Maqoma: Icon of the Xhosa - British Wars

In the wars of 1835 and 1851 faught between AmaXhosa and the British, iNkosi uMaqoma kaNgqika, the Prince of the Rharhabe Xhosa was the most successful and resourceful general on either side. In particular, Nkosi Maqoma's guerrilla campaign in the Waterkloof region tied up far larger bodies of British troops than those Maqoma commanded.

The Xhosa-British War of Mlanjeni, also known as the 8th Xhosa War, consisted of 8 battles, and AmaXhosa won 7 of them thanks to the military genius of Nkosi Maqoma who resisted British colonialism for 55 years, the longest time of any individual in history, a period which saw them change commanders 22 times and govenors 12 times.

The war primarily centred on the Amathole mountains, the Waterkloof, the Kroomie heights, and the Fish River bush.


There were many reasons behind the Eighth Xhosa War. An increasing number of European missionaries arrived to create communities of Christian converts, and British appointed magistrates took over more authority from Xhosa traditional leaders who were prohibited from imposing cattle fines on their subjects or penalize witchcraft accusations.

White settlers also stole land from the amaRharhabe section of amaXhosa in the Tyume Valley and at the foot of the Amathole Mountains, where the white military veterans' communities of Woburn and Auckland were established.

These conflicts contributed to the rise in fame of the Xhosa prophet named Mlanjeni, who commanded the slaughter of cattle that were yellowish in colour, often associated with white people, and the abandonment of witchcraft.

On Christmas Eve morning in 1850, British Colonel George MacKinnon led almost 700 soldiers into the Amathole Mountains under instructions from Govenor Harry Smith to capture the amaRharhabe leader King Sandile, who had been deposed by Smith for failure to attend a meeting at King William's Town. Nkosi Maqoma ambushed the column in a gorge on the Keiskamma River and the British were forced back, having sustained many casualties.

As the British troops moved east through the narrow Booma Pass, hundreds of Rharhabe gunmen fired down on them from rocky precipices. MacKinnon led his men through the ambush and headed south out of the mountains toward Burnshill Mission and Fort White.

The next day Maqoma went on the offensive and overwhelmed three British military bases on the Tyhume River.

Maqoma then turned his attention to the principal British forts between the Amathole and the Kat River and Smith found himself trapped in Fort Cox. Somerset led two unsuccessful attempts to rescue Harry Smith, but both were met by determined resistance and beaten back.



In early September 1851, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Fordyce, commanding officer of the 74th Highlanders, responded to Xhosa cattle raids by taking a punitive expedition of 250 British regulars, 250 Mfengu, and about 150 settler and Khoikhoi volunteers up to the Waterkloof. On the open summit. this force was engaged in a brief skirmish by the rebels, who then withdrew into the forested ravines.

Since his men had little food, Fordyce decided to return to Fort Beaufort and led his force down a particularly narrow forest path, on which they were ambushed by Maqoma's fighters.

When Fordyce's Mfengu rear guard panicked and ran down the path, causing confusion among the highlanders, the ambushers charged, killing eight soldiers and wounding another nine before running back into the forest.

Fordyce led another force into the Waterkloof in mid-October 1851 that included two Mfengu levies of several hundred men each and by early November, during another unsuccessful sweep of the Waterkloof, Fordyce was killed by a rebel Khoikhoi sniper.

Nkosi Maqoma continued to resist from the Waterkloof Highlands, north of Fort Beaufort, between the Kat River in the east and the Koonop River to the west. An area of just 60 square miles, the terrain was even more impassable for British troops than the Amathole. Here, with just a few hundred warriors, Maqoma fought off repeated attempts by Smith to dislodge him and he could use this location to raid nearby settler farms. The height of Maqoma's success was when he ambushed and beat back two British columns, led by Somerset and Lieutenant Colonel Fordyce respectively.

In January 1852, the frustrated colonial office replaced Smith with Sir George Cathcart. In June, Cathcart planned to extricate the rebels from the Waterkloof with a large force of 1,200 British regulars and 450 Mfengu.

As a new strategy, his forces built a series of small fortified posts on the Waterkloof highlands to serve as patrol bases for searching the forested ravines, and to deny the rebels high ground for observation...