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The Difaqane: The Mfecane in the Southern Sotho Area, 1822–241

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

William F. Lye
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Extract

The accounts of the Difaqane written in all the major histories of South Africa are based on three books which were written over fifty years ago: G. W. Stow, The Native Races of South Africa; D. F. Ellenberger and J. C. Macgregor, The History of the Bosuto; and especially the earliest, G. M. Theal, History of South Africa.

Certain contradictions exist between the story as told in these accounts and the evidence brought to light by the publication of the journals of Robert Moffat and David Livingstone. The object of this study is to reconstruct the events of the wars from the broadest possible evidence to give a more complete description, and thereby to test the revision implicit in the new information.

This revision is required properly to identify the participants in the battles which were observed by Europeans in the western Tswana lands, especially the battle at Dithakong. In the earlier histories all the battles were attributed to the ‘Mantatee’, a name properly applied to one group of Tlokwa ruled at the time by the regentess, MmaNthatisi. Now it is possible to show that these Tlokwa were never in the west, but restricted their migrations to the valley of the Caledon River. Nor can their enemies, the Hlubi of Mpangazita and the Ngwane of Matiwane, be blamed, for they too remained in the east. Rather, the victims of these three bands, the Sotho peoples of the Caledon valley, can be identified as the aggressors among the Tswana beyond the Vaal. Moffat identified the Phuting of Tshane and the Hlakwana of Nkgaraganye. Livingstone demonstrated the role played by Sebetwane and his Fokeng, and Thomas Hodgson implicated Moletsane, the Taung.

While many gaps in our information still exist, this reconstruction seems to justify the revision of the accepted account of the Difaqane.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 107 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

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130 Ibid. 203–4.

131 Ibid. 136–7, 204–5. Thompson spells the name of the tribe ‘Batcloqueene’ and ‘Bacloqueeni’.

132 Ibid. 102 n). See also Ellenberger, D. F., 71.Google ScholarIn 1857 an old Phuting warrior who had fought at Dithakong and was then residing with Mzilikazi told Moifat that three chiefs had been killed that day: Tshane, Nkgaraganye and another (The Matabele Journals of Robert Moffat, 1829–1860, ed. Wallis, J. P. R. (2 vols; Oppenheimer Series no. I; London: Chatto and Windus, 1945), II, 81).Google Scholar

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134 Missionary Labours, 360. By 1842, when this work was published, Moffat had developed a more familiar orthography. Stow, referring to the names, states, ‘These must have been names given by the Batlapin to these chiefs’ (Stow, 477 n.).

135 Apprenticeship, 117, 230, 249. See also Missionary Labours, 414 ff. That Moffat recognized the distinction between various bands is indicated in his journal: ‘It appears from their statements that the late invaders are a tribe very diiferent from those who were defeated at Old Lattakoo’ (Apprenticeship, 215). See also Mary Moffat to Robert Moffat, Kuruman, 28 July 1824: ‘The Mant. fought terribly, had five kings, used the assegai dexterously, but were not the same people who fought at Old Lattakoo…’ (Apprenticeship, 159).

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139 See above, note 68. See also Macgregor, 27–35. Marion How claims Macgregor, her father, obtained his information from two elderly Tlokwa warriors who had accompanied MmaNthatisi during her wanderings (How, 68). Samuel Rolland attributes the widespread fame of MmaNthasisi to the practice of the Sotho of shouting their news from hill-top to hill-top in such fashion that everyone became apprehensive and mistook any approaching army for that of MmaNthatisi (How, 66).

140 Moffat, Mary to James and Smith, Mary, Griquatown, 1 September 1823, in Apprenticeship, 108.Google Scholar See also D. F. Ellenberger, 139.

141 Ibid.; Moffat, Robert to Mary Moffat, Kuruman, 13 August 1823,Google Scholar in Ibid. 107.

142 Ibid. xx, 405–6. This describes the entry into Graaff Reinet of many starving women and children who survived the battle at Dithakong. A later dispatch numberedt he refugees as being upwards of 300 (Somerset to Bathurst, Cape of Good Hope, 30 July 1825, in Ibid. XXII, 419).

143 Macgregor, 41, 43; D. F. Ellenberger, 205.

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152 Apprenticeship; for examples see pp. 117, 158–9, 170, 174.Google Scholar

153 Ibid. 170, 211, 235, 268–9. See 160 n.

154 Ibid. 225 ff.

155 Estimate from Thompson, 89, 205.

156 See above, note 5.

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