The battlefields during Sekhukhune’s wars of resistance

On April 12, 1877, Sir Theophilus Shepstone annexed the Transvaal on the pretext, inter alia, that a Boer Republic that failed to ‘pacify’ the Bapedi threatened, by its very existence and weakness, to destabilise the British colonies of the Cape and Natal. Up to 1877 the British had ‘supported’ Sekhukhune's attitude to the Boers.

Sekhukhune's attitude was that his Empire fell outside the jurisdiction of Pretoria; that the land between the Vaal and the Limpopo Rivers belonged to him, and that although he would never accept Boer rule, he might as a last resort, like Moshoeshoe, accept Protectorate status under the British Crown. However, after the British Annexation of the Transvaal (April, 1877) British attitudes changed. James Grant, a Briton, confirmed: ‘... the view taken by our government was that Sekhukhune was not a real rebel against the Transvaal, in-as-much as his territory formed no part of that dominion (Transvaal Republic), and that the war waged against him was an unjustifiable aggression against an independent ruler; but when, in 1877, the Transvaal was annexed, Sekhukhune's country was included, without any question, in the new territory added to Britain's possessions’. Sekhukhune rejected this new British position scornfully. 

By March 1878 drums of war were beating again in Sekhukhuneland – this time it was against the British. Captain Clarke, who was sent to subdue Sekhukhune, was routed with heavy loss of life and barely escaped with his life at Magnet Heights. Immediately after this first British failure to subdue Sekhukhune, a fully equipped force of 1,800 men under Colonel Rowlands made another attempt from August until October 1878, to reduce Sekhukhune to submission. The mission failed (again with much loss of life on both sides) and had to be abandoned on October 6, 1878. The British made a third attempt at subduing Sekhukhune in June/July 1879, under the command of Colonel Lanyon. This too failed.

There was little more the British could do at that time since they had on their hands colonial wars in the Eastern Cape Colony, in the Colony of Natal, in Lesotho (the Gun war), in Ashanti (Ghana), Afghanistan and Cyprus, and military logic forced them to await the outcome of these wars before challenging Sekhukhune again. This stage was reached after the Battle of Ulundi and the exile of King Cetshwayo to Britain. Thereafter, Sir Garnet Wolseley moved his motley troops of Britons, Boers and Africans (10,000 Swazi troops) to bring down Sekhukhune. This was the fourth British attempt to reduce Sekhukhune to submission. Wolseley chose November 1879, for his move.

It was a major military operation. Sir Wolseley's men moved in a pincer movement from Fort Kruger, Fort MacMac, Fort Weeber, Jane Furse, Bebo, Schoonoord, Lydenburg, Mphablele, Nkoana, Steelpoort, and Nchabeleng, Swaziland – literally from all sides – to Thaba Mosega. The battle raged furiously from November 28 to December 2, 1879.

Sekhukhune fought with muskets obtained from Lesotho where he had royal support and French Missionaries as friends; from Kimberley Diamond fields where his people worked; from Delagoa Bay (Mozambique ) with which he had close trade and other links. The British used their more modern Mausers. Much life was lost. Sekhukhune himself lost his son and heir, Moroanoche, and fourteen other members of his immediate family. As the battle raged, Sekhukhune was taken by surprise in the form of an attack from behind by 10,000 Swazi troops in the service of the British. This surprise attack virtually brought the war to a lose. Sekhukhune took refuge in Mamatarnageng, the cave on Grootvygenboom (high up in the Lulu Mountain), some 15 miles from Thaba Mosega. There he was cut off from all sources of food and water. So, when on December 2, 1879, Captain Clarke and Commandant Ferreira were led to the cave and called him out, Sekhukhune had no choice but to comply. He was accompanied by his wife and children, his half-brother, Nkwemasogana, Makoropetse, Mphahle (a Swazi national) and a few attendants. Commandant Ferreira, who was obsessed with the myth that Sekhukhune owned large quantities of gold and diamonds, searched diligently but found nothing. This brought to an end the colonial war against Sekhukhune.

On December 9, 1879, Sekhukhune (then 65 years old), his wife, a baby, a child, Nkwemasogana, Mphahle, akoropetse and a few generals were led to prison in Pretoria. He remained there until the Pretoria Convention of 3 August 1881 was signed between Britain and the Boers after the first South African War. Article 23 of the Convention provided that Sekhukhune be set free and returned home. He could not return to Thaba Mosega, which had been burnt down in the war and which had fresh military associations, but to a nearby place called Manoge.