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Episode 75 – Lord Charles Somerset reinforces the Fish River then meets the amaXhoseni and misreads Ngqika
It had taken twenty years from the initial British landing on the Cape for the occupation to become permanent. So by August 1814, following the first…
3 years, 9 months ago
Episode 74 – The horror story that is Slagter’s Nek of 1816 and its role in Afrikaner nationalism
It’s the second decade of the 19th Century - the trekboers as you heard last episode were alarmed by the British decision to drop loan farms – and us…
3 years, 9 months ago
Episode 73 – Shaka overwhelmes the Qwabe and the British upend the trekboer Loan Farm tradition
So, in 1817, Shaka had been forced to flee his home as Zwide’s Ndwandwe attacked repeatedly – and he found himself south of the Thukela.
He needed t…
3 years, 10 months ago
Episode 72 – Shaka flees south over the Thukela River as Zwide’s Ndwandwe expand their raiding
By the 1810s, Zwide had built a powerful centralized kingdom and reinforced this power using his extensive family. He also formed feared amabutho suc…
3 years, 10 months ago
Episode 71 – Calendars, the lunar month and the Zulu “houses of the sun”
This is episode 71 and Shaka has just been installed as the Zulu regent in 1812. There is even debate about this as the year – some say it was more l…
3 years, 10 months ago
Episode 70 – Senzangakhona dies and Shaka takes over as chief of the AmaZulu
This is episode 70 and we’re walking with Shaka.
He spent the bulk of his early and teenage years in Zulu country, that area to the north of the Umh…
3 years, 10 months ago
Episode 69 – Senzangakhona’s “Jerusalem of the Zulus”, his beautiful wife Bhibhi and a bit of Delagoa Bay
This is episode 69 and we’re hunting the origins of Shaka.
Throughout the area north of the Thukela River the main medium of exchange in terms of go…
3 years, 10 months ago
Episode 68 – Stockenström’s anguish, Dingiswayo and the beginning of the era of blood, power and iron
We heard last episode how the fourth Frontier War of 1811/12 had been a short sharp affair and the anger bubbling away amongst amaXhosa leadership ab…
3 years, 11 months ago
Episode 67 – Wardoctor Nxele begins to see visions as he synthesises amaXhosa religion with Christianity
Graham’s war in the Eastern Cape had sent the amaXhosa hurrying eastwards over the Great Fish River, with Ndlambe settling near where East London is …
3 years, 11 months ago
Episode 66 – The Fourth Frontier war bursts into flame, Chungwa is shot and Stockenstrom is assegai'd
This is episode 66 – it’s late 1811 and Sir John Cradock has just dispatched Lieutenant Colonel John Graham into the eastern Cape frontier to rid the…
3 years, 11 months ago