At the Fireside--Volume 1 (16 page)

The search for Utopia

The search for Utopia

Between the Nahoon and Konyhana rivers in the Eastern Cape lies Africa's real life Utopia, in which the poet laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson, played a part. The colony was named after him – Tennysonia.

The story starts with the death of General Gordon in Khartoum. On the crest of the great wave of emotion that passed through England, ‘The Gordon Memorial League' was established to perpetuate the qualities of religious faith, idealism and military genius. The purpose of the League was to train poor, unemployed people in English towns to enable them to go farming in South Africa. Gordon and Tennyson had often discussed this idea.

Every man was to be given between 20 and 50 acres of land, 10 head of cattle and 10 sheep. There would be no charge for the first year and a subsistence allowance would be paid for six months. After a year a charge of £10 per family per year would be levied until £200 had been repaid. Huts, tools, implements, wagons and seed were all provided free of charge, and only families were sent out because of the isolation.

The League set up in King William's Town and 3 400 acres were purchased from the Camarvon Estate. In August 1886 twenty-four families arrived at East London and trekked to the pleasant hilly country of Tennysonia. There they found huts fitted out with stoves and furniture, even groceries had been delivered and the League had provided a schoolroom with a teacher.

In 1887 Alfred White, one of the founders of the Gordon Memorial Trust, came out to South Africa to report on the progress of the scheme and found nothing but discontent amongst the settlers. The huts were too small, the plots were too small, and the produce prices were too low. White realised that it had been a mistake to select settlers who were not farmers and recommended that those who did not wish to stay be entitled to leave the land and be replaced with more suitable families of farming stock. Part of the problem was that the goldfields of the Witwatersrand had been discovered and this proved an irresistible drawcard to the settlers, who all wanted to trek to Johannesburg.

In June 1888, 25 families from Hampshire arrived and joined the remaining 13 families in Tennysonia. Each of the 25 new cottages had a fenced garden and 50 acres of arable land, 33 acres of ordinary soil and 13 acres of very rich, black vlei soil.

The lands, planted with potatoes, were expected to yield some 6 000 bags. Large fields of mealies and forage were planted. A little over nine megalitres of water was earmarked for irrigation per day, after it had passed over the water-wheel that drove the flourmill. Dams holding 910 megalitres of water were constructed to serve, among other things, the strawberry beds and orchards. More than 2 000 oaks, as well as other trees, were planted. The flourmill cost £8 000 and was powered by a 10 m waterfall driving a turbine that produced 22 kW.

Most of the settlers, whose names are still familiar in the Eastern Cape, such as Cock, Marshall, Wyatt, Baker, Cranmer, Mountsford, Pressley, Griffiths, Bolton, Godfrey and Watts, stayed on. Some of them moved to the highlands of the then British Kaffraria and others to the goldfields.

Alfred White, after this second try, realised that Utopia was not be be attained this way – but let's face it, it was an honest and gallant attempt.

The First Frontier War

The First Frontier War

The Eastern Cape area has a history that would take a lifetime to understand, reconstruct and rewrite, because most of the accounts are very one-sided and jingoed in favour of the Dutch, the British,

and the settlers themselves. Now it is time to tell the other side of the story. For those who would like to read a balanced and accessible account of those troubled times between the 1770s and 1880s, Noel Mostert's magnificent book, Frontiers, published in 1992, is a must.

There are memorable figures from that time, such as Coenraad de Buys, Willem Prinsloo and many others, but we will keep them for another story. We will turn our attention now to the actual causes of the First Frontier War and its final outcome. In the 1770s the Dutch East India Company found itself compelled to proclaim formal boundaries beyond which the trekboers could not go – this after a period of expansion with half-hearted attempts at control by threats and warnings. Previously there had been no formally defined Eastern Frontier. Now firm limits were imposed. This was delineated at Bruintjieshoogte in the North and the Gamtoos River in the West, just on the Cape side of Algoa Bay, near present-day Jeffreys Bay. Some trekboers had settled, or were looking to settle, beyond those markers and one of the first Afrikaaner families to become distinctly recognisable in this regard were the Prinsloos. They did not come rougher or tougher than that family. Willem Prinsloo, an elephant hunter and cattle trader, was the principal boundary breaker and bounty hunter. When the Cape authorities sought runaway slaves or military deserters, it was Prinsloo who would offer to bring them back – for a consideration, of course. The Prinsloo family has now almost faded into the mists of time, but at that stage, for almost sixty years, they were at the centre of most frontier mischief, and were eventually directly accused of being responsible for starting the First Frontier War between the Xhosa and the Colonists. Finally, in 1815, we see Prinsloo, together with some others, hanging by the neck – the first Afrikaner martyrs to the British. This botched execution was used to whip up nationalism in the 1948 election. The Afrikaners never forgot Slagtersnek.

