Read, Kat River Settlement, 13-14; Robert Godlonton et al., to John Montagu, 28 November 1850, in Proceedings of evi-
dence given before the Committee of the Legislative Council respecting the proposed Ordinance 'to prevent the practice
of settling or squatting on Government Lands' (Cape Town: Saul Solomon for the Legislative Council, 1851),91 [this
letter can better be described, and will hereafter be cited, as 'Report of the Blinkwater Commission, 1850']; E.Elers
Napier, Excursions in Southern Africa (London: William Shoberl, 1849), vol. 2, 371-2. According to James McKay,
Reminiscences of the Last Kafir War (reprinted Cape Town: Struik, 1970), 63, Hermanus was 'nearly six feet high, with
a powerful frame.'
8. Somerset to Bell, 9 April 1829, Cape Town Archives Depot (hereafter CAl, CO 366.
9. Read, Kat River Settlement, 15; H. Calderwood to Woosnam, 20 April 1847, CA GH 8/46; Resurgam, 'Somana
Hlanganise' .

49
 cult to say. Probably, they were only to himself. The only alternative explanation
is that he was playing a long game as a Xhosa double agent within colonial soci-
ety, a career worthy of a John Ie Carre novel, but not really plausible.
However this may be, what is clear is that by the end of the 1820s
Hermanus had ceased to live in Xhosaland proper and had moved into what was
then designated as the 'Neutral Territory', the region east of the Fish River which
the British had designated as an empty buffer between themselves and the Xhosa
after the 1819 war, but which they were presently to occupy themselves and to
plant the Kat River Settlement in. This is said to have been the consequence of a
conflict with Ngqika, though the substance of the disagreement is never made
clear. It may merely have been that Hermanus, who already had political ambi-
tions, was looking for a place where he could establish himself as an independent
homestead head - and in the course of time gather a more substantial following
around him. At any rate, during that period, he came to live in the Kat River val-
ley, in the near vicinity of Maqoma, who quite certainly had left his father
Ngqika with the intention of expanding his power base.1O
When the British expelled Maqoma from the valley in 1829, Hermanus
did not accompany him, and was not forced to do so. Later it was claimed that he
had betrayed a plot on the part of Maqoma violently to resist their expulsion, and
had thereby saved the lives of Colonel Somerset and the other officers.lI There
was clear enmity at this stage. Maqoma attacked Hermanus's homestead in April
1829, and removed all his cattle, a month or so before the British drove the for-
mer over the border. Therefore, Hermanus was able to argue that his life would
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

not be safe in Xhosaland, and that it was imperative that he remain in the colony.
The local British officers, particularly Somerset, supported him in this, even
though the Governor, Sir Lowry Cole, ordered him to be dismissed from colonial
service and expelled across the hills into Xhosaland proper. Cole based his deci-
sion on his apparently untrustworthy interpretation, and perhaps on the fact that
Hermanus had not warned the British of Maqoma's attack on the Thembu.
However, Hermanus had been accompanying Colonel Somerset to the Fort
Willshire fair at the moment of Maqoma's raid, and therefore, Somerset claimed,
could have had no foreknowledge of it. 12
For the next years attempts were made to find some alternative farm
where he could settle, for instance in the neighbourhood of Theopolis in the
Zuurveld, or further west in the neighbourhood of Uitenhage or George. These
attempts all came to nothing, in part because Hermanus was unwilling to move
his cattle into the tick-invested sourveld around Theopolis. 13 The alternative that
was offered to him was a location to the north of the Winterberg, but this too did

10. Godlonlon and Irving. Narrative. 143; TJ. Stapleton, Maqoma: Xhosa Resistance to Colonial Advance. 1798-1873
(Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1994),35-63.
II. Godlonlon and Irving, Narrative, 143.
12. Bell to Somerset, 3 April 1829, CA CO 5111; Somerset to Bell, 9 April 1829. CA CO 366. J.e. Visagie. 'Die
Katriviernedersetting, 1829-1853' (Ph.D. thesis, University of South Africa, 1978).215.
13. Campbell to Bell, 31 August 1832, CA CO 2735; Campbell to Acting Secretary. 18 July 1834. CA CO 2749; e.c.
Mitchell [0 Acting Secretary, 19 July 1842, CA CO 8462. The man onto whose farm he was to have moved. Henry
Fuller, did receive land in the Kat River valley, specifically in what was to become known as Fuller's Hoek, a side-valley
of the lower Blinkwaler, below what is now Fort Fordyce.

50
 not suit him.14 At any rate, Hennanus was able to remain in the Kat River valley,
more specifically in the middle Blinkwater, in what is today the Mpofu game
reserve. By 1832, he had sixteen men, with their dependents, among his follow-
ers. 15 This was in breach of the understanding by which he had been allowed to
remain in the colony - at least the British interpretation of that understanding,
which may not have been that of Hennanus himself. While the British thought
that they had only given him permission to maintain a 'suite' of a few persons as
cattle herds, he had assembled around himself

a numerous party of Caffres, Hottentots, Bushmen, Bechuanas &c,

and although he has been infonned repeatedly of the conditions that
were imposed upon him, and to which he had assented, he continues
to harbour a numerous band of persons of the above description ...
The many losses sustained by the Fanners in the vicinity of his
location, and the constant intercourse maintained between his peo-
ple and the Caffres warrant the suspicion that the fonner afford
facilities for the commission, if they do not actually commit, the
depredations complained of.16

These sorts of complaints fonned the basis on which the civil authorities
wanted to have him expelled from the colony, and temporarily drove him out of
the Blinkwater valley in 1833. For a while he found a residence near the Tyume,
and resisted his return to Xhosaland because, as he infonned the British, 'having
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

been in the service of the Colony and occasionally employed in tracing stolen
cattle in that country, the chiefs would put him to death if he placed himself in
their power.' The Civil Commissioner of Albany doubted that this was the case,
as Hennanus apparently had previously made a number of visits into Xhosaland,
some of quite long duration. 17 He did manage to remain in the colony for the next
year or so and in the run-up to the Frontier War of 1835 - Hintsa's war -
Hennanus was again used as an interpreter by Somerset, in his dealings with
Maqoma. 18 The war ensured the revival of his fortunes, despite the temporary
depletion of his herds. He claimed to have lost 270 head of cattle and 19 horses,
to direct Xhosa raiding, to starvation while they were congregated around what
was later to be named Fort Armstrong, and on commando, while his men lost 56
cattle and 10 horses in the same way.19 Then in the war itself, Hennanus was
continually active on the colonial side. The Governor, Sir Benjamin D'Urban
wrote of him that he had not been unfaithful and treacherous, an accusation
which had been apparently made of him by the Civil Commissioner of Albany,
Donald Campbell, but rather that he 'has shown an excellent example to the Kat
River people to fight gallantly in their own defence, giving very judicious

14. Campbell to Secretary to Government. 12 July 1833, CA LCB 9.

15. Campbell to Bell, 31 August 1832, CA CO 2735.
16. Campbell to Lt. Col. England, I April 1833, I/AY 9/19.
17. Campbell to Secretary to Government, 12 July 1833, CA LCB 9.
18. Statement made by Macomo ... at Fort Willshire, 28 February 1834, British Parliamentary Paper hereafter BPP) 503 of
1837. 111.
19. Armstrong to Hudson, 17 February 1836, CA LG 15.

