Podcast
History of South Africa podcast
Episodes — page 13
- Episode 50 – Brigadier General Vandeleur fires grapeshot at the amaXhosa setting off 80 years of warfare
This is episode 50 and the British have mobilized the dragoons to end a trekboer uprising in Graaff-Reinet. That will spark what is known as the Third Frontier War. But first we'…
- Episode 49 – The Khoe War of 1799, Gerrit Owies is speared in the back and the Boers face the Hottentot Corps
This is episode 49 and Khoe and Oorlam Afrikaaner uprising of 1799. Keep in mind at this point in South African history, Afrikaaners are the mixed race band of former Khoe, mixed r…
- Episode 48 – Petrus Pienaar shot dead on his Hantam farm in 1797 and the Afrikaaner rebellion goes into top gear
This is episode 48 and we’re following the sagas of the Visagies and others in the Hantam, that rough and ready part of the northern Cape. This chaotic land had spawned another by…
- Episode 47 – Tales of the Hantam including the bandit van Zijl family and the indefatigable trekboer Elsie Visagie
This is episode 47 and we are concentrating on a mysterious and contradicted part of southern Africa, the Hantam. We’re also going to meet a German sailor who’d deserted and ra…
- Episode 46 – We meet the Afrikaaner Oorlams of Namaqualand and Griqua founder Adam Kok the First
This is episode 46 and it’s about Namaqualand, the Oorlam Afrikaaners and the Griquas But first a note about the British occupation. We know that they arrived in 1795, defeated th…
- Episode 45 – The ancient people of the Orange River islands, the Namaqualand Korana and the “Bastaards”
This is episode 45 and it’s time to turn our attention to Namaqualand. This is an area which is not spoken of very often, the wild northern frontier where bandits rode oxen and…
- Episode 44 – Trekboer Coenraad de Buys marries amaXhosa Queen Nojoli aka Yese and Barrow exacts a confounded promise
This is episode 44 and we continue to travel about the Zuurveld and beyond with Englishman John Barrow. Remember he’d arrived in Graaff-Reinet with landdrost FR Bressler and thei…
- Episode 43 – Lady Anne throws dinner parties as John Barrow and the Dragoons take a trip to Graaff-Reinet
This is episode 43 and we’re dealing with the arrival of the English at the Cape. As you know, the Peninsular had become more important in the eyes of the English as they fought…
- Episode 42 – Lady Anne Barnard, Earl Macartney and the van Reenen meat bank of the 1790s
This is episode 42 and the English have just seized the Cape. Remember at the time they were in a world war with the French and revolutionary fervour had swept the world with i…
- Episode 41 – The English take Cape Town, Americans flee and trekboer rebels tear down a flag
This is episode 41 and we’re dealing with two main things – firstly the shift in power amongst the Xhosa at the end of the 18th Century, then the arrival of the English in South Af…
- Episode 40 – The Second Frontier War and the Graaff-Reinet rebellion
This is episode 40 and we’re dealing with the Second Frontier War. The Zuurveld Boers were indignant at the reluctance of the distant government of the Cape to come to their aid as…
- Episode 39 – Rebel Coenraad de Buys, lover of Xhosa chief Ngqika’s mother and a preamble to the Second Frontier War
This is episode 39 and we’re going to meet one of the country’s most incredible characters who’s activities on the frontier in the late 1700s were to be forgotten. Coenraad de…
- Episode 38 – The First Frontier War of 1781 and why the survivors of the Grosvenor were attacked by the amaXhosa
This is episode 38 and we’re focusing on the first war between the isiXhosa and the settlers which took place in 1781. Rharhabe had proposed an alliance between himself and the Col…
- Episode 37 – How the amaXhosa waged war and Governor Van Plettenberg takes a trip to the Great Fish River
This is episode 37 and we’re continuing the saga of late 18th Century Xhosa kingdoms. By late in the 18th Century, the Zuurveld was home to small groups of San, some khoekhoe chi…
- Episode 36 – The French and British fight over the Cape as bounty hunter Willem Prinsloo crosses the Fish River
This is episode 36 and its time to return to Xhosaland. Before we do that, let’s step back a little and consider the effect of action beyond Africa that was having an influence on…
- Episode 35 – The Mthethwa and Ndwandwe flex their muscles in what eventually will become known as Zululand
This is episode 35 and we’re going to focus on the forerunners of the Zulu – the Mthethwa and Ndwandwe, the Qwabe and how they emerged in the region between the Tugela and Pongola…
- Episode 34 – Trading and raiding, American whalers and the emergence of pre-Zulu chiefdoms in the East
This is episode 34 and we’re going to take a close look at what was going on in the region bounded by the Orange River, the Kalahari Desert and the Indian Ocean. This is where the…
- Episode 33 – By 1771 Cape Town has a name and explorers begin arriving in droves
This is episode 33 and we’re focusing on the Cape after spending last episode partly in Xhosaland. By 1771 the inn on the sea – the town in Table Bay – was being referred to as…
- Episode 32 – An intermingling on the frontiers begins in earnest and a wide-angle view of the mid-to-late 18th C
This is episode 32 and we’re swinging back to the Cape frontier through the last few decades of the 18th Century. I am going to thoroughly probe this period because so many cru…
- Episode 31 – Trade increases between Delagoa Bay and the Tswana and the Dutch Reformed Church makes its mark in the Cape
This is episode 31 and we’ll now take a broader look at what was going on across southern Africa after a few episodes peering closely at the northern Cape. We’ll also take a closer…
