WHEN it was becoming clear that his time in the Natal Colony was up amaHlubi king Langalibalele knew that he was left with one option – to flee his homeland for safety in the neighbouring Basotholand which was a British colony itself writes Fidel Hadebe in this second instalment celebrating the valour of the less celebrated resistance hero
The authorities in Pietermaritzburg were fed-up with him and a violent attack was looming. On numerous occasions, he had defied instructions to present himself before the local magistrates as he believed that this practice of summoning amakhosi to present themselves before magistrates was intended to humiliate, intimidate and ultimately weaken them.
A few months before his final decision to escape to the Basotholand, information had been received from the Cape Colony that Langalibalele was engaged in what the authorities termed ‘treasonous communication’ with the Basotho King Moshoeshoe; who was his close friend and this placed increasing pressure on the authorities in Pietermaritzburg to act fast and swiftly against this ‘trouble maker’.
The colonial government readied itself by preparing its army and volunteers to move in on Langalibalele and his people, amaHlubi and the stage was set for a bloody attack on the defiant king and his people. The man who was to lead this military campaign against amaHlubi and their ‘defiant’ King was Anthony Durnford who was eventually tasked with intercepting Langalibalele as they were crossing Bushman’s River pass on their way into Basotholand.
Faced with what was clearly the inevitable – a military attack – Langalibalele decided to seek refuge in the land of his friend and confidante, King Moshoeshoe but it was this decision that led to his capture. The team that was dispatched to hunt down and capture Langalibalele included the son of King Moshoeshoe, Molapo, and two of Molapo’s sons as well as so-called auxiliaries who were enrolled to beef up the colonial army given its military weaknesses. It later emerged upon the capture that the colonial authorities in Pietermaritzburg had placed a price on Langalibalele’s head according to one of the people on the forefront of the capture. This price was 150 cattle for anyone who delivered him alive or 100 cattle for his dead body further providing evidence of how desperate the colonial authorities in Pietermaritzburg were to deal with the ‘defiant’ amaHlubi king decisively.
As soon as he was captured Langalibalele was sent to Pietermaritzburg to stand trial which, as the Bishop of Natal described in his January 1875 petition on behalf of King Langalibalele was ‘exceedingly unfair and unjust’. There were several reasons for this unfairness but the most important one perhaps had to do with the composition of the ‘bench’ that presided over the trial especially dealing with Langalibalele’s charge sheet given the fact that the trial as a whole was broken down into segments dealing with the various accused persons.
On the Langalibalele matter (which started on January 1874) one of the people presiding was the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal then who in 1873 already had taken far-reaching administrative decisions on the King and his people through a Proclamation he signed in November of that year. In that Proclamation the Lieutenant-Governor had effectively stripped Langalibalele of his authority as King of amaHlubi because he (Langalibalele) and his people had ‘set themselves in an open revolt and rebellion against Her Majesty’s government in this colony (Natal) and thus declaring himself and his people outlaws’.
The Proclamation effectively abolished amaHlubi as a cultural group or people as they had, in terms of the Proclamation ceased to exist. Their cattle and other property were ‘eaten up’ by the colonial government as was the practice during that period.
Apart from the Lieutenant-Governor other people who formed part of the ‘bench’ were the Supreme Chief (Shepstone) and his advisor on native affairs, resident Magistrates and other izinduna. It will be recalled that as Supreme Chief Shepstone had his izinduna and it is not surprising that some izinduna were made assessors in the Langalibalele matter.
Another huge injustice in the matter of Langalibalele is that he was refused any legal representation. The colonial government in preparing its trial had several witnesses who were lined up to testify against the King and these so-called witnesses (who included izinduna loyal to the Supreme Chief and magisterial messengers who had been sent to summons Langalibalele earlier) were not subjected to any cross-examination.
These injustices were sharply raised by the Bishop of Natal in his petition to the colonial government in London as I point out above. In terms of the charges he (Langalibalele) and those he was accused with faced, it will be remembered that in the first part of this series, I mentioned two critical matters that the colonial authorities in Pietermaritzburg were ‘unhappy’ about. The first had to do with Langalibalele’s questioning of the new native marriage regulations that were introduced as part of governing the marriages of natives. The second issue had to do with the control of guns in the colony (Natal) which Langalibalele felt was selectively enforced and was also designed to allow whites to possess and own guns while not allowing natives to do so given how the legislation or regulations were crafted. During this period young men from Natal who worked in the diamond mines in Kimberly obtained guns as payment from their employers while others bought these guns themselves and Langalibalele’s sons who were working in the diamond fields (Kimberly) did in fact have guns as later confirmed by the King himself.
It will be remembered that during the skirmishes with the colonial forces at Bushman’s River pass Dunford was wounded in the exchange of gun-fire with amaHlubi and a few of his (Dunford) men were killed in that battle and this incident was thus added into the charge-sheet Langalibalele had to answer to during his trial. As history has it, his fate was sealed long before the trial even commenced as the King was convicted, shipped to Robben Island to serve his sentence and banished until he met his death under house arrest in 1889.
It was only in 2004 that the British government extended its ‘apology’ to the amaHlubi kingdom and the nation for its atrocious actions against Langalibalele. This event in 2004 was a symbolic releasing of Langalibalele from captivity which was an important event for the amaHlubi royal family and the nation as a whole because the spirit of this important ancestor could not continue to languish in captivity. What was done to Langalibalele and amaHlubi is what the colonial masters in London did to many kingdoms across the continent and millions of people continue to bear the consequences of these injustices.
Bayede Bhungane!
Sembatha mkhonto njengobhedu!
- Fidel Hadebe is behaviour-change strategist, lobbyist, thought-leader, commentator, writer and conference speaker. The writer writes in his capacity as a private citizen and as a member of the amaHlubi nation and a South African