51
 advice, leading them, personally, shooting Caffers with his own hand and com-
mitting himself thereby to the extreme hostility of the Caffre tribes. '20
This was written because Hermanus had been arrested in the early days of
the war, on suspicion of collaboration with the enemy. Nevertheless he continued
to work with the British, both as a fighter defending his own homesteads and pri-
marily as an interpreter in dealing with the Xhosa. He was thus present when
Hintsa came into the British camp, and is said to have warned the British, pre-
sumably on the basis of conversations he had overheard, that the Xhosa king was
planning to escape. 21 Certainly his relations with high-ranking British officers,
built up over the course of the war and previously, can explain why it was that in
the immediate aftermath of the war he was confirmed in the possession of his
land, and given a double-barrelled gun by the Governor.22 This came despite the
protests of Sir Andries Stockenstrom, who was in this not merely the protector of
the Kat River settlement, which he had initiated, but also a landowner in the
vicinity. An additional explanation is that there was a carve-up of state land
between the Blinkwater and the Koenap among the officials concerned with the
Kat River, and the confirmation of Hermanus would make it easier to prevent
protests, or at least divert them. It was explained to him, so it was later claimed,
that he was allowed to hold the land conditional on his good behaviour, and
would not be allowed to have more than ten followers with him. 23 'Good behav-
iour' was not defined, then or later, and was always in the eye of the beholder;
the number of Hermanus's followers, on the other hand, grew apace. At any rate,
he received 7,379 morgen in the Blinkwater valley, with good grazing in the val-
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

leys, and sour grass on the heights, together with much timber.24 He was to
remain there for the rest of his life.

Colonial chief

The Blinkwater river rises in the Didima mountains and joins the Kat
shortly above the Poort, the narrow pass where the river passes through the hills
on its way to Fort Beaufort. In general, the Blinkwater has cut a much sharper
valley than the other tributaries of this river system, and there is little of the
meander-cut bottom land which formed the basis for the irrigation systems of the
rest of the Kat River settlement from its foundation in 1829 onwards. 25 Even in

20. Memorandum by D'Urban, 10 February 1835, CA ACC 519, 21.

21. Mostert, Frontiers, 724-6, 990; AL. Harrington, Sir Harry Smith: Bungling Hero (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1980),42-5,
70-2; Premesh Lalu, 'The Grammar of Domination and the Subjection of Agency: Colonial Texts and Modes of
Evidence', History and Theory, vol. 39, 2000.
22. Godlonton and Irving, Narrative, 143.
23. Borcherds to Col. Sec, 25 May 1849, CA LCB 9; Borcherds had his information from a Mr. Bovey who claimed 10 have
been present when the land was granted and the lerms explained. Godlonton claimed that he was only allowed to have his
inunediate family with him, but - to put it in terms which Godlonton would not have recognised - the Xhosa definition of
who belonged within this category was much wider than that of the British. (Godlonton and Irving, Narrative, 142-3).
24. W.J. Bums, 'Report on Lands situated between the Keiskarnma, Chumie, Kat and Fish Rivers', February 1836, CA LCB
7; Stockenstrom to D'Urban, 18 December 1837, CA GH 8/5; Sir Andries Stockenstrom, Light and Shade as shown in
the character of the Hollentots of the Kat River Sell/ement, and in the Conduct of the C%nia/ Government towards them
(Cape Town: Saul Solomon, 1854), 13.
25. CA CO 2742: D. Campbell, 'Detailed Report of the Pmgress and Present State of the Settlement at the Head of the Kat
River, District of Albany'; M. Winer and R. Ross, 'Kat River Settlement Historical Archaeology Pmject: Report on July
2000 reconnaissance trip', UnpUblished report to South African Heritage Resource Agency, Cape Town.

52
 32"30

I,\rfte..to
l> '"

I
14.2 KAT RIVER SETrLEMENT
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

Gt W;nr8r~rg
1850
-- -
•
----
o
Are8801JndarlflS

32'

I
LT WINTERBERG

(
''(----

32'4

Figure 2: The Kat River Settlement, 1829-35 and 1850

53
 the upper reaches of the river, near the settlement that in the nineteenth century
was known as Wilberforce, and now as Upper Blinkwater, relatively little agri-
culture had been possible, though the arable land is now so infested with exotics
as to make it difficult to reconstruct - let alone resuscitate - the land use pat-
tems. 26 Lower down, where Hermanus came to live, the land was, and still is,
heavily bushed. The Blinkwater Commission wrote in 1850 that:

It may be described in brief as a congeries [sic] of densely wooded

kloofs, many of them penetrating deeply the surrounding moun-
tains, which are lofty and precipitous, though covered, where not
encumbered, by bush, with fine grass. The high road to the
Winterberg and Tarka divisions passes through the valley; the huts
occupied by Hermanus and many of his people being within sight of
it, but as extensive, torturous and densely wooded, it will be evident
that the best means of concealment are presented and corresponding
difficulties opposed to the detection of cattle thefts when traced to
this neighbourhood. 27

The result of this geography was that Hermanus had the opportunity to
move cattle across the border to the Xhosa, and was regularly suspected of doing
so. What was of course necessary for this was that he had resurrected his rela-
tionship with the Xhosa leaders, from whom he could reasonably be supposed to
have alienated himself by his conduct both before and during Hintsa's war.
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

This became easier with the establishment by Maqoma, then regent of the
Rharhabe, of a large cattle post in the lower Blinkwater. Hermanus was able to
rebuild his relationship with Maqoma, which had been ruptured a decade or so
earlier. In 1837, Hermanus married a 'near relative' of Maqoma's, and even if a
considerable bridewealth was involved, this marital alliance indicates that the
two were prepared to cooperate. 28 Hermanus - perhaps in this context he should
again be called N gxukumeshe - clearly considered himself subordinate to
Maqoma. A year later, Maqoma fined Hermanus seven head of cattle, four goats
and an axe, though for what offence it is not clear. 29 Hermanus was also at times
prepared to take some of Maqoma's cattle and put them to pasture on his land,
certainly during the drought of 1842.30 At this stage at least, he was accepted as a
subject by Maqoma, and himself accepted that status.
During the years that separated Hintsa's war from the War of the Axe,
Hermanus was building up his power as a Xhosa headman, or minor chief, allied
to the Royal House, in the person of Maqoma, but with a clear independent
power base deriving from the right he had acquired to live west of the Tyume.
This allowed him to bring a considerable following together. There was a consid-

26. My thanks to Rosalie Kingwill for her insights into this matter.
27. 'Report of the Blinkwater Conunission·. 90-1.
28. Armstrong to Hudson. 15 August 1837. CA IIFBF 61111/1; Stapleton. Maqoma. 108-110.
29. Armstrong to Hudson. 18 March 1838. CA IIFBF 6I1Ilf2.
30. Borcherds to Hudson. 30 July 1842. CA IIFBF 6/1/1/3. At the same time. Maqoma was hlring grazing land from Khoi in
the Upper Blinkwater and near Buxton. in the Kat River Settlement; Borcherds to Hudson. 21 June 1842. IIFBF 6/1/113.

