History of the Eastern Cape

History of the Eastern Cape

So many different races, religions, cultures and economies met and clashed in the Eastern Cape that it makes for a very colourful history, rich in sites of historical significance. The Eastern Cape's part in South Africa's history as a whole has been very prominent. It was in the Eastern Cape that black and white people first met in large numbers and that the first apartheid style laws came into being. In fact the race relations for South Africa as a whole were set in the Eastern Cape in the late 1700's and early 1800's and were to degenerate over the next 200 years. Preceding all these more recent events is the rich Pre-History of the region.

Pre-History

Prehistoric African man may be divided into three stages of technological development, Early Stone Age (ESA), Middle Stone Age (MSA), and Late Stone Age (LSA). European, Asian and American prehistoric man was classified slightly differently but for both classifications and for most of man’s history, stone tools were used and it is the technological level and use of these implements that tells us in which stone age they were used. These implements carry a high historical importance as they are often the only items that tell us about prehistoric Man.

There are numerous ESA sites through out the Eastern Cape and some of the more famous are found in the Sunday’s River Valley and at Amanzi Springs in Uitenhage. The implements from this period are characterized by being large, bulky and fairly blunt. These settlements are estimated to be between 200 000 and 1 million years old!

MSA sites are found at Cape Padrone, Woody Cape and Oyster Bay. Whereas ESA hand axes were sharpened by removing flakes the MSA tools were made from the flakes struck from the larger rocks. MSA people seemed to live close to the ocean about 65 000 to 200 000 years ago.

There are a vast number of LSA sites, 65 000 to a few hundred years old, in the Eastern Cape, particularly along the coastline. ESA sites are divided into two groups, namely those at the coast, which have open shell middens, and those in the various mountain ranges such as Zuurberge, Winterhoek and Sneeuberge. The stone implements from this era are very small and were probably mounted onto bone and wooden handles. More is known of this period than of the earlier periods largely due to the wealth of rock art that survives along with the implements. The rock paintings provide us with a wealth of information on this period and the fact that the paintings have survived this long is a credit to the artists who created the paints.

The shell middens are often attributed to a people called the 'strandlopers' but this term is misleading as the 'strandlopers' could well have been the same people, the San, living in the mountains who adopted a different form of economic activity depending on the seasons, climatic factors such as droughts or dietry needs.

The San were the last of the LSA peoples to live in the Eastern Cape. Initially they were displaced from the coastal areas by the Khoi and, later, from the interior by the Trek Boers. A bitter war was fought between the Trek Boers and the San living in the Graaff-Reinet area. The result was the extermination of the San culture in this region with many San ending up as slaves or indentured laborers.

Very few stone age sites are open to the public but most of the museums in the region such as Bayworld, the Albany Museum and the East London Museum do have displays of these implements classified into their era. Tsitsikamma National Park has a well known 'strandloper' midden located in a cave which is on display to the public. Most of the inland Stone Age sites are located on private property and a few landowners have sought to make commercial use of these sites. More information may be obtained at local tourist information offices. The coastline of the Eastern Cape is littered with shell middens many of which also contain discarded implements. Most visitors to the beach are often not aware that they are walking over a midden that is thousands of years old.

San

The San were the last surviving LSA people in the Eastern Cape and are also known as the Khwe, Sho, Bushmen, and Basarwa. All these terms originate from languages other than those used by the San peoples themselves and many of them have pejorative connotations. The individual San groups identify them selves by names such as Ju/'hoansi and !Kung (the punctuation characters representing different click consonants), and most call themselves by the pejorative "Bushmen" when referring to themselves collectively. However, the official term used in South Africa is San.

Traditionally the San were an egalitarian society. Although they did have hereditary chiefs, the chiefs' authority was limited and the bushmen instead made decisions among themselves, by consensus with the status of women relatively equal to that of the men. Economically, they were hunter-gatherers with the woman doing most of the gathering and the men doing the hunting. The San were displaced and eventually eliminated first by the Khoikhoi, then by the Nguni and finally by the Trek Boers, all of whom had a more sophisticated and aggressive society. Their greatest legacy is their beautiful rock art.

The History section of the Albany Museum has an extensive collection of San artifacts.

Rock Art

It is difficult to date rock art but scientists are almost certain that some painting are well over 15 000 years old. Rock art ceased in the Eastern Cape as recently as the late 1700's when the San culture ceased to exist.

Rock art is generally broken down into two forms, painting known as pictographs and etchings known as petroglyphs. Both forms may be found in abundance in the Eastern Cape. Although the vast proportion of rock art is the work of the San, some elements such as handprints are thought to be the work of the Khoikhoi.

Most of the San pictogrphic art was the outcome of a religious trance-dancing enacted by the medicine man or shaman. During the trance many of the duties of the shaman such as healing of the sick, communication with the spirit world, information gathering and divination, were carried out and were formally communicated to the group through the medium of painting. The images, which the shaman saw during the trance state, were painted on the rock face and thus fictional illustrations of men with animal attributes such as horns or hoofs may be found.

The pigments used were oxides of iron for the range of reds and yellows, manganese dioxide for black, and various compounds of calcium or magnesium for white. To produce paint the pigments were probably mixed with a binding agent such as albumen (egg white), plant sap, urine or even blood. The paint was applied in a variety of ways using feathers, sticks or even fingers to produce the desired result.

The a number of petroglyphs may be found at sites that were probably favored by the San as observations points prior to a hunting excursion and, while laying in wait or planning the hunt, etchings of the hunted animals were made.

There are many rock art sites through out the Eastern Cape. Those within proclaimed nature or game reserves are usually accessible to the public as part of a hiking trail. The Mountain Zebra National Park, Baviaans Nature Reserve and the Camdeboo National Park. Many more are located on private property and information on these may be accessed from local tourist information offices.

