This archival collection of Boer Prisoners of War provides you the user with a comprehensive 2524 records.
These Prisoner of War records will give you a surname, first names, date taken prisoner as well as prisoner number and archival source.
Many of the Boer prisoners of war in the Bermudas were buried on Long Island.

The approximately 17,000 Boer prisoners and exiles in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) were distributed far and wide throughout the world. They can be divided into three categories: prisoners of war, ‘undesirables’ and internees. Prisoners of war consisted exclusively of burghers captured while under arms. ‘Undesirables’ were men and women of the Cape Colony who sympathised with the orange Free State and Transvaal Republics at war with Britain and who were therefore considered undesirable by the British. The internees were burghers and their families who had withdrawn across the frontier to Lourenço Marques at Komatipoort before the advancing British forces and had finally arrived in Portugal, where they were interned.

Prisoners of war were detained  in the Bermudas on Darrell’s, Tucker’s, Morgan’s, Burtt’s and Hawkins’ Islands; In the Bermudas, on St. Helena and in South Africa quarters consisted chiefly of tents and shanties patched together from tin plate, corrugated iron sheeting, and sacking, and in India and Ceylon mostly of large sheds of corrugated iron sheeting, bamboo and reeds. The exiles, whose ages varied between 18 and 82 years, occupied themselves in various fields, such as church activities, cultural and educational works, sports, trade, and even printing, and nearly all of them to a greater or lesser extent took part in the making of curios.

The first war between the Transvaal and England lasted from December 1880 to March 1881. It was caused by the refusal of the Transvaal Boers to submit to British authority as proclaimed by Shepstone in 1877. After a period of passive resistance and repeated attempts by Paul Kruger and other leaders to have the annexation revoked, it was resolved at a national meeting on 13th December 1880 at Paardekraal to restore the Republic. Its affairs would be managed by a triumvirate consisting of Paul Kruger, Piet Joubert and M. W. Pretorius. Notice of the resolution was given to the British administration in Pretoria as well as to the governments of the Orange Free State, Natal and the Cape Colony.

The immediate cause of an armed conflict with the British authorities was an attempt by Gen. Piet Cronje to have a proclamation announcing the restoration of the Republic printed at Potchefstroom. The appearance of armed Boers in the main street and on the church square, where part of the British garrison under Capt. M. J. Clarke had entrenched itself in the magistrate’s office, ended in shooting. Hostilities followed also in other places in the Transvaal.

The British garrisons in Potchefstroom, Pretoria, Rustenburg, Lydenburg and Marabastad were surrounded and besieged. The Boer strategy was to isolate the British units in the Transvaal and to prevent their being reinforced from elsewhere. A detachment advancing from Wakkerstroom to Pretoria was forced to dig in at Standerton. Another detachment of the 94th Regt. under Col. P. R. Anstruther was cut to pieces on 20th December at Bronkhorstspruit by a commando led by Comdt. Franc Joubert. British losses were extraordinarily heavy: half of the force was killed and wounded and the rest taken prisoner. Immediately afterwards the main body of the Boers, led by Gen. Piet Joubert, occupied Laing’s Nek, the passage from Natal to the Transvaal. Meanwhile Kruger was conducting the affairs of state from Heidelberg, the temporary capital.

Britain’s first and foremost task was to relieve the besieged garrisons. Only by achieving this could the resistance of the Boers be broken. So Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley led an expeditionary force from Natal with the purpose of breaking the Boer positions at Laing’s Nek. He had at his disposal soldiers from the zest, 58th and Both Regiments, and was well provided with rockets and artillery, arms which his opponents lacked altogether. Initially his force consisted of hardly more than 1,000 men. On 28 January 1881 Coney launched a frontal attack on the Boer positions from his camp at Mount Prospect. Despite heavy protective fire by cannon and rockets and heroic charges by infantry and cavalry, he could not succeed in driving away his opponents, all of them excellent sharpshooters. Once more the losses were heavy, and the defenders were not coming off lightly either.

Joubert was not willing to remain on the defensive, for large British reinforcements were on their way from the south and the Boers would not be able to withstand such superior numbers for a long period. He therefore sent a commando under Gen. Nicolaas Smit to the rear of Coney’s positions in order to obstruct his line of communications with Newcastle. The British commander immediately realised the danger and marched against Smit. A fierce battle took place on 8th February at Skuinshoogte, near Ingogo. The battle lasted the whole of the afternoon amid a heavy thunderstorm, and under the protection of darkness Colley was obliged to withdraw from the battlefield. Once again the Boer sharpshooters were successful and Coney lost a large part of his force. It was clear that the bravery of the British soldiers was no match for the Transvaalers’ tactics and use of the terrain.

While the war continued on the Natal border and the British administration in the Transvaal had come to a complete standstill, Paul Kruger, supported by Pres. J. H. Brand of the Orange Free State, attempted to come to an agreement with London and end the war. He counted on the sympathy of the rest of South Africa and on the active support of the Free State, many of whose citizens were threatening to join the cause of the Transvaalers. In England, too, influential persons were seeking a peaceful solution of the Transvaal problem, and Gladstone’s Liberal government, inclined to big concessions, would accept any reasonable proposal which suited the interests of Britain. As early as January Kruger had already made a peace offer based on the restoration of the independence of the Transvaal subject to some sort of British authority. On 12th February Kruger once more appealed to Coney from Laing’s Nek to make an end to the struggle and offered to withdraw from the Boer position pending an impartial inquiry by a royal commission. Coney wired the contents of the letter to London and the British government agreed to negotiate on that basis. Colley, however, delayed his reply unnecessarily, so that it reached Kruger only at the end of the month, after his return to Heidelberg.

Meanwhile Coney decided to outflank the Boers by means of a bold act and to avenge his defeats. With a hand-picked band he occupied the top of Majuba, the hill which dominated Joubert’s positions, on 26th February.

This forced the Boers to launch an immediate counter-attack. A storming party hastily collected and, led by Nicolaas Smit, scaled the hill and from close quarters opened overwhelming fire on the enemy. The demoralised soldiers fled, Coney himself was killed, and the survivors entrenched themselves in their camp at Mount Prospect, where they awaited the arrival of reinforcements under Sir Evelyn Wood.

The victory at Majuba echoed throughout the country and stirred up national feeling among the Afrikaners in the whole of South Africa. President Brand was hardly able to restrain his people any longer from entering the war, and the government in London began to fear a general uprising. The Gladstone cabinet was magnanimous and willing to enter into negotiations for peace, as proposed by Kruger.

On 6th March Joubert and Wood agreed to a provisional armistice and the British government recognised the Boer leaders as representatives of their people. Kruger arrived shortly afterwards at the border and Brand hastened there as mediator. The negotiations were then continued. Kruger, faithfully assisted by Dr. E. J. P. Jorissen, had to use all his diplomatic skill to ensure that Britain would agree in writing to the restoration of freedom to the Transvaal even before the Royal Commission began its inquiry. Eventually an agreement was reached in terms of which Britain practically undertook to cede the country within six months, and on their part the Boer leaders accepted limited independence under British suzerainty and agreed to disband their armed force. The agreement was ratified on 23rd March 1881.

The major task of the Royal Commission was to determine the borders of the ‘Transvaal State’, as the republic was now called, and the Boers were obliged to agree to the loss of considerable territory along the south-western border. The final treaty was incorporated into the Pretoria Convention, which was signed on 3rd August 1881. On 8th August the country was formally transferred to the Boer representatives and the British flag was replaced by the Vierkleur, the green, red, white and blue flag of the Transvaal.

