The Xhosa Wars were a series of nine wars (from 1779 to 1879) between the Xhosa Kingdom and the British Empire as well as Trekboers from the Dutch colonial empire in what is now the Eastern Cape in South Africa.
Tensions existed between the various Europeans in the Cape region, tensions between Empire administration and colonial governments, and tensions within the Xhosa Kingdom, e.g. chiefs rivaling each other, which usually led to Europeans taking advantage of the situation to meddle in Xhosa politics. A perfect example of this is the case of chief Ngqika and his uncle, chief Ndlambe.
The conflicts between the Xhosa and British were covered extensively in the metropolitan British press, generating increased demand among the British public for information about their country's far-off colonial conflicts.
Background
The first European colonial settlement in modern-day South Africa was a small supply station established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 at present-day Cape Town as a place for their merchant ships to resupply en route to and from the East Indies and Japan. Quickly expanding as a result of increasing numbers of Dutch, German, and Huguenot immigrants, the supply station soon expanded into a burgeoning settler colony. Colonial expansion from the Cape into the valleys led to the Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars between encroaching trekboers and the Khoekhoe.
By the second half of the 18th century, European colonists gradually expanded eastward up the coast and encountered the Xhosa in the region of the Great Fish River. The Xhosa were already established in the area and herded cattle, which led to tensions between them and the colonists; these tensions were the primary reason for the Cape Frontier Wars. The Dutch East India Company had demarcated the Great Fish River as the eastern boundary of the colony in 1779, though this was ignored by many settlers, leading to the First Cape Frontier War breaking out.
Early conflicts
First war (1779–81)
The First Frontier War broke out in 1779 between Boer frontiersmen and the amaXhosa. In December 1779, an armed clash occurred, resulting from allegations of cattle theft by Xhosa people. In November 1780, the Cape governor, Baron van Plettenberg declared that the eastern border of the Cape colony was the entire length of the Great Fish river despite many amaXhosa polities being already established west of the river, and no negotiations involving this decision were made with them beforehand. Van Plettenberg appointed Adreaan Van Jaarsveld to lead commandoes to force the Xhosa to move east of the river, if they were unresponsive to requests to do so. This led to multiple attacks by the commandoes to forcefully remove Xhosa polities out of the area. When the imiDange refused to move, Van Jaarsveld and his commandoes had their chief, Jalamba, agree to another meeting for discussions. During the meeting he scattered large amounts of tobacco around and let the Xhosa have it. While some were distracted picking up the tobacco, Van Jaarsveld and his gunmen proceeded to shoot at them leading to a death toll of anywhere from 100 to 200, including Jalamba. Soon after this, the Van Jaarsveld commandoes began attacking and looting the cattle of multiple other chiefdoms in the Zuurveld which included the amaGwali, amaNtinde, and amaMbalu. A large amount of the Xhosa population west of the river became dispersed, and Van Jaarsveld disbanded his commandoes on July 19, 1781, feeling he had fulfilled his job of expelling the Xhosa although many of them were able to move back into the area soon after.
Second war (1789–93)
The second war involved a larger territory. It started when the Gqunukhwebe clans of the Xhosa started to penetrate back into the Zuurveld, a district between the Great Fish and the Sundays Rivers. Some frontiersmen, under Barend Lindeque, allied themselves with Ndlambe (regent of the Western Xhosas) to repel the Gqunukhwebe. Panic ensued and farms were abandoned.
Start of British involvement
Third war (1799–1803)
The third war started in January 1799 with a Xhosa rebellion that General Thomas Pakenham Vandeleur crushed. Discontented Khoikhoi then revolted, joined with the Xhosa in the Zuurveld, and started attacking, raiding farms occupied by European and Dutch settlers, reaching Oudtshoorn by July 1799. Commandos from Graaf-Reinet and Swellendam then started fighting in a string of clashes. The government then made peace with the Xhosa and allowed them to stay in the Zuurveld. In 1801, another Graaff-Reinet rebellion started forcing more Khoi desertions and farm abandonments. The commandos could achieve no result, so in February 1803 a peace was arranged, leaving the Xhosas still in the big Zuurveld.
Fourth War (1811–12)
The Fourth War was the second experienced under British rule. The Zuurveld acted as a buffer zone between the Cape Colony and Xhosa territory, empty of the Boers and British to the east and the Xhosa to the west. In 1811, the Xhosa occupied the area, and flashpoint conflicts with encroaching settlers followed. An expeditionary force under the command of Colonel John Graham drove the Xhosa back beyond the Fish River in an effort that the first Governor of the Cape Colony, Lieutenant-General John Cradock, characterized as involving no more bloodshed "than was necessary to impress on the minds of these savages a proper degree of terror and respect". About four thousand 1820 Settlers subsequently (after the fifth war) settled on the Fish River. "Graham's Town" arose on the site of Colonel Graham's headquarters; in time this became Grahamstown.
