Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
Dick King’s extraordinary ride
In 1842, Dick King carved a niche for himself in history when he rode for 10 days on horseback from Port Natal to Grahamstown to find help for a British force besieged by the Voortrekkers. By
At midnight on 24 May 1842, trader, farmer and big game hunter Dick King and his 16-year-old employee, Ndongeni ka Xoki, were rowed across the bay at Port Natal. Their horses, urged on by their masters, who clutched the reins, swam behind the small rowing boat. Once on dry land, the two men evaded the Voortrekkers and began a near 1 000km trip that would change the course of South African history.
PORT NATAL
King arrived in South Africa as an 1820 British settler at the Cape’s Eastern Frontier, but eventually moved to what was then Port Natal, where European traders had first settled in 1824. It was here that he thrived in an area that saw the intersecting worlds of the Zulu, the Voortrekker and the British.
After defeating the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River in late 1838, the Voortrekkers established the Republic of Natalia with their capital at Pietermaritzburg. From here, they looked in envy towards Port Natal, which would have given them access to the outside world. They knew all too well, however, that the British considered this naval asset to be in their sphere of influence, as they had built Fort Victoria at Port Natal in 1838, although never manning it permanently.
In the early 1840s, Voortrekker raids south of the Umtamvuna River, which todays forms a border between KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, prompted the Mpondo people to request British support. Sir George Napier, the governor of the Cape at the time, responded by sending a British force to the mouth of the nearby Umngazi River to observe the situation.
At the same time, however, an increasing number of international ships (most recently Dutch) were beginning to frequent Port Natal, and the British began to worry that they might lose access to the harbour. They therefore ordered the force at Umngazi to march overland and take control of Port Natal.
About 260 soldiers, mostly infantry, left Umngazi on 1 April 1842 and arrived a month later in Port Natal, where they set up camp 800m inland from Fort Victoria.
The Voortrekkers, highly annoyed at the new British military presence in Natal, began congregating at the nearby village of Congella, and soon outnumbered the British two to one.
Negotiations proved pointless, and the Voortrekkers seized hundreds of British cattle, depriving them of their main food source.
THE SIEGE
The Voortrekkers, realising that the British would be dependent on the meagre supplies from the anchored brig Pilot and the schooner Mazeppa, now laid siege to the encampment.
Realising the seriousness of their situation, the British undertook a daring pre-emptive strike on Congella on the night of 23 May. The attack degenerated into a fiasco, however, and they were forced to retreat, eventually losing 17 men to accurate Voortrekker fire.
After this, the Voortrekkers intensified the siege and even made sure the two vessels in the bay were unable to escape. Having no other choice, the British turned to Dick King to find a relief force.
THE RIDE
Initially, King and Ndongeni travelled only by night, but by the time they crossed the Umzimkulu River, they believed they had no more reason to fear detection by the Voortrekkers. Once across the Umtamvuna River, they headed inland to follow a chain of mission stations stretching to the Cape Colony. But at the Methodist mission of Buntingville, near presentday Mthatha, Ndongeni, who was riding without a saddle, had developed chronic chafe and opted to walk back to Natal.
King continued as fast as he could (although he rested for two days after falling ill), eventually crossing the Great Fish River at Trompetter’s Drift less than 60km from Grahamstown.
On 4 June, King arrived in Grahamstown and alerted the British to the dire situation at Port Natal. The response was swift, and it was with intense relief that the besieged men saw the British ship Conch arrive on 24 June, carrying troops from the 27th Regiment. She was followed on 25 June by the HMS Southampton, which had troops from the 25th Regiment. Landing under naval covering fire, the troops lifted the siege.
The British formally annexed Natal in 1843, thereby changing its historical trajectory, as the Voortrekkers were forced to recross the Drakensberg and establish republics in the Free State and the Transvaal. By the 1880s, the British had defeated the Zulus in Natal.
• Sources: Couzens, T. 2013. South African Battles. Jonathan Ball Publishers, Johannesburg and Cape Town; Burman, J. 1993. To Horse and Away. Human & Rousseau, Cape Town and Johannesburg; webcms.uct.ac.za › images › fhya library; Dick King: A Modest Hero – The Natal Society Foundation. Retrieved from bit.ly/3Bm7hl6; Review of Mlamulankunzi: The Life and Times of Dick King. Retrieved from bit.ly/3gMZaV1.