54
 erable turnover among his supporters. In 1842, the magistrate of Fort Beaufort,
M. Borcherds visited Hermanus armed with a list of those who his predecessor,
Capt. Armstrong, had allowed to accompany him six years before. Originally
Hermanus had had sixteen followers, but of those one had died, four had
returned to Xhosaland, two had settled in Fuller's Hoek without permission from
the Government or anyone else (except perhaps Hermanus himself) and one was
simply absent. Nevertheless, by this stage he had forty-eight men with him, all of
whom bar four are described as having been granted permission to reside in the
colony by Hermanus, not by Government. 3I It was a most varied group, in terms
of ethnic origins. Precisely half were described as Xhosa, four as Gona, seven as
Thembu and thirteen as Mfengu. Of these twelve (including two of those
described as Mfengu) had been in the colony for ten years, thus since before
Hintsa's war, and another eight - none of whom were Mfengu - seem to have
come across during that war. l2
By this stage Hermanus was rich in cattle and wives. He owned 260 head,
just about 43% of those in the settlement as a whole. This made him one of the
richest Xhosa men, with a level of wealth equivalent to that of major Xhosa
chiefs. The census of the Ngqika in 1848, admittedly after the devastations of the
War of the Axe, gave the highest cattle holding of a homestead - let alone an
individual man - at 288. 33 He also had four wives, and while all of the men listed
in this census were married, possibly a consequence of male mortality during the
wars, only one of the others had four wives and twelve others had two. Between
them, they had 198 children, seven of whom, plus at least one adult son, were
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

Hermanus's.1t was evidently a flourishing community, in its way.34

Part of the reason for the turnover in the Blinkwater settlement was that
Hermanus regularly accused his underlings of sorcery against him. In 1836, he
was involved in a conflict with two of them, described by the British as Goana
and Goonta, who he had allowed onto his farm because he believed them to have
been his friends and 'well disposed towards the British'. However he later came
to think that they had attempted to poison him because he had 'shot several of
their friends during the war'. Captain Armstrong, at that stage British Justice of
the Peace in Fort Beaufort, felt that he had to remove them from the Blinkwater
in order to maintain the peace, not because he believed that they had actually
made an assassination attempt in this way, but because he was convinced that
they had threatened to engage in the 'supposed practice of sorcery' against
Hermanus, and he wanted to make an example in this way against the threat. 3S
Whatever the truth of this, Hermanus continued to express his nervousness, not
altogether surprising given the delicacy of his political position, by having his

31. One had been granled pennission by Tyali, a1lhough whal righl he had to give such pennission is unclear, at least to me.
32. See A. Websler, 'Unmasking the Fingo: The War of 1835 Revisited' in C. Hamillon, ed., The Mfecane Aftermath:
Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History (Johannesburg and Pielennaritzburg: Witwalersrand University
Press and University of Nalal Press, 1995),241·277.
33. 1. Lewis, 'Class and Gender in Pre·Capitalisl Societies: A Consideralion of the 1848 Census of the Xhosa', Collected
Seminar Papers of the 1nstitute of Commonwealth Studies, London: The Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th
Centuries, vol. 17, 1992, 76.
34. Borcherds lo Hudson, 30 July 1842, CA 1IFBF 6/ 111/3.
35. Stalement by Hennanus, 27 September 1836, CA LG 385.

55
 followers smelt out for 'having bewitched him and caused his sickness', in this
case an attack of rheumatism. 36 Indeed he is described as having believed that the
swelling of his legs was caused by 'chameleons, which some enemy had by
power of witchcraft placed in them.' More generally, he believed in a 'Supreme
Being, and in an Evil One, but allotted more power to the latter than to the for-
mer, - that creed suited him best.' The other persons of the Trinity were not with-
in his comprehension. 37
Colonial incomprehension of items of Xhosa culture were just as great.
Europeans never understood the logic of the relations which Hennanus mayor
may not have maintained with other Xhosa who had come to live in the wooded
valleys running down into the Blinkwater. In colonial theory they were squatters,
in illegal occupation of the land. Therefore their dwellings should be burnt and
they themselves expelled from the Colony back into Xhosaland. This was neces-
sary not just to maintain the desired spatial organisation of the population but also
because they were thought to be responsible for the stock loss which regularly
occurred in the rich lands to the west of the mountains. 38 The magistrate at Fort
Beaufort regularly felt called upon to clear away those who, by his reckoning,
should not have been where they were. Thus in the winters of both 1842 and 1843,
Borcherds, the man in question, led parties of the Cape Corps through the
Blinkwater valley, burning homesteads which had been established by Thembu,
Xhosa, Mfengu and Gona, while demanding of the Khoi Veldcomet of Buxton,
Andries Botha, that he too perfonned the same task throughout the area under his
control. He was not always successful in his actions, as in 1843 he had to note that
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

The whole of these people appear to have had notice of my

approach, for I found all the goods removed out of the huts, the men
fled into the bush, and only a few old women and children left near
the huts, so that I took no prisoners. Wherever I found any women
sick, I left huts for them to remain in, until they are well enough to
traveP9

It is however by no means implausible that Hennanus himself encouraged

the settlement of those whom the colonial officials wanted to remove. In 1837 an
officer of the British army wrote of this region that:

I have always regarded the location of Hermanus as the most

unhappy circumstance which could befall this part of the Frontier,
not from any known dishonesty on the part of the man himself but
because his presence there is and may be used as a pretext for the

36. Borcherds to Hudson, 30 July 1842, CA IIFBF 6111113.

37. Godlonton and Irving, Narrative, 144.
38. In the mid-I840s the farms of the KoenapVeIdcornetcy, the region in question, had one of the highest average values in
the colony. See R. Ross, 'Montagu's Roads to Capitalism: The Distribution of Landed Property in the Cape Colony in
1845' in Beyond the Pale: Essays on the History of Colonial South Africa (Hanover and London: Wesleyan University
Press, 1993), 58.
39. Borcherds to Hudson, 21 June 1842, CA IIFBF 6/11113; Borcherds to Hudson, II July 1843, CA IIAY 8/93.

56
 wandering visits of others, and it is quite enough to create alann and
disquiet among the English residents that they should be subject to
visitors of this description - against whom being friendly Caffres, it
would I suppose be improper to act with the rigour warranted to be
employed against other Caffres and then comes the difficulty of dis-
tinguishing between the vagrant Robbers of Caffreland and the actu-
al followers of this privileged Caffre occupant of lands within the
Boundary.40

The understanding which a British anny officer had of the cultural logic of
Xhosa politics is certainly suspect. However, it is not implausible that he judged
correctly what was happening, namely that Hermanus was using his position as a
protected client of the British to build up a princedom based in the Blinkwater
valley, and that all, or at least many, of those who came to live in the steep kloofs
did so with his permission and owed him fealty, in exchange for protection (and
perhaps cattle in loan). There is no way of demonstrating the truth or otherwise
of this conjecture, but it would, I believe, explain much of what happened from
the early 1840s up to 1851.
This process, if that is what was going on, was interrupted by the War of
the Axe. Wars must always be very problematic for people like Hermanus, who
flourish on the ambiguity of their social and political position. They are forced to
choose where their loyalties lie, at least temporarily. Hermanus chose the British.
Maqoma, committed as he was to the Glenelg treaty system which the British
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

were unilaterally discarding, did not fight to the utmost but rather surrendered to
the British as soon as he decently could. 41 Things would be different five years
later.
Hermanus's actions in the War of the Axe are not well documented. In the
beginning, Sir Andries Stockenstrom, called back from retirement to command
the burgher militia, had initially rejected Hermanus's offer to join that force with
all his men. This offer was declined because, as Sir Andries later commented,
'he should not cut the throats of his countrymen on account of the Queen of
England, under my auspices.' Sir Andries did not trust Hermanus, at least in ret-
rospect, and claims that the Kat River Khoi did not either. If they were wise, by
this stage the Kat River Khoi did not trust anyone. Despite this, other British
officers were prepared to take Hermanus into their service. He and his men
fought, and he interpreted, in the British anny for most of the war, under Captain
T.e. Minter, until he was cashiered for embezzlement, under Charles Lennox
Stretch and finally under Col. Henry Somerset. 42 The British, however, parsimo-
nious and perfidious as ever, did not provide Hermanus with either the payor the
booty, which he had been expecting. It was an act of bad faith they were to
regret. 43

40. Memorandum 25 June 1837 by an 'officer of the 75th regiment' (name illegible), CA 1IFBF 511121112.
41. Stapleton, Maqoma, 138-141.
42. B. Ie Cordeur and C. Saunders, eds. , The War of the Axe (Johannesburg: Brenthurst Press, 1981), 101,253.
43. Stockenstrom, Light and Shade. 17.

