History of South Africa podcast

Desmond Latham
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History of South Africa podcast

A series that seeks to tell the story of the South Africa in some depth. Presented by experienced broadcaster/podcaster Des Latham and updated weekly, the episodes will take a listener through the various epochs that have made up the story of South Africa.

  1. VOR 3 TAGEN

    Episode 200 - Sir George Grey’s Racial Amalgamation Thesis, its Maori Roots and Opiate Dependency

    This is episode 200 - we have reached the double century milestone on our winding journey through the past. When I began the series in 2021 after some years of planning, I had no idea what would happen. Diving into the shark tank that is history podcasting took a great deal of forethought. One person’s history is another persons’ propaganda after all, social engineers rewrite the past to suit their own agenda’s and this series has been based on our people’s stories first. Endeavouring to let the folks of the south talk for themselves, which of course, can threaten folks’ world view about their origins, or their personal narrative. It is rife with risk. So it’s with some relief to report that the response has been overwhelmingly positive. This series is now the third most shared podcast in South Africa — a stunning revelation given that I am doing this solo. There is no marketing team, no financier, no patron, just me and you the listener. Thanks to Francois at iono.fm for the growth in advertising, nothing for mahala I guess. Speaking of filthy lucre, I have a PayPal account for donations which can be found on desmondlatham.blog. The funds go towards the series audio hosting fees. The third video episode is about to land on YouTube, so things are happening. With that craven bit of begging, let us continue for we are going to spend this episode meeting Cape Governor, Sir George Grey. He is probably the most influential Englishman in both New Zealand and South Africa’s history, playing a key role in the annexation of Maori land, he spent time as a Governor of Australia. Very much an administrator of his time, he believed in educating the masses, and put his money where his mouth was, founding Grey’s College in Bloemfontein in 1855, then Grey’s High School in Gbeberha a year later. In between, all manner of shenanigans were recorded. But wait. As we hear about Sir George, I’ll introduce his amaxhosa alter ego, Manhlakaza, aka Wilhelm Goliath, who was the first amaXhosa Anglican in South Africa. Manhlakaza’s relationship with the Archdeacon of Grahamstown, Nathanial James Merriman, was going to change the whole course of South Africa’s history. Don’t take my word for it, this is the view of many who know much more than me about these things, particularly the fantastic historian Jeff Peires. Here were two people, opposites. Grey and Goliath. Their tale is tantamount to the gears of history turning like a great, soot-streaked clockwork, steam-punk cogs groaning under the weight of human ambition and magical ether, while the past, a fog of coal-smoke and brass, hisses and sputters, propelling the unwieldy engine unsteadily into the unknown. The allegorical story this episode contains metaphors and illustrations of an era. Grey believed white and black people were essentially the same, it was only culture and backward rituals that separated the races. Grey wrote regularly about how aborigines and later amaXhosa “…are as apt and intelligent as any other race of men I am acquainted with…” “They are subject to the same affections, appetites and passions as other men…” Simply put, he thought that the Aborigines, the Maoris, the First People’s of Canada, the Khoekhoe, the Nguni and Tswana speaking south Africans, all wanted to become Englishmen but couldn’t because they were trapped by the barbarous customs and rituals enforced by their older generation. At the same time, the colonial in him believed that no Aborigine, or Maori or African culture, was worth the grand heights of English culture. Still, that didn’t stop him personally conducting a major contribution study of the Maori language and folklore. That study is regarded one of the most important research into early Maori ways — a contradiction considering that he didn’t hold the Maori ways in high regard. What a strange character.

    21 Min.

  2. 1. DEZ.

