Eastern Cape Frontier Wars II Timeline
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Eastern Cape Frontier Wars II Timeline
Summary
This article explores the theory of some historians that there were actually nine Frontier Wars fought on the eastern border of the Cape Colony. The cause, course and outcome of each War is given in the form of a timeline of events.
Although some historians recognise only four Frontier Wars fought on the eastern border of the Cape Colony between the Cape government and the Xhosa tribes, the following analysis defends the case for nine: 1779-1781, 1789-1793, 1799-1803, 1811-1812, 1818-1819, 1834-1835, 1846-1847, 1850-1853, 1877-1878)
Cape Mounted Rifles under Capt Carey charging the enemy; Waterkloof, October 14, 1851, during the Eighth Frontier War (painting by Thomas Baines, Africana Museum). SESA
First Frontier War (1779-1781)
The First Frontier War of 1779-1781 was really a series of skirmishes. The detailed reasons for the first armed clash are not altogether clear, but in the middle of 1779 cattle theft by Xhosas had become so prevalent on the south-eastern border that Boer farms along the Bushmans River were being abandoned, while in December 1779 an armed clash between Boers and Xhosas occurred, apparently sparked off by irregularities committed against the Xhosa by certain white frontiersmen.
Two burgher commandos, one under Josua Joubert and another under Pieter Hendrik Ferreira, took the field early in 1780 and managed to capture a large number of cattle, but could not expel the Xhosa. In October 1780 the Government appointed Adriaan van Jaarsveld, a highly experienced commando leader, to be field commandant of the whole eastern frontier, and a commando led by him captured a very large number of cattle and claimed to have driven all the Xhosas out of the Zuurveld by July 1781.
However, frontier conditions remained insecure, even after the Graaff-Reinet district was constituted in 1786. Boer and Xhosa penetration into the Zuurveld continued, as did illegal cattle barter and employment of Xhosa servants. Drought exacerbated stock theft and aggression. Since the eastern frontier areas were being simultaneously exposed to attacks by the San in the north and conflicts with the Xhosa in the east, the Government - partly acting on advice from the frontier, including that of Van Jaarsveld himself - decided to concentrate its military forces against the San while pursuing a conciliatory policy toward the Xhosa.
Second Frontier War (1789-1793)
This led to considerable bitterness among the eastern frontiersmen, particularly since war among the Xhosas in 1790 increased Xhosa penetration into the Zuurveld, and friction mounted. In 1793 a large-scale war was precipitated when some frontiersmen under Barend Lindeque, including the lawless Coenraad de Buys who had previously been involved in outrages against the Xhosa, decided to join Ndlambe, the regent of the Western Xhosas, in his war against the Gunukwebe clans who had penetrated into the Zuurveld. But panic and desertion of farms followed Ndlambe's invasion, and after he left the Colony his enemies remained in the Zuurveld.
In spite of the fact that two Government commandos under the landdrosts of Graaff-Reinet and Swellendam penetrated into Xhosa territory as far as the Buffalo River and captured many cattle, they were unable to clear the Zuurveld, and a stalemate peace was made in 1793. Frontier discontent over Government policy precipitated revolts in Graaff-Reinet and Swellendam in 1795.
Although the northern part of the Zuurveld was reoccupied by Boer farmers by 1798, many Xhosa clans remained in the southern Zuurveld area, some even penetrating into Swellendam, partly as a result of a civil war between the followers of Ndlambe, the acting regent of the Western Xhosas, and his nephew Gaika, the legitimate heir. The Government found it impossible to persuade the Xhosa clans in the Colony to go back across the Fish River. Stock theft and employment of Xhosa servants increased tensions, and in January 1799 a second rebellion occurred in Graaff-Reinet. This precipitated the Third Frontier War (1799-1803).
Third Frontier War (1799-1803)
In March 1799 the Government of the First British Occupation sent some British soldiers under Gen T P Vandeleur to quell the Graaff-Reinet revolt. No sooner was this done (April 1799) than some discontented Khoikhoi revolted, joined with the Xhosa in the Zuurveld and began attacking white farms, reaching as far as Oudtshoorn (July 1799). Vandeleur's force on its way back to Algoa Bay was attacked by a Gunukwebe clan that feared expulsion from the Zuurveld. Commandos from Graaff-Reinet and Swellendam were mustered, and a series of skirmishes resulted.
The Government dreaded a general Khoi rising, and so made peace and allowed the Xhosas to remain in the Zuurveld.
