Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Behind the renaming of Grahamstown
For the Xhosa, giving it the name Makhanda might be succour to the humiliations of historic black military defeat
OVER THE past two years I have explored the Eastern Cape, including Makhanda, formerly Grahamstown.
There was little evidence of this landmark change after two centuries, but soon there will be: the road signs, businesses, educational institutions’ letterheads.
The rather low-profile announcement by Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa seven months ago encountered virtual media silence regarding either acclamation or objection.
Mthethwa’s statement preceded Monday’s 200th anniversary of the April 22, 1819 Battle of Grahamstown. Unlike Isandlwana 60 years later – a sole but convincing British defeat by the Zulus – the 1819 engagement draws no affirmation within contemporary historical/political dialogue; not least those whose convictions align with the decolonisation assumptions.
As a British/settler victory they would excoriate 1819 as representing another blow in the Eastern Cape historical conquest process, directly connected to core contested issues concerning the alleged “stealing” of land.
The memorial for 1819 erected during the late 19th century in High Street, encapsulates part of the settler historical mythology that grew out of the battle; a story disputed but never emphatically proved fraudulent: French woman Elizabeth Salt’s valour when, during a critical point in the battle, she was claimed to have carried a keg of gunpowder from the village to the besieged barracks a mile away.
Relying upon the purported Xhosa custom of sparing women and children during warfare, the memorial, now vandalised with red paint, depicts Salt, fearless and aloof, gliding past the awestruck and almost worshipful Xhosa.
While the virtual lack of public opposition to the name change among settler descendants might relate to a white Anglo South African lack of any deeply felt collective historical identity; the present political climate of instant racial smearing promotes little inducement towards opposition regarding public “African” assertions.
Or, as the first Anglican dean of Makhanda, Andrew Hunter of the city’s cathedral, recently related to me, the change is rooted in African (Xhosa?) identity issues, besides positive motives such as healing and reconciliation; unintendedly the very arguments advanced by Mthethwa.
A John Graham memorial remains within the cathedral. But academic historical study insists upon analysis-based, evidence-driven explanations of events.
Historian Hermann Giliomee expounds on some roots regarding the Dutch colonist/British Settler/Xhosa clashes dating from the late 18th century, most particularly within the Zuurveld between the Sundays and Fish rivers. All had livestock farming in common, seeking the winter soetveld within the numerous river valleys. And as larger population concentrations manifested, so seasonal stock rotations increasingly resulted in territorial disputes within different Xhosa chiefdoms, between whites and blacks.
Racial misunderstandings had further likely genesis in Xhosa assumptions that their being an open society, to a greater or lesser degree, the numerically much smaller colonists would in time integrate into Xhosa society. But bar a few individuals, colonist Christian and European cultural norms ensured this could never happen.
The year 1819, like the nine Frontier Wars from 1779 to 1878, possessed a complex intra-racial tapestry; British troops and Afrikaner burgers almost always sided with one another, but significant regular antipathies between burgers and British colonial governance existed, leading to occasional brush-fire insurrections.
The Xhosa groupings were markedly fissured by multiple alliances, but most particularly via competing chiefdoms. During the 1819 battle at the British barracks site near today’s Fort England Hospital, it was purportedly Khoi hunters and Khoi/coloured recruits of the Cape Regiment who delivered the fatal blow to the Xhosa.
The historical mythology surrounding Makhanda or Nxele relates to him being considered by the Xhosa as capable of divining events – he had prior contact with whites and was particularly impressed by missionary Dr Johannes van der Kemp, a champion of the Khoi and Xhosa.
Makhanda’s attention was caught by Christian teachings regarding the resurrection of the dead. The Xhosa of the period acknowledged a supreme being, but even those influenced by the missionaries hardly embraced or comprehended central Christian teachings. Like Nongqawusa 37 years later, Makhanda gave prophecies of Xhosa dead arising and whites being swept away.