The story unfolds thus. At the beginning of the 1770s we find the first records of old Willem Prinsloo, moving out beyond Bruintjieshoogte, between Graaff-Reinet and Somerset East, into the land and the pastures of the Xhosa. This led to his family's fateful place in our country's history. By 1772, he had established himself on two farms in the Fish River Valley. The authorities ordered him to return, because he was outside the boundary, but instead Prinsloo was joined by thirteen other trekboers, who all petitioned the Cape for permission to remain there. In 1775 the authorities granted the request and then arbitrarily drew new boundaries, this time the Fish River to the East of Bruintjieshoogte and the Bushman's River near the coast. This appears to have been done by decree, with no consultation with the Xhosa Chiefs at all. The Chiefs were most unhappy with the situation as they were being pushed westwards by Chief Rarabc, who demanded the submission of outlying chiefdoms, such as those of Gwali, Mdange and Ntinde.

This is how the first of the most crucial relationships on that frontier started off – an interpenetration of two distinct societies, one indigenous and the other intrusive. The history of the region as a frontier ‘opens' when the first members of the intrusive society arrive and ‘closes' when a single political authority takes control of the area.

The Prinsloos were said to have staged a cattle raid on the Xhosa in which a Prinsloo lost his life. The Xhosa retaliated by raiding the Boers. The actual official account gives the benefit of doubt to the Xhosa, blaming the Prinsloos outright for being mischievous inhabitants, who would resort to any knavery to have the local blacks removed, in order to enlarge their own farms.

A commando was sent out, and in its report one can see the very seeds of the dilemma facing South Africa, then and in the future. Written on 13 March 1780, it is a masterpiece:

‘Upon the proceedings of this commando, as it appears to me, will depend the doubtful question as to whether the Xhosa are to be forcibly dislodged, or the inhabitants obliged to abandon that part of the Country.'

This commando, under Adriaan van Jaarsveld, was told to drive the Xhosa back over the Fish River, with such force as was deemed necessary. As for the Bushmen, ‘There being no hope of peace, you are at liberty to put them to death, and entirely destroy them.'

The commando engaged the Xhosa, and Van Jaarsveld arranged his men so as to be able to shoot to the front and the back. He told them to dismount, then collected all the chewing tobacco that his men had in their possession and cut it into small pieces. He then walked forward to confront the Xhosa, threw the tobacco at them and as they came forward to pick it up, Prinsloo gave the order to open fire.

This ended the first major conflict in that area, which was, in my humble opinion, one of the root causes of the eight frontier wars that followed, just as one of the root causes of the Second World War was actually the harsh temis imposed on Germany by the peace treaty that ended the First World War! Do we never learn?

The story of Maria Oosthuizen

The story of Maria Oosthuizen

During the Anglo-Boer War there lived in the eastern Free State near the town of Zastron, a young woman named Maria, whose farmer husband was away on commando. Maria and her maid Sabina were living alone when they heard of the impending arrival of the British troops, coming to burn their farm. They took refuge in a freshly dug pit under some corrugated iron and remained there until the conflagration had passed and night had fallen. Under the cover of night, they ran for the Maluti Mountains.

At daybreak a British search party scoured the area and it is said that a Scottish soldier found them hiding in a cave. Maria begged him to leave them alone and he turned around, walked out of the cave and reported that it was empty. Thus they made good their escape into Lesotho and eventually arrived in the small town of Matatiele.

