Sekhukhune was King of the Marota people (or the Bapedi people) who originated from the Bakgatla of the Western Transvaal.
The Bapedi originated from the Bakgatla and moved to the Eastern-Central Transvaal.
This was where they built a powerful empire in Bopedi, by a skilful combination of diplomacy and military conquest.
Their motto, “Fetakgomo o sware Motho, Mofetakgomo ke moriri oa hloga”, was used to build a strong and revered Pedi nation.
They implemented it by bringing in small tribes, not slaughtering the weak and defeated people, by using cattle to marry as many women as possible from neighboring tribes, by admitting outsiders and refugees into the fold of the tribe and by conquering recalcitrant tribes.
The empire grew over time to a stage where at the zenith of its success it covered the area between the Lekwe (Vaal) and the Lebepe (Limpopo) rivers, in the south and north, and the Komati river and the Kgalagadi, in the East and in the West respectively.
They regarded the entire vast land as their own and Pedi soldiers were sent to check the boundaries.
They fought everyone who encroached on it – Boers, British, Swazis, Arab slave traders, and others.
The effect of this was that, the Bapedi became the de facto rulers of a great empire that included people of other origins, including the Bakgaga, Batau, Bakone, Baroka, Batlokwa, Baphuthi, Bakwena, Bakgatla, Bantwane, BaMongatane, BaMohlala, Mapulana, Matebele, Matlala, Batswana, MaSwazi, Batswako and others.
They all owed allegiance and had a common loyalty to the Pedi kings.
They even requested initiation sessions from the Pedi kings. So it is clear that, historically the Pedi were a relatively small tribe who by various means built up a considerable empire.
This resulted in their language being accepted as a lingua franca and indeed, with minor adjustments, as the medium for Bantu schools in most of the Transvaal.
The basis of the Pedi power was laid by King Thulare (1780-1820). Thulare was a fearless warrior and a wise statesman.
The Bapedi, like any other tribe, had their kings and royalty, their succession struggles and a powerful culture and tradition.
The Pedi owned large herds of cattle and were skilful manufacturers of iron tools. It is because of their dependence on cattle for their everyday livelihood, that cattle imagery dominated their language in idioms, praise songs, poetry and speech.
While the birth of Sekhukhune [Sekukuni] to King Sekwati and his wife Thorometjane Phala in 1814 may have gone almost unnoticed, he was to bring joy, pride, prowess and bravery to the Pedi Nation.
When he was born the young boy was named Matsebe. He acquired the name Sekhukhune later in life as a nickname and, like all such names, over time it replaced his real name.
The young Matsebe acquired the name Sekhukhune as a consequence of his outstanding role in fights against Boers (the Dutch).
When his father, King Sekwati, died in 1861, Sekhukhune, with the help of his Matuba regiment, militarily repulsed an attempt on the throne of his father by his half-brother Mampuru.
In true serota tradition he then allowed Mampuru to leave the Bapedi peacefully.
During Sekhukhune`s rule Bapedi consolidated their power and fought many battles against the Boer and British land-grabbers and settler-colonialists.
Although they fought on foot against men on horsebacks using guns, they fought heroically.
After the death of King Thulare (father of the legendary Sekhukhune) in 1824, two years of intense succession dispute followed as fights over who would be his successor ensued.
Sekhukhune was an illegitimate ruler who came to power using military force.
As a result, his half brother, and legitimate heir, Mampuru was forced to flee from the Kingdom.
As a result of lack of legitimacy, he built his power by entering into diplomatic marriages with various royal dynasties, by incorporating other societies into his empire, and by military conquest.
This increased his support base and gave him legitimacy.
To defend his empire from the encroaching European colonization, Sekhukhune sent young men under the authority of ‘appointed’ headmen to work in white farms and diamonds mines.
The money they earned in these employments was taxed and used to buy guns from the Portuguese in Delegoa Bay and cattle to increase the wealth of the Marota people.
By the middle of the 19th century the Marota empire had grown to unite all the disparate people in the area under a common Royalty.
The Marota lived in the land between the Vaal and Limpopo rivers. They regarded this territory as their country and admitted or excluded all corners to it. The political landscape has, of course, changed greatly since those far-off days.
