10 Mapping the way forward: Thomas Baines on expedition to the coronation of Cetshwayo kaMpande, Zululand, 1873 Lindy Stiebel Knowledge about the life and work of artist-explorer John Thomas Baines (1820–75) has become well established in academic circles since J. P. R. Wallis, in 1941, focused a spotlight on Baines’ oeuvre and career.1 Later biographies have added fresh dimensions to Baines scholarship, establishing him as a remarkably talented and versatile artist, explorer, cartographer, and journal writer.2 Given the volume of attention paid to Baines over the years, it is surprising that there still remains material awaiting discovery. This has nonetheless proved true of Baines’ final expedition – a ‘last hurrah’3 – when, in 1873, he offered himself as a ‘Special Correspondent’ to accompany the retinue of Theophilus Shepstone (1817–93), then the powerful Secretary for Native Affairs in Natal, on an expedition into Zululand to crown Cetshwayo kaMpande, the new incumbent on the Zulu throne. Baines’ life had, by then, almost reached its end: he died in May 1875 in Durban at the age of 55. The purpose of this chapter is both to look more closely at Baines on his last expedition as a writer and mapper of settler interests, and to assess the geo-political significance of the unexplored maps and other material discov- ered upon investigation. Briefly to situate Baines and the Zululand expedition: by the year 1873 Baines had travelled extensively throughout much of southern Africa and far beyond. Born in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, he came to the Cape Colony as a young man and spent more than a decade in South Africa (1842–53). There- after, he joined an expedition to explore North Australia (1856–57), then linked up with David Livingstone and traversed part of the Zambezi River from the African east coast (1858–59). This was followed by two years (1862–63) in what is now Namibia, and a few years later, from 1869 to 1872, Baines was employed by a gold-prospecting company in what is now Botswana and Zimbabwe. Although these expeditions were highly produc- tive in terms of art, journal-recording, and, not least, personal adventure Lindy Stiebel - 9781526152893 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/01/2021 11:02:16AM via free access 216 Acculturation/Transculturation and experience, not all ended well for Baines. His involvement in the South African Gold Fields Exploration Company in 1869 exposed his lack of busi- ness acumen and nearly bankrupted him. Moreover, in joining this prospect- ing company, he became an active agent of settler expansion. In his association with the South African Gold Fields Exploration Company, a subsidiary of the Natal Land and Colonisation Company, Baines became an emissary for the colony of Natal. The leitmotif of Baines’ life from 1871 to its end in 1875 was his attempt to re-float the company, pay off his debts, and restore his reputation. It was in this light that Baines volunteered to accompany Shepstone on an expedition into Zululand to crown Cetshwayo as Zulu king in 1873. Some historians have described the event as ‘a caricature of a “coronation” cere- mony’.4 But in his biography of Shepstone, Jeff Guy reminds us that behind the ceremonies and posturing were very real considerations of power and position.5 Charles Ballard summarises the proceedings as follows: ‘The events surrounding Cetshwayo’s coronation mark a watershed in Anglo- Zulu political and economic relationships.’6 When Mpande died peacefully towards the end of 1872 and his death was made known early the following year, Shepstone and Cetshwayo, Mpande’s son, each contemplated a move that would advance their cause. For his part, Cetshwayo – on the advice of John Dunn and the senior Zulu chiefs – sought the support of Natal for his accession to the throne and sent a delegation to Pietermaritzburg in late February 1873 to solicit it. Formal recognition by the colony was to Cetsh- wayo’s advantage in dealing with rivalry from his royal siblings, acknowl- edging his right to the throne, avoiding another civil war, and in gaining help in dealing with the encroaching Boers. For Shepstone, the advantages of ‘crowning’ Cetshwayo would give him (Shepstone) prestige, power over the king as ‘kingmaker’, and in addition – he hoped – promote unity within the Zulu kingdom, which bordered on the colony of Natal. Moreover, and sig- nificantly, by supporting Cetshwayo, Shepstone might secure African labour from the disputed territory or from the Mozambique region. This would assist Natal’s expansion and placate settler grievances against the continu- ing independence of the Zulu kingdom that lay across the Thukela River. Amid fears of treachery on both sides, on 8 August 1873 the impressive coronation pageant with Shepstone at its head crossed the Thukela River into Zululand. His Natal Volunteer Corps incorporated detachments of the Natal