Episode 86– Somerset vs Donkin and dueling missions
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Show notes
This is episode 86 and we left off with things heating up along the Orange River after hearing about the arrival of the 1820 Settlers and back in Cape Town, there were more moves afoot. Governor Lord Charles Somerset was still on long-leave, on sabbatical if you like, leaving Sir Rufane Donkin in charge as Acting Governor.
Perhaps he’d have been better off taking his holiday in sunny Southern Africa, because there was big trouble brewing for Somerset. There must be something about the Cape, or Cape Town, because he’d been indulging, shock, in corruption and nepotism.
IT had become a favourite sport of the VOC Dutch officials for a couple of centuries, and Somerset while ostensibly reducing corruption, was playing fast and loose with ethics.
Donkin was not Somerset. He was motivated and focused. That’s what happens when you’re a technocrat and you beloved wife has died. Donkin had barely decided to create the new town in Algoa Bay called Port Elizabeth after his departed wife, when he began to organize the colony.
So naturally he peered closely at Somerset’s Cape Town lifestyle – he did what we’d now call a lifestyle audit – feared by contemporary politicians and for good reason – because like with contemporary politicians, Somerset had been a very naughty boy.
Watching these changes with open mouths were the missionaries. They realised that Donkin was a new man, and particularly, the London Missionary Societies Doctor John Philip who recognized the acting governors’ anti-slavery philosophy.
What Philip really wanted, more than the right to head east and try and prothelitise the amaXhosa which Somerset had rejected, but the right to head up the Orange River – or rather to send someone by the name of Robert Moffat up the Orange.
Now folks, there are few names you need to remember in this vast saga of south African history, but this is one you really must remember. Moffat’s effect on the entire sub-continent cannot be underestimated as you’re going to hear. He’s forgotten these days, but after you hear the full story, you’ll probably agree his reach extends across the centuries like a religious bungee chord.
