Biko: A Biography. Xolela Mangcu
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_14230b8f-59c0-56e7-a0a7-51302fc6a590">[34] It would seem, then, that Britain’s wrestling of the Cape from the Dutch in 1806 was motivated first and foremost by commercial interests. “In January 1806 Popham, Baird and Beresford landed at the Cape and forced Janssens to surrender”,[35] an event apparently witnessed by the Xhosa chief and missionary Dyani Tshatshu together with Read and Van der Kemp when they were all in Cape Town.[36] What mattered most to the British was control of the sea trade, including the Cape, which from 1806 they controlled. Their entry broke the stalemate between coloniser and colonised.
From then onwards the colonial enterprise consisted of a double assault on the humanity and dignity of African people – military conquest in the 100-year wars of resistance, otherwise known as the frontier wars; and cultural indoctrination primarily through religion and education.
This is not to underplay the role played by some missionaries in giving sustenance to the Xhosa warriors. (For instance, James Laing, who lived in Burnshill, looked after Maqoma’s children while the latter went out to fight the colonists.) On the whole the contrasting responses to colonialism at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century by Xhosa chiefs Ndlambe and Ngqika laid down the contours for African politics for the coming generations, all the way to the era of the Black Consciousness Movement in the 1970s. To trace this resistance to the Xhosa is not to deny the role of other groupings in South Africa – for they would also play just as crucial a role as the Xhosa. We may simply attribute the role of the Khoisan and the Xhosa to a historical and geographical coincidence – that is where these groups were when the colonialists landed. We also see the emergence of contrasting ideological responses by two prophet-intellectuals, Ntsikana and Nxele, advocating submission – and resistance.
The encounter with Europeans coincided with what the historian Jeff Peires has described as “the most significant feature of Xhosa internal politics in the second half of the eighteenth century”.[37] This was the split in the Xhosa kingdom at the turn of the 19th century. Because Xhosa chiefs had polygamous marriages, the tradition was that the heir to the throne came from the Great House, and it was often the eldest son. At times the son from the more junior Right Hand House usurped power, often because the rightful heir was regarded as too weak to lead the nation.
For example, around 1600 Chief Tshawe from the junior house of his father Nkosiyamntu usurped power from the rightful heir, Cirha. Cirha enlisted his brother Jwara to resist Tshawe but the latter enlisted the even more powerful and numerous amaMpondomise and amaRhudulu. To this day the Tshawe are regarded as the legitimate chiefs of the Xhosa. Almost a hundred years later, Ntinde and Gwali, who were from the Right Hand House of Tshiwo, sought to usurp power from the rightful heir Phalo, who was too young to take over at the time. The usurpers were fended off by Mdange, who was the regent holding the chieftaincy until Phalo came of age. Phalo in turn had two sons, Gcaleka from the Great House and Rharhabe from the Right Hand House. Instead of attempting to usurp the throne, Rharhabe separated from Gcaleka’s kingdom because of the latter’s decision to become a traditional healer. Rharhabe thought this was unbecoming of a Xhosa king and he asked for his father’s permission to leave. According to SEK Mqhayi, Rharhabe had no match in terms of wealth, generosity and courage and “these were convincing reasons for him to attract many people to himself and he welcomed them all. The Ntinde, Hleke, Mbalu and Dange formed independent chiefdoms, but at his kingdom they recognised his authority and held him as their paramount chief.”[38] His father Phalo agreed with him and they crossed the Kei River into what is now known as the Ciskei.
It was the amaRharhabe, and those chiefdoms which had preceded them across the Kei River, who would now take centre stage in the century-long sequence of anti-colonial wars, first against the Dutch trekboere and then against the British. Divisions arose, however, when Rharhabe’s eldest son, Mlawu, died before his father. The rightful heir was Mlawu’s Great Son, Ngqika (c. 1770-1829). However, Ngqika was too young to rule and Mlawu’s brother Ndlambe acted as regent. In 1795 the young Ngqika pushed his uncle aside and seized the throne. Ndlambe regrouped to avenge his humiliation by his nephew, aided by the house of Gcaleka in the Transkei. But Ngqika’s formidable army defeated the Gcalekas as well, following which Ngqika declared himself the paramount chief of all the Xhosa. This usurpation bred resentment in all Xhosaland for not even Ngqika’s grandfather, Rharhabe, had claimed such authority over the Gcaleka – choosing instead to leave and cross the Kei. Mqhayi describes Ngqika’s calumny as follows:
. . . the reader must understand that Xhosa kingship passes down in a direct line and minor princes assume their appropriate rank – no one usurps another’s rightful place. For this reason no one was much impressed with Ngqika’s prowess in battle.[39]
But Ndlambe did not just roll over and allow Ngqika to assume authority. He rallied his allies, Tshatshu of the amaNtinde, Kobe of the amaGqunukhwebe and Bhotomane of the imiDange. They were incensed that Ngqika had declared himself paramount chief over them – and in alliance with the British colonial governor, Lord Charles Somerset, with whom he was now openly collaborating against his own people, giving away much of their land for a pittance or alcohol. His uncle Ndlambe lamented Ngqika’s betrayal thus: Lo mfo wam selegqibile ukusithengisa kumzi wasemzini – “This chap of mine has already sold us out to a foreign nation.”[40] And so it was that in 1818 Ndlambe and his allies launched an all-out attack on Ngqika in what became known as the Battle of Amalinde – in reference to “the saucer-like cavities” that characterised the valley of Debe at the foot of the Amathole Mountains.[41] In retreat, Ngqika was forced to call upon Governor Somerset to come to his aid, something the latter had always cherished. The victorious Ndlambe chiefs were ferociously put down by a commando led by Lieutenant-General Brereton, an event which led to Nxele’s calamitous revenge assault on Grahamstown.
Aligned to Ngqika and Ndlambe were two influential prophet-intellectuals – Ntsikana and Nxele (aka Makana) respectively. Ntsikana was one of the first African leaders to embrace the new Christian religion. He claimed to have had a vision in which the rays of the sun shone on his favourite ox’s horn. A whirlwind sprang up when he attended a traditional ceremony, whereupon he went to the river to cleanse himself of all that was impure, taken to mean the “heathen” traditions of his people. He authored one of the most popular hymns in isiXhosa, UloThixo Omkhulu, which urged his people to submit to the will of God. Ngqika himself was only stopped by his counsellors from formally converting to Christianity. We should be careful, however, not to assume that Ntsikana had no religious or spiritual anchor before the missionaries came. Mqhayi was sceptical that Ntsikana was converted by Christianity:
What do people say today? They say Ntsikana was influenced by the first missionaries, that they converted him. Who are those missionaries? Because Williams is the first missionary, apart from Van der Kemp, who did not stay long at any one place in our country. I say who are those missionaries, because the first missionary Ntsikana met is the one who dropped to his knees before Ntsikana, confessing guilt. My fellow countrymen, this opinion should not be spread, because it does not fit the facts, even though the missionaries have already published in books the opinion that Ntsikana was their first convert. I would not say this unless the missionaries had the power and authority to make the sun rise through Hulushe, unless they could control and direct the winds, so that they could stir them to rage, on the day Ntsikana grew anxious and could not dance, so that he gave up, washed off the ochre and went home. And so it seems to me our fathers the missionaries are making too much of this, they are robbing God of his power, the power to convert someone without them, without their intervention. That is a grave error, because it is written “Render unto God the things that are God’s”.[42]
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