History of the Zulu war and its origin

by Frances Ellen Colenso

This appeal contained a short account of the facts which had led to his making the statements complained of—the trial of Langalibalele, and the “fear of treachery” perpetually pleaded by many witnesses in excuse of the chiefs conduct, but treated with contempt both by the court below and the council, each including the Secretary for Native Affairs, and presided over by His Excellency. The statements made by the Bishop—not mere “charges” unsupported by evidence, but the deposition of four eye-witnesses who might be cross-examined at will—would, if proved to be true, greatly tend to palliate the offences imputed to the chief, and should therefore not have been suppressed by the officer concerned, who had kept silence when a word from his mouth would have cleared a prisoner on trial for his life from a very serious part of the charge against him. The Bishop therefore submitted that the fact of the events in question having taken place sixteen years before was no reason why they should not be brought to light when required for the prisoner’s defence.

The correspondence which ensued—including a very curious circumstance relating to a missing despatch, recorded in the despatch-book at Pietermaritzburg, but apparently never received in Downing Street—will be found by those interested in the subject in the Bishop’s pamphlet, “The History of the Matshana Inquiry.” For our present purpose it is sufficient to remark that on the 22nd of April, 1875, Lord Carnarvon directed Sir Garnet Wolseley to institute a careful inquiry into the matter, and suggested that under all the circumstances this inquiry might be best conducted by one or more of the senior officers of Sir Garnet’s staff, who had accompanied him on special service to Natal. The correspondence which followed between the parties concerned, with arrangements for the summoning of witnesses and for the management of the trial, are also all to be found in the above-mentioned pamphlet. The inquiry was to be of a private nature, no reporters to be admitted, nor counsel on either side permitted.[48] The Bishop and Mr. Shepstone were each to be allowed the presence of one friend during the inquiry, who, however, was not to speak to the witnesses, or to address the officer holding the inquiry. In addition the Bishop asked, and received, permission to bring with him the native interpreter, through whom he was in the habit of conducting important conversations with natives, as his own Zulu, although sufficient for ordinary purposes, was not, in his opinion, equal to the requirements of the case, while Mr. J. Shepstone was familiar from childhood with colloquial Kafir.

In the Bishop’s pamphlet he points out that the course which Lord Carnarvon had thought proper to adopt in this case was wholly his own, and proceeds as follows:—a passage which we will quote entire:—

“And I apprehend that this inquiry, though of necessity directed mainly to the question whether Mr. John Shepstone fired at Matshana or not, is not chiefly concerned with the character of the act imputed to him, described by the Secretary for Native Affairs as of a treacherous murderous nature, but involves the far more serious question whether that act, if really committed, was suppressed by Mr. John Shepstone at the time in his official report, was further suppressed by him when he appeared last year as Government prosecutor against a prisoner on trial for his life—who pleaded it as a very important part of his defence, but found his plea treated by the court, through Mr. John Shepstone’s silence, as a mere impudent ‘pretext’—and has been finally denied by him to the Secretary of State himself, and is still denied down to the present moment. Such an act as that ascribed to him, if duly reported at the time, might, I am well aware, have been justified by some, or at least excused, on grounds of public policy under the circumstances; though I, for my part, should utterly dissent from such a view. In that case, however, it would have been unfair and unwarrantable to have reproached Mr. Shepstone at the present time for an act which had been brought properly under the cognizance of his superiors. But the present inquiry, as I conceive, has chiefly in view the question whether the facts really occurred as Mr. John Shepstone reported at first officially, and has since reaffirmed officially, or not.”

Colonel Colley, C.B., was the officer appointed to conduct the inquiry, the commencement of which was fixed for August 2nd, 1875.

The intervening period granted for the purpose was employed by the Bishop in summoning witnesses from all parts of the land; from Zululand, from the Free State, and distant parts of the colony. Matshana himself was summoned as a witness under an offer of safe conduct from the Government. He, however, did not find it convenient, or was afraid, to trust himself in person; but Cetshwayo sent some of his men in his place. The Bishop’s object was to summon as many “indunas,” or messengers, or otherwise prominent persons in the affair of 1858; men who were thoroughly trustworthy, and “had a backbone,” and would not be afraid to speak the truth; his desire being to get at that truth, whatever it might be. Thirty-one men responded to his call, of whom, however, only twenty were examined in court, the Bishop giving way to Colonel Colley’s wish in the matter, and to save the court’s time. Four other witnesses summoned by both the Bishop and Mr. Shepstone were examined, and nine more on Mr. Shepstone’s behalf, called by him. The Bishop had considerable difficulty in procuring the attendance of the witnesses he required. The simple order of Mr. John Shepstone would suffice, by the mere lifting up of his finger, to bring down to Pietermaritzburg at once any natives whom he desired as witnesses, invested as he was in the native mind with all the weight and all the terrors of the magisterial office; and with the additional influence derived from the fact of his having only recently filled, during his brother’s absence in England, the office of Secretary for Native Affairs, with such great—almost despotic—authority over all the natives in the colony. The Bishop, on the contrary, had no such influence. He had no power at all to insist upon the attendance of witnesses. He could only ask them to come, and if they came at his request, they would know that they were coming, as it were, with a rope around their necks; and if they were proved to have borne false witness, calumniating foully so high an official, they had every reason to fear that their punishment would be severe, from which the Bishop would have had no power—even if, in such a case, he had the will—to save them.

