FALLS OF THE UMZINYATI, NEAR INANDA, NATAL
On Dec. 3d, 1834, the Burlington left Boston with a party consisting of six missionaries and their wives, of which the late Dr. Lindley, my father-in-law, was one, and arrived safely in Capetown on Feb. 5th, 1835, when three of their number, including Dr. Lindley, started almost at once for the interior. Seven weeks’ wagon traveling brought them to Griquatown, where they rested five months, arriving at Kuruman early in 1836. Here Dr. Lindley formed the acquaintance of the late Dr. Moffat, and received much advice from him as to his future course of action. Leaving Dr. Wilson behind with the ladies he went forward in company with Mr. Venables to Mosega, in Klein Mariko, the headquarters of Mosilikatze, chief of the Matabélé tribe, styled by Moffat the Napoleon of the desert, whose permission to advance had already been obtained. This position, about two hours from Zeerust, in the Transvaal Republic, was the place upon which they had fixed to build a station and commence their good work, a French mission having some short time before been expelled from the same locality by Mosilikatze.
INANDA: THE MISSIONARY STATION OF REV. D. LINDLEY.
The district was well chosen, and the spot where they settled, still called Zenderling’s Post (Missionaries’ Post), was situated in a charming, well-watered valley, embosomed in the hills in the district of Marico, near Magaliesberg, in latitude 25°, 27′, longitude 27°, 47′. Here, on June 15th, 1836, they commenced their labors, which, however, were soon to be brought to a tragic end. Mosilikatze did not approve of the teaching of the missionaries, which reflected to a certain extent on his own actions, forbade his people to listen to them, and himself left Mosega. Still these devoted men and women prayed and hoped that more favorable opportunities would arise; for, to add to their misfortunes at the time, a fever, obstinate and distressing, laid low many of their families—caused partly by the climate, and partly by the damp floors of the mud houses, which they had hastily built. Yet neither the distrust or suspicion entertained by Mosilikatze, or the ravages and deaths caused by the fever, drove them from the work to which they had devoted themselves.
I must now go back a few months, and ask my readers to study the previous state of affairs. During the winter of 1836, the Dutch in the Cape Colony, disgusted by the treatment, which, in their opinion, they were subjected to, and tired of British rule, determined to seek for “pastures new,” and consequently they made preparations all over the eastern and midland districts to emigrate. Some left for Natal, some trekked northward and crossed over the Vaal River, when Mosilikatze, becoming jealous of his rights, which had not been consulted, with his Matabélé warriors nearly annihilated several small parties of Boers, killing altogether twenty white men and twenty-six natives, taking away their horses, cattle and sheep. This, as may be imagined, roused a feeling of revenge, and as soon as possible a force large enough to punish Mosilikatze was got together, consisting of 107 farmers, and nearly the same number of Griquas and Korannas.
This organized reprisal left Thaba Nchu on Jan. 3d, 1837, and passing through a country almost depopulated, where scarcely a single man was to be seen, came to Mosega on Jan. 17th. All unexpected and unseen, at the very earliest dawn, the Boers fell upon the inhabitants of that most beautiful valley, and so sudden and so secret was the attack that the missionaries were taken as much by surprise as the natives, not knowing anything until they heard the whistle of the bullets flying around. “The Matabélé soldiers grasped their spears and shields and rushed forward, but volleys of slugs from the long elephant guns of the farmers drove them back in confusion. The commanding officer of these natives was away, and there was no one of sufficient authority to restore order. The warriors took to flight, and were hunted by the farmers until the sun was high overhead, when it was computed that at least 450 must have been slain,”[[3]] shot down on that bloody morn ere the sun could reach the meridian. Such a cold-blooded massacre, so one-sided an affair was it, that not a single man, either European or native, on the Boer side was touched. My wife’s mother has often pictured to me how, lying in bed, where for nine weeks she had been prostrated by rheumatic fever, her room was one morning suddenly filled by swarms of wounded, bleeding, helpless women and children, imploring her assistance and trying to escape from the inhuman butchery outside, but to no effect, as they were remorselessly shot down even at her bedside; in fact, “the outhouse in which their servants slept was literally shot to pieces.”[[4]] The Boers having set fire to about fifteen villages in the valley, then thought it advisable to retire with about 7,000 head of cattle they had found (!) and as Mary Moffat, writing to her father at the time, said: “Pillaged the (missionaries’) house before their eyes, and when they left, the Boers were still in the house, packing up all their horses could carry.” On leaving they urged, even used threats to force, the missionaries to leave with them, which they did, “submitting to whatever the Boers wished;” for removed far from civilization, shocked with the bloody sight just enacted, afraid of their own lives, and convinced that for years the introduction of Christianity had been postponed, they thought it the best thing to do. In after years (1859) the fact of the American Mission leaving Mosega with the conquerors, instead of remaining with the conquered, was often used by the Matabélé as an argument against allowing missionaries to again build in the country, as they were certain it would only be a matter of time before other white men would come, and their land would be taken away from them.