    Episode 199 - Cognitive Dissonance, Desiccated Hags, a Trail of Tears and Ssehura Baartman

    Episode 199, cognitive dissonance, desiccated hags, a Trail of Tears and Ssehura Baartman — Almost two hundred episodes exploring a land rich with some of the earliest examples of human habitation. We need to assess what has happened — standing back a bit to view the scene from where we’ve arrived - 1853 in the main with a smattering of 1854. The amaXhosa had lost a great deal of land to the English Settlers, the Coloureds, Khoe and Boers, as well as the amaMfengu refugees who were allies of the colonists. The coloureds and Khoekhoe had then lost some of their land to the colonists post 8th Frontier War. Each epoch saw a tussle over the territory. AmaXhosa chiefs realised by the mid-Nineteenth century that they were fighting for survival. A semblance of joint understanding was starting to spread out from southern AFrica into the interior, but not in the sense of any co-ordinated response to a colonial threat. The vast majority of African chiefdoms facing expanding settler frontiers were still responding locally, their response fragmented because the vast majority of African chiefs still regarded each other as more dangerous enemies - so their joint response to this growing threat was haphazard. AS the first people’s faced annhilation, what distinguished the amaXhosa in a kind of historical contradiction, is that they did not diminish the numbers after each pushback — their numbers actually increased. This is not what happened to the Khoe and San who were pushed off their land by the new arrivals, the Nguni, then the next arrivals, the Europeans. The First people’s of south Africa almost disappeared from the landscape as they were defeated. Not so the amaXhosa. Last episode I spoke of the historical Doppler Effect, and how folks approach the past, and this episode it’s Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance theory. A simple example of this is that when people smoke, and they know smoking causes cancer, they are in a state of cognitive dissonance. The behaviour is smoking, and knowing it causes cancer is the cognitive dissonance bit when they continue to puff away. When Individuals form a group try to avoid disharmony by seeking consistency in beliefs. This is a central tenant to being human. However, it was this basic principle that was going to lead to the coming Cattle Killing extravaganza. Mlanjeni’s prophecy continued — despite the fact that he had failed in his mission, he had not failed in his message. It is not a surprise therefore to hear that the next complex prophet in our tale of magic and mystery hailed from southern Transkei, and lived alongside the Gxara River which is just north of the Great Kei River Mouth. This is a place I know well, having regularly hiked from the Kei mouth Ferry along the beach to a nearby place called Qholora near the Ngogwane River in the mid-1980s. The riverine bush here is thick, mysterious, ancient and haunting. It seeps into your consciousness like the fingers of God, prodding your imagination, assailing your senses with sight and sound — and smell. The reason for spending time on the flora is because the next character to emerge in this saga who is going to alter South African history was a young Xhosa girl, Nongqawuse. It is these sights and sounds, this landscape that etched into her mind because it was from inside this landscape from bushes growing near her village, two strangers would appear in a bush and tell her that salvation for the Xhosa lay in killing all their cattle.

    23 Min.

  3. 24. NOV.

    Episode 198 - 1853: The Crimean War, Historical Doppler Effects and Quitrent in Keiskamma Hoek

    This is episode 198 — and good news! Apple has listed this podcast as one of South Africas five shows they liked in 2024 — and we are also the third most shared podcast in South Africa on all Apple Podcasts. Unvelievable, ongelooflijk, Ngiyamangala, Ke Makatsoa! I am delighted — and indebted to you the listener who has shared this show with friends and family. Thank you everyone! With that unadulterated self adulation out of the way, back to 1853. As you know, this series constantly shuffles between world events of the time, and incidents and events in southern Africa. In China the Taiping Rebellion rolled on— a civil war between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The war had started in 1850 and would only end in 1864. It’s believed between 20 and 30 million Chinese died in this war, about the same number who died in World War One. By comparison, the 8th Frontier War which had just ended in the eastern Cape was trifling - unless of course you were one of the 16 000 amaXhosa or 1400 of the British soldiers and settlers who died. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was dreamed up by a prophet just like the 8th Frontier War. In the southern African case, Mlanjeni had fused Christian and amaXhosa cosmology into a generated a cult-like following. In China it was Hong Xiuquan, an ethnic Hakka man who had proclaimed himself to be the brother of Jesus Christ and who led the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Also in 1853, the first passenger railway in India began running between Bombay or Mumbai as it’s now known, and Thana was inaugurated in 1853. In the same year, Manchester was granted city status in the UK, and the first public aquarium opened in London. Yellow Fever killed 8 000 Americans in New Orleans, that’s one reason why we get Yellow Fever shots — because yes folks — it kills you as quickly as a vaccine hesitant with spasmodic dysphonia. The Swiss watch company Tissot was founded in 1853 and soon the biggest market for Tisso watches, in those days was … Russia. Ironic, considering Russia and a host of countries had gone to war in the Crimea. A Time to die. The first potato chips, or chips as we call it, were prepared and sold by George Crum in New York. Christian Doppler the Austrian mathematician a physicist died in 1853, famous for his discovery that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer. It’s called the doppler Effect. Some could argue that there is a doppler effect in historical views, just as the perceived pitch of a wave changes with movement, historical events are viewed differently depending on the distance in time from the event. To stretch this metaphor further, perception is influenced by position, shaped by cultural, geographical and ideological positions. The closer you are to the event, the more intense it is. Thus, the Historical Doppler Effect. The Crimean War kicked off in October 1853. Word of these events, of course, were rippling across the planet, sometimes taking months to reach the furtherest corners. The Boers in South Africa for example were acutely aware of the Crimean war, and that their enemy the English were involved.