Carbineers, the Richard Rifles, the Weenen Yeomanry Cavalry, the Alexandra Mounted Rifles, the Victoria Mounted Rifles (VMR), and the Durban Volunteer Artillery with two field guns. Some 300 African levies brought up the rear. A ‘willing agent in Shepstone’s schemes’, Baines attached himself to the volunteer corps, an unwitting pawn in a game with important later consequences.7 It was a chance for a break from the depressing task of Lindy Stiebel - 9781526152893 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/01/2021 11:02:16AM via free access Mapping the way forward 217 fundraising, as well as a chance to experience new landscapes and commu- nities, and to depict them in word and image. Baines maintained a detailed journal which found immediate publication in the Natal Mercury (est. 1852), for which he was Special Correspondent. In addition, Baines drew and compiled an important, and little known, map of Zululand at this time. Mapping the way Though the emphasis on Baines’ output is generally on the drawings and paintings of his travels and adventures, in recent years scholars have paid increasing attention to Baines’ manuscript and printed maps. Starting their work in the late 1990s, a combined South African/Australian research team published their first work on Baines-as-cartographer in a ground-breaking format: the CD Thomas Baines and the Great Map (2001), which gathers together a digitised and hyperlinked version of the 1872 manuscript map Baines drew of the route the Gold Fields expedition took to Matabeleland, some of the paintings from that expedition, and academic commentary.8 This was followed by a second group project concerning Baines, this time focusing on the map he drew of the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria as part of Augus- tus Gregory’s 1855 expedition to North Australia. The book, entitled Thomas Baines: Exploring Tropical Australia (2012), included chapters analysing the map and expedition from various points of view: historical, political, carto- graphical, discursive (given its dense annotation), and artistic.9 Of course, other researchers have written about Baines from this perspec- tive – Jeffrey Stone most notably10 – but finding his maps has not always been straightforward given Baines’ peripatetic life on expeditions in far- flung lands.11 Some, because funded by a body such as the Royal Geograph- ical Society (RGS), were easier to locate. For example, Baines’ sketchbooks and numerous paintings, plus a manuscript map from the Gregory expedi- tion to Australia mentioned above, are to be found in the Map Room at the RGS London headquarters. When it came to finding the map discussed in this chapter, the route was less obvious as the coronation expedition had not been funded by the RGS. While Wallis wrote that one of the attractions for Baines in joining the coronation expedition to Zululand in 1873 was that ‘mapping an uncharted route was a potent lure’ for him,12 and Stone men- tioned the existence of ‘extant manuscript cartography by Baines in the RGS Map Room, dated 1873 and the first half of 1874’,13 no particular map of the route had been analysed in any detail or reproduced in any of the biog- raphies of Baines. That such a map existed was clear: Baines recorded draw- ing the route taken by Shepstone in his daily journal, quizzing locals as to correct place names and giving copies of the map to helpful informants like Lindy Stiebel - 9781526152893 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/01/2021 11:02:16AM via free access 218 Acculturation/Transculturation Mr Robertson, the missionary, and, most importantly, a sketch to William Emery (‘Em’) Robarts (1847–1903), a surveyor by profession and a member of the VMR, one of the volunteer corps accompanying Shepstone. Robarts had asked Baines to make a sketch of the VMR escort while they sat in a tent on the banks of the Thukela River. In a letter to his wife, Liz (nee Povall), dated 5 July 1873 (but subsequently corrected by his grandson also named William Emery (‘Bill’) Robarts [1921–2002], the family archivist, to the month of August), Em wrote: Mr Baines the traveller and artist is with us in his professional capacity. Well last night I spent a very pleasant evening with him & Capt Drake in his tent – songs and jokes – and I then asked him to make a sketch of our tent with all hands sitting round inside, with the breakfast things all used after as we had done – of course the likenesses are not accurate but as a sketch it is very good. We intend to have it photographed when we get back – I keep the sketch and will of course shew it to you. We will have it framed and keep it as a momento [sic] of the trip.14 The black-and-white photograph alluded to above has been reproduced in various places but a recent meeting with the Robarts family on their farm in Zululand revealed both the sketch and a section of a map drawn by Baines of the expedition’s route.