Episode 68 – Stockenström’s anguish, Dingiswayo and the beginning of the era of blood, power and iron
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Show notes
We heard last episode how the fourth Frontier War of 1811/12 had been a short sharp affair and the anger bubbling away amongst amaXhosa leadership about the brutal emptying of the Albany district, so recently called the Zuurveld.
We need to close a chapter here for a while to return to the incredible happenings further north east as Shaka began to impose himself along with Dingiswayo on the people of the region north of the amaThukela – that part of the country which goes by the name of Zululand.
Before doing so, that commando which had been created to force the straggling amaXhosa out of the Albany district led by Lieutenant Colonel John Graham’s fellow Cape Regiment officer, Captain George Fraser.
Cattle raiding was increasing sharply by the end of 1812 despite the amaXhosa being removed, or mostly removed, from the district, but the drought which really began to bite in 1813 had forced many back into the green pastures.
The harsh landscape seemed to evince more brutality from both sides, a country thorny and unwelcome, prickly with succulents, stubby bush that tripped up the fleetest footed horse, dark moody ravines, rocky unproductive mountains, almost surly with looming geological sedimentary brows. By now, the Boers had developed a real fear about what the British intentions were in their land. Many believed that Governor Cradock had called them out simply to press them into military action, they were expendable in his English eyes.
While the Khoekhoe, amaXhosa, English and Boer were slugging it out in the Cape, the powerful centralized kingdoms were beginning to build a name for themselves further north east.
In the years between 1800 and 1810, there is a curious gap in the knowledge of what happened between the Thukela and Pongola river catchment areas. While we have a great deal of oral history before this period, and afterwards, the ten years saw a combination of world events affected documentary evidence output for this region.