Khoikhoi

The Khoikhoi people, after displacing the San, occupied the entire coastal area of the Eastern Cape. At about this time many of the Khoi clans had combined to form loosely regimented but discernible chiefdoms. Those in the eastern Cape were the Houteniqua around Tsitsikamma and Humansdorp, Damaqua between Gamtoos and Sundays River, Gonaqua between Bushmans and Keiskamma Rivers, Hoengique on the coast between Bushmans and Fish Rivers and the Inqua who lived inland between the Gamtoos, Groot and Fish Rivers.

The Khoikhoi, which means “real people” or “first people”, had lived in southern Africa since the 5th century AD and, at the time of the arrival of European settlers in 1652, practiced extensive pastoral agriculture in the Cape region, with large herds of Nguni cattle and fat tailed sheep.

By1800 the Xhosa people had, in tern, displaced the Khoikhoi from the Eastern part of the Eastern Cape. In most instances the Khoikhoi were assimilated into the Xhosa clans. The Inqua were the first to fall, around 1700, to the Xhosa. In 1755 a battle was fought between the Khoikhoi, led by the chieftainess Hoho, and the Xhosa clan led chief Rharhabe, son of Phalo. Hoho surrendered the Amatole Mountains to the Xhosa after losing the battle. Like other defeated Khoikhoi groups, Hoho’s people were assimilated into the Xhosa.

The most enduring evidence of this assimilation is the number of Khoikhoi clicks in the Xhosa language.

The Khoikhoi suffered far worse at the hands of the Trekboers who arrived in the Eastern Cape around 1750 from the West. The Trekboers did not only bring guns and horses, but also smallpox. This, together with the Trekboers continual requirements for more land, destroyed the Khoi culture. The surviving Khoi became virtual slaves of the Trekboers and their culture ceased to exist by the end of the Nineteenth Century.

amaXhosa

The Bantu speaking people crossed the Limpopo River at, roughly, the time of Christs’s birth and reached the Eastern Cape by about 600 AD. This group of people possessed domestic stock, grew crops, smelted iron and lived in settled villages and also exploited the seashore. They form, in part, the forerunners of the Xhosa.

The members of the ethnic group that speaks Xhosa refer to themselves as the amaXhosa and call their language isiXhosa. In oral traditions the Xhosa are said to originate from a river in the Drakensberg. They moved from there into the Eastern Cape in about 800 AD with the paramount chief living somewhere between the Kei and Mbashe Rivers.

The Xhosa were very prone to splits in chiefdom and an early incidence of Xhosa sub-division was the succession struggle between the two sons of the great chief Tshiwo. The fighting between the two princes, Gwali and his brother Ndange, led to a split in leadership and a mass movement of Xhosa peoples in a Westward direction across the Mbashe River. These lands were occupied by the Inqua Khoikhoi. Numerically superior, the Xhosa defeated the Inqua with the result that the Inqua were assimilated into the Xhosa and resulted in the Xhosa clan known as the Gqunkwebe.

About sixty years later, in 1760, there occurred and even more far reaching succession struggle between Tshiwo’s great grandsons, Gcaleka and Rharhabe. Gcaleka and Rharhabe quarrelled and fought over the succession after their father, Phalo, had died.. The Thembu and the Mpondo, other Xhosa clans, had offered a bride to Phalo. In order not to offend either, Phalo married into both the chiefdoms, proclaiming one wife to be the head wife and the other the wife of the right hand with both being equally important. The sons from these wives were named Rharhabe and Gcaleka respectively. Rharhabe eventually established his own great place at Amabele near the present day Stutterheim. However, even as he did so, he acknowledged the superior status of his brother, and so it went down in history that the Gcaleka chief was the senior paramount. This split had practical ramifications 200 years later, when, during apartheid, two separate Xhosa homelands, Transkei in 1976 and Ciskei in 1981, were established.

The Gcaleka succession remained stable and unbroken. Khawuta, Hintsa and Sarhili succeeded Gcaleka. Throughout the history of the Southern Nguni the Gcaleka were, and are, acknowledged as being paramount. Both Hintsa and Sarhili played an important part in the Frontier Wars fought in the nineteenth century.

The Rharhabe suffered a different fate. Rharhabe’s nominated successor, Mlawu, died in the same year as Rharhabe, and Ngqika, Mlawu’s nominated successor was still too young to take over goverance. Ndlambe, Mlawu’s brother, became Ngqika’s ward. During Ndlambe’s reign the Rharhabe became the most powerful clan west of the Kei River. During the Second Frontier War Ngqika proved to be a brave warrior and at the end of the war displaced Ndlambe as chief and effectively kept Ndlambe under house arrest. Eventually Ndlambe escaped and a large number of the Rharhabe followed Ndlambe as Ngqika was not a very popular leader. Ngqika abducted one of Ndlambe’s more beautiful wives, Thuthula, and in the resulting war Ndlambe acknowledged Ngqika as being the more senior. Ngqika, with an inflated sense of self-imortance, lost much support when he proclaimed himself King of all the Xhosa, including the Gcaleka. The British also acknowledged him as being paramount and made him responsible for all cattle theft on the Xhosa /British border. Ngqika lost even more support as a result of his involvement with the British. Ngqika again went to war against Ndlambe and was soundly defeated by Ndlambe at the Battle of Amalinda. Ndlambe’s general in the Battle of Amalinda and in the following Fifth Frontier War was Makana. The British, having acknowledged Ngqika as an ally, attacked Ndlambe and started the Fifth Frontier War. Ngqika lost even more supporters and eventually died, almost as an outcast amongst the Xhosa.

Sandile, one of South Africa’s greatest military leaders who almost brought the British in the Eastern Cape to their knees, succeeded Ngqika. Sandile was ably support by his brother Maqoma.

It is very important to note that, as a result of each of these splits, the Xhosa moved in a westerly direction which lead to increasing contact with the Dutch and British.

