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Abstract
In his description of the men of Natal's volunteer corps who fought against the Hlubi at Bushman's Pass in 1873, Jeff Guy contended that Natal's volunteers attempted ‘to demonstrate their abilities as men of the frontier and […] to defend the more vulnerable’. This paper will attempt to clarify Guy's argument that volunteering was ‘a feature of settler society’. Acting as a continuation of the military traditions and systems that were gaining popularity in Britain, volunteering became a means through which the white citizens of Natal were able to take part in the protection of the colony while remaining viable members of the colonial civilian community. Because of their consistent and sizable place within the white colonial community and the growing concerns for colonial violence in Natal, the volunteers became the idealised form of white everyman's contributions to the protection of the colonial state. The defence and security of the colonial state, in the eyes of many within Natal, rested on the ‘gallant’ men of the volunteer corps. However, the practicality of this assumption, though largely unfounded, still resulted in the volunteer corps holding an important place within the colonial settler consciousness.
Acknowledgements
A version of this paper was first presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association on a panel entitled ‘Memorial Panel for Jeff Guy on the History of KwaZulu-Natal’. With Jeff Guy's passing in December 2014, this paper and topic has hopefully taken a further step in continuing Jeff Guy's legacy on the history of KwaZulu-Natal.
Notes
1 N. Etherington, ‘Why Langalibalele Ran Away’, Journal of Natal and Zulu History, 1 (1978), 1–24.
2 J. Guy, Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal: African Autonomy and Settler Colonialism in the Making of Traditional Authority (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2013), 392.
3 I have called this period the ‘formative period’ of the colony, from the declaration of the district of Natal as a British territory in May 1844 to the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, as part of the attempt to place an importance to the period of this research. It is during this period that Natal created the major institutions, whether political, military, and economic, that would eventually define Natal as a colonial state.
4 J. Guy, The Maphumulo Uprising: War, Law and Ritual in the Zulu Rebellion (Scotsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2005), 17.
5 Admittedly, Jeff Guy once commented ‘I hate the volunteers’ and was aghast at their actions particularly in the Bhambatha Rebellion of 1906: see J. Guy, Remembering the Rebellion: The Zulu Uprising of 1906 (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2006), 118–133.
6 See A.F. Hattersley, Carbineer: The History of the Royal Natal Carbineers (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1950); The Natal Carbineers: The History of the Regiment from Its Foundation, 15th January 1855 to 30th June 1911 (Pietermaritzburg: P. Davis, 1912); G.T. Hurst, Short History of the Volunteer Regiments of Natal and East Griqualand: Past and Present (Durban: Know Publishing, 1945). Special note should be given to D.R. Morris, The Washing of the Spears: A History of the Rise of the Zulu Nation Under Shaka and Its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998). A hugely influential book, the volunteers are presented by Morris as heroic figures in the battle scenes of the 1879 war, though Morris does hit on the key point that the recruiting of volunteers was ‘casual and local’ in his initial introduction of the corps.
7 The greater complexity of this indigenous identity and the concerns of those living within the colony has been most recently examined most effectively in M.R. Mahoney, The Other Zulus: The Spread of Zulu Ethnicity in Colonial South Africa (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2012).
8 Though a part of the narrative of the colony for much of its colonial history, the volunteers of Natal have been either ignored or dismissed because of their key role in the racialised system of control that dominated the region for much of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Though historians like Tim Stapleton and John Laband have provided a much needed re-examination of these white forces in the history of Southern Africa. For a summary of the volunteer system see T.J. Stapleton, A Military History of South Africa: From the Dutch-Khoi Wars to the End of Apartheid (Santa Barbara CA: Praeger, 2010); For an account of white soldiers in Southern Africa, see J. Laband, ‘From Mercenaries to Military Settlers: The British German Legion, 1854–1861’, in S.M. Miller, ed., Soldiers and Settlers in Africa: 1850–1918 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 85–122. Volunteering has been in the background of several works on Natal. It was a component of Robert Morrell's work on colonial settler masculinity, but the focus centres on the post Anglo-Zulu War era: R. Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen: Settler Masculinity in Colonial Natal, 1880–1920 (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2001).
9 R. Price, Making Empire: Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth-Century Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 1–12.
10 Hurst, Short History of the Volunteer Regiments, 1–4.
11 For more on the early military history of the Afrikaners and the origin of the commando system, see H. Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010), 58–65; W.K. Storey, Guns, Race, and Power in Colonial South Africa (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 17–47; Stapleton, A Military History of South Africa, 1–20.
