Melrose House, shunned scene of great history

Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 09 May 2011

They probably thought the continuous display of Hendrick Verwoed’s statue in the town of Midvaal, Gauteng, was a harmless preservation of history.

With municipal elections around the corner, the powers-that-be in the DA-led town soon learned something else: Verwoed, the apartheid architect, remains an insult figure even in his lifeless, artistic depiction.

Amongst black people, the history of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid periods is being shunned for the loses that black people suffered. It is a reminder of the humiliation of the day.

Amongst whites, South Africa’s pre-1994 history serves as a reminder of the guilt of their forbearers. They are too ashamed to take pride in the story of South Africa before Nelson Mandela walked out of jail a free man.

Between the two races, there is an attempt not to remember the past, and one had observed with great discomfort how this plays itself out in real life.

When I visited the Melrose House museum in Pretoria recently for a tour, I saw South Africa’s past being neglected. I was the lone visitor, only to be joined later by two young white males, probably in their 20s.

My fellow tourists, though, were not interested in the extraordinary stories told at the museum.

The tour normally starts at a room next to the reception, but my fellow tourists, upon paying their entrance fee, immediately ran upstairs.

No sooner had they arrived there that the purpose of their visit was revealed. Sweet melodies emanated from their direction, and the security guard knew exactly what they were doing.

“These boys, they are playing the [preserved] piano,” he moaned as he quickly ran upstairs, and I could hear him saying: “It’s enough; it’s enough, guys”.

After their admonishment, my fellow tourists asked a few questions about the age of the piano before departing the museum, with one of them still raving about it as the pair stepped out. “It’s so old but the sound is great”.

Built in 1886 and owned by entrepreneur George Jesse Heys, the Melrose House is the scene of great historical significance, having served (between 1889 and 1902) as the headquarters of the British army during the Anglo-Boer War.

Befittingly, the Treaty of Vereeniging, which signaled the end of the war on 31 May 1902, was signed at the dining room of the Melrose House.

The British government was so grateful to the Heys family they even sent them cash. And, perhaps because of their wealth, the Heys family did not spend the cash but rather used it to decorate their dining room wall.

Heys, son of English immigrants, (his farther, George, was born in North Langashire, England) was born in Durban in 1852, later moving to Machadodorp to start cattle farming.

Later, in 1879, he moved to Pretoria and started several companies, including Heys and Co. General Dealers as well as Geo Heys & Co’s Express Saloon and Coach Service.

Building of the Melrose House started in 1886 at the corner of Minaar and Andries Streets, Pretoria, where it still lies quietly today, facing the Burgers Park.

The house was popular amongst local folk, and there’s no guessing why. “Tea and cake were served at four o’clock (pm) and whisky and soda at five o’clock. The men played billiards when it rained,” says a note.

The Heys family had a huge staff compliment, amongst them a cook, a fulltime housekeeper, ironing servants, chamber maids, gardeners and a coachman.

Inside the house, which had mostly imported interiors and which has been restored to its original form, the black staff members were not allowed upstairs as per Victorian and Edwardian era standards.

Each of the three big bedrooms, all upstairs, had, in addition to the usual stuff, a fire place, a reading table, a bible and a door leading to a balcony.

Next to the main bedroom of Heys and his wife lies a small room equal in size to a modern-day standard bathroom. During the Victorian era, a story is told, it was custom for husband and wife to undress in separate rooms, so this small room was used by Mrs. Heys for that purpose.

Before completing my tour, I looked at the green gardens outside through a window from the first floor. It was a quiet place, far from free whisky-serving meeting place of the bygone era.

Cars and pedestrians walked past as if avoiding the place. No one would come here to re-enact the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging, I said to myself. The blacks don’t associate themselves with that history. The whites are ashamed of it.

'History repeats itself'

Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 15 December 2010

Karl Marx observed memorably that “history repeats itself; first as tragedy, second as a farce”. This is no truer than in some events in South Africa’s history.