Another important group of Xhosa were the Mfengu. In the early 1800’s there was a flood of black refugees into the Eastern Cape to escape the wars started by Shaka Zulu. The refugees, from many clans and nations, were collectively known as the Mfengu, the word meaning ‘to beg’. They initially became subjects of the Gcaleka Xhosa east of the Kei River but as a result of the Sixth Frontier War moved west. Harry Smith, the British commanding officer during the Sixth Frontier, allied himself with the Mfengu who followed him into the Cape Colony after he struck at Gcaleka Land. The Mfengu were much quicker to embrace the ways of the white man than the other Southern Nguni. Their resultant disproportionate accumulation of material wealth earned them much resentment from the other Xhosa. From the Seventh Frontier War onwards they supported the British in the Frontier Wars which also alienated them from the Xhosa.

One of the most tragic events in the history of South Africa was the mass starvation that took place amongst the Xhosa in 1856. This important incident was the mass killing of cattle and burning of crops by the Xhosa due to a vision of a young Xhosa girl, Nongqwuse. Nongquse’s vision, supervised by her uncle Mhlakaza as a senior diviner, instructed the Xhosa to kill all their cattle, destroy their crops and cease sowing. The interpretation of the vision stated that, should all the food be destroyed, all the Xhosa ancestors would rise up from the dead and join the current warriors in driving the British from the Cape. The result was that the Xhosa died in large numbers and many of the survivors left their traditional land and went into the Cape Colony to look for work. Militarily the Xhosa were greatly weakened and succumbed to British expansion as a result.

Bayworld and the East London Museum have wonderful displays showing traditional Xhosa attire and Bayworld, in particular, has displays clearly showing the Xhosa royal families linage. Nongquse's grave is located just outside the town of Alexandria and the pool in which she saw her vision is located close to the Trennery's hotel on the southern Wild Coast.

Portuguese Navigators

The first Europeans to visit South Africa and the Eastern Cape were Portuguese explorers and the first of these was Bartholomew Diaz. He sailed form Lisbon in August 1487. His small fleet consisted of two caravels and a store ship.

Somewhere just south of the Orange River, he left the African coastline and sailed south for two weeks before turning eastwards to make landfall. His southward journey had taken him past the line of latitude of the Cape of Good Hope. He eventually changed his Eastward course to a Northerly course and struck land where he encountered herds of cattle with herdsmen on the banks of a river. From here they traveled east and again landed at a bay which Diaz called Sao Bras, St Blaize, later called Mossel Bay. On reaching Cape Recife of the Eastern Cape coastline, he named it ‘Cabol de Roca’ and the bay beyond, Baia de Lagoa, the name it carries to this day. Sailors landed on the islands in the bay and erected a timber cross on the largest island, which was then named Ilhue da Cruz, today St Croix. The crew demanded that the expedition return home, probably because they were ill and tired of tacking against the easterly winds. Diaz persuaded them to continue for two or three more days.

The caravels passed between the mainland and Bird Island and sailed as far as what is guessed to be the Keiskamma River. This was the turning point of Diaz journey and on the first suitable point to the west, which turned out to be Kwaaihoek , Diaz landed and erected a padrao, a limestone pillar surmounted by a cross and bearing the Portuguese coat of arms, and an inscription relating to the voyage. Like all padraos, it was dedicated to a saint, in this case to Saint Gregory which indicates that the cross was erected around 12 March 1488. Fragments of the cross were recovered from pools at the seaward side of the headland in 1938 and the reconstructed padrao now stored at the University of the Witwatersrand. A replica was erected on the original site in 1941.

The replica cross can be visited by parking at the hamlet of Boknesstrand and walking the few kilometers along the beach in an Easterly direction to the headland on which the cross was erected. The site offers a magnificent few over the ocean and surrounding dune fields.

Vasco Da Gama was the next navigator to pass the Eastern Cape and did so in 1498 after departing Portugal in July 1497. His navigators included Bartholomew Diaz and Arabian seafarers who new how to use the stars of the Southern Hemisphere for night navigation. On this voyage Dias drowned as a result of a storm in the South Atlantic and did not get to see South Africa again. Da Gama arrived in India on 14 May 1498. He returned triumphantly to Portugal in August/September 1499.

The pioneer route of Da Gama’s was rapidly improved as experience was gained but, despite improved maps and rutters (navigational records), many ships were wrecked on the African coastline.

The Portuguese never established a port on the South African coastline.

Dutch

In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was floated and the Dutch broke the Portuguese stranglehold on the route to India shortly thereafter. It was not long before the Dutch sought a permanent port on the South African coastline, and in 1652, Jan van Riebeck established a refreshment station in Cape Town. Not long after the refreshment station was established did Dutch settlers and their slaves begin to move into the interior. The most popular direction of expansion for these settlers was in an Easterly direction, towards the Eastern Cape. These hardy farmers became known as the Trekboers.

Trekboers

The Trekboers were a rough and ready group of white migratory farmers who moved out of the Cape Town area from the late Seventeenth Century onwards. They were driven by the prospect of more land for stock farming and hunting as well as to escape the control of the Dutch East India Company. The first Trakboers entered the Eastern Cape through the Langkloof Valley and groups of Trekboers reached the Sunday’s River Valley approximately the same time as the establishment of Rharhabe’s settlement on the upper Kubusi River. This was a time when no one population group established its undisputed authority in the Eastern Cape and when there was little limit to the movement between peoples.

The very first successful attempt to create a boundary between white and black was Governor Joachim Van Plettenberg’s proclamation of 1778, which sought to establish the upper reaches of the Great Fish River and the Bushmans River as the boundary. Two years later followed a proclamation designating the Great Fish River along its entire length as the line of demarcation. These attempts at creating a formal boundary signalled the closing of the frontier for the white colonists and Xhosa expansion

The first town in the Eastern Cape, Graaff-Reinet, was established as a result of the Trekboer settlement. The Graaff-Reinet magisterial district was proclaimed in 1786 and the Uitenhage Magisterial District followed this in 1803. These magisterial districts were instituted to maintain the law and order.