When, upon the 2nd August, the inquiry began, out of the many witnesses called by the Bishop, upon whom lay the onus probandi, only three were at hand; and two of these, as will be seen, were present merely through the wise forethought of the intelligent Zulu, William Ngidi. But for this last, the inquiry would have begun, and—as the Commissioner was pressed for time, having other important duties on his hands in consequence of Sir Garnet Wolseley and staff being about immediately to leave the colony—might even (as it seemed) have ended, with only a single witness being heard in support of the Bishop’s story. No others were seen or even heard of for some days, and then by accident only. The Secretary for Native Affairs, it is true, by direction of Sir Garnet Wolseley, had desired Cetshwayo to send down Matshana, and the Bishop fully expected that this intervention of the Government with a promise of safe conduct for him, would have sufficed to bring him. But Mr. John Dunn, “Immigration Agent” of the Government in Zululand, and Cetshwayo’s confidential adviser, whom the Bishop met in Durban on July 8th, told him at once that he did not think there was the least chance of Matshana’s coming, as the Secretary for Native Affairs’ words in 1873, when he went up to crown Cetshwayo (who asked very earnestly that Matshana might be forgiven and allowed to return to Natal) were so severe—“He had injured the Secretary for Native Affairs’ own body;” that is, one of his men had wounded his brother (Mr. John Shepstone) fifteen years previously, when thirty or forty of Matshana’s men had been killed—that he would be afraid to come at a mere summons like this, notwithstanding the promise of safety, the value of which he would naturally appreciate by his own experience in former days. Mr. Dunn promised to do his best to persuade him to go down, but did not expect to succeed. And, in point of fact, he never came, alleging the usual “pain in the leg;” and the discussion in Zululand about his coming had only the result of delaying for some days the starting of the other witnesses whom the Bishop had asked Cetshwayo to send. On August 4th, however, Zulu messengers arrived, reporting to the Secretary for Native Affairs the sickness of Matshana, and to the Bishop the fact that six witnesses from Zululand were on the way, and they themselves had pushed on ahead to announce their coming, as they knew they were wanted for August 2nd. Accordingly five of them arrived on August 8th, and the sixth, Maboyi, on August 5th, under somewhat singular circumstances, as will presently appear. Meanwhile most important witnesses in support of the Bishop’s story were expected by him from Matshana’s old location—Kwa’ Jobe (at the place of “Jobe”)—partly in consequence of a letter written by Magema to William Ngidi, partly in compliance with the Bishop’s request sent through Cetshwayo to Matshana himself in Zululand. William Ngidi replied to Magema, as follows: “Your letter reached me all right, and just in the very nick of time, for it came on Saturday, and the day before Mr. John arrived here (Kwa’ Jobe), and called the men to come to him on Monday, that they might talk together about Matshana’s affair. On Sunday my friend Mlingane came, and we took counsel together; for by this time it was well known that Mr. John had come to speak with the people about that matter of Matshana. So we put our heads together, and I got up very early on Monday morning and hurried off to Deke, and told him that he was called by Sobantu (the Bishop) to go before the Governor. He readily agreed to go, and went down at once, on the very day when Matshana’s people came together to Mr. John, so that he never went to him; but, when I arrived, there had just come already the messenger to call him to go to Mr. John, and another came just as he was about to set off for ’Maritzburg. I told him to call for Mpupama on his way, and take him on with him. I see that you have done well and wisely in sending that letter without delay to me.”

Accordingly these two men, Deke and Mpupuma, reached Bishopstowe safely in good time. Also Ntambama, Langalibalele’s brother, of whom the Bishop had heard as having been present on the occasion, readily came at his summons, though he was not asked to give his evidence, nor did the Bishop know what it would be before he made his statement in court. But for the prudent action of William Ngidi, Ntambama would have been the only witness whose testimony would have sustained the Bishop’s statements during the first days of the inquiry; and his evidence, unsupported, might have been suspected, as that of Langalibalele’s brother, of not being disinterested, and would have been contradicted at once (see below) by Ncamane’s.

On Saturday, July 31st, the inquiry being about to begin on the Monday, Magema received a doleful letter from William Ngidi to the effect that the ’Inkos Sobantu must take care what he was about, for that all the people were afraid, and would not venture to come forward and give evidence against a high government official. He spoke, however, of one man “whom I trust most of all the people here,” and who had the scar upon his neck of a wound received upon the day of Matshana’s arrest.

Discouraging, indeed, as it was to find on the very eve of the inquiry that all his efforts through William Ngidi had failed to procure witnesses, except the two sent down by him at the first, the Bishop was utterly at a loss to understand how his message to Cetshwayo had, to all appearance, also entirely failed with respect to those men of Matshana still living Kwa’ Jobe, as well as (it seemed) those living in Zululand.