However, another Graaff-Reinet rebellion (1801) prompted further Khoi desertions. Farms were abandoned en masse, and the Khoi bands under Klaas Stuurman, Hans Trompetter and Boesak carried out widespread raids. Although several commandos took the field, including a Swellendam commando under Comdt Tjaart van der Walt, who was killed in action in June 1802, they achieved no permanent result. Even a 'great commando' assembled from Graaff-Reinet, Swellendam and Stellenbosch could not make any real headway.
Just before the British government handed over the Cape to the Batavian Republic an inconclusive peace was arranged (February 1803). The Batavian authorities propitiated the resentment of the eastern-frontier Khoikhoi but could not persuade the Xhosas to leave the Zuurveld (1803-1806).
Fourth Frontier War (1811-1812)
The Fourth Frontier War occurred in 1811-1812. In 1809, following reports of increasing insecurity and tension, Lt-Col Richard Collins was sent to tour the frontier areas. He recommended that the Xhosas be expelled from the Zuurveld, which should be secured by dense white settlement, and that the area between the Fish and the Keiskamma Rivers be unoccupied by black or white. In January and February 1812, 20 000 Gunukwebes and Ndlambes were driven across the Fish River by British troops in conjunction with commandos from Swellendam, George, Uitenhage and Graaff-Reinet under the overall command of Lt-Col John Graham.
A line of frontier forts was built to hold the frontier, but the attempt to establish dense Boer settlement behind them failed. Therefore the Governor, Sir Charles Somerset, made a treaty with Gaika, the presumed paramount chief of the Western Xhosas, which allowed colonial patrols to exact retribution for stolen cattle from the particular kraal to which spoors were traced ('reprisal system'). But this treaty helped provoke a quasi-nationalist movement among the Western Xhosa, led by the 'prophet' Makana, which led to a renewal of the civil war between Gaika and Ndlambe.
Fifth Frontier War (1818-1819)
Gaika, defeated at Debe Nek in 1818, asked the Cape for help. Colonial forces invaded Xhosa territory in December 1818 and defeated Ndlambe. When they left, however, he was again able to defeat Gaika, and then continued into the Colony and attacked Grahamstown in April 1819. The attack was repulsed, and Cape forces defeated Ndlambe and marched as far as the Kei River.
In October 1819 the Xhosa chiefs were obliged to recognise Gaika as paramount chief of the Western Xhosas, and he and Somerset made a verbal treaty that provided that the whole area between the Fish and the Keiskamma Rivers, except for the Tyume Valley (which remained Xhosa territory), should be a neutral zone closed to both black and white occupation. Behind the Fish River, the 1820 Settlers were established in the Zuurveld in an attempt to provide the dense white settlement that alone could make a frontier line viable.
Sixth Frontier War (1834-1835)
By 1830 the line of conflict had moved to the Keiskamma River, now regarded as the Cape's eastern frontier. Segregation had broken down. Whites, Khoikhoi and Xhosas lived in the 'neutral', now significantly called the 'ceded', territory, and trade and employment were permitted. Insecurity persisted. The effective extension of the Cape frontier to the Keiskamma River increased overcrowding among the Xhosas beyond, already subject to considerable pressure from other tribes displaced by the Zulu empire. The Government pursued a vacillating policy towards allowing Gaika's sons to occupy land in the Tyume Valley.
In 1829 Maqoma and his tribe were expelled from the Kat River area (where Khoikhoi were settled) and settled on inferior land farther east, but were allowed to return to the Tyume Valley in 1833, to be expelled again almost immediately. Tyali and Botumane ('Botma'), other Gaika chiefs, were treated in a similar fashion. Much bitterness resulted. The reprisal system was also much resented by the Xhosas - its operation made it difficult to prevent unwarranted depredations on individual kraals by colonial patrols. Though bearing a superficial resemblance to tribal customs of regulating cattle theft, it made the onus of redress fall on single kraals rather than groups of kraals, and did not provide opportunities for kraals suspected of guilt to prove their innocence.
On the other hand, the reduction of British frontier forces through economy and the prohibition of commandos increased white insecurity. In 1834 the British government instructed Sir Benjamin D'Urban to institute a civil defence system supplemented by treaties with chiefs paid to keep order and advised by Government agents. Before this could be done, the bitterness aroused by the renewed expulsion of Maqoma and Tyali from their Tyume lands in 1833 was exacerbated by drastic reprisals by colonial patrols as a result of increased cattle theft by Xhosas during a period of drought.