After Sekhukhune’s death, Pretoria divided Sekhukhuneland into small “tribal” units that owed allegiance not to one central’ Marota Authority but to “Native Commissioners”. This effectively destroyed the Marota Empire. Thereafter, the Bapedi people were forced to seek employment on white farms, in factories and mines as migrant labourers.
The migrant labour system that the Bapedi used to build their empire was now skewed against them. In a curious sort of way this fulfilled Sekhukhune’s prophecy of December 1879, that after him no other chief would be able to stand up to Pretoria since they would all be its tools.
When Hendrick Potgieter and the Voortrekkers arrived in the Marota Empire in the middle of the 19th century, Sekhukhune’s father, Sekwati (1775-1861), resisted them.
In a famous battle at Phiring in 1838 Sekwati defeated the Voortrekkers by the simple tactic of establishing his stronghold on an impenetrable hill.
But Phiring was insecure and so Sekwati moved his headquarters to Thaba Mosega (the fighting koppie) in the Lulu Mountains of the Eastern Transvaal from which his people were dislodged only by a series of bitter wars ending in December 1879.
In 1846, the Boers, claiming to have purchased the land from the Swazis, sought to expel the Marota from the land east of the Tubatse (the so-called Steelpoort) River.
They were rebuffed. In 1865, Rev. Dr. Alexander Merensky (1837-1917), Superintendent of the Berlin Missionary Society and who had been welcomed among the Marota first by Sekwati and later by Sekhukhune, was expelled for activities that were deemed to be subversive of Sekhukhune’s authority and favourable to the Pretoria Boers.
He took refuge in Botshabelo, near Middleburg where he established a Mission station and a school of that name. Merensky continued to play a double game, hunting with the hounds and running with the hares, until Sekhukhune disappeared from the scene in 1879 when the Boers rewarded him (Merensky) by granting him land in Maandagshoek from which he carried on his dubious activities under the cloak of religion.
Johannes Dinkoanyane, Sekhukhune’s half-brother, at first supported Merensky and became a Lutheran convert. His stay in Botshabelo was short-lived and soon he was back with his followers in Spekboom Hills, in the Tubatse Valley. He assumed a very independent demeanor, which Sekhukhune by no means discouraged.
On March 7, 1876, Dinkoanyane detained a wagonload of wood belonging to one Jankowitz, a Boer farmer who had trespassed on Dinkoanyane’s land to cut wood. At the same time false rumours of cattle theft spread – also false rumours to the effect that Dinkoanyane had burnt down Rev. Nachtigal’s German mission.
When the news reached Pretoria, an enraged President Thomas Francois Burgers decided to set out “to deal with the Sekhukhune menace” himself.
Burgers quickly assembled a largest army not seeing before in the Republic. Armed with 7 pounder Krupp guns they marched to Thaba Mosega, which he reached on August 1, 1876.
He was supported by African troops hoping the land under Sekhukhune would be given to them after Sekhukhune was defeated. Sekhukhune came to Dinkoanyane’s rescue and, although Dinkoanyane himself was killed in action, Sekhukhune inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Boers and President Burgers.
This defeat cost him his position and lost it to Paul Kruger.
In response to the humiliating defeat suffered by President Burgers, the Boers sponsored an army of mercenaries (sometimes called the falstaffian gang of filibusters or free booters).
Their leader was “a reckless adventurer of Diamond notoriety” named Conrad Hans von Schlieckmann, a German ex-officer and soldier of fortune who was closely connected with the German Establishment and who had fought under Otto von Bismarck in the Franco-German War of 1870-71.
Other mercenaries were Gunn of Gunn, Alfred Aylward, Knapp, Woodford, Rubus, Adolf Kuhneisen, Dr. James Edward Ashton, Otto von Streitencron, George Eckersley, Bailey, Captain Reidel and others from America, Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria and other European countries.
They committed the grossest atrocities in the Tubatse Valley.
All acted in total disregard of the British Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870; the American Neutrality or Foreign Enlistment Act, 1818 and similar laws.
They also acted with the connivance of their home countries. Many of these soldiers of fortune were recruited from the diamond diggings in Kimberley where they had gone in a vain search for diamonds.
The Lydenburg area attracted them because it was said to hold large deposits of gold, diamonds and other precious minerals. So when Pretoria established the Lydenburg Volunteers Corps, von Schlieckmann’s men fell for it.
