First overt act of rebellion—Natives borrow axes from Mrs.
Selous—Where are the white police?—Native woman gives information
of the murder of whites—Natives run off with the cattle—Murder of
three miners—Inscrutability of the Kafir mind—Matabele raid on
cattle.
Now this murder of a native policeman on the night of Friday, 20th
March, was the first overt act of rebellion on the part of the Matabele
against the Government of the British South Africa Company, and I
will therefore relate exactly what occurred. On the evening of the
aforementioned day, eight native policemen, acting on instructions of
Mr. Jackson, arrived at the town of Umgorshlwini, situated in the hills
near the Umzingwani river. Being accompanied by several boys carrying
their blankets, etc., they formed quite a little party, and so camped
outside the native town. They were sitting talking over their fires
after the evening meal, when a number of Matabele came up, and ranging
themselves in a line in front of them, commenced to dance. These men
all carried knob-kerries, and were led by a man named Umzobo,[5] who
had held a post of importance at Bulawayo in Lo Bengula's time. The
so-called dancing of all Kafirs of Zulu race is not dancing in the
European sense, but consists for the most part in stamping on the
ground, swaying the body and gesticulating with sticks. The stamping
is usually accompanied by a chant, the words of which are often
improvised for the occasion, and the effect of the whole dance is
decidedly stimulating, as I have often watched a stolid, stupid-looking
Kafir work himself up to a state of high excitability by this means.
On the present occasion Umzobo and his men very soon showed that they
had come to dance before the representatives of the law with a purpose,
that purpose being to pick a quarrel with them. They soon commenced
to "jia," or point with their sticks; then one of them ran out of the
line, and coming close up to the police, stooped forward, and drawing
his left hand rapidly backwards and forwards across his throat,
said: "You are killing us, you are killing us; why don't you cut our
throats, and make an end of it?" Then another ran out, and repeating
the formula, "you are killing us," pressed his finger on his temple,
and said: "Why don't you shoot us? why don't you put the bullet in
just here?" The expression, "you're killing us," so frequently used by
Umzobo's men, meant "you're making life unpleasant to us by enforcing
the Company's laws."
When these hostile demonstrations had gone on for some time, the
sergeant in charge of the police told Umzobo that he had better take
his men away, and tell them to go to sleep, as nobody wanted to fight
with them; but his words were without effect, and the dancing was still
going on, when one of the policemen saw a man creeping stealthily
towards them round the back of the cattle kraal. At once suspecting
mischief, he jumped up, and calling to his comrades "Look out, we're
amongst enemies," rushed upon the crouching figure that at once stood
up and revealed a Kafir armed with an assegai. Before he could make
use of his weapon, however, the policeman caught him by the wrist,
whilst another guardian of the law who had followed close behind
seized his other arm. They at once disarmed the man, and were putting
the handcuffs on him, when a shot was fired out of the cattle kraal,
aimed of course at the police, but so badly aimed that instead of
hitting one of them, it struck their prisoner in the back, killing him
almost instantly. Indeed, he fell dead with the handcuff on one wrist.
Immediately the shot was fired some of the police rushed into the kraal
and almost succeeded in capturing the man who had fired, so nearly in
fact that he dropped his rifle in his hurry to escape.
Umzobo and his men had now disappeared, and the police having collected
together, were standing in the light of their camp fires uncertain what
to do, when a volley was fired amongst them from the bush outside the
kraal. None of the police were hit, but one of their blanket-carriers
was shot through the head and killed on the spot. Not knowing the
number of their unseen enemies, the representatives of the law then
thought it advisable to beat a retreat. They reached Mr. Jackson's camp
at 1 A.M. on Saturday, handing him the captured rifle, and reporting
the loss of two of their boys; for besides the one whom they knew to be
dead, another small boy some ten or twelve years of age was missing.
This boy Mr. Jackson found lying dead half under the kraal fence, when
he visited Umgorshlwini with all the police he could muster on the
morning after the disturbance. The town was then deserted, and Mr.
