The Historiographical Development of the Concept “mfecane” and ...

could invade the colony. 16 These articles stimulated interest in African societies
in the “blank space”. However, the readers had to wait for half a year until
several more articles appeared - January to April 1824 - providing more
information on these “mysterious” occurrences in the interior, 17 including one by
Moffat in the Methodist Missionary Notices, who was at the centre of the events
of mid-1823. The Mantatees were reported as having been between 30 000 and
100 000 strong. 18 They were said to have been ousted from the Delagoa Bay
hinterland by the combined armies of 100 000 warriors under two chiefs, one of
whom was, according to Thompson, called ”Checka”. 19 This eviction was
deemed to have led to large-scale destruction among the chiefdoms of the
highveld by the Mantatees. Without any shred of evidence, Shaka was in early
1824, before any direct contact between the colony and his Zulu state had been
established, already cast as the cause of the reported devastation on the
highveld. There was one counter to this image of the widespread destruction of
African states in the interior when, in the post-Mantatee period, missionary
Broadbent indicated the presence of thirty highveld chiefdoms in the area
where, according to the other articles, none should have existed any longer. 20
16 G. Thompson, The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser, 19 and 26 July 1823.
17 G. Thompson, 'The Mantatees', The South African Commercial Advertiser, 7 January 1824, in
South African Library, The South African Commercial Advertiser, No. 1, January 1824 to No. 18,
May 1824: Together With the Facts Connected with the Stopping of the South African
Commercial Advertiser, South African Library Reprint Series 6 (Cape Town, 1978), 5. G.
Thompson, 'Pietshow’, in S.A. Library, Commercial Advertiser, 9-11. More information appeared
in 'Further Account of the Mantatees', S.A. Library, Commercial Advertiser, 11-12. Missionary
Notices, 4 (January 1824), 199. 'Extract of the Journal of R. Moffat, Previously Published in The
Missionary Chronicle of the London Missionary Society', Missionary Notices, 4 (February 1824),
220-1. 'Extracts from Hodgson's Journal, 9 August 1823', Missionary Notices (5 March 1824),
227. ‘Bechuana Mission – Mantatees Invaders’, The Cape Chronicle, 1824 Series, in The South
African Journal, 2 (March - April 1824), 173-175.
18 ‘Extract of the Journal of R. Moffat, February 1824’, 220-1. 'Extracts from Hodgson's Journal,
9 August 1823', 227. 'Further Account of the Mantatees', 11.
19 Ibid., 11-12. 'The Cape Chronicle', The South African Journal, 1 (January - February 1824),
77.
20 S. Broadbent, ‘Extracts of Letters, Maquasse 31 March 1824’, Missionary Notices, 4
(November 1824), 355.
37