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Born at Bovenplaats, near Riebeek West on  24th May 1870 and died at  Doornkloof, near Irene on 11th September 1950, statesman, soldier and philosopher, was the second child in a family of four sons and two daughters. His parents were Jacobus Abraham Smuts (16.4.1845 – 25.8.1914), afterwards member for Malmesbury in the legislative assembly of the Cape Colony, and Catharina Petronella (Philippina) Gerhardina de Vries (May 1845 – 13.2.1901), a sister of the Rev. Boudewyn Homburg de Vries, then the minister of the N.G. Kerk at Riebeek West. He was of the seventh generation of a family predominently Dutch in descent whose founder, Michiel Cornelis Smuts, emigrated from Middelburg, Zealand, in Holland, some time before 1692. Of 105 forbears on both sides since the seventeenth century, eighty-five were Dutch, eighteen French, and only two of German origin.

The christian names of Smuts derived from his maternal ancestor, Johann Christian Davel, a German from Bautzen who arrived in 1734, through his grandfather, Jan Christiaan de Vries, who was a witness at his christening and after whom he was named. His genealogy shows his descent on the paternal side from the Cape families of Van Aarde, Van der Bill, De Vlamingh, Dreyer, Slabbert, Mostert and De Kock, and on the maternal side from the families of Davel, Pas, Du Plessis, Hartog, De Vries and Niehaus.

His Smuts forbears first settled as farmers in the Swartland region of the south-western Cape in 1786. The farm Ongegund, on the upper portion of which, called Bovenplaats, he was born, was acquired in 1818. His father and grandfather farmed Bovenplaats together for a time, but in 1876 his father moved to Klipfontein, thirteen miles north-west of Riebeek West. On this farm Smuts  spent the greater part of his boyhood and here many of his lifelong interests, tastes and values were formed. His happy childhood implanted a deep love of home and family; his solitary wanderings in the veld, the magnificent presence of the distant Winterhoek range, the proximity of the mountain called Riebeek Kasteel – the first he ever climbed – instilled in him an almost mystic love of nature.

Before the Inquest Act of 1875 no proper provision appears to have been made in the Cape Colony for the holding of inquests on the bodies of persons who had died suddenly or under suspicious circumstances. In that year, however, this defect was remedied by the passing of Act 22.

The preamble to this Act says: “Whereas no adequate provision exists in the law of this Colony for the holding of inquests in cases where persons die suddenly or are found dead, or are supposed or suspected to have come by their death by violence, or otherwise than in a natural way…. “It provided that the Resident Magistrate or Field Cornets, before whom the enquiry was to be made, was to have the body examined by a medical man, if such could be procured, and, if not, then by the best qualified person that could be obtained. In this article I propose to deal with the enquiry as to the early mode of procedure in this country in holding inquests and obtaining post-mortem examinations by a medical man. The subject will be treated from a medico-legal aspect, and in the first place will deal with the question as to how far the law required an inquest to be held; secondly, the manner of procedure; and lastly, the testimony of the medical practitioner as to his post mortem examination.

While giving some attention to the early history of inquests from a legal point, I have not overlooked the fact that this is written for a medical journal. But as will be seen later on, inquests on dead bodies and post-mortem examinations go hand in hand, as it were. I have given extracts of medical post-mortems from the early days of the Cape Settlement to the first quarter of last century. Did the early law require an inquest to be held upon the body of one who had died suddenly or under suspicious circumstances? There was no written law of the Cape which demanded this, but by custom it became necessary. Let us see what two legal gentlemen of some standing have said concerning this. Sir John Truter, Chief Justice of the Cape, writing to the Governor in 1817, said; ” … It has always been a constant custom in this Colony … to take inquests on the bodies of all persons, of whatever age or description, who have died a violent death, and on which occasion all circumstances are minutely investigated and inserted in the Act of Inquest, together with the opinion of the professional person so assisting as to the cause of death, as also on the bodies of all adults and infants who have died suddenly, or who have been found dead, or with respect to the manner of whose death the most trivially unfavourable supposition may have arisen. This practice is so invariably and strictly observed here that there are several examples of bodies having been dug up which had been buried in consequence of no suspicion having previously existed, in order to ascertain beyond all doubt that no violence had been committed, and similar inquests are even taken on all wounded persons of whatever rank and situation, whatever may be the nature of the wound, and although it may be sufficiently known beforehand that such wound was entirely accidental. … “(1)

The Fiscal,(2)  in a letter in 1822 to the Registrar of the Court of Appeals here, gives us a more definite statement as to the custom. He wrote: ” This inquest, an inspection, though not by law introduced in the Netherlands nor in this Colony, still by custom, which is equal in its operation to a written law, has been adopted; and is analogous to the practice in the Courts of Germany, where the same was made lawful in the Criminal Constitution of the Emperor Charles the Fifth.” (3) Customs, according to the Roman-Dutch Law, if not abrogated by subsequent laws, have the force of law, although they may not have been registered amongst the Acts of Courts. (4) From the above statements, then, inquests were necessary by an unwritten law of the Colony. That this was observed will be illustrated by one or two of the medical certificates written in the early days of the country’s history.

Before passing on to the next point, I would like to quote from one of the Roman-Dutch law books, which shows that in Holland there must have been some mode of procedure for holding an inquest. “Persons found drowned, or who otherwise meet with an accident and are found dead, may not be removed from the place where the body is discovered before a proper examination by the local authorities has taken pIace.”5

Now as regards the mode of procedure. When a person had died suddenly, if in Cape Town or district, the Fiscal was notified, and if in the country, then the Landdrost. The Fiscal, together with two commissioned members of the Court of Justice, the Secretary of the Court, and one or two government surgeons, made an ocular inspection of the corpse. The surgeon made his examination, and noted the state and appearance of the wounds, if any, and formed his opinion as to the cause of death. If necessary, he made a dissection of the body. “The surgeons entrusted with the examination and dissection are, with the greatest care and attention, to examine the external and internal marks of violent discoverable on the body deceased, and to make a statement thereof on oath for the information of the judicial committee thereon attending, which is to be concluded with their opinion as perite in arte respecting the lethality or not of the wounds or other injuries received. No oath, however, is to be required from medical officers publicly appointed to assist the courts on such occasions, to whom, in the discharge of their respective duties, full credit is to be given on the oath administered to them at the entrance into their official situations.”(6)

In the country districts two commissioned Heemraden and the surgeon inspect the body. At the request of the Fiscal or Landdrost these Heemraden were authorized to take inquests and pass Acts thereof in forma, which Acts had the same force as if the inquest had been taken before a commission of the Court of Justice. Therefore, when anyone died suddenly, a judicial enquiry was held before commissioned members of the Court of Justice in Cape Town, or the Court of Landdrost and Heemraden in the country. An inspection of the body was made, and the medical man in attendance gave his testimony as to the cause of death. We now turn to the reports sent in by the surgeons to the court holding the inquests. Up to the close of the eighteenth century these are brief, those of the earlier days being very much so. Now and again one comes across a report of an examination in which more care and time seems to have been spent. It was not in every case that a dissection of the body took place; that is, if one is guided by the surgeon’s statement as to the means he adopted to ascertain the cause of death. In a case of stabbing in 1660, given below, nothing more than an external examination seems to have been made. But in another stabbing case in 1684, four medicos, Wilhelm ten Damme, (7) Jacob Budewitz, Claude Moreaux, and H. Claudius’s opened up the deceased, and describe very minutely the condition of the damage done by the rapier which had caused the injury.

Certificate Of Examination Made In April, 1660, On The Dead Body Of A Boatswain’s Mate Who Had Been Stabbed To Death.