They fought fiercely from behind the rampart to avenge the defeat of President Burgers. They lost, and Von Schlieckmann himself was killed in battle on November 17 1876, to be succeeded by Alfred Aylward, an Irishman. But this was not the end of the war only of a battle, albeit an important one.
Sekhukhune versus The British
On April 12, 1877, Sir Theophilus Shepstone annexed the Transvaal on the pretext, inter alia, that a Boer Republic that failed to “pacify” the Bapedi threatened, by its very existence and weakness, to destabilize the British colonies of the Cape and Natal. Up to 1877 the British had “supported”‘ Sekhukhune’s attitude to the Boers.
Sekhukhune’s attitude was that his Empire fell outside the jurisdiction of Pretoria ; that the land between the Vaal and the Limpopo rivers belonged to him, and that although he would never accept Boer rule, he might as a last resort, like Moshoeshoe, accept Protectorate status under the British Crown.
However, after the British Annexation of the Transvaal (April, 1877) British attitudes changed. James Grant, a Briton, confirmed: “… the view taken by our government was that Sekhukhune was not a real rebel against the Transvaal, in-as-much as his territory formed no part of that dominion (Transvaal Republic), and that the war waged against him was an un justifiable aggression against an independent ruler; but when, in 1877, the Transvaal was annexed, Sekhukhune’s country was included without any question, in the new territory added to Britain’s possessions”.
Sekhukhune rejected this new British position scornfully. By March 1878 drums of war were beating again in Sekhukhuneland – this time it was against the British. Captain Clarke who was sent to subdue Sekhukhune, was routed with heavy loss of life and barely escaped with his life at Magnet Heights.
Immediately after this first British failure to subdue Sekhukhune, a fully equipped force of 1,800 men under Colonel Rowlands made another attempt from August until October 1878, to reduce Sekhukhune to submission.
The mission failed (again with much loss of life on both sides) and had to be abandoned on October 6,1878.
The British made a third attempt at subduing Sekhukhune in June/July 1879, under the command of Colonel Lanyon. This too failed.
There was little more the British could do at that time since, they had on their hands colonial wars in the Eastern Cape Colony, in the Colony of Natal, in Lesotho (the Gun war), in Ashanti (Ghana), Afghanistan and Cyprus, military logic forced them to await the outcome of these wars before challenging Sekhukhune again.
This stage was reached after the Battle of Ulundi and the exile of King Cetshwayo to Britain.
Thereafter British famous soldier, Sir Garnet Wolseley moved his motley troops of Britons, Boers and Africans (10,000 Swazi troops) to bring down Sekhukhune.
This was the fourth British attempt to reduce Sekhukhune to submission.
Wolseley chose November 1879, for his move. It was a major military operation. Sir Wolseley’s men moved in a pincer movement from Fort Kruger, Fort MacMac, Fort Weeber, Jane Furse, Bebo, Schoonoord, Lydenburg, Mphablele, Nkoana, Steelpoort, and Nchabeleng, Swaziland – literally from all sides – to Thaba Mosega.
The battle raged furiously from November 28 to December 2,1879.
Sekhukhune fought with muskets obtained from Lesotho where he had royal support and French Missionaries as friends; from Kimberley Diamond fields where his people worked; from Delagoa Bay ( Mozambique ) with which he had close trade and other links.
The British used their more modern Mausers. Much life was lost. Sekhukhune himself lost his son and heir, Moroanoche, and fourteen other members of his immediate family.
As the battle raged, Sekhukhune was taken by surprise in the form of an attack from behind by 10,000 Swazi troops in the service of the British.
These had been recruited on direct British instructions by Captain MacLeod of Macleod (British political agent in Swaziland ) and his Lieutenant Alister Campbell, R.N.
This surprise attack virtually brought the war to a close.
Sekhukhune took refuge in Mamatarnageng, the cave on Grootvygenboom (high up in the Lulu Mountain ), some 15 miles from Thaba,Mosega.
There he was cut off from all sources of food and water.
So when on December 2, 1879, Captain Clarke and Commandant Ferreira were led to the cave and called him out, Sekhukhune had no choice but to comply. He was accompanied by his wife and children, his half-brother, Nkwemasogana, Makoropetse, Mphahle (a Swazi national) and a few attendants.