On 31 December 1834 a large force of some 12 000 Western Xhosas - led by Maqoma, the regent of the Gaika Xhosa tribe, Tyali, other Gaika chiefs, as well as some clans belonging to the Ndlambe branch - swept into the Colony. Raiding parties devastated the country between the Winterberg and the sea. Piet Retief managed to defeat them in the Winterberg, and Lt-Col Harry Smith was immediately sent on his historic six-day ride from Cape Town to Grahamstown to take command of the frontier. Reinforcements were sent by sea to Algoa Bay and burgher and Khoi troops were called out.
After a series of engagements, including that of Trompetter's Drift on the Fish River, the chiefs fighting between the Sundays and Bushmans Rivers were defeated, while the others (Maqoma, Tyali and Umhala) retreated to the fastnesses of the Amatole Mountains. D'Urban arrived at the frontier on 14 December 1834. He believed Hintsa, the chief of the Eastern Xhosas (Galekas) and presumed paramount over the whole Xhosa nation, to be responsible for the attack on the Colony, and held him responsible for the theft of colonial stock captured during the invasion.
Therefore D'Urban led a force of colonial troops across the Kei to Butterworth, Hintsa's residence, and dictated terms to him. They comprised the annexation of the area between the Keiskamma and Kei Rivers as British territory (to be called Queen Adelaide province) and the expulsion across the Kei of all tribes involved in the war. Queen Adelaide would be settled by loyal tribes, by rebel tribes who disowned their chiefs and by Fingos, remnants of tribes who had been destroyed by the rise of the Zulu empire and who had hitherto been living in Hintsa's territory under Xhosa subjection.
However, expulsion of the undefeated Xhosas from Queen Adelaide proved impossible, so in September 1835 D'Urban made treaties with the 'rebel' chiefs, allowing them to remain in locations there on good behaviour as British subjects under the control of magistrates who, it was hoped, would rapidly undermine tribalism with missionary help. But territorial expansion contradicted British desires for economy, and the British government, doubtful of the justice of the war and ignorant of the details of D'Urban's actions because of his long delays in sending explanations, disannexed Queen Adelaide. New treaties made the chiefs responsible for order beyond the Fish River (December 1836).
Seventh Frontier War (1846-1847)
Nevertheless, cattle theft and unrest persisted. In 1844 the tribes were forced to agree to the Cape's re-extension of control, through forts and patrols, in the ceded territory. Suspecting hostile colonial intentions, chiefs on both sides of the Kei prepared for war.
The Seventh Frontier War ('War of the Axe') began in March 1846 with the defeat at Burnshill of a Colonial force under Col John Hare invading Xhosa territory following the ambush of a patrol sent to arrest a Xhosa suspected of stealing an axe. The Xhosas retaliated by invading the Colony and carrying off large numbers of cattle. Although the Fingos cooperated with the colonial forces, who were able to defeat the Xhosas at the Gwanga (June 1846), drought hampered the movement of troops, and the attempt to defeat the tribes in the Amatole Mountains (July/August 1846) proved unsuccessful.
However, a burgher force under Sir Andries Stockenström pushed into the Transkei, forced Kreli, the Galeka chief, to acknowledge responsibility for the attacks of the Gaikas, restore the stock captured in the war and surrender all land west of the Kei. But the war was not yet over. Its end was delayed by drought, which hampered the movement of colonial forces, by quarrels between the burgher forces and the regular troops, and by the fact that several tribes remained undefeated and able to conduct guerrilla operations, despite the 'scorched earth' tactics of the Cape forces. Only in December 1847 did the last chief submit.
Eighth Frontier War 1(850-1853)
The new governor, Sir Harry Smith, in a dramatic ceremony at King William's Town, where the Ciskeian chiefs were assembled, abrogated all treaties, extended the Cape boundary to the Keiskamma River, and established a new British colony, British Kaffraria, between the Keiskamma and the Kei, where the Government hoped rapidly to undermine the chiefs' powers through white magistrates and missionaries. That part of the ceded territory returned to the Xhosas in 1836 became part of the Cape - the district of Victoria East - while part was to be settled by Fingos under white magistrates, and the rest to be occupied by white or Khoi settlers. The new settlement was an attempt to end the policy of territorial segregation and to achieve the rapid disintegration of tribalism.
