Nkrosi Lesiba Maraba II who was murdered and beheaded by Voortrekkers in the 1800s falls in that category of forgotten anti-colonial resistance heroes whose lives remain treated like a mere footnote in the gallant history of leaders who fought in defence of their land against colonial invaders.
Accounts of his reign as king of the Maraba-Ledwaba clan remain scant and largely unacknowledged. At best his legacy remains a precious resource in the minds and mouths of oral historians of the clan that occupied large parts of the fertile valleys in what is now parts of the Polokwane Local Municipality and parts of the Waterberg area of Limpopo, from around the 1600s to the turbulent, violent period of the late 1800s.
By the mid-1800s, the Maraba-Ledwaba had Marabastad, a vibrant, sprawling settlement 25km southwest of present-day Polokwane and stretching towards the site of the now popular The Ranch Hotel, as their headquarters.
Despite having resisted the invasion of the Voortrekkers, who had been defeated by the VhaVenda in the north and the Langa-Gegana Ndebele in the south, during the volatile 1850s and 1860s, on public platforms and studies on the Maraba-Ledwaba people, Maraba II is mentioned as somewhat of an afterthought.
There’s hardly any detail or anything at all available about his philosophy, style of leadership, personality, vision or intricate details of his encounters with other kings or invaders.
This is although such information about other resistance heroes, monarchs like Inkosi Shaka ka Senzangakhona or Kgoshi Sekhukhune who ruled and fought before and during this era is widely available. Even the exact year of his brutal slaying appears contested.
While historians seem to agree he was killed on 24 December, the exact year of his death remains mired in confusion between 1870, 1874 or 1881.
Maraba II led the Maraba-Ledwaba, who speak part of the tekela languages group known as sumela (SiNdebele sase Nyakatho or Northern Ndebele).
Julius Ledwaba, a native of Ga-Mashashane, the seat of the Maraba-Ledwaba royals, some 35km southwest of Polokwane, is piecing together details about the life of Maraba in a book.
This is an effort to add flesh to the skeletal details of this resistance hero, to bring alive what has up to now remained just a name without much honour and to rewrite the distorted history recorded by colonial invaders.
In December, Julius, together with the Mashashane Traditional Authority hosted an exhibition and book discussion tracing Maraba II’s history at the mushade perched under spectacular giant boulders that are the village’s trademark.
The exhibition featured displays of the royal family tree, names of past kings and images of some of the kings including the incumbent Magadangele Mashashane Maraba II.
Julius says he took on this daunting task of piecing together details about the life, reign and death of his great ancestor and 1800s anti-colonial resistance hero to unite the Ledwaba clan under the legacy of one king, and also, to educate current and future generations about Maraba II.
“We are honouring our King Lesiba Maraba II Ledwaba who was killed by the Boers in Marabastad. He was the last king who ruled over the Ledwaba before they were conquered. After his death there was turmoil,” says Julius who puts the year of the king’s death as 1870.
Julius embarked on the project in 2023 and later approached the National Heritage Council for funding. The book is set for release in early 2025.
With the scant availability of archival material and the fact that a generation of the clan’s custodians of oral history have long since passed on, Julius faces a huge challenge.
He shares the sentiment and adds that the available material requires further scrutiny because it was sourced mainly from material put together and recorded by the conquerers which resulted in distortions.
What is not disputed though is that Nkrosi Maraba II presided over a powerful, resourceful community at Marabastad, and took up arms against the Voortrekkers who were after his ancestral, gold-bearing, fertile land. But his defeat and murder forced the Ledwaba to move to present-day Ga-Mashashane and its surrounds.
In a 1994 study on Ndebele archaeology JHN Loubser, who submitted that the Ledwaba/Maune belonged to the African Iron Age techno-complex, wrote about Maraba II’s descendants: “Currently the descendants of the Ledwaba/Maune section are confined to the BergzichtKalkspruit and Mashashane Locations. This section is one of the most impoverished communities in the northern Transvaal, and very little of their “traditional” culture remains intact. There is information, however, concerning the nature of Ndebele culture and society during the period of Ledwaba/Maune rule in Tebelene.”
https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA00679208_2470
In a 2005 thesis, cleric Moroamaraba Shashi Johannes Ledwaba paints a troubling picture of that period after Maraba II’s killing.
“As already related, the political dispute between the Voortrekker Boers under the leadership of Hendrik Potgieter and Kgoshi Maraba II led to the cruel death of the Kgoshi and some of the Bakgomanas. The death of Kgoshi Maraba II created such a volatile situation that it was impossible for the evangelists to continue to minister to the Ndebele, thus no congregations were founded in that area. The death of a leader who dies in the defence of his country and his subject rights always creates tension, anger and a desire for revenge. It was no different in this case,” wrote the cleric who is now deceased.
Shashi’s work focused on the efforts of the Anglican Church’s efforts to set up missionary stations and churches in the area and how the killing of Maraba II made their task almost impossible.
https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/26903/Complete.pdf?sequence=6
“The Ndebele tribe became so incensed with the Boers, that they lost all interest in the work of the evangelists, which, understandably, came to be identified with the high-handed, aggressive, disrespectful and predatory attitudes of the white invaders to their ancestral land. As has been mentioned, feelings ran so high among the Ndebeles, that a group of the Bakgomanas, in the company of the senior Mokgomana and son of Kgoshi Maraba II, Sekgopetsana, decided to journey down to the Cape Colony to find work so that they could buy guns with which to avenge the death of their leader.”
Julius hopes that his upcoming book will help restore to the MaNdebele and Maraba II, the dignity denied them under colonial rule.
“We started this thing [book project] because the Mashashane people have no one common king to unite under. Telling this history is going to unite us,” he says.