Exactly 172 years ago tomorrow, Zulu King Dingaan and his troops killed Voortrekker leader Piet Retief in a confrontation that would later culminate in what became known as the Battle of Blood River.

Dingaan is reported to have invited Retief to a ceremony to celebrate the signing of their land sale agreement. The ceremony, as it turned out, was a set up, organised by Dingaan to capture Retief and his troops.

After they were captured, Retief and his troops are said to have been led to kwa-Matiwane, where they were killed, with Retief being the last to be executed after watching his men as they were slaughtered one by one.

The Afrikaners designated the day of the massacre as a public holiday known as the Day of the Vow. The day, which remains a public holiday in post-apartheid South Africa, was also known as Dingaan Day.

Of great historical irony is that 123 years after Retief's killing (in 1962) the African National Congress, led by radicals such as Nelson Mandela, formed its military wing, Umkhondo We Sizwe (the spear of the nation), popularly known as the MK.

ANC President Oliver Tambo said of the MK that its formation marked the resumption of an "armed struggle under modern conditions for the restoration of our land to its rightful owners."

In a 1969 broadcast to mark the eighth anniversary of the MK, Tambo said the anti-apartheid rebel army would wage a fierce "armed guerilla struggle throughout southern Africa" that would result in the apartheid government suffering "ignominious defeat".

Up until 1990 when it suspended its operations in the face of negotiations for a peaceful settlement, the MK never faced apartheid forces in the type of struggle envisaged by Tambo. Instead, it launched targeted campaigns at apartheid operatives and strategic sites.

As a result of the integration in 1994 of the MK into the South African National Defence Force, today many former MK operatives work hand-in-hand with their former enemies.

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.

What independence?

Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 04 October 2010

Had South Africa continued marking its freedom from colonialism, in just over two months’ time – on December 11 – we would be celebrating 76 years of independence from Britain.

This year, 27 African countries celebrate 50 years of independence from various western colonial masters.

Notably absent from the itinerary of celebrations are certain countries in the Southern African region, amongst them South Africa.

So, why don’t South Africans celebrate their independence?

The reasons are as political as colonialism and apartheid were. Ours, in fact, was the first southern African country to gain independence in 1934.

Yet, because the independence was followed by apartheid – often referred to as “colonialism of a special kind” – South Africa does not celebrate its independence day.

When Harold Mcmillian used his historic speech, delivered to the South African parliament in February 1960 to officially acknowledge the “growth of national consciousness [across Africa as] a political fact”, independent South Africa was already 25 years old.

Apart from his acknowledgement that colonialism had no future, the British Prime Minister also used the speech to brag about Britain’s contribution to South Africa’s relatively strong economy.

“We in Britain are proud of the contribution we have made to this remarkable achievement. Much of it has been financed by British capital,” he said.

In the same year of Mcmillian’s historic speech, 27 African countries became free from colonial rule, and those countries mark 50 years of independence this year.

Ironically, at the time of Mcmillian’s speech, South Africa was a colonial master itself, having occupied Namibia – then known as German West Africa – during the First World War.

Britain was at war with Germany, and South Africa had to invade the neighbouring German territory as part of its “imperial duty.” Even in the wake of the collapse of the colonial system, the apartheid government hung on to Namibia until 1990.

Nevertheless, political organisations fighting for the liberation of blacks did not recognise South Africa’s status as an independent state, accusing the government of playing a puppet role to Britain.

The secretary-general of the ANC, Alfred Nzo, writing in June 1971, derided the apartheid regime as an extension of colonialism.

“The indigenous people who compose the overwhelming majority of the population were completely excluded from both the negotiations and the benefit of so-called ‘independence’,” wrote Nzo

“For the Africans there is no independence and no sovereignty. They are subjected like all colonial peoples by an alien white minority to subjugation, domination and exploitation. They suffer national oppression like any other colonial people,” Nzo continued.

Despite having been won through years diplomacy and war, South Africa’s independence from Britain is not being celebrated because the independence was for a small section of the population – and the historic date has been wiped off our national calendar, not to be remembered again.