Having been requested by Mr. Van Riebeeck (9) to report my examination on the body of the boatswain’s mate, made in the presence of the Fiscal and the surgeon, Pieter van Clinckenbergh, I beg to state that the jugular vein and carotid artery (vena jugeloere en aortery carotides) were severed, and the asperia arteria also injured; death ensured from loss of blood. The junior surgeon, Pieter van Meerhoff, is of the same opinion.

CHEVALIER, Senior Surgeon ofthe ship “Vlissingen.”

PIETER VAN CLINCKENBERGH.

PIETER VAN MEERHOFF. (10)

In October, 1788, a man was found dead on his bed; he was lying on his stomach with his face buried in the pillow. The commissioners of the Court proceeded to the house to hold the inquest, and from the evidence of a witness ascertained that the deceased suffered from epilepsy (vallende ziekte). The surgeon, who was called upon to give his visum repertum, stated: “According to the evidence, the said Colin (deceased) suffered from epilepsy, and it is presumed had a seizure during the night. Being unable to cry out for assistance, he was thus smothered. There could have been no other cause of death that I am aware ”

After the beginning of last century the medical certificates became more lengthy, and show a greater amount of detail of the results of the examinations. There was one doctor in particular, Dr. F. L. Liesching, whose reports occupy as much as three closely written foolscap leaves, and show a careful and conscientious examination of the body. In 1820 Edward Roberts, surgeon, sent in to the Court the following report of his post-mortem examination of a slave who had died suddenly. After giving the general build of the man, he says: ” There was not the slightest external mark of violence. My attention was drawn to the internal state of the head by a drop of blood which had oozed down the right nostril. On removing the scalp and upper part of the skull, both which were entirely sound, the vessels of the brain poured out their blood, as in cases of apoplexy. The ventricles, or cavities of the brain, were also found so much dis”,: tended with a watery fluid as to confirm my opinion, which is, that ‘Patientie’ died apoplectic”.

In 1822 a sensational trial of a young man for the murder of a slave took place at Cape Town. The crime had been committed in the Paarl district. This young man had ordered other slaves to thrash the deceased. So violently had this been carried out that death ensured shortly after. Most of the evidence was that given by slaves, and although the defendant’s advocate had tried his utmost to get his client off, he was unsuccessful. The prisoner was sentenced to death, which sentence was duly carried out. The district surgeon’s certificate of his post-mortem on the slave is set out in full. “I certify that on this day, together with a committee, I went to the farm of the Rev. Gebhardt in order to examine the body of the slave Joris, and I find as follows:- “Internal Examination.-Having opened the head and examined the brains and membranes, I found, with the exception of a small quantity of water in the stomach, no signs of disease or derangement. “On examining the thorax, or chest, I found it to be in a healthy condition, and nothing whatever characteristic of any disease was noticeable. The viscera or intestines of the abdomen or stomach were equally healthy, with this one exception, that there was a slight redness about three inches in length on one of the convolutions of one of the small intestines, the ileum, but this could not have had any fatal consequences. The stomach was perfectly sound, slightly swollen, and contained a quantity of liquid, clear and colourless, mixed with slime, and having a sour smell.

“External Examination.-On examining the external parts of the body, a totally different scene presented itself: the loins showed a large mass of extravasated blood, congealed liquid, and bruised, sinewy substances; the loins and sinews of the back were bruised to such an extent that their fibres in several places could not be traced. This outpour of blood and liquid, the clearest consequence of a severe bruising, extended from the hips up to the square sinews of the neck, while on either side, as far down as the external oblique sinews of the stomach, there were broad blotches of coagulated blood under the different bands. The whole fleshy and hollow substance of the loins, indeed, appeared to be a misformed heap of coagulated blood, liquid, and sinewy substance. “After the last minute and careful examination of the internal parts of the body, I found no signs of disease or disorder which could have caused death, and hence the inevitable conclusion is that the slave in question owes his death to the destruction of the tissues about the loins and adjoining parts, causing such a weakening of the constitution, exhaustion of strength, and agony as gradually tended to lessen the working or pulsation of the heart to such an extent that death resulted there from.

“ROBERT SHAND, M.D., ‘District Surgeon’.”

One more example before closing this article. In his report of an examination of the body of a man who had died suddenly, Surgeon C. A. Wentworth said: “The only appearances of disease found were within the cranium. On opening the dura mater about three ounces of fluid escaped. The arachnoid membrane was separated from the pia mater by a serious effusion, which extended over the whole surface of the encephalon, of gelatinous appearance. The ventricles were filled by an effusion of serum into their cavities. Several vesicular bodies adhered to the plexus choroides, about the size of small peas. The pined gland contained an earthy matter. The substance of the brain was unusually firm. Death evidently proceeded from a sudden determination of blood to the brain.”

REFERENCES

1. Letter dated 27th Match, 1817.

2. I.e., the Attorney-General of the day or Public Prosecutor.

3. Letter dated IIth November, 1822.

4. V. d. Keessel’s “Select Theses”, Thesis 21.

5. Van Leeuwen’s “Roman-Dutch Law”, Kotze’s translation, “101. ii, p. 28r.

6. Letter, November II, 1822, Fiscal to Registrar Court of Appeals.

7. A well-known surgeon at the Cape at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

8. Hendrick Claudius, of Breslau, an apothecary, accompanied Governor Simon van

der Stel on his expedition to Namaqualand in 1685.

9. First commander at the Cape, 1652-1662. Van Riebeeck was himself a surgeon in the Company’s service before being appointed out here.

10. He was quite an interesting personage in the early days of the Cape settlement. Van Meerhoff came from Copenhagen and arrived here as soldier in 1659. In 1661 he was made a surgeon of the Fort of Good Hope. Between 1660-1667 he accompanied inland many expeditions of the Company. In 1664 he married Eva the first Hottentot to profess Christianity, and who had been taken into Mr Van Riebeeck’s household.

This publication contains pedigrees on all the earliest settler families and their descendants from 1652 until the early 1800′s.+
Originally it was published in three volumes prior to 1895 called “Geslacht Register der oude Kaapsche Familien” or roughly translated as Genealogical Register of Old Cape Families.

Now in 4 combined volumes this searchable electronic book also includes English, French, Dutch and German family names. This book provides names of people, date of and place of arrival of progenitor, dates of birth or baptism, marriage date and spouse’s name.

Buy this book now or search this book under our main search page.

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The History of Grahamstown is so inseparably bound up with that of English colonization in South Africa, that a correct record of the one, if elaborated upon as it could and should be, would comprise the true story of the other. From the day of its establishment to the present time, it has occupied a most prominent position in every movement which had for its object the political, commercial, religious, or social advancement of the Cape Colony. Every step that has marked its growth may aptly be described as the evidence of the growth in South Africa of English influence and English colonization. As the primitive buildings which formed the military post out of which it has grown disappeared to give place to more substantial buildings and residences, and the semblance of a town sprung up in the valley so wisely selected as the site of the future “City of the Settlers,” so a like advance was made in other parts of the Colony.

Kmdt. Henning Petrus Nicolaas Pretorius

(born 1844 in Natal, South Africa; died 1897, Farm Abrahamskloof, Albanie, Cape, South Africa) nicknamed “Skote Petoors”

When a young boy, he was nearly present when his paternal grandfather was murdered in 1865 in Moorddraai, but rode ahead to see his fiancee, and therefore was saved from being murdered too. In 1876 he became and Cornet in the Z.A.R. in the Sekukune wars. His heroic conduct during the First Boer War in Elandsfontein made him famous. He was wounded twice. In 1882 he was commissioned as a Kommandant. In 1890 he was made Acting Kommandant Generaal in place in P.J. Joubert. In 1896 he was promoted to Lt. Colonel of the reorganised Artillery Corps under the new name of Staatsartillerie. He made several improvements to the Artillery, rendering them equivalent to those of most nations at the time. He died while on a mission in the Eastern districts of the Cape, while looking for the beam on which the accused were hanged in 1816 for the Slagtersnek opstand. He was buried with full military honours at the Helde-akker in Pretoria. There is a statue of him in front of Military Headquarters in Potgieter Street in Pretoria.

