THE RETURN OF MAKHANDA i Thinking Africa is a series produced by the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University and University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. For more information on the project, visit http://www.ru.ac.za/politics/thinkingafrica/ or write to: Leonhard Praeg: Series Editor Thinking Africa Political and International Studies Rhodes University Private Bag 94 Grahamstown 6139 South Africa ii THE RETURN OF MAKHANDA Exploring the legend Julia C. Wells iii Published in 2012 by University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Private Bag X01 Scottsville, 3209 South Africa Email: [email protected] Website: www.ukznpress.co.za © 2012 Julia C. Wells All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from University of KwaZulu- Natal Press. ISBN: 978-1-86914-238-4 Managing editor: Sally Hines Editor: Christopher Merrett Typesetter: Patricia Comrie Proofreader: Alison Lockhart Indexer: Ethné Clarke Cover design: MDesign Cover artwork: ‘The Wall of Plenty’ by Egazini Outreach Project The Wall of Plenty at the Egazini Outreach Project, Grahamstown, is a colaborative effort of the project’s artists, invoking the memory of how life was before the wars. Printed and bound in South Africa by Ultra Litho (Pty) Limited iv C O N T E N T S Acknowledgements viii List of maps and illustrations x List of abbreviations xi Introduction: Discovering applied history 1 1 Searching for Makhanda 20 2 The demonisation of Makhanda 46 3 The long struggle for the Zuurveld 75 4 The love-hate relationship of Ndlambe and Ngqika 101 5 The poisoned wedge 125 6 Imfazwe ka Makhanda – the war of Makhanda 154 7 The pain of conquest 184 8 Escape from Robben Island 215 Conclusion: The legend embraced 240 Select bibliography 261 Index 271 v vi This book is dedicated to Chief Zwelihlangene Makinana, whose passion and enthusiasm for understanding the past always provided the impetus to keep the search moving. vii A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S s is made clear in the Introduction, this book would not have come about if it A were not for the massive amount of interest shown by a wide variety of people in the quest to find the historic Makhanda. These include all the artists who formed the Egazini Outreach Project, the amaNdlambe Traditional Council, the Rharhabe kingdom and the many people associated with the Makana Municipality and its Makana Freedom Festival over the years. It was Gugile Nkwinti who first pointed out in 2000 that revisiting this story brought about the decolonisation of minds. The financial support of the Rhodes University Research Committee made it possible to travel extensively around the Eastern Cape, repeatedly to the National Archives in Cape Town and once to the National Archives in London. It also ensured that all necessary support was available in the form of research assistants, interpreters and translators of text written in Dutch or isiXhosa. My many colleagues in the African Languages Department of the Rhodes University School of Languages have been untiring in answering questions and offering clarity on a wide range of issues. I am particularly honoured to have been given the privilege of interacting with many of the traditional leaders of the Xhosa people. These include several of the Ndlambe, Rharhabe and Gcaleka chiefs: their own clear pride in their history and their long encounters with the British stand as pillars around which this volume is constructed. To Mda Mda, I owe a huge debt of gratitude for his clarity on the tendencies towards unification and co-operation within Xhosa traditional leadership. The fact that these qualities still operate so powerfully today confirm the wisdom in this perspective. Indeed, history shows that while the rest of the nations of southern Africa were going through a period of reconfiguration and consolidation into new kingdoms in the early decades of the nineteenth century, the amaXhosa were far less violently consolidating their continuity in leadership. Thami Tisani’s doctoral thesis on early Xhosa writing about their own history provided the missing link in understanding how two quite opposite traditions arose viii around the memory of the name of Makhanda. Her insights, clarity and friendship are greatly appreciated. Finally, I must thank those personal friends and family members who always kept alive the interest in seeing this book move to completion. Though many could be named, those who have been most persistent are Zwelihlangeni Makinana, Mthuthuzeli Makinana, Jacklyn Cock, Brian Sandberg, Angie Thomson, Nomhle Gaga, Lynn Pederson and my mother, Virginia Wells. For what I have learned along the way, I am truly grateful, especially to all those who played a part