12 For its importance to the ‘Great Treks’ in Afrikaner history, see N. Etherington, The Great Treks: The Transformation of Southern Africa, 1815–1854 (New York: Longman, 2001), 47–53.
13 The number of armed volunteers in Britain in 1803 was around 200,000. Of course, these numbers far exceed any organisations that will be discussed in this paper: see L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 309.
14 Though the military experience of the officers and soldiers in Natal could arguably have been more diverse than the groups examined by Colley: ibid., 313.
15 Austin Gee, The British Volunteer Movement 1794–1814 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 268.
16 London Monthly Times, 15 September 1848.
17 The Natal Witness, 1 September 1848. David Dale Buchanan, editor of the Witness, had arrived in the colony 1846. Born in Scotland, Buchanan had left for the Cape at the age of ten. Though Buchanan focused largely on politics, he worked closely with Thomas Phipson, future sheriff on the colony, on a number of issues regarding religion, indigenous policy, and Pietermaritzburg society. He was known as a critic to the colonial government and advocate for the proper implementation of municipal affairs. Though the day to day operations of the paper passed out of his hands in 1852, Buchanan would continue to act as an editorial force in the colony and ruthlessly attacked Lieutenant Governor Pine during his administration the 1850s: see A.F. Hattersley, The British Settlement of Natal: A Study in Imperial Migration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), 290–291.
18 Ibid.
19 ‘Government Notice, No. 80’, The Natal Witness, 15 September 1848.
20 The Natal Witness, 8 September 1848.
21 ‘Bergtheil's Volunteers’, The Natal Witness, 17 November 1848.
22 The quote was taken from an eighteenth-century British play Douglas: A Tragedy by John Home and used in a scornful manner by the editors of the Witness to challenge the ‘excuse makers’ who sided with those against the corps: The Natal Witness, 10 July 1849.
23 The Natal Witness, 29 December 1848.
24 For more on these two components of Natal's defensive institutions, see G. Dominy, Last Outpost on the Zulu Frontier: Fort Napier and the British Imperial Garrison (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2016); P.J. Young, Boot and Saddle: A Narrative Record of the Cape Regiment, the British Cape Mounted Rifles, the Frontier Armed Mounted Police, and the Colonial Cape Mounted Riflemen (Cape Town: Maskew Miller Limited, 1955).
25 The Natal Witness, 29 December 1848.
26 The Natal Witness, 27 April 1849.
27 G. Russell, The History of Old Durban and Reminiscence of an Emigrant of 1850 (Durban: P. Davis & Sons, 1908), 197.
28 Many of these units predate the formal introduction of the Volunteer Law of 1854. The formalisation of the volunteer system came under Legislative Ordinance No. 8, 1854, approved by Lieutenant-Governor Benjamin Pine 15 November 1854, ‘to promote the establishment of Volunteer Corps for the defence of the District’. However, all corps formed before the official ordinance followed the system that acted as the foundation for the legislation: see W.J.D. Moodie, Ordinances, Proclamations Relating to the Colony of Natal, 1836–1855, with Notes of Reference (Pietermaritzburg: May & Davis, 1866), 487.
29 Russell, The History of Old Durban, 205.
30 The Natal Mercury, 18 October 1854.
31 Ibid.
32 Even the Mercury mocked the trend, claiming: ‘Already on many faces the budding bristles betaken vigorous crops of bearded corn, and we expect ere long the facial metamorphosis of our male population will strike with such terror the Kafirs of the country that a general exodus will take place, and the “Native difficulty” will be, not an overplus, but a deficiency in their numbers’: ibid.
33 Russell, The History of Old Durban, 205.
34 S. Walton, ‘From Squalid Impropriety to Manly Respectability: The Revival of Beards, Moustaches and Martial Values in the 1850s in England’, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 30, 3 (2008), 230.
35 At the time of the first official volunteer law of 1854, there were five units ranging between 30 and 100 troops within the colony of Natal. By the end of 1878 with the build-up to the Anglo-Zulu War, the colony possessed 15 units numbering 760 men: British Colonial Office, Natal Blue Books, 1854–1879.