Graaff-Reinet has more national monuments than other town in South Africa. This is largely thanks to the Rupert family who have contributed much of their wealth to the historical restoration and maintenance of the town. The oldest building in the Eastern Cape is the Drostdy (magistrate's court), now a hotel, in Graaff-Reinet.

The Trekboers were never happy with Dutch East India Company rule and were no more satisfied with the temporary British rule from 1795 to 1803. When the Dutch government took control of the Eastern Cape from 1803 to 1806 this discontent remained and grew even more bitter when the British again took control from 1806 onwards. In 1799, the Trekboers proclaimed their independence and the Republic of Graaff-Reinet came into being. The Republic was short lived as the British sent an army into the area and demanded an unconditional surrender from the Trekboers. The Trekboers did surrender, but this did not change their attitude to the Government in Cape Town and it only made matters worse.

In 1815 at Slagtersnek on the Baviaans River a rebellion was prompted by the refusal of a farmer, Frederick Bezuidenhout, to appear in court to answer charges of maltreating a Khoi servant. While Bezuidenhout was resisting arrest he was killed by a Khoi soldier in the employ of the British Army. Bezuidenhout's brother, Johannes, with the help of Ngqika, raised a rebellion against th British. It failed and the leaders of the rebellion were hung twice as, on the first attempt, the ropes broke. This circumstance, more than anything else, won these rather crude law breakers their posthumous martyr’s crown and strengthened the Trekboer hatred of the British government.

The Slagtersnek Memorial lies on the road between Cookhouse and Cradock.

The Trekboers were further enraged by the series of Frontier Wars, which started 1781 and continued until the late 1800's, and the various Government’s inability to contain them. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the abolition of slavery by the British Government in 1834 and, after the Sixth frontier War, many of the Trekboers left the Eastern cape. This large-scale migration became known as the Great Trek.

The movement began in 1834 with the Kommissie Treks of preliminary parties exploring the routes into a deeper interior. An estimated 6000 to 15000 whites left the colony, most of them from the districts of Uitenhage, Albany. Somerset East, Cradock and Graaff-Reinet. Among the leaders were Louis Trichardt of Somerset East, Hendrik Potgieter of Tarka and Piet Retief of Somerset East. . Jacobus Uys who, when he passed through Grahamstown in 1837, was presented with a massive bible by the citizens of Grahamstown and its vicinity. A trek leader who came from the lower Bushmans area and was one of the earliest to leave the colony was Johannes Abraham Landman. His brother Karel Landman only left in December 1837.

Numerous monuments and historical buildings commemorate the Great Trek. Karel Landman is commemorated by a monument by Gerhardt Leendert Pieter Moerdyk, the famous South African architect of Dutch decent who also designed the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. The monument to Landman is situated on a grassy mound, Kols Rand, between Nanara and Alexandria. Piet Retief's house and 20 Morgan of ground on the farm Mooimeisiesfontein near Riebeeck East was proclaimed a national Monument in 1948. At the site of the presentation of the Bible to Jacobus Uys, to the west of the Grahamstown, is the Uys Bible Monument.

British

Thomas Stevens was the first Englishman to pass the shores of the Eastern Cape and he did so on a Portuguese ship. Francis Drake passed this coastline in 1580. Queen Elizabeth floated the English East India Company in 1601 and the number of English ships passing the Eastern Cape increased.

As a result of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Britian first took control of the Cape Colony from the Dutch East India Company from 1795 to 1803 and then from the Dutch Government from 1806 onwards. Also due to these wars and the importance of the trade route around southern Africa, the British always sent military governors rather than civilian governers. This resulted military solutions being sought on the Eastern Cape frontier where ever more friction was developing between black and white.

Fort Frederick, built in 1799 in response to Napoleon's interest in the Cape Colony is the second oldest building the Eastern Cape. When Fort Frederick, named after Frederick, Duke of York, was erected the, the Baakens River emptied into a lagoon which lay beneath Fort Frederick. This lagoon served as a small harbour and one of the few places on the Eastern Cape coastline where fresh water was readily available.

It was not until 1854 that a civilian governor, in the form of Sir George Grey, was made a permanent governor of the Cape Colony. He had a profound affect on the region and it was through his actions that the first real infrastructure was built in the Eastern Cape. He contributed significantly to education in both a material and a moral sense. Many of the excellent black schools he financed were destroyed with the introduction of Bantu Education Act of 1953. Not only did frontier schools benefit from his zeal and energy, but so did education in the more secure areas such as Port Elizabeth. Another major contribution of Grey’s was his promotion of health services.

Sir Rufane Donkin was the acting governor of the Cape Colony when the 1820 British Settlers arived. He too was an administrator rather than a military man and he gave great assistance to the British settlers.

1820 Settlers

Essentially, the 1820 Settlers were conned into coming to the Eastern Cape. Lord Charles Somerset had described the area as one beautiful parkland after another. The primary reason for the British people settling in the Zuurveld, the area between the Bushman and Fish Rivers, was to create a human buffer zone separating the Xhosa from the rest of the colony.

Initially 90 000 British people applied to move to southern Africa as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the demobilization of British troops after the Napoleonic Wars. Of the 90 000 applications only 4 000 settlers were brought to South Africa.

After spending a day or two on the beaches of the Algoa Bay where they were landed they were transported by the Dutch Trekboers into the Zuurveld area. They were simply left in the bush to look after themselves. No roads, schools, shops or any other form of infrastructure existed at the time. In addition, various dangerous and wild animals populated the area. The soil of the Zuurveld, as the Trekboers had long since realised, was unsuitable for intense agriculture. By the end of 1823, the parties into which the settlers had been grouped for settlement, were fast disintegrating. Many sought to pursue the urban based skills they had left behind in England and moved to Grahamstown, which grew form a village of 300 odd buildings in1820 to a town of 600 houses a decade later.

