THE EXPERIENCE OF SOLDIERS IN SOUTH AFRICA CHAPTER TWO
“VALUABLE, GALLANT AND FAITHFUL ASSISTANTS”: THE FINGO OR MFENGU AS COLONIAL MILITARY ALLIES DURING THE CAPEXHOSA WARS, 18351881
Tim Stapleton
Most colonial armies operating in Africa during the nineteenth century employed large numbers of African allies. Examples from Southern Africa include the British use of Swazi mercenaries to overwhelm the Pedi in 1879, the Natal Native Contingent during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, and Cecil Rhodes’ “Cape Boys,” who fought to establish Southern Rhodesia in the 1890s.1 Perhaps no single African group became as important to colonial military success or fought alongside the British as long as the Fingo (or Mfengu) of the Eastern Cape. From 1835 to 1881, the Fingo played a progressively more central role in the gradual eastward advance of the Cape Colony and the establishment of colonial rule. Although the Fingo are mentioned in every history of the Cape- Xhosa Wars, there are few narratives that concentrate on their military signifi cance.2 One exception is a chapter by historian Richard Moyer, written in the early 1970s, that stresses the role of the Fingo as a buf- fer between settlers and Xhosa in the 1840s and 1850s and the Fingo acquisition of fi rearms but does not go into much detail on their battle- fi eld contribution. Th e piece also skims over Fingo participation in the
1 For example, see Peter Delius, Th e Land Belongs to Us: Th e Pedie Polity, the Boers and the British in the Nineteenth Century Transvaal (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), and P. S. Th ompson, Black Soldiers of the Queen: Th e Natal Native Contingent in the Anglo-Zulu War, 1879 (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1997). 2 For example, see John S. Galbraith, Reluctant Empire: British Policy on the South African Frontier 1834–54 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963); A. J. Smithers, Th e Kaffi r Wars 1779–1877 (London: Leo Cooper, 1973); John Milton, Th e Edges of War: A History of Frontier Wars (1702–1878) (Cape Town: Juta, 1983); J. B. Peires, Th e House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of their Independence (Cape Town: Ravan Press, 1987); Noel Mostert, Frontiers: Th e Epic of South Africa’s Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992); and, Timothy J. Stapleton, Maqoma: Xhosa Resistance to Colonial Advance 1798–1873 (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1994).