57
 In the years after the War of the Axe, Hermanus's efforts to set himself up
as a semi-independent Xhosa chief intensified. To do this, it may be imagined
that he employed the full range of strategies available to a Xhosa leader,
although such matters as his marriages - except to Maqoma's relative - or the
lending out of cattle as a means of cementing hierarchical relationships are not
recorded. He had certainly been able to acquire a substantially larger following
than before the War. In 1848, the settlement he led contained 87 men, 122
women and 288 children. The total number of cattle had decreased, probably as a
result of the war, to 468, and remarkably only 54, or 12 per cent, belonged to
Hermanus himself, this in contrast with 43 per cent some six years earlier. This
might suggest that he was involved in various loan arrangements to cement his
leadership. On the other hand, he might also have made a conscious decision to
transfer his wealth into another form, as the number of his wives had risen from
four to twelve in the intervening years.44
In addition to the strategies of accumulating women and cattle so common
in southern Africa, Hermanus had begun to perform those rituals and produce
those events by which a Xhosa leader demonstrated his power. Even before the
war, they had attracted the attention and disapproval of those Khoi who had
taken on board the full message of the mission, such as Arie van Rooyen, an
elder of the church which the Rev. Henry Calderwood had established at Lower
Blinkwater who was later to become the first Khoi to be ordained within the
Congregational (LMS) church. In 1842, Van Rooyen wrote to the British authori-
ties in Grahamstown that:
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

Hermanus is in the Colony and he is still busy with Xhosa things ...
If he is a Colonist, what does he have to do with Xhosa things, and
if he is a Xhosa why does he not go into Xhosaland. By this deed,
Hermanus shows that he is an enemy.4S

After the War of the Axe such matters became even more of a political act.
In January 1848, the British Governor, Sir Harry Smith had harangued the
assembled chiefs as to how, in the new province of British Kaffraria, progress
would be achieved through the imposition of English customs and habits.46 These
included not just clothes, ploughs, schools and trade, but also the abolition of
lobola and related matters. It was thus provocative, at the very least for
Hermanus to hold what was described as a 'Gieko' only two month later. The
description which the magistrate gave of this ceremony was that

It commenced at Hermanus's own kraal, by the assembling of all

the principal men who have wives of their own, certain other men
of lower rank called 'Dindaar' (Dienaar - Constables) are appointed

44. 'Ust of Kaffir men, women and children residing with Hermanus Matroos', CA CO 2849; the alternative explanation is
of course that Hennanus was able to hide most of his cattle from the census takers.
45. Arie van Rooyen to Hudson, August 1842, CA LG 442, cited in Visagie, 'Katriviemedersetting', 352 (my ttansiation
from the Dutch).
46. BPP 949 of 1849, 5 I.

58
 to slaughter fat cattle and to cook, it is also the duty of those men to
go and collect all the unmarried girls from the other kraals from 12
years old and upwards and after the girls are all collected, they are
divided amongst the men who are assembled on the 'Gieko', several
huts are made use of in which they lodge many together and if the
girls are not sufficiently numerous one girl has to serve the purpose
of many masters - and in this manner they live for several days on a
week till the cattle appointed for the supply of feast are all
devoured, after which time the girls are allowed to go home and the
party disperses for a few days or a week when it again begins.
The second 'Gieko' was held at the kraal next above
Hermanus's and so on up the valley to the others. At these 'Giekos'
between 20 and 30 young girls were made use of, many of whom
had been taught in the Missionary School to read both Kaffir and
Dutch. Hermanus allowed or put in two of his own daughters, in
the Gieko, young girls of about 14 years of age, one of whom can
read Kaffir and Dutch:7

As a result of this information, Hermanus was informed that as he had

been 'recently practising barbarian habits, his conduct is unsatisfactory to the
Governor,' that he was in the colony entirely on sufferance and that if he misbe-
haved in the future the British would 'send a military force and drive them [him,
his followers and other Africans in the area] out of the Colony.'48
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

Colonial offensive

This threat was part of a concerted campaign against the Kat River settle-
ment in general and the inhabitants of the Blinkwater in particular. It was con-
ducted in the period between the War of the Axe and Mlanjeni's war and was in
part responsible for the outbreak of the latter, or at least for the course which it
took. This assault was made possible by the unprecedented dominance which the
Cape conservatives held under the administrations of Sir Henry Pottinger and Sir
Harry Smith, both of whom were highly dependent upon, or at least under the
influence of, the Colonial Secretary John Montagu, together with the 'family
compact' of like-minded officials in Cape Town, on the one hand, and of the cir-
cle around Robert Godlonton in Grahamstown, on the other. 49 The latter in partic-

47. Bowker and Groepe to Borcherds, 19 June 1848, CA IIFBF 5/1/213/2, in reply to Borcherds to Bowker 8 June 1848, CA
IIFBF 6/1/3/1/1; for apparently comparable events, there described as 'upundhlo', see J.C. Warner, 'Notes' in John
Maclean, Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs, reprinted Frank Cass, 1966,77, and Charles Brownlee in ibid, 129-
130. See also N. Erlank, 'Gender and Christianity among Africans attached to Scottish mission stations in Xhosaland in
the nineteenth century' (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1999),66. I have no explanation for the use of the term
'Gieko', except that Brownlee wrote that 'the young men pleaded that they were only following "isiko",' or the custom,
and 'Gieko' might be a mangling of 'isiko' made by two men, Borcherds and Groepe, neither of whom spoke Xhosa.
48. Montagu to Civil Commissioner, Fort Beaufort, 27 August 1849, CA LCB 9, also in CA IIFBF 5/1/1/211. Cf. c.c.
Crais, White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre-industrial South Africa: The Making of the Colonial Order in the
Eastern Cape, 1770-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 166.
49. On this, see T. Kirk, 'Self-Government and Self-defence in South Africa: The Inter-Relations between British and Cape
Politics' (D. Phil, Oxford University, 1972).