Madibeng Kgwete
Pretoria

Meeting Afrikaner leaders whilst searching for Chief Tshwane

The story of President Kruger’s overthrow is recited grudgingly by Afrikaner historians.

Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 08 September 2010

It is not a smooth expedition trying to trace down the footsteps of Chief Tshwane, after whom the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality is named. And if you’re particularly interested in unearthing physical evidence of the chief’s rein in what is now South Africa’s capital city, you’re guaranteed one thing: futility.

Little is recorded of the man, and even the city’s tourism authorities refer to him only in passing. The City of Tshwane’s tourism office say in leaflets handed out to tourists that Chief Tshwane was the son of Chief Mushi, who moved from Zululand and settled in the area before the arrival in the 1830s of the Voortrekkers.

Little else is said of the chief, whose name has now been eternalised in history, given to the capital city of the biggest economy on African soil – a capital city that carries immense political and historic weight not only in Africa, but the world, housing the second-largest number of foreign diplomatic missions after Washington, D.C.

So my three-day mission to find physical evidence of Chief Tshwane eventually went off course, leading me to two important figures in the history of South Africa: President Paul Kruger and Prime Minister Jan Smuts. The houses of these two important South African statesmen still stand in their original form and have been turned into museums.

My first stop is at Paul Kruger House along Church Street, half a kilometer or so west of Church Square in Pretoria. From the outside, without the posters and the distinctly white paint, the house could be any other building. But wait until you explore the house inside, you’d be fascinated – or, in my case, even get frightened.

Elected Commandant-General of the Zuid-Afrikaanche Republiek (ZAR) in 1891 during the presidency of Marthinus Wesssel Pretorius, Paul Kruger remains a towering figure in the history of South Africa. President Kruger’s enthusiastic loathing of British colonialism tested his courage as a leader and a fighter, but it was also the same loathing of Her Majesty’s rule that would later lead to his exit from power.

President Kruger’s belief in Afrikaner nationalism and his determination for self-governance made him deeply suspicious of “outsiders” – particularly the English – and/or any other “outside” influence. He is even said to have suspected that the woman depicted at the roof of the Old Raadsaal building (the seat of government during his time, situated at Church Square) was Queen Victoria of England.

It was only after assurances that the figure depicted the Greek goddess Athena and after she was named “Die Beeld Van Vryheid” (The Statue of Freedom) that President Kruger and fellow Afrikaner diehards accepted the statue’s presence at the roof of the seat of their government. If it were indeed Queen Victoria in the depiction, President Kruger’s reaction would have been predictable: “Bring her down,” he would have bawled in Afrikaans.

Throughout his tenure as President, Kruger established strong relations with many countries across the world. During the Anglo-Boer War, messages of support, often accompanied by an assortment of tokens of honour, poured in from governments, organizations and individuals from all over the world, including Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, the United States, Australia, France and other countries.

A message of support from a committee of Australians that sympathised with the Boers, containing 12 900 signatures of Australians and addressed to “the hero nation and the leaders” of the Afrikaner people, never reached its destination. Contained in a large case, the message by the Australians was acquired by the South African government only in 1989.

The Russians, on the other hand, did manage to get their token of sympathy (a one-and-half metre tall depiction of a mountain with soldiers on horsebacks) delivered to President Kruger in the year 1900, just in time before Lord Roberts of England and his forces, under the command of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, advanced on the ZAR’s capital.

The story of President Kruger’s overthrow is recited grudgingly by Afrikaner historians, and when I asked one old woman at Prime Minister Jan Smuts house if this occasion signified a coup, the answer was a straight no. “Coup is not the word,” she said. “It wasn’t a coup. The government was intact even in President Kruger’s absence.” And, to a certain degree, the Boers, never the type to admit defeat, were still indeed in charge.

When British forces hoisted the Union Jack at the Old Raadsaal on 05 June 1900 to officially mark the overthrow of President Kruger’s rule (and, with it, the end of Afrikaner political dominance and purity), the old man was on his way out of the country through Mozambique in a luxurious railway carriage designed specifically for him by the French.

