Podcast
History of South Africa podcast
Episodes — page 7
- Episode 170 - Harry Smith returns as the conquering hero and humiliates Maqoma while translators muddle along
This is episode 170 and the sound you’re hearing is the cheering and the flaming hot emotion because Sir Harry Smith is back in town! The town is Cape Town — Sir Harry won’t han…
- Episode 169 - The Kat River Settlement seethes and the inglorious treachery of Sandile’s arrest
First off, a big thank you to those listeners who’ve been sending me emails, a great deal of useful information emerges from our discussions which always improves the quality of th…
- Episode 168 - Earl Grey and the irascible Sir Henry Pottinger leave their mark on South Africa
This is episode 168 and the world by the middle of the 19th Century was shifting gear, changing rapidly. Southern Africa was caught in the currents of world history and within a fe…
- Episode 167 - Maitland dithers, Stockenstrom sallies forth into the Transkei and biblical storms change everything
This is episode 167 and the British army is clumping along towards the Amathola fastnesses, the deep ravines and steep riverine environment not the most ideal for an army that drag…
- Episode 166 - Colonel Lindsay lashes a local lad, Fort Peddie attacked and the Battle of Gwangqa River
The Seventh Frontier war has burst into flame, and across the Ceded Territory and down into the land around Port Elizabeth amaXhosa warriors are on the warpath, the British have be…
- Episode 165 - Sandile ambushes a British column, Captain Bambrick’s skull and Somerset’s humiliation
This is episode 165 — and the atmosphere in Xhosaland was ablaze with indignation. A Mr Holliday had complained in Fort Beaufort that an imaDange man called Tsili had stolen his ax…
- Episode 164 - British sappers cross Block Drift into Xhosaland setting off a chain of events on the eve of war
This is episode 164. Remember when we left off we’d been hearing about the squad of Royal engineers who’d crossed into amaXhosa territory over the Tyhume River in January 1846.…
- Episode 163 - British engineers build forts and semaphores while disabled chief Mgolombane Sandile signs a treaty
This is episode 163, the year, 1845. New Cape Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland had shown he was a man of action — as a veteran of the Peninsular Campaign against Napoleon you’d expe…
- Episode 162 - The 1845 Battle of Swartkoppies, Divide and Rule and a Bloemfontein origin story
This is episode 162. First, some housekeeping. A huge thank you to all my supporters, the podcast just passed 1.3 million listens, so there’s a large number of folks out there…
- Episode 161 - Moshoeshoe signs a Treaty then collects gunpowder and horses
This is episode 161 — and what’s this I hear? The sound of wind whipping and howling through the mountain recesses, snow-capped mountains, where the rivers have torn deep ravines i…
- Episode 160 - A tour of Philippolis, an 1844 update, the Great Guano discovery and the Merino sheep miracle
This is episode 160 and we’re breathing the spicy smells of the semi-desert, and taking in the exotic and wonderous scenary of the Richtersveld, Namaqualand, and the stunning area…
- Episode 159 - Boer women as handmaidens to history and the swirling social dust storms in TransOrangia circa 1843
This is episode 159. If we take out a map of south Africa and reconsider the regions, it will become quite apparent that the main demarcation is geographical, geological, the m…
- Episode 158 - Venda kingdoms and the Lemba Yemeni enigma
This is episode 158 and we’re taking an epic regional tour into the along the Limpopo River to meet with the Venda and other groups of folks who hail from the province we now call…
- Episode 157 - Dick King and Ndongeni Ka Xoki’s epic ride leads another d’Urban to Durban
This is episode 157 - where Dick King and Ndongeni ka Xoki ride to out of Durban carrying a dispatch from besieged British commander, Captain Smith, surrounded by Boers, in real da…
- Episode 156 - The Battle of Congella leaves 34 British soldiers dead on a moonlit Durban beach
When we left off last episode, Captain Thomas Smith and two companies of the 27th Inniskilling Regiment, an 18 pounder that had just arrived by ship, two six pounder field guns, a…
- Episode 155 - The Eastern Cape economy surges and the Americans visit Port Natal as tension rises
Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham - it’s episode 155 and the Cape economy is growing in leaps and bounds. The years between 1840…
- Episode 154 - The Swellekamp grifter and Captain Smith marches from the Umgazi River to Port Natal
This is episode 154 and the amaBhaca people under chief Ncapayi have just raided the Boers along the upper Bushman’s river and near their new town of Weenen. Joining the Bhaca w…
- Episode 153 - Dr Livingstone disembarks and Pretorius and Potgieter bury the hatchet
1840 was a leap year, and in November David Livingstone had left Britain for Africa. His story of exploration and commitment is extraordinary. While he would go on to become better…
- Episode 152 - The amaTola San raiders of the Drakensberg: Horses, plant meds and the Chacma Baboon
This is episode 152, we’re going to dig into a story that is not often told — the amaTola San raiders of the Drakensberg. They emerged by the end of the third decade of the 19th Ce…
- Episode 151 - The polymath Sir John Herschel, his free school system and other 1840 interconnections
Episode 151 and we’re into the 1840s - and its time to analyse some issues. One is education, the other, roads. Given our crisis in education these days, its perhaps another of…