    21 Min.

  4. 17. NOV.

    Episode 197 - The Show Trial of Andries Botha and the Forgotten Significance of the 8th Frontier War

    This is episode 197. Which is a prime number and therefore symbolic too because this episode we’re dealing with a unique event in Southern African history. The 8th Frontier war, which began on Christmas Day 1850, was going to end eventually although as with all conflicts that stretch into years, most of those involved despaired believing perhaps the guns would never fall silent. A British government under Russell had come a cropper partly because of the way in which this war dragged on, it led to Sir Harry Smith losing his job as Cape Governor, and Sir George Cathcart had arrived to escort the conflagration to its spluttering expiration. Lord Earl Grey had lost his job as Colonial Secretary, only a few weeks after he’d fired Harry Smith. Among the amaXhosa, things were actually not much better. The overall situation was different from the previous war, because there was no longer any attempt at a central command, or even unity of action. Chief Sandile of the amaNqgika had told his warriors to avoid gathering in large numbers, preferring quick and dirty small raids to anything large scale. Committing acts of mischief of all kinds as the British referred to it. For both the settlers and Xhosa people who were trying to get on with their lives, the unstable frontier was a torturous concoction of blood, sweat and tears. It was actually the Khoekhoe rebels under leaders like Willem Uithaalder who were determined to hold out whatever happened. This position was reinforced when the British conducted a show trial of a man who has been treated very badly by History, by the name of Andries Botha. A Khoe veteran — former of the Cape Mounted Rifles. He faced two treason trials, the first ended in 1851, but the settlers were baying for his blood as a former Cape Mounted Rifles commander who was accused of switching sides to fight with the amaXhosa. As you’ll hear, he hadn’t. In May 1852 he was re-arrested and marched into a court where Judge Sir John Wylde presided in what became known as South Africa’s first show trial — foreshadowing others such as the Rivonia Treason Trials where Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life on Robben Island. It as an unprecedented event this 1852 show trial, the first of its kind in the Supreme Court of the Cape Colony. Previously the trials had been dominated by the almost ritualised sentencing of rebellious slaves, but this one was the first politically charged trial taking aim at an indigenous person, a man of Southern Africa, not a rebellious slave from Madagascar or West Africa. Botha was defended by two of the Cape’s top lawyers, Frank Watermeyer and Johannes Brand. In what amounted to an unsightly rush, he was sentenced to death in spite of a strong defence, however the outrage that followed led to the death sentence commuted to life in prison. The amaXhosa were exhausted and in Febuary 1853, Sir George Cathcart, like his predecessors, had tired of greedy colonists making quite a bit of cash out of this war. They hiked up their prices for all goods, horses, oxen, feed, leather goods, food. After protracted negotiations, Sandile and Maqoma surrendered, along with their chiefs. They were pardoned by Cathcart, who had promised they would not be arrested like Siyolo, in exchange for an unconditional surrender. And so dear listener, the end of the eighth frontier war was inconclusive. At first glance, it appeared the British had prevailed, the amaXhosa had been vanquished. It had cost close to three million pounds, 16 000 Xhosa had died, 1400 British and colonials. It had given the world something called the Birkenhead Drill, women and children first. It had also revealed to planet earth, a modern war where a guerrilla-style army with experience in the bush had forced the conventional army into unconventional tactics.