Kmdt. Henning Petrus Nicolaas Pretorius

His father was Marthinus Wessel “Swart Martiens” Pretorius (1822-1864) born in Graaf Reinet and who died at the Battle of Silkaatsnek, during the First Boer War. Farmer in Welgegund, near Pretoria. His mother was Debora Jacoba Retief (1815-1900), born at Mooimeisjesfontein, in the Cape. She famously painted her father’s name on the cliff face of Kerkenberg in the Drakensberg. A sculpture of this deed is on display in the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. Her father was Gen. Pieter Retief (1780-1838), known as Piet Retief, Voortrekker leader. Retief was born in the Cape Colony, South Africa. His family were Boers of French Huguenot ancestry, and Retief grew up on one of the vineyards established by French wine-making immigrants near Stellenbosch. After moving to the vicinity of Grahamstown Retief, like other Boers, acquired wealth through livestock, but suffered repeated losses from Xhosa raids in the period leading up to the 6th Cape Frontier War. (However, apart from such losses, Retief was also a man in constant financial trouble. On more than one occasion, he lost money and other possessions mainly through gambling and land speculation.

He is reported to have gone bankrupt at least twice, while at the colony and on the frontier. Such losses impelled many frontier farmers to become Voortrekkers (literally those who move forward) and to migrate to new lands in the north. Retief authored their ‘manifesto’, dated 22 January 1837, setting out their long-held grievances against the British government, which they felt had offered them no protection, no redress, and which had freed their slaves with recompense to the owners hardly amounting to a quarter of their value. This was published in the Grahamstown Journal on 2 February and De Zuid-Afrikaan on 17 February just as the emigrant Boers started to leave their homesteads. Retief’s household departed in two wagons from his farm in the Winterberg District in early February 1837 and joined a party of 30 other wagons. The pioneers crossed the Orange River into independent territory.

When several parties on the Great Trek converged at the Vet River, Retief was elected “Governor of the United Laagers” and head of “The Free Province of New Holland in South East Africa.” This coalition was very short-lived and Retief became the lone leader of the group moving east. On 5 October 1837 Retief established a camp at Kerkenberg near the Drakensberg ridge. He proceeded on horseback the next day to explore the region between the Drakensberg and Port Natal, now known as Kwa-Zulu Natal. Upon receiving a positive impression of the region he started negotiations with the Zulu chief, Dingane, in November 1837. Retief led his own band over the Drakensberg Mountains and convinced Voortrekker leaders Maritz and Potgieter to join him in January 1838.

On a second visit to Dingane, the Zulu agreed to Boer settlement in Natal, provided that the Boer delegation recovered cattle stolen from him by the rival Tlokwa tribe. This the Boers did, their reputation and rifles cowing the tribe into peacefully handing over the cattle. Despite warnings, Retief left the Tugela region on 28 January 1838, in the belief that he could negotiate permanent boundaries for the Natal settlement with Dingane. The deed of cession of the Tugela-Umzimvubu region, although dated 4 February, 1838, was signed by Dingane on 6 February 1838. This Dingane did by imitating writing and with the two sides recording three witnesses each. Dingane then invited Retief’s party to witness a special performance by his soldiers. However, upon a signal given by Dingane, the Zulus overwhelmed Retief’s party of 70 and their Coloured servants, taking all captive. Retief, his son, men, and servants, about a hundred people in total, were taken to Kwa Matiwane Hill in what is now Kwa-Zulu Natal, and murdered. Their bodies were left on the hillside to be devoured by wild animals, as was Dingane’s custom with his enemies.

Dingane then gave orders for the Voortrekker laagers to be attacked, which plunged the migrant movement into serious disarray. Eventually, the Retief party’s remains were recovered and buried on 21 December 1838, by members of the “victory commando” led by Andries Pretorius, following the decisive Voortrekker victory at Blood River. Also recovered was the undamaged deed of cession from Retief’s leather purse, as later verified by a member of the “victory commando”, E.F. Potgieter. An exact copy survives, but the original deed disappeared in transit to the Netherlands during the Anglo-Boer War. The site of the Retief grave was more or less forgotten until pointed out in 1896 by J.H. Hattingh, a surviving member of Pretorius’s commando. A monument recording the names of the members of Retief’s delegation was erected near the grave in 1922. The town of Piet Retief was named after him as was (partially) the city of Pietermaritzburg.

(The “Maritz” part being named after Gerrit Maritz, another Voortrekker leader.) Piet Retief married Magdalena Johanna De Wet [1782-1855; daughter of Pieter De Wet (1765-?) and Maria P Opperman (1757-?)]. Her father Pieter de Wet was in turn the son of Petrus Pieter De Wet (1726-1782) and Magdalena Fenesie Maree (1726-1770). Retief’s own parents were Jacobus Retief [1754-1821; son of Francois Retief (1708/9-1743) and Anna Marais (1722-1777)] and Debora Joubert [1749-?; daughter of Pieter Joubert (1726-1746) and Martha Du Toit (1729-1771)].

Jacobus Retief was a farmer near Wellington, his original farm was called “Soetendal”. He also bought the farm “Welvanpas”, formerly known as “De Krakeelhoek” which belonged to his grandmother Maria Mouij, of whom presently. He had eleven children. His father, Francois Retief, was the eldest son of the founding father of the Retief clan in South Africa, Hugenot emigrant Francois Retif Snr. (1663-1721). This Francois Retief fled Mer in Blois, France during the recriminations of King Louis XIV with his young sister to Holland. Since the Dutch were looking for settlers for the Cape, they joined and arrived in Cape Town in 1688. He bought a farm and called it “Le Paris” on the northern banks of the Berg River near Wemmershoek. He married Maria Mouij, (1685-?, daughter of Pierre Mouij, also of France.), 23 years his junior.

To return to Marthinus Wessel Pretorius (Swart Martiens): His father was: Councillor Henning Petrus Nicolaas Pretorius [1800-1865; son of Marthinus Wessel Pretorius (1747-?) and Susanna Elisabeth Viljoen, (1760-?), widow of J.D. Hattingh] who was a Deacon in the church and long-serving elder, as well as member of the first Voortrekker Council in Natal. He was murdered by the Sotho at Moorddraai near Harrismith with his wife, Johanna Christina Vorster [1804-1865; daughter of Barend Johannes Vorster (1771-1840) and Johanna Christina Vorster (1776-?)], two of his sons and a companion. His brother, Andries Pretorius later became the Voortrekker arch-leader and founded the capital city of Pretoria, South Africa. Barend Vorster was the son of Barend Johannes Vorster (1748-1799) and Cecilia van Heerden (1752-1789). Marthinus Wessel Pretorius was the son of Johannes Pretorius [1711-1778; son of Johannes Pretorius (1642-1694) and Johanna Victor (1640-1719)] and Johanna Bezuidenhout [1717-?; illegitimate daughter of Wynand Bezuidenhout (1674-1724) and Gerbrecht Boshouwer (1684-1772)]. Johannes Pretorius (1711-1778) farmed near Roodesandskloof with about 40 cattle and 70 sheep. His father, the elder Johannes Pretorius was born in Oudorp, Alkmaar, Noord-Holland, Netherlands and was the first to move to South Africa. His parents were: Wessel Schout Praetorius [1614-1664; son of Barend Wesselius Pretorius (1596-1668) and Aaltje Jansdochter (1596-1643)] and Josyntgen Claesdochter (1618-?). Barend’s father was Wessel Schulte (1566-?).