59
 ular had a long-standing hatred of the Kat River settlers, which was heartily reci-
procated. 50 The appointment of members of the Biddulph and Bowker families,
noted Eastern Cape conservatives, as the first two magistrates of the newly con-
stituted Stockenstrom district, which was largely coterminous with the Kat River
settlement and the Blinkwater, gave greater sharpness to the campaign. T.H.
Bowker, for instance, wrote that 'such is the difficulty of penetrating into the nat-
ural mysteries carried on in those strongholds of savageism, [sic] the beehive hut
that nothing but the removal of these people into neighbourhoods where they can
be under a salutary supervision will ever break up their inveterate propensities.'51
Certainly, where there had once been a school, and reasonable hopes on the part
of the missionaries for conversion, this had disappeared, and the house where
divine services had been held had fallen into dilapidation. 52 A few children did
however go to the LMS school in the lower Blinkwater. 53
The challenge had come about because of the considerable increase in the
population under Hermanus and in Fuller's Hoek in the aftermath of the War.
When Bowker, together with Commandant Groepe, visited Hermanus, he noted
that

A considerable quantity of land has been cultivated in the Kaffir

manner and large crops of Kaffir com, pumpkins and Kaffir melons
have been gathered there this last season, so much so that many
Kaffir women have come from Kaffirland to the Blinkwater after
Kaffrr com, which they carry to Kaffirland in their usual way upon
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

their heads. 54

In a year of good rains, it was evidently a flourishing settlement. At this

visit, the magistrate estimated the number of cattle at around 1500, including
some 300 in the kraal nearest to Hermanus's own dwelling, three times more
than in the census in the same year. Whether Bowker overestimated what was
present, or whether the cattle had been hidden out of sight when the census-tak-
ers arrived can unfortunately not be determined.
What exactly was happening in Fuller's Hoek is also difficult to ascertain.
What is incontestable is that in the period after the War of the Axe a considerable
number of Africans - presumably Xhosa and Mfengu in the first instance, but
probably including a number of Thembu - came to live in the wooded kloofs run-
ning up into the mountains. This was in contravention of the original order, as
the land was to be given out to Khoi in terms of the extension of the Kat River
settlement. 55 At least one of those who had been granted land there, in return for

50. It is for instance instructive to examine the poll lists from the Kat River in the 1854 elections for the Legislative Council,
preserved in CO CA 2908. These show that the only men to give any (of their seven) votes to Godlonton were the
Englishmen William Bates, Andrew Develing and Rienhaud Webb, plus Dirk Pieters, whose ethnicity I do not know and
who, somewhat remarkably, split his vote between Godlonton and Stockenstrom.
51. Bowker to Weinand, 20 December 1848, CA CO 2849. Needless to say, emphasis in original.
52. Calderwood to LMS, 20 March 1843, LMS archive (SOAS), South African Incoming letters, (hereafter LMS-SA),
19111C; Bowker and Groepe to Borcherds, 19 June 1848, CA 1IFBF 5/1/21312.
53. J. Freeman, A Tour in South Africa (London: John Snow, 1851), 163.
54. Bowker and Groepe to Borcherds, 19 June 1848, CA IIFBF 5/1121312.
55. E.g. Calderwood to Le Sueur, for Secretary to Government, 21 September 1849, CA LCB 9.

60
 his original plot which had been confiscated when Fort Annstrong was built,
never took up his land because of the proximity of Hennanus, at least so his son
claimed during the compensation hearing after the Rebellion. 56 When the magis-
trate visited it in 1848, he commented that, although land had been granted to
Gonaqua57 since 1837,

At present there are but 5 families of Gonas left. Fullerskloof

extends from the junction with the Blinkwater about two miles in a
south-westerly direction ... in it we found six kraals and above 50
huts inhabited by Kaffirs, certain of whom belonging to Botma
[Bhotomane] were in the colony when the war broke out in 1846
and have since squatted there. When Macoma went to Algoa Bay
[during the war] several Kaffirs, six or eight with their families,
were sent back from Grahamstown. These also squatted there. The
others have all crept in at various times and are interbred with the
Gonas who seem to be the nucleus of attraction.
In the various kraals and huts there cannot be less than 300
head of cattle and 30 men besides their families - only four of the
Kafflfs who came into this place during the war are employed. They
are living with Andries Klaas and his family but are not contracted.
The rest of the numerous Kaffirs and Gonas squatted in this kloof
are living in their own ways and customs and spend their time in
idleness and hunting and in herding cattle.
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

I ascertained from some of the Colonial people living in

Fuller's Hoek that many strange cattle are frequently there and also
that several hundred kaffirs of all ages and sexes left Fuller's Hoek
a day or two previous to my arrival taking their route into the
Colony. 58

Away to the north of Hennanus Matroos's settlement, there were also a

number of settlements of people whom the colonial rulers called squatters. In
1850, the Blinkwater Commission visited the area, the Kama, which they
described as a basin, ten miles in diameter 'ribbed by kloofs and steep ridges,
covered with the finest pasturage, while some of the higher lands are faced to
their summits with forests abounding with fine and useful timber.' They found it
'little more than a harbour for Squatters - Kaflfs, Tambookies and Gonahs - who
live in a state of unmitigated barbarism and indulge without control in all the
brutal practices inseparable to that state.' They had cattle and hunting dogs, and,
to the suspicious members of the Commission, 'it was impossible ... not to con-
clude that they subsisted by preying on the property of the colonial farmers. '59

56. Claim of Andries Pretorius, CA IIUIT 14/37,95-99.

57. Gonaqua. or 'Gonas', were among those who occupied the middle ground between Xhosa and Khoi, so that the British
did not know how to deal with them.
58. Bowker and Groepe to Borcherds, 19 June 1848, CA IIFBF 5/1121312.
59. Report of the Blinkwater Commission, 93-94.

61
 What is not clear is how far these individuals looked to Hermanus as their
leader. Perhaps they saw him as a representative of the Rharhabe chiefs, with
whom he had by this time made his peace, even if he on occasion pretended oth-
erwise to British army officers. 60 Certainly Hermanus was doing all he could to
maintain his authority over those who had come under his control. This was
manifested when the British introduced a quitrent of £1 for each man in all of
what they considered the 'Fingo' communities, which can best be described as
containing all those Africans (non-Khoi) living within the old colony, as opposed
to the newly proclaimed province of British Kaffraria. 61 Payments were few;
despite a following of at least a hundred, only nine men paid quit rent in 1849
and five in 1850. 62 The Rev. Henry Calderwood, once the LMS missionary at
Lower Blinkwater (and in this capacity an adversary of Hermanus's) but by now
the Civil Commissioner of Alice in Government service, commented that
'Hermanus seems desirous of living where he is, in all respects as an indepen-
dent Caffre chief,' and that 'he does not seem to care so much about the demands
made for money, as the fact, that if each man pays to Government, he would
have as good a right to the Land as Hermanus himself. '63 For a man who had
built his career as an intermediary, this was intolerable.
In the course of 1850, the colonial officials launched a concerted attack on
the inhabitants of the Blinkwater. It was not for the first time. Burning the huts of
the inhabitants of Fuller's Hoek, in particular, was a regular activity of the mag-
istrate of Fort Beaufort. 64 The attempt to assert colonial control over the area had
begun with the appointment of Valentyn Jacobs as Veldcornet of the Blinkwater
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and Fuller's Hoek in 1848, taking responsibility for an area of land which
Andries Botha, from Buxton, had difficulty in reaching with any regularity.65 It
does not appear that this move had any particular effect. Things were rather dif-
ferent when the Government appointed a certain Mr. T. W. Cobb as
Superintendent over the Mfengu in and around the Blinkwater. Cobb's task was
to fonn locations among the Mfengu and Xhosa and thus provide a degree of
order, according to colonial criteria, with enclosure of lands, the breaking of
oxen to the plough or the wagon, and the encouragement of schools for the chil-
dren. The inhabitants were to be active in the apprehension of thieves, and were
to perfonn public works, notably road building. 'Witchdoctors' were banned
from their settlements. 66
In the event Cobb, who had been appointed in somewhat dubious circum-
stances67 and would be killed, perhaps murdered, in the course of the rebellion,

60. Bowker and Groepe to Borcherds. 19 June 1848. CA IIFBF 5/1f213/2; Napier. Excursions, vol. 2. 372.
61. Montagu to Civil Commissioner, Fort Beaufort. II December 1848, CA LCB 9
62. Stringfellow to the Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor, I May 1855. LCB 9.
63. Calderwood to Le Sueur. for Secretary to Government, 21 September 1849. CA LCB 9.
64. Borcherds to Hudson, 11 July 1843, CA I/AY 8/93.
65. Bowker to Colonial Secretary, 20.6.1848, CA CO 2849; this may have been the beginning of the removal of authority
from Botha which characterised the period. It was particularly aggressive, and can, I think, only be explained as a reac·
tion by the official class of the Eastern Cape to their collective shame at the fact that it was Botha's counter attack during
the Battle of Bum's Hill at the start of the War of the Axe which effectively saved the colonial ammunition wagons, and
thus prevented a greater disaster.
66. Borcherds, 'Instructions for the Superintendent of Fingoes and other natives at Fuller's Hoek. Hennanus Kloof Umvczo
etc.', 20 February 1849, CA LCB 9.
67. This was hinted at by Stockenstrom in Light and Shade, 22.