So reluctant were President Kruger and his men to admit defeat that upon their arrival at Machadodorp in what is now Mpumalanga, they declared the small town the new capital city of the ZAR. Even on their way there, they referred to the luxury railway carriage in which they were travelling as “the government on wheels.”

Before crossing the border at Komatipoort into Mozambique on 11 September 1900 to board a ship destined for Marsailles in France, President Kruger is said to have shed tears in front of his most trusted aides, in particular General Louis Botha. This must have been a deeply emotional moment for the Boer hero, compounded by the fact that he left home an ailing wife, Gezina Suzanna du Plessis, with whom he had 16 children.

As I leave the museum with mixed feelings (sad that the story of the man is not being told to a wider audience, but sadder that my own people, Chief Tshwane amongst them, were not only defeated but totally obliterated as well, and sadder still that no one seems to care), I glance at the visitors’ book to see what others who came before me had to say about the museum and the man it is dedicated to.

The overwhelming response from visitors, from far and near, is that they were fascinated and very impressed. They write of their experience of the museum: “Very interesting,” “mooi,” “pragtig”, “uitstekend”. But not everybody leaves congratulatory notes. “Ek hoor spoke (I hear ghosts)”, says one.

The Kruger ghost tale is also briefly narrated in journalist G.H Wilson’s memoir, available at the house of Jan Smuts – now also a museum, situated at the suburb of Irene in Pretoria. When he visited The Big House in Middelburg, which belonged to British officers, Wilson claims to have woken up one morning to see “a benign old gentleman, rather like President Kruger in appearance.” When he stretched his hand to touch him, Wilson says the man disappeared.

Walking through the farm where General Smuts’ house remains, you’d be forgiven for overlooking it. I first walked past the house before seeking directions from a woman standing at its door. “This is the house; welcome,” she said, pointing to the big tin house under the shades of plantation trees.

From the outside, the house looks like a temporary structure, let alone an historic home of what should be one of South Africa’s most illustrious families.

Having served as South Africa’s Prime Minister twice (1919 – 1924 and 1939 – 1948), General Jan Smuts remains, to this day, a vital historical figure in the life of South Africa and in global politics.

Apart from his down-to-earth personality (he is said to have detested luxury whilst living an “unpretentious lifestyle”), General Smuts, a Cambridge graduate, was also a distinguished intellectual, an outstanding lawyer, writer and an internationalist.
Smuts was appointed Attorney-General by President Kruger at the age of 28. He became a founder member of the League of Nations, which later developed into the United Nations. The wooden table from which he single-handedly drafted the constitution of the Union of South Africa remains at his house.

During his time as Prime Minister, Smuts was entitled to stay at a classy official residence, but he chose to remain at his tin house, which was criticised by a family friend as a “tin hovel” that was “crawling with screaming children.”

Apart from being an accomplished scholar, Smuts was also a brave military leader whose role in President Kruger’s government directly precipitated the Anglo-Boer War.

The war broke out in 1899 after the British failed to respond satisfactorily to an ultimatum, written by Smuts as the Attorney-General of the ZAR, demanding the withdrawal of British troops from the Cape and Natal colonies.

The ultimatum proposed “friendly arbitration” to the dispute over territories, but Her Majesty’s government ignored it, and so the war ensued. General Smuts’ military regalia is still available at the house, including pictures of him greeting Boer troops in the Vry Staad (the Free State).

So highly regarded within military ranks was General Smith’s family that his wife, Mrs. J.C. Smuts (fondly referred to by Afrikaners as the “Ouma of Our People”) got a song dedicated to her by the soldiers. The military used the song in their recruitment drive, and one line out of its lyrics declares: “Now’s the time to right the wrongs (meaning British occupation and colonialism).”

As I left General Smuts’ house, now thoroughly enticed by Afrikaner history, somehow I didn’t regret abandoning my search for Chief Tshwane. Someone – or, rather, black historians and academics – must trace him down. Otherwise even my children and their children will only know of Paul Kruger and Jan Smuts.

Madibeng Kgwete
Pretoria