A perfect example of the enigmatic genetic whirlpool at the tip of the African continent and the forces that have shaped the country, the birth of Walter Sisulu is one of the most tantalising events of his time.

Born on May 18, 1912 to Alice Mase Sisulu, a relative of Nelson Mandela's first wife, Evelyn Mase, this revered statesmen and symbol of the apartheid struggle, who served 26 years behind bars and on Robben Island for his commitment to freedom, was the product of what was seen as a scandalous union at the time.

Paternal Ancestry.

His mother, who refused to give credence to the unspoken colour and gender barriers before apartheid became official in 1948, left her rural home in Qutubeni, Transkei, to work in white homes and entered into a long-term relationship with a white man, Albert Victor Dickinson. Though no reason is given in the Sisulus' biography ‘In Our Lifetime', Walter's daughter-in-law Elinor says the couple chose not to marry when Walter was born. Four years later the couple had another child, Rosabella.

The boy child was christened Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu at the Anglican All Saints Mission near Qutubeni – a tantalising clue that invites investigation, as the Ulyate family was a well-known 1820 Settler family that farmed in the Eastern Cape.Though he was aware of the existence of his father, who Elinor suggests wanted to adopt him, Dickinson played no role in Walter's upbringing. Walter and Rosabella were raised by his mother's extended Hlakule/Sisulu family, who were descended from the royal Thembu clan that traces its genealogy 20 generations back to King Zwide. All that is known of Albert Victor Dickinson, whom Walter only met a few times, is that he was born on July 9, 1886, and was the son of Albert Edward Dickinson of Port Elizabeth. Elinor says there were conflicting oral reports as to whether he was a road supervisor or a magistrate, but he worked in the Railway Department of the Cape Colony from 1903 to 1909 and was transferred to the Office of the Chief Magistrate in Umtata in 1910.

Walter Sisulu died on May 5, 2003, a week short of his 91st birthday. He is buried in Croesus Cemetery, Newclare, Johannesburg. His wife, Albertina, herself an important icon in the struggle years, lives in Johannesburg. 

Article written by: Sharon Marshall

The Sisulu wedding, 1944. (Standing on the left is Nelson Mandela. The pretty bridesmaid next to him is Evelyn Mase, Mandela's future wife.) 

 (With kind permission from South African History Online.)

Source: SESA (Standard Encyclopedia of Southern Africa)

(*Pretoriuskloof, Graaff-Reinet dist., 17.9.1819 – † Potchefstroom, 19.5.1901), president of the Transvaal republic and of the Orange Free State, was the eldest child of Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius, the Voortrekker leader, and his first wife, Christina Petronella de Wit. Because of the pioneering conditions under which he grew up, Pretorius did not receive much formal education, but, nevertheless, was given some elementary schooling, as his earliest correspondence is in very legible handwriting and shows a command of language unusual among his contemporaries. He was continually adding to his store of knowledge and until an advanced age was still receiving tuition, as he did, for example, from J. G. Bantjes, his father’s former secretary. His youth was uneventful, but he learnt to know the native problem at an early age and when he left the Cape Colony at nineteen, he fully realized the underlying motives for the Great Trek.The Pretorius family cannot be regarded as belonging to the first Voortrekkers, for it was only after an exploratory expedition that A. W. J. Pretorius decided to settle in Natal. On 31.10.1838 his party of sixty-eight wagons departed from the colony. After a call for help from Natal , the trek was left behind on the Modder river and, together with his father, P. travelled ahead of the others to the Voortrekker encampments on the Little Tugela. There they arrived on 2.11.1838. Young P. was a member of the commando that took action against Dingane and he also participated in the battle of Blood river, but, while in Natal, he remained in the background.

On 19.12.1841 he married twenty-one-year-old Aletta Magdalena, widow of François Alewyn Smit. Several children were born, but only one daughter, Christina Johanna Petronella (Chrissie) Pretorius, survived, Christiana and Lake Chrissie in the Transvaal are named after her. Pretorius settled on a farm bordering on that of his father and about an hour on horseback (six miles) from Pietermaritzburg. Pretorius must have learnt a good deal from his father, as Andries Pretorius would not have left his son ignorant of the important developments in which he, the father, was involved. Pretorius was aware of the major principles of Voortrekker policy such as economic and political freedom, and relations with Britain and the Bantu.

Believing that some agreement with the British government was possible, Andries Pretorius remained on his farm after the annexation of Natal (1843), but the British native policy created a difficult situation. While Pretorius was attempting to have an interview with the high commissioner, Sir Henry Pottinger, in Grahamstown (September 1847), the position became so serious that the Pretorius family was forced to leave Natal. This exodus took place under the leadership of Pretorius, who proceeded as far as the Tugela river, where his father again joined the family. There, too, the famous interview between Sir Harry Smith and Andries Pretorius took place towards the end of January 1848, shortly before the British annexation of the Transorange. This resulted in some delay and the Pretorius family were able to settle in the Transvaal only during the first months of 1848, Pretorius occupying the farm Kalkheuvel in the vicinity of Magaliesberg, about twenty miles to the west of modern Pretoria, and about twelve miles from his father’s farm, Grootplaas, at the Hartebeespoort.

Pretorius completed his first assignment on behalf of the government in October 1851. By that time the Basuto problem was so acute that the burghers of the Orange River Sovereignty called for the intervention of Andries Pretorius and it was decided to send young Pretorius, together with a certain D. Botha, to the sovereignty to make an opportunity for an interview between Maj. H. D. Warden and Andries Pretorius, who had been outlawed by the British government since August 1848. Warden reacted favourably and undertook to forward any proposal by the Emigrant Boers to the high commissioner in Cape Town. In a sense, this visit of Pretorius’s helped to pave the way for the Sand River convention.

The conclusion in January 1852 of the Sand River convention, by which the independence of the Transvaal was formally recognized by Britain, caused initially some measure of dissatisfaction to the north of the Vaal river. After Andries Pretorius and A. H. Potgieter had become reconciled, however, prospects for the immediate future brightened considerably and for this reason the death of the two leaders in such a short time was so tragic. The death of his father on 23.7.1853 almost immediately involved Pretorius, as his son, in his country’s affairs. On 8.8.1853 he was unanimously nominated commandant-general in his father’s place, pending confirmation by the volksraad. The following day he was sworn in as such by the interim committee of the volksraad and, when he made his appearance in the krygsraad (‘military council’) a day later, he was elected its chairman by that body.

From the beginning Pretorius showed an extraordinary ability to deal with national problems. A factor which at this stage hindered national unity was the lack of a central site for the volksraad. When the public and the general assembly of the N.H. Kerk asked for a suitable site, Pretorius acted somewhat hastily and informed the volksraad at its next meeting that he had bought two centrally situated farms for this purpose. To his great disappointment the volksraad did not, however, share his enthusiasm and postponed the matter sine die.

In the same way his attempts to achieve unity with the O.F.S. were impeded by hasty action. From his father he had inherited the desire to combine into one large whole the Boer communities resulting from the Great Trek. In this, too, he succeeded his father at a very critical stage, for towards the end of 1853 Sir George Russell Clerk, the special commissioner, was abandoning the O.F.S., and openly hinted that there would be no objection by Britain to the union of the two Boer states. Pretorius wished to use this opportunity to share in the discussions on the British withdrawal, but this was not granted. His ideals were shared by many in the O.F.S. and were expressed by the provisional government on the day after independence had been declared. The first elected volksraad of the O.F.S. subscribed to the ideal of union by sending Paul Bester and M. Wessels to the Transvaal in June 1854. They were the bearers of a document which they placed before the Transvaal volksraad at Rustenburg and which could be interpreted as indicating that the O.F.S. was thinking in terms of union.