Fifth War (1818–19)
The fifth frontier war, also known as the "War of Nxele", initially developed from an 1817 judgment by the Cape Colony government about stolen cattle and their restitution by the Xhosa. An issue of ducks and geese overcrowding the area brought on a civil war between the Ngqika (royal clan of the Rharhabe Xhosa) and the Gcaleka Xhosa (those that remained in their homeland). A Cape Colony-Ngqika defence treaty legally required military assistance to the Ngqika request (1818).
The Xhosa prophet Nxele (also known as Makhanda) emerged at this time and promised "to turn bullets into water". Under the command of Mdushane, AmaNdlambe's son, Nxele led a 10,000 Xhosa force attack (22 April 1819) on Grahamstown, which was held by 350 troops. A Khoikhoi group led by Jan Boesak enabled the garrison to repulse Nxele, who suffered the loss of 1,000 Xhosa. Nxele was eventually captured and imprisoned on Robben Island.
The British colonial authorities pushed the Xhosa further east beyond the Fish River to the Keiskamma River. The resulting empty territory was designated as a buffer zone for loyal Africans' settlements, but was declared to be off limits for either side's military occupation. It came to be known as the "Ceded Territories". The Albany district was established in 1820, on the Cape's side of the Fish River, and was populated with some 5,000 settlers. The Grahamstown battle site continues to be called "Egazini" ("Place of Blood"), and a monument was erected there for the fallen Xhosa in 2001.
Battle of Amalinde
During the Fifth Frontier War in 1818, after a two-decade long conflict, King Ngqika ka Mlawu and his uncle Ndlambe's people clashed again in a battle called the Battle of Amalinde over several issues, including land ownership. The king appointed his eldest son Maqoma (despite him lacking experience in battle) and the renowned Jingqi to lead the fight that lasted from midday to the evening. Ngqika was defeated, losing about 500 men during what is considered by some as one of the most historical battles in Southern Africa.
Sixth war (1834–36)
The earlier Xhosa Wars did not quell British-Xhosa tension in the Cape's eastern border at the Keiskamma River. Insecurity persisted because the Xhosa remained expelled from territory (especially the so-called "Ceded Territories") that was then settled by Europeans and other African peoples. They were also subjected to territorial expansions from other Africans that were themselves under pressure from the expanding Zulu Kingdom. Nevertheless, the frontier region was seeing increasing amounts of admixture between Europeans, Khoikhoi, and Xhosa living and trading throughout the frontier region. The vacillation by the Cape Government's policy towards the return of the Xhosa to areas they previously inhabited did not dissipate Xhosa frustration toward the inability to provide for themselves, and they thus resorted to frontier cattle-raiding.
Outbreak
Cape responses to the Xhosa cattle raids varied, but in some cases were drastic and violent. On 11 December 1834, a Cape government commando party killed a chief of high rank, incensing the Xhosa: an army of 10,000 men, led by Maqoma, a brother of the chief who had been killed, swept across the frontier into the Cape Colony, pillaged and burned the homesteads, and killed all who resisted. Among the worst sufferers was a colony of freed Khoikhoi who, in 1829, had been settled in the Kat River Valley by the British authorities. Refugees from the farms and villages took to the safety of Grahamstown, where women and children found refuge in the church.
British campaign
The response was swift and multifaceted. Boer commandos mobilised under Piet Retief and inflicted a defeat on the Xhosa in the Winterberg Mountains in the north. Burgher and Khoi commandos also mobilised, and British Imperial troops arrived via Algoa Bay.
The British governor, Sir Benjamin d'Urban, mustered the combined forces under Colonel Sir Harry Smith, who reached Grahamstown on 6 January 1835, six days after news of the attack had reached Cape Town. It was from Grahamstown that the retaliatory campaign was launched and directed.
The campaign inflicted a string of defeats on the Xhosa, such as at Trompetter's Drift on the Fish River, and most of the Xhosa chiefs surrendered. However, the two primary Xhosa leaders, Maqoma and Tyali, retreated to the fastnesses of the Amatola Mountains.
Terms of the treaty
British governor Sir Benjamin d'Urban believed that Hintsa ka Khawuta, King of the amaXhosa, commanded authority over all of the Xhosa tribes and therefore held him responsible for the initial attack on the Cape Colony, and for the looted cattle. D'Urban came to the frontier in May 1835, and led a large force across the Kei river to confront Hintsa at his Great Place and dictate terms to him.
The terms stated that all the country from the Cape's prior frontier, the Keiskamma River, as far as the Great Kei River, was annexed as the British "Queen Adelaide Province", and its inhabitants declared British subjects. A site for the seat of the province's government was selected and named King William's Town. The new province was declared to be for the settlement of loyal tribes, rebel tribes who replaced their leadership, and the Fengu (known to the Europeans as the "Fingo people"), who had recently arrived fleeing from the Zulu armies and had been living under Xhosa subjection. Magistrates were appointed to administer the territory in the hope that they would gradually, with the help of missionaries, undermine tribal authority. Hostilities finally died down on 17 September 1836, after having continued for nine months.