History of South Africa podcast

The Bapedi have a rich and textured history, as with most of South Africa’s past, where religion and tradition are entwined to create a consciousness of life that is attractive to the naturally curious.

Today, part of Limpopo Province bushveld contains private game parks with Bapedi and other African names — including Moya which has three meanings. It is used for wind, or breath, or the soul, roughly translated. It is something they say which cannot be seen, but can be heard. When a sick person wheezes, you know they’re alive, because you can hear their soul, it has not departed. At night, when there is stillness, and you pick up the faint sounds of someone speaking, and upon investigation you find noone, then you know it is the soul of a dead person.

Parts of your body are Moya, the lungs, blood, heart, liver, kidneys, and sex organs, your head and your hair. It is also these parts which are mostly associated with or susceptible to, disease. Your Moya is like your iris, or your fingerprint, there is noone else who has a copy of your Moya.

While humans cannot live without Moya, sometimes it can live without their seriti, your shadow and reflection but this is the supernatural representation. The Bapedi word for shadow and a reflection in water or a mirror is Moriti.

Your Seriti is created at birth, when you cast your first shadow. For extremely traditional Bapedi, it is bad manners to step on anothers shadow, or allow your shadow to fall on someone else. Traditional healers therefore won’t work at midday when the sun is directly overhead, because it is said, the spirits of the dead are sleeping.

Chief Sekhukhune of the Bapedi knew this when he built his fortress in a steep sided narrow valley south of the Olifants River at what was called his Stat.

While the British were focusing on the Zulu’s in 1879, Sekhukhune was sparring with other English authorities along the Olifants, and the towns of Lydenburg and Middelburg were reinforced. The Bapedi Chief wanted to expand his territory across the Steelpoort River and his raiding parties were bothering the Boers there. His position was further strengthened by a drought which meant British and Boer commandos could not take to the field, there wasn’t enough grass and water for their oxen and horses. The dreaded horse sickness had also broken out, further complicating the Transvaal Government’s plans.According to the blueprint for the Transvaal that had been devised by administrator Theophilos Shepstone and Cape Governor Sir Bartle Frere, the defeat of the Bapedi would be proof to the Boers of the British good faith. It would demonstrate that British rule was a blessing.

To their considerable astonishment, this act actually put the final nail in the coffin of confederation as the Cambridge History of South Africa puts it. Since the British took control of the Cape in 1805, their policy had been grounded in the belief that once the won allegiance of the Dutch and Huguenot settler population, peace and prosperity would be guaranteed.

There is something magical about mountain passes, weaving through majesty, each corner beckoning a driver like a formidable and compelling saga, muffled in mist or bright in the sunshine. Imaginations are fired and children go quiet as the ravines plunge beside the vehicle, timeless in their elegance, conquered only by the blast of dynamite or the steady chipping of picks.

There is an old Chinese saying, Yào xiàng fù, xiān xiū lù” If you want to get rich, first build a road.”

British engineers in the second half of the 19th Century recognized that they possessed an expertise that was in short supply elsewhere, and were prepared to travel abroard in large numbers in order to provide it. So it is with great fanfare and the blasting of many a bugle to announce that South Africa’s greatest road engineer was born in Graaff-Reinet.

The dramatic saga of how roads were built in South Africa is a forgotten story of plunging horses, wagons somersaulting, with dreamers armed with theodolites or sometimes, only their amazing capacity to estimate lines across tilted Cape Sandstones with their naked eyes.

Thomas Charles John Bain was one, who bequeathed the country with an impressive list of mountain passes and roads — and he made the single biggest contribution to these arteries which wind their way across the landscape.

Son of Andrew Geddes Bain, another born builder of roads, Thomas only took one month’s leave during 46 years of service at the Public Works Department. He married Johanna Hermina de Smidt in 1854. They had 13 children and enjoyed a long and happy marriage - apparently absence does make the heart grow fonderl. Just for the record, Johanna was the ninth child of Willem de Smidt, who was the Secretary of the Central Road Board. Keeping it in the family so to speak.

Hidden beneath Thomas’ stout hat and moustache, was an excellent judge of character, selecting foremen and overseers, to manage the mainly convict labour, motivating all to toil away for years inching along the side of cliffs and ledges.

Bain owned a Cape cart, a two-wheeled local invention, and he travelled between road, pass, bridge and drift construction sites that were hundreds of kilometers apart. Somehow, despite the time he spent away, he was a family man who’s favourite trick to stop a flood of youthful tears was by cutting a slice of watermelon.

Thomas and his father Andrew built 30 mountain passes and roads between them and perhaps the place where imagination leaps most is down through the tangled forest of Bloukrans Pass south of Plettenberg Bay. You can stand on the old Bain causeway, and look up at the vast marvel which is the Bloukrans Bridge famous these days for being the site of the world's highest commercial bridge bungee jump at 216 meters.