Although this fitted in perfectly with Pretorius’s projects, he was not in a position to carry the matter any further. Within the Transvaal new groups were developing. This not only frustrated Pretorius’s plans for amalgamating with the O.F.S., but also delayed the much more important task he had set himself: to provide a constitution for a Transvaal republic. This is to a certain extent attributable to the arrival in May 1853 of the Rev. Dirk van der Hoff as the Transvaal ‘s first minister of religion. Instead of consolidating the republic this event caused internal tension and the formation of dissenting religious groups.

When, initially, the Transvaal succeeded in obtaining a minister, assistance was promised from the Cape Colony on condition that the Transvaal parishes would be incorporated in the Cape synod of the N.G. Kerk. This condition was accepted but scarcely a week later, on the arrival of the Rev. Van der Hoff, the consistory of Potchefstroom decided, with Pretorius’s moral support, to contest incorporation in the Cape synod. This resolution was confirmed by the volksraad at its sitting in Rustenburg (August 1853), in the absence of the representatives from Lydenburg. Scarcely a month later, at a meeting of the full volksraad in Lydenburg, the resolutions of the previous meeting were endorsed, except that renouncing the Cape synod. In this matter the Lydenburg section wished provisionally to temporize. Notwithstanding this, the breach with the Cape synod was ratified (November 1853) in the presence of the Lydenburg representatives. On the surface all seemed well and the Transvaal, as far as church affairs were concerned, was apparently a unified whole.

Unfortunately J. A. Smellekamp made his appearance in Lydenburg at this stage and the personal feud between him and the Rev. Van der Hoff spread so widely that the whole of the Transvaal was involved. Ultimately Smellekamp was reprimanded and fined by the volksraad and, on his failure to pay, was banished from the republic. This, however, happened only after the krygsraad, of which Pretorius was chairman, had stepped in and taken the Rev. Van der Hoff under its protection at the consistory’s request.

Here Pretorius was not a statesman, and allowed himself to be involved in a personal feud. The old Transvaal differences between east and west, already obvious in the days of Andries Pretorius, were revived. The Lydenburg faction headed by H. T. Bührmann, blamed Pretorius for his actions but at the same time held the Rev. Van der Hoff responsible for Smellekamp’s banishment. It was contended that the best way of demonstrating disapproval was for Lydenburg to call its own minister and again to seek its inclusion in the Cape synod. Thus the authority of the volksraad was challenged and the unity of the state destroyed.

During these troubles (September 1854) Pretorius was paying the O.F.S. a friendly visit, and although in certain quarters this visit was associated with sinister motives, it proved a success. On his return, and before he could consider the grievances of Lydenburg, the shocking murder of Field-Cornet Hermanus Potgieter took place. Throughout the Transvaal native truculence flared up and even the people of the western Transvaal were forced to gather in laers for safety. Because of this and, in February 1855, a serious outbreak of lung sickness which paralysed normal transport, it was impossible to summon the volksraad and, in effect, the country was for some time without a government.

Only approximately a year after the previous meeting of the volksraad, which had ended on a comparatively minor note, was a session arranged (1.6.1855). Again there was dissension because of the presence of Jacobus Stuart, who was seeking only his own advancement, and in this was opposed by Lydenburg. To eliminate Lydenburg’s opposition Stuart formulated a case against the Lydenburg representatives, basing it on their actions in connection with the Cape synod. He skilfully involved Pretorius and succeeded in having the Lydenburg representatives declared unfit to hold any public position. Because of his own actions Pretorius became more and more deeply involved in quarrels that were to make his personal position almost unbearable.

The presence of Stuart was, nevertheless, not without its significance. As a result of his efforts a commission was nominated in September 1855 to prepare a draft constitution for the state. Pretorius, not a member, enthusiastically supported the commission and pleaded for acceptance by the volksraad of the draft bill; this, in fact, took place in Potchefstroom in November 1855. This constitution formed the basis for Pretorius’s election as provisional state president on 15.11.1855. A few days later the volksraad showed further signs of its support by approving the establishment of a village on the two farms that P. had bought more than two years before and stipulating that it should be named Pretoria after his father.

Unfortunately there was as yet no national unity, as the support that Pretorius enjoyed came from only a part of the community. The Lydenburg section displayed a chilly indifference, while Stephanus Schoeman, who was in control at Soutpansberg after the death of Pieter Johannes Potgieter, also rejected the new constitution.

Thus, notwithstanding its constitution, the Transvaal was still more or less without a government in March 1855. The course of events had, however, convinced Pretorius of his blunders and in a spirit of sincere remorse he strove to achieve reconciliation with Schoeman and Lydenburg. Because of his efforts a representative meeting was held at Potchefstroom in December 1856. A new constitution, based on Stuart’s draft, was prepared and provision was made for a state president and an executive council. As prematurely as on the previous occasion, Pretorius was again elected state president and Schoeman, although absent, commandant-general. Pretorius was sworn in on 6.1.1857 and on that same day the new flag, the Vierkleur, designed by the Rev. Van der Hoff, was officially hoisted for the first time.

In this way a major ambition of Pretorius’s was realized: the state had a constitution and, theoretically, had sound foundations. Feelings were, however, mixed at this time, as Lydenburg broke away from the republic on 17.12.1856 and Schoeman ignored the resolutions of the national assembly.

With this as the background Pretorius committed the greatest political blunder of his career. In the O.F.S. Pres. J. N. Boshof. accepted the so-called citizenship act to consolidate his country against the rest of the world but at the same time he embarrassed Transvaal burghers with property in the O.F.S. The interim volksraad committee of the western Transvaal consequently sent M. A. Goetz and Pretorius to the O.F.S. amicably to discuss the matter with the government. Pretorius hastily left for Bloemfontein without making an effort at reconciliation with Schoeman, who was declared a rebel during Pretorius’s absence and, in turn, blockaded the whole of the northern Transvaal.

Pretorius’s visit to the O.F.S. developed into an awkward attempt at amalgamating the two republics. Encouraged by supporters in the O.F.S. he, without justification, claimed the O.F.S., but this claim was contemptuously rejected by Boshof. Pretorius was forced to beat a retreat in somewhat humiliating fashion, but not before dangerous threats had been made on both sides.

After a hasty return to Potchefstroom Pretorius visited Natal to negotiate common boundaries, but his absence did not calm ruffled feelings. Boshof, in particular, was nervous and did everything in his power to isolate Pretorius while he himself tried to contact Pretorius’s enemies, Schoeman and the Lydenburg section. During Pretorius’s absence his lieutenants compromised him through their clumsy and dangerous handling of Boshof, acting without Pretorius’s knowledge or assistance. In this way they made an awkward situation even more difficult. This quarrel almost led to an armed clash when burghers were called to arms on either side of the Vaal and two commandos faced each other on the Renoster river (25.5.1857). Sound common sense, however, won the day and the breach was healed when, on 1.6.1857, Pretorius recognized the O.F.S. government and territory.