Other British settlements such as Bathurst and Salem also grew rapidly. The growth of numerous Eastern Cape towns after 1821 points to the failure of the close agricultural settlement envisaged for the settlers. The irony of the situation was that the very settlers who had been required to serve as a buffer between the races became active as cross-frontier traders and labour-hungry stock farmers. They contributed to loosening up the frontier to a point where it became impossible to control and to set the scene for the Sixth Frontier War of 1834 to 1835.

There were, however, many settlers who continued farming their allotments. They changed from wheat to crops that were better suited to the conditions (namely rye, barley, and maize and later pineapples and chicory) and sheep and cattle which became the mainstays of farming in the area.

The toposcope, on a ridge above Bathurst, provides details of the settler parties and the location of their farms. What also attests to the success of those that stayed, are the 150 or so corn mills that operated in the Eastern Cape in the last century. Among them was William Ainslie build the once famous Millbank Mill in the Fort Beaufort district, Richardson’s Mill in the Trappes Valley built by Stephen Gradwell and Bradshaws Mill in Bathurst built by the Bradshaw brothers.

A number of coastal gateways were developed over the years, some of which are long forgotten. The most spectacular failure to establish a commercial harbour was Kowie Harbour Project which spanned the years 1821 to 1888. Such failures put the onus of success on the Port Elizabeth harbour which grew very quickly under the impact of the 1820 settlement even though it took until the opening of the artificial dock-basin in 1938 for it to become the safe and magnificently appointed harbour of today.

Frontier Wars

The history of the Eastern Cape is extremely violent with a total of nine Frontier Wars being fought from 1781 to 1877. Although many of the battles and skirmishes where won by the Xhosa, they lost all the wars and much of their land. This confiscation of land was intended to prevent further hostilities from breaking out, but it had the opposite effect as, immediately after the land had been confiscated, the Xhosa made plans to take it back.

First Frontier War
The First Frontier war began as a result of the Dutch East India Company’s decision to move the frontier westwards. In 1778 Governor Van Plettenburg erected a beacon on the upper reaches of the Fish River. After consulting with a few minor Xhosa chiefs, he initially declared the frontier to be the upper reaches of the Great Fish River and the full length of the Bushmans River. Two years later, in 1780, the frontier was moved westwards to include the full length of the Great Fish River. The government elected Adriaan Van Jaarsveldt as Commandant and in 1881 he was instructed to remove the Xhosa from the area between the lower reaches of the Great Fish River and the Bushmans River. He was then to move them to the East of the Great Fish River. This area between the Fish and Bushmans Rivers became known as the Zuurveld and was occupied by the Gqunukwebe. He was instructed to use force only if necessary, but the Xhosa, naturally, would not leave so he resorted to violence. Van Jaarsveldt was very wicked in his methods, as he would lead the Xhosa into believing that he was on a friendly visit but would then proceed to massacre the leaders of the clans he encountered. In a short period of time he succeeded in clearing the area and stealing over 5000 Xhosa cattle. The Gqunukwebe fled to the east, into Ndlambe’s land.

Second Frontier War
By 1789 the area immediately to the east of the Fish River was very crowded. The Ndlambe were the most powerful clan in the area and they attacked the Gqunkwebe and drove them westwards across the Fish River into the Zuurveld. Many of the Gqunkwebe had lost their cattle in the war with the Ndlambe and thus sought work with the Trekboers. Many of the Gqunkwebe workers made off with the Trekboer cattle. The surviving herds of Gqunkwbe cattle also overran the Trekboer grazing lands. The resident Graaff-Reinet magistrate, Maynier, was instructed by the Cape government to settle the disputes between the Gqunkwebe and the Trekboers peacefully. A Trekboer by the name of Conraad de Buys had in the meantime made friends with the Ndlambe and had set up an alliance between the Ndlambe and the more militant Trekboers. A combined force of Ndlambe and Trekboer then attacked the Gqunkwebe in the Zuurveld and overwhelmingly defeated them. The result was that the surviving Gqunkwebe went on the rampage and attacked the Trekboer homesteads in the Zuurveld area and moved in a westerly direction even as far as the Langkloof. The Cape government dispatched a military force to the area, which joined Maynier’s Graaff-Reinet commando. These two forces succeeded in driving the Gqunkwebe eastwards across the Fish River. The unfortunate Gqunkwebe were then again attacked by Ndlambe and returned to the Zuurveld. An uneasy truce was declared between the Cape government and the Gqunkwebe, and Conraad de Buys was made an outlaw and fled all the way to the Limpopo.

Third Frontier War
The British took over control of the Cape colony in 1795. The Trekboers were very unhappy with the British government and revolted, declaring the Republic of Graaff-Reinet in 1799. The British despatched a small military force to the Eastern Cape colony under the command of General Vandeleur. The revolt was settled without a shot being fired. The British government then decided to use their military force to chase the Xhosa out of the Zuurveld and so began the Third Frontier War. Vandeleur successfully removed the Gqunkwebe from the Zuurveld and despatched most of his force back to Cape Town. Many of the Khoi servants who had been mistreated by the Trekboers had fled to the east and lived among the Xhosa. Shortly after Vandeleur had reduced his military force the Xhosa and former Khoi servants attacked the eastern Cape colony and advanced as far as the Langkloof. The British once again sent a military force to the eastern Cape colony along with a prefabricated blockhouse for Algoa Bay. Maynier, the Magistrate of Graaff-Reinett, sent a commando to join the British. Together they forced the Xhosa back across the Fish River. This war came to an end in 1803 when the Dutch took control of the Cape Colony.

