The Bakwena, it seems, put down roots long before Tshwane

Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 01 November 2010

The FF+ even borrowed from Marxist theory to substantiate their opposition to the Pretoria name-change

Any explorer seeking to trace the founders of modern-day Pretoria, the capital city of South Africa, would eventually arrive at one place, Church Square, and meet one particular group of migrants, the Voortrekkers.

And any search for Chief Tshwane, after whom the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality is named, will lead any explorer either astray (as I was initially) or out of the city.

My initial expedition to trace the footsteps of the enigmatic chief was based on a widely-held presupposition, that Chief Tshwane was the founder of the modern-day city of Pretoria.

Following a futile three-day search for the chief in mid-September, I found myself immersed in Afrikaner history. I abandoned my search for Tshwane, whom even the municipal tourism authorities do not say much about.

Tshwane, the son of early Nguni migrants from the Natal, has now had his name immortalised in history, given to the municipality governing the historic capital city of South Africa.

Initial attempts to rename the entire city, including the central business district, after Tshwane have stalled, owing to vigorous opposition mainly from Afrikaners.

The predominantly Afrikaner political party, the Freedom Front Plus (FF+), has been so unrelenting in its opposition to the renaming of Pretoria to Tshwane it once even commissioned two Afrikaner academics to prepare a solid case against the name change.

The academics, Prof Pieter Labuschagne of the Department of Political Science at Unisa and Mr. Dirk Hermann, director of the Research Institute of the trade union Solidarity, concluded that the chief was never based on the site of modern-day Pretoria.

“The area south of the Magalies Mountains was up to 1825 Tswana area and not inhabited by the Ndebele,” wrote Labuschagne and Hermann. The two credited Tswana tribes as the rightful indigenous inhabitants of the area.

“The Bakwena tribe moved into the area and existed peacefully up to approximately 1825 when they were assimilated by force into a bigger unit as a result of the migration of the Matebeles under [the] leadership of Mzilikazi.”

Relying heavily on historical accounts of early 17th century English explorers, the two academics concluded in their report that “the location of the main kraal of Mzilikazi is indicated to be in the area of Pretoria North, even though smaller temporary rural settlements appeared to be more widespread.”

Hermann and Labuschagne credit Gerhardus Bronkhorst and his brother Lukas Bronkhorst as the first whites that settled in the Apies River area. The two brothers are said to have laid the farm Elandspoort.

Martinus Wessel Pretorius, the son of Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, bought the farm Elandspoort in 1835 from the Bronkhorst brothers. It was on this very farm, in 1855, that Pretorius founded the city of Pretoria.

Interestingly, by this time, Chief Tshwane’s royal family was most probably long disbanded – not by Voortrekker invaders, though, but as a result of infighting amongst his six sons.

According to a book published in 1965 (to which I was referred by a reader of the Sunday Independent after my initial article), Tshwane’s farther, Musi, was amongst the first group of Ngunis that trekked from Natal around year 1651.

The book by T.V. Bulpin, Lost Trails of the Transvaal (available at the municipal library), contains a brief narration of the story of Chief Tshwane. And the story corroborates with the contents of the report that Hermann and Labuschagne wrote for the FF+.

These early Zulu migrants – who later became known as Ndebeles – were not the first inhabitants of the areas around Pretoria. Various Tswana tribes were here long before them. And Musi’s base was in the Pretoria North region, in what is now the small town of Wonderboompoort, which is also known as Mayville.

It is not clear when Tshwane died; but, after his death, according to Bulpin, his six sons fought amongst themselves for chieftainship. “The whole tribe, accordingly, was split up into six groups: each independent, but all acknowledging a common origin.”

One group, under Manala, is said to have remained at the original tribal home. A second section, under Ndzundza, reportedly detached to the Olifants River. Another son, Dhlomo, is said to have gone back to Zululand.

Another one of the sons, Mthombeni, is reported to have “wandered up northwards and eventually settled in the bush along the southern slopes of Strydpoort Mountains.” The author does not say what happened to the rest of the two brothers.

It is important to note that the destruction of the Tshwane royal family happened before the arrival in the Transvaal of the second grouping of Ngunis, this time led by the warrior king, Mzilikazi.

A noteworthy conqueror, Mzilikazi led this second grouping of Ngunis from the mouth of the Olifants River. Towards the end of 1823, according to Bulpin, Mzilikazi operated a “robber band” from what is now the town of Bethal.

Mzilikazi’s alleged loot was not limited to livestock, for he is accused of having “won” even the wives of conquered clans and enrolled their sons as warriors.

It is important also to note that, even at this time – when Tshwane’s royal family had disintegrated – MW Pretorius had not even bought the farm, Elandspoort, upon which he later founded the city of Pretoria.

In their determination to keep the name Pretoria, the FF+ have gone to courts, organised protests and, at one point, even borrowed from Carl Marx’s theory of alienation.

The socialist theory revolved around workers losing their sense of identification with their own work. As explained in German, the word “alienation”, as applied in Marxist theory, means separation of things that naturally belong to each other.

The FF+ has argued that the dangers of alienation are also “extremely relevant” in name change processes. “In a majority democracy, it means that the majority in practice possess all the power,” the party lamented.

Earlier this year, in February, the storm around the name-change nearly erupted again after the Department of Arts and Culture listed Pretoria in a Government Gazette as one of the names to be changed permanently.

A predictable outcry immediately ensued, and the registration of the name was retracted within days of the gazette’s publication.

Still unresolved, the Pretoria name-change saga may soon come up again, and some unavoidable questions will have to be answered: could Tshwane himself have identified his name with the city as founded by Afrikaners? If names are being changed as tribute to ancient African leaders, won’t the Tswana tribe, Bakwena, claim more right to Pretoria?

An edited version of this article was published in the Sunday Independent on 31 October 2010, page 16.