Peace between Pretorius and the O.F.S. to some extent checkmated his Transvaal opponents and left the political initiative in his hands. During the following few months Pretorius for the first time showed signs of diplomatic skill. The blockade of Soutpansberg was raised, the proclamation against Schoeman was revoked, and an agreement was entered into with him (1.7.1857) whereby all disputes would be referred to an independent court which would sit at Rustenburg in November 1857. When, in spite of the agreement, Schoeman sought the active support of Lydenburg in connection with the court case, Pretorius acted quickly and four days before Schoeman and Lydenburg reached an agreement he proposed a compromise with Lydenburg to the volksraad. As the volksraad was enthusiastic, Pretorius invited Lydenburg to a discussion that would coincide with the court session. When, at Schoeman’s request, the session was postponed until the following year, Pretorius took the opportunity of sending a delegation to Lydenburg and subsequently receiving a Lydenburg deputation at Potchefstroom (21.2.1857). There Pretorius was contrite; he admitted complicity in the Smellekamp case and in the condemnation of the Lydenburg members of the volksraad. In this way he cleared the air and managed to effect a reconciliation. Instead of being an enemy Lydenburg was more likely to be an ally against Schoeman at the pending session of the court. At court developments proved unsatisfactory. Both parties clearly indicated that they would not accept an unfavourable verdict, the court was dissolved, and the respective military councils took over. A commission of twelve was nominated to review the laws of the land. The outcome of the commission’s work, which was completed on 13.2.1858, was a complete victory for Pretorius Practically unaltered, the 1856 constitution was accepted as the law of the land. For the third time Pretorius was elected as state president, while Schoeman on this occasion accepted the post of commandant-general.

After this major success it was a suitable time for Pretorius to continue with his plans for reunion with Lydenburg. Before this could be achieved, however, clashes between the O.F.S. and the Basuto compelled Pretorius to visit the O.F.S. once again. The O.F.S. was in such a predicament that amalgamation with the Transvaal could have followed Pretorius’s approaches, if, as Britain’s representative, Sir George Grey had not prevented it by threatening the possible suspension of the conventions of Sand river and Bloemfontein.

While Pretorius was away in the O.F.S. relations with Lydenburg deteriorated because of the divided loyalty of Utrecht. While the territory as a whole joined Lydenburg (8.5.1858), a group of inhabitants remained loyal to Pretorius He initiated a meeting between the executive councils of Lydenburg and the T.R. on the farm Onspoed (26.2.1859). A joint commission under his leadership was sent to Utrecht and satisfactorily solved the difficulties there.

Thus reunion was only a question of time. At Onspoed a basis had been initiated and was completed on 24.11.1859. Pretorius was the leading figure in these negotiations and was generous enough to admit past mistakes and to correct them. Although he made concessions on numerous points, Lydenburg joined the unified state on the basis of his constitution and took part in the session at Pretoria, on 4.4.1860, of the first combined volksraad.

Meanwhile, on 12.12.1859, Pretorius was also elected state president of the O.F.S. by an overwhelming majority, after the resignation of Boshof. The Transvaal volksraad granted Pretorius six months’ leave, but on 9.4.1860, after a report that Pretorius had been sworn in as state president of the O.F.S., decided to suspend him as state president until September. Pretorius took umbrage at this and concluded that the dual presidency was not supported by the Transvaal. Convinced that the O.F.S. needed his assistance more, he, on 15.9.1860, requested his honourable discharge as president of the T.R. and left for Bloemfontein. As president of the O.F.S. for almost three years he did splendid work. With great skill he brought several rebellious native chiefs to heel, and, with Moshweshwe especially, he ratified a boundary advantageous to the O.F.S. He examined the critical financial position of the O.F.S. and introduced limited, but profitable reforms. As a result of his interest education also benefited. The complete political chaos which developed in the Transvaal after his departure, however, prevented him from giving his undivided attention to the O.F.S.

Things came to such a pass in the Transvaal that he resigned as president of the O.F.S. on 1.10.1862, but subsequently allowed himself to be persuaded to withdraw his resignation and to proceed to the Transvaal on two months’ leave. But he arrived too late to avert a clash between the Staatsleger (‘state army’) and Volksleger (‘people’s army’), though he did his utmost to calm their feelings. As Pretorius had identified himself with the rebels in this civil strife he was, however, not acceptable to the Staatsleger as a mediator. Because of rumours that his life was threatened, he retired to the O.F.S. with the rebel leader, Stephanus Schoeman. Following an urgent request he returned to the Transvaal, where, on 24.11.1862, he acted as chairman at a meeting between the warring factions. There it was decided to refer all disputes to a special court. When hostilities broke out once again after the temporary peace, Pretorius again resigned as president of the O.F.S. (5.3.1863), but allowed himself to be persuaded a second time to withdraw his resignation. On being granted special leave he left for Potchefstroom, where he finally resigned as state president of the O.F.S. (15.4.1863).

Pretorius’s desire for a calm, quiet life was not to be granted. The extraordinary court session of January 1863 ruled that a state president should be elected. Pretorius was nominated, but W. C. Janse van Rensburg was elected. As irregularities had, however, occurred, another election was held on 1.10.1863. Van Rensburg again obtained a majority, but continued rumours of tampering with the ballot papers moved Comdt. Jan Willem Viljoen, of the western Transvaal, to advance with a commando that clashed with the Staatsleger on the Crocodile river (5.1.1864). Blood was shed; this catastrophe brought all the parties to their senses, and peace was made, a new presidential election was announced, and on 29.3.1864 Pretorius was again elected.

On his readmittance to the government of the T.R. he found many problems awaiting him. The most urgent was undoubtedly the dismal economic position, which had been gravely damaged by the civil strife. To improve the country’s financial position it had, in 1855 and 1857, been considered, under Pretorius’s leadership, whether, with state-owned land as its backing, paper money should be issued. Nothing, however, came of this idea. At the time of the civil war, when the treasury was quite empty, Schoeman was compelled to issue mandaten , which, without security, had no value as currency. To save the situation Pretorius persuaded the volksraad in June 1865 to issue paper money and to recall all mandaten. The appearance of paper money did not solve the problem as the security was insufficient and forgeries often occurred. In April 1866 the volksraad decided to issue new notes in British currency, while it was decided in 1870 to have these banknotes printed on proper banknote paper in Britain. The issuing of paper money was, to a great extent, only a temporary measure to save the national economy, and more constructive measures were considered under Pretorius’s leadership. Because of his ignorance of economic matters the initiative usually came from others, but he seized on new possibilities for development with surprising comprehension. Alexander McCorkindale’s schemes played an important part in this connection. Since 1864 the government had concluded with him arrangements such as the settlement of immigrants in Nieuw Schotland (New Scotland) in the eastern Transvaal, industrial development, a river route to the East coast, a harbour and a commercial bank, but these projects had not yet come to anything by 1871. Pretorius exerted himself to get citizens of the republic to take the lead in economic matters. He set an example when he suggested the possibility of coffee production to the volksraad after he had paid a visit to the Soutpansberg. Because of his zeal a large number of concessions were granted, but not much was effected. In 1866 several agreements were entered into between Pretorius and burghers of the republic, the intention being to establish an agricultural and animal husbandry company, a mining company, and a land and immigration company.

Internationally Pretorius was successful in getting the republic recognized as an independent state by Holland (29.10.1869), France (29.11.1869), Belgium (17.12.1869), the United States of America (19.11.1870) and Germany (29.1A 871). In return Pretorius appointed representatives abroad with well-disposed powers. Consulates were established in Britain, Ireland and Antwerp. Pretorius also strove for peaceful relations with neighbouring states and for this purpose consuls were appointed in Natal and the Cape Colony.

With Britain, however, no permanent peace appeared to be possible. The convention policy of 1852 was, in course of time, regarded in Britain as a mistake and pressure was exerted to bring the British government to change its views. The accusation that slavery was being practised in the Transvaal Pretorius successfully refuted, but could not free himself from the economic stranglehold of the British colonial harbours in Natal and in the Cape Colony. His claim to part of the customs duties on goods going to the Transvaal was blandly refused. Because of this the Transvaal began to turn to its Portuguese neighbour and tried to find its own harbour. In 1861 an unsuccessful effort had been made to obtain St Lucia bay for this purpose. When McCorkindale’s ambitious scheme of 1867 came to nothing, Pretorius himself acted. Convinced that the southern section of Delagoa bay, into which the partly navigable Maputa river flowed, was no man’s land, he, on 29.4.1868, extended the boundaries of the Transvaal so as to include the Maputa river up to where it flows into the Indian ocean. By proclamation he extended the boundaries of the republic as far as Lake Ngami in the west.