The leadership paramountcy disputes among the Xhosa had long baffled British colonial leadership determined to enforce an end to the perennial cattle-raiding and retributions from both sides. No less so than on April 2, 1817, when at the Kat River near Fort Beaufort today Governor Somerset met the prominent chief Gaika, accompanied by his rival Ndlambe, both Xhosa being reluctant to so confer. Gaika protested his incapacity to curb the cattle stealing, but Somerset insisted he would negotiate with no other chief.
Either the pressure to desist from being duplicitous, or exasperated and defeated by Somerset’s attitude, or actually confident of asserting his authority, Gaika promised to suppress cattle raids. Within this fractious situation, open to much historical speculation, Makhanda gave his loyalty to Ndlambe, influencing other disputing chiefdoms to do likewise. Makhanda was gifted with an ability to convince others he was in touch with God/the spirit world. He gained a large following and by 1816 was considered so influential the London Missionary Society weighed up establishing their station at his kraal rather than Gaika’s.
Makhanda’s supernatural claims were instrumental in 1819 regarding drawing 10 000 warriors across the competing chiefdoms to unsuccessfully storm the Grahamstown garrison – a mass attack tactic in the open the Xhosa seldom employed. Follow-up British victories ensured Makhanda’s capture and imprisonment on Robben Island; to his death by drowning in 1820 during an attempted escape. This literally months before large parties of British settlers arrived to populate the Zuurveld.
A few years prior to the battle, Lieutenant-Colonel John Graham’s name was given to the military post/future settlement; still commemorated by a sandstone monument on a traffic island in High Street, close to the cathedral. The spot apparently marks where, in June 1812, he hung his sword on a mimosa tree and selected the Grahamstown site; so reads the inscription.
By 1819, Graham was no longer present at the volatile Eastern Frontier; long before he even arrived black/white relations at their worst were violent and bitter; the fighting had a long legacy and even lengthier future. One snapshot from 1793 igniting the 2nd Frontier War was a part-drought catalyst. Increased pressure came upon pasture; Ndlambe, then east of the Fish, assisted in attacking those Zuurveld Xhosa accused of cattle theft; the Gqunukhwebe chiefdom supposedly the most prominent culprits. This colonist/Ndlambe alliance was short-lived; colonist war losses included 40 dead Khoi servants; 20 farm houses destroyed; 50-60 000 cattle, 11 000 sheep and 200 horses. Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet commandos counter-attacked but could neither subdue Ndlambe’s warriors, nor clear the Zuurveld of Xhosa.
The Boer colonists retreated and by 1798 only a third returned to the Zuurveld; a repeated pattern that was presented to the British occupation rulers in 1795-1803 and from 1806. In 1801-02 another wave of violence broke out, Xhosa and Khoi groupings attacked the Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet districts, destroying 450 farms with stock captures markedly higher than 1793. The authorities were only able to restore a grudging peace because of a collapse in the Khoi/ Xhosa alliance over the spoils’ distribution, plus resented agreements that captured stock need not be returned.
By 1809, Ndlambe had defeated Gaika in battle, but was still not paramount over all Zuurveld chiefdoms; Xhosa groupings proliferated even further westwards as far to present-day Cradock.
By 1811, colonists were even abandoning the Graaff-Reinet and Uitenhage districts as roving Xhosa were condemned as “begging” – according to colonist reports, a cover for stealing. Ben Maclennan’s 1986 publication, A Proper
Degree of Terror, emphatically denies this; insisting “begging” was Xhosa custom; a hospitality expectation reciprocated to any travelling stranger. Graham has long had few friends among contemporary historians: Giliomee, who strongly emphasises the imperativeness of historical context consideration when assessing past controversies, and applying such to the Boers, condemns Graham unequivocally, repeating his attributed remark that the Xhosa were simply “horrid savages” (Giliomee), stressing they had been labourers and trading partners besides periodic enemies; that Graham was unjust and unrealistic in ordering the pursuit of Xhosa cattle plundering parties to their settlements, where every man would be “destroyed”, to inspire within them a “proper degree of terror and respect” – Governor Cradock’s words.