Fourth Frontier War
The Fourth Frontier War began as a result of Sir John Cradock being nominated Governor of the Cape Colony in 1811. Prior to his arrival in the Cape, Cradock had almost ruined his chances of promotion as a result of three disastrous commands. When he arrived in the Cape he was determined to show his superiors that he was still worthy of promotion. After studying the situation in the Cape Colony he felt that he would achieve his best results in the east. He nominated Lt Colonel John Graham as commander of the military forces and despatched Graham together with a detachment of troops to the Eastern Frontier. Graham proved to be a shrewd and vicious commander. He set up base near Bethelsdorp and bided his time until the Xhosa’ First Fruits Ceremony’, a time of great celebration, before attacking. Cradock had given Graham the following command: “Stay as long as the Xhosa remain alive.” Graham followed his commands to the hilt and killed men, women and children, confiscated cattle and destroyed crops. Cradock further instructed Graham to build a series of forts on the Fish River and establish two frontier towns a little to the east of the Fish River from which the forts could be replenished and reinforced. Cradock was so happy with Graham’s success that he named the two frontier towns after himself and Graham.

Fifth frontier war
The Fifth Frontier war of 1819 began as a result of a clash between the Ndlambe and the Ngqika. The Ndlambe defeated the Ngqika in the Battle of Amalinda but the British were allies of the Ngqika and the result was that the British attacked the Ndlambe. The Ndlambe were lead by the ‘profit’ Nxele, also known as Makana. The British were unprepared for the ferocity of the Ndlambe and narrowly succeeded in beating them at the Battle of Grahamstown on 22 April 1819. In excess of 7000 Xhosa warriors attacked Grahamstown in a full frontal charge. The British soldiers, well disciplined, formed two ranks deep and fired at point blank range. The Xhosa suffered huge casualties and never attacked the British in the same manner again. Nxele was captured by the British and imprisoned on Robben Island. He drowned in 1820 while trying to escape. As punishment for the war, the British confiscated the land between the Fish and Keiskamma Rivers and proclaimed it neutral territory - no black or white person was allowed to live or graze cattle in this area.

Sixth Frontier War
In 1834 the Sixth and the largest of the Frontier Wars up to that date was fought. The Rharhabe and Gcaleka Xhosa joined forces and attacked the Cape Colony. The attacks were well planned and they were determined to recover the land they had lost to the British and Dutch. The Xhosa remembered all the lessons that they had learnt from the previous Frontier Wars and never exposed themselves to the British in any large numbers, but preferred to fight a guerilla type war. After making some devastating attacks on the British army and settlers the Xhosa pulled back to the Amatola Mountains. The British where unable to fight effectively in the mountains and battle after battle was won by the Xhosa. Harry Smith, the commander of the British Forces, became frustrated with his lack of success and changed his tactics. Instead of pursuing the Xhosa in the Amatola Mountains, he crossed the Kei River and attacked the Gcaleka Xhosa on their home ground. Harry Smith deceived Hintsa, the paramount chief of the Xhosa. Hintsa entered the British camp believing that he was there to negotiate a truce, but instead Harry Smith took him hostage and demanded to know where the other Xhosa chiefs were hiding. In addition, the British wanted a ransom of 50 000 cattle. Hintsa refused to divulge the whereabouts of his fellow Xhosa and tried to escape. While he was attempting his escape he was killed and his body was badly mutilated. He was decapitated and his ears removed by British officers who wanted to take home a war trophy. The British then confiscated more land from the Xhosa, which they named the Province of Queen Adelaide. Before the British left Gcaleka Land they were approached by the Mfengu who asked if they could follow the British westwards. This was the start of a long relationship between the Mfengu and the British. The shattering occurrence of the Sixth Frontier War prompted the beginnings of the most elaborate yet of all the region’s defences by the British, namely Sir Benjamin d’Urban’s frontier fortifications. His scheme included the conversion of hitherto small military outposts like Hermanus Kraal, 22km northeast of Grahamstown on the upper bank of the Fish River, into sizable forts. Equally notable as d’Urban remnant are the lines of military signalling stations. One line ran from Grahamstown’s Fort Selwyn norhwards via Governor’s Kop, Grass Kop, Botha’s post and Dan’s Hoogte to Fort Beaufort. The other operated eastwards out of Grahamstown to Peddie via Governor’s Kop , Faser camp and Piet Apple’s Tower. Like Fort Willshire, some of these places, especially those on the Peddie Line, which were built of soft Ecca Shale rather than hard Quartzite, survive only in name.

Seventh Frontier War
The Seventh Frontier War was known as the War of the Axe and began in 1844. The Xhosa had been preparing for war for a number of years as they were still determined to recover the land they had lost in previous wars.
The incident that sparked the war was a simple theft of an axe by a Xhosa man from a shop in Fort Beaufort. The thief was caught and then imprisoned. A short while later he was released by a daring break-in made by his friends. The thief had been hands cuffed to a fellow Khoi prisoner while in prison and in order to release the thief his friends cut off the hand of the Khoi prisoner who died as a result of his wound. The British demanded that the Xhosa return the thief to them for trial and when this did not happen the British attacked the Xhosa. The British were, however, oblivious to the Xhosa preparation for war and were completely defeated. Reinforcements were sent to the area, commandos raised and a long and difficult war was fought. The Xhosa were only defeated in one battle in which a large group was caught in the open. Both sides used the scorched earth policy of burning crops and killing or confiscating livestock. By 1846 the Xhosa still had the upper hand but as they had missed the previous planting season they were starving. A truce was then declared. Harry Smith was the Governor of the Cape colony at the time and he imposed some very harsh laws on the defeated Xhosa.

