History of South Africa podcast

This is episode 196 and we’re covering the movement towards sef-government and the first Cape Constitution which included what’s known as a qualified Franchise. A trend had been sweeping British colonies by the mid-nineteenth century where the coming commonwealth was intent on running its own affairs on a country-by-country basis. The first self-governing colony of the British Empire you could say was Massachussett’s in 1630 showing how long the Americans had been tugging at the British leash before they began their war of independence. But to be strictly accurate it was really the Province of Canada in 1841, and all colonies of British North America became self governing between 1848 and 1855 — except Vancouver Island. Australia was a bit more complex, there were six settler colonies which each achieved self-governing status over quite a long period, between 1852 and 1901. Well Seven if you include New Zealand, sorry Kiwis, the English system kind of lumped Australasia together. There had been a tension growing between the mother-country with it’s erratic political system, and the colonies. The plethora of politics that blew back and forth on the headlands of the British voter was head spinning - but by 1850 the British bureaucracy began to gain prominance and in the halls of power, it was whispered that public jobs were going to be based on merit rather than patronage. As this liberalisation of the system back home began to shake the dusty and cobweb strewn hallways of ancient Britain, the philosophy drifted outwards, like an informed mist, towards the distant colonies. The problem for the colonists was the liberals wanted black people to have rights, the conservatives vacillated. Settlers almost to a man preferred indigenous people of the colonised territories to avail themselves as labour without recourse to the same rights as themselves. You’ll remember last episode we met new Cape Attorney General William Porter, an Irish democrat who wanted to extend the rights afforded white colonists to all who lived in the Cape. He arrived in Cape Town in 1839 and was acutely aware of the changing winds back home when it came to bureaucracy. Confounding a quick solution to the debate about who should be allowed to vote was the fact that officials in the Cape couldn’t get along. Chief Justice Wylde wanted to have a seat on the proposed lower house of a new Cape Legislature, even though he was a technocrat. Porter himself hankered after a seat in the House of Assembly proposed as Attorney General that officials should be allowed to stand for election without being held responsible to Parliament for their official acts. Everyone agreed however that the concept of a franchise system was important, and the franchise must be low enough so that everyone had a shot of being allowed to vote. Disallowing coloureds the vote had been the major reason at least two Colonial Secretaries had delayed self-government in South Africa. This was known as the Cape Qualified Franchise. What we must keep in mind is that the ideology of utilitarianism mixed with evangelicalism was characteristic of the new order. However, it was tempered by fear. There were two factions debating this in 1850 through to 1853. One faction sought a narrowly based electorate to be achieved by high property qualification, and the other a widely based electorate to be achieved by a low property qualification. Speaking of the war, it was about to come to an end. Burned itself out so to speak. When Lieutenant Colonel Cathcart had arrived in the Eastern Cape, his initial strategy of ending the war was to do what other British commanders had done, start building fortified posts.

A quick note to the SA Podcaster’s Guild, thank you for the History podcast of the year silver award — I shared the honour with the 30 Years of Democracy Podcast, part of the TimesLive stable. It’s heart warming to receive some sort of recognition, and thanks mainly to you the listener. With that it’s back to episode 195 and we’re swinging back to the east, to Zululand, where Chief Mpande kaSenzangakhona of the AmaZulu has not been idle for the last two years. When we last heard about Mpande, after a few years of relative quiet once he took over from Dinging as king of the AmaZulu, he began to plot against the Swazi in late 1840s. As he planned and plotted, in the British outpost called Natal, this territory that abounded Durban, two men had arrived who were to alter South African history. Theophilus Shepstone and Hans Schreuder. More about them in a moment. Mpande thought of Eswatini, Swaziland, as a source of treasure, booty, and a future place of refuge for his people just in case the Boers or the British should advance further into Zululand. The good relations between the Boers and the Swazi, at least running up to the mid-19th Century, meant that Mpande was forced to hold off most of his plans to invade King Mswati’s land. It was also along a corridor coveted by not only the AmaZulu and the Swazi, but also by the boers. So his first aim was north west, towards smaller kingdoms where the booty was thinner on the ground, not exactly a plethora of cows, rather a smattering but better than nix. The amaHlubi bore the brunt of Mpande’s expansionist aims when he attacked Langalibalele kaMthimkulu who had told his people that from now on, it was he and not Mpande who would control the function of rainmaking. Mpande disagreed. The disputes going on Swazi territory gave the AmaZulu king an opportunity to interfere. If you remember a previous podcast, I’d explained that after Mswati was declared the new young king of the amaSwazi, the senior regent Malambule tried to cling onto power — and was backed in his clinging by Mpande. Enter stage left, a missionary who was on a mission. Enter stage right, a second missionary on another mission. Cast member number one, stage left, Theophilus Shepstone, or Somtseu as the Zulu called him. The other, stage right, was lesser known Norwegian Missionary Society’s Hans Schreuder. The latter was well over six feet tall, a powerful man, with a powerful temper. He may have been a bible-wielding man of God, but that didn’t stop the Viking blood pumping him up when he was crossed. Schreuder would establish 7 mission stations across Zululand and was going to be extremely useful as Mpande’s diplomat. Shepstone’s role in our story is a complex combination of missionary, Zulu-phile, Anglophone civiliser in chief — a vast figure in our tale. He would suffer many a baleful settler glare, the colonists believed his pro-Zulu politics were dangerous to their almost infinite demand for labour and land. As the Cape colonials moved towards self-government, Natal became a problem child.