62
 claimed land in the middle of the Tidmanton commonage as his own. He then
began impounding cattle which strayed across the unfenced boundary and charg-
ing substantial fees to have them released. 68 The Khoi inhabitants of the lower
Blinkwater continued to have complaints about the settlement of Mfengu and
Xhosa in their vicinity.69 The colonial response was to attempt to sell the region
to private, British settlers, thus depriving the Kat River settlers proper of a part
of the territory which they believed to be theirs, and further antagonising the
Africans in the kloofs. In the event, the sale came to nothing, at least till after the
Rebellion, but the commotion was nonetheless substantiaJ.7°
The serious assault, though, came in the winter of 1850. The British final-
ly decided on the criteria by which they should judge who was allowed to remain
in the colony. Charles Brownlee, at that time British Commissioner with the
Ngqika, had visited the Blinkwater and claimed that there were in principle three
categories of Xhosa there, namely those who had arrived in the colony before the
war of 1835, before that of 1846 and subsequently. Those in the first two cate-
gories had fought against their 'countrymen' and therefore should be allowed to
stay in the Blinkwater or in some other suitable location, except for those 'who
practice heathenish customs and who do not bear good characters.' The others
should be removed, at least as soon as they had harvested their crops. According
to Brownlee, it was up to the Field-Cornets to determine who belonged in each
category.7I
From 12 June 1850, the local officials moved through the Blinkwater to
clear the region of those who, according to this categorisation, did not have the
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

right to be there. n There is a certain irony in their proceedings, as the actual

work was done by a unit of the 'Kaffir police', almost all of whom would have
fallen under Brownlee's third category and thus themselves have had no right to
residence in the colony.73 This was done first in Fuller's Hoek, where fifty-seven
huts were burnt, six hundred head of cattle and many goats secured, and over
fifty women, together with their children, were herded together and brought
down to the post. From there they were to be sent into Xhosaland. Others, who
were said to be Hermanus's people, were sent to join him. The Gona, who could
not be expelled because they had been born in the Colony, were to be brought
down to the Lower Blinkwater and settled there under supervision, as they had
formed the 'nucleus' of the settlement. Stringfellow then moved up to
Hermanus's residence

68. See e.g. Stockenstram to Montagu. II July 1850, printed in Trial of Andries Botha (Cape Town, Saul Solomon, 1852;
reprinted Pretoria: State Library, 1969), 237-9; in this letter, Sir Andries was recording the complaints made to him by
Andries Botha; Freeman, Tour in South Africa, 186-193.
69. Montagu to the 'Inhabitants of Blinkwater and Fuller's Hoek', 16 May 1849, 17 June 1849, CA LCB 9; this is in reply to
a memorial of 16 May 1849, which I have been unable to locate as yet.
70. Read, Read and Thomson to Montagu, 22 August 1850, CA CO 592; Read et aI to Stringfellow, 23 September 1850, CA
CO 2863; Stringfellow to Montagu, 25 September 1850 CA CO 2863; Bowker to Montagu, 5 July 1850, CA CO 2870.
71. Brownlee to Mackinnon, 6 May 1850, printed in Freeman, Tour in South Africa, 180-1.
72. Reports of this expedition exist from both the Commander of the Police, (Davies to Mackinnon, 20 June 1850, printed in
Freeman, Tour, 176-9), from the Civil Commissioner of Fort Beaufort, (Stringfellow to Secretary to Government, 22
June 1850) and the Resident Magistrate of Stockenstrom (Bowker to Stringfellow, 20 June 1850, Bowker to Secretary to
Government, 27 June 1850), all of which are in CA LCB 9. The testimony of Andries Botha, who was one of those who
suffered from the actions, is to be found in Botha to Smith, 23 June 1850, in Freeman, Tour, 182-3, and in Stockenstrom
to Secretary to Government II July 1850, in Trial of Andries Botha, 236-9.
73. K.1. Watson, 'African Sepoys? The Black Police on the Eastern Cape frontier, 1836-1850', Kleio, vol. 28, 1996,62-78.

63
 where we found about seventi4 men assembled ... all of whom are
represented by Hermanus to have performed good service in the
war, and entitled to protection on account of good conduct. After
calling over the list I inquired of Hermanus if he had anything to
say, previous to my taking any further steps, when he complained of
want of room for his people. Having reminded him that when com-
plaints were made by the farmers against hunting parties of Kaffirs
for trespassing upon their lands, that he had disclaimed any knowl-
edge or connexion with them; and that he was only responsible for
fourteen families. I requested him to account for the inconsistency
now apparent from the present muster of his people. His silence
induced me to address a few words to him in the presence of those
assembled, upon which I took occasion to remark upon his want of
good faith in several instances refused to [sic, presumably 'referred
to'], and particularly in endeavouring to conceal his knowledge of
the people in Fuller's Hoek or their pursuits. I impressed upon them
the advantages enjoyed under a civilized government, the protection
afforded to life and property, and the fine country allotted to them,
and with respect to the complaint for want of space, I referred
Hermanus to the great number of persons in the Blinkwater who
professed to be his followers, and informed him that if he wished
the removal of any person, now was the time. He expressed himself
and his people satisfied.
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

Stringfellow then informed Hermanus of the necessity of the payment of

quitrent for the Blinkwater residents, and told him to appoint headmen over each
division of his followers, to 'watch their conduct and report to Hermanus when
requisite, who would be held responsible to Government.'
While this meeting was going on, Davies was busy burning two Xhosa
homesteads, one belonging to Mali, a follower of Bhotomane 'whom I knew in
the war against us.' On the next day, he went on with the work, burning Xhosa
homesteads over the boundary assigned to Hermanus's people to the south, and
on the day after, a Sunday, he was joined by Bowker, the resident magistrate of
Stockenstrom and moved through the hills to the north-west of Hermanus's set-
tlement, 'where we found more of his people, burned their huts, and passed them
over the boundary. These men were not present at the muster' held two days ear-
lier. Hermanus protested at this, saying he had too little room, but that 'the men
were his', and should not be sent to Xhosaland. He was then told that 'both his
own and his men's cattle were liable to be put in the colonial pounds for trespass,
if they were ever again found over the boundary of the land allotted to him and
his people.' Others, in the Kume kloof, had already driven their cattle into
Hermanus's land, but Davies and Bowker destroyed their huts. Then they moved

74. Davies of the Police said that Hennanus's people were 'reported to be one hundred and thirty in number, but I am of
opinion from my subsequent operations, that they are more than two hundred.'