Eighth Frontier War
The truce did not last very long and in 1850 the Xhosa and many of the other Southern Nguni joined forces with the Khoi that had settled in the Kat river area and attacked the British. This was the eighth Frontier War. The Ngqika Xhosa, under Sandile, attacked a British patrol at Boomah Pass and this was followed by numerous other attacks including an attack on Fort Beaufort. Having been surprised twice before, the British were a little more prepared for this attack. The British strategy was to deal with the Khoi in the Kat River area first and then attack the Xhosa. Because many of the Khoi had horses and firearms, the Eighth Frontier War was the first to see firearms used on a large scale by both sides. It was not until January of 1852 that the war ended.

Ninth Frontier War
The great Xhosa famine was in full swing by 1851 and as a result the Xhosa were greatly weakened. It was only in 1877 that the Ninth and last Frontier War was fought. The scale of this war was far smaller than those of the previous wars and, in addition, the British were only a third party. In all the wars after the Sixth Frontier War the Mfengu fought on the side of the British and as a reward the British would give the Mfengu new land which had been confiscated from the Xhosa. By 1877 the British were bordering on Gcaleka Land and had given this land to the Mfengu. The Mfengu and Gcaleka had been enemies since 1836 when the Mfengu had left Gcaleka Land with the British. All that was required was a small spark to get the two clans fighting and once this had happened the British came to the support of the Mfengu.

The British continued to annex the land of the Southern Nguni with the Gcaleka, Bomvana and Thembu losing their independence in 1885, the Mpondomisa in 1879 and the Mpondo in 1894.

Missionaries

The missionary to operate in the Eastern Cape was the remarkable Hollander, JT Van Der Kemp. His Christianity, mysticism and self denying of all creature comforts made his relationship with the Xhosa a very natural one, but his act was very difficult for other missionaries to follow. During 1799 and 1800 he spent 18 months in the Great Place of Ngqika. In 1803 he established the first mission in our region, Bethelsdorp, now part of Port Elizabeth, a place of refuge for the Khoi, chiefly remnants of the Gonaqua.

JT van Der Kemps mission station is now a national monument and may be seen in the Port Elizabeth suburb of Missionvale.

Bethelsdorp was the parent to other missions, including the London Missionary Society Station at Hankey on the Gamtoos River founded by Dr John Phillip. His son, William, came to the area in 1841 and in 1842 , with a mixture of practical experience, enterprise and ingenuity, set in motion a project to irrigate the Gamtoos by cutting a tunnel at a point west of the village through a small and precipitous ridge made of solid rock. The tunnel is 94 m long.

By 1834 many more missionary outposts had been established. A chain of seven Methodist stations stretched eventually from Salem in the Zuurveld through to Palmerston in Eastern Mpondoland. By 1850 there were over fifty missionary organisations operating in the Eastern Cape.

The missionaries were to have a profound effect on the future of South Africa as it was through the efforts of the missionaries that the non-white population of South Africa became litterate. In the early 20th centuary the first University for non-whites was established at Alice by the Methodists– the University of Fort Hare.

JT van der Kemps close association with Khoi infuriated many farmers in the Eastern Cape. The farmers saw the Khoi as being a cheap source of labour and often treated their Khoi servants very badly. The servants would often seek refuge from the farmers at Van Der Kemps mission station. In addition, another missionary by the name of Read, who happened to be married, disgraced himself by having and affair with a sixteen year old Khoi girl. The farmers and the administration did not hold the reputation of the first missionaries in the Eastern Cape in high regard. In order to change this perception the London Missionary Society changed their policy. The initial policy was simply to spread the word of God but this was changed in the early 1800s to include, equally, the education of the Xhosa and Khoi people in the way of Europeans. This education included reading, writing, and arithmetic, eating habits, dress code and much more.

Many of the missionary schools became the only source of decent education for the Black population in the Apartheid years.

Expansion

It was the region’s favorable location in relation to the diamond fields that resulted in a drastic improvement in infrastructure. A regular passenger service was opened between Port Elizabeth and Kimberly via Bloemfontein in 1871. A rail system connecting the region’s main ports and other urban centres to the expanding growth points in the interior followed in the 1870’s and 1880’s.

The South African War in the Eastern Cape

About 80 years before the Anglo-Boer War broke out in October 1899. Lt.Colonel John Graham imposed law and order on the Eastern Frontier of the Cape Colony with the help of large burgher commandos. His assessment was: “I never in my life saw more orderly, willing and obedient men that the Boers, and, whenever they have been engaged, (they) have behaved with much spirit and always most ready and willing to go upon any enterprise”. While staff of the British War Office, who had been considering strategy against the two Boer republics from 1896 onwards, certainly did not underestimate the fighting abilities of the forces they were about to face, they could not have dreamt the war would cost the British Treasury 191 Million Pounds. Britain was not united as a nation about the forth coming conflict. The Liberal Opposition in parliament, under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, fiercely condemned the war forced on the Boers by Rhodes, Chamberlain, Milner and Lord Salisbury.

Hostilities broke out on 11 October 1899. The bulk of the British troops had not yet arrived in South Africa, giving the Boer forces the opportunity of taking the initiative in the offensive and they invaded the British colonies of Natal and the Cape. The only invasion force that came into the Eastern Cape was at the railway junctions of Stormberg and Naaupoort where the Boer military leaders made several mistakes. They mustered only 3200 burgers and of the three strategic railway junctions-Stormberg, Naauwpoort and De Aar - they occupied only the first. It was in the middle of November 1899 when Chief-Commandant JH Olivier succeeded in forcing the British troops in the Stormberg to fall back to Queenstown. The fact that commandos under General H. Scheoman penetrated only as far as Colesberg, and failed to occupy the railway junctions at Naauwpoort and De Aar immediately, further contributed to the collapse of the Boer offensive. With the railways in British hands, the Boers found themselves unable to halt the British advance through the Cape.

Major General JPD French occupied Middelburg on 27 July 1900. Kitchener and Botha had met at Middelburg on 28 February 1901 for peace talks at Kitchener’s suggestion. He was fairly lenient in his peace proposals, but his most important demand, that the republics should surrender their independence and become British colonies, was unacceptable to Botha. This ensured the continuation of the war. Kitchener now began extending his scorched earth policy.