This is episode 194 and we’re marching towards Thaba Bosiu with Lieutenant General George Cathcart. Or sitting on horseback among King Moshoeshoe’s Basotho warriors, armed with a musket. Take your pick. We’re going to hear about the Battle of Berea, and the outcome would underline the Basotho mastery of their land, leading to Lesotho’s independence. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, first things first. AS you heard last episode, soldiers from various regiments in the British army and the Cape Mounted Rifles totalling 2500 troops were invading Moshoeshoes’ kingdom. The British were trying to secure the northern parts of the Cape Colony and believed that by crushing Moshoeshoe, the TransOrangia would be rid of raiding and chaos. The fact that a whole range of people were raiding and causing chaos seemed to have escaped the attention of Cathcart and his commanders. As you know, there was a long list of these renegades. But because Moshoeshoe was the most organised African leader in the territory, it stood to reason that it must be his people causing the trouble. The Basotho’s main opponent weren’t the Boers under Pretorius or the Rolong under Maroka or the Griqua, no they weren’t the Bastaards under Pieter Davids and Carolus Batjoe, or even the Kora Bandits under Gert Taaibosch. No, the Basotho regarded Sekonyela’s Batlokwa as their main opposition in the area. And it was Sekonyela’s complaints to the British about Moshoeshoe that set off this recent marching business. Sure, there’s no debate about whether or not Moshoeshoe and his allies had been carting off Boer stock, raiding when they could, this was true. What was really going on was that Cathcart wanted to end the ongoing 8th Frontier War and thought that by hammering Moshoeshoe, a possible future conflict could be avoided and he could concentrate on the amaXhosa further south. Cathcart moved off during daylight, and it was going to take his force hours to reach their first objectives. That was more than enough time for Moshoeshoe to recover from what was a heinous break from English military tradition — no war was declared after all. The Basotho king moved fast and within an hour, his 3000 warriors were on their horses, muskets loaded. The King had also not been idle in recent years, his people had been studying and practicing how to fight a mobile army moving inside his mountain kingdom, particularly the tactics used by the British. Instead, the British commander looked around him and counted the cost. Thirty-eight British soldiers died, the most in any engagement thus far in South Africa. He had 5000 Basotho cattle, hardly a small number, and yet something to boast about. The Basotho king in turn had lost around 50 men, dozens more injured and written a letter that Cathcart could wave about - peace in our time!

First off, congratulations to Gcina Mhlophe who is DStv’s content Creator podcaster of the year — I was so happy to shortlisted and incredibly happy for her. Gcina’s African Storytelling podcast is ground breaking please look out for it on all podcast platforms. And a big shout out to all the other finalists, I was amazed at just how many people in South Africa are making a living out of creating their own content, their own stories. Things sure have changed in the media space! Back to 1852. Planet earth had seen quite a few interesting events in that year. Henry Wells and William Fargo put a few dollars together and launched Wells Fargo and Company, in Boston Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Smith And Wesson the firearms manufacturer was founded, and the Taiping Rebellion in China was gaining momentum,. The British parliament passed the New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852 which granted the colony self-government — something the settlers in South Africa had been trying to achieve for the Cape. The First Yale Harvard boat race was held in 1852, and French engineer Henri Giffard made the the inaugural airship trip taking off in Paris and flying to Trappes, Leo Tolstoy published his first book called Childhood in 1852, then a deadly tsunami triggered by an earthquake killed thousands in Banda in the Dutch East Indies, what we know as Indonesia. This is where the echoes of history could be heard more than 150 years later when one of the deadliest tsunami’s ever recorded slammed into Banda Aceh province on Boxing Day of 2004 — killing 228 000 people. Geology is a swine and geological history definitely repeats itself. There is no doubt that at some point in the future, Banda Aceh will be struck by another massive earthquake, and tsunami. In 1852, France opened the doors to the dreaded Devil’s Island penal colony made famous by Steve McQueen in the movie Papillon in 1973. And 1973 was three years before 1976, when a postulation made in 1852 was eventually proven true. Amazingly, this postulation, or problem, is at the heart of our lives today. Let me explain how an apparently obscure event that took place in October 1852 led to a host of technical developments in the 20th Century — and continues to drive innovation today - and it has a South African link. University College of London student Francis Guthrie studying under the much admired mathematician Augustus De Morgan postulated the question of proving mathematically that no more than four colours would be needed to provide separate tones to shapes that bordered each other on a map. He thought about maps a lot because he also studied botany and ended up earning a Bachelor of Arts and became a lawyer. Guthrie’s postulation almost flippant in its apparent ludicrousness, was far more complex than it sounded. Don’t roll your eyes just yet, hang in there. What appears simple eluded geniuses of maths for a century and a half. Even Minkowski who was Einstein’s mathematics instructors had a go and gave up - after dismissing previous attempts as the work of second class mathematicians. Little did the world know, but Guthrie had created a question that would revolutionise computer theory amongst other things like improving sports scheduling, sorting out mobile phone frequency allocation and is the basis of how AI works. Of course, just to add a twist in the tail, there’s a South African connection. Now back to the maps of 1852 which had just been marked with the newest independent state of the Transvaal in various colours. Next door neighbours of the Transvaal took note. One was Moshoeshoe of the Basotho. Another was Mzilikazi of the amaNdebele, and Mpande of the amaZulu. Simultaneously, a cry went up around the British Empire amongst settlers demanding self-government, New Zealand was not going to be alone in the moves towards proportional representation of some sort.