Maria, with help of Sabina who was a trained inyanga, started to eke out a living by curing illnesses with natural herbs and medicines, and soon became renowned for her healing powers. Sadly, it was at this time that she learnt that her husband had been killed while fighting in the war.

The local Dutch Reformed Church (NGK) Minister in Matatiele, Dominee Oosthuizen, preached against her from the pulpit, declaring that her cures were unnatural and the work of the devil, and that the people must cease consulting her. Then, when he himself fell ill and was tended by her and nursed back to health, he fell in love with her and they were married.

Shortly after this, Oosthuizen was transferred to the district of Greytown in Natal, to preach amongst the Zulus. One Friday evening in 1918 he came back from visiting an outlying district and fell from his horse, desperately ill. He told Maria that the Zulus were dying in their hundreds from an unknown disease, and he himself died the following day.

Maria retired to her room and scoured her books to seek a cure. After three days she mounted her horse and rode off into Zululand. From kraal to kraal she rode, telling the Chiefs to instruct their people to drink their own urine as an antidote to the illness. So great was her name amongst the Zulu people that nobody questioned her. And so it was that the Zulu nation was saved from the tragic influenza pandemic that killed so many millions of people during the years 1918 to 1919. However, Maria was so devastated by her husband's death that she sold the farm and moved to Johannesburg, still accompanied by the faithful Sabina.

In her old age she wrote how bitterly disappointed she was that Sabina had deserted her in her time of need. What she did not know was that Sabina had walked all the way back to Zululand and had informed the Chiefs that the old woman was dying. An impi was despatched at once to bring Maria back to Zululand. They arrived in Johannesburg but her door at the boarding house was locked. They broke it down and found her there, lying dead in her bed.

That impi gently gathered up the body of the old woman and carried her all the way back to Zululand. The Chiefs, at the direct orders of the King, gave her a royal Zulu burial in eMakhosini, also known as the Place of Kings. So it is there that the mortal remains of a brave Afrikaans woman, who won the undying respect of that proud people, lies buried in the place most sacred to the Zulus.

The Adelaide Dutch Reformed Church

The Adelaide Dutch Reformed Church

Adelaide, a small, restful village in the Eastern Cape, not far from Somerset East, came into existence as a military outpost during the Frontier Wars against the Xhosa and Pondo during the middle of the 19th century. It remained a sleepy, delightful little sheep-farming hamlet and was eventually occupied by the British forces during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

During their occupation of Adelaide, the British commandeered the local Dutch Reformed Church and converted it into ban-acks for their men. The Rectory they converted into stables. This did not go down too well with the local Afrikaans townsfolk, but there was nothing much they could do for, as is customary in such times, the occupying forces had scant regard for the property and possessions of the Adelaide townsfolk.

After the war and the withdrawal of the troops, the local community wished to restore their place of worship. Throughout South Africa, however, there was a dire shortage of money. Everyone in Adelaide was willing to lend a hand and donate their labour, but there were no funds to buy the materials essential for the restoration.

Then a strange thing happened. Three months after the failed restoration donation drive, into the town came two long-wheelbase transport or commissariat wagons. They were piled high with fine cut timber, along with a beautifully hand-carved pulpit and matching chair. The congregation were astounded! They immediately withdrew some of the nastier names that they had found for the British officers and troops during the occupation of their beloved town. They now realised that the British people had a conscience and had sent the timber all the way from England as an apology.

The delighted members of the congregation immediately set to work and within a few months, the restored church and rectory was proudly standing. It looked spectacular and the people settled down to their normal Sunday routine.

A few years later, a letter addressed to the Mayor of Adelaide arrived. It said:

To: The Honourable Mayor, Adelaide, South Africa From: The Mayor of Adelaide, Australia

Dear Sir,

It is with some trepidation that we enquire as to whether a consignment of oak wood, which we ordered from England about two years ago for our new church, has not, perhaps, by mistake been delivered to your town in South Africa instead of ours.

Well, there was not much that the town council could do, the restoration was complete. Instead they had photographs taken of the beautiful new interior of their church and sent them off to the Mayor of Adelaide, Australia, together with an explanatory letter telling of how the British had commandeered their church during the war.

And that is how the interior of the church was restored and still stands today, a monument to a lovely mistake.