In the aftermath of the rebellion, the world had changed. The inhabitants of the Kat River valley and of the mission stations no longer had the confidence to challenge the racist order that came to prevail in the Cape. The rebellion was crushing in its effects, even for those who had remained steadfastly loyal, as the Kat River valley was, as far as possible, opened up to white settlement. The levels of authority which the original settlers in the valley had held over their lives were undermined. Men of Khoekhoe descent were systematically excluded from any positions of responsibility, and any land that came free was granted to whites, under the pretext that this would provide a leavening of the racially exclusive settlement. In fact, of course, it was the beginning of a long process of dispossession.

In these circumstances, Khoekhoe politics turned increasingly inwards. Although on occasion Khoekhoe descendants did participate in public debates on a variety of issues, most notably on the attempts to partition the colony between the Western and the Eastern Provinces, in general political energy was expended on the details of the new settlement in the Kat River valley, and above all on the organisation of the various churches. It was both a sphere in which the Khoe could still wield power, and one which was under threat as the funding for mission churches declined and the call went up that congregations of converts, and increasingly of men and women brought up in the faith, should be financially self-supporting and independent.

Document 36: Canteens near Bethelsdorp

3 May 1847

Memorial to Sir Henry Young, (Lt. Governor) from inhabitants of Bethelsdorp.

That memorialists have been informed that the present proprietors of a portion of the estate Perseverance situated on the High Road to Graham's Town at the Wagon Drift of Zwartkops River intend establishing a canteen at said place for the sale of wine and brandy. That being convinced canteens are prejudicial to morals any where, one in such a situation as the above named will prove especially injurious to the morals of many who constantly travel the road, they consider it a duty to bring the subject under Your Honor's notice. Memorialists conceive there are several weighty objections to the erection of a Canteen at such a place; the distance from Port Elizabeth being only 11 miles, and from Uitenhage 8 or 9 miles such an establishment is unnecessary. The injurious effects which would be produced on the labouring classes daily passing would be exceedingly great. As numbers of waggons employed in the conveyance of Government stores and goods for merchants are constantly passing, doubtless the canteen would prove a snare to many leaders and drivers, many would become intoxicated, and rendered unfit to proceed on their journey with their wagons. Memorialists believe that a canteen would not merely be a cause of detention to many wagons, but from the numbers who would meet together to drink much quarrelling, fighting and other disorderly conduct would take place. Leaders and drivers being unable to manage their teams the number of accidents on the road especially when the river is high, would be greatly increased. Memorialists beg also to state that there is no Police at hand whose officers might check any disorderly conduct which would undoubtedly arise.

Memorialists therefore most humbly solicit your Honor to take these circumstances into consideration and that it may please your Honor to direct that no Licence for opening a canteen at Zwartkops River drift be granted.

And your Memorialists as in duty bound will ever pray.

James Kitchingman, missionary & 55 inhabitants.

During the 1830s, in the cold hills to the north of the Kat River valley, between the headwaters of the White Kei and Cacadu rivers, a small group of ‘Bushmen’ congregated under the leadership of a man known only by his isiXhosa name, Madolo, or its various anglicisations. Exactly who these people were, it is difficult to say. Some at least were the descendants of those who had lived in the region for many generations, and had painted on its rocks. Others may have been the descendants of Khoekhoe who had lost cattle, or escaped slaves, or even on occasion a European deserter from the army. Madolo himself had been based in rock shelters on the Kei River, but had been forced higher into the hills by pressure from the abaThembu, especially those under Maphasa. There, in 1839, they were met by James Read Senior, who started a mission among them. Although Read visited the Bushman station when he could, the main work was done by Khoe ‘native assistants’ from the Kat River and by James Read's younger son, Joseph.

During the early nineteenth century, there was increased pressure on the inhabitants of South Africa's (and Lesotho's) mountains, probably in part because the introduction of British-made blankets enabled larger numbers of people to survive the winters in the area. It is thus not so surprising that during the War of the Axe, Madolo fought for the British, with a force estimated at 200 men, under the leadership of Joseph Read. Though they fought well throughout the war, they did not receive the rewards in land that they had expected. This was to influence greatly their subsequent actions.

Document 43: On San land rights

Captain Madoor and others to the Rev. J.J. Freeman

Freemanton, 29 August 1849

Much respected Sir and Father

It is with the greatest pleasure that we bid you welcome to Freemanton, on your arrival from England, and we hope that your coming to the Churches of South Africa will be a blessing.