Commandant Ferreira, who was obsessed with the myth that Sekhukhune owned large quantities of gold and diamonds, searched diligently but found nothing.
So ended the colonial war against Sekhukhune.
On December 9, 1879, Sekhukhune (then 65 years old), his wife, a baby, a child, Nkwemasogana, Mphahle, Makoropetse and a few generals were led to prison in Pretoria.
He remained there until the Pretoria Convention of 3 August 1881 was signed between Britain and the Boers after the first South African War.
The Boers, who had never accepted the British Annexation of the Transvaal, called it the First Boer War of Independence. Article 23 of the Convention provided that Sekhukhune be set free and returned home.
He could not return to Thaba Mosega, which had been burnt down in the war and which had fresh military associations, but to a nearby place called Manoge.
On the night of August 13, 1882, Sekhukhune was murdered by his half-brother, Mampuru, who claimed that he was the lawful king of the Marota and that Sekhukhune had usurped the throne on Sep. 21, 1861, when their father Sekwati, died.
Thereafter Mampuri, fearing arrest escaped and sought refuge first with Chief Marishane (Masemola) and later with Nyabela, king of the Ndebeles.
The Pretoria Boers asked Nyabela to surrender Mampuru for trial on a charge of murder. Nyabela refused, saying that Mampuru was in his (Nyabela’s) stomach.
Another war thus broke out between Nyabela and the Boers.
It raged for almost a year – nine months to be precise.
Ultimately Nyabela surrendered and gave up Mampuru to the Pretoria Boers. Marishane, Nyabela and Mampuru were tried in the Pretoria Supreme Court. On January 23, 1884, Marishane was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for having granted Mampuru temporary refuge and for “causing a tumult”.
He returned to his village Marishane (Mooifontein) thereafter to die.
Nyabela was sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment) on September 22, 1883. Mampuru was sentenced to death for murder and rebellion and was hanged in Pretoria prison on November 22,1883.
Thus ended one of the stormiest politico-military careers in Southern Africa.
And thus too ended the Marota Empire. It had been defended bravely against great odds: The death of Sekhukhune did not pass unnoticed.
The London Times of August 30, 1882, announced his death to the world and paid reluctant tribute to him in a long editorial:
“…There is yet no sign of permanent peace among the native races of South Africa. We hear this morning from Durban of the death of one of the bravest of our former enemies, the Chief Sekhukhune. He with his son and fourteen followers, has been killed… The news carries us some years back to the time when the name of Sekhukhune was a name of dread, first to the Dutch and then to the English Colonists of the Transvaal and Natal… It was, indeed to a great extent the danger caused by the neighbourhood of this formidable chief that led to the annexation of the Transvaal by England. When war was declared against the Zulu king, operation went on simultaneously against Sekhukhune and early in 1879 his stronghold was attacked… Obstacles stood in the way of these operations, and when after Ulundi, Sir Garnet Wolseley entered the Transvaal, he endeavoured to humiliate the Chief.
5 years earlier, Wolseley inflicted a shortlived defeat on the belligerent Asantes of the Asante Kingdom of Ghana in the Sagrenti War.
In that war, British forces led by Sir Garnet Wolseley, decided to punish the Ashantis for incursions made into disputed territories.
So the British military briefly took over Kumasi, the capital of the Kingdom, on 4th February 1874.
Even before this war, on January 31, 1874 at the village of Amoaful, a wild battle was fought.
Amankwatia (the Bantamahene or Bantama Warrior Chief of the Asante Kingdom) designed, planned and executed the last great stand of the Asante at the village of Amoaful against the advancing British Army of Major-General Garnet Wolseley in the Third Anglo-Ashanti War.
The Battle of Amoaful itself did not last more than 24 hours on 31 January 1874.
The British won (and the Asante lost) the Battle of Amoaful.
Some (perhaps questionable) British accounts have it that the biggest havoc in the British ranks was caused by bad air (malaria) and yellow fever, but in the Battle of Amoaful every fourth British soldier was hit by the heavy Asante weapons.
The Asante chose forest cover and ridges overlooking bogs (through which the British had to wade) as their battle stands.
Amankwatia is credited with such clever calculation.
The British had in their adventage heavy armament and superior rifles but the Asantes countered that with far superior numbers of 3500 fighters made up of strong slaves and brave royals.