36 These honorary memberships increased the amount of funds available to the corps while encouraging larger participation in the shooting contests that were held by the corps across the colony. Such an inclusion also indicates the growth in popularity and numbers of corps by the formation of one Newcastle unit in October 1875. So much so that members were not allowed to shoot for prizes until they had been a member of the corps for six consecutive months, and, of course, paid all the fines due by them up to that date. See ‘Rule and Reg. Laws of the Newcastle Mt. Rifles’, Colonial Secretary's Office of the Colony of Natal (Pietermaritzburg Archives), CSO 531, No. 3004, 1878.
37 ‘Notice to Volunteer Corps’, The Natal Government Gazette, 10 January 1865.
38 The letter was signed ‘A Distant Volunteer’: ‘The Prize Rifles’, Letter to the Editor, The Natal Witness, 3 July 1863.
39 The rifle had been presented to the colony after the Royal Visit to Natal in 1860.
40 The Natal Witness, 3 January 1862.
41 The Natal Witness, 23 October 1868.
42 ‘Return Dinner of the Non-Commissioned Officers and Troopers of the Natal Hussars to Their Officers’, The Natal Witness, 23 October 1868.
43 For a detailed account of the incident, see Guy, Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal, 257–262; T.V. McClendon, White Chief, Black Lords: Shepstone and the Colonial State in Natal, South Africa, 1845–1878, Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora, vol. 46 (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2010), 69–81.
44 The Natal Witness, 23 October 1868.
45 The Natal Mercury, 11 October 1854.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 ‘Pietermaritzburg Agricultural Society: The Annual Dinner’, The Natal Witness, 27 May 1873.
49 Ibid.
50 One of the more complete, if not dated, collection of account can be found in R.O. Pearse et al., eds, Langalibalele and the Natal Carbineers: The Story of the Langalibalele Rebellion, 1873 (Ladysmith: Ladysmith Historical Society, 1973).
51 The naming of this event as a rebellion remains a key question for many historians. Norman Etherington argues that there is little evidence of this event being a rebellion in light of the narratives of two German missionaries and the reports of John Macfarlane, the Resident Magistrate of Weenen County. Additionally, Thom McClendon casts Langalibalele as a victim of loss of power, unable to control the men within his location. Jeff Guy argues that the event was a part of the ‘intensification of race hatred’ in the colony. See Etherington, ‘Why Langalibalele Ran Away’; McClendon, White Chief, Black Lords, 92–101; Guy, Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal, 388–394.
52 Reports at Langalibalele's trial attested that Estcourt was a target of the Hlubi, but the presence of the volunteers acted as a deterrence. Etherington rightly argued that the camp ‘had nothing to do with the growing friction between the chief and magistrate’ but did contribute to the rhetoric and perception of threats by both sides before the incident: see Etherington, ‘Why Langalibalele Ran Away’, 10.
53 Allison had been informed to take his troops through the Champagne Pass, but because of misinformation, Allison discovered too late that the pass did not exist: see N. Herd, The Bent Pine (The Trial of Langalibalele) (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1976), 19.
54 Times of Natal, 8 November 1873.
55 The Natal Witness, 14 November 1873.
56 Ibid.
57 British Parliamentary Papers (BPP), Papers Related to the Late Kafir Outbreak in Natal, 1874, 11, Memorandum from Major Durnford, Enclosed in No. 11, Lieutenant-Governor B. Pine to the Earl of Kimberly, 13 November 1873.
58 Ibid.
59 Times of Natal, 8 November 1873.
60 The Natal Witness, 11 November 1873.
61 Guy, Theophilus Shepstone and the Forging of Natal, 392.
62 Poem first appeared in Barter's ‘Stray Memories of Natal and the Zululand’ and quoted in The Natal Carbineers, 73.
63 This was also a point of contention, as Bishop Colenso's daughter would continue to try and clear Durnford's name for much of her later life, See J. Guy, The View Across the River: Harriette Colenso and the Zulu Struggle Against Imperialism, Reconsiderations in Southern African History (Charlottesville VA: University Press of Virginia, 2002).
64 The Natal Carbineers, 74.
65 The Natal Witness, 27 May 1873.
66 ‘Foresters’ Anniversary Dinner’, The Natal Witness, 21 January 1876.
67 See S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906–8 Disturbances in Natal, Oxford Studies in African Affairs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 223–224; Guy, Remembering the Rebellion, 118–134; Guy, The Maphumulo Uprising, 15–17.
68 L. White, Unpopular Sovereignty: Rhodesian Independence and African Decolonization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 189.
69 Ibid.