Some say Thomas Bain was a traveller who painted all those pictures, but that is a different Thomas Bain who was a gifted artist. Just to further confuse matters, Thomas Bain the road builder was also a prodigious artist. Perhaps that confusion is one reason why the engineer who was known by colleagues as the man with the theodolite eye, was to be almost forgotten for half a century. While his father Andrew was the giant of early infrastructure, Thomas went on to build 24 mountain passes, three major roads, and dozens of smaller routes.

He did all of this without modern explosives, he had no crushing or screening plants, no power drills, front-end loaders, bulldozers, graders, water tankers or cement mixes, no quarrying equipment, pile drivers and streamlined tarmac procedures. Then of course, neither did the men who did the real work.

What he had were the straining arms and muscles of convict and black labour — the other forgotten heroes of roadbuilding in the 19th Century. They have been pushed to the back of the heroes of history queue. The convict labour system formalized by John Montagu in 1844.

Cornelius Vijn had made a few bad decisions in his life as we all do at some point. Born in Holland in 1856, he made his way to Natal in 1874 where he rapidly learned both English and isiZulu. That wasn’t necessarily a bad decision. During his childhood, however, he’d suffered an accident, he was run over by a wagon — the wheel shattered his leg, it healed badly and from then on he walked with a limp.

He had lived in Natal for over 4 years before setting out from New Guelderland with six Zulu drivers and assistants, sixteen oxen, and a wagon loaded with woollen, baize and cotton blankets, picks, knives, saddles bridles and beads. Just to put his location into perspective, New Guelderland is a few kilometers north of KwaDukuza aka Stanger.

Cornelius Vijn’s destination — Zululand. This was a miscalculation because his journey began October 1879 on the eve of the Anglo-Zulu war. Tension had been rising for months, and most whites had fled the territory. Vijn was determined to go the other way. He sensed he could make some extra money without any competition from the other Natal Traders.

Vijn was 23 years and six months old. After being held up by rainy weather and a border check to make sure he wasn’t carrying guns, he crossed the Thukela on November 1st.

We know all of this because Cornelius’ journal was published by Bishop Colenso in 1880 — and you can find a copy online at the University of Cape Town archives.

It’s called Cetshwayo’s Dutchman, and what a fascinating read it is. His plan was to travel to meet King Cetshwayo kaMpande and sell him all the goods in the wagon in exchange for cattle.

The king had good reason to treat Vijn well, he needed someone who could function as a translator and letter writer because Cetshwayo would spend most of the coming months repeatedly sending emissaries to Lord Chelmsford, asking for negotiations.

In May, word arrived that the Boers were at Cetshwayo’s home, they were working together to defeat the English.

Later Cetshwayo was to tell Cornelius that

“No doubt the Boers are better than the English, for Mpande was setup as king by the Boers and died as King, whereas I, Cetshwayo, was crowned by the English and now my country is taken from me…” Following the British disaster at Isandlwana and the agonizingly slow progress of the second invasion of Zululand, the British government lost confidence in Lord Chelmsford’s strategic capabilities. In May 1879, Sir Garnet Wolseley was appointed as Supreme Commander in South Africa, effectively superseding Chelmsford.When word reached him deep in Zululand his reaction was one of desperate urgency rather than resignation. Knowing his reputation was on the line, Chelmsford took several decisive actions including what you may call a race for Ondini.

As the British tried to wrap up their war against the Zulu in South Africa, further afield the happy sound of a baby being born could be heard in Germany. Not just any baby.

Albert Einstein was born at 11.30 in the morning on March 14, 1879 in Ulm. His birth was not without drama; his family initially worried about his development because the back of his head was unusually large, and his grandmother feared he would have delayed development based on the sound of his cry. 

His mother Pauline was deeply concerned when Albert didn't start talking until he was three. Then when he started speaking, he had a habit of repeating sentences to himself, which led the family maid to nickname him "Der Depperte" (the dopey one).

When Albert was five and sick in bed, his father Hermann gave him a magnetic compass. This invisible force fascinated Albert and is often cited as the spark for his lifelong obsession with physics.

A compass is what the British surveyors carried, so too did some Boers of the Wakkerstroom District. The area wasn’t as stable as British Army Lieutenant Colonel Evelyn Wood had supposed. Sure, the hyena of Phongola chief Mbilini — had been killed but the abaQulusi still lurked about their mountains undefeated.

While the British had gone about their war against the Zulu with some zeal in 1879, the Boers of the Transvaal were seething about their territory being summarily annexed by the Empire only two years earlier.

The Boers of Wakkerstroom, east of Volksrus, lived on a frontier and a ledge. The escarpment along this north eastern line intersects with places like Luneburg, Paulpietersburg, Bilanyoni with Swazi territory further towards the rising sun.

June mornings are cold — as cold as the relations between the Boers of Wakkerstroom and local Englishmen. Luneburg was a Lutheran mission station and on the 4th June, the pastor’s son Heinrich Filter was killed there along with six black border policemen. Large groups of Qulisi warriors swept back into the northern Zululand region, scooping up hundreds of cattle and other livestock.