    22 Min.

  5. 10. NOV.

    Episode 196 - An Irishman-penned Cape Qualified Franchise Constitution and Boots Cathcart on the Ground

    This is episode 196 and we’re covering the movement towards sef-government and the first Cape Constitution which included what’s known as a qualified Franchise. A trend had been sweeping British colonies by the mid-nineteenth century where the coming commonwealth was intent on running its own affairs on a country-by-country basis. The first self-governing colony of the British Empire you could say was Massachussett’s in 1630 showing how long the Americans had been tugging at the British leash before they began their war of independence. But to be strictly accurate it was really the Province of Canada in 1841, and all colonies of British North America became self governing between 1848 and 1855 — except Vancouver Island. Australia was a bit more complex, there were six settler colonies which each achieved self-governing status over quite a long period, between 1852 and 1901. Well Seven if you include New Zealand, sorry Kiwis, the English system kind of lumped Australasia together. There had been a tension growing between the mother-country with it’s erratic political system, and the colonies. The plethora of politics that blew back and forth on the headlands of the British voter was head spinning - but by 1850 the British bureaucracy began to gain prominance and in the halls of power, it was whispered that public jobs were going to be based on merit rather than patronage. As this liberalisation of the system back home began to shake the dusty and cobweb strewn hallways of ancient Britain, the philosophy drifted outwards, like an informed mist, towards the distant colonies. The problem for the colonists was the liberals wanted black people to have rights, the conservatives vacillated. Settlers almost to a man preferred indigenous people of the colonised territories to avail themselves as labour without recourse to the same rights as themselves. You’ll remember last episode we met new Cape Attorney General William Porter, an Irish democrat who wanted to extend the rights afforded white colonists to all who lived in the Cape. He arrived in Cape Town in 1839 and was acutely aware of the changing winds back home when it came to bureaucracy. Confounding a quick solution to the debate about who should be allowed to vote was the fact that officials in the Cape couldn’t get along. Chief Justice Wylde wanted to have a seat on the proposed lower house of a new Cape Legislature, even though he was a technocrat. Porter himself hankered after a seat in the House of Assembly proposed as Attorney General that officials should be allowed to stand for election without being held responsible to Parliament for their official acts. Everyone agreed however that the concept of a franchise system was important, and the franchise must be low enough so that everyone had a shot of being allowed to vote. Disallowing coloureds the vote had been the major reason at least two Colonial Secretaries had delayed self-government in South Africa. This was known as the Cape Qualified Franchise. What we must keep in mind is that the ideology of utilitarianism mixed with evangelicalism was characteristic of the new order. However, it was tempered by fear. There were two factions debating this in 1850 through to 1853. One faction sought a narrowly based electorate to be achieved by high property qualification, and the other a widely based electorate to be achieved by a low property qualification. Speaking of the war, it was about to come to an end. Burned itself out so to speak. When Lieutenant Colonel Cathcart had arrived in the Eastern Cape, his initial strategy of ending the war was to do what other British commanders had done, start building fortified posts.

    23 Min.

  6. 3. NOV.

    Episode 195 - Mpande’s Mswati beef, a bit about Reserves and Bantustans and a Lashing of Self Government

