History of South Africa podcast

Episode 118 - Voortrekkers cross the Orange River carrying ancestral blood from the orient

Hark! What sound breaks the inscrutable silence of the immense African veld? Dozens of wagons, which would become hundreds. Trundling along at about 5 miles a day, the Voortrekkers were leaving the Cape for their promised lands - albeit yet unidentified. This was a case of being pushed out at…

14 May 2023 25 min

Episode 117 - The Sixth Frontier War ends in a draw and Trekboers like Louis Trichardt seek the promised land

There was a great exodus of some people, the movement of the people into the interior of South Africa - a moment that was going to reverberate all the way to the present. The Great Trek as its known had begun by mid-1835, and to be honest, was a medium…

7 May 2023 21 min

Episode 116 - A murder most foul and the British wilt as the guerrilla war weakens resolve

April 1835 is passing swiftly, and still no sign of the 75 000 head of cattle demanded by the British of the amaXhosa - Hintsa remains a hostage of Benjamin D’Urban, although it was Colonel Harry Smith who was looking after the king, as well as his son Sarhili and…

30 Apr 2023 25 min

Episode 115 - Hintsa becomes a hostage and the Mfengu become British

It's early 1835 and Cape Governor Benjamin D’urban an his 2000 men were winding their way through the AMatola mountains, searching for Maqoma and Thyali’s warriors. The going was tough albeit the scenery sublime. These glorious mountains were going to lead to one of the more inglorious moments in British…

23 Apr 2023 23 min

Episode 114 - The British clamber up the slopes of the Amatolas chasing Xhosa ghosts and the mysterious Mfengu

We’re going to hear about a man called John Ayliff - a man who has gone down in the annals of South African history about as mixed as a box of smarties. His mission station at Butterworth across the Kei River had been a place of refuge for the Mfengu…

16 Apr 2023 25 min

Episode 113 - Guerrilla warfare throws up a challenge while Jannie Hostage and Ou Blouberg plan their escape

It’s early 1835 and globally, quite a few fascinating things are going on. For one, America’s National Debt was Zero dollars - for the first and last time in it’s history. It’s president Andrew Jackson survived an assassination attempt in January of that year, also the first but not the…

9 Apr 2023 21 min

Episode 112 - Hand-to-hand fighting along the Great Fish River

The Sixth frontier war was ablaze and now Harry Smith was in Grahamstown rearranging the military furniture. He wasn’t there for long. As a man of action he was determined to chase down the amaXhosa who had begun to retire back east across the Fish River by the end of…

2 Apr 2023 21 min

Episode 111 - Harry Smith arrives in panic-stricken Grahamstown in January 1835 and stiffens settler spines

ON December 21st 1834 at least ten thousand warriors under Maqoma and Thyali swept all before them as they raided deep into the Cape colony, across a wide front. Fort Beaufort and Fort Willshire were the main centre of British operations to the north of Grahamstown as the war began…

26 Mar 2023 23 min

Episode 110 - Sir Harry Smith, his petite guerriere espagnole Lady Smith and the revenge of the amaXhosa

The Sixth Frontier war had started on 21st December 1834 and this would be a dirty affair - a calamity for the amaXhosa. When it began Hintsa the Xhosa regent did not join in, but something that was first called Maqoma’s war was eventually to be known as Hintsa’s war…

18 Mar 2023 22 min

Episode 109 - Maqoma’s war begins as the amaXhosa invade the Colony in December 1834

It’s December 1834 - the Second of December to be more precise. The British had just emancipated the slaves at the Cape, although real freedom was still some months off as the colonial office decreed that all should first work as apprentices to improve skills before they were set free…

11 Mar 2023 22 min

Episode 108 - Mzilikazi empties the lower Vaal, Sir Benjamin D’Urban arrives and slaves are emancipated

A new Governor was in town, the Cape Sheriff, and he was another Peninsular Campaign Veteran called Sir Benjamin D’Urban. In July 1832 Frontier military commander Colonel Henry Somerset went on leave - his father the former governor Lord Charles had died in 1831 and Henry had to head back…

4 Mar 2023 26 min

Episode 107 - Dr Andrew Smith, his mysterious Dingane expedition and a bit of XGaoXna- Knysna

The small settlement of Port Natal had hardly grown by 1830. Dingane had moved his ikhanda which he named uMgungundlovu to the eMakhosini valley, close to Singonyama or Lion hill, just south of the White Umfolozi River. The traders around Port Natal by now had mostly married Khoekhoe or AmaZulu…

25 Feb 2023 24 min

Episode 106 - Rustling along the Amatolas in 1830 and Dingane’s black liver

So here we are - 1830. Maqoma had been ejected from his beloved region below the Amatola mountains of the Eastern Cape, to be replaced by the new Khoekhoe dominated Kat River Settlement - a buffer zone for a buffer zone. It was a time of punitive patrols sent forth…

19 Feb 2023 22 min

Episode 105 - The Kat River Settlement of 1829 and how Maqoma was evicted

Last we heard about the attack on the Ngwane at Mbholompo west of Umtata, and the destruction of Matiwane’s raiders - sending him home back to Zululand where he was killed by Dingane. After the 1828 battle, Hintsa of the Gcaleka line of the amaXhosa and Nqubencuka who was his…

12 Feb 2023 24 min

Episode 104 - Matiwane’s Ngwane massacred at Mbholompo and Hintsa's ama-Bulu

South Africa’s history is peppered with chaos and warfare, perhaps more so than is apparent in the modern period. It is fairly difficult to explain how our past intermeshes with the present without focusing on moments of extreme violence, these incidents are part of our psychological make-up without most of…

4 Feb 2023 20 min

Episode 103 - Barend Barends battered and the men in black on the frontier

Last episode we heard how Jan Bloem and Kora leader Haip had launched a raid on Mzilikazi’s Ndebele people arraigned along the southern reaches of the Vaal River in 1830 - and Mzilikazi’s bloody response where he not only recovered his cattle but killed 50 Kora. This was the first…

29 Jan 2023 25 min

Episode 102 - Tales of the Trans Vaal and how Magaliesberg got its name

It’s time to delve deeply into the other Ndebele, then what happened when Mzilikazi arrived in the area known as the Trans Vaal - across the Vaal, with his hungry wolves. The development of the highveld to the late 1820s is quite a tale, with the first Tswana people made…

22 Jan 2023 24 min

Episode 101 - Mnkabayi dresses like a man and Dingane drowns his brother

Port Natal was steeped in fear and loathing in late 1828 follow in Shaka’s assassination on the 24th September 1828 which had thrown the traders into a panic. They anticipated that Shaka’s death would lead to a civil war, and that they’d be targeted in the coming political storm. Most…

15 Jan 2023 21 min

Episode 100 - Ordinance 50 shock, Dr John’s mission and Wesleyans vs polygamy

For my listeners who’ve lasted a century of podcasts, thank you folks! The series has far exceeded my expectation when it was launched I thought perhaps a few people would respond and that would be that. But no! This series has managed to climb 6 places on Apple’s South African…

7 Jan 2023 20 min

Episode 99 – Shaka assassinated by muddle-headed brothers Dingane and Mhlangana

First we pick up the point where James Saunders King made his way back to Port Natal following his failed diplomacy on Shaka’s behalf – the result would be catastrophic for Shaka. It provided added incentive for Shaka’s enemies inside the Zulu to move against him, the members of the…

1 Jan 2023 24 min