Episode 239 - The Central South African Powder Magazine and How Chief Langalibalele Ended up on Robben Island

When we left off last episode amaHlubi chief Langalibalele and a few hundred warriors had sought shelter inside Basotholand, crossing the Drakensberg Mountains through Bushmans Pass in November 1873. When the British tried to send columns to corner him, one of the columns had been stopped by amaHlubi at the pass where five of the British troops had been killed, three young Natal Carbineers, a Basotho tracker and a translator.

This event had shocked the settlers of Natal, and in response by Lieutenant Governor Chilly Pine began a campaign to destroy the amaHlubi and amaNgwe in their two locations, west of the town of where Mooi River is today.
Pine declared Martial Law. Most of the amaNgwe and amaHlubi men fled, and the British rounded up women and children and the elderly. The women and children were placed in the charge of friendly chiefs in the up-country districts, while the old men were sent to Pietermarizburg to be kept under surveillance by other friendly black chiefs.
On the 17th December, as a kind of afterthought, Pine followed this up with a declaration that all amaNgwe were now officially dispossessed of their land. The arbitrary killings of both clans continued mostly by the African levies, under the watchful eyes of colonial officers who appeared to be egging them on.

Major Anthony Durnford, a professional soldier and engineer who’d been wounded by the amaHlubi during the battle of Bushman’s Pass earlier in November was one of the few who spoke up against the bloodletting.

“There have been sad sights …” he reported
“…women and children butchered by our black allies too often unhappily by the permission and encouragement of the white leaders… old men too … the burnt villages — dead women … it was horrible.”
Two columns of volunteers and African levies were now searching for Langalibalele. One headed to East Griqualand, while the other rode back to Bushman’s Pass following the spoor left by the amaHlubi cattle. The amaHlubi warriors had taken all their cattle into Basotholand to join their chief.

Natal authorities were offering a one pound reward per warrior captured, and 100 cattle for Langalibalele, dead or alive. The amaHlubi chief was deep in Basotholand, close to the Senqu river, the Orange, about fifty kilometres west of the Bushman River Pass. By early January several hundred men and about 7 000 cattle assembled under his command. He had no clear plan about what to do, his original idea was to escape from the British then ponder next steps. But now he was in Sotho territory, very much out of his depth.
Boers in the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek and the Free State formed commandos and sent them to the borders in case Langalibalele showed up — or in case any of the chiefs that surrounded their territories decided to join in. Eastern Cape and Natal English farmers sent their women and children into towns, battening down their farm hatches.
Their fears were heightened by the role that Basotholand was appearing to play. In the minds of the colonists, this mountain kingdom was thought of as the Central South African powder Magazine — a place no-one could control, full of guns now bought by workers on the diamond mines and farms. It was in the heartland of south Africa, annexed by the British in 1868, ruled by a new king Letsie who had succeeded Moshoeshoe. Although annexed to the Cape in 1871, it remained a highly unstable land in the minds of colonials.
Langalibalele had no idea of all of this as he considered his next steps inside Basotholand. The British had also mobilised hundreds of troops who boarded the HMS Rattlesnake in Cape Town and were en route to bolster Natal while a large police force rode into Basotholand from the Cape’s eastern Frontier region. IN East Griqualand, Adam Kok’s Griqua also mobilised in support of the British.
The amaHlubi chief eventually handed himself over to the Basotholand chief Molapo and was taken back to Pietermaritzburg for his trial.