    A quick note to the SA Podcaster’s Guild, thank you for the History podcast of the year silver award — I shared the honour with the 30 Years of Democracy Podcast, part of the TimesLive stable. It’s heart warming to receive some sort of recognition, and thanks mainly to you the listener. With that it’s back to episode 195 and we’re swinging back to the east, to Zululand, where Chief Mpande kaSenzangakhona of the AmaZulu has not been idle for the last two years. When we last heard about Mpande, after a few years of relative quiet once he took over from Dinging as king of the AmaZulu, he began to plot against the Swazi in late 1840s. As he planned and plotted, in the British outpost called Natal, this territory that abounded Durban, two men had arrived who were to alter South African history. Theophilus Shepstone and Hans Schreuder. More about them in a moment. Mpande thought of Eswatini, Swaziland, as a source of treasure, booty, and a future place of refuge for his people just in case the Boers or the British should advance further into Zululand. The good relations between the Boers and the Swazi, at least running up to the mid-19th Century, meant that Mpande was forced to hold off most of his plans to invade King Mswati’s land. It was also along a corridor coveted by not only the AmaZulu and the Swazi, but also by the boers. So his first aim was north west, towards smaller kingdoms where the booty was thinner on the ground, not exactly a plethora of cows, rather a smattering but better than nix. The amaHlubi bore the brunt of Mpande’s expansionist aims when he attacked Langalibalele kaMthimkulu who had told his people that from now on, it was he and not Mpande who would control the function of rainmaking. Mpande disagreed. The disputes going on Swazi territory gave the AmaZulu king an opportunity to interfere. If you remember a previous podcast, I’d explained that after Mswati was declared the new young king of the amaSwazi, the senior regent Malambule tried to cling onto power — and was backed in his clinging by Mpande. Enter stage left, a missionary who was on a mission. Enter stage right, a second missionary on another mission. Cast member number one, stage left, Theophilus Shepstone, or Somtseu as the Zulu called him. The other, stage right, was lesser known Norwegian Missionary Society’s Hans Schreuder. The latter was well over six feet tall, a powerful man, with a powerful temper. He may have been a bible-wielding man of God, but that didn’t stop the Viking blood pumping him up when he was crossed. Schreuder would establish 7 mission stations across Zululand and was going to be extremely useful as Mpande’s diplomat. Shepstone’s role in our story is a complex combination of missionary, Zulu-phile, Anglophone civiliser in chief — a vast figure in our tale. He would suffer many a baleful settler glare, the colonists believed his pro-Zulu politics were dangerous to their almost infinite demand for labour and land. As the Cape colonials moved towards self-government, Natal became a problem child.

    26 Min.

  7. 27. OKT.

    Episode 194 - The Battle of Berea leads to an Anglo-Basotho Mutual Admiration Society

    This is episode 194 and we’re marching towards Thaba Bosiu with Lieutenant General George Cathcart. Or sitting on horseback among King Moshoeshoe’s Basotho warriors, armed with a musket. Take your pick. We’re going to hear about the Battle of Berea, and the outcome would underline the Basotho mastery of their land, leading to Lesotho’s independence. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, first things first. AS you heard last episode, soldiers from various regiments in the British army and the Cape Mounted Rifles totalling 2500 troops were invading Moshoeshoes’ kingdom. The British were trying to secure the northern parts of the Cape Colony and believed that by crushing Moshoeshoe, the TransOrangia would be rid of raiding and chaos. The fact that a whole range of people were raiding and causing chaos seemed to have escaped the attention of Cathcart and his commanders. As you know, there was a long list of these renegades. But because Moshoeshoe was the most organised African leader in the territory, it stood to reason that it must be his people causing the trouble. The Basotho’s main opponent weren’t the Boers under Pretorius or the Rolong under Maroka or the Griqua, no they weren’t the Bastaards under Pieter Davids and Carolus Batjoe, or even the Kora Bandits under Gert Taaibosch. No, the Basotho regarded Sekonyela’s Batlokwa as their main opposition in the area. And it was Sekonyela’s complaints to the British about Moshoeshoe that set off this recent marching business. Sure, there’s no debate about whether or not Moshoeshoe and his allies had been carting off Boer stock, raiding when they could, this was true. What was really going on was that Cathcart wanted to end the ongoing 8th Frontier War and thought that by hammering Moshoeshoe, a possible future conflict could be avoided and he could concentrate on the amaXhosa further south. Cathcart moved off during daylight, and it was going to take his force hours to reach their first objectives. That was more than enough time for Moshoeshoe to recover from what was a heinous break from English military tradition — no war was declared after all. The Basotho king moved fast and within an hour, his 3000 warriors were on their horses, muskets loaded. The King had also not been idle in recent years, his people had been studying and practicing how to fight a mobile army moving inside his mountain kingdom, particularly the tactics used by the British. Instead, the British commander looked around him and counted the cost. Thirty-eight British soldiers died, the most in any engagement thus far in South Africa. He had 5000 Basotho cattle, hardly a small number, and yet something to boast about. The Basotho king in turn had lost around 50 men, dozens more injured and written a letter that Cathcart could wave about - peace in our time!