Before the war we had begun to be very prosperous, but now through the war we are altogether ruined. All the inhabitants here were obliged to leave everything they had, and to help the colonial Government against the Kaffirs.

After the end of war between the Cape Colony and the amaXhosa in 1820, a large tract of country was proclaimed as ‘neutral’, and theoretically to remain uninhabited either by the colonists or by the amaXhosa. In fact, as was predictable, people from both sides moved in and tried to establish themselves there. These included Maqoma, a leading Xhosa chief, with his large following, who crossed the low hills from the Tyhume valley to settle in the upper Kat River valley. In 1829, however, the British proceeded to expel him and those around him. The pretext for this action was Maqoma's attack on a group of the abaThembu, north across the mountains, but the deeper reason had to do with the maintenance of a buffer between the amaXhosa and the increasingly profitable colonial farms to the west of the Kat River, for instance in the Koenap valley or the region of modern Adelaide. The land in question was then distributed among several hundred Khoekhoe families, mainly from the mission stations elsewhere in the Eastern Cape or from among those who had served in the Cape Corps as soldiers. Most claimed to be of Gona descent, but there were also those who had an (acknowledged) European father and a Khoekhoe mother, and who were known as ‘Bastards’.

The Kat River Settlement, as it came to be called, was created to be a ‘breastwork’, protecting the colony from future Xhosa incursions. In order to make this possible, the Khoekhoe were granted plots of land which were small by colonial South African standards, but were viable because an extensive irrigation system was created in the valley. The settlement's inhabitants also constructed two churches and numerous schools. These formed the localities where they gave expression to their views on numerous aspects of colonial life. In particular, the Philipton church congregation, served by the experienced missionary the Rev. James Read, and also his son and namesake, became the centre for the conversations in the course of which Khoekhoe views of the world were enunciated.

During the last days of 1850, war broke out again between the amaXhosa and the Cape Colony. In previous wars, the Khoekhoe had almost all sided with the colonial forces, despite attempts by the Xhosa chiefs to woo them, and despite the erroneous belief on the part of some colonial officials that the Khoekhoe could not be trusted. But in what came to be known as Mlangeni's War, after the Xhosa war prophet who did much to bring about the war, a substantial proportion of the colonial Khoekhoe fought on the side of the amaXhosa, so that what became known as the Kat River Rebellion developed alongside Xhosa attempts to dislodge the colonists from what they saw as their land.

To some extent the label ‘Kat River Rebellion’ was inappropriate, on two counts. Many of those who participated in the rebellion came from outside the Kat River Settlement, and a majority of the inhabitants of the valley remained loyal to the British. Nevertheless, it was within the valley, and among its inhabitants, that the most serious debates took place. Here it became a civil war. As James Read wrote: ‘A rebellion is quite different from foreign warfare. In the latter you know your enemy. Not so in the former, in which there are currents and counter-currents—sympathies and counter sympathies. Distrust is the only general feeling, and that enervates every power and foils every attempt. I would rather be in twenty wars than in one rebellion.’

In this atmosphere, though, the most essential values and opinions of the Eastern Cape Khoekhoe came to the surface.

Document 59: Hermanus Matroos's revolt

The first major incidents in the rebellion were instigated by Hermanus Matroos, or Ngxukumeshe, the son of a runaway slave and his Xhosa wife, who had been building up what amounted to a Xhosa chieftainship in the Blinkwater valley, on the basis of the work he had done as interpreter for the British over many years. By late 1850, he had become disillusioned with the British, essentially because they did not remunerate him for his work during the War of the Axe.

Document 74: Meeting at Zuurbraak to discuss the new constitution

To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty

The humble petition of the ‘Zuurbraak’ Missionary Institution, Swellendam, Cape of Good Hope

Humbly sheweth

That your Majesty's Petitioners desire to approach your Majesty's throne with a sincere and fervent assurance of their continued loyalty and devotion, and with feelings of the deepest gratitude for the many favours under your Majesty's reign.

That your Majesty's petitioners have learnt with feelings of profound sorrow that reports, founded upon the wicked rebellion of the Kat River settlement, are in circulation to their disadvantage as a class. That such reports are doubly painful, as your Majesty's petitioners disavow in the most solemn manner any sympathy with rebels, whose wicked acts your petitioners cannot too strongly condemn.