The British soldiers for a long time came under heavy gunfire from people they could not see because of their numbers.
The capital, Kumasi, was abandoned by the Ashantis when the British arrived on 4th February and was briefly occupied by the British.
They demolished the royal palace (at a place called Bantama) with explosives, leaving Kumasi a heap of smouldering ruins.
The British were impressed by the size of their palace and the scope of its contents, including “rows of books in many languages.”
Some precious relics were like the Ayaa Kesie, royal knifes and stools were pillaged.
The Asantahene, Kofi Karikari who was the ruler of the Ashanti, signed a harsh Treaty of Fomena in July 1874 to end the war.
Among articles of the treaty between H.M. Queen Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and H.M. Kofi Karikari, King of Ashanti were that
“The King of Ashanti promised to pay the sum of 50,000 ounces of approved gold as indemnity for the expenses he has occasioned to Her Majesty the Queen of England by the late war…”
The treaty also required an end to human sacrifice and stated that:
“There shall be freedom of trade between Ashanti and Her Majesty’s forts on the [Gold] Coast, all persons being at liberty to carry their merchandise from the Coast to Kumasi, or from that place to any of Her Majesty’s possessions on the Coast.”
Furthermore, the treaty stated that “The King of Ashanti guarantees that the road from Kumasi to the River Pra shall always be kept open…”
Wolseley completed the campaign in two months, and returned to England.
He was promoted and showered with honours.
British casualties were 18 dead from combat and 55 from disease (70%), with 185 wounded.
Some British accounts pay tribute to the hard fighting of the Ashanti at Amoaful, particularly the tactical insight of their commander, Amankwatia:
“The great Chief Amankwatia was among the killed.
Admirable skill was shown in the position selected by Amankwatia, and the determination and generalship he displayed in the defence fully bore out his great reputation as an able tactician and gallant soldier”.
The campaign is also notable for the first recorded instance of the use of traction engine (a steam-powered earth moving machine for moving heavy machines) being employed on active service.
Steam sapper number 8 (made by Aveling and Porter) was shipped out and assembled at the Cape Coast Castle.
As a traction engine it had limited success hauling heavy loads up the beach, but gave good service when employed as a stationary engine driving a large circular saw during the war.
Let’s Continue with Sekhukhune
But Sekhukhune was safe, as he imagined, in an impregnable mountain fortress, and scornfully rejected the terms offered by the British General.
It became necessary to attack him in force. A combined movement of columns, containing 2,000 English and 10,000 Swazis and other native troops was planned and carried out with great skill, and on the 28th November, 1879, the kraal was taken by assault.
Still the Chief and a great number of his men held the “koppie” and from the caves and cracks in the rock they poured an incessant fire upon their assailants.
At last the Summit was gained, and after a desperate and sanguinary struggle, the enemy was subdued.
Sekhukhune however, like Cetswayo, succeeded in escaping and was only captured a few days later.
He was treated for a time as a State prisoner and his land was settled somewhat after the Zulu manner… If, however, the death of Sekhukhune portends anything, it means that the displaced Chief in these savage and warlike regions still retain some power, and that on occasion they are able to rise successfully against him who has superseded them…”
This tribute, however, reluctant, is significant because it was paid at all – in the 19th century the London Times was not in the habit of devoting columns of editorial space to the passing of African kings.
13th August 1982 was King Sekhukhune’s 100th anniversary of his death in 1882.
Modern Day Bapedi
In December 2022 The Bapedi royal family in Mohlaletsi village in Limpopo appointed Prince Morwamohube Thulare as the acting King.
This became necessary after some members of the royal family and council won their application, which opposed the appointment of the Queen Mother Manyaku as the regent.
Morwamohube Thulare replaced King Thulare Victor Thulare the third who died due to COVID-19 related complications in January 2021.
The royal family’s spokesperson Makoko Sekhukhune said:
“After the passing of His Majesty King Victor Thulare III on the 6th of January 2021.
Then it was decided at the meeting convened by the Thulare Royal family that Prince Morwamohube Thulare be identified as an acting king of the Bapedi Nation.
Secondly, a candlelight wife will be married and Prince Morwamohube will serve as a seed raiser.
Currently, Prince Morwamohube Thulare is the acting King of the Bapedi Nation.”