Jackson thinks that this small boy must have been discovered trying to
hide under the fence after the police had left. He had been murdered
in a most brutal way, his skull having been smashed to atoms with
knob-kerries.
But the murder of these two police boys and the accidental killing of
one of Umzobo's men was not the only deed of blood which occurred on
this Friday night. Amongst Umzobo's men was one Ganyana. After the
retreat of the police this man went alone to the kraal of a nephew of
Lo Bengula—Umfondisi, the son of Lo Magazi—and waking him up, told
him what had happened. According to the report of a stranger who was
sleeping in Umfondisi's kraal that night, Ganyana was very much excited
and called out, "Come, Umfondisi; why are you sleeping? don't you know
we're fighting? we've killed some policemen, come; blood is running
and men are lying dead; come with me and let us do some more killing."
Umfondisi was nothing loth, and arming himself with an assegai went off
with Ganyana to a neighbouring kraal, the headman of which they at once
awakened in order to tell him the news. At this kraal there happened to
be one of Mr. Jackson's native policemen. He was asleep in a hut when
Ganyana and Umfondisi arrived, but the loud and excited conversation
that was being carried on awoke him, and he got up and came out of the
hut, asking as he did so what all the noise was about. "Who are you?"
said Ganyana. "I am so and so, one of Mr. Jackson's policemen," was the
answer. "What!" responded Ganyana; "do you tell me that you are one
of the witches who are always troubling us?" and running up to him he
shot him, and as he fell down mortally wounded, Umfondisi, the king's
nephew, plunged his assegai into him.
When on Monday evening, 23rd March, I heard from Mr. Jackson what had
happened on the previous Friday night, I imagined that the disturbance
was merely the outcome of local discontent, and little thought that
this attack on native policemen was but the prelude to the most
terrible massacre of Europeans that has ever yet taken place in a
native rising in South Africa; and more than this, that even whilst
I listened to the story, white men, women, and children lay freshly
murdered not many miles away. On the following morning, Tuesday, 24th
March, I rode through the hills to my own place, passing Umgorshlwini
on the way. Riding round the kraal I found bloodstains where the three
men had been killed, but the bodies had been taken away and buried by
the order of Mr. Jackson. The kraal itself, together with many smaller
ones in its vicinity, was absolutely deserted, and a splendid crop of
corn left standing in the valley below.
Having been absent since the previous Sunday morning, I was still all
unsuspicious of danger, but knowing now all that actually happened
during that time within a short distance of my house, I shudder to
think of what might have occurred there during my absence; for my
wife had been quite alone in the house with two little native girls;
Mr. Blöcker, my German assistant, and a young Scotchman, Mr. Notman,
occupying huts some distance away.
I reached home about mid-day, and found everything going on as usual.
My wife told me that during the morning several men—all of whom I
knew well—had come over to see her from the chief village of the
district—Intuntini—which had been a big military kraal before the war.
These men were all true-blooded Matabele, and several of them were in
charge of cattle belonging to my Company. They all wished to borrow
axes from her, to be used for the purpose of strengthening their cattle
kraals, they said, but I know now that they wanted them as weapons of
offence, as many of the murders were committed with axes. As we were
accustomed to assist the natives in any small matter of this kind, she
let them have all the axes that could be spared, and allowed them to
sharpen them on the grindstone. About sundown some of these same men
brought the usual evening's milk, and my wife and I chatted with them
for some time. We spoke about the recent murders on the Umzingwani,
and the conduct of Umzobo and Umfondisi, and my wife asked me to say
that she thought they had acted very foolishly, as the white men would
punish them. At this they laughed, and one of them said significantly,
"How can the white men punish them? where are the white police? there
are none left in the country."