    21 Min.

  8. 20. OKT.

    Episode 193: Guthrie’s 1852 Four-Colour Problem, Sports Schedules, Mobile Frequencies, AI, and the Battle of Berea

    First off, congratulations to Gcina Mhlophe who is DStv’s content Creator podcaster of the year — I was so happy to shortlisted and incredibly happy for her. Gcina’s African Storytelling podcast is ground breaking please look out for it on all podcast platforms. And a big shout out to all the other finalists, I was amazed at just how many people in South Africa are making a living out of creating their own content, their own stories. Things sure have changed in the media space! Back to 1852. Planet earth had seen quite a few interesting events in that year. Henry Wells and William Fargo put a few dollars together and launched Wells Fargo and Company, in Boston Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Smith And Wesson the firearms manufacturer was founded, and the Taiping Rebellion in China was gaining momentum,. The British parliament passed the New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852 which granted the colony self-government — something the settlers in South Africa had been trying to achieve for the Cape. The First Yale Harvard boat race was held in 1852, and French engineer Henri Giffard made the the inaugural airship trip taking off in Paris and flying to Trappes, Leo Tolstoy published his first book called Childhood in 1852, then a deadly tsunami triggered by an earthquake killed thousands in Banda in the Dutch East Indies, what we know as Indonesia. This is where the echoes of history could be heard more than 150 years later when one of the deadliest tsunami’s ever recorded slammed into Banda Aceh province on Boxing Day of 2004 — killing 228 000 people. Geology is a swine and geological history definitely repeats itself. There is no doubt that at some point in the future, Banda Aceh will be struck by another massive earthquake, and tsunami. In 1852, France opened the doors to the dreaded Devil’s Island penal colony made famous by Steve McQueen in the movie Papillon in 1973. And 1973 was three years before 1976, when a postulation made in 1852 was eventually proven true. Amazingly, this postulation, or problem, is at the heart of our lives today. Let me explain how an apparently obscure event that took place in October 1852 led to a host of technical developments in the 20th Century — and continues to drive innovation today - and it has a South African link. University College of London student Francis Guthrie studying under the much admired mathematician Augustus De Morgan postulated the question of proving mathematically that no more than four colours would be needed to provide separate tones to shapes that bordered each other on a map. He thought about maps a lot because he also studied botany and ended up earning a Bachelor of Arts and became a lawyer. Guthrie’s postulation almost flippant in its apparent ludicrousness, was far more complex than it sounded. Don’t roll your eyes just yet, hang in there. What appears simple eluded geniuses of maths for a century and a half. Even Minkowski who was Einstein’s mathematics instructors had a go and gave up - after dismissing previous attempts as the work of second class mathematicians. Little did the world know, but Guthrie had created a question that would revolutionise computer theory amongst other things like improving sports scheduling, sorting out mobile phone frequency allocation and is the basis of how AI works. Of course, just to add a twist in the tail, there’s a South African connection. Now back to the maps of 1852 which had just been marked with the newest independent state of the Transvaal in various colours. Next door neighbours of the Transvaal took note. One was Moshoeshoe of the Basotho. Another was Mzilikazi of the amaNdebele, and Mpande of the amaZulu. Simultaneously, a cry went up around the British Empire amongst settlers demanding self-government, New Zealand was not going to be alone in the moves towards proportional representation of some sort.

    23 Min.
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A series that seeks to tell the story of the South Africa in some depth. Presented by experienced broadcaster/podcaster Des Latham and updated weekly, the episodes will take a listener through the various epochs that have made up the story of South Africa.

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