Episode 79 – The Wardoctor is defeated and Willshire does a deal with Hintsa
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Show notes
This is episode 79.
Nxele the Wardoctor and 10 000 warriors failed in their attempt at overrunning Grahamstown – now they’re on the run.
Three of Ndlambe’s sons were among those killed during the battle, and some of Ngqika’s people had also fought alongside their compatriots despite the chief supposedly being an ally of the British.
The surprise attack had tested the small British force, and while greater battles await, Grahamstown is still one of the most significant in the entire period of the 19th Century in southern African history. Had Nxele succeeded, the frontier of South Africa may have been very different.
As it was, the Cape Colony was about to experience a mass immigration of several thousand English speakers in a process we know as arrival of the1820 settlers, but that’s for a later podcast.
Had Nxele thrown the British out of Grahamstown and the Albany district, these settlers may have headed off to America, Australia or New Zealand.
Britain was in the throes of an economic slump after the Napoleonic wars and citizens were leaving the shores for the new world – and the ancient world of Africa. A few hundred would arrive in Cape Town and Algoa by December 1819, less than a year after the battle of Grahamstown.
The colonists were afraid of another attack, they had to hunt down Ndlambe and Nxele, and so on 28th July 1819 a large commando of 2 300 including British soldiers and Boers under Stockenstrom, as well as the Khoekhoe of the Cape Regiment, rode out into the country between the Great Fish River and the Keiskamma.