Mrs. Lindley was forced from her bed, and with a child in her lap rode for twenty-three hours on horseback without stopping. Mr. Grout, in his work on Zululand, says: “To their fear of being followed by a host of exasperated savages, to the unceasing cry of cattle, and to all the tumult of irregular, excited soldiery, add the want of proper food, especially for the sick; the absence of a road, save such as the open field affords; the want of a bridge or a boat on the now swollen streams; the want of a dry suit for the women and children, who had to be floated across the Orange River on a bundle of reeds, keeping only head and shoulders above water; then, forthwith out of the river, add a night of Egyptian darkness, through all the hours of which no sleep can be had, save that which comes in spite of torrents of rain, thunder and lightning, and all the noise of the motley group by which they are surrounded—and you have some idea of what fell to the lot of the missionaries, Lindley, Venables, Wilson and their families, on the journey.”
In coming down to the coast, not knowing the passes of the Drakensberg, they made a circuit around by Grahamstown of something like 1,500 miles, and reached Natal at the end of July.[[5]] This account may read as fiction in the present day, but it is notwithstanding a “romance in real life;” what the early missionaries suffered and endured to propagate the truths of divine religion among the heathen in former days, we can now with difficulty conceive. Dr. Lindley, on his return from Mosega, founded a mission station at Ifumi, at the south side of D’Urban, but owing to the rupture between Durgaan, the Zulu king, and the Boers, together with the murder of Retief and party, on February 6th, 1838, who had gone to ask the Zulu king’s permission to settle on the south side of the Tugela, the American missionaries considered it prudent to leave Natal for a time. Dr. Lindley, however, remained behind, but after the burning of his station at Ifumi, and after experiencing many dangers, he escaped on board the Comet, a little schooner, lying in the D’Urban harbor, and after first visiting Delagoa Bay, landed at Port Elizabeth on June 22d, 1838. Here he remained twelve months, until peace was restored by the complete overthrow of Durgaan, when he returned to Natal, and commenced, with the approval of his Board, to labor among the Dutch; and was the first to take over the pastoral care of the emigrant farmers.
The Rev. John McCarter says: “As pastor he labored amongst the emigrants for seven years (1840–1847) having as parish all Natal, together with the surrounding territories and the Transvaal Republic. Thousands of children were christened by him; his headquarters were Pietermaritzburg, Winburg, and Potchefstroom. It was thus that in 1843 the congregations of Winburg and Pietermaritzburg were amalgamated. Dr. Lindley himself mentioned to the writer, that at all times and places his words were listened to with the greatest concern, and the particular tenderness with which after his departure the memory of Lindley was continually held in these regions by those who knew him, witness what great good his labors brought about.”[[6]] In 1847 Dr. Lindley resumed his connection with the American Board, beginning his work again among the Zulus at the Inanda. In that year he was appointed with Dr. Adams, by the Colonial authorities, on a commission to see justice done to the natives, the instructions given to them being “that there should not be in the eye of the law any distinction or disqualification whatever, founded on mere distinction of color, origin, language or creed, but that the protection of the law, in letter and in substance, shall be extended impartially to all alike.”