But undeniably it was the fierce colonist criticism of the British that spurred Cradock to commission Graham, the new Khoi Cape Regiment commanding officer, to permanently compel all of the Xhosa across the Fish River, first by persuasion and if necessary by armed force. The “proper degree” statement was seized upon by generations of historians; not least Maclennan, who used it for his damming Graham frontier biography’s title. Thereafter repeated enough to ensure the town’s name as irrevocably unacceptable to the ANC and/or any other entity/individual leaning towards Afrocentric historical interpretations.
Just as Afrikaners remain aware that Anglo-Boer scars still run deep through certain portions of South African society, the “long war” phenomenon indisputably applies to the Xhosa; how disruptive and destructive aspects of war and collective memory still impact. Historians argue strongly that the Frontier Wars traumatised as well as materially denuded the Xhosa; that colonist and Imperial actions represented a land dispossession with even genocidal undertones. Yet this was many frontier colonists’ lot, too – enduring pillaging, violence, dislocation and ruin.
Such opened the Fourth Frontier War and besides his own men, Graham commanded other British troops and burger commandos from the Swellendam, Graaff-Reinet and George districts. With the forces approaching the Zuurveld from different directions, Landdrost Andries Stokenstroom encountered Xhosa of the Imidange and following a parley of persuasion, was speared to death along with eight Boers and a Khoi interpreter. Graham continued the wide sweep; fighting was marked by numerous skirmishes; according to the colonists, Xhosa casualties numbered in the hundreds.
The 1811-12 war had mixed results, but Cradock ordered the establishment of 14 military posts along the Fish River and 12 to the rear with smaller garrisons. Hence some town names of the Eastern Cape; headquarters were located at each end of the line: Cradock west and Grahamstown east. British Dragoons patrolled post to post accompanied by Khoi soldiers expert in the tracing of cattle footmarks. The garrisons’ role included curbing colonists breaching the Fish River boundary in search of stolen cattle; Khoi groupings also had cattle stolen and looked upon the British military for assistance and restitution.
From June 1817, for pecuniary reasons the garrison was drastically reduced; this weakening allowed an increase in stock theft with Ndlambe’s followers in the forefront and military casualties occurring during recovery. Makhanda via messengers had supposedly appealed to all western Xhosa, promising victory and threatening the wrath of the spirits against those who held back from attacking both Gaika’s people and the colonists. Some intraXhosa paramountcy disputes were temporarily eased; Gaika appealed to and received British support; but not enough to prevent his near-annihilation by Ndlambe.
The Grahamstown attack followed at sunrise on April 22; the Xhosa, numbering 9 000 to 10 000 men, launched a three-column assault against the small cluster of houses and the barracks some distance away. The troops held their positions; the Xhosa retreated, rallied, and attacked again; about 500 Xhosa bodies were counted; British casualties were three dead and five wounded (not unlike Blood River in 1838).
Makhanda’s fate hereafter was sealed; British reinforcements including additional Khoi troops arrived followed by burger commandos. As Theal puts it: they scoured the jungles along the Fish River, drove the hostile clans (chiefdoms) eastward with heavy loss, and followed them to the banks of the Kei; Ndlambe’s power was broken.
Makhanda’s legacy lived on. Xhosa so influenced refused to acknowledge his death, believing him immortal. Only in 1873 were his carefully preserved mats and ornaments finally buried. But later disillusionment over Makhanda’s legend produced a Xhosa proverb – Kukuza kuka
Nxeke – the coming of Nxele – you are looking for someone you will never see.
The past bears down heavily upon the present: Makhanda’s defeat, Robben Island incarceration and drowning death; his 2019 resurrection; juxtaposed against Mandela’s more than a century and a half of imprisonment and liberation, with his triumph of magnanimity which draws the blessings of even the most conservative whites. For the Xhosa, the renaming of Grahamstown might be succour to the humiliations of historic black military defeat; the loss of communal land. Or is it just the contrived triumphalism of an historically failed mystic?
For many whites, no doubt, the Eastern Frontier history prompts a fearful resonance of farm attacks and urban crime; for some perhaps coupled to the loss of a familiar place name associated with school and university nostalgia, the disappearance of an identity point within a heritage seldom reflected upon.