64
 across from the Upper Blinkwater to Buxton, and began to clear those who were
living as the dependents of Andries Botha and the Khoi at this place. It was at
this moment that the Xhosa police were heard - at least by Botha, but probably
not by Bowker and Davies, neither of whom, it is safe to assume, understood
Xhosa - to call out exultantly: 'Today we bum Botha out of the Blinkwater as he
burnt us out of the Amatola last war. '75 Whether they had the same feelings
towards Hermanus is difficult to say; certainly he had not played as prominent a
role in the War of the Axe as Botha. In total, more than three hundred huts were
burnt in the week-long campaign. 145 men, 350 women and an unknown num-
ber of children were driven off the land, together with nearly 2,500 head of cattle
and 1,400 goats.
Subsequent to this expedition there was considerable criticism, particular-
ly from the missionaries and from Sir Andries Stockenstrom, both of whom were
primarily concerned to vindicate Botha. It was clearly a very heavy-handed oper-
ation, in which the British were quite unable to appreciate the relations of client-
age which had grown up between the Khoi and those whom the British designat-
ed as Xhosa, or as foreign. It was certainly a time when the boundary between
Khoi and Xhosa was even more porous, and uncertain, than usual. 76 This is not
the place to investigate in detail the charges against Botha, although it does seem
clear that some of those expelled as Xhosa interlopers were as Khoi as he was,
and had resided with him for many years. What is interesting in this context,
though, are Bowker's comments on the communities he had brutally disrupted.
He wrote that 'the whole of these immense establishments of "squatters" are but
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

one joint stock company from the wily Hermanus to the wary and deceptive
Andries Botha, and that nothing could be done by the one that the other was not
almost immediately cognizant of. '77
This may have been true, and there was a homestead of one of Hermanus's
followers on the erf of one of Botha's sons,78 although it is most unlikely that
Andries Botha could have done much to prevent the presence of the Xhosa.
However, Bowker was probably correct in his assumption that Hermanus had an
interest in what was going on far beyond the confines of the farm which the
British, with their love of tidy lines on maps, had granted to him. If it is assumed
that he had taken on at the very least a watching brief for all the Xhosa, in the
broadest sense of the word, who had come to live in the Blinkwater valley, and
especially if this is thought to have been agreed between him and the Ngqika
chiefs - and for this second assumption, I know of no evidence - then his subse-
quent actions become much more explicable.

75. Stockenstrom to Secretary to Government 11 July 1850. in Trial of Andries Botha, 237.
76. In general, see G. Harinck, 'Interaction between Xhosa and Khoi: emphasis on the period 1620-1750' in L.Thompson,
ed., African Societies in Southern Africa (London: Heinemann, 1969); R. Ross, 'Ethnic identity, demographic crises and
Xhosa-Khoikhoi interaction', History in Africa, vol. 7, 1980; more specifically, R. Ross, 'Ambiguities of resistance and
collaboration on the Eastern Cape Frontier: The Kat River Settlement, 1829-1856' in J. Abbink, M. de Bruijn and K. van
Walraven, eds., Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003), 129-
132.
77. Bowker to Secretary to Government, 27 June 1850, CA LCB 9.
78. Bowker to Stringfellow, 20 June 1850, CA LCB 9.

65
 Hennanus's next significant brush with the colonial authorities occurred
some five months later when, in response to a petition from many of the leading
landowners and others on the frontier, a Commission was despatched 'to investi-
gate certain complaints and accusations made against the inhabitants living under
the nominal Chief Hennanus.' This commission was led by Robert Godlonton,
and included at least two of those who were themselves landowners in the near
neighbourhood of the Blinkwater. Those whose huts had been destroyed by
Stringfellow and Davies in Fuller's Hoek were said to have returned and to
'while away the day in listless idleness and the night in prowling the country.'
As evidence for their claims they cited a local trader who had in the last two
months purchased 500 hides, mainly from Africans living in Fuller's Hoek and
with Hennanus. Most of these hides were not from cattle which had died in the
drought, but 'were those of fine large oxen in good condition', and on occasion
the brand had been cut out. In general, they considered that

If, in locating Hennanus within the colony, it had been the design of
the Government to present to him the greatest temptation to illicit
practices, and to the Frontier colonists the most insuperable obstruc-
tions to the detection of them, such object could not have been more
completely obtained than by placing him in the country in which he
now dwells, and leaving him there, as he is left, without any super-
vision or means of detecting and correcting those evils which might
have been expected to arise amongst a people of barbarous habits,
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

and who are so prone to dishonest and aggressive practices.

However, means had to be found not merely to punish Hennanus and his
followers for the actions which they were supposed to be carrying out, and to
threaten to turn him out of his land, but also to promote his self-interest in work-
ing with the Colony. At the moment, so it was said, 'he fortifies himself by clos-
er amity with the Kaffrrs, by increasing the number of his followers, and by more
craftily planning his aggressive designs upon the Colonial farmers occupying the
adjacent country.' There were already numerous rumours that his territory
fonned 'the chief rendezvous of a great many of those Kafir servants who have
recently absconded from the desertion of the Colonial farmers and whose deser-
tion has caused so much excitement and alarm throughout the country.'
Hennanus himself denied having heard any such reports, but when confronted by
the 'schoolmaster on his own homestead' who had read out paragraphs from the
colonial newspapers to him on the subject, he admitted that he had heard, but
pleaded 'a treacherous memory'. Whether this was happening, in November
1850, is difficult to say, and the Commission had to admit that in specific cases,
the rumours were false. However, it seems more than likely that Hennanus was
already making preparations for the war which was to come. 79

79. On this visit. and for the citations. see 'Report of the Blinkwater Commission.'

66
 Mlanjeni's war

There was another explanation for the supply of hides to the local trader
which the Commission did not mention, and almost certainly did not appreciate.
During the spring of 1850, the prophet Mlanjeni had been urging the Xhosa to
slaughter their yellow and dun-coloured cattle as part of his campaign to purify
the land and to root out witchcraft. Bo Hermanus was among those who had visited
Mlanjeni and had followed his calPI He had perhaps by this time concerted the
plans with the Xhosa chiefs for the attack on the Colony, which duly begun on
Christmas day 1850. B2 A disproportionate number of those who fought had been
labourers or 'squatters' and thus were likely to have been in contact with
Hermanus and his fellows in the Blinkwater. B3
Hermanus's first act during the war was to request, and receive, a supply
of arms and ammunition from the British in Fort Beaufort, an action which, to
say the least, suggests a considerable level of chutzpah on his part, and total fail-
ure of intelligence (in both senses of the word) on that of the British. 84 He then
returned to the Blinkwater, where he began to collect all those he could around
him. The Khoi could with difficulty defend themselves against Hermanus's
actions, in part because they were heavily outnumbered and in part because mag-
istrate Bowker, as one of his last acts before his dismissal, had confiscated three
hundred guns. B5 Hermanus had 900 Xhosa under him, and he was able to press at
least 90 Khoi to his service, despite the attempts of the L.M.S. minister at Lower
Blinkwater, the Rev. Arie van Rooyen, to prevent this.B6 Some of these, including
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

one Isaac Isaacs, had been soldiers in the Cape Mounted Rifles, and refused to
take part in the fighting, so that Hermanus was forced to hold them prisoner. 8?
Hermanus's force was joined not merely by Xhosa, who included some of the
police who had burnt their way through his valley six months earlier but who
now in their totality took their arms against the Colony.BB His camp had also
attracted many men of Khoi descent, mainly from among the farm servants in the
Winterberg B9 and elsewhere, but also a proportion of the Kat River settlers prop-
er. Hermanus could thus serve as a focus around whom all the diverse, but never-
theless serious, grievances against the colonists could coalesce and create, at
least temporarily, a united force.