So it was with fury that commander Chelmsford and Wood heard what was going on between the Boers and the Zulu along the Mkhondo River. The two nations were in league against their common imperial enemy. Zulu deputations had visited the bughers and some Boers had even travelled to go and see king Cetshwayo kaMpande. By June reports circulated the there were even more Boers than usual wintering along the border, below the icy escarpment amongst the Zulu imizi of the Phongola.

The fact that they were safe confirmed all suspicions that there was Zulu-Boer collusion. Suspicions were further confirmed when the British found out that the Boers were even acting as guides leading the Zulu impis in their June raids that had been so destructive.

Chelmsford had been putting together a potent column for his return to Zululand after he had relieved Eshowe, and in May he began a slow moving march to Ondini. Ranging in front of his force as it gathered close to Rorke’s Drift for the second major invasion, were his reconnaissance units, scouts and observers.

And one of these observers was the enthusiastic but reckless twenty three year-old Prince Imperial of France, Louis Napoleon. The last hope of the Bonapartist dynasty, serving on Chelmsford’s staff.

He was the only son of Emperor Napoleon the Third, great-nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. In his first 14 years he had lived the pampered life of a monarch-in-waiting, but that changed in 1870 when his father was deposed after a string of defeats in the Franco-Prussian war. Louis fled to England with his mother Empress Eugenie. Queen Victoria gave them a warm welcome — in 1871 his father was released by the Prussians and joined Eugenie and Louis at a rented mansion in Chislehurst in Kent. A failed attempt to remove a gallstone killed the Emperor n 1873, and Louis ended up in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich.

The last quarter of the 19th Century was in some ways, like the first quarter of the 21st Century - full of tone-deaf business barons gambling building vast riches — financing politicians and in accelerating the planet towards world wars.

There are ripples in the timeverse, all the way to now, because the latest empire has started a war that it cannot end. The infinite rule of war is do not start a war you cannot finish — British back in 1879 set off a whole host of pain for itself by invading Zululand because the Boers of the Transvaal were flexing.

First, however, was the small matter of trying to Crush the Zulu empire.

Not only had the British suffered sharp reverses at Hlobane and, most dramatically, at Isandlwana, but Lieutenant-Colonel Pearson’s column had now been shut up in Eshowe for nearly two months. At first the invasion had been greeted in Britain with confidence and patriotic support, yet that mood began to shift as the scale of the setbacks became clear and questions were asked about Lord Chelmsford’s conduct of the campaign. Confidence gave way to unease as news filtered home that the war was proving far more difficult than anyone had expected.

So it is to Eshowe we go.

At the end of March 1879 Zulu warriors were spotted hiking down the hills near the Eshowe garrison, heading towards Nyezane near Gingindlovu on the coastal flats. They were led by Somopho of the emaNgweni ikhanda, Cetshwayo’s chief armourer — and the army he led towards the Thukela was an interesting bunch.

They included 3000 Tsonga from St Lucia Bay, along with 1500 from the kwaGingindlovu ikhanda, joined by Dabulamanzi, Cetshwayo’s headstrong son who lived at eNtumeni near Eshowe and who commandedd 1000 men. There were 3000 men of the iNgobamakhosi, uNokhenke, the uMbonambi and uMcijo, joined by 1500 of the iNdluyengwe. Chief Sigcwelegcwele led these amabutho, along with Phalane kaMdinwa of the Mphukunyoni — Phalane was of royal blood and set an imposing figure amongst his troops.

He wore brass ornaments on his ankles and neck, and had grown his fingernails five centimeters long, they were apparently as white as ivory and gave him a dangerous cat-like appearance, he was tall, a Marvel Superhero of the Zulu.

This force of about 11 000 was in Lord Chelmsford’s way, and he was about to cross the Thukela River to relieve Pearson in Eshowe. Cetshwayo’s was aware that the English Zulu chief, had turned his coat, John Dunn who had initially fled Zululand, then tried to remain neutral, had now openly thrown in his lot with Chelmsford’s relief column. He had observed the British response to the defeat at Isandhlwana and realised that the Zulu could not win this war, nor even draw it.

Chelmsford’s response was to turn to John Dunn, and with him came something the British had lacked until then — a practical understanding of African warfare. Dunn encouraged constant forward reconnaissance, understood the rhythms and tactics of Zulu fighting, and insisted on the discipline of laagering, measures that addressed many of the army’s earlier weaknesses. He was placed in charge of 244 men and effectively made chief of intelligence — a somewhat unusual appointment. Until then such responsibilities had normally fallen to regular British officers. Dunn, however, was no officer of the Crown. What he brought instead were deep personal ties within the Zulu kingdom, along with a network of scouts and informants. In Chelmsford’s camp he would operate not only as an intelligence gatherer, but also as a crucial intermediary between the British command and the African world beyond their lines.