Attack on the Highlanders, 1851, during the Eighth Frontier War. SESA
The result, however, was that the chiefs were resentful and suspicious, their people were overcrowded, and land hunger was increased by drought. A Xhosa millennial movement, led by the Ndlambe prophet Umlangeni, obtained widespread support among the tribes. In October 1850 Sandile, the principal Gaika chief, was deposed for refusing to attend a meeting of chiefs called by the Governor, and on 24 December the Gaikas attacked a colonial patrol at Boomah Pass and destroyed three military villages. The Gaikas received support from the Tembus and some Galekas, and were even joined by some rebellious 'black police' and some Khoikhoi from the Kat River settlement under Hermanus Matroos and Willem Uithaalder.
The Khoi revolt undoubtedly helped to prolong the war, since the Khoikhoi were experienced in white fighting methods, attacked military camps such as Fort Beaufort (January 1852) and caused the Government constant anxiety as to the loyalty of its Khoi auxiliaries. The Kat River revolt also meant that the burghers of the eastern districts did not respond to the call to commando duty, while only 150 burghers from the western areas had gone to the front by February 1851.
The Kat River rebellion was crushed by the end of February 1851.
Meanwhile Comdt Gideon Joubert began the attack on the rebel Tembus, and a combined force of Tembus and Galekas was defeated on the Imvani River by Captain V Tylden in April 1851. Although the Government was supported by the Fingos, most of the Ndlambe tribes and a good number of Khoikhoi, its operations were hampered by the paucity of regular troops and by the fact that, for the first time, the Gaikas and their allies were using firearms. In addition, fighting was also going on against the Basuto in the Orange River Sovereignty. All these factors delayed the end of the war.
In January 1852 Sir George Cathcart arrived at the Cape to replace Sir Harry Smith. Under his command the war was vigorously pursued to its close. A combined force of regular troops, under Generals H Somerset and V Yorke, continued a previous operation started in December 1851 and defeated Kreli, thought to be implicated in the Kaffrarian revolt. By September 1852 the Amatole region had been cleared of Gaikas, and by November the last Khoi rebels had been defeated.
In the new settlement, the rebellious tribes were moved out of the Amatole Mountains to locations in British Kaffraria and their lands given to white settlers. Soon after, Sir George Grey's vigorous attempt to break down tribalism in British Kaffraria aroused the 'cattle-killing movement' among the Xhosa tribes on both sides of the Kei (1857) and left the Kaffrarian Xhosas decimated. British Kaffraria was incorporated into the Cape in 1866.
In 1858 Sir George Grey, convinced of Kreli's complicity in the cattle-killing episode, sent an expedition to drive the Galekas beyond the Bashee River into Bomvanaland. The vacated Transkeian territory was at first administered as a dependency of British Kaffraria, and annexed to it in March 1862. Locations were established there, for Fingos at Butterworth, and for some Ndlambes at Idutywa. But the British government felt it would be too expensive to hold this new frontier, so disannexation back to the Kei occurred in 1864.
Ninth Frontier War (1877-1878)
Kreli was allowed to return to the Transkei, but the Galekas were forced to share their old lands with the Fingos, whom they despised. In August 1877, when tensions were high between the two tribes, a quarrel arising at a Fingo wedding party provoked the Ninth (and last) Frontier War. The Cape Frontier Police under Col Charles Griffith crossed the Kei with a volunteer force to protect the Fingos, and with the aid of the Tembus and Fingos pushed the Galekas beyond the Bashee River (September 1877). But Sir Bartle Frere, the High Commissioner, deposed Kreli, and decided that Galekaland should be settled by whites and the Galekas disarmed once and for all.
One petty Galeka clan was chased into the location of Sandile, the Gaika chief. The Gaikas fired on the police, were joined by the Galekas in an attack on the Colony and gained support from the Tembus. The war provoked a constitutional crisis at the Cape, which had received responsible government in 1872. The Cape ministry under Molteno insisted that the combined force of regular troops, colonial police and volunteers be under the full command of Comdt Gen Griffith. Sir Bartle Frere insisted that he, as Imperial Commander-in-Chief, take charge of the conduct of the war, and consequently dismissed the Molteno cabinet, appointing a new ministry under Gordon Sprigg in its place.
The ninth war was soon over. In February 1878 Kreli's forces were defeated at Kentani, and Kreli surrendered in June. By then Sandile had died and an amnesty was granted to his followers. In 1879 Fingoland and the Idutywa district were annexed to the Cape, and Galekaland, though not formally annexed, was administered by the Cape under the chief magistrate of the Transkei. By 1894 the boundaries of the Cape had been peacefully extended to the Mtamvuna River by the piecemeal annexation of the remaining nominally independent tribal areas.
Adapted from SESA
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