80. J. Peires, The Dead will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle Killing Movement of 1856-7, (Johannesburg:
Ravan, 1989), 1-12; Crais, White Supremacy, 175-6.
81. Read, Kat River Settlement in 1851, 18-19; Read snr to Freeman, 13 April 1851, LMS-SA 2611/C.
82. One of Godlonton' s correspondents claimed on 23 November 1850 that in the previous days Herrnanus had visited
Mlanjeni and had concerted plans while there with Sarhili and Sandile. In the tense situation of the border at that time,
this rumour should not be accepted without further evidence (which I do not believe exists), but is nevertheless by no
means implausible. See Godlonton and irving, Narrative, 29.
83. Crais, White supremacy, 177.
84. Evidence of the Rev. H. Renton, BPP 635 of 1851,419; the British commanders had been warned of Herrnanus's obedi-
ence to Mlanjeni's commands before they handed out the arms. McKay, Reminiscences, 61, claims that the commander
of Fort Beaufort, Colonel W. Sutton, refused to issue the arms.
85. Read, Kat River Settlement in 1851, xvii.
86. See the statements in CA CO 4495A.
87. Isaacs's testimony during Trial of Andries Botha, 113; Major-General Henry Somerset (he had just been promoted),
notice8Jan.1851,inBPP 1334 of 1851, 127.
88. Watson, 'African sepoys?'.
89. Wienand to Somerset. 3 Jan. 1851, CA CO 4495A.

67
 Apart from the capture of a couple of wagons and the killing of their
incautious (and apparently drunken) English owners, the first military action of
the rebellion was an attack by Hermanus on a military post known as the Old
School, close to Fort Beaufort on 30 December. This was followed up, on New
Year's Day, by the capture of the fortified farmhouse belonging to W. Gilbert,
one of the Blinkwater commissioners, near Fuller's Hoek. Gilbert had two small
cannons to defend his dwelling, but these failed to protect him, and they fell to
the lot of the rebels. Either here, or at the Old School (or just possibly on both
occasions), Hermanus had his horse shot from under him. 90 The cannon were car-
ried to the rebels' camp in the Upper Blinkwater.
The next part of the plan was to attack and capture Fort Beaufort. This was
to be done on the 7th of January. Two days earlier, however, William Goezaar
and John Corner,91 two of the Kat River people who had been held captive by
Hermanus, managed to escape and to reach the British missionaries in Philipton,
with the news that an attack had been planned. The Rev. James Read Snr. then
sent a letter to his old colleague (and adversary) Henry Calderwood informing
him of the impending attack. 92 The message was passed from Alice to Fort
Beaufort, where the British were ready to receive Hermanus and his forces.
The attack began at 4.30 in the morning. It later transpired that this was a
couple of hours earlier than intended, with the result that Maqoma, with a strong
force coming out to the Amatola mountains, was unable to concert with those
who had descended on Fort Beaufort from the Blinkwater. This may have been a
question of impetuousness on the part of the rebel forces, not necessarily
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2010).

Ngxukumeshe himself (as it is surely proper to call him at this moment).

Ngxukumeshe indeed seems not to have been part of the first assault party. On
the other hand, it is possible that the attackers seized on a moment during which
the ford across the Kat River at Stanton's drift had been left unguarded, as the
sentries who had been posted there the night before returned to the church in
town at first light without waiting to be relieved. The attackers however fired off
shots unnecessarily as they approached the town, and thus roused the defenders
before they could be overrun. 93 Another description made closer to the time, but
very possibly self-serving, claims that an Mfengu sentry at the drift let off warn-
ing shots.94
At any event, from that moment, Ngxukumeshe, somewhat incongruously
wearing a blanket and a lady's black crepe bonnet, led an attack across another
drift into the town, in an attempt to encircle the colonial forces. At the same
time, counter-attacks by the town militia, by a substantial body of Mfengu and

90. Read. Kat River Settlement in 1851,12,20; lohn Green, The Kat River Settlement in 1851 (Graham's Town: Godlonton
and White, 1853),39.
91. He was presumably the son of lohn Comer, a former LMS missionary (and ex-slave from Guyana) and his Khoi wife.
92. Read, Kat River Settlement in 1851, 13; lames Read lor, 'Extracts from a notebook', LMS-SA 28/4/C, 11; Elizabeth
Elboume, Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799-
1853 (Montreal. Kingston, London and Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press. 2002), 368, relates that she had been
told that this betrayal, if it is to be seen as such, on the part of Read was what Xhosa most remember about him.
93. McKay, Reminiscences, 62.
94. Godlonton and Irving, Narrative, 136-7. Godlonton's anonymous correspondent had been on guard the night before, and
may therefore have had to conceal that he had left his post before he should have done.

68
 by a small party of British regulars from both the 91st regiment and the (Khoi)
Cape Mounted Rifles, held the assailants in Campbell and D'Urban streets,
drove down to Johnstone's drift and managed to outflank the attackers by cross-
ing a bridge to the south-west of the town. The result was a complicated melee,
which was only decided when Ngxukumeshe himself was shot dead, apparently
by Mfengu. 95 There followed a rout. According to the British, no doubt exagger-
ating as such forces tend to do, they killed a hundred of the enemy, and, follow-
ing up their victory back through the Poort to the north of the town, captured
2,000 head of cattle, many sheep, goats, horses and discarded weapons. In so
doing they went all the way up to Ngxukumeshe's settlement in the middle
Blinkwater, where they found, and no doubt looted, a goodly supply of furniture.
In the course of so doing, they released a number of the old soldiers from the
Cape regiment who had refused to join in the assault on Fort Beaufort and had
been tied to trees in the Kat River, expecting to be executed should their captors
prevail.96
Ngxukumeshe's body was laid out in the market square of Fort Beaufort
under the market-bell and surmounted by the British flag as 'a warning to trai-
tors, a spectacle full of encouragement for the honest, and of instruction to all,'
as Godlonton's correspondent put it with classic colonial triumphalism. 97 After a
few hours he was buried below the military hospital. Rumour had it that the
corpse was later grubbed up and devoured by the town pigs. 98

Conclusion
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It is always tempting to conflate the end of man or woman's life with the
end of an era. Such a case could only be made for the death of Hermanus on the
assumption that the failure of the Xhosa to capture Fort Beaufort doomed them
to defeat in Mlanjeni's war and that it was the war and its aftermath which made
the sort of life which Hermanus had been leading impossible in the future. Some
sort of argument could be made for the first of these propositions, although it is
as hard to see British accepting defeat in Mlanjeni's war as it would have been
for them to do so thirty years later after Isandhlwana. The second proposition,
though, does have more force. After the war, the British were able to impose
their own order on places like the Blinkwater, and to divide it among themselves
as sheep and cattle farms. The possibilities of developing a significant communi-
ty of amaNgxukumeshe in the region would have passed, even had Hermanus
lived, and remained on good terms with the British.99 He had been interpreter,
landholder and also, though he was careful to conceal it, bandit chief. After
Mlanjeni's war, none of these were occupations on which major black careers
could be built.

95. Mckay, Reminiscences, 62·3; Godlonton and Irving, Narrative, 135·140.

96. Henry Somerset, Notice, 8 January 1851, BPP 1334 of 1851; McKay, Reminiscences, 62·3; Godlonton and Irving,
Narrative, 135-140.
97. Godlonton and Irving, Narrative, 138.
98. McKay, Reminiscences, 63.
99. There are families of amaJwara Xhosa, presumably his descendants, whose surname is Ngxukumeshe. Information from
Michael Besten.

69