in teaching me so many important lessons. My own journey with this study has led me to challenge virtually everything I ever knew about or did as an academic historian. It grew out of a conviction that surely there must be ways to ensure that historical research is made relevant. ix M A P S A N D I L L U S T R A T I O N S Maps The Zuurveld, 1811–19 p. 77 Xhosa invasions of the Zuurveld, January–April 1819 p. 156 Transport routes of colonial forces, 1819 p. 185 Declaration of a state of emergency: movement of colonial forces, February– June 1819 p. 189 Colonial invasion of Xhosa territory, July–August 1819 p. 190 Illustrations Sketch of Ntsikana made by Elizabeth Williams p. 47 Painting by Frederick Timpson I’Ons, Nxele (Makana) p. 50 Makana, produced for Dakawa Arts and Craft Project, Grahamstown p. 53 x A B B R E V I A T I O N S ATC AmaNdlambe Traditional Council CA South African National Archives, Cape Town CL Cory Library, Grahamstown LMS London Missionary Society MAPPP-SETA Media, Advertising, Publishing, Printing, Packaging – Sector Education Training Authority NA British National Archives, London SAHRA South African Heritage Resources Agency UCT University of Cape Town USAID United States Agency for International Development xi xii INTRODUCTION I N T R O D U C T I O N Discovering applied history hy should anyone write a book about Makhanda and his role in the battle Wat Grahamstown? To date, historians have given it at most two chapters in their comprehensive histories of the Eastern Cape and its indigenous Xhosa inhabitants.1 That has always felt like enough. It is told as a sad tale of the warrior- prophet Makhanda futilely leading ten thousand Xhosa soldiers in a disastrous assault on British army headquarters in Grahamstown on 22 April 1819.2 The moral of the story is generally about the inability to mount effective military action based on religious motivations, as preached by Makhanda to rally his forces; with a secondary message about the suicidal price paid for divisions within the Xhosa nation at that time. Admittedly, the numbers involved were rather large for those days. But mostly it is treated as an event that was a little peculiar, or perhaps embarrassing. In 1993, soon after I arrived in Grahamstown and started teaching in the History Department at Rhodes University, I asked a local black student what he knew and thought about the ‘Battle of Grahamstown’. He answered that Makhanda was a fool who led thousands of innocent people to their needless deaths, a disgrace to all right-thinking people. I accepted this as an informed African view and assumed it was shared by many others. Such a story was better swept under the carpet. Who wants to be reminded of an idiot and his conned followers? With time, however, it became clear that two quite different views on the great battle at Grahamstown co-existed in its local black community. There were those who thought it was awesome and amazing as well as those who thought it was a frivolous waste of human life. For some, Makhanda was the heroic prototype of the modern freedom fighter; to others he was an embarrassing fool. And then, just as the twenty-first century dawned, something like a revival of the heroic view of Makhanda began to build momentum. As it grew, the tragic Makhanda came increasingly to be associated with the inherited colonial textbook version of history, while the heroic Makhanda represented a long-suppressed popular view. This growing differentiation only became clear through a wide range of heritage-related activities, in some of which I was directly involved. My engagement 1 THE RETURN OF MAKHANDA with these activities triggered the interest, which resulted in an extended research project. The point of the project became something more than just filling in some gaps in the existing body of historical information. Within this task lies a somewhat different kind of quest. It represents a creative exploration into the relationship between a dramatic historical event and the community from which it comes. It arises from the question of how historical knowledge is produced and what its purpose is, particularly in the context of a developing country like South Africa. Unlike the more conventional forms of history writing, it did not originate in a review of existing sources and then the production of a theory on how to revise that knowledge. Instead, it started with my involvement in a variety of community- based history projects that exposed a strong divergence in views between what people on the ground think and feel about their past and what the books say. Such initiatives fall under the broad label of applied history, providing an alternative methodology, point and purpose for producing historical knowledge.