Soon after these men had left us, George, a colonial Kafir in my
employ, came and said he wished to speak to me, and on my going aside
with him informed me that his wife—a Matabele woman—had just heard
from another native woman that white men had been murdered on the
previous day by the Matabele, on the further side of the Malungwani
range, amongst them a native commissioner, who, it was said, had had
his throat cut by his own black police. On hearing this disagreeable
news, which I did not doubt was substantially true, I began to think
that we were going to have a native rising after all. However, I did
not consider that we were in any danger, except from natives coming
from a distance, as I could not believe that any of the people living
close round us would be keen to murder either my wife or myself or any
one living with us, as we had benefited them in many ways, and had
certainly never given them any cause to dislike our presence amongst
them. I, of course, said nothing to my wife as to what I had heard, but
I told Mr. Blöcker and the young Scotchman to keep their rifles handy
in case of accidents. I had, too, some very good watch-dogs that I knew
would give me warning if any Kafirs came near the house, and I kept
awake all night with my rifle and a belt full of cartridges alongside
of me. But the night passed off quite quietly.
Why no attempt was made to murder us on that Tuesday night will
always remain a mystery to me. I should like to think that because
we had always treated them kindly and considerately, our immediate
neighbours shrank from killing us; but after all that has happened I
find it very difficult to believe this. They may have come with the
intention of killing us on the Tuesday morning, but finding me absent,
and Mr. Blöcker with a rifle in his hands—for when they arrived at
the homestead he was just going off to shoot a cow whose hip had been
dislocated in branding—may not have thought the opportunity a good one.
My wife noticed that they seemed very excited, and they also seemed
very anxious to know when I would return.
All things considered, I am afraid we owe them little, as if they did
not attempt to murder us they at any rate gave us no warning, and went
off on the Tuesday night with all the cattle I had entrusted to their
care, and in all likelihood assisted in the murder of Messrs. Foster,
Eagleson, and Anderson, all three of whom were carrying on mining work
on Essexvale; Foster's camp being within four miles of my home.
The events of the last three months have taught me at least this,
that it is impossible for a European to understand the workings of a
native's mind; and, speaking personally, after having spent over twenty
years of my life amongst the Kafirs, I now see that I know nothing
about them, and recognise that I am quite incompetent to express an
opinion as to the line of conduct they would be likely to adopt under
any given circumstances.
On the following morning I got up early, and after seeing the Kafirs
make a start on the work on which I was then engaged—which was the
preparation of a piece of ground round the house for a plantation of
fruit trees—I went up to George's hut and told him to try and get some
farther particulars, through his wife, as to the murders said to have
been committed on the previous Monday. Then I strolled back to the
house and worked at one thing and another till breakfast time, and was
just going indoors to sit down to that meal, when I saw George running
down from his hut to our house, followed by a Kafir boy. As he came
near he shouted out to the horse-herd who was standing by the stable,
"Bring the horses, bring the horses; make haste!"
I knew then there was something wrong, and half thought that an attack
was imminent, and having my wife's safety to provide for, was much
relieved when George told me that no pressing danger threatened, but
that armed Kafirs had driven off some of my Company's cattle. The boy
who accompanied George belonged to a small kraal, to the members of
which I had given some twenty or thirty head of cattle to look after
for our Company, they getting full benefit of all the milk, a great
boon to them, as they possessed no cattle of their own. He had been
sent by the headman to inform me that just at daylight a number of
Matabele from the kraal of Gwibu, a nephew of Lo Bengula, had opened
the cattle kraal and driven off all the cattle, threatening the life of
any one who interfered with them. These men, he said, were all armed
either with guns or shields and assegais, and wore white ox-tails
round their left arms and necks. Whilst I was still speaking, another
messenger arrived to tell me that all the Intuntini people had left
in the night, taking all their cattle with them, the greater part of
which belonged to my Company. I now knew that we were face to face
with a native rising, but I thought—what was indeed the fact—that this
rising had been fomented by members of the late king's family, and was
confined so far to the Abenzantsi, or Matabele of pure Zulu descent,
and I cherished the hope that if energetic measures were at once
adopted by the Government, the more numerous and useful section of the
nation, of Makalaka and Mashuna descent, might be kept quiet and the
rebellion speedily suppressed.