Rectifying the ‘false' colonial narrative of Nongqawuse and the cattle culling of 1856

Daily Maverick

2 days ago

My book, Triangle of One Hundred Years Wars, provides a compelling African perspective which unravels the forgotten history of the Eastern Cape. It interrogates the longest unparalleled wars of resistance in Africa which used to be defined as Frontier Wars; unravels the false colonial narrative of Nongqawuse as the facade of the biological weapon of mass cattle decimation of AmaXhosa, and is a critical examination of the distorted narrative in the South African secondary schools history textbooks.
For purposes of this exercise the focus is on the narrative of Nongqawuse examined in the context of the wars fought by AmaXhosa to resist the Dutch and the British encroachment in South Africa from 1779 until 1879. The book is anchored on the assertion that AmaXhosa killed their cattle in order to arrest the spread of the European cattle lung sickness known as epizootic (C.B Andreas, 2005, The Spread and Impact of the Lung sickness Epizootic of 1853-57) in the Cape colony and the Xhosa Chiefdoms).
The construction of the Nongqawuse narrative was a cover-up in order to hide the historical fact that the resistance of AmaXhosa was broken by decimating their productive capabilities through what one defined as the continuation of the war through the introduction of the highly contagious and lethal European cattle lung sickness.
Why was it necessary to resort to the biological weapon of cattle destruction? One may recall that the royal leaders of AmaXhosa, such as Prince Chungwa of AmaGqunukhwebe, Prince Langa of AmaMbalu, Prince Ndlambe and Prince Mdushane of AmaRharhabe, fought five wars against the Dutch and the British settlers from 1779 until 1819. The wars were fought in what was known as the Zuurveld between the Gamtoos and Fish rivers.
In the first three wars, between 1779 and 1803, the Dutch failed to dislodge AmaXhosa in the coveted Zuurveld region. In the fourth war of 1811-1812 AmaXhosa retreated from the Zuurveld after the British-led army resorted to ethnic cleansing by killing women and children. In the fifth war of 1819, AmaXhosa were crushed by the British artillery in the Battle of Grahamstown, which is still celebrated annually in South Africa.
The rise of the highly courageous sons of King Ngqika, such as Maqoma, Tyali, Anta, Xhoxho, Mathwa and Sandile, became a game-changer in the wars of resistance. The bone-crushing confrontation between Prince Maqoma Ah! Jongumsobomvu and Major General Harry Smith, the Duke of Wellington, in 1835 marked the first defeat of the British army in Africa. Smith and the governor, Sir Benjamin Durban, were fired. The Dutch settlers embarked on the Great Trek after they suffered heavy losses in the war.
In 1846, the region witnessed the spectacle of a convoy of 125 wagons loaded with ammunition and supplies led by the revered Major General John Hare, a Knight of Hanover, in the invasion of Keiskammahoek in order to dislodge AmaXhosa from the fortress of the Mathole mountains. AmaXhosa were led by the young unassuming King Sandile Ah! Mgolombane.
While the British army was navigating its way to the designated military base near Mkhubiso village, Sandile launched a surprise and ruthless ambush. The overwhelming power of the pulverising onslaught dismantled the core of the British army. Noel Mostert, in his book Frontiers, defined it as the worst humiliating defeat of the British army in Africa. Hare resigned and later succumbed to a heart attack. He was buried on the Island of St Helena.
On 24 December 1950, the AmaXhosa regiments and the British army locked horns in what became the longest war of resistance in Africa. It was an agonising encounter. The British named Mthontsi, Mount Misery because of the worst unbearable suffering in the history of the wars of resistance. The huge losses on the battlefield led to the recall of Harry Smith and Henry Sommerset. They were replaced by Colonel Fordyce who was later killed on Mount Misery. The collapse of the government of Prime Minister John Russell in Britain in 1852 was attributed to the war.
The three consecutive defeats of the British army in 1835, 1846 and 1850-1853 raised questions about whether the army had the capabilities to counterbalance the sting of the relentless resistance of AmaXhosa. In the three defeats the British commanders were outsmarted and outmanoeuvred by the highly gifted sons of King Ngqika.
The fact that the firepower of the British artillery was rendered obsolete by the brilliant execution of the surprise, simultaneous attacks remained a source of frustration. The unprecedented collective resolve displayed by AmaXhosa supported by Nkosi Mapasa of AbaThembu and Nkosi Ngxukumeshe Matroos of the Khoi-San in the War of Mlanjeni, drew a line in the sand.
In essence the continued, rapid ascendancy of AmaXhosa on the battlefields through their highly innovative military strategies and the ability to sustain wars meant that an alternative strategy had to be devised to attain the colonial conquest of South Africa. The arrival of Sir George Grey in the Cape colony in 1854 – the first civilian governor since the second British occupation of the Cape in 1806 – signalled a major shift from the application of military action as an instrument of conquest of AmaXhosa. Hence AmaXhosa started experiencing an alien European cattle lung sickness at the beginning of 1855.
In 1856, AmaXhosa resorted to cattle culling to arrest the rapid spread of the disease. They continued doing so until 1857. Interestingly, Professor Jeff Peires, in his book The Dead Will Arise, acknowledged the correlation between the rapid spread of the cattle lung sickness and the cattle culling implemented by AmaXhosa. On the same note, the colonial narrative that AmaXhosa killed their cattle in response to the prophecy of Nongqawuse claimed that it occurred in 1856 and 1857. The deliberate omission of the effects of the catastrophic calamity of the cattle lung sickness which occurred in the same period was meant to drive a particular narrative in perpetuation of the colonial interest to the detriment of AmaXhosa.
In retrospect, the false colonial narrative of Nongqawuse created deep-seated psychological scars of shame, self-hatred and a mental inferiority complex. To a certain extent the Nongqawuse narrative contributed to the creation of a permanent state of psychological self-induced surrender and submission. The false narrative of distorted history continues to manifest itself through self-destructive tendencies such as a consumer mentality and the death of Ubuntu.
In conclusion, one of the contributions of the Triangle of One Hundred Years Wars is the rectification of the continued perpetuation of distorted history. The book attempts to create possibilities of critical interrogation and the deeper understanding of our history, hence it unearthed the brilliant contributions of AmaXhosa in the longest, unparalleled wars of resistance in Africa. DM