That your Majesty's petitioners have learnt that a representative form of Government has been conceded to this colony, and your Majesty's petitioners most humbly pray that they, as loyal, peaceable and well conducted subjects, may not be excluded from the rights and privileges granted by the constitution. Wherefore they humbly pray that the Twenty-five Pounds qualification so justly termed by your Majesty's Attorney-General ‘The heart of the constitution’, may not upon any account be altered by the present Legislative Council of this colony.

Document 76: The rebels’ view of a post-rebellion society

Translation of a communication received by the Governor from certain Rebel Hottentots, now without the Colony, addressed jointly to the Governor and to the Parliament.

17 January 1855

The object of Memorialists is to give Your Excellency a short sketch of the causes of the later War.

These subjects of the British Government, placed under and governed by Laws carried out by Commissioners, or Functionaries, appointed by Government and regarded as faithful and upright persons in the execution of their several duties and offices connected therewith,—they were expected to be upright and impartial in the exercise of such duties, according to law; but have at last greatly to regret that prejudices against colour and condition existed, so that the poor and ignorant mostly became the sufferers where justice and lawfulness were to be exercised.

As a proof of the aforesaid, and to corroborate that injustice is more minded than praised, when it concerns the coloured classes, Memorialists will give a circumstance which occurred between Sir A. Stockenström and the white colonists relative to his administration as Lieut.-Governor of the Eastern Province: he was forcibly opposed, and the greatest discontent was shown, as if they could, or would, not agree with him. We do not know the reasons they had, for we had not opportunity of ascertaining it, and also took no part, and had no vote of approval or disapproval of his retaining the situation of Governor here.

Memorialists can judge, partly, as he is a person whom they love as far as they have witnessed his character, for under his orders they have done much service for the government, and he placed rich and poor under the law (as judges and rulers ought to do) on the same footing; and, partly, because there is no respect of colour or condition with him, who, in as far as we have studied his character, cared only (to the extent that God gave him knowledge and ability) to preserve peace and prosperity among Her Majesty's subjects in general, and who exerted himself, to the utmost of his power, to become acquainted with the circumstances and wants of Her Majesty's poor coloured subjects, and to apply remedies where possible.

Document 23: Address to Sir Andries Stockenström

This address to Andries Stockenström, as the new lieutenant-governor of the Eastern Province, though apparently conventional, should be seen in the context of the great hostility which his appointment and he himself met among the British settlers of Grahamstown and its surrounds. This was occasioned by Stockenström's testimony before the Select Committee on Aborigines, which was regarded both as a slander on the character of the settlers and as the reason for the Glenelg Dispatch, by which Queen Adelaide Province (roughly the area between the Keiskamma and the Kei rivers) was returned to the amaXhosa, thus annulling its acquisition through conquest during Hintsa's War. As a result, many white settlers lost the lands which they had been expecting to acquire in the province. Stockenström was received in Grahamstown with considerable hostility, and eventually forced to resign as lieutenant-governor on account of settler opposition. The Kat River people's endorsement of Stockenström and of his policies was thus in no way a neutral act.

To His Honor Andries Stockenström Esq., Lieut-Governor of the Eastern Province of the Cape of Good Hope, &c. &c.

We the undersigned Inhabitants of the Kat River Settlement, beg to express the unfeigned pleasure we feel at the safe return of your Honor and family to this colony, but more especially at the appointment of your Honor to that high station which His Majesty, our gracious King, has been pleased to assign to you, knowing as we do your qualifications for that office. After the independent manner in which evidence has been given before the Committee of the House of Commons, on the subject of colonial affairs, and from the intimate knowledge which you possess of native character and feelings, we place implicit confidence in the justice of your proceedings, being assured that they will be of a conciliatory nature towards the Caffers, and will tend to the peace and prosperity of the Settlement and of the colony at large.

Document 98: On the privileges of Kat River burghers in war

That your humble Petitioners are landed proprietors, of the Hottentot, Bastard, and other mixed races of the Colony, as above described, and they would beg to place before your Honourable House the fact that, since the establishment of the Kat River, otherwise called the Stockenstrom, Settlement in 1829, they were always designated, or according to European usage, belonged to that class who are supposed to enjoy certain privileges in boroughs, and who, besides other rights, have the privilege of returning one or more members to serve in Parliament.