These annexations immediately roused Britain and Portugal, but with totally different results. Britain maintained that Pretorius’s actions menaced her supremacy and replied with threats and counter-demonstrations which weakened a relationship already strained. Discussions with the Portuguese were, on the contrary, quite friendly, and a permanent agreement was reached on 29.7.1869: a ‘treaty of peace, friendship, trade and frontiers’ was concluded between the republic and Portugal.

The demands created by these circumstances became, in the long run, too exacting for Pretorius. At times he was autocratic, but easily became the victim of any selfish adviser. When his administration was sharply criticized in 1867, he proved touchy, impatient and so unwilling to listen to criticism that he resigned as president on 29.11.1867. This elicited a half-hearted response from the volksraad and Pretorius quickly seized an opportunity of withdrawing his resignation. Although the volksraad showed increasing signs of indifference towards the president, the burghers still supported him. At the usual five-yearly election in 1869 Pretorius gained an overwhelming majority, securing more than double the number of votes gained by the other thirteen candidates.

But the writing was on the wall. Pretorius’s inability effectively to control national affairs is proved very clearly by the diamond dispute which arose in 1870. The Transvaal had, as an interested party, to deal with many intrigues which proved too much for Pretorius. On his own, moreover, he signed an act of submission wherein provision was made for arbitration on claims to the diamond-fields. In 1871 the lieutenant-governor of Natal, R.W. Keate, who was appointed the final arbiter, passed judgement against the Transvaal and, by so doing, roused a storm of opposition against Pretorius. In his absence the volksraad discussed whether he could remain president of the republic any longer. In seemingly bewildered fashion Pretorius concurred in this doubt and admitted that, because of altered circumstances ‘his capabilities were now quite inadequate’. This confession marks the temporary disappearance of Pretorius from public life (20.11.1871). He had shown himself to be a man devoted, enthusiastic and conscientious, but with too many limitations to be a statesman.

After his resignation he disappeared into the background, but after the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 he, surprisingly quickly, returned to prominence. During the period of passive resistance he was elected chairman of the committee of Boer leaders; he was also a member of the committee that negotiated with Sir Bartle Frere at Hennops river (12.4.1879), and acted as chairman of the national assembly at Wonderfontein on 15.12.1879. For his share in these proceedings he was accused of treason by the British and imprisoned, but was almost immediately released on bail. On 13.12.1880, when the Transvaal burghers challenged Britain, and the restored government was placed in the hands of a triumvirate, Pretorius was a member of it, together with P. J. Joubert and S. J. P. Kruger. In this capacity he was a fellow signatory of the peace terms at Laingsnek, at the conclusion of the war on 21.3.1881, and also of the Pretoria convention (3.8.1881).

Although relatively young and physically strong, he retired from political life and went to live at Potchefstroom. He married the widow Hartog(t) on 26.11.1890.

During the final years of the republic’s existence he was appointed acting historian and received an annuity of £300. In a way the appointment was recognition of services rendered and his emolument was more of a pension. He, however, took his work seriously, moved temporarily to Pretoria and managed to collect a large number of valuable documents. Of these, few have been preserved for posterity; a valuable manuscript consisting of information from him was lost in A. D. W. Wolmaran’s house during the Second Anglo-Boer War, when the British occupied Pretoria, Pretorius’s personal documents were damaged by British troops on the farm of his son-in-law when, to keep him under surveillance they took the ex-president to Pretoria.

In his old age he was staying with a friend when, on a cold night in May 1901, he was aroused from sleep by suspicious British troops who, on the stoep, interrogated him for two hours in the cold. This proved too much for the constitution of this veteran of eighty-one; the next morning he said he felt ill and he died a few days later.

He is not one of South Africa’s greatest figures. Every unbiased observer will admit that many limitations made him increasingly incapable of being the head of a state under more advanced conditions. Both mentally and intellectually he was inadequately fitted to take an independent stand and for this very reason he, on the one hand, was imposed on by others, while, on the other, he offended his own people by his touchiness and alienated whole groups through impulsive and injudicious decisions. Nevertheless a place of honour has at all times to be allotted to him in the history of the Transvaal. In pioneering conditions he had an almost instinctive sense of duty and this compelled him to become a leader because he realized that there was work to be done. He never lacked patriotism and a dutiful spirit of self-sacrifice. With the limited means at his disposal he laid stronger foundations, both politically and otherwise, than any of his contemporaries.

A memorial in honour of Pretorius was erected by the state on his grave in the Potchefstroom cemetery and on 4.12.1913 this was unveiled by Gen. Louis Botha, prime minister of the Union of South Africa.

Even in old age Pretorius was an imposing figure with clear blue eyes, a well-formed head and strong features. There are quite a number of portraits of him, dating from the sixties to his more advanced years; they are, for example, to be found in the collections of the Pretoria city council, the S.P. Engelbrecht collection in the N.H. Kerk archives, Pretoria, and in the Transvaal archives, Pretoria. An oil-painting of Pretorius standing in the volksraad, which was in the Raadsaal, Pretoria, until 1900, became the possession of the Transvaal museum until, in 1964, it was returned to the Raadsaal after Jacobina van Tilburg had made a copy for the National Museum of Cultural History, Pretoria. There is a bronze bust in the possession of the city council of Pretoria. In front of the Pretoria city hall a statue (by Coert Steynberg) was unveiled in November 1955 at the time of the Pretoria centenary celebrations.

Marthinus Wessel Pretorius

Source: Dictionary of South African Biographies (Volume I)

Rev. MARSHALL MAXEKE, B.A., was born on the 1st November, 1874, at Middledrift, Cape Colony, where he received his early education. Later he was sent to Lovedale Training College with the son of Chief Gonya. After some; years . his parents moved to the north and settled in Johannesburg, where he worked as a harness-maker with Mr. (now Dr.) Tantsi, who became a great friend of his. About that time the MacAdoo Jubilee Singers of America visited South Africa, and Mr. Maxeke was so attracted by their harmony that he resolved to follow them to America to study music. While working in Johannesburg Mr. Maxeke became a local preacher. At this time the lady who later became Mrs. C. M. Maxeke, was already studying in the Wilberforce University, America. In 1897 Bishop Turner, who was then chairman of the Missionary Board, paid a short visit to South Africa, and on his return he was accompanied by Messrs. Maxeke and Tantsi. On arrival in America they went straight to the Wilberforce University where they joined classes. Mr. Maxeke won the Rush Prize and passed the B.A. Examination with honours in Classics and Mathematics. After passing the Theological Examination he was ordained in 1903 as an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

He returned to, South Africa the same year and married Miss Charlotte Manye who had already returned from America and was teaching in Pietersburg, Transvaal, and doing missionary work. A son was born to them. Both Rev. and Mrs. Maxeke continued their good work until he died at Boksburg, Transvaal, in 1928. He compiled the first Xosa A.M.E. Church Hymn Book. Rev. Maxeke was a powerful preacher and an eloquent platform orator. A good writer, and at one time editor of the Unateteli u a Bantu, a weekly publication in Johannesburg. He took keen interest in the politics of the country. Was a prominent member of the African National Congress. Rev. Maxeke was a real progressive man and played an important part in. the education of his people, especially in mission schools. He was a favourite of the African Chiefs in the Cape, especially in Tembuland where he and Mrs. Maxeke did much for the education of the Tembu children.