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

Griqua/Tlhaping army at Dithakong in mid-1823 and settled centrally in the
Caledon Valley on and around Marabeng some time later. Smith portrayed the
Caledon Valley as being well populated, thereby differing with Godlonton.
Smith’s depiction of the Ndebele state was positive, in spite of their raiding
certain chiefdoms and displacing others. His report that there was no major
depopulation around the Ndebele state puts him at odds with Godlonton again.
Smith’s texts also contradicted reports of conflict between African chiefdoms as
being the main cause of war and dislocation in the 1820’s and 30’s, when he
gave credence to reports of the great suffering inflicted by armed and mounted
raiders on chiefdoms in the Caledon Valley and on the Ndebele state. Finally,
the report about the paucity of trade goods predictably resulted in a lack of
interest on the part of Cape merchants in the Transgariep, 121 but individual
traders – many from Grahamstown - continued to ply their trade and to report
back on knowledge gained from their excursions into the “blank space”. 122
Conditions in the Transgariep were to change radically later that same year,
when there was an exodus of colonists from the Cape, later called the Great
Trek. At the end of the following year, the balance of power in the interior was
permanently changed when the Ndebele state could no longer withstand boer
power and withdrew across the Limpopo River. Smith’s entire book ran counter
to the emerging dominant discourse of mfecane historiography presented by
Godlonton and appearing in Isaacs’ vicious anti-African texts.
Smith, with his “liberal” views, did not, however, have the last word. In 1838
Boyce, a Methodist missionary based in the Transkei, and a friend of Fynn with
pro-colonist, anti-African and pro-boer emigration sentiments, published a book
in Grahamstown. 123 Boyce followed the tradition of various articles published in
the early 1830’s 124 which had reported on Zulu attacks against the Ndebele
121 Ibid., 60-2. A. Smith, 'The Expedition into Central Africa, Latest Accounts of the Expedition',
The Cape of Good Hope Literary Gazette, 5 (January 1835), 1.
122 P.R. Kirby, ‘The Aftermath of the Andrew Smith Expedition of 1834-36’, Africana Notes and
News, 5 (December 1947), 3-19.
123 Boyce, Notes on South African Affairs.
124 ‘Letter, Pickshaw to B. Norden, 19 September 1832’, Graham's Town Journal, 12 October
1832. ‘Letter, J. Caywood to B. Norden, Port Natal, 10 September 1832’, Graham's Town
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