The resistance of Kritzinger and Scheepers in the Cape Colony was stimulated by the arrival of small commandos under Fouche, Lategan, Wynand Malan, Jan Theron and Manie Maritz. In May 1901 Kitchener sent French to the Cape Colony. With Middelburg as his headquarter, French was to use his 50 000 troops to eliminate the roughly 3 000 burghers. The Boers were dispersed over a wide and difficult terrain, and were active from Aliwal North in the Eastern Cape to Port Nolloth in the the Northern Cape.

French’s task became even more difficult when in September 1901 Smuts crossed the Orange River near Aliwal North with 250 men, taking the struggle in the Cape into a new phase. Smuts traveled south from the Orange Free State as far as the Zuurberg Mountains where he looked down on the lights of distant Port Elizabeth before heading west and eventually establishing himself in the Northern Cape.

Peace was officially declared on 2 June 1902 and 9 June was a Public Holiday.

There are a very large number of monuments, forts and other sites relating to the South African War throughout the Eastern Cape. Below is a list of the more famous.

Middelburg Chair Monument: The spot on Richmond Road just outside the town, where Boer Commandants Lotter and Wolfaardt were executed. Lotter was executed while sitting in a chair.
Aliwal North Two block houses, one at the entrance to the Buffelsfontein Game Reserve and another near the Spa. The Garden of Remembrance in the town is a memorial to women, children and soldiers who died in the war and concentration camps outside the town..

Graaff-Reinet Gideon Scheepers Memorial just outside town. The British who shot him while tied to a chair treated him as a rebel and a traitor. His remains were never found.

Port Elizabeth The Prince Alfred’s Guard Drill Hall, built in 1880-1882 and extended in 1883, was used as a military hospital from November 1899 until June 1901. The PE Town Guard was started in February 1900 and only disbanded in October 1902. Port Elizabeth was the main entry port for the horses imported from the Empire countries as well as from Argentina, Hungary, Italy, Spain and USA. There were some 5000 animals accommodated in the area at any one time. The horses went to the Mount Road Show Ground and the ponies and mules to Kragga Kamma. Some were taken to Tankatara Farm on the Addo railway line before being railed via Noupoort or De Aar to the front. The Horse Memorial was built by the people of Port Elizabeth who were acutely aware of the bravery, suffering and huge mortality of horses during this war. Funds were collected and the memorial was unveiled in 1905. It was then the only known memorial to horses in the world. The Prince Alfred’s Guard memorial was unveiled in 1907 and forms the centrepiece of a raised paved deck over the circular water reservoir, which is supplied by pipeline from the Van Stadens dam via Fort Nottingham Reservoir. This monument commemorates two officers and 23 other ranks of the PAG who fell in the Anglo Boer War in addition to the fallen from earlier three wars. It was cast at MacFarlane’s Sarace Foundry in Glasgow and shipped to Algoa Bay in sections.

Origins of the Motor Industry

The Ford Motor Company first entered the South African market as early as 1905. The company which was to ‘put the world on wheels’ and become one of the Eastern Cape's largest employers was formed in 1903 by Henry Ford and 11 associates. Their original investment: 28,000 dollars.

Two years later, Henry Ford wrote to Paul Henwood, founder of the well-known Durban firm, Henwoods Ltd. The letter told Mr Henwood that one of those 'automobile' manufacturers wanted to open an agency in South Africa. Unfamiliar with any South African firm specialising in this new branch of trade, Ford had taken the name of Henwood’s hardware firm from a directory. Only a few thousand of Henry Ford’s cars were on the road, so it was a tribute, both to his far-sightedness and to the potentialities which this country, still recovering from the effects of the South African War was already beginning to show. He turned down Henry Ford’s offer, and South Africa’s commercial and industrial history took another road. Ford soon found a firm willing to take over the agency. Its name: Arkell and Douglas of Port Elizabeth. Arkell and Douglas immediately set up a system of distribution and retail sales. By 1911 a special Ford Car Depot advertised its activities in Rutger Street, Cape Town, and in Johannesburg the representatives were B.J. Penny and Co. In Bloemfontein William Atkinson, who had begun as a cartage contractor in 1905 and was the forerunner of the well-known Atkinson-Oates organisation-also began to sell Fords.

With the outbreak of World War 1, and the enormous increase in motor transport, which followed it, the feeling arose at Ford’s Headquarters that a more direct system of control over the export of cars might be advisable. As sales of Fords rose from the hundreds to hundreds of thousands and then millions an effort was made to meet the increasing demand. A branch was established in Canada, which was soon given over almost entirely to satisfying the British Commonwealth market, of which South Africa was a member.

As Ford’s were by far the most popular cars in South Africa, it was only a matter of time before the decision was made to establish an assembly plant in South Africa. A newspaper report broke the news at the end of November 1923, under the headline:'Ford Assembling Plans – Port Elizabeth to supply Southern Africa'.

The report stated. 'In pursuance of Ford policy, an assembly plant is being put down at Port Elizabeth, and for the future all Ford Cars and trucks will be shipped from Canada in the form of loose parts and distributed to dealers throughout the country in a finished state from the Port Elizabeth headquarters. Thirty or forty cars a day is expected to be the assembly programme in Port Elizabeth at the start, and some 200 Europeans will find employment as a result.’ Henry Ford put down deep roots in South Africa.

The first motor assembly plant in South Africa was housed in a disused wool store on the Grahamstown road on the northern outskirts of Port Elizabeth. The company’s offices were, however, rented premises on the second and third floors of the Aegis Building in Main Street. Workmen started laying the first assembly line in November 1923, and in March 1924, the first South African assembled vehicles, Ford Model Ts, went on sale.